Households Below Average Income Statistics

Debate between Alex Burghart and Amber Rudd

Thursday 28th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that growing up in a workless household is one of the most damaging factors for a child’s life chances? Consequently, will she commit to investing more in universal support to help people with difficulties to overcome them and move into long-term employment?

[Amber Rudd]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Households with nobody in work are much more likely to be in poverty, and they are a bad role model for everybody else. It is important to ensure that we engage successfully with households so that everybody has the opportunity of getting a job. There are now 665,000 fewer children in workless households since 2010.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alex Burghart and Amber Rudd

Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

We are not stopping, ceasing or pausing the system, but we always make sure that we change it where it needs to be changed, to ensure that it operates in people’s best interests.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

I am delighted to welcome the new Secretary of State to her place, and I thank the old Secretary of State—[Hon. Members: “Former!”] My apologies—I thank the former Secretary of State for all she did, not least in acquiring the additional money for universal credit. I am delighted to say that we now have record disability employment in this country. Will the Minister confirm that the Department will continue to work on giving assistive technology to disabled people to help them to find work?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alex Burghart and Amber Rudd

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

As I say, I will find out from the high commissioners whether there have been any situations where such people have been removed. I would respectfully remind the Labour party that the workplace checks were introduced by Labour in 2008. What is happening now is part of the pattern of making sure that people are here legally. I do not want any Commonwealth citizens who are here legally to be impacted in the way they have been. Frankly, some of how they have been treated has been wrong—has been appalling—and I am sorry. That is why I am setting up a new area in my Department to ensure that we have a completely new approach to how their situation is regularised.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

11. What steps she is taking to safeguard vulnerable people from online radicalisation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

This was a fair and open competitive process. It is right to have a tendering process that looks after taxpayers’ money and of course ensures that British companies can compete. I wish that a British company had won the contract, but the process has to be carried out fairly, on the basis of quality and cost, and on that basis we saved the country £120 million. I wonder how the right hon. Gentleman would choose to spend that; I know that we can put it to good use.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

T4. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Essex police, fire and crime commissioner, Roger Hirst, who has used precept powers to increase the number of frontline police officers in Essex by 150?

[Amber Rudd]

I welcome the action of my hon. Friend’s police and crime commissioner. PCCs have been given powers to raise additional funds, if they want to do so, to provide extra policemen and women on the frontline, and most are choosing to do that.