Oral Answers to Questions

Nicholas Dakin Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the decline in unemployment in his constituency, which is incredibly marked at 54%. I note what he says about furniture factories, because those are the sorts of businesses that were going offshore. What we are seeing in our country is a slow trend—but I want to encourage it—of reshoring and getting businesses to come back to, and invest and expand in, Britain. We must do everything we can to encourage that by keeping their taxes down, keeping national insurance down, cutting national insurance for young people, training more apprentices and investing in infrastructure. That is what we will do so that there are many more success stories like that mentioned by my hon. Friend.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Q12. My constituent Lorraine Seath’s son has recently returned from serving our country in Afghanistan. Does the Prime Minister think it is right that she has to pay the bedroom tax to keep a room available for her son to stay in when he is at home?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me look at this individual case, because we made a specific exemption from the spare room subsidy for people who were serving overseas. If the spare room subsidy exemption does not apply in this case, there is of course the provision of the discretionary housing payment, which is another way of dealing with this, and I would hope that Scunthorpe borough council would take up that offer.