Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Wales Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Owen Smith Excerpts
Wednesday 3rd November 2010

(14 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Cheryl Gillan Portrait Mrs Gillan
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The hon. Gentleman knows that to change the prospects of all children through the new fairness premium of £7.2 billion over the spending review period is exactly what this Government want to do. It includes a £2.5 billion premium to support the educational development of the poorest pupils.

Owen Smith Portrait Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)
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It is not simply in respect of child poverty that people in Wales are worried; whole towns in Wales are now worried that the Government have them in their sights. We are used to it, of course, in places such as Merthyr—in the 1930s, the Tories proposed to close it down completely and move people to the colonies—but I wonder whether Wales Office Ministers share the view of the Work and Pensions Secretary that people there, in Merthyr and in the valleys, are workshy and should simply get on a bus and find a job.

Cheryl Gillan Portrait Mrs Gillan
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The hon. Gentleman knows that, with our packages of welfare reform, we are trying to lift people out of lives of dependency. The right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) asked about child poverty, which had been increasing under his Government since 2005. Is the hon. Gentleman not ashamed of the previous Labour Government’s record on the matter?