Oral Answers to Questions

Joan Walley Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend; we are absolutely committed to bringing justice to the Equitable Life policyholders. These people were shamelessly, shamefully betrayed year after year by the previous Government. We have published a Bill on this, we have taken the recommendations from Sir John Chadwick, which we will consider, and we will create an independent mechanism by which justice is finally provided to the policyholders, who were so shamefully overlooked by the previous Government.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

Q6. Does the Deputy Prime Minister have any qualms at all about the coalition Government’s 2010 Budget, which took 2,000 front-line workers out of Jobcentre Plus? Given that fewer people were in work this June than the previous June and given this week’s review into the work capability assessment, will he ensure that the comprehensive spending review provides the front-line staffing resources that Jobcentre Plus offices around the country need to get people off benefit and back into work in the way that he just described?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I certainly agree, of course, that the most important objective of all is to increase incentives to work. That is why in that same Budget we increased the personal allowance by £1,000, taking close to 900,000 people out of paying any income tax. We did take measures to protect the vulnerable and the elderly: we dramatically increased child tax credit, and we provided a triple guarantee to pensioners, so that their pensions will increase by 2.5%, by inflation or by earnings. Of course it is easy in opposition to deny any responsibility for the mess in which we find ourselves in the first place, but I simply ask the hon. Lady and her colleagues whether they have any qualms about the fact that her party and her Government announced £44 billion-worth of cuts but never had the decency or honesty to tell the British people where those cuts would fall.