§ Q1. Mr. Simon Hughes (Southwark, North and Bermondsey)If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 22 July.
§ The Prime Minister (Mr. Tony Blair)This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further such meetings later today.
§ Mr. HughesMay I remind the Prime Minister of two pre-election Labour pledges, which are of interest to millions of people in London and beyond? The first was that a Labour Government would hold a public inquiry into the sinking of the Marchioness, with the loss of 51 lives; and the second was that Guy's hospital at London Bridge would be saved.
Now that the Government have been in office for 15 months, will the Prime Minister give an undertaking that a public inquiry will soon be announced, and that the plans that have just arrived on ministerial desks proposing the closure of the maternity and accident and emergency departments at Guy's hospital, and the halving of the number of beds from 700 to 350, will be rejected, and replaced with plans that save and strengthen Guy's hospital rather than threaten it?
§ The Prime MinisterFirst, in respect of the position in the hospitals, we shall study those plans very carefully indeed and ensure that any commitments that we come up with are consistent with proper health care in London. We shall be putting a substantial extra sum of money into health care in London. Secondly, in respect of the Marchioness, it would not be right for me to comment until an announcement has been made, but I hear what the hon. Gentleman says.
§ Q2. Angela Smith (Basildon)Is the Prime Minister aware of the strong approval around the world for the British Government's actions in supporting the setting up of the International Criminal Court as the only way to deal with the perpetrators of war crimes and international atrocities, including disasters such as Lockerbie? Will he take every opportunity to try to persuade those Governments, such as the Chinese and United States Governments, who have not yet signed up to do so as a matter of urgency?
§ The Prime MinisterWe warmly welcome the agreement in Rome last week to establish the International 1111 Criminal Court. We believe that the court will be an effective, credible and independent body that is able to bring to justice those charged with international crimes.
In respect of Lockerbie, about which there has been a lot of discussion in the press, I shall simply say that it has long been a priority of this Government to bring to trial the two Libyans accused of responsibility for the Lockerbie tragedy. It has been our wish that the trial should take place in Scotland or the United States, and I totally reject the claim that there would be any difficulty in holding a fair trial in Scotland.
Because no progress has been made, we are prepared to look at alternative ways of giving the families the justice that they deserve. That is why we launched discussions with the United States, and more recently with the Dutch, about the possibility of trial in a third country. However, there are many, many legal and other complexities to be overcome before we can be sure that that is the right way to proceed. Until those issues are resolved, no final decision can be made, but we have been working on the matter thoroughly over a long period. We must ensure that any solution that we come up with is fully consistent with our absolute commitment to the integrity of the Scottish judicial system.
§ Mr. William Hague (Richmond, Yorks)After all the promises before the election and all the hype since, is it not now clear that the Deputy Prime Minister's transport White Paper is a complete dog's breakfast? Is not the truth that it is elderly people and low-income motorists—people who are only just able to pay for a car and people who cannot afford an increase in the cost of using their car—who will be hit hardest by the new taxes that he has proposed, with no guarantee that they will receive any benefits in return?
§ The Prime MinisterI have to say that the Conservatives' attack on the possibility of congestion charges and taxes reaches new heights of opportunism and hypocrisy, even for them. Let me quote from the April 1996 document put out by the right hon. Gentleman's Government, when he was a member of the Cabinet:
local authorities are to take the main role in deciding the right strategies for their areas, they have to have sufficient tools for the job. These might include powers to restrain traffic by local licensing measures or electronic charging…or powers aimed at reducing the provision of off-street non-residential parking.It went on:The Government will therefore discuss with the Local Authority Associations…with a presumption in favour of introducing legislation in due course".We are taking forward precisely the work that his Government did, and our plans for pensioners and for rural transport will help, not harm, those on low incomes.
§ Mr. HagueAnd I have to say that it is time that the Prime Minister started answering questions in the House about his policy and the policy that he wants to pursue. He talks about rural transport; the Government have announced £50 million for it, after taking hundreds of millions of pounds out of the pockets of rural motorists in the Chancellor's past two Budgets. On Monday, the Deputy Prime Minister, who is not here—presumably his bus is running late—told school-run mothers, people struggling home with their weekly shopping and people 1112 living in the countryside that they were making unnecessary journeys. Then he jumped into his car and was driven 200 yards to the office.
Will the Prime Minister at least give a clear answer to this question: can he guarantee that he will not permit new taxes on motorists to be imposed until viable transport alternatives are in place, rather than only talked about?
§ The Prime MinisterIt is precisely in order to do that that we have announced the plans that we have. What is more, those plans are £1.8 billion-worth of extra public investment in transport, over and above Conservative plans. As for what the right hon. Gentleman says about the rises in fuel duty, might I remind him that five sixths of that rise was imposed by his Government? I know that he would like to pretend that the 18 years of the Conservative Government never existed, but they did. As he well knows, it is the grossest opportunism to claim that we are introducing charges and taxes when all that we are introducing is permission for local authorities to experiment with them, in precisely the same way that the Government whom he supported wanted them to do.
§ Mr. HagueAfter all that, the Prime Minister has still not answered the question. Will he make sure that no new taxes are imposed until viable alternative transport is in place? He talks about £1.8 billion of extra expenditure; the total extra new money announced by the Chancellor last week for public transport was £22 million, not £1.8 billion. How will he explain to people around the country—school-run mothers, people who take their shopping home in their car and people in the countryside—why they are paying billions of pounds of extra taxes and getting nothing in return?
§ The Prime MinisterFirst of all, in relation to the right hon. Gentleman's nonsense about school-run mothers, let me remind him that the Deputy Prime Minister said that, if we can provide better public transport, more people will be able to use it, which is why we are putting the extra £1.8 billion into it.
It was interesting that the right hon. Gentleman appeared to be attacking us for not spending enough on transport. He is nodding now. I know that the Conservative party does not keep any policy for long, but yesterday he was telling us that our spending plans were dangerous and irresponsible. The shadow Chancellor nods.
So far, the Opposition health and education spokesman has said that it is not enough. The defence spokesman has said that we are cutting defence spending, and that he wants more. The agriculture spokesman wants more, and the shadow Home Secretary wants more. In the interests of further public debate, let the right hon. Gentleman come to the Dispatch Box and tell us which part of the spending plans he disagrees with. [Interruption.]
§ Madam SpeakerOrder. The House must quieten down.
§ Mr. Barry Gardiner (Brent, North)I trust that the Prime Minister will not send me for an early bath if I raise again the subject of football, which has so recently preoccupied the nation. Will he ensure that the £120 million of public lottery money that was supposed 1113 to purchase the Wembley site for the new national stadium will be safeguarded by the English National Stadium Trust, and that the money will not be used as a short-term interest-free loan to subsidise the Football Association?
§ The Prime MinisterI can assure my hon. Friend that we shall ensure that the money is used wisely, in the interests of football.
§ Madam SpeakerI call Mr. Ashdown.
§ Mr. Paddy Ashdown (Yeovil)I am grateful for hon. Members' good wishes. That is how things should be.
This time last week, the Prime Minister told me that the total increase in real-terms investment in health and education that he had promised would be delivered, whatever the economic situation. I use his words. Two hours later, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that, if inflation went up by more than his forecast, the real-terms increase in spending on schools and hospitals would fall below the amount that he had promised. Which is true?
§ The Prime MinisterIt is entirely right to say that the amount that we have set out is a three-year spending settlement. The money will be delivered and guaranteed—and, in fact, the Chancellor said precisely that in the evidence that he gave.
§ Mr. AshdownThe Chancellor said precisely that, if inflation went up beyond his forecast, the budgets would stay the same, which means that value diminishes. The position is simple: a 1 per cent. increase above the Chancellor's forecast means £5 billion less for health and education. The Prime Minister must answer this question: is it not the case that, if his forecasts are wrong, schools and hospitals will pay the price?
§ The Prime MinisterWe have based the figures on our own forecasts, which is the sensible thing for a Government to do. The right hon. Gentleman is saying that we should guarantee extra sums over and above that. We have entered into commitments for additional spending on health and education. Of course they were based on what we forecast will happen to the economy; that is sensible and prudent. What would be foolish would be to guarantee an extra £5 billion, which is what the right hon. Gentleman wants us to do.
As I reminded the right hon. Gentleman earlier, the actual amount that we are putting into schools and hospitals is substantially more than the Liberal Democrats ever asked for. I am beginning to think that we have reached the point at which, whatever sum we come up with, the Liberal Democrats will say that it is not enough. That may be the world of the Liberal Democrats, but it is not the real world.