Rating and Valuation (S.I., 2009, No. 204)

I shall be brief, but I must express my incredible disappointment with Conservative Opposition's position. They are"““Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike””." They are going around the country encouraging port operators to resist these payments, yet when they need to show the courage of their convictions, they remain silent. Here is a chance to put a spanner in the works; they will not take it. I must express my disappointment with the Government's position, which is one of impotence as a system of government. They are impotent, they tell us, to stop the retrospective increase, however unjust and disastrous it will be. They are impotent to do what we should do, which is to call off this exercise and do the assessment in 2010. They are also impotent to get back the money paid to ABP. That money is, in fact, the rateable contributions of the port operators. That is impotence turned into a chorus of castrati. On the substantive point made by my right hon. Friend the Minister, who has been patient in listening to our arguments but inflexible in responding to them, it might well be a pistol to our own heads to vote to annul the regulations, but the Government have left us no alternative. I want to vote to annul them. I ask him what else we can do. It would force the businesses to pay now, which would be absolutely disastrous, but it would also force the Government to think again. If they are faced with businesses going bankrupt and rising unemployment in the ports, because of their inability to remove the retrospective charge, such action would force them to think again, and I hope that it would force them to take more sensible action than we have seen so far.