Finance Bill

My Lords, of course I respect the noble Baroness’s point that additional clarification is helpful to us all. Whether consistent repetition is quite as necessary is a different matter entirely, and I shall seek to avoid it. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, mentioned the banking Bill. As he knows, I did not say that we would have it before the Recess; I said that we intend to produce draft clauses in the most crucial areas. He also suggested that adjustments in the Finance Bill were panic measures. If the Government had not made amendments to the Finance Bill after the strength of the representations made—to which his noble friend gave good testimony with his committee and which were the subject of intensive and aggressive debate in the country—we would have been open to the charge that, far from being a listening Government, we were turning our backs to public opinion. The changes reflected the necessity of responding to anxieties. I emphasise again to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, as I did to the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, that the Treasury values opportunities for effective pre-legislative consultation and will continue to do that with regard to the preparations for the Pre-Budget Report and, eventually, for the Budget next year. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, did me the considerable service of summing up and reinforcing the points made largely by her own Back-Benchers during this debate. I agree with her that those points were made very forcibly; she said how much she appreciated how many of her Back-Benchers contributed to the debate. I had a word with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, yesterday and, having seen that his name was not down at that point, I said how dismayed I would be if he were not present. I join with her in saying how absolutely overjoyed I am that he played his part in this debate. He made a speech of which the noble Baroness on the Front Bench would have been justifiably proud, if she had had the opportunity to deliver it without sounding inordinately repetitious. I shall say one thing on this Budget. International judgments on it are somewhat different from that which has been the theme of today. The International Monetary Fund said: "““For over a decade, the United Kingdom has sustained low inflation and rapid economic growth … the fruit of strong policies and policy frameworks””." It said that the 2008 Budget judgment, "““was appropriate, as was its commitment to fiscal tightening over the next few years””—" something that has not been acknowledged across the House. It said: "““Key elements of the fiscal framework should also be retained””," and that the inflation-targeting regime should remain unaltered. On that last point, I can be positive.