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National Insurance Contributions Bill

This is a Treasury-led issue, but it will self-evidently have an impact on businesses. I would have expected the right hon. Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable) to use his Business Secretary responsibilities to bat very hard to ensure that the measure has an impact on London, the south-east and the east. Amendments that we will talk to later focus on those areas and show key issues that will be highlighted by the annual report, even if the Bill does not include London, the south-east and east region. If I look randomly at the figures before me, I can see that the unemployment rate in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) is 6.8%, compared with the 1.6% unemployment rate in the North Somerset constituency of the Secretary of State for Defence. His constituency will get the benefit of the scheme; my hon. Friend's will not. The annual report to Parliament will show whether businesses are being drawn to North Somerset at the expense of, for example, the micro-region of Somerset—Bristol and other areas—where there might be even higher levels of unemployment.