---

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

I am almost disappointed that I took that intervention, if that is the best that the hon. Gentleman can come up with. We on the Opposition Benches like to be helpful, so we are going to give the Government the opportunity to step back from the current mess, which is entirely of their own making, and drop these ill-thought-out plans, which have led to more questions being asked about hot and cold snacks than anyone could have dreamed were possible. Before I move on, and before anyone asks me when I last ate a pasty—or a bridie, as it would be in Scotland—I have a confession to make. I am one of Parliament's three vegan MPs, so the delights—[Interruption.] I hear calls of ““Resign!”” The delights of the Greggs steak bake have passed me by, although it is a firm favourite with my son, and the cheese and onion bridie is a staple component of my husband's diet. However, I am very grateful to Brownings the Bakers, in Kilmarnock in my constituency, which, in advance of Kilmarnock football club's recent cup final triumph, created a vegan Killie pie, to mimic the award-winning Killie pie, so that I would not go hungry—some Ayrshire colleagues on the Government Benches can see where this is going—while other Kilmarnock supporters were enjoying that award-winning local delicacy. When I went along to the bakery to receive the pies, it never occurred to me that such delicacies would become the hot—or cold—political topic only weeks later. We have seen quotation after quotation from bakeries and other producers of hot snacks, warning the Government of the problems that the tax will create for them. Indeed, who would have thought that the Treasury Committee would be taking evidence from the Chancellor on what constitutes an ambient temperature? Efforts on Second Reading to clarify exactly what ““the ambient temperature”” means did not elicit much more information, although we did learn that the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who I see is in his place, prefers sausage rolls to pasties. I am sure that that was very useful information, and it was interesting to find it out, but it threw very little light on the rest of the subject. Notwithstanding the Chancellor's attempt to explain his rationale on hot takeaways to the Treasury Committee—which makes for fascinating reading—we are still struggling to find out whether the hot roast chicken selected in the supermarket by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire), to which she referred on Second Reading, would be liable for VAT if it had cooled down by the time she reached the checkout.