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Finance (No. 2) Bill

I am grateful, Sir John, and sorry that I transgressed. I have tried to find out what the savings resulting from the measure will be, but the estimates are rather wide. When the Minister gives us the benefit of his information, will he tell us what sort of savings there will be? I have seen figures ranging from between £15 million and £400 million, so I do not know what the exact savings are likely to be. However, if the savings are anywhere between those figures, such tinkering seems to be unnecessary. The measure addresses a success, rather than a problem, and that success needs reinforcing, not restraining. The opportunities that are available to private companies will necessarily be reduced and investment will become less attractive. Overall, the measure is unnecessary, given the sort of savings that it will make. If a reduction is absolutely necessary, the methods that the Government are choosing represent using a sledgehammer to crack a not especially difficult nut. A more sensible approach might be to focus on certain sectors, rather than going across the board. If the Government want to define the scheme so that it is less expensive to the Treasury, I am sure that there would be ways in which they could focus on the sectors for which they want to produce more help. As the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Hoban) said, the proposals will probably lead to gravitation towards technology-based businesses with intangible assets, rather than businesses with tangible assets.