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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

To address the anomaly that was the previous differential in the duty. However, as I have said, there is a continuing advantage for cider producers in the system as amended. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) rightly welcomed the Budget's impact on manufacturing. I have also visited the Advanced Manufacturing Park, to which he referred, and I have seen the work of Boeing and others that are based there. I join him in paying tribute to the work that Professor Keith Ridgway has done and welcome the announcement of the investment at Sheffield Forgemasters, with the establishment of perhaps the biggest press in the world. He is right to say that we in the UK want to be at the forefront of the global nuclear supply chain. The right hon. and learned Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram) also gave a thoughtful valedictory speech, the theme of which was stewardship, and demanded that the deficit be cut more quickly than we have proposed. He was followed by two speakers with whom I have worked closely. My right hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (Mr. Hutton) welcomed the measures for business in the Budget, pointing out that the Conservative arithmetic does not add up, particularly following today's announcements about national insurance reductions. He did a superb job as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and as Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. I first met the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) when I was a local authority leader and he was the local government Minister, and I was struck by the tributes that were paid to his work on behalf of local government by two of my hon. Friends today: my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) and for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Clelland). Those tributes reflect the wide respect for the right hon. Gentleman's work as the local government Minister. It was characteristic that he spoke about local government today, as well as expressing a view on policy on Europe that was somewhat dissonant from that of some of his hon. Friends. My hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge drew attention to the dramatic regeneration that is under way in the north-east, including the announcement of the new electric car being built at Nissan and today's announcement by Siemens of a big investment in offshore wind manufacture in the UK. He was right to draw our attention to those achievements. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) called for the deficit to be eliminated faster, but it was striking that he did not answer the question put to him in an intervention by the hon. Member for Taunton about how that would square with today's announcement from the shadow Front Bench of an almost £6 billion reduction in national insurance income to the Exchequer. That would leave a gaping hole in the Conservative party's calculations. My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) supported the proposals for separating the different functions of the banks—as, to a degree, did the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon. My hon. Friend wanted to see greater ambition in the proposals for a green investment bank. I know he will welcome the imminent commencement of the feed-in tariff arrangements for renewable energy. I pay tribute to him for being one of the first in the House to have called for that change. His campaign was successful, and he was an early champion of those arrangements, which will take effect in the next couple of weeks. I echo the tributes that have been paid to him today. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr. Kennedy) made a number of points about his constituency. I particularly agree with what he said about the importance of investment in broadband. The Government's commitment is, first, to ensure that at least a basic level—2 megabits per second—of broadband service is universally available by 2012. I expect his constituency to be among the major beneficiaries of that investment, and we have identified some £200 million to support that commitment. Beyond that, we want to extend next-generation broadband services to every part of the UK. That is the reason for the 50p a month levy on phone lines, which I think he supports. He is right to do so, because that levy will generate £1 billion of investment between now and 2017, enabling us to ensure that at least 90 per cent. of UK households have access to next-generation services by that date. It struck me forcefully when I visited Scotland how strong the support for that programme was. There is widespread recognition of its importance to the rural businesses in Scotland—and, indeed, in England—that will benefit from its services, just as urban areas are already starting to do.