Finance Bill

My hon. Friend is right. I know that he would have been in the Lobby with us on 27 March had he been in the country, but he was away on overseas parliamentary business at that time. The amendment has been drafted so that it deals with the one-off period of seven weeks. It reflects the concerns shared by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. It may be immodest to recall that shortly after 31 January, when I raised my original point of order about the retrospective nature of the measure, I was having a sandwich lunch with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, who congratulated me on the points that I had made and said that he very much shared my concern about the retrospective nature of the air passenger duty increase set out in the pre-Budget report and confirmed in the Bill. I know that some of my colleagues are still worried about the cost of delaying the increase by seven weeks. It is a large cost in layman’s terms—about £100 million. That is an indication of the extent of this stealth tax introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer—a yield of about £100 million in seven weeks. Some of my colleagues are sensitive about supporting an amendment which could be misrepresented by the Government, who might say that we have a black hole in our calculations, and ask how we will manage to balance the books when we get into government if we have voted against the retrospective nature of the air passenger duty increase.