Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Jenrick and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 21st January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with the hon. Lady about how important it is that people do have security, particularly when they are looking after disabled children and they need that help. That is why we have been encouraging longer-term tenancies alongside the standard six-month tenancies, and we want to see those developed in the market.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

First they sold our gold reserves at a record low and then they tried to freeze our energy prices at a record high. Does not this latest display of economic illiteracy confirm that only this Government can prevent us, to be blunt—

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Jenrick]

James Blunt. Does not that confirm that only this Government can prevent us from returning back to bedlam?

[The Prime Minister]

I think I caught some of that, although I may need to buy the album to get the rest of it, but the point is a good one. The Opposition’s policy of freezing energy prices at the top of the market would be denying the price cuts that are now coming through to customers around this country. But the key to all this is to stick to our long-term economic plan, which again today is seeing unemployment fall and the number of people in work rise to record levels—something which I am sure we are going to welcome right across the House of Commons.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Robert Jenrick and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I meant when I said we would protect the NHS is just that. We are spending £12.7 billion more on the NHS; Labour said that that was irresponsible. We have 7,000 more doctors in our NHS, 3,000 more nurses in our NHS, and over 1,000 more midwives in our NHS, but there is something we have less of in our NHS—we have 19,000 fewer bureaucrats, and that money has been piled into patient care, including improving primary care right around the country.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

The people of Newark have enjoyed becoming better acquainted with the Prime Minister this past month.

I regret to inform the Prime Minister that last week the town of Southwell in my constituency was again flooded. Will he reaffirm his commitment to supporting my proposal that the parts of Nottinghamshire that were severely affected by the floods of 2013 receive similar grants to the parts elsewhere in the country flooded at the beginning of this year?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, may I welcome my hon. Friend to his place in the House of Commons after what was a long and arduous but well fought and very positive by-election campaign?

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that there are parts of the country, in Nottinghamshire but also elsewhere, that flooded during the course of 2013 and were not eligible for some of the payments made subsequent to the flooding at the turn of the last year, with support for householders and farmers and other sorts of proposals. We are looking very hard at whether we can put back to the beginning of the 2013 financial year the eligibility criteria for that flood work. I will look at this issue very carefully and talk to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to see whether we can resolve it for my hon. Friend.