Liberal Democrats have been proposing a public interest test for some time – the issue is not whether there is a foreign bidder, it is about whether it is in the interests of the British economy. The Labour Government removed this provision in 2002 and we are now seeing the damage done by opening up a complete free-for-all.
Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor, led Liberal Democrat support for two amendments to the Enterprise Bill in June and October 2002 that would have compelled the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to take into account the damage to the public interest and employment levels when determining competition policy on mergers and acquisitions. Our local Labour MP voted against this amendment. Also of interest the eight Tory MPs that voted on this issue, supporter the Labour Government position.
Back in January this year, Vince wrote to Lord Mandleson about the Cadbury/Kraft takeover. In his letter he said: “Would you agree that there is now a strong case to review issues of share ownership and corporate governance to ensure that short term shareholders looking for very quick returns do not damage the long term stability of publicly listed companies and, with it, the longer term growth of the British economy?”
Again, back in January, at Prime Minister’s Question Time, Nick Clegg, asked: “… Last month, Lord Mandleson declared that the Government would mount a huge opposition to the Kraft takeover of Cadbury’s, so why does the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which is owned by this Government, now want to lend vast amounts of our money to Kraft to fund that takeover? Nick Clegg further stated that while tens of thousands of British companies are crying out for money to protect jobs, RBS wants to lend to a multinational with a record of cutting jobs. When British taxpayers bailed out the banks, they would never have believed that their money would be used to put British people out of work.
The full exchange can be found on link: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmhansrd/cm100120/debtext/100120-0003.htm#10012070002828.
