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The Economy

We would therefore simply have to extend the scope a little. Such a law would not be made against one person; it would be made against a class of people who fit certain criteria, even if only one person happened to fall into that class. That is a moot point, and we would have to fight our way through. However, I am sure that it is better that we are seen to be doing something rather than absolutely nothing and letting Sir Fred Goodwin walk away with several millions of pounds of his pension in what I suppose is a capital commutation, or whatever it is. Let me speak frankly to the Government about the delay in bringing forward the various schemes. All of us who have been in government or seen Governments working—most of us have in one way or another—know that getting decisions out of Governments is very difficult. On such big issues, which are cross-departmental and on which the Treasury has the ultimate responsibility, it is particularly difficult. The issues for the working capital guarantee would be the same as those for the national loan scheme, whatever happens, although I think that ours is much better, because it is targeted and timely. Whichever way we look at the VAT cut, it was timely and targeted, and it could be made straight away. That was the great thing about it. Whichever way we look at it, that is £12 billion going into the economy. VAT applies to 70 per cent. of prices and we calculated that the cut is worth £275 a year to families. I do not have a problem with the money going into independent companies and private sector profits, because a profitable private sector is what we need. We might come out of this recession with a private sector devastated and the public sector relatively healthy, and that cannot be good. Even if the money goes into profits, it has to go somewhere. If the consumer is not picking it up, it has to go into companies. If that is the case, fine—it will help the private sector. Let me return to the dyspepsia that seems to be affecting a couple of the big programmes—my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary knows which ones they are. I would guess—I speak now without any knowledge of the situation—that the problem is the security that the Treasury is looking for. In a recession—this is going to be a deep one and some forecasts point to another 1 million unemployed still to come—the Government cannot get the sort of security that they can reasonably expect in a normal trading environment. In a normal trading situation, the Government will get good assets and take full charge of all the assets that they can get hold of. In the present situation, however, we might have to relax the strict criteria that the Government normally apply, in relation not only to the working capital guarantee—it is crucial that we get that out there and working quickly—and to the automotive programme. At the moment, that programme is drawn up in a very restrictive way, in that the capital investment needs to involve new, green technology in order to qualify. If we apply that criterion too strictly, however, it will probably impede access to the programme. Perhaps we need to take a more generic view. I congratulate the Government on the £27 million capital gift to Jaguar, which proves this point. Almost anything that any of the major car companies is doing today is favourable to the environment, whether it involves cutting down on emissions or weight, or decreasing petrol consumption. Everything that car manufacturers do now is directed towards being eco-friendly. I therefore have two points for the Government. On security, they need to get what they can get, but we must get the programme going, and they should take a fairly broad view of what constitutes an eco-friendly investment. Lastly, will they please not wait for full order books, but get the schemes going now? They are there, and the criteria have been set; we could get them going now, even if only on a modest scale to start with.