Growth and Infrastructure Bill

I rise briefly to support my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) on the Front Bench. There is a parallel here with the privatisations and de-mutualisations of the 1980s and early 1990s, when consumers and partners—shareholders, if one likes—in mutual organisations were persuaded to give up their rights for shares, which were then sold. A classic example is Northern Rock, which had to be funded by the taxpayer to prevent it from being destroyed, and just recently came the disaster affecting the old Trustee Savings Bank, which was a mutual bank serving the country and its customers very well. It was forced to privatise and has now turned out to be an expensive disaster, a basket case that even the Co-op bank cannot afford to take on. This will cost the Government money. Again, a Conservative Government are persuading people to give up rights for shares that will last a few weeks, and then they will have lost their rights for good.