Oral Answers to Questions

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It has been possible in this Parliament to raise the personal allowance to take some of the poorest people out of tax—3 million people have been taken out of tax, with a tax cut for 26 million people—at the same time as making decisions that are fair for all, such as, for instance, making sure the NHS gets an extra £12.7 billion. Of course, we do have to make difficult decisions. Some of the difficult decisions we have made have been looking at things such as the Home Office budget, where the police are being far more efficient than they were, and making changes to welfare, each and every one of which has been opposed by the Labour party. The fact is that if you manage the national finances carefully, get our economy to grow properly and ignore the shadow Chancellor, who nearly bankrupted the country, you can do these things together.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Q8. After reading yesterday’s front page of The Times, may I welcome the Prime Minister’s late conversion to ID cards, even if they are—for now—virtual and without Labour’s biometric functionality? If the Prime Minister intends to keep his promise to keep our borders safe and secure, will he tell the House when the system will be in place, and why it has taken him so long?

[The Prime Minister]

It is a very interesting development that Labour Members are now back in favour of ID cards. I thought even they had seen the folly of their ways. We are introducing proper border checks so that we can count people in and count people out—something that was never available under Labour, and something that Labour actually helped to get rid of. We are also ensuring that we know more about those who are coming and when they have left.