Lord Swire (Con)

I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests. I want to speak briefly in support of this series of amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Noakes and others. It is very important to listen to what somebody such as my noble friend Lord Wolfson, who is involved in the retail industry, has just said. I know, given my experience of dealing with the Treasury as a Minister, that it takes an absolutist position on most things. The Treasury does not like to cede any point at all; it regards that as some sort of weakness. I suspect that the Minister has been told that this is what the Treasury has decided and that he is not to resile from any of the arguments or rescind any of the inherent parts of the Bill. However, this proposal would not really change anything. We on this side of the House are not arguing against these increases. However, the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke in Davos about reinvigorating the economy and instilling confidence in it, at the same time as the Government are going to kick in the solar plexus a lot of those entering the market—people leaving university, for instance, and trying to get into the job market for the first time. They have an astonishing combination of challenges ahead of them, not least because of student loan repayments and the cost of housing. If these changes are instigated so quickly now, where are the companies’ savings going to come from? They can come only from freezing employment and shedding jobs, from passing on the costs to the consumer and from totally stopping their R&D budgets. All these things are not, I would argue, in the long-term interests of the British economy. By all means let these changes come, but let the market be prepared—the market being the employers, who can look at these changes and spend more time trying to accommodate them. Otherwise the Government are going to achieve what they think they are going to achieve on the one hand with an increase in income from these increases, but at the same time there must be a decrease because there will be fewer people in employment and more people needing some kind of financial support, which will have the precise inverse effect of what we are told the Government are seeking to achieve. I hope that the Minister will realise that we are not trying to attack the principle of what the Government are trying to do. We recognise the fact that the Government need to raise revenue from somewhere, but we are asking the Government to think more holistically about the knock-on effects on those very people who they maintain they are also trying to help.