Fiona Mactaggart
Main Page: Fiona Mactaggart (Labour - Slough)Department Debates - View all Fiona Mactaggart's debates with the Cabinet Office
(13 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The Labour Government’s plans were to increase benefits by less than consumer price inflation next year. They left a £300 million—they do not know this, the dupes behind the Front Bench—[Interruption.] I think dupes is an accurate description of what I am looking at. There was a £300 million black hole, and you do not have to be a “Star Trek” fan to know that when you are in a black hole, you should stop digging.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
Q10. In the interests of informing the dupes behind either Front Bench, and in response to his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), will the Prime Minister agree to publish the tables for the years following the one that has been published in the Red Book, which is very welcome, so that we can advise him on how to improve the impact of his policies on child poverty?
The Prime Minister
What a pity the hon. Lady never made that point in 13 years of Government. Where were the distributional tables in the Budget after Budget that we—the poor dupes who were sitting at the back—had to listen to the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) give over and over again? We have published the table for the first time. Between now and the years the hon. Lady talks about, there will be further Budgets, where we will make further progress in helping the poorest families in our country.