Business of the House

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Thursday 13th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I can give my hon. Friend a statement on this point. It is our intention to introduce the equal marriage Bill in the new year. The situation is not remotely unprecedented: we have recently introduced a number of pieces of legislation that were not anticipated in the Queen’s Speech. Our intention is to introduce legislation, based on the response to the consultation, and I am sure that when we do so, he and many other Members will find it helpful to enable the House to express its view on how we can ensure equal access to civil marriage in this country.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

On Tuesday, I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he was embarrassed by the fact that, by the end of this year, a quarter of a million people in this country will have accessed emergency food aid. He ignored the question. Yesterday, I had a debate on food poverty in the run-up to Christmas, and the response from the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), was that he did not think that food poverty was a useful concept. Will the Leader of the House encourage his ministerial colleagues to visit a food bank over the Christmas period, and may we have a statement in the new year in which they can report back on what they have learned about why people in this country are struggling to feed themselves and their families?

[Mr Lansley]

I was here when the Chancellor was asked that question, and I do not think he ignored it at all. The hon. Lady must recognise that the most important thing we can achieve is to enable people to be in work. It is staggering to see the way in which the Opposition have completely ignored this week’s data showing one of the fastest quarterly increases in employment that we have seen for a decade. Despite the economic inheritance from the last Government, and despite the deficit, we are stimulating job creation. In fact, the Office for Budget Responsibility has said that something like two jobs are being created in the private sector for every one lost in the public sector, which is a consequence of deficit reduction. The latest data show a reduction of 24,000 jobs in the public sector and an increase of 65,000 in the private sector. Since the election, the figure is netting out at something like 1.1 million jobs. The answer to poverty, whether it is child poverty or food poverty, is work. Work is the best route out of poverty.