FactCheck: Prime Minister's Questions 25 Oct 2006
Updated on 25 October 2006
From prison places to climate change, NHS job cuts to cash for honours, Tony Blair faces Question Time.
All quotes are taken from Prime Minister's Questions, 25 October 2006
"...We are about to invest in another 8,000 prison places. You're unable to commit to that because of your tax cut policy."
Tony Blair to David Cameron
This is a disingenuous misrepresentation of Conservative policy. The Tories do not have a policy to cut taxes. Their official policy is to 'share the proceeds of growth', which would see government spending rising faster than inflation, but falling as a proportion of national income. So it's a slower increase in spending than Labour's plans, rather than a tax cut.
Last week the Conservative Tax Reform Commission published a series of options for cutting taxes, but these are not party policy; the party is not committed to adopting them. Even if it does eventually adopt them, they could also impose tax rises in other areas, notably 'green taxes', to balance these out.
"Three years ago the government said that the youth justice system had been totally transformed. Yesterday, the chief inspector of prisons said the system was 'approaching breaking point'. Who's right?"
David Cameron
Firstly, it's worth providing the longer version of the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers's, quote:
"Every time I go into a custodial establishment, I see staff achieving amazing things in difficult circumstances with highly troubled young people. But I fear the system is approaching breaking point." (Quote from the Press Association)
So it's not quite as serious as Mr Cameron makes it sound.
And, while overcrowding and increased prisoner numbers are putting pressure on the system, Tony Blair claimed to have evidence that the system had improved over the past decade:
"Over the past few years, according actually to the National Audit Office... in 1997 the system was a shambles, in 2004 it had made substantial improvement.
"The fact is, we have managed to reduce dramatically the amount of time it takes to get young offenders fast tracked through the justice system, we've expanded the amount of secure accommodation."
This was a slip of the tongue - Number 10 informs us that Tony Blair was actually referring to a report from the Audit Commission, not the National Audit Office.
This report, alongside an earlier report from 1996, stops short of calling the system in 1997 a 'shambles'. The 1996 report, however, does identify several areas where improvements could be made, and the 2004 report concludes that 'the new system is a considerable improvement on the old one'.
The 2004 report also says that youngsters are going through the system faster: "In January 1997, the average time from arrest to sentence was 142 days; by August 2001 it had been halved to 71 days." But the report does call for more, not least appropriate supported accommodation.
Sources
Audit Commission report
Assessment of the situation in the late 1990s
"For almost a year we have been pushing repeatedly for a climate change Bill ... In January the Prime Minister rejected the idea. He even said it was a trifle dodgy. Can you confirm today that the government will have a Climate Change Bill in the Queen's Speech?"
David Cameron
Not surprisingly, Mr Blair declined to comment on the contents of a future Queen's Speech: "What I can say is the reason I described your proposals as - I am surprised I said a trifle, I think 'dodgy' would have been the accurate description of them, is that your proposals mean first of all you are against the Climate Change Levy."
Continued...
The specific policy Blair and Cameron are debating is the Climate Change Levy, a tax on the energy consumption of most users (excluding transport and domestic users), to encourage them to reduce their energy use.
The Conservatives are not against the principle of taxing carbon. In fact, they are calling for a policy that taxes carbon dioxide emissions more precisely. For example, they call for a policy which taxes coal more heavily than gas, because burning coal produces more CO2 per unit of energy than burning gas.
However, the 'dodgy' remark refers to a different (but related) policy, that of fixed annual targets for CO2 reduction - a policy he criticises because it would be too inflexible in the face of unpredictable events.
But back in January, when he first called it 'dodgy', he was rather less hostile to the idea than he was yesterday: "He should therefore think through ... his support for a policy that I would say is a trifle dodgy, although I understand the motives behind it."
Source
Hansard reports, 18 Jan 2006
"Why don't we talk about the 21,000 jobs he [Tony Blair] is cutting in the NHS?"
David Cameron
The Conservatives have campaigned vocally on the job cuts which have been happening in the NHS. Their conference centre was liberally decorated with pictures of Gordon Brown wielding a giant pair of scissors.
But the figures they use are somewhat debatable. A job cut is surprisingly tricky to define - a post left unfulled could be a job cut by some measures but not by others.
Our analysis of an earlier claim made by Andrew Lansley showed the number is somewhat spurious. Trusts had published ranges of job cuts, or an 'up to' figure - and the Tories had taken the higher end of the range in every case.
All this misses the bigger picture - that NHS staffing has massively increased under Labour. There are over 100,000 more NHS jobs than there were when Labour came to power.
"When you are interviewed by the Metropolitan Police, what innocent explanation will you offer for the fact that 80p in every £1 donated to the Labour Party came from people who were subsequently honoured?"
Mike Weir, SNP member for Angus
This is a claim the SNP has made many times before, and to borrow a phrase from Tony Blair, it's a 'trifle dodgy'. The source of this claim was an article in the Sunday Times from June 2005, so it's a good deal out of date.
And, more tellingly, Labour still gets more than half of its income from trade unions. All individual donations, from rich and poor alike, accounted for only 35 per cent of Labour's income for 2005 - nowhere near 80 per cent.
Looking at those individual donations, an analysis by Channel 4 FactCheck of Labour party donors who gave over £50,000 showed that 77 per cent of donations came from people who held an honour at the time, or were subsequently ennobled.
Source
FactCheck, 14 Jul 2006: Does Labour get 80 per cent of its money from those it honours?
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