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David Cameron takes questions from Labour leader Ed Miliband and other MPs at the weekly event in the House of Commons

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/audio/2012/feb/22/prime-ministers-questions-audio

The suicide rate at Manchester prison has been too high for too long, according to the independent prisons watchdog. There have been seven self-inflicted deaths in less than two years at HMP Manchester, which was formerly known as Strangeways.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons found that staff regarded the deaths as “the way things were in Manchester”.

So far in 2012, there have been two high-profile deaths at the prison. Barry Morrow, who was on remand charged with the murders of his landlady and her mother, was found dead in his cell earlier this month. In January, paedophile rapist Martin Smith, whose partner is in custody in Spain charged with murdering their two young children, was found dead in his cell.

Nick Hardwick, the chief inspector of prisons, said the facility had not ensured that lessons had been learned. While incidents of self-harm had decreased significantly from 22 a month in 2009 to 10 a month in 2011, there was a degree of fatalism, Hardwick said, in the prison’s response to incidents. There was room for improvement with arrangements for caring for prisoners at risk of self-harm or suicide, he added.

However, Hardwick said that, whereas just over 20 years ago the prison had a notorious reputation, “it is now completely transformed and in many ways provides a model to which other local prisons should aspire”.

Michael Spurr, chief executive of the National Offender Management Service, said the number of suicides at HMP Manchester was not disproportionate to comparable institutions, but insisted there was no complacency.

“Every self-inflicted death is a tragedy which impacts not only on families, but also on prisoners and prison staff,” he said. He said he was pleased that the prison is performing well – or reasonably well – in the areas of safety, respect, purposeful activity and resettlement.

Morrow was due to face trial in May over the deaths of Angela Holgate and Alice Huyton, whose bodies were found in Southport in December. Prison staff found him hanging in his cell on 9 February.

On 23 January, Martin Smith’s body was found hanging in his cell. In March 2011, he was jailed for 16 years for raping a girl under 16 in Cumbria. An inquest will take place at a later date, but police said his death was not being treated as suspicious. His partner, Lianne Smith, is in custody in Spain awaiting trial for the murder of their two young children.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/22/seven-suicides-manchester-prison

World-class work on treating HIV in Britain will be fragmented and disrupted by the government’s controversial health reforms, which will become the coalition’s poll tax, Ed Miliband has warned.

As the NHS once again dominated prime minister’s questions, the Labour leader cited health workers who have warned him that HIV treatment will be damaged by the reforms – which, he added, have come to symbolise the prime minister’s arrogance.

Miliband, who recently said that the NHS would be the defining issue at the next general election, focused once again on the health and social care bill as MPs prepared to debate the publication of a report on the risk posed by the reforms.

Labour is calling for the government to comply with a call by the information commissioner for the publication of an NHS risk register, which assesses the impact of the reforms.

The prime minister sought to embarrass Labour by pointing out that Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, had opposed the publication of a risk register in September 2009 when he was health secretary. Citing a Labour briefing document which mentioned Burnham’s position in 2009, Cameron said: “There you are: absolutely revealed as a bunch of rank opportunists not fit to run opposition, not fit for government.”

Miliband accused the prime minister of arrogance for failing to listen to critics of the bill. “The problem with this prime minister is he asks people to trust him and he has betrayed that trust. The problem with this prime minister is that on the NHS he thinks he is right and everyone else is wrong.

“It has become not a symbol of how his party has changed but of his arrogance. I tell him this: this will become his poll tax. He should listen to the public and he should drop this bill.”

The Labour leader sought to highlight dangers in the bill by reporting concerns about the treatment of HIV. He said that during a visit to the Homerton hospital in east London on Monday, staff working in HIV services had explained that the health and social care bill would fragment and disrupt services.

Miliband said: “They explained that HIV treatment is currently commissioned by one organisation, the primary care trusts. Under his plans treatment will be commissioned by three organisations – the national commissioning board, the clinical commissioning group and the health and wellbeing board. They said to me it will damage the world-class service they provide for patients.”

The prime minister said that Miliband appeared to want to exclude key groups, such as the Terence Higgins Trust. “If [he] is opposing other organisations that have expertise in Aids and Aids treatment taking part in the NHS he will be opposing the Terence Higgins Trust, who do an enormous amount to support HIV.”

Cameron added: “What we can see is complete opportunism from the party opposite. They used to back choice, they used to back the independent sector, they used to back reform. You don’t save the NHS by opposing reform, you save the NHS by delivering reform.”

Miliband opened his assault on the prime minister by mocking his NHS summit in Downing Street on Monday which excluded key groups, such as the Royal College of GPs and the British Medical Association.

“How can he possibly think it is a good idea to hold a health summit which excludes the vast majority of people who work in the NHS?”

Cameron confirmed that his summit was limited to those groups that are implementing the reforms, which will devolve commissioning to new GP-led commissioning groups, in shadow form.

“My summit was about those organisations, including clinical commissioning groups up and down the country – 8,200 GPs’ practices – that want to put these reforms in place.”

At one point the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, leaned over to advise the prime minister how to respond to a question from Miliband. Labour MPs laughed as Miliband said: “Let me say to the health secretary, I don’t think the prime minister wants advice from him.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/22/nhs-reforms-governments-poll-tax-miliband

A welfare-to-work company at the centre of a criminal investigation has previously had to repay public funds on five separate occasions after government investigations into fraud allegations found evidence of “irregularities”, the Guardian can disclose.

On Monday it was revealed that four former employees of A4e had been arrested as part of an on-going police inquiry at the company’s offices in Slough.

But it has now emerged that the company, whose chair is an adviser to David Cameron, has been investigated nine times by the Department for Work and Pensions since 2005.

In one case, fraud was proven following a criminal trial; in four inquiries, there was evidence of irregularities but it was not pursued further through the courts after money was returned; and in four cases there was found to be no case to answer.

The disclosures are an escalation in the crisis over A4e, which is paid by the government to help the long-term unemployed find jobs, and has renewed calls for a suspension of its contracts.

Margaret Hodge, the chair of parliament’s public accounts committee, said the figures released by the government suggest there may be a structural problem within A4e.

“This suggests there may be systemic problems within the organisation. I believe the government should suspend all contractual obligations until the investigations are complete.”

Hodge called for the DWP to explain why the police were not brought in on all occasions when evidence of irregularities was found, when public money is involved.

“I find it astonishing that the DWP does not call in the police to investigate all of these incidents. This is no longer a one-off,” she said.

The company is chaired by Emma Harrison, who was appointed by the prime minister in 2010 to help get troubled families into work.

Its five shareholders were paid £11m in dividends last year, of which Harrison received £8.6m.

The DWP investigations were launched at A4e offices across Britain. A DWP spokeswoman said that since 2005, the department has investigated nine fraud inquiries. “Of those, five were found to have a case to answer and have been dealt with and one is ongoing.

“In those five cases, the money was paid back in full. A4e would take any appropriate disciplinary action not DWP,” the spokeswoman said.

The cases are believed to include an investigation into a former A4e employee in Hull that was launched after discrepancies emerged in “confirmation of employment” forms submitted by the company. Forms meant for employers agreeing to take on workers had been fraudulently filled in. In some cases, employers’ signatures were falsified. A former employee was prosecuted and pleaded guilty to eight counts of forgery.

Thames Valley police visited the firm’s offices in Slough over claims of fraud, and the force has confirmed it arrested four people in connection with the investigation.

A police spokesman said that the case was referred to the force by the Department for Work and Pensions.

As part of the investigation, two women aged 28 and 49, and two men, aged 35 and 41, were arrested on suspicion of fraud on 18 January from addresses across the Thames valley and are on police bail until mid-March.

The controversy will reignite a simmering debate over whether so much of the welfare to work industry should have been contracted out to private companies. Hodge has raised the question of why this government and its Labour predecessors took the decision to outsource this sector to private companies, when some evidence suggests that the state’s Jobcentre Plus has greater success in helping people into work.

A4e’s chief executive, Andrew Dutton, repeated assurances on Monday that the company has zero tolerance towards fraud.

He said: “I will not sit by and let these accusations discredit the hard work that our staff do to support thousands of people into work.

“A4e has zero tolerance towards fraud, and any instance of fraudulent or otherwise illegal activity is completely unacceptable.

“We take our responsibility very seriously, and we are committed to using taxpayer’s money effectively and efficiently to deliver the best services to the public.”

A company spokeswoman was contacted by the Guardian on Wednesday morning, but has not yet responded to the DWP’s new figures.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/22/a4e-repay-irregularities

2.39pm: Labour’s Barbara Keeley asks if the consultants McKinsey have had access to the risk register.

No, says Lansley. He has not met McKinseyssince becoming health secretary, he says. After a story about their involvement in the bill appeared in the Mail on Sunday, he asked how much had been spent on them. The department paid them £5m, but that was for work conducted while Labour were in power. For work done while the coalition have been in power, McKinsey have only received £390,000. Lansey says he knows enough from his time in business to know that you don’t get much advice from McKinsey for that sum.

Winding up, he accuses Labour of wasting its opposition day debate.

These matters should properly be resolved by the information tribunal when it considers the case at the beginning of March, he says.

2.37pm: Lansley is explaining what the bill does. It cuts bureaucracy, empowers patients leaders, supports foundation trusts, and brings in patient accountability.

2.34pm: Lansley says in England 8% of patients are not seen within 18 weeks. But in Wales, where Labour are in control, the figure is 32%, he says.

The Welsh Audit Office has also said that health spending in Wales will be cut by 6% during the course of this parliament, he says.

2.31pm: Henry Smith, a Conservative, asks Lansley to confirm that Labour’s PFI programme is costing the NHS £3,000 a minute.

Lansley says he can’t do the calculation in his head. But he knows PFI is costing the NHS £67bn, he says.

2.29pm: Lansley says Labour have not acknowledged the debts the NHS has incurred through Labour’s PFI programme.

And criticises Labour for wasting money on its IT programme.

2.22pm: Andy Burnham asks what the government will do if the tribunal says the government should publish the register. He says the previous government did obey an ICO ruling in a case like this relating to Heathrow.

Lansley says the Heathrow case was differently. But he does not directly answer the question about what the government will do if it loses at the tribunal.

(If the government loses at appeal, it could appeal to the High Court on a point of law. And ultimately the government has the right to ignore a Freedom of Information ruling.)

2.17pm: Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader, asks Lansley to confirm that the government is following proper procedure in this matter. The Freedom of Information Act says that if the government disagrees with a decision taken by the Information Commissioner’s Office, it has a right to appeal to a tribunal. That is what is happening in this case. He asks Lansley to confirm that the government will respond “postively” to tribunal’s decision. (The tribunal is due to consider this matter in March.)

Lansley says that Hughe is right to say that the government does not have to agree with the ICO. He says Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, wrote an article in the Observer on Sunday saying that, as commissioner, he was “not infallible”.

2.12pm: Lansley explains what high-level risk registers are.

He says they are a snapshot of the potential problems facing the service at any one time.

They are supposed to outline all possible risks, “however outlandish and unlikely” they are.

They include “real and potential” risks.

And staff writing them are encouraged to be as blunt as possible, he says.

These risks are supposed to be spelt out so that mitigating action can be taken, he says.

Lansley says these high-level registers are not the same as the regional risk registers quoted by Burnham. The regional ones cover operational matters. And, unlike the high-level ones, they are written with the intention of being made public, he says.

2.10pm: John Healey, the former shadow health secretary, intervenes. He asks if the government is engaged in censorship.

Lansley says that, when Healey was a Treasury minister, he refused to publish risk register.

2.10pm: Lansley says the government is publishing data that matters to patients.

2.05pm: Andrew George, a Liberal Democrat (and an opponent of the bill) asks, if everything is going so well, why the government needs to re-organise the NHS.

Photograph: Steve Back / Rex Features

1.57pm: Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, is responding now.

He starts by quoting what Andy Burnham said himself in 2007 about there being reasons for not publishing a risk register.

Burnham had his “bats broken” before the debate even started, he says, referring to the point David Cameron made at PMQs.

And he says Burnham has taken to opposition naturally. He opposes everything.

Lansley repeats his point about waiting times getting better. (See 1.31pm.)

He says that Burnham did not thank NHS staff in his speech.

1.55pm: Nigel Evans, the deputy speaker, says this is the worst-tempered debate he has chaired since he became deputy speaker. He appeals for calm.

1.53pm: Burnham says that if the government were to publish the risk register, the case for the health bill would be “demolished” instantly.

David Cameron is not listening to doctors and nurses he was once so keen to be photographed alongside, Burham says.

Cameron is gambling with a much-loved institution. This is “unforgiveable”, he says.

People deserve “the full truth”. MPs should vote to give them the full truth.

And he appeals to people watching the debate to join the fight to save the NHS.

Government MPs cannot look their constituents in the eye and say they voted for this, he says.

Labour promised the government “the fight of its life” and that is what it will give them, he says.

1.46pm: Burnham says he wants to address the argument that halting reorganisation now would make things worse.

GP-led commissioning could be introduced without the bill, he says.

Burnham says he is willing to work with Lansley on this if he drops his bill.

In West Sussex a surgery has written to all its patients offering them private screening for health risks.

There are stories emerging from around the country of GPs stopping purchasing services from local hospitals.

This process could lead to the closure of local hospitals, he says.

1.40pm: Burnham says the London risk register says the loss of NHS staff could lead to “preventable harm to children”.

And he quotes from the Northamptonshire register. It says the NHS reorganisation would stop the local NHS meeting its statutory requirements, with the result that there could be harm or fatalities to children or vulnerable adults.

1.38pm: Burnham is now quoting from what some of regional risk registers say about the impact of the health bill.

(My colleague Juliette Jowit wrote about these regional risk registers in a Guardian splash recently.)

1.31pm: Burnham now turns to the effect the bill is already having on the NHS.

He rattles off a series of figures about waiting times going up.

Lansley intervenes. He says the number of patients waiting for more than a year went down from 18,458 in May 2010 to 9,190 in December last year.

(There are so many waiting time figures that, if you use them selectively, you can prove virtually anything. For a good guide to what the real picture is, try this post from James Ball at the Guardian’s Reality Check or this post from the FullFact blog.)

1.28pm: Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, intervenes. He quotes from the reasons given when Burnham blocked the publication of a risk register in 2009. He asks if Burnham agrees with those reasons.

Burnham says Lansley is trying to “muddy the waters”. That was a different risk register.

The government has no principled reason for objecting to publication, he says.

He says Lib Dem MPs who support the government tonight will be part of a “spineless conspiracy against the NHS, acting out of nothing except loyalty to the suicide pact that is the coalition”.

1.26pm: Burnham says Lansley put out a press release last year saying that an open, transparent NHS would be a safer NHS.

The government is ignoring its own policy, Burnham says.

He says the government has also argued that disclosure would jeopardise the success of the policy. This seems unlikely, Burnham says.

The government has also argued that publication would stop civil servants giving frank advice. But the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) rejected this argument, he says.

The ICO also rejected the government’s claims that publication would lead to civil servants being named and that publication would set a bad precedent.

1.23pm: Alan Reid, a Lib Dem MP, asks if another reason for Burnham taking a different stance is the fact that he is now in opposition.

Reid also asks Burnham to give an assurance that he will always publish risk register if he returns to office.

Burnham says whether or not a document should be published will vary from case to case.

1.17pm: Burnham now explains why he did not publish an NHS risk register in 2009.

He says David Cameron got his facts wrong.

He says Lansley is not being asked to publish the full departmental risk register. Instead, he is being asked to publish the transitional risk register – the document explaining the risk inherent in the health bill. They are different, Burnham says.

Another difference is that Burnham did not promise no top-down reorganisation of the NHS.

Another difference is that the 2009 request came from a member of the public. This time the request came from a frontbencher. (It was John Healey who submitted the Freedom of Information request when he was shadow health secretary.)

And another difference is that the Information Commissioner’s Office has said the risk register should be published, Burnham says.

1.14pm: Burnham says he wants to use today’s debate to explain what is happening in the NHS on the ground.

1.10pm: Simon Burns, a health minister, intervenes. He tells Burnham to confirm that the bill has for the first time made tackling health inequalities an NHS duty.

1.09pm: Graham Evans, a Conservative, asks why Andy Burnham refused to publish an NHS risk register when he was health secretary in 2009.

Burnham says he will address this question directly soon in his speech.

Andy Burnham said the government would bring much-needed stability to the NHS by dropping the bill. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

1.06pm: Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, is opening the debate.

He says these are extraordinary times. The government is imposing a top-down reorganisation on the NHS. But no one voted for this.

The government has given the NHS “mission impossible” because it is asking it to find cuts worth £20bn, while also re-organising it at the same time.

Andrew Lansley began dismantling the structures of the NHS before he had permission from parliament, he says.

People talk of “confusion and drift”. There has been “a huge loss of experienced staff”.

Cameron promised to protect the NHS. But he has put it at risk, he says.

The public have a right to know what these risks are, he goes on.

1.05pm: John Bercow says there will be a seven minute limit on backbench speeches, because so many MPs want to speak in the debate.

12.49pm: The debate on the NHS risk register will start in about 10 minutes. Here’s the motion MPs will be debating.

That this House calls on the Government to respect the ruling by the Information Commissioner and to publish the risk register associated with the Health and Social Care Bill in order to ensure that it informs public and parliamentary debate

And here’s a short background reading list.

• The ruling from the Information Commissioner’s Office saying the NHS risk register should be published (pdf).

• Andy Burnham’s press notice about today’s debate.

• Juliette Jowit’s Guardian story about the contents of regional risk registers.

• David Cameron’s comments today accusing Labour of hypocrisy on this matter.

12.40pm: PMQs Verdict: For the third week in a row Ed Miliband asked about the NHS. That means that by now David Cameron should have come up with an answer to the question about why he broke his promise not to impose a top-down reorganisation on the NHS. But he still hasn’t managed that – perhaps because there isn’t one. Miliband used this question again today, but he was had a good, pithy question about the NHS summit and a technical question about commissioning, which left Cameron sounding a bit stumped. Overall, it was a points win for Miliband. The point about the NHS risk register (see 12.12pm) wasn’t technically relevant to anything Miliband was raising. But it was a powerful point to make nevertheless, and it enabled Cameron to recover just before the whistle.

12.38pm: PMQs is getting longer and longer. It is meant to last half an hour, but today John Bercow carried on taking questions until 12.37pm. He said that was because there were lots of interruptions and he wanted to protect the interests of backbenchers.

12.36pm: Labour’s Gregg McClymont asks Cameron to explain why he has broken his promise to impose no top-down reorganisation on the NHS.

Cameron says that he wants to cut bureaucracy in the NHS. And the government is putting more money into the NHS, while Labour says this is irresponsible, Cameron says.

12.35pm: Mike Crockhart, a Liberal Democrat, asks Cameron to put the Green Investment Bank in Edinburgh.

Cameron says Edinburgh would be a good location, but that other cities are being considered too.

12.32pm: Joe Johnson, a Conservative, asks about the deportation of Christopher Tappin to the US.

Cameron says this case illustrates why extradition arrangements need to be reviewed. Nick Clegg is looking at this issue, he says.

12.32pm: Cameron says there is no intention to cut the number of Royal Marine reservists in Scotland.

12.29pm: Labour’s Jack Dromey asks Cameron to accept that he misled MPs when he said that rents were falling as a result of the cuts to housing benefit. (Inside Housing has more on this.)

Cameron sidesteps the question, and says that Dromey’s comments should be taken with a lorryful of salt because of housebuilding fell to such low levels under Labour.

12.27pm: Peter Bone asks a Mrs Bone question. She told him that she knew that Cameron wanted to deport Abu Qatada. But she knew it was being blocked by the Lib Dems. At that point his 11-year-old son Thomas asked if Clegg was a goodie or a baddie. What’s the answer?

Cameron says that Mrs Bone must be psychic, because Cameron does want Qatada deported. And Clegg agrees with him, Cameron says.

12.26pm: Cameron says it is a good thing for companies to offer work experience to young people. Around a half of young people on the government’s work experience programmes get jobs. That is far better than the record of the Future Jobs Fund, and it has been achieved at about a twentieth of the cost, he says.

12.25pm: Labour’s Fiona Mactaggart asks what the government is doing to ensure that the taxpayer is not the victim of fraud committed by employees at A4e.

Cameron says there is an ongoing police investigation involving allegations dating back to Labour’s time in office. That investigation needs to be thorough, he says.

12.24pm: Camerons says he supports the Times’ campaign to make the roads safer for cyclists.

12.22pm: Labour’s Tom Blenkinsop asks if Michael Gove was speaking for the government when he said the Leveson was having a “chilling effect” on journalism.

Cameron says the government decided to set up the Leveson inquiry. But he agrees that he does not want freedom of the press curtailed.

12.21pm: Cameron says he is glad Liverpool has decided to have an elected mayor. Other cities need them too. “Great city figures” build up these places, he says.

12.20pm: Cameron says he hopes Scotland will choose to remain in the partnership that has done so well over the last 300 years.

12.19pm: PMQs Snap Verdict: A very good start from Ed Miliband, but a textbook example by Cameron of how to use leaked material to throw an opponent. More later …

12.12pm: Milband says Cameron does not understand his own bill. The question is about the fragmentation of commissioning.

(There is a lot of disruption as Labour MP jeer, because Lansley is trying to offer advice to Cameron.)

Miliband says Cameron does not want Lansley’s advice.

Will Cameron admit that he has broken his promise of no top-down reorganisation?

Cameron says clause 22 and clause 25 place a duty on organisations to integrate health and social care.

Cameron says Miliband has still not mentioned risk registers. That is because he has a copy of Labour’s briefing note for today’s debate. It says that there is a reason why goverments don’t publish risk register and that Burnham blocked the publication of a risk register in 2009. Cameron says this shows that Labour are opportunist.

Miliband says he would be happy to trade his record on the NHS for Cameron’s.

Cameron says that waiting times for inpatients and outpatients are down, and that waiting times are down. There are more doctors and midwives, and fewer managers. And he finishes quoting what a Labour two-time candidate said about Miliband this week. He quotes from Alex Hilton’s post at Labour List. (Here’s the quote from the blog, although I think Cameron puts the sentences in a different order.)

My problem is that you are not a leader. You are not articulating a vision or a destination, you’re not clearly identifying a course and no-one’s following you.

Cameron says he could not have put it better himself.

12.08pm: Miliband asks what changes Cameron is planning to make to the bill.

Cameron says he is going ahead with the reforms because he is in favour of patients having more choice. Labour used to believe in the private sector helping the NHS. But Labour are now committed to a 5% cap on the involvement of the private sector. For a second time, he challenges Miliband to ask about the risk register.

Miliband says he has met senior NHS staff who think the bill will fragment services. As Andrew Lansley heckles, he says Lansley should listen to people in the NHS. Currently HIV treatment is commissioned by one organisation. Under Lansley’s plan it will be commissioned by three groups. Doctors say this will damage care.

Cameron says the Terence Higgins Trust support the plan. Labour are guilty of “complete opportunism”. You don’t save the NHS by opposing reform, he says. You achieve it by securing reform, he says.

12.04pm: Ed Miliband also pays tribute to the airman who died in Afghanistan. And he says Marie Colvin was “a brave and tireless reporter” and an inspiration to women in the profession.

Cameron held an NHS summit on Monday, Miliaband says. He lists all the organisations excluded. How could Cameron think it was a good idea to hold a summit excluding most people who work in the NHS?

Cameron says he wants to safeguard the NHS. The government is putting more money in – money Labour want to take out. But money alone won’t do the job, because the NHS needs reform too.

Miliband says Cameron has “no answer” to the question about his “ridiculous” summit. Cameron says during the listening exercise that the government had to take NHS staff with them if they were imposing change. Now Cameron cannot even be in the same room as NHS staff.

Cameron says Miliband does not want to talk about policy. Labour used to favour choice, competition and GPs being in charge. Now they are opposed.

He challenges Miliband to ask about the risk register, given that Labour is keeping MPs at Westminster until 7pm to vote on this issue.

(Has he got an announcement up his sleeve?)

12.03pm: Sajid Javid, a Conservative, asks about the coach crash affecting the pupils and teachers returning to a school in Alvechurch.

Cameron says this is a “desperately sad” case. Peter Rippington, the teacher who died, will be sorely missed, he says.

12.02pm: Labour’s Clive Betts asks why the number of frontline police officers has been cut by 4,000. And why is the police helicopter being scrapped in South Yorkshire.

Cameron says there are talks underway about the helicopter. He is confident coverage will be maintained.

12.01pm: Cameron is speaking now.

He starts with tributes to an airman killed in Afghanistan.

He also mentions Marie Colvin’s death. It is “deserately sad”, he says.

11.59am: David Cameron is likely to pay tribute to the Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin who was killed in Syria. You can read more about her death on our Middle East live blog.

Photograph: Stephen Hird/Reuters

11.43am: Jim Murphy (left), the shadow defence secretary, has launched Labour’s defence review with the publication of a 44-page consultation paper (which I can’t find on the web yet). At the launch, Murphy said that the government’s defence review was “driven by savings, not strategy”. He also said it was particulary important for European countries to coordinate more on defence in the light of the way the US is now focusing more on the Asia-Pacific region.

The US’s strategic reorientation makes their priorities more numerous at a time of more limited resource and the impact on how we work together must be considered. It’s untenable that the US President announces that this is a moment of transition and European nations act as if this is a period of status quo: European nations have to get serious. We must do more together to preserve our reach, and co-operation such as the UK-France agreement must become the norm not the exception.

Time has come for a conversation on how European NATO nations co-ordinate spending reductions and changes to force structures. We need to explore how a ‘Coalition of Cuts’ can help us end the practice of fighting conflicts together but preparing for them individually.

11.19am: For the record, here are the YouGov GB polling figures from last night.

Labour: 41% (up 3 points from Monday night)
Conservatives: 37% (down 2)
Lib Dems: 9% (down 1)

Labour lead: 4 points

Government approval: -28

11.08am: You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today’s paper, are here.

As for the rest of the papers, here are some stories that are particularly interesting.

• The Financial Times (subscription) says George Osborne is considering bringing in higher council tax bands for expensive homes.

Treasury officials cautioned against thinking that Mr Osborne had lots of money to give away. An aide to the chancellor said: “We can’t start giving away small prizes when we are still a long way from meeting our fiscal mandate.”

Instead, the chancellor is looking at possible measures to raise more money from the very wealthy, including closing stamp duty loopholes on upmarket property, to fund a Budget that will boost enterprise while at the same time relieving pressure on the “squeezed middle”.

According to some Conservatives, Mr Osborne is considering introducing new higher council tax bands to cover expensive homes, primarily in the London area.

The idea is similar to that of the Lib Dems’ long-favoured mansion tax, but is gathering support among influential rightwing Tories. Michael Gove, education secretary, said on Tuesday he was interested in the idea of a tax on land, while Tim Montgomerie, editor of the ConservativeHome website, supports higher council tax bands.

• James Chapman in the Daily Mail says Tory MPs are threatening to vote against the budget unless George Osborne changes his plans to cut child benefit for high earners.

Conservative rebels are threatening to inflict a humiliating defeat on the Government over plans to axe child benefit for higher rate taxpayers.

They warned Chancellor George Osborne that unless he alters the plans to protect one-earner families, they will take the extraordinary step of attempting to vote down Budget legislation.

It is almost unheard of for MPs to try to amend or bring down their own side’s finance Bills, and a defeat would raise questions about the survival of the Government …

As ministers struggled to defend the idea during a debate in Parliament, Conservative MP Mark Reckless said he doubted the Government would be able to command a majority if it pressed ahead.

‘The Treasury would be well advised to use the Budget to drop this policy. The alternative may be that it is defeated on the floor of the House,’ he said.

• Robert Winnett and James Kirkup in the Daily Telegraph say there are signs that the 50p tax rate is not raising as much as expected.

The Treasury received £10.35 billion in income tax payments from those paying by self-assessment last month, a drop of £509 million compared with January 2011. Most other taxes produced higher revenues over the same period.

Senior sources said that the first official figures indicated that there had been “manoeuvring” by well-off Britons to avoid the new higher rate. The figures will add to pressure on the Coalition to drop the levy amid fears it is forcing entrepreneurs to relocate abroad.

The self-assessment returns from January, when most income tax is paid by the better-off, have been eagerly awaited by the Treasury and government ministers as they provide the first evidence of the success, or failure, of the 50p rate. It is the first year following the introduction of the 50p rate which had been expected to boost tax revenues from self-assessment by more than £1billion.

(Last month the Telegraph ran a story saying a report from HM Revenue and Customs was expected to show that the 50p rate was generating “a ‘surge’ in revenues totalling hundreds of millions of pounds from the first year — undermining the economic case for scrapping the levy”.)

• Sam Greenhill and Daniel Martin in the Daily Mail say four people have been arrested in the fraud inquiry surrounding A4e, the company run by Emma Harrison, an adviser to David Cameron.

Four people have been arrested in the fraud investigation surrounding David Cameron’s ‘back to work’ tsar Emma Harrison.

Officers carried out dawn raids on the homes of former staff of her employment agency A4e, which receives tens of millions every year in Government contracts.

The two men and two women were questioned on suspicion of cheating taxpayers.

• Stanley Pignal in the Financial Times (subscription) says George Osborne tried to block the annual approval of the European Union’s accounts because of concerns about misspending.

The chancellor’s move came despite the UK being the subject of some of the concerns.

In an unprecedented step, the chancellor, along with the finance ministers of the Netherlands and Sweden, voted against the signing off of the 2010 EU budget.

However, the accounts were approved by the majority of European finance ministers during a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

The move was designed to protest at perceived misspending in the EU’s budget of €140bn a year. European auditors have never given unqualified assent to it in the past 17 years.

Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian

10.52am: Paul Kenny (left), the GMB general secretary, has also been commenting on Liam Fox’s FT article. (See 9.00am and 9.28am.) He’s put out this statement.

So soon after Fox resigned after admitting ‘mistakes’ of ‘blurring’ roles, here he is again making further mistakes, blurring extreme right-wing drivel with changes the economy actually needs. Large companies are awash with cash. Cutting their taxes will simply add to these cash piles and do nothing to boost demand.

Many large companies already use offshore tax havens to cut their tax bills. Instead these loopholes should be shut and companies should start spending to create jobs rather than hoarding cash. Making it easier to sack workers or treat them badly at work will increase insecurity and conflict and will not create a single job.

Photograph: Flying Colours

10.20am: You may not spend a lot of time worrying about the threat posed to Britain by electro-magnetic pulses (EMP), but fortunately the Commons defence committee is there to there to worry about them for us. Today it has published a report on the subject. An EMP event would be serious because it could wipe out the national grid. It could be caused by a high altitude nuclear weapon (the chances of which are low, according to the committee) or by a “severe space weather event” (the chances of which are moderate to high).

This is what James Arbuthnot (left), the Conservative chairman, had to say about it on the Today programme this morning. I’ve taken the quote from PoliticsHome.

The most important thing is that the consequences if it did happen would be so devastating that we really ought to start protecting against it now. Our vulnerabilities are huge. It would have a far more devastating impact to use a nuclear weapon in this way than to explode a bomb in or on a city. The reason is that it would, over a much wider area, take out things like the National Grid on which we all rely or almost everything; the water system, the sewage system and it would rapidly become difficult to live in cities. When I say rapidly, I mean within a matter of a couple of days.

Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

10.03am: Jeremy Hunt (left), the culture secretary, has been giving interviews today ahead of the Downing Street summit on racism in football. PoliticsHome have been monitoring. Here are the key points.

• Hunt said football had made “huge progress” in tackling racism but that more needed to be done.

Huge progress has been made in the last 20 years, because football, which is our national game, decided it wanted to take this problem very, very seriously. I would take it even further and say that the reason that attitudes to racial discrimination have improved so much in recent years is partly because football decided to take such a stand. So one of the things we want to do this morning is say: We made progress but we clearly can’t be complacent. Look at some of the things that have happened that have worried a lot of people.

• He said the government wanted to tackle the problem of homophobia in football.

We want to look at a new issue as far as football is concerned, which football hasn’t really engaged with in the past, which is homophobia and say, given the progress that football helped us to make as a society when it comes to racism, could it do the same thing with homophobia? Because we still don’t have any out Premiership players. And obviously it’s pretty unlikely there aren’t any gay Premiership players. We don’t know, but it would be an incredibly strong signal if we could have a more tolerant attitude inside the game in term of what it would say to the rest of society.

Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex Features

9.58am: Here’s Bob Crow, the RMT general secretary, responding to Liam Fox’s call for employment rights to be weakened. (See 9.28am.)

We will take no lectures on working practices from Liam Fox, a man who had to resign from the cabinet because of his own dubious workplace arrangements.

The Dodgy Doctor, and the rest of the old school right wingers in the Tory Party, would still have kids jammed up chimneys if it hadn’t been for centuries of campaigning by the trade unions to clamp down on workplace exploitation. We will fight this latest attack on working people from the zombie adherents to unrepentant Thatcherism.

9.28am: Back to Liam Fox. As yahyah points out in the comments, Liam Fox also calls for employment rights to be weakened in his FT article (subscription). He also wants executive pay in some banks to be cut. Here are the key points.

• Fox says firing workers should be made easier.

To restore Britain’s competitiveness we must begin by deregulating the labour market. Political objections must be overridden. It is too difficult to hire and fire and too expensive to take on new employees. It is intellectually unsustainable to believe that workplace rights should remain untouchable while output and employment are clearly cyclical.

The Left must be given an unequivocal moral challenge: it is utterly unacceptable to condemn a generation of our young to unemployment by maintaining all the rights and privileges of those currently in work. That would be the unavoidable outcome of failing to hold our own in a highly competitive global marketplace.

• He says that rewards for failure should not be accepted in the City.

The real debate should have centred on how, between 2000 and the start of 2012, the return to owners of Barclays shares was minus 9 per cent compared to 23 per cent for the FTSE 100 as a whole. For the Royal Bank of Scotland, the return was more like minus 86 per cent, its total pay increase from 2008 to 2010 was 55 per cent. No one should resent bonuses being paid to those who achieve success for some of our most important financial institutions or those digging them out of their holes. But for years we have been rewarding failure to the detriment of competitiveness and returns to pension savers.

Photograph: Paul Grover/Rex Features

9.19am: In the good old boom days, the government would never have got very excited about the creation of 1,000 jobs in the hotel industry. But today Nick Clegg has put out a press release about exactly that. Here’s an excerpt.

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group), one of the world’s leading hotel companies with brands such as Holiday Inn, today announced it is creating nearly 3,000 new jobs across its 275 UK hotels over the next three years, including over 1,100 new jobs this year. IHG also announced the launch of its newest hospitality training Academy in London.

The announcement was welcomed by the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who attended the launch of the IHG Academy programme at the soon to open Holiday Inn London Stratford City. The new hotel is one of four IHG hotels in the area that will be creating new jobs, for which students of the IHG Academy programme can apply.

A job’s a job, I suppose, and anything is better than unemployment, but it’s telling that ministers are having to be so positive about employment opportunities which will, I presume, largely involve low pay and low skills. At the end of last year Clegg issued a similar statement welcoming the creation of jobs at Starbucks.

9.00am: There are exactly four weeks to go until George Osborne delivers his budget and the annual pre-budget submissions are starting to pour in. Some of them are predictable. The CBI has published its wish list today and – guess what? – they want lower taxes for business. But the existence of the coalition means that internal government discussions are now more transparent than usual, because the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are doing some of their negotiating in public, and this week we’ve discovered that former cabinet ministers have a particular role to play.

On Monday David Laws, the Lib Dem former chief secretary to the Treasury, gave an interview to Newsnight saying that pension relief for higher rate taxpayers should be cut to fund the increase in the tax allowance for basic rate taxpayers. And today Liam Fox, the former defence secretary, is retaliating on behalf of the Tory right. In an article for the Financial Times (subscription), he says Osborne should instead prioritise cutting national insurance.

There is a strong argument for further public spending reductions, not to fund a faster reduction in the deficit, but to reduce taxes on employment. Although the coalition agreement may require the chancellor to raise personal tax allowances (which should be paid for with spending restraint not new taxes) he should use the proceeds of spending reductions to cut employers’ national insurance contributions across the board. If that is deemed impossible, he should consider targeting such tax cuts on the employment of 16 to 24-year-olds, making them more attractive to employers.

I’ll quote more from the article later.

Otherwise, here’s the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Jim Murphy, the shadow defence secretary, delivers a speech launching Labour’s defence policy review.

9.30am: The Office for National Statistics publishes an analysis of the characteristics of young unemployed people.

11am: The Electoral Commission publishes its quarterly figures on donations and loans to political parties.

12pm: David Cameron and Ed Miliband clash at PMQs.

Around 12.40pm: MPs start debating a Labour motion calling for the publication of the NHS risk register. I’ll be covering the opening of the debate in detail.

1pm: Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister, gives evidence to the Commons public administration committee on government strategic thinking.

1.30pm: Cameron hosts a summit on racism in football at Downing Street.

2.15pm: Michael Moore, the Scottish secretary, gives evidence to the Scottish affairs committee about the independence referendum.

As usual, I’ll be covering all the breaking political news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I’ll post a summary but it will be later than usual, probably at around 2pm, after the opening of the health debate.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

And if you’re a hardcore fan, you can follow @gdnpoliticslive. It’s an automated feed that tweets the start of every new post that I put on the blog.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2012/feb/22/davidcameron-edmiliband

How bad has youth unemployment got? The Office for National Statistics has been quietly building up its collection of video explainers through its YouTube channel and this one tackles the issue in a simple clear way. The collection is worth looking at for the basic stories behind the data – and is a sign that, despite its terrible website, the ONS is trying something different

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2012/feb/22/youth-unemployment-ons-video

Occupy London is facing imminent eviction from the foot of St Paul’s after three senior judges refused protesters permission to appeal at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Activists from the camp say they will take their case to the European court of human rights but judges denied them a stay of eviction and it is understood that the City of London Corporation, which brought the case against the protest camp, will act in days to remove up to 100 tents from the grounds of the cathedral.

Delivering judgment on an application to have the eviction order quashed, the head of the civil judiciary, the master of the rolls, Lord Neuberger, sitting with two other judges, dismissed an appeal hearing. He concluded that there was “no chance that any of the criticisms raised by each of the defendants, or even all of those criticisms taken together, could persuade an appellate court” that the initial ruling was wrong.

However, the judges said the right to protest could be strengthened by the nature of the arguments raised by activists.

“It can be appropriate to take into account the general character of the views whose expression the convention is being invoked to protect. For instance, political and economic views are at the top end of the scale, and pornography and vapid tittle-tattle is towards the bottom,” the judgment read.

In a day-long hearing to decide whether to grant an appeal last week, John Cooper QC, acting for Occupy camp members, had argued that in granting the eviction order, Mr Justice Lindblom had carried out a “rubber-stamping exercise” rather than a rigorous consideration of the alternatives and that the right to protest had been limited.

The City of London had opposed the claim, saying there was an overwhelming case for the court’s intervention because of the impact on St Paul’s Churchyard.

It said the camp was a magnet for disorder and crime in the area, which had an impact on worshippers, affected trade, and caused waste and hygiene problems.

Occupy, which set up outside St Paul’s in October after the London Stock Exchange took out a pre-emptive court order banning any protest from its property on Paternoster Square, said it would begin packing away a number of large marquees in the next 24 hours, tents which it said the camp had borrowed and needed to return undamaged.

Occupy camp spokesperson Naomi Colvin said the judgment was not unexpected but added that a full programme of events would continue for the next few days, including a debate with the business secretary, Vince Cable. Camp members would decide at a meeting on Wednesday evening whether to resist eviction, she said.

She said they would appeal to the European court of human rights, because their protest had raised fundamental questions about freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.

“What we are doing is at the edge of what you can do as a lawful protest … we will proceed to use the highest court to gauge a definition of where the law stands,” she said.

She also explained that an Occupy camp in Finsbury Square, at the edge of the City of London, set up a week after the St Paul’s camp, was “still going strong”. The local authority for that area, Islington, is understood to have no plans to evict.

Following the ruling, Anonymous UK, which also has a number of tents on church property, said it would “withdraw gracefully in a thoroughly British manner” within the next 72 hours.

The City of London said its timetable for eviction was an operational matter, but the corporation’s policy chairman, Stuart Fraser, welcomed the ruling. “Everyone has had their day in court and the courts have backed our application to remove tents and equipment from St Paul’s,” he said. “Peaceful protest is a democratic right but the camp is clearly in breach of highway and planning law. I would call on protesters to comply with the decision of the courts and remove their tents and equipment voluntarily right away.”

Following the decision, Michael Paget, acting for one of the Occupy camp members named in the court case, said: “Throughout this process the seriousness of Occupy’s message has never been questioned. It was recognised by the trial judge and the court of appeal.

“The Occupy message has been heard and will continue to be heard. It has made a difference and it will continue to make a difference.”

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/22/occupy-st-pauls-denied-appeal

A man who fell into a lake drowned after firefighters called to the scene said they could not enter the water if it was higher than ankle deep for health and safety reasons, an inquest has been told.

Simon Burgess, a 41-year-old charity shop worker died at Walpole Park, in Gosport, Hampshire, on 10 March. He is believed to have had an epileptic seizure either before or after falling into the water while feeding swans.

Witnesses raised the alarm, but the hearing was told on Tuesday that members of a fire crew refused to get to him because the water was more than ankle deep. Instead, they waited for a specialist water rescue team and Burgess was only taken out of the lake 28 minutes after the alarm was raised.

Gillian Hughes, 53, told the inquest, at Portsmouth coroners court, that she had phoned emergency services and urged them to rescue Burgess when they arrived. She said: “The firemen arrived with the police, and I said: ‘He’s only been there five or 10 minutes, so if you hurry you might save him.’

“He just said: ‘We’re not allowed’, and I said: ‘But that’s your job.’

Hughes added: “I said to one of the firemen: Why don’t you go in?’ and he said they couldn’t if the water was higher than ankle deep. I said: ‘You’re having a laugh’. He said: ‘No, that’s health and safety’ – but I thought that was their job.”

She said that another fire crew arrived and started walking around the lake, putting in a pole and measuring the depth but, by this time, Burgess had drifted from one side of the lake to the other.

Deborah Coles, the control room manager at Hampshire Fire and Rescue, told the inquest that she took the call from Hughes at 12.17pm and, within a minute, had sent a fire appliance, a water rescue trained crew and a water support unit.

“Police, ambulance and coastguard were also sent as standard for a water rescue,” she added. “The specialist teams are there to deal with water which is over half a boot in depth. At 12.20pm, the fire crew confirmed attendance and at 12.25 they told us a male was floating face down.”

“The water support unit arrived at 12.31pm. At 12.46, we received a message requesting our press officer attend the scene. At 12.52, an update came in saying a male had been recovered, and at 12.58 he was taken to hospital.”

Burgess was pronounced dead at 1.42pm after he was taken to hospital.

Dr Bret Lockyer, the speciality registrar of histopathology, told the inquest there were signs that Burgess had fallen into the lake because of an epileptic seizure.

Burgess was diagnosed with the condition in 1987, and had unsuccessful brain surgery to ease the seizures. Lockyer said: “If he had been taken out of the water after 10 minutes, there is a slim chance he could have been resuscitated.

“It seems he had a seizure either before or while he fell into the water.”

The hearing continues.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/22/man-drowned-lake-firefighters

Medical leaders are urging the government to end its “astonishing” refusal to publish its own assessment of the risks its NHS shakeup poses for the service and patients.

The leaders of Britain’s doctors, GPs, nurses and midwives are among an alliance of senior figures in healthcare who are demanding the release of the Department of Health (DH) analysis of the dangers involved in the radical restructuring of the NHS in England.

It should be made available “forthwith” so that parliamentarians scrutinising the health and social care bill can be fully informed about it before they give it final approval, they say. Hamish Meldrum, leader of the British Medical Association (BMA), the chair of the Royal College of GPs, Dr Clare Gerada, and the Royal College of Nursing’s chief executive, Dr Peter Carter, are among nine signatories of an open letter to ministers on the issue.

It was published on Wednesday morning, hours before MPs were due to stage a six-and-a-half-hour-long debate in the House of Commons in the afternoon. The debate was called by Labour to highlight the government’s refusal to release the NHS risk register. The information commissioner ruled last November that it should be published. There was “a very strong public interest in disclosure of the information, given the significant change to the structure of the health service the government’s policies on the modernisation will bring”, the commissioner said.

The DH appealed against that ruling, however. It claims that releasing the document would set an unwelcome precedent that would make ministers and civil servants reluctant to discuss the risks of certain policies in full detail. But its continued secrecy has prompted rising concern among MPs, peers and medical groups that potentially vital information is being wrongly withheld which could influence the bill’s passage through parliament.

The medical leaders’ letters says: “In the light of the huge public and political concern about the government proposal to restructure the NHS, we find it astonishing that the government persists in their refusal to publish the risk register which would enable the public to understand the potential hazards that the health and social care bill presents.

“This is the largest and most complex piece of legislation since the foundation of the NHS and it is incumbent on the government to share with the public the calculated risks.”

Their intervention comes as the bill continues its report stage in the House of Lords, which will debate it for another two days next week.

“Whether people support the bill or not, there is surely an overriding public interest in properly informing the debate with all relevant information. People care passionately about the NHS and they have a right to know the full implications of the government’s proposed reorganisation,” said the shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, who will open the opposition day debate for Labour after prime minister’s questions.

“MPs and peers simply cannot be expected to give final approval to a far-reaching change of this magnitude to our country’s best-loved institution without possession of all relevant information. Today the House of Commons should vote for the openness and transparency that this government once promised,” Burnham added.

Labour wrote to all Liberal Democrat MPs on Tuesday in an attempt to persuade some of them to support its motion demanding publication. Burnham has been buoyed by 14 Lib Dems backing a Commons early-day motion, sponsored by Labour MP and health select committee member Grahame Morris, which calls for its release. The EDM’s 86 signatories include Duncan Hames, parliamentary private secretary to the energy secretary, Ed Davey. Two Conservative MPs, Mark Field and Nicola Blackwood, also back publication, though neither has signed the EDM, which as yet has no Tory backers.

Earl Howe, the health minister, recently wrote to Blackwood explaining that the department would not release the register because “our view is that the ruling of the information commissioner carries with it very significant implications, not only for the Department of Health, but also for other departments across government”.

The DH’s appeal against the information commission’s original ruling is due to be heard on 5 and 6 March.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/feb/22/nhs-reforms-risk-assessment-doctors

Inside looking out: small birds cluster in the lattice of hedge trees like dark fruit. Shaken by the suddenness of snow, they face west together, staring across fields of crackling white under a sky crashing with light to the far hills. They sound anxious and their notes fall like the patter of thawing drips inside the stone tower of the derelict windmill. Inside the wood, in the shadiest places along the rims of limestone pits, spurge laurel is hiding yellowy-green, flask-shaped flowers under dark green leather strips of leaves.

What will pollinate these now? Perhaps insects will emerge when the weather soon warms, but so far the only likely suspects have been December moths seen flickering through the beams of car headlights. I like the thought of the nocturnal pollination by moths of spurge laurel; it has a mysterious, occult appeal. It has no colour to speak of and little scent, but that may be enough to lure moths at night. It must be the first of the native, non-wind-pollinating flowers to open here. It is subtle, strange and beautiful, and although it’s a signature plant of the Edge it’s easily overlooked in the dark rocky places where it lurks.

There is surveillance overhead. A helicopter circles, a dark machine blattering, probing into moss and snow below with a sense of menace. Unlike the buzzards and ravens which orbit these trees, seeking, checking, registering every movement and slip of shadow in the wood, the helicopter has no business here, which only seems to reinforce a recurring anxiety that neither have I. The small birds in the hedge trees make a break for it.

Outside looking in: the sun is out and warms the path between wood’s edge and the field. Here a row of blackbirds, lined up like plimsolls on a step, soak up the sunlight and mutter their charm and chide little songs. Now they’re looking outwards; perhaps the time is nearing for them to leave.

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/the-northerner/2012/feb/21/wenlock-edge-darkness-of-the-woods