Finance (No. 2) Bill

George Howarth Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman made his intervention, because I would like to set the record straight. The Labour party talks a lot about banks. Shall we remind ourselves that it was the Labour party and Ed Balls—its former shadow Chancellor—who created the light-touch regime that led to the crashing of our entire economy? Millions of people were thrown out of their jobs; they lost their jobs and were in poverty because of the decisions of the former Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady remind the House which party criticised the last Labour Government for having too onerous a regulatory regime in the banking system?

[Rachel Maclean]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I was not in the House at that time, but I am certain one of my Front-Bench colleagues will pick up on that point in the wind-up. What I do know is that we are imposing more measures on the banks. We are bringing in more measures in this Finance Bill, which is collecting more money from the banks. We are clamping down on that regime—that lax regulation—that led to the banking crash, which put thousands of people out of their jobs, crashed the economy and led to a lot of the problems that we see today in our country. I find it astonishing that Labour Members talk so much about the banks and what they would do. They say that they are the party for the many and not for the few, but it is actually the Conservative party that has done more for the many, getting them into work, getting jobs for people and creating an environment in which businesses can flourish.

Let us just look at the facts—let us just look at the businesses that have started up under this Government. These are businesses backed by entrepreneurs—wealth creators—who are creating jobs for people to feed their families. We asked the hon. Member for Bootle many times to explain how he was going to pay for his policies. My hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham said that we had asked 26 times—it might be 27, 28 or 29, I am not sure—but he cannot do this. That is why people in Redditch, and people up and down the country, are terrified of the idea of a Government led by—