Owen Smith
Main Page: Owen Smith (Labour - Pontypridd)Department Debates - View all Owen Smith's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
(13 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
It is genuinely baffling to people that somebody who said that they would not back strike action while negotiations were under way has come to the House today to speak on behalf of trade union leaders. I want to say that it is a flashback to Neil Kinnock, but even Kinnock was not as bad as that.
Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
Does the Prime Minister think it fair that the Chancellor yesterday decided to take just £300 million extra from the banks, and £1.3 billion from working families in this country? Is that a fair distribution?
The Prime Minister
What the Chancellor announced yesterday was that we will take £2.5 billion off the banks, not through a one-off bonus tax one year, but every year. It is this Government who are properly putting a tax on the banks, whereas the Labour party, year after year, gave knighthoods to Fred Goodwin, did not regulate the banks or tax them properly, and gave us the biggest boom and the biggest bust, from which we are having to recover.