Angela Smith
Main Page: Angela Smith (Liberal Democrat - Penistone and Stocksbridge)Department Debates - View all Angela Smith's debates with the Cabinet Office
(7 years, 6 months ago)
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Damian Green
The hon. Lady knows that the NHS is a devolved function in the devolved Administrations, so if we accept the logic of devolution, this is clearly a political issue for the people of Northern Ireland.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The House is disappointed this afternoon that the First Secretary of State has been so vague in explaining exactly where the money to pay for this deal is coming from. It is therefore incumbent on him to ask his Chancellor to come to this House to explain how it is that the period of austerity which we have suffered for so long has so abruptly come to an end and how it is that if we now have the “proceeds of growth”, areas such as Yorkshire, the north-west, Newcastle and Cumbria are not also allowed to enjoy them?
Damian Green
All the areas that the hon. Lady talks about have benefited from an economic policy that has reduced unemployment to its lowest level for more than 40 years. I am happy to assure her that the money in this deal is well within the confines of the fiscal targets we have set ourselves, so we are still able to hit those targets of eliminating the deficit by 2025—by the middle of the next decade—and reducing the structural deficit to no more than 2% by 2020-21. This does not affect our fiscal targets at all.