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AMENDMENT OF THE LAW

I can see them thinking hard. Over the past 10 years or so, our policies have shifted the United Kingdom’s economy to a different paradigm. It has more capacity than it used to have. As a relatively new Member, I can see the effects on my constituents. Employment levels are high—higher than they have been for a long time. I look at newspaper cuttings and I talk to my predecessor Peter Pike, who served Burnley well for many years. He says that people no longer turn up looking for work as they used to do. When the structure of the economy changes and factories close, people do not tend to be out of work for long now because there are other opportunities—although I am proud to say that much of our manufacturing sector is doing extremely well. In the past six months I have visited 10 or 15 high-tech manufacturing companies, the vast majority of which are taking people on. I am sure that businesses in my constituency will welcome the fall in corporation tax, and people who have been employed in firms that have gone bust will certainly welcome the extension of the financial assistance scheme. As a result of the improved national economic situation, my constituents are benefiting not only from higher employment levels, but from direct transfers from the centre. That is right and proper, because ours is one of the poorest parts of the country.