28/10/2013 Daily Politics

Afternoon, welcome to the Daily Politics and a windy Westminster,

where earlier the storm of St Jude hit the heart of Government. A

collapsed crane on the roof of the Cabinet Office caused the Deputy

Prime Minister to cancel his monthly press conference. St Jude's the

patron saint for lost causes. But don't worry, today's programme

isn't. -- isn't one of them. Afternoon, we've made it on air,

despite the travel disruption. Many commuters today are facing hellish

delays which, coincidently, is what they could be condemned to if the

proposed High Speed 2 rail line is not built. That's the finding of a

government-commissioned report out this week. MPs are due to vote on

the project on Thursday. The trial's begun of former Sun

editor Rebekah Brooks and David Cameron's former communications

chief, Andy Coulson, over phone hacking charges.

I'm a person with crazy hair, quite a good sense of humour, don't know

much about politics, I'm ideal. We will ask if anyone cares what this

man thinks about politics. And will the advent of Mystic Ed and

his Crystal Balls herald the arrival of American-style attack

advertising? All that in the next hour. And with

us for the first half of today's programme is Liz Peace, who's chief

executive of the British Property Federation. Liz has battled her way

through the storm all the way from Hampshire to make it here. We are

very grateful. You are welcome. Now, first today, let's talk about the

weather, because you're lucky we're on air today if the rest of

Westminster is anything to go by. Here's Whitehall just before nine

o'clock this morning. Not a mandarin in sight after that collapsed crane

on the roof of the Cabinet Office. And it's not just Westminster that's

faced stormy conditions. Tragically, two people have died as a result of

the bad weather, both killed by falling trees Over a quarter of a

million homes are without power, rail services across much of

southern Britain have been cancelled, houses have been flooded

and the helter-skelter at Clacton Pier in Essex has blown down. Winds

of 99 miles per hour were recorded at Needles Old Battery, Isle of

Wight. Weather forecasters say the storm is almost over in the UK.

Earlier the Prime Minister had this to say.

Everyone has two act on the basis of the evidence they are given and the

information they are given, everyone has two work closely together to

deal with the storm. We will be able to look back afterwards and see if

people made the right decisions, but what matters now is working together

and getting things back to normal. Lives, how did you get here? I

normally rely on South West trains, and they were absolutely stuffed

this morning. What I did discover, looking at their first rate Twitter

feed, there were 29 trees across the network. I woke up thinking, what

storm? I was one of the doubters. But I realised that it probably was

a storm. I feel sorry for these people trying to run the

infrastructure, because they can't afford to take risks. If they ran a

train prematurely and something went wrong, they would be purely and, so

I don't blame them for playing it safe, so we battled in by car where,

by and large, the roads were well at a very quiet. And the winds were not

too high? -- the roads were relatively quiet. On the roads, lots

of loose branches, but I suspect the railways are in cuttings with a lot

of overhanging trees, if you get a bit of wind, they come down. Even if

you predict the storm, you can't predict where trees are going to

fall, you can't have somebody standing with a chainsaw along

hundreds of miles of train truck, so you have to react when it happens.

-- hundreds of miles of train track. I listen to interviews yesterday

with people from energy companies or in the industry, they hoped there

would not be widespread loss of power, there are 270,000 homes. You

think more should be done to protect power lines? I think it is part of a

broader infrastructure debate. A lot of UK infrastructure is extremely

creaky. The more modern power supplies are underground cables.

Touch wood, that is what we have, and it is fine. It is about how you

pay with the replacement of the infrastructure. But on the whole, we

don't get extreme weather events that often compared to other places

in the world, so how much money are we prepared to spend two in sure

against a one in 300 days event. -- to spend to ensure against? I have

heard people moaning about how badly at airports function, and somebody

who is American said that Chicago closes down when there is no.

On Thursday MPs will vote again on the High Speed Rail Bill. There's

talk of a significant Conservative rebellion and, whilst Labour say

they'll support the bill at this stage, they're worried about the

escalating costs. So is there an alternative which would be better

value for money? In June the Transport Secretary announced that

the overall cost of HS2 would be higher than previously expected. The

estimated maximum price has gone up from ?34.2 billion to ?42.6 billion,

plus a further ?7.5 billion for new trains. That has led Labour to

question its support for the scheme. Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls says he

is not prepared to write a blank cheque, and David Cameron said at

the weekend that it might not go ahead without cross-party support.

But now a new report for Network Rail has warned that the

alternatives to a new high speed line would have their own problems.

Upgrading the East and West Coast lines, along with the Midlands

mainline, would be expensive and would cause massive disruption There

would have to be weekend line closures for approximately 14 years

whilst the work was done. Supporters of HS2 say this bolsters the case

for the Government plan. We are joined now by Conservative MP

Nadhim Zahawi, and hopefully Kelvin Hopkins from Labour. What do you

think about these alternatives? If we look at the details, and we will

get more this week, the job you would need to do would mean 14 years

of weekend closures, journeys to Leeds increasing from two hours to

four and a half hours, journeys from Huntington to Peterborough doubling

to an hour. Even the alternatives require knocking down some homes.

What about the cost? It could be much cheaper. They are talking about

?20 billion. The less time West Coast Main Line was patched up cost

about ?7 billion, the ?20 billion would probably only by you about a

third more capacity. We have gone up to 125 million train journeys in

recent years, a significant row. We have to make hard choices. We have

to go for more capacity. This is where I find the Labour position be

be puzzling, Lord Dyson, who delivered the Olympics, is in

charge. -- I find the Labour position really puzzling. He says

that, like with the Olympics, what UK firms can do to benefit from this

investment, as there is more investment in the rest of the road

and transport. The arguments seem to be with the Labour, let's see if we

can make political mileage in the short-term. I think that is very

unwise. Is it really neutral? It was a government commissioned report by

network rail. People will view it as home-grown and scare tactics? Atkins

is a serious company with an international reputation, I don't

think they would put their name to a study of this kind without doing

some of the work properly. All I can say to you is that from previous

experience of the West Coast Main Line upgrade, these things cost

money and it is massive disruption, 14 years of weekend disruption. If

you take one train where you will have to provide a bus service, 500

passengers, that is about eight or nine coaches, just imagine what that

would do. There is a trade-off here. What do we want, how do we wanted? I

think the North/ South high-speed lane is the thing, it will benefit

eight of our most important cities. Of course, by definition, when you

have a new high-speed rail line, inward investment would follow that

transport upgrade and you would get some winners and losers. But the

winners in the West Midlands and the North are bigger than down in London

and the south-east. The Government will publish the business case

tomorrow. Why so late? Why are we hearing all the arguments so late in

the day? I think Patrick McLoughlin has tried to do a rigorous job. He

was white to say that with these massive ambitious projects you are

right to kick the tires. Let's not abuse the way we try to kick the

tyres, let's have a debate that is constructive and objective. He has

gone out of his way to make sure that the data is robust. Nobody is

arguing against the capacity argument, not even Labour. Labour

has to decide whether it wants to play politics or behave responsibly

with cross-party consensus. Liz Peace, are you a fan of high-speed

rail? I am a fan of additional capacity. So far the case has been

very badly made. The fact that it is called high-speed, nobody is that

fussed about knocking ten or 20 minutes off the time to Birmingham,

it is important that we have new infrastructure. We can't go into the

next 50 years with the railway lines we have, we need new ones. It makes

sense to me that if you are building new ones you build them

state-of-the-art, not to yesterday 's technology. Looking at the

numbers, the incremental cost of moving to a high-speed system as

opposed to patching up the old one or building a company can lead new

parallel one is only about ten percentage difference. -- or

building a completely new parallel one. I think High Speed 2 is the way

to go. It is connecting the north and the South. You can come up with

the rebranding. Is it worth the money? Yes. Alternatives outlined

today like upgrading the other three main lines, would that not be

viable? Depends how you assess viability. The idea of disrupting

trouble for however long... Over 14 years, it beggars belief. We like to

think of ourselves as a leading, modern country with technology, if

we don't have a rail system, what will the rest of the world think?

There is a risk of the project range are old, because within your own

party perhaps up to 60 Conservative MPs will not back this. There is not

cross-party support for this. The ball is firmly in Labour 's court.

It is difficult for many of my colleagues. But they are wrong? They

are right to fight for their constituents and to make the

arguments to say, have we done enough tunnelling and cutting, have

we made sure the compensation is adequate? These are people 's lives

and properties, let's make sure that we do it properly. I have no truck

with my colleagues standing up and speaking for constituents, I would

do exactly the same. But Labour need to make their mind up. Are we going

to be ambitious in delivering these big infrastructure projects for the

UK, or will we say, we don't need that, we don't need better airport

infrastructure, we don't need shale, let's just do non-that and

let's be something different? -- let's do non-flat. Unfortunately

there are technical problems with the line. Surprise, surprise. We

could not get a Labour spokesperson. They are there, there are just

technical problems. Don't say it is not because they will not come on.

If you can't convince your own colleagues and you just want to

blame Labour, the argument is not strong enough? The estimates are

that between 30 and 60 colleagues will decide to vote against this.

There are over 306 in the Conservative Party Conference so the

majority think this is right. -- in the Conservative Party, so the

majority think this is right. Lord Dyson, who delivered the Olympics,

says he can deliver this within the envelope, which means within the

budget. He is probably the best man equipped at two deliver such a

project after the Olympics. Looking ahead, it will take a long time

before it is online, won't this new high-speed rail be redundant? It is

very difficult to envisage a country in which we don't want good rail

travel. But we could have upgraded other connections. Will that line be

the priority then? It is not shaving off 20 minutes that is important,

the capacity is important. The single line that goes up to

Manchester is bursting. It frequently gets a problem on it,

once you have a problem there are delays. You need the capacity and I

don't see how we can have a modern country without a modern railway.

Even the Americans are going for high speed. We now have the Labour

MP. You may or may not have been able to hear what Nadhim Zahawi was

saying, but he says that without cross-party support, HS2 is

derailed? Hello? I have lost you, I am afraid. Can usually me now? I can

hear you, but you are breaking up. What is Labour going to do? Should

Labour support the line? I have come here to support the freight route

scheme which will take freight off the main lines and 5 million lorries

off the road as well each year. That will free up those lines for more

passengers. On the West Coast Main Line, my engineer friends tell me

that modernised signalling would allow for more passenger routes

through, more passenger frequency, and the other lines are easily

modifiable in a relatively short time as well. The report here

clearly says that any alternative to HS2 is actually not all it is

cracked up to be, you would have to thousands 700 weekend closures

lasting 14 years, and there would still be billions in terms of costs

of the upgrades. That 2700. That is nonsense, it is just a scare story.

The East Coast Main Line could be modernised without interrupting

traffic at all. We want to build another viaduct, a flyover at

Peterborough, and another at Newark, increasing the line from two up two

four tracks between Huntingdon and Peterborough. That is what needs to

be done, then we could get 140 mph working for most of the route and do

London to Edinburgh in a shorter time than is proposed for HS2. Do

you want and are you lobbying Ed Miliband and Ed Balls to withdraw

support from this scheme? Well, I am just expressing a view, I am not

lobbying them about that. What I am lobbying about is the freight route,

which is a dedicated route from the Channel Tunnel to the Glasgow. What

is your problem with HS2? I think it is a necessary and extremely

expensive, and the money would be much better spent investing in all

sorts of other railway projects, including GB Freight, and

modernising the East Coast, west coast and Midland mainline is, and

indeed promoting another line from Paddington to Birmingham to make

extra capacity on that route. So it is just a scare tactic, Nadhim

Zahawi, saying we would have to spend equal amounts of money and

have all that disruption when you could just upgrade the lines without

HS2. Well, Kilburn talks about Huntingdon to Peterborough, and that

would double the time to get there in terms of an hour while the

upgrades are taking place. According to a serious firm, Atkins, and

Network Rail, to get a third of the capacity, which does not address the

problem, we have already begun investment. The Manchester to

Scotland line is being electrified, we are spending an additional 56

billion on top of the 17 billion that will be spent up to 2021 on

HS2. That is on other transport upgrades. The idea that you could

spend more money differently, I think, is wrong. Labour need to put

up a better spokesman and come and explain why they are, you know,

effectively casting a shadow over a very important project for business.

Hard-working businessmen and women watching a programme of thinking,

why Labour doing this? He said he was not lobbying, that is just his

view. Thank you very much, Kelvin Hopkins, for getting onto the

programme. The trial has begun of Rebekah

Brooks and Andy Coulson. Both face charges, which they deny, arising

from the phone hacking affair. Our correspondent Robin Brant is outside

the Old Bailey, what is happening today, then, Robin? Well, it is

technically the beginning of the trial, a trial that, we are told,

could last some time. The two people you just mentioned arrived here at

the entrance to the Old Bailey about three hours ago, they arrive

separately, of course, Rebekah Brooks arriving with her husband,

also one of the people facing trial today, and a little later Andy

Coulson arrived on foot. They are among the eight people facing trial

here. The others are Ian Edmondson, Stuart Kuttner, Clive Goodman,

Cheryl Carter and Mark Hanna. They face an array of charges. For

Rebekah Brooks, formerly the editor of the News of the World, for three

years until 2003, and went on to be in charge of News International, she

faces conspiracy to intercept communications, she faces two

charges of conspiracy to commit misconduct in a public office in

relation to allegations of corrupt payments to people in public

office, and she also faces two charges of conspiracy to pervert the

course of justice. That is in relation to allegations of

concealing or removing potential evidence. When it comes to Andy

Coulson, the man who was also the editor of the News of the World for

four years until 2007, and went on to be the Prime Minister's director

of communications, both in opposition and in Downing Street, he

also faces that overarching charge of conspiracy to intercept

communications, and then two separate charges of conspiracy to

commit misconduct in a public office. So the trial starts today,

technically, although I think what we have today is the selection of

the jury from a vast pool of up to about 80 people, and then the

proceedings proper, I suppose, as we would refer to it, with opening

statements and the prosecution may start tomorrow, but probably more

likely Wednesday. Now, it is becoming harder and

harder to get on the property ladder in London. In the past year alone,

house prices in the capital increased by almost 9%, and many

blaming foreign investors for pricing ordinary families out of

housing market. Overseas buyers see London real estate as a safe place

to invest their cash. So our foreign investors to blame for house price

inflation? If so, what should be done about it? Eleanor Garnier has

been investigating. This is luxury living, high

ceilings, a touch of marble, slumped to perfection. London properties

like this are a place for the world's millionaires to move their

money and make more, a safe investment in a turbulent economic

world, and it is turning property in our capital into a global reserve

currency. We have just bought this house onto the market at ?6.75

million. We marketed one year ago, we would have been asking closer to

6 million, perhaps 6.25 million. The reason is that we have seen prices

going up by around 7%. It is a familiar story across the capital.

Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in the

year to August, house prices in the capital shot up by 8.7%. One agency

is recently reported that asking prices went up by more than 10% in a

month. It is fuelling fears of a housing bubble and making London

increasingly unaffordable for many. A high level of international

interest, some agents report 50% of purchases coming from overseas. With

their affordability being greater than the domestic buyer, that is

pushing up prices, so the choice for the domestic buyers are to move

further out or really stretched their levels of borrowing to the

levels that are unsustainable. It is not just the influence of foreign

buyers and the influx of immigrants that is sucking up supply. There are

many factors - strong cultural desire to own homes rather than

rent, more people living alone, and the Help To Buy scheme are all

sighted. Close to the capital, in the south-east, the ripple effect is

being felt. Elsewhere across England, Wales and Northern Ireland,

house prices are rising, albeit far more slowly. In Scotland, they are

falling. London's mayor, Boris Johnson, welcomes overseas

investment. He believes the solution to high prices and short supply is

to build more. But there is pressure on politicians for radical steps to

help average income earners. We need restrictions on foreign capital

coming in, as they have in Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland,

many countries, and we need to make sure that council tax is much more

applicable compares to how much house prices actually are, because a

mansion in Kensington and Chelsea pays less council tax than an

ordinary house in Stoke-on-Trent, that is not acceptable. New homes

are still springing up across the capital's skyline. The concern,

though, is that they are serving the appetite of rich investors, rather

than helping to meet the drastic shortage of affordable housing.

And the Shadow Housing Minister, Emma Reynolds, is here, welcome to

the programme. Is foreign ownership to blame for the recent house price

inflation? It probably is contributing, but actually I do not

think in the end it is something that we are going to be able to curb

or limit, because the problem is, if you did not have this foreign

investment, a lot of the schemes would not get off the ground, so we

would be building even less than we do at the moment. I think a lot of

the foreign investment is far more of an issue in the very centre of

London, and in the goober prime, rather than some of the... Although

it is having a ripple effect, pushing prices to the outer boroughs

as well. I am not sure we have got fully another evidence of that. The

obsession with London is very much in the centre for overseas buyers.

There are other things that are driving up house prices elsewhere,

you know, lack of supply, the Help To Buy scheme up to a point. I think

it is a very complex picture, it is too quick and simple to say, blame

the overseas buyers, do something to curb them. Although in that film,

one of the contributors said 50% of interest in homes in central London,

over the ?2 million mark, came from overseas, so the anecdotal evidence

is there. But that is not going to hugely affect the first-time buyer,

like my young son, looking for a house. He's not looking for a ?2

million flat, he is looking for a much more reasonable level.

Interestingly, about 49% of the over ?1 million properties go to overseas

buyers, and 28% of them, only 28% are not resident in London. They may

be foreign buyers, but they are in London. But you accept the analysis

that for ordinary families, it is extremely difficult to buy a home in

London. I absolutely accept that, and we have to look at ways of

making it easier. Do you want to take action against foreign

investors? There is more concerned about foreign investment and

ownership, particularly when flats or houses are being built, and in

some cases, not all, as Liz has said, being left empty, and there is

a chronic shortage of supply in London, but across the country, and

that is the really big issue that the Government has failed to tackle.

There is a chronic shortage of supply, supply is outstripping

demand, and therefore house prices are going up. We understand what the

problem is, how many of these properties are being left empty,

bought up by foreign investors and left empty? I think Estimates vary,

so we need a more accurate assessment of the facts in terms of

how many properties are being left empty. You said you could not curb

it, but you could if you wanted to, you could introduce taxes or levies

of foreign investors - would you like to do that? In terms of the

empty properties, which is a problem, but we have to understand

the percentage of the problem that is caused by that, but councils

already have the power to increase the rate of council taxes on these

empty properties, and Camden Council, for example, earlier this

year as the Secretary of State whether they could increase that

council tax even further for empty properties. Empty properties and

some of those are owned by foreign investors, it is a particular

problem in some areas in London. Was that a good idea? I agree that we

are not clear how many are empty, I suspect it is rather less than

people think. We were involved in some work in 2007 by a reputable

independent researcher who said that he felt that all this business about

lots of FT properties was a bit of a fallacy, something like 5% are

empty. Wood July to see boroughs and councils... What I would like to see

the changes to the other end of council tax. This is a sensible way

of getting the right level of tax levied on the higher, more expensive

properties. Is it fair that someone living in Kensington pays more

council tax -- less council tax than someone living in Stoke-on-Trent?

Should be councils carry out a rebranding exercise? In an ideal

world, you would have that exercise, but we are not living in an ideal

world, and the problem is that it costs a lot of money to revalue

properties, and you would have to do it across the country, and councils

are seeing very large cuts to the government grant they get, so it

would have to be... Is that going to continue? We have to look at that

new to the time of the general election in terms of the budget that

we put forward, you know, in terms of what is in the pot, but all I am

saying is that it would be great if we could do that, but it is a costly

exercise. Is there something we could do like a mansion tax that

would not require... That would still require rebranding, wouldn't

it? You have got properties that have not been looked at for years.

Only at the other end. My constituency is in Wolverhampton,

and I would wager there is not a house in Wolverhampton that is over

?2 million in terms of its work. Property speculation tax, that is

the other thing. My concern with this is that if you take a sort of

knee-jerk reaction into some sort of mansion tax, properties regulation

tax, something that is aimed at overseas buyers, which would be very

difficult... Or even wealthy home-grown, you will actually simply

drive away a whole load of the investment. Would that really

happen? Absolutely, if we do not have a degree of overseas investment

in a lot of these large schemes, they won't even get off the table,

because the problem is, when the companies are looking at whether to

do them, they have to do an investment appraisal, they have to

assess how many they will sell at what price. The fact that they can

pre-sell-off plan a percentage of them is what allows them to get the

finance and crack on with the scheme. If they can't do that, they

won't do it. I'm not convinced. Developers and the like are driven

by profit. But the Government has relaxed section 106, which means

that councils can no longer demand a high percentage or a substantial

amount... Demand is outstripping supply in London, why is it that

there are developers sitting on land with planning permission and not

building houses? Even Boris Johnson says it is a problem. That is one of

the problems we need to look at. I am not convinced that foreign owners

need to commence to boost things. The developers sitting on land and

not using it, a game, that is something I would like to see

evidence of all stop I think you will find there are parts of the

house building community that would not be averse to seeing things done

to tackle that. But you can't make somebody build if they are going to

lose money. They are businesses, they do their investment appraisal

and they must be clear that they will be able to sell and make a

profit. Nothing wrong with that, if they can't make a profit they will

not be in business. Thank you both. Liz Peace, I hope your journey home

is not as horrendous as the journey in.

So what's the political forecast for the week ahead? Better weather, I

help! -- I hope! Well, this afternoon, and by pure coincidence,

the transport select committee meet to discuss the UK's resilience to

winter weather. All eyes will be on the Energy and Climate Change

Committee tomorrow when bosses from the big six energy companies give

evidence. On Wednesday, the Privy Council meets to approve a royal

charter on press regulation agreed by the main political parties. On

Thursday High Speed Two faces a commons vote. And on Friday the

firefighters are due to strike in their dispute with the Government

over pensions. I'm joined now by James Lyons from

the Daily Mirror and Tamara Cohen from the Daily Mail. Welcome, both.

James Lyons, energy bills continue to dominate the political agenda as

energy companies continue to increase prices. MPs will be willing

the energy companies, seen as the ogres in this drama. Will it be a

case of them trying to outstrip each other in terms of who can be most

tough? They will be turning up the heat on energy bosses, if you

forgive the pun. There will be some very interesting statistics

discussed which Ofgem has come up with today, which shows that four of

the big six have put their prices up by an average of 9.1 present. They

blame wholesale energy prices for this. In fact, Ofgem is saying that

the price at which they are buying energy before they sell it has only

gone up by 1.7 percentage. -- 1.7%. The plan to move part of the green

levies from bills onto general taxation, that would be welcomed by

the energy companies, no doubt. But the taxpayer will still be paying,

whichever way you cut it? David Cameron has said he would roll back

the green taxes on energy bills, and the criticism is that the government

is saying that they are aggressive and the burden falls equally on

everybody, whereas if part of it was brought under general taxation then

it would mean that people who earn more would pay more. They say it

would be more fair. The difficulty is getting this past the Liberal

Democrats. The part of the green taxes that the Government is talking

about is ?47 which goes to what is called the energy company

obligation, which is too insulated homes which are not very

energy-efficient. But there has been criticism that a lot of the money is

not going to the fuel poor. There is consensus between Labour and the

Liberal Democrat that the whole of the programme needs reviewing,

perhaps. Games, what about the coalition? Nick Clegg seemed to

suggest he would agree with part of the green levy going onto general

taxation, but are there problems further down the line? -- games,

what about the coalition? Interestingly, yesterday, Simon

Hughes floated the idea of some sort of rebate for poorer households. I

don't know whether that is something they can sign George Osborne up to

win the autumn statement, that I suspect there will be something like

that, something that the Lib Dems can display as a win in terms of

backing down. HS2, Tamara Cohen, do you think it will go ahead or be

derailed? They are voting on a paving bill -- paving bill, which

allocates the money for the project. It is not the major vote when the

construction begins. I suspect the Government will win the vote on

Thursday, but Labour is tightening the screws in the costs and a

timeline of the project, and it looks increasingly like they are

looking for an excuse to pull out and have the opportunity to allocate

some of that money for other project in the next manifesto, whether that

be housing, social care or something else. Labour is seeing this as a

political opportunity to cause maximum embarrassment to the

Government? I think Tamara is right, I think the bill will go through on

Thursday. But you could well see next year and opportune moment,

Labour pulling the plug, people talking about maybe during the

European elections, which will be tough for all three main parties. It

would cause David Cameron a lot of problems if Labour pulled support

them. This is a vast sum of money, ?50 billion. If you look at, for

example, the social care plans that the Labour Party comes up with, that

is ?2 billion a year, so Labour could fund social care for 25 years

with this money. And we're joined now by three

knights in shining armour who've ridden to our rescue at short notice

and through the storm to be our Monday political panel - the

Conservative MP Mark Field, Labour's David Lammy and the Liberal Democrat

MP Tom Brake. Welcome to you all. Now to welfare, because the national

roll-out of the Government's flagship welfare reform, universal

credit, reaches London today. It is being introduced in Hammersmith and

Fulham and replaces six existing benefits. Universal credit is being

phased in more slowly than ministers planned because of IT problems. Are

you disappointed? A little, but nobody said it would be easy. We all

knew the sort of welfare required... Reforms that would be

required, I think the public and the whole political class knew that we

could not go on spending that money, so I am happy delaying it. I am

happier that it is delayed and we are getting it right rather than

rushing into it with all sorts of problems. And you accept that the

Shadow Minister Chris Bryant described universal credit as being

in total chaos? It is not. We will be getting on later to why people

are so detached from the political process, this name-calling is daft.

Nobody said it would be easy, we would like to see things move

forward more quickly and we would like to see computer systems working

entirely smoothly, but a better idea is that we move ahead with what we

have done on the pilot project, then we can learn some lessons for

rolling this out in the years to come. Mark Field, this was the

centrepiece of the welfare programme, and just 1000 people have

claimed universal credit so far. For a project that will eventually

include 8 million people, it sounds like we are years away? I suspect we

are years away from getting it across the country, but filtering

down six credits into a universal credit, making it worth your while

to work - and the welfare trap is something that we feel very acutely

in our constituencies in London - I hope we get it right rather than

rushing it with some artificial timetable. But tens of millions have

now been wasted, says the National Audit Office. Hundreds of millions

are at risk of being written off because they have lost a grip on the

whole project. In fairness, the National Audit Office said the money

had been spent. A rather larger group of councils will be taking

this forward. Hopefully we can learn a lot from the pilot process in

Hammersmith and Fulham. Are you worried about what is going on in

the department? Are you reassured that they have a grip? The National

Audit Office said there was a good news culture, ministers not been

told exactly what was going on by civil servants and them not being

told about problems. Are you worried? We have some good ministers

in that department. Are you being given the full picture? One MP knows

a whole deal about pension reform. I hope they are drilling down and

asking the difficult questions. Isn't it right to take time? Yeah,

that they said it was overambitious and badly managed, they have wasted

millions. They should have gone with a phased approach should, benefit by

benefit. That is the intention. But six benefits are still being changed

with a few hundred thousand people as a pilot, which makes me very

with a few hundred thousand people worried, given we have seen the

mistakes with the benefit cap and we have seen that in one area only ten

percentage people have gone into work. -- only 10% of people. I would

be worried about whether ministers have a grip. But you are not against

the idea of the universal credit? Nobody is against simplifying the

system, but it is how you do it and how fast we might get to it. It

seems a long way away at the moment. Do you wanted to speed up or be

phased-in? They are changing disability living allowance at the

same time, changing the benefits caps. Right across the board, every

benefit that the Department is giving out, they are changing and

there are huge problems in the system. I would not say they are

huge problems. Sorry, Tom. It was always the Government 's intention

to roll this out, it is on target to be completed by 2017, a long-time

friend to do -- a long time frame to deliver it. If we wanted a big bang

approach, as happened with the Child Support Agency, I think people would

be tearing their hair out. We are doing a gradual roll-out, we have

trialled it in Manchester, we are trialling it in Hammersmith and

Fulham. We will be able to learn from those trials. In our

constituencies we have all had to deal with the fact that people,

until now, were better off on benefits than in work. How much will

it cost? You have missed -- messed up disability living allowance.

Those in receipt of benefits at the moment have them capped by 1%

following George Osborne 's Budget, it is a tough time for people and

they want to know what will happen to them, unticketed if they have a

disability. It is not good enough to spend millions and then slow down

the process, sending confusion into the system. People don't know when

they will be the next tranche of people being put onto this benefit.

People fear change, as you know. Of course they do, that is exactly why

the Government is right to make sure the roll-out happens gradually and

is fully tested, so all of those people do not experience disasters

with their benefits, that actually things happen in a smooth way so

they do not then find there are multiple corrections taking place. I

think this is very sensible. The former Prime Minister, John Major,

gave a very clear warning as to the group of people he saw as the

millions of silent have not locked into lace curtain property, you said

the Conservatives were not doing enough. I share his view, I don't

like some of the rhetoric, the skivers against rises, it is

unhelpful. We have to make this work. -- the skivers against

strivers. But one would argue that this announcement today goes along

with what John Major has said. We have to be careful about rushing it

through. We are 17 or 18 months away from a general election, I don't

think we will see any thing radical happening within welfare other than

the plans already afoot, and insofar as this will be rolled out in a

significant way it will probably be after 2015. It was always going to

be difficult, Labour did not exactly have great experience when it came

to big IT project? I will not pretend that IT projects are easy,

but every single benefit is being changed. It was incredibly

overambitious, they brought this on themselves. That out there there are

some very vulnerable people reliant on their support and they need the

system to work. -- but out there. I wrote about this in my book. Very

complicated. They also need a system which enabled them to have their

situation reviewed on a regular basis where we did not face a

situation, for instance, with regards to DLA, where people had had

benefits and reviewed since the 1990s. Let's leave it there.

Now he's never voted and apparently he never will. And, for the record,

he thinks the political system in the UK is, well, pretty rubbish. Who

am I talking about? Russell Brand. He guest edited the New Statesman

last week and subsequently gave an interview to BBC Newsnight, which

has been a bit of hit worldwide hit with millions watching it on

YouTube. Here's a flavour of it. It is not that I am not putting out of

apathy, it is out of absolute indifference and weariness and

exhaustion from the lies, treachery and deceit of a political class that

has been going on for generations now, and which has reached fever

pitch, where we have a disenfranchised, disillusioned,

despondent underclass that are not represented by the system, so voting

for it is tacit complicity with that system, and that is not something I

am up for. Why don't you change it? I am trying to! Why don't you start

by voting? I don't think it works, this has created the current

paradigm. You have never voted? Do you think that is bad? So before the

age of 18... I was busy being a drug addict, because I came from the

social conditions that are exacerbated by the system which

administrator for large corporations... You are blaming the

political class for that you had a drug problem? No, I was part of the

social and economic class that is underserved by the current system,

and drug addiction is one of the problems it creates, when you have

huge underserved impoverished populations, people get drug

problems and do not feel like they are engaged with the political

system because they see it does not work for them. They see that it

makes no difference, that they are not served. Of course it doesn't, if

they don't bother to vote. Jeremy, my darling, the apathy comes from

the politicians, they are apathetic to our needs.

News Statesman deputy editor Helen Lewis is with us, what was it like

working with Russell Brand? Everything you would imagine and

more! He came into the editorial conference and delivered this sort

of flawless monologue that had us all sitting there going, right, that

is interesting! The fundamental point he made is that he goes to

football matches and sees people on the terraces, they are excited and

passionate, he sees people campaign against the closure of an A

department or a library, they are passionate. But in national they

feel are not involved, they do not have any say in it, and that is the

key problem. I believe it to you guys to address that. Why did you

ask him? We like finding people of whom the perception is not what they

actually are, and slightly changed, and the same thing with happened

with Jemima Khan, who had great thoughts about free speech that we

wanted to get across, and she changed the reception of herself.

Russell Brand had been seen, we last remembered him as this kind of guy

who hosted big brother, but he has got some fantastic pieces in there,

Rupert Everett writing on gay rights is a revelation, a beautiful piece

of writing that I would never have read or we would not have been able

to commission otherwise. Tom Brake, man of the people, are you going to

read it? This is a copy of the edition, will you read it? Yes, I

will, although from the interview I think it is clear that he wants a

revolution, but what is not clear is what the Revolution looks like and

how it is going to happen and what it would mean in practical terms. I

think the issue about making a connection between voters and local

issues, maybe A campaigns, and national issues, it can be done. One

example - a national issue about improving access to train stations,

a couple of days ago I found out that Carshalton was on a list of

stations which might receive funding to be fully accessible or start by

e-mail, I contacted a certain number of people, and within two days we

had over 400 people who have signed up to a campaign to support making

that accessible. You can, using technology, make that connection

between local and national campaigns. It is about cutting

through, isn't it? You think we take Russell Brand too seriously, or

politics does, looks at them and thinks, how can he reach the parts

that we don't? What is successful is speaking for a bunch of young people

who feel very disillusioned with the system. They have not got free

education, they are not going to get full employment, many are

unemployed, they cannot buy a house, and if they get to work, they will

be working well past 70. That is a completely different settlements to

the baby boomers and Generation X. They are sitting pretty pretty. That

means that David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg, they all have

to reach out and speak for these people. Not always easy to do, when

you have come out of Oxford with your PDA, but come a researcher and

inherited a political party. In that sense, Russell Brand is right. Do

you agree? Not entirely, we had Occupy London in my constituency two

years ago, and it struck a chord beyond just the usual sort of group

of perhaps anarchists on the left, increasingly, dare I say it,

middle-class Tory voters. How frightening for you! In a way,

frightening for the whole political class. The capitalist system seems

to be working against them, and David is right that we are of a

generation of having a free university education, being able to

get on the housing ladder, which is incredibly difficult now. Russell

Brand's answer to that is do not vote. That is the problem. All that

will mean is that the political class, they will think, we have to

put all of our attention into people over the age of 55, and a lot of

those people... He says he has been underserved by the political class.

Low blow it may well be that David and Mark are doing it as well. I am

doing some work with Fight the Ballot, which campaigns to get

people registered. Before they even vote, they need to be registered, so

make that first step, because if they do not, if they do not get

registered and vote in elections, as Mark has said, politicians

generally, they know who votes in their constituencies, and they tend

to try to establish a relationship with them. If people are not voting,

there is a problem. A pessimistic view of life for young people. It

may be true, but it seems pessimistic. I would not advocate

not voting. We should think about compulsory voting and then at least

we could see who destroyed their ballot and was upset with the

system. At the moment, the elderly are protected in our system, no-one

is attacking their TV licence, their fuel allowance. Young people not

voting are left out of the system. That was a mistake by David Cameron,

to make that commitment? We moving away from the paradigm of classless

politics, we moved into generational groups pitted against each other,

and my biggest worry is that the brightest and best young people,

young graduates in this country will think, there -- their future is best

served elsewhere. There is a workless core across the country,

who Russell Brand is also supporting, who was shot out of the

Westminster based politics that commits us to sound bites, usually

through the news, but does not seem to really speak genuinely about

people's problems. Do you agree, broadly, with the discussion that

the political class needs to engage with younger people and participate

in large numbers with those people? It is a completely vicious cycle.

Young people vote less, they are served less, therefore they vote

less. Your film about housing at this exactly. The one people that

preoccupies people in London under the age of 35 is the rising age of

first-time buyers. Help to buy will help a tiny number of people at the

expense of others who will see prices escalate further out their

reach. But with the exception of Labour and the jobs guarantee, what

party has a specific offer for young people? I think something that is

very concrete is the fact that we have a record number of

apprenticeships, and that is helping a very large number of young people.

Oh, God! Spare as! I am sorry that David thinks... That is quite

insulting for the young people who are undertaking these

apprenticeships. They are getting jobs as a result. What we need to do

is make sure that, traditionally, the wood for young people has been

about university education, and what is patronising, David, is saying

that all apprenticeships are useless. I am not saying that,

customer services, six weeks, no quality? We are providing young

people with the experience they need to then take up jobs that are there,

because their jobs in London. There is this mantra, all political

parties, get them into apprenticeships, we need more.

Nobody is talking about quality, the length, whether you can get jobs at

the end, the fact that there are adults doing these apprenticeships.

Speak to young people in their bedrooms not doing apprenticeships.

We need quality opportunities, not this Mickey Mouse stuff.

We preview did last week, and this week it is out. The Conservative

Party's YouTube attack on Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, branding them

mystic Ed and his crystal Balls, predicting Britain's economic slump

would get worse. And here it is. Well, Halloween is coming soon,

isn't it? Is it a work of art? Listen, it is funny, we are all

talking about it, and in many ways because we have so little of this at

the moment, you know, I think it is making a bit of an impact. The truth

is that once everyone has stuff like this on YouTube, it will die loot

its impact, but at the moment... How are you measuring the impact that is

well above my pay grade! Does it work to Mack I think it is mildly

entertaining, and I think it what is does is end use the supporters,

Conservative Party supporters, but at the bottom of it there is a

serious message, and that is that Ed Miliband and the Labour Party

predicted that growth would go down, but it has gone up, that jobs would

go down, but they have gone up. There is a serious basis for what is

a mildly humorous piece. What is the Labour response? What creative

response are you going to have to mystic Ed and his crystal Balls? I

think this is shockingly bad! It is puerile, it lacks innovation, it

speaks down to people. There are some serious issues out here. The

idea that people sat in Conservative Central Office have come up with

is... They are taking it too seriously. Try being one of the

people in my constituency, this is what you might dream up in a pub.

The fact that we are talking about it shows it is successful. Oh, God!

In the United States, a lot of this, the attack adverts are de rigueur,

and thankfully we don't have that. Will we see more of that? We are not

allowed to get in that way. There are very strict financial limits.

That was the very purpose of the transparency bill through the House

of Commons, that was about stopping super packed style campaigning that

they have in the United States, where organisations that are not

accountable put a huge amount of money into the political campaigns

of one or other of the parties, and thanks to that bill, that will not

happen here. It is on YouTube. So what?! Is that the future? There is

a lot of rubbish on YouTube! I think that the Conservatives spent money

on this, presumably, and they expected it to go viral. It might go

viral for the wrong reasons. But really this kind of politics is

precisely why Russell Brand has said what he said. Labour would do

something similar. We have done things that have been shopping as

well, but I don't think we should treat the electorate like this. Does

it go down well, all that negative advertising? I don't like that,

party should be able to put out a more positive message, but the

American evidence suggests that it works, that is the depressing side

of it, and I suspect we have not seen the last of it. What will you

come up with? As I said, I think it is mildly humorous, and in terms of

the political impact, it is extremely limited. It is very rare

for a short clip to have an impact. Perhaps the one example might be the

Neil Kinnock walking down the beach and being washed away by an incoming

wave, that has an impact, but I do not think this will have any

impact. Gentlemen, thank you very much for your predictions! Thank you

for coming in at the very last minute, that was very good of you

and we appreciated. Thank you to my guests for battling in against the

storm. The one o'clock news is starting on BBC One. I will be here

at noon tomorrow with all the big political stories of the day.

Bye-bye.