Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Karen Buck and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 11th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We must be able to speak freely and we must have a robust and lively democracy, but some of the things that people say on Twitter, knowing that they are in some way anonymous, are frankly appalling. People should be ashamed of the sort of sexist bullying that often takes place.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Q15. Last week, London elected a new Mayor with an overwhelming mandate to tackle London’s housing crisis. It is a crisis that many of us fear the Housing and Planning Bill will make worse. Last April, the Prime Minister launched his manifesto, promising to replace sold council houses with affordable homes in the same area. Why, then, will he oppose an amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill this afternoon that would effectively implement last year’s manifesto commitment?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me again congratulate Sadiq Khan on his victory and say how much we are looking forward to working with him on the issues that matter to Londoners, whether it is transport, housing or keeping London safe. I put the question back to the hon. Lady: our Housing and Planning Bill means that every high-value property sold will mean two new affordable homes in London, so why is it that the Labour party here and in the other place are opposing something that will mean more houses, more affordable housing and more home ownership? That is the truth. They talk a good game, but, in the end, they are the enemies of aspiration.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Karen Buck and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I am sure that my hon. Friend speaks for the whole House and country in wanting to send our congratulations to the Libyan people on what looks like a successful set of elections. It is worth remembering that one year ago it did not look as if everything would turn out well in Libya, but I am proud that the NATO alliance and this country stayed true to the course and helped to secure the right outcome in Libya. The people there now have the chance of the successful democracy and prosperity that are denied to far too many in our world.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Q6. NHS North West London is currently consulting on the closure of four out of nine accident and emergency units. The medical director has said that North West London would literally run out of money if these closures did not go ahead. What kind of consultation poses a choice between the closure of half the A and E units in north-west London and the potential bankrupting of the local NHS?

[The Prime Minister]

First, on the issue of money, we have put £12.5 billion extra into the NHS. That decision is opposed by her party, which says that extra money for the NHS is “irresponsible”. We will ensure that all consultations are properly carried out and that local people, clinicians and general practitioners are listened to. We want to ensure that we have good access to accident and emergency units for all our people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Karen Buck and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

How typical of the Opposition. If someone talks about the private sector or job creation, all they have is a lack of respect and sneering. It is absolutely typical. My hon. Friend speaks from great experience. We want to be a family-friendly Government, which is why we are putting the extra hours and help into nursery education, increasing child tax credit, by £290 for the least well-off families, and why we will also be introducing proper help for flexible parenting.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Q15. Westminster police command is now being required to lose 240 police community support officers, slashing by two thirds the number of PCSOs doing security and counter-terrorism work, and every single PCSO in the borough must now reapply for their own job. What message does the Prime Minister think this sends to the public, who want to see visible, patrol-based policing on their streets?

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make to the hon. Lady is this: we are asking the Metropolitan Police Authority to find a cash reduction over the next four years of 6.2%. We face an enormous deficit in this country because of what we inherited from the Labour party. We have to make difficult decisions. Frankly, I do not think it is impossible to find a 6.2% cash reduction while keeping good front-line policing at the same time, and I am very confident that my good friend Boris Johnson will do exactly that.

Public Disorder

Debate between Karen Buck and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. HMIC has said that those savings are available. It did not take into account the pay freeze for police officers, the increased pension contributions or some of the extra work that we have done to cut paperwork. That is why I feel so confident in saying that on average 6% cash reductions over four years should lead to no reduction in visible policing.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

We owe a debt of gratitude to our police services this week, but crisis policing is not an alternative to embedded, sustained, community policing. So I was disappointed when visiting damage in my constituency to talk to safer neighbourhood sergeants who are losing their jobs today and being made to reapply for them, as part of 300 safer neighbourhood job losses in London alone. The Prime Minister says that when circumstances change we must change. He must now change his policy of damaging the leadership of London’s safer neighbourhood police service.

[The Prime Minister]

As I said, what we saw in London over the past few days, where we have 32,000 officers in the Met, was a greater deployment of more of those officers on to the street. Frankly, it was not good enough that there were only 3,000 deployed when this started. It shows how much can be done, getting up to 16,000 deployed, with help from outside. Those numbers will be available at all times in the future, even with the reductions that we are making in budgets.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Debate between Karen Buck and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That is absolutely right—we must maintain operational independence. The point about the police commissioners is calling the police to account for the work that they do, but the operational independence point is extremely important.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

rose—

[The Prime Minister]

Let me make a bit of progress, and then I will give way to the hon. Lady.

The relationship between the police and the media is a problem the world over, too, but we have to ask—and hon. Members have been asking this today—why ours seems to have become quite so cosy, so leaky and so potentially compromised. Similarly, there is nothing peculiar to Britain about the potentially unhealthy relationship developing between media proprietors and politicians.

That leads to my third point, about trying to turn these noble sentiments of “never again” into action. None of this is easy, and a point that must not be lost in this debate is that to over-regulate the media could have profoundly detrimental effects on our country and our society. We must not miss this in the frenzy about the dreadfulness of hacking at this point. Without a public interest defence, the so-called “cod fax” that uncovered Jonathan Aitken’s wrongdoing might never have emerged. To give another example, are we seriously going to argue in this House that the expenses scandal should not have come to light because it could have involved some data that were obtained illegally? So, we need to step very carefully into this area.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

Will the Prime Minister give way?

[The Prime Minister]

I am going to make some progress, and then I will give way a couple more times before I close.

So, Mr Speaker, the question is, given the difficulties I have mentioned, how do we maximise the chance of making a clean break with the past. I want to set out some very clear lessons. First, we have got to try to proceed on a cross-party basis; otherwise, we will have each party trooping off to media organisations and promising the lowest common denominator. If I say “independent regulation”, there is a danger someone else will say “self-regulation”, and so on. We could end up constantly competing with each other in a kind of regulatory arbitrage over who can be the softest and most appealing to newspapers, television stations and their owners. I do not think we should pretend this is simply about tabloids or even simply about newspapers. I am a huge supporter of the BBC and the licence fee, but, frankly, I think there did come a time in recent years when the income of the BBC was so outstripping that of independent television that there was a danger of BBC News becoming rather dominant. So, there are dangers right across the piece here.

The offer to work together with all parties on this agenda is indeed a genuine one.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

rose—

[The Prime Minister]

I am going to make some progress and then I will come back to my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon).

The second key to success in translating all this into action, I believe, is restraint. The media will see politicians agreeing with each other about the need for regulation, for plurality and all the rest of it, and they will fear a stitch-up. Indeed, they are already talking about one. So, I do believe that politicians need to show some restraint in what they say and do about the media. There are many in this House, I know, who have been victims of a media that have been prepared to break the law or behave in a bullying fashion. But we must not forget that this scandal, like so many others, whether we are talking about expenses or the FIFA scandal, which I feel particularly exercised about—they were uncovered to the fullest degree by the media, by newspapers, not by regulators. Let us not forget that. So, the balance we must strike now is to allow an aggressive, challenging and independent media, however much that might sometimes frustrate us, while halting the abuses that all decent people find unacceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Buck]

I am grateful to the Prime Minister for giving way. Returning to the issue of the police’s operational independence, he rightly emphasised the important principle that politicians cannot tell the police whom to investigate and what to pursue, but that cuts both ways. What message does he think the Mayor of London was sending out when he said, in the same weeks when John Yates was scoping his inquiry, and just days after John Yates sent his e-mail to the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, that any inquiry and any allegations were codswallop, politically motivated and not worthy of discussion?

[The Prime Minister]

The point I would make is that it is quite clear that the police have operational independence, because they have pursued, without fear or favour, these issues and they have arrested everyone they have thought it necessary to arrest. What is interesting is that I think that operational independence is so embedded into the psyche of British policing that, whether it is the Mayor of London or whether you have police commissioners, I do not think it would interfere with that.

Finally, Mr Speaker, in this debate let us not lose sight of the big picture. The people who send us here want some pretty straightforward things. They want their media free and punchy, but they want them within the law. They want their police independent and strong, but honest and incorruptible, and they want their politicians to sort out a mess that has sapped their faith in the key institutions of our country. Whatever our differences in this debate, we should be clear today: we will not let them down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Karen Buck and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 14th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree. I have to say to Labour Members, who sort of sigh every time an hon. Member actually mentions a worthwhile charity, voluntary body or project that is doing something in their communities, that we are going to change the way we do politics in this country. Instead of endlessly talking about the money that goes in, let us talk about the outcomes that come out. I think that that is a better way of doing things.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Q10. I am delighted to report that GCSE pass rates have doubled in Westminster in recent years and four brand-new schools have opened. This week, the Prime Minister was quoted as saying that he was “terrified” of his children attending a local school. May I ask him to swallow his fear and instead join me in acknowledging the enormous progress that has been made, particularly in London’s secondary schools, in recent years?

[The Prime Minister]

I am pleased to say that my children attend a local school in Conservative-controlled Kensington and the other part of her constituency, Conservative-controlled Westminster. Of course there are good schools in London and of course progress is being made, but like any parent looking at the state of secondary education, you want to know that there are going to be really good schools, really good choice and a diversity of provision. That is what we are going to ensure and I hope that the hon. Lady will vote for it when the time comes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Karen Buck and Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, may I welcome my hon. Friend, who, I know, will speak with great passion for his town of Blackpool? We should congratulate it on its footballing success recently. On that note, I am sure that the whole House will want to show its support—[Interruption] yes, including all Members—for the England team this afternoon in their key game.

I have not yet received a single apology for the appalling mess that we have been left, but at some stage, the Labour party will have to wake up and realise what a mess it made of the British economy.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Q3. Will there be fewer police officers at the end of this Parliament compared with the number that we have today?

[The Prime Minister]

What we want to do— [Interruption.] Opposition Members have got to start getting serious about the task that we face. We want to do everything that we can to keep police officers on the streets, to have money going into our schools and to keep up spending on our hospitals, and the only way that we are going to be able to do it is if we deal with the problems of excessive welfare spending. So if hon. Members want to see police on the streets and if they want to see well-funded schools, they have got to back us on housing benefit and on welfare reform. That is the way that we can keep spending up.