Disabled People

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Nigel Adams

Wednesday 10th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

Has my hon. Friend had an opportunity to look at the projected figures and assess what is likely to be spent under the new system in 2015-16 compared with the amount spent in 2009-10?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am happy to have taken that intervention. The projected figure of £13 billion is more in real terms than the figure in 2009-10 provided by the previous Government. That means not just more money, as my hon. Friend suggests, but more money directed at the people who need it the most. We are trying to reform the system, and we will succeed in doing so. We are taking an adult and mature view of the public finances and trying to direct scarce resources to people who most need them.

It is all very well for Opposition Members to howl, holler and cry about cuts—that is what one expects them to do; they are doing their job—but Government Members have to take a mature and responsible approach to the public finances and introduce meaningful reform that we can afford and which can best help the most vulnerable.

The Economy

Debate between Kwasi Kwarteng and Nigel Adams

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

The only question that the markets were interested in at that point was whether Labour would be re-elected. When it became obvious that Labour would not secure a majority in the House, they started buying lots of British Government debt, and the interest rates in the six weeks before the general election came down quite rapidly. Those are the facts, and one could find them out from the Financial Times, Bloomberg or any other information provider in financial services.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

Since the last election, when we got a Conservative-led coalition, unemployment has fallen in my hon. Friend’s constituency of Spelthorne by almost 5%. Does he think that we would have achieved such a fall if we had followed the Opposition’s policies?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I can give my hon. Friend a very short answer: there is no way that any businessman in Spelthorne—[Interruption.] Well, the short answer is no, but the longer, slightly more involved answer is that there are lots of small businesses in my constituency, and a lot of them are related to Heathrow, and the international market and trade. As a consequence of Labour’s complete failure over the previous 13 years, no Labour councillors were returned to our borough council. In fact, Labour contested only one of the 13 wards in the borough, which is only 35 minutes on the train from Waterloo. That is indicative of Labour’s utter failure to make any headway.

Let me tell the House why Labour was completely wiped out. The people in Spelthorne realise that Labour does not understand anything about the economy. Time and again when I have knocked on doors in Ashford, Sunbury and Shepperton—and even in Stanwell, which was traditionally a Labour area—I have met people who realise what this Government have to do. They say to me, “You’ve been put into power to clear up the mess that the other lot created.” I shall not repeat the unparliamentary language, but they tell me to “something well get on with it.”