Clause 4 - Rates of tobacco products duty
Finance Bill
10:30 am
Mr Edward Davey (Kingston and Surbiton, Liberal Democrat)
The hon. Gentleman will agree that I put the word ``poor'' into inverted commas, because it is relative. Compared to some of the analysis I assume that the Government have done, it is not as good a test. However, the hon. Gentleman is right that it is potentially an extremely accurate test. We just do not know whether it is, though, because we have not seen any other evidence, and it is difficult to put it into context. Perhaps Customs and Excise have based their own analysis in these reports on such taxes. We do not know. I would like to have been able to give the hon. Gentleman a better answer.