Finance (No. 2) Bill
Debate between James Cartlidge and Mark PriskMonday 18th December 2017
(7 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Finance Act 2018 View all Finance Act 2018 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Committee of the whole House Amendments as at 18 December 2017 - (18 Dec 2017)
James Cartlidge
I do not accept that. Those mortgages were being advanced. The FSA knew about them and the Government knew about them. The fact is that when you are in charge of the financial system, you have a responsibility to act in a prudent manner. The Governor of the Bank of England always says, “Your duty is to take the punchbowl away when the party gets started.” The problem was that when the party got started under the new Labour Government in terms of debt and borrowing too much, they did not take the punchbowl away—they came out with a new round of tequila slammers, and when that was not enough, they brought out the Jägerbombs, until in 2008 we had the biggest hangover in our history, with the crashing of our economy on the back of the most reckless oversight of financial regulation that this country has ever seen.
Mr Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a very strong case. However, he is relatively new to this place. May I remind him, and the Committee, that when I was on the Opposition Benches for 10 years, the then Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that he had abolished boom and bust? That is the political context in which Labour ruined the economy.