02/10/2013 Newsnight

We are saying that in the circumstances, with the prospect of

the economic recovery we are seeing with jobs being created, in a time

when the economy is relatively flat, but nonetheless, 1.3 or 1.4 million

jobs are being created in the private sector, we ought to be

saying it is all right not to provide the opportunity and the

necessary action... How much is it going to cost? It depends on the

months between the earning and e-learning. A rough estimate? I will

not give you a rough estimate. Do you know? This is the exact thing

you do. We do not know the exact balance between those who will get

jobs and move from people on benefit who owners who pay taxes, which is a

net gain. We do not know how many of these will need additional training

opportunities. That is the work that now has to be done. What we are

doing is setting out a direction... Does this apply to single parents?

All of the details will be worked out. Work is already under way and

this has to be done properly. You do not know whether it will apply to

single parents? We are not going to be bounced into announcing every

single detail... Be Prime Minister... He set out a direction.

If you are 16-year-olds living with abusive parents or alcoholic parents

or whatever it is, in those circumstances, even if you were not

in education, employment or training, you would have your

benefits cut, correct? We will have to... So this is another detail you

benefits cut, correct? We will have have not fought through? We are

saying when people do not have a family home they can properly live

in, there will need to be provision made for them. Do you think you

should have worked out some of these details before the Prime Minister

announced the policy? That is absurd. That is where so many

projects go wrong and have gone wrong in the past, that you actually

try to announce all of the detail at the outset. So here is the

direction, he is the strategic approach, which I think most people

watching this will say it is right to provide this sort of support to

young people, and then we will work through in great detail and

announced as that detail emerges. That is the right way to do this.

Can I ask you about the Daily Mail and Ed Miliband? Use it on this

subcommittee of the Privy Council that will be considering the

question of press regulation. Has this spat made it easier or more

difficult for you to reach a conclusion? I do not know whether it

has made any difference to how you work through what is a really

complicated issue, and there lots of difficulties around it, which we

will resolve into course. I would just say, though, that as someone

who like Ed Miliband, I had a father who was in the public eye, and I

think it is quite unattractive to seek to ascribe to the children what

the father has stood for. I think that is very unattractive and

especially when that person is dead and cannot reply for themselves. But

actually, I think it probably will have done the Daily Mail some

damage, because it does look very unattractive and I think a lot of

people will be pretty revolted by that approach. You do not think it

should be somehow stopped? I do not think everything that is

unattractive should be made illegal, no. That is almost it for the

conference season. Let's not forget the Scottish Nationalists party and

Plaid Cymru. So how are the speeches and policy changes in the political

weather? We are joined by our guests for their verdict on the

conferences. David Cameron 's speech today, what did you think? I thought

it was an attempt by David Cameron Tobais himself firmly in his party.

He has had trouble over much of the Parliament since the formation of

the coalition, the leakage of supporters to UKIP, and I think the

message was very Thatcherite in many respects. It was back to the 1980s

in terms of the emphasis on wealth creation and job creation. There was

also a moral assault on Labour, attacking Labour for its failure to

also a moral assault on Labour, bring debts under control, that

youth and implement rose steadily under Labour, and so it was this

combination of a traditional pouring message on jobs and prosperity...

Most elections, we, of course, want something new every time to would in

our newspapers and on your programmes, but most people out

there want the focus on the bread-and-butter issues like deficit

reduction and job creation. That is where the prime minister is. Why are

you frowning? It was spectacular that he spoke for 49 minutes without

saying anything whatsoever. It was predictable stuff. It was the

speech... It was not particularly bad. It had some terrible jokes. It

had very few memorable phrases. I thought the improbability of history

was very good. The jokes were appalling. The one about the mini

factory was very ineffective and it did not tell us anything new.

Cameron made the ludicrous and unforgivable decision as a graduate

to put his education to use by becoming a PR and this seemed to me

the speech of a very effective PR rather than APM. What you think? It

was defiantly dull and I think that was probably deliberate. It was as a

piece of the whole conference. The Tories wanted to be seen as the

grown-ups and they might not even but you can trust them with the

money. That seems to be... Has it been a dull conference season? It

has been really dull. If you look at the beginning of the party

conference season, particularly before the Syria vote, Ed Miliband

had had a terrible summer. Actually he had a very good party conference.

He's the one who has made the weather. He has. The cost of

living, not cuts. There is a lot of focus on the cuts. It is the price

of the electricity and gas bill etc, that is what worries people. What Ed

Miliband poses as the solution to energy prices is crazy and will

unravel that a lot of people have heard him talk about issues they

care about. Ed Miliband is trying to frame the question is, this is about

the cost of living. Do you feel better off than you did several

years ago? The Tories are trying to say, the job is not finished yet. So

Ed Miliband was quite effective in changing the question from has

Ed Miliband was quite effective in planned a plan B worked to argue

feeling better? And most people would still say no. What about the

proposal today that Cameron made about not giving benefits to young

people not in education or training. How will that do with the public? I

think his speech was managerial because he knows he cannot do the

common touch. This new policy is really difficult for him because

people will immediately go back to the, it is all right for you. The

sort of bracing and self starting and again I'm a as the party message

-- again as the party message, but we do know that that those lives are

chaotic and difficult and not at all like those of the Camerons. They

need a lot of support. We have had a lot of apprentices at the Evening

Standard newspaper and they need back-up. If you just give them the

money they will not eat. That is true but it is also true that if we

do not really sent a message to society, to young people, that the

most important way to ever get out of poverty is to work... They need

help. Absolutely. It is correct that the detail is not worked out but he

was correct to say that as a principle this is something that

will be quite popular. Of course it will be popular. The public really

want to people -- people to go hard at welfare. No thinking has gone

into this whatsoever. I agree with you completely, Tim, you have to

make work attractive. The way to do you completely, Tim, you have to

that is first to create the jobs, which the Government has had some

success doing, 1.4 million jobs in the private sector, and there other

ways to make jobs attractive. You could create a living wage which

would not necessarily cost the governor anything, and you can take

people out of... Job-seeker's allowance for the under 25 stock

market it pleases the public, you really can see that? Of course. Does

any of you have an idea of anything Nick Clegg has said this autumn? He

has said trust me, not beans. And he has said he wants to lead Ott I

think he had a decent conference. He cemented his position as leader.

That is not a small thing. I would have thought that Nick Clegg's

leadership would have been in more trouble than it is now. He killed

off Vince in that conference. He has a simple message for the next

election. If you vote Liberal Democrat it will humanise the

Conservatives and make the Labour Party a bit more responsible. They

are well dug into the seats they hold, but it is still likely we can

have a hung Parliament a game next time and Nick Clegg will hold the

balance of power. And also that you do believe that the coalition will

probably continue to function up to the election. That was another

message from this week. At what point do they all peel off? It did

feel very disciplined, and I think whatever the unseen hand that is

maybe even Boris Johnson, to start behaving like a team player, it is

interesting. You felt that there was no one out of line. And UKIP was

another element that I think if I heard anyone else say, they are fine

as a comedy act but if you vote for them you will get Miliband, they are

just hammering that message and it may be starting to get through. Now,

if you were imagining the most awful parent in the world to have you

might well conclude that having the man who -- the ramp who ran

Auschwitz would be the worst man. man who -- the ramp who ran

Our reporter tracked down his daughter. She is 80 and in the

twilight of her lives feels a responsibility to tell her story.

My great uncle, Hans Alexander, was a German Juhu fled to -- was a

German Jew who fled to England to escape Nazi persecution. At the end

of the Second World War, he captured the man responsible for creating the

most infamous extermination camp and supervising the death of over 1

million Jews and others. While researching my book, great uncle, I

interviewed his daughter. She lives in a small house in Virginia just

outside Washington, DC. The condition of my interview with

Bridget was that we did not disclose her identity, for feel of reprise

all is to the family. I loved it. It was like paradise. There were

prisoners working in the house and begotten, correct? Yes. We did not

know they were prisoners. They were always happy and wanting to play

with us. From the age of seven to 11, Bridget lived with her parents

and four siblings in a villa right next to the Auschwitz camp. Bridget

went on boat rides with her father, had picnics with her mother and

played in the sand, while prisoners in striped Jonathan worked behind.

It was a normal childhood, only a few metres from misery and torment.

But you did not know who they were all what happened in the camp? We

did not know what else was there. My father never talked about things

like this and there was no smoke, there was no smell of something. And

what was he like, your father? He said my liebenkinder, did you

have a nice day? Sometimes he was not very happy, but I mean, he was

nice, but I could see things maybe bothered him also. But because I am

sure he wanted to get away, but if you are in something you are in.

By 1944, the commandant and his team were murdering up to 2,000 people

each hour in the gas Chambers. Trains were arriving frequently,

carrying Jew, gypsies and homosexuals from across Europe.

After being arrested, Hoess was transferred to Nuremberg where the

Americans put him on the witness stand.

You said to he he was the nicest father in the world, nicest man in

the world. Yes. How is it possible he is the nicest man in the world if

he was the commandant of Auschwitz. How is that possible? That is what I

don't know. There was not one flaw on him, one, nothing what was mean,

or not nice. First, I didn't believe it.

I said it couldn't be. Now you believe it. Now do you belief he

was... ? Yes, I believe, but I don't believe he did it himself.

Definitely not. There are, God knows all these people who pushed, you

know, like somebody is above you and says look, you have to do this,

this, this, I don't think it was his idea. I could not believe a man wow

with some warm at home, could, er, do something. I believe bad things

happen there. Terrible things. Not just bad. Terrible things. Over one

million people were murdered. Yes.

But you do believe that he, he created the camp Auschwitz, and he

ran the camp, where so many... He managed it, but I think his

didn't... Start it. He did start with it. He created it.

He created it. Who told him to do this? Himmler Himmler told him to do

it, and he built the cam, and over one million Jews were murdered, and

your father -- in your father's gas Chambers.

Yes. I don't know why things like this

even can happen. If there is a God, why does God let things like this

happen? You don't think the people involved are responsible? Oh, to a

certain extent, definitely. But I think there was nothing

else... To do. Rudolf Hoess was tried in Poland and

in April 1947 hung on a gallows next to the old Auschwitz crematorium

cram. From point forward the Hoess family had to reinvent themselves.

And in the 1970s, Bridget moved with her American husband, to the suburbs

of Washington DC. You have decided not to talk about it with your

husband and your children. Why is that? I don't know. I just didn't

feel to. I just, certain things there are my problem, or my special

secrets, or whatever. Why are you talking to me about this now, after

all these years? Maybe I am getting older, and I think different. Not

different, but I believe it... Such horror -- such horrible things can

be done, from somebody you have no idea. While talking with Bridget, I

realised she is still struggling to reconcile the father she -- father

she knew with the man whose monstrous acts history has recorded.

So there are two sides to your father? Definitely. Couldn't be a

person so gentle and so wonderful, and so family orientated, and he can

do something like this. I just know the good side. I don't know the bad

side. And I think I am glad about it.

So if your father was here now, what you would you say to him? Oh... Why?

So many questions and no answers. Now, abortion has been legally

available in Britain for nearly 50 years. The grounds for allowing the

termination of a pregnancy are in theory strictly controlled, but pro

lifers claim a characteristically British his pop si shrouds the

issue. A single organisation the British pregnancy advisory service

ended 50,000 pregnancy. The Chief Executive believes the law is

unnecessarily restrictive at times, for examlet on the question of

whether officially it should be allowed because the mother doesn't

like the sex of the prospective child. It is wrong agenda. Last year

the Daily Telegraph sent undercover journalist to accompany young women

on a sting operation. They wanted to see if they could persuade doctors

to agree to an abortion, because the mother to be didn't want to unborn

child, a decision based on their gender. In two cases, doctors were

recorded appearing to want to help arrange terminations.

No, no, I don't ask questions. If you want a termination, you want a

termination. The idea anyone might allow an abortion on these glounds

was roundly condemned I was shocked to read local authorities so clinics

may have been behaving in this way. It is what is selecting by gender

for termination of pregnancy is not only morn morally wrong it is

illegal. The 1967 Abortion Act allowed abortion only with the

signature of two doctors on the grounds that continuing the

pregnancy would involve a greater risk to the physical or mental

health of a pregnant woman or her family, than if the baby was born.

Or there was a risk that the child would be disabled.

Can we put down a different reason? I don't want to say. Last month

following an investigation the Crown Prosecution Service said they

wouldn't prosecute because it wouldn't be in the public interest.

Following that decision, the Chief wouldn't be in the public interest.

Executive of the British pregnancy advisory service said it is true

that the sex of the foetus is not a legal ground for abortion, nor is

rape, or incest or being 13-year-old. Yet they are all

reasons why a doctor may believe a woman has met the legal grounds of

abortion. And the Chief Executive of the

British pregnancy advisory service is with us. We are joined by the

former GP and current Conservative MP Sarah wools on the. Under what

circumstances would it be legitimate to terminate a pregnancy on the

gender of the child? Let us just say that the one thing I have never

heard and I have been running the service for ten years now, and I

have never heard of a woman walking into a clinic, and simply saying, I

want to have an abortion because I don't want a girl or I don't want a

boy. Women who come into the clinics have a whole complex set of reasons

why they may want to end the pregnancy. It may very well be, that

the circumstances of the pregnancy are very much part of that. But you

do, defend the right of a woman who have a pregnancy terminated on the

grounds of the gender of the future child? What I think is that the law

at the moment works reasonably well. The law at the moment allows a

doctor to recommend, to make a decision, in good faith, that a

woman can have an abortion if he or she believes that it would be

damaging, wait a second here, that she believes that it would be

it would be damaging to the woman's mental health, for her to continue

the pregnancy, so if a doctor believes that the woman's question

for o request for the abortion is best for her, then the doctor can

for o request for the abortion is make that referral. That to me makes

sense. Even if that is on the grounds of the Jimi Hendrixer of the

child? Because the doctor -- the gender of the child. The doctor

believes she is perhaps so distraught, so strung out, so

completely distressed it is better for her mental health, for the

doctor to refer her for an abortion. That is a doctor's decision. In

those circumstances, a doctor would be hard put to dom any other

conclusion, wouldn't he or she? I I a think a doctor should be very much

against condoning that sort of at attitude that allows to state that a

son is more valuable than a daughter. It could be the other way

round. Indeed. In countries where gender selection is practises, we

see the harmful effect that has, in distorting the Jimi Hendrixle

balance within societies, and again -- the gender balance.

It is very harmful and we must be clear. Why you shaking your head?

Can we be clear about what is going on here? You know, the Department of

Health commissioned after the Telegraph did this scam set up, the

Department of Health commissioned research into whether or not sex

selection abortion was going on, to the point where girls and boys

births were unbalanced. I found that they weren't. They sent the Care

Quality Commission to inspect every single abortion clinic in the

country, and found that there was absolutely no evidence whatsoever.

But you don't have an ethical problem with it. I don't see that

there is a problem in the law, in Britain that needs to be resolved,

there is a problem in the law, in except perhaps there is a problem

with newspaper journalists being set up to entrap doctors, and create a

climate where you know, you have to really wonder how doctors are

expected to operate, when they are genuinely concerned about whether

the person sitting in front of them is trying to set them up to make a

statement, to make political capital. Why do people like you

believe there is any need to change or clarify the law? Well, I think

the point is that the wording of the act is am big use, and I think it

would be a sensible thing now for us to look at that wording and put it

beyond all doubt, that gender selection abortion is illegal, to

make that crystal clear, to doctors who are operating within clinics. I

am in favour of women having a choice about abortion, but I think

that choice does have limits, and anything that condones these

practises should not be allowed and that should be explicit. So what are

we supposed to say? That a doctor can approve an abortion, if he

thinks that the woman's mental health will be damaged, unless there

is a gender element in there? Because that is what you are saying

here. Not at all. What I am saying is we should not be colluding with

an attitude that says that having a girl or indeed, in some

circumstance, having a boy could in any way force someone to become

mentally ill. Don't you think it is a problem to assume that doctors are

colluding in any attitude, when I would imagine that you as a doctor

understands, that when you see a patient, you are really supposed to

be acting in their interests. Of course. That is the primary thing...

If I was seeing a patient who was in a distressed state because they

thought they were under pressure by their family to abort a female

foetus. I would be concerned. I wouldn't be colluding for them to

think it was the right thing to go ahead with it. We are look at it in

the right way round. I think we are looking at it the wrong way round.

We are allowing it to be set by the circumstances in which newspaper

journalists think that abortion is wrong, now, you, I assume... I

assume. It is not about that. How many women... I have consoled very

many women who are making the most difficult decision of their lives.

If you collude with family pressures that say that this should not

continue, because this is an unwanted sex of a baby, that is the

wrong thing to do. How many... To say I am going to aid you to go down

that course. Joub talking to them about the kind of attitudes that are

leading to those pressures and shouldn't be shying I from that. And

I think of course, for you to suggest that somehow this is a

problem with newspapers, not a problem with individuals, who are

not acting within the spirit or indeed the law... How many women...

? I would like to know whether you are colluding with these kinds of

attitudes? I can tell you, in the 60,000 or so abortions we do every

year, my staff tell me that the only people who walk into a clinic, and

ask for an abortion because the foetus is the wrong sex are

journalist, I would like to ask you. Come on... Sarah, how many women

have walked into your surgery, and said they want to end their

pregnancy because they are carrying a baby of the wrong sex? Of course I

accept... None my surgeries I rest my case. Is It doesn't mean you

should rest your case. That is complacent and worrying. OK, we will

cut it there. Thank you both very much. It merged today that there

have been nearly 400 complaints to the Press Complaints Commission

about the Daily Mail's treatment of the Milibands father and son. The

PCC of course is hanging on to its role by its finger nails as the

great and good decide what should be done about the regulation of the

press in Britain. The Mail's story about the man who hated Britain as

they put it, has brought the friction between the political class

and the newspapers to a new heat. Perhaps it was their intention all

along, or perhaps the escalating row over Ed Miliband's Marxist dad gave

the Daily Mail a convenient opportunity to remind its readers of

the Daily Mail a convenient its bitter battle with the

politician, an editorial was clear. If he crushes the freedom of the

press, the Mail's thundered, no doubt his father will be proud of

him from beyond the grave, where he lies 12 yards from the remains of

Karl Marx. This is an early shot in a battle

over press regulation, which looks set to flare up again next week. A

snake trying to swallow a pig. It has taken a while nor the body

snake trying to swallow a pig. It politic to digest the four volume

heft of the Leveson report and despite evidence of straining,

nothing has emerged from the other end. This is a very complex problem,

in fact, it might be impossible. OK, so here is Parliament and here

is the press. Now, nobody, including Lord Leveson thought it was a good

idea for the politicians to directly regulate the press. Scrub that what,

what was suggested instead the newspapers set up their own board

diand the Parliament would pass a law recognising that body.

Membership of the recognised body would attract newspapers to sign up

because it would protect them from being sued for example.

But there are a couple of problem, the Prime Minister didn't want

Parliament passing a law. He said it was crossing a rubicon. Labour and

the Liberal Democrats wanted a law, just as Leveson himself recommended.

the Liberal Democrats wanted a law, So how do you have a law that is not

law? A law that is not a law. I know, a Royal Charter.

And thus with great fanfare the parties agreed they would use this

medieval instrument to create a recognition pod that would approve a

self regulation body. Royal cha ters are set up be I the Privy Council.

The intention was they would approve it in May. It is now October and

still nothing. So what has gone wrong? Well, some of the newspapers

didn't like the all party version of the Royal Charter, so they came up

with their own, and petitions the Privy Council to accept theirs

instead. It's a convention that the privacy council isn't brought into

such matter, so a council was set up to decide whether to recommend it.

If they decided not the other version would go forward

automatically. Here is what the Prime Minister said about it last

month. We have to follow the correct

processes, listen to legal advice and they have said we have to

consider the press drafted charter first, so that is under way at the

moment, obviously, I am not sitting on that committee, so I have to be

careful what I say but I have said in the House of Commons, I think the

careful what I say but I have said press charter has sop things to

recommend it but it is deficient in key respect, and I think that is a

problem. In case you are not getting the Prime Minister's carefully

worded hint, here he is being clearer. Look, to be clear, I remain

committed to the cross-party charter. Next week, the Privy

Council meets. If it were to approve the press version, that would mean

re-opening the all party negotiations which in any case

Labour say is a no-no. The Prime Minister is worried the press won't

sign up, and it could get really really messy. Perhaps Lord Leveson

himself who wrote this report can help us out. He is due to give

evidence to MPs next Thursday, the day after the Privy Council meets.

Ideas please. The simpler the better.

There we are. Clear as mud. Steve Hewlett is here. Apart from

correcting him on the question of will he is Lord Leveson or Lord

Justice Leveson, can you explain? OK. If you go back to the beginning

of this, Leveson said there should be a new self re-regulatory body

able to fine up to £1 million, would be a new self re-regulatory body

be more independent and so on. If you like that was the big idea. He

said he observed I should say, that whenever there had been inquiries

into the press before, and proposals has emerged for what to do about it,

at some point after this had been agreed the press would backslide,

wouldn't do it at all or stop doing it so he said a key part of his

proposal was that there be new self-regulate tribody or more than

one, there would be a recognition body that would give the regulator

an occasional once over, an MoT, a kite mark to give the public

confidence that the press was still doing what it was that everybody

agreed they should. This is what is at issue. The Royal Charter is about

establishing the recognition body. And the recognition body is a guard

dog for the guard dog. Correct. It gives a periodic MoT. It is the

linchpin of the Leveson system. He said every time we have been here

before, sooner or later, in many cases sooner, the press have said

what they needed to say to get out of the room and then back slid, so

this is the key to stopping that from happening. How close is that to

resolution? Well, as the piece pointed out, because of the way the

privacy council works they have decided to do it through a royal

chart e there were two. The cross-party one and the press one.

They have to dispense with one of them before the other can go

through, because they say if there is more than one charter for the

same issue Knight Kerr go through because it invites the Queen, in

whose name this is enacted to get involved. So my understanding is

that the concern sis is the press charter will be rejected. It hasn't

been rejected yet, I believe papers were sent out today, to a

sub-committee of the Privy Council, they are meeting on Monday, they are

petrified or highly sensitive, if they are not very careful, you saw a

bit of it in what David Cameron said there, that the press will seek some

kind of process review, judicial review or otherwise and stuff up the

process inducing further delay. If they do it properly the expectation

is, the press version will be rejected, which leafs just the

cross-party version. The next thing that happens of course is if that

gets implemented, in its current form, there is every chance that the

press, who are meanwhile setting up a self regulator called IPSO, they

may not seek recognition. If that were to happen... Try and keep up

viewers! You have a real problem, because the backstop in the Leveson

system would cease to function. Very important. Now the influence of

the Mail quickly on this? David Cameron, part of that process was

asking the other party leader, Nick Clegg and Miliband, to consider

negotiating further, to see if there was a position, a consensual

position that could be reached to avoid the impasse that will occur,

if the recognition body is up but the regulator chooses not the seek

recognition. Let us see if we can find a charter about which even can

agree. If Miliband was at any point tempted and there is no indication

he was, if he was ever top story the suggestion it might be something to

negotiate on after the events of this week I would say it was a

guaranteed certainty he won't be going there now. Thank you. Well,

that is it for tonight, good night.