Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Karl Turner

Monday 31st March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

It is interesting that the Opposition and the hon. Lady take the view that people moving is a bad thing. Let me just tell her—[Interruption.] It is interesting that they say that, but 30,000-plus people—I will repeat that: 30,000 people—who were in overcrowded accommodation have now had the opportunity for the first time to move into houses where they are not overcrowded. The hon. Lady and the Opposition left us with a quarter of a million people in that position—250,000—so in 10 months over 10% have had the opportunity to move and we are saving over £1 million a day. I call that a success.

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

6. What steps he plans to take to tackle long-term unemployment.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Karl Turner

Monday 28th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

T4. Has the Minister revised his previous estimate that, by 2012, 25,000 single parents will be in work when their income support ends when their youngest child is five years old? Does he not accept that unemployment in my area, Hull, is at a record high, thanks to his Government’s policies?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am always astonished by the Opposition’s defeatist idea that trying to get single parents back into work to support their children is somehow a bad thing. The reality is that the hon. Gentleman’s Government left this country bust, and without any money to do any of the things that he wants to do. They keep spending the same money again and again in their proposals. It is time that they grew up and got on with the real opposition that we expect.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Iain Duncan Smith and Karl Turner

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)]

I draw the House’s attention to the fact that today, as I referenced earlier, the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs published a joint strategy to tackle fraud and error in the benefits system, which we believe should save £5 billion each year. The proposals in the fraud and error strategy, which together represent an additional £425 million of funding over the next four years, will, we believe, deliver a £1.4 billion reduction in fraud and error by 2014-15.

[Karl Turner]

Can the Secretary of State explain to a large number of my constituents why he reduced the support for mortgage interest payments before his Department ensured that mortgage lenders would average out rates? Why did he communicate this only a few days before it was reduced, and is it not true that lenders are fighting this reform tooth and nail?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was listening to the Minister of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Steve Webb), when he pointed out that the last Government left plans to slash that support. It is we who have actually brought it to the average, which means that people will do better under us than they ever would have done under the last Government—so an apology would do very nicely thank you.