Ian Swales

It was one of Labour's great achievements and one I totally support, but I do not support a tax level of £700 a year on the minimum wage, which was in place when the previous Government left office.

What do all these failures in Labour's vision have in common? Apart from the takeover test, they are all being tackled by the Government. Of course we are doing a lot more than that to stimulate jobs and growth. We are dealing with Labour's shocking education legacy, as a result of which employers, even in high unemployment areas such as mine, say they cannot find the people they need. We are starting from the bottom. The pupil premium is proving such a help to children in deprived areas. We are encouraging science study in school-it is

already up 80%. The National Citizen Service is giving young people confidence in those all-important softer skills. We have made huge investments in apprenticeships, the number of which has more than doubled in my constituency.

We are dealing with Labour's neglect of manufacturing. We have heard the good news today about Vauxhall and the Business Secretary's involvement in it. He has also intervened recently in the bioethanol industry, and we will shortly see the restart of a plant in my constituency on which 2,000 jobs depend. We are also pushing green technology. I can look out my office window in Redcar and see 27 giant offshore wind turbines being constructed. Construction is about to start on a £500 million biomass power station at Teesport. The other day I met representatives of the Forewind company, which is starting a massive project on the Dogger bank and wishes to bring power ashore through my constituency. I thoroughly welcome the announcement in the Queen's Speech of the green investment bank, which will bring more jobs and growth to this vital sector.

The Government are investing in technology and innovation centres, including a centre for process innovation in my constituency. They are investing to improve rail freight infrastructure from Teesport and have created enterprise zones, including three in my constituency at Wilton, Kirkleatham and South Bank. The regional growth fund has already given more help to manufacturing in the Tees valley than we ever saw under the north-east's regional development agency, and I welcome the extra £1 billion that has been allocated. The work is being co-ordinated by the excellent new local enterprise partnership for the Tees valley.

The Government are beating the bushes to generate international trade, and we are beginning to see the fruits of that activity. Exports to non-EU countries are at record levels, and we now have the first net trade surplus on cars since 1976. The north-east region is already in trade surplus, and the figures will soon include the £20 million-worth of steel a week that is being exported to Thailand from the newly reopened Redcar steel works. The first ship left yesterday.

Private sector jobs are being created-there have been about 500,000 since the general election-but unemployment is still way too high, especially in the north- east and especially among the young and the long-term unemployed. My constituency still has the second highest unemployment level among those of Government Members, and that remains a high priority for me. I was therefore delighted to see a drop of another 85 in the figures yesterday.

As we watch the Olympics, the carbon fibre bikes, the Kevlar canoes, the space-age swimsuits, the polyurethane footballs and the Paralympian equipment will be a reminder of the vital role that chemistry and the process industries play, and will play in the recovery. There is optimism in the north-east's process industries, and the position could be made even stronger by a Teesside carbon capture and storage network. I look forward to the result of the call for bids for that project. Large UK companies are ready to invest billions in it.

Times are tough for the economy as a whole, not least because of the debt burden. The eurozone is in chaos and there is still a lot more to do, but this Queen's Speech contains more steps in the right direction and I commend it to the House.

The key to jobs and growth is wealth creation. We create wealth by digging it up, growing it or making things. Everything else is just moving it around. That is why I welcome the Government's focus on real wealth creation, especially manufacturing.

Labour has been highly critical of almost everything done by the Government, but it is hard to discern what its programme or vision would be. I suppose we can tell

a lot about its vision from what it did when it had its hands on the levers for 13 years. It had 13 long years in which to create the society it wanted, so what did it look like in the end? It loosened bank regulation, and further to help its friends in the City it scrapped the public interest test on takeovers in 2002, meaning that many of our cash-generative businesses are now foreign owned, especially in utilities and infrastructure.

Labour decimated manufacturing, taking it from 22% to 11% of the economy, which had knock-on effects for many other sectors, such as logistics. It left Hartlepool, Middlesbrough and Redcar and Cleveland in the weakest 10 of the 324 local economic areas. It widened the gap between the north and the south and the rich and the poor, and widened health inequalities. It created a benefits culture in which work did not pay for many people and having children became almost a career option in towns such as Redcar.

What about the tax system? Today, we again heard from the Opposition the mantra, "Tax cuts for millionaires". I do not think that friends or even enemies of the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood) would describe him as left-wing, yet in his alternative Queen's Speech the other day he called for a return to the former Prime Minister's favoured tax levels-a top rate of income tax of 40% and capital gains tax at 18%. So how did millionaires fare under Labour? They had a 40% top tax rate until the last month of its 13 years. After the recent cut, it stands at 45%. It levied an 18% rate on capital gains-a lower rate than their cleaners and drivers would pay on their income. This Government have lifted that to 28%.

Under Labour, millionaires could put £250,000 a year into a pension scheme and get tax relief. The cut to £50,000 by this Government has raised £4 billion from the rich. They received child benefit and paid 2.5% less tax on their spending. They could get unlimited taxpayer support for gifts to charities, including family- controlled trusts, public schools such as Eton and, as in the case of Andrew Lloyd Webber, a huge art collection, some of which he rents back cheaply to his own house. Add to that numerous loopholes, and millionaires must want Labour back as fast as possible. Meanwhile, people on the minimum wage were paying £700 a year in tax.

I welcome the current carbon capture and storage competition. As the Tees Valley has 18 of the top 30 UK carbon emitters, I am sure the Minister will agree that its bid has a lot to commend it. Will he ensure that the needs of heavy industry are given due weight alongside the needs of energy generators?

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how much has been (a) levied and (b) collected through the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health

(1) with reference to the report by Action for ME, Ignorance, Injustice and Neglect, for what reason more than a quarter of patient care trusts in England do not commission specialist secondary care for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome;

(2) for what reason 37 out of 151 patient care trusts in England provide domiciliary care for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome;

(3) with reference to the recommendation by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence that patient care trusts (PCTs) should provide a designated myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome pathway, for what reason fewer than a third of PCTs in England provide such a pathway.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health with reference to the report by Action for ME, Ignorance, Injustice and Neglect, for what reason 53 out of 151 patient care trusts in England were able to provide full or partial information about their funding of services for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.

My constituent, Janet Jeffrey, lost her father in 2003 to pneumoconiosis after working at Shaw's foundry in Middlesbrough. Can the Minister assure me that any compensation arrangements will include all those whose families are affected and will not be restricted only to miners?

The hon. Gentleman talks about these companies being located in the south-east, but is it not true that quite a number of these companies are mobile? Does he regret that companies such as WPP and Shire Pharmaceuticals relocated out of the UK altogether under his Government? They are now considering coming back again.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that answer, but how does he square it with the comments of his own leadership? Does he have a budget for his input into the Committee, in terms of how much he is allowed to add to Labour's commitments?

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case for extra public spending. Will he say whether that will be financed in his model by borrowing, or will he give us a menu of cuts that he would make in order to finance the extra spending?

As a new member of the Committee, I find it extremely useful to have a huge pile of analytical documents on the Budget, including the section on the impact on households in the Red Book, and another document with six separate impact assessments, including one on individuals and households, of every policy. Is that less or more information than would have been available in previous Finance Bill Committees? Were such clauses common in Finance Bills under the previous Government? As a new MP, I do not know whether they were.

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that there is no standard-rate VAT on housing and public transport costs, food, children's clothes, fares, insurance, TV, gambling, the lottery, energy or utilities. For me and my household, that is the bulk of our spending. Is he aware that the Office for National Statistics says that someone would have to be in the top 20% of earners to spend £18,000 on VAT standard-rated items?

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I have followed carefully the arguments from many of the hon. Lady's colleagues, and my head is starting to spin from the number of interactions. The Government have been very transparent about their measures, but what the hon. Lady and her colleagues are talking about is the interaction between a huge number of measures impacting on a huge number of different family circumstances. How many cases would she like to see evaluated in the amendment?

The hon. Gentleman is now trying to paint the cut in the basic rate as something that benefits the well-off. Does he accept that someone on the minimum wage, working full time, will fully benefit from the cut in basic rate income tax, without any qualification?

Does the Minister recognise that the measures under discussion are additional to others that have been taken by the Government, particularly the cut in the pension allowance from £250,000 to £50,000, which brought £4 billion into the Government, and the increase in capital gains tax from 18% to 28%? Such measures were not taken by the previous Government.

I am not sure it is within the scope of the amendment, but the hon. Gentleman referred to VAT. Does he accept that those who spend the most pay the most VAT, so a cut in VAT benefits the wealthy the most?

The hon. Lady mentions the need to give notice of the changes. Does she know how much notice was given of the freezing of the age-related allowance in 2010-11?

The hon. Gentleman has obviously discussed the fairness of this measure with his pensioner constituents. Has he discussed with his other constituents the fact that when his Government left office, people on the minimum wage and hard-working parents were paying £603 a year more tax than their grandparents on the same income? Does he think that that is fair and has he discussed it with his other constituents?

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?