Part of Finance (No. 3) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 9:25 am on 27 November 2018.
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but the reality is that we have had a Budget, which is a big event. We then had three or four days of debate on the Floor of the House. We then debated the Finance Bill on the Floor of the House. This Committee will run for a number of sittings. It will then go back to the Floor of the House. This will have more debate than most other Government motions. I suspect that by the end of the process we will be even better informed than we were before, as the serried ranks of the Treasury come in and feed paper to the Minister.
I served on one of the coalition Government’s Finance Bill Committees, and on two or three under the previous Labour Government, dealing with substantive issues such as when we took away all the tax relief on banks when they lost billions of pounds—had we not done so, they would never pay tax again. There were substantial changes made in the Finance Bill after the financial crash. We did not take evidence then, because it was a time for action, not debate. I look forward to hearing Ministers get on with the job of dealing with this Committee and with matters that are important to business and individuals in this country.