Business of the House

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I think that is always a good motto to pursue, but from our point of view it is sometimes necessary to legislate. That is what we are doing, not least in the progress that we have already made on the Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Bill, and also with the publication today of the Growth and Infrastructure Bill and the Bill relating to HGV road user levies. We are taking further measures that will promote growth and the development of infrastructure in this country, getting us the growth that we know is an absolute necessity, alongside deficit reduction, for improving our competitive position.

When the Leader of the Opposition is out marching with the TUC and it is saying that it wants long-term economic progress but does not think that political leaders today are offering that, he might reflect that that is exactly true in relation to him—that the Labour party’s leadership are not addressing the long-term economic problems of this country, they are denying the deficit and they have no policies for growth. We in the coalition are putting forward those policies for growth.

[Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House allow me to record my thanks to the many people who have made my job so simple during the 29-plus years that I have been in the House? I am thinking of the Clerks of the House and those who clean for us and staff the cafés and bars to make our lives straightforward.

I also offer my thanks and appreciation to colleagues on both sides of the House—more enthusiastically to some than to others, perhaps—for being part of the enormous privilege of serving my constituents in Stretford and Manchester Central over those years, in what is still a wonderful and great experiment in representative parliamentary democracy.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Members on both sides will appreciate not only his sentiments, but how he expressed them. I share in that and know that the staff of the House will appreciate it too.