Business of the House

William Bain Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I am glad my hon. Friend has raised that matter. It is important to support voluntary organisations, which often do not have an infrastructure that enables them to respond to such events—they should not be subject to such criminal activity. I will speak to the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who leads on support for charitable organisations, to see whether he can point to a particular measure, but generally we have innovative routes by which we can provide not only financial support, but a great deal of practical support to charities seeking to develop their activities.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give further consideration to holding a debate on how many promises the coalition has not kept, and in particular a debate on the Chancellor’s promise that he would not balance the books on the backs of the poor? He is borrowing £212 billion more than predicted, so he is certainly not balancing the books, but with 14 times more people in the poorest 10% being affected by the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill compared with the richest 10%, he is destroying the living standards of the poorest.

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman seems to be living in some kind of denial. We inherited the largest deficit among OECD countries and have reduced it by a quarter. We are taking the action necessary following the appalling legacy we inherited, and the way we are going about it is fair. If he looks at the distribution of impacts of income tax changes, he will see that the highest earners see the biggest increase in taxation, and that low earners see reductions in income tax, not least specifically as a consequence of the change in personal tax allowance.