Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Walney Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Pickles]

I certainly join my hon. Friend in congratulating that council. He lays out a valuable lesson. One thing we are discovering in those authorities that are cutting libraries, Sure Start and all front-line services is that none of them has attempted any of the things that his local council has so excellently done.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

T6. The severe cuts to the road maintenance budget have led councils throughout the country to warn that in the years ahead they face a pothole nightmare, notwithstanding the announcement of an emergency £100 million, which the harsh winter has made necessary. Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that those councils have a case, or does he think that they should stop “bleating” for more money, as the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) disgracefully said at the weekend?

[Mr Pickles]

The hon. Gentleman has to understand that we are in this position because of the way in which the Labour party left our national finances. The Labour party is apparently happy for us to continue to pay vast sums of money to foreign bankers by way of interest, but we have simply arrived at the point where the country is boracic, and that is a direct consequence of Opposition ladies and gentlemen’s neglect of the economy.