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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

I draw the House's attention to my entry in the register. I warmly welcome the Budget and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor's broad judgment of the economy. I particularly commend him for sticking to the plans he had outlined earlier, so that—painful though it may be, and mindful, as we must be, of the difficulties—we can deal properly and speedily with the appalling state of the economy bequeathed to the Government by their thoroughly irresponsible predecessors. Measures are now firmly in place to repair the economy, to ameliorate the gross waste of public money, to pay down the deficit and to put in place the architecture for a growing and expanding enterprise economy, with all the opportunities for jobs, increased competitiveness, substantial improvement in the effectiveness of essential and greatly valued public services and support for wealth creation. Clearly major challenges and difficulties lie ahead, but the Chancellor has set out a clear vision for growth, with the aim of creating in the United Kingdom the world-class businesses of the future, of all sizes and in all activities, and consolidating a way ahead for all our industries and commerce. I was taken today with a letter in the press from some of Britain's most successful business men that said that the steps taken"““will be a massive boost for start-ups, and will help entrepreneurs to secure finance to get their ideas off the ground.””" That is just so. It is exactly what is required. Of course, I welcome the announcement on apprenticeships, but as I have made consistently clear to Ministers on many occasions, all the good will in the world cannot replace the over-bureaucratic burden currently in place that often makes it difficult to take on apprentices. If these targets are to be achieved, the process must be made a great deal easier. These are matters with which the Department concerned must deal with great vigour. The opportunities to expand the skills of our young work force are real and vital, and I hear from businesses on all sides their desire to get on with this matter in a speedier manner. To this end, I strongly urge my right hon. Friend to pay careful attention to the views of Professor Alison Wolf, who has developed some very good ideas on these matters, and the excellent work done by my right hon. Friend Lord Baker of Dorking. I welcome the steps taken on deregulation, and I was pleased to see that the Government's earlier work has been built on in the Budget in a number of areas. However, those steps are nowhere near good enough yet, and progress across Whitehall is extremely patchy. For my part, I believe that greater authority and impetus should be given to the war on unnecessary, debilitating and grinding red tape, which holds back so many of our businesses and infuriates so many of our best people, who have great ambitions that they cannot fulfil because of the burden that the state places on enterprise.