---

Finance (No. 3) Bill

I entirely accept your guidance, Mr Hoyle. There is obviously a supply chain for the oil and gas sector. Equally obviously, if we damage the financial viability of the oil and gas companies, there will be an impact further down the supply chain. It is worrying that the industry is predicting that 40,000 jobs will be lost. Those are 40,000 jobs that we can ill afford to lose at this time. This is absolutely typical of the measures being taken by the Government that, across the board, are not being thought through. This is another example of that. The statement by Statoil that it is going to put on hold a $10 billion investment is very worrying. We also need to pay attention to the fact that the North sea province is different. It is not only a mature province—we all understand what that means—but it is in a very competitive arena. The Government do not appear to understand what being in a competitive arena means, or that those companies have a choice about where they invest.