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Employment, Universities and Skills and Housing

My hon. Friend makes an apt point—that is exactly what I am talking about. We need input from people in different ways. The case for Nissan is different from the case for Honda or for Toyota. Right around the area, however, feeder factories may not be able to survive, unlike Nissan which, together with other big companies, can batten down the hatches. Companies that serve them, however, might not be able to do that. Part of our duty is to be the voice of people in Parliament, wherever we come from. If we believe that Ministers and the Chancellor are not doing their job or giving those people what they need, it is our job to come here, and bang on their doors and make sure that they know what we are saying. To give a classic example, last week, a local business man asked me to go and see him. He is a successful man who wants to be even more successful. He has the opportunity to develop to service stations up and down the motorway system. About nine months ago, he had the chance of a 100 per cent. loan from his bank. He is putting things in place, but it has now told him that it is giving him only 70 per cent., despite the fact that the businesses and the property that he owns would more than compensate if the business went belly-up, as the bank could claw all that back. At the same time, the bank told him that his overdraft charge would go from 13 per cent. to 17 per cent. That is a case that I shall certainly take up, on his behalf and on behalf of others like him. We must say to our Government, ““You must put that right.”” Finally, I turn to the subject of housing. I am glad that the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright) is on the Front Bench. The hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather) spoke about social housing and a number of hon. Members who were present agreed in principle with what she said, although we may have party political differences on the matter. There is a need for social housing, but there is also a great opportunity to do what our parents and grandparents did in the 1950s by regenerating areas and building quality social housing, not rubbish like the housing that was built in the 1960s. We must build social housing that people want to live in and make homes in. We should be clear that that housing is there for ever for people who cannot afford to buy their houses. If people want to buy their houses, they should buy on the open market. Let us build social housing and use the rents over the next 50 or 100 years, whatever it takes, to pay back the money put into them. It is a long-term investment that will provide work—