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817 Oral Answers
1 DECEMBER 2010
Oral Answers
818
The Prime Minister: I will certainly resist those demands.
The fact is that we inherited a situation that was completely
unsustainable. Not just the Conservative party made
that point; the Governor of the Bank of England, the
CBI, the Institute of Directors, the OECD and the IMF
were all saying that the previous Government did not
have a proper plan. We needed a plan, we have got a
plan and we should stick to that plan.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab): I wish the
Prime Minister well in his efforts in Zurich and hope
that we will get the right result tomorrow. There was a
great debate in the House yesterday on school sport
partnerships and there was consensus that something
needed to be done. There was an offer from the shadow
Front-Bench team to try to come to an arrangement on
the issue. Will he look at it urgently with the Secretary
of State for Education? I am sure that we can resolve
this matter, because it is important that sport is available
to all.
The Prime Minister: I know that the hon. Gentleman
was a very successful Sports Minister in the previous
Government. I thank him for his endorsement of the
2018 bid and all that we are doing to win for England.
The hon. Gentleman’s point about school sport is
important. I am looking carefully at yesterday’s debate.
We all have a shared interest: we all want good sport in
schools and more competitive sport, and we all have to
ensure that money is spent well. Everyone accepts that
not every penny was spent well in the past. There is a
quite bureaucratic system. The Secretaries of State for
Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport and for Education
are working hard on this issue. We are talking with head
teachers to ensure that what we come up with works on
the ground. I hope that we will be able to make an
announcement soon.
Q10. [27567] Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con): The
plans to link London and Manchester by high-speed
rail will bring huge economic benefits to my
constituency and the greater north-west. Does the
Prime Minister agree that anyone who wants to
eliminate inequality between north and south should
support High Speed 2?
The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend makes the right
point in the right way. I understand that there will be
difficulties with High Speed 2 in terms of the impact on
some hon. Members’ constituencies and on some
neighbourhoods. However, it is true to say that
Governments of all parties for 50 years have tried to
deal better with the north-south divide and to bring our
country closer together. I profoundly believe that high-speed
rail and good transport links are a really good way of
making that happen. This measure could succeed where
others, frankly, have failed.
Q11. [27568] Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central) (Lab):
The community of Collyhurst in Manchester has
waited patiently and stoically with its insecure doors
and draughty windows, while it has seen huge
regeneration across large parts of Manchester. The
Prime Minister will understand the sense of anger and
despair in that community last week when the Minister
for Housing and Local Government announced that its
regeneration will not go ahead. Will the Prime Minister
or the Minister for Housing and Local Government
meet my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and
Broughton (Graham Stringer) in Collyhurst with
tenants’ representatives to see how the matter can be
taken forward?
The Prime Minister: I will make sure that the Minister
for Housing and Local Government does as the hon.
Gentleman says. The regional growth fund will be available
for investment in those sorts of areas, and the replacement
of regional development agencies—the local enterprise
partnerships—will, partly because they will be more
locally based, have a finer-tuned ear to local problems
such as the one that the hon. Gentleman raises.
Q12. [27569] Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con):
With the renewed prospect of travel chaos for British
Airways passengers, will the Prime Minister condemn
the leader of Unite’s implied threat to families when he
said to them, “Don’t go on holiday”?
The Prime Minister: Opposition Members do not
seem to think it is serious that we now have trade union
leaders who actually say that there is no such thing as
an irresponsible strike. There is such a thing, and those
who are bankrolled by the unions ought to speak up
about it.
Q13. [27570] Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish)
(Lab): Every year, about 25,000 people die from
thrombosis in hospitals, which is two to three times
greater than the number of people who die from
hospital-acquired infection, yet many of those deaths
are avoidable if hospitals follow the NHS guidance on
blood clot risk-assessment. What are the Prime
Minister’s Government doing to ensure that the UK’s
No. 1 hospital killer becomes the NHS’s No. 1 health
priority?
The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman makes an
extremely important point, and I know that he is chair
of the all-party group on thrombosis. In answer to his
question about what we are going to do, the first thing is
to make available more information. It was a freedom
of information request by the all-party group that showed
that only 14 acute trusts in England were even close to
meeting the goals for risk-assessing patients submitted
to hospital for the dangers of thrombosis and blood
clots. He is right, and the best thing that we can do is
provide more information. That will help us to ensure
that hospitals are coming up to the mark.
Stephen Williams (Bristol West) (LD): The Prime
Minister will be aware, I am sure, that today is world
AIDS day. What are the coalition Government doing to
ensure that the tide of HIV is stemmed both at home
and abroad?
The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely
right to raise that issue, and to say that we need to look
at what is happening both at home and abroad. Abroad,
the biggest decision was to maintain the commitment to
0.7% of gross national income going to our aid budget,
and we make a very big contribution out of that budget
to the battle against AIDS globally and to ensuring that
antiretroviral drugs are made available. We also have to
look at home, where there are worrying signs of infection
rates that are still extremely high. We need to get the
message out today and on other days about the importance
of safe sex and the precautions that people should take.