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Finance Bill

I am very aware of the statement made. I think there is a sleight of hand here in the way in which the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer has talked about NIC reductions. Some of the businesspeople who have expressed views on this are perhaps rather guilty of behaviour similar to contestants on "University Challenge" who press the button a little too soon. If asked, "Do you think that a reduction in NIC is good?", one would not be entirely surprised if a reduction in employer NIC were welcomed by businesspeople. However, if one waited until the end of the question, one would hear it heavily caveated. If the consequence of that were to place important front-line programmes at risk and mean that you had to rely on entirely ephemeral savings through efficiency—savings through efficiency which the right honourable David Cameron and the right honourable George Osborne were dismissing in the past as not being a sensible basis for making a tax gesture—then these businesspeople might give a slightly different answer. As my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, most of those businesspeople, if presented with a proposition which said, "We think you should spend more money here and more money there", and the chief executive said, "How will we finance that?", would say, "Through efficiency savings", without actually identifying them. It would be very generalised and much less detailed than those that we identified in the PBR 2009. I encourage the noble Lord, Lord Bates, to read the PBR 2009 as there was much more granularity to our proposals than anything suggested by the Conservatives to justify their proposal. I hope that provides an answer to the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh. Of course, historically, the tax of choice for the Conservative Party has been VAT and it has been very interesting to see that neither Mr Cameron nor Mr Osborne is willing to make a clear commitment on VAT. Past experience has shown that given any opportunity, any Conservative Prime Minister and their Administration will increase VAT. I am also very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, for underlining the comments of the noble Baroness on the unproductive public sector. What damning words those are; how hurtful that must be to those who care for the elderly, to those who work in our hospitals, to those who look after our children in schools—the dismissive hand with which freezes in pay are proposed. Again, that reminds us that a Conservative Administration, should we have one, would be a deeply uncaring one, giving priority to lifting inheritance tax rates, abolishing children's trust funds and damning those who work in the public sector. That is the very clear choice that the electorate will face on 6 May. If my noble friend Lord Lea of Crondall were allowed to vote, I know how he would vote, and I rest assured that the fine British people will vote in the correct way and return this Government to a further period in office. I beg to move. Bill read a second time. Committee negatived. Standing Order 47 having been dispensed with, the Bill was read a third time and passed.