"While my hon. Friend is commenting on the speech made by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), was he somewhat taken aback to discover that nurses, doctors, firefighters and police in Macclesfield are apparently not occupying real jobs?..." Frank Dobson - View Speech
"I think everyone in the House would welcome a step forward in trying to gain some control over the excesses of the banking industry, but most Members—at least those who have spoken—seem to be dubious about whether the Bill goes far enough. Following on from the speech by my hon. …..." Frank Dobson - View Speech
"Yes, but if we are to get the changes we need, we also need to change the culture in both sectors.
The banks have never competed with one another, or at least not in trying to get customers. Rather, they have tended to compete by copying one another. When one …..." Frank Dobson - View Speech
"I entirely agree with that. I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw that it would be good to see the Halifax building society separated out from Lloyds HBOS, so that what was the country’s leading firm could be relocated and its decisions could once again be …..." Frank Dobson - View Speech
"Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the characteristics of our banking system is that the banks have invested more money in fancy offices in the City for themselves than in British manufacturing industry?..." Frank Dobson - View Speech
"The hon. Gentleman is fairly youthful, so he may not remember the time when most big banks had local bank managers and so had some of the characteristics of the Bank of Dave, in that there was someone local who knew the locality and its businesses. Many people now find …..." Frank Dobson - View Speech
"Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a trifle irksome to listen to the radio or watch television and to hear someone from PricewaterhouseCoopers telling us what we ought to do for the future when PricewaterhouseCoopers audited Northern Rock and did not spot anything going wrong, or to hear …..." Frank Dobson - View Speech
"The Chancellor, having abandoned the triple A rating as a benchmark, appears to have adopted the claim that he has created 1 million private sector jobs. Will he tell us how many of those jobs have in fact been transferred to the private sector, or franchised out to it, from …..." Frank Dobson - View Speech
"Can the Chief Secretary to the Treasury tell the House of a single Tory or Liberal Democrat MP who objected to a PFI hospital or school being built in their constituency under the Labour Government?..." Frank Dobson - View Speech