15/01/2013 Newsnight

Tonight, coming to a high street near you, nothing! What do the

difficulties that HMV, now in administration, the loss of Jessops,

Clinton Cards, and JJB Sports, among others, tell you about the

future of your town. They are calling this a day in the death of

the high street, the problem is, these shoppers don't seem to have

noticed. So is the gloom on the high street justified, we will

debate what the future of shopping really looks like.

Also tonight: We are determined to make them glisten again. David Ben-

Gurion's Zionist dream of populateing the Negev desert, with

Jewish settlers, turns into a fight with Bedouin Arabs. How can we

expect Israeli people to deal with a big issue like creating two

countries here, when they are not even sure that 20 years from today

they will have a country of their own. And teachers' pay will be

linked to performance, dismantling the national pay structure,

according to the unions. Does it add up to a better education for

our children. Good evening. You would think that all the outpouring

of nostalgia for the music store, HMV, might have translated into

profits, if any of the people complaining about it going into

administration, actually spent much money there. Isn't that the point,

we might love the variety of our high streets, and mourn when shops

close, but are we going to have to get used to it. How many of us have

browsed in a real store, and then bought something on-line at a

discount. Do you really miss Woolworths? So, what will the slow

death of household names mean for the way we shop, and the way our

towns and cities look? Is the high street fined? Paul Mason has been

to Brighton to take a peek into the future.

Brighton, seaside Wonderland, gay capital of the universe, retail

crisis, same as everywhere else. The once prestigious shopping

street has the same mix of the blinging and the boarded up you see

across Britain. And now, HMV threatens to become the latest

retail casualty. Actually, the Brighton branch of HMV was mobbed

today, by buyers, in search of bargains, and though the staff were

having to turn away vouchers, there was plenty of cash flowing in. But

the chain, which sells 30% of all CDs in Britain, is in

administration, and the experts know why. The young people will not

necessarily now buy the hard goods, as in solid CDs and DVDs, they will

be downloading. And therefore, they wouldn't go into HMV, and yet they

are the group to be most likely to be walking about on the high street.

Where as older people have got better and better at buying things

on-line. They want the physical thing, but they are less likely to

be walking into an HMV. HMV haven't recognised the potential of getting

older people to come into towns and go and shop in HNVs -- HMVs. It is

all part of a massive change that has changed the high street. Latest

figures show 14% of the shops in Britain's town centres are empty.

In the first six months of last year, 20 stores closed, on average,

every day. Computer game shops were amongst the hardest hit, their

total number dropped from 44% from January to June. Furniture shops

were down 37%, toy shops down 33%. Of course, in the hey day of the

big music store, whether it was vinyl or plastic, the attraction

was never in just the range of things they sold. You could come,

you could stand in an aisle with a certain kind of music and see what

people were wearing. You could see what people were buying. And if you

were really lucky, your eyes would meet somebody else's eyes. The

problem s of course, you can do all that on the Internet as well! On

iTunes and Spotify you are instantly part of a community, the

music you buy and listen to can affect what others buy and listen

to. It is quite social, sometimes oversocial. On Amazon, you can buy

almost everything, and whether it is books or films, the time between

wanting and getting can be seconds. The way that people decide to buy

now is massive he 0ly influenced who they are connected to on

Facebook and dwit twitter. Rather than waiting for Top Of The Pops to

tell you what to buy, they will see on-line what is influential, and

see who is talking about that, and make a decision based on a friend,

or someone they might know, increasingly people aren't trusting

shops or big bodies, but people like us. That's the theory. But at

HMV today, there were still some die hards for the an loing

experience. What are you buying? bunch of stuff, CDs I am wanting, I

felt I should do. You are in the iPod generation and the Spotify

generation, why do you still need CDs? I want them because when I'm

listening to something I like looking at the sleeve and it is

nostalgic reasons, really. What have you got here? Echo and the

Bunnymen, oasis. Is this a retro trip, they were all popular when I

was at university? There is stuff from now, but it is just getting

stuff that I don't already own on CD. How would you feel if the shops

like this disappear? It would affect me, I have no internet or

computer, I come here all the time to get CDs and DVDs, especially for

my son, who likes unusual music, so, yes, I will miss it. What do you

mean by "unusual" music? Not that you can get in the supermarkets.

When you come with your friends, you can choose with what film you

want with your friend and take it home. If you are shopping on-line

you have to wait a few days, and plan ahead, off the cuff you can

come and choose what film you want. In that there is a clue to the

future of retail N towns with a lot of young people, you find, now, a

lot of shops selling an experience rather than physical things. The

tattoo shop, the unusual tobacco shop, the almost ubiquitious beauty

parlour? It will be smaller retailers relying on the Internet

to spread their messages, it will be bigger retailers talking about

experiences and directing them to buy there. New technologies are

good as killing off business model that is no longer work, but

prolonged recessions are quite good at killing off business model that

is should work and could work. In what's happening on Britain's high

streets, there is a bit of both. a recession, particularly, markets

polarise and fragment. So you get specialist retailers surviving,

where generalists will tend to go, and people who are top end or

bottom end, discounters or specialist retailer, the Waitrose

or Aldi difference, will do well, the middles will drop out. HMV was

a middle? It was a middle. everybody stuck in the middle of

this retail squeeze understands, it is tough. Mike Tobin is the boss of

a �2 billion data network group, teleCity, it provides some services

on-line. And we have the head of Leon, head of fast food on the high

street. Davi Hepworth helped launch magazines like Heat and Mojo. The

nostalgia was great, but it never paid the bills. They were always

going to get in trouble? When they were dealing in a market that so

quickly shrunk in recent years, by illegal downloading, legitimate

downloading, competition for on- line CD sellers. In a recession,

when you are as extends as HMV are on the number of stores they have

got. It was very difficult to see them surviving. You will miss it?

used to work there, 30 years ago. And so I am that have generation,

drawn to the high street with the promise of being able to hang about

in book shops and record shops, which are almost like libraries and

cathedrals to me. My whole generation of people just did that,

in the absence of anything else to do. That's what you like doing,

being near the product. I don't think my children feel the same

thing at all. Apart from the fellow who wanted today buy Echo and the

Bunnymen, most of us maybe won't miss it, did the Internet kill it

off? That is a contributing factor, it is sad to hear news like today,

families will suffer as a result of that. Ultimately we are going

through a structural change of the way we live and work. The Internet

traffic in Europe is doubling every year. And that's because we just

are doing more things on-line. 9% of Britain's economy now is on-line.

9%? That is the largest in the world, actually. By definition a

large proportion of that is downloading music, videos, apps.

Are they particularly susceptible, some things you can't do on the

Internet, but DVDs and books you certainly can do? Can you, the user

experience in the record shop is listening to music, apart from

social interaction. If you look at what is happening on the high

street, a lot of high street stores are replaced by quality food chains

and cafes and coffee shops. People are still coming together, the

social element is still there, not enough in a shop or cafe. That may

be true, perhaps, however good you are, you are not the target, we are

going to you because we are going somewhere else to get shopping, you

will be affected as well, potentially? I think the high

street is about to face a golden age. If the market is allowed to

work. Three structural things, the first thing, the inner recession,

in order for markets to clear prices need to come down, and

assets need to reprise, the high street, because rents are fixed,

and because people's debt is at such a high level, the rents aren't

coming down, they are on an upward- only trajectory, and are not

flexible to bring new people into the high street. Somebody will have

to take a haircut in the economic system, in order for rents to be

priced at where they should be. might be people like you, people

who have got a store front? It will be pension funds and banks. There

is a timebomb, where eventually banks are kidding themselves this

real estate is worth a certain amount of money. Landlords have to

reduce? Landlords and banks. Deregulate the high street so we

allow small traders and market traders to populate the high street.

We are a nation of shopkeepers. Apple, one of the most amazing on-

line companies, chooses to have apple stores, the highest revenue

in the world per square foot, something positive is happening in

retail, and all the small business, people who make their own shirts,

shoes, costume jewellery, let them in the high street. It is only

structural things getting in the way. Where are you on this, do you

see this great golden dawn, or do you see the possibility that 4,000

people might lose their jobs because of HMV and all the other

things we have covered? I would like to stop using the word

"decline", it is revolution, our lives are changing forever. We

expect everything in 0.011 secretary seconds, that is what we

expect, we don't write letters we e-mail or text. The consumer

doesn't understand yet, it will be a centre of socialisation, cafes,

great facilities, and as you have mentioned, retailers to do their

jobs brilliantly I don't want retailers who do their jobs just

adequately any more. You say, that but I talked to a very canny

retailer who said, there is a choice if you are going to stay on

the high street, you either have to provide theatre, some kind of great

experience, which you have suggested, or you are really cheap.

The possibility is, given we are in a recession, a lot of cheap stores,

charity shops, it might be bookmakers, people obviously who

can make a profit, but who don't face the problems you will? Charity

shops are an exception, there are fantastic charity shops that

understand retail theatre as well. Beware of the cheap price, there is

a one-way street with that, that is offering value, it is hard to get

straight back up again. Isn't that what people are looking for?

don't think it is, people are looking to be stimulated, to enjoy

shopping, to get hypnotised by it again. Perhaps you would like to be

like that, is that where your pocket goes? My pocket is like

everybody else, as it said in the report, it is fragmented the way

you spend. You spend in loads of different ways. One thing that is

important to say, this is not just about retail, this is also about

businesses, and if you take the demise of HMV is an event of huge

import to the record business in this country. Shops have not just

been places that you bought things, but that celebrated things. They

have been cathedrals to things, things that made you feel that

books or records or fashion, or whatever, was important. You found

stuff you didn't know about? created and built value all the

time. The retail experience built value. Once that disappears on-line,

it can go out of your mind, I think the thing about on-line buying is

it is a really good way of buying things, and it is a really bad way

of selling things. Bringing things to people's attention. That is your

business there. I would hesitate to agree. There is more than just the

choice of either going to a high street or going on-line that is

happening here. If you think about the record industry, the topic we

started with. Back 15 years ago in 1998, there were 175 million CDs

bought in the UK. Last year there was 69 million bought in the UK,

but 30 million downloads, that is barely half the number of the

actual music sales of 15 years ago. Because the way we are actually

listening is changing. We mentioned Spotify earlier on, people are

sharing music, they are listening to it one time and not buying it

any more. Where does the person go, either for the experience of

opening the book or feeling what it look like or seeing the stuff. In

other words, do you think a lot of bricks and mortar stores will be

like showroom, where you don't actually take away the product, but

you may order it on-line and try it out? By the time you have gone to a

clothes shop, when you have tried on, there is your impulse buy, you

want it there and then, you wouldn't go back and order it have

it delivered later. But there is a clear distinction between those

sorts of shops, where you can't actually do it on-line unless you

trust implicitly in the seizing of your garment, and something that

you can lisence -- seizing of your garden and something you with

listen to. Shop centres are managed by managing the estate hole

listically, the kaornbee Estate is managed by Shaftsbury, they own

most of the properties on the estate, they managed it as an

ecosystem very, very well, high street Kensington is much less well

off, it is declining because you have a whole series of individuals

not working together. The high street is a defined ecosystem, and

co-ordination needs to be increased to manage it. People across the

country, sometimes they complain that wherever you are, you get the

same stores, one after another. You can almost predict where they will

be. The high street itself is actually quite boring in some

places? I always call it the "vanilla state", when you go to a

town or city and think where am I, because it is the same. It is down

to the councils. We have an amazing heritage, I go to Australia and the

US a lot, they would kill for it. We have to make the towns come to

light, we have to make sure the individual stores, the food and

Beveridge, the socialisation, and other retails to go with it. It has

to be about working hard to get consumer demand and keep consumers

in store and sell to them. either of you think we could go

down the American route, there are cities with fantastic individual

shops, New York, and San Franciscos, there is a lot of place where is it

is the same, the anchor store from a chain, and walking down the mall

they are the same? We have 200 football pitches worth of out of

town shopping at the moment in this country. That is a huge amount of

out of town, I really hope we don't just go down that route. We have to

start celebrating it, I don't think it is just about the retailer, the

point you mentioned about retailers and communities working together is

vital. We have to start pulling together, and stop talking about

demise and finger pointing. Are we nothing talgic about it, we shop

one way and think -- nostalgic about it, we shop one way and think

another? I think so, if you listen in a restaurant to some music, --

in a store and you can listen to music and buy it t if you can

shazam it and buy it in a click, you don't worry about the price.

Community is what drives the human spirit, not on-line, where is the

record industry make money, through concerts, because you want peer-to-

peer. Ironically the biggest growth in music revenues is not on-line,

it is through physical experiences. If councils relaxed the music laws,

which they have done, and allowed restaurants to play music, and

where you are not allowed to dance, in Westminster two people moving

rite mittically is called dancing, and -- rit mittically, and it is

called dancing and tough stop. If we stopped the laws and maybe life

would return to the high street. That goes back to the theatre point

f you have to add something and you can't compete in price, you have to

give something. You can, it is not like you have to go to Les

Miserables, the apple store, Nike Town, a consumer brand on to the

high street. And a steiny record shop called Bleaker Street in New

York, you don't need all the expense. A balance has to be struck,

the apple store works because you are not faced with a bewildering

array of products, you are getting one thing. The megastore deal

became very quickly overwhelming, you no longer felt warm about it,

but vaguely ill. You were overchoiceed. Very briefly, what do

you think the future is for the high street, is it shopping malls,

on-line and a few nice niche retailers? There is an interesting

thing we haven't spoken about, not the out of town malls but the

Westfields, like in London, you are in a city but you have that

environment around. That is true of Belfast? You have skating rinks,

cinemas, you can have restaurants, bars, night life, the shops are

almost the side show to the relationship building that goes on

within that environment. I think that's almost like your town centre

building up again. What do you think of it? I'm not sure it will

happen in Wakefield and Peterborough, that is my feeling. I

have no idea what will happen to the high street. I do feel that

there will still be record stores and book stores, but they will be

very targeted, boutiquesy, destination venues. For me it is a

combination of all the channels put together and making sure the

consumer gets the best choice, they are the most discerning than ever.

We have to start delivering it. You will have tiny stores where you

don't take it home on the day and they will deliver it to you. That

sounds like internet shopping with a walk? With a touch and feel, you

have to be still seduced by retail sometimes. One more place where the

computer hasn't helped, this is a message to shopkeepers, just

because there is a software programme where you can design your

own shop front, doesn't mean to say you should. There are experts at

that, that would help. We leave it there. Now, Israeli soldiers shot

dead a 17-year-old Palestinian youth, near the barrier that

separates West Bank towns and villages from areas occupied by

Israel. It comes ahead of next week's Israeli elections, in which

a new right-wing party, Jewish Home is riding high in the poll.

Relations with Palestinians are only one part of the picture for

many Israelis. Some think the biggest threat to the Jewish state

comes from the fact that in large areas of Israel, Jews will become a

minority. We report from the south of the

country, a place not flourishing as the state's founders had hoped. A

wilderness the Prophet Isaiah promised would one day rejoice.

Nearly 5,000 square miles of emptiness, and opportunity, in one

of the world's most crowded countries. The state of Israel, to

exist, its first Prime Minister said, must go south to the Negev.

The desert is a great challenge to us, and we are determined to make

the wilderness blossom again. It can be done. It must be done.

Ben-Gurion set a personal example, he moved to the desert, and

practised his skills as a shepherd. Today, in his old home, a new

generation of Israel's defenders is learning about his vision. The

Negev, he said, was where Jewish creativity and vigour would be

tested. But 60 years on, the soldiers are told, his dream of

five million Jews living and working in the desert hasn't yet

come true. In places the desert is blooming. It is irgated, partly by

water from the Mediterranean, and partly from underground aquafirs

and the Sea of Galilee. The Negev, half of Israel's territory, still

has fewer than 700,000 people, less than a tenth of the country's

population of nearly eight million. It is a patchwork of Jewish and

Arab communities. Could bed do you win Arabs, who was wandered the

Negev for generations outnumber Jews here eventually, raising a

question mark over the future of land that is internationally

recognised as part of Israel. Some young Zionists think that is the

greatest threat Israel faces. there was an empty space where

nobody lives in it, somebody else will go and say this is mine, and

this will be his, because nobody is wanting the land.

The Negev, and Galilee, which together comprise 80% of Israel,

have the country's highest proportion of non-Jewish citizens.

In Galilee, more than half the population is Arab, in the Negev,

the proportion is about a quarter. But Israel says the Negev Bedouin

have the highest population growth in the world, doubling their

numbers every 15 years. If we don't work fast we might find ourselves

in a situation that is on the verge of a catastrophe, and 80% of our

land that is not disputed today. For us it is getting back to what

David Ben-Gurion said, that the real example of the Israeli people

will be in the Negev. Yakir Keren is walking in Ben-Gurion's

footsteps, he's one of a number of growing Israelis leaving the

comfort of the centre of towns and cities to recapture the pioneering

spirit of the early settlers of the To feel the brick and the sand, to

build your own house, to plant your own tree to pave your own path,

this is something that will get connected for you to the ground.

One of the values of the Zionism, it says Hebrew labour, in which we

have to build, with our own hands, the land of Israel. His youth

movement, Ayalim, has been building student villages in the Negev and

northern Israel. They are part of a wider revival of interest in

Zionism and Jewish identity, they also stress that life in the desert

is cheaper and less stressful than in Israel's overcrowded cities.

Ayalim, though still a voluntary organisation, is now backed by the

Israeli Government. They share the aim of juddaiising the Negev and

djudaising the Negev and Galilee. It is not democratic to say, if we

want to secure Israel as the Jewish state we have to populate T

It is the bed do you win who regard them -- Bedouin who regard

themselves as the masters of the desert. Those who hadn't fled when

Israel was established became citizens of the state. Ben-Gurion

noting Jews had once lived in tents, said he wished nothing more than

the Bedouin could gain the best thing they have, knowledge.

Today, in a college on the edge of the Negev, you can find a Bedouin

PHd teaching signs to a mixture of Jews and Arabs from different

backgrounds, a model, you would say of co-existence. When that

chemistry lecturer, Awad Abu Freih, goes back to what he still thinks

of as his home, where he used today live, as well as his father and

grandfather before him, it is just to survey a pile of stones. It was

very big, it was not one, but three, four. Four buildings. I want it cry

when I see that, I want to just remember this field. The cemetery

is all that remains now of his village, which has been demolished

and rebuilt over and over again in the course of a lengthy legal

battle. Over the hill is Rahat, where Dr Awad Abu Freih lives, one

of several towns with modern services that Israel has built,

specially for Bedouin, like many others, he doesn't want to live

there. The new towns have high rates of crime and unemployment.

Awad Abu Freih wants to have a farm, just like David Ben-Gurion did. But

he says Jews find it easier than Bedouin to acquire land for

agriculture. I want to live with sheep, or agricultural life. If I

was Jewish, they would give me and give me the money. But because I am

This is BBC News. The headlines: HMV is in the hands of

called Awad and not Moshi, because administrators. 4,000 jobs are at

I have a Bedouin name, and I'm not risk. The chief executive is

hopeful of a rescue. Jewish the problem here is I am

Traces of horsemeat found in Bedouin. And a few Jews in a big

burgers made for British and Irish supermarkets.

land. To put the Jewish in the A British Airways worker wins a

Negev and concentrate it in a small discrimination claim after being

told not to wear at cross at work. The Home Secretary approves a cut

in staff and salaries for all new Good evening. The chief executive

of HMV says he is convinced there is a future for the business,

land. We apologise for the lost of despite that going into

administration. 4,000 jobs are at subtitles. This is a form of

risk as pressure from supermarkets economic empowerment, together with

and online competitors takes its parallel policies investing in

toll. The high street chain has education and in healthcare, and

stopped accepting gift vouchers. It other aspects of the Bedouin

infrastructure, we hope, will bring was established 90 years ago. The

the bed dough win into -- Bedouin first HMV store. This has been here

into the mainstream. Nearly half for the best part of a century and

the Negev Bedouin live in is still trading on Oxford Street

unrecognised settlements. Which today. They are no longer accepting

gift vouchers. They accepted the money when you buy the vouchers.

That is despicable. A worthless Christmas gift. If they are still

trading and people have paid good money for the vouchers, they should

not be able to do that. HMV said the vouchers were sold in good

faith. The boss also told me that he believes the firm can survive.

I came here four months ago to drive a viable future for the team,

not to shut the business down. I (we apologise for the loss of

subtitles) Ayalim volunteers are trying to forge links between Jews

and Arabs in the Negev. They set up this greenhouse in a Bedouin school,

where they are teaching children the Rudiments of horticulture. It

is a learning process for both sides. For me it is the first time

I get in a Bedouin village, I live here all my life and I haven't got

here. It is a great opportunity for me to get familiar with another

culture that is really, really close to where I live. But other

Jewish activists in the Negev are working with Bedouin in a more

political way. Liberals who believe they are trying to preserve the

country's original values, in the face of what many see as a drift in

public opinion towards the right. This is a meeting hosted by the

Negev co-cyst tense forum, which campaigns -- Negev Coexistence

Forum, which campaigns for greater understanding between the citizens.

Today they are trying to think of ways to help one village threatened

with distinction. Activists like Ofer Dagan, who

spends much of his dime in Bedouin villages, questions the whole basis

of the Government's policy. To say we have to occupy the Bedouin lands

to secure the Jewish state is not true. It may serve the purpose of

making it a Jewish state, for sure it won't be a democratic state. The

danger that is already happening, is the Bedouin society is gradually

losing their faith in the authority of the state. We are starting to

see a few violent incidents between Bedouin people, which are, most of

the time, a very peaceful and patient people, with the

authorities of the state. legacy of Ben-Gurion, who wanted a

Jewish democratic state, at peace with its neighbours, is ambiguous.

After paying homeage at his grave, these young soldiers will return to

their duties on Israel's borders, and in the Occupied Territories.

But many in Israel no longer believe that peace with the

Palestinians will come soon, if ever. That's why, with elections

aing next week, a bigger issue for some are the widening tensions

within the country. Between liberals and a more assertive,

nationalist right-wing, between secular Jews and a rapidly growing

number of ultra orthodox, and enof tablely between Jewish and Arab

citizens. Talking about the Palestinian issue,

pushes away the bigger issues of dealing with things that are

happening inside the society. Until we start dealing with what happens

inside the Israeli society, including issues with Israeli Arabs,

I think the chances of doing something from the outside are

smaller. How can we expect Israeli people to deal with a big issue

like creating two countries here, when they are not even sure that 20

years from today they will have a country of their own.

Government, before they think about the peace between Abbas and between

the Palestinians and the West Bank, or in Gaza between Israel, they

have to make a peace inside. OK, the Jewish state, we were here,

what about us? What about us? Now forget the Palestinians, I don't

want to think about Gaza and the West Bank, I was here, all the time.

I want to stay here. 60 years after Ben-Gurion said the Negev would be

a testing ground, it's wide open -- it's wide open spaces have indeed

become a laboratory for agricultural and scientific

creativity, they are not yet a laboratory for peace. Now, it looks

as if the Government may be in for a prolonged row with teaching

unions in England after the news today it will press ahead with

plans to link pay to performance. The core of the plan is for annual

appraisals of teaching performance to be linked to annual Sally levies,

decided by each school. For most teachers annual pay rises are

automatic. The unions say the plan is a move away from national pay

structures and it will lower morale and make recruitment in some

schools especially difficult. We will debate how it will affect

children with two head teachers. First we examine what is at stake.

For some time now, the rule for new teachers has been where X is

equalising this year's pay, and Y is next year's pay, X is equal to

1.0Xs Y, now that is changing. Pay for new teachers, like that for

their experiences colleagues, will depend on their classroom

performance, and in particular the views of one man or woman, the

headteacher or another member of the school leadership team. That is

welcomed by some teacher. Alistair Wood is only 27, he is already head

of economics at a secondary school. I see myself as a practitioner

developing all the time. You -- I need to improve year on year, there

is no year I wouldn't hope to get better. If there was an instance

where I wasn't getting better, I wouldn't expect to be rewarded, if

my performance of the same, I would expect to be rewarded in a similar

fashion, and not almost get rewarded for not progressing.

year's review quoted a survey of teachers' pay, which showed over

98% of teachers, on the main scale, that is in their first six years in

the profession, receive those annual increases. 45% of teachers

at the top of that main pay scale applied for the upper pay scale,

and over 90% of those were successful.

While we have kept the main pay bands, we have made it much simple

letter to move up them, and we are also -- simpler to move up them,

and allowing senior teachers to be put to the upper band if they want

to remain in the classroom. There is a pay structure for those who

want to teach and not part of the management structure. It is not

just your capacity to teach but your capacity not to reward? It is

the capacity to discriminate, and without the current problem in the

system, which is all you can do is fire somebody. That can't be right.

We have all been through periods in our life where we have been better

or worse and needed professional support. It should be possible to

manage pay across the sector, more sensitively, according to need. Lg

Forget beautiful buildings, it is the quality of teaching that makes

a real difference to how well children learn, does performance-

related-pay improve teaching, the evidence is mixed? We know that one

of the problems with performance- related-pay for teachers, or any

performance measurement for teachers, is teaching to the test.

Essentially you focus on what's measured, what is measured gets

done, and other things get ignored. That means you want, if you are

going to have performance-related- pay, a holistic measure of pupil

attainment, and of pupil performance. That is going to be

difficult to do, but it is not impossible to do that.

Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has said these measures will allow

schools to recruit better teachers. The main teaching union, the NUT,

has said members will be dismayed, and it will be a blow to already

lowered morale, they say performance related pay is

fundamentally inappropriate for teaching. Even those who support

this in principle, say changing attitudes across all schools in

England and Wales, may be tricky. What are the problems? It lies

mainly I think at a leadership level, it needs to be, if these

responsibility and authorities - this authority is given to head

teachers, teachers need to be confident the decision will be

sound and fair. The implementation is complicated. You can't go from a

straight chain from one system to another. It needs to be gradual.

Kenney Frederick is headteacher at George Green's School on the eye of

dogs, and we have the principal of Nunthorpe Academy. Obviously there

are lots of great teachers, it will be astounding to many parents that

98% of teachers get a rise on the main scale whether or not they are

any good? It isn't like, that you have to get through your NQT year,

it is a difficult year, where you are assessed constantly. If you

don't pass that year you don't actually get a job. About But 98%

move on to the next pay scale per year? At the moment there is up to

M6, you can move year after year. And you are not talking about huge

amounts of money. I have over 100 teachers, and you know, the

majority. Isn't it 8% of pay every year that you get as an increase?

don't know the amount, it is not a huge amount. The teacher, when you

go into the classroom you are not a born teacher, you have to learn to

be a teacher and experience, if you are well trained and well developed,

the performance in the classroom will be much better. If it is not.

The point is, the great teach remembers not the problem, what do

you do about the small minority, of not so good teachers, you can get

rid of them. But only 17 out of 400,000 over ten years, that

doesn't work, what do you do to incentivise them, you don't pay

them that much? I don't think the pay makes the difference, teachers

don't come into it for the money, they go into other industries for

that. You come into teaching for different reasons. If you haven't

got a teacher who isn't doing very well, there is an awful lot of work

that goes on. We are very accountable, every teacher and

every school is accountable, everything you do is measured to

every degree. You put a lot of work into people and you help them to

develop, because they have to be good teachers. Let me bring in

Debbie Clinton, you heard that argument and also that the teaching

unions are saying, essentially, far from improving standards, there is

a risk of actually damaging children's education, how do you

see it? I think it is a tremendous opportunity for the profession to

catch up with other professions. One of the concerns that is being

voiced currently, and of also raised during the introductory item,

was the worry over individual power to head teachers and principals.

Pay is awarded by governing bodies and board of directors not

individual head teachers, the wore a concerns that are rightly being

expressed are actually founded in, I think, quite ill-informed facts.

Pay awards are given, ultimately by boards of governors. What do you

make of the argument, we heard it said by the NUT, that it will

dismantle the national pay structure and it will be difficult

for schools in deprived areas who will struing to recruit staff.

These are fears -- struggle to recruit staff, these are legitimate

concerns? The academy movement has been great in England, including in

deprived areas, including mine in Middlesborough. The evidence is

exactly the opposite. When pay freedoms are given to principal,

and boards of governors, the recruitment problems they

previously had are, not immediately removed, but certainly they are

very much helped. Just in practice, what would you be worried about,

presumably you know, and every headteacher knows who is doing well,

who need help, who isn't doing so well, you would be able to make the

decisions who gets more pay and who doesn't, is there something about

the implementation of it that does worry? Lots of issues, who will

teach the hardest to teach youngsters? I would be very worried

that people would be resisting teaching youngsters with special

needs, where it is harder to move them on. Youngsters who are absent

a lot. Youngster who is don't have the support. How do you, for

instance, if you are in a school in a nice middle-class area, where lot

of your students are having one-to- one tuition at home, where the

parents are paying for that, how do you know the affect, is it the

teacher that's made the difference, is it the personal tutor. In a

school such as mine, some of the youngsters will have one-to-one

tuition. It is actually trying to prove, what's the causal affect,

why has that youngster done well. We measure every teacher, every

pupil, at every moment, we know where youngsters are progressing,

with what teacher and so on. We work on that and we try to learn

from each other. The best way to improve teaching, is by teachers

collaborating together, working to the, and sharing good practice. I

think that this could be a difficulty in that, at the moment,

pay is transparent, and I don't want people coming to my school

because I'm going to pay them more. Debbie, it could be, in other words,

devisive in the staff room, is part of it, quite tricky to implement,

what do you make of that? I don't agree with that. Alastair, the

young teacher in the introductory article made the most valid point.

Teachers have an obligation, as do school leaders, by the way, to

continually develop, yes there will be years when one develops really

well, and years where one is less effective at doing that. The most

important point in this for us as a nation and profession, is to

recognise, as the Finns and in sing support they have done, is that we

need to encourage the best possible people to come into our profession,

that is not currently the case, sadly. Thank you. Tomorrow

That's it for tonight, I'm back tomorrow with more in the lead up

to David Cameron's big speech on Europe, planned for Friday.

Good night. Widespread frost tonight and patchy fog to take it

into the morning. Temperature could be as low as minus 10-12. A

relatively quiet day. Snow flurries in the east of Kent. We start

frost-free, but there could be rain later. For much of England it will

be a dry day, some fog lingering around the Thames Valley. Most

having a dry day. Snow flurries limited, eastern Kent could see

them throughout. A few showers running through the English Channel

into south eastern parts of Devon. Rain and sleet on the coast, maybe

snow on the south of Dartmoor. It is only a chance, much of south-

west England to have a bright day, hazy sunshine, early morning rain

in Cornwall. It stays cloudy in Northern Ireland, temperatures only

hoovering around 3-4, don't be -- hovering around 3-4, don't be