Finance Bill

That would be a very enticing prospect, but I do not think that it is about to happen any time soon under this Government. There is a serious problem for the incoming Chancellor of the Exchequer. If he or she meekly accepts everything that has been laid out for next year’s Budget in this year’s Budget, people will say that this man or woman is not a serious Chancellor of the Exchequer, that they have no independent judgment and that they are just a lackey of the Prime Minister. If, however, the new Chancellor were to go next door and say, ““I’ve been thinking hard about this. Too many Labour Members don’t want the 10p band abolished. We’re going to have to keep it?, they might get a very frosty answer from the person who has just given them the job. The present Chancellor has unwittingly made life difficult not only for his successor but for himself, because it will become a test of whether the new Chancellor has any bottle, substance or depth: whether they meekly accept all the measures that we have been told about—some of which will not have been legislated for—or whether they will see the need, in the probably different circumstances of next year’s Budget, to make changes. I put that forward as an analyst; I am not making a party political point. It is not my problem but one created entirely by the Chancellor. What he thought was a clever move—doing two Budgets in the same year—will turn out to be one of his mistakes. It will place his successor in an impossible position and the journalists will soon start to say, ““Surely this is a test of whether the new finance team at the Treasury have any independence of judgment and can adjust these things.? It is unusual in a system based on annual judgments about the state of the economy and taxation, to make judgments a year ahead—or several years ahead, in the case of the judgment on inheritance tax. I have been clear in saying that we need to set a course and stick to it without chopping and changing. We should not offer a tax incentive one year and withdraw it the next, because that is difficult for people to follow. But I have also said that I do not want our Front Bench to set out detailed tax proposals for three or four years hence. That would be too difficult to gauge because the world is too uncertain. It is surprising that, in the case of at least one tax in this Budget, we are being asked to legislate for the next decade. That seems premature, even though the movement is in the right direction and very welcome. I shall conclude my brief remarks—[Laughter.] My brief remarks have been slowed down by many interventions. I conclude with this summary. Labour Members are far too complacent. It no longer serves proper debate to go back over things that happened 20 years ago—Attlee was not very good either, but we are too polite to mention it—and we now need to discuss the current state of the British economy. Interest rates are too high, inflation is too high and taxes are still too high. We are not competitive when compared with the best countries around the world, and some patient work now needs to be done, in the way that I have suggested, to put those things right.