Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Miliband Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I will always defend the right to protest and the right to protest peacefully. It seems to me entirely fair that people should protest, but I have never seen why they are able to sleep in Parliament square. I have had many discussions with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, the Mayor of London and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. I think 29 April is too far a deadline by which to get this problem sorted out.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I start by joining the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Guardsman Christopher Davies of 1st Battalion the Irish Guards. He died providing heroic service to our country, like all our other troops. We pay tribute to him and send our deepest condolences to his family.

I also join the Prime Minister in expressing deep sadness about the deaths of the miners who were tragically killed in the underground explosion in New Zealand, including the two miners from Scotland. I know from my constituency the risks that miners take when working underground and our hearts go out to the miners’ families and friends.

I also thank the whole House for the good wishes on the birth of my second son, Samuel. In particular, I thank the Prime Minister and his wife Samantha for their very generous gifts—[[Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] I shall keep the gifts secret. I also thank the Deputy Prime Minister.

I want to turn to a decision that has been made in advance of the education White Paper, on which there will be a statement at 12.30 pm. Is the Prime Minister aware of the deep concern among schools, families and leading sportsmen and women about the Education Secretary’s decision to take away all the funding from the highly successful school sport partnerships? Will the Prime Minister overrule the Education Secretary and reverse the decision?

[The Prime Minister]

I welcome the right hon. Gentleman back and I congratulate him again on the birth of baby Samuel. I very much know what it is like—the noise, the mess, the chaos and trying to get the children to shut up. I am sure that it was lovely to have two weeks away from it all. He is very welcome.

On the point about sports funding, in the White Paper that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education will announce later we are taking a very different approach. We are taking a lot of the specific grants that were spent on specific subjects and putting them into basic school funding. That means that the schools budget is going to go up by £3.6 billion over this Parliament. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that what we experienced over the last decade was a lot of money being put into school sport but without seeing a lot of progress. [Interruption.] We did not see a lot of progress. Let me give him one figure: the number of schools offering rugby, hockey, netball and gymnastics actually fell under the previous Government. That approach did not work and it is time for a new one.

[Edward Miliband]

The Prime Minister will come to live to regret that answer, because he should not believe the nonsense that the Education Secretary is telling him about this. Since 2002, we have seen an increase from 25% to 90% in the number of kids doing more than two hours of sport a week. We have seen 1 million more kids doing competitive sport between schools and—I would have thought the Prime Minister would support this—we have a network of 200,000 volunteers from the school sport partnerships. I say to him: that sounds like the big society to me. Why is he undermining it?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman what we have ended up with after 10 years of that approach. Only two in every five pupils play any competitive sport regularly in their school. That is a terrible record. Only one in five children plays regular competitive sport against other schools. The approach that Labour took for all those years did not work. The time for endlessly telling head teachers what to do and how to spend their money is over. It is time to trust head teachers, give them the budget and let them decide how to make sure that we have great competitive sport within school and between schools.

[Edward Miliband]

If the Prime Minister will not take it from me, perhaps he will take it from Jo Phillips, the school sports co-ordinator in Chipping Norton school in his constituency. In a letter to me, she said:

“I am devastated to witness the potential demise of this legacy with the sweep of Mr Gove’s pen. I wish that he had spoken to me, the teachers in our partnership, our students, our parents and our local sports clubs and providers”.

I say to the Prime Minister: this is frankly a daft decision that he should U-turn on as soon as possible. I am afraid that it sums up this Education Secretary: high-handed, incompetent and unfair. Why does the Prime Minister not get a grip on it?

[The Prime Minister]

I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that last year the proportion of 11 to 15-year-olds playing sport went down. That was after all the money that Labour spent and all the initiatives. It simply did not work. What we are doing is protecting the playing fields under our planning rules and taking back the vetting and barring scheme that stopped so many people from taking part in school sport. Again, there is a fundamental difference. Labour’s approach was specific grant after specific grant, wrapping teachers and schools in red tape and not making any progress. We take a different approach: putting the money into the schools budget, growing it by £3.6 billion, holding a schools Olympics and promoting school sport. That is the way that will make a real difference.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

Also, we will make sure that future bail-out mechanisms should not involve non-euro countries such as Britain having to make those contributions. That is something we will secure in Europe.

[Edward Miliband]

Does the Prime Minister agree that just as it is right to disclose top salaries in the public sector, so too it must be right to require banks to disclose the number of employees paid salary and bonuses of more than £1 million?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, we do agree with that. The last Government commissioned the Walker review. David Walker has carried out that review and made his report. He has made it very clear that he thinks we should make progress with the transparency agenda at the same time as other European countries. That is a view we think should be taken into account.

[Edward Miliband]

indicated dissent.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but the fact is that he was part of the Government who appointed David Walker. I would rather listen to someone who knows something about banking than someone who knows nothing about anything.

[Edward Miliband]

The Prime Minister will have to do better than that. He is demanding transparency—rightly—from the public sector, but unless we have transparency in the banking system, shareholders cannot exercise their duty to clamp down on unacceptable bonuses. The Business Secretary issued a statement on Monday, when news of the climbdown was in the offing. He said:

“Transparency is key to creating confidence in any commitment from our banks to behave more responsibly on pay and bonuses.”

Why will the Prime Minister not listen to his Business Secretary?

[The Prime Minister]

We agree with the approach of transparency. That is why the Walker review was set up, and that is why we should examine what Walker has to say. I will take lectures from the right hon. Gentleman about lots of things, but not when it comes to the banks. He was in the Treasury when the previous Government did not regulate the banks properly. He was in the Treasury when they set up the tripartite system that failed. He was in the Treasury when they had the biggest boom and the biggest bust. He was in the Treasury when they gave Fred Goodwin—the man who broke the Royal Bank of Scotland—a knighthood. I would go back to the blank sheet of paper, if I were you.

[Edward Miliband]

I will compare my record in the Treasury any time to the Prime Minister’s—he was there on Black Wednesday.

Is this not just typical of the Prime Minister? Before the election, he promised “a day of reckoning” for the bankers. We passed the legislation. It is there for him to implement. It is not very much to ask. All that the legislation requires is that the banks publish the number of people—not even their names, as the Chancellor used to call for—getting pay and bonuses above £1 million. It does not make sense to wait for Europe. Why does the Prime Minister not show a lead and just get it done?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman says that he wants to contrast his record in the Treasury. [Interruption.] Yes, let us remind people that when he was in the Treasury the Government built the biggest budget deficit of any G20 country. We had the biggest boom and the biggest bust. It was his Government—[Hon. Members: “Answer!”] It was his Government who set up the Walker review, and he should listen to what it has to say. The right hon. Gentleman has nothing to say about the deficit. He has nothing to say about regulation. He is just the nowhere man of British politics.