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Finance Bill

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that these relatively small amounts of money are in fact large amounts of money, not only in the areas where deprivation is traditionally widespread but in constituencies such as mine? Rural areas can have large numbers of very poorly paid people with large families, to whom these are significant sums. I agree with him that there is nothing as humbling as meeting at one's surgery people who make do with very small amounts of money and have come to talk to their Member of Parliament about £1, £2 or £3 less a week in circumstances that should never have arisen.