Oral Answers to Questions
Alan Whitehead Excerpts(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May)
Yesterday marked one year since the attack on the Finsbury Park mosque. That truly cowardly attack was intended to divide us, but we will not let that happen. We have been joined today by the imam of the mosque, Mohammed Mahmoud, and I am sure that Members from across the House will join me in paying tribute to his extraordinary bravery and dignity. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
Friday is the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the MV Empire Windrush at Tilbury docks. It is right that we recognise and honour the enormous contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants. That is why we have announced an annual Windrush Day, which will keep alive their legacy for future generations and ensure that we all celebrate the diversity of Britain’s history.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Dr Whitehead
I concur with the Prime Minister’s remarks concerning the terrorist attack on the Finsbury Park mosque. One year on, it is right that we remember it.
Following the agreements to which the UK signed up at the Paris climate change summit, will the Prime Minister now commit to a new UK climate change target of zero net emissions before 2050?
The Prime Minister
The United Kingdom has been leading the way in relation to dealing with climate change. The United Kingdom was, I think, the first country to bring in legislation relating to it, and the Government have a good record in dealing with these issues. Crucially, we have ensured that we remain committed to the Paris accord. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), who played a key role in ensuring that the Paris accord was agreed to and that everybody signed up to it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alan Whitehead Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The most important thing in our country is that we make sure that everybody can take advantage of the opportunities to work, get training and go to university. This is an opportunity country, but there is no opportunity for people if you do not speak the language. That is why we are going to target money at those people—they are very often women—who have been stuck at home, sometimes by the men in the house, and make sure that they can get the English language skills they need.
Let me make one other additional point, because this is so important. When I was sat in a mosque in Leeds this week, one of the young people there said how important it is that imams speak English, because if some young people can speak English but not Urdu or Arabic they need someone to guide them away from ISIL and its poisonous rhetoric. Speaking English is important for all, imams included.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Q6. Over the past few months, young people in Southampton have seen themselves frozen out of the living wage and housing benefit, and faced the downgrading or closure of the further education and sixth-form colleges from which many of them get their qualifications. We now see the ending of maintenance grants for those young people who want to go to university. What has the Prime Minister got against young people trying to make their way in life?
The Prime Minister
I will tell the hon. Gentleman what we are doing for young people: record numbers going to university; record numbers who are taking on apprenticeships; and record numbers in work. Actually, today, the unemployment figures show a record low in the unemployment rate among those people who have left school. I would say to the hon. Gentleman that one of the reasons why a Labour MP in the south of England is as rare as hen’s teeth is that they talk down our country and talk down opportunity in it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Alan Whitehead Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Obviously there are challenges in particularly far-flung rural constituencies such as that of the hon. Gentleman, which has many islands in it, but we have to make sure that people’s assessments are properly carried out. Those assessments are important. The whole point about this Government’s programme is that we do not want to leave people on unemployment or other benefits year after year. We want these tests and assessments to be properly carried out so that we can see whether people are eligible for benefits and what help they need to get work.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Q6. Did the Prime Minister’s intention to legislate to help people with the costs and insecurity of renting their homes lose its slot in a packed Queen’s Speech legislative programme to the plan to ban plastic bags, or did he perhaps not have any such proposals in the first place?
The Prime Minister
What this Government are doing is ensuring that we build more houses. That is what we absolutely need to do to help those who are renting or buying. Yes, we need greater transparency in regard to what letting agencies do, and we are delivering that as part of our programme, but I do not believe that a policy of rent controls—which the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and the letting agents themselves have said would put up rents—is the answer.