Finance (No. 3) Bill

Debate between Nicholas Dakin and Andrew Love

Tuesday 3rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Nic Dakin]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention about intervention. More intervention is needed from the Government, who have a stake in the banks. In fact, it is taxpayers and the public we serve who have that stake in the banks. He is quite right that the Government should be exercised about how they get the benefit back to the British people.

[Mr Love]

Have the Government not failed lamentably? If we look at Project Merlin, where they intervened with the banks on bonuses and on lending to small businesses, we can see the bonuses that are likely to be given this year and the fact that the Government have failed lamentably to deliver finance for small businesses in this country. They simply are not working.

[Nic Dakin]

I thank my hon. Friend for that observation. Project Merlin’s record is a sorry tale so far. We see a failure to deliver on bankers’ bonuses and a failure to reinvest the taxation from them in the economy. He is right that the record on lending to small and medium-sized enterprises is woeful. Small and medium-sized enterprises, as I think all Members recognise, are the lifeblood and the engine of our economy, and he is completely right to underline that point.

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[Mr Love]

Yes, the future jobs fund was the very vehicle to provide a job, training or relevant work experience so that our kids did not have to sit on the sidelines without a future, getting demoralised and not being in a position to take up the job opportunities that will be available when the economy turns round. It is a dereliction of duty on the part of the Government not to address that issue.

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is giving a cogent and coherent analysis of the amendment before us. Does he not agree that the review suggested in the amendment represents a real opportunity to find the money needed to invest in young people and their job opportunities? It is not too late for the Government to address this error.

[Mr Love]

Absolutely. The merit of the amendment is that it would give Parliament, and particularly the Government, the opportunity to review the operation of the levy, as well as providing the banking sector with other opportunities to make a contribution to sorting out some of the deep-seated economic problems in our country. I hope that the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition will be sympathetic to our arguments and speak up where it matters, to try to get the Government to recognise that there is an alternative that would be good for the economy and good for our society.

A second issue is house construction. In my local authority area we have the fourth worst housing stress in the country. Things are difficult, and they are going to get significantly worse. I mentioned earlier the Government’s incoherent construction policy, with its homes bonus that is not a bonus, and its planning system that is so riddled with inconsistency and lack of certainty that major construction is now off the agenda. It is a system that allows local considerations to dominate and outweigh much-needed construction in different parts of the country. I can see only a bleak future for public and private housing construction—but our proposal provides one small, modest way in which the Government could improve the situation.