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Finance Bill

Of course my right hon. Friend is correct. Many of the greatest business supporters of the current Government were the proponents of such exercises. The hon. Member for Coventry, North-West—I repeat that I hold him in great esteem—said that the argument was about timing. That was the essence of why he did not want to support a cut to 25 per cent. at this moment. I would argue that it is precisely because of the timing that we need to make the change. I was one of those people who saw, from '79 onwards, a great rebirth of entrepreneurial spirit in this nation. I saw what that did for people like me, who wanted to go out and be their own boss, to build and create, and to drive forward the jobs that were so successfully created in the next years. At the time, one of the major motivations for me, and for many other people like me, was the fact that the Government wanted to get off the back of business, free business up, and encourage business to build. Therein lies the import of the cut to 25 per cent. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, I want further cuts as time progresses, but timing is vital if we are to grab the green shoots that will surely appear. That is why it is important that we make the change now, and that we tell people we want to support business and entrepreneurism. We want to grow jobs and businesses and we want to attract businesses so that my children and grandchildren do not see that movement to the east as the end of their hopes and aspirations.