Baker, Cable, Reid, Horwood, George and Barrett quiz Deputy Prime Minister Harman

7.42.31pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 9th Jul 2008

' . . When are the Government going to put the public interest first and stop behaving like a wholly-owned subsidiary of BAA?'

[Jun 09] Norman Baker (Lewes) (LD): If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 9 July.

The Leader of the House of Commons (Ms Harriet Harman): I have been asked to reply. As the House will be aware, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is today at the G8 summit in Japan.

Norman Baker: We know that a third runway at Heathrow will be very damaging for the local environment and drive an aeroplane through the Government's carbon reduction targets. Has the Leader of the House seen the comments of Bob Ayling, the former chief executive of British Airways, who said:

"A third runway at Heathrow is against Britain's economic interests…It is likely…to prove a costly mistake"?

When are the Government going to put the public interest first and stop behaving like a wholly-owned subsidiary of BAA?

Ms Harman: The Government are going to put both the economic interests of this country and the question of tackling climate change first. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are consulting on the question of Heathrow and considering a great deal of evidence. We will not make our decision until we have finalised and are satisfied by the question of the sustainability of the runway.

. . Dr. Vincent Cable (Twickenham) (LD): Does the Minister acknowledge the severity of the crisis in the housing industry, where leading private house builders are going bust, sacking 40 per cent. of their workers and dragging down the banks because they have an excess of unsold private houses? Will the Government therefore build up their sensible but pathetically small programme for acquiring property and give genuine freedom to councils and housing associations to acquire property in order to let it out to the 1.7 million people in housing need on waiting lists?

Ms Harman: I agree with the hon. Gentleman: the situation in the housing market is a grave cause for concern. That is why the Government have taken action and will take more. That is why we have ensured that the Bank of England has £50 billion to help with the liquidity situation; why we are building more social homes; why we are giving £200 million to the Housing Corporation so that it can buy houses that have been built but have not been able to be sold; and why we are helping first-time buyers by reducing stamp duty. I think that he would agree that the most important thing for housing for the future is to ensure that people can stay in their jobs, that employment remains high, and that inflation and interest rates remain low, and that is what we will attempt to do.

Dr. Cable: I acknowledge that the Housing Corporation proposal is a good one, but it is a drop in the ocean. Can the Government not get their priorities right? Instead of the Prime Minister lecturing us on what we should eat for dinner, and competing with the leader of the Conservative party to be the country's weight watcher-in-chief, should he not acknowledge that we have a deep crisis in the British housing market-probably the worst in our lifetime-which is leading into a serious recession? It is time that the Government accepted responsibility for dealing with it.

Ms Harman: I agree that the situation is serious, but I do not agree that it is like it was in the 1990s. The hon. Gentleman should acknowledge that it is important that we keep employment rates high and that we keep interest rates low. Those who are working hard in the construction industry, and in small and big businesses across the country, do not want the official Opposition, or any Opposition Members, to be talking the economy down at this point. Confidence is important.

. . Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD): Millions of pensioners have chosen to collect their pensions through the card account at their post office. The contract for the card account must stay with the Post Office after 2010 and should not be given to PayPoint or the banks. When Ministers are asked about the matter, they keep waffling on about commercial issues and legalities. Will the Government please understand that the only organisation with a rural and island network is the Post Office? Will the Government stop dithering, act decisively and give the contract to the Post Office?

Ms Harman: Strict rules apply to public procurement, and rightly so. As a Minister, I could not be expected to comment in the middle of a contract procurement, but I can remind the House that the Post Office says that it has put in a strong bid for the Post Office card account. I would also remind the hon. Gentleman that this Government have put in unprecedented sums of public money to support the post office network, and we will continue to do so.

. . Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD): My constituency files include two particular cases of serious crimes for which the victims deserve our sympathy and support. Will the Leader of the House ask the Prime Minister to look into them, and in the process explain why, when our prisons are full to bursting, public finances are under pressure and others are being released early, the two prisoners in those cases are set to join more than 700 others on indeterminate sentences, who are serving more than their sentence tariff and have no prospect of getting into the institutions or on to the courses that will help them reform and enable them to be safely released?

Ms Harman: I will bring the individual cases that the hon. Gentleman raised to the Prime Minister's attention. However, we must recognise that we need to take a tough approach to crime, and we have done that. Crime has fallen since we came into government, and more criminals are being caught and sent to prison for longer terms. That is why we have increased the prison building programme. As well as sending those who have committed offences to prison, we need to try to ensure that, while they are there, they are rehabilitated so that when they leave, they do not commit further offences.

. . Andrew George (St. Ives) (LD): The Prime Minister knows, because I met him recently to discuss it, that second home purchases outstrip first-time buyers in my area by a factor of three to one. Can the Leader of the House tell us how much it will cost this year to fund the capital gains tax breaks for second home purchases? Does she acknowledge that the thousands of families who are desperate to gain their first home will effectively contribute to that benefit through the abolition of the 10p rate?

Ms Harman: I shall get the Chancellor to write to the hon. Gentleman with those specific figures. One of the things that is very important for first-time buyers, in addition to the points that I made in reply to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), is that we need to have more house building in this country. That is why we have brought forward our plans for eco-towns. I hope that the hon. Member for St. Ives (Andrew George) and other hon. Members who are concerned about the opportunities for first-time buyers will back up those plans.

. . John Barrett (Edinburgh, West) (LD): Why have this Labour Government chosen to continue the work of the previous Conservative Government this summer, with their plans to decimate the post office network in the city of Edinburgh?

Ms Harman: I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that the previous Conservative Government did not put one penny of public money into the post office network, so we are absolutely not continuing their work. On the contrary, we have put £2 billion of public funds into the network already, and we will put in £1.7 billion more in order to sustain the important post office network.