Business of the House Debate

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Department: Leader of the House
Thursday 11th October 2018

(6 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Andrea Leadsom Portrait Andrea Leadsom
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The hon. Lady raises an incredibly important issue. Any type of hate crime is absolutely unacceptable. We have to stamp out all forms of discrimination that lead to hate crimes such as the ones to which she is referring. I encourage her to raise this issue at the next Justice questions, a few weeks from now, so that we can discuss how we address the issue of hate crimes and Islamophobia.

John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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Chris—[Interruption.] Elmore.

Chris Elmore Portrait Chris Elmore
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I never thought I would outrank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda.

Chris Bryant Portrait Chris Bryant
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You don’t!

Chris Elmore Portrait Chris Elmore
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On a more serious point, my constituent has been in and out of work, so he has now been told he has exhausted the number of universal credit advance payments he can receive. He is out of work now. He received his last pay cheque two weeks ago. He has even exhausted all his food bank vouchers. The Department for Work and Pensions has told him he will have to wait seven weeks for any sort of payment. Thanks to interventions from my office, he has been awarded £350 towards paying his rent—that is not enough.

May I ask the Leader of the House, most sincerely, for an urgent debate, in Government time, on the horrendous realities of the UC roll-out and the impact it is having on constituents of Members from both sides of the House? Please do not just refer me to DWP questions next week: we need a debate, because the realities of UC are truly abhorrent.