Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Miliband Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I think this is a moment when we should try to maximise the amount of consensus in this House and in the country about what is required. Everyone agrees that we need strong, independent regulation along the lines that Leveson suggests. Everyone agrees that we need million-pound fines. Everyone agrees that we need prominent apologies and independently handled complaints. This is absolutely vital, and I have been encouraged by the meetings I have had with the editors of national newspapers that they will put in place that Leveson-compliant regulation. We should continue the cross-party talks and make sure that we can deliver a regulatory system of which this House, this country and, above all, the victims can be proud.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

Let me join the Prime Minister in congratulating the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on their very happy news. They have the best wishes not just of this House but of the whole country.

The Conservative party manifesto, published in April 2010, said that

“we will increase health spending in real terms every year.”

However, the head of the UK Statistics Authority says clearly and unequivocally that this has not happened. So what is today’s excuse?

[The Prime Minister]

This Government are putting £12.6 billion extra into the NHS. Let me quote the right hon. Gentleman the figures directly from the head of the Office for National Statistics. In real terms, spending in 2010 was £104.2 billion. In 2011, it was £104.3 billion in real terms. That is a real-terms increase, and I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that there will be further real-terms increases in 2012, in 2013 and in 2014, whereas there would be cuts under Labour.

[Edward Miliband]

Let me just say to the Prime Minister that, even by his standards, that was the most slippery answer we could possibly imagine. He is unbelievable. He has come to this House 26 times since he became Prime Minister and boasted about how he is increasing health spending every year of this Parliament—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Government Members are cheering, but he has failed to meet that promise. This is not an argument between me and him; we have a ruling from the chair of the independent UK Statistics Authority who says that that has not happened. I would be grateful if the Department of Health could clarify the statements made. Instead of his usual bluster, why does he not just correct the record?

[The Prime Minister]

It is a very simple point. The spending figures for 2010 were set by the last Labour Government. Those are the figures we inherited. All the right hon. Gentleman is doing is proving that his Government were planning for an NHS cut. We have taken that figure in 2010, we have increased it in 2011 and we will increase it again in every year of this Parliament. People do not have to look at manifestos for a contrast; they can look at what Labour is doing in Wales. The Labour party is in charge in Wales, and it has cut the NHS in Wales by 8%. As a result, waiting times are up, waiting lists are down, quality is down. That is what you get with Labour and the NHS.

[Edward Miliband]

The Prime Minister knows the reality, which is that he made a promise about every—

[The Prime Minister]

indicated dissent.

[Edward Miliband]

There is no point in him shaking his head and getting annoyed. He made a promise that he would keep the NHS budget rising in real terms in every year of this Parliament. Labour’s plan, which we set out at the election, was to increase the health budget in 2010-11, and he cut the budget. He knows the reality. Let me give him one more opportunity. He made a solemn promise to the British people of year-on-year increases in the health budget, including in 2010-11. He failed to meet the promise. Come on, why don’t you just admit it?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not know whether I need to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the general election was after the 2010 year had begun. This was Labour’s plan, and what we have done is increase the budget every year. If he does not believe that, perhaps he will listen to the Labour shadow Health Secretary, who gave an interview in the New Statesman, when he said, about the Tories:

“They’re not ring-fencing it. They’re increasing it.”

He went on:

“Cameron’s been saying it every week in the Commons: ‘Oh, the shadow health secretary wants to spend less on health than us.’”

The question was asked:

“Which is true, isn’t it?”

He said:

“Yes, it is true…that’s my point.”

There we have it, confirmed: it is official—Labour wants to cut our NHS. It would never be safe with them again.

[Edward Miliband]

No, the reality is that my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) left a rising health budget and this Prime Minister cut it—that is the reality.

Now, let me try the Prime Minister on another fact, which I am sure he will be able to give to the House. Can he tell us how big an income tax cut he is giving next April to people earning over £1 million a year as a result of the reduction in the top rate of tax?

[The Prime Minister]

I am not surprised the right hon. Gentleman wants to get off health. That was the biggest own goal I think I have ever seen.

On the issue of the top rate of tax, when the right hon. Gentleman’s Government put it up to 50p, what it actually meant was that many fewer millionaires paid it, as a result of which the tax take suffered by £7 billion. I remind him that under this Government the top rate of tax will be higher in every year than any year when he was working in the Treasury.

[Edward Miliband]

I will give the right hon. Gentleman the answer, because of course he did not give it to us. Next April, everyone earning over £1 million will have a tax cut of £107,000 a year—£107,000 a year! [Interruption.] It is no good the Deputy Prime Minister shouting from a sedentary position: he went along with it—the party of Lloyd George!

The Prime Minister has not kept his promise on us all being in it together. Let us ask him about his central promise. Two years ago, he said that by 2015

“we will have balanced the books.”

Can he explain why he is so badly failing to keep that promise?

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me give the right hon. Gentleman the figures on the top rate of tax because it is important. In 2009-10, 16,000 people were earning more than £1 million, with a tax liability of £13 billion. In 2010-11, when the rate went up, this plummeted to 6,000 people with a tax liability of £6.5 billion. Therefore, his 50p election gambit cost the country £7 billion. When is he going to realise that setting tax rates is about raising money, not about punishing success? That is what Labour needs to understand.

In terms of the deficit, we have cut the Budget deficit by 25%, and the right hon. Gentleman will be getting an update on progress from the Chancellor in a minute, but let me ask the right hon. Gentleman this: how on earth can you deal with a borrowing problem by pledging to borrow more?

[Edward Miliband]

Let us be clear about the Prime Minister’s answer on the 50p rate. His answer to the problem of tax avoidance is to give the people doing it a tax cut. That is the answer he gave—give them another big giveaway. The reality that the Prime Minister could not get away from is that the deficit is going up, not down, on his watch. We all remember the posters, with his airbrushed face, saying,

“I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS.”

The facts speak for themselves: he has cut the NHS and he is not cutting the deficit.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is 100% wrong: we are increasing spending on the NHS and we are cutting the deficit. Yes, we have cut the deficit by 25%, there are a million more private sector jobs, businesses are starting up at a higher rate than at any time in our history, this economy is on the right track, we are equipping Britain for the global race and, unlike the Labour party, we are on the side of people who work hard and want to do the right thing. And what is the right hon. Gentleman’s answer? More borrowing, more spending, more of the things that got us into the mess in the first place.