Oral Answers to Questions

Douglas Carswell Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for asking that question. My heart goes out to her constituent, Nikki Blunden. We want to see these cancer drugs get to patients more quickly, without the bureaucratic wheels taking so long to turn. That is why we are establishing the cancer drugs fund, and I will discuss with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health how quickly that can be done. If possible, I want it to be done this year rather than next year. If it can be done, it will be, and if drugs can be got to people like the right hon. Lady’s constituent—we all have constituents in such a position—I will do everything that I can to make that happen.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

Q5. The Prime Minister knows that I am always and everywhere for referendums. However, will he tell the House why he is planning a referendum on the alternative vote, which was not in the manifesto of either coalition party, but not a referendum on European integration, which all three main parties were recently promising?

[The Prime Minister]

What I can promise my hon. Friend is that we will have such legislation on the referendum lock, so that it will not be possible in future for a British Government to pass powers from Westminster to Brussels without asking the British people first. That is absolutely right. The referendum on the alternative vote was part of the coalition agreement, and he will be free to campaign on whatever side of the referendum he wants. However, the referendum was part of the agreement that put together this Government, who, I believe, are rolling up their sleeves and sorting out the country’s problems.