Oral Answers to Questions

Harriet Harman Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Our whole constitutional reform programme is directed towards restoring the public’s faith in politics, and in their MPs. That is why we have legislated to give people a choice in the electoral system for the House of Commons. We have also legislated to introduce more evenly sized constituencies so that people feel they are equally represented in the House of Commons. As was discussed earlier, we will introduce a recall mechanism so that when an MP is found to have committed serious wrongdoing, a by-election can be held. We will introduce a statutory register of lobbyists, and our plans for fixed-term Parliaments will mean that Prime Ministers can no longer manipulate the timing of general elections for their own party’s advantage. Finally, our plans for a wholly or mainly elected second Chamber will mean that the people, not the Prime Minister, will have a role in determining how our legislatures work.

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister back to the Dispatch Box. At least today it has not slipped his mind that he is Deputy Prime Minister. May I follow up on the question asked by the hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom)? The Deputy Prime Minister talked about how the Lib Dems represent trust in politics—a politics that keeps its promises. Will he remind the House what he promised at the general election about police numbers?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

As the right hon. and learned Lady knows very well, this Government have the unenviable, difficult task of clearing up the unholy mess that she left. I know that she and her colleagues want to live in complete denial, but because of the mistakes and economic incompetence of the Labour Government, we are spending £120 million, every single day of every single week, simply to pay off the interest on her debts. That is why, as the outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury said, “There’s no money left.” Unfortunately, when there is no money left, we must make savings across the public services.

[Ms Harman]

But that has not stopped the Government spending £100 million on elected police commissioners, and the Deputy Prime Minister has not answered the question; perhaps it has slipped his memory again. May I remind him? He promised 3,000 more police, and he has voted for 10,000 fewer police. Is the problem not just his forgetting that he is Deputy Prime Minister, but that he has forgotten every promise he ever made? Is he aware that his complete betrayal on tuition fees, VAT, the NHS and the police has led to a new word in the English language: if someone has been the victim of a total sell-out, we say that they have been “clegged”? Is he proud of that?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

What an extraordinarily laboured question! The right hon. and learned Lady may have forgotten that her party promised an emergency Budget some time soon, and £14 billion of cuts starting in a few weeks. She complains about the difficult decisions that we are having to take, yet I have not heard her and her colleagues make a single suggestion about how to fill the enormous black hole in the public finances that they left to us to sort out.