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Finance Bill

I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), because I agree with the central thrust of her analysis—the Government's provisions are gimmicky, inadequate and do not start to deal with the scale of the problem that confronts us. Where I depart from the line taken by Conservative Front Benchers is in the conclusions that I draw. I conclude that the Government need to be far more ambitious and visionary. The criticism made by the Conservative party always appears to be that the Government are gimmicky, so we should abandon all hope and not venture down the path at all. As far as I am aware, its central criticism reflects the fact that the party whose leader has a propeller on his roof that does not work thinks that the Government are too gimmicky.