Social security and tax reform plans were the main issues of contention Wednesday as opposition party leaders grilled Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda during a one-on-one Diet debate.
Noda repeatedly urged opposition leaders to cooperate with the passage of the tax hike bill, which he has said will save the social security system by doubling the 5 percent consumption tax by 2015.
At the second one-on-one debate since January, Liberal Democratic Party leader Sadakazu Tanigaki said his party, the largest among the opposition, could not cooperate with Noda's Democratic Party of Japan unless it is given a detailed schedule of how deliberations on the tax bill will be carried out in the current Diet session, which is scheduled to end June 21.