Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rishi Sunak and Neil Coyle

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The Prime Minister need not worry, because he has no responsibility for the Opposition.

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

Q8. Every single Member of the House is required by law to confirm the true source of a donation before it is accepted or declared. Can the Prime Minister tell us whether he followed all the rules all the time before he took £38,500 of free air travel on 28 April? If so, why does his story keep changing about who paid?

[The Prime Minister]

All donations are declared in the normal way. As the hon. Gentleman knows, if there are administrative changes to that they are quickly corrected.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rishi Sunak and Neil Coyle

Wednesday 9th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Ind)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 9 November.

[The Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak)]

With Armistice Day on Friday, I know that colleagues across the House will want to join me in remembering those who have lost their lives in the service of our country. This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Neil Coyle]

The people I serve will of course be commemorating Remembrance Day. Bermondsey was the original home of the poppy factory, providing work for injured veterans of the great war over 100 years ago.

Covid restrictions were a necessary but painful experience, and across the country most people made enormous sacrifices, including Charlotte, my constituent, and local councillor Lorraine, who were unable to see their mums in their final days. Those people were betrayed by the Conservatives, who partied their way through lockdown—[Interruption.] Members might not like it, but they can all go and eat kangaroo testicles, for all I care. Those Conservatives covered Downing Street in suitcases of wine, in vomit and in fixed penalty notices. Can this Prime Minister promise today that he will use his power of veto to ensure that no one who received a fixed penalty notice for breaking covid laws is rewarded with a seat in the House of Lords?

[The Prime Minister]

What I can say is that this Government, during covid, ensured that we protected people’s jobs, that we supported the NHS to get through the difficult times and that we rolled out that the fastest vaccine in Europe. That is what we did for this country.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Rishi Sunak and Neil Coyle

Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)]

6. What recent assessment he has made of the ability of local authorities to discharge their statutory responsibilities to vulnerable children.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rishi Sunak)]

Local authorities have been given access to more than £46 billion for the forthcoming year. That funding is largely unring-fenced, so councils can spend it on children’s services as they see fit. I am pleased that the number of local authorities whose children’s services are ranked good or outstanding is continuing to increase.

[Neil Coyle]

More than 50,000 British-born children with parents legally in the UK are denied access to central Government support under pernicious Home Office rules. Councils are then forced to step in to provide emergency support through children’s social services. London councils spend £53 million on that, and there is no recourse to public funds. Last year, my council spent £6.5 million. When will Ministers end their wilful blindness to the penury that the policy causes and stand up for councils in the face of this blatant Home Office cost-shunt?

[Rishi Sunak]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. We engage with the Home Office regularly to deal with the funds for unaccompanied asylum seekers and other such people. I am happy to realise that issue in the next of my regular meetings with the Immigration Minister.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Debate between Rishi Sunak and Neil Coyle

Wednesday 18th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I am sure that the hon. Lady was here and heard the Secretary of State make the point that the calls that have been made were all to local rate numbers. It is not right to say that they were premium rate numbers. As of today, those calls have been made free for all claimants, although they were offered the opportunity to be called back for free if the call charge was difficult. I am aware that the average wait time is two minutes, and of course a wait time of an hour is unacceptable. I am sure Ministers have heard that and will be doing everything they can to ensure that everyone across the country benefits from a prompt and cheap response.

At the same time as simplifying the system, universal credit humanises our bureaucracy by recognising that those who need our help do not have exactly the same needs. Instead of a faceless homogeneity, for the first time personalised work coaches can compassionately take into account the specific needs of each individual and their specific circumstances, tailoring the approach to them and ensuring that they get the specific help that they need.

[Neil Coyle]

How simplified, fair and supportive does the hon. Gentleman think it is for the 116,000 working disabled parents who are set to lose £40 a week from the disability income guarantee?

[Rishi Sunak]

I cannot say that I recognise that figure, because £700 million more was made available in the last set of universal credit reforms, all of which was directed at the most vulnerable in our society.

[Neil Coyle]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way again?

[Rishi Sunak]

No, I will carry on, given the number of people who want to speak.

Compassion alone is not enough. The effectiveness of our welfare system should be properly judged by the number of lives that it transforms, and that transformation comes from well-paid work. Universal credit ends the well-documented problem of single parents effectively working for free if they want to work for more than 16 hours. Universal credit ensures that all work truly pays, and it is working. Compared with the system that it replaces, claimants spend twice as much time actively looking for work and, for every 100 claimants who found employment under the old system, 113 will find employment under universal credit. In reality, the lives of more than 250,000 people will be transformed over the course of the roll-out through having a decent job and the opportunity to build a stake in our society.

Finally, universal credit is fair to the people who pay for it. In Britain today, we spend around twice as much on working-age welfare as we do on education. To put it another way, for every £1 that the taxpayer sends to the NHS, they also send £1 to the working-age welfare bill. Given the sums involved, I make no apology for speaking up for those who ask me, “Is this money well spent?”