Browse content similar to 22/03/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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The Government announces a ban on laptops | :00:41. | :00:44. | |
and tablets in aircraft cabins on certain flights | :00:45. | :00:46. | |
US media says it's in response to a specific threat | :00:47. | :00:49. | |
In one week, the Prime Minister will formally | :00:50. | :00:54. | |
launch the process which will take us out of the EU. | :00:55. | :00:57. | |
It's the number one item in her in-tray. | :00:58. | :01:03. | |
But what does it mean for the Government's other priorities? | :01:04. | :01:05. | |
It's been a tough few days for Jeremy Corbyn as Labour's | :01:06. | :01:08. | |
Can he regain the initiative at PMQs? | :01:09. | :01:12. | |
And it's the great political cake-off as MPs get | :01:13. | :01:19. | |
Or will it be soggy bottoms all round? | :01:20. | :01:26. | |
You could expect next door's hamster to decorate a cake better than most | :01:27. | :01:29. | |
of these MPs but it's great fun and it's for a very good cause. | :01:30. | :01:40. | |
I thought you did very well reading that! It was full of pitfalls. It | :01:41. | :01:46. | |
was a bit of a tongue twister! All that in the next 90 minutes | :01:47. | :01:48. | |
and with us for the duration, Home Office Minister Brandon Lewis, | :01:49. | :01:51. | |
and Shadow Justice Now, Brandon is specifically | :01:52. | :01:54. | |
the Minister for Policing and Fire, although it's not clear who has | :01:55. | :01:59. | |
the brief for earth and wind. We could keep this going right up to | :02:00. | :02:11. | |
PMQs! Richard is also the Shadow Lord | :02:12. | :02:22. | |
Chancellor, which means, if he ever gets into government, | :02:23. | :02:24. | |
he'll get to wear the full legal state dress - black silk | :02:25. | :02:28. | |
velvet cutaway tail coat, a waistcoat and breeches, | :02:29. | :02:32. | |
lace cuffs, black silk stockings, It's the uniform all good | :02:33. | :02:40. | |
socialists aspire to! Downing Street has confirmed | :02:41. | :02:43. | |
that it will place a ban large electrical devices in some | :02:44. | :02:47. | |
aircraft cabins in the coming days. The ban will affect passengers | :02:48. | :02:57. | |
travelling on direct flights to the UK from six countries | :02:58. | :02:59. | |
in the Middle East. The US government has also announced | :03:00. | :03:01. | |
similar restrictions They are from the Middle East, not | :03:02. | :03:10. | |
exactly the same countries as the UK. | :03:11. | :03:13. | |
Reports in the American media suggest the ban was prompted | :03:14. | :03:15. | |
by intelligence of a terror threat to US-bound flights. | :03:16. | :03:17. | |
Let's talk to Tom Wilson from the Henry Jackson Society, | :03:18. | :03:19. | |
which is a foreign affairs think tank. | :03:20. | :03:24. | |
Let's get this... We believe there is some specific intelligence of | :03:25. | :03:32. | |
this sort of threat to US and now possibly British flights. Is that | :03:33. | :03:36. | |
correct? What more do we know? I think there must be something quite | :03:37. | :03:40. | |
specific for both the UK and there has been word that Canada might also | :03:41. | :03:45. | |
implement a similar ban. Also the fact that you got people not just in | :03:46. | :03:48. | |
the Trump administration but also Democrats in Congress who have seen | :03:49. | :03:52. | |
some of this intelligence who seem to support this ban. As well as | :03:53. | :03:56. | |
they're probably being something quite specific, we have now seen | :03:57. | :04:00. | |
mounting concerns about attacks relating to aviation. In 2016 there | :04:01. | :04:08. | |
was an attempted attack in Somalia by Al-Shabab. In 2015, a group | :04:09. | :04:12. | |
linked to ISA managed to take out a Russian passenger jet, so there have | :04:13. | :04:17. | |
been mounting and ongoing fears in recent years. But these events | :04:18. | :04:20. | |
happened a little while ago, still in the recent history but a little | :04:21. | :04:25. | |
while ago. Something must have happened. Do you think there might | :04:26. | :04:29. | |
have been a technology breakthrough in that the bomb makers know how to | :04:30. | :04:34. | |
turn not just laptop batteries but the batteries on tablets into bombs, | :04:35. | :04:41. | |
in effect, so that when they are switched on they explode on air in | :04:42. | :04:48. | |
the cabin? There have been some reports, confirmed so far I think, | :04:49. | :04:52. | |
that there may be an Al-Qaeda affiliated group that has been | :04:53. | :04:55. | |
specifically looking into technology related to planting explosives | :04:56. | :04:59. | |
inside batteries of laptops, tablets or perhaps something even smaller. I | :05:00. | :05:02. | |
think one question we do have is whether or not the concern is about | :05:03. | :05:08. | |
the kind of device that would be triggered by an individual outside, | :05:09. | :05:11. | |
actually in the cabin, or whether or not the device could go off | :05:12. | :05:14. | |
automatically without someone being able to trigger its. One final | :05:15. | :05:18. | |
question lots of people have been asking. As I understand it, you will | :05:19. | :05:22. | |
still be allowed to check these things into the hold and people have | :05:23. | :05:26. | |
said, maybe the bomb could go off there but you would then have to add | :05:27. | :05:31. | |
a timer to it, which complicates matters. Aircraft are not always | :05:32. | :05:38. | |
unscheduled. It really works, as I understand it, by you switch it on | :05:39. | :05:41. | |
which is why the biggest danger is in the cabin. Exactly, and in the | :05:42. | :05:45. | |
past that was always the case with aviation bombing, such as the shoe | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
bomb plot, plots to do with liquid explosives which we saw in the | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
mid-2000s. But I think there is a higher level of technology needed if | :05:55. | :05:57. | |
you've got some kind of time, although it was suggested in the | :05:58. | :06:00. | |
case of the Sharm el-Sheikh bombing that the exposer was in the hold. I | :06:01. | :06:04. | |
think it may be the case that airport authorities are able to | :06:05. | :06:07. | |
check what goes into the hold more closely than what passengers are | :06:08. | :06:11. | |
taking on with them. We will leave at there. Thank you for joining us | :06:12. | :06:16. | |
in the rain. I was going to pick up on that point | :06:17. | :06:19. | |
with Brandon Lewis about what evidence there is that it will make | :06:20. | :06:22. | |
us safer, even if there is this point about triggering any device, | :06:23. | :06:27. | |
as we just heard from our guest, the major attack back in 2015 when the | :06:28. | :06:31. | |
Russian airliner was brought down, killing over 200 people, it is | :06:32. | :06:35. | |
thought the bomb was hold luggage so what evidence is there that this | :06:36. | :06:39. | |
will make us safer? For these reasons, I can't comment on | :06:40. | :06:44. | |
particular threats, but we have been on a severe flooding for some time | :06:45. | :06:47. | |
now and the Prime Minister has been chairing meetings for a number of | :06:48. | :06:51. | |
weeks looking at those threats and a decision was made to put this ban on | :06:52. | :06:54. | |
these particular flights to make sure that we keep people safe while | :06:55. | :06:58. | |
they are flying and keep British citizens safe. At what is the | :06:59. | :07:02. | |
evidence that it will keep us safer? If you can still put laptops, | :07:03. | :07:07. | |
tablets and other large electronic devices in the hold, and bombs can | :07:08. | :07:10. | |
be triggered there, how much safer will it really make us by preventing | :07:11. | :07:15. | |
people taking these electronic gadgets in their hand luggage? The | :07:16. | :07:18. | |
assessment has been made looking at what the threats are. Putting this | :07:19. | :07:23. | |
ban on these flights in this way makes people say the. I can't go | :07:24. | :07:26. | |
into the details of specific threats because we don't comment on specific | :07:27. | :07:29. | |
threats like a lot but a decision has been made in light of the | :07:30. | :07:32. | |
evidence that we've got, the meeting the Prime Minister has been chairing | :07:33. | :07:36. | |
herself over the last few weeks, to make sure we are doing the right | :07:37. | :07:43. | |
thing. There has to be some sort of logic to its. One security expert | :07:44. | :07:46. | |
has suggested it could actually make us less safe because, as you know, | :07:47. | :07:50. | |
in the case of cabin baggage, the case can be opened in front of the | :07:51. | :07:55. | |
owner of that particular bag and individual items can be checked in | :07:56. | :07:59. | |
front of them. That isn't the case, obviously, when it goes into the | :08:00. | :08:04. | |
hold. I can say there is logic and there is an assessment of what the | :08:05. | :08:07. | |
threat is and advice has been given by the experts, the security teams, | :08:08. | :08:11. | |
and the decision has been made that the best thing to do to make sure | :08:12. | :08:14. | |
people are safest but a ban on these particular types of equipment. How | :08:15. | :08:18. | |
much disruption do you think it will cause? Adamant it will cause too | :08:19. | :08:22. | |
much disruption. People should check with their travel agents when they | :08:23. | :08:27. | |
are travelling from those countries, they need to have it in their hold | :08:28. | :08:32. | |
luggage. That means putting it in hold luggage rather than in hand | :08:33. | :08:35. | |
luggage or when they get to the airline check-in, the airline will | :08:36. | :08:37. | |
be advising them to put it in the hold luggage as they check in. There | :08:38. | :08:41. | |
may be some delays for them in doing that but that's the only disruption | :08:42. | :08:48. | |
message be -- there should be. People travelling, let's say, from | :08:49. | :08:52. | |
Turkey to London, it affects direct flights but what if you want to | :08:53. | :08:56. | |
travel from Turkey to Paris and you actually are able then to keep your | :08:57. | :09:00. | |
laptop with you, you then change flights, change airlines in Paris | :09:01. | :09:03. | |
and travel to London but you have originally come from Turkey. People | :09:04. | :09:06. | |
would be able to take their laptops into the cabin. You're quite right, | :09:07. | :09:12. | |
the banners on those very specific direct flights. So you will be able | :09:13. | :09:16. | |
to get round it. We continue to work with our colleagues and partners in | :09:17. | :09:19. | |
other countries around the world to do everything we can to make sure | :09:20. | :09:23. | |
airline safety is safe. A particular decision has been taken about these | :09:24. | :09:26. | |
flights. If you come in from Turkey into Paris and you are going on a | :09:27. | :09:31. | |
different line, say to America, they will make you go through security | :09:32. | :09:36. | |
again, as they do in London now. And as was said in the Henry Jackson | :09:37. | :09:42. | |
Society comment, luggage that goes through the hold goes through a | :09:43. | :09:45. | |
certain security check as well but the decision has been made. We have | :09:46. | :09:51. | |
been severe flooding for sometime now and this the right decision to | :09:52. | :09:56. | |
make sure safety is paramount. Once was male scissors, then liquids, now | :09:57. | :09:57. | |
it is your iPad. -- nail scissors. Now, in exactly one week, | :09:58. | :10:05. | |
Theresa May will send a letter to the European Council, | :10:06. | :10:07. | |
triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty | :10:08. | :10:09. | |
and so beginning the formal process It will be an historic moment | :10:10. | :10:12. | |
and will clearly dominate politics But there are plenty of other issues | :10:13. | :10:15. | |
that the Government is wrestling with, and you can be sure that | :10:16. | :10:21. | |
here at the Daily Politics we will be holding ministers' feet | :10:22. | :10:23. | |
to the fire on all Government It's a busy time for | :10:24. | :10:27. | |
politicians on all sides. As well as Brexit, the other huge | :10:28. | :10:35. | |
constitutional issue for Theresa May is a possible second | :10:36. | :10:37. | |
Scottish independence referendum. This afternoon the Scottish | :10:38. | :10:40. | |
Parliament will vote on whether to request a new poll, | :10:41. | :10:43. | |
something which the UK Government has said they won't allow | :10:44. | :10:47. | |
until after Britain has left the EU. Schools funding in England | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
is another hot potato at the moment. The Government is trying to push | :10:53. | :10:55. | |
through a new funding formula for schools, which has | :10:56. | :10:59. | |
angered many headteachers. The Prime Minister has also | :11:00. | :11:02. | |
promised to push ahead with new grammar schools, | :11:03. | :11:06. | |
although the issue is angering Social care is another issue that | :11:07. | :11:08. | |
will be taxing minds in Whitehall. The Chancellor announced an extra | :11:09. | :11:14. | |
?2 billion over the next three years but many are warning | :11:15. | :11:17. | |
it's not enough. Linked to that is health spending, | :11:18. | :11:20. | |
with funding pressures And if that's not enough, | :11:21. | :11:23. | |
the Conservative Party is facing police probes | :11:24. | :11:28. | |
into their election expenses. Last week they were fined ?70,000 | :11:29. | :11:33. | |
and 12 police forces have asked the Crown Prosecution Service | :11:34. | :11:37. | |
to consider whether there If you think that's tough, | :11:38. | :11:39. | |
imagine being Jeremy Corbyn. Yesterday MPs rounded | :11:40. | :11:51. | |
on the Labour Leader at a Parliamentary Labour Party | :11:52. | :11:53. | |
meeting for apparently briefing Many MPs are angry at Mr Corbyn's | :11:54. | :11:56. | |
leadership, particularly because Labour's poll | :11:57. | :12:01. | |
ratings aren't good. Earlier this week, | :12:02. | :12:05. | |
a Guardian-ICM poll put Labour on 26%, with the Conservatives | :12:06. | :12:07. | |
on 45%. Joining me now is Joe Twyman from | :12:08. | :12:19. | |
the polling company YouGov. 19 points behind Fort Labour. Is that | :12:20. | :12:23. | |
now becoming an established trend? It certainly seems to be. Our most | :12:24. | :12:28. | |
recent poll for the Times has Labour on 25%, where they've been | :12:29. | :12:32. | |
consistently for the past few weeks, and the Conservatives on 41 and they | :12:33. | :12:36. | |
have been low to middle 40s for some time. That is clearly a difficult | :12:37. | :12:40. | |
situation for the Labour Party to be in but if you look beyond the | :12:41. | :12:43. | |
figures, the situation gets worse when you ask people who would make | :12:44. | :12:47. | |
the best Prime Minister. Theresa May is ahead by some distance. Fewer | :12:48. | :12:51. | |
than half of Labour supporters actually think that Jeremy Corbyn | :12:52. | :12:55. | |
could be the best Prime Minister. Most of them say they don't know but | :12:56. | :12:58. | |
it is still a difficult situation to be in and when you look at things | :12:59. | :13:02. | |
like jobs, housing, the economy, Ronnie Corbett is behind Theresa | :13:03. | :13:05. | |
May, often by some distance, so that is a difficult situation to be in | :13:06. | :13:09. | |
and there is no getting away from that. But there is a big but coming | :13:10. | :13:14. | |
and that is surrounding Brexit. We don't know how things are going to | :13:15. | :13:18. | |
go. We asked people if there were a general election tomorrow, how would | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
you vote, but we know there isn't a general election tomorrow and there | :13:23. | :13:26. | |
was not going to be one on me the fourth, we hear now. It is more | :13:27. | :13:30. | |
likely to be in 2020 and where the country will be at that stage could | :13:31. | :13:36. | |
determine massive differences. So while Labour are behind at the | :13:37. | :13:39. | |
moment, it could be the case that seeing a Brexit disaster with the | :13:40. | :13:42. | |
Conservatives could mean Labour pull ahead but the point is, we don't | :13:43. | :13:47. | |
know. And the Shadow Chancellor John McDonell has said Labour will be | :13:48. | :13:50. | |
more united once they get into the Brexit negotiations and there will | :13:51. | :13:53. | |
be disunity on the Conservative side, as you say. But if you look at | :13:54. | :13:57. | |
the issues that have faced the Tory party, the Omni shambles that many | :13:58. | :14:02. | |
have called it of the budget and the U-turn on the national insurance | :14:03. | :14:05. | |
contributions, business rates, social care, why are the Tories are | :14:06. | :14:09. | |
the Tories still so far ahead? Well, it seems that Labour's policies and | :14:10. | :14:13. | |
their way of getting their argument across, be it through the leader or | :14:14. | :14:16. | |
other members of the party, just aren't resonating with the country. | :14:17. | :14:21. | |
Critics of Conservatives and supporters particularly of Jeremy | :14:22. | :14:23. | |
Corbyn will blame this on the press, on infighting within the party, and | :14:24. | :14:28. | |
I'm not here to discuss the merits of that, other than to say it is | :14:29. | :14:33. | |
having an effect. It is clear they are not resonating, not getting | :14:34. | :14:37. | |
those groups that they need to appeal to to win. Briefly, | :14:38. | :14:41. | |
predictions for the local elections? I think that Labour will do well to | :14:42. | :14:46. | |
hold on to what they had before. I think they are going to suffer. We | :14:47. | :14:50. | |
could see a resurgence of the Lib Dems if they can resonate their | :14:51. | :14:55. | |
anti-Brexit position but there is a lot that can happen before then, | :14:56. | :15:00. | |
with regard to Article 50. Joe Twyman, thank you. Brandon Lewis, | :15:01. | :15:12. | |
last week your colleague, Mr Stewart defended the increase of national | :15:13. | :15:15. | |
insurance contributions for the self-employed at the time the | :15:16. | :15:18. | |
Government was going a screeching U-Turn on this be subject. So within | :15:19. | :15:22. | |
ten minutes he then had to defend the fact they weren't going to | :15:23. | :15:24. | |
increase national insurance contributions. Would you like now to | :15:25. | :15:30. | |
take the same risk on the proposed change on school funding? Well | :15:31. | :15:33. | |
actually I have personally said as a backbencher, and as a Government | :15:34. | :15:36. | |
minister I support that. We need to do the review of school funding, it | :15:37. | :15:41. | |
is a formula that's out of date. The sector itself was clear and the work | :15:42. | :15:46. | |
and consultation is going on and it is still open it doesn't finish | :15:47. | :15:49. | |
until midnight. It is important that we look at increasing funding, | :15:50. | :15:51. | |
record levels of funding going into schools. We will come on to the | :15:52. | :15:56. | |
amount in a minute so let's just get this clear, you are in no doubt that | :15:57. | :16:01. | |
there will be no U-Turn on the new school funding formula? I think the | :16:02. | :16:04. | |
school funding formula is a piece of work that needed to be done. I think | :16:05. | :16:08. | |
the Department for Education and minister Nick Gibbes is doing a | :16:09. | :16:11. | |
phenomenally good piece of work to make sure we look at where the | :16:12. | :16:15. | |
funding is needed to get to the pupils who need it. So, if they do a | :16:16. | :16:19. | |
U-Turn on this, where would that leave you? The Government is always | :16:20. | :16:22. | |
looking at the department, the consultation finishes at midnight. | :16:23. | :16:25. | |
This'll look at the outcome before making... What and then U-Turn? I | :16:26. | :16:31. | |
think the funding formula review will continue and we'll see a new | :16:32. | :16:35. | |
funding formula for schools. It is much more controversial, much more | :16:36. | :16:38. | |
difficult to implement, let me put it that way because, of course, you | :16:39. | :16:42. | |
are actually cutting money to schools, aren't you? Funding for | :16:43. | :16:45. | |
schools is going up. What this is doing is how that cake is shared out | :16:46. | :16:50. | |
and looking at making sure we get a funding formula that is shared | :16:51. | :16:55. | |
correctly. Explain to me how funding is going up? Record levels of ?#40 | :16:56. | :17:00. | |
billion it goes up to ?42 billion in 2019. You are dealing in money | :17:01. | :17:03. | |
terms, aren't you, not real terms. And when you take account of | :17:04. | :17:08. | |
inflation and the fact that the number of pupils is rising, it's | :17:09. | :17:12. | |
actually falling, isn't it? Well, if you look - in cash terms it is going | :17:13. | :17:17. | |
up to ?42 billion. ?2 billion is a lot of money. Not if inflation has | :17:18. | :17:24. | |
reached 2.3% and rising. So you are putting per pupil funding by around | :17:25. | :17:33. | |
8% in real terms, 8% between 2015 and 2020. There are two points I | :17:34. | :17:37. | |
will make to answer that. Firstly, I'm not shying away from the fact we | :17:38. | :17:41. | |
have had to make difficult decisions to the economy over the last years. | :17:42. | :17:44. | |
You can't then complain you are increasing in real terms? We are, | :17:45. | :17:48. | |
school term is at ?40 billion, a record level and going up to ?42 | :17:49. | :17:52. | |
billion. And as a second pointed to help schools with the cost, we are | :17:53. | :17:56. | |
setting up with a buying scheme to make sure it is as efficient as | :17:57. | :17:59. | |
possible. A lot of schools aren't as owe fisht with were curement and | :18:00. | :18:04. | |
other things. That's another issue. Of course you want schools to be | :18:05. | :18:09. | |
efficient. Of course you have a Budget deficit to manage down, | :18:10. | :18:11. | |
particularly since you are way behind the original thought on that. | :18:12. | :18:16. | |
But that doesn't allow to you claim that you are in real terms, | :18:17. | :18:20. | |
increasing spending on education because let me give you the figures | :18:21. | :18:30. | |
here, funding per pupil will rise from ?5,447 in 2016 to ?5,519, so it | :18:31. | :18:37. | |
is a rise of about ?60, maybe a little more, by 2020. So, ?60-odd, | :18:38. | :18:48. | |
?70 over four years, that when you take inflation into account, is a | :18:49. | :18:51. | |
substantial reduction in real terms. Can we agree with that? Well, I | :18:52. | :18:55. | |
appreciate you have got inflakes you have changing costs but you also | :18:56. | :19:00. | |
have to recognise that is actually ?2 billion which is a huge sum of | :19:01. | :19:04. | |
money that is going up but it is also about getting right outcomes | :19:05. | :19:07. | |
and what is important with this in education as someone who has got | :19:08. | :19:12. | |
children and I have been in education in myself, those outcomes | :19:13. | :19:16. | |
for 1.8 million in et Bev, schoot and outstanding schools, more first | :19:17. | :19:20. | |
class teachers coming into teach and more children from deprived | :19:21. | :19:23. | |
backgrounds going to university and studying core subjects, the outcomes | :19:24. | :19:26. | |
of those children, the people we have to look to for our future is | :19:27. | :19:32. | |
really key. So why are you cutting the budget in real terms because in | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
money terms you will increase the budget, well, the budget will go up | :19:37. | :19:40. | |
by several billion, in money terms but once you take in inflation, and | :19:41. | :19:44. | |
the increase in the number of pupils. There is going to be a 4% | :19:45. | :19:49. | |
rise in primary school pupils, a 10% rise in secondary school pupils, the | :19:50. | :19:55. | |
IFS explains, that spending per pupil falls by 8% in real terms over | :19:56. | :20:00. | |
a five-year period. Why are you doing that? Well, first of all, yes | :20:01. | :20:05. | |
you are quite right, that funding, in cash terms increases by ?2 | :20:06. | :20:08. | |
billion but your point about inflation is allowing for there to | :20:09. | :20:12. | |
be no benefits and no changes in the efficiency of how schools work and | :20:13. | :20:16. | |
we do want to see schools... A lot of schools have already done this. | :20:17. | :20:20. | |
There is a huge amount more we can do in terms of efficiencies, sharing | :20:21. | :20:24. | |
administration departments and doing much better on procurement and we | :20:25. | :20:27. | |
see this across a range of sectors, there is much more to do to make | :20:28. | :20:32. | |
sure we are getting the best for our money but ultimately I would argue | :20:33. | :20:34. | |
any parent and child out there, their main focus is the outcome. We | :20:35. | :20:38. | |
are improving. Any child out there is going to see an 8% cut in the | :20:39. | :20:43. | |
funding in real terms to them, so, whatever you - I'm not arguing about | :20:44. | :20:49. | |
efficiency, or even about the funding formula, I simply would like | :20:50. | :20:54. | |
to clarify and get it clear that in real terms, spending per pupil is | :20:55. | :20:59. | |
not rising, it is falling. Well that depends on what schools do around | :21:00. | :21:03. | |
their efficiencies. If they can be more efficient, it reduces cost, it | :21:04. | :21:07. | |
means the bds 2 billion increase on current record levels goes into the | :21:08. | :21:10. | |
pupils but it is also about making sure they get the best education. It | :21:11. | :21:15. | |
is better than it has ever been and we need to see it go further. So, we | :21:16. | :21:20. | |
have a Government, cutting funding per pupil. We have a Government that | :21:21. | :21:27. | |
is presiding over real problems in the NHS, as well, and a Government | :21:28. | :21:33. | |
that has a bit of an omni-shambles in the Budget. Why are you 19 points | :21:34. | :21:37. | |
behind in the polls? Well, Labour clearly isn't in a good position in | :21:38. | :21:41. | |
the opinion polls. We have a mountain to clie. I believe we can | :21:42. | :21:48. | |
climb that mountain. I think it was inevitable when Theresa May was | :21:49. | :21:50. | |
installed in Conservative Party leader that fl would be a period in | :21:51. | :21:54. | |
which the Conservatives would be boosted. But the Tory lead is | :21:55. | :21:59. | |
widening. It is not that at the start it went big baint by bit you | :22:00. | :22:02. | |
are clawing it back. It has got wider. In one poll after the | :22:03. | :22:07. | |
omni-shambles budget, the lead increased by three points, why is it | :22:08. | :22:13. | |
getting worse? The reality is that everyone in Labour needs to up their | :22:14. | :22:16. | |
game, the Conservatives need to up their game but your polling expert | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
was also correct when he said that the public don't like or don't | :22:21. | :22:24. | |
appreciate it when parties are disunited and when much of what is | :22:25. | :22:29. | |
on the television and in the papers are stories about one Labour MP | :22:30. | :22:32. | |
speaking out against another or talks about internal disputes into | :22:33. | :22:35. | |
the Labour Party, that cannot help Labour. Is that Tom Watson, the | :22:36. | :22:40. | |
deputy Chairman's, Tom Watson's fault? I'm not going to get into the | :22:41. | :22:45. | |
game of criticising my colleagues. You blamed that stuff for the reason | :22:46. | :22:49. | |
why you are so far behind in the polls and getting worse. Well, this | :22:50. | :22:53. | |
- well exhibitions of disunity and disagreement public in the Labour | :22:54. | :22:56. | |
Party didn't start this week. And I do... But there has been a quite | :22:57. | :23:01. | |
period but it has broken up again. I think Emily Thornbury was correct on | :23:02. | :23:04. | |
Newsnight the other night when she said that Labour needs to be outward | :23:05. | :23:09. | |
looking, not inward looking. My plea to everybody on the Labour Party, | :23:10. | :23:13. | |
whether on the left or the right of the Labour Party, is - let's unite | :23:14. | :23:17. | |
and let's look outward, not inward. On the doorstep and at my sessions, | :23:18. | :23:22. | |
people aren't raising with me the Labour Party National Executive | :23:23. | :23:26. | |
committee this, amendment or that at all. They probably lost interest. | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
They were never interested in the first place. That's a lot of what | :23:32. | :23:37. | |
you talk about. Except that it is clearly, according tou, having an | :23:38. | :23:40. | |
impact. Somebody is paying attention, otherwise you would not | :23:41. | :23:44. | |
be 19 points behind in the polls and when you call for party unionite, as | :23:45. | :23:50. | |
Mr Corbyn does regularly, is it not hypocritical qual for party unity, | :23:51. | :23:54. | |
whilst come of the people around Mr Corbyn are briefing against his | :23:55. | :23:59. | |
deputy leader. Well I don't agree of taking private disagreements into | :24:00. | :24:02. | |
the public arena, whoever does that. I don't know about briefing about | :24:03. | :24:06. | |
that, I don't know about anything like that. You know where the story | :24:07. | :24:11. | |
has come from. I don't actually. You were at the Shadow Cabinet meeting, | :24:12. | :24:15. | |
weren't you? I wasn't because I was in the chamber of the House of | :24:16. | :24:19. | |
Commons, doing my job, speaking for Labour on the prisons bill, so I | :24:20. | :24:23. | |
wasn't at the Shadow Cabinet. I usually am. Why is your membership | :24:24. | :24:29. | |
now falling? Well the membership of the Labour Party before the general | :24:30. | :24:32. | |
election is 170,000. It is still over... You had a huge bump, no | :24:33. | :24:37. | |
questions about that but it is now falling again, why? Well, at the end | :24:38. | :24:41. | |
of the day once a year you come to the point where people have to fill | :24:42. | :24:47. | |
in their... Actually pay. The reality is you will always get | :24:48. | :24:51. | |
people leaving a political party. Labour is still the biggest | :24:52. | :24:54. | |
left-of-centre party. Not for long... Have you seen how much the | :24:55. | :25:00. | |
German Social Democrats are rising? If people said a few years ago that | :25:01. | :25:04. | |
Labour would have 500,000 members I would have thought that was fan | :25:05. | :25:08. | |
toastical. If I said to you a year later 40,000 people were Ayerza | :25:09. | :25:12. | |
rears and memberships fallen below 500,000 you would have said what? | :25:13. | :25:17. | |
Well, Well it is not welcome that people leave but there is a huge | :25:18. | :25:21. | |
increase in the membership. Let me move on. Mr Livingston, who as you | :25:22. | :25:26. | |
know is always helpful to the Labour Party in his public pronouncements | :25:27. | :25:29. | |
has said that Mr Corbyn should suspend about a dozen disloyal | :25:30. | :25:37. | |
Labour MPs, include what say you? I don't think we should be in the game | :25:38. | :25:43. | |
of suspending MPs or attempting to deselect MPs. I thinks a distraction | :25:44. | :25:47. | |
and weed should be looking outward not inward my plea for everyone, | :25:48. | :25:52. | |
whether on the left or right, is to unite and look outward. Including Mr | :25:53. | :25:55. | |
Livingston, should do that? Of course. | :25:56. | :25:59. | |
Now, let's turn our attention to cake. | :26:00. | :26:01. | |
Our Foreign Secretary once famously declared that his policy | :26:02. | :26:04. | |
on cake was "pro having it and pro eating it". | :26:05. | :26:08. | |
Approximate He is a living embodiment of that. Who are we to | :26:09. | :26:12. | |
disagree? And it seems Boris Johnson's | :26:13. | :26:15. | |
colleagues have been getting in on the act, | :26:16. | :26:17. | |
taking part in a cake decorating contest for Comic Relief - | :26:18. | :26:20. | |
we'll have more on that later. Meanwhile, we're going to see | :26:21. | :26:21. | |
if we can engender a bit of cross-party artistic | :26:22. | :26:27. | |
collaboration here in the studio by asking our guests | :26:28. | :26:29. | |
if they can make less Oh, that doesn't look like it needs | :26:30. | :26:31. | |
decorating. It looks lovely. Like Brexit, we're looking | :26:32. | :26:42. | |
for something clean, uncomplicated, that the public can swallow | :26:43. | :26:46. | |
and preferably red, white and blue. And to go with with your | :26:47. | :26:49. | |
slice of patriotism, you obviously need tea and one | :26:50. | :26:52. | |
of these to put it in. And the only way to get one | :26:53. | :27:03. | |
is to tell us when this happened. And just to warn you, there | :27:04. | :27:07. | |
are flashing images from the start. MUSIC: Would I Lie To | :27:08. | :27:23. | |
You by Charles Eddie Who decides who's to be a number | :27:24. | :27:47. | |
of the British Cabinet - the Prime Minister or the editor | :27:48. | :27:54. | |
of the Daily Mail? # Girl, there's no one else | :27:55. | :27:56. | |
but you MUSIC: I Wonder Why | :27:57. | :27:58. | |
by Curtis Stigers # And I wonder why we hold | :27:59. | :28:16. | |
on with tears in our eyes #. It has turned out to be | :28:17. | :28:19. | |
an annus horribilis. # And I wonder why I can't seem to | :28:20. | :28:22. | |
tell you goodbye To be in with a chance of winning | :28:23. | :28:28. | |
a Daily Politics mug, send your answer to our special quiz | :28:29. | :28:53. | |
email address - that's We can right that so well on the | :28:54. | :28:56. | |
cake. -- write that. arrive by 12.30 today, | :28:57. | :29:03. | |
and you can see the full terms and conditions for Guess The Year | :29:04. | :29:06. | |
on our website - that's It's coming up to midday here - | :29:07. | :29:08. | |
just take a look at Big Ben - and that can mean only one thing - | :29:09. | :29:13. | |
yes, Prime Minister's That will lighten things um. Already | :29:14. | :29:17. | |
lightening up the studio, Laura Kuenssberg is here. You were telling | :29:18. | :29:24. | |
me that you think Mr Corbyn is going to go on schools funding? I think it | :29:25. | :29:28. | |
is very likely, not least because there is concern on the Labour | :29:29. | :29:31. | |
benches and lots of concern in the country. Many parents turning up to | :29:32. | :29:34. | |
public meetings on what is going on with their schools but there is also | :29:35. | :29:37. | |
concern on the Tory benches. Behind Theresa May there are plenty of | :29:38. | :29:43. | |
backbenchers, some former minute sisters, and one G Osborne who made | :29:44. | :29:48. | |
his concerns plain. I thought it was originallies his formula Well it | :29:49. | :29:54. | |
was. Never say that Mr G Osborne has what some people describe as you had | :29:55. | :29:59. | |
as aity. Is this Mr George Osborne former Chancellor, still MP or | :30:00. | :30:03. | |
George Osborne, editor-elect of the standed a. I think actually in a | :30:04. | :30:07. | |
letter to his local paper that he has published this morning, this is | :30:08. | :30:11. | |
one of the things he has said - I'm still a local MP fighting for you. | :30:12. | :30:15. | |
He has raised the schools' funding formula as something he has | :30:16. | :30:17. | |
expressed concerns about in Cheshire. He didn't quite mention | :30:18. | :30:21. | |
that actually it was something he announced as Chancellor, almost a | :30:22. | :30:26. | |
clear to the day. And beyond his territory somewhat at the time? It | :30:27. | :30:29. | |
was one of the interesting things, it was the sort of thing - here is | :30:30. | :30:33. | |
this Chancellor who had ambitions beyond his job. It was a Gordon | :30:34. | :30:39. | |
Brown move. It was a domestic land grab that David Cameron was in lock | :30:40. | :30:45. | |
step with. We can't forget how much the two of them were in lock step | :30:46. | :30:47. | |
together. It is a change in I would like to express my | :30:48. | :31:06. | |
condolences to the family and colleagues of the former First | :31:07. | :31:09. | |
Minister of Northern Ireland, Martin We do not condone the path he took | :31:10. | :31:16. | |
in the first period of his life. However, he played an indispensable | :31:17. | :31:20. | |
role in bringing the republican movement away from violence to | :31:21. | :31:23. | |
peaceful and democratic means and to building a better Northern Ireland. | :31:24. | :31:28. | |
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others | :31:29. | :31:31. | |
and in addition to my duties in this has, I shall have further such | :31:32. | :31:36. | |
meetings later today. The Prime Minister says that there is more | :31:37. | :31:40. | |
money for the National Health Service, more nurses and more | :31:41. | :31:49. | |
doctors, yet Bassetlaw breast care unit has been cut back and Bassetlaw | :31:50. | :31:53. | |
children's ward has been closed overnight. Something clearly does | :31:54. | :32:02. | |
not add up. I and the mothers of the most seriously ill children who use | :32:03. | :32:07. | |
the children's ward the most frequently offer to the Prime | :32:08. | :32:10. | |
Minister to work with her to solve this problem. Is her door at Number | :32:11. | :32:19. | |
Ten open to us? I say to the honourable gentleman, if we look at | :32:20. | :32:24. | |
what has happened in his area, his NHS Bassetlaw clinical commissioning | :32:25. | :32:27. | |
groups is receiving a cash increase, the Doncaster and Bassetlaw NHS | :32:28. | :32:32. | |
hospitals foundation trust have over 80 more doctors and nearly 30 more | :32:33. | :32:37. | |
nurses but of course what we see... He talks of listening to the voice | :32:38. | :32:40. | |
of local people in relation to health services in the local area. | :32:41. | :32:46. | |
That is exactly what the sustainability and transformation | :32:47. | :32:49. | |
plans are about. It is about hearing from local people and local | :32:50. | :32:53. | |
clinicians and putting together the health provisions that ensure that | :32:54. | :33:00. | |
they meet local needs. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Telford is a story of trans | :33:01. | :33:05. | |
formation and progress, from the ironmasters of the first industrial | :33:06. | :33:08. | |
revolution through to a new revolution in hi-tech manufacturing | :33:09. | :33:15. | |
in Telford today. It has helped build Britain. As this government | :33:16. | :33:17. | |
delivers on the democratic will of the British people and triggers | :33:18. | :33:24. | |
Article 50, will my right honourable friend tell us how Telford will | :33:25. | :33:28. | |
prosper from Brexit and from her plan for Britain? As I've said | :33:29. | :33:34. | |
before, the referendum result was not just about membership of the EU, | :33:35. | :33:39. | |
it was about to change the this country works and to make Britain a | :33:40. | :33:45. | |
country that works for everyone, not just the privileged few. And that's | :33:46. | :33:48. | |
why the plan for Britain is a plan to get the right deal for Britain | :33:49. | :33:53. | |
and abroad but also to build a stronger, fairer Britain for | :33:54. | :33:57. | |
ordinary working families here at home like those in Telford and I'm | :33:58. | :34:01. | |
pleased that we've already provided ?70 million of funding to the local | :34:02. | :34:09. | |
LEP to proof improve in the search in Telford. This government is | :34:10. | :34:12. | |
putting the resources and our plans are Britain will deliver that | :34:13. | :34:16. | |
stronger, fairer economy and a more united, more outward looking country | :34:17. | :34:23. | |
than ever before. Jeremy Corbyn. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. | :34:24. | :34:27. | |
Could I start by echoing the words of the Prime Minister concerning the | :34:28. | :34:30. | |
death of Martin McGuinness, the former deputy minister of Northern | :34:31. | :34:35. | |
Ireland. He died this week and our thoughts go to his family, his wife | :34:36. | :34:39. | |
Bernie and the wider community. Martin played an immeasurable role | :34:40. | :34:42. | |
in bringing about peace in Northern Ireland and it is that peace that we | :34:43. | :34:47. | |
all want to see energy for all time, for all people in Northern Ireland. | :34:48. | :34:54. | |
-- endure. The government is cutting the schools budget by 6.5% by 2020 | :34:55. | :35:00. | |
and today, we learn the proposed national funding formula will leave | :35:01. | :35:05. | |
1000 schools across England facing additional cuts of a further 7% | :35:06. | :35:11. | |
beyond 2020. Can the Prime Minister explain to parents why cutting | :35:12. | :35:16. | |
capital gains tax, cutting inheritance tax, cutting corporation | :35:17. | :35:22. | |
tax, cutting bank levy are all more important than our children's | :35:23. | :35:28. | |
future? This government is committed to ensuring that all our children | :35:29. | :35:31. | |
get the education that is right for them and that all our children have | :35:32. | :35:36. | |
a good school plays. That is what the Government's plans for education | :35:37. | :35:41. | |
will provide and that is building on a fine record of the past nearly | :35:42. | :35:46. | |
seven years for Conservatives in government, when we've seen 1.8 | :35:47. | :35:49. | |
million more children in good or outstanding schools. We've protected | :35:50. | :35:55. | |
the schools budget and the national funding formula is a consultation | :35:56. | :35:59. | |
and obviously there will be a number of views. The consultation closes | :36:00. | :36:04. | |
today and then the Department for Education will respond to that in | :36:05. | :36:08. | |
due course. The manifesto on which she fought the last election | :36:09. | :36:13. | |
promised that under a future Conservative government, the amount | :36:14. | :36:16. | |
of money following your child into school will be protected. No wonder | :36:17. | :36:22. | |
even be editor of the London Evening Standard is up in arms about this! | :36:23. | :36:31. | |
Where is he? There he is! Mr Speaker, the cuts to school funding | :36:32. | :36:36. | |
equates to the loss of two teachers across all primary schools, six | :36:37. | :36:40. | |
teachers across all secondary schools. So is the Prime Minister | :36:41. | :36:45. | |
advocating larger class sizes, shorter school days or unqualified | :36:46. | :36:52. | |
teachers? Which is it? As we said we would, we have protected the schools | :36:53. | :36:58. | |
budget. We now see more teachers in our schools, we see more teachers | :36:59. | :37:02. | |
with first-class degrees in our schools. As I say, we see 1.8 | :37:03. | :37:08. | |
million more children in good or outstanding schools. That's a result | :37:09. | :37:12. | |
of the policies of this government, of diversity in education, Free | :37:13. | :37:18. | |
Schools, academies, comprehensives, faith schools, universities, grammar | :37:19. | :37:22. | |
schools. We believe in diversity in education and choice for parents. He | :37:23. | :37:27. | |
believes in a one size fits all, take it or leave it model. She was | :37:28. | :37:34. | |
clearly elected on a pledge not to cut school funding and that is | :37:35. | :37:38. | |
exactly what's happening. Maybe she could listen to headteachers in West | :37:39. | :37:42. | |
Sussex, who say they believe savings will come from, and I quote, | :37:43. | :37:46. | |
staffing reductions, further increased class sizes, withdrawal of | :37:47. | :37:53. | |
counselling and pastoral services, modified school hours, reduction in | :37:54. | :37:58. | |
books, IT and equipment. I've got a heartfelt letter from a primary | :37:59. | :38:03. | |
school teacher by Remain Eileen. Eileen is one of our many hard | :38:04. | :38:10. | |
working teachers who cares our kids and she wrote to me to say, teachers | :38:11. | :38:15. | |
are purchasing items such as pens, pencils, glue sticks and paper out | :38:16. | :38:20. | |
of their own pockets. Fundraising events have quadrupled as funds are | :38:21. | :38:24. | |
so low that parents are having to make donations to purchase books. | :38:25. | :38:30. | |
This is disgraceful, says Eileen. Does the Prime Minister agree with | :38:31. | :38:36. | |
Eileen? We are seeing record levels of funding going into our schools. | :38:37. | :38:41. | |
We have protected the schools budget, we protected the pupil | :38:42. | :38:46. | |
premium, but what matters for parents is the quality of... You | :38:47. | :38:50. | |
shouldn't keep yelling out, what about Eileen? The Prime Minister | :38:51. | :38:59. | |
is... The Prime Minister is giving her response to the leader of the is | :39:00. | :39:03. | |
a, including the references to Eileen. The Prime Minister. What | :39:04. | :39:12. | |
matters for all of us who are concerned about education in this | :39:13. | :39:15. | |
country is to ensure that the quality of education that has | :39:16. | :39:20. | |
provided our children is a quality that enabled them to get on in life | :39:21. | :39:24. | |
and have a better future. That is what this government is about. It is | :39:25. | :39:28. | |
about ensuring that in this country, you get an on the basis of merit, | :39:29. | :39:34. | |
not privileged. It is about ensuring every child, every child... Every | :39:35. | :39:41. | |
child across this country has the opportunity of a good school plays. | :39:42. | :39:45. | |
That's what we have been delivering for the past seven years and is what | :39:46. | :39:49. | |
we will deliver into the future and every single policy that has | :39:50. | :39:54. | |
delivered better education for children has been opposed by the | :39:55. | :40:02. | |
right honourable gentleman. Mr Speaker, maybe she could have a word | :40:03. | :40:06. | |
with her friend the Member for the Cotswolds who said this week, under | :40:07. | :40:12. | |
this new formula all my large primaries and all my secondaries | :40:13. | :40:16. | |
will actually see a cash cut in their budgets. And in the budget, | :40:17. | :40:21. | |
the Government found no more money for the schools budget but it did | :40:22. | :40:28. | |
find ?320 million for her own special schools, grammar schools | :40:29. | :40:34. | |
vanity project. So there was no money for Eileen's schools but 320 | :40:35. | :40:38. | |
million for divisive grammar schools. What kind of priority is | :40:39. | :40:48. | |
that? First of all, what we have done in relation to the funding | :40:49. | :40:52. | |
formula is addressed an issue that Labour ignored for all its time in | :40:53. | :41:01. | |
government. Across... Across this House, there has generally, for many | :41:02. | :41:04. | |
years, been an accepted view that the current formula for school | :41:05. | :41:12. | |
funding is not fair. I was calling for a better funding formula over 15 | :41:13. | :41:15. | |
years ago when I was the Shadow Education Secretary. We've put | :41:16. | :41:20. | |
forward a proposal, we are consulting on it, the consultation | :41:21. | :41:27. | |
closes today and we will respond to that consultation. But he talks | :41:28. | :41:30. | |
about the issue of the sort of system in schools we want. Yes, we | :41:31. | :41:36. | |
want to diversity, different sorts of schools. We have put money into | :41:37. | :41:39. | |
new school places but I say to the right honourable gentleman, his | :41:40. | :41:44. | |
Shadow Home Secretary sent her child to a private school, his shadow | :41:45. | :41:48. | |
Attorney General sent her child to a private school. He sent... He sent | :41:49. | :41:57. | |
his child to a grammar school. He went to a grammar school himself. | :41:58. | :42:03. | |
Typical Labour - take the advantage and pull up the ladder behind you. | :42:04. | :42:22. | |
Mr Speaker... I want a decent, their opportunity for every child in every | :42:23. | :42:29. | |
school. I want a staircase for all, not a ladder for the few. She hasn't | :42:30. | :42:37. | |
been very good at convincing the former Secretary of State for | :42:38. | :42:40. | |
Education, the honourable member for Loughborough, who wrote last week," | :42:41. | :42:45. | |
all the evidence is clear that grammar schools damaged social | :42:46. | :42:51. | |
mobility". What evidence has the Prime Minister got that the former | :42:52. | :42:58. | |
Secretary of State is wrong in that? The evidence is that the attainment | :42:59. | :43:03. | |
for the poorest children, the attainment gap in a selective school | :43:04. | :43:08. | |
is virtually zero. That tells us the quality of the education that they | :43:09. | :43:15. | |
are getting. But what I want is a diverse education system, where | :43:16. | :43:18. | |
there are genuine opportunities for all to have the education that is | :43:19. | :43:22. | |
right for them. That's why in the budget, as well as dealing with the | :43:23. | :43:26. | |
issue of new school places, we've also put extra money into technical | :43:27. | :43:30. | |
education, for those young they will for whom the technical education is | :43:31. | :43:35. | |
right. He says he wants opportunities for all children, he | :43:36. | :43:39. | |
says he wants good school places for all children. When he should jolly | :43:40. | :43:42. | |
well support the policies we're putting forward. It is not just the | :43:43. | :43:48. | |
former Education Secretary, it is also the chair of the education | :43:49. | :43:53. | |
select committee, who says grammar schools do little for social | :43:54. | :43:55. | |
mobility and are an unnecessary distraction. Mr Speaker, the Prime | :43:56. | :44:01. | |
Minister and her government arbitrating a generation of young | :44:02. | :44:05. | |
people by cutting the funding of every child to adopt -- are | :44:06. | :44:10. | |
betraying. Children will have fewer teachers, larger classes, fewer | :44:11. | :44:14. | |
subjects to choose from and all the Prime Minister can do is focus on | :44:15. | :44:19. | |
her grammar school vanity project that can only ever benefit a few | :44:20. | :44:25. | |
children. Is the Prime Minister content that this generation, this | :44:26. | :44:28. | |
generation in our schools today, will see their schools decline, | :44:29. | :44:33. | |
their subject choices diminished, and their life chances held back by | :44:34. | :44:42. | |
decisions of her government today? Protected school funding, more | :44:43. | :44:46. | |
teachers in our schools, more teachers with first-class degrees in | :44:47. | :44:50. | |
our schools, more children in good or outstanding schools. It's not a | :44:51. | :44:55. | |
vanity project to want every child in this country to have a good | :44:56. | :44:59. | |
school plays, because that's how they will get on in life and that's | :45:00. | :45:06. | |
what this party will deliver. But it shows that there is a difference... | :45:07. | :45:11. | |
Yes. There is a difference between the right honourable gentleman and | :45:12. | :45:15. | |
meet it up earlier this week, he recorded a video calling for unity. | :45:16. | :45:21. | |
He called for Labour to think of our people first, think of our movement | :45:22. | :45:27. | |
first, think of the party first. That's the difference between him | :45:28. | :45:31. | |
and made it up labour but the party first, we put the country first. | :45:32. | :45:41. | |
Thank you, Mr Speaker. For searching Prime Ministers have taken a close | :45:42. | :45:52. | |
personal interest in the effectiveness of Dover and the | :45:53. | :45:55. | |
channelp ports as gateways and guardians of the kingdom. Can I ask | :45:56. | :46:00. | |
my right honourable friend to take a close interest in making sure Kent's | :46:01. | :46:04. | |
ports are ready for Brexit on day 1, not just for customs but also that | :46:05. | :46:08. | |
the lorry port is on schedule and that the Thames crossing are in | :46:09. | :46:13. | |
force. And Mr Speaker will you join with me and the Prime Minister in | :46:14. | :46:18. | |
wishing Dame Vera Lynn a happy 100th birthday this week? I'm extremely | :46:19. | :46:21. | |
grateful to the honourable gentleman, but I did do that a | :46:22. | :46:26. | |
couple of days ago. Mr Speaker, I didn't have the opportunity in this | :46:27. | :46:31. | |
House to do it a couple of days ago. I'm happy to wish Dame Vera Lynn a | :46:32. | :46:37. | |
very happy 100th birth day. I think it is right to recognise the service | :46:38. | :46:41. | |
she gave to this country as many others Z my honourable friend raises | :46:42. | :46:44. | |
an important issue of transport links in Kent and one which we have | :46:45. | :46:47. | |
discussed on a number of occasions as I have with other Kent MPs. In | :46:48. | :46:52. | |
addition to the M 20 lorry park I can assure him that the department | :46:53. | :46:56. | |
for department is fully committed to delivering a long-term solution as | :46:57. | :46:58. | |
quickly as possible. They're currently consider the findings of | :46:59. | :47:01. | |
the lower Thames crossing consultation and highways England | :47:02. | :47:04. | |
will be doing more detailed work on the A2 and the Home Office will be | :47:05. | :47:08. | |
looking very closely at what measures need to be in place for | :47:09. | :47:12. | |
Brexit for those coming across the border into Dover. | :47:13. | :47:18. | |
May I begin extending condolences as the Prime Minister and the leader of | :47:19. | :47:21. | |
the Labour Party have done to the family, friends and colleagues of | :47:22. | :47:24. | |
the former Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness. | :47:25. | :47:29. | |
And we pay tribute to his contribution towards peace, whilst | :47:30. | :47:32. | |
never forgetting the terrible human price during the Troubles. Last | :47:33. | :47:38. | |
year, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister promised that she would secure a | :47:39. | :47:45. | |
UK-wide agreement between the governments of Scotland, Wales and | :47:46. | :47:49. | |
Northern Ireland and her government, before triggering Article 50 own | :47:50. | :47:55. | |
Brexit. Article -- on Brexit. Since then, she has delayed, blocked, been | :47:56. | :48:00. | |
intransjet and lectured and surprise, surprise, she has no | :48:01. | :48:05. | |
agreement. There is no agreement. Will these be her negotiating | :48:06. | :48:12. | |
tactics with the European Union? Over the past few months, every | :48:13. | :48:17. | |
effort has been put in at various levels, at ministerial and official | :48:18. | :48:21. | |
levels to work with all the devolved administrations, to identify their | :48:22. | :48:24. | |
particular concerns and interests and to ensure we are able to take | :48:25. | :48:29. | |
those into account throughout the negotiating process and discussions | :48:30. | :48:33. | |
will continue in the future. What we want to ensure is that we get the | :48:34. | :48:38. | |
best-possible deal when we leave the European Union, for all the people | :48:39. | :48:42. | |
of the United Kingdom, including the people of Scotland. Because at heart | :48:43. | :48:51. | |
we are one people. And Mr Speaker, viewers will note that the Prime | :48:52. | :48:54. | |
Minister totally glossed over the fact she has reached no agreement | :48:55. | :48:58. | |
with the devolved governments of the United Kingdom. Mr Speaker, the | :48:59. | :49:04. | |
Prime Minister says that she wants Article 50 negotiations to lead to a | :49:05. | :49:09. | |
deal. And she wants people to know the outcome of that deal before it | :49:10. | :49:15. | |
is approved. So, will the Prime Minister confirm that in the period | :49:16. | :49:20. | |
for an I greement, the House of Commons will have a choice -- for an | :49:21. | :49:24. | |
agreement the House of Commons will have a choice, the House of Lords | :49:25. | :49:28. | |
will have a choice. The European Parliament will have a choi.s 27 | :49:29. | :49:31. | |
Member States of the European Union will have a choice. Mr Speaker, if | :49:32. | :49:36. | |
it is right for all of them to have a choice about Scotland's future, | :49:37. | :49:40. | |
why should the people of Scotland not have a choice about their own | :49:41. | :49:48. | |
future? This isn't a question about whether the people of Scotland | :49:49. | :50:02. | |
should have a choice. The people of Scotland voted - exercised their | :50:03. | :50:06. | |
right to self-determination and voted in 2014 to remain a part of | :50:07. | :50:14. | |
the United Kingdom. The people of the United Kingdom last year voted | :50:15. | :50:21. | |
to leave the European Union. We are respecting both of those votes. He | :50:22. | :50:31. | |
is respecting neither of them. Mr Speaker, with her strong commitment | :50:32. | :50:35. | |
to defence, would my right honourable friend agree that we must | :50:36. | :50:43. | |
stem the outflow from our flow slinking forces? Could I urge her to | :50:44. | :50:50. | |
reconsidering the approximatelicy she inherited of encouraging service | :50:51. | :50:54. | |
families to get on the housinger why and on the other hand focussing the | :50:55. | :51:00. | |
Army in areas where there is no affordable housing and applying the | :51:01. | :51:05. | |
new landlord tax arrangements of they buy-to-let. Obviously I | :51:06. | :51:09. | |
recognise the passion with with my honourable friend has raised these | :51:10. | :51:12. | |
issues in relation to the Armed Forces. He raises an important point | :51:13. | :51:16. | |
but I can assure him we are fully committed to our goal of an | :51:17. | :51:20. | |
82,000-strong Army by 2020. He raises a point about service | :51:21. | :51:23. | |
accommodation. We want to ensure that people have a greater choice in | :51:24. | :51:27. | |
where they of live, by using private accommodation, and meeting their | :51:28. | :51:29. | |
aspirations for home-ownership. That's why we have set up the ?200 | :51:30. | :51:35. | |
million forces help-to-buy scheme and we're considering to support | :51:36. | :51:39. | |
subsidised housing for service personnel and the pot of money will | :51:40. | :51:43. | |
not be cut. The Ministry of Defence is working with the Treasury in | :51:44. | :51:46. | |
relation to the issues he raises and I'm sure they will keep him updated. | :51:47. | :51:53. | |
Thank you Mr Speaker. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and | :51:54. | :51:57. | |
Northern Ireland will be 95 years' old in December N that UK-Scottish | :51:58. | :52:01. | |
economic growth is one-quarter of that independent Iceland and | :52:02. | :52:04. | |
one-third of independent Ireland. Now, given the Prime Minister | :52:05. | :52:07. | |
supports Irish independence and the benefits it has brought its economy | :52:08. | :52:11. | |
and population, why does she owe pose it for Scotland and will she | :52:12. | :52:15. | |
show Scotland the respect the EU shows the UK in regards to a | :52:16. | :52:23. | |
referendum. I have to say to the honourable gentleman that if he is | :52:24. | :52:27. | |
looking at issues around economic growth and he quoted figures for | :52:28. | :52:30. | |
economic groat. He should pay attention for the most important | :52:31. | :52:33. | |
market for Scotland. The most important market for Scotland is the | :52:34. | :52:37. | |
market of the United Kingdom and this is' why Scotland should remain | :52:38. | :52:44. | |
part of it. -- and that's why. Thank you, Mr Speaker, last week, with | :52:45. | :52:49. | |
cross-party support my honourable friend for chipping ham and I set up | :52:50. | :52:58. | |
an all-party group for lime disease this, debilitating disease is a | :52:59. | :53:01. | |
growing problem across the country and including my constituency of | :53:02. | :53:03. | |
North Dorset, yet awareness of it amongst the public and GPs is | :53:04. | :53:06. | |
incredibly low. Will my right honourable friend ensure that her | :53:07. | :53:09. | |
Government does all that it can to raise its profile and resolve the | :53:10. | :53:12. | |
problems surrounding both diagnosis and treatment? Well, my honourable | :53:13. | :53:17. | |
friend raises an important point. I commend him and my honourable friend | :53:18. | :53:21. | |
the member for chipping ham for the attention that is now going given in | :53:22. | :53:25. | |
the House to this issue. He is right, we do need to raise awareness | :53:26. | :53:29. | |
of this issue but we also need to ensure that diagnosis and treatment | :53:30. | :53:32. | |
is - early diagnosis and treatment is there because that's the best way | :53:33. | :53:36. | |
of limiting the complications from this particular disease. The | :53:37. | :53:39. | |
Department of Health is already taking steps, clinical guidelines | :53:40. | :53:42. | |
are being updated and enhanced by NICE. NHS England has undertaken | :53:43. | :53:47. | |
robust reviews on diagnosis, testing and treatment but there is more that | :53:48. | :53:51. | |
we can do and so Public Health England is holding regular medical | :53:52. | :53:54. | |
training days and conducting outreach across the medical | :53:55. | :53:57. | |
community to raise awareness and ensure that that early diagnosis is | :53:58. | :54:00. | |
there. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Yesterday in | :54:01. | :54:05. | |
a Westminster Hall debate a Health Minister said the issue in hand was | :54:06. | :54:08. | |
above his pay grade. On the basis that the Prime Minister has the top | :54:09. | :54:13. | |
pay grade, can she give us a clue as to when we'll see the long-aed | :54:14. | :54:16. | |
waited and very late tobacco-control plan? I can assure him that we are | :54:17. | :54:21. | |
working on the tobacco control plan and one will be issued in due | :54:22. | :54:25. | |
course. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Recently a | :54:26. | :54:30. | |
substantial number of Government ministers took the opportunity to | :54:31. | :54:37. | |
visit Cumbria. . Hear, hear. They saw for themselves not only its | :54:38. | :54:41. | |
beauty, but also its industrial strengths and its potential. If the | :54:42. | :54:46. | |
Government's industrial strategy is to succeed, places such as Cumbria | :54:47. | :54:50. | |
need to be part of that success. Plot Prime Minister ensure that | :54:51. | :54:53. | |
Cumbria gets the infrastructure investment which it requires to make | :54:54. | :54:57. | |
sure that it really does fulfil its potential? I can assure my | :54:58. | :55:01. | |
honourable friend that I and other ministerial colleagues were | :55:02. | :55:04. | |
delighted to be able it take the opportunity to visit the beautiful | :55:05. | :55:09. | |
county of Cumbria and we are even happier now Cumbria has another | :55:10. | :55:13. | |
strong force in the form of the Conservative MP for Copeland. But | :55:14. | :55:17. | |
he's right, Cumbria and the north-west has huge industrial | :55:18. | :55:19. | |
potential that's why we are getting on delivering our investment plans | :55:20. | :55:23. | |
across the country, including in the north-west. And just some figures, | :55:24. | :55:32. | |
?556 million allocated to produce productivity and north is getting | :55:33. | :55:35. | |
?156 million to tackle congestion and local interest. But it is our | :55:36. | :55:39. | |
plan for Britain that will deliver the stronger, fairer economy, and | :55:40. | :55:43. | |
that will deliver the higher-paid, higher-skilled jobs for people | :55:44. | :55:47. | |
across the whole country. The Prime Minister is in denial. | :55:48. | :55:52. | |
Today's report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirms that | :55:53. | :55:56. | |
schools are already facing "The largest cut in spending per pupil | :55:57. | :56:03. | |
over a four-year period since at least the early 1980s." And that | :56:04. | :56:08. | |
under her new national formula "You funding is diverted from schools | :56:09. | :56:11. | |
with very high level of deprivation." Every single school in | :56:12. | :56:21. | |
my constituency will lose an average of ?584 per pupil. Has she failed at | :56:22. | :56:28. | |
maths or failed to read her own manifesto? I responded to this point | :56:29. | :56:38. | |
earlier but just to reiterate - across this House, for many years, | :56:39. | :56:44. | |
there has been a general acceptance that the current funding formula for | :56:45. | :56:51. | |
schools is unfair. That is why this Government is looking to find a | :56:52. | :56:57. | |
formula, a fairer formula. There is a consultation exercise and the | :56:58. | :57:00. | |
Department for Education will respond to that in due course. We | :57:01. | :57:07. | |
are grasping this issue. Labour did nothing for 13 years. | :57:08. | :57:17. | |
Can my right honourable friend confirm that in the forthcoming | :57:18. | :57:21. | |
debate on the restoration and renewal of Parliament, all members, | :57:22. | :57:26. | |
including ministers, will have a completely free vote in what is a | :57:27. | :57:31. | |
House matter? And does she understand that many of us believe | :57:32. | :57:38. | |
that in these times of austerity, we should not be front-loading billions | :57:39. | :57:42. | |
of pounds worth of expenditure on ourselves at the expense of schools | :57:43. | :57:46. | |
and hospitals, but that we should carry on the work and stay in what | :57:47. | :57:55. | |
is the iconic image of the nation? Well, this Palace of Westminster is | :57:56. | :57:59. | |
world renowned, tss a very important part of our national heritage. It | :58:00. | :58:02. | |
belongs to the people of the United Kingdom and of course we have a | :58:03. | :58:05. | |
responsibility to our constituents, also, to preserve this place as the | :58:06. | :58:11. | |
home of our democracy. It will be for Parliament to take the final | :58:12. | :58:15. | |
decision on this matter but I can assure my honourable friend, as it | :58:16. | :58:19. | |
will be a House matter, it will be a free vote. Thank you Mr Speaker, air | :58:20. | :58:27. | |
and road pollution, caused mainly by diesel engines brings about 40,000 | :58:28. | :58:32. | |
early deaths in this country, while causing severe lung diseases, like | :58:33. | :58:36. | |
bronchitis and asthma in our young people and children. A road in my | :58:37. | :58:43. | |
constituency in Crumlin is the most polluted road outside of lob dovenl | :58:44. | :58:48. | |
it is an absolute disgrace. Most of it is caused by HGVs lorries | :58:49. | :58:53. | |
travelling up that road, spewing out noxious gases on the residents. Will | :58:54. | :58:58. | |
the Prime Minister commit to ensure that hauliers will start using newer | :58:59. | :59:04. | |
diesel engines and cleaner technology and cleaner inner joy to | :59:05. | :59:08. | |
ensure that everybody, including our young people, can enjoy a better | :59:09. | :59:13. | |
quality of life, especially on the road in my constituency? The | :59:14. | :59:16. | |
honourable gentleman speaks up well for his constituents. I have to say | :59:17. | :59:20. | |
to him this is an issue that we all recognise, the problems in relation | :59:21. | :59:23. | |
to air quality. That's why the Government will be bringing forward | :59:24. | :59:25. | |
further proposals in relation to air quality. We have seen some changes | :59:26. | :59:30. | |
taking place and we have, of course, put investment into green transport | :59:31. | :59:33. | |
initiatives and plans to introduce clean air zones around the country | :59:34. | :59:38. | |
will help to tackle and that in fact we have been at the forefront of | :59:39. | :59:41. | |
action in Europe in some aspects in relation to this. I accept there is | :59:42. | :59:47. | |
more to be done. As I say we'll bring forward further proportional | :59:48. | :59:51. | |
in due course Compensation paid by Network Rail to train operators for | :59:52. | :59:56. | |
delays, far exceeds the amount that the passengers who have experienced | :59:57. | :00:02. | |
the delayed are getting because the process can be come boresome. Will | :00:03. | :00:07. | |
the Prime Minister insist the train operators ringfence that company, | :00:08. | :00:10. | |
spend it on smart ticketing automation, so customers can tap on | :00:11. | :00:13. | |
and tap off their train and receive the amount in their bank account for | :00:14. | :00:17. | |
the delays they have been caused? My honourable friend does raise an | :00:18. | :00:22. | |
important point. I know it is a source of much frustration to many | :00:23. | :00:25. | |
rail travellers but I would also like it thank him for the way in | :00:26. | :00:29. | |
which he and others have spoken up on behalf of passengers especially | :00:30. | :00:32. | |
on the Thameslink, Southern and other lines. Now the best way to | :00:33. | :00:37. | |
ensure that the operators do not profit from unclaimed compensation | :00:38. | :00:40. | |
is for passengers to claim the compensation that they are entitled | :00:41. | :00:44. | |
to and we are looking and Department for Transport is looking at how we | :00:45. | :00:48. | |
can ensure that we publicise compensation schemes, make claims | :00:49. | :00:54. | |
easier and we are rolling out improved delay repay compensation to | :00:55. | :00:58. | |
allow passengers to claim after a delay of 15 minutes but the | :00:59. | :01:00. | |
Department for Transport is continuing to look at this issue and | :01:01. | :01:03. | |
I'm sure will pick up the points he has raised. | :01:04. | :01:08. | |
Last week the Electoral Commission issued its largest ever find the | :01:09. | :01:15. | |
Conservative Party for breaking a vital and crucial election ruled. | :01:16. | :01:19. | |
What did the Prime Minister, the Cabinet and her assistants know | :01:20. | :01:23. | |
about this activity, who was responsible for designing and | :01:24. | :01:26. | |
signing off all of this and does she agree with me that this is at best | :01:27. | :01:31. | |
wilful negligence and at worst pure electoral fraud? The honourable | :01:32. | :01:38. | |
gentleman is asking me to respond to what is a party matter but I can | :01:39. | :01:43. | |
assure him that the Conservative Party debt campaign in 2015 across | :01:44. | :01:51. | |
the country for the return of a Conservative government and we | :01:52. | :01:52. | |
should be clear that such campaigning would be part of the | :01:53. | :01:58. | |
party's national return, not candidates' local return, as the | :01:59. | :02:02. | |
Electoral Commission itself has said. We accepted in April 2016, the | :02:03. | :02:07. | |
party accepted Ray Poar 2016, it had made an administrative error on its | :02:08. | :02:12. | |
national spending. -- accepted in April 2016. It brought back to the | :02:13. | :02:16. | |
attention of the commission to amend its national return. National | :02:17. | :02:21. | |
spending is a question for the national party, not for individual | :02:22. | :02:24. | |
members. The Electoral Commission has looked into these issues, as it | :02:25. | :02:30. | |
has for the Liberal Democrat party and the Labour Party, it has issued | :02:31. | :02:34. | |
fines to all three parties and those fines will be paid. The | :02:35. | :02:40. | |
international trade committee has been taking evidence from the | :02:41. | :02:42. | |
chambers of commerce this morning about exports. Given the Prime | :02:43. | :02:46. | |
Minister's commitment to a global Britain, would she agree with me | :02:47. | :02:49. | |
that we can maintain good relations with our European friends as we | :02:50. | :02:55. | |
leave the EU and build on our long-standing relationships with our | :02:56. | :02:57. | |
Commonwealth friends across the world to trade our way to greater | :02:58. | :03:02. | |
prosperity? I say to him, obviously one of the four pillars are planned | :03:03. | :03:06. | |
for Britain is that global Britain, and more outward looking Britain. He | :03:07. | :03:10. | |
is right, it's not just a question of ensuring you get the right | :03:11. | :03:14. | |
relationship with Europe when we leave the EU, we do want to continue | :03:15. | :03:18. | |
to have a partnership, to be able to trade freely across Europe and for | :03:19. | :03:24. | |
companies in European member states, EU member states, to trade with us. | :03:25. | :03:29. | |
But we do want to enhance and improve the arrangements we have | :03:30. | :03:32. | |
portrayed in other parts of the world, including members of the | :03:33. | :03:37. | |
Commonwealth. Last week, through no fault of our own, Amy and her young | :03:38. | :03:43. | |
daughter became homeless. After months of looking for a flat, she | :03:44. | :03:47. | |
finally went to Merton council, who told her they could only offer her | :03:48. | :03:52. | |
temporary accommodation in Birmingham, 140 miles away from her | :03:53. | :03:57. | |
job, from her daughter's school and from the friends and family who make | :03:58. | :04:01. | |
it possible for her to be a working single mum. Can I ask the Prime | :04:02. | :04:07. | |
Minister, in one of the richest cities in the world, where Russian | :04:08. | :04:12. | |
oligarchs and Chinese banks own scores of properties and leave them | :04:13. | :04:19. | |
empty, how can it be right that a London born working family like Amy | :04:20. | :04:27. | |
have not a room to live? Well, the issue, obviously, of housing in the | :04:28. | :04:29. | |
London Borough of Merton is one that the honourable lady and I worked on | :04:30. | :04:33. | |
many years ago when we were on the housing committee of the London | :04:34. | :04:36. | |
Borough of Merton together and I recognise that she has raised a | :04:37. | :04:40. | |
concern for her constituent. Obviously, I won't comment on the | :04:41. | :04:46. | |
individual case. What I will say is what's important is that overall, | :04:47. | :04:49. | |
the Government is dealing with the issue of homelessness, we are rich | :04:50. | :04:53. | |
we are building more homes, we are giving more support to people to get | :04:54. | :05:00. | |
into their own homes. -- we are ensuring we are building more homes. | :05:01. | :05:04. | |
That will take time and as we ensure we maintain the record that we have | :05:05. | :05:09. | |
in providing housing support in all types of housing across this | :05:10. | :05:13. | |
country. As the Prime Minister already said, it must be right that | :05:14. | :05:17. | |
the same pupils with the same characteristics attract the same | :05:18. | :05:20. | |
amount of money and that is an unfairness that was not challenged | :05:21. | :05:23. | |
for 13 years under the Labour government. Yes, there needed to be | :05:24. | :05:28. | |
changes to the current draft formula but I hope that she will commit to | :05:29. | :05:32. | |
confirm -- to fulfilling our manifesto promise of making school | :05:33. | :05:36. | |
funding fairer and I think she will agree with me that if the Labour | :05:37. | :05:39. | |
Party had carried on in office, their spending plans would have led | :05:40. | :05:42. | |
to what has happened in Greece and Spain where not just hundreds, but | :05:43. | :05:46. | |
tens of thousands of teachers, have had to be fired. My right honourable | :05:47. | :05:51. | |
friend is right. As I said earlier, this is an issue in terms of the | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
funding formula for schools that was docked for too long and certainly | :05:57. | :05:58. | |
doctored by the last Labour government. We have started to | :05:59. | :06:05. | |
address it. -- docked. We have put forward a proposal, we will look at | :06:06. | :06:09. | |
the consultation responses on that and respond in due course but she is | :06:10. | :06:13. | |
absolutely right about the Labour Party. The Labour Party's education | :06:14. | :06:17. | |
policies would mean fewer opportunities in schools and their | :06:18. | :06:20. | |
economic policy would mean less funding for schools. Last week, her | :06:21. | :06:30. | |
government confirmed that an assessment of the economic impact of | :06:31. | :06:35. | |
the failure to strike in EU deal before exited top is it not the case | :06:36. | :06:39. | |
that in triggering Article 50 last week, she is the military equivalent | :06:40. | :06:43. | |
of Lord Cardigan, the military commander responsible for the child | :06:44. | :06:46. | |
of light Brigade, and we all love how that ended? In triggering | :06:47. | :06:51. | |
Article 50 next week, what I'm doing is responding to the wishes of the | :06:52. | :06:58. | |
British people. Does the Prime Minister agree that we urgently need | :06:59. | :07:03. | |
to find a solution to the impacts of the national living wage on sleeping | :07:04. | :07:08. | |
shifts in the care sector? This, together with HMRC policies that are | :07:09. | :07:13. | |
insisting on a payment of six-years' backpay plus penalties, may have a | :07:14. | :07:17. | |
devastating impact on this vitally important sector. He has raised a | :07:18. | :07:22. | |
very important point and obviously, through the national living wage, we | :07:23. | :07:26. | |
are giving Britain a pay rise, making sure pay is fair, in social | :07:27. | :07:32. | |
care and all sectors. But on the specific pointy has raised, this is | :07:33. | :07:34. | |
an issue we are addressing, we are looking at it very carefully, | :07:35. | :07:38. | |
including in the context of the funding pressures on social care. We | :07:39. | :07:45. | |
are working to ensure it affects low paid workers in a fair and | :07:46. | :07:48. | |
proportionate manner. As the Chancellor announced in the budget, | :07:49. | :07:51. | |
?2 billion of extra money is going into the social care sector but the | :07:52. | :07:54. | |
very specific issue my honourable friend has raised is being carefully | :07:55. | :08:01. | |
looked at by the Treasury. Despite austerity, shocking pay increases | :08:02. | :08:05. | |
were awarded to the board of Liverpool CCG, where a lady deputy | :08:06. | :08:15. | |
chair is paid over ?100,000 after a 43% increase. -- a lay deputy | :08:16. | :08:23. | |
checked it would the Minister agree to investigate this and the lack of | :08:24. | :08:26. | |
scrutiny within the wider Liverpool health economy, whilst ensuring that | :08:27. | :08:34. | |
no murders take place while this is investigated? I understand that the | :08:35. | :08:38. | |
Health Secretary has asked NHS England to investigate the | :08:39. | :08:41. | |
remuneration of nonexecutive directors at Liverpool CCG and I'm | :08:42. | :08:45. | |
sure he will keep updated about this. We want to make the NHS even | :08:46. | :08:48. | |
more efficient so every penny possible can be spent on front line | :08:49. | :08:52. | |
patient care and we are seeing results, I'm pleased to say, because | :08:53. | :08:56. | |
we now see a financial position that has improved by 1.3 billion compared | :08:57. | :08:59. | |
to this time last year with 44 fewer trust endeavours it but, as I say, | :09:00. | :09:04. | |
NHS England is investigating the issue she has raised. The Prime | :09:05. | :09:10. | |
Minister will be aware that the Jo Cox commission on loneliness is | :09:11. | :09:14. | |
calling us all to action to highlight and tackle loneliness. In | :09:15. | :09:17. | |
Northumberland, a small charity of which I'm a patron is taking up this | :09:18. | :09:21. | |
challenge with female military veterans who are suffering from | :09:22. | :09:23. | |
severe isolation issues. With the Prime Minister meet with me and some | :09:24. | :09:29. | |
of these extraordinary women to learn how our government can help? | :09:30. | :09:36. | |
Can I commend the work that is being done by that organisation in my | :09:37. | :09:39. | |
honourable friend's constituency. It sounds like a valuable project doing | :09:40. | :09:44. | |
valuable work and state for defence will be happy to meet her. Tomorrow | :09:45. | :09:49. | |
the schools minister has been good enough to meet Erdington | :09:50. | :09:52. | |
Headteachers from a constituency rich in talent but one of the | :09:53. | :09:57. | |
poorest in the country in a city, Birmingham, where 96% of schools | :09:58. | :10:02. | |
will lose a total of ?20 million under the government's fair funding | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
formula, yet Surrey gained 17 million, Southwark gains ten million | :10:08. | :10:11. | |
and Windsor and Maidenhead gained 300,000. How can that possibly be | :10:12. | :10:18. | |
fair? I note that the schools minister will be meeting the | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
honourable gentleman and head teachers to discuss this issue. What | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
the fair funding formula is looking at is trying to ensure that the | :10:27. | :10:30. | |
unfair funding which has existed up till now is actually dealt with, and | :10:31. | :10:37. | |
there are some very, very stark differences. There are schools in | :10:38. | :10:41. | |
London, for example, that gets almost twice the funding of schools | :10:42. | :10:45. | |
in other parts of the country. We need to ensure that we are | :10:46. | :10:48. | |
addressing the unfairness in the funding formula but, as I said | :10:49. | :10:52. | |
earlier, there was a consultation exercise and the department will | :10:53. | :10:53. | |
respond in due course. As Laura predicted, the Leader of | :10:54. | :11:10. | |
the Opposition went on school funding. It was a matter we | :11:11. | :11:19. | |
discussed before let's find out first what our viewers made of this. | :11:20. | :11:27. | |
This from John Wakefield in London, we keep hearing the mantra from the | :11:28. | :11:30. | |
Tories when the issue of austerity is raised regarding spending, the | :11:31. | :11:34. | |
children of tomorrow will have to pay the price, well, it appears the | :11:35. | :11:41. | |
children of today do not count. Helen Manning says, Jeremy Corbyn | :11:42. | :11:46. | |
and his front bench went to grammar and private schools while they want | :11:47. | :11:49. | |
to pull up the drawbridge for the rest of us? The Prime Minister is | :11:50. | :11:52. | |
right to offer diversity of choice and should stick to her guns. Tom | :11:53. | :11:56. | |
Baker says the schools budget is being protected but Jeremy Corbyn | :11:57. | :12:01. | |
says it is being cut. The Prime Minister seemed unconvincing and | :12:02. | :12:05. | |
even started to lose her cool. And John Gilbert from Leicester says, | :12:06. | :12:09. | |
"For Jeremy Corbyn today and he actually managed to score. One of | :12:10. | :12:14. | |
Theresa May's worst performances, trying to defend the indefensible. | :12:15. | :12:22. | |
This is a matter for England. 11,000 schools better off, 9000 worse off. | :12:23. | :12:27. | |
Those who are worse off will always have the loudest voices. Is the | :12:28. | :12:32. | |
government worried that it can carry the Tory backbenches on this? I was | :12:33. | :12:36. | |
talking to a cabinet minister about this earlier this week and at this | :12:37. | :12:39. | |
stage, they do not see this as the next national insurance or the next | :12:40. | :12:45. | |
business rates budget or the next U-turn, at this stage. There are | :12:46. | :12:51. | |
several reasons for that. First, the consultation is a safety valve for | :12:52. | :12:55. | |
the government. Any government, when they are trying to do anything | :12:56. | :12:58. | |
difficult, you have a consultation, get all the worries out there, you | :12:59. | :13:02. | |
can always tweak, change, redraft the plans. Secondly, this was the | :13:03. | :13:06. | |
Conservative manifesto and look what has just happened in the last two | :13:07. | :13:10. | |
weeks. They've dumped something in the budget at 100 miles an hour | :13:11. | :13:15. | |
because of the accusation of breaking a manifesto promise. | :13:16. | :13:18. | |
Thirdly, there is a genuine belief, as we heard the Prime Minister, | :13:19. | :13:21. | |
having quite a hard time trying to defend the idea behind this, that | :13:22. | :13:26. | |
the change is long overdue. I think there will probably be an awful lot | :13:27. | :13:30. | |
of tweaking and redrafting. But they're not minded at this moment to | :13:31. | :13:34. | |
budge on the principle of whether or not the change, the principle of the | :13:35. | :13:39. | |
change, has to happen. Brandon Lewis, the Conservative manifesto | :13:40. | :13:42. | |
did not use the phrase per-pupil bodies at the following... "Under a | :13:43. | :13:47. | |
future Conservative government, the amount of money following your child | :13:48. | :13:53. | |
into school will be protected". I think most people would assume that | :13:54. | :13:57. | |
that protects spending per pupil. I will repeat the words. "The amount | :13:58. | :14:02. | |
of money following your child into school will be protected". I read | :14:03. | :14:07. | |
that that it is about protecting that schools budget. As the Prime | :14:08. | :14:12. | |
Minister said, we have done that and it is increasing. No, the amount of | :14:13. | :14:17. | |
money following your child, as if each child had a bag of money to go | :14:18. | :14:22. | |
in that would help to pay for their school education. That amount into | :14:23. | :14:26. | |
school will be protected. Philip Hammond said it was important to | :14:27. | :14:31. | |
live by the spirit of the manifesto, as well as the exact letter, which | :14:32. | :14:36. | |
is why he had to do the U-turn on national insurance. I would suggest | :14:37. | :14:39. | |
to you that many people would think the spirit there, if not the exact | :14:40. | :14:44. | |
letter, of the amount of money following your child into school | :14:45. | :14:47. | |
will be protected, is that spending per pupil will be protected. I think | :14:48. | :14:53. | |
it's a something quite different to that. My interpretation is that it | :14:54. | :14:56. | |
is making a general point about children, it is not saying | :14:57. | :15:00. | |
per-pupil, it is talking about your child in a general sense and I think | :15:01. | :15:04. | |
the spirit of the manifesto means education spending is protected. It | :15:05. | :15:09. | |
has gone up to 42 billion. But as we said in a manifesto, making sure you | :15:10. | :15:13. | |
have a fair funding formula. We are having to do work in a range of | :15:14. | :15:17. | |
sectors to get a fair formula. The manifesto goes on to say in the next | :15:18. | :15:23. | |
sentence, "Having said that the amount of money following your child | :15:24. | :15:27. | |
into school will be protected, as the number of pupils increases," | :15:28. | :15:34. | |
because the government knew that... It is not a difficult thing to | :15:35. | :15:37. | |
predict for primary and secondary education, that the number of pupils | :15:38. | :15:42. | |
increases, "So will the amount of money into our schools". But having | :15:43. | :15:46. | |
said the amount following your child would be protected and that will be | :15:47. | :15:50. | |
protected even as the number of pupils arises, you didn't do that | :15:51. | :15:57. | |
because with the rise in the number of pupils, the amount per as we've | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
established earlier, is falling in real terms by about a % so I put it | :16:03. | :16:06. | |
to you again, a lot of people will think you have not kept to the | :16:07. | :16:08. | |
spirit of that manifesto. Auto I disagree with your issue. I | :16:09. | :16:20. | |
appreciate about inflation but there is work we can do around | :16:21. | :16:23. | |
efficiencies but it is making sure everybody has fair funding so pupils | :16:24. | :16:26. | |
wherever they are in the country get funding that is fair that hasn't | :16:27. | :16:29. | |
been dealt with for a long time. It is important we get it done. Hold | :16:30. | :16:33. | |
on, there is nowhere in the manifesto... That's also why it is | :16:34. | :16:39. | |
important that we get... It says it doesn't say - in order to keep the | :16:40. | :16:47. | |
funding up in real terms, it is not in the manifesto You are talking | :16:48. | :16:50. | |
about the real terms, and efficiency is part of that. It is important we | :16:51. | :16:54. | |
get that right. Costs are going up Schools can look at some of the | :16:55. | :16:57. | |
efficiency in terms of procurement, HR, What about staffing costs and | :16:58. | :17:01. | |
pension contributions? Staffing costs are part of HR. If you are | :17:02. | :17:04. | |
looking at schools and there are schools who have their own teams | :17:05. | :17:08. | |
looking at mod argues, HR and legal issues. Sharing those across schools | :17:09. | :17:12. | |
in the same area can bring huge efficiencies but it is about making | :17:13. | :17:17. | |
sure we get the best outcomes. It is one of the reasons why the | :17:18. | :17:20. | |
Government could be in political trouble. Two things are smashing | :17:21. | :17:24. | |
upping together: One, the real pressure you have been discussing on | :17:25. | :17:27. | |
schools budgets and the schools changes to how the formula are | :17:28. | :17:32. | |
calculated for who gets what. Now, in theory, this policy land, those | :17:33. | :17:36. | |
are two different things, but here what they mean n practice, are | :17:37. | :17:41. | |
potentially much bigger losses than otherwise would've happened for | :17:42. | :17:43. | |
schools in different pockets of the country. Two things going on, cuts | :17:44. | :17:47. | |
on the one hand and changes to the formula that are making itting | :17:48. | :17:51. | |
together, such a political problem. Is Labour -- making it together. Is | :17:52. | :17:56. | |
Labour in favour of the principle behind the school funding formula | :17:57. | :17:59. | |
Well, Labour is obviously very concerned that there has b as you | :18:00. | :18:07. | |
have said, a broken promise, that was in the spirit of the | :18:08. | :18:11. | |
Conservative manifesto, the detail. What concerns us is that these cuts | :18:12. | :18:14. | |
mean the logs of two secondary school teachers in every secondary | :18:15. | :18:18. | |
school across the country but at the same time the Government is finding | :18:19. | :18:23. | |
money, that Jeremy Corbyn said today this, vanity project of expanding | :18:24. | :18:27. | |
divisive grammar schools. Let me come back to the spending in a | :18:28. | :18:31. | |
minute but nemplts principle behind school funding, attempting to | :18:32. | :18:35. | |
equalise spending, to bring spending for each school more in line with | :18:36. | :18:39. | |
the circumstances of that school, because there are huge variations at | :18:40. | :18:41. | |
the moment, do you support that principle or not? Well, Labour | :18:42. | :18:46. | |
doesn't believe that it should be the that in some parts of the | :18:47. | :18:50. | |
country people get much more funding than others in similar social | :18:51. | :18:53. | |
circumstances. So you do support the principle? We support the principle | :18:54. | :18:58. | |
of fair funding for pupils so there aren't pupils being left behind, who | :18:59. | :19:02. | |
are in the same social circumstances as people in... I understand but | :19:03. | :19:06. | |
that's what prompted the new form la. The thing that particularly | :19:07. | :19:10. | |
concerns us, the nub of it that concerns Labour is the fact that | :19:11. | :19:16. | |
these cuts, another broken proims, will mean less money for pupils in | :19:17. | :19:25. | |
our schools across the country. So, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, as | :19:26. | :19:29. | |
I have been probably labouring, with a small l, here, is likely to fall | :19:30. | :19:33. | |
by about 8% over the next five years, in the lifetime of this | :19:34. | :19:36. | |
Parliament, it is going to call by 8%. Would Labour restore that? Well, | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
what Labour wouldn't have done is give tax cuts to the very richest, | :19:42. | :19:46. | |
corporation tax cuts as well. But you have already spent that. Which | :19:47. | :19:53. | |
has seen a forecast from the House of Commons' library of losses to the | :19:54. | :19:57. | |
public purse of billions and billions of pounds. That's not from | :19:58. | :20:00. | |
the House of Commons library. What the Labour Party did was to consult | :20:01. | :20:04. | |
House of Commons' library. That is not research by the Commons' library | :20:05. | :20:07. | |
which we regard as the gold standard. I think you have to be | :20:08. | :20:12. | |
careful when you use that. It is your research, you consulted the | :20:13. | :20:15. | |
Commons. Let me,back to this - would you make up the short fall of the 8% | :20:16. | :20:21. | |
cut, and if so, how would you pay for it Well, Labour announced its | :20:22. | :20:26. | |
specific problem in due course. -- will announce. So you don't know. | :20:27. | :20:29. | |
When it comes to specific spending commitments on education and a host | :20:30. | :20:32. | |
of other thing, Labour will announce. No opposition will be | :20:33. | :20:35. | |
announcing detailed spending plans years and years away from the next | :20:36. | :20:39. | |
election. I don't think, yes, except as I have been told by other members | :20:40. | :20:43. | |
on other problems of your party, you are on an election footing. I was | :20:44. | :20:49. | |
told at the weekend on the Sunday politics by your head of election, | :20:50. | :20:55. | |
Mr Gwyn, if they were to go for an early election, Labour MPs would | :20:56. | :21:01. | |
vote and Mr Corbyn would vote for an early election. Is that right? If it | :21:02. | :21:06. | |
is the case you are applying, that would mean we would have to print a | :21:07. | :21:10. | |
general election manifesto every day. No because you aspire to run | :21:11. | :21:14. | |
the country and you think an election could be called at any | :21:15. | :21:18. | |
moment, Mr Corbyn has told us and that has been since the election | :21:19. | :21:22. | |
last September, given how much you care about health and education, you | :21:23. | :21:26. | |
must have developed these policies, so it is fair to ask, how would you | :21:27. | :21:31. | |
reverse the 8% cut in real terms. If so, do you know how much it would | :21:32. | :21:35. | |
cost and how much would you pay? How would you pay for it? Our priorities | :21:36. | :21:38. | |
are fundamentally different to the priorities of the Conservative | :21:39. | :21:41. | |
Government. I'm in the asking that. People need to know that out there. | :21:42. | :21:46. | |
They need to know if you know how to pay for all these spending pledges. | :21:47. | :21:50. | |
So far you've spent the reverse of the corporation tax about eight | :21:51. | :21:55. | |
times. 10. Well I missed the last two. We wouldn't be making those | :21:56. | :22:01. | |
decisions to release money from the public purse, miss money out from | :22:02. | :22:05. | |
the public coffers, at the same time as cutting pupil finding and | :22:06. | :22:08. | |
breaking Labour manifestos. I wasn't asking what you weren't going to do, | :22:09. | :22:12. | |
I was trying to find out what are you going to do. I'm sure if there | :22:13. | :22:16. | |
is an early election you have something in the bottom drawer to | :22:17. | :22:18. | |
answer the questions. Lawyeria, final word? I think it is risskey | :22:19. | :22:27. | |
territory from the Government. I think it was an unusually angry | :22:28. | :22:34. | |
Prime Minister's Questions on both sides and pure ideological | :22:35. | :22:37. | |
difference. The Prime Minister's plans to bring back grammars, all | :22:38. | :22:41. | |
this simmering away. Very uncomfortable for the Government | :22:42. | :22:45. | |
Very uncomfortable. A better week for Jeremy Corbyn. Not killer blows | :22:46. | :22:49. | |
but this is an issue that's very give and right now they don't want | :22:50. | :22:53. | |
to budge on this principle, as I was suggesting, but you never know. We | :22:54. | :22:57. | |
shall see. We are learning it is a Government that is willing to change | :22:58. | :23:00. | |
its mind as things get hard. Keep your eye on school funding. It is | :23:01. | :23:02. | |
time to talk about cake. Crumbs, eh? So what happens when - | :23:03. | :23:09. | |
for Comic Relief, of course - you put a load of parliamentarians | :23:10. | :23:11. | |
in a big tent with a load Mm, nice cup of tea, | :23:12. | :23:14. | |
wasn't that a long PMQs. What I could really | :23:15. | :23:24. | |
do with now is a... Cake ruined - I mean decorated | :23:25. | :23:26. | |
by the hands of democrasy and The reigning champion was hungry | :23:27. | :23:35. | |
for victory once more. When it comes to baking cakes | :23:36. | :23:43. | |
and decorating cakes, more is more, that's a lesson my children | :23:44. | :23:46. | |
have taught me. I think we have a high | :23:47. | :23:48. | |
art concept cake there and I'm looking forward | :23:49. | :23:51. | |
to win the prize. The rampant bunny cupcake, | :23:52. | :23:55. | |
specially designed for Comic Relief and it's | :23:56. | :23:57. | |
only 99 calories. Interesting our MPs chose cake | :23:58. | :24:01. | |
decorating over sitting in a bath of baked beans to raise | :24:02. | :24:10. | |
money for Comic Relief. When I was a teacher, | :24:11. | :24:13. | |
I once taught for a whole day dressed up as a duck | :24:14. | :24:15. | |
and I've always felt that maybe we should do something | :24:16. | :24:19. | |
like that in Parliament. I've never been able to find a taker | :24:20. | :24:24. | |
for this approach, so, You can expect next door's hamster | :24:25. | :24:26. | |
to decorate a cake better than most of these MPs, | :24:27. | :24:32. | |
but it's great fun and it's Do you know what, | :24:33. | :24:35. | |
this lot are rubbish. Yeah, all right, it | :24:36. | :24:38. | |
all tastes the same. That was hopeless. My mother used to | :24:39. | :25:02. | |
say - it's all going down the same way. That's true but you want to | :25:03. | :25:06. | |
look nice as well. Talking of which, here is how we got on with our | :25:07. | :25:10. | |
earlier efforts. We asked our esteemed guests and give them a cake | :25:11. | :25:15. | |
each. Look there they are, it looks like the Generation Game, do you | :25:16. | :25:19. | |
remember they used to do that. Cuddly toy. Good game, good game. We | :25:20. | :25:25. | |
gave them a set of different coloured icing. Look, the two | :25:26. | :25:29. | |
concentrating so hard. Look, you can see Brandon Lewis thinks he's got | :25:30. | :25:36. | |
something beautiful being created. I never said that. I said you | :25:37. | :25:41. | |
thought it. And Richard Burgon going for what I would say is a - Labour | :25:42. | :25:49. | |
motive. A Labour rose. You are very politically correct. There is mine. | :25:50. | :25:54. | |
Andrew didn't think I would finish my piping during PMQs. | :25:55. | :26:01. | |
I didn't think you would but then I stopped caring. | :26:02. | :26:10. | |
So, to give us an idea of what a well decorated | :26:11. | :26:12. | |
cake should look like, we have brought in an expert. | :26:13. | :26:15. | |
Yes, I said "expert" - a cake school tutor from Konditor | :26:16. | :26:17. | |
Show us how it should be done. What are you got on the top of your cake? | :26:18. | :26:23. | |
So, I got the Daily Politics theme on there and a bit of the style of | :26:24. | :26:29. | |
the logo. I got the... The colours a little bit. The BBC logo of course | :26:30. | :26:35. | |
and some elements into the politics I designed. So when you do it, | :26:36. | :26:39. | |
hopefully a little bit better than you... Them, I think, not me All of | :26:40. | :26:46. | |
you, exactly. You have to have a steady hand. You do. It is quite | :26:47. | :26:50. | |
difficult. Actually the quicker you go, the better it is. Can you judge | :26:51. | :26:59. | |
in Richard and Brandon's case? It is quite minimalistic. I said - less is | :27:00. | :27:04. | |
more. But we can definitely stick to the swirly pattern that we normally | :27:05. | :27:09. | |
have on our cakes. I can see some Easter trends with an Easter nest. | :27:10. | :27:13. | |
And obviously the roses there. Have they risen to the challenge? Well, I | :27:14. | :27:18. | |
would say, definitely kept to the theme of, you know - the rose. It is | :27:19. | :27:23. | |
safe for public consumption as well? Is it? Now, what about mine? Is that | :27:24. | :27:31. | |
half-baked or... ? I like it because it has a nice border which we always | :27:32. | :27:36. | |
try to do at our company. And also, I like the sort of - there is | :27:37. | :27:42. | |
definitely a flower theme to it, I like the flower with a swirl in the | :27:43. | :27:48. | |
centre. I'm not sure it would be. If there was a euphemism for Brexit, | :27:49. | :27:53. | |
Andrew, in terms of clean, uncomplicated, falling off a cliff | :27:54. | :27:54. | |
edge. What? Never mind. You have to | :27:55. | :27:59. | |
remember it is for Comic Relief. Did you actually take part in the film? | :28:00. | :28:03. | |
No, I wasn't there for that. Sadly not. And I don't think you will be | :28:04. | :28:10. | |
asked. Don't worry. Can you be taught how to do this. Richard says | :28:11. | :28:14. | |
he hasn't been trained which implies if he was trained... You can be very | :28:15. | :28:21. | |
much taught. I do this on a daily bases, I'm a teacher. You Kyoto | :28:22. | :28:24. | |
Protocol prove, come and see me. Right we need to go. | :28:25. | :28:26. | |
There's just time to put you out of your misery and give | :28:27. | :28:29. | |
It was 1992. Richard, press the red button. There we go. | :28:30. | :28:38. | |
Bill Thomas. 1992, well done. We don't know where you are fro but | :28:39. | :28:40. | |
we'll leave that. The One O'Clock News is starting | :28:41. | :28:42. | |
over on BBC One now. Jo and I will be here at noon | :28:43. | :28:56. | |
tomorrow with all the big political | :28:57. | :29:00. |