Capital Gains Tax (Rates)

Debate between Bob Russell and Geoffrey Robinson

Monday 28th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

It does seem strange that the House cannot debate the amendment in the names of the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), the hon. Member for Chelmsford—

[Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

Colchester, for God’s sake. [Laughter.]

[Mr Robinson]

The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell)—I am so sorry—and other very distinguished honourable dissidents opposite, who are clearly being silenced for some reason or other; I cannot comment on why. I thought the amendment very apropos and exactly to the point in all respects. I am sure that it has not been withdrawn, so quite why it has not been chosen for debate I cannot think. It is a pity, because we could have probed even further the support of the hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) for it and for the package as a whole, which he was trying to defend last Wednesday with as much discomfort as is evident amongst the Liberals who have not yet entirely been bought by, or who have not bought into, the so-called coalition policies.

It is very sad. There has been nothing sadder, in my opinion, than the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable), who is now the Business Secretary, coming around to explain why he supports the Budget. One of the two reasons that he gave was essentially that he had been, belatedly—I think his leader got there first—to see the Governor of the Bank of the England, who had assured him that a crisis was imminent, that we were going to be downgraded and that we would be in the same position as Greece, all of which would happen in a matter of days or hours, if he and the Liberal party did not agree to every measure that the coalition subsequently put forward. All of that should have been entirely predictable at any point before or during the election, even as the bond market strengthened and the UK position strengthened during the election, and even as we learned afterwards that the funding requirement is going to be £20 billion to £30 billion less than expected. Apparently, the leadership of the Liberal party fell for the oldest trick in the book, the bankers’ scare, which has gone on for centuries—classically, of course, with Montagu Norman and all the rest in the 1930s taking that party and this country to the brink of collapse.