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Finance Bill

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, but I am not sure whether it is a question of filling the gap, as it more a matter of reducing it. There we go, but she brings me on to the next point I wanted to make, so I am grateful for her intervention. What clause 9 principally does—I realise that I am venturing into a stand part debate, Mrs. Heal, but I am assuming that we are addressing the amendment at the same time—is to delay the implementation of the return to VAT at 17.5 per cent. from 1 December to 1 January. The reason for doing so is that the Government introduced their VAT change through a statutory instrument, which provided the authority to make that change only for 12 months. The Government now wish to add on an extra month, but to be fair to them, it was always their intention to do so. For the various reasons I have set out, however, we think it would be beneficial not to move the date on from 1 December to 1 January, but to stick with 1 December. There are a number of reasons for doing that, so let me first address the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) about the difficulty of changing the VAT rate in the new year. It will be difficult for institutions in operation at the time when the VAT rate is changed, but perhaps even more significant is the fact that this will be in the middle of the post-Christmas sales. I should say the January sales, but it seems odd to have 1 January being in the middle and I am sure that you, Mrs. Heal, follow my point that there is a lot of activity going on in stores at the time of these sales. The representations we have received certainly suggest that retailers do not want the change to come in at this date. Whether it is the worst time of year, as the hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) suggests, I am not sure, but it is certainly one of the worst dates and we believe there is an argument for changing it.