John Pugh
Main Page: John Pugh (Liberal Democrat - Southport)Department Debates - View all John Pugh's debates with the HM Treasury
(9 years, 10 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Nicky Morgan)
The Department for Work and Pensions, and the Ministers responsible for disabilities and for employment, launched a strategy last December to help those with disabilities to find work. What this Government have not done is what the previous Government did, which was to say to people, “We don’t think that you can work.” We want to empower people to work, and schemes such as Access to Work are all about doing that.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
T6. May I congratulate the Chancellor on his excellent HS3 proposal? It follows on from an equally visionary plan from the Deputy Prime Minister—in the previous Government. How does the Chancellor’s plan exceed Lord Prescott’s ambition?
Mr George Osborne
I am sorry, but when the hon. Gentleman was talking about an excellent Deputy Prime Minister I assumed he was talking about the leader of the Liberal Democrats rather than John Prescott—perhaps the hon. Gentleman was just being ironic about Lord Prescott. Lord Prescott was on the television yesterday boasting that he had set out a plan in 2004, and then someone pointed out that nothing had happened to his plan since. We are talking about improving the links from the Greater Merseyside region across Manchester and Leeds to Hull, and indeed across all parts of the north. High-speed rail is part of this, but it is only part of it: this is also about solving local bottlenecks, such as with the money we are putting into the M62, and about speeding up the commuter trains, which is what the northern hub is all about. This is a coherent plan to back a northern powerhouse.