Amendment of the law

I thank the Minister for referring to that project. I specifically wanted to draw attention to it, because it will create a lot of jobs in potential unemployment black spots, including the former mining industry areas in South Yorkshire. I would have liked the Budget to deal with another issue—cold weather payments—drawn to my attention by a local constituent, Mr. Stuart Warrior of Thurnscoe. The issue particularly affects former miners in my area who no longer have concessionary fuel and have only a small pit pension to supplement their state pension. They argue that while current cold weather payments are applicable only to pensioners in receipt of tax credits, former miners with a small work pension get cold just as quickly as the others do, so I believe that we should have given further consideration to that matter. I have major problems with one proposal in the Budget—the 2p increase in alcohol duty—which I would like to draw to Ministers' attention. It is not because I am a drunkard or anything like that, but we all get correspondence from constituents involved in the "Axe the Beer Tax" campaign, pointing out that many pubs and clubs are closing down because of losses resulting from the competition from supermarket chains selling drink. I am very concerned about that, and in my constituency I am just as concerned about clubs closing as I am about pubs closing. In my home village of Grimethorpe, for example, we have lost the miners welfare club; it provided extensive sports fields and other sports provision for the local community, but it closed just before Christmas. Changing social patterns are also relevant, with people entertaining a lot more at home. I fully support consumer choice in that respect, but I think pubs and clubs provide a great deal of social cohesion, particularly in working-class communities. I would have supported an increase in alcohol taxation for supermarkets, if only we could have differentiated between those and licensed premises, and kept the tax off the licensed premises. I understand that this is a complicated issue, but I believe that in the circumstances, it would have been better to leave the 2p increase for another time. I shall shortly draw my remarks to a close. Some Members have elaborated on their contributions, but I want to ensure that every Member who wants to speak in the debate can do so. I would, however, like to reiterate my main point, which some Conservative Members seem to ignore—that the Government's current problems are not of their own making. They have been made by the global crisis created primarily by the sub-prime lending market in America, which has gradually snowballed and spread throughout the world. It has been recognised on all sides that there has been irresponsible lending by the banking sector. We must regulate not just in our own country but across the globe, so that confidence and trust in the banking sector can be rebuilt. I recently spoke to a senior executive banking official in Yorkshire about how the banks could rebuild trust and confidence among their customers. In a sense, that is what the current crisis is all about: the banking customer has lost trust and confidence in the banking sector. I certainly agree with the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean), who is no longer in his place, that some banks are actually milking their consumer and customer base, attempting to get more fees out of it than can fairly be tolerated, given current banking rates. I believe that it will take the banks a long time to rebuild customer trust. The successful banks of the future will be those that manage to achieve that in the shortest time. The banks are presently competing to try to regain trust from their customer base so that they can be successful again. I congratulate the Chancellor on producing this Budget at this very difficult time. I hope it will succeed, because it is so important not just to this country, but to the rest of the world.