Oral Answers to Questions

Andy McDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 30th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are determined to do whatever it takes to break the business model of the people smugglers, who are causing the needless loss of life of people in the channel and putting unsustainable pressure on our asylum system. Our Nationality and Borders Act 2022, opposed by the Labour party, gives us new powers, which we fully intend to use. We will take further measures as required to properly control our borders and reduce the number of illegal crossings.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Q6. It was sad to see in a video from his Oxford days the future Prime Minister saying that he hadn’t a single friend who was working class. He is not likely to make any soon, because while he sits on a personal fortune he is refusing the reasonable demands of nurses, railway workers and many others who are forced to take industrial action just to make ends meet. Why doesn’t he give them the wage increase they need and fund it by making the rich pay the same rate on unearned income as workers have to pay for their hard graft? While he is at it, why not scrap the non-dom tax loophole that he is all too familiar with, which is costing the public £3.2 billion?

[The Prime Minister]

I have nothing but admiration and gratitude for our nurses for all the work they do, but it is simply unreasonable and unaffordable to have a 19% pay rise. If that is what the hon. Gentleman thinks is reasonable, I am sure the Labour party can explain to us how it would pay for that and the impact it would have on inflation. If he really wants to support working people, maybe he should get off the picket line and end the strikes.