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Finance Bill

I acknowledge that, but of all the tough decisions that we are talking about, a VAT rise is among the toughest. It is tougher than the ones proposed by the Labour Government in their pre-election Budget. It is a truism that Budgets brought forward just before a general election are rather different from those introduced just after an election, because of the political pressures under which Governments find themselves. That is just human nature—or perhaps political nature. The decent thing for Labour Members to do would be to acknowledge that.