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Finance Bill

I thought it was quite clear to us all that the Government now accept that there are significant numbers of losers. Because the Treasury Committee is starting an important inquiry on this point, it would help us all, when we think of the evidence that we wish to give that Committee, if the Government at some stage—perhaps not tonight, but soon after this evening's debate—brought us up to date on how many losers they expect. What is the age of those losers? Where are the losers in the totality of the income distribution? How many of those losers are in households in which the other member gains from the cut from 22 to 20 per cent., so that the household is better off, although that individual loses? Before any of us thinks that that is a satisfactory way of advancing, I would remind my colleagues that we are committed to individual taxation. To be told that husbands might gain from the measure but wives lose is not much comfort, either to the wives or to those of us on the Labour Benches.