Finance Bill

I rise to support the amendments, because I share the impatience of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, and of the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson), at how small the incentives are in the Bill as drafted. The amendments would make some contribution towards making them a little more generous. There is a growing view in the House and outside that much more power could be generated in environmentally friendly ways by individuals and families through their own domestic property. Of course we are not talking about people having a large power station in their back garden and abusing the thing; the Government have made it quite clear that the measures are limited to microgeneration schemes, and they have a rather low threshold for their definition of such schemes. It is therefore even more strange that they should double up the restrictions by putting in clauses that prevent people from producing a little more power than they need for their own requirements on average over the days, the weeks and the months as they look at the balance in and out of their system. I hope that the Minister will succumb to the pressures from inside and outside the House and at least accept the amendments that get rid of that unnecessary restriction. The tax reliefs on offer in the Bill as drafted are not very generous. The allowance on chargeable gains is unlikely to produce any money for most of the people who might take up the scheme. We are concentrating only on the income tax relief, which relates only to surplus generated power, so if we are told that there can be no installation that might produce surplus power on average, it means that no tax relief is on offer. The way the definitions will be phrased under the legislation means that they will give with one hand and take away with the other. The House, apart from Members on the Treasury Bench, is trying to persuade the Government to be more generous, ambitious and bold in future by including the requirement for annual review. We hope that will bring the Government two realisations: first, that the tax relief they are offering at present is almost zero and that from zero will come little; and, secondly, that as the schemes will not catch on quickly because the tax relief on offer is far from generous, perhaps in a future year, in a future Bill, it will be seen that something bolder and bigger is needed.