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Finance Bill

I am grateful for that intervention. I would not disagree that there is a list of Government policies, but I would disagree that they amount to a vision. I was not present at the parliamentary Labour party meeting—obviously, because I am not a member of the parliamentary Labour party—but I heard reports, which the hon. Gentleman might like to confirm, that Labour Back Benchers told the Prime Minister that they did not know what he stood for. At least with Tony Blair as leader, people felt that there was a sense of direction; they may not have liked it, but they were not left confused about what the Government were trying to achieve. Many people in the Labour party and beyond it no longer know precisely what the Prime Minister and the Government stand for. That brings me on to my second and larger point, which is the Government's moral compass and the doubling of the 10p tax rate that was in the Budget of March 2007. People in my constituency and elsewhere are entitled to ask what took Labour Back Benchers so long. Seventy three Labour MPs have signed early-day motions critical of the change, but the Budget was on 21 March 2007—precisely 13 months ago today—when the Government Benches were full of Labour MPs waving their Order Papers and braying at the electoral triumph just laid before them by the man who is now the Prime Minister. It has taken them an awfully long time to look at the details of the Budget.