"My hon. Friend has made a good point. As I said earlier, the issue of the compression of wages in certain parts of the economy is a global phenomenon. It has been seen in the United States, in particular.
"I think that the benefits system remains extremely generous. The difficulty for the Government is that they inherited a system in which millions of people have been taken through tax credit and made unnecessarily dependent on benefits. It is incredibly difficult to wean people off that dependency, and you do …..." James Cartlidge - View Speech
"I was simply saying that, when we have a massive lack of labour—for picking fruit, for example—and thousands of people unemployed, we have to ask ourselves what is wrong in the benefit system that we are not getting people to fill those positions. That is not calling for corporal punishment; …..." James Cartlidge - View Speech
"This is all fine, but the key stats are in the public domain. The purpose of universal credit is to help people into work. We have record employment and record low unemployment. Those are the stats that matter. Does the hon. Lady celebrate them?..." James Cartlidge - View Speech
"I agree with the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley South (Mike Wood). The WASPI campaigners are very passionate and tenacious, and one obviously sympathises with those who, having saved all their lives, feel they were not given adequate notice. Obviously there is a legitimate grievance there, …..." James Cartlidge - View Speech
"Of course there are measures that we can consider. My point is that unless we can identify specific lines of tax or expenditure to pay for them, the money will simply be borrowed and paid back by future generations...." James Cartlidge - View Speech