Finance Bill

I am grateful for your clarification, Mrs. Heal, as to exactly what I am doing—[Interruption.] And I thank the hon. Member for South-East Cornwall (Mr. Breed) for his retrospective clarification. The difficulty for the Government is that the examples that they have produced generally relate to cases of a market-sensitive nature, such as the example given by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). No doubt we shall hear other examples from the Minister later in which there has been a delay before parliamentary ratification, perhaps because of a general election, for example. As I am now making a brief speech, I will ask the Financial Secretary to clarify one point. I remember that, immediately after the pre-Budget report, there were strong rumours floating around that the Chancellor had received strong advice from Treasury officials that this rise in air passenger duty could be attacked and that it might be illegal. It was also rumoured that the Chancellor had been advised to delay its implementation until after the Budget in March. No doubt there will at some point be a freedom of information request from The Times seeking details of the advice that the Chancellor received, but I should be grateful if we could short-cut the process so that we do not have to wait two or three years for the answer. Will the Financial Secretary confirm or deny that the Chancellor received strong advice that this retrospective legislation could prove vulnerable in the courts?