Liaison Committee: the work of the Prime Minister

I want people to feel better off—there has to be a central focus on living standards. I want them to feel, as they will, that the health service is working much better and is there for them and their families in a way that it has not been for many years. And I want them to feel safe and secure, both in their immediate neighbourhood and as a country in respect of our borders, national security and defence. Those are the three things that I am focused on more than anything else. I want people to feel that we have cleared up the mess that we inherited after the election—it was a huge mess, because we had a broken economy and broken public services—and that we are on the road to rebuilding the country.

Tackling poverty and breaking down barriers has to be central to everything that we do. People will not feel better off or safe and secure if we have not tackled poverty. I am very clear in my own mind that we must tackle poverty by putting in the support that is needed, but also break down the barriers to opportunity; otherwise, we will not fix the very deep and complex causes of poverty. That is why it is central to what we are doing. It is not a one-Department issue; it cuts across all Departments because it is so complicated and deep rooted.

It has to be more than just support to deal with poverty as it is today. We need also to put in place the measures to ensure that people can get out of poverty and stay out of poverty. That is why, broadly speaking, the strategy we have adopted has four limbs to it. The first is to increase income—the money coming into people’s pockets, and into their household—and then to decrease costs for them, to strengthen the local support they have, particularly to get back into work but in other ways too, and then to boost financial resilience. I am very proud of the fact that the last Labour Government drove down poverty and I am determined that this Government will as well.

The first thing is to make it absolutely clear that this matters to me and to No. 10 as one of the central things that I want to drive, and that our priorities are the three that I set out earlier. Secondly, we have to put in place the cross-departmental working, which is often the most difficult bit. We then have to set up the relevant taskforce. For child poverty, we have set up a designated taskforce to look specifically at child poverty and to devise our strategy. That reports in, so I have oversight of that, so that everybody can see that it is a No. 10 and a Prime Minister priority in what we are doing.

Oh, yes. As I said, the last Labour Government got child poverty down, and I want to get child poverty down.

Yes, I am. First, thank you for highlighting it, as it is really important. It is terrible that, in this country at these times, anyone could die in those circumstances. That is why we made the pledge to put it into law, and we will put it into law. I do not think we can simply say that, on its own, the law will do all the work that is needed. That is why we have strengthened standards in housing across the board, including checking that landlords are doing things like electricity safety checks as well.

Yes, I am confident that it is the right law. Yes, I think it will be enforceable. But I do not think there is one silver bullet to solve all the problems in either housing or poverty.

Yes, there have. One of the ways in which I have set up the work of Government is to have key Ministers reporting to me on key commitments for a regular stocktake. We go through progress, what measures are in place and so on. Housing, as you would expect, is one of them. There are six areas where we have these regular stocktakes, and housing is one of them The Deputy Prime Minister and her team come into No. 10, and we have a session where we go through a number of different issues. Decent housing standards and enforceability are among them.

Look, I defend the decisions we have made. Obviously, as we head into the autumn, we will get to another Budget and there will be a chance to look again across the board. We certainly made the right decision first time round. I would emphasise something I touched on last time, which is that in the end we need to build and make available more housing across the board. There simply is not enough, and that means—

As I said, we will set out a child poverty strategy in the autumn. We will go into the Budget in the autumn as well, and alleviating poverty is a priority of mine. I do think we need to build more, though. We have to build more, because we have had a problem for many years of not building enough social and affordable housing in this country. Until we crack that problem, we will never be able to get to the fundamental root of the failure, which is why, on that issue in particular, I am pressing the Deputy Prime Minister very hard.

Yes, that is why we have made a commitment within the building commitment for social and affordable housing and put down £39 billion, which is the biggest amount—

Well, yes. I appreciate that. It is always the duty of Government to deal with the here and now, of course, but also to deal with the mid and long term. In my view, one of the big problems over the last 14 years is that nobody did the mid and long term, so we lived with ever-decreasing cycles of failures and short-term sticking plasters. I am determined that we are going to cut through that.

I hope that since then they have provided you with a letter or some further evidence; if they have not, I shall make sure I do after this session. In relation to homelessness, that is also an initiative led by the Deputy Prime Minister—it is one of the priorities that I have given her—and we have put a lot of money, £950 million, into more temporary accommodation. That is money straight into local authorities. Often a lack of temporary accommodation is one of the causes of the problem.

Overall, we are investing £1 billion in reducing homelessness, and that involves a lot of preventive work. So there is a central focus on homelessness and a lot of money being put behind it, particularly focusing on the question of temporary accommodation available to local authorities.

No, and we need to drive that up; that is a problem that we have identified and are working on. Obviously, we have to do the necessary work on cladding, and that has to be financed, but you are absolutely right that we need to turn that number around and drive it up, so the Deputy Prime Minister is across all these housing issues.

First, let me acknowledge that it is a real problem and has a huge impact on families, not just in terms of the physical aspects of living in those conditions—the cramped and small circumstances—but, in very many cases, on the ability of a child, for example, to get on with their homework and get on at school. It has not just immediate, short-term consequences; it has longer-term consequences, because those same children, once they are struggling at school, will struggle further down the line in school.

That is why it is important that we have put the extra money into temporary accommodation for local authorities, to make sure there is a wider range of accommodation. Now, you cannot fix this overnight, but you are absolutely right that it needs to be turned around, for all the reasons that you have identified and that I absolutely understand.

First, let me say that we have put £1 billion into homelessness—a huge amount more than any Government have put in for a very long time—for precisely the reasons that have been identified by this Committee. There is an absolute commitment on homelessness, and the money was put there in the Budget and the spending review to make good on the commitment on homelessness.

On the wider question of local authority funding, I think that it needs a review, and I have long thought that. Among other things, we need multi-year settlements. There is no end to the local authorities that say to me, “Because it is a year-on-year allocation of money, we cannot use the money as effectively as we might otherwise be able to.” I do not know how many authorities have said to me, “Until you fix the no-fault eviction problem”—as we are now doing—“you will have a homelessness problem, and the bill will be picked up by local authorities.” That is why we brought in the provisions to get rid of no-fault evictions. I absolutely agree that this needs review and change. We have started the process of change, and for me, they would be the top contenders of what we are getting on with to bring about a material change as quickly as we can.

The investment into homelessness has gone in already—that money has been made available.

As soon as possible. I have the Deputy Prime Minister project-managing this. We are looking across the numbers, and we are getting the money to where it needs to be, but the financial and political commitments are in place. The Deputy Prime Minister is pretty focused on this; it matters hugely to her and to me, and therefore, we are driving it through central Government.

In homelessness or living standards more generally?

I want to see the money that is going into temporary accommodation having immediate effect—in other words, I want to see more accommodation available. Obviously, it is going to take some time to get it into place, but this is not a delayed project.

A central focus of what we are doing is what can be built, arranged or taken by councils and repurposed, I am impatient for this change to be driven through, and—

I know, which is why I am so furious at the last Government for leaving tens of thousands of asylum seekers unprocessed and with nowhere to live, other than accommodation paid for by the taxpayer.

We will have to do a number of things; of course, we will have to build.

We have to take over other accommodation, and we have to drive down the asylum lists. There is no alternative.

There is lots of housing in many local authorities that can be used, and we are identifying where it can be used.

No, but I will give you details in writing.

Exactly, which is why leaving tens of thousands of unprocessed asylum seekers who need to be housed is a huge problem for this Government.

No, we are looking at what accommodation is available, and I will make sure that we send a detailed letter.

First, I absolutely agree with the identification of the problem that you and your Committee have put forward: lots of children coming out of care essentially go off a cliff edge, and they go from having support when they are in care to having almost none. In my view, we have to change that so that there is graduated support as they come out of care. I have not looked particularly at the recommendations, but I will make sure they are looked at, and obviously we will give you our full response to them.

We will certainly have a look at your Committee’s recommendation. I think the youth guarantee is a hugely important part of what we are trying to do, and we will certainly look at your recommendation.

As I say, we will look at the recommendation that your Committee made.

First, on your general analysis, I agree. For many years, we have seen an over-representation of those who have been in care in poverty and in prison—in the criminal justice system—and we absolutely need a better approach to that. I don’t know whether a completely national approach is right or wrong. I will certainly look again at what your Committee has said about this, and I will make the relevant inquiries, but we have to improve the chances and opportunities for those who have been in care and come out of care. It starts, obviously, with what has been a cliff edge for many of them, but then continues with quite deep-rooted problems, very often for the rest of their lives.

Okay.

Well, it is very important that they feel secure and supported. That is at the heart of what we are doing with the changes we are making to welfare and related areas. I want to see more opportunities and more support put in place. Some of that will come from the state; some of it can come from employers. I am absolutely clear in my own mind that there is more that employers could do, and that the state can help them to do, to encourage those with disabilities to come into work, and to retain those who are in work. I have seen good examples of that myself—as no doubt you have—but not enough across the country, so we need to do more.

The Mayfield report is coming in the autumn with the final recommendations. We obviously need to look at that piece of work, and that is focused, as you know, on what employers can do. I do not accept that everything is going to take years. Some changes take years, but not all, and we have to do work in the interim to give support to those with disabilities—

I think a lot of work can be done with employers to encourage them to take on and to retain. That does not need primary legislation. I have seen pilots across the country, which I would like to see many more of, that have been very successful. Yes, I accept that if you want to pass legislation it will probably take some time. Some of the changes that I have seen for myself have been quite effective, and they do not need legislation at all. I think we can get on with that as quickly as possible. The Mayfield recommendations will be with us, obviously, later this autumn.

I think this is a really important Labour value. I think the fact that there are nearly a million young people out of work, not earning or learning, is a huge challenge for our country, and none of us should accept a system that operates like that. It is broken and needs to be mended. All the evidence is that if you are on benefits and out of work at that young age, the likelihood of ever getting into good, well-paid, secure employment goes down for the rest of your life. One in 10 working age people is out of work, and 3 million are locked out for health-related reasons. It is no wonder that almost everybody says the system is broken and has to be changed. I am glad that we have started the process of change. I am not going to pretend that we got everything right in recent weeks, but we do need to reform the system. We should take that on as a Labour argument, in my view.

Let me go back to the beginning of your question, if I may. The employment rate is up 0.8 percentage points over the year, and the unemployment rate is also up slightly. Now, you may think that is a slight contradiction but, as you will know, what it indicates in the data, on my own analysis, is that the inactivity numbers have gone down. So, those not even looking for work have begun to look for work, hence the unemployment figure has gone up at the same time that the employment figure has gone up. Therefore, that puts a great spotlight on the very problem you have identified, which is whether jobcentres are doing what we expect of them in helping those who are now looking for work, and those who have been looking for work, into work.

We have already started the programme of changing how jobcentres work, because there is not enough time coaching and helping people into work. I also do not think that many businesses are actually going to the jobcentre when they have a vacancy. I have talked to lots of businesses myself and asked, “When you have a vacancy, are you listing it at the jobcentre so that we can match the local jobs that are available with those who are looking for work?” The answer is that most of them do not go to the jobcentre. We have already started a lot of change in jobcentres, and we need to see it through for the very reasons you have identified.

I will take away the point that you are putting to me. I am not across the details of how many minutes are allocated to the coaches in jobcentres, but I agree with the broad principle that you are putting to me, which is that there needs to be more support for people to get into work. In my view, we need to change the way that jobcentres work altogether—we need to change the very nature of them—which is part of the work that we are doing. I will take away the particular issue you raise regarding the minutes allocated and get a fuller answer to you.

I do not think that most businesses are advertising in jobcentres, and I think there is a basic mismatch between what is genuinely available in an area and what people going to a jobcentre are being presented with—I think that is a problem we have to sort out.

That is because businesses do not have faith in jobcentres, so the jobcentre is not doing the job it is intended to do, whether it is minutes allocated or whatever. We have allocated money to support people into work, and in my view that needs to be used much better. In terms of the precise minutes allocated for face time or support time, I am not across the detail, but I am absolutely clear that we need more support. Those are the two fundamental changes that are needed for jobcentres, to my mind.

Yes.

We need to do a number of things. First, we have to get much better growth into our economy and create more wealth in the first place. That is why we put so much store in ensuring that we took necessary measures at the Budget to deal with our inheritance. We then had a spending review, which was targeted at the question of making sure that, if there is a thriving economy, it is a thriving economy in every part of the country, and not just in some parts of the country.

It is also why we have already, in the spending review, focused on things like the living wage and the minimum wage and ensuring that wages are going up. They have gone up more in the last 10 months than in the previous 10 years. That is the first part. The second part is the poverty strategy, and we have to ensure it is across the whole of society and every location because, in addition to the growth figures, as you all know, we have had inequality variances across the country, place by place.

We have to have a laser focus on that because, while we want more wealth creation and a thriving economy—and we do, and it will—we cannot have that in just London and the south-east, with redistribution being a one-word answer for the rest of the country. To my mind, that is fundamentally wrong.

I will just concentrate on two aspects of that, first the income side and then the cost side. On the income side, we have already pulled the lever of increasing minimum wages, which effectively means, on average, around £1,400 extra to 3 million of the lowest paid. And there are above-inflation increases for standard rates of universal credit.

On the flipside, free childcare is coming on stream from this September, across the board, from nine months through to school-starting age. Free school meals are also being rolled out, as are breakfast clubs and limits on what you have to pay for school uniforms.

The warm home discount, which is £150 per household, will go from 3 million to 6 million households this winter, so I think there are things that Government have done and will continue to do, but in the end the central focus has to be on creating more wealth and making sure that we have a growing and thriving economy. That has been the single biggest failure of the last 14 years, as we have not had an economy that has grown in any significant way.

I think we need a central poverty strategy. We are putting that around the child poverty strategy, which we are rolling out in the autumn.

I am not going to be tempted to start speculating on what might or might not be in the Budget. It is going to come in the autumn. We will get the forecast. The Chancellor will set out her decisions according to that forecast, but I am not going to be drawn into speculating on what that might be at this stage.

We are in for a long six months, because no Prime Minister or Chancellor ever says in advance what is going to be in the Budget, and every day there will be a story saying “He doesn’t rule out” whatever the long list of things is.

In line with forecasts. There have been monthly fluctuations, usually for global reasons, as you will have seen in a number of other countries, but we also have our over-arching fiscal rules in place, which are iron-clad—one of them relating to borrowing as a proportion of debt.

I will see what the figures are tomorrow. I think every month this year there have been fluctuations, broadly driven—I think generally accepted as driven—by events that are happening globally, and almost capable of being tracked to them day by day, but I want to be in line with the forecasts, and we have the fiscal rules in place to ensure that we are in line with the forecasts.

My experience so far has been of different predictions almost on a weekly basis as we get into the final stages of the Budget, which is why it is important to see them over a slightly longer term, and see what precisely those forecasts are when we get to the autumn. I do not say that frivolously. I was very concerned only a few weeks ago, when the conflict in the middle east looked like it was going to escalate rather than de-escalate, about the impact that would have on oil prices, and on our economy as a result. Therefore, I do think it is important for us to see this over a slightly longer term. We are tracking it, as you would imagine, very closely.

Let’s see what the OBR’s forecasts are in the autumn. As I say, my experience is that those forecasts change on a pretty regular basis, often according to external factors, and trying to guess now what the forecast might be in the autumn is fraught with all sorts of difficulties.

Yes.

No, I don’t think so. I would gently point out that the fiscal headroom we put in the Budget was considerably more than the last Government put in their last Budget by some measure, but then there was a lot of fluctuation in the early part of this year, particularly with conflicts in different parts of the world. Also the immediate after-effects of the tariff decisions that were being taken, for example, in America, had an impact, and it was right, in my view and the Chancellor’s view, that we retained the fiscal headroom, which is what we did.

No, I am not saying that they are incorrect; I am just saying that it is important for us to look at it in the round and over a slightly longer period. I think it is important to have that headroom, which is why we put it in the Budget last autumn, and why, in the spring statement, we took the opportunity—duty—to put that headroom back in, which is what we did.

I don’t know. That is a matter for the OBR. They make the forecast; they are there for a purpose. We obviously take what forecast they put in place and act accordingly.

No—I am, Steve. You have been in this position preparing for Budgets, and you will know the experience, which is that there are forecasts that, as you lead into a Budget, in the end come on a weekly basis and fluctuate week to week—literally. Therefore, my experience of the Budget and the spring statement is to focus intensely on the forecasts when we get them and prepare for them now according to our fiscal rules, which is what we are doing.

Look—back in the autumn, the OBR predicted one thing; by the spring they predicted something else. By autumn, they will give their prediction going forward from there. We have to work from that forecast.

Different forecasts forecast different things. Nobody forecast that we would have the highest growth in the G7 for the first quarter of this year, but we did, and I am pleased about that. I think the measures we are taking can create the conditions in which we can improve on that in the autumn and the Budgets thereafter.

Of course.

It is important. I think over half of charities have been exempted from the national insurance rises. We are looking at what we can do on business rates, etc., for charities, and to put in the support that they need.

Well, there are probably other things as well. I will write to you with further stuff.

No, I don’t think it is. On the point about charities in all our constituencies working hard in those areas, I completely accept that. One of the things that we launched last Thursday was the civil society covenant, where we got many, many thousands of charities together and did what we promised in opposition, which was to bring the Government and the charities together in a partnership through that covenant and demonstrate to them the sort of work that we can do together.

I have to say that they felt that that was the first time it had ever happened, with a Government prepared to work with charities in that way. It was a very good thing: it was very well received and was an example, to my mind, of the sort of partnership working that we are going to have to have in this country if we are to bring about the change that we need to bring about at the speed we have available. We must always remember that we inherited both a broken economy and broken public services. No Government has inherited that combination for decades and decades and decades, and it is a very difficult working environment.

It is important to bear in mind why we had to do what we did on national insurance: we looked through the books and we found £22 billion missing, and we had to do something about it because that is a serious problem. We addressed that in the Budget and at the same time we used the money from that NICs increase to invest hugely in our NHS. We promised 2 million extra appointments in the first year of a Labour Government. We have done 4.5 million. That takes the pressure off many, many charities.

No, we are clearing up the mess of the last Government.

No.

Well, congratulations to Sheffield Hallam. That is brilliant.

That is the first time I have been presented with those figures. Clearly, in Holborn and St Pancras and other places, we need to up our game and we will do so.

First, I had not seen that read-out of figures by constituency before.

Oh, I think we should do everything we can to get them to support charities and individuals.

We will go to Sheffield Hallam and find out what is happening there that is clearly not happening in Holborn and St Pancras, and take it away as a learning experience.

Yes. One of the most important things is how Government work with charities in supporting what they do. We have had examples of charities rolling out particular initiatives that they have brought to us. One was the Macmillan initiative on giving people guided support to the charities that they might need if they are diagnosed—in that particular case with cancer, but also with other diagnoses. They did that as a local plan. We have taken that now as a nationally rolled-out plan, working with those charities. That is an example of the covenant working together.

We are going through the review, and it will obviously come to its conclusion. We keep an open mind about what we need to do with the licence fee, but we are working closely with the BBC. We are going through that review.

I don’t know, off the top of my head, but I will certainly write to you and let you know.

I will try to get a more accurate date for you.

No. I will try to get you a more accurate date.

First, I think I am right in saying that more people use buses than any other form of transport, and therefore it is hugely important, particularly in rural areas, but just across the piece, and there is a direct correlation between that sort of travel and building the local economy, so it is vitally important. We did invest a lot of money in the Budget in buses, and the spending review set out I think it was £900 million of investment, but there are also, in direct answer to your question, a number of other measures that we have taken that are important.

Capping the bus fare at £3 until March ’27 is really important, but equally, in the Bus Services Bill are the socially necessary services because it is not just the price; it is the route. Too many times in the past, there have been examples of profitable routes having too many buses and non-profitable routes not having any buses at all, so having that provision is very important, as is the expansion of the ability of local representatives—mayors, but also other local authorities—to take more control over the buses in their area, all of which I think will change the landscape here.

Yes, certainly. As I said, we put in quite a lot of investment in the Budget, but you are absolutely right: that needs to do more than maintain the status quo. I don’t think it was a status quo—I think it was probably reducing—but it needs to more than stabilise the situation, and improve the situation.

Yes, I think this is really important. Obviously, these are long-term issues in communities that have been overlooked, in my view, for a very long time. There are a number of measures that we are taking that are really important. To give some examples, the Cardiff and Newport investment zone will drive growth, particularly in manufacturing in that area—much needed skills, which are transferable.

There is a Newport semiconductor cluster, which will support hundreds of highly skilled jobs. You will be well aware of all the support that is going into Tata Steel—into Port Talbot and Tata, the owner there, which we are working with very closely. I was very pleased to see the electric arc furnace work start just last week, or the week before. In addition to that, to tie it to the previous questions, we also need to invest across Wales, and south Wales in particular, in transport and rail across the region.

Yes, absolutely. The transport improvement, the local growth work that we are doing, the empowering of local authorities and working with the Welsh Labour Government are central to that, in terms of what we are doing.

Some of the levers to deal with poverty are obviously devolved; some are not. The ones that are not, we can operate and pull, and we will—that is the minimum wage, the changes to universal credit, the Employment Rights Bill and some of the other schemes, like Warm Homes. There are things, directly, that the Government can do.

In the Budget last year, we set out the biggest devolution settlement for Scotland—the best part of £50 billion per year—so there is the money there for the Scottish Government to get on and take some of the other necessary measures. I am not convinced that they are doing so. Our job, notwithstanding our political differences, is to work with the Scottish Government to deliver, particularly on good, well-paid jobs in areas that need them. That we are doing. One of the first things I did as Prime Minister was to go to Scotland—in fact, the very first visit, within days—to say to the First Minister that, notwithstanding our political differences, I saw my job as to be delivering for Scotland, and that therefore we would work with him and his Government wherever we could.

Yes. First, I think that this is a really important issue, because there are very many more cyber-attacks than most people appreciate, and there are serious security risks. Marks & Spencer is an example; there are plenty of others, including concerted cyber-attacks on the Government and on our public services, which we deal with day in, day out. It is in our interests to work both with the private sector, which we are doing, on initiatives in very many constituencies to build up the jobs and develop the skills that are going to be necessary, and with our security and intelligence services and in some cases with our military as well, in terms of the work that we are doing on cyber. This is an area where you can see room for expansion. We put in the money on this at the spending review, because I am very concerned about the increasing risk of cyber-attacks across the board.

Yes, I will do that.

Yes, there are initiatives—

I know that there are. I will make sure that they are available to the Committee.

Local growth plans are part of the answer to that. Making sure that we retain the skills and the jobs in the places we have them is hugely important. I will give two examples of that.

Grangemouth is an area where we have put quite a significant amount of Government money recently. There is a problem, obviously, with the winding down of the refinery at Grangemouth, but the potential of Grangemouth is a huge opportunity for that community and many communities around it. I see it as a huge opportunity; I think we have 10 strands of work going on to identify the best possible way forward for Grangemouth. We should not see it as some sort of charity case; it is an incredible opportunity in Scotland.

Equally, the work around Aberdeen, as we transition from oil and gas to renewables, has huge potential for using the same pipework for carbon capture as is currently used—going the other way, if you like—as well as the same skills and workforce, for decades to come. There is huge potential in Scotland if we get this right.

I would also add that, thanks to our India trade deal, most whisky distillers in Scotland are saying to me that they are now going to struggle to produce enough whisky to export. It is a problem that they are absolutely loving, but it just shows how the trade deal has a direct impact on that issue in Scotland in particular.

I think they can, but it needs additional work, part of which is about valuing the local supply chain and ensuring that that is measured when contracts for procurement are put out. Particularly at the moment, having secure supply chains in Scotland is vitally important, so one aspect, whether it is in Grangemouth or elsewhere, can then feed a lot of other communities and jobs in quite a wide range of areas, but only if we value the fact that they are Scottish jobs in Scotland. That is where, in my view, the investment and the contract should be, not least because those jobs then support the communities, and those with the jobs are paying tax back into Scotland rather than paying it in another country. We need to value and weigh it in the work that we are doing on contracts in particular, around the main clusters that we are talking about.

It is a massive problem, as ever. No Department that we inherited is anything other than broken. We are putting more money in. We are focusing first on the criminal side—putting in more money on legal aid because, as you will know, there are terrible backlogs in our courts and we have to sort that out, with more money going in—and then on things like housing, where within the civil sphere there is a particular problem. There is more money going in; it is focused in that way, but we are looking at a broader review of how we can have better and quicker access to justice, because it is far too slow.

The first thing is more mental health and substance abuse support while people are in prison, which we are putting in and which does make a difference. For those who are out of prison and serving their sentences in the community, we have launched an initiative with councils to bridge them into well-paid work at the end of that part of their sentence, which is shown to have material support. We are then putting a better package of support around those actually leaving prison, when they do leave prison. Those are the three things that we are doing at the moment.

First, in direct answer to the first part of your question, we need a ceasefire and we need it straightaway, because that will create the space for the remaining hostages to be released. They have been held for a very, very long time. It will create the space for aid to get in at speed and at volume, which is desperately needed. Equally importantly, it will create the space for a political process, which to my mind is the only long-term way to get a sustained peace in Gaza. We must not forget what is happening in the west bank as well.

In answer to the second part of your question, it is important that all countries, including ours, play a leading part in bringing about the peaceful settlement that we want. On the question of recognition, we are, and have been for a long time, committed to that as part of the process—as a contribution to the peace process at a time most conducive to the prospects of peace. We are working with others on how we get from where we are now to a two-state solution, which is the only viable option, to my mind. We need to use the coming weeks to push further on credible plans for the next phase of Gaza. If we get to a ceasefire, we need to push past that and on to better regionally supported reconstruction efforts and supporting of the Arab plan. I think we should play a leading part in that.

First, let me be clear: the situation on the ground in Gaza is intolerable, on so many levels, and we make that absolutely clear in all of our exchanges with Israel and with other countries. Whether that is the deaths of those who are queuing for aid, or whether it is the plans to force Palestinians to live in certain areas or be excluded from certain areas, they are all intolerable and absolutely wrong in principle.

We have taken action, as you know, in terms of sanctions and in terms of what we are doing with arms sales, and we are working hard with allies to ensure that we bring about a ceasefire. That is not straightforward, as you will appreciate. It is important that we are working with the Americans on this, as you would expect, but we need to get to that ceasefire to create the conditions for everything else that needs to happen. We will continue to do so: it is a really important part of the work that we are doing on a day-to-day basis.

Well, there is a lot in it. We are working through it, and we will respond in due course.

First, I do think that we have made real progress, and I am pleased that we have. We said that we would reset the relations with our partners in Europe, and we have done that through a successful summit in May. That had 10 strands to it, including an SPS agreement that will mean lower prices in supermarkets across the country, but also really important work on defence and security. In addition to that, we have led, with the French, the coalition of the willing, which has shown our ability to pull allies together in response to the conflict in Ukraine. And there is that strong E3 nucleus, if you like; as you say, we had Chancellor Merz here last week and President Macron the week before. That core E3 is now much stronger than it has been for some considerable time.

In answer to your question, I think the summit is to be a yearly summit, and it is iterative. It is not just to monitor what we have agreed; it is to go further. To take up your example of medicines, I would like to do more and more on medicines. There are other areas where I think we could and should go further; I think many creative people who are crossing borders for their artistry, their music or whatever it may be, on a temporary basis—they are not going to another country for any significant period of time—are still finding it too difficult to get in and out of countries. I hope we can make some progress there.

Those are not the only areas, but these are common-sense changes that we could make to our arrangements with the EU, which in my view had very little to do with the vote in 2016, and where, by resetting the mood in Europe, we now have a chance of going further.

First, we need to ensure that the commitments to spend more are common across Europe, which I think we are doing—we certainly achieved that at the NATO summit—but then we need to do more than that. If we are going to all spend more on defence, we need to co-operate and co-ordinate in how we are bringing about the capability. That was intensely part of the discussion with the Chancellor of Germany last week and with President Macron: how do we three countries in particular co-ordinate?

You will have seen that when President Macron was here, we agreed that on nuclear, for the first time, we would look at how we might co-ordinate better. I am absolutely clear in my own mind that NATO has been the cornerstone of our peace for decades. If it is to continue to be—and it is our duty to make sure it is—it requires some more heavy lifting from the Europeans. That is why I led from the front in trying to get others into the place of co-operating and co-ordinating more on the capability. We can learn a lot from Ukraine. A lot of capability was made available to Ukraine, but actually it was not as useful as it could have been, because in years gone by there was not that level of co-ordination. I think we can fix that now.

Well, it was a shocking inheritance. We inherited the breach, we inherited the injunction and we inherited a secret scheme. In answer to your question, a number of us were quite uncomfortable about that, which is why we set up the review to ask whether it is necessary for these arrangements still to be in place. That review, the Rimmer review, produced an answer, which was no, and therefore the injunction was lifted. As you would expect, we put in place other measures to ensure that data is more securely held in the MOD, but it was a breach that we inherited. I think the Defence Committee is looking at it now, and I hope that members of the previous Administration will appear before that Committee and give their explanations.

Yes. It was a very complicated review. Having got into the situation where lives were potentially at risk, I wanted the review to be as careful as it could be.

Yes.

Of course. That was a risk assessment that held people’s lives in it.

Well, pretty soon afterwards.

I wasn’t briefed as Leader of the Opposition. It was not offered to me. To be fair to the last Government, they did offer me briefings on most things; as it happens, they did not offer a briefing on this, but I am not complaining, as such, that I did not get offered it. To be fair, I did get offered briefings on quite a regular basis.

I would say two things about that. First, the next tranche of protections under the Online Safety Act are coming into force imminently, and we need to look at how effective they are, but I agree with you that we need to go further than that. In all our analysis and the work that we are doing, we have to focus on our national interest—what we need to do to keep our citizens safe and make sure that our electoral system and democracy work effectively. I was very worried at the last election about misinformation, and I am very worried about the potential for misinformation in future elections in this country.

No, but there are provisions within it on harm, which are coming into force imminently.

First, I agree with the proposition that the World Service is really important. I also agree that, whether it is in broadcasting or other areas, there are other states that are more than happy to step in if a gap is left. Somewhere in my pack, I have the funding arrangements for the World Service, but I cannot put my finger on it at the moment. We need to make sure that we protect the World Service, for those very reasons. It is a matter of national security.

That is a constant call.

I will take that away, but I agree with the basic proposition that other countries are very quick to step in if we leave a gap.

Yes, and a Committee to oversee it.

I think there is always room for bringing outside ideas into No. 10. Whether that is from the private sector—particularly those running businesses—or our mayors or local representatives across the country, or whether it is by making better use of parliamentarians, there is always room for improvement and bringing in the ideas of others. I think that where people have experience on the ground, it is invaluable to hear what they say about what we are doing or proposing to do, and to take that on board.

We had the most terrible inheritance. I know that some people do not want to hear it any more, but Blair inherited an economy that was getting better but public services that were broken; Cameron inherited good public services but the ’08 crash; we inherited broken public services and a broken economy, so we had to take some difficult decisions in year one, and I am not surprised that it has been hard in places. At the same time, we have delivered incredible numbers—

Well, yes, but if I may carry on, we have done 4.5 million extra appointments on the NHS. That is remarkable. Nobody thought it could be done. We have a 10-year plan for the NHS—

I think we could engage Parliament more—I do not doubt that—but I do think that it is important for us to remind people of the improvements we have made to the NHS, what we have done on free school meals, breakfast clubs, childcare and school uniforms, what we have done in terms of the investment that we have put into road and rail, and the fact that we got three trade deals with countries with which many Governments had tried to get deals but did not achieve them. Our £120 billion-worth of inward investment is an all-time record. Sometimes, one of the mistakes we make is not shouting loud enough about what we are achieving. We in the Labour party focus on the—

Oh, walking into Downing Street and taking up the job of governing. I would not swap a single day in government for years and years in opposition.

The worst thing was when my brother died, which, for me, brings the private and the public into a very tense conflict. That was difficult.

I think you said that last time.

I thought that at the beginning of the summer holidays last time and it did not work, so I am not saying anything this time.