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Economic Affairs and Work and Pensions

I think it was providing a response to a parliamentary question from my right hon. Friend that obliged me to read the report. I remember spending two days reading it and giving my decision. However, I do not have the benefit of the advice I received, which I now need to remind me why I refused his request at that time. All I can say is that I refused his request for entirely the right reasons but, 10 years later and in the spirit of freedom of information, I am not saying that it definitely should be looked at. The present Chancellor or whoever is dealing with the issue should look at the matter and perhaps 10 years further on someone else looking at that report might reach a different conclusion. I reiterate, whatever decision I reached was right for the reasons I gave at the time. May I also tell the Chancellor that it would be helpful if he took the opportunity to spell out the Government's policy on the banks in which the Government have shareholdings—Northern Rock, Lloyds, the Royal Bank of Scotland—because that is a matter of interest, especially now that RBS is talking about disposing of its Williams & Glyn's branches and others? I believe it is the view of both main political parties that there ought to be more competition in the system, so a clear statement on Government policy on how we do that would be helpful. We do not want to end up selling a tranche of banks to another big UK operator, because that would mean that we would not get the competition we want. I was interested to re-read last Friday the Business, Innovations and Skills Secretary's criticism of the banks' failure to lend, but it is not entirely clear to me what the new Government are doing to increase bank lending. It would be useful to hear from the Chancellor, or at least one of his colleagues, in the fairly near future on that. However, the main focus of today's debate is, inevitably, the economy, as it was in Treasury questions for the past hour or so. Yesterday, predictably, the Prime Minister, as the Chancellor did today, sought to lay the blame for everything the new Government plan to do on the previous Government. There is nothing new in that: new Governments frequently blame their predecessors and it is the easiest thing in the world to do. It is equally unsurprising that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor should go around the country and other parts of the world and say, "The situation is much, much worse than we thought. It's all terrible and we will have to do terrible things." By a stroke of good fortune, they have the Liberal Democrats to front-up some of the difficult decisions they must take.