Amendment of the Law

Debate between Christopher Pincher and Andrew Love

Thursday 22nd March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

I will certainly attempt to share the time, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Although it is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), I hope she does not mind me saying that the performance that I most enjoyed from her side of the House was that of the shadow Chancellor, whom Government Members think of with great affection. His performance reminded me of that of an ageing, end-of-the-pier show entertainer, rather like Archie Rice in the film “The Entertainer”, who was once a great character actor, but who, as he gets to the end of his career, has to reheat jokes to get more and more lame laughs. Members will remember that the last words of Archie Rice in “The Entertainer” were, “I’ve had enough.” That sums up our view of the shadow Chancellor.

I was at the Pickerings business breakfast in my constituency just a few days ago, where small and medium-sized enterprises, the engines of growth in my constituency, made three points to me: we need to deal with access to credit, we need to deal with the cost of business taxation, and we need to deal with the burden of bureaucracy that weighs them down. I will not go over the points that many hon. Members have made, but we have heard about the national loan guarantee scheme and Project Merlin, which is providing more money to businesses, allowing them to invest, create jobs and build growth. We have heard about the reduction in corporation tax from 26p to 24p, with a view to taking it to 22p and an aspiration to reduce it to 20p.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Christopher Pincher]

I will not, because I do not have much time.

The corporation tax reduction sends a message that this country and its businesses are open for business.