Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gregg McClymont and Nick Clegg

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course I shall look into the case, and I am sure my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will also be keen to look at it and get back to my hon. Friend. As he knows, the NHS is successfully seeing 51% more patients with suspected cancers than it was four years ago; survival rates have never been higher; almost nine out of 10 patients say that their care is excellent or very good; and the cancer treatment fund has helped thousands upon thousands of patients. But, of course, where possible we should always do more.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

Q11. The Deputy Prime Minister has made a series of extraordinary claims today, but among the most extraordinary is the one, in response to a question from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), that pensioner poverty rose under the last Government—in fact, pensioner poverty fell dramatically. Will he explain to the House what his source for that claim is? It certainly cannot be the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which in 2010 reported that pensioner poverty fell dramatically under the last Government.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The source is that what we are doing is a whole lot better than the insult of 75p. We have delivered the largest cash increase in the state pension ever; we have delivered the triple lock guarantee for pensioners; and we want to put that into law, so that, unlike under Labour, pensioners on the state pension will know that because of this coalition Government their state pension will go up by a decent amount every single time. That is my source.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Gregg McClymont and Nick Clegg

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Like, I suspect, many Members in all parts of the House, I was deeply shocked by the pictures of the offence that was perpetrated by the police officer. I also share people’s dismay that action was not taken more speedily. However stressful the conditions in which police officers work, it is absolutely essential that they uphold the very high standards of their own conduct in all circumstances, and that was clearly not the case in this instance. I am glad that action is finally being taken, although, like my hon. Friend, I wish that it could have been taken earlier.

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

Q2. This morning the Business Secretary reaffirmed his commitment to the separation of high street banking from casino banking. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that that separation is essential to ensuring that the British taxpayer need never again bail out banks that are too big to fail?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is a lively debate about the relationship between retail banking and investment banking. The former Chancellor has made his own views very clear from his party’s Front Bench: he does not think that there is a case for separation. The Liberal Democrats believed in opposition that there should be a separation, and a debate is now taking place within Government.

We have asked Sir John Vickers to chair an independent commission, which will consider how we can ensure that there is safety and stability in our banking system for good. That action was not taken by the last Government. We will look at the commission’s recommendations, and then decide.