Karen Buck
Main Page: Karen Buck (Labour - Westminster North)Department Debates - View all Karen Buck'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
First, may I welcome my hon. Friend, who, I know, will speak with great passion for his town of Blackpool? We should congratulate it on its footballing success recently. On that note, I am sure that the whole House will want to show its support—[Interruption] yes, including all Members—for the England team this afternoon in their key game.
I have not yet received a single apology for the appalling mess that we have been left, but at some stage, the Labour party will have to wake up and realise what a mess it made of the British economy.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
Q3. Will there be fewer police officers at the end of this Parliament compared with the number that we have today?
The Prime Minister
What we want to do— [Interruption.] Opposition Members have got to start getting serious about the task that we face. We want to do everything that we can to keep police officers on the streets, to have money going into our schools and to keep up spending on our hospitals, and the only way that we are going to be able to do it is if we deal with the problems of excessive welfare spending. So if hon. Members want to see police on the streets and if they want to see well-funded schools, they have got to back us on housing benefit and on welfare reform. That is the way that we can keep spending up.