Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Iain Stewart

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said in my answers to the Leader of the Opposition, we want to support the supported housing projects that work in many of our constituencies. We have all seen how important they are. The changes to housing benefit that we are talking about will not come into place until 2018, so there is plenty of time to make sure that we support supported housing projects.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

Q10. Next month, Milton Keynes will host the first ever national apprenticeship fair. We have a strong record in expanding apprenticeships, but is there not still a need for a cultural shift in careers advice to show that high-level apprenticeships and university places are equally valid?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The careers advice that we need to give young people is that every school leaver has the choice of either a university place, because we have uncapped university places, or an apprenticeship, because we are funding 3 million of them in this Parliament. We need to go on to explain that if someone becomes an apprentice, that does not rule out doing a degree or degree-level qualification later on during their apprenticeship. The option of earning and learning is stronger in Britain today than it has ever been.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton and Iain Stewart

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make to the hon. Lady is that those poverty figures come after 20 years of the great tax credit experiment. What we saw was an increase in the cost of tax credits and an increase in in-work poverty. We say that it is time for a new approach: higher pay, more jobs, lower taxes. In her constituency, the claimant count has come down by 10% in the last year. Compared with the time of the 2010 election, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit in her constituency is down 43%. I say let us give people the chance of a job, a salary, a decent wage and lower taxes.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

Q13. Given Russia’s military expansion and North Korea’s development of a submarine-launched ballistic missile system that can strike the west, does the Prime Minister agree that this is no time to campaign for nuclear disarmament?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is right to maintain our independent nuclear deterrent. Anyone who has any doubts about that only has to look at the dangers and uncertainty in our world. Frankly, it is very disappointing for this country that after having a cross-party consensus for so long that the nuclear deterrent was right for Britain, we now have a Leader of the Opposition who is campaigning with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Today, we are celebrating that great film, “Back to the Future”. I am not surprised that many people sitting behind him say that he should get in his DeLorean, go back to 1985 and stay there.