Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Clegg and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Of course I accept that for some households the change from one system to another creates real dilemmas that need to be addressed through the money that we are making available to local authorities. The right hon. and learned Lady cites a figure. To be honest, lots of wildly different figures have been cited about the policy’s impact. That is why we are commissioning independent research to understand its impact. I suspect that it varies enormously between one part of the country and another, and one local authority and another. That is why we are trebling the resources that we making available to local authorities.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

T2. The Deputy Prime Minister has specific responsibility for implementing the programme for government and likes to take special ownership of the chapter on tax, a key aim of which is to help lower and middle-income earners. I have a Lib Dem briefing that states:“£50,000” is “a very large salary: these are not middle income earners.”It also says:“We are looking at how” they “could make a further contribution.”Why does he want to clobber the middle classes?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I do not, and as we made clear at the time the £50,000 figure does not represent any policy of my party. However, I will not be shy about parading the fact that it is because of Liberal Democrats in government that we are giving a huge tax cut to over 20 million basic rate taxpayers, a policy that I was warned by the hon. Gentleman’s party leader at the time of the last general election was not deliverable. It has been delivered because of Liberal Democrats in government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Clegg and Dominic Raab

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I would be for a system that provided a fair settlement for students. As I said before, unlike the system that we inherited from the hon. Gentleman’s party, ours will remove all up-front fees paid by students and will only ask graduates—[Interruption.] I know that Opposition Members do not want to hear this because they do not want to talk about policy as they have a blank sheet for policy. We have a plan and they have a blank sheet—that speaks volumes.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

T4. I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s consultation on the freedom Bill. Is he aware that terrorism convictions have plummeted by 91% in the past four years, and will he continue to support the repeal of control orders and the ban on intercept evidence so that we can prosecute more terrorists and defend our freedoms?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I strongly agree with the assumption and the assertion that the previous Government got the balance wrong between liberty and security. Indeed, I think that is now acknowledged even by that great liberal, the current Labour spokesperson on Home Affairs. That is why we are conducting a review of how the anti-terrorism powers introduced by the previous Government are operating so that we can tilt the balance definitively in favour of liberty.