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Finance Bill

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. When the press release looked good, it was generalised into a policy, which featured in Report stage of last year's Finance Bill. That was followed by a consultation, but then—funnily—everything went quiet because the oil price started to plummet, which the Conservatives were not expecting. With prices going only in one direction—down—their arithmetic looked rather difficult. It is interesting to note that this year, unlike last year, we have an amendment that asks us to produce the information needed to justify the Opposition's policy. Presumably, the Conservatives' consultation paper has come up with some of this, although we have not been allowed to see the results and we have had no further announcements even on how this policy has evolved, if I may put it that way, in the interim as the oil price continues to plummet. The fact that the oil price has done something unexpected—something that perhaps could not have been predicted at the height of the spike last year—shows precisely the problem with seeking to take the volatility out of what is, after all, a commodity that is traded in a completely free market and has notorious price fluctuations. They are always very difficult to predict with any degree of certainty. Oil prices can be affected by sudden events—weather events, political instability in a particular area and a whole range of other things. It is very difficult to stabilise something so volatile.