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Finance Bill

My hon. Friend puts his finger exactly on the bunker mentality involved in the Treasury introducing tax cuts and changes to our taxation regimes without understanding their impact on our communities. If we change taxation law relating to pubs, of if we change the policy relating to post offices and bingo clubs, we change the fabric of our communities. The Government are failing to recognise that. That is evident not only from the clauses that we are debating today but from the fact that other Departments have either not been consulted about these measures or have not been able to have any input into the Bill. In just one year, we have gone from being one of the strongest economies in Europe to one of the weakest. We have been hit by the same global economic storm as everyone else, but Britain has fared so much worse than other countries, thanks to decisions taken by the Prime Minister over the 10 years that he was Chancellor. Most notable was the decision to remove key regulatory powers from the Bank of England when it became independent in 1997 that would have prevented the escalation of debt that allowed British banks to become so over-exposed during the economic downturn. Instead of admitting fault, coming to the House and saying, "Yes, we made some mistakes and we are now going to try to solve them", the Prime Minister has tried over and over again to blame the United States. The only time he stopped doing that was, conveniently, during the G20 summit, when we had some guests who would probably have been a little bit upset to hear that old, incorrect argument being used so often. He should come to the Dispatch Box, put his hands up and tell us what his role has been over the past 10 years. Instead, we limp on with a weak and feeble Government and a weak and feeble leader, support for whom is dwindling in the nation and in his own party. We must now wait until the general election when the country can finally be put out of its misery. Until then, we face a wasted year, and a wasted opportunity to move things forward on the scale that Britain expects. The Bill was supposed to ignite the engines to restart the economy, but we cannot even see a spark. In reality, the Government are fumbling around with the jump-leads. No initiatives have been put forward that will rebuild Britain's competitiveness, improve its productivity, infrastructure and skills base, or strengthen our society by investing in our employment and welfare system. Of course, it is thanks to a decade of Labour that there is so little in the Bill to match the urgency of the economic challenge we face. I hope that this Government, who seem so short of ideas, will not be churlish about accepting amendments in Committee, but I will not hold my breath. If my advice based on the simple idea of changing the date on which VAT returns to its 17.5 per cent. rate is not even going to be considered, I do not hold out much hope that any other Opposition amendments will be accepted. We will await the pre-Budget report in November to see how this Government have fared; perhaps then the Government will put their hands up and acknowledge that we were right and they were wrong.