Politics live blog – Tuesday 7 June

Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen 5.56pm: Here’s an afternoon summary. • David Cameron has announced a raft of changes to the health bill . The concessions have been welcomed by the Lib Dems, but some Tories will be concerned that the planned reforms are being emasculated. Cameron also announced that he is setting up “clinical senates”, which will involve groups of doctors and healthcare professionals coming together “to take an overview of the integration of care across a wide area”. This will lay him open to the charge that, having announced plans to remove one tier of bureaucracy in the NHS (by abolishing primary care trusts), he has ended up creating another in its place. (See 2.12pm.) • Oxford academics have overwhelming passed a vote of no confidence in David Willetts, the higher education minister. The motion was passed by 283 votes to 5. There is full coverage on our live blog. • Theresa May, the home secretary, has said that money from the £63m anti-radicalisation Prevent budget has been given to “the very extremist organisations that Prevent should have been confronting”. In a statement to the Commons announcing the government’s new approach, she said: “In trying to reach out to those at risk of radicalisation, funding sometimes even reached the very extremist organisations that Prevent should have been confronting. We will not make the same mistakes. In a world of scarce resources, it is clear that Prevent work must be targeted against those forms of terrorism which pose the greatest risk to our national security.” • William Hague, the foreign secretary, has mildly criticised Formula One for its decision to re-instate the Bahrain Grand Prix. When he was initially asked about this, he replied: “[Formula One] must take responsibility for their own decisions but if such an event is to take place at all then it should be a focus for improvements in Bahrain and be an incentive for all in Bahrain to work together on a national dialogue.” But later, in response to a question from Sir Menzies Campbell, he said Formula One “has not done itself any good by what has been announced”. • Paul Burstow, the health minister, has said that there could be an independent inquiry into the abuse of adults with learning disabilities at the Winterbourne View private hospital . This morning Ed Miliband said that the ongoing reviews into what happened were unsatisfactory and that an independent inquiry was necessary. Later, in the Commons, Burstow said: “For the avoidance of doubt, we have not ruled out an independent inquiry.” That’s it for today. Thanks for the comments. 5.53pm: Theresa May’s statement is now over. I’ll post a summary shortly. 5.46pm: Labour’s Denis MacShane says all government’s get some of these issues wrong. May should not have been so partisan, he says. 5.41pm: Labour’s Tristram Hunt says that for home secretaries to define what is and isn’t Britishness is “treacherous territory”. 5.33pm: Patrick Mercer, a Conservative, asks about Northern Ireland. May says Prevent doesn’t cover Northern Ireland terrorism. 5.32pm: Labour’s George Howarth asks for an assurance that the good Prevent work being carried out abroad won’t be abandoned. May says the government says this activity will continue. But the government will need to make sure that the money is properly spent. 5.27pm: The Home Office press notice about the new Prevent strategy is now available on the Central Office of Information website. 5.25pm: David Blunkett, the Labour former home secretary, says May should not be making political points with this issue. And he asks why Michael Gove is withdrawing citizenship from the curriculum? May says Gove is clear about ensuring that values are taught in schools. 5.24pm: David Davis, the Tory backbencher, says he recently received a letter from a prisoner saying his prison imam told inmates not to believe what the Western media was saying about the death of Osama bin Laden. Will the new Prevent strategy stop teaching like this? May says she wants to see this kind of activity being put to an end. 5.22pm: May is replying to Cooper. She says Cooper accepted the need to review Prevent. But she has also rejected the findings of that review, she says. On Hizb ut-Tahrir, she says the government will keep its status under review. May says it is right for the government to look at the groups being funded. The last government did not do that, she says. 5.17pm: Yvette Cooper , the shadow home secretary, says Theresa May has been engaged in “political point scoring”. She was supposed to be updating the Prevent strategy. But she has done nothing of the kind. The Prevent strategies were launched after 7/7. At the time the government was treading on new ground. It had the support of the opposition. Some of the strategies worked. Some didn’t. May should proceed on the basis of evidence, she says. Cooper says she agrees that extremist groups should not be funded. But the review found that this was not a problem. The universities and the NHS have already rejected the government’s plans. There is a “massive gap” between May’s rhetoric and the reality. Police counter-terrorism budgets are being cut, she says. And the government is watering down control orders (in a bill being debated later tonight). Cooper finishes with a final question. Will May confirm that the government will not meet its promise to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir? 5.14pm: May is still speaking. The Prevent strategy will have three objectives. 1. Tackling the ideology behind extremism. May says she has already stopped 44 individuals coming to the UK. 2. Stopping individuals being drawn into terrorism. May says Prevent is “not about spying on communities”. 3. Working with sectors and institutions where there is a risk of radicalisation. May pays tribute to the Lib Dem peer Lord Carlile of overseeing the review. He supports its findings, she says. May says her plan “will tackle the threat from home-grown terrorism”. 5.09pm: May says Osama bin Laden may be dead, but the threat from al-Qaida is severe. That means an attack on the UK is highly likely. The government must stop people being drawn into terrorist activity in the first place. And the government must have a counter-terrorism strategy to deal with terrorism at home and overseas. Labour’s Prevent strategy was “flawed”, she says. The new strategy will have a number of new principles. It should address all forms of terrorism, including the extreme rightwing. But it must focus on those forms of terrorism that pose the greatest risk. At the moment, al-Qaida poses the greatest risk. The new strategy will also tackle “non-violent extremism”, she says. Integration should go wider than counter-terrorism. The last government only promoted integration in the context of terrorism. Public funding for Prevent will be prioritised and “rigorously” audited. Public money will not be provided to organisations if they do not support the values of human rights and democracy. 5.08pm: Theresa May is starting her statement now. 4.49pm: Theresa May , the home secretary, is about to make a Commons statement about the government’s new Prevent counter-terrorism strategy. Here’s a short background reading list before she starts. • A briefing note from the House of Commons library about the Prevent review (pdf). • David Cameron’s speech on Islamist extremism at the Munich security conference. • Paul Goodman at ConservativeHome on how drawing up the Prevent strategy split the coalition. 4.41pm: William Hague , the foreign secretary, is now updating MPs on events in Libya and other countries in North Africa and the Middle East. You can read his statement in full here. He said he visited Benhazi at the weekend and found “a great sense of optimism amongst ordinary Libyans”. He was asked about Formula One’s decision to re-instate the Bahrain Grand Prix. Hague said Formula One “has not done itself any good” by the decision. 4.30pm: Miliband has attacked the government’s NHS plans as “lunacy”. That’s David Miliband , not Ed. The former foreign secetary intervened in health questions and, according to PoliticsHome, he asked Andrew Lansley to confirm that “that over £20m has been spent in the North East of England sacking PCT staff, that this money has come from funds previously earmarked for hospitals, and that there are going to be at least as many commissioning groups under his proposals as there currently are PCTs employing managers in those roles.” Miliband went on: Doesn’t this show that his plans are lunacy, not reform, and that they should be taken away and put into the dustbin, not given a simple pause? 4.14pm: Earlier, in my reading list (see 2.49pm), I posted a link to a Dan Hodges article that included an attack on Liberal Conspiracy. At Liberal Conspiracy, Dan Paskini has posted a reply. “Rubbishing our leader and behaving like the 1990s Tory Bastard Renactment Society isn’t a contribution on the route to electoral victory,” Paskini says. 4.00pm: Paul Burstow ‘s statement is now over. Here are the main points. • Burstow refused to rule out an independent inquiry into the Winterbourne View scandal. But he stressed that various reviews were already taking place. The Care Quality Commission is inspecting all services run by Castlebeck Care, the firm that runs Winterbourne View. South Gloucestershire council is holding a multi-agency safeguarding review. A criminal investigation is underway. And the Department for Health will examine the role played by all agencies involved. • Mark Goldring, the chief executive of MENCAP, will contribute to the internal Department for Health review of what happened. • Burstow did not rule out demanding resignations once the reviews being carried out are over. 3.57pm: Labour’s Dame Anne Begg asks if “telly care” would help, by allowing people to find out what was happening in homes like Winterbourne View. Burstow says he thinks that there is a role for “telly care”, but that this should not be a substitute for in-person inspections. 3.51pm: Labour’s Gisela Stuart asks if he is prepared to force people to resign if it turns out to be to blame. Burstow says in principle he is prepared to ask people to go. But he will first await the findings of the reviews being carried out into what happened. Accountability and Responsibility are at the heart of the government’s approach, he says. 3.51pm: Margot James, a Conservative, asks how many whistleblower complaints to the CQC have not been followed up? Burstow says he will look into this. 3.48pm: Labour’s Malcolm Wicks says Winterbourne is probably not an isolated example. Could local communities be involved in safeguarding people in these homes, he asks. Burstow says there will never be an inspector in every home at every moment in the day. But he would like people to become involved in the scrutiny of care in their communities. 3.43pm: Labour’s Dennis Skinner says a full inquiry would focus attention on the owners of Winterbourne View. He says that it is ironic that “billionaire Irishmen” were involved in the company owning the hospital at a time when Britain is helping to bail out the Irish economy. 3.41pm: Labour’s Michael Meacher says the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has had to reduce its inspections by 70%. Burstow says the last Labour government changed the rules govering CQC inspections. 3.39pm: Paul Burstow is replying to Thornberry. He repeats his point about the government not ruling out any further inquiry. But the government wants to make a decision based on “the full facts”, which is why it wants to see what the local inquiries throw up. 3.37pm: Emily Thornberry says the events shown on Panorama were “truly shocking”. South Gloucestershire Council is reviewing this case. But there should be an independent inquiry, she says. Did staff shortage at the Care Quality Commission have anything to do with what happened? Thornberry says she is not asking for an inquiry into individuals. She is asking for an inquiry into the failure of the system. 3.35pm: Paul Burstow is still speaking. He says responsibility for care rests with four groups: the providers, the commissioners, the regulators and the individuals involved. The individuals should have known what they were doing was totally unacceptable. 3.33pm: Paul Burstow , the health minister, is responding to the urgent question now. I thought Andrew Lansley was answering – because that’s what David Cameron said when he was asked about it earlier – but Lansley has left it to Burstow, the minister for care. Emily Thornberry, a shadow health minister, asks why the government has rejected Labour’s call for an independent investigation. Burstow says the government has not ruled out an independent investigation at some point. 3.21pm: Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, will be answering an urgent question about the Winterbourne View scandal at 3.30pm. A Panorama documentary broadcast last week showed staff at the centre grossly mistreating patients, who are adults with autism and learning difficulties. There is some footage on the BBC’s website, which also quotes an expert describing the treatment as “torture”. Here’s the statement Lansley issued about this last week. 2.49pm: Here’s an afternoon reading list. • Sturdyblog on why the IMF should not be taken too seriously. Last year, Hungary told the IMF to take its recommendations and shove them where the Strauss-Kahn don’t shine. The IMF insisted on tougher austerity measures, Hungary wanted to tax its banks and the rich. Talks between Hungary and the IMF collapsed and the IMF warned that Hungary would be punished for its folly. The Centre for Economic and Policy Research warned that the IMF’s obsession with austerity was dangerous. A year on, the IMF had to eat its words and commend Hungary for its ongoing recovery, which is going very well – thank you. • Sam Macrory at ePolitix on what John Bercow had to say when he was interviewed on stage by the Independent’s Steve Richards last night. And when offering his views on one particular paper, Mr Speaker was anything but [silent]. The Daily Mail, Bercow-baiters in chief, was dismissed as a “sexist, racist, bigoted, comic cartoon strip”, with Bercow apologising for breaking the trade descriptions act for describing the Mail as a “newspaper.” A red rag to its parliamentary sketch writer Quentin Letts, but honesty-points for the Speaker. • Dan Hodges at LabourUncut says Labour’s “flat earthers” need to get real. I’ve said it before, and I make no apologies for saying it again. The Labour movement is losing its marbles. At the moment, the cult of the flat earther is everywhere. “It’s not true we have a huge funding problem”, said Harriet Harman to Andrew Marr. The local election results were great. There is a progressive majority in this country. Ed’s problem is that not enough people have got to know him. This is not simple denial. Denial is an inability to face the truth. We’re not just ignoring the truth, we are constructing an entire alternate universe. In politics people will always have different perspectives, even those on the same side of the political fence. But for debate to be meaningful, there have to be some basic areas of agreement to act as points of reference, and anchor the dialogue. At the moment, within the Labour party, those points of reference simply do not exist. • Nicholas Watt on his Guardian blog on why Lady Thatcher will not be meeting Sarah Palin. It would appear that the reasons go deeper than Thatcher’s frail health. Her allies believe that Palin is a frivolous figure who is unworthy of an audience with the Iron Lady. This is what one ally tells me: “Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts.” • Sarah Hayward at ProgLoc says that at the moment Labour does not have an answer to the challenges thrown up by localism. 2.45pm: Andrew Lansley is taking questions in the Commons now. At 3.30pm he will be answering an urgent question about the Winterbourne View private hospital scandal. And he’s also issued a press release, accusing Ed Miliband of “misleading the public”. At his news conference this morning Miliband said that at the election Labour said it would “maintain NHS spending in real terms”. But its manifesto only promised to protect “frontline investment” in the NHS. Ed Miliband is misleading the public. The manifesto he wrote does not protect NHS funding in real terms at all – and he knows it. A quick look at their cuts to the NHS in Wales tells you all you need to know: where Labour run the NHS, they run it into the ground. 2.12pm: David Cameron is delivering his NHS speech now. Here are the key points. • Cameron says that he will change the section of the health bill saying that Monitor, the health regulator, should have a duty to “promote competition”. This could be misinterpreted and we don’t want any doubt in anyone’s mind. Monitor will be tasked with creating “a genuine level playing field” between NHS and private providers, he says. Private companies will have to meet the highest standards and they will have to contribute to the costs of training NHS staff. Monitor will also have a new duty to support the integration of services, he says. • GP-led consortia will only take charge of commissioning when they are “good and ready”, he says. • Hospital doctors and nurses will be involved in the commissioning consortia. In fact, Cameron is now describing it as “clinically-led commissioning, not just GP commissioning.” • Clinical senates will be set up. These involve groups of doctors and healthcare professionals coming together “to take an overview of the integration of care across a wide area”. (Cameron did not go into details, but it sounds as if these could end up looking like the primary care trusts that the government is abolishing.) There’s more coverage of the speech, and of the reaction to it, on our NHS reforms live blog. 1.53pm: Labour’s Mary Creagh , the shadow environment secretary, isn’t impressed with the government’s white paper on the natural environment. (See 1pm.) She has put out this response. Today’s natural environment white paper provides few clues about the Conservative-led government’s plans for nature. The white paper fails to set out a clear plan for major challenges such as reforestation or biodiversity loss; nor does it deal with concerns about planning policy. 1.00pm: Here’s a lunchtime summary. • David Cameron has claimed that the government has now persuaded voters to support NHS reform in principle. “Before the pause [in the health bill}, many were claiming the NHS is fine, and telling us not to touch it,” he is saying in a speech he will be making shortly. “Now – whatever their views about how to do it, most agree change is needed. What’s more, a significant number are now more clearly on board with the thrust of what we are proposing.” The speech starts at 1.30pm and we’ll be covering it in detail on the NHS reforms live blog. (See 9.07am.) • Ed Miliband has called for an independent investigation into the treatment of adults with autism and learning difficulties at the Winterbourne View private hospital. A minister will be answering an urgent question on this topic at 3.30pm. (See 11.10am.) • Miliband has also called for a review of the way care homes are regulated. (See 11.10am.) • Lady Neville-Jones, the government’s former security minister, has said that “plenty of Muslim groups” deserve to lose state funding because they support anti-democratic values. As Alan Travis reports, she was speaking ahead of this afternoon’s publication of the government’s revised Prevent counter-terrorism strategy. • The Queen has opened the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff. Referring to the way the assembly has now acquired powers to pass primary legislation, she told the AMs (assembly members): “During the various evolutionary stages of devolution in Wales, the Assembly has earned itself a well-deserved reputation for diligence and competence. You are now entrusted with the authority to make laws in all matters contained within the 20 subjects devolved to the Assembly and, for the first time, you will be passing Assembly Acts.” • Caroline Spelman, the environment secretary, has unveiled plans to spend £7.5m creating 12 large-scale nature improvement areas. The plan is set out in “The Natural Choice”, described by her department as the first white paper on the natural environment in 20 years. • The Department for Health has said that it welcomes “constructive engagement” from other parties on the future of care. It was responding to Ed Miliband’s offer to work with the government to find a cross-party solution to the problem of social care following the publication of Andrew Dilnot’s report on this issue later this year. (See 12.58pm: There will be an urgent question at 3.30pm about the Winterbourne View scandal, according to Sky’s Sophy Ridge. 12.42pm: Downing Street have responded to my question about the polling evidence that supports David Cameron’s claim that public opinion has now come around in favour of NHS reform. (See 9.07am.) An aide referred me to the YouGov@Cambridge (a YouGov division staffed by academics) report out today about public attitudes to health reform (pdf). This does show huge support – 71% in favour, 6% opposed – for the idea that “the way in which the NHS spends its money needs to be reformed, as increased life expectancy and new drugs mean it is becoming more expensive to run”. But there are no figures showing whether support for this proposition has gone up or down since Cameron launched his “listening exercise”. For all I know, YouGov would have got the same response six months ago. The report is worth reading. It shows that when people are asked broadly if they support the government’s reform plans, most say no. Some 41% are opposed, and only 20% are in favour. But when people are asked about specific aspects of the reforms, like GP commissioning, they tend to support them. There is even narrow support – 33% in favour, 29% against – for having a regulator “to ensure that there is competition for provision of NHS services”. 11.42am: Here are the main points from Ed Miliband ‘s press conference. • Miliband called for an independent investigation into the treatment of adults with autism and learning difficulties at the Winterbourne View care home. He said he was “sickened” by last week’s Panorama revelations about the behaviour of staff at the home. Miliband suggested that the government’s response to the programme was inadequate, although, given that the police have arrested some members of staff, it is not clear how Labour’s proposed inquiry would relate to the police investigation. • He said the government should consider changes to the way care homes for the elderly are regulated. In the light of the Southern Cross crisis, there is a case for saying that regulators should consider the financial stability of private firms providing care, not just the quality of the care itself. Miliband said that he wasn’t opposed to the private sector providing care in principle. • He played down concerns about his poor personal ratings in the polls . “I’m not a poll commentator,” he said. He would talk to the voters about what mattered. “I think it’s always true for leaders of the opposition early in their time in office that the public are getting to know them. But I’m very confident,” he said. “In the end you let the people decide.” • He said voters had forgotten how much the NHS had improved under Labour. In 1997 Virginia Bottomley, the Conservative health secretary, wanted to promise a maximum 18-month waiting time. She never achieved that, he said. Labour got the maximum down to 18 weeks, he said. When pressed for further details of how Labour would reform the NHS, Miliband referred to the speech he gave on this subject to the RSA. (There’s more about that speech here, at 12.12pm.) 11.34am: BBC News and Sky have given up on their coverage of the Labour press conference. And Labour’s live feed still isn’t working. It looks as if I should have made the trip to the Royal Festival Hall. I’ll sum up what we’ve learnt shortly. 11.25am: The Q&A is still going on. Q: Are there any circumstances in which you could vote for the health bill? Miliband says the government would be better to “go back to the drawing board”. But he will wait to see what the government proposes. Q: What do you say to people who think you’re a bad opposition? Miliband says he thinks Labour has won back the voters it lost at the last election. But it has got to win back more people, by showing them he has “a compelling view of the future”. There is further to go, he says. Q: Your personal poll ratings are way behind Cameron’s? Are you a drag on Labour’s chances? Miliband says he is “not a poll commentator”. He talks about what matters to the country. Voters have to make up their mind. There is always a phase for new opposition leaders when voters get to know them. In the end voters have to make up their own mind. 11.19am: The Q&A is still going on. Q: What can you do to stop private equity firms “creaming off millions” from firms like Southern Cross? Miliband says Labour allowed independent treatment centres to provide NHS care. But they had to show that they were financially viable. He is “open-minded” about how this issue is addressed. But the government cannot leave this to one side. The government’s response has not been nearly “muscular enough”, he says. Q: What do you have to say about knife crime? Do you think the government is soft on crime? Miliband says he does take this seriously as an issue. Cameron made a series of promises on knife crime. “As far as I can tell, he’s not keeping them.” He says he will support tough community punishments. But he does not support Kenneth Clarke’s plan to halve sentences for offenders who plead guilty early. Q: What do you think about Nick Clegg’s stance on the health bill? Miliband says Clegg is a “Johnny come lately” convert to changing the health bill. Q: Has getting married changed your view of marriage? (This is from the Daily Mail.) Miliband congratulates the Mail on its coverage of the care homes issue. On marriage, he says he will not tell other couples how what they should do. 11.16am: Miliband is taking questions now. Q: How do you respond to the claims that the Labour policy review is chaotic? (Some of these claims were made in this Total Politics article.) Miliband says he is “very proud” of the policy review. Liam Byrne is leading a review reporting to Miliband. And shadow cabinet ministers are conducting their own reviews. A party that loses an election needs to consider its policies, he says. Q: How can you work with David Cameron on care when you have been so critical of him? Miliband says Labour has worked with the government on some issues. Social care is an area where the parties should work together. 11.10am: Here are the key points from Ed Milband ‘s opening speech. • Miliband demanded an independent investigation into the Winterbourne View care home scandal. I was shocked by the scenes from the Winterborne View care home. They sickened me. They shame our country. The Government appears to believe that reviews by the Care Quality Commission and by South Gloucestershire Council are enough. It is not because these bodies were involved in the failure itself. There must be an independent investigation into what happened and what lessons need to be learned and the Government should announce it straight away. • He said the Southern Cross care home crisis suggested that regulators should investigate not just the quality of care, but also the financial stability of private firms providing that care. At Southern Cross, it is plain wrong that financiers creamed off millions, while as we now know the care of tens of thousands of elderly people was being put at risk. They seem to have been treated merely as commodities. As we have seen previously with the banks, there are industries – and health and social care services are one such example – where corporate failure can have consequences far beyond the loss to shareholders and investors. Just as with the banks, in the end the government would have to step in and pick up the tab. We should not jump to the conclusion that all private homes are bad. They are not. But for these industries, effective regulation is critical. Currently regulation looks at the quality of care provided. The Government must now also look at whether the regulation of this sector should be extended to cover the financial stability of organisations which provide these vital services for hundreds of thousands of elderly people. • He offered to hold cross-party talks with the government on the findings of the Dilnot review into the future of care for the elderly being published later this year. We all know that there have been lots of reports into social care over the years. Every serious attempt to solve this pressing challenge has foundered, often on the failure to find a political consensus. The most recent example was the break-up of cross-party talks by the Conservatives when they were in opposition so they could scaremonger about death taxes and benefit changes. I want to make a serious offer to David Cameron today. Let’s engage in cross-party talks around the Dilnot Commission’s recommendations to deliver the care system we need. We will come to those talks with an open mind about the best way forward, not simply advocating what we have proposed in the past. 11.08am: Oh dear. The Labour party’s live feed seems to have crashed. Luckily Sky and BBC News are showing Ed Miliband’s speech. 11.01am: The live feed does seem to be working. According to a number at the bottom of the screen, I’m one of 127 people watching at the moment. 10.51am: 10.51am: Ed Miliband’s press conference will be starting shortly. It’s at the Royal Festival Hall. I normally attend these events in person, but Labour say they will be showing a live feed on their Facebook site and so I’ll take their chances with that. Jim Pickard at the FT’s Westminster blog has more on how Miliband will be calling for cross-party talks on social care. 10.32am: Ed Miliband is going to call for an independent investigation into the Winterbourne View home for disabled adults scandal , according to the BBC’s Norman Smith. 10.25am: 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 articles and stories that are particularly interesting. • Sean O’Neill in the Times (paywall) says the government will reveal that Labour spent millions of pounds overseas on anti-extremism projects that produced no security benefits. The new Prevent strategy for fighting the al-Qaeda ideology, a copy of which has been seen by The Times, promises to “significantly scale up” work in prisons and with recently released terrorist prisoners. The document, to be published in Parliament this afternoon, says that anti-extremism programmes reached only “a small proportion of the target prison population” and some convicted terrorists have been released without their beliefs being challenged. By contrast, in an echo of the debate over international aid spending, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been spending Prevent money abroad on English classes for imams and courses to empower Muslim women that have had little or no security value. • Jeremy Laurance in the Independent says that more than 70 per cent of primary care trusts are ignoring guidance from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) to offer infertile couples three free cycles of IVF. Women unable to conceive naturally are being denied IVF on the NHS because they are too young, too old, too fat, smoke or live in Wales – in flagrant breaches of the guidelines. (That suggests David Cameron’s “universal coverage” pledge isn’t quite as far-reaching as it sounds. See 9.07am.) • Rachel Sylvester in the Times (paywall) says David Cameron is going back on his commitment to localism. Now that he realises that he will be held responsible for the decisions made by local people and institutions, Mr Cameron is slowly but surely seizing back control. Although the coalition agreement declared that “the time has come to disperse power more widely in Britain today”, in reality, a year on, power is being concentrated ever more narrowly at the centre. Even as the Localism Bill goes through Parliament, promising new rights and powers for local communities, the Government in Whitehall is asserting itself with increasing vigour. Yesterday Mr Cameron backed national guidelines for retailers, broadcasters and councils to prevent the sexualisation of children. Today the Home Office publishes plans to tackle extremism that will include controls on universities and Muslim groups. The Department for Environment and Rural Affairs will set out plans to protect designated wildlife sites. Meanwhile, ministers are about to force through a huge housebuilding programme on public sector land. “All political parties are decentralisers in opposition and centralisers in government,” one strategist says. “Once you have power it’s very hard to give it up.” • Jason Groves in the Daily Mail says Andrew Mitchell, the international development secretary, has described Britain as a “development superpower”. Addressing a foreign policy conference in London, Mr Mitchell said: ‘Just as the Americans are a military superpower, we are a development superpower – we are in the lead. ‘My ambition is that over the next four years people will come to think across our country – in all parts of it – of Britain’s fantastic development work around the poorest parts of the world with the same pride and satisfaction that they see in some of our great institutions like the Armed Forces and the monarchy. This is brilliant work that Britain is doing.’ (The Daily Mail isn’t very chuffed about Britain’s new superpower status. “Why on Earth do the Tories think they have the right to squander taxpayers’ money in their misguided zeal to detoxify their brand,” it asks in a leader.) • Andy McSmith in the Independent says that Sarah Palin wants to come to London to meet Margaret Thatcher, but that she is likely to be disappointed. Baroness Thatcher had to stop making public appearances years ago because of ill health and is seldom at home for guests. A reception hosted by David Cameron in Downing Street to celebrate her 85th birthday had to go ahead without her. An aide said: “Nowadays, the Lady rarely meets people at all. If a meeting went ahead it would be very much low-key, and would very much depend on how things were on the day. We don’t make firm appointments for this sort of meeting.” • Roland Watson and Robert Lea in the Times (paywall) say ministers are considering plans that would force unions to minimise disruption to the public during strikes. Ministers are now looking at measures that would require unions to sign up to minimum service agreements of the kind used in Spain. That would require unions to maintain a level of service of about 40 per cent of the normal level, even when they were on strike. One Government source said: “We are looking at how you minimise the impact on the economy and on public services.” • Philip Stephens in the Financial Times (subscription) says George Osborne and Ed Balls are both right about the deficit. How can the chancellor and his shadow both be right? It’s simple. Mr Osborne was correct to judge that the UK needed a tough and credible programme to eliminate the deficit within a reasonable time frame. Mr Balls has been right in arguing it was dangerous to do too much too soon. To put it another way, Mr Osborne has been too intractable and Mr Balls too reluctant to spell out a convincing alternative. The sensible thing for the chancellor to do now would be to dust off the contingency plans drawn up some months ago by Sir Gus O’Donnell, the cabinet secretary. To save face, Mr Osborne can call them something other than plan B. Strange to say, Mr Balls is in no better shape. Much as they may think the government is overdoing it, voters are unlikely to give much credence to Labour as long as Mr Balls implies the deficit can be wished away. The opposition will get a serious hearing only when it admits that it was not an entirely innocent bystander at the scene of this particular economic accident and when it produces its own plan to restore the public finances. 10.12am: Chris Ham, the director of the King’s Fund health thinktank, was on the Today programme this morning talking about David Cameron’s promise to keep NHS waiting times low – a promise that Ed Miliband claims is already being broken. (See 9.07am and 9.33am.) According to PoliticsHome, Ham said that “there is pressure on the NHS and we know that is having some effect on waiting times but there hasn’t been a great deal of change since the election”. The key thing, Ham said, was to establish what Cameron actually meant by his promise. If the prime minister is going to make a commitment to keep waiting times low, the key is what exactly does that mean? The previous government actually quantified its objectives, it said no more than four hours in A&E, a maximum of two days and you should get your operation done within a maximum of 18 weeks. So the question we and others will be asking about the prime minister’s commitment today on that point is: is he committing to the same targets or something else? If you want to know who’s right about waiting times, do read this analysis on the Channel 4 FactCheck blog. It concludes that there has been a “slight upward trend” in waiting times since the election. 9.33am: And here are some extracts from what Ed Miliband is going to say about the NHS at his press conference later this morning. David Cameron is the first PM in history to set out five pledges to protect the NHS from his own policies, yet he has already broken two of them. The number of people waiting 18 weeks for treatment has gone up. He has not protected the health service budget. He has spent a year mismanaging the NHS. The consequence is chaos, confusion and damage to patient care. Hundreds of millions of pounds which should have been used for patient care are being wasted on handing out redundancy notices to staff from PCTs – staff who may now have to be rehired. 9.29am: For the record, here are the latest YouGov GB polling figures. Labour: 43% (up 13 points since the general election) Conservatives: 37% (no change) Lib Dems: 9% (down 15) Labour lead: 6 points Government approval: -24 9.07am: Downing Street have already released some extracts from David Cameron ‘s NHS speech. Yesterday we learnt that Cameron would be making five personal pledges on the issue and here they are in full. We will not endanger universal coverage – we will make sure it remains a National Health Service. We will not break up or hinder efficient and integrated care – we will improve it. We will not lose control of waiting times– we will ensure they are kept low. We will not cut spending on the NHS – we will increase it. And if you’re worried that we are going to sell-off the NHS and create some American-style private system – we will not. We will ensure competition benefits patients. These are my five guarantees. There are some other interesting remarks in the speech too. Cameron acknowledges that “in many ways the NHS is providing some of the best service it ever has”. He says that the listening exercise has produced “an important debate around our country”, including “searching analysis that some newspapers have carried out”. (I presume that means he’s been reading the Guardian’s excellent NHS reforms live blog.) Crucially, he also claims that, as a result of the listening exercise, the government is winning the argument over the need to reform the NHS. Before the pause, many were claiming the NHS is fine, and telling us not to touch it. Now – whatever their views about how to do it, most agree change is needed. What’s more, a significant number are now more clearly on board with the thrust of what we are proposing. In recent weeks, GPs representing 1,100 practices across England, the Association of Surgeons from Great Britain and Ireland and the Royal College of Surgeons have all written letters to national newspapers expressing support for the basis of our plans. Patients groups like Saga and Age UK have also backed key parts of our plans. But is this actually true? Does anyone know of any polling that confirms that “a significant number [of people] are now more clearly on board with the thrust of what we are proposing”? The only evidence I can find to support this is the YouGov tracker poll (pdf) that shows that the Labour lead on the NHS is now only 12 points, compared with 15 points at the beginning of May and 15 points at the end of March. But this is only a very modest improvement. In January the Labour lead on the “which party would handle the NHS best” question was just 10 points. 8.50am: MPs are back today and health is dominating the agenda. Ed Miliband is giving a press conference on health this morning, David Cameron is delivering a speech on the subject this afternoon and Andrew Lansley is taking questions on the Commons. But there are plenty of other things going on too. Here’s the diary for the day. 9am: The cabinet meets. 10.15am: Energy companies give evidence to a Commons committee about the UK’s energy supply, 11am: Ed Miliband gives a press conference about the NHS. I’ll be covering it here minute by minute, and you can can watch it live on Labour’s Facebook page . 11am: Andrew Dilnot, who is chairing the government’s commission on care funding, speaks at a Saga care crisis seminar. 1.30pm: David Cameron delivers a speech on the NHS. My colleague Randeep Ramesh and Rowenna Davis will be covering it in detail on the NHS reforms live blog . 2pm: Oxford academics debate a motion of no confidence in David Willetts , the higher education minister. 2.30pm: Andrew Lansley , the health secretary, takes questions in the Commons. 2.30pm: Liam Fox , the defence secretary, gives evidence to the Commons Scottish affairs committee about the implications of the defence review for Scotland. 3.30pm: William Hague , the foreign secretary, makes a statement in the Commons about Libya. Around 4.30pm: Theresa May , the home secretary, is expected to make a statement about Prevent, the government’s counter-terrorism strategy. As Alan Travis reports , it will say that doctors should to identify people who are “vulnerable to being drawn into terrorism”. Later MPs will debate the terrorism prevention and investigation measures bill. We’re also getting an unusually large number of written ministerial statements today, including ones about the crisis at Southern Cross care homes, the revelations about the way adults with learning disabilities were treated at the Winterbourne View private hospital , the German E coli outbreak, money laundering and a medal for civilians who have been involved in the Afghan war. 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 after 4pm. House of Commons Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk

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