Kit Malthouse
MP for North West Hampshire · Conservative · United Kingdom
“We have heard time and time again that the situation that thousands of our constituents live with every single day is so horrific and appalling that even the best palliative care cannot alleviate their pain. I urge colleagues to consider what their vote may mean today.”
“I will not. Some of those Members had just a few months before been specifically rejected by the electorate and replaced in this House by others, and I am afraid that they cannot be trusted not to do the same thing again. I grant my right hon.”
“The Health and Social Care Committee of the House of Lords found that in territories that have assisted dying, palliative care generally improves, because people become less afraid of talking about death.”
“One of the most affecting people I have met over the last 11 years of campaigning on this issue is Warwick Jackson, who came to our party conference a couple of years ago. Warwick’s wife, Ann, was diagnosed with terminal peritoneal cancer. She basically knew that she was going to die a slow, suffocating death at the end.”
“I respect my right hon. and learned Friend’s expertise in this matter, but, as he has already heard on the Floor of the House, it is perfectly possible for this House to suggest amendments, negotiate them with the promoters of the Bill, place them against the legislation in the House of Lords and then have them come back to this House for…”
“As co-sponsor of the Bill once again, I am acutely conscious that there is more at stake today than merely the fate of those who are facing their end, because the conduct of the other place means that our democracy is also on trial today.”
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“That culture overtook, and many businesses now find themselves feeling bullied and living in fear of a call from the Revenue because of its much more aggressive approach towards tax collection, and it not necessarily collecting the tax that is properly due but collecting whatever tax it can get. As I am sure the Minister knows, businesses will often settle with the Revenue for more than is entirely due, because they just do not want the hassle and they want it to go away. To me, that is not a proper way to run a tax system; nevertheless it happens on a daily basis.”
“We know that since the amalgamation of the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise, the culture of HMRC has changed significantly over the years. When I was a trainee chartered accountant in the City, decisions on taxation were a question of two professionals sitting down together to decide what tax was actually due. The Revenue has a much more aggressive attitude towards tax collection—do not forget that this team has the ability to bust down doors without a warrant in pursuit of duty, an inheritance that it maintains from its time tackling smuggling. Those members of the Committee who are Daphne du Maurier fans will know that the excise men were well known for kicking in doors in those days—and they occasionally still do.”
“There are litigants at the moment who believe that the case may have run beyond the four-year time limit, and that whatever they are awarded in interest will not now be assessable. The regulations will change that rule and are effectively using a retrospective logic that means that taxpayers cannot confidently close the books on their liability or otherwise, even after prolonged litigation that may have absorbed much of their energy and time. Those two measures seem to me to be particularly pernicious. I am interested to understand the Minister’s thinking on providing HMRC with this much more generous time limit to reach its assessment. I recognise that he is not here to justify the inherent unfairness of part 8C, but the new time limit creates the perverse incentive that HMRC can take its time.”
“The regulations give a bespoke new two-year time limit from the end of the accounting period in which the case is decided and the restitution is paid. That means that all the litigation delay risk is transferred on to the private sector company, which gives an enormous advantage to HMRC. Effectively, the regulations mean that the cost of the error by HMRC is capped, whereas the taxpayer is now exposed to prolonged uncertainty in the conduct of that litigation. Those two things together seem to entrench the asymmetry that the Revenue enjoys. The second issue I have is around one of the principles that I hoped was embedded in tax legislation, which is that it should never be retrospective. The regulations create a retrospective charge and will apply to cases where litigation is ongoing at the moment.”
“While they appear and are presented as benign and clarificatory, the problem with the regulations is that what they are actually doing is embedding that unfairness and asymmetry, and giving particular advantages to HMRC in the litigation process that I am not sure are entirely warranted. First, we have to bear in mind that the situation under the legislation at the moment is that the normal rules of corporation tax apply in terms of limits. The Revenue has to assess whether interest payable under part 8C falls within the scope of the 45% charge within four years of the end of the period in which it arises, even if the litigation has gone on for longer than that. That creates an incentive for the Revenue to act swiftly in the conduct of the legislation.”
“So that colleagues are clear, this part of the 2015 Act says that in cases where HMRC has deducted tax unlawfully and is ordered by a court to return it, and where interest is then charged on that, because litigation may have taken years, the Revenue gets 45% of it back. It does not bear the full cost of the interest that is payable and it therefore does not bear the full economic cost of its unlawful behaviour. I have never understood why the Revenue should get special treatment over the interest payable by any other litigant in a commercial case, particularly as these restitution cases follow unlawful behaviour by the Revenue, and the litigation has often taken over a decade to come to some kind of conclusion.”
“I am hesitant to delay the Committee, but I am afraid that I have some quite serious reservations about this statutory instrument. In order that Members who may not have looked in detail at the instrument before us can understand them, it may be useful to explain a bit of the background to part 8C, which was introduced by section 38 of the Finance (No. 2) Act 2015. The 2015 Act was snuck through in the first few months after my election as the MP for North West Hampshire, when I was still learning the tricks of the trade, and as a result I did not spot what is actually quite a pernicious part of the corporation tax landscape.”
“I realise that this is being painted as a concession, but as I hope that the Minister knows, in the most serious restitution cases, where unlawful behaviour by the Revenue has occurred, it is very rare that courts award simple interest. Actually, most of the awards are interest according to part 8C. Presumably, that was what was behind the original introduction of part 8C and the Revenue was saying, “Oh my God, we’ve got this massive financial exposure; what are we going to do? I tell you what: we’ll introduce a penal tax rate on this interest that doesn’t apply to anybody else.” I would caution the Minister against throwing these regulations in as some kind of concession, because in truth, in the biggest, most important, expensive and difficult cases, simple interest is very rarely awarded.”
“Anybody who is currently in litigation with the Revenue that has passed the four-year mark from the period in which the liability may or may not have arisen would now have the expectation that if they win and an award is made, it would not be assessed under part 8C. Will the Minister confirm that now it will be assessed, so people in that situation will need to recalibrate almost completely their assumptions of risk around the litigation?”
“The hon. Gentleman is making a very interesting and pertinent speech. I hope he will welcome the fact that the Bill strengthens the requirement on companies to not only look at prevention but have an adequate recovery plan. Does he think that there is adequate sanction in the Bill for those companies that are deemed not to have an adequate recovery plan? My reading is that regulators cannot necessarily fine for a negligent recovery. As the hon. Gentleman said, the human factor so often matters, but surely that matters as much in recovery as it does in prevention.”
“Against that backdrop, if the Palestinian Government were to request that the UK ceased trading with foreign nationals illegally resident on its territory, on what basis would we refuse that?”
“As the Minister pointed out, the situation in Gaza remains catastrophic. I join colleagues in recognising that, against that backdrop, the barring or denial of access for those aid agencies is particularly cruel and wicked; it is horrifying to think what the motivation might be. Of course, those agencies also deliver services in the west bank where, as colleagues have also pointed out, the situation deteriorates, with home demolitions, summary executions and seemingly psychopathic thugs roaming the territory, burning homes and attacking innocent Palestinians. Happily, we have recognised the state of Palestine and, as the Minister said, we have now established full diplomatic relations.”
“That is great, but hidden in the Blue Book is a £7.5 billion hit to students and an overall reduction in per pupil funding in education. All of these things will be revealed in the days to come.”
“It will also have a psychologically damaging impact on people who are thinking about buying an electric vehicle. Another of those areas is the housing market. We seem to think that an attack on landlords and the higher end of the market will not have an impact on the rest of the market. I am afraid that Labour Members will hear their constituents squealing, given the inflated prices in the capital, and I think that measures on housing, too, will unravel pretty quickly. The Chancellor said that she wants to encourage co-operatives and employee ownership, yet she has dealt a hammer blow to employee ownership by reducing by 50% the tax incentives for owners to transfer businesses to their employees, so we will see less of it. Much was made of the apprenticeship changes and the roll-out of nurseries.”
“That Budget attempted to be politically smart to satisfy the Government’s Back Benchers, but in the hours and days that followed, it quickly unravelled, and I must tell Labour Members that I think exactly the same will happen with this Budget, because it is full of contradictions and incoherences in seemingly small areas. Take electric vehicles. I declare an interest, as the driver of an electric vehicle. The Government are pumping money into subsidising the roll-out of charging—indeed, there are grants for take-up—but the pence per mile being charged will discriminate against particular groups who need their cars, such as the disabled and the elderly, and against those in rural constituencies, who will be seriously disincentivised.”
“Let me begin by drawing attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, not because I believe there is a conflict, but because it illustrates the fact that I am one of those sadly rare individuals in the House who have spent the last 30 years owning and building a business. Hopefully, it also illustrates that I know whereof I speak. I sincerely wish, on behalf of my employees and my constituents, that I could welcome today’s Budget. Before I am a Conservative, I am a British citizen, and I want the country to win. All of us should hope that any Budget, delivered by any Chancellor of any party, will put the country on a sound footing for a prosperous future. Sadly, today’s Budget was, to me, most redolent of the omnishambles Budget of 2012. We have to admit, as a party, to mistakes that we have made in the past.”
“First, I ask Members to turn to paragraph 1.3 of the executive summary, which tells us that, contrary to what the Chancellor said, debt will rise over the next few years. Debt moves from being “95 per cent of GDP this year and ends the decade at 96 per cent of GDP, which is 2 percentage points higher than projected in March”. That was the first thing she said that was incorrect.”
“That is a very good way of putting it. The other way of putting it is to say that there is a huge attempt to gaslight the country and, I am afraid, Labour Members about what is actually being proposed. Let me give another example. We are told that the Government are trying to encourage business investment, yet the Blue Book contains a £1.5 billion reduction in incentives for business investment. The contradictions are clear, and I urge Members to read the Blue Book, because the Chancellor is relying on us not reading the leaked book. Sometimes it is quite impenetrable, and sometimes it is quite difficult to understand, but there are some key things that I want to point people to, if I may.”
“I urge colleagues to read the Blue Book—the truth lies therein. We find ourselves in a position where we have a Budget that is trumpeting itself as a triumph, but which is nevertheless producing the highest tax rate of all time, completely flat and anaemic growth, and inflation and interest rates—they are in the Blue Book—that will be higher for longer than they otherwise would have been. The outlook has worsened since March, to the extent that the OBR makes a point of it.”
“My hon. Friend is exactly right. It is worth remembering that if we had not gone through a period of austerity post the financial crash and the mess that we inherited, we would not have been able to rescue the economy during covid. We would not have had the headroom that allowed us to re-leverage the country in emergency circumstances. I wish that we now had the same foresight. Paragraph 3.13 of the Blue Book points out that, in the OBR’s view, there is nothing in this Budget that will do anything for growth. The OBR has declined to revise its previous output predictions because the Budget does nothing for growth. Finally, the fourth bullet point in paragraph 1.28 points out that the tax-to-GDP ratio will become the highest it has ever been in this country and will constrain business incentives for the future.”
“The Chancellor was trumpeting growth this year, but the only reason we had a bump in growth this year was the closing of the stamp duty window, when people rushed—”
“There is no plan to build an energetic economy. Secondly, as has been said by a number of Opposition Members, there is no comprehension of how this Government—and I have to say, sadly, previous Governments—have damaged the return on risk. A number of Members have said that capitalism relies on risk. People go out there to invest, to risk their own money and to buy businesses, and they do that calculating the return they are going to get. If we continue to tax that return, to regulate that return and to make that return less attractive, fewer and fewer people will take that risk. If we want a scale-up economy that takes advantage of the scientific and technological inventions that we are so good at producing, we have to reduce the impositions we put on risk and make it worth while. Thirdly, we did not have any talk about frictional taxes.”
“Members have said, we have been through most of these scenarios before. I am only just old enough to remember, but it happened in the 1970s. That was when we last had an openly redistributive Government—forget Tony Blair, because he was not about that—and we saw what happened to growth as a result. To me, four things were broadly missing from this Budget. First, there very obviously is no governing philosophy of the political economy that any of us can discern. There is no plan or strategy. There is maths, there are inputs and outputs, and there is political box-ticking, but there is no sense of what kind of economy we are trying to build. There was a nod towards it in the desire to review the enterprise investment scheme and venture capital trusts, but that is really about trying to keep the lobby groups in the City happy.”
“The hon. Lady raises a very good point, which I will come on to shortly. All of this points to the fact that, let us be honest, this is not actually a Budget about growth. I only left the Chamber for half an hour to have a cup of tea, and all the speeches that I have heard from those on the other side of the House—the “far left” side, or whatever it might be—have been about redistribution. They have all been about how pleased Labour Members are at the redistribution that is going on. That is fine, but I wish their Front Benchers would be honest about what they are trying to do, because they are sacrificing the prospect of future growth for the economy in order to tick the box on Labour Members’ political demands about redistribution. That is fine, and we have been here before. As hon.”
“I will not give way, because I am running out of time. People rushed to fill the void, and we saw a bump in growth in the first half of the year, but since then it has been tailing off. We have to focus on the fact that frictional taxes do enormous damage. Finally, we are at the bottom of an ellipse in human achievement, particularly in this country. If we do not get capitalism right in the UK to take advantage of that, as we did during the Victorian era, we will not build wealth for the centuries of the future, and we or our children will not live off the profits of this period.”
“My right hon. Friend makes an interesting point about the change from defined benefit to defined contribution and the impact of the taxation changes that brought that about. Would he care to comment on whether he sees that as part of an unwitting repricing of the return on risk, which has impacted not only on pension funds, but more widely? He said that pension fund investment in the market is down, but retail investment in the market overall is also down very significantly. It feels like the British people as a whole have lost their appetite for risk, and that might be because the return on risk is now too highly taxed.”
“I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s views about mandation, as the Minister knows, but would he care to comment on its impact on the appetite for risk? We have learned from my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) that since the change in taxation, the general trend in pension funds has been for managers to de-risk and to go into passive funds. If they do so, no one can complain, they are not taking any risk, they do not have to outperform or underperform the market and they get what they want. If they can pass off yet more risk to the Government and effectively sit there and get paid to be told by the Government what to invest in, they will bite the Government’s hand off, will they not?”
“The Minister never says this, but in the end, people invest in listed stocks and shares, whether through their pension or otherwise, to make money. They are not doing it for the good of anybody else. They are doing it to make money, and if they are going to make less money, or the perception is that they will make less money, because of Government taxation, they will do less of it. Would he not agree?”
“I get the example that the Minister talks about, but I think he misunderstands or perhaps misappreciates how the retail investor thinks. They do not necessarily think, “If I put £1,000 in now, in 20 years’ time it will be worth this.” They think, “If I put £1,000 in now, what is my return going to be next year? What is my running return going to be?” And it will be a percentage return on the dividend. That is why we have a P/E—price-to-earnings—ratio for every share; that is what investors look at. If that is impaired because of taxation and the return is reduced, as it has been over the last few years, they will be less inclined to invest. That, fundamentally, is the pattern that we have seen.”
“I am grateful to learn from the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) that I am not the only person who was not invited to COP30. But I followed it closely and was very pleased to see the emergence of the Belém 4X agreement, which committed its signatories to quadrupling the production and deployment of sustainable fuel molecules by 2035. That would include, most importantly for the United Kingdom, green hydrogen. Unfortunately, while I could find the names of India, Italy and, obviously, Brazil on the agreement, I could not find the United Kingdom’s name. Did I miss it?”
“Many of us are becoming concerned that technical or procedural manoeuvres outside this House may be used to prevent Parliament from reaching a decision on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. The Government are neutral on the Bill itself, but I presume they are not neutral on the issue of democracy or the primacy of this Chamber. Will the Prime Minister reassure the House that the decision of elected Members—and, indeed, the wishes and hopes of the vast majority of the people we serve—will not be frustrated in this way?”
“What conditions are being put on the Israeli Government to ensure their compliance in this project? Thirdly, the situation in the west bank is not just “appalling”, as the Foreign Secretary said in her statement, but the worst it has ever been, as the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) said. Will the Foreign Secretary fall into the same trap as her predecessor of being all talk and doing the bare minimum to keep those on her Benches from open revolt, or will she step forward and bring accountability for the daily acts of violence and terrorism that are taking place?”
“I am afraid that the Foreign Secretary has neatly illustrated the problem with the British Government’s position in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. She mentioned the welcome return of Israeli hostages, but made no mention of the Palestinian detainees who have been returned to their families. She mentioned the return of the bodies of Israelis, but made no mention of the dozens of bodies of Palestinians that have been returned to their families. Can she not see that until we value both people equally and bring accountability to both peoples, we will make little progress in this appalling situation? Specifically to avoid accusations of illegitimacy, how will the Palestinians be represented on this board of peace? Secondly, the UN resolution puts significant conditions on the Palestinians to ensure compliance.”
“He might well find that he gets a lot more houses built.”
“Given the Government’s record over the past 12 months or so, I am afraid that that is not terribly reassuring, so when he sums up, I would be very grateful if he could be a little more detailed about what exactly he intends to do.”
“I heard what the Minister had to say about the appropriateness of spatial development strategies for protecting chalk streams, but he will know that those of us who are concerned about this issue have been disappointed by the seeming reduction of enthusiasm for protection of chalk streams since this Government came to power. Obviously, the chalk stream recovery pack, which had been hard-won in negotiations with the previous Government, was abandoned. In May, amendments to this Bill that sought to protect chalk streams further were voted down. The Minister is a good chap—he and I get on well—and at every stage he has reassured the House that he wants to do more for chalk streams, but we have yet to see the beef. Even today in his opening remarks, he said that he is minded to take further steps elsewhere to protect chalk streams.”
“I do not wish to detain the House terribly long; I just want to cover three matters, if I may. The first is Lords amendment 38, which deals with chalk streams. As the Minister knows, because I have told him before, my constituency is chalk stream central—as is yours, Madam Deputy Speaker, as my constituency neighbour. The River Test, the most celebrated of chalk streams, rises in the north of my constituency. We also have the Anton, which flows through Andover, and most famously the Bourne rivulet—about which books have been written, such is its beauty and importance. I know the Minister appreciates the importance of these incredibly rare ecological environments, which are almost unique to southern England.”
“Many Members—not just me—have campaigned for such statutory protection, and I would be interested in what the Minister has to say. I do not entirely accept his argument that spatial development strategies are completely inappropriate. As he knows, they can flag up areas of planning constraint and discuss corridors and green infrastructure. If there is a green infrastructure corridor, it is a chalk stream. Certainly in my part of the world, they are treasured such that a new mayor—if we have one next year—would be required to look at them as protected corridors and say as much in their plan.”
“I completely agree with the hon. Lady. In my constituency, I have groups of volunteers who work very hard, including on the Anton river in Andover, and do a fantastic job. In fact, that river flows through part of the town centre, but gets lost, and it is about to be opened up with a new riverside park running down Western Avenue. I am pleased to say that I played a small part in that scheme obtaining a levelling-up grant from the previous Government. People in my constituency value these chalk streams almost as if they are members of their family. They are part of the identity of towns such as Whitchurch, Overton, Andover and other villages in my patch and yours, Madam Deputy Speaker. They would take the protection of those chalk streams almost as seriously as the protection of their children.”
“The Minister has given me an undertaking in the past that extant neighbourhood plans would not have to be varied in the light of those new housing targets, until they came up for refresh, and that constraints, such as protected landscape, would pertain. I would be pleased if he could reassure us on that point when he sums up.”
“The second thing I lament about the Bill, and ask the Minister to clarify, is its impact on neighbourhood plans. I have asked him this question in the past, particularly in the light of new housing targets. Both my borough councils, Basingstoke and Deane, and Test Valley, have had significant increases to their housing targets. I do not mind that necessarily, but the question is where those houses go. I have encouraged villagers and communities across my constituency to take advantage of neighbourhood plans and to put them in place. The significant alarm now is that some of the local plan implications from the new housing targets that are flowing through are riding roughshod over those neighbourhood plans, some of which took years to put in place.”
“I want to hear a little more on that from the Minister. For those of us who would support new settlements, for example, SDSs might be important for the protection of chalk streams, because they can point towards the areas where new settlements should be and protect such things as river catchments. For chalk downland constituencies like mine, that is key. While I accept that the Minister will get his way and get his party to vote for the second time against protection for chalk streams in this Bill, I would like to hear a bit more detail on what he is minded to do—I take him at his word—how firm that mindedness is, and when we can expect some of the protection to come forward, because this is an urgent matter on which many of us have campaigned for many years.”
“I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. Interestingly, he may or may not recall that when I was a Westminster councillor, we had a project in Westminster called “Hidden Rivers”, which signposted where those rivers were. If any Members find themselves on the platform at Sloane Square station, for example—just a couple of stops away—and look upwards, they will see a socking great big pipe going across the top of the platforms carrying the River Tyburn. It rises at Marble Arch, where Tyburn convent is, and where the Tyburn tree used to stand for hanging people. It flows down, across the platform and into the Thames. The same is true, I think in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency, where the Fleet flows down towards Fleet Street and into the Thames. People value and treasure such rivers, and they should be protected.”
“If we deal with that issue, we will also deal with quite a lot of the resentment people feel when they see particularly large-scale planning applications coming forward. They ask, “We’ve already got 400 down the road that haven’t been built. Why do we have to take another 400?” Of course, the local council has to put huge amounts of work into the local plan, notwithstanding the fact that it might already have a five-year supply that has been consented but does not count toward the future target. This is a problem that Governments, including my own, have struggled with for some time, and it is one I struggled with when I was Housing Minister, but I hope the Minister will give some thought to at least giving councils the option of having a 10-year supply in which granted consents count.”
“Similarly, I am afraid that we will see some of the large infrastructure projects going through the process—the Minister and I are keen to see them accelerated—but people waiting for more propitious economic times to bring them forward, notwithstanding the lack, therefore, of the facility to the British public. I urge him to consider, as he looks to the next stage of his planning reforms, what he will do on undeveloped consents. I think I have said to him before that the Government should force local plans to have a 10-year housing supply that also takes into account granted consents. Then, developers can see a 10-year horizon, as can local authorities, but they also can see that if they want a life beyond 10 years, they will have to start developing that which they already have.”
“My concern is that the Bill will stimulate the land promotion industry and stimulate lots of applications. However, as the shadow Minister pointed out, when the housing market is flat, stamp duty is at penal rates, when interest rates remain stubbornly high because of Government borrowing, and when the development industry is crippled by taxes, we will not get the level of development that the Minister aspires to—certainly not towards the 300,000 a year target and 1.5 million by the end of the Parliament. Instead, we will see a stacking up of consents, as we have seen in some parts of the country already, where there are thousands and thousands of undeveloped consents. The industry will bank them. In the absence of a market into which it can sell, it will occupy itself by banking the land for times when hopefully things will come good.”
“] I welcome the Minister’s nodding—that is great. I have often said that in my constituency—for Members who do not know, it is 220 square miles of beautiful chalk downland—if developers would build thatched cottages, we would have thousands of them. People would be more than happy for developers to build villages such as St Mary Bourne all over the place, if they look beautiful and fit in. Unfortunately, we get the same ersatz development that everybody else gets around the country. We need to crack that. The other thing is putting planning in the hands of local people, and I hope the Minister will try to preserve that principle in the Bill. My third point, briefly, is about an omission in the Bill that the Minister and I have discussed before, which is the problem of undeveloped consents.”
“I sort of agree. We should be pushing developers towards brownfield—that is absolutely right. Brownfield first was the policy of the previous Government, and it makes lots of sense. The key thing, which I am sure the Minister accepts, is that if we are to overcome this problem with the generational contract—that we who are housed will build houses for those who are not—there has to be a compromise. For me, that compromise has always been neighbourhood planning. Far too often in my constituency, villages and towns feel as if planning is something that is done to them. They dread the land promoter showing up to ram some inappropriate planning through. Some of that compromise can be about beauty, and I lament the fact that the design standards were taken out of the NPPF and that that word is not used. [ Interruption.”
“I understand the undertaking the Minister is giving, but he will recognise that all of this is guidance; it does not preclude planning decisions that will impact on chalk streams. Given that he is set on his course, which we understand, and his appreciation of the fact that the amendment was proposed in the spirit of addressing the lack of any other sort of protection for chalk streams, will he reassure us that the intention in the planning guidance is to give chalk streams the same sort of protection as was put in place for, for example, veteran trees, which are deemed to be irreplaceable? That is the highest level of protection in planning guidance—I think I introduced this as Planning Minister. In that way, only in very exceptional circumstances could permission be granted for development that would impinge on chalk streams.”
“I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group on life sciences, so I know only too well that the industry, which has hitherto been a jewel in our crown, has been struggling to justify further such investment in our economy. Could I press the Secretary of State further on her answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Alan Mak), and ask her to reassure the House that she has put in a specific, ambitious and vigorous proposal to the Treasury in advance of the Budget to recognise that the life sciences industry is taking more risks than other kinds of investors?”