Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bone Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Our judgment is yes. Easy though it might be to make snapshot judgments about the value of the company according to the price on the markets on any given day, we are determined to take a long-term view on this issue, as on so many others, and not to score short-term political points.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

Hasn’t the acting Prime Minister been outstanding today? Anyone listening on the radio would have thought it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron) at the Dispatch Box. I think that the right hon. Gentleman is turning into a Tory, and I would like to test that theory. New clause 1 of the Immigration Bill has been signed by 60 coalition MPs calling for the transitional arrangements for Bulgaria and Romania to be continued. Does he agree with that?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has not raised his morbid obsession with the early demise of the Prime Minister, which I know is the subject of his private Member’s Bill. I also want to thank him for his very mixed, double-edged compliment. On the question of the Bill, he will know that the Prime Minister and I, and the whole Government, made a series of announcements last week. We are tightening up the access to benefits for migrants who come to this country from other parts of the European Union. I believe that we should protect and defend the principle of the freedom of movement, but the freedom of movement to seek work is not the same as the freedom to claim. That is the distinction that this Government are now making.