Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Oral Answers to Questions

David Morris Excerpts
Tuesday 27th October 2015

(8 years, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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George Osborne Portrait Mr Osborne
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The measures to save welfare—as I say, we will help with the transition—come alongside the increase in the national living wage, the increase in the personal allowance and the action we have taken to cut social rents. They are all part of a package that is delivering economic security to the people in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman remembers what the situation was like five or six years ago in Northern Ireland: high unemployment, a lack of business investment and people looking for work. Now we are in a situation where jobs are being created and people are finding work. Do I say that everything has been done that needs to be done? Absolutely not. We have more to do to bring jobs and investment to Northern Ireland. Let us work together to make that happen.

David Morris Portrait David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
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My local council keeps bleating on about cuts, saying how they are going to affect everybody living there. But, on the front page of a newspaper, a management consultancy company that the council brought in said that in my constituency and the region, 10,000 jobs are going to be created over the next five years. [Interruption.] Yes, very lucky. Does the Chancellor agree that his economic policies have put that on track and that my area of the world is going forward, making it better for the people who live there?

George Osborne Portrait Mr Osborne
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My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As a result of the combination of him being a very effective local MP and the fact that we have a Conservative Prime Minister and a Conservative Government, we are delivering more jobs into my hon. Friend’s part of Lancashire. Indeed, I remember on visits with him seeing the work being done on the link road to the port, which for decades—including when there were Labour MPs representing the constituency—was campaigned for, but never delivered. Now it is actually being built and delivered as a result of my hon. Friend’s local efforts.