Oral Answers to Questions

David Winnick Excerpts

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This country has a record budget deficit; that is the situation we have inherited. We have made some in-year reductions, which have made it slightly less worse this year than it otherwise would have been, and then we have measures next year to try to bring the budget deficit down. Every one of those measures has been opposed by Opposition Front Benchers. They have put forward not a single plan, not a single proposal, to reduce the budget deficit, but our proposals have provided this country with economic stability, in a very unstable European continent.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

Following on from the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), what does the Chancellor have to say about the Institute for Fiscal Studies report, which says that almost 1 million people will be below the breadline by 2014? That is an extra million people. Does the Chancellor not feel any shame about what will happen to so many of our constituents—certainly mine—as a result of the policies that he is pursuing? I would have thought that it was a matter over which the Business Secretary might wish to consider resigning.

[Mr Osborne]

As usual, the hon. Gentleman’s question is totally over the top. I would make this observation: we have inherited this economic situation—a record budget deficit—and we are taking the action to deal with it. We are also promoting social mobility by funding a pupil premium and giving new nursery entitlements to disadvantaged two-year-olds. Child poverty rose in the last years of the Labour Government. They set a child poverty target and entrenched it in law, knowing full well that they did not have the policies to meet that target in any way. We are putting in place the policies that will deliver greater social mobility and deal with entrenched poverty in our country.