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Finance Bill

If they are loss-making, they are not going to benefit from a reduction in corporation tax. That is the whole point. They are losing money in part because of under-investment but mainly because of the world situation. The right hon. Gentleman has, surprisingly, made precisely my point for me. In the short term, those companies will not benefit from any reduction in corporation tax, so we should be trying to get them what they need by securing money for them from the various schemes that have been announced. Of course, I am the first to acknowledge, in front of the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, that we have been slow to get those schemes off the ground. The Conservative party offers no help, however, by suggesting that we have £50 billion in our pockets and that it be should doled out to anybody who wants it. That is not serious. I put it to the hon. Member for Fareham that what he proposes is wrong. I accept that getting the headline rate down is important, and the first thing we did in government, if the hon. Gentleman remembers, was to introduce a whole range of tax changes, including moving to a new system of corporation tax and other measures. Of course, we reduced the headline rate of corporation tax—it was the first thing we did in our first Budget. I do not underestimate the importance of that, but it is important that we send the right signal and timing is so important. It is no good sending a signal at the wrong time. No one is coming here to invest at the moment. However well we are doing in other respects, the important thing is to get money to the worst-hit sector at the moment, which is manufacturing. I highlight the manufacturing sector, because, despite the dire forecasts of the City of London—the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) knows far more about that than I will ever know; indeed, he has probably forgotten far more than I will ever know, and probably to his own benefit—comparatively speaking, the City has not been so badly hit. Not yet, at any rate, so the losses are occurring where they always occur—in my own area, that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) and that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform—[Interruption.] Yes, in the area of my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), too. In sum, now is the wrong time and this is the wrong target. The Conservatives should reconsider and put off their proposal. In fact, I know that their proposal to reduce capital gains is not remotely serious—it is a talking-point, and quite a good one in a way. However, I believe, Sir Alan, that now is not the time and what is offered is directed at the wrong target. The amendment should not be pressed and we should not accept it.