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Finance Bill

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), for whom I have a very high regard. The problem of the abolition of the 10p band was brought home to me with devastating clarity at my constituency surgery just last Friday. How is a single childless disabled man, unable to work and under the age of 60, on an income of less than £8,000 per annum whose tax has gone up from just £4 to nearly £10 a week—from £200 to £500 a year—to be compensated immediately? That is why I support the remark made by the right hon. Gentleman that we need answers now for those of our constituents. I was pleased to hear a Labour Member moot the possibility that perhaps it would be right to go back to the 10p band. One need only have read yesterday's edition of The Sunday Times to be aware that under the present Government the richest people in the country have become astoundingly richer, and to feel that it must be possible to find the money from some of our richest people to compensate people like my constituent, on a pitiful wage.