Baroness Noakes (Con)

My Lords, first, I thank all my noble friends for taking part in this debate and supporting these amendments. They were put forward as a constructive way to deal with what could be some very damaging impacts caused by the Government’s legislation. I was confused by the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, saying that she is against the Bill, so she does not want to engage in ways of making things better. As His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, we believe that what we are here to do is try to make policies better, even though we disagree with virtually all the Bills the Government are putting forward at the moment. Our job is to engage constructively and, certainly, to try to avoid damaging aspects. My noble friend Lord Wolfson spoke about being able to pass on price increases of 1%; he has an amazing luxury, because not all retailers can do that. At the weekend, I got talking to a local businessman who owns a number of shops. Most of his workforce are part-time staff. He employs quite a lot of people in and around our villages, and in the neighbouring villages, where he has other shops. He said that he does not know what to do. He cannot increase prices because the goods he sells do not lend themselves to significant price increases. The only thing he can do is to reduce hours or numbers. These measures means that our local economies—things that are really important to people—will be damaged by less income for local families. They are having really significant impacts, whether at the large end of business or the very smallest end. I regret the Minister just saying again and again that he has to repair the finances and put more money into public services because he wants to protect working people. The one thing he is not doing with these changes is protecting working people. I sincerely hope that, between Committee and Report, the Government will think about whether they can find ways of making this Bill less damaging. We are not arguing that the Bill should not exist—we do not believe that that is our role, and we did not vote against it at Second Reading and certainly would not have done so—but there are many ways of softening its edges. I hope the Government will consider that between now and Report. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.