Budget (North-East)
Debate between Chloe Smith and Ian Mearns(12 years ago)
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Miss Smith
Thank you, Sir Roger. The new right-to-buy discount introduced by this Government is more than three times the current limit in the north-east of £22,000.
In his opening comments, the hon. Member for Gateshead used words such as “outdated”, and various other words have been bandied around today. I think that the hon. Gentleman, and other hon. Members, need to look around and see the threat to today’s economy, which in one word is debt. Debt is a problem both in the UK and globally, and this Government are determined to sort it out. Fiscal consolidation is necessary. Those in the Labour party seek to spend more, borrow more and owe more, and therefore to pile more debt on their children, and indeed my children. The hon. Gentleman, and those on the Opposition Front Bench, still believe that child benefit should be claimed by millionaires. We do not; we believe that there should be consolidation.
Miss Smith
I am afraid that I have no time. If we do not tackle our deficit, it will be worse for everybody. The really outdated view is to burden future generations with more debt, and for the Government to fail to take responsibility and consign all regions in the country to economic disaster. One need only look to the eurozone to get the picture. The Government’s actions have kept our interest rates closer to those in Germany than those in Greece, and made Britain a safe haven.
The topic of young people was raised by the hon. Members for North West Durham (Pat Glass) and for Hartlepool (Mr Wright). I am shocked that the hon. Gentleman thinks that it is patronising to believe that young people can start their own businesses and I disagree strongly. As a constituency MP, I make it my business to support Jobcentre Plus, the youth contract, the work experience programme and the Work programme—perhaps the hon. Gentleman acts differently in his constituency—and that is what I call working together to achieve things for our young people.