Clegg , Hughes and Swinson quiz Brown at PMQs

11.26.13am GMT Thu 18th Mar 2010

• [Mar 17] Mr. Nick Clegg: ' . . WE need a deal on party funding, but both of the other party leaders blocked the Hayden Phillips agreement on that, so why should anyone believe a word that they have to say about party funding now?'

I should like to add my own expressions of sympathy and condolence to the family and friends of the soldier from 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, who died at Selly Oak hospital on Monday after sustaining terrible injuries in Afghanistan, and to those of the two soldiers from the same regiment who were killed just yesterday in Afghanistan, having served so bravely there.

In addition, I of course wish to add my own tribute to Dr. Ashok Kumar. He had a reputation as an absolutely first-class local MP. He was a defender of the steel industry, and spoke out on the environment before it was fashionable to do so. He always spoke out for fairness.

Charlie Whelan and Lord Ashcroft are exactly the same. One is the baron of the trade unions, and the other is the baron of Belize. Both are bankrolling political parties, and both are trying to buy- [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House must come to order and hear Mr. Nick Clegg.

• Mr. Clegg: The Tories are shouting about something that happened five years ago, but I am talking about cleaning up politics right now. We need a deal on party funding, but both of the other party leaders blocked the Hayden Phillips agreement on that, so why should anyone believe a word that they have to say about party funding now?

The Prime Minister: We and the Liberal party agreed changes in political party funding in the summer, more than a year ago. It was the Conservative party that rejected the deal.

• Mr. Clegg: That is rewriting history. They both blocked the Hayden Phillips agreement- [ Interruption. ] Maybe the Prime Minister could listen to this; he might learn something. Both other party leaders blocked amendments to cap donations that we tabled to the Political Parties and Elections Bill just last year. It is just like the expenses scandals: lots of talk, and yet both of them have no desire to change anything at all.

The Prime Minister: As a result of the legislation that we have agreed on, we have made political party funding far more transparent and the conduct of elections far fairer. We have also made it a requirement that people declare in the House of Commons register of interests things that were never registered before. I cannot accept the comparison that the right hon. Gentleman makes. Lord Ashcroft lives offshore, and he is funding the Tory party without paying taxes in Britain.

• Simon Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD): Why should every pensioner in Britain not feel as betrayed by Labour, which has never restored the link between state pensions and earnings, as by the Tories, who abolished the link in the first place?

The Prime Minister: Because we came into office and recognised that the first problem in our country was pensioner poverty. That is why we brought in the pension credit; that is why 1 million pensioners have been taken out of poverty; and that is why women who had no industrial pensions of their own and sometimes not even a full pension themselves benefited in a way that has taken them out of poverty. They were mainly widows, mainly in their 80s. But for every pensioner we also created-on top of the pension and the other measures that we have taken-the winter fuel allowance, which goes to every pensioner family over 60 and has given additional help to pensioners over these times. I should also mention that the biggest users of the national health service are elderly people, and we have doubled the budget of the health service.

• Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD): When the Prime Minister last visited East Dunbartonshire, he was campaigning for my Labour predecessor at Tesco in Milngavie. Tesco now proposes a giant store in the midst of the town's conservation area, riding roughshod over local opinion. Five years on, does the Prime Minister agree that large supermarkets such as Tesco wield too much power over our communities?

The Prime Minister: We have tried to put in money and help to renovate local shopping centres in the centres of towns, including the centres of smaller towns, but I have to say that a planning decision is not a matter for this House but one for the planning authorities.