Finance Bill

I oppose the amendment—and will vote against it if the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) presses it—for seven reasons. First, the position adopted by Opposition Members—this particularly applies to the Liberal Democrats—is Augustinian. They want to be good, but not yet, so they will take any opportunity to push back the increase in tax. Secondly, the tax cannot be described as truly retrospective, when people had more than two months’ notice of the increase. Retrospection surely means increasing tax on things that people have already done. Thirdly, the practice adopted is not significantly different from the traditional practice with excise duties.