Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Connarty Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yesterday, the announcement was made that the minimum wage should increase from £6.50 to £6.70, which is a real-terms increase. After the great Labour recession, we did not have increases in the minimum wage and it lost its value, but under this Government, it is going up. I can guarantee my hon. Friend that if we keep increasing the minimum wage at the rate it is being increased now, it will get to beyond £8 by the subsequent election. So Labour’s proposal for an £8 minimum wage will mean a cut in the minimum wage. It is like so many of its other policies, including its university tuition fees policy—as someone said today, the first example in political history where you get less for more.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Q7. My neighbour Helen was able to live in her own home for many years with degenerative multiple sclerosis because of the independent living fund, until sadly she died. How can the Prime Minister and the Government morally justify taking away the fund from the most disabled people in our communities, so that they might end up being institutionalised, not independent?

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have devolved the funding for the independent living fund, but we have also maintained the vital disability benefits, such as the disability living allowance, which has been uprated every year in line with inflation.