It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell), who I am almost certain will be back in the next Parliament to pursue these cases vigorously with the next Labour Government. I was tempted to speak by the Minister’s generosity in likening me to a future statesman. I appreciate that I have some way to go, although I have not handed him the Red Book across the Table, as I did to his Liberal Democrat counterpart on Thursday.
The debates we have had today really come down to one issue: balance and priorities. It is about the share we expect to take from tax or the share we expect to take from spending cuts to deal with deficit reduction in the next Parliament. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), the issues are the same whether it is the VAT debate, the 50p debate or the debate we are now having on business rates and corporation tax.