Royal Mail
Debate between Pete Wishart and Vince CableUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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Vince Cable
Yes, I do. We need to go back to the fundamental reason why not just this Government but the Labour Government accepted that the company had to go into private ownership: it was about mobilising a large amount of investment without it falling on the public accounts. That is what we have achieved.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
Seventy-seven per cent. of Scottish people opposed the Royal Mail privatisation and 78% of Scottish MPs voted against it, but Scotland got it. After this travesty, what should the Scottish people do this year to ensure that we get the postal services that we want and require?
Vince Cable
I am aware that the Scottish National party has said that it will renationalise the Scottish bits of Royal Mail if it gets independence. It has not explained how it will pay for that, nor has it explained how it will pay for the extra cost of the universal service obligation in an independent Scotland.
Higher Education Fees
Debate between Pete Wishart and Vince Cable(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I am very grateful to the Secretary of State. Does he even begin to understand or appreciate the potentially disastrous impact that trebling tuition fees in England will have on Scottish universities? What will he do to mitigate that?
Vince Cable
I most emphatically will not be following the advice of the Scottish nationalists in government, who are starving Scottish universities of resources and reallocating priorities to cut schools. That is what has happened in Scotland.
Higher Education and Student Finance
Debate between Pete Wishart and Vince Cable(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Vince Cable
Of course we respect the separate position of the different nations of the UK, and I am very happy to discuss it with the hon. Gentleman.
Vince Cable
The hon. Gentleman asks about Scotland. I was there last week discussing this with university authorities, who told me that the existing model in Scotland is not sustainable and that they may well have to move to a model similar to that in England and Wales. So I think that in Scotland, as elsewhere in the UK, these realities will have to be faced.