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Finance Bill

It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher). He correctly says that redistribution has been a political taboo for the past 30 years. However, this Finance Bill brings redistribution out into the light of day, but in exactly the reverse manner to what both he and I would like to see, which is putting first those with least in our society. We should not be looking to punish those who are hard-working and who are already struggling with bills, yet that is exactly what the abolition of the 10p rate does; it doubles the tax on those on low incomes, and it is a direct result of this Government's plans. Neither the right hon. Gentleman nor any other Labour Member has been able to give any explanation of why the Prime Minister carried out, when he was Chancellor, this extraordinary raid on those with least in order to get that headline rate and that momentary frisson in the Chamber, cheered by so many Labour Members, when he was seen to cut taxes from 22p to 20p. Why did he do that? Was it to discomfort the Leader of the Opposition for a moment—was he really looking for that brief glimpse of instability on the Conservative Benches? Was it because, after 10 years at the Treasury, he simply did not understand the impact, when he had been given the reports that clearly stated—he did have this information—that 5.3 million people would be affected, including a lot of those with least and those who had been least well served by the changes made by the Government during his time? Did he not realise that it would be those people who would be hit? The right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton suggested that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), a former leader of my party, was indulging in a mad fantasy in his stripping away of the Salome-like veils of the Prime Minister's thinking and motives, but neither the right hon. Gentleman nor any other Labour Member has come up with any more credible theory than my right hon. and learned Friend's damning, if scary, analysis.