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Finance Bill

It would probably be better to hear the Minister's view of that claim; it does not accord with my experiences—or, apparently, those of other Members taking part in our deliberations. Others may wish to dwell at greater length on the impact on business, but I have sought to make that point. My central point about the public finances—the Government's finances—is the cost of the measure and whether the opportunity cost represents a good decision by the Government. In all our deliberations on the Finance Bill, we have to return to the big elephant in the room: this year, we are running a public sector deficit of £175 billion. That is £480 million every single day, and £20 million every hour; since we started our deliberations this afternoon, close to £100 million has been added to the public debt. The figures are enormous. There may be some scope for a fiscal stimulus, although, as I have said, it is fairly small. We have to make sure that we get the maximum value from the money being spent. I argue that that money should achieve two objectives. First, it should try to ensure as quickly as possible that the economy starts to grow again; that, after all, is the whole purpose of a fiscal stimulus. Secondly, it would be beneficial if we had something to show for the money afterwards. It is worth reminding everybody that the cost of the temporary VAT cut—I do not know whether the Government realised that it would be this neat—is almost exactly £1 billion a month. Amendment 7 is not within the prescribed boundaries of our deliberations, but I was keen for it to take effect because that would have saved the taxpayer about £4 billion or £5 billion, depending on the precise date of Royal Assent. The clock is ticking. If we are to try to come up with a more effective way to spend the fiscal stimulus, then every day that passes we have roughly £30 million less to play with than we would have done had we made that decision a day earlier.