Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill

Debate between Liam Byrne and Baroness Primarolo

Tuesday 8th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew George]

Of course we welcome the Labour party’s last-minute pre-election conversion to increasing tax for wealthy people. The right hon. Gentleman will have heard in my intervention on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State my sincere misgivings and my wish to encourage him to review this rather arbitrary 1% cap and perhaps to find ways of relating it to average wages. Bearing in mind that the welfare budget is—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. It was only a few moments ago, I remind the hon. Gentleman, when I said interventions on a speech needed to be brief and should not become a speech in their own right.

[Mr Byrne]

I am grateful for the intervention because I think the hon. Gentleman, like us, is concerned that in our country today a food bank is opening every three days, and that 5 million people may resort to payday loans this year in order to balance the books for the end of the month. The Sun on Sunday this weekend, in an article carried next to the one by the Secretary of State, said that a quarter of mums are now turning off heating so that they have enough money to feed the kids. Is that the kind of country that we are becoming, because the Saint of Easterhouse has now become the punch bag of the Treasury? Once he talked about broken Britain; now he is presiding over breadline Britain because he keeps losing his battles with the Treasury.

Youth Unemployment

Debate between Liam Byrne and Baroness Primarolo

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Byrne]

What the hon. Gentleman’s constituents want to know is what the Government are going to do about the crisis of youth unemployment unfolding in constituencies—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. For goodness’ sake, I am losing my voice. Mr Browne, you will not stand at the Bar and shout across the Chamber. Thank you.

[Mr Byrne]

What the hon. Gentleman’s constituents want to know is what this Government are doing for unemployed people in his constituency now. He might like to live in the past; his constituents want to know what he is doing for them today.