Amendment of the law

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman's point. I was talking about investors who had savings—deposits—in banks. If you are a shareholder, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you pays your money and you see the show. Twice in my life I have sat in a hotel room looking at The New York Times and discovering that my shares had lost half their value—not once but twice. I know all about it. I put my money on the stock exchange and lost it, and I then decided to wash my hands of the whole thing and never invest again. I am therefore sympathetic to those who lose their money on the stock exchange, but I do not put them in the same category as those who have investments—money deposits—in the banks, and those have been saved. The right hon. Member for Wokingham—I apologise for continuing to refer to his speech, but it was so excellent that I cannot really not do so—talked about boom and bust. He had huge criticisms of off-balance sheet financing and the private finance initiatives that we launched as a Government in 1997. I am proud of the fact that the very first public-private initiative that we launched was to build James Cook university hospital in Middlesbrough, which is now the finest regional hospital in the area. When I first became an MP, people had to go to Newcastle for a heart operation; now, they come from Newcastle to us. The Duke of York came to open it, and I was very proud to be there. That was an example of the off-balance sheet financing and public-private initiatives which we as a nation can afford and which render a significant service to our economy. The right hon. Gentleman talked about the retail prices index, and said that we moved from one form of evaluating inflation to another. In fact, the Chancellor referred both to the retail prices index and to the fact that the inflation rate under that indicator was 3 per cent., so it is not overlooked at all. The right hon. Gentleman made no mention of the global recession: we were an island surrounded by fishes, to be sure, although the fishermen are complaining about the fisheries policy. In fact, we are not an island—no man is an island unto himself—but part of the global economy. He did not mention the 20 million people in south China who have lost their jobs or the 500,000 people a month losing their jobs in the United States. People refer to our unemployment rate rising to 2.1 million, but in 1983 I fought a general election, which the Conservatives won, with unemployment at 3 million. Unemployment was never a political issue. Even in the '30s, when we had the Jarrow march, the Conservatives still won the election of 1935.