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Finance Bill

That is not the position of the right hon. Gentleman's Front Bench, but he has a long record of having different positions from his Front Bench, even when he was sitting on it, so I will not criticise him on this occasion. The Conservatives' position, as I understand it—it is hard to understand—is that they would introduce additional environmental taxes over and above those being implemented by the Government, so the starting point is where the Government are. From that starting point, the Conservatives are seeking to put a £1 billion annual hole in their budget for families, so that is the initial deficit that they need to overcome. Finally—I have been speaking for longer than I wished to because I have been so generous in taking interventions—I want to discuss amendment No. 7 and new clauses 3 and 7, tabled by the Conservatives. My party takes climate change extremely seriously and always has, and we wish to achieve reductions in emissions from transport. Environmental taxation clearly has a vital role to play because transport contributes to a large degree to the total amount of CO2 emissions. Tax can make a contribution to changing behaviour. That is surely the Government's motivation, in addition to revenue-raising motives, in increasing tobacco taxation so that the taxation component is a high percentage of the overall price that the consumer pays when buying cigarettes and tobacco products. We support vehicle excise differentials and would support their being at a higher level so that consumers are even more incentivised to buy more fuel-efficient cars. I agree that environmental taxation has, to a sizeable degree, been discredited by the approach that the Government have taken. They have used public concern about the environment and climate change as a way of raising additional revenue. I do not doubt that they are concerned about climate change, as are politicians in all parties. However, people are understandably cynical when the Government see an opportunity to raise additional revenue based on those concerns without that money then being used to offset and reduce other areas of taxation so that the overall effect is neutral but the environmental taxes form a greater overall component of the total Government tax take. That would be a responsible way for the Government to progress, but I am afraid that it has not always been their approach.