>> and now to london for prime

minister's question time. prime minister david cameron takes questions from the members of the house of commons. prior to question time, the house is wrapping up other business. this is live coverage on c-span2. >> i'll take overpayments from the departments accounts payable system, a similar exercise undertaken by the home office detected and recovered no less than 4 million pounds in overpayments as a result of fraud or error. ann marie morris. >> there were just over 1700 to these applications. they are currently being assessed by our delivery partner the big fund first transition fund awards totaling 1.7 million pounds were made on 15th february to 18 organizations. there will be hundreds of more awards in the coming months. >> thank you, mr. speaker. given the appetite of the even

more civic societies to consider valuable work such as home senator cambridge to consider to cooperate and will he consider including smaller organizations in such a new fund? >> well, i understand the question, unfortunately, we have no money to consider. we had to take some tough decisions on eligibility for the first round. we're looking for ways to top that out but we have no current plans for the second round. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i'm sure the whole house will wish to join me in paying tribute to private gene hutchinson and private robert wood from 17 port maritime regiment. they were killed in a fire at camp bastian on monday the 14th of february. their service for the safety of the british people will not be forgotten and we send our deepest condolences to their families, their friends and their colleagues.

mr. speaker, i'm sure the whole house would wish to send to the people in new zealand and those sadly at least four british citizens in the earthquake last week. we sent two teams of experts to provide whatever assistance they can. mr. speaker, this morning, i had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others and in addition to my duties in this house i shall have further such meetings later today. >> i'm sure the whole house would wish to negotiate itself with the prime minister relation to our brave servicemen and to the people of new zealand. mr. speaker, despite the urgent need to reduce the deficit, the government took the right decision not just to protect but to increase the overseas aid budgets. what capacity does it gives us to the urgent humanitarian situation on the libyan border? >> i think my honorable friend makes an important point. despite the difficult decisions towed make i think it's important to increase the aid budget and sadly what is happening on the egyptian and

tunisian borders shows how important that secretary. as secretary-general ban ki-moon 162,000 people have crossed the land border there. we centimes to borders and we flew in tents and blankets for people. and i can tell the house that today we're launching a u.k. operation to airlift several thousand people back to egypt from the libyan tunisian border with the first flight scheduled to leave the u.k. today. i think it's vital to do this. these people shouldn't be kept in transient camps. it's possible to take them back to their home and i'm glad britain can play such an important part in doing that. >> mr. ed miliband. >> mr. speaker, can i join the prime minister in paying tribute to private dean hutchison from the royal logistic corps and private robert poor, they both

showed enormous heroism and courage in their service in afghanistan and i and our thoughts are with their family and friends. i also join the prime minister in passing on condolences and deepest sympathy to the victims of the new zealand earthquake. can i ask him about the situation in libya starting with the humanitarian crisis. i applaud the bilateral and the steps he has done with the international development secretary. can i ask what support is he also offering to multilateral organizations like the world food program and the united nations high commission for refugees in dealing with what as he says is a growing refugee emergency on the libyan border >> i thank the honorable gentleman for his question. in addition to the steps i announced about the airlift from the tunisian border back to egypt there's also of a ship that is boat carrying a lot of medical and other supplies that we'll be able to help with the humanitarian mission and we are

in very close touch with them particularly with archer and allry aim joe is going to be quodnating that effort. we'll remain in close contact as one of their lead partners and do everything we can to help coordinate this effort. we have the forward basing and tents and equipment in dubai which is relatively close in the area and we'll do everything we can with ease the problems in the border and make sure this emergency doesn't turn into a crisis. >> ed miliband. >> kink for that replea and i'm sure he'll keep the house updated. we agreed on monday the international community need to take all practical steps on monday the prime minister promoted the idea of a no-fly zone, on tuesday however a number of foreign governments distances themselves from the idea. can the prime minister clarify where that proposal now stands? >> well, i think the point i'd

make is this, our first priority as a country, of course, should be to evacuate our fellow countrymen from libya. and there's very few who want to leave that are still in libya. we want to put every available pressure on the libyan regimes and we've done that through travel bans, asset embargoes and we should to look for other ways to pressure the regime. we must look at the humanitarian crisis to ease that. what i'd say on monday and again today, i do think it's the job of the leaders in the western world in particular to prepare for all eventualities and all the things that might happen particularly if colonel gadhafi unleashes more things on his own people and on that ground, yes, i think we should and we are looking at plans for a no-fly zone and i was particularly heartened by what secretary of state clinton said. she said a no-fly zone is an option we are actively considering. it's being discussed -- these issues are being discussed in the north atlantic council this

morning and i think it's right that they are. >> mr. ed miliband. >> i emphasize to the prime minister i'm sure he will agree over sanctions there was a clear sense of unity in the international community and clearly that is what we must strive for in any future decisions that we make. he will also understand the concern and the country and in the armed forces that after he spoke about the no-fly zone the government issued did you nottant si notes to thousands of raf personnel can. can he reassure the house and indeed the country that any notes including north africa can be met at a time when we are reducing capability? >> i can give him that assurance. and let me be clear. of course, it is never easy to reduce the numbers in our armed forces but this government decided to hold a strategic defense review because, frankly, we hadn't had one for 12 years in this country and we did inherit a defense budget that was in i have to say a state of

complete chaos. and the outcome, of course, the background to the defense review is the enormous black hole in our nation's finances. but the aim of the defense review is to make sure that we have flexible, well equipped armed forces that are able to serve our national interest around the world and that is exactly what i believe they'll be able to do. >> after the hospital next on the waiting list the pif surgery should be clean alexandria hospital does massive annual repayments and restrictive procurement practices are preventing best care from being delivered that the contract should go under the knife and the savings given to portsmouth economy and not to coffers. >> the other shambles we inherited was the pfi program. and, frankly, the public sector is going to be sending something like 8 billion pounds on pfi contracts just this year so we got to examine all these contracts for savings.

let me give her a couple of examples of some of the nonsenses we inherited under these contracts. well, they may not want to hear it. 333 pounds to change a hospital light switch. 963 pounds for a new tv in a hospital. some of the terms of these contracts is frankly disgraceful and it's important that we look amy. >> thank you, mr. speaker. on the 13th -- on the politic show on february 13th kip malthouse boasted that every safe neighborhood team and every ward in london would keep its two pc's and 3-piece community services offices and he had the power to guarantee it, however, police officers in mitcham have already told my constituents that those teams have been merged and that every safe neighborhood team has been to one police officer. who does he believe?

the london mayor or seven police officers? >> i think it is worth listening to both serving and retired police officers and she might want to listen to jan berry who for years led the police federation who said this. with unnecessary bureaucracy, i estimate one-third of effort, one-third of effort is either overengineered, duplicated or adds no additional value. this is unaffordable in the current climate and we need to give consideration about how we time and energy. as in so many areas we inherited a police service completely inefficient not properly managed by the party opposite. >> thank you, mr. speaker. there's an independent committee which ensures that once they've left office former ministers act appropriately in their subsequent employment. it's reported that lord mandleson, baroness sandes have

worked for the gadhafi regime. will the prime minister ensure that these are thoroughly investigated. >> i think the honorable gentleman makes a good point and i'm sure those ministers and ex-ministers would immediately like to refer themselves to that committee so their links can be looked into it. >> ed miliband. >> mr. speaker, the prime minister and the local government government secretary are adamant that there is no need for cuts in local authority front line services. can the prime minister, therefore, explain why conservative-run brumly council is shutting 13 of its 16 children's centers? >> what we have done -- yes, we have made reductions, we have made reductions in local government grant because, frankly, we inherited a complete mess in terms of this nation's finances. but what we have done is we've asked every single local authority to make public every single bit of spending it does so that members of the public can make sure they're cutting

bureaucracy, they're cutting accounts for licenses, they're cutting pay rather than cutting services. and perhaps when he gets to his feet he can tell us why there's only one authority in the spire country labour-run nottingham that refuses to do so. >> dave miliband. >> you know when he's losing the argument when he starts asking me the questions, mr. speaker. why the crut being made insure start children's centers? because he's cutting the early years budget. the department of education's own figures show an 11% cut between this year and next year. and he's not just cutting the budget. he's removed the ring fence that kept those sure start centers open. that protected the budget. now, mr. speaker, we are getting used to the prime minister's question u-turn. we've seen it on zeal sport. we've seen it on housing benefit and we've seen it most recently on forests. i mean, he does have a capacity to ditch a policy and dump a

colleague in it. why doesn't he stop this super bowl too and reinstate the sure start ring fence? >> in a minute he's going to give me a mention on family loyalty. [laughter] >> let me say this to the right honorable gentleman, let me say this to the honorable gentleman. he comes here every week and he says he opposes the defense cuts, he oppose himself changes in the home office, he opposes any changes to local government and yet in four weeks times in four weeks time, his own cuts program, the darling program comes into place. 14 billion pounds of cuts, only 2 billion less than we proposed starting in four weeks time. so it's time that he gets off

his opportunistic bandwagon. >> this is a guy who made his career out of opportunism. remember what he said at the election, he was strongly committed to sure start. he would improve sure start. and if anyone suggested otherwise, it was an absolute disgrace. as children centers face closure people know he's got it in his power to stop it happening by re-enforcing that sure start ring fence. he's the prime minister. it might not have looked like it last week but why doesn't he get a grip? >> what we are doing for children in this country is we are funding education for 2-year-olds for the first time. we're putting money into the pupil premium, something he didn't do for 13 years. we're making sure money is focused on the most disadvantaged. that is -- that is what is actually happening and when the party opposite looks at his