Oral Answers to Questions

William Bain Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Our economic plan is delivering stability, and it is now also delivering the economic growth and jobs that we all want to see. We are coming out of the very deep mess in which the shadow Chancellor and his team left the country, with the result that in Kettering the claimant count is down by 30%, and 1,500 new jobs have been created in the last year. As my hon. Friend well knows—because, as an assiduous Member of Parliament, he has lobbied hard for them—major improvements have been made in the road and rail infrastructure in the Kettering area, to ensure that there is a balanced economic recovery.

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

T3. The Chancellor spends taxpayers’ money in Brussels on defending big bank bonuses, but he has not lifted a finger in four years to deal with the falling real wages of millions of ordinary working people. Is he not just presiding over recovery by the few, of the few, and for the few?

[Mr Osborne]

Well, I do not think the hon. Gentleman is Abraham Lincoln, but the point I would make is that we can only see an increase in the living standards of the British people if the British economy is growing and jobs are created. That is exactly what our economic plan is delivering.