Business of the House

Stephen Hammond Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

The hon. Gentleman is obsessed by some conspiracy theory. The Prime Minister spent two or three hours before the Liaison Committee this week; he comes before the House regularly on Wednesdays; and he has made more statements than his predecessor. I think the person who will be most relieved that there is no sitting next Wednesday is the Leader of the Opposition. We take unemployment seriously. We had a debate yesterday, when the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), and my hon. Friend the Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning set out what we are doing to address the high level of unemployment that we inherited from the Labour Government.

[Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)]

Earlier this week, I was walking down Whitehall and a piece of paper from a gentleman called Mr Livingstone was thrust into my hand. It purported that he was going to have a fares freeze on transport in London. Imagine my surprise when I got back to my office and looked at the history, only to discover that last time he promised to do that, when elected he put up fares by 10%. May we have a debate on transport in London so that innocent Londoners can be made aware of the outrageous claims of this man?

[Sir George Young]

I would welcome such a debate. Of course, if fares were cut, that might have a read-across to the capital programme, including Crossrail and the tube upgrades. I am sure that Londoners are far too sophisticated to be misled by the sort of piece of paper of which my hon. Friend was the recipient earlier this week.