VERDICT: No winners, and no real losers, from this week’s PMQs. Miliband’s questions were insistent and straightforward. Cameron’s answers were forceful and, in themselves, fairly persuasive. A no-score draw, then, if you want to look at it like that. There were one or two worrying leitmotifs for the coalition, though. First, the PM’s tendency towards grouchiness under fire; far less pronounced than it was last week, but still present. And then the continuing absence of any clear explanation of the NHS reforms, beyond “well, we had to change what was there previously.” The PM has a point about cancer survival rates and the like, but he’s not yet setting out how the coalition’s policies will make a difference.
1230: And that’s it. My quick verdict shortly.
1228: Good, and important, question from Labour’s Tom Blenkinsop on the prevelance of illegal lending. Cameron says that credit unions should be encouraged, and more action taken against dodgy doorstep lenders.
1226: Cameron enjoys having a dig at Miliband over the AV filibuster in the Lords. “If you’re so keen on this reform, why is your party blocking the referendum?” A slight mischaracterisation of the Lords’ concerns.
1225: Tory MP Lee Scott tees up Cameron for an attack on dsyfunctional NHS management. The coalition’s reforms will make these people more accoutable, says the PM.
1222: And there’s EMAs for the first time in this session. Cameron concentrates on reducing the deficit and value-for-money.
1219: You can describe this PMQs in three letters: NHS. Helen Goodman glowers about health cuts. Cameron repeats the same arguments from earlier, talking about health outcomes and cancer survival rates. Labour, he says, want to “do nothing”. Remember when that was Gordon Brown’s favourite attack against the Tories?
1217: Now we’re into the backbenchers again, and those guarantees are still cropping up: “why won’t you guarantee that my constituents will get treated on time?”
1215: Cameron is getting exasperated: “The same old pre-scripted lines…”
1214: Miliband is majoring on one of the favourite ideas of the Brown government: guarantees. He claims that the Tories are showing that they “can’t be trusted on the NHS” for scrapping these guarantees. Never mind that the guarantees were more a political dividing line than a thought-out mechanism for ensuring results.
1212: This exchange on the NHS is settling into a familiar pattern. Miliband: why won’t you guarantee lower waiting times? Cameron: the NHS needs to reform to ensure better outcomes from the money that’s spent on it.
1210: The Labour leader is back, and this time he leads on the NHS: will waiting times go up? Cameron begins an response, but the Speaker has to interject to quieten the House.
Curiously, he tells a little story about a ten year-old visitor to the Commons, who witnessed PMQs last week, and wondered why everyone shouted so much.
1209: That has to be a pre-prepared soundbite from Cameron on Ed Miliband’s economic message: “We didn’t spend too much, we didn’t borrow too much. Vote for us, and we’ll do it all
again.”
1207: Sarcastic oohs as Chris Bryant boasts that he has “leaked figures” on police cuts. Cameron treads his usual line on this: that there is plenty of room for cuts without
worsening frontline services, and it will be in the hands of individual forces to decide how they manage their budgets. A sedate session so far, especially in comparison to last week.
1206: Here’s a turn-up: Miliband has sat down after his first two questions. More to come.
1205: Miliband ploughs the same furrow, asking why the coalition scrapped the Future Jobs Fund. Cameron repeats much of his first answer, adding that the jobs fun was wasteful and
many of its beneficiaries were soon benefit claimants again.
1203: Here’s Ed, and he leads off with today’s employment figures. Cameron describes some of the figures as “very disappointing,” but he dwells on some of the positives: more
optimistic growth forecasts, lower claimant count, etc. He adds, in a swipe at the last government, that youth unemployment has been going up for years.
1201: And we’re off. A meandering first question from the Lib Dem Andrew George, but one with bite. He cites health professionals’ concerns about the health reforms, and drops the word “gamble”. Cameron hits back that we’re spending at European levels on health, without European results.
Stay tuned for live coverage from 1200.
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