Politics blog + PMQs – live

Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments including prime minister’s questions and the abortion debate 12.49pm: Dorries says she has had a remarkable amount of “bile” poured into her letter box over this issue. When MPs last debated abortion, in 2008, the tone in the Commons was friendly, she says. She pays tribute to Harriet Harman. Harman was been her staunch opponent on this issue, she says. But she admires Harman for what she has achieved. But this time it has been different. Dorries says there has been a great deal of “nastiness”. But it has not come from Labour MPs, she says. It has come from the leftwing media. She names the Guardian and the Times and a union-funded campaign. 12.47pm: The abortion debate is starting now. Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP who has tabled the key amendment, is opening the debate. Do read Polly Curtis’s post on her new Reality Check blog for background on the issues behind this debate. 12.37pm: Verdict: It really did feel like business as usual. Towards the end of the exchanges Ed Miliband got the better of David Cameron, I thought, largely because Cameron’s boasts about NHS achievements only highlighted the fact that he was not answering the question about six-month waiting times, but Cameron came out on top during the police exchanges, in my opinion, mainly because of the way he deployed the quote about Labour’s plans. But it wasn’t an exchange of great significance. 12.32pm: Labour’s Huw Irranca-Davies asks if Cameron agrees that housing minister Grant Shapps is a star – because he is promoting house boats as a response to the housing crisis. Cameron says Shapps is doing a great job. 12.31pm: Amber Rudd, a Conservative, asks if the government will continue to show international leadership in its response to the famine in East Africa. Cameron says Britain is leading the world in its response to the crisis. 12.30pm: Labour’s Diana Johnson asks about a Siemens investment in Hull. Cameron says this is a vital issue. He has spoken to the head of Siemens about this. The government backs its project “all the way”. 12.28pm: Labour’s Barry Gardner says 6m families face fuel poverty. Does Cameron still think it was right to cut the winter fuel payment by £100? Cameron says the government is implementing the plans that were set out in Labour’s budget. 12.27pm: Cameron refers to his copy of the Alistair Darling memoirs. It shows that increasing VAT was Labour’s policy before the election. (Actually, it was Darling’s preferred option. But Gordon Brown vetoed the idea.) 12.26pm: Mark Reckless, a Conservative, asks if Cameron will hold a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU. Cameron says he does not see the case for one. 12.25pm: Cameron says housing benefit was “out of control” under Labour. Some families were claiming £70,000 or more in London. “How many,” someone shouts. “Too many,” he replies. 12.24pm: Sir Alan Beith asks about the Vickers report into the banks. Cameron says he is looking forward to receiving the final Vickers report. The government wants banking to be safe and the banks to lend to businesses. Policy will be designed to achieve this, he says. 12.23pm: Labour’s Mark Tami asks why the government is undermining CCTV with the freedom bill. “We’re not,” says Cameron. 12.21pm: Cameron says the number of people under the age of 18 not in education, employment or training is coming down. The back to work programme will be made available to young people. 12.20pm: Nadine Dorries, a Conservative, says the Lib Dems make up 7% of parliament. Yet they seem to be influencing many policies, like health and free schools. Will Cameron tell Nick Clegg who’s boss? Cameron says Dorries is “extremely frustrated”. As MPs laugh at the innuendo, he says he will start again. Only he doesn’t. “I’m going to give up on this one,” he says, as the laughter continues. 12.19pm: Cameron says he wants to do everything he can to help Bombardier. The procurement process which led to Bombardier losing the Thameslink contract was designed by Labour. 12.18pm: Labour’s John Woodcock asks what will have to happen for Cameron to accept that his new terror laws are putting national security at risk. Cameron says he does not accept this. The government consulted MI5 and the police before drawing up its plans, he says. 12.18pm: Cameron says everyone has to obey the law in relation to planning. 12.17pm: Snap verdict: Cameron “won” on the police, while Miliband “won” on health. More later … 12.09pm: Miliband asks why the number of people waiting more than six months for an operation has gone up by more than 60% since the election. Cameron says he is not surprised Miliband wants to change the subject. He lists some NHS achievements. John Bercow has to interrupt because the heckling is so loud. Waiting times for outpatients have fallen. Miliband points out that Cameron has not answered the question. From June 2010 to June 2011 the number of patients waiting for a heart operation has gone up 62%, and 72% for an orthopedic operation. Cameron says the number of people waiting for outpatient operations has gone done. Labour are opposing all reform to the NHS. Health bodies are supporting the health bill. Miliband wonders what planet Cameron is on. Only this week a series of health bodies said they were opposed to the bill. Under Labour waiting lists went down and police numbers up. Under this government, the opposite is happening. Cameron says Miliband hasn’t mentioned the economy. He quotes the former Labour health minister, Lord Darzai, as supporting the health reforms. He quotes John Healey, the shadow health secretary, as saying (in a Guardian interview) that what Labour says matters less than what others say. 12.04pm: Ed Miliband also pays tribute to the dead servicemen. They all demonstrated tremendous bravery and courage, he says. He also thanks the policemen and women who did such a tremendous job during the riots. The government now wants to hold the elections for police commissioners in November next year, not in May as originally planned. How much will that cost? Cameron says postponing the elections will cost £25m. It will not come from police budgets. Miliband asks why Cameron does not delay them until May 2012. Cameron asks why Miliband is afraid of having an election and “proper accountablility”. Miliband says this is the wrong policy. Setting up elected police commissioners will cost more than £100m. This would pay for 2,000 extra officers. Cameron says only 6% of people have heard of police authorities. Abolishing them will save money. The last Labour government promised directly elected representative to give people a say over policing. Why the U-turn? 12.04pm: Cameron says the health reforms will lead to a “stronger NHS”. 12.02pm: Labour’s Ian Austin says the government’s new terror legislation will stop the government from being able to keep terror suspects out of London. It’s “a charter of rights” for terrorists, he suggests. Cameron says the previous control order regime did not work. The new rules will increase public confidence in the system. 12.01pm: David Cameron starts with a tribute to the five soldiers killed in Afghanistan and one serviceman killed in an accident in Italy while serving on the Libya operation since the last PMQs. 11.58am: According to Sky’s Joey Jones on Twitter, David Cameron brought a book with him as he came into the Commons chamber. I think we can assume it’s a copy of Alistair Darling’s memoirs. 11.55am: Ed Balls , the shadow chancellor, has also put a statement out about the 50p top rate of tax. Millions of struggling families and pensioners on middle and low incomes will wonder why the only tax rise or spending cut George Osborne is willing to reconsider is the top rate of tax for the very richest. If we really are all in this together then the right priority to boost the stalled economy now should be temporarily reversing the VAT rise, which is costing families with children around £450 a year. This temporary tax cut would help to kick-start the recovery and give a much needed boost to millions of people regardless of their income. Balls also said that, if Osborne thinks the 50p rate does not make any money, he should ask the Office for Budget Responsibility to produce a report on this. 11.20am: Tim Farron , the Lib Dem president, has, in quick succession, just given interviews to BBC News and Sky and, in the process, he has done a brilliant job of stirring things up. He has just taken an existing coalition split and given it a hefty rip, and he’s also stoked up an internal Lib Dem feud. Quite an achievement with only after only about five minutes on the airwaves. The coalition split first. We know that the Lib Dems and the Tories have different views on the 50p top rate of tax. In July Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary to the Treasury, said that anyone who believed in prioritising tax cuts for the rich was living “in cloud cuckoo land”. Two weeks later George Osborne, the Tory chancellor (and Alexander’s boss at the Treasury) said that the 50p rate was “very uncompetitive internationally” and that there was “not much point” in having taxes that were economically inefficient. Farron has taken the Alexander argument and – to use the jargon that it popular with the coaliton at the moment – put rocket boosters under it. He said cutting the 50p rate would be “phenomenally immoral”. According to PoliticsHome, this is what he told BBC News. What an outrage, in tough times like this, if the government was to give a tax cut to those who earn more than £150,000 a year and not give any more to those people who are struggling to get by and to make ends meet, many of whom are paying the price for the profligacy and recklessness of very wealthy people that got us into this mess in the first place … As Vince Cable said, the UK has had a heart attack if you like economically, and it will take a long time to get out of it. Not only would this not work economically, it would also be phenomenally immoral and send an appalling message to the overwhelming majority of hard-working people in this country that you can work hard and struggle and get no tax relief if you are on low incomes, but you get a tax cut if you are wealthy. Farron saved the Lib Dem split for his interview with Sky, where he was asked about the health bill. Officially, as far as the Lib Dem leadership is concerned, the health bill is now acceptable. After the Lib Dems demanded substantial changes at their spring conference, Nick Clegg put his foot down in government and the bill was rewritten. “That package will not now be re-opened,” Clegg said on Monday. Norman Lamb repeated the official line only this morning. But Farron, who is on the left of the party and who is a figurehead for Lib Dem activists, took a different line on Sky. He said the bill was “far from perfect” and that he would like to see “significant” changes to it in the Lords. If Lib Dem peers are emboldened by his stance, Clegg will either have to face them down, or support bids to re-open a package that he has publicly declared closed. 11.05am: Tim Godwin , the acting commissioner of the Metropolitan police, has suggested that Kenneth Clarke , the justice secretary, was wrong to talk about a “feral” underclass being responsible for the riots. Clarke used the phrase in an article in the Guardian yesterday. Appearing at the London Assembly, Godwin said: I would not use [that term] myself. The use of the term “feral” was first used in about 2000 following the death of Damilola Taylor. According to the Press Association, when pressed about Clarke’s language, Godwin said: “It’s a term I would not personally use but I think we do need to understand the level of fear of crime that actually encourages them to join gangs.” 10.59am: Michael Gove (left), the education secretary, gave an interview to Radio 5 Live this morning. According to PoliticsHome, he used it to respond to the Daycare Trust report. (See 10.28am.) We are paying more than the last government did. Even though we are reducing spending over all you have got priorities. It used to be the case that you had 12 and half free hours of childcare pre-education paid for by the government. We have extended this to 15, and we said for the very poorest this should extend to two year old children as well. There are 120,000 two-year-old children who are now getting 15 free hours of childcare and pre-school education who did not get that before. 10.44am: Chris Huhne , the energy secretary, has said today that energy companies need to “pull their finger out” because they are not on course to meet their carbon emissions targets. The government wants them to cut emissions by extending household insulation. But, although 300,000 insulation measures have been installed in the last three months, the companies will miss the target set for the end of next year if they carry on at the current rate, Huhne says in a news release. 10.36am: Brendan Barber , the TUC’s general secretary, has also criticised the economists calling for the abolition of the 50p tax rate in the FT. (See 9.13am.) At a time when cuts are biting hard and ordinary people are suffering the biggest squeeze on their living standards in years, the last thing we need is a handout to the wealthiest in our society. But this call is not just monstrously unfair, it is the kind of bad economics that led to the economic crash. Running the country in the interests of hedge fund managers created the huge bubble that burst in 2008. What is most depressing is that in the US, France and Germany there are vocal lobbies of wealthy people making the case that they should pay more to help clear up the mess that caused by the crash. In the UK they simply want to get back to what they see as the good old days, with a Chancellor quietly egging them on. 10.28am: The Daycare Trust have published a report today highlighting the cost of childcare and its impact on low-income families. It says some parents are turning down work because they cannot afford childcare. Parents in Britain spend almost a third of their incomes on childcare – more than anywhere else in the world – and such high costs have the greatest consequences for the poorest families. Of those families in severe poverty, nearly half have cut back on food to afford childcare and 58% said they were or would be no better off working once childcare is paid for. Yvette Cooper (left), the shadow home secretary and shadow minister for equalities, says that, with childcare tax credits being abolished, the government is presiding over a “childcare crisis”. The cost of childcare is going up, government support and places are being cut, with thousands of parents – particularly mums – being forced to give up work as a result. This is a nightmare for families, bad for the economy and taxpayers, and deeply unfair for working women who are once again being hardest hit. 10.18am: Nick Hurd , the Cabinet Office minister, has announced a £10m fund designed to develop new ideas to promote volunteering and charitable giving. It is supposed to help get initiatives like Freecycle off the ground. There are more details on the Cabinet Office news release. Hurd says it is a new approach to the issue. The Innovation in Giving Fund is a new approach. We want to root out the visionary ideas that too often never get the backing they need. We’re very open-minded about this, but ideas must have real potential to increase the giving of time or money. Lots of people already get involved but many don’t for a whole array of reasons, they are missing out. Simple things, like whether or not we know our neighbours, can have a huge impact on our own well-being. And more people doing more to help each other will improve our communities. There’s massive untapped community spirit, skill, and other resources, I want to hear about ways to unleash it. 9.31am: MPs will debate abortion this afternoon because an amendment has been tabled to the health bill. The bill itself doesn’t deal with abortion, but of course, despite the changes that were made to it earlier this year, it continues to be contentious. John Healey (left), the shadow health secretary, set out Labour’s objections just now in an interview on Sky. According to PoliticsHome, he said there was a “big gap” between what the government was saying and what it was doing. This is changing the very basis of the Health Service, and importantly the decisions over who provides what services will no longer be taken by the secretary of state or people who are publicly accountable. It will be more in the hands of competition lawyers and the courts. It is the wrong thing for the NHS and also creates a whole new bureaucracy that is costing money that could and should be spent on patients now. This is a very different plan and basis for the Health Service. We had the NHS at the centre of the Health Service – preferred provider was our term. We were prepared to use private companies and non-NHS providers, but only to supplement the NHS, often to add the capacity to clear waiting lists or to do things that the NHS couldn’t do. But Norman Lamb , the Lib Dem minister who at one stage threatened to resign if the bill did not get amended, told Radio 5 Live this morning that his concerns has been addressed. What I was expressing real concern about then was what seemed to be a headlong rush to a top down restructuring of the whole system without any evidence base of how it would work and that seemed to me to be incredibly financially risky for the NHS. But, as a result of the listening exercise, that has changed and it will now be an evolutionary process. Doctors will only take on budgets when they are ready and willing. That is completely different from imposing from the top down. The Department of Health is so worried about what is being said about the bill that it has published a 10-point “myth buster” intended to rebut the claims that are being made about it. 9.13am: Today the Financial Times is carrying a letter signed by 20 prominent economists urging George Osborne to drop the 50p top rate of tax “at the earliest opportunity”. They say they are concerned the 50p rate is doing lasting damage to the UK economy. According to the FT, the signatories “include many figures not usually associated with conservative causes, such as Bob Rowthorn of Cambridge University, and two former members of the Bank of England’s policy committee, DeAnne Julius and Sushil Wadhwani”. Here’s an extract. The UK has already slipped from second to fourth place as a destination for inward investment. It punishes wealth creation by imposing on entrepreneurs and business people a marginal tax rate in excess of 50 per cent once national insurance contributions are added in. This is particularly damaging when the UK needs to create new businesses in new industries and promote growth by small companies, which can grow fast. It applies to just 1 per cent of taxpayers, who already pay 24 per cent of all income taxes. If a small portion of these highly mobile workers move elsewhere because of the 50p rate then it is clearly a self-defeating way for the Treasury to try to raise money, and a reduction in tax avoidance would be more effective. It is often portrayed as a justified tax on the rich but the economic damage it causes means that it is against the interests even of ordinary workers who don’t pay it. Alistair Darling (left), the former Labour chancellor, has already said that he disagrees. According to PoliticsHome, Darling told Radio 5 Live this morning that dropping the 50p rate now would be “grossly unfair”. [The 50p rate] has got to stay in place until we get out of the crisis. It would be grossly unfair to remove it. In the long run you have got to keep your tax rates internationally competitive which means something like the tour rates we used to have. To remove it today would be grossly unfair. If they do not pay their taxes then poorer people who are going to pay. 8.55am: This will be the first prime minister’s questions for almost two months. The last one was on 13 July, which was also the day that Rupert Murdoch dropped his bid for BSkyB only hours before all parties united in a Commons debate to say the takeover would not be in the public interest. Today’s exchanges will probably be less historic, although it may be reassuring to see a return to “business as usual”. About 20 minutes after the end of PMQs we’ll then get the 90-minute debate on abortion. Those are the highlights. But here’s the full diary. 9.30am: Dominic Grieve , the attorney general, gives evidence to the Commons justice committee. 9.35am: Charles Walton, the chairman of Bombardier , gives evidence to the Commons transport committee about its failure to win the Thameslink contract. The committee is also hearing from Siemens, the company that won the contract, academics, the Unite union and the European Commission. 10.45am: Philip Hammond , the transport secretary, gives evidence to the transport committee about the Thameslink contract. 12pm: David Cameron and Ed Miliband clash at prime minister’s questions . 12.45pm: Jacqui Smith , the former home secretary, and Bob Quick , a former Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, speak at a Policy Exchange event about the challenges facing the next Met commissioner. Around 12.50pm: MPs will debate the proposal by Tory MP Nadine Dorries and Labour MP Frank Field to stop non-statutory abortion providers from giving counselling . It will be the first time that MPs have voted on abortion since 2008. Although the amendment is technical and, as Nicholas Watt reports in the Guardian today , it is expected to be defeated comprehensively, the issue has aroused huge controversy because the Dorries/Field move is perceived as a ploy that is part of a much broader campaign to restrict abortion. The debate will run for 90 minutes and I’ll be covering it in full. 2pm: William Hague , the foreign secretary, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee about foreign policy generally. As usual, I’ll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I”ll post a lunchtime summary after PMQs, and another in the afternoon. PMQs House of Commons Abortion Health policy David Cameron George Osborne Ed Miliband Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk

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