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Summer Recess Adjournment

Excellent! Mr. Deputy Speaker, thank you for giving me the chance to raise some important issues affecting my constituency and others. A review of the Forensic Science Service is taking place and I would be failing if I did not mention that. We are talking about 200 scientists, and the scientific base within the north-west, who are solving the most hideous crimes. There is a proposal to close the service within the north-west, meaning that we will be reliant on Birmingham or Yorkshire to sort out the problems. If we were talking about London—the No. 1 crime hotspot—we would not think of closing such a service. However, we are talking about closing a service in what is—because of the great cities of Liverpool and Manchester—the No. 2 crime hotspot. The proposal makes absolutely no sense. We have some of the leading forensic scientists. The university of Central Lancashire is second to none and has world-class status in forensic science degrees. We should be looking at the service being brought together between the university and the Forensic Science Service in the north-west. It should be the last facility that we should consider closing. It is a rather strange situation and I believe that common sense will prevail and that a review will show that it would be silly to close the facility. I have had an Adjournment debate on the subject and have made these points clearly. I met the Prime Minister to make sure that he was aware of the sensitivities of the matter and how crass that decision would be. We have quality people, solving crimes and working for many police forces, including Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Liverpool, Lancashire, Cumbria, North Wales and even Staffordshire. A huge service is being provided at Chorley and we cannot allow it to close, as that would be a further attack on our science base within the north-west. We have already seen the synchrotron go from Daresbury and we do not want to see any more closures or attacks on our scientific base. The other big issue facing the north-west is jobs and there is great concern about Jaguar Land Rover, which has announced over 300 redundancies at its plant at Liverpool. That is bad news. I want manufacturing to be put on the front foot and for it to receive more support from the Government. Manufacturing has had support but I would like to see even more. That could be done through the short time working subsidy. We have seen that operating in France, Germany and even Wales. I would have thought it was time for the Government to bite the bullet. I do not believe that we should be subsidising people through the jobcentre to be unemployed when, for the same amount of money, we can support them within their job. That is why the subsidy would make a real difference to people within manufacturing and would keep those companies ticking over. When we come out of the recession, we want to be best placed to ensure that the skills are there. We want to train people when they are in employment and make sure that they have a future. I cannot see a better way of doing that and we ought to back it up with a national jobs summit, at which we could bring together the employers, trade unions and bodies such as Federation of Small Businesses to make sure we deliver on the future of jobs. Following that, we could have regional jobs summits to bring people together. Manufacturing is the future of the country and should be its backbone. We should learn from previous Governments, and from this Government, who have wanted to believe in the service industry and the banking industry. We have learned a costly lesson that manufacturing is important and it ought to be No. 1 again. In my constituency, there is a good charity called Derian House that was about to lose £350,000 to Customs and Excise. I believe that there is good news today and that Derian House will get that money back from Customs and Excise. Common sense has prevailed. We won the moral argument and we have now won the argument completely. That is good news in which all constituents throughout the north-west can share. It is right that we are under attack at present. We had an Equitable Life statement earlier today, and a lot of my constituents are affected by that. We were disappointed in the question and the answers. What we want from the Government is action, not words, so that our constituents get the compensation they deserve. We must ensure that that is done sooner rather than later. I have touched on the Forensic Science Service in Chorley and the attack on jobs, but I also want to mention the tax office in Chorley. There is an award-winning tax office there, and another in Hyndburn. The office in Chorley is in a purpose-built building. It was never down for closure. In fact, it was held to be an example of the best way to run a tax office: the staff were second to none, and, as I have said, the office was award winning and purpose built. Although it was not down for closure, guess what happened? The tax office in Blackburn was down for closure and so was the one in St. Helens. Suddenly, however, although we were not down for closure because we had an award-winning office, there appears to have been some interference. The office in Blackburn is no longer going to close and neither is the one in St. Helens, but those in Hyndburn and Chorley are going to close. How can that be right? Has there been political interference? If there has, that is unacceptable. I hope that the Treasury is listening, and that it will reopen this tax office and let common sense prevail, because although it is down for closure, it is not closed yet. We could bring in other work. As we know, increasingly people are applying for tax credits. We want to be able to ensure that they get their credits right. Why do we not bring that work into Chorley, and into the office in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Pope) as well? We can deliver on these things, and it is important that we do so. Fuel duty is a big issue for constituents such as mine, who live in an urban-rural area. The constituency covers 80 square miles and it has many parishes. People are reliant on their cars. They also expect items to be delivered, because we live in a rural community. We are a farming area as well. We need the 2 per cent. escalator to be scrapped. All it will do is add to inflation and stop us coming out of recession early. I plead with the Government to listen to what we are saying about the fuel escalator. It must not go ahead in October. That would help to ensure that the recession ends sooner.