时间：2006年10月11日下午
地点：英国议会下院
时段：Prime Minister’s Questions
事件：托尼·布莱尔PK戴维·卡梅伦
Mr. David Cameron (Witney) (Con): There we have it: no buts, just cuts. I join the Prime Minister in sending our condolences to the families of those soldiers who have given their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past few months. We must make sure that they did not die in vain.
The Home Office has explained that it is moving prisoners at risk of escaping to open prisons. The Home Secretary is apparently happy with that. [Interruption.] Is the Prime Minister?
The Prime Minister: As the Home Secretary has just pointed out, absconding is at its lowest for 10 years, so the idea that we are going to put the public at risk is absurd. No people will be put in open prisons who are a risk to the public. [Interruption.] As the Home Secretary has just pointed out, the figures on absconding are the lowest for 10 years. Let me point something else out to the right hon. Gentleman. When he was advising the Home Secretary at the Home Office under the previous Administration, many, many category A prisoners as well as other category prisoners escaped. I am pleased to say that under this Administration there have been no category A escapes.
Mr. Cameron: But the public are at risk and the Home Secretary knows it. I have a memo from the governor of Ford open prison that could not be clearer. It states that
“this will mean almost inevitably that the abscond rate”—
that is, people escaping—
“will go up in Cat D prisons”
and that
“medium term burglars and robbers”
are
“likely to abscond.”
Whatever happened to tough on crime?
The Prime Minister rose—
Mr. Cameron: Hold on a minute. I know the Prime Minister has only a few more goes. Let us look at something else that he said. He said that any foreign national convicted of an imprisonable offence should be deported automatically. The Home Secretary is now bribing prisoners with up to £2,500 to get them to go home. Whatever happened to automatic deportation?
The Prime Minister: The Home Secretary is, very sensibly, making sure that we can ensure that all those foreign secretaries— [Laughter.]
There is not much of a recovery after that one. He is making sure that all those foreign prisoners can be returned as early as possible. It will obviously cost money, but in order to ensure that it happens more quickly we are making sure not that they are given a cash payment—that is absolutely wrong—but that we pay for their return before their sentence is completed, so that we reduce the pressure on British prisons and so that, when their sentence is completed, prisoners are returned immediately. That is the only way we will get the foreign prisoners back quickly.
Mr. Cameron: Let us look at what happened. Of the 1,000 prisoners who were released and who should have been deported, only 86 have been sent home. That is not automatic deportation.
Let us look at another thing the Government said. The Secretary of State for Health told us that this was the best year ever for the NHS. Will the Prime Minister confirm that, since then, 20,000 jobs are being cut, 80 community hospitals are under threat and 60 major hospitals face cutbacks? Would he describe it as the best ever year for the NHS?
The Prime Minister: I am delighted that we have got on to the national health service.
There are not 20,000 jobs going in the national health service. Since the Government came to power, there are 250,000 extra people employed in the national health service. Let me point out to the right hon. Gentleman, since he is launching a campaign on Saturday about cuts in the national health service, that his policy proposal earlier this week was for an independent commissioning board that would apparently be free to commission all services. [Interruption.] Nobody on the Government Front Bench is in favour of an independent commissioning board. It would be free to commission all services, and we know from the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) that there would be no limits to independent commissioning. Therefore, under the right hon. Gentleman’s proposal, if the board wished to commission maternity services, paediatric services or diagnostics from the private sector, it would be able to do so without limit. How does he put forward that policy proposal on the Monday, and then launch a campaign asking me to intervene in local decisions and provide more money at the end of the week?
Mr. Cameron: I do not know why the Prime Minister is attacking our health policy. One of his Health Ministers has said it is worth looking at and the Chancellor is going around briefing everyone that he would introduce it.
I know that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor do not talk any more, but if he read the newspapers he might find out what his Chancellor thinks. The Prime Minister is living in a fantasy world. In the real world, community hospitals are closing, nurses are facing the sack and beds are being lost. No wonder Labour is not trusted any more with the NHS.
Let us look at something else that the Prime Minister told us. He told us in January—Labour Members will enjoy this one—
“I’m absolutely happy that Gordon will be my successor. He needs the confidence of knowing he will succeed me and that’s fair enough.”
Does the Prime Minister still think that today?
The Prime Minister: Let me just say— [Interruption.] I do not resile from anything that I have said, but let me just go back for a moment to the NHS.
The right hon. Gentleman has just proposed a campaign, saying that he would reverse all those decisions that are being taken by local decision makers on the NHS. Let me read to him from his campaign document—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister has gone on too much about the Conservative party’s campaign document. [Interruption.] Order. I have given the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition some elbow room, and I ask both to take my advice, or sooner or later it will be my instruction.
The Prime Minister: I am delighted to say why—
Hon. Members: Order.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I know how to chair the proceedings. Let the Prime Minister speak.
The Prime Minister: I am simply explaining why I will not accept the policy on the NHS proposed by the Conservative party. I assume that the right hon. Gentleman is launching this policy proposal because he wants us to accept it, and the reason I will not accept it is that his proposal is for an independent board to take all commissioning decisions and to allocate resources. That would mean no accountability for politicians in this House about the decisions that are taken, and it would mean that, since there are no limits to the private sector involvement, none of these services that he will protest about at the end of the week will be guaranteed under his proposals made at the beginning of the week.
Mr. Cameron: It was a pretty straight sort of question, and the Prime Minister has told us that he is a pretty straight sort of a guy. Does he back the Chancellor as his successor? Yes or no? I do, does he?
The Prime Minister: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is a lot happier talking about that than he is about policy, but I will talk about policy. I will talk about the policy on the NHS, our policy and his policy, because in the end the issue for the country is who has the right policies for the future, and it is the Labour party that has made record investment in the NHS, which he voted against. It is this party that has delivered better waiting times, improved cardiac and cancer care and accident and emergency departments, and his policies would put all of that at risk, and that is why we will stick with our policies,not his.
Mr. Cameron: Everyone can see that the Government are divided and paralysed. We have a Prime Minister who does not trust his Chancellor, a Chancellor who has been accused of blackmail, the latest Home Secretary wants the Prime Minister’s job, the Deputy Prime Minister does not have a job but is still being paid, and all the while hospital wards are closing and the prison system is in chaos. How many more months of this paralysis have we got to put up with?
The Prime Minister: There is no paralysis. We have record investment in the health service, which is delivering the results that we say. The reason it is important that we resist the right hon. Gentleman’s “campaign against the cuts” is that the changes that we are making in the NHS are necessary to make it fit for the modern age, when it is changing rapidly, when new technologies and treatments are coming in, and when 70 per cent. of cases are now day-care cases. He can make all the remarks that he wants, but it is this Government, on welfare, on pensions, on energy, on the NHS, on education, who are driving forwards, while his party has a series of policies that face both ways and have no credibility whatever. If he wants to be taken seriously as a leader he should get serious on substance.
