27/03/2012 BBC News at Ten

Tonight at 10 o'clock: Poor parenting, one of the main reasons

given for last year's riots in England. An independent report also

blames materialism and a lack of job opportunities among those that

went on the rampage. The abiding memory for me will be the young

people that said they need hopes, dreams, a stake in society.

A report says there are half a million forgotten families needing

more support. A sharp rise in the cost of stamps

as Royal Mail gets the freedom to set its own prices.

It could take six months to stop a gas leak on the platform in the

North Sea. President Assad sees the damage in

Homs infected by his own forces. The latest branch of science

promising an age of new discoveries. And in Sportsday, more on tonight's

football plus Graeme Swann leads the fight back but England struggle

Good evening. An independent report into last year's riots in England

has identified half a million forgotten families. They struggle

with a range of problems. The Riots, Communities and Victims Panel

describes them as bumping along the bottom of society. Among the causes

of the unrest, it lists poor parenting, low academic achievement

and too much emphasis on materialism. Mark Easton has more

Over the course of five extraordinary day's last August,

England learned how order and chaos are close neighbours. Rioting,

looting and arson spreading like bush fires across the country. The

politicians initially blaming criminality, pure and simple. But

then, commissioning a report to look at the deeper social causes

and lessons to be learned. The panel, chaired by Darra Singh, went

too many of the riot damage to neighbourhoods including Tottenham,

and was shocked by the sense of hopelessness that they encountered.

I always find it shocking when presented with the starkness of

some individuals' views about their lives and their prospects and the

fact they have their hopes and dreams. The abiding memory for me

will be talking to some young people and that is what they said.

They need hopes, dreams, a stake in society. The report recommends that

the planned family support programme be extended to cover

500,000 forgotten families, who they said bumps along the bottom of

society. They want the new requirement for schools to focus on

policies to build character in young people and a guarantee of a

job for young people that have been out of work for two years. Today's

report throws responsibility for the riots back at Government. It

identifies a slice of society that has been allowed to become

disconnected from the mainstream. Half-a-million forgotten families,

where children grow up without the character or the skills to become

responsible citizens. Each rioter has to take personal responsibility

for the decision they made to burn down someone's shop, to look at

things that did not belong to them, or to drive someone out of their

home. In the end we know that parenting, worklessness over

generations, materialism, all of those things contribute to this.

BBC research revealed last year have the rioters in Manchester came

predominantly from the poorest areas of the city. Today residents

from those communities gave their reaction to the report. There are a

lot of families that are obviously suffering at the moment. There is

no work for people. I think it was just everybody jumping on the

bandwagon. Here it was, anyway. I don't think there was a point to it.

While the riots saw some neighbourhoods turn on themselves...

The appalling scenes also inspired a flowering of community spirit,

after this convenience store in Hackney was stripped bare by local

looters. Residents came together to help the owner rebuild his business.

Today, Siva says he has forgiven those that raided his store and

believes that the real lesson is for the Government to help young

people. Ministers have to look at young people and listen to what

they think. Rather than the politicians just talking. They

should listen to the young people and what they want and satisfy them,

then we will be fine and it will not happen again. The riots were

initially dismissed as criminality, pure and simple. Today's report

agrees it was criminality. It concludes there was nothing simple

about it. Mark Easton is with me now. You refer to it in your last

line there. There is no question that some people will see it as an

exercise in excusing criminality. Absolutely. The report does say

that it does not do that. It does not excuse anything that happened

during those days in August. It is saying that if the Government does

not implement the recommendations, we cannot guarantee that there will

not be further riots of this kind in the future. They have come up

with a whole string of ideas on how to reconnect those 500,000

forgotten families, the people bumping along on the bottom. How to

reconnect them with mainstream society. For instance they have a

bunch of ideas around schools. Schools should take responsibility

of character-building of peoples and another idea is that when a

pupil leaves a school unable to read or write properly, the school

could be fined. Personally, I think that will be quite impractical.

Nevertheless, I think the panel are trying to say that we have to do

more to support those people that do not have the skills, the

Education, the character to become fully fledged citizens. This panel

was hand-picked by the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister

and the leader of the opposition. It stresses that this was an act of

criminality and people were rightly punished for what they did. It is

also a warning that unless the Government looks at the

recommendations and the ways in which it can reconnect those people

that have fallen off the end of the caravan, if you like, there could

be more riots. Thank you. The cost of first and second-class

stamps is to rise sharply from the end of April. The first class stamp

will increase from 46p to 50p and the second class stamp will go up

to 50p. -- from 46p to 60p. Ofcom have just given Royal Mail more

freedom to set its own prices as they move towards possible

privatisation. Royal Mail tried to send a soothing

message to customers after announcing that posting letters is

about to get a lot more expensive. Stamp prices will still be cheaper

than in most European Union countries. But that did not impress

many small businesses that use the postal system. Martin Colgate is a

flower grower in Devon. He needs to send regular information to his

customers. It brings in a question of whether we carry on and do they

allow its again and whether we do away with it altogether. -- do

mailings again. The first class stamp was that 30p and is now

heading for double that. The second class stamp was at 21p and is now

heading for 50p. Royal Mail is under pressure because fewer

letters are posted. In 2006 it was 84 million a day and now it is just

59 million, largely because of the male. Prices could go up further,

with Royal Mail only restricted on what they charge on second class

after new rules if introduced by the regulator. It is a significant

move because it means they cannot control the future of stamp prices

and they have stepped back from regulating the postal services.

They have said, OK, you do what you want. The increase in stamp prices

is part of the Royal Mail's they tend to sort out its finances ahead

of privatisation. The pension liabilities have been taken out of

the business and put on the Government's books. The countdown

is now under way. The Royal Mail privatisation process could start

at the end of next year, either as a trade sale to big investors, or

this -- a sell-off to the public. prefer a private offering. This way

people can participate in the ownership of the Royal Mail. We can

have a stable investor base that will help the company thrived over

the long term. My preference is for flotation. First Royal Mail has to

and losses in the letters business while still maintaining the so-

called universal service, a delivery to every UK household at

the same price. The oil company Total says it could

take up to six months to stop the gas leak on its Elgin platform in

the North Sea. The company is looking at several options to stem

the flow following an incident on Sunday. An exclusion zone has been

put in place around the platform. One union leader warned that there

was still the potential for what he called catastrophic devastation. We

report from Aberdeen. Abandoned, leaking gas, all workers

evacuated. The flower on the Elgin platform is still burning but

equipment has been powered down to reduce the risk of an explosion and

stemming the flow of escaping gas, possibly by drilling a relief well,

could take some time. I would say the relief well is a minimum of six

months. We are freeing up rigs that we have working for us in other

areas. They can be made available if that is an option as things

progress. As a precautionary measure, most men from the nearby

Shearwater platform and rigs run by Shell have also been brought ashore.

Workers are also undergoing survival training to prepare for an

emergency and today that continued. A disaster on a scale similar to

Piper Alpha in which 167 men died may have been averted but there are

warnings that the dangers remain. It is safe, everybody is off. But

if this gas was a final message to us, you could see Piper Alpha.

are the options available to engineers? The leak is creating a

sheen of liquid gas and Condon say it's 100 square miles across the

North Sea. -- condenses across 100 square miles. The leak could be

killed by pumping mud into the well, which would be potentially

dangerous. A third option is to drill a relief well, which could

take time before it is operational. With the gas flowing from the

pipeline into this terminal in Norfolk now reduced, any shortfall

is being made up with reserves from elsewhere. We have a range of

different sources of Gas Supply. We have significant import capacity as

well. One field is very much towards the end of its life and had

been abandoned. They were looking to decommission it properly. This

city has strong links to the oil and gas industry and the risks are

well known. Some firefighters are and stand -- on standby in case of

any explosion. Total of being -- are being advised by engineers. It

could be a long and difficult operation to get this leak under

control. The United Nations says it believes

9000 people have been killed in Syria since the anti-government

uprising began more than one year ago. The latest estimate came as

President Assad visited the city of Homs, which was devastated in a

siege by his forces. United Nations and the Arab League says that the

regime has accepted the peace plan but there is no detail on how it

could be implemented. The question is whether President

Assad on Syrian TV in the ruins of Homs is playing for time, or

whether he is serious about finding a way out of the violence. His

armed men at drove men out of these streets. He condemns them as

terrorists directed by foreign conspirators. Up until now, the

Assad regime has shown more interest in victory and negotiation.

He congratulated the soldiers. Some of the residents are coming back,

he says, and it is thanks to you and your sacrifices. The soldier

response. Mr President, we are here to defend the country to the last

drop of our blood. Kofi Annan, peace envoy for the UN and the Arab

League, was in Beijing. He now has the support of China as well as

Russia, Syria's two diplomatic protectors for his peace plan. He

needs their help to put the pressure on the regime. We will

need to see how we move with this agreement that they have accepted.

Kofi Annan's peace plan, now accepted by President Assad, calls

for Syrians to negotiate and not fight. The regime has agreed to

pull back its forces but they say the opposition must stop shooting

first. Among the other main points, the UN wants the Daily truce to

allow food and medical aid in. They also want the release of detained

civilians. It is a long list. The regime has made similar promises in

the past and found reasons not to keep them. In London, the Foreign

Secretary was with his Bosnian counterpart. Avoiding a repeat of

the bloodshed 20 years ago in the Balkans is concentrating minds at

This is a regime that has been involved in the murdering of many

thousands of people, the torture and abuse of many others, and so we

have to see its actions in that light, but of course we want them

to respond, genuinely positively. For awhile, the fighting in Syria

spilled over into Lebanon, a warning of the nightmare that could

follow if the peace plan doesn't Coming up on tonight's programme:

Football fans send their good wishes to Fabrice Muamba as Bolton

replay the match abandoned-- when Now, to allow scientists to design

and create forms of life by making artificial DNA by producing

everything from medicines to fuels. It's already being described as the

next form of industrial revolution. Critics are being warned of the

risks involved as David Shukman reports.

Imagine the power to design new forms of life, to dream up new

versions of the genes inside every living thing on earth and to create

organisms that have never been existed - that's what's happening

here in this lab at Imperial College in London. The researchers

aren't just studying life. They're reshaping it.

This is synthetic biology, an emerging science which could

transform industry, medicine and the fuels we use. The potential for

a new industrial revolution is actually very clear. It is very

clear that these techniques can be applied across a wide range of

different fields from health care right through to energy and

agriculture. So what is synthetic biology? The starting point is

something that has been around for years - genetic modification.

That's when scientists take a cell. Here's a virtual one. Here is the

bungle of genes inside it, and they splice in DNA from another living

organism. What they're doing now goes much further. It relies on the

fact that DNA is a kind of code for life made up of just four basic

building blocks represented here by these four different letters. As

with any engineering process, these components can simply be rearranged

to design brand new genes. What the scientists do is take those four

basic building blocks - just chemicals. Here they are, the real

thing - mix them up to create their own version of synthetic, manmade

DNA, the final stage is the most extraordinary. They take a cell

with all of its own original DNA stripped out and insert the

synthetic DNA, getting the organism to do whatever they want, taking

control of nature. So what can this do? Well, the

fight against malaria, carried by mosquitoes, will see a vaccine made

with synthetic biology later this year. Algae with synthetic genes

could make fuel. We could be driving with the stuff in years

ahead. New crops may cope with drought or disease to field a world

of seven billion, one of countless ideas. We're here today to announce

the first synthetic cell. Two years ago an American scientist, Craig

Venter announced the first living thing with synthetic DNA. But are

we ready for such a fundamental step? These advances are exciting

but terrifying - exciting because they offer the possibility of

creating new life forms that will deal with many of the world's

greatest problem, but at the same time will create life form that the

human immune system and the world have never so far experienced or

encountered. Over the years, campaigners have fought genetic

science, attacking GM crops, and they're more worried about this new

research, but the scientists say they're doing everything safely.

We're actually working within the design phase about how we can

develop kill switches - these are little mechanisms that the organism

would kill itself or other types of mechanisms that would ensure that

the organism doesn't interfere with the natural world, which is what we

don't want to happen. It was only 60 years ago that scientists

discovered how genes worked as the code for life. Now they're taking

charge. We're on the brink of a new era, and the public debate about it

has only just begun. Ministers have asked the

conciliation service ACAS to try to resolve the dispute with fuel

tanker drivers. More details have also emerged of plans to train the

armed forces to deliver fuel if the strike goes ahead. Our deputy

political editor James Landale is at Westminster.

What can you give us on the latest preparations there? What are the

prospects? As we know, some drivers have voted to strike, but they

haven't set a date yet so we're in limbo. The Unite union is calling

people to get around the table. The Government is saying it's up to

Unite to talk to the hauliers. They have asked ACAS to see if they can

facility any potential talks. Talking to Ministers and officials

privately, they certainly don't rule out the possibility of a

negotiated solution to this. That said, contingency planning

continues apace. The Cabinet was briefed on this this morning. We

have learnt tonight this morning the first RAF 80 drivers will start

their training so if there is a strike they can drive some of the

tankers. As for the police, it's tricky. Labour are accusing Number

Ten of scare-mongering, while Labour itself is being urged to

condemn a strike called by a union that pays most of its bills.

Interestingly the Labour leader Ed Milliband is heeding some of the

pressure, saying this strike should be avoided at all costs. Thank you

very much, James Landale. Changes to the planning guidelines

for England have been published by the Government with the promise

that the new system will be more efficient and less complex. The

changes have received a mixed response from conservation groups.

Friends of the Earth gave a cautious welcome, but Greenpeace

condemned them as "misguided, dangerous and wrong". Our

correspondent Mike Sergeant reports from Coventry. For decades, the old

planning system shaped England's development, determining where

green fields end and towns begin, but the system grew ever more

complicated. These new properties in Coventry took years to plan, but

are taking just months to build. So those who say we need much more

housing were among the first to welcome the Government's new

framework - if it helps to deliver homes that people can actually

afford. Planning has been an obstacle for sustainable house

building. I think if we do get a clearer, simpler system for us to

navigate, then that should help. But today's planning document is

about much more than housing. It will be the framework for balancing

the demands of the economy with the needs of the environment.

When you fly over the country, what's striking is just how much

green space there still is. Some say that's because the old planning

system restricted the growth of our towns and cities. The question is

whether this new planning framework gives as much protection to the

countryside. So what's changing? The Government

has supplied a clearer definition of the presumption in favour of

sustainable development - the most contentious aspect of the new

framework. There is encouragement to consider brownfield sites that

have already been built on before developing green field areas.

Councils have been told to draw up plans to determine what's already

been built, but the absence of such a plan won't necessarily mean a

green light for development. Does all of this increase the threat to

development on woodland like this? Campaigners who previously

criticised the Government's approach are suddenly sounding more

positive about the rules. Some of their concerns have been addressed.

Generally we welcome the fact that the Government has listened to the

objections. They have listened that we need to define sustainable

developments. However they haven't said how they'll be implemented.

That's led to confusion. Businesses like this shampoo factory in

Stratford-upon-Avon think the economy will ultimately benefit.

Here, they export to 70 countries, and the boss is all too aware of

the costs of a dysfunctional system. There are actually foreign

companies who come here. They may see a project on an area which is

going to take five to such years, and they'll actually go to other

parts of Europe because planning is faster in other countries. England

is the only UK nation making changes today. Developers have been

anticipating them, and already own large tracts of land. Swifter

planning decisions could mean faster building. The question is

where? A student who posted racist tweets

about the Bolton midfielder Fabrice Muamba after he collapsed during a

match has been jailed for 56 days. 21-year-old Liam Stacey pleaded

guilty last week. The chief prosecutor for Wales said the case

should serve as a warning that comments made online are not beyond

the law. And the match, which was abandoned

when Muamba collapsed, was replayed this evening. The FA Cup quarter-

final between Tottenham and Bolton at White Hart Lane finished 3-1 to

Spurs. Our sports correspondent Tim Franks is there for us now. Such

was the look of shock and trauma on the players' faces a week and a

half ago as they watched the medical teams race to save Fabrice

Muamba's life. As he continues his slow recovery in a hospital a few

miles from here, so Spurs and Bolton turned out on to the pitch

again. The sound of a common cause - two

sets of fans, two sets of players showing their appreciation for one

It was here ten days ago that these two managers saw Fabrice Muamba's

heart stop beating. It would be more than an hour before it would

start again. Spurs had to wait deep into the second half to make it

into Bolton's inspired goalkeeper. Brian Nelson's ball heading over

the melee. After scruffyness, art. Bolton's defence, short. Bale's

shot, sweet. Tottenham relaxed. Kevin Davies

poked a goal back for Bolton. It wasn't enough. The last kick of the

game, a 25-yard arrow from Saha pointing the way for Chelsea.