Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Andrew Smith

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The Opposition do not want to hear it, but the fact is that the man whom they are putting forward to be Mayor of London has set up a company to funnel all this money into and is potentially paying a lower tax rate than the people who would work for him at the Greater London Assembly. It is completely disgraceful and even at this late stage I call on the Labour leader to get the Labour candidate to publish all the information so that we can see the tax that he is paying.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that the specialist ACE Centre in Oxford, currently facing closure, does outstanding work unlocking the isolation of children with acute communication difficulties? Given the pressure charities are under, will he step in and pull together some bridging finance so that this outstanding centre can continue helping the children and young people who need it so much?

[The Prime Minister]

As the right hon. Gentleman probably knows, I do know that centre. I have visited it in the past, and I am very happy to look with him, as a fellow Oxfordshire MP, at what can be done to help the centre and the very good that it does, particularly for disabled children.

Public Disorder

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Andrew Smith

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

Can the Prime Minister say what measures he has in mind to strengthen families, and in particular parental responsibility, which so many members of the public rightly think is a big factor in all of this?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me give the right hon. Gentleman just one area where we have already made progress but I want to see further progress: discipline in schools. We have got to make sure that schools are able to confiscate things from children and to exclude children without being overruled by appeals panels. All those steps add to responsibility. We must also make sure that every single tax and benefit is pro-family, pro-commitment and pro-fathers who stick around. Part of the problem is that fathers have left too many of these communities, and that is why young people look towards the gang.