Finance Bill

No, it is responsible for invisibles; as the hon. Lady should know—[Interruption.] They are not exports but invisibles, which are a different category in economic terms. Although they go on the balance of payments, they do not go on the balance of trade, so I stand by what I said in response to the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark). He asked why manufacturing should have special support, and that is one reason I give him. He might not like it, but I stand by it: the majority of exports in terms of the balance of trade come from manufacturing. I shall come on to the hon. Gentleman’s first point about manufacturing. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks cited comments made by Mr. Whiting. He is quoted in the Treasury Committee report as saying words to the effect that most businesses prefer simpler and lower taxes—I hope that he will forgive me for not having the exact wording before me, although that was broadly what he said, and I believe that he used those two adjectives. I am sure that they do. I have no direct evidence for that, other than anecdotal evidence gained from talking to business people. The evidence is plain for all to see that in the United Kingdom for the past 100 years, until recently—even now the situation has not changed enough—as a generalisation, there has been huge underinvestment by businesses, be that in the service sector or in the manufacturing sector. I stress that that is a generalisation. It is one thing that has led to weak economic performance in the United Kingdom from the turn of the previous century for the following 90 or 100 years. Encouraging changes of behaviour that will lead to greater investment is a good thing. I share that desired aim of the Chancellor, as I suspect does the hon. Member for Sevenoaks.