27/11/2013 Newsnight

The Prime Minister isn't panicking, oh, no. A matter of a few weeks

before the expected arrival of an unknown number of eastern European

migrants to work, he's introducing restrictions on the welfare benefits

they'll be entitled to. Is David Cameron scapegoating foreigners for

political gain? The Bulgarian ambassador thinks some politicians

and the media are doing so. We pay a fortune for energy and then

let it leak away. Why has the Government plan for a Green Deal

fallen on its face. You can install the energy efficiency measures with

the Green Deal loans and the result is that your bill doesn't go down at

all. The reason being that you're making all these loan repayments.

Kicked to death and set o on fire after false rumours he was a

paedophile. We talk to the sister of the man who died at the hands of mob

justice. We talk to the boss of Coca-Cola

about whether his drink shouldn't be taxed and taxed again to save the

nation from a health crisis. All the political parties

underestimated how strongly public feeling was running on immigration

from Eastern Europe. With the imminent lifting of restrictions on

people wanting to come here from Romain why and Bulgaria -- Romania

and Bulgaria to work it was perhaps inevitable that the Government would

announce ape new policy. -- a new policy. When a European Commissioner

starts using words like "nasty" to describe attitudes here, he may reap

a political diffident. Jim Read reports.

Market day in Northampton, and among the veggies and fresh fruit

different voices from different parts of Europe. My mother just come

to visit me. Latvians shopping for Christmas cards, Bulgarians serving

burgers. Immigration from Central Europe has really changed. Market

towns like this. One in six people in Northampton were born outside the

UK, a figure that's doubled in the last ten years. Polish is now the

second most spoken language in the whole county. Market traders here

like the extra business. Many have real reservations about immigration.

Definitely put pressure on services. Especially the education sector and

hospitals. But, I think, in essence, they do bring something to the

community. It's brought a lot more people to the town. At the same

time, it's also brought a lot more crime to the town. One good thing

about them all is that they do tend to use the market, so it's keeping

the market going. They tend to like shopping on markets. In 2004, Tony

Blair had the option to impose transitional controls, locking

eastern Europeans out of the labour market for seven years. He decided

against it, that, the Prime Minister said today, was a monumental

mistake, now our labour market rules must be tightened. To anyone, not

just Romanians or Bulgarians, to anyone in other European Union

countries, thinking of coming to Britain because it's easier to claim

benefits, Housing Benefit or unemployment benefit, I think it's

important to send a clear message out that is not the case. The new

plans: EU migrants will get no out of work benefits for the first three

months they're in the country. Payments will be stopped after six

months, unless the claimant has a genuine chance of getting a job.

Migrants will not be able to claim Housing Benefit immediately and

those caught begging or sleeping rough will be deported with no

return within a year. On wellingborough Road, a short walk

from the town centre, Polish deaessens and Romanian supermarkets.

David Cameron's plan to tighten welfare rules was met with derision

by the European Commission today. The UK, it says, risks looking like

the nasty man of Europe. Free movement is not negotiable as long

as you are member of the union, as long as you are member of the single

market. I cannot understand on one hand, I don't understand the

political logic, you see, because Great Britain has always and

continues to be a big promoter of enlargement. In an office niche is

Paul -- nearby, is Paul. He came from Latvia in 2001 to start his own

employment agency, bringing workers from Eastern Europe. I talk to many

people, you know and what people say is that this system, benefit system

is very generous. I would say even over generous, you know. I came to

instances when people come from abroad and they don't really work.

The thing is, it's not something what they made up. They just

following example. There are plenty of examples around here. Examples of

what, British workers? Yeah, claiming benefits, you know, I think

the cause is there, not in immigrants coming and claiming

benefits. We shouldn't give them these examples. At the local

Romanian supermarket, these cash ears have a visa to work in this

country, in 35 days, labour market rules will be relaxed, opening up

the jobs market to all 28 million citizens of both Romania and

Bulgaria. A series of polls over the last week, have shown significant

levels of public opposition to that change. But the manager here is

angry at any suggestion more migrants will flock over just to

claim benefits. I can see on the street or in my shop plenty of

English people which are not working. So I can't pretend that all

Romanian are good or all Romanian are the best or something like that.

No. There are people which don't want to work, they're coming here to

steal or claim benefit. But they already came. The debate about the

impact of Romanian and Bulgarian migration is still raging. The Prime

Minister today wouldn't name even a rough number for the amount of

workers he expects to arrive in January. Estimates range from 16,000

right up to 50,000 in the first year. Today's welfare restrictions

really amount to tinkering with the rules. In the longer term, David

Cameron wants more control over immigration policy, maybe even the

ability to block migration, if numbers break a set level. That,

though, will need agreement at EU level and that will be far more

difficult. Well Konstantin Dimitrov is the

Bulgarian ambassador to the UK. Nigel Mills is the Conservative MP

and he moved an amendment to the Government bill requiring controls

from the immigration from the two countries remain in force until

2018. Has David Cameron gone far enough today? The measures he

announced were a welcome step in the right direction. There's been a lot

of concern that our welfare system is easier to access for recently

arrived migrants than other European ones. I don't think he's tackled all

the issues. Not gone far enough? No, not yet. Think the controls will put

anybody Ofcoming from Bulgaria -- anybody coming from Bulgaria to

Britain? Not necessarily, except for the announcement that the access to

the social welfare system will be additionally tightened, something

which Bulgarians are pretty well aware because of our information

campaign. Will have pretty little effect? That won't be of factor

because what I would like to explain is the following thing: Right now,

most of the work permits are for which people from Bulgaria apply are

approved. Those who have come here to work have usually done so, even

though under this restriction regime, so the first of January will

not bring about a change in terms of the accessibility of the labour

market, which has nothing to do with the issue of the access to the

welfare system. Do you have any idea of what numbers we're talking about?

The Government won't give us a number. There are some... Do you

number of eastern European migrants what you're talking about? There are

independent estimates which say somewhere up to 70,000 a year for

the first five years, so an average maybe 50,000 a year for five years,

a quarter of a million. I think when there were no restrictions on Poland

and the other A 8 far more people came than were expected. Do you have

any idea what you're talking about? Well, we only say the following

thing, because we've been pressed all the time about predictions. We

cannot predict. We're not crystal ball gazers, however this year

between 8,000 to 10,000 Bulgarians came to work legally in the UK. We

don't see any prerequisite for a rise in this annual trend next year.

That's what I can say. So, it's all clear as mud, isn't it? You're

talking 250,000 over five years. You're talking a figure of perhaps o

10,000 or something. For next year. This is just trying to extrapolate

the experience of this year until next because as I say, we cannot see

prerequisites for qualitative change for enlargement of the

attractiveness of your country. Those numbers aren't that far

aparts, if you add in the Romanians to the Bulgarians, I suspect there

must be something like 30,000 on those numbers, within the range

we're talking about. Do you worry, when you hear a European

Commissioner talking about Britain as being seen as the nasty country?

I think we'd rather be seen as the tough country than nasty. I'm not

sure, I don't think we want to be the soft touch where people can come

- You'd rather be nasty than a soft touch? Yes. I wouldn't choose nasty

as the the description. Choose? Tough, but fair. There's no reason

why we should be more attractive than France or Germany to people.

Ambassador, would you like to explain to our viewers why it is

they should pay their taxes in order that your citizens should be

entitled to benefits here? Well, I'm afraid that this is not the right

way to present the situation. That's the question I'm asking, though.

That is right, may I just respond to you in a slightly different manner.

Most of those who come here are young people and they are single,

not married between 15 and 35. They come to work. A low percentage of

their income comes from your social benefit system. They earn their

daily bread by working. They may all have noble intentions, but

misfortune happens to all of us. That is true. Can you explain to our

viewers why they should pay their taxles in order that your citizens

can be helped if they get into need here? Well, they pay their taxes,

but also, our citizens working in the UK are paying their taxes in

your country as well. So they're not free riders in their majority. There

is something in that argument, isn't there? That is what statistics says.

You should look at it... Let's stay off statistics shall we? The first

18 top countries, whose citizens have access to your Social Security

system? That is something we should respect, I would suggest. This isn't

going to happen any way, is it? These restrictions? The EU won't

allow it to happen. That would be an interesting challenge, if Parliament

said that deal we signed nearly ten years ago - You can't be a member of

a club and then decide you want to obey some rules and some you don't.

We can find lots of examples from nearly every country in the union

that has done exactly that. You really think that the EU will allow

this to happen? Well, I suspect the EU won't be very keen on this

happening. But the point is if we in Parliament say this is not in our

national interest now to lift these restrictions at this time, we need

them in place, while we're recovering from the terrible

recession we had, that should be a powerful message, if that's what we

think is our national interest. I think some of the measures the Prime

Minister announced today, the Home Secretary admitted earlier may well

not be with favour in the European Commission either. I don't think

it's entirely unusual for nations - You've been a European politician.

For a short period of time, yes. Outside the statute of limb

stations. Yes. Do you think it's feasible that these restrictions

could be introduced unilaterally in one member state? We have to study

very carefully the political intentions in Mr Cameron's article.

They are yet to be transformed into concrete legislative or

administrative acts. Then we will say what is permissible under if the

European Union legislation and what is not. The commission will also

have its say. That is the right answer, as we speak, hours after Mr

Cameron's article came to our attention. Thank you both very much.

Coming up: # Living on a prayer #

Now if you were offered the chance to make substantial savings on your

Energy Bill, without having to spend any money up front, you'd do it,

wouldn't you? Actually, you probably wouldn't. Ing that the irresistible

conclusion from the underwhelming number of people who signed up to

the Government's Green Deal. No less a figure than Nick Clegg described

it as one of the most important achievements of any Government, but

barely a thousand households have signed up for it and where the

scheme was meant to save households money, it's ended up saving them

nothing much at all. As Andy Verity found out, all the political

uncertainty about green levies threatens thousands of jobs.

It was billed as the largest and most ambitious home-improvement

programme since the Second World War, not to mention the most

comprehensive energy saving plan in the world. Deja vu anyone?

Households are facing high fuel bills. We have to do something. What

we are doing is highlighting the Green Deal for the most ambitious

projects of any Government has launched in a long time. The Green

Deal went live 11 months ago. It's starting to look like a party no-one

wants to go to. Amid the fury about bills, households are still blowing

?140 a year heating the open air in old, badly insulated houses. What if

they could borrow money to get insulation and make the repayments

out of savings on their bill? Enter the Green Deal, what's that? It's a

revolutionary programme according to the Government which lets you do

your loft, wall inhalation, new boiler and pay nothing for it up

front. The rule is that the energy efficiency measures will pay for

themselves over 25 years in savings on your bills, so you won't have to

pay anything. It sounds like the ideal deal, doesn't it, in these

times of high Energy Bills? So why have so few people taken it up?

Ahead of its launch in January, the Government projected that 130,000

Green Deals would get signed this year. The minister responsible Greg

Barker said in March that he wouldn't be sleeping if less than

10,000 signed up. 11 months in just over 1,000 people are signed up to

the scheme, around 1% of what was expected. Of those, just 219 have

had the work done. I think, to date, this has been a tragic and

embarrassing failure. Consumers are crying out for help with Energy

Bills. Here is the policy to deliver it, yet nobody is taking it up. What

intrigues me about the Green Deal is that although barely a thousand

people have signed up to it, more tan 100,000 have had their

assessments done. Why aren't they following through? There seems to be

a blockage in the Green Deal pipeline.

What is it? Mike Walker, himself an energy assessor, thought his cold

Victorian walls could use a bit of warming up. He invited a Green Deal

assessor to his home and wasn't exactly impressed. Even with the

basic bit of knowledge, you can tell that this is solid brick. It does

not contain a cavity. How? Because you have a long section of brick and

a short section of brick, it means that the bricks are laid like that,

so it's solid all the way through. There is no cavity. Following the

first assessment, the first recommendation they came up with was

would you like cavity wall insulation? Well, we don't have

cavity walls, so... I'm sorry. The EPC showed, yes, they've actually

recorded it as cavity walls. We don't have them. He got another

assessment. And another with a different firm. And another and

another, all of wrong. After his sixth wrong assessment, he gave up

in despair. The last attempt at the EPC, they failed to pick up on the

fact that we have a wood burning stove. An energy assessor missed

that? Yes. It's not just incompetent assessors and a complicated process.

Research today shows how little the Green Deal saves you. Take a typical

household dual fuel bill, ?1400 a year. The insulation would bring

your bill down to ?1220. But the repayments on the loan at 8%

interest would bump it up to where it was, saving you nothing. If

instead, the loans were interest free, repayments would be far

smaller, you'd save ?130 -- ?136 a year. The problem is what consumers

are offered in terms of the product. You can go through the hassle of

installing these measures with the loans provided and the result is

your bill doesn't go down at all. The reason being that you're making

all these loan repayments. That negates the bill savings you could

achieve. By underwriting the cost of loans they could slash the interest

rate to 0%, which would make savings of over ?130 available to

households. Energy firms and insulation providers set up a

finance company to arrange the loans with 24 had 4 -- ?244 million to

lend. So far it's lent less than ?6 million. When they are being sold,

they are working as intended. People are able to borrow loans of ?5,000

at an APR of 8% and the whole thing is working well. We can service the

plan so on and so forth. That bit is working. But it will take time to

grow. Here's the problem, if you have equity in your home, you can

top up your mortgage and get a cheaper loan to do the work. If

you're poor you might want it because you can't get a loan

elsewhere, but you're probably eligible for free help. And if

you're in the middle, you won't see a saving on your bill any way. The

man who was Energy Secretary when the deal was announced, it was

always obvious home buyers needed a bigger incentive to do their walls

and lofts, Stamp Duty relief. But the Treasury blocked it. The

essential problem has been the Treasury's reluctance and

particularly George Osborne's reluctant to -- reluctance to have

any sort of incentive to make it happen. I just don't understand it,

because ideologically he's perfectly prepared, for example, to introduce

tax relief to help with gas fracking, but he's not prepared to

introduce a tax relief or Stamp Duty relief to help with energy saving.

Construction firms had agreed to provide the Green Deal, invested

heavily before the launch and retrained fitters to do the solid

wall insulation the Government wanted. With the failure of the

deal, one big player, Carillionment OK Councilion, Had to -- Carillion

had to let a thousand workers go. Now the energy company obligation is

a problem. Energy companies, in many senses quite understandably are

waiting and seeing what the Chancellor's is going to say in his

Autumn Statement about this. Therefore, they're not looking to

commit to new contracts, to commit to energy efficiency insulations in

the new year. Now we're hearing stories of companies cancelling

existing contracts. People have been gearing up to deliver for several

months now significant numbers of insulations that are being pulled.

People are going to lose their jobs on the back of it. With parties

competing for the bill payer's vote, the Government's public doubts about

green levies are leaving the companies involved to put plans on

hold. They hope the uncertainty will end with the Autumn Statement.

Thousands of jobs depend on it. Greg Barker is the climate change

minister. Now you said in March, you wouldn't be sleeping at night if

there weren't 10,000 people signed up to this by the end of the year.

Would you like some sleeping pills? No, I tell you what is slightly

misleading about that film is it's focussed exclusively on finance,

which we identified at the start of the Green Deal as the biggest

barrier to people putting in insulation measures. The fact is,

which they did mention in your film, over 100,000 people have had a Green

Deal assessment and contrary to what your reporter found, I'm not

doubting that some of them haven't been perfect or troublesome, but

actually, our evidence is that the overwhelming majority of the people,

that 100,000 or more, who've had an assessment are not only really

pleased with their assessment, they are taking action to put in the

measures recommended. Would you tell me, is the measure of success, for

me as an Energy Minister and climate change minister, is the measure of

success - how many finance plans I sell? Or is it how many energy

efficiency improvements are actually installed in homes? You judged it

yourself, 10,000 by the end of this year and you wouldn't be sleeping at

night if it was less than that. Yeah, but what I didn't reckon with

- I'm not satisfied with a thousand, of course I'm not. Tell us how many

Green Deal insulations there have been? We reckon something in the

region of 80,000 measures have been installed. How many houses have had

a Green Deal insulation? We reckon that something in the region of

80,000... 80,000? Let me explain it to you. Your piece focussed

exclusively on the people taking up Green Deal finance. In the

long-term, that's going to be really important because we know that being

able to afford these measures is a barrier to people putting them in.

Let me finish. But the first 100,000 or so people who have had a Green

Deal assessment, over 80% have said that they've already put in measures

or they're currently putting in measure or they intend to. What you

mean, then is that 80,000 people have had their homeles modified in

-- homes modified in some way. You don't mean they've had a Green Deal

insulation. Because the total number of them is 219. No, you're talking

about finance. You're confusing the method of payment - Green Deal seems

to be clearly about finance. No, there's more to it than finance. The

Green Deal is first about having a Green Deal assessment, where someone

spends several hours in your home, sits down around the kitchen table

and takes you through the measures that will help you cut your Energy

Bill. That is proving really popular. 100,000 people have had

their homes assessed? More than that now. It was over 100,000 in October.

You say about 80,000 have done something to the house as a

consequence. We know that over 80% of the people who have been assessed

have told us that they have either already installed measures or

they're going to install measure or they're installing measures. Not

taking up your finance arrangements? Correct. So there's something wrong

with them, isn't there? No, there is not something wrong with them. If

someone offers you free money, what do you do? It's not free money.

Exactly. It's 8% interest. It is. Which is very expensive. It's not

very expensive. Could you find 20-year finance anywhere on the High

Street at 8%? Have you taken out a Green Deal financial arrangement?

No, I haven't because I've already improved my home. But the fact, but

Jeremy, you asked me about the finance. Could you get 8% for 20

years anywhere on the High Street? Well, all I can say is that the

total number of people who have done so is 219, isn't that correct? Over

a thousand people are now in the system. Thousand people - -- a

thousand people. Now 100,000 to 1,000? No, again you're confused.

I'm not. You're confusing financing - 100,000 people have had their

homes looked at. That's common ground between us. You say 80% have

installed measures. A thousand people have signed up to the Green

Deal financial arrangement, is that correct? That's correct. 219 have

completed, is that correct? It was a couple of months ago. 219. 219! This

is a failure. No, this is a really bizarre way of looking at it. If I

was selling cars and actually, 100,000 cars had gone out of the

showroom, but we'd only sold a thousand on finance plans, would you

say that's a failure of selling cars? No, you'd say you're not

selling many finance plans. If I held it as the biggest programme of

housing improvement since the Second World War, and I expected 10,000

people to be on it by the end of the year, I think I might consider I'd

failed. Firstly, it's a 20-year programme. What we're doing is

something that no-one's tried before. It's a completely novel

market. There are a number of improvements that we need to make.

Let's be clear, I'm not saying the Green Deal is perfect. I'm not

saying we have to come forward with further improvements now that we're

live and we're listening carefully to what the spliep chain are telling

us -- supply chain are telling us. Some may seem technical and small

adjustments, but in fact they make a big difference to the way in which

it works. For example, people will be able to do a Green Deal in a day.

At the moment, it takes a couple of visits. That's holding it back. Come

the new year, they'll be able to do a Green Deal in a day. We're looking

at ways in which we can cut through some of the paperwork to make it

ease whier for people to get a Green Deal. There are certainly things we

can do to improve it. Over time, next year, you're going to see an

increasing number of people coming into the market to offer the Green

Deal. The reality is the supply chain, the people offering the Green

Deal, particularly the big six energy companies, have been very

cautious to offer this product. But they're going to step up their game.

What's really important, what the game changer is going to be is next

year, we're going to start offering it street by street on a community

basis, on an area basis. We've had a really good response to our

community programme. When we start offering Green Deal on a street by

street, that's when you get the real take up. Due draft it so badly? Why

did we draft it so badly? I don't think we did draft it badly. You're

having to make huge changes to it? Which huge changes? The whole street

idea you've mentioned, which seems to me or many people - That wasn't

in the drafting, that's simply that comes in the next phase. That

doesn't change any drafting. We are running the competition, we've had

the applications in. We've been overwhelmed by positive response

from big metropolitan councils up and down the country - Manchester,

Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, keen to participate and offer it on a street

by street basis. I've always said it's the area-based rollout of the

deal that's really going to put rockets underneath it. I think

that's right. That's when the finance is going to be important.

What we want to do now is take the subsidised offer that eco over a

quarter of a million homes have had that this year. We want to marry it

with the Green Deal. You get a much more joined up offer. It should have

been joined up in the first place, shouldn't it? Rome wasn't built in a

day and this is a novel product. The important thing is we are improving

it as we go. We will be announcing more incentives as Chris said. I

have a lot of respect for Chris Huhne. We work together very well,

but he's wrong. George Osborne has given us ?200 million. We haven't

deployed that money yet. Come next year, we will see steady growth in

the Green Deal, which is a 20-year programme, don't write it off yet.

Minister, thank you. Now, two men will be sentenced

tomorrow for their part in a horrible example of mob justice.

Their victim was a disabled man, whom neighbours became convinced was

a paedophile. He wasn't. But that didn't save him from being beaten

unconscious and then set on fire. There are two separate

investigations going on into the case now. Jon Kay has more in a

report which some viewers may find disturbing.

He was such a clever guy. He was very funny. He was a good brother.

He was very kind. He was a good uncle. He really made our life so

fun for us. We cared about him so much. Maneesha remembering her

younger brother Bijan Ebrahimi. He came to Britain as a refugee from

Iran a decade ago. He believed he would be safer here. But this

summer, he was kicked to death and his body set on fire because

neighbours wrongly thought he was a paedophile. Losing someone is really

difficult to come to terms with, but losing someone in such a way, it's

unimaginable for us to come to terms with that. You never, ever thought

that anyone can do such a barbaric act. He lived alone on a Council

estate on the outskirts of Bristol. His garden was his pride and joy.

But four months on, his home is abandoned. There's little to

indicate what happened here. Avon and Somerset Police say the rumours

that became rife here this summer were completely untrue. Officers

have told me that Bijan Ebrahimi was not a paedophile, that an entirely

innocent man was murdered. So for his family, the question is: How

could things have got so out of control? With them out of the

country at the time, what could have been done to protect him? Lee James,

who lived just a couple of doors away, has admitted murdering Bijan

Ebrahimi. Another neighbour, Stephen Norley, has admitted assisting James

in setting the body on fire. They will be sentenced tomorrow. A CCTV

camera caught the pair that night. Bijan's body was dragged to a piece

of grass 100 yards from his home and then set alight. He wasn't a

paedophile. He made life, losing him so difficult to come to terms of

losing him in such ape way. And then having that allegation, which is

completely untrue. It seems the paedophile rumours started because

Bijan Ebrahimi had been taking photos on the estate. His family

says he'd been told by the authorities to gather evidence of

harassment, because he was trying to get re-housed. The council is now

carrying out its own investigation. He was just a one-off thing. Over

the years, he was subjected to these incidents. Thi was motivating these

incidents? Was it racial? Based on his disability? Why was he being

picked on? Both. Just because, I think he felt they was different

that they picked on him. Ittuals a hate crime. -- it was a hate crime,

obviously. You can feel it. It was a hate crime. A couple of days before

Bijan Ebrahimi was murdered, there was a disturbance outside his home.

He was taken away by police. He came back to his flat the following day,

having been released without charge. But given the tensions here, and the

fact that his relatives were all abroad, his family feel he should

not have been allowed to return home. 48 hours later, he was dead.

The IPCC are now looking at the way Bijan's was dealt with in the days

before he died. We can't prejudge that. What do you want answers to

when that investigation report finally comes out? We want to know

that, we want to find out what happened to Bijan's in the last few

days, as I said, he made so many calls. We want to know what calls he

made. We want to know why, if he asked for help, why they didn't give

him the help that he deserved. The Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset

Police has already said that collectively the agencies and

authorities failed your brother. When you heard that, what was your

reaction? When you heard the word "we failed him"? Disappointed,

frustrated and sad. How could someone like him or anyone else,

could be failed by so many agencies, not one, two, so many people that

were involved. I wish they can coordinate with each other better,

in a better way that no-one goes through this failure again and

no-one be subjected to this sort of tragic way of being murdered. Do you

feel failed as a family by what has happened to your brother? Yes. We

are failed by the system. We feel so strongly about it. We are so

disappointed. We feel so let down by the police and other agencies. We

would like to know why. That report from Jon Kay. Now the murky world of

Falkirk politics. You might recall the original short list of Labour

candidates to fight the general election in that seat was mired in

controversy over claims that the party's main donor, the union,

Unite, had tried to fix the choice of candidate by packing the

constituency with its members. One as yet unpublished inquiry late

irand a -- later and a new short list will be announced tomorrow. One

name is notably absent from the list, that of the whistle-blower who

made the original allegations against unite and the only local

candidate in the constituency. Chris Mason can tell us more. What's

happened? The woman in question Linda Gowe is the original

whistle-blower. There's been a protest to draw up a short list of

Labour candidates to replace Eric Joyce, who is sitting down after the

dust up in a House of Commons bar. Newsnight approached Linda Gowe

tonight, she was surprised to see us and not entirely delighted but

confirmed that she hasn't made the final short list of three. Why has

that happened? She was pretty spiky in an interview in the Herald

newspaper about the protest, about this unpublished report about what

went on, saying it should be published. What are Labour saying?

They're saying it's a load of nonsense to suggest this was a

stitch up and that she's been sat on and punished in any way. There was

an open process with five senior figures selecting this final short

list. That was honest and transparent. There hasn't been, as I

say, any sort of sense of aI stitch-up. Why does this matter,

subsection 42 of a local spat? Why should we care? It's still running

as a septic sore for Labour. They're looking at how they fund themselves

with the trades unions. We haven't heard the last of this, I suspect. .

Now, had a fizzy drink today? Did you enjoy the vast quaunts of sugar

you gulped down? The quickest glance down the High Street will tell you

how horribly obese much of the population has become. And doctors

are increasingly saying that sugary drinks are a main reason and that

they ought, like cigarettes, to be taxed to put people off buying them.

It's an idea the drinks manufacturers hate. But campaigners

say that also echoes the smoking debate. Look what the tobacco

companies said and did. The appeal of fizzy drinks is

obvious enough, an instant pleasure that's supposed to perk you up. But

the active ingrowedient is old fashioned sugar, lots of it. A

single can of cola can contain the equivalent of up to nine tea spoons

full of the stuff. As doctors came to real aisles that cigarettes did

not, as their makers claimed, make you healthy, they're now worrying

about fizzy drinks. One of the biggest problems facing the Western

world at the moment is the obesity crisis. Added sugar has no

nutritional value whatsoever. The body does not require any

carbohydrate from added sugar, despite the fact that the industry

markets these products as being full of energy. Believe me, it's energy

you don't want. It's energy you are don't need. So we know the

consumption of just one sugary drink, typical of a can of coal ya,

increases the risk of type two diabetes about 22%, independent of

body weight. This study was published from Imperial College

rere-- research. Believe me, type two diabetes is a condition you do

not want to get if you can avoid it. It is entirely preventible. This

condition is associated with heart attacks, strokes, kidney disease,

blindness, amputation, increased risk of depression, increased risk

of Alzheimer's and incooessing the risk of many cancers. Coca-Cola is

introducing a new smaller can for the UK. Does it demonstrate a new

commitment to tackling obesity or just a cleverer way to sell sugar?

James Quincey is the president of Coca-Cola Europe. What good does

Coca-Cola do you physically? I think Coca-Cola, as the introduction said,

does have some sugar in it. It is energy. Is it a necessity? No, it's

not. Millions of people enjoy it as part of their diet across the UK.

Does have some sugar in it, you say. It does. Why don't you say

specifically how much sugar there is in this can, for example? I think if

you find, if you turn... You have a percentage on there. Yes right here

on the front it quite clearly calls out the amount of sugar in this can

of coke, 35 grams, which is six tea spoons of sugar, which is about the

same amount of calories as a cappuccino or half a croissant.

We're saying look, the information is here. We want to promote and make

sure people know. If people know that they go to the cinema and get a

small one and there are big ones here too, if you get a jug of coke

like this, do you think people have any idea how much sugar is in it?

Maybe they don't. Do you know what it is? Look at this. 23 sachets of

sugar in that single containers. That is a staggering amount of

sugar, isn't it? That is why we're very focussed as one of the things

we're doing on getting the information out there. We're not

trying to hide the information behind what's in hay Coca-Cola

classic. But there's zero sugar in a coke zero. But the classic here,

there's 44 packets of sugar in this one. 44! Indeed there are. I think

what we're saying is look, we want to make sure that people have the

information available to them so that they can make the choices and

if they don't want the big one, then fine, clearly that is not one that's

going to be for everyone. We want to make sure the information is

available. We want to make sure there's more availability of more

choices, whether it's smaller packages, as you had in your

intro... Whether it's 23 in something this size or 44 in

something this size, each of which is to be consumed in one single

sitting at the cinema, this is staggering, isn't it? Look, I think

we do need to recognise that things need to change. Bigger cups need to

come down. I don't think we are talking that the world can't change

and the world doesn't need to move on. What it comes back to is we

recognise that the, we need to play our part in helping to fix this very

important issue of obesity. It's something that's come about from us

taking in too manical Rhyls and not burning them off with CAC tit. Many

things too many calories and not burning

them off can activity. We're increasing choices of the small

cans, helping people manage their calories, promoting the zero calorie

options, if people are having trouble. You accept your role in the

obesity epidemic do you? I think as a contributor of calories into the

British diet, of course we must. Soft drinks, all soft drinks

together contribute 2% of the calories. It's a part of it.

Therefore we need to accept our role and we do. That's why we want to

focus on actions that we believe will help bring this crisis under

control. What you're doing very similar to what the tobacco

companies did when, after the link with cancer had been established,

started then trying to get us all to smoke light cigarettes, as opposed

to saying don't have any of them? I think there's a very clear

distinction between tobacco and anything to do with food and drink.

Because in the end, there's no amount of tobacco that's good for

you. It directly causes some of the diseases. With food and drink,

anything in moderation can work within your lifestyle. Unwave -- one

of these packets in a cup of tea during the course of a day, maybe

even two, but 23 in the smallest container at the cinema? The reality

people aren't drinking those - and I think what we need to focus on, if

we're trying to solve obesity it's about information. If you have the

information and you decide or whoever decides not to have it,

absolutely fine, what we're here to do is get the information into

people's hands, help them make the choices that fit their lifestyle,

their choices during a week, and also, get out there and try to

promote activity with some NGO partners to try and help the other

side of the equation and burn off some of those calories. When you

look out there, has anyone actually solved the crisis? Sometimes we look

at things and say, well, what will work? But sometimes we have to look

at things that has happened. There's an approach started in France, moved

across Europe is now spreading across the world, where they've

brought down childhood obesity by 20%. It's not by taking some eye

catching or simple measures, they did a number of things bringing in

private companies, health companies, local government, communities and

brought down childhood obesity by 20%. Very much. Tomorrow morning's

front pages: I only have one here: It's the Times - it says that David

Cameron has decided that cigarettes are going to be sold in plain

packages before the next general election. Now, this was a position

which the Conservatives, up to now, had rejected. Chris Mason is still

here. So, quite dramatic, isn't it? Yes, something of a U-turn on a

U-turn. The Government went cold on this idea about six months ago. Now

they're having a review about it, an open mind about the outcome. There

will be time to legislate after that review in the spring, if it's

something they want to role with. It would appear they have gone from a

position of being cold, to being warmer towards it. It's a second

example in a couple of days of them being seen to stand up to big

business after the payday loan stuff, which is interesting.

Thank you. That's all from us tonight. In case you missed it,

Prince William has been all over the media, after appearing with a couple

of Popstars supporting a charity for homeless young people.

# Oohhh, living on a prayer # As you saw, he didn't have time to

perform much himself, but at the flash of the Newsnight petty cash

box, his reticence vanish. We are short of time, but better late than

never.