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Finance Bill

I am delighted to hear that. Perhaps you might seek to encourage Members to talk about pubs they enjoy visiting in their constituencies, Sir Michael. The general point is an extremely good one. When pubs close, they rarely reopen and are lost to the community. The planning laws make it hard for pubs to reopen in many cases, but when they do it can be an extremely successful venture. It is also worth noting, in passing, that when new housing estates are built—the Government still aspire to have 3 million new houses, although progress has been slower than they might have hoped in that regard—they are rarely built with community amenities such as village halls, churches or pubs. People who live in many new developments keenly feel that their community would be greatly enhanced by a gathering point, such as a pub, where people can go for a sociable drink and also get to know other people, attend Rotary club meetings and so on. That only serves to highlight the importance of the sector, and why it is so clearly unwise of the Government to try to penalise people in it.