Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

It is not just the Government who are listening to them; it seems that the rest of the world is as well. I must remind the hon. Lady that if we are not careful—[Interruption.] Whatever she says, if the credit rating agencies downgrade our rating, we would, like Spain and Greece, be paying far more to borrow the money that we are borrowing as a result of the previous Government's position. Whether or not we agree that the credit rating agencies got it right on the banks is irrelevant, therefore. In this particular case, the question is whether or not we would end up paying more as a result of their bad rating, and that is something we were not prepared to risk. This is a Budget to get the economy back on track. It is a Budget to support the recovery and drive down the deficit, and, most importantly, to get Britain back to work. Despite facing the tough and unavoidable choices forced on us by the fiscal position left by Labour, we are increasing the threshold for paying the basic rate of income tax, and increasing the child element of the child tax credit by £150 above indexation next year. We are making sure that the most vulnerable do not pay disproportionately.