Lewisham hospital announcement: Politics live blog

David Cameron has announced that British police investigating the Lockerbie bombing are to visit Libya. He announced that officers from the Dumfries and Galloway force had been granted permission to visit the country at a joint press conference in Tripoli with his Libyan counterpart, Ali Zeidan.

Ed Miliband has accused David Cameron of spreading confusion about the future of the defence budget. Commenting on the way that the government has had to spend the day clarifying remarks emanating from sources close to the prime minister, the Labour leader said:

Frankly, I think it's a terrible way to run a government and a disgraceful way to treat the people of our armed forces. We can't have this kind of confusion and chaos in government, particularly when it comes to the men and women of our armed forces. It's totally unclear to everybody what [Cameron's] promising – he is saying one thing and his defence secretary is saying another. Instead of trying to spin his way out of difficult decisions, as David Cameron is trying to do, he should just be straight with people and only make promises that he can keep.

That's all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Here's some more reaction to the Lewisham hospital announcement. (See 12.44pm and 1.47pm).

From Rachael Maskell, head of health at the Unite union

The failure regime has been abused by Jeremy Hunt to load problems and financial risk on to a successful hospital in one of the most deprived communities.

Hunt is trying to destabilise the whole NHS against the united voice of health professionals, patients and the public.

As a result of today’s statement, the threats to the other 30 trusts and surrounding communities which cannot reach financial targets looks bleak.

From Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust

We are disappointed today to hear that Jeremy Hunt, secretary of state, has accepted the proposal to downgrade A&E and maternity services at Lewisham hospital. He has proposed Lewisham retains a smaller, limited 24/7 emergency department, and a stand-alone midwife-led birth centre. 

Clearly, we need more information on Jeremy Hunt’s proposals before commenting in detail. The trust board response to the consultation was clear that we believe Lewisham needs full emergency and obstetric services.

From Sir Steve Bullock, mayor of Lewisham

The secretary of state is riding roughshod over the people of Lewisham.

These plans have been roundly rejected by local people, by the staff who work in the hospital and by local GPs. The secretary of state has pressed ahead regardless by downgrading maternity services and emergency services at Lewisham hospital. But let me be clear, this is not the end of the matter.

I do not believe that the TSA [trust special adminstrator] had the statutory power to make recommendations about Lewisham hospital and the secretary of state therefore has no power to implement them.

I will be talking to our lawyers and we will also of course need to talk to our colleagues at Lewisham hospital in order to fully understand the implications of Mr Hunt's statement.

From Louise Ivine, chair of the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign

Hunt’s decision has gone against us – he proposes a reduced A&E unit, and the removal of Lewisham’s clinically excellent maternity and children’s services under the guise of providing ‘better health services’.

We are asking all supporters who are able to gather at the hospital from 5.30 onwards. We marched in unprecedented numbers on Saturday to make our voices heard. Yesterday at the Department of Health we handed in a giant petition signed by 1,000s on the march as well as the petition signed by over 50,000 people online and on the streets of Lewisham. The legal fight will begin, with the council, and the campaign will take this forward in many other ways.

From Rachel Holdsworth at Londonist

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt this morning announced an odd final decision on the bust South London Health Trust and the controversial plan to downgrade Lewisham hospital. The plan for Lewisham is now a bizarre fudge that we think might actually be a worse idea.

Previously, the proposal for Lewisham was to stop all emergency admissions, changing the current A&E into an urgent-care centre. Now, the plan is to allow Lewisham to admit some patients but those with serious illnesses would have to go elsewhere. This will cause confusion among residents and ambulance services about the best place to go, and even more patients being blue-lit around London. It’s being billed as a “smaller A&E” but in reality is still the original urgent-care centre with some inpatient beds and a misleading name.

From Tom Royal on his blog

I'm putting this online to preempt the inevitable Evening Standard headlines claiming that Jeremy Hunt has today spared Lewisham hospital's A&E department …

The TSA's recommendation was for the UCC to be retained at Lewisham, with provisions for the elderly and the development of a service for admitting some patients.

What Jeremy Hunt is proposing, however he chooses to dress it up, appears to be just that.

There's also a good live blog with even more reaction at East London Lines

Here's an afternoon reading list.

James Kirkup at the Telegraph isn't impressed by Downing Street's verbal contortions over the defence budget.

To be honest, not many people outside the small worlds of Westminster, Whitehall and the higher ranks of the armed forces are likely to follow the minutiae of this row. They will rightly ask two simple questions of Mr Cameron and his fellow ministers: is the defence budget going to go up or down? And has the Government been honest about that?

Having reached answers to those questions, some may then be tempted to ask a third: is this different from the sort of weaselling, legalistic, insulting-our-intelligence wilful distortion of basic facts that Mr Cameron so rightly condemned when the last lot did it?

Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart at Ballots & Bullets say the vote on parliamentary boundaries highlighted asymmetry in the coalition.

This issue has highlighted the asymmetry in the power enjoyed by the coalition parties’ backbenchers. The Commons arithmetic is such that even if every backbench Lib Dem MP rebels on an issue, there are not enough of them to defeat the government; but there are enough backbench Conservative MPs to do so – as we saw over the issue of the European budget. This means that coalition measures can be blocked if enough Conservative backbenchers are willing to join forces with Labour, but they cannot be blocked if Lib Dem backbenchers are similarly annoyed.

Neal Lawson at Shifting Grounds says Andy Burnham's King's Fund speech speech from last week deserves more attention.

Here was a politician with an argument and a central proposition to make. He wasn’t making a speech for the sake of it, one full of facts, sound bites and attacks on the Tories, but with no central thread. It was speech with a spine, and the spine was care being built around people – and their physical, mental and social needs. Its focus was on prevention – causes and not just symptoms. In cash strapped times this makes sense – as one budget could be much more effectively applied to the whole person than the current wasted silos.

This upstream state – he didn’t call it that as Anna Coote at nef [the New Economics Foundation thinktank) does – is part of the future of a new state. He did talk about health and wellbeing boards – which roots health back in communities and could give the accountability factor which has been missing forever in the NHS. It would be re-integration in communities – not through a big bang, top down, the minister knows best way. In this way it chimes with thinking that Compass and others are doing around education reforms that take us to a comprehensive local system. Everything in public services is pointing towards a revival of the local democratic state and the renewal of civil society.

And Edmund Conway on his blog says the LSE's Growth Commission report deserves more attention.

If there’s one thing that’s perhaps most striking about the report it’s that, in spite of all you hear elsewhere, the UK economy is not doomed. In fact, far from facing an economic apocalypse, Britain is pretty well-placed to recover from the current crisis and thrive in the future. Since 1980 GDP per capita in Britain has actually risen more than in the US, Germany or France – a statistic which might take you by surprise.

Here's a Guardian video showing my colleague Denis Campbell discussing the impact of the Lewisham hospital decision on services in the area.

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A full copy of Iain Duncan Smith's child poverty speech is now on the Department for Work and Pensions' website.

We've already written up what he is saying about the definition of child poverty (see here and 1.47pm). But there's also an announcement about piloting two measures designed to ensure that jobseekers with addiction problems receive.

Today, I am pleased to announce two Work Programme pilot programmes, which will be specifically targeted at supporting drug and alcohol addicted claimants into work.

The first of these – the ‘Recovery Works’ pilot will test the impact of higher job outcome payments for individuals engaged in drugs treatment, giving providers a financial incentive not only to support addicts into work rehab but also into work. Launching in the east of England and West Yorkshire, the focus will be on helping those battling drug and alcohol dependency to break free from their addiction, using work as a stepping stone to recovery.

The second ‘Recovery and Employment’ pilot works on a slightly different principle – harnessing the existing knowledge of treatment experts, in tandem with that of Work Programme providers. Here we will be testing how far better sharing of skills and resources can deliver better outcomes for addicts. Our aim is that two further pilot sites within the West Midlands will provide a flagship example of cooperation between providers, working together to support people through recovery and into employment.

Here are some pictures from David Cameron's Libya visit.

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The Press Association has just snapped this.

British police investigating the Lockerbie bombing are to visit Libya, David Cameron announced today.

David Cameron has arrived for a surprise one-day visit to Tripoli in Libya despite recent threats to the British embassy and consulates. As Patrick Wintour reports, Cameron flew from Algiers in a personal statement of support for the Arab spring and the new Libyan government, which is struggling to assert its authority against militias and lack of resources. He promised to do more to help the country, which has battled to develop a functioning democracy after decades of dictatorship.

Downing Street has said that, apart from the budget for military equipment, defence spending will not be protected from cuts in 2015-16. As Patrick Wintour reports, the prime minister's team rushed to clarify their position on Thursday after it was reported that Cameron was sticking by a commitment given in 2010 that defence spending would increase in real terms after 2015.

Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, has said that a government decision to downgrade services at Lewisham hospital sets a "dangerous precedent" for the NHS. Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, announce the changes as part of a series of measures to recoup losses caused by the South London Healthcare NHS trust going bust. Although it was originally expected that Lewisham would lose its A&E department, Hunt decided to retain it as a scaled-down service. But Burnham did not welcome the compromise.

This Tory-led government has accepted the principle that a successful local hospital can have its services downgraded to pay for the failures of another trust. Jeremy Hunt has just crossed a line and set a dangerous precedent. In this Tory-led Government’s new market-driven NHS, closures can be purely cost-driven and any hospital is vulnerable to changes through back-door reconfiguration. This announcement will send a chill wind through any community worried about its hospital services.

Campaigners have accused Iain Duncan Smith of trying to "move the goal posts" on child poverty after he suggested it was a waste of money paying benefits to parents addicted to drink or drugs. In a speech this morning Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said:

For a poor family where the parents are suffering from addiction, giving them an extra pound in benefits might officially move them over the poverty line. But increased income from welfare transfers will not address the reason they find themselves in difficulty in the first place.

Rhian Beynon of Family Action responded:

Iain Duncan Smith must not sideline income poverty. Money matters desperately to the families we support. We already have a child poverty measure - changing the goal posts will not benefit those families in and out of work struggling to keep their heads above water.

I've only just seen a copy of the full speech, and I will post more on it this afternoon.

Kenneth Clarke, the minster without portfolio, has said that he cannot imagine Cameron ever campaigning to take Britain out of the EU. (See 11.22am).

The Home Office has released figures showing that the number of police officers in England and Wales has fallen by a further 4,000 over the past year to 132,235 in September 2012 – the lowest level for 11 years.

David Miliband, the Labour former foreign secretary, has said that it was a mistake for the UK to close its embassy in Tehran in 2011 as it handed a victory to hardliners within the regime and weakened Britain's influence and understanding of Iran. My colleague Julian Borger has the details.

The Department for Business has said that more than 500,000 people started an apprenticeship in 2011-12. That marks a 14% increase on the previous year.

Ed Miliband has said Labour would use HS2 to create at least 33,000 apprenticeships by only offering HS2 contracts to firms that take on apprentices.

Executives from the big accountancy firms have defended their involvement in promoting tax avoidance schemes.

Owen Paterson, the environment secretary, has said that a new body will be set up to ensure that forests stay in public ownership. There are more details in the Department for the Environment's new release.

It looks as if the Lewisham campaigners are not going to welcome this as a partial victory. (See 12.44pm). This is from the Save Lewisham NHS campaign.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has come up with a compromise. Services at Lewisham hospital will still be downgraded, but there has been a significant change from what was originally proposed and at this stage it is not clear whether campaigners will welcome this as a partial victory, or whether they will continue to condemn Hunt in the strongest terms.

Here are the main points.

Hunt said that he will retain a 24/7 A&E department at Lewisham hospital. This will not offer a full A&E service, but it will be able to treat about 75% of the patients who currently attend the A&E unit there. Originally it was proposed that the A&E unit would be replaced with an urgent care centre. In his statement, he said the campaign against cuts at Lewisham hospital had highlighted the strength of feeling in the community. But plans to downgrade the maternity unit at the hospital, from an obstetrician-led maternity unit to a midwife-led birthing centre, are still going ahead. The changes are partly required to make up for the financial shortfall caused by the nearby South London Healthcare NHS Trust going bust.

Hunt said the South London Healthcare NHS Trust would be wound up by October. It is currently losing more than £1m a week, he said. The three hospitals in the trust will be taken over by other trusts. The Department of Health will write off its remaining debts.

The statement is now over. I'll post a summary shortly.

Kate Hoey, the Labour MP for Vauxhall, say downgrading maternity services at Lewisham will have an impact on hospitals like St Thomas', which serves her constituency.

Here's the Department of Health's news release about Lewisham.

And here's the full text of health secretary Jeremy Hunt's decision (pdf).

Stephen Dorrell, the Conservative chairman of the health committee, says politicians have to take decisions that are in the best interests of the public.

Hunt says that he is concerned about saving lives. Labour have chosen to jump on an "opposition bandwagon", instead of proposing its own solutions.

Dame Tessa Jowell, the Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, says she is concerned about the risks implied in the plans.

Hunt says he has put in place safeguards to address these risks. But doing nothing would also involve risks. Jowell's constituents would lose out from a result of the financial problems not being addressed, he says.

Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, says he does not understand why maternity services cannot continue at Lewisham.

Heidi Alexander, the Labour MP for Lewisham East, says that today's announcement appears to offer a lifeline to her constituents. But it is far from what is required.

Will the extra money for maternity services go to hospitals where Lewisham mums will actually go?

Hunt urges her to consider the clincal rationale for what is happening. The number of deaths from strokes in London has halved because the number of stroke units has been cut from 32 to 8, and people are now seen in specialist units.

Joan Ruddock, the Labour MP for Lewisham Deptford, says the orginal closure proposals have not gone ahead in full because of the protests.

But the compromise announced by Hunt is a shambles, she says.

Hunt says a "sham and a shambles" is what he inherited.

Bob Neill, the Conservative MP for Bromley and Chislehurst, says Hunt's decision is difficult but necessary.

Jeremy Hunt is responding to Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary.

He says Burnham wrote his speech before reading the statement.

Burnham has never sounded less like a government minister in waiting, he says.

Burnham blamed the government. But Labour created the structure that created this problem.

And Burnham has not offered any alternative proposals, he says.

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Andy Burnham, the shadow health secretary, is speaking now.

He says Hunt has "crossed a line". He has accepted that a successful hospital can be punished as a result to the financial mismanagement of a trust next door.

There will be no cheering in Lewisham, he says.

He says Hunt's four tests for local NHS reconfiguration are in tatters.

The proposals announced will lead to a reduction in quality and provision in Lewisham, he says. They fail the fourth of Hunt's four test.

Burnham asks Hunt if he is confident these measures are legal. Will he publish his legal advice.

He says the protesters have achieved something today. They will continue their fight, and they will have Labour's support.

Burnham says this is "the first glimpse of the new market-driven NHS they have created, where the market men are calling the shots".

There has been a "scandalous waste of money" on a solution that will not be acceptable to the people of Lewisham.

Here's the text of the Department of Health news release about the decision.

The most financially challenged NHS trust in England is to be dissolved by October 2013 to address the risk it carries for ongoing patient care and the pressure it is placing on other parts of the NHS, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, today announced. 

Previous attempts to solve the financial problems at South London Healthcare NHS Trust have failed. Currently, the trust is losing more than £1m every week and by the end of this year, is expected to have an accumulated debt of more than £200m – money that is being taken away from patients elsewhere.

It was on the advice of the NHS medical director, Prof Bruce Keogh, that Mr Hunt also announced that he has decided that it is in the best interests of patients that Lewisham hospital should retain its A&E

The trust special administrator was appointed in July last year to recommend a lasting clinical and financial solution for South London Healthcare NHS Trust. After careful consideration the Secretary of State has accepted the broad recommendations of the report, which are:

• The trust will be dissolved, with each of its hospitals taken over by a neighbouring hospital trust. These mergers are subject to approval from the relevant regulators.
• All three hospitals within South London Healthcare NHS Trust – Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolwich, Queen Mary’s in Sidcup and the Princess Royal in Bromley – will be required to make the full £74.9m of efficiencies identified by the trust special administrator.
• All vacant or poorly utilised premises will be vacated, and sold where possible.
• The Department [of Health] will pay for the excess costs of the PFI buildings at the Queen Elizabeth and Princess Royal hospitals and write off the accumulated debt of the trust so that the new organisations are not saddled with historic debts. It will also negotiate an appropriate level of transitional funding to cover implementation.

With regard to the proposed service changes within the new merged Lewisham-Greenwich provider, the secretary of state asked the medical director of the NHS to consider if they would improve patient care.

On the basis of Sir Bruce’s advice, the secretary of state has accepted the recommendation to centralise very specialist emergency care at four sites in south-east London because this will significantly improve the quality of care and save the lives of up to 100 patients a year.

The secretary of state understood the financial rationale for downgrading Lewisham A&E, but in the interests of local patients has imposed some additional clinical safeguards proposed by Sir Bruce. Lewisham hospital will retain its ability to admit patients with less serious conditions, and will continue to have 24/7 senior medical emergency cover, allowing it to remain open as a working A&E department treating up to 75% of the patients who currently use it.

Patients with much more serious conditions or higher risk pregnancies will be taken to Kings, Queen Elizabeth, Bromley or St Thomas’ because they are more likely to have a better result. To get to this higher standard of care, patients across south-east London will only spend on average 2 more minutes in an ambulance to access specialist emergency services and on average 2-3 minutes in a private car or public transport to access consultant led maternity services.

With these additional safeguards in place, the secretary of state has agreed that the trust special administrator should proceed to implementation, with South London Healthcare NHS Trust expected to be dissolved between June and October 2013.

Hunt is still speaking.

He says the NHs medical director supports the downgrading of Lewisham.

Turning to the emergency care proposals, he says the NHS medical director recommends Lewisham retaining a smaller emergency department.

Up to three quarters of those curently attending Lewisham A&E could attend the new service at the hospital, he says.

Patients with more serious conditions could be taken to other hospitals.

This will require careful planning.

The NHS medical director believes that, with these caveats, care could improve.

The new system could save up to 100 lives a year, he says.

Hunt says that on this basis he accepts the Lewisham closure proposals.

But they would have to be subject to approval by Monitor.

The process will proceed to implementation.

The South London Healthcare NHS Trust will be dissolved by October 2013.

Hunt says his predecessor put the trust into special administration.

He says the adminstrator had a very difficult task. He was only able to produce a solution by making recommendations affecting other hospitals.

Hunt says he accepts that analysis.

He lists six recommendations which he says he has accepted in full.

On Lewisham, he says there was also a recommendation to reconfigure A&A services in the area.

The public campaign surrounding services at Lewisham has shown just how much it is valued.

He says he respects the feelings of local people.

But solving the financial crisis at South London Healthcare NHS Trust is also important to these people.

He says he has had many conversations. He has asked the NHS medical director, Bruce Keogh, to review the recommendations relating to Lewisham.

On clinical input, a clinical advisory group supported the views of the administrator, he says.

On the issue of better care, the recommendations will apply for the first time new 2012 standards. These will set higher standards.

But these cannot be introduced without closing A&E departments, he says.

Jeremy Hunt is speaking now.

He says the NHS is more equitable than any other system in the world.

But it needs to be financially sustainable.

Money for funding deficits cannot be used to fund care, he says.

The South London Healthcare NHS Trust is the most financially challenged trust in the UK.

It is losing more than £1m a week.

It has a deficit of £153m, he says.

Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, is about to make his statement about Lewisham hospital. Here's some background reading.

Today's story previewing the announcement, and reporting Ed Miliband's comments.

The Observer story about the protest on Saturday about the closure plans attended by up to 25,000 people.

A Guardian webchat on the closure plans.

At one level this is just a local London story. But it is attracing so much interest because it is seen as a harbinger for what might happen more widely in the NHS if trusts run out of money.

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Kenneth Clarke on the BBC Radio 4's Today programme is always good copy and today was no exception. I've already given it a brief mention (see 9.08am), but it's worth writing up in more detail. Here are the main points. I've taken the quotes from PoliticsHome.

Clarke said he did not think David Cameron would ever campaign for a "no" vote in an in-out referendum on Europe. "I don’t think he can conceivably start urging people to vote no after all he’s said about his reasons for being a member of the EU," he said. In public Cameron has refused to speculate about this possibility of his backing a "no" vote, although sources have briefed that he would be willing to do so if other EU leaders refused to engage with his calls for reform.

Clarke said leaving the EU would be "pretty catastrophic" for Britain.

He said that he expected the government to opt back in to about 30 EU justice measures after it exercises its right to opt out of all 140 of them en masse.

He said that, apart from the working time directive, many people were unable to name other EU directives they wanted to repeal. And the working time directive was Labour's fault, he said. "We had an opt out for the NHS, which the Labour government foolishly gave up and we’ve got to get back," he said. "They gave in to the junior doctor’s lobby, and actually surrendered the opt out we need to have for the NHS."

He said only about 30 Tory MPs wanted to leave the EU. There were fewer than the number of Tory MPs who opposed Britain joining the EEC in the 1970s, he said.

He accepted the case for a referendum, although he said he still had reservations about referendums being used to decide issues of this kind.

It's a generational thing. Every politician of my generation thought referenda were not as good as parliamentary democracy. When parliament votes all the members have continuing responsibility for the consequences of their vote and how things work out afterwards.

But he said he was resigned to this one. "The pressure for a referendum has mounted and mounted and the prime minister believes this is the only way of resolving what is otherwise a long running, noisy debate," he said.

More on the defence budget. (See 10.57am). Downing Street are now saying that David Cameron's promise to increase MoD spending after the election applied from 2016, not from 2015. This is from the prime minister's spokesman.

The prime minister does not resile from what he said to the House of Commons at the time of the SDSR [strategic defence and security review] He said then his strong view is the defence budget will require year-on-year real-terms growth in the years beyond 2015. As his remarks at the time made clear, in the years beyond 2015 means starting in 2016. To suggest otherwise would be quite wrong.

As to the spending review announced by the chancellor in the 2012 autumn statement, we are not going to pre-empt its decisions which will be announced in the first half of this year.

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Spare a thought for poor Philip Hammond. The defence secretary has had to spend the morning going around the broadcasting studios suggesting that the prime minister got it wrong. (See 9.08am). The Press Association has filed a story with a good summary of it all here.

The prime minister's commitment to above-inflation rises in the defence budget after 2015 applies only to equipment, Philip Hammond, the defence secretary has said.

Hammond, who was clarifying remarks from senior government sources in a round of radio and television interviews on Thursday, said there would have to be a 'robust discussion' about other elements of the budget.

Senior sources had indicated that Cameron will honour his commitment to above-inflation rises after 2015.

The Press Association does not say who those "senior sources" were, but it is clear that they were not a million miles away from the prime minister's entourage in Algiers. This morning the Daily Telegraph splashed on a story headlined: "No more defence cuts, says Cameron."

Mr Cameron’s commitment emerged during a trip to north Africa to discuss the fight against al-Qaida, which this week saw him deploy more than 300 British troops to the region.

Senior government sources said that Mr Cameron will stand by a pledge he made to increase defence spending in real terms in the second half of this decade, in order to offset deep cuts made in the coalition’s defence review.

The problem is that the pledge was made in 2010 (see here at 2.33pm, when Cameron was giving evidence to the liaison committee), when it was assumed that austerity would be over by 2015. Now the economic outlook is bleaker, and before the general election the government will have to produced details spending plans for 2015-16. Hammond's comments this morning suggest that these could include a cut in the overall MoD budget (something which would infuriate the Telegraph, the house journal of the defence establishment), but the BBC's Nick Robinson has filed a blog predicting that some "creative accounting" will be deployed to allow Cameron to say he has kept his word.

This is not the first time that a briefing has backfired while the prime minister has been abroad. In 2011, while Cameron was flying overseas with journalists, a story "emerged" saying the Foreign Office was having to pay bribes to allow Britons to flee Libya. The Foreign Office went ballistic, and this led to another display of two parts of government contradicting each other of the kind we've seen this morning. There's a full version of what happened here (scroll down to the second story.)

Memo to No 10 spin doctors: Don't let the PM on a plane.

After Nick Clegg's first LBC phone-in, which was a bit dull, I thought this was going to become a tedious Thursday morning chore. But today it was good (in the sense of generating some useful news lines). You can read an account on the LBC live blog. Here are the main points.

Clegg said that childcare support package being announced by the government soon would benefit two groups. It was intended to help those not helped by other government childcare measures, he said. The first element would help mothers in the "squeezed middle", who were not receiving benefits but who had little incentive to work because of the high costs of childcare. And the second part of the package would help mothers who will get the new universal credit but who will still need an extra help to make it worth going to work.

He said that the last Labour government's PFI initiative was to blame for the financial problems that have led to the proposal to cut services at Lewisham hospital. It was "an incredibly difficult, fraught decision", he said. But he was confident that Jeremy Hunt would make "the best possible choice".

He said that he intended to be Lib Dem leader after the next election.

He said that the language used by the Lib Dem MP David Ward about Jews on Holocaust Memorial Day was "completely wrong". When a caller said that Ward should have had the whip suspended, Clegg said Ward had received "what's in effect a yellow card". But he said he had not spoken to Ward personally about this.

He said the decision to award Bob Diamond, the former Barclays boss, a £2.7m bonus was "very difficult to swallow". Diamond had left Barclays "under a cloud", Clegg said.

He compared the Conservative/Lib Dem row about boundary changes to a playground spate. This came when it was put to him that the Lib Dem decision to block the boundary changes was childish. Clegg said that children understood that, if they "shook hands" on a deal about playing a game, they were expected to stick to it.

He reaffirmed his opposition to the Conservative plan to offer a tax break for marriage. "Marriage is the best thing that ever happened to me," he said. "But Miriam and I did not get married because we were offered three quid a week."

He said he would not be in favour of MPs receiving a significant pay rise at a time when public sector workers are having pay rises capped at 1%.

We're getting the statement on Lewisham hospital in the Commons at 11.30am.

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Ed Miliband was on ITV's Daybreak this morning. I've already quoted his comments about Lewisham hospital. (See 9.08am). Here are the other main points from the interview.

Miliband said Michael Gove the education secretary, was taking the education system in the wrong direction. He cited today's report from the Commons education committee (which has a coalition majority) as proof that others agreed.

I think what you’ve seen today with the select committee report is part of a groundswell against Michael Gove’s plans. Now, why is that happening? Partly because I think people think that he’s squeezing creativity out of the system, but also he’s not really focusing on those kids who maybe aren’t going to go to university but need high-quality vocational qualifications, and that’s what I’m talking about today.

He said the government should ensure that companies bidding for HS2 contracts have to take on apprentices. That could guarantee at least 33,000 apprenticeships.

He reaffirmed his opposition to announcing a referendum now on Britain's membership of the EU. "I’ve always had the same position on this, which is: Is it right now to commit to an in-out referendum many years in the future, which is what David Cameron has done? I say no, it isn’t right now to do that."

I've taken the quotes from PoliticsHome.

Nick Clegg is on LBC now.

You can listen and watch on the LBC website here. (Or you can try - the feed keeps breaking up for me, and so I've got the radio on too.)

I'll post a summary when it's over.

It’s a mixed day today, but not a dull one. Already we’ve had Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, Kenneth Clarke, the minister without portfolio, and Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, giving interviews. Here are the main points.

Philip Hammond played down suggestions that the Conservatives would increase the defence budget after 2015. This morning the BBC has been reporting that David Cameron “will stick to a commitment to increase defence spending above the rate of inflation after 2015”. But the defence secretary said this only applied to equipment spending. “I think what the prime minister was referring to was the pledge that was made – which Treasury ministers have repeated – that the equipment plan, the part of the defence budget which funds equipment, will rise by 1% a year in real terms after 2015,” he said.

Kenneth Clarke told the Today programme that he did not think Cameron could support leaving the EU. He also said that he expected Britain to opt back in to around 30 EU justice measures having exercised its right to opt out of more than 100 of them.

Ed Miliband said that he was opposed to plans to close the A&E department at Lewisham hospital. “I hope they’ll save the A&E in Lewisham because I think it’s very important for people there and I think we’ve seen a huge groundswell of people in Lewisham who are really concerned about what’s happening there,” he said.

I’ll take a look at the interviews in more detail shortly.

Here’s the agenda for the day.

9am: Nick Clegg takes part in his regular LBC phone-in.

9.45am: Accountancy firms give evidence to the Commons public accounts committee on tax avoidance.

10am: Chris Moncrieff, the former Press Association political editor, and Steve Richards, the Independent columnist, give evidence to the Commons public accounts committee on reshuffles.

10.45am: Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, gives a speech on poverty. As Juliette Jowit reports, he will say that drug and alcohol addiction, family breakdown, going to a failing school and living in a home with no working adult could all be included in a future measure of child poverty.

Around 12pm: Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, makes an announcement about the future of the A&E department at Lewisham hospital.

As usual, I'll also be covering all the breaking political news as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I'll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm and another in the afternoon.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I'm at @AndrewSparrow.