Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Emma Lewell-Buck and Victoria Atkins

Thursday 13th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Atkins]

It was a pleasure to sit in for my hon. Friend’s 10-minute rule motion on exactly this point last week, and I would be happy to meet her to discuss the marriage age. Forced marriage is illegal, of course, and the Home Office is doing a great deal of work to spread the message around communities particularly affected by it that it is simply not acceptable in the 21st century.

[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

T7. I am pleased to say that the 220,000 member-strong Women’s Institute has joined more than 20 other national organisations, 77% of the public and more than 150 MPs across the House to support my private Member’s Bill to measure the true levels of UK hunger. Does the Government’s continued resistance to my Bill not show their indifference to rising levels of hunger on their watch?

[Victoria Atkins]

It does not show that at all. The Government have a record of trying to push people into work, because we see work as the best way of tackling hunger and poverty. That is why we are trying to make universal credit taper more easily—so that when people get into work, they keep more of their own money. It is also why we raised the threshold at which people start paying income tax—again so that the lowest paid keep their money rather than paying it to the state. It is also about extending educational opportunities to children so that when children leave our schools they have had a good or outstanding education.