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Decommissioning

6. Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield) (Con): What recent progress has been made on the decommissioning of illegally held weapons and explosives. [180486]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Ian Pearson): There have been four acts of decommissioning to date. The latest act occurred on 21 October 2003, when the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning reported that it had witnessed a third event in which IRA weapons were put beyond use.

Sir Nicholas Winterton : I accept that there have been four such acts, but does the Minister accept that, although the last was slightly larger than the previous three, they have been only token acts of decommissioning? If Sinn Fein/IRA are serious about democracy and wanting to share power in Northern Ireland, they will have to decommission considerably more arms and make those decommissioning acts more meaningful. Is it not about time that the Government took this more seriously, and pressed Sinn Fein really, genuinely, to decommission its weapons?

Mr. Pearson: We are taking these matters seriously. It is important not to lose sight of the fact that three acts of decommissioning by the Provisional IRA have taken place. That was the start of the process, and the hon. Gentleman is right in the sense that the process must continue until all the apparatus of terrorism in all its
 
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forms has been dismantled. That is the clear objective of the Government, and it will be the clear objective of the intensive talks that we will hold in September.

David Burnside (South Antrim) (UUP): Why should the IRA decommission? The deadline was June 2000. The Government did not stick to the deadline. The Blair promise of action and expulsion was not adhered to. Why should the IRA decommission, when it has a very useful negotiating tool for the next raft of concessions to Sinn Fein/IRA?

Mr. Pearson: What is important is to recognise that the decommissioning process has started. Certainly we as a Government are not complacent. We want to see an end to all paramilitary activity, we want to see full decommissioning, and we want to see Sinn Fein take its place on the Policing Board. We need to ensure that all the parties are agreed and signed up to this, and that the Provisional IRA and the other terrorist groups all put their weapons beyond use.

Core Syllabus

7. Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North) (Lab): Pursuant to his oral answer of 11 February 2004, Official Report, columns 1403–04, on the core syllabus, what advice he has received from the working party on (a) the core syllabus in relation to religious education and (b) ensuring that children understand both Catholic and Protestant versions of Christianity; and if he will make a statement. [180488]

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Barry Gardiner): As part of the initial public consultation in September, respondents were given the opportunity to discuss their views further. Those meetings were conducted earlier this month, and views expressed are currently being considered by the working party. I now expect its advice in the autumn.

Mr. Allen : May I ask Ministers to redouble their efforts to ensure that all children in Northern Ireland, as elsewhere, are given the broadest possible base for both religious and non-religious education in values? Does my hon. Friend agree that the only people who will suffer from less religious bigotry in Northern Ireland schools are the men of violence?

Mr. Gardiner: I heartily agree. It is of course essential for children from all communities to experience not only the religious traditions of the other side, but the breadth of other faiths and world religions, which we are trying to make part of the curriculum. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. There are still a few minutes before Prime Minister's Question Time. May I ask the House to come to order?

Security Situation

8. Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk) (Con): If he will make a statement on the current security situation. [180489]
 
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Ian Pearson): Dissident republicans remain a threat to the peace process, but for the most part their activities have been thwarted, intercepted or nullified by good policing operations. The latest round of internal feuding between loyalist paramilitary groups ended following the murder of Brian Stewart in east Belfast last month.

Let us be clear about this: it is time for republican and loyalist paramilitary groups to make a commitment to ending all forms of violence.

Mr. Bellingham: Although, as the Minister says, the security situation is relatively stable, and as a consequence troop numbers are at their lowest level for a generation, what contingencies does he have for reinforcing troop numbers if that is necessary, especially given the huge overstretch in the armed forces?

Mr. Pearson: The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the recent announcement that two rear-based battalions will be taken from the authority of the General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland and transferred to other functions. Those matters are kept under constant review. The situation is such at the moment that the police have the full backing of the Army as and when they require it. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that will continue to be the case.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked—

Engagements

Q1. [181146] Lynne Jones (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab): If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 30 June.

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 will have further such meetings later today.

Lynne Jones: My right hon. Friend will recall his visit to Birmingham's university hospital trust. Since then, there have been year-on-year improvements in services, with waiting times for in-patients and out-patients now down to seven weeks. We are also getting a new hospital. However, will my right hon. Friend take care not to ape the desire of the Tories to reintroduce the market into public services, particularly when everyone knows that market mechanisms—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Supplementaries are supposed to be short. I call the Prime Minister to answer the question.

The Prime Minister: I will make sure that we make the health service a place where we can offer the very best quality care on the basis of need and not ability to pay. What my hon. Friend says about waiting lists falling is now true in her area and right throughout the whole country. All the waiting list figures are better, and I am
 
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sure that the House will be especially interested in the accurate figures for the East Kent Hospitals NHS trust, which show an 81 per cent. reduction in the total out-patients who are waiting 30 weeks or more. The Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS trust shows a 76 per cent. reduction in out-patient waiting. I am sure that that will be particularly welcomed by the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), who I hope will apologise this week for running down the national health service last week on the basis of wrong information.

Mr. Michael Howard (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con): Let me deal straight away with the Prime Minister's last point. My constituent was told that she would have to wait 20 months for radiotherapy. It turns out that that was a mistake. She should have been told—[Interruption.] She was told 20 months, but she should have been told 20 weeks, which is five months. If the Prime Minister and the party in government think that a five-month wait for treatment for someone with a life-threatening illness—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the right hon. and learned Gentleman speak—[Interruption.] Order. If an hon. Member defies the Chair, they might have to leave the Chamber. That is the message that I am sending across the Chamber. Do not defy the Chair.

Mr. Howard: If the Prime Minister and his party think that the fact that someone has to wait five months for treatment for a life-threatening illness is something to boast about, they are even more out of touch with opinion in this country than anyone would have thought. Waiting lists are a British disease; the right to choose is the cure for them.

Will the Prime Minister tell the House whether he has won his battle against the Chancellor and the Education Secretary to set up 200 academies rather than 50?

The Prime Minister: Before I deal with city academies, let me first say this to the right hon. and learned Gentleman: I do not want anyone to have to wait for life-saving operations, but I point out that it is under this Government, with our mixture of investment and reform, that waiting lists are tumbling right round the country. His Government could not even meet an 18-month waiting list target.

We will publish our proposals on city academies next week, but I think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will see that there is indeed an expansion of city academy schools. They are of course mixed ability schools that service their local area, and they will give children from some of the most disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to get high-quality education. Contrast that with the proposals that he announced yesterday, which are elitist, divisive and reactionary.

Mr. Howard: Let me make it clear: we welcome academies, which build on the successful Conservative idea of city technology colleges that the Labour party opposed. But the Prime Minister is only giving freedom to up to 200 schools. There are 20,000 state schools. Why cannot they all enjoy the same freedom?
 
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The Prime Minister: I have to point out to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that actually, all the schools are getting much greater freedom and the specialist schools have greater freedom, which is one of the reasons why school results are going up. If he is talking about his party's record in education, I welcome this debate. Let me remind him that when he sat in the Conservative Cabinet, year on year, they cut spending per pupil. It is now up £800 a year per pupil since 1997. They had a capital spend of under £700 million; it is now £4.5 billion. They cut the number of teachers; we have raised the number of teachers. And barely half of 11-year-olds were getting the right results in primary school; now, three quarters are doing so. So let us have a debate about the right hon. and learned Gentleman's record and our own.

Mr. Howard: What the Prime Minister does not understand is that people are not just interested in the money that goes into education; they are interested in the standard of education that their children receive. Under this Government, one in three 11-year-olds cannot read, write or count properly; 1million children played truant last year; a teacher is attacked every seven minutes of every school day; and the number of parents appealing against the school allocated to their children by the state has gone up by 50 per cent. since 1997.

The Prime Minister is selecting an elite few schools and favouring them with more money and more freedom. Last night the Minister for School Standards spoke about Labour's vision

"of empowering our best schools."

Why should it be only our best schools? Why should Labour be creating a two-tier school system? Why cannot the Prime Minister treat all schools the same? Why cannot freedom be extended to the many, not the few?

The Prime Minister: I really do welcome this debate. First, let me point out to the right hon. and learned Gentleman—again—that actually, all schools are given far greater freedom now than under the previous Conservative Government. [Interruption.] Yes, they are. Secondly, in relation to the difference between us on policy, he is saying that schools should now decide all their admission policy, which would mean a return to selection at the age of 11. That would mean not parents choosing schools, but schools choosing parents. He is combining that with a private school subsidy that would cost, according to his own figures, about £1 billion a year. That would be money going straight out of the state system and into the private sector.

The truth of the matter is that the right hon. and learned Gentleman's policies on health and education are elitist, divisive and reactionary, because at their heart is always this idea that the best one can hope for in public services is to get out of them. It is precisely because we recognise that public services are for the many, not the few, that we are investing in them, improving them and making them fit for all.

Mr. Howard: No, we are not taking money out of the system. We are putting an extra £15 billion into the system, and if the Prime Minister thinks that that is a cut, he should start attending his own numeracy classes.
 
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What on earth is the Prime Minister complaining about? Let me remind him and his colleagues that just three months ago he said:

"choice is crucial to individual empowerment and—by enabling the consumer to move to an alternative provider where dissatisfied—to quality of service."

He said that the ability to move to an alternative provider is crucial to quality of service. Those were his words, not mine, just three months ago. Why can he not have the courage of his convictions and stand up for what he believes in?

The truth is that, under his system, a tiny proportion of schools will get more freedom; under ours, they all will. Under his system, successful schools will not be allowed to expand; under ours, they will. The freedom that our system brings will drive up standards in all schools and allow teachers to impose discipline in classrooms. Does it not all boil down to this: under our system, every—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I give some elbow room to the Leader of the Opposition, but he really is pushing his luck. I think we will leave it at that.

The Prime Minister: We do indeed increase choice if we expand the number of good schools. That is the purpose of investing in them and creating specialist schools and city academies—to bring greater diversity into the system. What is not the answer, however, is ending up reintroducing selection at the age of 11 and subsidising private education. As to the £15 billion extra that the right hon. and learned Gentleman says he is going to spend on schools, may I remind him that he went into the Lobby and voted against even the investment that we are putting into our schools system? The idea that it is credible, after all the money that we have invested, for him to come along and say, "Actually, I am going to spend £15 billion more" is, as the Secretary of State for Health has put it, "Laa Laa land". It is another example of the same phenomenon.

The fact is that where the right hon. and learned Gentleman's policies are coherent, they are reactionary and divisive; and where they are not reactionary and divisive, they are utterly incoherent. That is why I am delighted that, at every Prime Minister's Question Time from now until the election, we will carry on this debate.

Dr. Phyllis Starkey (Milton Keynes, South-West) (Lab): Yesterday the Secretary of State for Health visited Milton Keynes general hospital and saw for himself the extra staff and extra facilities funded by this Government. Of course we would like even more funding to meet the needs of our growing population, but will the Prime Minister assure me that he will never propose to take £1 billion of funding out of the NHS to subsidise private health care for those who can already afford it, as proposed by the Conservative party?

The Prime Minister: I assure my hon. Friend of that. We will continue to ensure that the health service is provided free at the point of use, and based on need, not the ability to pay. Our investment and reform programme in the national health service is delivering real results. People can see that in constituencies up and down the country. Whatever the attempts of the Conservative party to run down the health service, the
 
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fact is that many people know that they are getting superb treatment out of the national health service—and we shall continue to deliver it.

Mr. Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Inverness, West) (LD): Can the Prime Minister confirm that his review of the funding of local government has ruled out replacing the council tax as the principal source of local taxation? Of course, he inherited it from the last Conservative Government, but is he saying that he is ruling out replacing that unfair and deeply unpopular local tax?

The Prime Minister: No, I am not saying that. It should be an open review, and that is what it is.

Mr. Kennedy: Will that open review take into account the question whether it is at all fair that the poorest 10 per cent. of people in our country now pay four times as much as a proportion of their income in council tax as the richest 10 per cent. of people? What does that say after seven years of a Labour Government?

The Prime Minister: What it says, I am afraid, is that we entirely accept that there are problems with the council tax. However, I have to say that there are problems with virtually every system ever introduced for local taxation, and arguments went on under the old rating system, then with the poll tax and now with the council tax.

Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD): What are you doing about it?

The Prime Minister: What we are doing is having the review that people asked for and we agreed to provide. We will come forward with the results of that review, once it is concluded. Nothing is ruled out; nothing ruled in. I have to say that, personally, I do not believe that the idea of the local authority taxing people on the basis of their income carries much conviction. The review can look at all the options, but when the right hon. Gentleman goes round the country, as he does, saying that the Liberal Democrats will get rid of the council tax, it is right that he explains to people that it will be replaced by at least 6p on the standard rate of income tax.

Several hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: I call Denzil Davies.

Geraint Davies (Croydon, Central) (Lab): How is it that—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I did not call Geraint Davies; I called Denzil Davies.

Denzil Davies (Llanelli) (Lab): Now that sovereignty in Iraq has been transferred from the coalition, would an Iraqi Government be free to acquire, produce or indeed hold weapons of mass destruction, or will the instruments of transfer contain a stipulation to prevent that?

The Prime Minister: No, and I have absolutely no doubt that the new Iraqi Government, who are working
 
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extremely well with us, will, if they are allowed to defeat the terrorism that besets them, be an immensely stable partner for the international community and will contribute not to the proliferation but to the reduction of weapons of mass destruction.

Q2. [181147] Dr. Evan Harris (Oxford, West and Abingdon) (LD): The policy of the US Administration not to allow any of their aid funds to be used for the support of HIV prevention programmes involving the use of condoms in AIDS-ravaged Africa is costing tens of thousands of lives and putting pressure on Department for International Development budgets. May I urge the Prime Minister not to be discouraged by his failure to persuade his good friend and ally, George Bush, on Kyoto and Guantanamo and to continue to press the US President to stop that policy for the sake of the African continent, and will he condemn that policy now?

The Prime Minister: What I will do, if the hon. Gentleman will allow me, is set out the policy of the UK Government. The policy of the UK Government is to increase the amount of help we give for HIV/AIDS; actually, we have ended up trebling the amount of aid we give Africa. I am responsible for UK policy; it is one of which we can be proud. The money and help we are giving Africa is far in excess of anything the Liberal Democrats have ever asked for.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): The Prime Minister has shown this morning why he has a reputation for the effective promotion of the virtues of choice. Can he tell us whether he will be using his powers of persuasion to allow the 6 million United Kingdom citizens who live in local authority housing to have the right to opt to retain their landlord while still having the right to have a decent home by 2010?

The Prime Minister: We will be bringing forward proposals to try to help local council tenants and housing association tenants to have greater choice over the lettings available to them. I also point out to my hon. Friend that we have doubled—it is somewhere in the region of that—the amount of money going into social housing, which obviously has an impact on those houses, too.

Mr. Michael Howard (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con): Last week, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff) made some extremely serious allegations in the House about events during the recent elections in Birmingham. He said that

"regular phone calls were made to the police by people complaining about the pressure that they were being put under . . . A postman complained to his superiors that the brother of one of the candidates had offered him £500 for his sack of postal votes".

He quoted a front-page editorial in The Birmingham Post, headed "Bribes, bullies and ballots", which referred to

"a . . . councillor 'sorting out' ballot papers in the shadows of a back street car park at midnight".—[Official Report, 22 June 2004; Vol. 422, c. 1232–34.]

Does the Prime Minister agree that such incidents call into question the integrity of our electoral system, and should not all the mainstream political parties work together to stamp them out?
 
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The Prime Minister: I do not want to comment on the individual allegations, as I do not know the details, but of course I agree that it is important for all political parties to stamp out corruption or malpractice wherever it exists.

Mr. Howard: The Electoral Commission has in the past argued that allowing observers to oversee elections would promote the transparency of the democratic process. The chairman of my party has written to the Electoral Commission asking it to appoint observers at the current by-elections in Leicester, South and Birmingham, Hodge Hill. Will the Prime Minister join me in urging the Electoral Commission to respond positively to that request?

The Prime Minister: I will consult with colleagues and get back to the right hon. and learned Gentleman on the proposal that he has just made—literally, right now. I shall have to investigate its implications and I shall get back to him as soon as possible.

Mr. John Hume (Foyle) (SDLP): Given the enormous damage, especially to young people, caused by the illegal drugs industry, does the Prime Minister not think that the time has come when Governments should work together internationally, with the countries where those drugs are produced, to get that industry stopped completely?

The Prime Minister: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, and that is precisely what we are doing, not least in countries such as Afghanistan, which are still obviously in danger of developing an economic dependence on drugs, but I agree that international action is one, major part of what we should do, and we are acting on it.

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