PMQs as it happened
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11:30 – Good morning everyone – hello and welcome to politics.co.uk’s coverage of this lunchtime’s PMQs, brought to you live from Westminster.
11:32 – It’s going to be an interesting session as a whole range of post-emergency Budget government announcements have emerged in the last week.
11:32 – The winding-down of the Building Schools for the Future programme is bound to attract the ire of some Labour MPs.
11:33 – Don’t be surprised if the civil service redundancy package, which the government has announced it intends to legislate on, gets a mention.
11:34 – And then there’s the British withdrawal from Afghanistan, set to be confirmed by defence secretary Liam Fox later. Some MPs are concerned the move could be interpreted as a retreat – that’s certainly the way the Taliban are likely to characterise it.
11:41 – In the Commons the day’s session has begun, with international development secretary Andrew Mitchell taking questions from MPs. He’s addressing issues including aid for Pakistan, transparency and support for the 1 Goal Education for All summit in South Africa.
11:42 – Sitting on the frontbench as part of Mitchell’s team is Alan Duncan, the former shadow leader of the House. We can expect him to be a strong contender for returning to a Cabinet-level post at the coalition’s first reshuffle.
11:43 – Not that things are getting quite that desperate just now, of course.
11:47 – This will be an interesting PMQs for another reason, too: the rumblings of diminuitive Speaker John Bercow.
11:48 – He’s been moaning about the undignified nature of the session for months now and summarised those thoughts in a speech to the Centre of Parliamentary Studies last night. He attacked PMQs’ “scrutiny by screech” and wants to see the leader of the opposition’s questions reduced from the current six. Not so sure whether this is a good idea.
11:54 – The justice and foreign secretaries, Ken Clarke and William Hague, are having a top-quality chinwag next to Alan Duncan on the frontbench. Clarke seems in jovial mood, in particular. Not sure you’d have seen their opposite numbers in the last parliament, David Miliband and Peter Mandelson, engaged in such happy banter.
11:55 – Five minutes to go, now, and the Commons chamber is pretty much full. Just a few spaces on the old green benches, as the background clamour gets louder and louder.
11:57 – “I can see a number of senior members conducting animated conversations from a sedentary position,” Bercow tells MPs. It’s fair to say we saw that coming.
12:02 – And we’re off. David Cameron begins with a note that this is the fifth anniversary of the 7/7 bombings of 2005, noting that all those who died will never be forgotten.
12:03 – After a question on Somaliland by former Welsh first minister Alun Michael, Wiltshire MP James Gray asks a local constituency question. Harriet Harman is up next…
12:06 – Harman raises domestic violence for her first question, and the short sentences review undertaken by Ken Clarke. She’s all in favour of short sentences for domestic violence. Cameron says: “For too many years this was an issue which police forces and prosecutors didn’t deal with properly.” He agrees sometimes short sentences are required – and says Clarke takes the same view. The justice secretary nods carefully. “It’s very important to read the speech and not just the headline!” Cameron warns.
12:07 – Harman responds by observing that Clarke doesn’t look very cheerful. “Perhaps he should go to Ronnie Scott’s to cheer himself up!” And she lands another quick blow against Cameron by talking about him “listening to his mother”. Lots of laughter from the Labour backbenches.
12:08 – Cameron says there aren’t many people who are more cheerful than this chancellor. “He brings enormous experience and good humour to all our counnsels.” And then, without a blink: “I am delighted the leader of the opposition has brought up my mother.” Her short sentencing habits were because of “badly behaved CND protestors outside Greenham Common”. Much more laughter. “If the rt hon lady wants to have more episodes of Listen With Mother…”
12:11 – This is excellent stuff, as Harman presses on. She wants to know whether there will be fewer police officers at the end of this parliament, a question previously asked. “Of course there are going to be difficult decisions,” Cameron protests, to groans. More answer-evading. “Just wait for it!” Cameron urges. And he reads out a transcript pointing out Alan Johnson couldn’t confirm it either. “I think that’s a selective quoting,” Harman says in response. She points out funding for community support officers, amongst other things, would be protected under Labour.
12:12 – Now Cameron’s warmed up he launches against Labour on the state of the deficit. “Well, um,” is Harman’s initial response. But she then makes a decent point about the chair of the Office of Budget Responsibility resigning. Its impact is dissipated as she then jumps to crime, listing a number of ‘bad’ Tory policies. Are they more likely to make crime go down or go up?
12:13 – The prime minister’s ability to avoid answering a question is staggering. He says some kinds of crime doubled under the last government. “There’s going to be a rush of New Labour memoirs…” Cameron begins, before John Bercow jumps in. “We won’t have any of that,” he says, to outrage from the Tories.
12:14 Can Harman take advantage of this glitch? Sort of – “We know his policies will put crime up,” she says firmly. Cameron is as insouciant as ever. “I won’t be wandering around my constituency in a stab-proof vest,” he says. Witney is somewhat different from Peckham, we suggest.
12:16 First backbench question after Harman is on Afghanistan. “We have to demonstrate the progress we’re making,” Cameron replies. “We will be publishing a monthly update and having quarterly statements in this House so we can keep the British public fully informed and onside as we take difficult decisions in this conflict.”
12:17 – This was the best PMQs clash we’ve had between this pair since the general election. For connoisseurs of this now endangered encounter we had the perfect balance of banter and policy – despite the prime minister’s consistent evasion of Harman’s questions.
12:18 – The DUP’s Westminster leader, Nigel Dodds, pressures Cameron on the AV referendum. “It’s a Westminster parliament issue. It doesn’t make sense to take it in front of other parliaments,” the PM says firmly.
12:19 – Next comes a brief interruption from the Speaker. “Members shouldn’t shout at the prime minister in that way. First of all it is rude and secondly it delays the process of our proceedings and we really mustn’t have it.”
12:21 – Here’s another Afghanistan question, from Labour MP Michael McCann, who wants Cameron to pay tribute to a “real hero”, one of his injured constituents. That was about as unpartisan as it gets in parliament. “This is the key year when we surge up the military forces, when we surge up the political pressure,” Cameron says. He says Liam Fox will make a statement explaining why it is important that “our forces are properly spread across Helmand province so we really have the effect that we want”.
12:24 – After a question from Lib Dem Annette Brooke on Park Home owners, Chuka Umunna raises the 15-year-old who died in a “planned attack” in London. He wants to know what the government is doing to “stop this”. Cameron calls the case “absolutely horrific – it seems so planned and so pre-meditated”. He says short- as well as long-term measures are needed. In terms of the sentencing review, Cameron says: “We need to send out a signal it’s not… a cool thing to do… and that the punishment will be tough.” That’s the short-term. As for the long-term, the PM says yougn people need “other networks” in addition to gangs to be pursued.
12:25 – A rather intense-looking Tory MP, James Clappison, wants to know whether the Budget will be protected from scrutiny by Europe. Cameron is placatory. Then comes a question about child poverty. “We are absolutely committed to the child poverty targets!” More placating.
12:27 – Roger Williams, the Lib Dem MP, raises climate change and agricultural changes, including consumer habits. He wants to know whether “sound science and proportionate regulation” will be the basis of future decisions. Cameron says these are “difficult issues” but backs science – and consumers, of course.
12:29 – The manhunt for gunman Raoul Moat gets the following response from Cameron: “The whole country is thinking of those who have lost their lives and those who have been injured. I don’t think it’s right now to talk about the processes of learning lessons. The whole House and the whole country will be wishing the police well in their search for this individual so they can put a stop to the horrendous spree that’s taking place.”
12:31 – Incredibly a new MP is baffled and bewildered as she’s given a starred question. Perhaps not incredibly, but the Commons gets by. The Decent Homes programme will be looked at in the spending review, Cameron says. And now here’s Rushanara Ali, who is Labour’s MP for Bethnal Green and Bow. “We’ve actually filled in some of the black hole left by the last government,” Cameron replies. The phrase ‘black hole’ is becoming something of a contagion in parliamentary jargon. Something must be done.
12:32 – David Cameron welcomes ex-GMTV journalist Gloria De Piero to the Commons. “Can I congratulate someone who left the warmth of the GMTV sofa to come on to the green bench here,” he says. No-one listened to the real answer to his question, as it turned out to be the last one. And it’s time for Liam Fox to give his statement on Afghanistan.
12:35 – This is so complicated Fox has made maps available for MPs – we’ll be running down to the lobby to get hold of some ourselves in a bit. Fox begins by explaining the progress already made in Nad-e-Ali, the scene of last summer’s offensive before the August elections.
12:37 – Fox’s first big announcement is that a reserve battalion of reinforcements is being deployed from Cyprus to central Helmand province.
12:39 – Fox points out Kijaki and Musa Qala have already been transferred from British to American control. Now, he announces, the same will take place in Sangin. UK troops will be redeployed “to reinforce key districts in central Helmand. The result will be a coherent and equitable division” of responsibilities with other coalition allies, he says. “In Sangin, UK forces have made good progress in the face of great adversity. The district centre has been transformed.”
12:40 – “We have the right strategy and we are determined to succeed,” Fox finishes. So will his predecessor in the Ministry of Defence, Bob Ainsworth, agree?
12:42 – “There is some concern over the confusion that’s been caused about whether there are deadlines or not…” Ainsworth says. Is the combat mission in Afghanistan continuing on a conditions-based basis, or is there a clear deadline from the new government?
12:49 – Fox replies by delving into the detail, talking about force density numbers. There will be 300 extra forces in Helmand as a result of the theatre reserve reinforcement, he says. And he clarifies the total number of British forces in Sangin is currently 1,008. As for the deadline question, Fox says: “We can still expect them to be there in a training role” in 2015.
12:51 – We’re going to leave the Commons there. This week’s PMQs was a lively affair. Its weakness was not that there was joking, or political to-and-fro – surely that’s the point. The main problem was Cameron’s brazen refusal to answer Harman’s questions. The Speaker objects to the former but not the latter. Has he really got his priorities right?
