Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

I agree. I listened with care to the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), who basically said that we could not afford the benefit system and, therefore, it was necessary to take these steps, but the House must remind itself again and again that we are a hugely wealthy country. We have the fifth wealthiest economy in the world, but the wealth and power in society are unevenly distributed, and that has to be the backdrop whenever we have these discussions. Given the proposals that we have heard, this Budget simply seems to be a Tory Budget. I appreciate the Liberal Democrats' points about the policies that they have tried to inject, but overall the Budget will disproportionately affect those on the lowest incomes. A few days ago the TUC commissioned a paper, which states that overall the annual loss in income and services for the poorest 10th of households is estimated to be £1,514, which is equivalent to 21.7% of their household income. The average annual loss for the richest 10th of households is estimated to be £2,685, which is equivalent to 3.6% of their overall income. No doubt a lot of work will be done on those figures, but we must consider them when we discuss not only the Budget, but the Finance Bill, which we will debate over the coming weeks. I agreed with the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), and I fully appreciate the difficulties and stress that Liberal Democrat MPs in his position must feel if they have always argued that a VAT increase would have a disproportionate impact on the poorest in society. I hope that we see some detailed work on the impact of not just the VAT increase, but all those policies on the poorest in society. In reality, we are seeing unprecedented cuts in spending on public services, but I find it difficult to believe that any Government of any political colour will be able to make the proposed reductions, because we are talking about departmental cuts of about 20% to 25% over five years. It is difficult to imagine that the Government will be able to deliver on that, because these are such savage cuts in the services that all our constituents rely on. This is a bad policy not only because it disproportionately affects some of the lowest-paid and lowest-earning in society, but because it risks choking off the recovery that is so vital to us all. My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) was absolutely right—we needed a Budget for jobs and growth, but we have something completely to the contrary.