Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con): In good faith, I took a delegation of the 700 Dexion workers who had had their pensions stolen from them to see the Secretary of State. I have spoken to members of the delegation this morning, and they feel betrayed. At no time during the meeting did the Secretary of State indicate that the Government would ignore the advice of the ombudsman. This is a bad day for Parliament. If that kind of advice is ignored, how can people have any faith in what goes on in this House? Mr. Hutton: It was clearly not appropriate for me to say at that meeting, before the ombudsman's report had been published, that I was going to reject it. |
