Oral Answers to Questions

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I am wondering how that question relates to tax and benefit changes, but I will of course always encourage the BBC to make sure that women have a full role in the work they do.

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

The Minister will agree that it is really important for pregnant women to be able to afford to eat healthily and to take their full maternity leave when the baby is born, so why is she cutting £180 from maternity pay, cutting more than £1,000 in tax credits and, according to the House of Commons Library, even including the tax allowances that she mentioned, cutting a total of £1,300 from new mums on low income, yet giving a £13,000 tax cut to someone—usually a man—who is earning over £400,000 a year? In her role as the Minister for Women and Equalities, did she even try to stop the Chancellor hitting women, especially new mothers, so hard?

[Maria Miller]

The right hon. Lady will have heard my response to her colleague earlier—the Treasury is looking at the detail of how its policies impact on various groups and has made it an absolute priority to give support to those who need it most, ensuring that more families are able to get into work and that work pays for more people. Above all else, it is making sure that our children do not have to deal in the future with the record levels of deficit left by the right hon. Lady’s Government.