Oral Answers to Questions

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. The news out today is that we now have the largest number of companies we have ever had in our country, and over the past three years we have seen 400,000 extra companies established. What we have to do is help them in every way we can. The most powerful thing we are doing is cutting the national insurance that they will have to pay by £2,000, starting next year. That will be a real boost to small businesses. On the red tape they are currently throttled with, we are dealing with that at every level, including at the European Council coming up this week, where I have organised a meeting for our businesses to explain their proposals for cutting red tape to fellow European leaders from Finland, Italy, Germany and elsewhere. It is an agenda right across the board to help small businesses grow our economy.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q6. New research shows that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government are trapping low-earning aspirant parents on benefits. His benefit cap is hitting vulnerable children, stopping parents working and costing the taxpayer—is it not time for a rethink?

[The Prime Minister]

We know that the Labour party is against the benefit cap. It wants unlimited benefits for families. It is no longer the Labour party; it is the welfare party. That is very clear from the questions Labour Members ask. We think it is right to cap benefits so that no family can earn more out of work than they would earn in work. The early evidence is showing that this is encouraging people to look for work. For a party that believes in hard-working people, that is good news. Presumably for the welfare party it is bad news.