Finance Bill

My Lords, it is a pleasure to spend the last Friday before the Summer Recess debating the Finance Bill and yet another excellent report by the Finance Bill sub-committee of the Economic Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House. I support everything that other noble Lords, and in particular my noble friends, have said about it. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, and his committee for producing such a stimulating report. We do not regard it as appropriate that the Government should schedule our debate on the Finance Bill for a Friday, especially one which had not even been scheduled as a sitting day. We have accepted it this year on the basis that it does not form a precedent. The Government might have hoped that they would have been dissuading my noble friends from coming in by scheduling business in this way, but I am proud of so many of my noble friends for taking the trouble to turn up and for making so many strong speeches today. My noble friend Lord Forsyth started with a tour de force—a critique of the Government’s mismanagement of the economy as well as its addiction for tax complexity. My noble friend Lord Higgins pressed the Minister on the Government’s extra borrowing and the monetary consequences of that, to which I hope he will reply. Likewise, my noble friend Lord Marlesford had some harsh words about how HMRC and the Treasury now operate. My noble friend Lord Ryder took us back to the issues that we faced when we came to power in 1979, as indeed did my noble friend Lord Stewartby. My noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon, who to his great regret is unfortunately not able to be with us today, had to face some hard truths when we came to power at that time. Lastly, my noble friends Lord Trenchard and Lord Northbrook, between them completed the charge sheet on the Government’s incompetence in handling our economy and on tax matters. I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, agrees with our diagnosis that incompetence is now the hallmark of this Government. The noble Lord, Lord Peston, who I hope will be with us for very many more years, started with some highly contentious remarks about my party’s approach to anti-avoidance, which I entirely repudiate. He then redeemed himself by going on to say many things with which we agree. He asked what we would do. It is not the role of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition to come to this Dispatch Box to say what we would do if we were in power. The purpose of such debates is for Ministers to account for what the Government are doing.