Kelvin Hopkins
Main Page: Kelvin Hopkins (Independent - Luton North)Department Debates - View all Kelvin Hopkins's debates with the HM Treasury
(9 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Harriett Baldwin
I welcome my hon. Friend, who has a wealth of experience in insolvency practice that he has clearly put to good use in his first question. Rothschild and the Bank of England Governor have said that one of the challenges facing this stake is the illiquidity of the float—the stock is not liquid enough to be in any of the major indices, for example—so there are liquidity benefits and potential price benefits from putting an initial float in the private sector.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
May I welcome the hon. Lady to her post and say how much I agreed with the measured, sensible and absolutely correct points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner)? I can confirm to the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) that the old clause IV is certainly alive in my heart. In 1983, I was pleased to stand for election on a manifesto that called for the nationalisation of the banks. Had the banks been nationalised—in public ownership and accountable to the public—all the profits would have accrued to the public purse and they might have been shielded from the world banking crisis. By giving RBS back to the private sector, are we not simply inviting more gambling, more greed, more irresponsibility and more crises in future?
Harriett Baldwin
May I express my thanks to the British people for ensuring that we have a Government focused on the economic future of this country, not on the failures of the past and the longest economic suicide note in history?