Savings Accounts and Health in Pregnancy Grant Bill

Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. I feel slightly guilty that you have had to do so three times in almost as many days. I assure you that I am not modelling myself on Psmith—with a silent ““P””—and his haunting of John Bickersdyke, which you will remember from the book ““Psmith in the City””. I am really not trying to do that, and I will be as brief as I can while discussing this important Bill. Benjamin Disraeli famously said that the job of the Opposition was to oppose, and we have seen that today. Indeed, we have seen it all afternoon. We have seen rather specious opposition to the Bill. Whenever the subject of where the money is to come from arises, there is no answer. VAT should not go up to pay for our bills; benefits should not be cut to pay for our bills; so we must spend, and we must have no increase in taxation. What happens to the nation's finances at that point? What happens to the national debt? What happens to the deficit? We go down the sorry road towards bankruptcy. That really is what Opposition Members have been arguing for. It is the ““do nothing”” school, the argument that, like Nero, we should fiddle while Rome burns.