Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 5th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is under this Government that the number of doctors has gone up; the number of operations is up; waiting times are down; waiting lists are down—that is what is happening under this Government. Is it not interesting that in the week that was meant to be all about Labour’s economic relaunch they cannot talk about their economic policy? They told us that they wanted to keep winter fuel payments; now they want to scrap winter fuel payments. They told us that they wanted to keep child benefit; now they want to scrap child benefit. They told us that they were going to be men of iron discipline, yet they said:

“Do I think the last Labour government was profligate, spent too much, had too much national debt? No, I don’t think there’s any evidence for that.”

On the economy, they are weak and divided, and they are the same old Labour.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Q15. The people of Epping Forest want to have a referendum on our relationship with the European Union. Does my right hon. Friend welcome the private Member’s Bill introduced by our hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), which would require a referendum by 2017? Will he enthusiastically encourage members on both sides of the House to vote for it when it is debated on 5 July?

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly welcome the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton). I think that it is absolutely right to hold that in/out referendum before the end of 2017. The interesting thing about today’s newspapers is that we read that half the members of the shadow Cabinet now want a referendum too. Hands up, who wants a referendum? Come on, don’t be shy—why do you not want to let the people choose? Ah, the people’s party does not trust the people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I seem to remember that last year I ran into the Leader of the Opposition, but we will leave that to one side. To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, I think that when he sees the speech I am going to be making in Davos, which will be arguing that we need greater transparency over tax, greater responsibility over the tax avoidance and tax evasion issues, and greater transparency about companies and about the land issue we were speaking about earlier, he might even find that he agrees with some of the things I am going to say.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister cut through the irrelevant arguments coming from the Opposition and give the very simple message to the British people that if we have a Conservative Government after the next election, they will have their say in a referendum on Europe, but if we do not have a Conservative Government, we will not have a referendum?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I believe it is right to resettle our relationship with Europe to make it more open, more competitive and more flexible, to make us feel more comfortable inside the Union, and then to give the British people the in/out referendum they deserve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

For consumers, we have announced our plan to ensure that companies put people on the lowest available tariff, which I think has been warmly welcomed throughout the House and throughout the country. For business, given that there is an issue with the energy-intensive industries, the Government have announced their intention to exempt such industries from contract-for-difference costs under electricity market reform. That is subject to state aid clearance and further consultation, but I think it shows that the Government are working hard to help those industries and ensure that they continue to compete and succeed in Britain.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Q8. The whole House does indeed join the Prime Minister in congratulating the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their excellent good news. Will the Prime Minister please confirm to the House that the Commonwealth has at last agreed—after many of us have been asking for this for years—to change the rules on royal succession? Will the Prime Minister undertake to bring a Bill before the House very soon, so that if this baby is a girl she can follow in the footsteps of her much-loved great-grandmother and become our Queen?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. I think I can answer positively on all the points she made. At the Perth Commonwealth conference, I chaired a meeting of the Prime Ministers of all the different realms and we agreed we should bring forward legislation to deal with this issue. All the realms have now agreed to do that. We will introduce legislation into this House very shortly. It will write down in law what we agreed back in 2011: that if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s first child is a girl, she can one day be our Queen. That is the key point. But it is important to explain that the changes will apply to a child born after the date of the Perth announcement of last year even if the birth is before the legislation is passed. I hope it will not take long—certainly not nine months—to pass this legislation, but, just in case, there would not be a problem.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 25th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The youth contract scheme is going to make a big difference to young people because it will, over the coming years, have 160,000 places for people in private sector firms. That will be far better than the failed future jobs fund, which in some cases had more than 97% of its jobs placed in the public sector. It will be up and running this year and it will make a big difference to young people.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Today is the anniversary of the birth of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns. Does the Prime Minister agree with Burns’s impassioned plea for the unity of our nation in his poem, “The Dumfries Volunteers”,

“Be Britain still to Britain true,

Amang oursels united;

For never but by British hands

Maun British wrangs be righted!”?

G20

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

A list in the action plan for growth and jobs specifically states that countries such as Canada, China and others could borrow more. They are set out in the communiqué, a copy of which is in the House of Commons Library.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister reassure the House that he will not take the advice of Opposition Members and increase the deficit to boost growth artificially? The consequent rise in interest rates and inflation would cause enormous damage to small businesses and families right across this country.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we went to the G20 summit arguing for a £20 billion increase in borrowing this year, or the increase that Labour supports of £87 billion over the Parliament, at the same time as saying that we were going to get out of the IMF, I think the G20 would conclude that we were completely barking.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

To the best of my knowledge, the first I knew of it was on Sunday. We are now getting to the bottom of what this informal advice was, and when we have the information, we can make it available, just as we have been transparent about all the media meetings and all the meetings with the moguls about everything else. In the meantime, the hon. Gentleman should have a word with his party leader and ask him to be equally transparent.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that the vast majority of people in the country, whom we in the House represent, are absolutely fed up with this party political point scoring in the Westminster village, and that they will warmly welcome his setting up of the inquiries today and will hope that those inquiries can get on with their work and that the Prime Minister can get on with his work of improving the country’s economy and representing this country in the international field?

[The Prime Minister]

The British public are wise about this. They want us to get on with it and fix this problem. Frankly, they know that both parties have done a lot of sucking up to the media in their time. They want us to get on with it, work together and sort it out.

Libya and the Middle East

Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Monday 28th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is being slightly unfair. These are not easy things to get right, and we did well in the case of Egypt. Clearly, there are lessons to learn here, and I do not think it a complicated process. There are a number of steps, as I have said, regarding defence assets, redundancy and the use of scheduled flights, and I think we can learn those lessons relatively quickly. I think it a relatively straightforward and easy thing to do.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Given that Colonel Gaddafi’s recent behaviour is no surprise to anyone, does the Prime Minister understand that the vast majority of people in Britain share his anger that the previous Government, in collusion with the Scottish Government, did all they could to secure the release of al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber?

[The Prime Minister]

I have put this on the record many times: I think it was wrong to try and facilitate that release. The British Government should have taken a clear view that that was the largest mass murder in British history and that that person should die behind bars. It would have been a clear view; it would have been the right view; and it would have taken the country with them.