Postal Services Bill
Debate between John Pugh and John Denham
Mr Denham
Clearly, any measure that allowed that kind of swift onward sale, resulting essentially in 100% private ownership of Royal Mail, would explode the Government’s rhetoric on the Bill. I can assure my hon. Friend that we will look at the proposals in great detail in Committee.
Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman makes a rational and intelligent case, but if the Bill proposed a majority stake for private finance—say 51 or 55%—would it be possible to protect the public interest?
Local Government Financing
Debate between John Pugh and John Denham
Mr Denham
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and also underlines the point I am about to make, because on the original figures published by the Secretary of State, the Tower Hamlets cut was nowhere near as big as that. Earlier, I used the example of Newham, for which his table gives the figure of £4.6 million, which was the biggest cut in London. Now that the dust has settled, however, we find that Tower Hamlets is up there as well, with a figure of about £9 million, and Hackney loses £8.6 million—but as my hon. Friend said, “Don’t worry, because Richmond is still doing all right.”
Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
I rise to say a few words in the interests of fairness, because the right hon. Gentleman obviously thinks that, apart from eating babies, there is very little the coalition does not do. Can he tell us which of the £40 billion of unallocated cuts the Labour party was likely to implement were going to fall on local government? That would be a transparent, open, rational and reasonable thing to do.
Mr Denham
The hon. Gentleman needs to explain something to his constituents: why he is supporting a cut that goes tens of billions of pounds deeper than the plans we set out. That is what is causing the pain. During the election campaign, he opposed the cuts I am talking about. He and his party colleagues said that these £6 billion of cuts would damage the economy. He is the one with questions to answer for his constituents, such as how he managed to run an election campaign against a VAT increase and these cuts, yet here he is standing up in the House defending the cuts—and no doubt in due course defending the VAT increase as well.