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The Budget

I cannot say that the hon. Gentleman is talking so enthusiastically about enterprise zones that it will inspire private sector confidence. If anyone is going to damn some sort of success, I think the hon. Gentleman has sought to do that. Again, he returns to the future jobs fund and focuses purely on the amount of money that was going in, not what was coming out. He forgets that, given the debt that this Administration inherited, that fund and other programmes that wanted to spend money hand over fist were simply neither possible nor credible. I question how long the fund would have lasted even if the Government had not changed at the last election. I should like to focus on jobs in Wales and the programmes that were pursued by the Welsh Assembly Government. In spite of private sector jobs being created throughout the United Kingdom, the situation in Wales is different. In Wales, we focused on inputs and on how much money was being spent to create jobs. Consequently, the scale of public sector job creation was much greater than that of the private sector. Some analysis shows that in west Wales and the valleys in particular, where all the European aid money was being spent, all the net new jobs created in the economy were in the public sector. Surely we all realise, no matter how big or small we like the public sector to be, or what ideals all sides and colours in the House hold, that that is not a sustainable position. The only way to generate wealth and prosperity is through the private sector. Money spent in the public sector does not have the same gearing in creating wealth as money spent in the private sector. Not only did the previous Administration leave office with higher unemployment, but they did so with many fewer private sector jobs and with public sector jobs at such an unsustainable level that some difficult decisions must be taken now. This is a Budget for growth. It provides a significant shift from the attitude of asking how much money we are spending to a line of policy that asks what we can do to free the private sector to correct our errors on generating wealth and prosperity. That is what the enterprise zones focus on, and that is what we will do to release the enterprise and freedom of the private sector. I hope that there will be an opportunity to expand the role of enterprise zones and the concessions and benefits that they will bring. They are an effective means and mechanism to gain investment in parts of the country that do not normally attract it. I have already highlighted Barry in my constituency. Similarly, I can talk about the western parts of the Vale of Glamorgan—Llandow, for example—that have some small manufacturing units and have to compete with counties within spitting distance—some 10 miles or so away—where people who want set up in those areas can draw on grants and assistance that they cannot get in my constituency. That is not right, so I hope that the Welsh Assembly Government will heed my call and, I think, that of the hon. Member for Pontypridd, who seemed earlier to support an enterprise zone in Barry. He does not necessarily think that it will be particularly successful, but I am prepared to give it a great try in my constituency in the largest town in Wales.