Q10. The operational instruction from the UK Border Agency on 20 July says:“We will cease routinely opening the chips within EEA passports…checking under 18-year-olds against the warning index”.Did anyone in the Home Office clear that document? Given the conflicting stories between the Home Secretary’s officials and her own version, will the Prime Minister publish all the ministerial instructions to the UKBA? (79347)

The hon. Gentleman is trying desperately to make up the ground lost by his party leader, but I am afraid that he has rather lost the House in the process. The point is that an inquiry will be carried out by the independent chief inspector of the Border Agency—the very person who found out what was going wrong in terms of operations undertaking that did not have the permission of Ministers, and all these issues will be aired.

On Christmas day 1914, British and German troops put down their weapons and played a football match in no man’s land. The following day, the bloody hostilities resumed. Today, we wear the poppy in remembrance of our war dead. Will the Prime Minister join me in condemning the outrageous decision by FIFA to refuse the home nations’ request to wear the poppy on their shirts this weekend as a simple mark of respect and remembrance?

My hon. Friend speaks not only for the whole House but for the whole country in being completely baffled—and, frankly, angry—at the decision made by FIFA. If teams want to put the poppy on their shirts, as many teams do in our football league, they should be able to do so at national level, whether it is the English team or the Welsh team. This is an appalling decision, and I hope that FIFA will reconsider it.

Q11. As poverty is rising, the Prime Minister is removing the requirement for people to register to vote in Britain, thereby removing millions of people’s right to vote. Is he not taking their money with one hand and taking their votes with another? Is it not a grotesque distortion of democracy to force austerity measures on the most vulnerable while removing their voting power? (79348)

The point that I would make to the hon. Gentleman is that we are introducing individual voter registration, which is a Labour policy, so he should be welcoming it. I can understand why he does not necessarily support the idea of making all constituencies the same size, because his constituency has only 62,000 people in it, whereas his right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) represents 91,000 people. I think that it is a basic act of fairness to have seats the same size. It was a demand of the Chartists in the 1840s, and I think that it is time we introduced it.

Q12. Is the Prime Minister aware of the growing evidence of the increase in abuse, intimidation and harassment on park home sites across the country? Tackling those problems needs political will, not a large sum of money. Will he address the issues urgently, so that vulnerable park homers get the protection that they need and deserve as soon as possible? (79349)

The hon. Lady raises an important point. I have had constituency cases myself in which people have been treated very badly by park home owners. There are some extremely good park home owners, who not only obey the rules but demonstrate responsibility and compassion, but there are some who do not. We are committed to providing a better deal for park home residents by improving their rights and increasing protection against bad site owners. I will arrange for her to have a meeting with the Housing Minister so that they can discuss this urgent action.

In these difficult economic times, it is even more important for our politics to be in touch with the people we represent. Will the Prime Minister therefore welcome the first people to be successful in getting places on the Speaker’s parliamentary placement scheme, who are with us here today? They are inspiring individuals who would never normally have the chance to work in politics. Will he agree to meet them and listen to their views on the relevance of the issues today, and perhaps on how we are all doing in our politics?

I would certainly join the right hon. Lady in the point she makes. She has made a huge amount of impact on this issue of social mobility, of wanting to help people who have not had good chances in life. I applaud her for that. If there is time in my busy diary, I will certainly do as she says. I think there is an important opportunity for everyone in this House to look at organisations like the Social Mobility Foundation that provide opportunities for interns from inner city schools to come and have the experience of working here in Parliament. I have used this scheme, as have other members of the Cabinet, and I think it is an excellent scheme to give people a really good chance to see what we do in this place—not just on Wednesday at 12 o’clock, but more broadly.

Q13. Does my right hon. Friend think it right for hon. Members to take instruction from the GMB about how to vote on amendments? (79350)

My hon. Friend raises a serious issue—[Interruption.] I can hear, and I can sense, a bit of resistance, which is perhaps not surprising when 85% of Labour’s money comes from the trade unions. When we discuss legislation in this House, we should be bringing our judgment, our ideas and our arguments, not just picking up a tired old brief from a trade union.

Q14. In my constituency of Kilmarnock and Loudoun there are over 3,000 people claiming jobseeker’s allowance, but the latest figures show that there were only 300 job vacancies available. Jobs are being lost in the public sector and the private sector. How high does unemployment have to go before the Prime Minister will accept that his economic policies are simply not working? (79351)

Unemployment is too high today, and I want to see it come down from its already high levels. What we have to do to make that happen is to put resources into the apprenticeship scheme and into the Work programme to make sure that we do all the things that help businesses to employ people. That is what this Government are doing. We are cutting corporation tax, introducing enterprise zones and doing everything we can to help businesses. We will do that in the hon. Lady’s constituency and throughout the country.

Italian bond yields have jumped this morning by more than a percentage point to an unsustainable 8.1%. Could the Prime Minister please say what eurozone leaders must now do to stop the contagion?

My hon. Friend makes an important point. If you do not have credibility about your plans to deal with your debts and deal with your deficits, whether you like the markets or not, they will not lend you any money. That is what we are seeing in countries like Greece and now, tragically, in Italy, where the price of borrowing money is reaching a totally unsustainable level. It is a lesson for all of us to have sustainable plans to get on top of our debt and our deficits. In terms of Europe, the problem of contagion is that as we agree a decisive write-down of Greek debt, people inevitably start asking questions about other countries. As that happens, you need to have in place the biggest possible firewall. That is what the European Financial Stability Facility is all about, and eurozone leaders urgently need to put flesh on the bones and put figures on the size of that firewall, to stop this contagion going any further.

Q15. Last year youth unemployment in Tameside stood at an unacceptable 20%—one in five. Today it stands at 34%, which is shocking. In light of that, does the Prime Minister still believe that the decision to scrap the future jobs fund was the right one? (79352)

Let me just make the point that under Labour youth unemployment went up by 40%—and the evidence that we received on coming into government was that the future jobs fund was three or four times more expensive than other job creation schemes. Indeed, in many parts of the country, including in the west midlands, the percentage of future jobs fund jobs that were in the private sector was as low as 2% or 3%. It was right to scrap the future jobs fund and put in its place apprenticeships, the Work programme and work experience that will make a difference to young people.

War is a failure of politics. The people who go to war are not politicians; they are brave service people who die in the service of their country. May I urge my right hon. Friend to write to FIFA to point out that the poppy is not a political symbol but a symbol that says that we respect the sacrifice that people have made on behalf of their countries?

I will certainly do as my hon. Friend suggests. I think that it is a question not just of writing to FIFA, but of asking its membership bodies, including the Football Association, to take a strong line. As my hon. Friend says, this is not an issue of left or right, Labour or Conservative. We all wear the poppy with pride, even if we do not approve of the wars in which people were fighting. We do it to honour the fact that those people sacrificed their lives for us. It is absolutely vital for FIFA to understand that, and I think that a clear message from the House and the Government can make it think again.

Given that Italy is now on what the Prime Minister has described as a “credible fiscal path”, will he help the Group of Twenty’s Finance Ministers to meet and contribute to the creation of a European financial stability pact in a way that will assist the eurozone?

The hon. Gentleman has made an important point. However, the first responsibility for building the bail-out fund must lie with the eurozone members. As we said in the House on Monday, the problem at the G20 is that the G20, the International Monetary Fund and countries such as Britain cannot be asked to do things that the eurozone members are not themselves prepared to do.

We do stand ready to boost the IMF, we do want to help countries in distress, and we do not want to see our trading partners collapse. We understand that, even though we do not support membership of the euro, if countries fall out of the euro it could be very painful for our economy. However, it is for the eurozone countries to sort out the problems. It is their currency.

In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson), the Prime Minister referred to a firewall in relation to the bail-outs. Does he accept that what we really need is structural renegotiation of the treaties, given the impact that this is having on the United Kingdom? If I may use a cricketing analogy of which the Prime Minister will be aware, he would not be sent in with a broken bat. He would be sent in with a new bat, and with a united Conservative team behind him.

There is a long history in my party of cricketing metaphors and Europe ending unhappily, so I will not necessarily follow my hon. Friend down that path. What I will say is that we will defend the national interest. When there was a treaty change in the European Council we got something back for Britain, which was the ability to get out of the EU bail-out fund. If there are future treaty changes—some European countries are pushing for them—we will make sure that we achieve a good deal for Britain and protect our national interests.