Government Spending Cuts
Debate between Penny Mordaunt and David Laws(14 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)
I am sure that the Chief Secretary knew about Labour’s mismanagement before coming to office, as did many others, which is why Labour Members now sit on the Opposition Benches. However, did he know about the scorched-earth policy that we have heard so much about in the past few weeks and leading up to the general election? What will his Department do to ensure that that abuse will never happen again?
Mr Laws
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I agree that there seems to have been a scorched-earth strategy as regards not only the state of the public finances but the way in which the Government were spending money at the end of their term. We are looking very closely at all the decisions that have been made, and we will be making further announcements shortly about the action that we will have to take.