---

Finance Bill

I am grateful to the shadow Chief Secretary for giving way. It would have been nice if the Labour Government had undertaken impact studies of abolishing the 10p tax rate, for example. I understand that the Labour party has now learned to love Baron Mandelson, whose memoirs are now published for all to see. It is clear from them that the shadow Chancellor had been contemplating increasing VAT to 18 or 19% in advance of the general election. Baron Mandelson acknowledges that this was a hard choice, one that he was impressed by. In those circumstances, does the shadow Chief Secretary accept that sometimes it is better to leave the hard choices until after an election, and perhaps that was in the back of the minds of the now Prime Minister and Chancellor?