19/06/2013 Newsnight

A flagrant disservice to patients We don't even know who said that,

he's referred to in the report as "Mr F", where why are they allowed

to hide behind the Data Protection Act. Can the boss of the Care

Quality Commission explain how an organisation to serve the public

went rotten? The Chancellor of the Exchequer

starts the process of privatisation for one of the banks bailed out by

the taxpayer. He claims everything is going swimmingly. Let me say

this tonight, the British economy is healing. We are moving from

rescue to recovery. But is the real achievement of

George Osborne to have changed the face of public spending in Britain.

And what would the men who fought at D-Day have made of it? Families

of soldiers who died on active service are given the right to sue

for negligence. Can combat really be reconciled with the Human Rights

This is the long and short of it, an organisation supposed to look

after the interests of the patient knows there is something wrong with

a treatment centre but in order to look after its own interests it

doesn't publish its findings. Then a new broom comes in, the

instruction to suppress is itself disclosed but with the key names

obscured. Cover-up on cover-up. The Health Secretary apologised this

afternoon, not that it did anything much to explain quite how it all

happened. This is not the first time the

spotlight has fallen on healthcare regulator, the Care Quality

Commission. It faced criticism over neglect of patients in Mid-

Staffordshire, over the treatment of residents at the Winterbourne

View and Ashcourt Care Home. An investigation into a number of

babies dying at Morecambe Bay Hospital Trust made familiar

reading. Families struggling to be heard over bureaucracy. New born

James Titcombe died in 2008, his father has led efforts to expose

the full extent of failings at the maternity unit, and the role of the

regulator ever since. Whilst I recognise there were obviously

failures in the regulation, I didn't realise the extent. It is no

exaggeration I felt physically ill when I read about the cover-up.

Because that was just such an outrageous thing to have happened.

Today's report found evidence of a deliberate cover-up of a critical

One senior manager, talking about that review is even said to have

At a CQC board meeting today, the main whistblower, Kay Sheldon spoke

emotionally. I have been subjected to the most appalling treatment.

I'm not going to say any more about it. But I think that in itself

should shame the organisation. Indeed higher. This is how events

unfolded, in November 2008 new born James Titcombe dies at Furness

General Hospital. In June 2009 the CQC increased Morecambe Bay's risk

rating to red. In April 2010 it decreased the rating to green. In

October 2011 the internal review was ordered. In March last year

came the apparent decision to delete the internal report.

Today's report says the individual concerned denies the allegations.

In parliament today the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, apologised

to the families. Saying events at Morecambe Bay should never have

been covered up and should never have happened in the first place.

Later the gloves came off, as he and Shadow Health Secretary, Andy

Burnham exchanged criticism. Earlier the Prime Minister said

that there should be always support for whistblowers, and he was right

to say so. But there are serious doubts about whether that has

happened in this case. There were concerns raised by another

whistleblower and there were questions raised about her

character. Can the minister say there was appropriate concerns

raised. Jeremy Hunt turned the tables on Labour who set up the CQC

in the first place. He talks about accountability, the opposition if

they were to give confidence that they really took the issues raised

today seriously, they would recognise it was fundamentally

wrong to set up an inspection regime, not being done by

specialists, where the same person is inspecting a dental clinic, a

slimming clinic, a hospital or GP practice perhaps in the same month.

That may have contributed to why it was that in 2009 the CQC decided

not to investigate the maternity deaths in Morecambe Bay. There was

clearly some battlement amongst MPs today as to why the names of senior

figures at the CQC had been redacted from the report. Whether

this was down to some possible legal action by the individuals

involved, or under a constraint due to the data protection legislation

as the CQC said earlier. This feels like a public authority hiding

behind the Data Protection Act. It is very common. But you have to go

by what the law says. And the law is very clear, you have to process

data fairly, you have to take into account the people's expectation of

confidentiality, patient data obvious, but officials, there you

have to apply a public interest test. I'm not convinced that the

Care Quality Commission have been correctly advised. I think they are

going to have to look at this again. We have to have accountability when

there is such poor practice in our public bodies. How can people be

allowed to walk away with full pensions, no investigation into

their conduct or blot on their copy book? Allowing them, potentially,

to walk into a job with another regulator or the NHS. There is now

a new management team in place at the CQC. The former chairman, Dame

Jo Williams, and former chief executive, Cynthia Bower, left the

organisation last year. An independent public inquiry,

Stafford-style, is now under way. The Trust itself also has a new

board which today acknowledged past failings and said it is committed

to providing safe care. The CQC hopes today's report draws a line

in the sand for them. But as the patients' champion, the regulator

must reassure the public it will act differently from now on.

David Behan is the chief executive of the Care Quality Commission,

Jamie Reed is a Shadow Health Minister and Heather Wood is a

former NHS manager who worked at the CQC's precursor, the Healthcare

Commission, where she led the investigation into avoidable deaths

at Stafford hospital. She went on to work at the CQC, but left in

2010 after the national investigations team was abolished.

Can I talk to you for a minute first, David Behan, why have you

excluded these names? The first thing to say is we are committed to

openness and transparency in our work. This is why I commissioned

this report in the first place. This isn't a problem we want. We

want to be absolutely clear about what we did and we are accounting

for this, the facts are not in dispute. It has come to the

question you asked, I was advised to put people's personal data would

be a breach of their rights. We decided today that we will review

that legal advice and we have commissioned a review of that legal

advice to see if we can put this information into the public domain.

We do not want this problem. independent commissioner says it is

not a problem at all? Well the only thing I can say, Jeremy, is we

commissioned this report, we published it today. He's more

likely to know? We published it today warts and all. You excluded

the names? We have been open and transparent about where we failed

the people in Morecambe Bay, we have apologised for that today. We

are looking and reviewing the advice we have been given to see if

we can put that right. You accept your legal advice was duff?

accepted the legal advice I was given, I acted in good faith.

Information Commissioner is surely likely to know? I have listened to

what the Information Commissioner has said. He's saying review the

advice, I have said earlier this evening we will review the advice.

He said unambiguously the advice you have been given is wrong and

that you are hiding behind it? We are not hiding behind it.

wouldn't have commissioned the report in the first place, we are

clear we need to account for what we did. You will published the

names tomorrow will you? I will take legal advice tomorrow on

publishing the names. You have just been told by the Information

Commissioner it's a croc of rubbish? I'm committed to openness

and transparency. No you are not, if you were committed to that you

would publish the names? I have been advised legally of the

difficulties in publishing the names and putting people's personal

information out there. Legal advice is never binding, it is up to you

to make a decision to accept it or not? It is and on the advice we

have published the facts. As people have recorded today all the facts

are in the public domain, with the exception of people's names. I have

acted on the legal advice and tomorrow we will review it. Despite

the fact you have been told by the one man in the country who is in

the position to know exactly what the law says, and has said your

legal advice is wrong, if they come back tomorrow and say the same

thing, you will act the same? will take different legal advice,

not the same people who advised me. We will take alternative legal

advice to make sure we can act in openness and transparency. We want

to put it right. I have an important job and people need trust

and confidence in what we do. My job is to restore that trust and

confidence in CQC. Can you tell me as the new broom who came in, what

went wrong there? I think the story that is revealed in the report is

one of a dysfuntional relationship between the board and the senior

leadership. I think that is what led to this absence of openness and

transparency. And we're determined to put this right. We published a

new strategy. We have replaced the board, we are bringing in a new

executive team. It was rotten, wasn't it? There were changes we

needed to make. What was happening was not acceptable, the model as

the Secretary of State stated was not the right model and we are

making changes to that and we have begun those changes, we are

determined to see them through. seem to suggest it is some sort of

managerial malfunction. There was something deeply rotten in the

organisation, wasn't there? culture that is demonstrated by

this report is not the culture I want to see in any organisation I'm

responsible for. Why can't you call a spade a spade. You don't, what

don't you want to see? I want to see an organisation. What don't you

want to see that you found there? don't want to see people not

declaring reports in the public domain. I want us to be open and

transparent and account for what we do with people trusting our

judgments. Let's broaden this out a bit if we may, do stay with us. Are

you surs priced by what has been revealed? I'm not one bit surprised.

I mean what has been revealed is totally shocking. But in a way I'm

pleased that the lid has final ly kufpl -- finally come off the

rotten edifice that was CQC. have used the word "rotten",

disputed a moment or two ago. Why is it rotten? When CQC was set up

originally I'm sure it was in the business of suppressing anything

that would ever look like another Mid- Staffs. I would like to point

out I think the CQC was dancing to the tune from the Department of

Health and the top of the NHS. are we talking about? We are

talking about 2009. Jamie Reed, that was when your party was in

Government. It is explicit the link there. It has been made by other

people, that this was a corrupt relationship between your

Department of Health and the Care Quality Commission? This is an

allegation that has been made time and time again. Let's not forget

the context. Maybe there is a reason for it. Let's not forget the

context of today's report. When the order to cover up was made within

the CQC that was after Francis, it was during Francis inquiry, the

three-year Francis inquiry that looked at the allegations about the

cosy relationships implied found no evidence, in the same way that the

Davies Report has found no evidence at all to suggest the kind of

relationship between the centre and the CQC was in place. Just because

there is no evidence found and published, as we have already seen

today, doesn't necessarily mean it didn't exist? It this has been

investigated time and time again. As I repeat, the allegations aren't

new. Robert Francis looked at this over a three-year period, he looked

for the evidence. Extensive evidence was given. It was perhaps

the most broad-ranging investigation of its type this

country has ever seen. Those allegations didn't stack up.

have come in as a new broom, do you see any evidence that there was

something wrong with the relationship between the Department

of Health under Labour and your organisation? I don't think that's

the case in our report, Jeremy. Clearly there was a policy.

asking you about what you found? Clearly there was a policy to move

towards foundation trust, that is a policy of the last Government and

this Government. That is what has been happening. I think this

independent report that we commissioned has not found any

evidence of interference in any way. If they found it they would have

mentioned it. If it wasn't corruption what was the problem?

There was clearly a problem with the performance of the CQC. They

were just incompetent? Let's have a look at the Government's response

to this report. There may be that we had the wrong people in the

wrongs positions who couldn't do the job asked of them. There was

clearly issues with the trust and the trust management as well.

us how these inspections were often carried out, you say you are not

surprised? I'm not surprised. I just would like to add that maybe

Francis's conclusions might have been a bit different if, in a way,

everyone had given an entirely accurate account of things. For

example witness after witness at the top of the CQC stood up and

said their methodology was robust and registration was done

rigorously. We now know that simply wasn't true. So I'm sorry, I don't

think one can take the fact that Francis said he didn't find, for

example, evidence of bullying by David Nicholson. I would suggest he

disregarded some of the evidence he had and he didn't look hard enough.

But in my view, of course CQC came in, it completely destroyed the

specialist teams, set about this ridiculous generic model of sending

anybody into hospital regardless of their background. You know and then

it is surprised when things don't show up. Even today this report,

partly says that the Trust should have given CQC the earlier

specialist report that had been done, that had criticised maternity.

I think any team that was worth its salt would have found that report

for themselves. Hang on a second, this idea that someone, can be

inspecting a dental practice one moment, a slimming clinic the next,

some apparatus in a hospital the next, this is ridiculous, isn't it?

I agree with you Jeremy, that is why I'm changing it. I have said

this from day one, we will move from a generic model to specialist

model. Professor Sir Mike Richards will be the first inspector of

hospitals. A respected clinician and we will change the model we

have in place. Who told you that was supposed to be done like that?

Nobody told me. What I have said is we are changing the model of

inspection. I inherited an organisation that had a generic

model of inspection and we are going to change it. Who created

that model? The previous organisation, the previous board of

CQC will have to accept responsibility and the executive

team for the creation of the model. As will the Labour Government?

model of inspection is being used today. There is a review going on

into 14 Hospital Trusts, one of which is my own Hospital Trust,

north Cumbria University Hospital Trust and this generic model is

still being used. You started it? It is made clear by David that the

CQC, as the independent regulator. Let's not forget before 1996 there

was no hospital regulation whatsoever, they developed this

model. One final point, does Labour want the names published tomorrow?

We made this clear today in the House of Commons we do want the

names published. We want to know who knew what about this in the

Department of Health. We want to know about the details of the

conversations between the CQC whistleblower and the former

Secretary of State. We want to know all the details of this. We don't

believe now is the time to draw the line under this, there is a lot

more that needs to be answered. Thank you very much all of you.

In a moment, can you really fight a war if human rights legislation is

applied on the battlefield? Unlike Gordon Brown, who wouldn't be seen

dead in them, George Osborne has been wearing a bowtie and dinner

jacket since his nanny dropped him off at nursery school. He put them

on again tonight to tell the plutocrats of the City of London

what he will do with Lloyds Bank, which Gordon Brown spent millions

of our money buying a large chunk of. -- billions of our money buying

a chunk of. Lloyd's will be sold, it will be privatised, by an

institutional placing, so big pension funds get the first grab at

buying some of the shares. Eventually down the line, when

that's worked, if it has worked, we might have a "tell Sid" moment,

where they go to ordinary people and allow them to buy Lloyd's. With

RBS there has been vigorous debate behind the scenes and between

policy makers, RBS, we have an 81% stake in that, it is massive. That

debate has staid the Chancellor's hand from any sign of a politically

rushed attempt to get rid of it before the election. I don't want a

quick sale of our RBS shares. I want the right sale, the right sale

for the British people. I will only sell our stake in RBS when we feel

the bank is fully able to support our economy and we get good value

for you the taxpayer. In our judgment, when it comes to RBS that

moment is some way off. So instead of a rapid sale they will have a

rapid review of a proposal to split RBS into a called good bank/bad

bank, like with New York. You take the -- Northern Rock. You take the

good debts of RBS, which they have signalled is Ulster Bank and some

property loans and you sink it into the bank of Britain and the rest of

it can be sold off easily. It will be announced tomorrow that RBS is

in line of another �12 billion for capital. All the British banks have

to raise �25 billion extra. RBS has the biggest problem. You can't sell

a bank rapidly when it is already impaired and needs to raise capital.

So they are not. Did he have anything to say about MPs' calls

for bankers to be sent to jail? reported on this a bit tonight.

Overnight the Parliamentary Commission has come forward with

the proposal to make new law, so that specific people, in specific

banks are sent to jail if they fail on specific duties. In a way this

significant flals the end of struck -- signifys the end of structural

banks remedies. Some people in the City have welcomed it. And the

Chancellor certainly did today. have already supported the

recommendations on new criminal sanctions and cancelling bonuses

where banks are bailed out. And let me be clear, where legislation is

needed the Banking Bill, currently before parliament, will be amended

to ensure the recommendations can be quickly enacted. The other thing

they have done is to tell the Office of Fair Trading to bring

forward a review. They will look at the impact on the high street and

on lending to small businesses of breaking up Lloyd's, breaking up

RBS, bringing new entrants. They will do a bit of rapid structural

reform of high street lending. They realise there is not enough lending

to banks. The other bit of news is this was the swansong of Mervyn

King, the Governor of the Bank of England, he has an elevated to the

peerage, you will be pleased to know. He promised to do "ruthless

truth-telling". Maybe now for the first time ever he might sit in the

studio and you can interview him now. I look forward to it. I'm

sorry you weren't there I would have liked to have seen that.

George Osborne has been running the economy for the past three years,

he's not exactly the most popular politician in the country. It's

quite clear his strategy for sort ought the economy hasn't worked or

yet at least. But he has made huge changes, not least to the state

itself, which all the other parties in politics are having to adjust to.

Is it possible that his impact may be far greater than most of us

recognise? Time was when the Chancellor,

George Osborne, was accused of cutting the British state to

ribbons. But with the Labour Party's recent pledge to match the

Chancellor's spending plans, the path cut by George Osborne's

scissors looks to become permanent. Possibly unintentionally, the

Government may have cut a new shape for the British state. The numbers

you are going to get next week are the first pitch by the governing

parties ahead of the next general election. And actually, really, it

is probably the first time ever that governing parties have gone

into an election telling the public they will be cutting their public

services and exactly where. He's looking to save something like an

additional �10 billion in public service spending for the year

2015/16, the year directly after the next election. That's �10

billion on top of what have been five years of the steepest spending

cuts we have ever seen. But this time it is getting quite vicious.

Newsnight understands that in order for the Treasury to cajole various

departments across Whitehall into settling their cuts, they have what

has become known as, across the Government, a Treasury blacklist.

So this is all sorts of embarrassing stories that they will

allow to be released as and when they want to force departments to

settle. So you have already heard about the MoD having more horses

than soldiers, but did you know that Vince Cable's department is

supposed to support a bursary for the performing arts and that Philip

Hammond owns quite a few goats! This is the problem, the Government

has ring-fenced department central to the political message.

International development and health at the top here. This has

meant deep cuts elsewhere. Look further down this chart. If these

ring-fences are kept in place then according to analysis by the

Resolution Foundation, Britain's Foreign Office is slashed by 65%

and the Home Office nearly 50% smaller.

For the Foreign Office it might have seen its budget cut by as much

as a half, where as somewhere like the Department for International

Development could have seen its budget go up by a quarter. The

department for health simply is a ring-fenced budget. It looks like

it is going to grow to become as much as a third of public spending.

There are many people across Whitehall who agree that ring-

fencing some departments is very damaging for the other ones.

Including, apparently, the Chancellor George Osborne. He is

said to be well aware of the problems that are beginning to be

caused. There are big ring-fences in public spending. The biggest is

the National Health Service, effectively pension spendinging is

also ring-fenced. Put those two together and you have a very large

chunk, a very large chunk of public spending not being cut back. That

means just arithmetically if you want to save two or three per cent

across the piece, if you are protecting a third or total, you

need to take 4-6% from everything else. So a refashioned state, but

is this job of cutting back the state nearly done? There was an

expectation back in 2010/11 when the coalition came in that this was

going to be a one-parliament issue, that we would get the spending

fixed by the time of the next election the economy would be back

on track and we would be discussing different things. It is still

around. To meet George Osborne's deficit target, as well as 2015's

�11 billion of cut, there will be �13 billion in each subsequent year.

The time may have come for something completely different.

Every year a Government spends about �700 billion on the state.

Half of that is this expenditure. It is departmental and it is so far

very heavy cut by this Government. What about this, it is more than

half and actually is rising. It is called AME, but you could describe

it as discretionary spending. It has many pots within it, but a

large part of it is welfare payments. The kind of payments that

go up when people have a demand for them. This pot so far hasn't been

capped. But now all three parties agree that if you want to stop huge

damage to departments, you have to look here. There is a clear trade

off take more and more money out of Government departments and either

increasing taxes or cutting various benefits. Now, clearly any

Government coming in will use a combination of measures, but to

give you an illustration of the sorts of issues we are talking

about here. In order to maintain the current rates of cuts in

departmental spending, not doing any more than that, just

maintaining the current pace will take about �10 billion of further

welfare savings or tax rises in 2016/17 and 17/18. That is a 10%

cut in the tax credit budget. We are looking at �9 billion being

taken out of tax credits by 2018, that is a further hit that tax

credits can't probably stand. If you think about tax it is 1%

increase in the standard rate of VAT, increasing to 21% in 2016,

would raise �11 billion over two years. In the next parliament,

politicians will reach for these different kinds of levers. Because

try as this current Government might, while they may have reshaped

public spending, by just cutting departments they have struggled to

bring down its cost. But none the less, in making the Labour Party

agree to welfare cuts, this Chancellor has changed the shape of

Britain's political debate. And in just a few years he's also been

changing the shape of the state. That was Allegra st. Tratton

reporting there. We are joined by the previous

adviser for Ed Miliband and now work for a charity focusing on

services for children. The former director of the Centre for Policy

Studies. And Danny Finkelstein is executive editor at the Times. You

can start, how significant do you think is this achievement in

changing the pattern of public spending? I think we have seen a

big change in the debate on public spending, just in the last two week,

with Ed Balls saying, in a rather muted way, that he's going to try

to match or start from George Osborne's position and then Ed

Miliband coming out and saying that on welfare. It is an

acknowledgement there is no going back, that it is impossible for any

in coming Government to start spending a lot more money. I think

there has been a big shift in the responsibilities of the state and

in the cost to the date already. We will see more of that. It is a huge

change isn't it, when you look at what your party, what the Labour

Party used to talk about. Only three or four years ago. Only

actually about a year ago on the question of child benefit, for

example. This is an amazing change? Danny's right. The big issue, there

is no debate here around the size of the state and where it needs to

get to and the fact it needs to be smaller. I think all the parties

are agreed on that. I think where the Labour Party would find

difference with George Osborne though is in the way he's making

these cuts. I think he's making a couple of biggerors. The first is

really around equity. And he's doing things that are politically

savvy around welfare. But aren't necessarily fair. So he's

protecting pensioner benefits, some of which go to really affluent

pensioners and it is really working families that are taking the brunt

of the cuts. Four out of every five pounds of welfare cuts are

happening to families in work that's very tough. The second area

where I think he's making big mistake, is he's making cuts that

save money in the short-term but will store up problems for the

state in the long-term. By that I mean things like the Future Jobs

Fund, spending on job guarantees for unemployed young people. We

know that youth unemployment carries huge cuts. Cuts to things

like early years centres and children's centres. That stores up

costs for the state. Cuts to social care that puts pressure on the NHS.

You are shaking your head, it doesn't feel like that to you?

premise of this conversation is we have seen a radical reshaping of

the state, we just haven't. There has been a reshaping of public

spending clearly? It is moved in the sense that it is moved around.

Departmental spending. OK, but this is no reshaping of the state.

George Osborne came to power after a decade in which Gordon Brown had

allowed public spending to explode. Health spending had nearly doubled

in ten years. Clearly and one out of every four pounds was debt was

being borrowed in order to fund that. It is interesting, looking

back, actually, there is a statement that George Osborne

issued as the criteria for his first Spending Review in 2010,

after the election. And the first question was in effect should the

state be funding this activity at all? He was attempting at that

point and in certain low the rhetoric there to reverse this

discussion -- certainly in the rhetoric to say should Government

be doing that? We haven't seen departments closed or any big

changes since then. We see the debt continuing to rise. Go on. You have

to have political consent, but there have been very big changes,

tuition fees is a very big change. Moving something to basically

private payment. Privatisation of prisons. The NHS reforms. It is

interesting though, because tuition fees, it is a good example, some

experts are saying because the Government's made such optimistic

assumptions about its new policy, it could end up costing a lot more

than the Government has predicted. I want to bring in a visual aid

here, if we may. Let's have a look at this, a graph shortly will

appear on the wall here. There it is, changing state spending. It is

almost impossible to read in rather brilliant fashion. But actually I

think viewers at home can see it. But the green on the left of it,

that's NHS spending. Under this current configuration, look it goes

up from about a quarter to over, nearly a third, almost exactly a

third, now that's what happens, isn't it, when you have some areas

that are ring-fenced and other areas that aren't? This was

politically mandated. The British people wanted that. They wanted to

protect schools, they wanted to protect...What Do you mean they

wanted to? I don't think they would have elected the Conservative Party

even as a minority component in the Government without that promise.

But it stall everything else? shifts expenditure into a service

that lots of people value hugely. It means you have to do things like

cap welfare, frankly. It is an area where spending is inevitably going

to go on rising,, the structural reforms we have seen have not cut

cost, they haven't actually looked at what the health service is doing.

And whether it needs to be doing what it is doing. It is simply

building. The problem there is that when you have an area like that for

spending it will go on and on and getting bigger. It is unsustainable

isn't it? I completely think it is. I believe that this next round of

spending in 2017, is going to require a big look at functions.

But you have to take the public with you each step of the way. And

there have already been big changes in functions. Capping welfare, a

battle that has been won, capping people's welfare, benefit bills,

the reform for housing benefit, the move to universal benefits. You

can't do everything in one period in Government. You have to take

people with you as you do it. Where I think we are nearly at the limit

of public acceptance of this, but public acceptance has been retained.

One other thing, one other effect, public spending hasn't really

reduceed very much. But what has happened, let's look at this chart

here. What it shows is the Green Line is people who average spending

per non-pensioner, and the pink line is pensioners. It is obvious

who is doing well, the people receiving from the state are

getting wealthier and wealthier, and the people paying in are

getting poorer and poorer? I think that is right. I think it raises a

real issue which is pensioner benefits, some going to affluent

pensioners is being protected. are a tiny minority. This is a

trivial amount of money involved here. There are lots of pensioners

who earn in excess, who have earnings in excess of the medium

wage. That is something that I think Labour has some space to talk

about now, now that the Labour Party has said. How many?Well they

have said they would look at cutting Winter Fuel Payment for the

top 5% of pensioner. I think they could go bigger with that and they

could save more money on that. can't go on like this h people

working are paying for people not working? The Government is

proposing a universal pension, for all its philosophical merits and it

will guarantee to benefit those who save and end means testing for

pensions, it will be extremely expensive to fund. With rising

numbers of pensioners and only slight change to pensionable age

this is an explosion of state spending. For people who have

become pensioners there is political scope to make changes. If

you take money away from pensioners good luck to you. It is very easy

to propose policies that sound completely correct and get no

political consent for them. The trick here is to bring public

spending down whilst keeping the public at least broadly on side.

And you need, with pensions, you are going to need to do this as

people become pensioners. The problem is pensioners vote?

Absolutely. Try to take money away from current he can sitsing tension

pensioners, I can see the economic case for it, you can summon up the

courage and do t but really you have to be politically sensible.

Sooner or later politicians have to get off their knees and create a

state for somebody other than those who depend on them? Margaret

Thatcher when she fought against the trade unions, she did to win

against them not just to fight them. It is to get public spending down

and keep the public on side. Not merely to say this is how you slash

it. We are not getting public spending down. George Osborne is

very worried about keeping the public on side, clearly, and

building up to the next election, but he clearly has not tackled the

debt problem or the size of the state. He hasn't reconfigured the

argument as a radical Government. We have to put the NHS figures in

context as well. It is a tight settlement for the NHS. The best

minds in the NHS should be focused on how you reconfigure, as Jill

said. We have a massive structural reform going on that is distracting

managers away from reconfiguring what they do and saving money. That

is a big problem when it comes to the NHS. The Defence Secretary is

worried, the Supreme Court ruled today that the families of soldiers

killed in Iraq are free to sue the Government for failing to protect

them as well as they might have. Inevitably it invoked European

human rights legislation and whether it covered them when they

were sent to fight abroad. Being a soldier is, afterall, a slightly

dangerous job. That is sort of the point. The biggest protection of

all would be never to put them in harm's way anywhere. The soldiers

who fought at D-Day would never have imagined it. What precisely

constitutes caring for your warriors. To send a man to fight

without a weapon is one thing. Is it even possible that some missions

might be considered so hazardous they render the Government, the

taxpayer, liable. The claims relate to the deaths of two British

soldiers killed by IODs, while travelling in the heavily-

criticised, light low- armoured Snatch Land Rover vehicles, and the

other, who died in a friend low- fire incident travelling in a

Challenger Tank. The Supreme Court ruled that the soldiers were within

the UK jurisdiction for the purposes of the European Convention

on Human Rights. And the Ministry of Defence's argument that they

should be covered by called combat immunity was also rejected.

Previously human rights protection only applied to military bases and

not to the battlefield. concerns are about the wider

implications that this will have for the safety and efficiency of

our forces in combat in the future. It places some really big questions

about how we are going to be able to engage in operations in the

future. So will these obligations placed on Government really

restrict the UK's ability to fight wars? With us now is our guests.

Anthony, can you think of a single military campaign in his tro that

would not potentially have fall -- in history that would not have

potentially fallen foul of this ruling? Warfare is completely

unpredictable. Even if you take the German army in the Second World War,

regarded as one of the best equipped. They hadn't prepared for

the Russian winter. Every single army always gets it wrong. That is

one of the truths about warfare. This is lunacy? Isn't it? You have

to look at what the court decided. That is the first point really

isn't it. The court has said that soldiers are subject to UK

jurisdiction when they are operating abroad. Which is what in

fact is the case in relation to all other law, both civil law and

criminal law. So the only question was is the Human Rights Act some

how different from other law? And the court has held, no. The

soldiers are subject to UK jurisdiction because they are

within the state's authority and control. Anyone under UK

jurisdiction. There is a lot of logic to that isn't there?

course there is. But at the same time how do you impose zero risk

civilian value on a battlefield or military environment. I'm not sure

that is what they are saying, where there has to be zero risk? They are

not necessarily saying there is zero risk, but the question is how

far do you take the minimiseation of risk in this particular process.

There is the equipment side where I would certainly agree that the

Snatch Land Rovers were a scandal waiting to happen, and it did

happen. But then there are other aspects to it, for example when you

come to the friendly fire incident. Does that mean that we should have

identification, friend or foe technology on every single vehicle

in the British Army. Could we ever afford it. The court has absolutely

not said it is a zero risk situation. The court has

specifically said that no unreasonable or disproportionate

burdens will be placed on the military in any way that would put

the defence of the country at risk. With the greatest respect have you

ever served in the military? Have any of these judges served in the

military? Who are we to judge? Can you imagine what it is like out in

combat trying to make a decision about how you perform a particular

operation, while second-guessing what liability may be at play in

the courts comfortably back in England? Those decisions have been

specifically ruled out of judicial scrutiny. So in relation to those

decisions the court has said decisions on the battlefield are

not matters to be considered by the courts. Who is potentially bound by

this ruling should it go your way? What do you mean bound? Is this, as

Anthony last said, many people feel the preparation for the war in Iraq

was scandalously mismanaged and the troops were not given all the

equipment that they needed. So it is the people who make that

decision is it? The defendant, if you are asking me who the defendant

would be, it would be the Government, the MoD, the point is

soldiers have, the court has decided that when something goes

seriously wrong, soldiers should not be shut out from the courts.

They should be able to litigate. But the point is, has something

seriously gone wrong? At that point one has to ask whether reasonable

steps were taken to protect soldiers' lives. That is the

circumstances. You can see why Philip Hammond is twitchy about it?

You do indeed. He's right talking about the wider implications. One

has to remember that the ethos of the army and attitude is that

although the Supreme Court may have ruled out for the moment a question

of battlefield decision, I'm afraid in this field, on the whole lawyers

tend to go partly for making their names and careers want to push the

boundaries. There is always the possibility, therefore, we will see

this challenged in the future. What will that mean? We have seen the

way, for example, that the police on one occasion actually called

back their men and ordered them not to intervene, when, people were

being held down by a gunman and were under severe threat. Are we

going to see at some stage in the future the SAS have to carry out a

health and safety check before they start trying to release hostages?

The implications are pretty worrying. Can you reassure him

about that? I can certainly do that. Aum the court has said here is that

the state is -- all the court has said here that the state is under

an obligation it take reasonable steps to protect their soldiers. As

a matter of common law, since 1987, when parliament lifted the immunity

for soldiers for suing the MoD, parliament has said that the MoD

has a duty that can be litigated. A duty of care to its soldiers and

soldiers are entitled to sue the MoD. Now parliament decided that in

1987, and one has to be slightly realistic about this. What flood of

litigation has there been since 1987? There has been a duty of care

since then? There has certainly been a number of case, not a flood

of litigation, that I would accept. All right, thank you very much

indeed. Saying you can't judge a book by

its cover, tell that to a publisher, Penguin was announced the winner of

the design award. The brief was to design a cover for a book that is

70 years old. Here is the ones that It was about 11.00 in the morning,

the sun not shining and the look of hard rain on the foot hills. I was

wearing my powder blue suit with a dark-blue shirt, tie and display