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Finance Bill

That is absolutely right, but even on a more vulgar analysis, a 1 per cent. shortfall in growth probably equates to close to £15 billion in GDP, about 40 per cent. of which would be tax. The revenue yield could be massively down, on even a vulgar analysis of those figures. The Government are suggesting that the recession will end this year. Notwithstanding the fact that only a few weeks ago, at the time of the Budget, the OECD and Ernst and Young said that there would still be negative growth in 2010, the Government, all of whose major forecasts have been smashed over the past 12 months, are still labouring under the pretence that growth will be 1.25 per cent. next year and 3.5 per cent. the year after that, which I find extraordinary. Since the OECD and the Ernst and Young forecasts, we have had the European Commission publication this week. It has downgraded its UK forecasts again to minus 3.8 per cent. this year, and a return to growth late in 2010, not by the 1.25 per cent. forecast by the Government, but by 0.1 per cent., if I have read the reports correctly. That would indicate a very long recovery—a shaky recovery. It will not be smooth or steep. It will be long and difficult, yet none of the plans in the Bill seem to take cognisance of any expert opinion at all. We know that the backdrop to the Bill is the massive rise in unemployment, which is important for our constituents. In February, a record month, 138,000 people were added to the register, and 177,000 in a quarter. That is, in effect, 2,000 people a day added to the unemployment register under Labour in this recession, in the past three months for which figures have been published. Although there were measures in the Budget speech which may help to create jobs in the future, not least the Chancellor's support for carbon capture and storage, there is not one word in the Finance Bill about carbon capture and storage or carbon sequestration, because, as with so many things, decisions will be taken in the future and implementation will take place years into the future. The Bill does contain almost 20 retrospective measures, however. I do not intend to go through them today, because there will be time enough for that later, but all of them will have to be probed thoroughly. Some efforts to tackle tax evasion and avoidance may be necessary and welcome, but I am always sceptical on a point of principle about retrospective measures, and they will have to be examined very carefully, indeed. The Bill also contains confirmation of the further rise in fuel duty, and it is interesting that the national policy chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses describes it in this way:""Small businesses are the engine room of the economy, but they have been choked by the Budget with increases in fuel and alcohol duty incurring extra costs and little to help small firms struggling with cashflow."" It is instructive that the FSB describes the Budget increases as choking. It is quite extraordinary that the fuel duty increases are viewed that way, even at this time.