---

Finance Bill

In a sense, the right hon. Gentleman has answered the question I was going to put to him. Why does he not support new clause 4? I hope that his reason is not solely that it is tabled in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I spoke quite deliberately about it in terms of giving Parliament the last say and I drew attention to the fact that according to current parliamentary arithmetic that essentially means giving the group of 50 or 60 Labour Back Benchers who have been most active on the matter the final say over whether the measures announced in the pre-Budget report are acceptable or not.