Quotes from Grant Shapps

Welfare's just one of the problems Labour failed to tackle when they were in government.

We need to make sure that people are progressively better off in work than they would be on welfare.

I believe that investing in welfare is crucial - but I also believe that it only works if you're getting help to those who need it. If you're doing it with no results, it's disastrous.

We know that solving homelessness has to be about more than simply introducing a new raft of government initiatives, task forces and top-down solutions.

When Welwyn Garden City was planned, the workers homes were placed in the east, downwind from the factories in the middle, whilst the bosses got the larger westside homes in Handside. This sort of social engineering, including the absence of a pub, would not be acceptable today.

It's impossible to know precisely what constitutes the right house price but I do know that house prices doubling or even tripling over a 10 year period caused a lot of people to find that getting a foot on the housing ladder is near on impossible.

We may forget it, among the glitz of the Christmas lights, but capitalism can be a profoundly moral force.

Businesses create every penny of the wealth we need to pay for our nation's schools, our NHS and our pensions. They are our only path to prosperity.

I've always been tenacious. I don't let go of things until I think it's fixed. On the other hand I'm a fairly jovial, smiley person.

My great hope for my speck of time on this planet would be that I live and die, and that what I leave behind has made some kind of impression and has been for the better in terms of my family and friends and, in my case, public service.

People pay their licence fee in this country because people believe that we should have public service broadcast programming. Of course, there are lots of different ways you could do that.

Before I went into parliament I used to write business publications, and like many authors wrote under a business name.

We must formulate policies to allow everyone to have the same opportunities in life and fix our broken society too.

I don't see any reason why society can't function well when people come together in the common interest under our system. In fact that's what the Big Society is all about!

For anyone who has found it easy to conceive, it is perhaps hard to imagine how IVF can become all-encompassing in someone's life. The endless check-ups, scans, tests, periods of waiting and finally the day when you learn the result. It's a physically punishing process for the women and an emotionally exhausting process for both partners.

There should be a way of saying to people 'thank you very much, it has not worked out but here is a good decent package for you to move on from this role and we will support you to move on into other jobs, so it is not a hire and fire thing'; and those are the sorts of changes that Conservatives would like to see.

I think politicians just need to get out in the real world.

I was so glad when geek went from being a bad word to a good word.

Throughout the ages it has always been possible to point to good and bad architecture.

I think he would care if you were a good person, if indeed there is a god.

Political shenanigans come and go, yet often what feels like a big deal in Westminster fails to get a mention on the news. As a result, the public wisely let most of the hurly-burly of politics wash over their heads.

The reality is that it would be wiser and even kinder for politicians to be responsible about what they claim the NHS will do, because the pain of having raised expectations for parents who are desperate to start a family, only to see those hopes crushed, is more cruel than having said nothing at all.

I like being Jewish and I married a Jewish girl. It's like a way of life and it's good to be able to instil some of that sense of being in your kids. All of that makes me seem as though I am quite observant but actually the flipside of this is I don't know if there is a God or not.

I absolutely believe that we're the workers' party. We are the party that has always been at the forefront of the big social changes that have promoted women and working people.