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Finance Bill

And friend, very much so. I was going to call her my very honourable Friend, as both of our expenses have been published, but I did not know whether the term would be in order. The Minister is, of course, my very, very hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey, and I hope that she will say whether, before the next Budget, the Treasury will assess the distributional impact on households with different incomes and in different parts of the country of duties imposed on motorists as a result of the need to increase revenue across the board. Such an assessment would add to the rationality of the debate, but since I have not got 38 or so Back-Bench Labour MPs to sign the amendment it poses no threat to the Government. However, it would help our constituents to understand that the Government are thinking carefully about any future tax increases that they may have to make. It would also help to convince them that taxation on motorists will be underpinned by a distributional analysis to ensure that the poorest motorists are better protected than the richer ones.