Kerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the Cabinet Office
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I congratulate businesses in Crawley and my hon. Friend on helping to encourage this private sector-led recovery, which is seeing more people into work. We are also seeing the number of young people not in education, employment or training at its lowest for a decade. As I said, there is absolutely no complacency, when more work needs to be done to make sure that this recovery delivers for people who work hard and do the right thing.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Q9. In April last year, I asked the Prime Minister about the thousands of people visiting food banks, and his reply then suggested a shocking complacency. His reply to the Leader of the Opposition today suggests that he has learned nothing since. Will he answer the question: does he think that the half a million people visiting food banks today simply need to manage their finances better, or will he admit that they cannot afford to feed their families because of his Government?
The Prime Minister
We should work with and thank the food bank movement for the excellent work it does, and we should recognise that the use of food banks went up 10 times under Labour. One of the reasons it has increased under this Government is that we took away the block that the hon. Lady’s party put in place, which was preventing jobcentres from referring people to food banks. Labour did not do it because it was bad PR, but this Government are interested in doing the right thing rather than something that just looks good.