Priti Patel
MP for Witham · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Since the Secretary of State first announced these plans, when she last held this role, the Labour Government have played fast and loose with our local democracy, cancelling elections and creating chaos and uncertainty in our councils as they struggle to deliver key frontline services.”
“The Secretary of State has doubled housing targets for Maldon district, causing it to fall behind on its five-year supply; that is putting green spaces at risk in villages such as Tollesbury.”
“As I said this morning in the urgent question, this despotic terrorist regime, which has been illegally attacking commercial shipping in the strait and our allies, including Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman’s ships and territory, all while repressing its own people in the most brutal ways imaginable, must be made to feel the consequences of its a…”
“By the end of this decade, Britain will be nowhere near the 3% and barely ahead of where we are now, while all our allies continue to surge. I do not need to remind the Foreign Secretary of the numbers, but Germany is set to spend 3.7% of GDP by 2030, while Sweden has pledged to reach 3.5%, as have other countries.”
“Our security allies once looked to the UK to be a reliable and dependable partner, but their confidence is increasingly shaken. How will the Government put that right? This is a time for action, not words.”
“What will be the scale of the deployment? What will it consist of and over what timeframe? How will we reassure our strategic and security partners in the region of our commitment, so that they do not think we have stepped back, particularly given the rising tide of attacks from Iran?”
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“A hearing took place in December, and I pay tribute to the residents in Hatfield Peverel and members of our parish council who came together to oppose those unwelcome developments. Their dedication to their local community has been outstanding. Both developments are outside the settlement boundary in the current and emerging local plans and the emerging neighbourhood plan, because they would be detrimental to the countryside. They would also place unacceptable pressures on an already full general practice, with no guarantees of any financial contributions to enhance the service. Our local schools are also full, but no contributions are being sought because of the community infrastructure levy pooling restrictions.”
“We recognise that development brings with it employment opportunities, investment in infrastructure and new public services, including schools and GP services, but that should not mean housing at any cost and in any location. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to some issues and causes of concern in which localism is being undermined and opportunities to deliver locally led planning are being missed. I appreciate and respect the fact that the Minister cannot give detailed responses on specific planning cases that are live and under consideration, but I hope that he and his Department will reflect on them. First, the Minister will be aware of the Secretary of State’s decision to call in planning applications for up to 260 new dwellings on two sites in Hatfield Peverel, at Stonepath Meadow and Gleneagles Way.”
“Many parishes are working on neighbourhood development plans and want to deliver on the localism agenda advocated by our Government. They want to exercise the powers at their disposal to allocate preferred sites for housing and business uses, and for protection. We want to deliver ambitious plans to support economic growth and bring more local homes to our communities. We want and need new infrastructure to support growth, including the widening of the A12, the upgrading of the A120, and investment in the Great Eastern main line. I welcome today’s announcement of more than £7 million for the Heybridge flood alleviation and regeneration scheme, in the district of Maldon just outside my constituency, and I hope for more investment rounds to support planning and development.”
“I am grateful to Mr Speaker for granting this debate. I welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to his role, and the opportunity to hear about my constituency. My constituency covers three lower tiers of local planning authorities while Essex County Council has responsibility for waste and minerals, which partly explains why the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government holds such a high volume of correspondence from me on behalf of my constituents. If the Minister visits Witham, which he is very welcome to do, he will see at first hand the boundless economic potential of this part of Essex and of the entire county. He will also note the appetite among our local communities to take a positive, proactive approach to housing, planning and infrastructure.”
“I want to leave him with this message from my constituency: we need the new Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that local communities can embrace localism in order to deliver sustainable developments and the housing that we need, to prevent unwelcome development and abuses in the planning system, to ensure that intervention takes place in the cases listed, and to guarantee that as new developments take place, local communities can benefit from them with the provision of new infrastructure and key public services.”
“I would welcome the Ministry looking into the case and assisting the company to resolve this issue, if that cannot be done directly with the council. As the Minister can see, my constituency has a wide range of planning and development issues, and there are many more that time has prevented me from raising.”
“A long and protracted planning dispute involving numerous applications, appeals and enforcement notices has taken place with the local planning authority. He feels that planning policies justify his being able to operate his business and live on site. I ask the Minister to review the case and, importantly, to learn the lessons from it and respond to the most recent representations that have been made. The last case I want to highlight involves a development outside my constituency, but the medium-sized developer is based in the Witham constituency. Wickford Developments is involved in the development of a site in the Uttlesford District Council area. What appears to be a restrictive planning policy requiring a development to include a lift could prevent the company from providing much-needed social housing.”
“However, given the concerns with the incinerator, the impact on the environment and the new proposals on waste put forward by the Government, the incinerator is not only unwelcome but out of date. It has no energy recovery mechanisms, which makes it all the more damaging to the environment. My constituents would like the latest planning application to be refused, and called in by the Secretary of State to ensure its refusal if necessary. I trust that the Minister will convey that message to the Secretary of State and look at all the submissions that will be coming his way. My constituent, John Patrick, has had a long chain of correspondence and representations with my hon. Friend’s Department. He is well known to the Department. He runs a rural nursery business growing plants. When he moved in, there was live-in accommodation on site.”
“I shall move on to another planning area outside Colchester borough. Thousands of my constituents and residents across Essex and beyond are deeply concerned about the prospect of the Rivenhall incinerator receiving further planning consents and becoming operational. The incinerator was originally granted planning permission by the last Labour Government in March 2010, just weeks before the general election. Since then, however, the applicants have made a number of changes to the site. It has been described as an integrated waste management facility, but the recycling capacity has been reduced and the waste incineration capacity increased by 65% from 360,000 to 595,000 tonnes. Another planning application is being considered by Essex County Council to increase the stack height to help the site meet Environment Agency requirements.”
“During those years, when we had had a recession too, we found that older workers were finding it difficult to retain their jobs and also to find new employment as the economy changed. There was more part-time employment as demands across the economy fundamentally shifted. One of the things that I feel strongly about, which the country and our Government should focus on, is the agility that is required to sustain the flexible economy. We must ensure that people of all ages, all skills and all backgrounds can still remain active in the labour market. To do that, we need to look at education.”
“It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) on securing this important debate and on her thoughtful speech, which covered the whole gamut of skills policy. She had some good initiatives and suggestions for how we can start to address the ongoing skills shortage across our country and our economy in a wide range of sectors. I remember often discussing young people here in 2010. We talked about a generation excluded from employment and about the employability barriers facing them. We had a system that was simply not functioning and not getting them the engagement that they needed to help them get the skills necessary to join the workforce.”
“At the heart of that success is working with the private sector, not just the public sector, to ensure that the private sector and the needs of the local economy are fully reflected in devolution deals. Importantly, the combined authority and local authority models require an absolute understanding of what is going on in the local economy, where the skills shortages are and where future demand might come from. There is also a need to look at succession planning and how businesses can work with their workforce.”
“The Government have the Careers & Enterprise Company and other models of engagement, but that is simply not good enough in terms of overall coverage—engagement with schools and the requirement on our education establishments to open their doors to businesses, so that they may talk to young people about careers, and to bring into schools sectors that reflect the local economy. I feel strongly about the role and significance of devolution. In my short apprenticeship as the Employment Minister in the Department for Work and Pensions, I oversaw some of the devolution deals around the Work programme. I worked with the combined authority in Manchester and on other devolution deals. Employment programmes and employability were a major factor in giving devolution to local authorities up and down the country.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come on to the ladder of opportunity, the moral obligation and responsibility, and the progression pay that the right hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green mentioned earlier. In fact, we have a good economy right now, but we are faced with a shortage of people in the key sectors that cover the health and wellbeing of our economy: construction, nursing, social care, engineering and a whole range of other sectors. Full-time employment and part-time and temporary employment are all incredibly vital to our labour market. We have record levels of employment, but we should look beyond that to the next generation and ensure that, while they are at school, they are engaged and nurtured to think about the world of work.”
“A very good way in which we could do that, I suggest, is that the Minister, working across the Department for Work and Pensions footprint, could give people who are on universal credit, and who are limited in their hours of work, the freedom and flexibility to access the levy, to get on some of these courses, and to get skilled up so that they can progress. We are on the cusp now. The levy is new, but it represents a fantastic opportunity. Devolution of skills is surely a success for our region, and it deserves to receive more encouragement.”
“Examples include courses in food hygiene and fork-lift truck driving, which are not covered by the apprenticeship levy. The flexibility of the levy could be increased to support some of those courses, so that we can support more people to get back into work and get better pay progression, and give them long-term employment opportunities. If we are to deliver a fair society that invests in people and provides opportunity for those who want a hand up so that they can reach their full potential, why on earth would we not do this? We have a fantastic opportunity to provide greater training support; existing employment programmes are far too rigid and inflexible to do so.”
“There is growing concern that the funds that agencies put into the apprenticeship levy cannot be used to train and upskill workers on their books. Somewhere in the region of 2,000 to 2,500 businesses are paying the levy, and the rules on the spending of funds raised by the apprenticeship levy are so rigid that it is almost impossible to use that money to invest in agency or temporary workers. We have a very good record in Government when it comes to revitalising apprenticeship schemes, and we should be proud of that. The levy has a critical role to play in providing a great pathway. We know that the current pathways are not suitable for everyone, and we need more flexibility when it comes to the levy and apprenticeship schemes. Many workers need to go on shorter, practical courses to take the next step to move on in their career.”
“We have so much untapped potential across our workforce, and there is a great opportunity for the Government to lift the lid on the talents of those people who are struggling to access the labour market. One way that we can do that, as the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green mentioned, is through the apprenticeship levy. We need to look at how we can unlock the potential of the levy and use the funds it raises to support the upskilling of a whole generation who are simply not accessing the levy. I also suggest using the funds to upskill agency and temporary workers. More than 1 million people go to work every day to do agency and temporary work. That model offers a great deal of flexibility, but those workers make an enormous contribution to our economy; their net contribution stands at something like £35 billion.”
“They just wanted a course, for a young person who wanted to be on an apprenticeship scheme, that covered the basic employability skills. There is so much more that can be done, and I welcome the many creative suggestions in the all-party parliamentary group report. We need to ensure that there is flexibility, and that businesses are at the heart of the devolution agenda. I strongly support the idea of devolution in skills coming to the county of Essex. I think that we would benefit from that, in some of the ways that have been suggested today. Devolving skills, and focusing on skills in the workforce, is important not just to businesses, but to individual workers. The skills deficit has a drag not only on our economy, but on the life chances of people who want to work.”
“The devolution of skills to local authorities can be successful only if businesses play a leading role in developing that skills agenda, including working with the education establishments and the courses in those areas. Over the years, I have received endless complaints from businesses about the time it takes for new courses to be approved. They also complain, as I have mentioned, about barriers put up by the public sector to engagement with businesses. It can take years, with hundreds of hours of input from business and trade organisations, for new courses to be signed off. That equally applies to relevant courses. On Friday, I met representatives from a business who said that finding a course that was specific to their business was near-impossible.”
“We need highly trained people, but the lack of flexibility within the training and provider landscape was clearly on display in the discussions that we had. What stood out in the skills forum, and in my previous meetings and engagement with local businesses, was that they want to be at the heart of the decisions that are made on skills policies, and they want to be involved in designing and shaping courses. They want to play their part in offering job training opportunities. However, there are many barriers and restrictions on their doing that. They are best placed to understand the needs of their businesses and the local economy in a way that no Government with a centralised approached and no local authority can fully understand until those businesses are a full part of the discussion.”
“They want to see the barriers to recruitment, employability and access to the labour market brought down. They want people with the right kinds of skills. They want change because we have seen that a deficit in skills standards is one of the biggest barriers to growth locally, and to productivity in our wider economy. On Friday I attended a skills forum organised by the excellent Essex Chambers of Commerce and Industry, which was also attended by my equally brilliant colleague, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon). In that business-led forum the spotlight was on skills and on the barriers that prevent businesses recruiting people. It particularly looked at the barriers around the skills and training programmes in Essex and the demands and challenges for the future workforce who are being trained.”
“The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is absolutely right. Young girls should be encouraged and should have the opportunity to look at the careers that they might not even consider to be suitable for them. In STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and maths—engineering is a classic example. If I may, I will share with the House a little bit about Essex and how we are approaching the skills issue locally. Essex is famously the county of entrepreneurs. Firms based in my constituency have a proud and strong record of creating jobs and local employment. Businesses in my constituency are almost entirely small and medium-sized businesses and they have now created 25% more jobs leading to more than 30,000 people in employment. They are doing well, but they could do even better.”
“The Lord Chancellor will be aware of the case of my constituent who was left blinded in one eye and unable to work because of her abusive ex-partner. The offender was sentenced by our court to a pathetically small 22 months and released early, and the Crown Prosecution Service could not be bothered to pursue a compensation order. Will he personally review how this case has been handled, the soft sentence given, and the failures of the criminal justice system to support the victim?”
“The Secretary of State will be aware that Essex adds over £35 billion to the economy; but our businesses that want to grow cannot grow, because of poor transport infrastructure. Will my right hon. Friend help those businesses by committing to back key projects such as the rail loop north of Witham, investment in the A12 and investment in the A120?”
“Friend the Member for North West Norfolk, who secured this valuable debate, I feel that this is a wonderful opportunity to live and demonstrate the values of choice and competition, as well as to promote the role of our small charities, to show that the big society can exist and operate through the hard work of smaller charities and their lotteries, and through other society lotteries.”
“The Government are supporting choice and competition in many other sectors—energy, banking, education or higher education—so there is an enormous opportunity for the Government now to grasp the nettle and to be incredibly proactive in this area. This is an argument to support choice and competition, but fundamentally it is an argument to support our local communities and our local charities. Naturally, there will be benefits from increased competition, which is something I support. So, like my colleagues here today and like my hon.”
“The other point I will make—I say this with some personal experience, as my parents were shopkeepers—is that the national lottery’s monopoly completely restricts the opportunity for smaller lotteries to have a staging post in many retail outlets. The national lottery is very restrictive in terms of the regulations and the restrictions around it, and it places burdens on small shopkeepers, such as my parents once were, even though they run the types of shops that we should be supporting on high streets and in our villages, as well. They provide a great local service to our local communities, too. Camelot has a monopoly and as there is only one national lottery that restriction obviously has ramifications and wider implications.”
“As we have heard already today, the national lottery has changed its product range, although that has not necessarily worked, and has put its prices up. We all want to support the next generation of Olympians and win more medals as a country, but some consumers quite frankly do not want to bankroll the fat-cat salaries of Camelot. Likewise, many people who give to charities do not want to bankroll large charities’ fat-cat salaries. As someone who has been a great advocate and supporter of local charities, and of moving moneys away from big charities and big causes, I think we should make absolutely sure that we empower smaller charities, so that they get out there and provide the support that is required.”
“We should give them the freedom to succeed and the trust and confidence to go out there and deliver the big society. We should empower more communities and charities. As a Conservative, I am naturally a great supporter of the freedom to succeed, choice, innovation and the role of the market. When playing lotteries, consumers should have a choice of causes to support, including causes that they themselves may be associated with or have an affinity with. That is really important, but it is being restricted by the existing regulatory framework. We should trust consumers to make informed choices about which lottery products they want to support. They should know how, and towards which causes, each £1 that they pay and play will be divided up, and what the ultimate benefit will be.”
“Outdated regulations designed to protect the national lottery from competition are preventing them from growing. That is simply not right. The case has already been made for raising the maximum prize to £1 million—a proposition that is rightly supported by the sector. A higher prize fund will attract more players, which in turn—believe it or not—will generate more revenues for good causes. A £1 million prize is also a clear and memorable figure that is easy to market when promoting these very good society lotteries and charities with a strong local connection. I believe that society lotteries that are able to do so responsibly should be free to adapt their model, increase their maximum prize to attract more players and bring that money to our communities. The real question for the Government is why society lotteries should be held back.”
“Causes such as Water Aid and Mary’s Meals, a charity that my former Department supported in Scotland, are given a tremendous helping hand in delivering support on nutrition. The People’s Postcode lottery and the Postcode Global Trust support many global charities that are helping young people around the world to develop new life skills and giving them new life chances. We should be very proud of that; I hope the Government will acknowledge it and be proud of it too. It has been five years since a review of society lotteries was announced, but progress on regulatory reform has been slow. Local charities and organisations that support people are being held back by outdated legislation. By law, non-commercial fundraising lotteries must donate at least 20% of proceeds to charity.”
“Their promoters are themselves active citizens within their communities, so they have that community connection. I want to see more charities and good causes benefiting from funding from society lotteries. Having looked at this matter, I urge the Government, as other hon. Members have done, to support that goal by reforming the regulatory regime under which society lotteries work. In fact, one of the representations I received before the debate was from Essex and Herts Air Ambulance. Our air ambulances are amazing. Naturally, they believe in raising the cap on society lotteries to ensure that more money goes into communities—something that we all support. In my former role in the Government, I saw for myself how society lotteries benefit international causes and charities—a point that my hon. Friend also mentioned.”
“Funding from the Health lottery not only enables young people to take part in activities, but helps to build skills for life and give them the confidence to become good citizens. One of the benefits of local society lotteries is that the people who pay to play will see and know the good causes that they are supporting, because they will be surrounded by them in their local community. That is an enormous contrast with the national lottery, in which there is no direct link between someone’s stake and the various causes that it may go towards or support in some way. The national lottery’s funds go into a central pot and are redistributed from the centre—not a principle of redistribution that I support—whereas local society lotteries serve a genuine grassroots need.”
“From Farleigh hospice to the Witham Boys Brigade, people are working hard every week to support vulnerable people and enhance our local communities. The Health lottery, which my hon. Friend mentioned, has invested more than £45,000 in just one charity in my constituency, 2nd Witham Boys Brigade. The Health lottery is an astonishing vehicle for bringing direct support to the grassroots—the communities and charities that achieve a transformative effect. In the case of the Witham Boys Brigade, the money has gone to its stadium, a street project and a neighbourhood living project that is transforming the community and bringing employability skills and empowerment to a whole generation of young people. Enhancing outcomes for young people is something that we should all support, while also encouraging greater volunteerism within the community.”
“Friend’s words about the big society—that is exactly what we see in the dedication of motivated individuals who want to serve their community and help others. That is what we see from small charities and society lotteries: valuable support and service provision, responding to local needs in a way that central Government, big charities and bureaucracies quite frankly cannot and will not. In my own constituency, I have seen many great charities supporting amazing causes, from branches of the Royal British Legion across Essex to remarkable charities such as Brainwave, which fundraises for itself, with no Government funding or support, but is changing the lives of children who suffer brain injuries and cerebral palsy and is also transforming the lives of their parents and families.”
“It is a delight to be called to speak in this important debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham) on securing it. He spoke in great detail and with great knowledge about the benefits of society lotteries. I commend him for the strength of his case and his arguments; I agree with them all. In my seven and a half years as a Member of Parliament, I have been really moved and pleased to see the amazing actions and the positive impact of charities, particularly small charities, not only in my constituency but in other parts of the country and across the world. The commitment and dedication of charity workers, particularly volunteers, transforms lives and communities. I echo my hon.”
“I know very well the distribution of national lottery funds and support in my constituency and I thank the Minister’s officials for giving her the chance to tell the House today where the money has gone. But there is a point of principle here, which is that of competition and choice in communities—also the purpose of the debate—ensuring that society lotteries are able to compete with the national lottery and that a wider pool of funds goes to a much wider range of local charities and communities.”
“It is worth reminding Members, especially those on the Opposition Benches, of the progress that has been made in putting the public finances back in order after the appalling situation in 2010. Back then, the budget deficit exceeded £150 billion—more than our spending on health, education, policing and the armed forces. The level of public spending was financed by borrowing that was totally unsustainable. We know that the Opposition, who are chuntering away, never want to take responsibility for how they mishandled the public finances and love to point the finger of blame elsewhere, but it is a fact that before the financial crisis, the Labour Government racked up an eye-watering level of debt.”
“It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson); this is the first time in a while that we have debated in the Chamber together. I commend my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the Budget. From my ministerial apprenticeship at the Treasury three years ago, I recall the great efforts that the then Chancellor and the entire team made to put the Budget together, particularly as Ministers were lobbied constantly by a whole range of interests. It is, of course, a challenge to balance the needs with the responsibility to keep the public finances in good, sound, solid order. The Treasury should be commended for navigating those pressures and for continuing to put stability at the core of the Budget. Economic stability should rightly stand at the core of every Budget.”
“The obvious answer is the scale of Labour’s economic mismanagement. The hon. Gentleman will recall that his party’s 2008 Budget planned for a £43 billion deficit, which is more than all the revenues raised in excise duty. That says everything we need to know about Labour’s financial economic management.”
“As we know, those predictions proved to be completely wrong. In today’s Budget, we heard about greater investment in key sectors going forward. We know we have to think about the future of the labour market. Automation will be coming in, and we need to consider how we can invest in construction and key services.”
“It is right that the Chancellor has today committed more public funds— billions—to the NHS. As an Essex Member of Parliament, I am delighted to see new support and capital investment in the NHS. Frankly, for 13 years under Labour, health services in Essex went backwards and suffered from underfunding. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) is right to say that Labour Members have a brass neck criticising the work we have been doing and the investment we have made. One great success since 2010 is the record level of job creation in our economy. Like many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I recall sitting through these debates from 2010 onwards hearing doom and gloom and scaremongering from the Labour party, with outlandish claims about unemployment and recession.”
“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. On many occasions since 2010, the Labour party has not only not supported the Government’s approach on deficit reduction, but failed to vote to support policies to reduce the deficit and bring sound financial economic management back into our public finances. We have come a long way on bringing the deficit down and understanding the reasons why sound financial management matters. We need money to be available to invest in our public services. We need an economy that embraces enterprise, which brings in the tax receipts to pay for hospitals, schools, police and the armed forces. Today’s Budget absolutely recognises that fundamental point. We have heard criticism in the debate about the NHS. Our NHS is a great institution.”
“In my constituency, the claimant count has fallen by 70% from its peak under Gordon Brown, and there has been a 17% growth in small enterprises. That means more jobs for my constituents and the county of Essex. We should welcome that, rather than talk it down.”
“I again welcome the new investment that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced in terms of skills, critical sectors and investing in people. There are fantastic opportunities not just for the City of London but for our country, and plenty of reasons to be optimistic when it comes to trading with the rest of the world and growing our economy. We must look outwards rather than inwards. This is a Budget that will facilitate a positive international vision for Britain. That is how we will be judged in the years ahead. It stands in marked contrast to the policies of the Labour party, which wants to tax more and thereby harm our country and our economy. Most importantly, however, this Budget lays the foundations for a Britain fit for the future.”
“In Essex, we have been working assiduously to secure investment from the Government in a passing rail loop north of Witham and the upgrading of the A120—critical investments that will promote and support house building in that part of Essex—and also to ensure greater private funding, including from innovative financial products, to reduce the risk to the public purse and to secure more private sector contributions to deliver critical infrastructure. As we plan for our exit from the EU on 29 March 2019, it is right that the Budget has set us on a course to make the most of the long-term opportunities that Britain will have. Of course, that means being a global beacon for free trade, a place that welcomes investment from overseas and enterprise, and finding ways to unlock the talent in this country.”
“The Budget makes welcome changes to stamp duty to help people get on the property ladder: 95% of first-time buyers will now benefit and 80% will pay no stamp duty at all. That is the right action to support home ownership and increase supply through the investment announced in the Budget. I stress to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench the importance of ensuring investment in infrastructure around new housing from private as well as public sources.”
“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have 32 million people in work and unemployment at a record low, and Opposition Members talk our country and our economy down. They seem to have a pathological hatred of enterprise, aspiration and free markets. They call for higher taxes on businesses, which only serve their agenda to tighten controls on the free market, stifle innovation and stop businesses succeeding. As we know, that is exactly what would harm the economy in the long run. As we have seen in the Budget today, great Conservative Budgets support aspiration, opportunity and freedom. That is why the Conservative party has always been on the side of people who work hard and want to get on in life and own their own home.”
“Of course, because we are taking back control, this Parliament, the Government and the devolved Administrations will be in a position to amend, adapt and change measures, as appropriate, in the years ahead.”