Public Disorder

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is an hour and 20 minutes before I have said it, but I have to say it: there is a reason why we are having to reduce these budgets, and that is because we inherited a complete fiscal car crash. There is a connection between this statement and the statement that we are about to have, which is that if countries do not get control of their fiscal situations, we can see what happens, with even the largest countries in the world getting their debt downgraded.

[Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)]

The Prime Minister is quite right to look at the events of this week in the context of social malaise and family breakdown. May I press him on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh)? The policy to which he referred—support for marriage in the tax system—was in the coalition agreement and the Conservative party manifesto on which we were both elected. Surely, this week of all weeks, it is time to look at the holistic context, support marriage and the family, review the policy, and bring forward proposals to support marriage and the family in our country?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that that was in the manifesto, and it is indeed in the coalition agreement. The coalition agreement, where the two parties take a different view, makes allowance for that, and I remain a strong supporter of that proposal.