PM: New team 'focused on growth' (From Romsey Advertiser)
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PM: New team 'focused on growth'
12:50pm Wednesday 5th September 2012 in National News © Press Association 2013
Prime Minister David Cameron speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons
NnThe reshuffle at the top of Government has resulted in a team focused on economic growth, the Prime Minister has claimed.
David Cameron said the changes around the Cabinet table reflected his desire for every Whitehall department to be focused on turning the economy around.
"This is a Government that means business and we have got the team to deliver it," he told MPs.
Appearing in the Commons for the first Prime Minister's Questions since the summer recess, Mr Cameron was taunted by Labour leader Ed Miliband, who claimed the Government's economic strategy had "spectacularly failed".
Mr Miliband said Mr Cameron should have sacked Chancellor George Osborne, but instead his team contained the "same old faces, the same old policies - a no-change reshuffle".
Mr Cameron said: "Let me explain what this reshuffle is all about: it is not that there are two economic departments in our country, the Treasury and business.
"I want every single department to be about the economy. I want the transport department building roads, I want the communities department building houses, I want the culture department rolling out broadband, I want the agriculture department backing British food."
Mr Miliband mocked the decision to give former justice secretary Kenneth Clarke a wide-ranging brief including on economic matters.
He said the Prime Minister had "come up with an ingenious solution to the problem of his part-time Chancellor - he's appointed another one". Mr Clarke would be involved in a "job share" with Mr Osborne and "we'll see how they get on", the Labour leader said.
The Prime Minister told him: "I've got my first choice as chancellor, you've got your third choice as shadow chancellor (Ed Balls). And apparently you still have to bring him the coffee every morning." He added: "That's just how assertive and butch the Leader of the Opposition really is."
