Oral Answers to Questions

Teresa Pearce Excerpts

Wednesday 9th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

Q12. Can the Prime Minister confirm that my constituent, who is a nurse as well as a single father to his two children, will lose £400 a year as a result of the Chancellor’s cuts to child benefit and other benefits?

[The Prime Minister]

The results of the cuts to child benefit are that the best-off 15% of families in this country will no longer receive child benefit at all. That is what is going to happen. That saves around £2 billion a year. Again, Labour has now voted against £83 billion of welfare changes. I am afraid that the Opposition have to start filling in the blanks of where they are going to make up this money. I think it is right that we say to people earning £60,000, £70,000, £80,000 or more, “You shouldn’t be receiving child benefit.” It is not an easy decision, but government is about making decisions; and frankly, opposition is about making some decisions too.

Oral Answers to Questions

Teresa Pearce Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I raised this issue with the Malaysian Prime Minister and with the new Malaysian owners of Lotus’s parent company. Lotus makes a key contribution to the UK automotive sector. The sector is doing well and I want to see Lotus succeed and to have a secure future. We are in contact with the company, monitoring the situation very closely and ensuring that it knows about the regional growth fund money that is available.

[Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)]

4. This flawed Budget makes 230,000 additional pensioners pay tax and will bring 500,000 extra parents into the self-assessment regime because of tax on their child benefit, yet this week we have heard that 10,000 members of staff will be cut from HMRC. Is not the Chancellor so incompetent that he will not have the staff to deliver his own budget plans?

[The Prime Minister]

We have increased staffing at HMRC to ensure that we crack down on the sort of tax avoidance that is shown, to put it frankly, by the hon. Lady’s candidate for the Mayor of London. That is what it has come to and those are the measures we are taking.