Amendment of the law

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman, and the point he raises has been made to me too. The Government just do not realise what is actually going on between the banks and their business customers. Admittedly, the Government and the Treasury have had to focus on the mega-picture of the scandal of the Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and so on—I leave it to others of my right hon. and hon. Friends to comment on how successful the Government have been in dealing with those institutions—but they do not realise what the banks are doing to their ordinary customers. The threat is there, because the banks say, "If you do not agree to our new terms and conditions, you realise that your overdraft is up for renewal next year or in two years' time." In some cases, the threat is overt; in others, the banks are pulling the rug from under customers who have quite good liquidity and who are not a risk. The banks are deciding to recapitalise by pulling the money out of the very businesses that will regenerate this country. Although I have been highly critical of the Government in this speech, I beg the Treasury team to look at what the banks are doing to ordinary customers—to small and big businesses, which will give us the 3.25 per cent. growth. If the Government do not urgently introduce codes of practice or regulations to stop the banks, which have a monopoly and are all doing the same thing, albeit by using slightly different words, to all our constituents—to all their customers—and to control the way in which the banks are shafting our constituents and our businesses at the moment, we will be stuck in negative growth for far too long and there will be no prospect of 1 per cent. let alone 3.25 per cent. growth. There were some good little things from the Government today. I of course welcome the £30 million for homes for our heroes, but it is a pity that it was in this Budget. It was the one really good thing and I do not want it tarnished by some of the other dross in the Budget and the denial. If the £30 million is going to clean up some of the service housing and to give the wives and families better homes in which to live while our guys are in Afghanistan, I hope it comes through in the next few months and is not scheduled for April next year. These people desperately need that clean-up in their housing now and they need more than that. If the Government want to make such investments, the plasterboard factory in my constituency will make more plasterboard, the HGV drivers will do more driving and all the other businesses will do more and get this country moving again. I regret that the Budget was a denial Budget. The film "Carry On Regardless" was followed a few years later by "Carry On up the Khyber". This was a carry on regardless Budget, but it will be followed by carry on up the creek without a paddle in a year's time if we do not start cutting wasteful Government expenditure now.