Debate on the Address

Tom Brake Excerpts

Wednesday 9th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What the Deputy Prime Minister said yesterday, and what I said yesterday, is that we inherited a deficit that was bigger than the deficits of Greece, Spain or Portugal. What we have had to do is deal with that deficit, deal with the debt, and get our country moving again. We are recovering from the mess that the hon. Gentleman’s party left.

We are reforming welfare so that it pays to have a job, but we want to do more to reward responsibility. We are lifting 2 million people out of tax, but we want to go further to help Britain’s strivers. We have introduced free schools and created more than 1,000 academies, but we want to do more to spread opportunity. That is what this Queen’s Speech is about.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

I am sure that the Prime Minister listened as carefully as I did to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition. Did he detect anything resembling a solution to the problems that the country faces?

[The Prime Minister]

I listened very carefully. There was almost nothing in terms of a costed, credible alternative. The Opposition have now had two years to work out what their alternative is, and we heard absolutely nothing apart from a string of press releases put together, which we have all read over the last few weeks.