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Finance Bill

I was coming to that. The hon. Gentleman and I have had some conversations on this subject, and I entirely agree with him. My question to the Minister has to do with whether the Government are engaged in a labour of Sisyphus. Why do they not seek to break the cycle of endless tax avoidance scams—because, being clearly designed to get round paying tax, that is what they are—by introducing a general anti-tax avoidance principle into the UK tax system? I can think of two or three previous Treasury Ministers who were very much in favour of that course. I tabled a proposal along these lines two months ago, and I am glad to see that the hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) has retabled it as new clause 2. I realise that it has not been selected for debate, presumably because it would increase taxes. Of course, that is exactly what the new clause is designed to do, where appropriate, but under our rules only the Government have that prerogative. But I want to ask my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary why we continually spend our time scrabbling around in the bulrushes trying to block off every new tributary of tax avoidance, when we could seize the high ground and block this ever-flowing antisocial river altogether at one go. There are good precedents for this—