Business of the House

Sam Tarry Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I admire the hon. Lady’s passion and thank her for her previous service. It is an excellent topic for a debate, because it would allow us to get on record the benefits of the Turing scheme, which is now running—the same benefits that have been there before but on a global basis, not just focused on the EU.

[Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I briefly associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker), who talked about Terry Wiggins. They did not mention that he served for 40 years playing on the parliamentary rugby team, and just a few weeks ago helped us to a glorious victory at Twickenham.

As will concern anyone approaching retirement, figures from the Department for Work and Pensions have revealed that the number of pensioners using food banks doubled after the Government’s economic mismanagement—up 101% in my constituency. Can we have a debate in Government time on whether the £46 billion blackhole in the plan to axe national insurance will hit pensioners once more?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman may like to talk to some more pensioners; he may find out all sorts of things, because they have long memories. Labour may not think that our elders have a good memory, but in fact they do. They remember the 25p rise to their pensions under the last Labour Government. They remember the pension credit maladministration—I think £10 million was owed to pensioners in my constituency alone. Under the last Labour Government, 200,000 more pensioners were living in absolute poverty, and we had the fourth highest pensioner poverty in Europe. Pensioners also remember which party introduced the triple lock, increasing the state pension by £3,700 since 2010: the Conservatives.