Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Vince Cable]

The Government are supporting women with young children, and families in general, to the tune of about £5 billion through the child care element in tax credit and free early years tuition, which for low-income families has been extended to two-year-olds, as well as tax relief on employers’ schemes. That amounts to very substantial support for child care.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The number of women in the workplace has been increasing for some time, of course, but in Wirral women public servants faced with the threat of redundancy and women leaders of small business tell me the cuts to Wirral council are threatening their job security. Will the Secretary of State ask his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to have a rethink about some of the heaviest cuts that are falling on places such as Merseyside?

[Vince Cable]

It is never good when people lose their jobs, and I always regret that, but the simple fact is that in Wirral, as in other parts of the country, the number of public sector local and national Government jobs lost is far outweighed by the number of jobs created in the private sector; over 1 million have been created over the past two years.