The Economy

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Evans]

We have heard about the FSA, and we have admitted that that did not work, but before that, there was self-regulation. There was no attempt to tie them down, and there is still no such attempt. When the Minister responds to the debate, we need to hear from her what the future of the banks will be. We need to know that.

This is the problem that I have with the entire debate. People say, “It was the Labour Government overspending”, but faced with the same problem of the banks going under, what would the present Chancellor have done? He would have done one of two things. Since his road to Damascus experience, he wants to cut everything, and following that logic, he would have done nothing. The economy would have gone under, and everyone with a mortgage would have been written off. Alternatively, bearing in mind his mates in the City, I suspect that he would have bailed the banks out just like we did. He would have been faced with a deficit, just like we were. We never hear anything about the future of those banks from Members on the Government Benches.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

Conservative Members seem to forget what the Prime Minister said. In speech to the CBI, he said that the Government were sticking to Labour’s spending totals. Just weeks before the collapse of Northern Rock and for several months after it, he said to the Institute of Directors that if it wanted lower taxation and less regulation, he would—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has got the point.