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Finance Bill

No. I shall deal with the opportunism that I have heard from the Opposition parties in a moment. I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor) for the terms in which he spoke, and I shall use the same tone in my comments. The uncharitable might argue that those on the Treasury Bench had afforded Opposition parties the opportunity to make hay with this subject. The amendments that they have tabled are all about producing reports, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) was right to draw attention to the speech made for the Liberal Democrats by the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne). If he had heard the speech in favour of the 10-minute Bill earlier this afternoon, my right hon. Friend would have heard much more interesting and entertaining proposals about transparency than the hon. Gentleman managed.