Pre-Budget Report

Yes, although I think the hon. Gentleman is making several different points. The short-term intervention in the form of the bank tax must not obscure the much bigger issue of how bank bonuses will be regulated in future in such a way that banks do not take excessive risks. That is the important long-term question. However, I would like to ask a final question about the bank tax. In view of what appears to be its rather greater success in raising revenue than some of us predicted, do the Government now intend the tax to be a permanent feature or, as was implied at the time, does it merely cover the period up to the end of March this financial year? My final point relates to a small detail in the PBR, but none the less an important one in the long term, which is the concept of an infrastructure bank. We must not constantly be sucked into negative thinking about cuts in the short run, overlooking the problem of how we create a more viable and balanced economy in the longer term. Several serious people—not just in the engineering industry, but in the insurance industry—have surfaced in the past few weeks to indicate that this area represents both a big challenge and a big opportunity. The chief executive of Legal and General, for example, has pointed out that he has hundreds of billions of pounds sitting in his institution in annuity funds, much of which is currently going into buying American corporate bonds. He has asked, "Why can't I put this money into British infrastructure?", to build railways, barrages or other forms of useful infrastructure on a commercial basis, albeit with some Government pump-priming. Although the Government's proposal is modest—there is a suggestion of a co-ordinating body in the Treasury—I wonder whether the Financial Secretary could set out in his conclusion to this debate how they envisage what seems to me a constructive and sensible idea evolving in future years. What scale of operation are we thinking about? What might the Government's role be financially? The insurance companies are not asking for guarantees; they are asking for Government equity in any funding. How can that be done on a sufficiently large scale to make a difference and help to create a more balanced economy?