Edward Miliband
Main Page: Edward Miliband (Labour - Doncaster North)Department Debates - View all Edward Miliband's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
(12 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend. I know how important it is that we have effective search and rescue facilities off our coast, and I know about the incredibly good work that they do. What the Government are looking at is the best way to deliver those services, including how they should be paid for, and it is important that that work goes ahead.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
May I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Rifleman Sheldon Steel, from 5th Battalion The Rifles? He served with huge commitment and courage, and our deepest condolences are with his family and friends.
In June at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister praised the head teacher of Vaynor First school in Redditch for refusing to strike. Today, she has closed her school. She says:
“This has been the most difficult decision of my professional life… The difference in the summer was that I had faith in the Government… I have not seen any progress so I have decided…to strike.”
Why does the Prime Minister think that so many decent, hard-working public sector workers, many of whom have never been on strike before, feel that the Government simply are not listening?
The Prime Minister
The reason why people are going on strike is that they object to the reforms that we are making to public sector pensions, but I believe that those reforms are absolutely essential. The Labour former Work and Pensions Secretary, Lord Hutton, said that
“it is hard to imagine a better deal than this.”
What I would say, above all, to people who are on strike today is that they are going on strike at a time when negotiations are still under way. The right hon. Gentleman refers to what was said in June. Let me remind him what he said on 30 June:
“These strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are…going on”.
Why has he changed his mind?
Mr Speaker
Order. I say to Members engaged in orchestrated barracking that it is very tedious and very juvenile, from whichever side it comes. The public do not want to hear it, and nor do I. The Leader of the Opposition will be heard, as will the Prime Minister, and that is all there is to it.
Edward Miliband
The reason public sector workers do not think the Prime Minister is listening is that the Government declared negotiations at an end four weeks ago. They said that they had made their final offer. They have not even met the unions for four weeks, since 2 November. What has he gone around saying to people? He has gone around saying that he is privately delighted that the unions have walked into his trap. That is the reality. He has been spoiling for this fight. The reason people have lost faith is that he is not being straight with them. Will he admit that 800,000 low-paid workers on £15,000 a year or less are facing an immediate tax rise of 3% on his pension plan?
The Prime Minister
I know that the right hon. Gentleman’s entire party is paid for by the unions, but I must say that what he has just told the House is extraordinary and completely and utterly untrue. The fact is there were meetings with the trade unions yesterday, there will be meetings with them tomorrow and there will be meetings on Friday. The negotiations are under way. Let me repeat what he said in June. He said that it is wrong to strike
“at a time when negotiations are…going on”.
Yet today he backs the strikes. Why? Because he is irresponsible, left-wing and weak.
Edward Miliband
The difference is that, unlike the Prime Minister, I am not going to demonise the dinner lady, the cleaner or the nurse, people who earn in a week what the Chancellor pays for his annual skiing holiday—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Members on both sides of the House need to calm down. If senior Members of the House think that it is a laughing matter, let me tell them that it is not. The public would like to see some decent behaviour and a bit of leadership on these matters, and so would I.
Edward Miliband
The Prime Minister is the one—he did not deny it—who went around saying that he is privately delighted because the unions have walked into his trap. That is the reality. The truth is that it is not only public sector workers who are paying for the failure of his plan, but private sector workers. Will he confirm that, as a result of the cuts to tax credits announced yesterday, a family on the minimum wage, taking home £200 a week, will lose a week and a half’s wages?
The Prime Minister
First, let me be absolutely clear—[Hon. Members: “Answer.”] I will answer the question—
The Prime Minister
I will wait for his next trade union-sponsored question, and then give my answer.
Edward Miliband
I am proud that millions of hard-working people in this country support the Labour party—better that than millions from Lord Ashcroft.
The problem is that the Prime Minister does not understand his own policy. He does not understand that there are part-time workers earning less than £21,000 who will be hit—800,000 low-paid, part-time workers, 90% of whom are women, will pay more. He denies that, but it is true. That is the reality.
Edward Miliband
The Prime Minister sits there shaking his head. He does not understand his own policy, and of course, he could not explain or justify what he did to everyone on low pay with the miserable deal cooked up with the Deputy Prime Minister to cut £1 billion from tax credits in the autumn statement yesterday. They have no explanation for why they are doing that—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I say to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) that I do not require any assistance from him. The Leader of the Opposition will come to a question.
Edward Miliband
Let me try the Prime Minister on another matter. What will unemployment be at the time of the next autumn statement on the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast?
The Prime Minister
If we compare the end of this Parliament with the start of this Parliament, the Office for Budget Responsibility figures—let us remember that the OBR is independent, but when the right hon. Gentleman was sitting in the Treasury, the figures were fiddled by Ministers and advisers, and that no longer happens—show that 500,000 more people will be in jobs, 90,000 fewer people will be on the claimant count, and the unemployment rate will be 7.2% instead of 8.1%. That is the OBR’s forecast; it is not fiddled. The OBR is independent; and that is what the figures show.
Let me answer the right hon. Gentleman’s question, as I was not able to do so earlier, about helping the poorest people in our country. It is his party that got rid of the 10p tax—the biggest attack on the working poor. It is this Government who have taken 1.1 million people out of tax, who froze the council tax, cut the petrol tax, introduced free nursery care for two, three and four-year-olds, and are putting up the child tax credit by £390 this year and next. That is a record to be proud of, instead of the right hon. Gentleman’s appalling record of attacking the working poor.
Edward Miliband
With child poverty going up as a result of the autumn statement yesterday, the truth is that the Prime Minister could not answer the question because he is too embarrassed by the truth—[Interruption.] The Education Secretary should calm down. He tells children to behave; why does he not behave himself?
The Prime Minister is too embarrassed. There are 2.8 million people out of work according to the forecast of the Office for Budget Responsibility. He is another Conservative Prime Minister for whom unemployment is a price worth paying. Because he is failing on unemployment and growth, he is failing on borrowing. He told the CBI conference last year that, no ifs or buts, by 2015
“we will have balanced the books.”
Will he now admit that on the central test he set himself, he has failed?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman complains about the level of borrowing, but his answer is to borrow even more. That is the utter illiteracy. Let me tell him what we are doing. Because we have a plan to meet the mandate and to meet the test set out by the Chancellor in his emergency Budget, we have some of the lowest interest rates in Europe. That is right; for every percentage point they went up under Labour, that would be another £1,000 on a family mortgage, another £7 billion out of business and another £21 billion on our national debt. That is what we would get under Labour and that is why it is this Government who will take the country through this storm.
Edward Miliband
The Prime Minister is borrowing an extra £158 billion to pay for his economic failure. The truth is that his plan has failed. He refuses to change course and he is making working families pay the price. At the very least, we now know that he will never, ever be able to say again, “We’re all in this together.”
The Prime Minister
The leader of the Labour party has taken sides today: he is on the side of the trade union leader who wants strikes and not negotiations and he is on the side of people who want to disrupt our schools, disrupt our borders and disrupt our country. And when it comes to borrowing, he cannot even bring himself to welcome the fact that there are low interest rates.
Let me tell him this. The shadow Chancellor—[Interruption.] Mr Speaker, they are all shouting in unison—[Interruption.] Or should that have been they are all shouting on behalf of Unison? I am not quite clear. Let me remind the House of what the shadow Chancellor said about low interest rates. He said that long-term interest rates are
“the simplest measure of monetary and fiscal policy credibility”.
That is what he said, and that is what this Government are delivering.
We are being tested by these difficult economic times. We will meet that test by getting on top of our debt and getting on top of our deficit. The Leader of the Opposition is being tested too, and he is showing that he is weak, left-wing and irresponsible.