Oral Answers to Questions

Alan Whitehead Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Obviously there are challenges in particularly far-flung rural constituencies such as that of the hon. Gentleman, which has many islands in it, but we have to make sure that people’s assessments are properly carried out. Those assessments are important. The whole point about this Government’s programme is that we do not want to leave people on unemployment or other benefits year after year. We want these tests and assessments to be properly carried out so that we can see whether people are eligible for benefits and what help they need to get work.

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

Q6. Did the Prime Minister’s intention to legislate to help people with the costs and insecurity of renting their homes lose its slot in a packed Queen’s Speech legislative programme to the plan to ban plastic bags, or did he perhaps not have any such proposals in the first place?

[The Prime Minister]

What this Government are doing is ensuring that we build more houses. That is what we absolutely need to do to help those who are renting or buying. Yes, we need greater transparency in regard to what letting agencies do, and we are delivering that as part of our programme, but I do not believe that a policy of rent controls—which the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the letting agents themselves have said would put up rents—is the answer.