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

I was hoping that the hon. Gentleman was going to respond to my point about children, but that is obviously not the case. It is expected that the revised proposal will affect about 1.2 million families. Some 790,000 couples and 30,000 lone parents will lose the full amount of their child benefit. A further 330,000 couples and 20,000 lone parents will lose a proportion of their child benefit. The average loss will be about £1,300. When these proposals were first announced, I tabled a parliamentary question asking for an estimate—not an exact figure—of the number of people earning between £50,000 and £60,000 who are in receipt of child benefit in each parliamentary constituency. I received the answer two days ago. It was short and simple: this information is ““not available.”” Surely that is exactly the sort of information that should be available in advance of such proposals being made to help MPs judge the impact of Government policies on their constituencies.