Amendment of the law

The hon. Gentleman is right about forecasting, but forecasting moves around. The forecasting in the press today, which was confirmed, was that we would have a fiscal deficit of £175 billion; yesterday's Daily Telegraph, however, forecast one of £200 billion—that is, £25 billion more. That was another forecast. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to cite the latest forecast of the ITEM Club—when it suits the newspapers, it is the "respected" ITEM Club; when the club does not please them, they do not refer to it. It is simply a forecasting club, which uses the Treasury model. It is Ernst and Young-based; I used to represent that institution, although I do not any more, so I declare that non-interest. In its spring forecast published today, the ITEM Club identifies""signs that the financial situation is stabilising and credit conditions and confidence are starting to improve, partly in response to the vast resources which government has thrown at the problems."" The ITEM Club has some merit, although that will not necessarily be reported tomorrow. Before I move on from the speech made by the right hon. Member for Fylde, I should say with the utmost sincerity that he made a fine point. I am the Second Church Estates Commissioner and have to look after the portfolios of the Church of England. The significance of corporate bonds and their returns is not lost on me, nor on the sophisticated investor. One can get a fine return. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned Tesco, and I can say—again, as a sad case—to him that Gazprom is paying 6 per cent. on its corporate bonds at the moment. Linking an ISA with that market is not a bad idea, and I hope that the Treasury will take it up. It is one of the most constructive ideas that I have heard from a speech on the Budget. I forgive you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I was sorry that you did not call me immediately after the speech of the right hon. Member for Wokingham. His speeches are a centrepiece of the Budget debates in the House, and his one today would have been excellent—if it had come from the Republican party in 1930. It would have been a fine example of Republican sentiment. He said that we should not have saved the banks; in the 1930s, the United States refused to save the banks and 12,000 of them went to the wall. We had six or seven years of recession, which became a depression. Truth be told, we got out of it only because of the second world war. The idea that we should not have saved the banks was excellent: every bank in the country would have failed. In his mild way, the right hon. Member for Fylde contradicted the right hon. Member for Wokingham, mentioning inter-banking. The inter-banking business in the banking sector is such that if one major bank, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland or Lloyds, had collapsed, every bank in the country would have gone. Let us make no bones about it—every depositor in the country would have lost their money and we would have had the most enormous crisis. The right hon. Member for Wokingham seemed to overlook that point—"Let the banks go, and let the markets take their toll." That was not an option for the Government.