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National Insurance Contributions Bill

I strongly support the amendments, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) moved so ably. As it stands, the Bill has crude, arbitrary and unfair discrimination built into it. The amendments would remove the unfairness and discrimination at a stroke and turn the measure into something that we could all happily accept. I have to declare an interest: my constituency is in one of the excluded areas. The proportion of public sector employment in Luton North puts it at the top end of the table—number 48 out of 650 constituencies. Some 41.2% of employment in my constituency is in the public sector, so it will suffer substantially as a result of the Government's cuts in public spending. If 450,000 jobs go nationally, we could be talking about 1,000 jobs in my constituency at the very least. Already it is suggested that 500 jobs might be going in Luton as a result of the cuts, and a higher proportion of those will be in Luton North because of the degree of public sector employment there. I therefore have a vested concern and a constituency interest. I am more concerned, however, about the overall principle, which will affect so many other people unfairly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn suggested that because of the likely decline—certain decline, I think—in economic activity and rising unemployment, take-up will be much lower, owing to the fact that far fewer businesses will be formed in an atmosphere of the economy entering recession, with jobs being lost in both the public and private sectors. If the economy were expanding, of course, we would expect many more small businesses to be created, and therefore a much higher take-up. The take-up will probably be well below anything that the Government anticipate, simply because the economy is going to enter—I believe—serious recession as a result of their policies. It is strange that the Government have chosen the British standard regions to discriminate in this way. They have actually played down regionalism—they are abolishing the regional development agencies—and are diminishing the regions as a basis for policy in other areas, but they are using the standard regions as a basis of policy in this area. That seems to be contradictory. If we are to provide assistance to industry and employment, it would be preferable to target it much better and in other ways. Given that the Bill will work in such a way, however, the only fair approach is to apply it across the country as a whole. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn said, the costs would not be so great of including the three regions excluded in the Bill and ensuring that every small business across the country has the advantage of the subsidy.