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Ms Jean Corston (Bristol, East): The Minister said that an average family will be better off by £20 a week. We both attended a conference at the council house in Bristol last week, when we heard that an average family in Bristol will see four or five times that sum swallowed by council tax increases imposed by the Government.

Mr. Waldegrave: We see the same technique in action. Last week, the Leader of the Opposition addressed the issue of local government grants and said:

"You may have heard Frank Dobson say a couple of nights ago to local government, 'You have to work within the existing spending limits.' We could not be clearer about this".

The hon. Lady and her hon. Friend on the Front Bench, the Member for Bristol, South (Ms Primarolo), went to Bristol council to talk about the "dreadful" grant settlement, but in the same week the Leader of the Opposition said that there would be no more money for local government. That illustrates the basic incoherence and dishonesty of that line of argument.

The fact is that, on such matters, Her Majesty's loyal Opposition should be called "Her Majesty's loyal abstainers". They have no view on all the big issues. When it comes to tax, they sit on their hands and abstain. They are terrified of saying anything that might be construed as an acceptance that they would have to raise taxes to pay for the £30 billion in spending pledges that they have scattered around the Lobbies. However, they do not withdraw those pledges.

The only tax measure to which Labour is prepared to admit is a punitive tax on successful companies owned by millions of private shareholders, pension funds and employees: the so-called windfall tax. If Labour could make it work, it would hit consumers, shareholders and employees. It would produce only a one-off payment and could not be used to meet the huge continuing spending commitments that Labour has attached to it.

Last week, the Leader of the Opposition claimed that Labour's plans would mean no tax increases. However, at the same time, he promised that Labour would do more

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for education, health, welfare, local government--you name it. It was vintage new Labour. On Wednesday, the Leader of the Opposition told local government:

"You have to work within the existing spending limits"

but on Monday he was nodding and winking to the education lobby about higher spending.

As always, the right hon. Gentleman is trying to be all things to all men and women. It is the usual nod towards the media and the City; the usual wink to the spending lobby. He promises more computers, more literacy summer schools and smaller class sizes, but no new money. The problem is that that simply is not credible. Either Labour's education policy--the same goes for all its other policies--is just another series of empty Acts of Parliament with no money, or it is a hidden agenda for more spend. Labour hopes that one audience, in the Bristol council house, will believe one version, and the other audience, in the Daily Mail, another.

The fact is that the Government have been able to make substantial increases in spending on education and health because we have been prepared to make difficult decisions, making cuts in lower-priority programmes. Labour has shown no capacity to make such decisions, except for one. The only genuine cut that it has announced is the mean-minded decision to axe the assisted places scheme, which will not even pay for the reduction in class sizes, which will threaten many ancient schools, for example in Bristol, and which will widen the divide between public and private provision in education. That is typical of its approach.

Sir Wyn Roberts (Conwy): Would my right hon. Friend care to remind the House that the last time there was a real cut in health service spending was when Labour was in government, and after the International Monetary Fund had intervened?

Mr. Waldegrave: My right hon. Friend is right. There has been only one year in which real spending in the health service has been cut, and that was under the previous Labour Government, in the year to which my right hon. Friend refers.

The Labour party is caught in a trap of its own making. On the one hand it promises all manner of vaguely specified changes for this country; on the other it claims that there will be no tax increases and no losers, except for a few fat cats. If the Labour party were to come to power, it would have no mandate for anything, and the ensuing drift and confusion would put at risk all that the British people have achieved in the 1980s and 1990s.

The choice before the House and the country is pretty simple. Labour has no policies beyond the cosmetic, no views on economic management beyond the platitudinous and ungrammatical verbiage of its amendment, no sense of direction and no sense of priorities. There is, of course, nothing wrong with wanting office in a democratic system. That is an honourable ambition. But to want only office, with no philosophy or ideas about what to do with it, is not enough.

Conservatives know what we want for Britain. We want to continue our battle to make Britain a competitive, low-spending economy and thereby get unemployment down. We want to continue the clear and responsible economic policy that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor has carried through with such success. We want

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to continue the real growth in living standards for our people. The Bill, as part of our outstandingly successful economic policy, will continue to deliver those things.

Once again Labour stands for muddle and abstention, for soundbites, not real policy. We stand for steady and responsible economic management. I have no hesitation in commending the Bill to the House.

4.23 pm

Mr. Alistair Darling (Edinburgh, Central): I beg to move, To leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

"this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Finance Bill because it fails to adequately address the needs of the country, namely high levels of investment and employment, providing opportunities for all, economic stability and a long-term commitment to low inflation; in particular it does not provide for a new welfare to work strategy which will tackle the scandal of youth and long-term unemployment, nor new measures to improve the skills level of the country; and further fails to provide for effective action to close tax loopholes, to adequately reform the Private Finance Initiative or address the causes of the increasing tax burden and as a consequence fails to equip the country for the future."

The only interesting thing that we have heard this afternoon is the fact that the Chief Secretary will probably not serve on the Finance Bill Committee. I understand that he may be the first victim of the Government's loss of their majority. He does not want to be on the Committee. He would rather be somewhere else, perhaps in the Wirral or perhaps nursing his constituency of Bristol, West. It would seem very strange if the Chief Secretary to the Treasury were not in the Committee to take his Bill through the House. One might have thought that he would have sufficient confidence and commitment to turn up to take his Bill through the House.

Mr. Waldegrave: This is the Second Reading of the Finance Bill. Will the hon. Gentleman say why his right hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) is unable to attend?

Mr. Darling: I was speaking to my right hon. Friend only half an hour ago. He is at this moment watching our performance on the television in his office. He is quite happy that we should deal with these matters. If the Chief Secretary wants to hear more, why does not he agree to sit on the Finance Bill Committee for the next few weeks?

In his speech this afternoon, the Chief Secretary has invited us to forget the fact--[Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor has arrived. That is yet another example of how a new Labour promise will be delivered.

The Chief Secretary has invited us to believe that, somehow, we should judge the Government on a snapshot of what is happening in the country, to forget the past, to forget the ominous signs of the future. He is inviting us to forget the fact that the Conservatives have been in power since 1979. The Finance Bill gives us the opportunity to judge the Government's record over the past 18 years and since the last election. The coming election, as with all elections, will turn on the questions of trust and credibility. That is how the Government will be judged. People remember full well--

Mr. Rod Richards (Clwyd, North-West): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Darling: I shall certainly give way to the hon. Gentleman on matters of trust. He will remember that at

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the last election he, along with other Conservative Members, promised that a Conservative Government would cut taxes year on year and would not increase value added tax. Yet the incoming Conservative Government deliberately broke those promises. The Bill reflects the continuing saga of broken promises. We have had 22 tax rises since 1992. We have had VAT imposed on gas and electricity. National insurance contributions have increased. These increases are why the Conservative party is in so much difficulty.

No one trusts the Conservatives on tax or on the economy. Indeed, the Bill introduces seven further tax rises. Despite what the Chief Secretary had to say, and despite what he says generally about cutting taxes, the Bill, when enacted, will lead to the implementation of more new taxes. The penny off income tax and other such measures are more than offset by increases in indirect taxes. The Red Book shows that in the next financial year about £350 million more will be raised in taxation.

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