National Insurance Contributions Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hanson]

I beg to move amendment 1, page 2, line 9, leave out paragraph (b).

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this we will discuss the following:

Amendment 2, page 2, line 21, leave out subsection (5).

Amendment 3, in clause 11, page 6, leave out lines 24 to 29.

Amendment 4, page 6, leave out lines 35 to 41.

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[Stephen Timms]

I do not think that it is the Deputy Speaker’s responsibility.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

In fairness, some may hold me responsible, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not.

[Stephen Timms]

This is what the Prime Minister called for in November:

“The right framework, so it’s easier for new companies to start up”.

That is what he wants to happen in the east London tech city initiative. My question to the Minister is why is the Bill not doing that which the Prime Minister has so clearly called for? If it were my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn appealing to the Minister to do that, I could understand why he would not be willing to do it, but it is the Prime Minister, who appointed the Minister to his job. Why is the Minister not doing what the Prime Minister said?

I commend to the Minister the Prime Minister’s speech of 4 November, in which he went on to describe what different parties are doing to help to secure this vision of a new high-tech city in east London:

“But what about here—in the heart of east London where there’s already so much to work with? We’re working with business to make sure the infrastructure and advice you need is in place. Imperial Innovations, the venture capital arm of Imperial College London”—

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[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I am fascinated to hear the right hon. Gentleman make these points, because I do not remember you proposing a national insurance cut. Indeed, you went to the polls with a national insurance increase.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. I was not in the Treasury. I am getting a lot of your blame, and I do not like it.

[Stephen Timms]

I reassure the hon. Lady that when I was in the Treasury, I put an enormous amount of effort into supporting exactly this kind of initiative. I supported the Thames Gateway initiative specifically, as well as other regeneration initiatives.

The Government are now saying that they will not give grant funding, but instead will provide incentives. This is our one opportunity to boost the incentives for establishing the kind of business that the Prime Minister wants in east London, and it will be forgone unless the amendment is agreed by the House this afternoon.

I do not know exactly how things work in the Conservative party. Who speaks to whom, and who is on whose side is all closed to me. It may be that the Exchequer Secretary feels that he does not need to take much notice of what the Prime Minister says. Perhaps he speaks to other people in his party. Let me therefore point out that it is not just the Prime Minister who wants the initiative to go forward. I point him to what the Mayor of London said—perhaps he takes more notice of him than the Prime Minister, I do not know. The Mayor said:

“we can and must do more to cement our position as a global magnet”.

He went on:

“the Olympic and Paralympic Games will bequeath to London a vibrant new business quarter in the east of our city. We must do everything we can to support its development”.

This afternoon, we have the opportunity to do something to support the Mayor of London’s call to develop the vision set out by the Prime Minister. We must not let this opportunity pass us by.

Perhaps the Exchequer Secretary does not take much notice of what the Mayor of London says, either—again, I do not know about that. If that is the case, let me point out to him the position of the Department for Communities and Local Government. Its website states:

“The Government is committed to making a success of the Thames Gateway…we will promote incentives to invest and develop in the area, instead of grant funding specific projects.”

That returns me to the point that I made a moment ago in response to the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin). We understand that the Government are not now willing to contribute grant funding. We disagree with them about that, but are told that there will instead be incentives to invest and develop. Here we have an opportunity to provide just such an incentive. As far as I am aware, the Government have not come forward with any other incentive, and we can provide one along the lines of the policy that the DCLG has set out. We should take that opportunity, and I hope that the Exchequer Secretary will do so this afternoon by accepting the amendment, so that we can provide an incentive in an area that has been so specifically identified by the Prime Minister, the Mayor of London and the DCLG.

The DCLG website also states that the Government will

“work with other departments to identify how their programmes bear on the Thames Gateway and need to be adapted”.

The initiative in the Bill clearly needs to be adapted to fulfil the Government’s policy for the Thames Gateway. I hope that the Minister will tell us what representations he has received from the DCLG, because it is an extraordinarily disjointed approach for one Department to say that it will introduce incentives and initiatives in one area and for the Treasury to take not a blind bit of notice and send all the incentives somewhere completely different.

The previous Government used to talk about “joined-up government”, and indeed we made important progress towards achieving it, so that all the different parts of Government were pushing in the same direction towards the same goal. Here we have a case in which the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Mayor of London are on one side, and the Exchequer Secretary and his colleagues are on the other. I invite him to support what his right hon. and hon. Friends are saying, and not to stand aloof from the policies of the Government of whom he is a member. The Treasury should not be an island, cut off from everybody else and doing its own thing without talking to others or supporting what they are doing, but that seems to be the position with this Bill.

I invite the Exchequer Secretary to accept the amendment and agree that the incentive should be applied in places in which the Prime Minister has so clearly identified its importance.