Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 11th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that the news on manufacturing is good. All 13 of the manufacturing sectors have increased—the first time that has happened since 1992. Of course, the Labour party does not like hearing that good news, including the great announcement this week that Jaguar Land Rover is creating 1,700 new jobs. We must go on backing British business, backing exports and backing manufacturing to ensure that we make this a sustainable recovery that works for hard-working people.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Q5. Is the Prime Minister embarrassed that, while so many people struggle, City bonuses are up £700 million this year?

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said, City bonuses are actually 86% lower than they were when the hon. Lady was supporting the last Government. She tweeted this morning—I follow these things very closely, as you know, Mr Speaker—that she had a question to the Prime Minister, and she asked for suggestions. The first suggestion came back:

“How happy are you that Ed Miliband will be the leader of the Labour Party at the next election?”

I cannot think why she rejected that advice and took advice from the shadow Chancellor instead.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 8th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

If it is all going so well, why are more people on the dole in Ashfield than when the Prime Minister took office? Why are more people out of work in my constituency now?

[The Prime Minister]

Across the country, more people—1.25 million more—are in work, and 270,000 fewer are on out-of-work benefits. That is what is happening under this Government, and that is what we will continue to make progress on. There is a very serious point here. If we borrow more, spend more, and fail to get a grip on the deficit, we will say goodbye to the low interest rates that this Government have earned. Let us be clear about what that would mean: mortgage rates going up; business failures going up; repossessions going up. That is the price that every family in Britain would pay for Labour’s irresponsibility. Those are the consequences of having a Leader of the Opposition who is too weak to stand up to his shadow Chancellor. He has a long history of such weakness: too weak to stand up to his party on welfare; too weak to stand up to the unions on strikes; too weak ever to stand up to Gordon Brown when in government; too weak to apologise for the mess Gordon Brown made in government. He is the living embodiment of a new dictum: the weak are a long time in politics.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

This is an important priority that we have taken action on in Budget after Budget, even in difficult times, saying to people, “We are on your side. We want to cut your tax bills.” In just two weeks’ time there will be a tax cut of over £200 for 24 million people in our country—each and every taxpayer. At the same time, we are lifting over 2 million people out of tax—they will not pay any income tax at all. This is real progress and it is on the side of the people who work hard and want to get on.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Q12. What is the Prime Minister planning to spend his millionaire’s tax cut on?

[The Prime Minister]

When the top rate of tax was put up, millionaires paid £7 billion less. That is the sort of incompetence and inefficiency that the hon. Lady left the sofa of GMTV to support. [Interruption.]

G20 Summit

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Part of the Government’s strategy is to link Britain with some of the fastest growing countries in the world, and that is why I have personally taken trade missions to almost all of the G20 countries now, apart from Brazil and Argentina, and I hope to go to Brazil later this year. One of the most effective ways to break down trade barriers is through the EU trade deals. We have done one with Korea; we now need to do one with Japan, and there are many others in the pipeline.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has talked a lot about eradicating the debt. At the start of the Parliament he said he would eradicate it by the end of the Parliament. How is that timetable going?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned long and hard on this issue. As he knows, the Home Secretary is carefully considering a wide range of material before making her decision. She has instructed two independent medical experts to view the various reports that have been submitted in this case. She will make her decision as quickly as possible, but this is not an easy case. A number of difficult issues have to be considered before she makes that announcement.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

The popular NHS walk-in centre in my constituency has recently closed, and similar walk-in centres are closing all over the country. Why?

[The Prime Minister]

It is certainly not because the money in the NHS is being cut, because it is not being cut. The money in the NHS is being increased. If we had followed the hon. Lady’s advice, however, the money would be going down. What matters is that the money in the NHS is spent to deliver better health outcomes, and I think that that is a decision that needs to be taken locally.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Discussions about a national funding formula are ongoing. It is a difficult issue to resolve because of the historical patterns of differences of funding around the country. I think the pupil premium is a major step forward; it will be up to £2.6 billion by the end of this Parliament. The Institute for Fiscal Studies report says that we have made spending on education much more progressive by the action we have taken. We have taken difficult decisions but at the heart of that was a decision to protect the schools budget and per-pupil funding and, on top of that, to add the pupil premium to make sure that we are looking after the less well-off in our country.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Q7. Last month, a leaked Downing street report said, “We know from a range of polls that women are significantly more negative about the Government than men.”Why does the Prime Minister think that is?

[The Prime Minister]

When you are making difficult spending decisions and have a difficult economic situation, and household budgets are under huge pressure from things like petrol prices, food prices and inflation, clearly, that impacts women. The Government want to do everything they can to help women and that is why we have lifted 1 million people out of tax, the majority of whom are women, and that is why we are putting much more money and time into free nursery education for two, three and four-year-olds. That is also why, for the first time, we have agreed that women working fewer than 16 hours a week will get child care. And we do not just care about this issue at home: because of what we are doing through international aid, we will be saving more than 50,000 women in childbirth around the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly pay tribute to what the Mayor has done and what the Department for Communities and Local Government has done to make sure that there is money available for rebuilding our communities. The good thing about the £20 million high street support scheme, which my hon. Friend mentions, is that 29 local authorities have already registered for it. I hope that we will see the money being spent quickly to help rebuild our high streets.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Does the Prime Minister support the closure of local police stations?

[The Prime Minister]

It is up to chief constables to work out how best to police their areas, but what I am finding from talking to police constables up and down the country is that they want to put their resources into visible policing on the streets. They have got the support of a Government who are cutting the paperwork, reforming the pay and reforming the pensions—taking the difficult decisions that will make sure that we have more police on our streets than we ever would under Labour.

Public Disorder

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is why the Home Secretary is going to explore the issue with the social media companies and other services. The key thing is that the police were facing a new circumstance. Rioters were using the BlackBerry service—a closed network—so that they knew where they were going to loot next, and the police could not keep up with them. We have to examine that and work out how to get ahead.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has said that CCTV has proved highly valuable, so can he explain how he might make it easier for communities who want more CCTV to get more?

[The Prime Minister]

By making funds available. One of the first things I did in politics as a Home Office special adviser was to set up one of the first ever CCTV challenge funds so that communities could invest in it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The truth is that Labour Members do not like being reminded of the massive deficit and the huge mess that they left this Government to clear up. My hon. Friend makes a good point—that in spite of difficult decisions, we will lift the tax threshold for income tax payers in April this year, and 880,000 people will be removed from income tax altogether. That is a major step forward, a big help with the cost of living, and will be welcome to families up and down the country.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Many parents in my constituency are worried sick because a number of school bus services are being withdrawn, with no guarantee of an equivalent replacement—meaning that timetables, routes and fares will be at the discretion of commercial operators. What is the Prime Minister doing to ensure that families are not subject to big fare hikes just to get their children to school?

[The Prime Minister]

What we are doing—it was one of the difficult decisions we took in the spending round—is to make sure that the per pupil funding in place is not going down; it is being maintained. That meant taking difficult decisions elsewhere in the Budget, but we took that decision for the good of the country’s schoolchildren.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gloria De Piero and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said, we have filled in some of the black hole left by the last Government because a promise of extra spending was made but the money was not found. While we made the £6 billion-worth of cuts to start sorting out the finances, we used some of the saved money to fill in the black hole so that those social housing schemes could go ahead. Clearly, the decent homes programme is important. We have to make sure that it provides value for money, but the hon. Lady’s constituency has very great needs, with so many substandard houses.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Q11. My nine-year-old constituent, Paisley Ward, says that she and her brother learned to swim because it was free. Paisley is worried that her little sister will not be able to learn because this Government want to charge. In her letter, Paisley says, “please, please stop this madness”. Will the Prime Minister listen to Paisley and have a rethink?

[The Prime Minister]

First, may I congratulate the hon. Lady? Many people in this country think that this is a good time to leave politics and go into the media. May I congratulate someone who left the warmth of the GMTV sofa in order to sit on a green Bench here?

The hon. Lady raises an important case, but I have to tell her that not all Labour councils were able to deliver the free swimming pledge. I am afraid that this is one of the things, like many others, that it will not always be possible to guarantee in the incredibly straitened times that we are living in, when we have a £155 billion budget deficit to deal with.