Oral Answers to Questions

Michael Meacher Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is entirely right, and he has a record as a Minister for Africa and a Development Minister in a previous Government. The fact is that we have made a commitment, both nationally and internationally, to increase our aid spending, and I think Britain should be a country that sticks to its word. I have to say, even to those who take a more hard-headed approach to these things, that overseas aid is in our domestic interest. When we think of the problems that world poverty causes, we see that it is in our interest and that of our national security to deliver that aid. Above all, Britain sticking to its word, as I found at the G8 and G20, gives us the opportunity to have some moral authority and moral leadership on this vital issue.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

How can the Prime Minister justify the fact that hundreds of thousands of public sector workers, the victims of the financial crash, will unquestionably lose their jobs because of the huge public service cuts to come, when the bankers and super-rich, the architects of the financial crash, whose wealth grew by £77 billion in this last year according to The Sunday Times rich list, stand to lose neither their jobs, their income nor their wealth? Is that what he means by everyone being in it together?