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Finance (No. 3) Bill

My hon. Friend makes a good point. That small seedcorn funding made all the difference for small companies as they established themselves and grew. The problem we have in the north-east—I am not sure whether things are the same in my hon. Friend's region—is the lack of confidence in the regional economy for the reasons mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead. The uncertainty about what will happen in the next few months as the public sector job cuts work their way through the economy means that there is no appetite to invest in small businesses. A few weeks ago, I was talking to someone from a small building company who relied as part of his turnover on school building contracts with the local council, which had suddenly been stopped, so the money is not available and people will have to be laid off. We have not yet seen the effects of such decisions. If we add to that the fact that banks are not lending and are going to carry on in their own way, those involved with small businesses end up wondering why decent hard-working people like them who, in many cases, have built up businesses over many years are suddenly through no fault of their own having either to lay people off or to fold the businesses completely. These are family businesses which have been going for many years, andpeople see individuals getting bonuses that involve amounts of money of which they can only dream and which are equivalent to the turnover for their companies over two or three years, never mind one year.