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Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

I have seldom been so disappointed with a speech by the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) as with the one that we have just heard. I suspect that he will find life even more uncomfortable as time goes on. Having listened to the speech by the Secretary of State, and then heard the support offered by the hon. Gentleman, it seemed to me that many Liberal Democrat supporters will be thinking that this must be the biggest conversion since the Chinese general baptised a whole army with a hosepipe. We have had a whole election campaign in which many of the things commended today by Government Members were not only blatantly opposed by Liberal Democrats, but disowned. I have had the privilege of serving for many years in the constituency in Lanarkshire that I represent, where my next door neighbour was the late John Smith. More than once, he said to me, "You know, I judge a Budget on the impact I think it has on ordinary young men and young women, with all their aspirations, living in a council house in Lanarkshire." It is on that test that I make my views clear. We have heard today a defence of a Budget that is thoroughly unfair and absolutely vindictive towards a large number of people in this country, region by region, not least those in my own constituency. I am not at all surprised that the Conservatives have supported what is a Tory Budget; it is the kind of Budget that they have always wanted to introduce, with or without a global crisis. However, I have to say that the apologies from the Liberal Democrats are profoundly unconvincing, as they have shown again today. As Jeremy Thorpe might have said, "Greater love than this no man has—that he laid down his principles to save his Mondeo and his red box." I have to tell Government Members frankly that their claims for this already discredited Budget stand in stark contrast to the consequences for my constituents in Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill. For several years before the election, and then again during it, the Conservatives talked about "a broken Britain", but no Budget has done more to introduce a broken Britain than this one. The most vulnerable have been attacked, with housing benefit cut, child benefit frozen, the health in pregnancy grant scrapped, and the maternity grant slashed—and we are told that this is a fair Budget. Then we come to what I would regard as perhaps the most appalling aspect of this Budget—the increases in VAT, hugely painful because they are clearly regressive. A 2008 report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies demonstrated that cuts in VAT benefit the poorest 10%= most, while increases hit them hardest. That is why during the election the Tories were particularly ambiguous on this specific issue, although I have no doubt that they had this policy in mind all the time. To be fair to the Liberal Democrats, they did warn us—for example, by unveiling a poster showing a "VAT bombshell", with their leader standing beside it. What we got on Tuesday was a Trojan horse with their leader and his friends standing inside it. We are told that we are all in this together—that this Budget is indeed fair. I invite the House, then, to contemplate for a few moments what it means for a constituency like mine. In Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, the average wage of those in work is £18,000. Unemployment stands at 7.4%—lower than in 1997, but clearly unacceptable. Let us look at Tatton, the Chancellor's constituency. The average wage is over £25,000, and unemployment stands at 2.9%. In Twickenham, the Business Secretary's constituency, the average wage is over £33,000, and unemployment stands at 2.5%. Yet this Budget is being applied to the whole nation. Of course there is a crisis, as recognised most recently in the letter that President Obama sent to those involved in the G20. However, the words that he repeatedly used about investment, about real fairness—and, above all, about growth—were hardly reflected in the Budget that we are asked to approve. More sustainable ways to reduce the deficit clearly apply to the growth that President Obama has promoted and that, along with progressive taxation, Labour Members strongly support. I can see that for the Tories this is a matter of ideology. They do not like the public sector: they have made no bones about that. The public sector provides education, excellent services from the police, and infrastructure for providing new jobs—and, my heavens, we will need them after this Budget. How can they possibly argue that this Budget will not lead to unemployment? We need to build more schools. We need to make more industrial parks available, hoping to invite inward investment, via the regional authorities, and making more money available so that the Government are creating the environment by which jobs can be provided.