Finance Bill

The Economic Secretary will have to contain his excitement. My personal position is well known and was put into print some time ago. I can tell him that not all the things that I would like to do will be part of my economic policy review, because I do not think that it will be possible to do them all in the very early stages of a Conservative Government. However, I can assure him that I fully support my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Conservative party and my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor when they say that a lower-tax economy is a more successful economy—a line that I could have written myself—and when they say that they wish to share the proceeds of growth between tax reductions and better public services. That is eminently achievable, because there is a lot of waste and unnecessary expenditure in public services. If we root out some of that waste, as I know the Government are trying to do— although they are not yet very successful at it—and if there is a reasonable growth rate in the economy, the economy can be reinforced, because if some of the proceeds of growth are given back to taxpayers, that will raise the growth rate. After five years, if all went well, we could be spending more on public services than if we had not cut tax rates, because we would be generating more through the economy as a whole; that is the wonder of tax reduction.