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Finance Bill

I could not agree more, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would simply say that ensuring the sorts of things that need to be adequately covered to deal with the debt problem that I have identified, however specific it may be, will require a proper degree of taxation that is fair and reasonable, but which does not undermine the commercial requirements of the companies that will be called upon to generate the necessary income and pay for the public expenditure to which I have referred. There are many aspects of the Finance Bill that it is important to consider. There are individual matters in the Bill that will take up a great deal of time. Because the Government have a built-in majority, those measures will be passed almost without exception, but given the scale of the debt that has to be covered they will contribute nothing to the well-being of this country. Therefore, this Government will continue to churn out legislation, to over-regulate and to place impositions on the enterprise society, which needs encouragement, not inhibition and obstruction. Not only is the Government's failure even to carry through their manifesto promise on tax yet another example of how the Prime Minister and the Government are continuously losing authority and of how everything that he touches turns to dust, but it shows the range of their broken promises, some of which are in the Bill, which are a continuing indictment of the way in which this Government have conducted themselves. I firmly believe that the Finance Bill will be the final nail in this Government's coffin, that their hope of conning the British people into believing that, somehow or other, the vast debt that has been accumulated will be covered by the Bill or by any other measures is an illusion, and that they will stand condemned by the electorate when we get to the general election next year.