James Duddridge
Main Page: James Duddridge (Conservative - Rochford and Southend East)Department Debates - View all James Duddridge's debates with the HM Treasury
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Osborne
The whole purpose of universal credit is to remove the disincentives to work that exist in our current welfare system, driven both by the complexity of all the different benefits and by the couple penalty for whose removal my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has campaigned for many years. He is removing it—or, at any rate, heading in the direction of removing it—through universal credit, but there may be more than we can do, and I shall be happy to look into that.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
Sadly, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) could not be with us today to hear about economic growth, but he did leave us the gift that is the shadow Chancellor. Given that everyone is saying that the shadow Chancellor had a bit of a nightmare today, is this not an opportunity to give him a break and to leave him in place rather than his being sacked, so that he continues to serve as a reminder of the economic failure in which the last Labour Government landed us?
Mr Osborne
The shadow Chancellor is one of the many people whom I want to keep in his job.