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Opposition day on Monday, 5 March 2012, in the House of Commons, led by Rachel Reeves. The answering member was David Gauke.

Living Standards

Unallotted opposition day debate (part two). Main question negatived on division (220 to 284).

Secondary information

Type
Parliamentary proceeding
Reference
541 c638-80 
Session
2010-12
Department
Treasury
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
Proceeding contributions
Speaker | 541 c666 (Link to this contribution) Order. We are running out of time in this debate. I am taking the time limit down to four minutes, s...
Speaker | 541 c654 (Link to this contribution) Order. There will be a seven-minute time limit on all Back-Bench contributions.
Show all contributions (148)
Kate Green | 541 c640 (Link to this contribution) Although, of course, it is desirable to lift more people on low wages out of tax, is it not the case...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c639-40 (Link to this contribution) The changes come into effect next month, but the Budget is in 16 days. [Interruption.] The hon. Memb...
David Anderson | 541 c640 (Link to this contribution) In response to the question from the hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) about people being...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c640 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend speaks with great knowledge, having formerly worked for the Child Poverty Action Grou...
George Freeman | 541 c639 (Link to this contribution) Does the hon. Lady acknowledge that the Government's proposals to take more than 1.1 million people ...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c641 (Link to this contribution) I am looking to the Government Front-Bench team for their solution, given the words that we have hea...
Sheila Gilmore | 541 c640 (Link to this contribution) Will my hon. Friend consider the point that the people affected by the change to working tax credit ...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c640 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As we all know, unemployment is at a 17-year high and youth unem...
Lord Redwood | 541 c641 (Link to this contribution) Having highlighted the anomaly with one and two-earner families regarding child benefit withdrawal, ...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c640 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The most by which someone affected by the changes to working tax...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c638 (Link to this contribution) I beg to move,"That this House believes that next month's Budget should include a real plan for jobs...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c639 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is right to say that those on the lowest incomes and modest and middle incomes are be...
Helen Goodman | 541 c639 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend agree that those at the top of the income scale do not mention the crisis becaus...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c639 (Link to this contribution) My right hon. Friend is entirely right. This country will be one of the few that does not support fa...
Lord Field of Birkenhead | 541 c639 (Link to this contribution) Will my hon. Friend put it to those on the Treasury Bench that when child benefit came in, it replac...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c639 (Link to this contribution) I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes the point about her constituents. All hon. Members w...
Louise Ellman | 541 c638 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend agree that it is appalling that in Liverpool, Riverside alone, more than 520 chi...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c643 (Link to this contribution) It is even worse than that, because the Chancellor is not even balancing the books.
Joan Walley | 541 c643-4 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend agree that the 1,200 people in Stoke-on-Trent earning just under £17,000 a year ...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c644 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is right when she sticks up for the people of Stoke, who, like many of our constituen...
Glyn Davies | 541 c642 (Link to this contribution) I am listening to the hon. Lady's speech carefully, and she has made several references to the crise...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c643 (Link to this contribution) I would like to know how the hon. Gentleman would explain to the 348 kids in his constituency who wi...
Anna Soubry | 541 c643 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady says that she cares about our children. Those of us on the Government Benches also car...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c643 (Link to this contribution) As for caring for children, the Government's own figures show that child poverty will increase under...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c643 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady has had her chance; I will carry on. When it comes to child benefits, a Government wh...
Helen Jones | 541 c643 (Link to this contribution) The Chancellor said when he took office that he did not intend to balance the books on the backs of ...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c642 (Link to this contribution) Like my hon. Friend, many of us will have spoken to constituents in jobs whose hours vary—for instan...
Fiona Mactaggart | 541 c642 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) mentioned universal credit. That is designed to ensure ...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c642 (Link to this contribution) I will come to that very point. Hours are being cut at the moment, so many people working part time ...
Sam Gyimah | 541 c641 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady is demonstrating to the House that she is a very good Opposition politician. What exac...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c641 (Link to this contribution) I thank the hon. Gentleman for saying that I am a good Opposition politician; I hope, in due course,...
Richard Fuller | 541 c641 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Lady is moving on to some of the complexities of the benefits system. Does she support the ...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c641-2 (Link to this contribution) This has nothing to do with universal credit. Those changes take effect in about one and a half year...
Nia Griffith | 541 c641 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend agree that this devastating cut in tax credits, which will take £800 million awa...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c641 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is right. Government Members would do well to listen to her point. We also know that ...
David Gauke | 541 c647 (Link to this contribution) There is so much wrong with that that I do not know where to start. Perhaps I will begin by pointing...
David Gauke | 541 c647 (Link to this contribution) I am going to make a little progress. We know, given the constraints that we face in the public fin...
David Gauke | 541 c646 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The recovery that this country requires will be driven by the pr...
Helen Jones | 541 c647 (Link to this contribution) Given that the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development says that one in five firms are cutt...
David Gauke | 541 c647 (Link to this contribution) The figures for the last quarter for which figures are available show that there were more than 1.1 ...
Hugh Bayley | 541 c647 (Link to this contribution) Does the Minister not recall that, at the time the coalition came to power, interest rates were extr...
David Gauke | 541 c647-8 (Link to this contribution) I want to make a bit more progress. That is also why we increased the child tax credit by £135, in ...
Ian Lucas | 541 c646 (Link to this contribution) The Minister is peddling the persistent Tory untruth that this economic situation existed only in Br...
David Gauke | 541 c646 (Link to this contribution) I will happily re-fight the 2010 general election with the hon. Gentleman any time. He will remember...
David Gauke | 541 c646 (Link to this contribution) Let me just make a little more progress. We heard the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) se...
David Gauke | 541 c646 (Link to this contribution) I shall speak in greater detail about the reforms to the working tax credit in a moment, but there i...
David Gauke | 541 c645-6 (Link to this contribution) After all the sound and fury that we have just heard, perhaps I may provide a little context for the...
Sheila Gilmore | 541 c646 (Link to this contribution) Does the Minister acknowledge that if some of the families that we are talking about give up their e...
Toby Perkins | 541 c644 (Link to this contribution) I hope I can add some weight to what my hon. Friend is saying. I was contacted by a local small busi...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c644-5 (Link to this contribution) It would be better if he was advising the Treasury, rather than the people who are currently doing i...
Priti Patel | 541 c646 (Link to this contribution) This debate is about living standards, and central to good living standards in our country are job c...
Speaker | 541 c650 (Link to this contribution) Order. Interventions need to be brief.
Huw Irranca-Davies | 541 c649-50 (Link to this contribution) At Work and Pensions questions earlier, the Secretary of State made it clear that because of the sup...
David Gauke | 541 c649 (Link to this contribution) Let me make a little more progress. We want to target support where it is needed most. Tackling the...
David Gauke | 541 c649 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend is right to raise that point, which reveals a lot about Labour's priorities. It is fo...
David Gauke | 541 c650 (Link to this contribution) As I said earlier, over the last quarter for which figures are available, a further 1.1 million jobs...
Yasmin Qureshi | 541 c650 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman talks about the extra hours, but with more than 2 million people unemployed, wher...
David Gauke | 541 c650 (Link to this contribution) Given that we ask lone parents to work 16 hours a week before they are entitled to working tax credi...
Chris Williamson | 541 c649 (Link to this contribution) The Minister talks about putting the public finances in a sound state, yet are not the Government's ...
David Gauke | 541 c649 (Link to this contribution) For the hon. Gentleman's information, borrowing is falling year on year, and we are not going to get...
Heather Wheeler | 541 c649 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend agree that if the Opposition really believed in looking after low-paid people, t...
Glenda Jackson | 541 c648 (Link to this contribution) Will the Minister tell us how his Government are helping the poorest in our society? Hundreds of fam...
David Gauke | 541 c648 (Link to this contribution) I come back to the initial point: we face a huge deficit. People recognise we have to reduce it, but...
Anas Sarwar | 541 c648 (Link to this contribution) Will the Minister explain how living standards are increasing for families in Glasgow when 2,000 cou...
David Gauke | 541 c648 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend makes a good point. If we are to find practical ways of improving living standards, t...
Elizabeth Truss | 541 c648 (Link to this contribution) When the previous Government introduced so much regulation into the child care market, did not the n...
David Gauke | 541 c649 (Link to this contribution) The people who voted Conservative at the election, and indeed others, recognise that this Government...
Lord Austin of Dudley | 541 c648-9 (Link to this contribution) Will the Minister point me to the bit of the Conservative manifesto that promised hard-working famil...
Chloe Smith | 541 c679-80 (Link to this contribution) No, I shall not, as I have already said. According to the shadow Chancellor, who, as ever, cannot b...
George Freeman | 541 c669 (Link to this contribution) We are tonight invited by the Opposition to join them in sympathising with the squeezed middle. Of c...
Iain McKenzie | 541 c667-9 (Link to this contribution) It is now painfully obvious that our economy has stalled. That is evident in the soaring increase in...
George Freeman | 541 c669-70 (Link to this contribution) After two years of sticking to the previous Administration's prudence, the Labour Government set abo...
Speaker | 541 c669 (Link to this contribution) Order. The hon. Gentleman has a minute less than the clock is showing before I interrupt him. There ...
George Freeman | 541 c669 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I could not agree more. We need to rebalance the economy an...
Brandon Lewis | 541 c669 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways the Government could help to improve living stan...
Toby Perkins | 541 c672-3 (Link to this contribution) This debate is an example of how the Government's thirst for cuts—any cuts—has blinded them to the b...
Richard Fuller | 541 c671-2 (Link to this contribution) Sitting in this debate on living standards has taken me back to the campaign trail in 2010, when I w...
Sammy Wilson | 541 c670-1 (Link to this contribution) There is a general acceptance in the House that if we are to increase living standards, it has to be...
Chloe Smith | 541 c678-9 (Link to this contribution) No, I shall not, because we have had plenty of time to hear from Labour Members. I must press on. We...
James Morris | 541 c673-4 (Link to this contribution) It would be fair to say that the Government have had to make a number of very tough choices as a res...
Jonathan Edwards | 541 c675 (Link to this contribution) I congratulate the hon. Lady on her first year in Parliament. In my view, the unemployment figure is...
Cathy Jamieson | 541 c675-7 (Link to this contribution) Let me begin by thanking everyone who has taken part in the debate. It is clear from the level of in...
Debbie Abrahams | 541 c675 (Link to this contribution) It will indeed. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. It is not just our young people who ar...
Cathy Jamieson | 541 c677-8 (Link to this contribution) I apologise, Mr Speaker. I am afraid I got carried away in the heat of the moment. I should have ask...
Chloe Smith | 541 c678 (Link to this contribution) I thank hon. Members for their contributions to what has, on the whole, been an insightful debate. W...
Lord Austin of Dudley | 541 c663 (Link to this contribution) What advice would the right hon. Gentleman give to a constituent of his, earning perhaps £42,000 or ...
Meg Hillier | 541 c661-2 (Link to this contribution) I completely agree with my hon. Friend. It is rich for the Liberal Democrats to speak sanctimoniousl...
Lord Redwood | 541 c662 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the Labour party for choosing this important subject for this evening's debate, bec...
Stephen Williams | 541 c658-9 (Link to this contribution) I have already given way twice and I am on a time limit. The same arguments apply as when the Gover...
Stephen Williams | 541 c658 (Link to this contribution) I have given way twice and I am on a time limit, unlike some previous speakers. The hon. Lady will h...
Stephen Williams | 541 c666 (Link to this contribution) There were, of course, other choices that the Government could have made. There were voices —I will ...
Sheila Gilmore | 541 c666 (Link to this contribution) I think that the hon. Gentleman would accept that the 75p increase followed the rate of inflation. I...
Priti Patel | 541 c666-7 (Link to this contribution) I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate, because from what I have heard thus far it seems ...
Lord Redwood | 541 c664 (Link to this contribution) I am very much of the view that we want a higher tax take, and I favour taking the tax from the peop...
Sheila Gilmore | 541 c664-5 (Link to this contribution) If I showed some hesitancy in rising, Madam Deputy Speaker, it is because I tend to find that I am c...
Meg Hillier | 541 c665 (Link to this contribution) Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best things parents can do for their children is to embed ...
Sheila Gilmore | 541 c665-6 (Link to this contribution) There is a long-term benefit in people learning from their parents what it is to work. We used to h...
Lord Redwood | 541 c663 (Link to this contribution) That is a very good example of the problem one can get into, and that is why I wish my right hon. Fr...
Richard Fuller | 541 c663-4 (Link to this contribution) My right hon. Friend is making very good points about the importance of companies being profitable s...
David Gauke | 541 c653-4 (Link to this contribution) If we had pursued the policy advocated by the Opposition, our market rates and gilt yields would be ...
Tom Blenkinsop | 541 c654 (Link to this contribution) We have debated this question before, and it was clear that quantitative easing is what has led to t...
David Gauke | 541 c653 (Link to this contribution) I look to the hon. Lady to rectify that.
Sheila Gilmore | 541 c653 (Link to this contribution) I am wondering whether the Minister has been out of the country for the past few days, and therefore...
Ian Lavery | 541 c655 (Link to this contribution) I was amazed to hear the Minister claiming to be putting fairness at the heart of policy, when this ...
David Gauke | 541 c654 (Link to this contribution) Credit easing will benefit businesses. I should also point out that the current low interest-rate tr...
David Gauke | 541 c653 (Link to this contribution) No, I am going to make a bit more progress. I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman once, and...
Stephen Williams | 541 c657 (Link to this contribution) We have debated many Opposition motions on the economy and public finances in the past 20 months, an...
Toby Perkins | 541 c657 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman mentions the importance of tackling the deficit, but he will recognise that by 20...
Stephen Williams | 541 c657 (Link to this contribution) I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I think he made the same point to the Minister. ...
Helen Goodman | 541 c657 (Link to this contribution) The hon. Gentleman clearly has not read the motion, which makes it absolutely clear that our proposa...
Stephen Williams | 541 c658 (Link to this contribution) All I can say is that the hon. Lady must have been reading an earlier draft, because that is not wha...
Yasmin Qureshi | 541 c655 (Link to this contribution) I sympathise with my hon. Friend's constituents. In my constituency, 880 households, which include 2...
Yasmin Qureshi | 541 c656 (Link to this contribution) My hon. Friend rightly says that there are no jobs out there, with more than 2 million unemployed. S...
Ian Lavery | 541 c656-7 (Link to this contribution) Again, I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention, as I could not have put it better myself. We ar...
Ed Balls | 541 c651-2 (Link to this contribution) The Minister is right: the policy is very complicated. It is a pity that the Government did not work...
David Gauke | 541 c651 (Link to this contribution) Let me explain the challenge that we face. Basing child benefit on household income means a full mea...
David Gauke | 541 c652 (Link to this contribution) I am grateful to the hon. Lady for accepting and confirming that all the measures that will be put i...
David Gauke | 541 c652 (Link to this contribution) Treasury Ministers have taken advice from the right hon. Gentleman in the past, and it did not end w...
David Gauke | 541 c653 (Link to this contribution) I want to make some progress. We are limiting the increase to Transport for London and regulated ra...
David Gauke | 541 c652-3 (Link to this contribution) All the measures that will be put in place in 2012-13 are being implemented by this Government. That...
Rachel Reeves | 541 c652 (Link to this contribution) Can the Minister tell us whether the measures introduced by his party are progressive or regressive?...
Speaker | 541 c650 (Link to this contribution) Order. Members know that they should not stand and point at the Minister; they should ask him to giv...
Toby Perkins | 541 c650 (Link to this contribution) The Minister referred to universal credit. Is not one of the most foolish parts of this policy the f...
David Gauke | 541 c651 (Link to this contribution) I want to make a bit of progress, because I know that many other Members wish to speak. We are also...
David Gauke | 541 c650 (Link to this contribution) I come back to the point I made previously. With the difficult financial situation we inherited, we ...
David Gauke | 541 c651 (Link to this contribution) I was actually talking about the overall cost. We will give details of the cost of administering chi...
Meg Hillier | 541 c651 (Link to this contribution) The Minister mentioned the administrative cost of child benefit to the Exchequer. Can he tell us wha...
David Gauke | 541 c651 (Link to this contribution) I will certainly give way to the shadow Chancellor.
Ed Balls | 541 c651 (Link to this contribution) Can the Minister explain to Members on both sides of the House why he thinks it fair for a family wi...
Hugh Bayley | 541 c642 (Link to this contribution) Government Members keep asking what a Labour Government would do. I was a Social Security Minister w...
David Gauke | 541 c648 (Link to this contribution) We believe there are a lot of votes in the hon. Lady's constituency. I was going through the things...
Speaker | 541 c677 (Link to this contribution) Order. May I gently say to the hon. Lady that she should refer to Members of the House not by name, ...
Ian Lavery | 541 c655-6 (Link to this contribution) I entirely agree. The dire situation in my constituency is compounded by the following fact. The Of...
David Gauke | 541 c652 (Link to this contribution) I am going to make a little more progress. We cannot ask our poorest and our most vulnerable to car...
Debbie Abrahams | 541 c674-5 (Link to this contribution) I have been a Member of Parliament for just over a year now, during which time I have seen the signi...
Meg Hillier | 541 c659-61 (Link to this contribution) We have heard a lot of twaddle from Government Members today. I was shocked that the Minister seemed...
Ian Lavery | 541 c661 (Link to this contribution) I shall be brief. The hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) commented that that is an extr...
Helen Goodman | 541 c652 (Link to this contribution) Strictly speaking, what the Minister has said is accurate, but he knows as well as we do that the on...
David Gauke | 541 c650 (Link to this contribution) Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Increasing the working hour requirements for a couple is entirely ...
Subjects
Children Child benefit Disadvantaged Benefits rules Women Families Economic situation Personal income Low incomes Poverty Public expenditure Low pay Public finance Welfare tax credits Working tax credit Taxation Unemployment Standard of living Cuts
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