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Finance Bill

Not in the slightest. Why should I be surprised? It is what I would expect of Government Front Benchers. The Child Poverty Action Group has passed its judgment on this "unavoidable" Finance Bill:""This is a disappointing budget for child poverty and increases the risk of the government failing to meet its 2020 goal of ending child poverty."" It says:""The increase in VAT is a regressive measure which will impact hardest on poor families."" Robert Caro, the great biographer, once wrote:""It is said that power corrupts: what is more true is that power reveals."" With the Liberal Democrats, power has certainly revealed. No longer can anyone be excused for thinking that the Lib Dems are progressive and principled. They are regressive, ruthless and prepared to sell out any policy for a whiff of office. In the course of debate over the past week, Government Members have repeatedly asked Labour Members what we would do. They have tried to suggest that they have taken the unavoidable and necessary action, whereas we would have taken none at all. So I refer them to the Red Book in March, where my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor set out the swiftest and most straightforward deficit reduction plan that then existed in the G7. The plan proposed: £3.5 billion of savings by freezing public sector pay—but that of the better paid, rather than of the poorest public sector workers; £1 billion of savings from public sector pensions; £18 billion of savings to capital spending; £11 billion of savings from Whitehall reform; £19 billion in new tax rises; £14 billion of savings from reduced benefit payments as unemployment came down; and £5 billion of savings from programme cuts.