---

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

I supported the Budget a couple of weeks ago and I still do now. It is important to look at it in its entirety, and at how it fits in with other things that are going on. At the moment, an increase in personal allowance is being put in place; it will rise by £1,100 in April 2013, taking it to £9,205 in total. That is the largest real personal tax cut for the median earner in more than a decade, from which 24 million people will benefit. It will give basic rate taxpayers a real cash gain. The Government are taking 2 million low-paid workers out of tax altogether. Let me put that increase in local context as the Member of Parliament for Great Yarmouth. It lifts an additional 75,000 people in the east of England out of income tax altogether. That will have a dramatic impact on many low earners in my constituency, which is the 54th-most deprived local authority out of 326. The average earnings in Great Yarmouth are £21,900 per annum, compared with the national average of £26,100.