Finance Bill

I always think it is better to win the debate through argument than through other ways—for example, people instructing us it is better to vote one way rather than another. I am looking to Ministers to go through the arguments presented by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead and to say that the situation is not as he described it. So far that has not happened. There has not been a willingness to engage and to find an alternative way we could take this forward, other than some of the measures introduced in both the pre-Budget report and the previous Budget. We are at a difficult stage now. We need to recognise that the hurt among core Labour supporters remains. Some of us will find it very difficult not to want to go back to where we were, which was to recognise that these are the people whom we cannot afford to be made worse off. That is what Ministers need to do and that is what I look to my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to do now.