---

Finance Bill

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. This year's Finance Bill comes as the world economy is shrinking for the first time in peacetime since 1932. It is the first time ever that five of the biggest banks in the world have had to be rescued by their national Governments. That is the scale of the international challenge we are facing. This Finance Bill provides for vital measures to support the economy this year and to help British families and businesses through the more difficult times. It also provides for help to support the long-term prosperity of Britain and to ensure that public finances are sustainable for the future. Those two objectives are fundamentally linked, but the main Opposition party, astonishingly, seems to oppose both of them. If we do not take action now to get our economy moving and growing, it will cost us more in the long run. We need to take action now to support businesses and families to help them through the downturn. If we do not provide real help now, recession will last longer and run deeper, reducing the tax revenues we get from growing businesses. It will increase the amount we have to spend on unemployment and it will push our borrowing and our debt up higher and cost us all more in the long run. That is why the best way to get borrowing down in the future is to support growth in our economy now.