Oral Answers to Questions

Tom Blenkinsop Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I support having elected mayors in our great cities. Obviously it will be for those cities themselves to choose. I am hugely encouraged by what has happened in Liverpool recently. We will be having referendums, and people in Bristol will have their chance to make that choice. At the same time, what people have not entirely noticed is that the Government are going through a huge act of devolution to cities, in terms of the powers and the money that we are prepared to offer them, so that they can build their own futures. If we think of how Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham—these great cities—built themselves up in the first place, we see that it was not on order and instruction from London; it was the great city figures who did that for them. We want that to happen again.

[Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)]

Q5. On Tuesday the Education Secretary said that the Prime Minister’s decision to set up the Leveson inquiry was having a “chilling” effect upon freedom of expression. Does the Education Secretary speak for the Government?

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make is this. It was right to set up the Leveson inquiry, and that is a decision fully supported by the entire Government, but I think my right hon. Friend is making an important point, which is this: even as this inquiry goes on, we want to have a vibrant press that feels it can call the powerful to account, and we do not want to see it chilled—and although sometimes one may feel some advantage in having it chilled, that is not what we want.