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Finance (No. 2) Bill

I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the trade union movement, from the general secretary of the TUC downwards, are opposed to the abolition of the scheme, not least because at a local level many trade union officials have put a lot of work into persuading employers to adopt it. The hon. Gentleman must understand, irrespective of the learning fund, that the scheme is one that the trade union movement wants the Government to retain. I have a few quotes to drum that point home in case the hon. Gentleman did not get it the first time around. Scrapping a scheme that was already working for those in employment will not solve the Government’s problem in respect of others. According to the HCI Alliance, 60 per cent. of the scheme’s participants are in blue-collar industries and 75 per cent. of them pay the standard rate of tax, or lower. Moreover, as Intel, the computer supplier, argued in a recent letter to me:"““As this scheme is run through the employer even the most financially excluded are able to join. The fact that blue collar workers in the future will be denied such an incentive is genuine cause for concern. This has the potential to create inequity within low paid, hard working families and workforces. 21,000 Tesco workers recently adopted this scheme, many would not have a computer today if this had not been offered to them.””" Similarly, Brendan Barber—I hope that the hon. Gentleman is listening—general secretary of the TUC, who has also personally endorsed the scheme that we are trying to save, wrote to the Chancellor requesting a rethink and issued the following statement on 3 April, stressing the value of the scheme, in particular, to the low paid. He said:"““The Home Computing Initiative has helped thousands of low paid workers without confident IT skills buy their first ever computer. Unions up and down the country have been promoting the scheme, often linked to training schemes. The sudden closure of the scheme would mean that many hours of voluntary union effort would go to waste.””" Any politician—Tory, Labour, Liberal Democrat or otherwise—will understand the clear intent that lies behind that statement.