Autumn Statement

Lilian Greenwood Excerpts

Tuesday 29th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is indeed a powerful champion of micro-businesses. She has spoken to me about them on a number of occasions in the past year. We have set out a number of measures that will help such businesses, including the rate relief holiday, the seed investment scheme and the support for innovation. We are consulting and having a call for evidence specifically on compensated no-fault dismissal for firms of fewer than 10 employees.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

Why are hard-working families on tax credits, low-paid public sector workers and the thousands of young people in my city with no job paying the price of the Chancellor’s economic failure while he lets bankers keep their bonuses?

[Mr Osborne]

It was the Labour Government who let the City explode. They allowed that to happen when the shadow Chancellor was the City Minister. They had 13 years to regulate the City and I suspect that on not one occasion did the hon. Lady write to either Tony Blair or the last Prime Minister calling for that regulation. The Labour party presided over the biggest financial crisis in our country’s history. We are properly regulating the banks and introducing ring-fencing. We have brought in a permanent bank tax and transparency in bankers’ pay. None of those things existed in the 13 years of Labour Government.