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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

It is absolutely clear that the Minister said that taking first-time buyers out of stamp duty was not an effective use of public money. He talks about costing. This is quite a lesson for us, as the election approaches. The Labour party and the Treasury officials costed our policy at £300 million, and that is the figure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced at the beginning of January. They said that our policy would cost £300 million. It was part of the attack on our platform. Yesterday, however, when they put it into the Budget, that same policy cost £230 million. So the Treasury has costed exactly the same policy at £70 million less in the Red Book. That is typical of their complete nonsense. I will tell the House about something else that was not in the Budget. The first-time buyers' exemption is for only two years. It is a temporary exemption, but the increase in stamp duty to 5 per cent. at the top rate is a permanent increase. That is something else that was not mentioned—[Interruption.] The Treasury Ministers themselves do not know what is going on; they are checking up.