06/07/2016 Prime Minister's Questions

Questions to the Prime Minister. Chloe Smith.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I know the whole House will want to join me in wishing

Wales luck ahead of the Euros 2016 semi-final this evening.

They have played superbly and we wish them all the best.

Mr Speaker, this morning, I had meetings with

ministerial colleagues

and others and in addition to my duties in this House, I shall have

further such meetings later today.

Chloe Smith.

Mr Speaker, I am a Conservative because I believe it is

not where you are coming from, it is where you are going to that counts.

Does my right honourable friend agree?

Does my right honourable friend agree

that the opportunities to succeed no matter

what your background is what we want for Britain?

Prime Minister.

I absolutely agree with my right honourable friend,

making sure all citizens have

life choices to make the most of their talents

should be the driving mission for the rest of this

Parliament.

Yesterday, we were talking about boosting national

citizens service, which I think will play a key role in giving young

people the confidence and life skills to make the most of the

talents they undoubtably have.

Jeremy Corbyn.

I think today it would be appropriate if we pause for

a moment to think of those people who lost their lives in the bombings

in Baghdad in recent days.

The people that have suffered and their

families, at the end of Ramadan, it must be

a terrible experience for

them and we should send our sympathies and solidarity.

I join the Prime Minister in wishing Wales well.

I'll be cheering for Wales along with everybody else.

That's quiet, isn't it?

LAUGHTER

There is life after all!

30 years ago, Mr Speaker, the Shire Brooke colliery employed

thousands of workers in skilled, well-paid, unionised jobs,

digging coal.

Today, thousands of people work on the same site.

The vast majority are an zero-hours contracts, no union representation,

the minimum wage is not even paid.

Doesn't it sum up agency Britain?

First of all, let me join the Leader of the Opposition in

giving my thoughts to those killed in these terrible terrorist attacks.

On the issue of what has happened in our coalfield communities, to see

new jobs and new investment come, we have made sure that there is not

only a minimum wage, but now a National Living Wage.

Yes, he talks about one colliery.

I recently visited the site of the Grimethorpe

colliery, there is a business there, Asos, employing 5000 people.

We are never going to succeed as a country

if we try to hold onto jobs in industries that have become

uncompetitive.

We have to hold onto jobs of the future.

The problem is, if you are on a zero hours

contracts, the minimum wage does not add up to a living weekly wage.

He must understand that.

Can I take him to the Lindsey oil refinery?

In 2009, hundreds of oil workers worked out

on strike because agency workers from Italy and Portugal were brought

in on lower wages to do the same job.

Just down the road in Boston, low pay is endemic.

The average hourly wage across the whole country

is ?13.33.

In the East Midlands, it's ?12.26.

In Boston, it is ?9.13.

Isn't it time the Government

intervened to step up for

those communities that feel they have been left behind in modern

Britain?

We have intervened with a National Living Wage, we have

intervened with more fines against companies that

don't pay the minimum wage.

We have intervened, for the first time, something that Labour

never did, naming and shaming companies involved.

Those interventions help and can make a

difference.

The real intervention that you need is an economy that is

growing and encouraging investment.

What we want are the industries of the future.

Record numbers are in work, and the British economy has been one

of the strongest in the G7.

Mr Speaker, this Government promised it

would rebalance our economy.

It promised a Northern Powerhouse.

Yet half of 1% of infrastructure investment is going to the

north-east.

London is getting 44 times more than that.

Does he not think it is time to have a real

rebalancing of our economy and invest in those areas that are

losing out so badly?

I think he is talking down the performance of

parts of our economy that are doing well.

If you look at the fastest-growing part of our economy,

it has been the north-west, not the south-east.

If you want to see where exports are growing faster, it is

the north-east and not London.

There is a huge amount of work to do to

make sure we feel that north-south divide.

For the first time, we have a Government

with a proper strategy, investing in infrastructure,

training and skills that will make a difference.

For years, regional policy was just trying to distribute

a few Government jobs outside London.

Now we have a strategy about

skills, training and about growth and it's delivering.

The idea of this redistribution is a very

interesting.

The investment in London is more than the total of

every other English region combined.

Does he not think these issues should be addressed?

In March, the Government investment was cut in

order to meet its fiscal rules.

How does the Prime Minister think the

economy can be rebalanced when investment is cut and what little

investment remains reinforces the regional

imbalances in this country?

Well, first of all, again, he is talking down the north in the

questions he asks.

The unemployment rate in the north-west is lower than

the unemployment rate London.

I think, actually, his figures are wrong.

In terms of investment, yes,

of course, we need to have the Government investment.

We got it in HS2, we've got it in the railways, the biggest

investment programme since Victorian times,

the biggest investment in our

roads since the 1970s.

You can only invest if you have a strong and

growing economy.

We know what Labour's recipe is, more borrowing,

more spending, more debt, trashing the economy,

which is what they did when in office and that is when

investment collapses.

Mr Speaker, the Chancellor finally did this week what the

Shadow Chancellor asked him to do in the Autumn Statement and what I

asked the Prime Minister to do last week,

abandoned a key part of the fiscal rule.

We now know the deficit was supposed to vanish by 2015, and

it will not even be gone by 2020.

Isn't it time to admit that austerity is a failure and the way

forward is to invest in infrastructure,

invest in growth and invest in jobs?

What he says is simply not the case.

The rules we set out always have flexibility in case

growth didn't turn out the way...

JEERING

Well, the point I would make to him,

I would take his advice more

seriously if I could think of a single spending reduction that he

had supported at any time in the last six years.

The fact is, this Government and the last one, the

Coalition Government, had to take difficult

decisions to get our deficit under control.

It's gone from 11% of GDP that we inherited,

the biggest almost in the entire world, almost,

to under 3% this year,

because of difficult decisions.

If he can tell me one of those decisions he has supported, I would

be interested to hear it.

Mr Speaker, concerns about the fiscal

rule and investment are obviously spreading on his own ventures.

The Work and Pensions Secretary and Business Secretary have seen the

light.

They now agree with my honourable friend the Shadow Chancellor in

backing the massive investment programme we have been advocating.

Isn't it time that he thanked the honourable member for Hayes and

Harlington for the education where he has been doing in this house?

Will he now confirm that the Chancellor's

fiscal rule is dead and

invest in the north-east, in Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, all of

those places that feel, with good reason, that they have been left

behind and the investment is going to the wrong

places, and they are ending up with few jobs on lower

wages, and insecure employment to boot?

If the investment was going in

the wrong places, we would not see 2.5 million more people in work and

we would not see a fall in unemployment, and a rise in

employment in every single region in our country.

The only area where I think the right honourable gentleman

has made a massive contribution is in recent

weeks he has come up with

the biggest job creation scheme I'd ever seen in my life, almost

everyone on the benches behind him everyone on the benches behind him

has had an opportunity to serve on the front bench!

Rather like those old job creation schemes, it has been a

bit of a revolving door.

They get a job, sometimes for only a few hours,

and then they go back to the backbenches.

But it is a job creation scheme, nonetheless, and we

should thank him for that!

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

On a day when significant questions have been levelled at the collective

decision-making of politicians, military leaders and intelligence

services, many of our constituents will be

seeking reassurance that the

lives of their loved ones were not given in vain.

That the mistakes made will never happen again.

Can I ask the Prime Minister, will he

ensure that the lessons learned will be fully

examined and acted upon, so

that there can never be a repeat of the tragic

mistakes made over a decade ago?

Well, I am grateful to my honourable friend for his question.

I can certainly give that assurance.

We will have plenty of time this afternoon to discuss the

Chilcot Report and Sir John Chilcot is on his feet at the moment,

explaining what he has found.

I think the most important thing we can

do is to really learn the lessons for the future.

The lessons that he lays out, quite clearly.

We will obviously want to spend a lot of time, I'm sure,

talking about the decisions on going to war

and all the rest of it.

The most important thing for all of us is to make sure we

find out how to make sure Government works

better, legal advice is

considered better, those things are the best legacy

we can sit from this whole thing.

Angus Robertson.

Today is hugely important for Muslims at

home and abroad at the end of Ramadan.

I am sure we wish them all Eid Mubarak.

Our thoughts today are

with those who have died in Iraq, and the families of those in Iraq

who have lost loved ones.

The Chilcot Report confirms that in 2002,

Tony Blair wrote to President Bush, saying, "I will be with

you whatever."

Does the Prime Minister understand why the families of the

dead and the injured a UK service personnel,

the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, feel they were deceived

about the reasons for going to war in Iraq?

First of all, let me join the right honourable gentleman in

wishing Muslims in this country and all over

the world Eid Mubarak at

the end of Ramadan.

In terms of the report, we will discuss it in detail

later, and I don't want to pre-empt all of the things I will say in my

statement.

Clearly, we need to learn the lessons of the report, we need

to study it carefully.

It is millions of words, thousands of

pages.

I think we should save our remarks for when we debated in the

house after the statement.

The Chilcot Report catalogues the failures in planning for

post-conflict Iraq and then concludes that, and I quote, "The UK

did not achieve its objectives."

That lack of planning has also been evident in relation to Afghanistan,

Libya, Syria and, most recently, with no plan whatsoever, for Brexit.

When will the UK Government actually start learning from the mistakes of

the past, so we are not condemned to repeat them in future?

First of all, he is right that what Sir John

Chilcot says about the failure to plan is very, very clear.

I can read from his statement, that is

something he has given.

He says when the invasion began, UK policy rested

on an assumption that there would be a well executed, US lead and UN

authorised operation in a relatively benign environment.

He told the inquiry that the difficulties have

been known in advance, Mr Blair.

What I would say to the right honourable gentleman in terms of

planning is what I put in place, following

what happened in Iraq, a National Security Council,

a properly staffed and national

Security Secretariat, all of those things,

including listening to expert advice on a National Security

Council, all of those things are

designed to avoid the problems that the government have in the case

of Iraq.

The only point I would make is that, actually, there is no set of

arrangements and plans that can provide perfection in any of

these cases.

Military intervention, we can argue whether it is ever justified,

I believe it is.

Military intervention is always difficult.

Planning for the aftermath, that is always difficult.

I don't think in this house we should be naive in any

way that there is a perfect set of plans or a perfect set of

arrangements that can solve these problems in perpetuity.

There aren't.

Would my right honourable friend join me in congratulating

Southend Council, once again under the control of the Conservative

Party, for swiftly acting to sort out the mess left by the previous,

hopeless administration?

And would he agree with me that Southend-on-Sea, being the

alternative City of Culture next year, will produce a considerable

boost to the local economy?

Let me pay tribute to my honourable friend

for his long-standing efforts to promote

Southend and all it has to offer.

While Hull is the official City of Culture next year, I am sure

that Southend will benefit from the tireless campaign he has run.

I join him in encouraging people to go and

see this excellent seaside town for themselves.

Is the Prime Minister aware that two miles

north of Shire Brooke, already

mentioned today, is a town called Bolsover and at the same time they

were seeing the notices on the bus saying ?350 million for the NHS.

At that time, they decided this government, with the help of the

local people, to close the hospital Bolsover.

We need the beds.

I'm sure he understands that.

When the hospital is closed, it is gone forever.

I want him here today to use a little bit of

that money, not very much, to save the Bolsover hospital,

save the beds, save the jobs,

and the press might have a headline

saying, "The Prime Minister, Dodgy Dave, assists the Beast

to save the Bolsover hospital".

What a temptation!

Save it!

I will look very carefully.

I don't have the information about the exact situation

at the Bolsover hospital.

I'll look at it very carefully and write to him.

What I would say is that we are putting ?19 billion extra

into the NHS in this Parliament.

As for what was on the side of buses and all the rest of it,

my argument has always been, and will always be,

that it is a strong economy you require to fund the NHS.

Last week I held my first apprenticeships fair

in my constituency.

Does my right honourable friend agree with me that apprenticeships

are an absolutely vital part of economic development in

our proud Northern towns and cities?

She is absolutely right and that's why we've set the target

for 3 million apprentices in this Parliament.

I think it is achievable, just as we achieved the 2 million

apprentices trained in the last Parliament, and I wish her well

with what I hope is the first of many apprenticeship fairs

in her constituency.

Mr Speaker, before I ask my question, can I thank

the Prime Minister for the support he gave my campaign about getting

an enquiry into the drug Primodos,

which was given to pregnant women in the '60s and '70s,

resulting in thousands of babies being born with deformities.

I thank him for supporting that campaign.

Our universities, the global success stories, outward looking,

open for business with the world, and attracting the brightest

and the best students and researchers to produce

ground-breaking research from cancer to climate change.

In the last year, UK universities have received...

I need a single sentence question.

Forgive me, but there are a lot of other colleagues

who want to take part.

The university has received ?836 million last year.

What assurances can the Prime Minister give us

that in light of the fact that we are now out of the EU,

that money will be saved?

First of all, let me thank the honourable lady for her thanks

because she has raised this case of Primodos

many times and I can tell her that

the Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency has been

gathering evidence for a review by an expert working group

on medicines and they have met on three occasions, so I think

we're making progress.

The point she makes about universities -

until Britain leaves the EU, we get the full amount of funding under

the Horizons and other programmes, as you would expect.

All contracts under that have to be fulfilled,

but it will be for a future government, as it negotiates

the exit from the EU, to make sure that we domestically

continue to fund our universities in a way that makes sure

they continue to lead the world.

As my right honourable friend will know, the potential closure

of the BHS store in Torquay town centre with the loss of over

100 jobs as again raised the need for urgent, major regeneration

of town centres across the Tor Bay.

Would he outline what support will be made available

by the Government to ensure plans can be taken forward?

It is worth making the point that it is a very sad moment

for those BHS staff who have worked so long for that business.

For them, it wasn't simply a high-street brand,

it was a job, it was a way of life, it was a means of preparing

for their retirement and their pensions and we must do

all we can to help them and find them new work and there are many

vacancies in the retail sector, and we must make sure we help

them to get those jobs.

What we've done in terms of high streets

is around ?18 million has gone to towns

through a number of initiatives and we should keep those up,

because keeping our town centres vibrant is so vital, but this sits

alongside the biggest ever cut in business rates in England,

worth some ?6.7 billion in the next five years, and I think we need

to say to those on our high streets to make the most

of that business rate cut.

One of my constituents who I've been working with for some time has

had her mobility cart removed after falling victim

to a flawed PIP assessment by Atos.

After the involvement of my office, Atos have since

admitted their error, and yet my vulnerable constituent

still remains housebound and without a suitable car.

Will the Prime Minister offer his full assistance

to rectify this cruel situation,

and will he look again at the regulations which allowed

this situation to occur in the first place?

Let me congratulate the honourable lady for taking up

this constituency case.

Many of us have done exactly the same thing with constituents

who have had assessments that haven't turned out to be accurate.

If she gives me the details, I'll look at the specific case

and see what can be done.

A report recently commissioned by Transport For the North,

a body created by this Government, highlights the opportunity to halt

the growing divide between North and South and create

850,000 new jobs and ?97 billion of economic growth by 2050.

Does he agree that to build on our economic prosperity, we need

to continue to rebalance infrastructure spending from London

to the regions, particularly to the North of England?

I think he is absolutely right.

What that report shows is if we don't take the necessary

actions, you are going to see a continued North-South divide

and that's why we are committed, for instance, to seeing increased

spending on transport infrastructure go up by 50%

to ?61 billion in this Parliament,

and in my right honourable friend's area, for example,

we're spending ?380 million

upgrading the A1 from Leeming to Barton,

which will be a big boost for the local economy.

I recently met a constituent whose husband,

Andy Tsege, a British citizen,

has been on Ethiopia's death row for over two years.

Andy was kidnapped while travelling in illegally rendered Ethiopia.

He was sentenced to death six years ago at a trial he was neither

present at, nor able to present any defence whatsoever,

in direct contravention of international law.

Given he has been denied access to his wife and children,

spent a year in solitary confinement and has had no access

to legal representation,

recent reports suggest he is suicidal.

Prime Minister, in your final weeks in office,

Will you finally demand the immediate release of Andy Tsege

and bring him home to be reunited with his wife and children?

What I can assure the honourable gentleman about is that

we are taking a very close interest in this case.

The Foreign Secretary was in Ethiopia recently,

our consul has been able to meet with Mr Tsege

on a number of occasions

and we are working with him and the Ethiopian Government

to try to get this resolved.

One of the reports that perhaps won't get so much

attention is the CQC report into North Middlesex Hospital,

which confirms that emergency care is inadequate.

Why has it taken so many years, and why does it need regulators

to know what many of my constituents will know,

that there has been inadequate care for too long,

too few doctors, too few consultants?

Can the Prime Minister assure me that we now have in place the right

plans, the right numbers of doctors and consultants to ensure

that my constituents get the care they deserve?

I think he raises an important point, which is that I do think

the CQC is now acting effectively at getting into hospitals,

finding bad practice, reporting on it swiftly.

In some cases that bad practice has always been there, but we haven't

been as effective as we should have been at shining a light on it.

What we have seen at North Middlesex is one of the busiest emergency

departments in the country, the practice was unacceptable.

We've now got a new clinical director at the trust,

additional senior doctors in A and a change in governance.

Under this Government, we have been the ones that have

set up the role of the Chief Inspector of Hospitals

to have a zero tolerance approach to practice like this and make sure

things are put right.

The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has stated

he wants the UK to borrow tens of billions of pounds to create

a Growing Britain Fund worth up to 100 billion.

Can I ask the PM whether this is a formal plan or whether this

is merely an attempt to conjure up a plan

amid a leadership vacuum of the UK Government?

We are spending billions of pounds on the British economy

and on investment, as I have just shown, and that has clear

consequences under the Barnett formula for Scotland,

but clearly my colleagues, during a leadership election,

and at least on this side of the House,

we're actually having a leadership election,

rather than the sort of never-ending...

I thought you wanted one. You don't want one?

Hands up who wants a leadership election!

Oh, they don't want a leadership election!

I'm so confused.

One minute it is like the Eagle is going to swoop, and the next

minute it is Eddie the Eagle at the top of the ski jump,

not knowing whether to go or not.

Anyway, in case you hadn't noticed, we're having a leadership election.

Right from the start, this United Kingdom has been

an outward looking, international trading nation.

I'm very glad to see the Trade Minister, Lord Price...

The honourable gentleman the Member for Worcester is entitled to be

heard and his constituents are entitled to be represented.

I'm glad to see the Trade Minister out in Hong Kong today, talking up

the prospects for investment in the British economy, but what

steps can the Prime Minister take to bolster the resources available

to UKTI and the Foreign Office to make sure we attract as much

trade and investment in the wider world is possible?

He makes an important point,

and a very clear instruction has gone out

to all our embassies around the world, to UKTI,

and ministers are very clear about this,

that we should be doing all we can to engage as hard as we can

with other parts of the world, to start to think

about those trade deals, those investment deals

and the inward investment we want to see in the UK.

Business is very clear to us as well.

Whether they agree or disagree

with the decision the country has made,

they know we've got to go on and make the most

of the opportunities we have.

With the real prospect of a recession on the horizon,

the offer from the Chancellor is cutting corporation tax,

yet companies' worry is whether they will make a profit

in the UK, not how much tax they are going to pay on it.

So can the Prime Minister tell us what immediate action his Government

will take to protect people's jobs and livelihoods right now?

Immediate action has been taken, not least the Bank of England

decision to encourage bank lending by changing the reserve asset ratios

that they insist on, and I think that's very important,

because that's a short-term measure that can have some early effect.

Clearly what the Chancellor was talking about is now

we are in this new situation, we need to make sure

that we configure all our policies to take advantage of the situation

that we're going to be in, and that's going to mean

changes to taxes, changes to the way UKTI works,

there's going to be a change in focus for the Foreign Office

and the Business Department.

All these things we can make a start on, irrespective of the fact

that she and I were on the same side of the referendum campaign.

Further to my honourable friend from Worcester's question

about UKTI, may I remind the Prime Minister that

next Monday, the greatest airshow in the world takes place

at Farnborough in my constituency, to which all honourable

and right honourable members are expected to attend!

And may I remind my right honourable friend that last time,

two years ago, deals worth $201 billion were signed

at the Farnborough Airshow.

May I therefore prevail upon my right honourable friend,

who may have just a little bit time on his hands,

to come and open the show on Monday and encourage

all other ministers to attend?

I think I'm one of the first Prime Ministers in a while to attend

the Farnborough Airshow and I'm very happy to announce that I will be

going back there this year, because I think it's very important.

We have the second largest aerospace industry in the world

after the United States, and it is a brilliant moment

to showcase that industry to the rest of the world

and to clinch some important export deals, both in the military

and in the civilian space, and I will always do everything

I can, whether in this job or in future, to help support

British industry in that way.

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have recently

joined the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child

in expressing serious concerns

about this Tory Government's brutal welfare cuts.

How much more international condemnation would it take

before this Prime Minister scraps his reggressive two-child policy

and scraps his rape clause?

We've seen under this Government many more people in work,

many more households...

Many fewer households where no-one works and many fewer households

where there are children where no-one works.

All of this has been a huge success, but she and her party now have

the opportunity, now we've made some huge

devolution proposals, including in the area of welfare,

if you don't feel that what we're doing on a UK basis...

I don't know why you're all shouting.

You're getting these powers.

Instead of whingeing endlessly, start to use them!

Sir John Chilcot finds that the only people who come out

of the 2003 invasion of Iraq well are servicemen and civilians.

Will the Prime Minister look at how he can make sure that the precedent

he set last autumn for transparency and scrutiny ahead of military

action becomes the norm for his successor?

I think we have now got a set of arrangements and also a set

of conventions that put the country in a stronger position.

I think it is now a clear convention that we have a vote in this House,

which we did on Iraq, before premeditated military action,

but it is also important that we have a properly constituted

National Security Council, proper receipt of legal advice,

a summary of that legal advice provided to the House of Commons,

as we did both in the case of Libya and Iraq, and I think these things

are growing up to be a set of conventions that will work

for our country, but let me repeat again, even the best rules

and conventions of the world doesn't mean that you always going to be

confronted by easy decisions or ones that don't have

very difficult consequences.

The Prime Minister will no doubt be aware of my constituent

Pauline Cafferkey, a nurse who contracted Ebola

in Sierra Leone in 2014, when there as part of the DFID

organised response to the outbreak.

She and around 200 other NHS volunteers have not received

an equivalent bonus of ?4,000 that was awarded to

250 Public Health England staff.

Will the Prime Minister agree to meet with me to discuss how DFID

can rectify this situation?

I'm very pleased the honourable lady raises this issue.

Pauline Cafferkey is one of the bravest people I've ever met

and it was a great privilege to have her come

to Number Ten Downing Sreet,

and I'm proud of the fact that she and many others,

I believe, have received a medal for working in Sierra Leone.

It is something Britain should be incredibly proud of.

We took the decision to partner with that country to deal with Ebola

and it is now Ebola free.

I will look specifically into the issue of the bonus.

I wasn't aware of that issue and I will get back to her about it.