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