Finance Bill

I am confident that my right hon. Friend will receive an answer to his question shortly; as I fear I told him that in a previous debate, I had better make sure that it actually happens this time. I hope that I have answered his point about redistribution from women to men. If my right hon. Friend looks at the package as a whole, including the increase in the child tax credit, he will see that it will not have that redistributive effect. He is right in the sense that some people who might otherwise be regarded as losers will, if one looks at the impact on the household as a whole, not be losers. That point occurred to me when the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) was talking about the impact of the increase in the minimum wage; some people who are not among the 170,000 to whom he referred will be in households that might otherwise be regarded as losers from the package, but the increase in the minimum wage means that in fact they may not be losers.