Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Miliband Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure that the whole House will want to join the hon. Lady in sending our condolences to people in Japan and to express our admiration for their incredible bravery and resilience in dealing with this immense crisis. Of course we must learn any lessons that need to be learned about nuclear power, which is why the head of the nuclear safety inspectorate is looking at this issue. As I have said before, the power stations we have in Britain are of a different type from those in Japan. We are not planning to build any like those, and we are not in an earthquake zone or a zone subject to tsunamis, but of course we have always got to test against all eventualities. I am sure that there is further testing we can do on nuclear power.

Japan is doing a good job in dealing with this problem and the signs from the nuclear station are a little better than they were a few days ago, but it is certainly not out of the danger zone. What we should do is make sure that we give the correct advice to all British citizens in Tokyo—that is what we have done and what we will continue to do.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Private Daniel Prior. He demonstrated outstanding bravery in the line of duty and our thoughts are with his wife and young son and all his family and friends.

I am sure that the whole House will also want to think of our armed forces personnel now in action in the military operation in Libya and to pay tribute to the outstanding work they are doing. Following the overwhelming vote in the House on Monday, will the Prime Minister update the House on the progress of our military operation and the actions of British forces?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he says and for his speech in that debate on Monday, which I thought was extremely powerful. To update the House on the military operations, a no-fly zone is now in place over Libya and 11 nations are contributing more than 150 aircraft. As we discussed on Monday, there has been an early and good effect as regime forces have had to retreat from Benghazi, but there is clearly great concern about what the regime is doing in Misrata. Any idea that the second ceasefire was any more meaningful than the first is, we can see, complete nonsense. We made good progress in the no-fly zone and good progress in turning some of the forces back and protecting civilians. Everything is clearly still in the early stages, however, and a lot more remains to be done.

[Edward Miliband]

I thank the Prime Minister for that answer and for what he said about the debate on Monday. We support UN resolution 1973 to protect the people of Libya. The support of the Arab League was a key factor in securing the UN resolution. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the military contribution that Arab states will make to the operation and what conversations he has had with Arab leaders about their continued role in the enforcement of the resolution and the plan of action?

[The Prime Minister]

I can do that. First, the Arab League met again yesterday and reinforced its view that a no-fly zone is right and that it supports UN Security Council resolution 1973. In terms of concrete assets, I can confirm that yesterday the Qataris deployed the first of their contribution—Mirage aircraft and other support aircraft—and we will get logistic contributions from countries such as Kuwait and Jordan. I hope that further support will be forthcoming but I would like to be clear that because we had to act so quickly on Saturday it was not possible to bring forward as much Arab support as might have been welcomed by, I think, everybody in this House. There is clear support from the secretary-general of those Arab nations. I also had a meeting with the Saudi Foreign Minister yesterday and I believe that support in the Arab world—not just among Arab leaders but among Arab people—for saving lives in Libya is very strong.

[Edward Miliband]

Let me emphasise something that the Prime Minister mentioned on Monday, which is the importance of the contribution of Arab countries to the military operation. He also said that there would be a regular and more formal process with the Arab League and others. It seems to me very important that that process takes place. Let me ask the Prime Minister one other thing about our action. Will he clarify the Government’s position on the targeting of Colonel Gaddafi? It is important that we stick to the terms of the UN resolution as we seek to maintain the coalition we have built on that resolution.

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for that question and for the chance to set this out clearly to the House. All our targets must be selected to be absolutely in line with UN Security Council resolution 1973. That allows us to take “all necessary measures” to enforce a no-fly zone and to put it in place as safely as possible as well as to take action to protect civilian life. All targets should be in line with that but I do not propose to give a running commentary on targets or, frankly, to say anything beyond that.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I just heard a suggestion from my hon. Friend that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority should be based in Croydon.

My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) makes a very good point. We have already saved £50 million by relocating Government property. The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, who sits in the Cabinet and does an excellent job, has saved £2.6 billion by combining quangos and public bodies, but I am sure there is more we can do, including, perhaps, in Croydon.

[Edward Miliband]

Will the Prime Minister explain why he proposes to remove the mobility component of disability living allowance from 80,000 care home residents?

[The Prime Minister]

The short answer is that we are not.

[Edward Miliband]

Not for the first time, I have to tell the Prime Minister what is in his own legislation: clause 83 of the Welfare Reform Bill proposes precisely that and people do not understand why he is doing it. If he is saying that he is going to abandon the policy, then, great, let us abandon the policy.

[The Prime Minister]

The review of disability living allowance and the mobility component is wrapped up in the new personal independence payment. That is what is happening. To be frank, this point has been raised right across the House of Commons and is a point that we have responded to. It is a review that the right hon. Gentleman can take part in; perhaps he can say something constructive.

[Edward Miliband]

It is not a review, it is a proposal—a clause—in the Bill to take away the mobility component of DLA. Some 22 disabled persons organisations up and down the country are saying that the Government should abandon the policy. I have a suggestion for the Prime Minister: why does he not complete the review now and say that he is dumping the policy? He has done it before.

[The Prime Minister]

The first thing the right hon. Gentleman said about disability living allowance was that he wanted to support our gateway reforms, but we do not hear much about that any more. As I have said, the review of DLA is rolled into the personal independence payment. That is how we will reform the mobility component. Instead of getting so excited about it, he should congratulate the Government on listening to opinion from across the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Ed Miliband Excerpts

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be setting out the details of the loan on Second Reading of the Bill today, but I think that it is worth standing back and asking ourselves, “Why is it that we are able to make a loan to Ireland? Why is it that people are asking us to do that?” It is because Britain’s economy is out of the danger zone and recovering. If we had listened to the Labour party, we would still be in a hole.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

May I start by paying tribute to our troops serving in Afghanistan? We owe them a huge debt of gratitude for everything that they are doing for us, and our thoughts will be with them and with their families, who will be apart from them at this time of year.

Does the Prime Minister recognise the concern that there will be about the rise in unemployment of 35,000 that we saw this morning? Does he understand that for all those families around the country, his confidence and indeed his restatement today that Britain “is out of the danger zone” will seem very hollow?

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me join the right hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to our forces in Afghanistan, whom I visited last week, and to all their families, who will be missing them at Christmas time. To be fair, under the Government of whom he was a part and under this Government we are making big improvements on their contact home—on fax time, telephone time and all the contact that they need—and that is absolutely right.

On the unemployment figures, of course everyone should be concerned—and I am concerned—by a rise in unemployment. When anyone loses a job it is a tragedy for that person, and we must do everything we can to help people into work. With the Work programme we will be launching the biggest back-to-work programme in this country for 70 years. To be accurate, although part of the figures are disappointing, they are mixed because we see that the claimant count has come down in the unemployment figures and we are also seeing an increase in the number of vacancies in our economy—every day there are another 10,000 vacancies. So, yes, we have to get the private sector going and increase the number of jobs available. Over the past six months, we have seen 300,000 new private sector jobs. We need more of them, and keeping our economy out of the danger zone is the way to get them.

[Edward Miliband]

The Prime Minister slightly sounds as though he paints himself as an innocent bystander in relation to the unemployment figures. He should not be pressing ahead with a rise in VAT on 4 January and £20 billion of public spending cuts.

I want to turn to another aspect of the Prime Minister’s financial plans. Can he confirm that the Government are now set to break the promise made in the coalition agreement:

“We will guarantee that health spending increases in real terms in each year of the Parliament”?

[The Prime Minister]

Being a bystander would mean having no plans to deal with our economic problems. This Government are cutting corporation tax, abolishing Labour’s jobs tax, reducing national insurance and increasing our jobs programme. No one should be complacent; complacency is having no answers. No one should be complacent, but we do see retail sales up, exports up, manufacturing up, interest rates coming down since the election and growth higher than expected. I am not in the slightest bit complacent about what we need to do, but let us not talk down the performance of our economy.

Turning to the NHS, we have increased the NHS budget by £10 billion in this Parliament. I must say to the right hon. Gentleman that only one party stood at the election on saving the NHS and its spending and that was this party right here. I am confident that we will fulfil our goal of real-terms increases every year in the NHS.

[Edward Miliband]

It is very interesting that the right hon. Gentleman says that he is confident. He should listen to what the Conservative-led Health Committee said only on Monday. It said that with inflation now higher,

“the Government’s commitment to a real terms increase in health funding…will not be met.”

We all remember those posters during the election and we all remember his face, airbrushed, on those posters. Will he now admit that he is breaking that promise?

[The Prime Minister]

We are not breaking that promise. We want to see NHS spending increase by more than inflation every year. Let me be clear about who supports this policy. The shadow Chancellor—this is not vague, but pretty clear—said, when asked whether it is right to protect NHS spending:

“There is no logic, sense or rationality to it at all.”

Let us be clear: on this side of the House, we want real-terms increases in health spending to ensure that we improve the health of our nation; the Opposition are committed to cutting the NHS.

[Edward Miliband]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman is good at the broad brush, that he is good at the airbrush and that he does not do detail, but he should read the report, which says that health service spending will be cut next year in real terms.

Let me turn to his next broken promise on the NHS. He pledged, and the coalition agreement says:

“We will stop the top-down reorganisations of the NHS that have got in the way of patient care”,

but that is exactly what the Government are forcing on the health service. Fewer than one in four doctors think that it will improve patient services and independent experts say that it will cost £3 billion. After six months, is not an old truth being confirmed? When it comes to the NHS, you cannot trust the Tories.

[The Prime Minister]

There are moments when I think I am up against Basil Brush. When it comes to protecting the NHS, only one side of this House is committed to protecting NHS spending and that is this side.

Now we come on to reforming the NHS. We are not reorganising the bureaucracy of the NHS; we are cutting and abolishing it. Because we are making a 45% saving in the bureaucracy of the NHS, that will save £1.9 billion. Because we are increasing the spending on the NHS, that money will go into hospitals, beds, nurses and doctors. All those things would be cut if it was up to the Opposition because they do not have a commitment to maintaining NHS spending.

[Edward Miliband]

The Prime Minister is breaking his promise and he does not want to admit it. What does he want to do? He wants to leave it to the back end of the pantomime horse, the Deputy Prime Minister, to break the promises. It is time that the front end of the pantomime horse took some responsibility.

I want to ask the Prime Minister about another broken promise, on the education maintenance allowance. Why does he not go a couple of miles away from here—I know that he does not talk to students, or only to those in China—to Southwark college and talk to the students and teachers there? The business teacher there wrote to me and said—[Interruption.] I would have thought that Government Members would want to listen to the fate of students and young people up and down this country. The teacher said:

“I see the benefits that the EMA provides for many of my learners. I see how they struggle to pay for transport…books and other essentials. How can we expect them to aspire to a better life if we deny them the means?”

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman wants to talk pantomime. I am afraid it will not be long before he is thinking, “Look behind you!”

The problem with the education maintenance allowance is that research shows that 90% of those who receive it would stay on at school anyway. As we are raising the school participation age to 18, it is right that we replace the education maintenance allowance with something that is better targeted. The right hon. Gentleman has to look at the bigger picture, which is that we inherited a completely wrecked set of public finances. His questions are always about this cut or that cut; we know which cuts he is against, but he has not made one single suggestion about how to dig the country out of the pit of debt that he left us in.

[Edward Miliband]

The truth is that the right hon. Gentleman began the year making promises and now he is breaking them. The promise on NHS spending—broken; the promise on the education maintenance allowance—broken; the promise on universal child benefit—broken; the promise on knife crime—broken; and the promise on new politics—broken. Should not his new year’s resolution for 2011 be to keep the promises he made in 2010?

[The Prime Minister]

It can be put quite simply: Labour started the year with a leader who was dithering and had no answers on the economy and it has ended the year with a leader who is dithering and has no answers on the economy. I suppose, in Labour terms, that is what passes for progress.