Finance (No. 3) Bill

I have looked at those principles. The Government will, of course, respond to the Committee's report—along with other reports—in the usual way, but the principles seem very sensible. In fact, this is among the Finance Bills on which there has been the most consultation in advance. I believe that 260 of its 390-odd pages were published in draft some months before its publication. [Interruption.] I am replying to the question asked by the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie). We have taken on board some of the principles to which he referred, but the Government must be able to respond to economic circumstances with their tax policy. As I have said, one of the predominant economic circumstances that we face is the high price of fuel. The Government considered that in order to relieve motorists of some of the burden on them—which we felt was incredibly important—we should ask the oil industry to pay a little more tax in the form of a supplementary charge.