Engagements — House of Commons, 2018-03-07
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: Over the last three years, more than 2,000 new homes have been built in North West Leicestershire, including a record 731 in the last 12 months. Additionally, my local authority is building new council houses for the first time in decades. That is all in contrast with the 227 houses completed in the year to 2010, which was the last time Labour was in government. Will my right hon. Friend use North West Leicestershire as an example to other local authorities and show them our unemployment rate of 1% and the fact that we have no rough sleepers?; Thanks to income tax hikes by the Scottish national party Government, thousands of UK armed forces personnel who are stationed in Scotland will pay more tax than their counterparts south of the border. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that this Conservative Government are reviewing the steps that they can take to clean up the SNP’s mess and mitigate the tax rise for our brave servicemen and women?; Labour lifted a million children out of poverty, and this Government are on course to plunge a record 37% of children into poverty. Vulnerable people are being denied social care because of Government cuts in local authority budgets. Is this really a society that is working for everyone?; I am sure my right hon. Friend will agree that good air quality will improve the lives of everyone in the country, and the lives of their children and grandchildren. We are launching a Joint Committee on the subject, because cross-Government work between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department of Health and the Department for Transport is important. Will the Prime Minister appoint a member of the Cabinet to co-ordinate that work to ensure that our children and grandchildren benefit from better air quality?; As the Saudi Crown Prince sweeps across Westminster and Whitehall, will the Prime Minister pledge to raise the specific case of the jailed writer Raif Badawi? He has languished in a prison for six years, all because he wrote some things that his Government did not like. His wife and children have now claimed asylum in Canada. Will the Prime Minister pledge to raise his case, and will she also do something that her predecessor never did? Will she stand at the Dispatch Box and say that Raif Badawi is no criminal, and that he should be set free?; Will the Prime Minister support the work that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Oil and Gas Authority are doing to facilitate the production of £1 trillion of oil and gas revenue from the continental shelf, supporting 300,000 jobs? Will she also join me in paying tribute to the men and women who work offshore to ensure that our homes stay warm?; Nottingham needs to find an extra £12 million this year to care for elderly and disabled people, but the Government’s answer—adding 3% to council tax bills—only raises just over £3 million, leaving a huge gap to be filled. No wonder Lord Porter, Conservative chair of the Local Government Association, warns that some councils will“be pushed perilously close to the financial edge.”Will the Prime Minister wake up to the social care crisis and urge the Chancellor to give local government the funding it needs in next week’s spring statement?
Theresa Mary May (Conservative, Centre-right): We have recognised the pressures that social care is under. That is why in successive fiscal events the Chancellor has given extra money to local authorities and the social care sector as a whole. Next week’s statement is not a Budget, but we have ensured that more money is going into local councils, not just through the precept that they are able to raise, but £2 billion extra has been put into social care in local authorities.