Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and David Davis

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am reminded of the speech in the City made by the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls), when he said in 2006:

“In my first speech as City Minister at Bloomberg in London, I argued that London’s success has been based on…light-touch…regulation”.

He also said that he hoped the City would take comfort from the way the Labour Government had responded to new risks and to events. That is the Bloomberg speech that he likes to forget.

[Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)]

There is a lot of public disquiet about alleged enormous sweetheart deals done with major public companies—Vodafone and others—in the last five years. Three or four months ago, I tabled a question asking how many of these deals had been done, costing more than £100 million at a time. The answer I received was that the information requested was “not readily available” and could be provided “only at disproportionate cost”. I received a similar blocking answer this morning. When is the Minister going to tell the House what HMRC has been up to?