Oral Answers to Questions

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will certainly join my hon. Friend in that. The people in our jobcentres up and down the country do an excellent job helping people to find work and to make sure that they get all the help they need. The fact is that the unemployment rate today is lower than the rate that we inherited at the last election. Over the last year, job creation in Britain was faster than in any other G7 country. We still have a long way to go to rebalance our economy and to get the growth in the private sector that we need, but we are on the right track—1 million new private sector jobs over the last two years, the fastest rate of new business creation for decades. There are good signs that the economy is rebalancing. We need to encourage that by staying on top of our deficit and getting it down, rather than just giving in on every decision, as we have seen today from the Labour party.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Q14. According to the Children’s Society, up to 40,000 soldiers, 150,000 teachers and 300,000 nurses will lose out as a result of the Prime Minister’s decision to cut tax credits and other benefits. Why are hard-working people like that paying for his economic failure?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady needs to remember why we are having to take these decisions in the first place: it is to deal with the record budget deficit and the mess left by the Labour party. That is the background. The real question about public sector workers—about soldiers, about teachers and about people who work in our public services—is that if they are being restricted to a 1% increase, why on earth does the Labour party think that people on out-of-work benefits should see their incomes go up faster? That is the question that Labour has to answer. We are being fair, because we are restricting the increase on tax credits and restricting the increase on public sector pay, but we are also asking the same of those on out-of-work welfare. What we see as completely unfair is backing the public sector pay increase but wanting welfare to go through the roof. That is completely wrong, it is not fair and Labour must see that it has to change its mind.