Debate on the Address

Simon Burns Excerpts

Wednesday 4th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make politely to the hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) is that the best way to help those who are low paid in our country is to increase the number of jobs, cut their taxes, pare back the cost of government and make sure they feel the benefit from a Government who are on their side.

We are also legislating, for the first time ever, to claw back excessive redundancy payments to the most highly paid workers in the public sector, because I want hard-working people to know that their taxes are spent wisely. Any Government would be proud of all this legislation in the first year of a Parliament; we are now in the fifth year. We are also doing something else. For the first time ever, we are allowing people to spend their pension savings; it is their money, they worked hard for it, they saved it and they should be able to do whatever they want with it.

[Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Was my right hon. Friend as surprised as I was by the interventions of the hon. Members for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) and for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) given that a number of Labour MPs use the sort of contracts they were condemning?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. A number of local councils, including many in Labour areas, also use those contracts. We are taking a sensible approach. This issue has not been acted on for 13 years. We have sensible proposals for getting rid of exclusivity in zero-hours contracts. It is plainly unfair to say to someone that they have a zero-hours contract but that they cannot work for anyone else, so we will act on that in this Parliament.