Finance Bill

My hon. Friend is a doughty defender of Parliament, for which we should be grateful, and he raises an important constitutional point about supervision. However, it is possible that this Finance Bill, in contrast to last year’s, could do with more substance. Let me turn to a couple of additional points, which I would like the Economic Secretary to address. What analysis has the Treasury done on who will be the losers as a consequence of this tax change? It seems that there are certain beneficiaries of the Finance Act 2004—the self-employed, contract workers and so on, who would not normally be able to participate in occupational pension schemes that provide some kind of life assurance lump sum. The purpose of the 2004 changes might have been to simplify the system and to make better provision for these people, but it seems that they have suffered as a consequence. I might be wrong, however, and I should be grateful for enlightenment from the Economic Secretary. I should also be grateful if the Economic Secretary clarified the impact of the following development, which my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham addressed. My understanding is that before A-day—6 April 2006—tax relief was available for those individuals wanting to buy term assurance, if they were part of a pension plan that also provided pension benefits. As I understand it, that will no longer be the case, and I should be grateful—