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Richmond upon Thames Liberal Democrats:Covering the constituencies of Twickenham and Richmond Park |
Dorries, Beith and Wright quiz Cameron
September 10, 2011 12:14 PM
• [Sep 07] Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative): The Liberal Democrats make up 8.7% of this Parliament and yet they seem to be influencing our free school policy, health and many issues including immigration and abortion. Does the Prime Minister-[ Interruption. ]
John Bercow (Speaker): Order. The question from the hon. Lady will be heard.
Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire, Conservative): Does the Prime Minister think it is about time he told the Deputy Prime Minister who is the boss? [ Interruption. ]
John Bercow (Speaker): Order. I wanted to hear the question, but I want to hear the Prime Minister's answer.
David Cameron: I know that the hon. Lady is extremely frustrated about the-[ Interruption . ] Perhaps I should start all over again-[ Interruption. ] I am going to give up on this one.
• . . Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed, Liberal Democrat): When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister comes to consider next week's Vickers report on the banks, which have been rescued with fantastic amounts of taxpayers' money, will he have no truck with the banks' argument that they cannot be reformed to prevent another crisis because they are having such a struggle coping with the crisis they have already created? Surely never again should British taxpayers have to bail out banks that are too big to fail.
David Cameron: My right hon. Friend is entirely right that the Government must take action to reform the banks, and that is what we are doing. We have already set out how we are getting rid of the tripartite structure that failed so badly under the previous Government, how we are putting the Bank of England back in charge, and how we are making sure that, as he put it, we cannot have in the future these catastrophic bank failures that cost the taxpayer so dear. We are looking forward to receiving Professor Vickers' report. It seems to me there are two vital things we have to secure-a safe and secure banking system for the future, but also proper bank lending, including to small businesses, right now in our economy. That is what Government policy will be aiming for.
• . . Simon Wright (Norwich South, Liberal Democrat): In seeking to address the economic recovery, is it better to help those who are taxed on incomes as little as £150 a week, or those who, after tax, take home around 10 times that amount?
David Cameron: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Let me just point out two things that we have done that are totally in line with that, one of which is to lift 1 million people out of income tax altogether-that is a coalition commitment that we have been delivering on. The second thing, when it comes to tax credits, is that we have increased, over two years, by £290 the tax credits that go to the poorest families in our country. That is why we have managed to take difficult decisions-everyone knows we have had to take difficult decisions-without an increase in child poverty. In better economic times, under the previous Government, child poverty actually went up.
• Full Debate in Parliament
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