Surprisingly, I find myself in agreement with the hon. Gentleman on his last comment—work does pay. At the end of the day, we can have any Government scheme we want to bring people out of poverty, but there is only one way out, and that is work. The only way out of the current difficulty is for people in work to pay their taxes. If there are even more cuts to the public sector, there will be even more people out of work and the welfare bill will go up, defeating the object of the exercise. It will lead to a high welfare bill, which will have to be paid for, and a low tax yield because of people being out of work.
I say to the hon. Gentleman that we have to wake up to the fact that the social benefits that we want to enjoy will come only from businesses being successful. We must do all we can to ensure that we have a fair, simple and transparent tax regime. How can we stimulate the economy when it seems that those in the middle are being squeezed?
The hon. Gentleman asks whether I talk to my constituents. I do, and those in social housing or council housing are concerned about the so-called bedroom tax. Some 80% of social tenants in Caerphilly county borough are in two or three-bedroom houses. That is not their fault, because no one-bedroom flats or houses are being built. After the war, when Aneurin Bevan invested in social housing, he invested in family homes so that people could bring up children and go to work.
We have heard from the Government, and from hon. Members today, about how much the cut in tax from 50p to 45p will raise. Everybody seems to be able to predict the future—every Government Member who has spoken today has done so, and even the Exchequer Secretary will be guilty of it. They seem to think that they are some sort of latter-day seer, guru or wise man who can see that in future, it will be wonderful under the Tories whereas it would be terrible under the Labour party. However, we do not know what is next. We might be lucky—we might find gas, or we might find oil off the Pembrokeshire coast or more oil in the North sea, which will stimulate the economy. On the other hand, we might have another financial crisis. We do not know. When we talk about what the tax cut will raise, we are basically licking our finger, putting it in the air and wondering which way the wind is going to blow. To get back to the new clause, it is important that we have a review of the tax cut.