Ms. Yvetter Cooper (Pontefract, Speaker)- Order, order. The House will now hear a personal statement from the Prime Minister.
Cheers from the Government Benches
Sir David Cameron (Witney, Con)- Thank you very much Madam Speaker. Before I begin, can I take this opportunity to offer condolences to the families of the twelve Royal Marines killed in Saudi Arabia yesterday when their helicopter was downed by Islamist insurgents. We remember them and their families in our thoughts.
Madam Speaker, I address this House for the last time as Prime Minister today, a job I first started nearly 14 years ago in May 2010. Indeed, I am now the fourth longest serving Prime Minister of all time, as I was assured during a quiz in my constituency over the Easter recess, surpassing even the late Lady Thatcher. I will now set out to defend my record before this House one final time.
Compared to May 2010, I think the country is in a much better state economically than when this party inherited it from the party Opposite (Cries of dissent from the Opposition Benches) Well, they can scream and shout all they want, but it is true. Had we not taken tough steps to reduce the appalling structural deficit, then the UK would never have dealt with the second step of the Great Recession in the manner which it did. In the end, we managed to restore economic growth, and had eliminated the deficit by 2018. I'm aware that the pain involved was great for many, but as my predecessor Lord Major of Brixton once said, "If it isn't hurting, it isn't working". The steps which we took to rebalance the economy away from financial services and towards manufacturing have seen the boom of British industrial output of which we can all be immensely proud. This more than compensates for the departure of HSBC and RBS overseas to China and Scotland. The privatisation of the Royal Mail and Transport for London, as well as the part-privatisation of the BBC, helped to raise many of the funds which made this possible.
Staying on the economic front, the collapse of the Eurozone in 2012 was a crisis which we could never have foreseen in 2010, and I believe that my Right Honourable Friend the member for Tatton (Sir George Osborne, Con) deserves full credit for helping to steer the pound through this immensely troubling time, and for a few weeks in 2012 it did seem as if the whole financial system of the world would collapse. The decision of the EU to sacrifice itself in the name of economic stability, and to return to simply being a common trading area, was bold and brave, and I am proud to have played a role in the foundation of the new European Trading Area.
But to say that I was all about the economy would be wrong. I'm also very proud of the political reforms instituted by this government. The 2016 referendum on the future of the UK stands as one of my proudest pieces of cross-party co-operation; a federal UK is much better than that proposed by the SNP, which has been rightly punished at the polls as a result. The decision of the Liberal Democrats to join the the Conservative Party in 2016 following their electoral wipeout in 2015 was sensible in bringing together like minded individuals...
Mr Charles Kennedy (Inverness and Highland South, Lab)- Not all of us sold out! Cheers from the Opposition Benches
Sir David Cameron (Witney, Con)- I'm aware that the Right Hon. Gentleman has strong feelings on the issue, as do all the Labour members who were previously Liberal Democrats. All I can say is that Lord Clegg of Sheffield has made an outstanding contribution to British politics, both as Deputy Prime Minister and more recently as the British representative on the ETA Council. He made the right choice in joining the Conservative Party, while I'd like to know what those members who scurried off to Labour have achieved in the last fourteen years! I know not all those on these Benches were happy with the move, but I hope that followers of the former London Mayor Boris Johnson will eventually return to the fold from UKIP after his attempted leadership challenge in 2017.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond and Kingston, Green)- And what of those of us who went elsewhere?
Sir David Cameron (Witney, Con)-I say to the Hon. Gentleman that he missed the chance to be a member of the greenest ever government, which was pivotal in the success of Earth Summit II in 2012, which built a new generation of nuclear, wind and solar power stations and is now investing heavily in new technologies, including the experimental fusion reactor at the University of Cambridge.
While on the subject of universities, I am pleased that the UK's universities are all now recovering from the shock they experienced in 2012-2019. In retrospect, we should have realised that the lower number of young people at that time would have been hard enough for them to handle without the fee rises. The contraction of the sector to 50 institutions was a shock, but now that £9000 has become the norm, I hope that the next generation will find itself better equipped for the world ahead. In our schools, I am pleased to say that 45% of all schools now receive funding from outside bodies, a huge success which my Right Hon. friend the member for Surrey North West should be pleased with.
I know that many people will remember me most for the ending of the NHS in 2020. However, I stand by what was said by the former Health Secretary Lord Lansley of Cambridge said in 2018 when he brought forward the Health Insurance Act, that we could simply no longer afford the spiralling costs of healthcare. I believe that the radical Health Insurance scheme which has replaced it will eventually become as loved as the NHS was.
Away from these shores, the successful homecoming of British troops from Afghanistan and Libya has been my proudest achievement. The successful victory of democracy in Libya is something we can all be proud of, while the subsequent fate of Afghanistan after NATO left in 2015 makes me very grateful that Britain got out when it did. I am aware that the subsequent interventions in Syria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen have not been universally popular, but if we talked the talk on Libya then our commitment to protecting democratic revolutionaries had to be proved again and again. Compared to the previous government's lapdog attitue to America, I would like to think that the UK's relationship with the USA has been more balanced. My partnerships with Presidents Obama and Priebus have been fruitful and helped the world to deal with the emergence of the Chinese power bloc which is starting to make its weight felt in areas such as Iran, Africa and South America, where Argentine sabre-rattling over the Falklands is particularly worrying.
Madam Speaker, I could go on, but I can see the Leader of the Opposition is dying to make her reply...
Miss Rachel Reeves (Leeds Outer, Lab)- Only because you've gone on so long...
Sir David Cameron (Witney, Con)- I regret that the Right Hon. Lady feels that way, and she shall have her chance to reply in a moment. Incidentally, I see that her predecessors, the Right Hon. Members for Doncaster and Wigan (Mr Miliband, Lab and Mr Burnham, Lab) are here in the House today, and I wish to thank them for helping me to achieve the three election victories I enjoyed, the last two landslides.
Laughter from the Government Benches
No seriously Madam Speaker, they did well in holding this government to account, and I wish them well. I also wish to thank both yourself and your predecessors, Lord Bercow of Buckingham, for tolerating me through these long years in office. Of course, I hope that you shall enjoy working with my successor the Right Hon. Member for Tatton. Now we come to a curious moment. It is nearly 17 years since a Prime Minister last made a resignation speech before the House. That was Tony Blair, and I will not go into his subsequent fate. For those wondering what I plan to do, I shall not profit from the office in the same way that Mr Blair sought to do. Instead, I can now reveal that I have accepted a job as UN Special Envoy on Climate Change from next May when I leave this House, to continue work I have long believed important. And on that note, Madam Speaker, I say farewell, and wish everyone in this House a long and fruitful career.
