Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including Robert Chote, the Office for Budget Responsibility, giving evidence to the Treasury committee about the autumn statement and Nick Clegg and Harriet Harman at PMQs
Arguments about identity are very emotional. Arguments about migrants are very emotional. But we have to argue back.
We have forgotten how to make a case. We have forgotten what the arguments are.
I don’t think I’ve met anyone with a greater love of Scotland than Prince Charles, or the Duke of Rothesay as we should call him. I know some newspapers get extremely upset and irritated by the messages he sends to ministers and I can confirm he does send messages to ministers. But I can also say I have never been upset about any of them. Most of them sound to me entirely sensible.
On 26 March 2010, that is before the General Election and while you were still Health Secretary, the three organisations shortlisted for the contract to run Hinchingbrooke Hospital were Circle Health, Ramsay Health Care UK and Serco Health ... all of which are non-NHS organisations.
The NAO report of the bidding process published on 8 November 2012 ... clearly states that in December 2009 there were only 3 bidders left in the process – Circle Health, Ramsay Health Care UK and Serco Health. It says on page 20 that the “the two NHS trusts involved both withdrew at early stages of the process.”
I did not, at any point, claim that pensioner poverty “rose under the last government”. I said that it was “higher” under the Labour Government than it is now, after the reforms led by the Liberal Democrat Pensions Minister, Steve Webb MP, in the Coalition Government. These are very different things and what I said is entirely accurate.
ComRes has released some polling it has done for ITV on the autumn statement.
It found that, of the four tax measures in the autumn statement, the Google tax was the one that people were most likely to say was good for them personally (with a net score of +55 - those who say it will be good for them, 59%, minus those who say it won’t, 4%). The others are cutting stamp duty (+48), abolishing inheritance tax on ISAs (+47) and abolishing air passenger duty (+31). This is curious because the Google tax won’t actually benefit most people personally, unless they recognise the indirect gain they might get from the government getting a fairly minuscule increase in tax revenue. The tax change that most people are most likely to notice, the cut in air passenger duty, is bottom of the list.
The Commons foreign affairs committee has published a short report on China’s decision to stop it visiting Honk Kong as part of its inquiry into the former colony. It says the government should be protested more robustly, and that the Chinese ambassador should have been summoned to the Foreign Office.
Here’s an extract.
We thank the FCO for its efforts to assist the committee and we welcome the contact it has already had with senior ministers and officials in China about the ban. However, we consider that the minister’s reply did not go far enough, given the gravity of the circumstances and the insult to the House of Commons and to the UK as a whole. We call on the government to respond more robustly to this unprecedented act by the Chinese government. We recommend that the FCO raise this matter with its partners in the European Union. In particular, we recommend that the government summon the Chinese ambassador in London to the Foreign Office, and make formal written protests to its counterparts in Beijing and Hong Kong.
We have cut tax for 11.9m women - the gender pay gap for women under 40 has pretty well disappeared under this coalition. Under Labour, only one in eight of FTSE board members, under this government there are more women on FTSE 100 boards than ever before. The Labour party is becoming the Lance Armstrong of British politics - they have forgotten the better half of a decade of how they messed things
This is what political journalists are saying about PMQs on Twitter.
For Harman
This week's B-Team #PMQs handed @HarrietHarman an easy (but boring) 4-2 win over @nick_clegg: http://t.co/lN0w98Lz61pic.twitter.com/rZMihRgghS
The viewers of Daily Politics think Clegg won and Harman only spoke for half the population. To me, she wiped the floor with him
If Labour's aim was to use that #PMQs to bind Clegg to the Conservatives...it was a triumph
Harriet Harman wiping the floor with Nick Clegg: He talks the talk but walks through the lobby with the Tories. People will never trust him
Think while Clegg appeared to win PMQs with spirited response to Harman, the substance of what he said made him sound v.close to Tories
Amazing scenes in Commons as Tory MPs get behind Clegg joining in chants against Labour! And cheers of more #PMQs
Interesting - Clegg for once getting cheers from the Tory benches during #pmqs. Guess they hate Harriet more...
Oh dear, @SkyNews have decided to broadcast the weather instead of #DeputyPMQs. Clegg and Harman have officially been #weatherbombed
Clegg sounding a yellow Tory #pmqs
Just as @nick_clegg tries to distance his party from Tories @HarrietHarman boxes him into sounding like one & Tory MPs cheer him on #PMQs
The post PMQs points of order are more interesting than the actual PMQs
Whatever your politics it's pathetic Clegg has not found a cabinet seat for a woman in 5 yrs. Given quality of some of the men it's not that
Have we had a sense today that Clegg may fail to woo the nation in leaders' debates next year?
When Harman cares about a subject and understands what she is talking about she is rather good. Signs of how she has survived so long today.
Whenever Clegg does PMQs, you are reminded of how many obstacles there are to any kind of Clegg Miliband governing arrangement
On the World at One Lynne Featherstone, the Lib Dem minister, has said that she could be appointed to the cabinet in a future coalition government.
Lib Dem (& woman!) Lynne Featherstone suggests she should be "in line" for Cabinet job: "I have encouraged Nick, but he's resisted" #wato
Clegg got told. LD Featherstone says v imp that women are in positions of power, & if returned to govt she & Jo Swinson will be in cabinet.
Here’s Sean Kemp, a former special adviser to Nick Clegg, responding to arguments o of the kind I was making in my previous post. (See 1.19pm.)
After every PMQs people talk about how Nick Clegg sounded like a Tory and speculate on coalition deals etc. Based on 30 mins of daft theatre
PMQs Verdict: Why was Nick Clegg quite so bad? He can be reasonably effectively at the despatch box, and today it is not as if he was caught out by surprise by Harriet Harman’s line of attack. Overnight she signalled that she was going to focus women’s issues today and this morning the Labour party even issued a press release from her on this topic.
What she didn’t do, though, was reveal in advance the precise questions she was going to ask. Clegg should have been able to guess the first one, about the lack of female Lib Dem cabinet minsters, and the sensible thing to have done would have been too concede the problem, and perhaps say something newsy about Lib Dem selection procedures. (The party has a long-standing problem getting women selected in winnable seats.) A real announcement from the despatch box almost always trumps what the opposition has to say. But he didn’t.
On a point of order, Gregg McClymont, the Labour MP, says Clegg misled MPs about Labour’s record on pensioner poverty. He should set the record straight.
John Bercow says these issues are a matter for debate. If he had to correct MPs when they said something wrong, he would be very busy, he says.
Peter Bone, a Conservative, asks Clegg if he agrees with David Cameron that new immigration controls should be introduced.
Clegg says that he favours proper exit checks.
Labour’s Brian Donohue asks why oil price cuts are not reflected at the pumps.
Clegg says Treasury ministers have raised this with the oil companies.
Graham Allen, the Labour MP, asks a closed question about the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.
Clegg says it is too early to know what impact it will have. It will be reviewed in 2020.
Labour’s Ben Bradshaw says, if Clegg needed an operation in Devon, he would be denied it because he smokes. As would Eric Pickles because he’s too big.
That’s a bit harsh, says Clegg.
Gregg McClymont, the Labour MP, says Clegg said earlier that pension poverty rose under Labour. It didn’t. It fell dramatically. What was Clegg’s source for that?
Clegg says under Labour pensioners got a 75p rise one year. And the coalition brought in the “triple lock” guaranteeing pension rises.
Robert Jenrick, a Conservative, says a quarter of cancer cases are only diagnosed at A&E. Cancer should be diagnosed first, not last.
Clegg says the NHS is seeing 51% more patients with suspected cancer than four years ago. But, where possible, the NHS should do more.
Labour’s Toby Perkins asks Clegg if he backs Labour’s plan to stop large companies charging small companies from being in their supply line.
Clegg says the revelations that have come to light on this in recent days are being investigated by Vince Cable, the business secretary.
Mark Spencer, a Conservative, says Sherwood NHS trust is in special measures. Labour’s PFI contract is to blame.
Clegg says PFI contracts are now costing the NHS £1bn a year.
Labour’s Geoffrey Robinson asks Clegg to use his influence in government to ensure it delivers on its promise to help victims of the contaminated blood scandal.
Clegg says he will look into this.
Clegg says there are fewer Neets (young people not in employment, education or training) in Sheffield than ever.
Labour’s Andrew Gwynne says Clegg has received donations from a firm, Autofil Yarns, that is moving jobs overseas. What does he think of that?
Clegg says he does not speak for the factory. Labour is bankrolled by the unions. They may have even written Gwynne’s question. Isn’t it time that Labour backed party funding reform?
Alan Duncan, a Conservative, asks Clegg to condemn the killing by the Israeli military today of a Palestinian minister who was just involved in a protest.
Clegg says the government will look into this. He does now know the details. But he appeals for restraint.
Clegg says 5% of contracts went to the private sector under Labour. Under this government it is only 6%.
Labour presided over sweetheart deals for private health firms.
Mike Thornton, the Lib Dem MP, says some of the most heart-wrenching cases in his surgery have involved people let down by mental health services.
Clegg says he has pushed for more money for mental health. He wants it to have parity with physical health.
Labour’s Gordon Banks says his party wants part of the Smith Commission report, allowing votes at 16 for Scotland, to be fast-tracked. Will Clegg back that?
Clegg says the government will stick to the timetable agreed. The government has over-delivered on its promises to Scotland. The Lib Dems back votes at 16, he says.
Snap PMQs verdict: Virtuoso stitch-up job by Harman, with Clegg only making thing worse for himself by refusing to engage with her perfectly sound points.
Harman says most of those affected by the bedroom tax are women.
Clegg says it is time to call out Harman on Labour’s record. Youth unemployment, child poverty, pensioner poverty and income tax for middle income were higher. This side of the House has had to clear up the mess.
Harman says there has been a 90% fall in the number of sex discrimination cases. What percentage of millionaires getting the top rate tax cut have been women?
Clegg says increasing the basic rate threshold has gone disproportionately to women.
Harriet Harman says it is good to see Clegg back in his place since he missed the autumn statement. Clegg has made seven cabinet appointments. How many have been women?
Clegg says Harman knows who he has appointed. But women have got things from this goverment they never got from Labour, such as better childcare and more flexible working.
Nick Clegg says he spent one day in Cornwall last week (on autumn statement day). Labour MPs have been spending five years in cloud cuckoo land, he says.
PMQs is about to start.
Here’s a summary of some of the key points from the Treasury committee hearing. I may have missed anything in the final few minutes because I’ve been busy with this.
In the health service, for example, some 35% of health professionals are migrants. So it is quite plain that if they weren’t there the health service would be in absolutely dire straits. That’s a special point.
One argument said we’re a small island, not much room. On the other hand, of course, there’s masses of room. The urbanised part of Britain occupies less than 10% of the surface area. The urbanised part of Surrey occupies less of Surrey than golf courses.
Since more immigrants mean more housing, more roads, more airports, more incinerators, more of this being required, and since the evidence would suggest that people by and large don’t like these things, especially if they are near them, that’s the key issue about immigration that people may wish to face up to.
The pay of unskilled workers, particularly in the service sector, has been held back to some extent - not to a massive extent, but to some extent - by unskilled immigration.
I want to make one point if I possibly can. I’m really concerned that we are not focusing on the extent to which monetary policy is disco-ordinating the market for loanable funds, sending false signals about where we are in the production possibilities frontier, stimulating over-consumption and false investment. And I think we’re going to be caught out by another horrible crash as a result.
If you look at the relatively robust pace of growth over recent quarters, that has been reflected particularly in terms of the contribution from the consumer, in terms of people running down saving rather than having stronger income growth. We have assumed that it is not plausible [that this could continue.] If you look at the last year, the real consumption growth has been running further ahead of real wage growth than in almost any other year over the last 15 or 20 or so. Therefore in our forecast the main reason we expect the quarterly rate of growth to slow is that you see consumer spending moving more into line with income growth, and being less driven by the sort of decline in saving you are talking about.
Alok Sharma, a Conservative, goes next.
Q: Are attrition rates built into the forecasts?
Q: How confident are you that the tax avoidance measures in the autumn statement will produce as much as they say?
Graham Parker says the OBR is “pretty confident” that its central forecast for the amount of money that will be raised are reasonable. That does not mean it will be right. The measures could raise more money, or they could raise less. But it’s a central forecast.
Labour’s Andy Love goes next.
Q: You say revenues from tax avoidance measures are uncertain. Should they be adjusted to make allowance for this?
Steve Baker, the Conservative MP, has been tweeting from the committee.
Again on #Treascom, it is a titanic struggle to force consideration of credit interventions' effect on capital, productivity and wages.
All credit to @OBR_UK boss Robert Chote for positively stating the uncertainty of economic forecasts and how much data is unobservable
Can't decide whether the Chote/OBR testimony (http://t.co/IwDBrSrFe4) is un-newsworthy, or whether that's just post-Autumn Statement fatigue
@EdConwaySky I gave the reasons for the next crash. Sorry to be so boring!
@EdConwaySky here's a quick guide to the reasons I gave http://t.co/3KhPFzgPbK
Q: Will wage inflation occur in the future?
Chote says the OBR was expecting to see wage growth?
Chote says immigration is not the only source of increased labour supply. We are also getting more older people staying on in the labour market.
As with immigrants, there is a skew here towards low-paid work, he says.
Nickell says, over the next 10 years, for the native population, immigration may be a little bit good, or may be a little bit bad. But “there isn’t, overall, that much in it.”
In the NHS 35% of health professionals are migrants.
If they weren’t there the health service would be in absolutely dire straits.
Mark Garnier, a Conservative, goes next.
Q: Economic forecasts get it wrong. Have you found one that has got it right over the last five years?
Chote says the surprise was the borrowing fell as much as it did in the first two years of this parliament, when GDP growth was so poor.
And more recently the surprise has been how little borrowing has fallen.
Labour’s John Mann goes next.
Q: Has the OBR increased its productivity over the last four years?
Teresa Pearce, the Labour MP, goes next.
Q: Harold Macmillan said in 1951 that housing is essential to productivity. In London we have a housing crisis. Has anyone looked at the impact of this on productivity.
Q: What are you concerns about deflation?
Chote says the OBR is assuming that CPI inflation will remain below target until 2017.
Steve Baker, a Conservative, goes next.
Q: What are the major risks to your forecasts? And could the economy over-perform?
Andrew Tyrie takes over.
Q: In the last year of a parliament Treasury officials tend to “salt a little away”. You have not been affected by this, have you? [Tyrie is suggesting that the OBR might be unduly pessimistic about its forecast for future tax revenues.]
Chote says, if you look at different taxes, there are different trends in terms of revenues.
Fiscal drag could bring in more tax from income tax and stamp duty.
Nickell says credit constraints are easing.
Three years ago they thought that, by now, things would have got back to normal.
Jesse Norman, the Conservative MP, is asking questions now.
Q: Why has productivity fallen?
Stephen Nickell says the OBR believes we are not going to get the productivity back, but gradually the path of productivity will come back to its historic level.
The OBR does not have enough evidence to say that the long-term trend level of productivity has fallen. That would be a very big call to make, he says.
Q: Do you expect productivity to pick up?
Chote says the OBR expects it to pick up to normal levels.
Chote says, looking forward, he expects to see fiscal drag in the next few years pulling people into higher tax bracket.
The big picture is that there has been a drop in the tax-to-GDP ratio this year, for reasons that are permanent.
Tyries turns to tax.
Q: Is the downturn in revenues temporary or permanent?
Q: Your appointment comes up in September next year. What process will be in place?
Chote says his understanding is that the government wants to leave this for the next government.
Chote says the OBR was only told that the Treasury was allocating extra money to the NHS after it had produced is economic forecast.
In an “ideal world” that would not happen, he says.
Andrew Tyrie, the committee chairman, starts.
Q: Can you assure us that you are allowed to operate completely independently?
The Treasury committee is about to take evidence from the Office for Budget Responsibility about the autumn statement.
The three OBR witnesses are:
In a written ministerial statement this morning (pdf) Patrick McLoughlin, the transport secretary has confirmed that the franchise to run the East Coast main line has been handed to Inter City Railways Ltd, a Stagecoach/Virgin joint venture. Michael Dugher, the shadow transport secretary, has described this as “a betrayal of taxpayers”. He said in a statement:
This decision is a betrayal of taxpayers and the travelling public. David Cameron has put privatisation ahead of the public interest. This whole rushed franchise process to re-privatise the East Coast Mine Line should never have happened.
East Coast has achieved top customer satisfaction ratings, established itself as one of the best train operating companies in the country, and will have returned over £1 billion to the Exchequer before privatisation.
As the Guardian reports today, Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, is publishing a report today saying that secondary schools in England are failing in increasing numbers, with more falling into special measures and tens of thousands more pupils attending schools condemned as inadequate.
Wilshaw was on the Today programme this morning. He explained why he thought secondary schools were increasingly failing.
I think it is a number of reasons. One is because transition from good primary schools to secondary schools is poor. The transition from the last stages of primary school to year 7 and 8 is often very poor and secondary schools are not consolidating on the gains that have been made in the last years of primary schools. And key stage two results are very good this year and we are not seeing that progress being maintained on the first years of secondary.
The culture of some of underperforming secondary schools is not good. Disruption is too common, low-level disruption is too common. They are not dealing with the most able children particularly well, or at the other end of the spectrum they are not closing the gap between free school meal pupils and those not on free school meals as well as primary schools. And careers education is particularly bad. So, a range of reasons why underperforming and failing secondary schools are not doing as well as they should be.
For the record, here are today’s YouGov GB polling figures.
Conservatives: 32% (down 2 points from YouGov yesterday)
David Cameron is abroad and so Nick Clegg is standing in for him at PMQs. This should be notable for two reasons. First, given the amount of time the Lib Dems are spending attacking the Conservatives at the moment, it will be something of a rarity to hear him actually defend the government (assuming that’s what he does). And, second, it’s quite possible that this will be his last time ever taking PMQs. He will be up against Harriet Harman at 12pm.
First, though, we’ve got the Robert Chote and his colleagues from the Office for Budget Responsibility giving evidence to the Treasury committee about the autumn statement. I will be covering that hearing in detail. This is what happened when the Institute for Fiscal Studies gave evidence to the committee yesterday.
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