Quotes from Damian Green

Of course there are people who are unable to work and it's right that they are given the support they need. Frustratingly, though, for many it's a lack of opportunity, not an inability or lack of will to get a job, that keeps them trapped in unemployment.

We were often rowdy tenants inside the European house. We can now become good neighbours.

I have a unique ambition for a politician. I am the first aspiring education secretary to want less power not more.

I proposed a Universal Care Entitlement, which would guarantee a decent level of care to all paid for out of tax.

If Tony Blair really wants to see a higher education sector that is thriving and growing then he should be releasing universities from the shackles of government control.

Labour politicians ask 'Why do so few children from poor backgrounds go to university?' Well, I'll tell them. It's because they don't go to schools that let their talents and intelligence and energy flow. Give them the right schools, with discipline and order and a love of learning, and they will have a chance of real academic achievement.

You cannot have excellent schools unless you have well-motivated heads and teachers.

If we don't like modern Britain, then it is very unlikely that modern Britain will like us.

Like everyone, I am concerned about the Irish border and the Good Friday Agreement, but as a Kent MP I am also concerned to keep lorries flowing freely through the Port of Dover and the Channel Tunnel. If they don't, Kent becomes a lorry park and life for those of us who live there becomes very unpleasant.

I now take security precautions at my office and at home, which were simply not necessary when I first became an MP.

Money isn't always the measure of how valuable you are to our society.

Few political debates have been as divisive as the European one. I fought as hard as I could on the Remain side, but I believe strongly that as a democrat I should respect the result, and that as a politician it is my duty to make the Brexit settlement as good as possible.

The Conservative party, like many others, is constantly grappling with issues of community cohesion and how you can express your core values without becoming authoritarian and over-prescriptive.

Our aim is that all those who come here to live will participate fully in British society and that British society will be confident enough to allow diversity (as it always has) without losing its central values.

One of the great advances of the modern world is that people live longer, and are healthy and active for more of their lives. This is a matter for celebration, not least because it allows older people to play a full and varied role in society.

At various stages, ID cards have been necessary to protect us from terrorism, illegal immigration, and benefit fraud. But former home secretaries, academics and senior figures in the IT industry have lined up to demolish each individual argument.

It is not the job of government to collect and store vast amounts of biographical and biometric data belonging to innocent people.

Around the world, including in the U.K., a version of Right-wing politics is growing that is based on dividing societies.

Often, those in later life find themselves stuck in properties that are remote from shops and services, hard to maintain, and away from friends and family.

To succeed, the Conservative Party must be at home in modern Britain.

We have to consider who is going to be the best prime minister to take on a "one nation" agenda.

Neither Left nor Right has a monopoly of virtue when it comes to smearing opponents.