Part of Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 14 May 2003.
I think the right hon. Gentleman would agree that where there is abuse we should deal with it, because this is the taxpayer's money, but the reduction in interest rates under our policies—which is considerably greater than any reduction that occurred when his party were in government—has allowed more than 1 million people to buy their houses. The subsidy of nearly £40 billion simply allowing people to buy houses, rather than allowing the public stock to be improved or increased, worked against a good housing policy.