Oral Answers to Questions

Oliver Colvile Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd June 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are going to carry on funding a child support agency mechanism—it is right that we do—but it is not wrong to ask people to make a contribution to that. Taxpayers are currently putting in a huge amount of money, and they will carry on doing so, but to ask the people concerned to pay towards the costs does not reduce the impact of what I said last week at all. People walking away from their responsibilities and not funding their children should not be allowed to happen in Britain today.

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

Q4. Next year will be the centenary of the death of Captain Robert Falcon Scott of the Antarctic. Does my right hon. Friend recognise that this brave historic son of Plymouth left a significant scientific legacy that is still helping to shape the world’s environmental agenda today?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that issue. That centenary is important, and I am very pleased that so much is going on across the country to celebrate it, especially in his home city of Plymouth. It is not just the scientific discoveries that are important; so too is the inspirational figure—the adventurer, the explorer—and Captain Scott’s incredible sense of duty and adventure. That is what inspires young people today.