Finance Bill

Tomorrow the progressive consensus takes over at No. 10 Downing street. We hope that the obstacle has been the current Prime Minister and that when we have a new Prime Minister who wishes to forge a progressive consensus he will want to join the hon. Member for Nottingham, South, my hon. Friends the Members for Buckingham (John Bercow) and for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), me, and even the Liberal Democrats on this occasion, to show that he is truly persuaded that the progressive consensus is now in favour of much more microgeneration and that he understands furthermore that fiscal incentives are an extremely good way of changing behaviour. The House knows that I do not normally favour tax increases and regulations to change behaviour. However, if a tax reduction is on offer it is more my kind of behaviour-changing inducement, so I recommend it strongly to the Government if and when they want to join the emerging progressive consensus. I have often found that the ideas I propose in the House are a little ahead of their time, but this may be one that is not so far ahead of its time that we shall have to forgo all value from it for the foreseeable future.