I will not give way to the rover from Dover, thank you very much. He is known as the Dover soul. [Laughter.] Obviously, that was the highlight of my speech.
Finally, I wish to comment on the rabbits that have been pulled out of the hat. Today, we were told, “Oh, there will be no VAT increases.” Is the Prime Minister going to commit himself to that in his five-year plan? A couple of days ago, we heard that another £46 billion was being spent on various railway connections in the north. There seems to be a desperate attempt to make things up on the hoof.
I do not necessarily disagree with this devolution of economic and service power to the north—to Manchester. We did that in Wales, but it was done on the back of an Act of Parliament and a referendum. In their haste to generate higher ratings at the polls, the Government are doing anything, including undermining the constitution and the economic balance and fragmenting the NHS in the process. Their recent track record, therefore, has not been impressive. The future looks bleak. I very much hope that we can focus on increasing growth. We should consider tuition fees, a cast iron promise to stay in the EU, which is so important for inward investment, and procurement. The reality is that when it comes to procurement we should look at favouring, if we can, small British companies that pay British tax—corporation tax and income tax—rather than giving the work to foreign companies that do not pay our tax and do not contribute towards growth.