Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Wright Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As I said, for me, the principles are very clear. First, the priority should be providing tax relief to people on middle and low incomes at a time when many people are feeling the pinch and struggling to make ends meet. Secondly, we should ensure that there is a progressive shift in the tax system, so that there is less tax on work, effort and enterprise, and more tax on wealth and the wealthy.

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

T15. I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister’s commitment to attend the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development later this year. Will he inform the House on which priorities he personally intends to lead during those vital discussions on the future well-being of our planet?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is very important that this country continues to take a lead in the international discussions, not only so that we can confront together the overarching threat of climate change, which is such a potent threat to everybody across the globe, but so that we can work together to compare notes on how we can green our economies, which will be the specific focus of the Rio+20 summit. I think everybody now agrees that sustainable prosperous growth in the future has to be green as well.