Iain Duncan Smith Quotes
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I do not believe the picture that some people paint of Scottish towns dependent on welfare. Every time I come here, I meet people who are determined to get into work. Who, with the right help are desperate to get off benefits, support their family and set an example for their children.
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Government cannot do it all. As we work hard to break welfare dependency and get young people ready for the labour market, we need businesses to give them a chance and not just fall back on labour from abroad.
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Kids are meant to believe that their stepping stone to massive money is 'The X Factor.' Luck is great, but most of life is hard work. We do not celebrate people who have made success out of serious hard work.
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We have to ensure that our immigration system works in the interests of Britain, enabling us to make a realistic promise to our young school-leavers. It is part of our contract with the British people.
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The future of Conservatism lies in our beliefs and values, not by throwing them away. We need to shed associations that bind us to past failures, but hold faith with those things that make us Conservatives.
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There are few more powerful tools for promoting stability than the institution of marriage.
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That thing, 'You must stay together for the kids', is out of fashion but is right. It's not arguing parents that children don't like, it is having one parent.
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For families across the UK who are income-poor, but more than that, whose lives are blighted by worklessness, educational failure, family breakdown, problem debt and poor health, as well as other problems, giving them an extra pound - say through increased benefits - will not address the reason they find themselves in difficulty in the first place.
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My personal view is always I'm in favour of anything that gives parliament a greater say. That's after all what we were elected for.
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I think that the status that you have in life should be reflected in official documents. If you are married, fine, if you are living with someone, fine, if you are single, fine. We don't want to tell people how to live their lives.
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You cannot stop what the public want. The public want two strong women in the final round and then a woman prime minister and I'm absolutely with that.
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The BBC is locked to the reading of the economy that is run out of Ed Miliband and Ed Balls' office. They think if only you spend and borrow more money you can create growth everywhere.
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When she gets into negotiations with her European counterparts about trade arrangements, could she remind them that cake exists to be eaten and cherries exist to be picked.
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I think almost every political leader is always told that the next speech they make is the most crucial one.
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I am not going to go round trying to make people say 'Wow!'... I'm not going to play Hollywood lookalikes.
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What we want to do is reform the welfare system in the way that Tony Blair talked about 13 years ago but never achieved - a system that was created for the days after the Second World War. That prize is now I think achievable.
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When families are strong and stable, so are children - showing higher levels of wellbeing and more positive outcomes. But when things go wrong - either through family breakdown or a damaged parental relationship - the impact on a child's later life can be devastating.
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By measuring the proportion of children living with the same parents from birth and whether their parents report a good quality relationship we are driving home the message that social programmes should promote family stability and avert breakdown.
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Getting a family into work, supporting strong relationships, getting parents off drugs and out of debt - all this can do more for a child's well-being than any amount of money in out-of-work benefits.
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The number one priority now is reducing the deficit that they [Labour] left us - the biggest deficit since the Second World War.
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The person that takes over needs to have the skills to manage that ... I believe Andrea [Leadsom] has the edge.
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I am also incredibly proud of my party because today we have two strong woman candidates going to the country, we will have a women PM and it is the Conservative party yet again leading the way on this and it says to women all over the country you can get to the top.
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[Andrea] Leadsom has compassion ... a real steel and a real determination and that velvet glove of compassion that she really cares about people.
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If you knowingly and willingly embark on criminal behaviour, the consequences of that should be... that you lose some of your benefits under the current system