Ways and Means

Debate between Wes Streeting and Alison Thewliss

Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

And Manchester, as my hon. Friend says.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Glasgow.

[Wes Streeting]

Of course, we cannot forget Glasgow. We have several powerful financial centres in the UK. They can contribute enormously to our revenues as well as creating jobs and making the UK an attractive place to do business. However, we should never forget that the crash was a banking crisis, and the thought of politicians—not just the UK Government of the day, but Governments throughout the world—was not that they had spent too much or invested too much in schools, hospitals, teachers, dinner ladies, nurses and doctors, but that the regulatory regime that oversaw financial services was inadequate for the practices of the time. A corrosive greed took hold on Wall Street and in the City and the vast majority of people paid the price.