Speeches by Rushworth.

“We have said it is a mixed bag, but why are we doing so badly, given that 1325 has been there for a quarter of a century?”

“That poses a very big question that we will probably get to later: why? I think if I were to ask that now, we could fill the whole session with that one question—I look to you, Chair, for guidance.”

“The only vote we ever had on the issue was a vote for or against an Opposition day motion. I was always clear that the original threshold that the Government set was far too low. I do not think that millionaires and asset-rich, wealthy pensioners should receive the payment. The policy, as it now stands, and as it will …”

“That is not a vote before the House right now, but I have been pretty clear in my answer. I never agreed with the cap when the Conservatives introduced it. They did terrible things that put too many children in my community into poverty. The Government are addressing child poverty in multiple ways, including through th…”

“I have never supported the two-child cap. The Conservatives introduced a two-tier benefit system that penalised younger families in a way that it does not penalise older families. My genuine view is that this needs to be looked at creatively. I do not know what the Chancellor will do, but my view is that we need to do …”

“That is a fair question, and I will answer it. It is important that we do not return to the days when the Conservatives were in office and vanity projects wasted so much public money, because child poverty is the scourge of our time. We need a national mission to eradicate child poverty. Some of what we need to do will…”

“Was the hon. Member a Conservative in 2010, when George Osborne promised not to put up VAT, or in 2019, when Boris Johnson promised not to put up any taxes—both of them made promises that they went on to break because, they said, the circumstances of the country required it—or is he a recent convert to his position?”

“The point I am making is that spending for spending’s sake is not what any responsible Government should do. We should spend every tax pound well. These examples of waste are not things that we should continue. There was the £100,000 spent on a fake bell that only bonged 10 times during Big Ben’s maintenance. Truss spe…”

“I spoke to a business in my constituency that said it understands why the Chancellor made that decision. One of its biggest concerns is the number of days that it loses to sickness, and it understands the importance of improving public services and of having a better educated and healthier workforce.”

“I voted against a motion saying that the payment should be a universal benefit, because I do not think that it should be universal, and I argued for where I thought it should be. The Conservatives are right about one thing: we do need to control spending. We should not listen to those on the left who think that there i…”

“I was distracted by the chuntering of the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) and thought that he may have wanted to make an intervention. I will finish as I started. For me, the choice is really this: do we return to the dark days of austerity, which created the challenges that scourge the community that I repr…”

“I have confidence in the Chancellor to produce a Budget that will do the things that my constituents need it to. What my constituents are asking for, and what they voted for at the general election, is change. Look what the Conservatives did to our justice system: prisons are 99.9% full, and we have a court backlog tha…”

“Child poverty increased enormously on the Conservatives’ watch. [Interruption.] Yes, it did. Where was their political will to deal with it?”

“I think that the hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber when I read out a list of the billions of pounds of profligate spending by the Conservative party in government. I am pleased that this Government have stopped that and that he is a convert to our cause.”

“I will refer to the hon. Gentleman’s comments about my contribution. Perhaps because our constituencies are different, his constituents do not face the same challenges as mine. The sorts of changes I am talking about are things like getting NHS dentists back, reopening Sure Start centres, fixing the problems on our hig…”

“What the hon. Gentleman says about healthcare is not quite credible. I appreciate that his researchers will have tried to find a statistic that works for his speech, but it is undeniable that we have delivered significantly more NHS appointments. Waiting times are coming down, and satisfaction levels are going back up …”

“Obviously, we are in a global economy. We have the fastest growth in the G7; I think that is well known—[Interruption.] I am going to make some progress, because it is important to set out why we need to be making investment in our public services and infrastructure. We have only to look at what austerity did to the NH…”

“I am not sure that I fully understood the hon. Gentleman’s question or what contradiction he sees, but I will go on to talk about why I feel that we need to see major investment in our public services and our infrastructure.”

“I would also like to thank the Opposition for giving us this opportunity to set out two competing visions for Britain: growth, modernisation, new infrastructure and stronger public services under Labour; or a return to austerity, Government waste and decline under the Tories—of both their shades of blue. The Tories’ 14…”

“At the weekend, I was visited in my constituency surgery by one of the many hard-working prison officers from Durham—himself a victim of the chaos in the justice system that the previous Government left behind. Before he left, he wanted me to know just how bad it is and why people are being released early. As we all kn…”