Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Corbyn Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We absolutely share my hon. Friend’s concern about ensuring that we are supporting local communities, and that we are delivering better infrastructure in those communities and maximising the potential of our country. The housing infrastructure fund is an important part of that. We need to build more homes across this country, but we also need to ensure that the infrastructure is there to support those homes and help those local communities. That is exactly what we are doing.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Michael Martin, the former Labour MP for Glasgow, Springburn and later Speaker of the House. He worked in the engineering industry in Glasgow and was active in the then Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers. He and I first met when we were fellow organisers in the National Union of Public Employees in the 1970s, campaigning for decent public sector pay and a national minimum wage. Michael loved the community he represented and loved his family, and our deepest thoughts and sympathies go to his family at this time.

Did the Prime Minister feel the slightest pang of guilt when the Home Secretary was forced to resign due to the failures of her predecessor?

[The Prime Minister]

I think it might be helpful if I first update the House on the actions the Government have taken and are continuing to take in relation to the Windrush generation. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be addressing the House on this later today. We all share the ambition to make sure we do right by members of the Windrush generation, which is why he will be announcing a package of measures to bring transparency on the issue, to make sure that the House is informed, and to reassure Members of this House but, more importantly, to reassure those people who have been directly affected. Speed is of the essence and my right hon. Friend will be commissioning a full review of lessons learned, independent oversight and external challenge, with the intention of reporting back to this House before we rise for the summer. The review will have full access to all relevant information in the Home Office, including policy papers and casework decisions.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

This was a crisis made in the Home Office by successive Home Secretaries. Only a week ago today, the right hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), then Home Secretary, was denying there were any targets, in front of the Home Affairs Committee. On Monday, the Prime Minister told the media:

“When I was Home Secretary, yes, there were targets”.

One wonders why the Prime Minister didn’t tell her Home Secretary about that. The pain that has been caused to the Windrush generation needs to be resolved very rapidly, with full compensation paid as quickly as it can possibly be done and an understanding of the hurt that they feel. But this is not the only failure of this Government or of their policies. The Government used to talk about a “long-term economic plan”, but now we have the slowest growing economy in the G7. The Chancellor, sitting two places along from the Prime Minister, told the House that he had a “positively Tiggerish” view of the British economy, yet it has the worst economic growth figures for five years. What plans do the Government have to change course to ensure we do get economic growth?

[The Prime Minister]

First, may I say to the right hon. Gentleman, on the Windrush generation, I was Home Secretary when some of these decisions were taken and mistakes were made about individual cases, and I have apologised for that. The former Home Secretary also apologised for that. The right hon. Gentleman is right in saying that these are decisions that have been taken under successive Home Secretaries, including under the last Labour Government, and if he wants to talk about the economy, let’s just look at what we have seen in our economy in recent weeks: day-to-day spending in surplus for the first time in 16 years; the lowest net borrowing in over a decade; exports of goods and services at a record high; employment at a record high; and real wages up. That is a Conservative Government delivering an economy fit for the future.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Four facts about the economy: more people in debt, more people using food banks, more people sleeping on our streets, and more children in poverty. The consequences of decisions made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer are that the NHS is suffering the longest funding squeeze in history. It has sent our health service into an all-year-round crisis. Will the Prime Minister apologise to NHS patients waiting longer than ever for the worst A&E waiting times on record?

[The Prime Minister]

I gave the right hon. Gentleman some facts about the economy; I can give him some others: more people in work, and actually fewer children in absolute poverty under this Government. When it comes to the national health service, since November my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced £10 billion extra for the national health service. I have also said that we want to ensure that the national health service is able to operate on a long-term plan. That is why we are conducting a review to produce that long-term plan, with sustainable multi-year funding. That is the sensible approach to take—not just to say that this is all about money, but to say, “How can we ensure that the NHS is the NHS that will deliver for people in the future?” That is about funding. It is also about reforming the NHS to make sure that patients get the right treatment.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Not only was March the worst month on record in A&E departments; it was also the worst month for cancelled operations. There are 100,000 vacancies for NHS staff—and the Prime Minister personally intervened to overrule the Health Secretary and the previous Home Secretary when they asked for a relaxation of visa rules in order to recruit staff to work in our NHS.

But it is not just the NHS where the Government are damaging our public services. In January, the Education Secretary promised that no school would see a cut in its funding. Last week, he was invited to repeat that pledge, and refused. I wonder why. Will the Prime Minister now tell parents, teachers and students the truth—that the schools budget is in fact being cut in real terms all over the country?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. What we are doing is ensuring that there is more money available to schools. We are ensuring that we are protecting that core budget, because we want to ensure that every child, regardless of their background, gets the education that they need and the education that fulfils their potential. That is why, once again, it is not just a question of the money you put in; it is about how you spend the money you are spending. That is why I am pleased to say that 1.9 million more children are in good or outstanding schools under this Government and education standards are going up under this Government. That means more opportunities for our young people.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

It is quite astonishing that the Education Secretary has been corrected by the UK Statistics Authority. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that schools budgets are being cut, and the Prime Minister still appears to be in denial. It is not just in the NHS and education that this Government are damaging our public services; it is also about police budgets. The previous Home Secretary claimed there was no link between police numbers and serious violent crime; yet Home Office civil servants said there is a link. Who does the Prime Minister think is right?

[The Prime Minister]

First, on crime and police budgets, we are of course this year making available £450 million more for police forces across the country. We have been protecting police budgets, which is in direct contrast to what it was suggested to me I should do by the former shadow Home Secretary and Labour Member who is now Mayor of Manchester. He suggested 5% to 10% cuts could be made in police budgets.

The right hon. Gentleman talks about the relationship between police numbers and crime. His own shadow Police Minister has said in terms that there is not that relationship between police funding and the number of crimes that take place. Once again, it is about how we ensure we are dealing with these issues. It is about ensuring about that the police are able to deal with the challenges and crimes of today, and that is what we are doing with our serious violence strategy and our National Crime Agency—taking action across the board to ensure that our police are able to keep people safe.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Our shadow Police Minister was pointing out that there has been a £2.3 billion cut in police budgets in the last Parliament, and it is the Prime Minister’s Government who are underfunding our police force: 21,000 police officers have lost their jobs since 2010, and 6,700 police community support officers lost their jobs. Meantime, violent crime is rising and, sadly, there are deaths from knife crime on the streets of most cities, particularly in London.

The economy is slowing, homelessness is rising, more children are living in poverty, the Home Office is in chaos and the Government are making a complete shambles of the Brexit negotiations. They are damaging our NHS, damaging our children’s schools and cutting police as crime soars, and they claim to be “strong and stable”! With council tax rising by more than 5% all over the country, is not the truth facing voters tomorrow that with the Tories you pay more and you get less?

[The Prime Minister]

More funding going into the NHS, more funding going into our schools, more funding going into social care, but if the right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about council tax and its impact on local residents, I suggest he go to Hazelbourne Road in Clapham. On one side of the road in a typical home someone will pay nearly £1,400 in council tax. Now that, of course, is in Labour-run Lambeth. On the other side of the road, someone in a typical home will pay just over £700 in council tax. That is in Conservative-run Wandsworth. No clearer example can there be that Conservative councils cost you less.