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Finance Bill

First, the entire premise of the fixed-term deficit consolidation strategy is wrong. I have already explained that, as I also did to the hon. Gentleman's colleague, the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), in a previous debate, and to another of his hon. Friends in a debate before that. On Trident, I was careful to say that over the medium term we would get the savings from the cancellation and the non-replacement. These are political choices. There would be savings almost immediately from cancellation and non-replacement, and savings of some £50 billion over the medium term—and, as I have said, the Liberals did appear at one point in the election to believe in this, before they changed their minds.