Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Harman Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I know the hon. Gentleman hates to be reminded of things that he and I have actually done together when we have been on the same side of the argument, but we spent 100 days in the early part of this Parliament passing legislation, opposed by the Labour party, that for the first time ever gives a guarantee in law about when a referendum on Europe will take place—when the rules next change or new things are asked of the United Kingdom within the European Union. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the Conservative party are perfectly free for their own reasons to move the goalposts, but this legislation is in place and the people of Britain have a guarantee about when a referendum will take place, and that is what I suggest we should all go out and promote.[Official Report, 16 May 2013, Vol. 563, c. 7-8MC.]

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

I am sure that everyone is thrilled to see the Deputy Prime Minister and, of course, myself at the Dispatch Box today. This is meant to be Prime Minister’s questions, however, yet once again the Prime Minister is not here. Why is it that out of the last eight Wednesdays, the Prime Minister has answered questions in this House only once?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think that the Prime Minister is unusually assiduous in coming to the House to make statements. I think that the leader who should be relieved that there is no Prime Minister’s Question Time today is the leader of the right hon. and learned Lady’s party. I am still reeling with dismay over the fact that recently, on Radio 4, he denied 10 times that borrowing would increase under Labour’s plans. Who said that there is not enough comedy on Radio 4?

[Ms Harman]

We have all seen what the Prime Minister has been doing in America. He has been on a London bus in New York—something, incidentally, that we do not see him doing a great deal when he is here. He has also been busy explaining to President Obama the benefits of Britain’s membership of the European Union. Why is he able to do that in the White House, but not in this House?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

To be fair to the Prime Minister—notwithstanding our other differences on this subject—I think that he has always made it clear that he believes in continued membership of the European Union, if it is a reformed European Union.

There is a fundamental debate that we need to have in this country about whether we are an open or a closed nation, and about whether or not we stand tall in our European neighbourhood. That debate will continue, and the Prime Minister will continue to make his views known.

[Ms Harman]

It is indeed an important debate, and we have an important vote on an amendment to the Queen’s Speech tonight, but the Prime Minister is out of the country. Can the Deputy Prime Minister help the House? If the Prime Minister were here today, would he be voting for the Government or against the Government, or would he be showing true leadership and abstaining?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. and learned Lady has used three questions to point out that the Prime Minister is not here. That is a striking observation—a penetrating insight into the affairs of state today.

Just two years ago, the right hon. and learned Lady’s party rejected an opportunity to vote on legislation that Government Members pushed through, giving the British people, for the first time, a copper-bottomed legal guarantee in relation to when a referendum would take place. Our position is perfectly clear; hers is not.

[Ms Harman]

This is an extraordinary situation. The Deputy Prime Minister has not told the House how the Prime Minister would have been voting if he were here. Is it that he does not know, is it because he does not want to tell the House, or is it because he thinks that the Prime Minister would probably have changed his mind by the time we would have been told?

While the Prime Minister is bogged down in confusion about Europe, people are suffering. Today’s figures show that unemployment is up. More people are out of work, and the number of people who have been out of work for more than two years is at its highest since 1997. So what is today’s excuse?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. and learned Lady has commented on today’s figures. Of course when anyone is without work it is an individual tragedy, and we must always work to bring unemployment down, but I think that she is giving the House a somewhat partial snapshot. Full-time unemployment is actually up by 10,000 this quarter, more people are employed in the private sector than ever before, employment has risen by 866,000 since the election, and the number of women employed is the highest that it has ever been. Is that not something that the right hon. and learned Lady should celebrate rather than denigrate?

[Ms Harman]

We see complete complacency while things are getting worse. The fact is that even those who are in work are worse off. Wages are falling behind prices, and figures from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that as a result of all the Deputy Prime Minister’s changes, families on lower and middle incomes are worse off. Will he own up to that? Will he admit it?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Complacency? This from a party that crashed the British economy, went on a prawn cocktail charm offensive—sucking up to the banks—which led to the disaster in the banking system in the first place, and operated a tax system under which a cleaner would pay more tax on his or her wages than a hedge fund manager would on his or her shares?

Under this Government, the richest are paying more in taxes every year than they did under Labour. Under this Government, 24 million basic rate taxpayers will be £700 better off next year than they were under Labour. Under this Government, as of next April, nearly 3 million people on low pay will be taken out of income tax altogether. How about that for a record to be proud of?

[Ms Harman]

So the right hon. Gentleman votes for a tax cut for millionaires and then comes to the House and says the rich will be paying more. Three years into this coalition Government everyone knows that the country faces big problems, and what do we have? We have a Prime Minister who is not just indecisive, not just weak, but fast becoming a laughing stock.