Oral Answers to Questions

Edward Miliband Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to today’s trade figures, which show a big increase in exports, which is exactly the sort of rebalancing that our economy needs. It is absolutely right that we need to get more women involved in the work force and at board level. In addition, in terms of entrepreneurialism, if we had the same rate of women setting up small businesses as America, we would have tens of thousands of extra businesses creating wealth and jobs.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I start by paying tribute to Lance Corporal Liam Tasker from the Royal Army Veterinary Corps. He was doing a job that put him in such danger, and he showed extraordinary bravery and courage. We remember him, and we pass on deep condolences to his family and friends.

Can the Prime Minister tell us who authorised the mission in Benghazi last weekend?

[The Prime Minister]

The Foreign Secretary set out the position absolutely in full in the House on Monday, but let me say clearly that I take full responsibility for everything that my Government do.

[Edward Miliband]

I am grateful to the Prime Minister for saying that, and I want to support him on Libya wherever I can, but there is increasing concern about the Government’s competence on the issue. We have had the flights fiasco, talk of Colonel Gaddafi heading to Venezuela when he was not, overblown briefing about potential military action, and the setback last weekend. Does the Prime Minister think that it is just a problem with the Foreign Secretary, or is it a wider problem in his Government?

[The Prime Minister]

I am not sure that I particularly want to take a lecture from Labour about dealing with Gaddafi and Libya. The first thing that we should have from the Labour party when it comes to Libya, Gaddafi and the release of Megrahi is an apology, which we still have not had. When it comes to this Government’s conduct, we have led the way in getting a tough UN resolution on Libya, getting Libya thrown out of the Human Rights Council and making sure that the world is preparing for every eventuality, including a no-fly zone.

[Edward Miliband]

Everybody will have heard the deafening silence about the performance of the Foreign Secretary. There is an issue of competence at the heart of this Government, and I want to turn to another example of incompetence. Does the Prime Minister think that people will notice the loss of 12,000 front-line police officers?

[The Prime Minister]

First, the right hon. Gentleman raises the issue of the Foreign Secretary. Let me tell him: I think we have an excellent Foreign Secretary. When it comes to it, there is only one person around here I can remember knifing a Foreign Secretary, and I think I am looking at him. [Interruption.] Right, I think we have dealt with that.

We want to see police on the streets fighting crime, not stuck behind their desks fighting paper. That is what we want to achieve. Let me say to the right hon. Gentleman that whoever was standing here right now would have to be reducing the Home Office budget and the policing budget. Labour was committed to a £1.3 billion cut. The question is not “Are you reducing the budget?”; the question is “What are you doing to cut the paperwork, freeze the pay, deal with the allowances and make sure the police are on the streets?”

[Edward Miliband]

The more that the right hon. Gentleman brings my relatives into this argument, the more that we know he is losing the argument. I have a second cousin in Belgium he will be going after next, I am sure.

On the question of crime, the Prime Minister says that he wants to improve front-line policing, but the West Midlands is losing 1,000 officers, Bedfordshire has scaled back gun licence checks, and now we hear that companies that have been burgled are to be sent fingerprint kits in the post. I know that he believes in the big society, but solving your own crimes is a bit ridiculous, even by his standards. You have to ask, Mr Speaker: does the Prime Minister actually have a clue what is going on out there?

[The Prime Minister]

I think the leader of the Labour party is getting a little bit touchy about this issue.

The point that I would make is that if we listen to what chief constables are saying about what they want to do—[Interruption.] Here is the chief constable of Thames Valley:

“what I haven’t done at all is reduce the number of officers who do the patrol functions, so the officers you see out in vehicles, on foot, in uniform, on bicycles. We haven’t cut those numbers at all.”

Listen to the chief superintendent in Surrey, who says:

“We are determined to increase our frontline capability by recruiting…extra”

police constables. The fact is that all the leadership of the police is engaged in the exercise of keeping costs under control to make sure that we get more officers on the beat. Whether we have to divert them to protect the right hon. Gentleman’s relatives, I do not know, but they are going to be on the beat.

[Edward Miliband]

Ten months, and so out of touch with people up and down this country. The Prime Minister talks about police officers; in case he had not noticed, it is the Association of Chief Police Officers that says that 12,000 front-line police officers are going to be lost. Why are they being lost? It is because he chose to go beyond the recommendation by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary of 12% cuts. If he had made 12% cuts, the savings could have been found from the back office, but he went too far and too fast, and insisted on 20% cuts in policing.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. The Association of Chief Police Officers is not talking about front-line officers, so he is simply wrong about that. Let me remind him what his home affairs spokesman said at the time of the election, when asked

“Can you guarantee if you form…the next government that police numbers won’t fall?

Alan Johnson: No”.

That was the position, and this is what he said after the election:

“if Labour had won the general election, the Home Office budget would have been cut and the police would have had to make savings”.

What we see today, once again, is jumping on a bandwagon and total opportunism. The right hon. Gentleman has no plans to reform welfare, no plans to reform the NHS and nothing useful to say about policing.

[Edward Miliband]

We know that the Government are out of touch, and now we know that they are incompetent as well: incompetent on Libya and incompetent on policing. The Prime Minister may act like he was born to rule, but the truth is that he is not very good at it.

[The Prime Minister]

The usual pre-scripted questions that he dreamt up earlier. The question is: has he got a reform plan for the NHS? [Hon. Members: “No!”] Has he got a police reform plan? [Hon. Members: “No!”] Has he got a plan to cut the deficit? [Hon. Members: “No!”] It is no wonder that the former Foreign Secretary has just said that

“the…Left is losing elections on an unprecedented scale because it has lost control of the political agenda…it is also losing key arguments”—

and it has a

“deficit in ideas”.

That is what he said, and he is absolutely right.