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Finance Bill

Certainly, the interest groups, whether house builders or green groups, have on the whole been pretty unenthusiastic in their responses to the proposals. Perhaps the Economic Secretary will be able to enlighten us on that point. In Committee, the Economic Secretary said:"““He asked me what my forecast was for 2012. We do not have a forecast””." He also said:"““the build-up will not be linear, or like a straight line, but … there will be a progressive acceleration over that period””," and"““we do not know what the pace of build-up will be.”” ––[Official Report, Finance Public Bill Committee, 15 May 2007; c. 142-43.]" In summary, on the basis of the figure in the Red Book, the only reasonable conclusion to be drawn is that if we imagine the rate of building such homes as a line on a graph, the Treasury anticipates a slowly rising line until 2012, after which the line will dramatically and suddenly soar upwards until it almost ascends from the page.