Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

My hon. Friend is right and I am grateful for his helpful intervention. We must put all these things into perspective. The existing exemptions will apply to items such as food and children's clothing. My hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) has tabled an amendment about VAT. He is rightly worried about the effect of the VAT rise on particular groups, but I point out that the Red Book states of the chart on page 67 to which he referred:""Chart A3 shows that the top expenditure decile will lose almost 15 times more, in absolute terms, than the bottom expenditure decile from changes in indirect taxes."" The increase is not nice, but we feel that it is appropriate.