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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

He declines to tell the House. He should be on top of the issue and able to tell us. The Budget is about the prosperity and success of business, many of them small businesses such as those that make and restore organs. If the Secretary of State is not prepared to tell us whether they are going to be able to survive the regulatory regime that we are discussing, he is not doing his job properly. I have found no end of examples of directives, many of which would suffice as a paragraph but are, when they come to us, seven, eight or nine pages long. We have the Food (Jelly Confectionery) (Emergency Control) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2004, which runs to six pages, and the Food (Jelly Mini-Cups) (Emergency Control) (Scotland) Regulations 2004. When I wrote my election address, little did I appreciate that we were so severely at risk from an imminent invasion of jelly cups. Those who show enough enterprise to start or run a business quickly find themselves swimming in treacle. They immediately get an enormous book. We need a ““Treacle Swimming Emergency (Britain) Order”” to rescue their prospects. Any business person faces an enormous burden and uncertainty under the Government. The operating and financial review was a sad and sorry tale. Was the Secretary of State told about it before the Chancellor abolished it? [Interruption.] One Minister claims that he was while the Secretary of State shakes his head. The Chancellor abolished the operating and financial review. Companies subsequently said that they would prefer to have it because they had spent all the money preparing for it. The Chancellor then said that we would have it back. A statutory instrument was passed to get rid of it but it remains in the Company Law Reform Bill. That is a mess. Businesses need certainty and consistency so that they can decide how to invest and know how they spend their money.