Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and Julie Hilling(9 years, 5 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
Of course I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend that we must stay the course in order to finish the job, and finish it fairly. He may be aware that the long-term youth claimant count in his constituency has fallen by a full 40% in the last year alone, which is an extraordinary achievement.
As my hon. Friend knows, my view is that it is simply not fair or justifiable to apply council tax bands to low-value properties without adopting the same approach to high-value properties. Why should a family living in a family home in Lewisham pay the same council tax as someone living in a £10 million palace, possibly in Wimbledon? That does not make sense to me, and it should change.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
My 69-year-old Atherton constituent Margaret was run over by a car, and was left bleeding in the road for 90 minutes before the ambulance turned up. The Chancellor said last week that the Government had made cuts without affecting front-line services. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree with the Chancellor, or does he regret supporting every cut that the Government have made?
The Deputy Prime Minister
What I regret enormously is the fact that every household in the hon. Lady’s constituency—indeed, every household in all our constituencies—took a hit of £3,000 because of the crash in 2008, which was caused in large part by the absolute neglect of the Labour party in government. That is what I regret. The economy has suffered a cardiac arrest the likes of which we have not seen before during the post-war period. I am very proud of the fact that this coalition Government are making painstaking, if controversial, decisions to ensure that we live within our means rather than simply burdening our children and grandchildren with this generation’s mistakes.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and Julie Hilling(9 years, 7 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
I note first that the hon. Gentleman’s party blocked House of Lords reform when it was a manifesto commitment and party funding reform, but on the point he raises, far from blocking it, my party has put forward a proposal, unlike any other party, on how to deal with this issue. We are saying that we should create, in this House, a Grand Committee composed of MPs reflecting the votes cast in England, such that if there is a Bill that affects only England and Wales, they can say whether or not they want to exercise a veto on that Bill. That is our proposal; so far, I have heard a deafening silence from all other parties on this important debate.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
T5. As individual voter registration will reduce further the number of young people registered to vote, will the Deputy Prime Minister support Labour’s policy of following Northern Ireland’s successful schools initiative, whereby local authorities automatically register young people to vote, which has dramatically increased the number of young people on the electoral register?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Perhaps I just need to repeat what the Parliamentary Secretary said earlier. We have learned the lessons of what happened in Northern Ireland and have automatically transferred a huge number of people from existing databases—
The Deputy Prime Minister
It is actually an answer to the question. The hon. Lady says from a sedentary position that it is not the question, but the question is how do we make sure that there is the maximum number of people on the register as we move to individual voter registration? We have done much more than she suggests, and much more than her Government ever did, to ensure that people are automatically transferred to the individual voter register, and I think that will prove to be very successful.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Nick Clegg and Julie Hilling(12 years, 2 months ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
It is very important that this country continues to take a lead in the international discussions, not only so that we can confront together the overarching threat of climate change, which is such a potent threat to everybody across the globe, but so that we can work together to compare notes on how we can green our economies, which will be the specific focus of the Rio+20 summit. I think everybody now agrees that sustainable prosperous growth in the future has to be green as well.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
T12. The president of the Liberal Democrats has said that in his opinion, the Health and Social Care Bill has gone from being “appalling” to being “pointless” over the past 12 months. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that over the same period, the Liberal Democrats have gone from being pointless to being appalling?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The only thing that is appalling is the Christmas cracker lines that Opposition Members dutifully read out. I really hope the hon. Lady will do a little better next time.
The Government are confronting a dilemma in our health care system that every Government in every developed economy and society must face. We have an increasing and ageing population, with an increasingly large number of people with long-term chronic conditions, who spend much more time in hospital than has ever been the case. That is why it is right to give people such as doctors and nurses, who know patients best, greater authority regarding how our health care system works. That remains the key reform in the Bill.