Key Quotes - Politics

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Last update: Wednesday 25th March
 
Almost all public services could be opened up to private companies under plans being put forward by Prime Minister David Cameron today. The PM said that “complete change” was needed in the public sector to improve standards for users. The changes, to be set out in a White Paper within the next fortnight, could allow non-public providers to run schools, hospitals and council services such as maintaining parks, adult care, special schools and roads maintenance.
PoliticsThe Sentinel, February 21, 2011
 
David Cameron is ‘appalled’ the Government must reform the sex offenders register and put the rights of paedophiles and rapists above protecting the public. Thousands of sex offenders will be able to apply to have their names removed after the Supreme Court ruled it was a breach of offenders’ human rights to be on the register for life with no review. The ruling “seems to fly completely in the face of common sense”, but the Government has no choice but to act, the Prime Minister said.
PoliticsThe Sentinel, February 17, 2011
 
Unions and voluntary groups are set to join forces today to campaign against the Government’s spending cuts, arguing that they make a “mockery” of the Government’s Big Society. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber accused ministers of driving through “savage” cuts. The union organisation said the voluntary sector was set to lose around £4.5 billion because of the Government’s austerity measures.
PoliticsThe Sentinel, February 8, 2011
 
The Government has disputed Labour claims more than 10,000 police officers in England and Wales could be cut over the net two years. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the job losses, revealed in a party survey of police forces across the country, showed the “shocking and brutal reality” of the Government’s spending cuts. Ms Cooper said the cuts were “only the beginning” as a third of forces had yet to announce reductions to their workforces.
PoliticsThe Sentinel, February 7 2011
 
Rushed plans to axe scores of quangos will neither save money nor improve accountability, MPs warned today. The Government announced in October it was slashing the number of such publicly-funded bodies from 901 to 648. But the Commons public administration select committee savaged the way the review was carried out. The current approach is not going to deliver significant cost savings or result in greater accountability,” the cross party group concluded after a detailed review.
PoliticsThe Sentinel January 7th 2011
 
An unprecedented mass of detail about Government spending was released today as the coalition pushed ahead with its transparency agenda. Among the revelations in an itemised list of expenditure was a £26,000 bill for training staff at the Cabinet Office to have “difficult conversations”. There have been nearly £55,000 of “accommodation improvements” in the Prime Minister’s Office. Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said the disclosure of government spending above £25,000 was “revolutionary” and urged the public to point out waste.
PoliticsThe Sentinel November 19, 2010
 
Relatives of victims of the July 7 bombings last night condemned a move by the Home Office to fight the coroner’s decision not to hear top secret intelligence material in closed sessions. Families spoke out after being informed Home Secretary Theresa May was seeking a judicial review of a ruling which rejected arguments by lawyers for M15 that the coroner had powers to exclude the bereaved families from hearings so she could examine sensitive documents which would damage national security if made public.
PoliticsThe Sentinel November 10, 2010
 
In late July the Daily Mail reported that Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Simon Hughes, suggested that homosexual couples will be granted the right to marry before the next General Election. He said that a consultation will take place on taking civil partnerships to the next level’. Although homosexual couples can access almost the same legal rights through a civil partnership, this does not have the same symbolic status as a marriage. The Tories have pledged to consider allowing same-sex couples to marry in the same way as heterosexual couples. But the Liberal Democrats go further. The Daily Mail reported that Nick Clegg wrote last year: although civil partnerships have been a step forward, until same sex-marriage is permitted it is impossible to claim gay and straight couples are treated equally.
PoliticsSword September/0ctober 2010
 
The first phase of the Government’s “radical” welfare reform programme starts today with benefit claimants reassessed for their ability to work. The move comes as new figures showed almost £135 billion had been spent over the past 10 years keeping two million people “on the sick”. Long-term incapacity benefit claimants in Burnley and Aberdeen will be the first to undergo the new test. Ministers said the reassessment was designed to end the one-size-fits all approach to those with disabilities.
PoliticsThe Sentinel October 11, 2010
 
The Government hailed a “new era of accountability” yesterday at it announced the scrapping or merger of more than 300 public bodies in its long- awaited bonfire of quangos”. Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said that the changes would cut costs while ensuring ministers could be held properly answerable for decisions taken by officials. However Labour warned the speed of the cull could actually increase costs while trade unions accused ministers of wanting to get rid of independent bodies able stand up to government.
PoliticsThe Sentinel October 15, 2010
 
MPs voted last night to place a cap on “unaffordable and unsustainable” redundancy pay in the Civil Service.
The Superannuation Bill, which aims to cap payoffs at one year’s salary or 15 months for voluntary redundancies, had a Government majority of 82. The Bill now moves to its detailed committee stage. Thousands of Civil Service posts are expected to be scrapped after next month’s spending review, as Whitehall department budgets are cut by an average 25 per cent.
PoliticsThe Sentinel, Wednesday, September 8, 2010
 
The UK must look harder at who is qualifying for visas after research showed more than a fifth of foreign students were still in the country after five years, the immigration minister Damian Green said.
Mr Green said the annual cap on economic migrants from outside the EU would not be enough on its own to deliver the target of reducing net immigration to the “tens of thousands”. He said the unsustainable levels of net migration, which leapt by a fifth last year to 196,000, must also be brought down.
PoliticsThe Sentinel, Tuesday, September 7, 2010
 
George Osborne’s emergency Budget punishes the poorest hardest, a leading economic think-tank has said. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the biggest losers from the measures announced by the Chancellor in June were low income households with children. The report was seized on by Labour, with shadow work and pensions secretary Yvette Cooper accusing the Government of carrying out a “shocking and unfair attack on families”.
But the Treasury says it “does not accept” the IFS analysis.
PoliticsThe Sentinel, Wednesday, August 25, 2010
 
Homosexual couples should be able to register civil partnerships in churches that wish to hold them, David Cameron said on June 16, when he became the first Conservative Prime Minister to host a Gay Pride reception. Earlier the same day, Home Secretary Teresa May, also the Minister for Women and Equalities, unveiled the Coalition Government’s plans for further homosexual ‘rights’, including a commitment to ‘better recording of hate crimes.’
Politics‘Evangelicals Now’ (The Christian Institute) – August, 2010
 
David Cameron launched the next phase of his ‘Big Society’ agenda yesterday, denying the idea is a fig leaf for swindling cuts in public services. The Prime Minister kick-started the initiative and insisted the scheme was about engaging people rather than off-loading the state’s responsibilities to the voluntary sector to save money. But charities, unions and Labour politicians raised doubts about how the plans would be funded while budgets were being slashed.
Politics‘The Sentinel’ – July 20, 2010
 
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