Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The reason why we have had to put up value added tax is the complete and utter mess we were left by the Government whom the right hon. Gentleman supported. I know that they are now in denial about this, but the fact is that we had one of the biggest budget deficits in the G8 and one of the worst records on debt anywhere that one could mention. We had to take action. The reason we can now discuss calmly taxes and bankers’ bonuses and we are not queuing up behind Greece and Ireland for a bail-out is the action that this Government took.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Q15. The Prime Minister will know of the good progress made in the regeneration of my constituency. The next phase is the regeneration of city centre assets currently owned by the regional development agency. Does the Prime Minister agree that, in line with our localism agenda, the best thing is to transfer those assets as soon as possible to the city council, for development for the benefit of the city, and can I highlight how much support that has within Gloucester?

[The Prime Minister]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and what he does to help drive the regeneration agenda in Gloucester. There are real opportunities now that the regional development agencies, which were unloved in so many parts of the country, are going and we are having stronger local enterprise partnerships. There is much more room for good local development, including in Gloucester.