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(Clauses 1, 4, 8, 189 and 209, Schedules 1, 23 and 33, and new Clauses and new Schedules relating to value added tax)

I always try to be generous. In fact, I thought that we were agreeing across the House that the argument about increasing life expectancy cannot be made in such a broad-brush way, but perhaps the situation was not as happy as I had thought it was. I would like Treasury Ministers to stop and think about the cumulative impact of their policies on particular localities. In this place, and in politics generally, we often tend to focus on one particular change or alteration, but people who live in the Wirral and other parts of the country are worried about their economic future and that of their towns and of our country, so the focus on one aspect in isolation can sometimes be unhelpful. If a place has any level of worklessness and its local authority has had its area-based grant removed and is facing severe cuts, there will be a knock-on impact on its ability to provide social care. If a place such as the Wirral had previously seen leadership, investment and resources expended by a regional development agency, it will have lost the body that was driving forward its economy. The Wirral has a high proportion of older people, but some parts of the country, such as parts of London, have high levels of worklessness and a high proportion of younger people who have lost out as a result of the removal of the education maintenance allowance and other changes. That means that particular localities are having money taken out of their economies from different directions as a result of Government policy. We cannot shy away from looking at the impact that that has on the possibility of developing those areas. When any company seeking to invest looks at whether it should put money into the Wirral or any other area, it will first do the postcode analysis of the resources that local people have, so it makes it harder and harder to get investment when the Government, by different means over time, seem to be taking money out of particular localities.