Before listing my engagements, I know that the whole House will again wish to join me in sending our profound condolences to the families and friends of those of our service personnel who were killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Easter recess. They were: Kingsman Danny Wilson of the 2nd Battalion, the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment; Rifleman Aaron Lincoln of the 2nd Battalion, The Rifles; Second Lieutenant Joanna Yorke Dyer of the Intelligence Corps; Corporal Kris O’Neill and Private Eleanor Dlugosz, both of the Royal Army Medical Corps; Kingsman Adam Smith of the 2nd Battalion, the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment; and Private Chris Gray of the 1st Battalion, Royal Anglican Regiment.
In addition, I know that the House will wish to send our condolences to the families and friends of Colour Sergeant Mark Powell of the Parachute Regiment and Sergeant Mark McLaren of the Royal Air Force, who were killed in the incident involving a collision between two Puma helicopters in Iraq at the weekend.
All those service personnel and, indeed, those still serving have shown heroism, dedication and the most professional commitment to their country. Britain owes them a deep debt of gratitude.
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.
The Prime Minister’s 10-year drug strategy is coming up for renewal and the independent UK Drug Policy Commission has reported that it is not working. One third of crime, much of it acquisitive and drugs related, is committed by 13 to 19-year-olds, who believe that cannabis is not only legal, but harmless. Will the Prime Minister now reverse his disastrous decision to downgrade cannabis and restore it as a class B drug?
I have to correct the hon. Lady. In fact, the UK Drug Policy Commission has not found that there has been no progress in drug policy; on the contrary, the commission believes that there has been progress, but there remains much more to do. According to the most recent British crime survey, drug misuse is down some 16 per cent. since 1998, drug use among young adults is down 21 per cent., and class A drug use remains relatively stable for the first time in a long time, as the commission points out. In addition, we have doubled the amount of money for the treatment of people on drugs. I appreciate that we have a very great deal more to do, but it is simply not the case that we are not making the investment or the changes that are necessary. As for tougher sentences for those who peddle drugs, many of those were contained in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which the hon. Lady voted against.
I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned very hard indeed on this issue. I am entirely sympathetic to the concerns that Blackpool has expressed. It is a pity that we ended up with Manchester being the site for the super-casino— although I think that it is perfectly justified there—and Blackpool unable to make the regeneration plans that it wants to make. As we have said, we shall consult carefully and come back with proposals after 3 May, which we have to do because of purdah. As a House, we need to look carefully and sensibly at the issue and recognise that in a world of online betting and huge opportunities for people to bet, casinos—especially when they bring regeneration with them—are not something that is against the proper norms of society, but something that can, in places such as Blackpool and Manchester, bring in much needed private investment and regeneration that will help to provide jobs and high living standards for people.
I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the nine servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since we last had Prime Minister’s questions. They died serving their country, and that is a reminder of what we owe them and their families for the service that they gave.
There are 125,000 people who have paid into company pension schemes who have seen them collapse, and who have been left with little or nothing—
Get the money back off those who stole it—the gaffers.
I hope that hon. Members who are going to retire on fat pensions will actually listen, because many of the people concerned are getting nothing. We are all dealing with such constituency cases, and some of them are heartbreaking. The Budget changes were welcome, but they did not help those who have already retired, and they did not speed up the payments. Today, we can help those people, and I ask the Prime Minister in a genuinely cross-party way—[Interruption.] Yes. We have tabled amendments to the Pensions Bill, and they are signed by MPs from across the House, including his own former Pensions Minister. Will the Prime Minister look urgently and positively at those constructive proposals?
Let me just correct the right hon. Gentleman on one point: we most certainly have been listening to people on this subject. After all, there was no financial assistance scheme—absolutely none—in place for all the years of the last Conservative Government, when, as a result of pension mis-selling, people were in real difficulties as regards their pensions; so with respect we most certainly are listening to the plight of people. In addition, of course, we have put some £12 billion a year extra into support for pensioners.
It is however precisely because we have listened that, in the Budget, the Chancellor upped the scheme to, I think, £8 billion; that is what it is going to cost over the years to come. It lifts it up to 80 per cent. support, and 125,000 people will benefit. The problem with going still further is that we do not know that we can afford to make that commitment to people. For precisely that reason, and because people have raised the issue of whether there are unclaimed assets that could be used, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has announced a review of that. We will look at it carefully and we will see whether it is possible to do more, but we do not believe that it is responsible to make a commitment now to pensioners to pay them even more when we have not got the ability at the moment to up that figure from £8 billion.
I am grateful for the Prime Minister’s answer. The problem with the Budget changes is that they do not help people who have already reached retirement age. Many Members will have cases, as I do, of people who have reached retirement age, some of whom are dying, and who are not going to get their money; some of them are having to go on working. That is the problem that we have to address. Does the Prime Minister understand that so far only about 1,000 people have actually been helped? The financial assistance scheme is not working. Will he not look at a Treasury loan? That is how we dealt with the mess that was left by the Maxwell scheme. Surely he agrees that only 1,000 people helped so far is not good enough? As I say, some of the people are in great hardship. Surely we should act now, so that at least they can get some of the pension for which they worked and saved so hard.
It is, of course, precisely because we want to do what we can to help people responsibly that we have introduced these new proposals, the Pension Protection Fund and a host of other measures designed to support people, but I am afraid that the position, very simply, is this: we cannot make that additional commitment unless we are sure that the finances are there to fund it; otherwise we will be saying to people, “Yes, we can give you this additional payment,” when we cannot be sure until the review is published that we are able to make that commitment. As for taking out some unspecified loan from the Treasury, we do not believe that that is a proper way to deal with the issue, because it leaves us with a financial liability that we cannot be sure we can meet. The issue between us is not who wants to help people more, because, as I say, we have already introduced the first ever system of help for people in those circumstances. However, we need to be sure that we can actually fulfil a commitment that we make to people, since it would be the cruellest thing to tell them that we can make that commitment and can bail them out, if it may actually transpire that we cannot.
The Prime Minister says that the amount is unspecified, but it is not. We know that the first-year cost is £30 million, which would help the people who have hit retirement age with nothing, as only 1,000 of them are being helped. May I ask the Prime Minister something specific? We welcome the fact that there is review, but can it be a cross-party review, because we have a great contribution to make, and when does he expect it to report? The Prime Minister’s former pension adviser, Ros Altmann, said:
“Suddenly we are on the verge of a breakthrough, which could give these people the pension they’ve earned. All it needs is for enough Labour MPs to have the courage to back it”.
He listened to her advice in the past. Why will he not listen again now?
I understand that the review will report in the summer. No, we cannot make it a cross-party review as such, but we are perfectly happy to listen any ideas put forward by Opposition parties or, indeed, by anyone else. If I can come back to the nub of the issue, when the right hon. Gentleman says that it is only a £30 million cost in the first year, that is correct, but it then builds up over time, so our worry is that we would end up with an unfunded commitment that runs into hundreds of millions of pounds. If we accepted the amendments today, I think that I am right in saying the full cost would be £2.48 billion. We simply cannot responsibly make such a commitment until we know whether we can fund it. That, with the greatest respect, is the difference between being in opposition and being in government.
Is the Prime Minister aware of the major disruption that will occur in NHS hospitals in Northern Ireland and in parts of Britain, too, on 1 August next, following the introduction of the hospital doctor training programme known as modernising medical careers? Will he advise the Secretary of State for Health to postpone the programme for a year until the administrative problems are sorted out?
Yes, we are aware of those problems, which is precisely why the review was announced, as we want to make sure that this happens in a better way for next year. I understand entirely both the complexities of the system that has been introduced and the need to make sure that it accords properly with the needs of the health care system in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. I would point out, however, that as a result of the measures that we have taken in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the United Kingdom, there has been a huge increase in the number of junior doctors, a 70 per cent. increase, I think, in the number of training places and, of course, pay has gone up in real terms by 30 per cent.
I join the Prime Minister in his expressions of sympathy and condolence. This is a bleak and sombre day. He will be aware that nurses’ leaders are threatening strike action in relation to the Chancellor’s pay offer. Can he explain why nurses in England and Wales are not getting their full increase up front?
For the reasons that the Chancellor gave. To make sure that we deal with the overall issue of pay in the economy, it is important that we stage the awards. However, on average, as I understand it, there will be an over 4 per cent. increase for nurses. May I point out to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that when we came to office, pay was just over £12,000 for nurses starting out in their profession? It is now almost £20,000, so there has been a huge real-terms increase in nurses’ pay over the past 10 years. Incidentally, there has been an 85,000 increase in the number of nurses, too. I entirely understand why staging an award is never popular, but in this instance it is necessary.
It is not just pay that is at issue in the national health service. Newly qualified nurses cannot get jobs; nursing assistants will be hit by the Chancellor’s abolition of the 10p tax rate; and junior doctors are up in arms. Is it any wonder that the Government have lost the confidence of health care workers and of their patients?
If we look back over the past 10 years, we can see that the publication, for example, in the past few weeks of the annual winter report on the NHS was instructive. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will know that in the last years of the Conservative Government—even, indeed, in the first years of this Government—every single winter there was a winter crisis. There has not been one for several years, because of the extra investment and the extra capacity. [Hon. Members: “Warmer winters?”] No. If we look at waiting times, investment in the national health service, the treatment of cancer and cardiac disease, and accident and emergency departments, the truth is that the patient is getting a better deal in the national health service today, precisely because of the investment and reform that we have put in.
I am sure that the whole House will want to join the hon. Gentleman in sending our condolences to Eden’s family. I understand that the deputy head of mission and British vice-consul at our embassy called the Minister at the Turkish Ministry of Tourism on 8 February to raise our concern about the general safety of British nationals in such unsupervised shows. The Turkish authorities have started legal proceedings against some members of staff at the hotel complex. The next hearing is scheduled for 8 May. Consular staff in London have remained in contact with the Galvani-Skeete family and are keeping them updated with any news from the court case in Turkey. We will continue to do that up to and all the way through the proceedings.