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National Insurance Contributions Bill

My right hon. Friend makes an important point supporting my central argument. I am trying to argue on the Minister's own grounds. He argues that the scheme aims to help where there is loss of public sector employment. If 23 of the 100 constituencies with the highest levels of public sector employment do not benefit, the Minister's scheme is not meeting the needs that he has set it to meet. Let us look at public sector employment in the London Thames Gateway region. Some 21% of people employed in Barking and Dagenham work in the public sector. The figure is as high as 31% in Greenwich, 30% in Lewisham, 33.6% in the borough of Newham, 28.4% in Redbridge, and 26.6% in Waltham Forest, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Dr Creasy). The Thames Gateway London partnership has helpfully provided me with information on the subject. Even boroughs represented by two Conservative Members of Parliament, such as Southend-on-Sea, will not benefit from the scheme, although it has 24.66% of people employed in the public sector. Let us look at authorities in Kent, represented not by Labour Members of Parliament, but by Conservatives. In Medway, nearly 24% of people are employed in the public sector. In Gravesham, it is 22.2%, and in Swale it is 19.7%. Those are areas with high public sector employment that will not benefit from the scheme. If we look at business births, as we have in earlier discussions, we find that figures for the east and for the south-east are lower than the national average. The most recent figures of 9.9% in the east and 9.7% in the south-east reflect a lower number of business births than the north-east, the north-west, Yorkshire and Humberside, which will benefit from the scheme. So, the issue is about how we cut the cake accordingly to meet the needs of those areas, and I cannot see why the Minister wishes to do it his way. Self-evidently, the scheme needs to be paid for and there is a cost to all its aspects to date. The Minister says that the scheme as a whole, over its three-year gestation, will lose the Treasury about £940 million in revenue, and he expects about 400,000 new businesses to commence. After six months of the scheme, 1,500 businesses have taken it up, and under the Bill there are two years and nine months left until its end date. The Minister has the scope to extend the scheme to the three regions and to ensure that we retain the 400,000 potential businesses and the £940 million loss of income, but the take-up to date and the take-up in the near future mean that he can monitor the situation and look at including areas of high deprivation. The figures show that that is required. In a parliamentary answer last year, the Minister gave me figures of about £250 million for the cost in London, £250 million in the south-east and £160 million in the east, a total of some £660 million. As of today, not one penny of that money has been allocated or spent, because the scheme is not applicable to those regions. By the time the Bill receives Royal Assent, the scheme as currently constituted may have been operational for almost a year and have two years left, but the cost of it will not have reached that level. I shall therefore certainly keep a close eye on take-up, which I do not believe will meet the 400,000 target that the Minister has set for the regions outside London, the south-east and the east. He could extend the scheme to those regions, and if he believes there to be too great a cost or subscription, he could terminate it early. He could also agree to extend the scheme with the appropriate resources. There are many ways in which he could look at the issue, and earlier amendments were designed to give him the flexibility to do so, but my main contention is that there happen to be public sector workers, deprived communities and people with long-term social and unemployment problems in areas that are traditionally seen to be well-off, such as London and the south-east. If the scheme, which the Minister designed, excludes in those areas not only the constituencies of my right hon. and hon. Friends, but the majority of constituencies, represented by Government Members, its purpose will be decried. I say to the Minister once again that we support the scheme. It is a small but positive benefit that compensates for massive public spending cuts, which we would not have made on that scale. If he maintains the scheme in its current format, however, he will end up creating jobs in areas of the north where there is wealth and prosperity, as well as areas of the north where there is not, and ensure that areas of great deprivation in the south and, particularly, in London cannot access it. I commend the amendment to the House. I hope that the Minister has reflected over Christmas and new year on the arguments that we made in Committee, reflects on those that we have made today and either responds positively to them or at least explains why my right hon. and hon. Friends and their constituents should lose out on the scheme.