Finance Bill

Over the years that I have been in the House, I have always known that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Nigel Griffiths) will leap up at the last minute to defend the indefensible if he needs to do that to defend his party. That is what he tried to do tonight. I wonder where he has been. His argument about the views of individual Conservative Members is irrelevant to the anger that the backdating of vehicle excise duty rises has caused. Does he go to Edinburgh and listen to his constituents? Does he understand the anger that has been caused? Ministers would be wise to accept the advice of my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening) and say today that they will not pursue the policy. There are certain trigger points that anger members of the public, our electorate. Sometimes they are irrelevant or extraordinary, but the backdating of the VED has caused anger. It is regressive, and many people who have decided to buy a particular car will lose thousands of pounds in the second-hand value of that car. The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Chaytor) mentioned stamp duty, but that was the wrong example. It would have worked as an example only if somebody had purchased a house and then the Government had said, ““By the way, we're backdating the stamp duty. You now owe us another £150,000 for the house that you have already bought.”” People make decisions about what kind of car to buy on the basis of the cost at the time when they buy it. To change the ground rules is utterly wrong, which is why the vast majority of Labour Members, although not the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South, seem to agree with us on the spirit of the new clause, if not its details.