Oral Answers to Questions

Geraint Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I always listen closely to what Michael Heseltine says and I am a huge fan of his plans for an industrial strategy. On the issue of Europe, we have not always agreed. He was a leading proponent of Britain joining the single currency and I have always been opposed to that. On the issue of the referendum, I gently remind my right hon. and learned Friend that an in/out referendum was very much part of his manifesto at the last election, but in the interests of coalition harmony, I think we will leave that to one side.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q12. A Swansea constituent of mine with a chronic medical condition tells me that he has just £20 a week to spend on food and clothing after paying his utility bills, and that after the welfare cuts in April he will have just £2 a day. If the Prime Minister believes that we are all in it together, will he agree to review the impact of the welfare cuts on the very poorest, so that my constituent’s sacrifices are in line with his own?

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very closely at what the hon. Gentleman says and the circumstances, but it is worth making the point that, if we compare 2013 with 2010 in terms of the level of key benefits, we will see that an unemployed person on jobseeker’s allowance is getting £325 more this year than in 2010, that a couple on jobseeker’s allowance are getting £500 more and that a single, out-of-work mother is getting £420 more, so what the Opposition try to do week after week—paint a picture that we have unfairly cut welfare—is simply untrue.