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Finance (No. 2) Bill

I agree. The Chancellor said little about the initiative in his Budget speech but, equally, he said little about the national health service. However, he evidently tried to hide what was being done. Our role in the House is to try to expose that, and then try to persuade the Government to change their mind. There was adverse reaction from employers who have promoted the scheme to their employees, as the Government encouraged them to do. Andrew Unsworth, the head of e-Government at the City of Edinburgh council, which is Labour-run—at least until Thursday—sent the following e-mail this morning. [Interruption.] That would be lucky for the Labour party. Mr. Unsworth said:"““City of Edinburgh Council has run two very popular schemes for our monthly staff since March 2005. Take-up rates were over 2000 employees, nearly 16 per cent. of those eligible.""We were preparing to launch another scheme making computers available to our weekly and fortnightly paid staff who are predominantly on lower rates of pay. These pay groups may not otherwise be in a financial position to afford computer equipment. We viewed this as an excellent way for employees to benefit from a computer and its educational properties for both them and their families.””" He continued:"““This scheme provided an excellent platform to improve literacy, communication skills and overall education for employees and their families. City of Edinburgh is currently introducing more computers to schools and several staff had indicated that they were participating in this scheme for the benefit of their children.""City of Edinburgh Council have followed the HCI guidelines very closely and only included computer packages in their scheme. I would hope that the government would consider reversing its decision in this matter even if it means tightening the guideline to prevent the alleged abuse of the scheme.””" Similarly, Mike Clayton, finance director of Essex fire authority, wrote to me on the 24 March:"““Take up for the scheme was excellent with over 1 in 5 employees joining. The level of take up was particularly high for firefighters where over 1 in 4 chose one of the computer packages available.””" Mr Clayton amplified his point:"““15,000 nurses took up the scheme last year. Many low paid nurses, fire officers and other key workers have access to IT for the first time because of HCI. Given the importance of computers in the lives of nearly all citizens, I hope that this proposal can be withdrawn and the take up of computers extended.””"