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Confident Consumers

I am the consumer Minister, and thank goodness I am. Any job I do, I will make a success of it. I may be a small man, but I am a bigger man than the hon. Gentleman in all respects. He can take that how he likes. The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) said that citizens advice bureaux did not receive any direct Government funding. That is not correct. Earlier I announced that we will be giving £45 million to fund debt advice services and £16 million will go to projects led directly by Citizens Advice. It will also receive a share of the £22 million going to projects run jointly with other advice agencies. So we are giving substantial funding. When I was a Minister in the Cabinet Office between 1999 and 2001 we gave substantial assistance—millions—to the CABs to invest in infrastructure so that they could interconnect on advice, services and training. They welcomed that. Local authorities also support the CABs. It was to the eternal shame of the Conservative Government that they cut substantially resources to the CABs. We have not only put it back but bettered it, and rightly so.