Politics live blog – Monday 13 June 2011

Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen 1.45pm: Miliband says he does not accept the “Conservative characterisation of those on benefits as being feckless and worthless”. The man was I talking about earlier [see 1.35pm] cared about his children and wanted to bring them up right, but the system neither demanded nor encouraged him to do the right thing. We have a responsibility to provide people with opportunities to improve their lives and escape poverty. And we have a responsibility to look after the vulnerable. But those who can work have a responsibility to take the opportunities available. (This passage sounds as if it could have come straight from an Iain Duncan Smith speech.) 1.43pm: You can tell Ed Miliband is keen to create a new impression. He has just read out – approvingly – a relatively long quote from Tony Blair. Tony Blair once said he wanted a country “where your child in distress is my child, your parent ill and in pain is my parent, your friend unemployed or homeless is my friend; your neighbour my neighbour. That is the true patriotism of a nation.” 1.41pm: Miliband says that he supports people getting rich – if they deserve it. But he does not approve of directors taking pay rises that are not merited. We were intensely relaxed about what happened at the top of society. I say – no more. We must create a boardroom culture that rewards wealth creation, not failure. To those entrepreneurs and business people who generate wealth, create jobs and deserve their top salaries, I’m not just relaxed about you getting rich, I applaud you. But every time a chief executive gives himself a massive pay rise – more than he deserves or his company can bear – it undermines trust at every level of society. 1.39pm: Miliband says that for too long Labour was seen as a party representing those “shirking” their duties. For too many people at the last election, we were seen as the party that represented these two types of people. Those at the top and the bottom, who were not showing responsibility and were shirking their duties. From bankers who caused the global financial crisis to some of those on benefits who were abusing the system because they could work – but didn’t. Labour – a party founded by hard working people for hard working people – was seen, however unfairly, as the party of those ripping off our society. My party must change. 1.35pm: Ed Miliband is speaking now. He starts with an anecdote about meeting someone on incapacity benefit during the local election campaign. He hadn’t been able to work since he was injured doing his job. It was a real injury, and he was obviously a good man who cared for his children. But I was convinced that there were other jobs he could do. And that it’s just not right for the country to be supporting him not to work, when other families on his street are working all hours just to get by. And he mentions Southern Cross. What do these two have in common. That these are people who are just not taking responsibility – and the rest of us are left picking up the pieces. 1.15pm: The weekend papers didn’t make particularly cheery reading for Ed Miliband . The Mail on Sunday published extracts from a new biography claiming that Ed’s relationship with his brother, David, is worse than previously realised , and other papers carried reports questioning his leadership. .The most damaging was in the Sunday Times, which was partly based on a YouGov poll showing that Miliband’s approval ratings are low even among Labour supporters. But today Miliband will be hoping to put all this behind him with a major policy speech on “Responsibility in 21st Century Britain”. I’ve already published some extracts (see 12.20pm) and Frank Field’s enthusiastic reaction (see 10.43am). Miliband is due to speak at 1.30pm, and I’ll be covering it live, in detail. 1.00pm: Here’s a lunchtime summary. • David Cameron has announced that Britain will donate an additional £814m to vaccinate more than 80 million children, helping to save an estimated 1.4m lives from common conditions such as pneumonia and diarrhoea . He made the announcement at the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) conference in London. The full text of his speech is on the Number 10 website. • Cameron has told Tory MPs not to see the changes being made to the health bill as a concession to the Lib Dems. Although Nick Clegg has been telling Lib Dems that they secured 11 of their 13 demands, Cameron told a private meeting of MPs that it was wrong to see the matter in party political terms. He said that it was actually his decision to put the health bill on “pause” and that the Conservatives would also benefit from the changes being made to the legislation. The NHS Future Forum will publish a report this afternoon recommending changes, and Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, will give the government’s formal response in a statement to the Commons tomorrow. • Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, has denied the government is preparing to dump a proposed £26,000 annual cap on benefit payments . (See 9.52am and 11.38am.) • Frank Field, the Labour former welfare minister, has warmly welcomed a speech Ed Miliband is giving this afternoon. Field said he was particularly pleased about Miliband’s declaration that people who work or contribute to society in other ways, such as volunteering, should get special treatment when social housing gets allocated. “It signals the end of Labour’s attack on the working class moral economy that has always believed benefits should be largely based on contributions and not decided simply on terms of need,” Field said. “It is difficult to overestimate how significant today’s speech is.” The speech is at 1.30pm, and I’ll be covering it in detail live. (See 10.43am and 12.20pm.) • The Home Office has published figures showing that plans to cut the number of foreign students arriving in the UK could cost £2.4bn more than they save . • Kate McCann told MPs that families whose children go missing need more support. Speaking to a parliamentary committee investigating the issue, she called for a single point of contact between the families of missing people and the police. “To be left in the dark when your child is missing and at risk is unbearable, she said. Human beings were not equipped to deal with such ordeals and more support was crucial if “families are to survive”. James Brokenshire, a home office minister, told the inquiry: “We are acutely aware of the pain caused when a loved one goes missing and we are working hard to ensure the best arrangements are in place to support families … From July 1, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection agency will take over responsibility for missing children, further improving the service that families of missing children receive, and providing further specialist support to police forces in missing children cases.” 12.20pm: Ed Miliband is delivering his “Responsibility in 21st century Britain” speech at 1.30pm, but the party has already a large chunk in advance. Here are the key points. • Miliband will say that Labour would force firms to publish “pay multiples” – the ratio of top pay to average pay. He will also float the idea of forcing big firms to have a worker representative on the remuneration committees deciding directors’ pay. In the 1970s, pay and performance became detached by penal rates of taxation. That was bad for our economy and it was right to fix it. But the danger today is that pay and performance have become detached again and the time has come to take action. There are great British companies, which have created huge success and wealth where high rewards have been well-deserved. Rolls Royce is one example of that. Sir John Rose who recently retired was a great British business leader—creating wealth and keeping jobs in this country. Yet at the time the financial crisis hit, he was being paid four times less than Fred Goodwin … This failure to link reward to achievement for shareholders and the economy is undermining not just our sense of fairness but our economic future as well. The right way to address that is through renewed transparency and accountability in the boardroom. Companies should publish the ratio of top to average employee earnings. Real accountability to shareholders will restore confidence and create the kind of sharp rewards for success that Britain needs. • He will say that people who work or contribute to society in other ways, such as volunteering, should get special treatment when social housing gets allocated. He praises a scheme in Manchester, where people with a particular need are not the only ones given priority. He will say that he would like schemes like this to become the norm. We need responsibility at the top of society, but we also need it at the bottom. Again, the principle should be one that rewards contribution. We are facing a challenge to the belief in our welfare state – founded on principles of solidarity and compassion, but now tarred with the brush of unfairness and irresponsibility. If we want to protect and improve the British welfare state, we must reform it so it genuinely embodies responsibility and contribution as much as need. One area where people’s sense of fairness is under threat is social housing. In Manchester, as well as helping the most vulnerable families and disabled people with housing, they prioritise households who are giving something back to their communities – making a contribution – for example, people who work for or run local voluntary organisations and those who are working. They also look to reward people who have been good tenants in the past and who have paid their rent on time and never been involved in any Anti Social Behaviour … These approaches mean that rather than looking solely at need, priority is also given to those who contribute – who give something back. It’s fairer and it also encourages the kind of responsible behaviour which makes our communities stronger, makes them work. 12.07pm: Douglas Carswell , the Tory backbencher, has welcomed the way the health bill is being amended. According to PoliticsHome , this is what he told BBC News. In the last parliament I used to complain that MPs simply rubber-stamped government decisions – now we see the House of Commons doing what is supposed to do, which is to debate openly and frankly a key area of public policy and make sure that we get something that 60m people can support. We’re moving towards a consensus and I think it’s a good thing. I think as a result of this, the changes will be better and rather than see this as somehow a concession, I think finally politicians are doing what they’re elected to do which is to represent their constituents and make sure that public policy is in the interest of everyone. 11.38am: I’m back from the Number 10 lobby briefing. Here are the main points. • Downing Street insisted that the government was not watering down its plan to impose a £26,000 cap on annual benefit payments to families. The policy was “completely unchanged”, the prime minister’s spokesman said. Iain Duncan Smith has already put out a statement suggesting that Lord Freud, the welfare minister, was wrong to suggest that new exemptions could be introduced (see 9.52am) and Downing Street reiterated this message. There are already plans to exempt some families (such as those with a child receiving disability living allowance, or someone receiving working tax credit), the spokesman said. There were no plans to change the policy, he said. When pressed, he said that introducing new exemptions would amount to a change in policy and “we are not changing the policy”. • Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, is expected to make a statement in the Commons tomorrow giving the government’s response to the report from the NHS Future Forum about the health bill. Ministers are receiving the report today (although they have a very good idea as to what will be in it, because Professor Steve Field, the forum’s chairman, has been in regular contact with Downing Street.) The spokesman would not say whether the bill would be sent back to committee for further line-by-line scrutiny in the light of the changes being made. Nick Clegg wants it to be “recommitted” in this way, but apparently Lansley is resisting this. • Downing Street played down the idea that the Lib Dems had won a victory over the health bill. (See 10.27am.) “I don’t think we would characterise the debate that way,” the spokesman said. 10.43am: In his speech later Ed Miliband is going to say that Labour cannot allow itself to be seen as a party that tolerates abuse of the welfare system. Here’s the key quote that the party has released in advance. For too many people at the last election, we were seen as the party that represented these two types of people: those at the top and the bottom who were not showing responsibility and were shirking their duty to each other. From bankers who caused the global financial crisis to some of those on benefits who were abusing the system because they could work – but didn’t. Labour – a party founded by hard-working people for hard-working people – was seen by some, however unfairly, as the party of those ripping off our society. New Labour did a lot to change the fabric of the country. But it didn’t do enough to change the ethic of Britain. My party must change. Frank Field, the Labour former welfare minister, has put out a statement warmly welcoming Miliband’s message. Ed Miliband today begins to redefine what Labour means by fairness and so begins the long haul of building a new coalition of voters straddling both working and middle class voters. It signals the end of Labour’s attack on the working class moral economy that has always believed benefits should be largely based on contributions and not decided simply on terms of need. It is difficult to overestimate how significant today’s speech is. I’m now off to the Downing Street lobby briefing. I’ll post again after 11.30am. 10.27am: The Lib Dems are claiming that they have achieved 11 of the 13 changes they were demanding to the health bill. The 13 “demands” were those set out in the motion passed by the party at its spring conference. My colleague Nicholas Watt has produced a “scorecard” listing all the demands and saying which have (according to the Lib Dems) been secured. It’s at the bottom of his story about the NHS Future Forum. The two Lib Dem proposals which have not been adopted are: giving about half the seats on commissioning consortia to councillors; and ensuring that foundation trusts are only allowed additional freedoms if they can engage substantial numbers of local people as active members. The Lib Dems claim that have acceptable alternatives to these two proposals. 10.10am: You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today’s paper, are here. As for the rest of the papers, here are some stories and articles that are particularly interesting. • A survey of City opinion in City AM suggests that people in London’s financial and business community do not think George Osborne is doing enough to promote growth. In a set of findings that will make uncomfortable reading for the chancellor, 64 per cent of the panel said he was not doing enough to promote growth, compared to 31 per cent who said he was and five per cent who did not know. • Richard Garner in the Independent says ministers want to change the way pupils apply for university because more than half of A level predictions turn out to be wrong. Ministers want to examine whether the UK could switch to a system whereby youngsters apply to universities after they have got their grades – rather than , as at present, be granted provisional places on predicted grades. Research by UCAS, the University and Colleges Admissions System, show that around 55 per cent of predictions are wrong. In an interview with The Independent, Steve Smith, chairman of Universities UK – the body which represents vice-chancellors, said the vast majority of errors (47 per cent) were where predictions were too high. Only nine per cent of predictions were too low. • Mary Ann Sieghart in the Independent says that, if David Miliband were Labour leader instead of Ed, people would still be complaining that the wrong brother won. While Ed is being rightly criticised for his woolliness over policy (70 per cent of voters aren’t clear what he stands for), David can be frustratingly opaque too. In Downing Street meetings, when he worked for Tony Blair, he would come out with a string of abstract nouns like “empowerment”, but when the Prime Minister pressed him on what he actually meant, he could never put it in concrete policy terms. Were he now leader, that would be a real problem. In yesterday’s poll, 41 per cent of voters thought David would be a better leader than Ed, with only 6 per cent disagreeing. They are right that David would be better, but perhaps not as dramatically as they suppose. For they are not comparing like with like. David is still untarnished; he hasn’t had tosuffer any of the opprobrium that comes with being leader. Had David won instead, there would have been many more banana photos and geeky insults. By now, wistful MPs would be saying that Ed spoke human, unlike his big brother. Labour would still have fantasised about the brother over the water whichever one was in charge. In fact, the differences between the two are nothing like as great as the romantics would have us think. • Shirley Williams in the Independent says the Lib Dems deserve credit for the changes being made to the health bill. Liberal Democrats, from our party’s grassroots to its leadership, can be proud of the influence we have exerted to change the Government’s NHS plans. It is clear now that the proposals that will be taken forward are dramatically different to those originally proposed. 9.52am: Yesterday Lord Freud, the welfare minister, said that the £26,000 limit that the government is imposing on the amount of benefits that can be claimed by any single family in a year would be relaxed in “exceptional circumstances”. But today – influenced perhaps by media reports citing this as yet another example of a government U-turn – Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, has put out a statement saying the £26,000 cap will stay. The benefit cap will restore fairness to the taxpayer and fairness to those who do the right thing on benefits. The policy is unchanged. The £26,000 benefits cap remains. 9.28am: Liam Byrne, the shadow work and pensions secretary, is giving an important speech to Progress tonight. As Patrick Wintour reports, he will say that Labour lost touch with public opinion on the issue of responsibility and he will propsing making unemployed benefit claimants work harder to find a job. Byrne was on the Today programme earlier and he suggested it would take Labour at least another year to start developing new policy in detail. I’ve taken the quotes from the Press Association and PoliticsHome. Getting back in touch with people and renewing our agenda for the future isn’t going to be a fortnight job. We actually do need a pretty major reappraisal of our policy. I do think it will take a period of time for us to really hammer out what that policy agenda for the future will look like … I think it’s going to take a couple of years for us to start developing the policy that we need for the future in some detail, but the starting point has got to be an analysis of where we are in the country and the direction of travel. I think a couple of years into any leadership of the opposition, you need a pretty clear sense of how, what’s what for the party, and as I say, we have got a big job to do because of where we ended up in the polls last year. 8.58am: And John Redwood , the Conservative former cabinet minister, has also been speaking about the health reforms. According to PoliticsHome, he told the Today programme that the Lib Dem demands were inconsistent with their own manifesto. We’ll have to see what the detailed proposals are line by line when they try and amend their legislation, but from the spin, the Liberal Democrats claim to have scored an own goal because, of course, their manifesto they said they wanted to cut the size of the Department of Health by half, abolish unnecessary quangos, scrap health authorities put front line staff in charge of their ward or unit budget and allow staff to establish employee trusts. It sounds as if they are now trying to prevent their own manifesto being implemented. 8.51am: Norman Lamb , Nick Clegg’s chief parliamentary adviser, was on Radio 5 Live this morning welcoming the changes that are being made to the health bill. He said Lib Dem influence had been particularly strong in two areas. I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome. [First] it’s evolution not revolution. There’s no imposed total reorganisation of the many things are done from the centre. That can be every destabilizing and therefore make patients very anxious. [Second] there will be no special favours for the private sector, no duty to promote competition. 8.37am: There are two big stories on the go today. David Cameron is under pressure over the health bill, and today the NHS Future Forum – the body set up to co-ordinate the “listening exercise” undertaken after the bill was temporarily shelved – will publish its report recommending changes. The Lib Dems are already claiming victory, but we don’t know yet quite how strong the backlash will be from Tory backbenchers who rather liked the original plans and don’t want to see them emasculated. And Ed Miliband is under pressure too, over his apparently lacklustre leadership. He will be fighting back with a major speech at lunchtime. If the pre-speech briefing is anything to go by , it may turn out to be the most important speech he has delivered so far as leader. Here’s a full list of what’s coming up. 9am: David Cameron speaks at the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) conference in London. He will say that Britain will vaccinate the equivalent of one child every two seconds for five years , saving one child’s life every two minutes. 10.15am: Kate McCann and two other mothers of missing children will given evidence to a hearing organised by the all-party parliamentary group on runaway and missing children and adults . 1.30pm: Ed Miliband delivers a speech at the Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre in London. As Nicholas Watt reports , he will say he is determined to end his party’s image as the champion of “those ripping off our society”. 2.30pm : The NHS Future Forum publishes its report recommending changes to the government’s health bill. There will be full coverage on the NHS reforms live blog . 2.30pm: Iain Duncan Smith , the work and pensions secretary, takes questions in the Commons. 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 at around 1pm, and an afternoon one at about 4pm. Ed Miliband David Cameron NHS Health policy Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk

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