Oral Answers to Questions

David Ward Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We have made at least 40 changes to ensure that people pay their taxes. We inherited circumstances in which foreigners were not paying stamp duty, hedge fund managers were paying less tax than their cleaners, and a number of people were avoiding tax on an industrial scale. [Interruption.] Opposition Members sit there now, but they were the friends of the tax avoiders. They had 13 years in which to act, but they did nothing, and it took a Conservative Government to sort it out.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Q7. Does the Prime Minister believe that his own behaviour and that of the Leader of the Opposition during Prime Minister’s Question Time enhances or damages the image of the Houses of Parliament and, indeed, that of politicians in the eyes of members of the public?

[The Prime Minister]

Prime Minister’s Question Time is, inevitably, a robust exchange. I am sure that there are always ways in which we can improve it, but it has an important function in ensuring that we have accountable government in our country, and that people can ask the Prime Minister anything they want.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Ward Excerpts

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I have made my views very clear: if we are going to have one minor party, we should have all the minor parties. When this happens, one point I will make is what Mr Farage said in 2012 about the NHS—the hon. Gentleman comes to the House week after week to talk about the NHS in Kent—when he said that

“we are going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare”.

That is the UKIP policy—privatise the NHS; I say, “Never.”

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Q15. An estimated 13 million people—30% of those who should be eligible to vote—are registered incorrectly or are not registered at all on the individual electoral registration system. In the year of the election, will the Prime Minister ensure that the Government fully support national voter registration day on 5 February, and will he commit himself to taking part in Bite the Ballot’s leaders live event? It might help him in making his decision to know that the Greens have agreed to take part in that debate.

[The Prime Minister]

It is important that people register to vote. That is why local authorities have been given over £7 million to help in that process. Individual voter registration will help to cut out some of the fraud and some of the systems that were used in previous elections.