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National Insurance Contributions Bill

I reassure the hon. Lady that when I was in the Treasury, I put an enormous amount of effort into supporting exactly this kind of initiative. I supported the Thames Gateway initiative specifically, as well as other regeneration initiatives. The Government are now saying that they will not give grant funding, but instead will provide incentives. This is our one opportunity to boost the incentives for establishing the kind of business that the Prime Minister wants in east London, and it will be forgone unless the amendment is agreed by the House this afternoon. I do not know exactly how things work in the Conservative party. Who speaks to whom, and who is on whose side is all closed to me. It may be that the Exchequer Secretary feels that he does not need to take much notice of what the Prime Minister says. Perhaps he speaks to other people in his party. Let me therefore point out that it is not just the Prime Minister who wants the initiative to go forward. I point him to what the Mayor of London said—perhaps he takes more notice of him that the Prime Minister, I do not know. The Mayor said:"““we can and must do more to cement our position as a global magnet””." He went on:"““the Olympic and Paralympic Games will bequeath to London a vibrant new business quarter in the east of our city. We must do everything we can to support its development””." This afternoon, we have the opportunity to do something to support the Mayor of London's call to develop the vision set out by the Prime Minister. We must not let this opportunity pass us by. Perhaps the Exchequer Secretary does not take much notice of what the Mayor of London says, either—again, I do not know about that. If that is the case, let me point out to him the position of the Department for Communities and Local Government. Its website states:"““The Government is committed to making a success of the Thames Gateway…we will promote incentives to invest and develop in the area, instead of grant funding specific projects.””" That returns me to the point that I made a moment ago in response to the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin). We understand that the Government are not now willing to contribute grant funding. We disagree with them about that, but are told that there will instead be incentives to invest and develop. Here we have an opportunity to provide just such an incentive. As far as I am aware, the Government have not come forward with any other incentive, and we can provide one along the lines of the policy that the DCLG has set out. We should take that opportunity, and I hope that the Exchequer Secretary will do so this afternoon by accepting the amendment, so that we can provide an incentive in an area that has been so specifically identified by the Prime Minister, the Mayor of London and the DCLG. The DCLG website also states that the Government will"““work with other departments to identify how their programmes bear on the Thames Gateway and need to be adapted””." The initiative in the Bill clearly needs to be adapted to fulfil the Government's policy for the Thames Gateway. I hope that the Minister will tell us what representations he has received from the DCLG, because it is an extraordinarily disjointed approach for one Department to say that it will introduce incentives and initiatives in one area and for the Treasury to take not a blind bit of notice and send all the incentives somewhere completely different. The previous Government used to talk about ““joined-up government””, and indeed we made important progress towards achieving it, so that all the different parts of Government were pushing in the same direction towards the same goal. Here we have a case in which the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Mayor of London are on one side, and the Exchequer Secretary and his colleagues are on the other. I invite him to support what his right hon. and hon. Friends are saying, and not to stand aloof from the policies of the Government of whom he is a member. The Treasury should not be an island, cut off from everybody else and doing its own thing without talking to others or supporting what they are doing, but that seems to be the position with this Bill. I invite the Exchequer Secretary to accept the amendment and agree that the incentive should be applied in places in which the Prime Minister has so clearly identified its importance.