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(Clauses 1, 4, 8, 189 and 209, Schedules 1, 23 and 33, and certain new Clauses and new Schedules relating to value added tax)

The 50p rate was introduced, as I said earlier, when we were in the depths of the biggest global recession—[Interruption.] I add the word global, unless Government Members are still suggesting that the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the US was the fault of the Labour Government. Among the many risible claims of the present Government, that is right up there with ““expansionary fiscal contraction””. While we are still asking the poor to pay the price for that global recession and piling misery upon misery on them, with VAT changes, increased job insecurity and wage stagnation, cutting the 50p rate is fundamentally the wrong thing to do.