Budget Leak Inquiry Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Budget Leak Inquiry

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts
Thursday 22nd March 2012

(12 years, 1 month ago)

Commons Chamber
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David Gauke Portrait Mr Gauke
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Some things are not entirely new. The Labour party really does have to think back to its time in government and to the behaviour undertaken then. What is remarkable is that Opposition Members managed to brief some of their announcements, given that most were decided only at the very last minute.

Sheila Gilmore Portrait Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
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Will the Minister clarify whether he expounds the virtues of advance notification and discussion because we have a coalition, or whether he thinks that it is a bad thing to leak? Was the one thing that he did not share with his coalition partners perhaps the granny tax?

David Gauke Portrait Mr Gauke
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All Budget decisions were agreed by the Government as a whole, and the quad was heavily involved at all stages in that. People in a coalition will always make their arguments and set out their case, and some of that will be done in private, some of it in public, but it is a far more orderly process of Budget policy making than we have seen for many years.