13/03/2014 Newsnight

The diplomatic talk gets tough as Ukraine appeals to the UN, Russia is

told to call off the referendum in Crimea. This man was sentenced to

three years in prison, spending eight mind bars, indeterminate

sentences were David Blunkett's big idea. Ten years on he tells us how

it went so long. As the search for the Malaysian plane disappeared. We

talk to a pilot who knows the fear of the crash. A man who thinks that

ADHD doesn't exist, a mother who is not impressed. Perhaps he could

raise a child with the condition, it is easy to sit on the outside and

judge. Hello good evening. Russia has

confirmed it has begun military exercises involving more than 8,000

troops close to the Ukraine border. The omission will do nothing to calm

tensions ahead of the Crimea referendum on whether to join Russia

at the weekend. Today William Hague called on Russia to abandon the

referendum, and said that Britain would freeze travel on Russians and

assets. We're going across now to Crimea and

our diplomatic editor. Tell us the sense you are getting on the ground

of how worried people are. You get a strong sense this vote is going to

happen on Sunday and the result is a foregone conclusion. Among some

Ukrainians here, and the minority here, there is a feeling that the

Kiev Government has almost given up, despite the pleas today of the

acting Prime Minister in the UN in New York that it's not too late to

talk, but something can still be done. Despite the fact that European

leaders are increasingly explicitly saying sanctions will come in on

Monday against Russia if this vote goes ahead. What you find here is

people looking to the next stage, a Ukrainian man on the train down said

to me, if they intervene somewhere else he will go and fight them. And

a commander of the Russian self-defence groups I was talking to

here earlier today said much the same thing. He predicts that could

get very violent if there are indeed incursions in the east of the

Ukraine. And briefly, we talked about troops, what's happening there

in the east? Well, there are more Russian military exercises,

something like 10,000 troops on Ukraine's eastern border. That has

created tensions, also violent clashes tonight in the eastern city

of Donetsk, and people have died. Could this be the spark that

triggers further western invention. Western leaders are gambling no it

is not, that the mood is still there in Moscow to talk and try to contain

the damage of what has been done in Crimea. It has to be said with those

troops in jumping off positions and violence on the streets, we have

entered an unpredictable and tense phase in the crisis. As the troops

amass and the threat of invasion hangs in the air, what is it like to

live on the new eastern front? The town of Milove sits right in the

middle, Ukraine on run side, Russia on the other side of the street. We

speak to Olga, whose living room looks out on another country.

The voice of Olga in that report in Milove on the Ukraine-Russia border.

It was the brainchild of the Blair Government, a custodial sentence

labelled "indeterminate", the idea was to ensure criminals stayed

behind bars until they were certain not to reoffend. A fine theory, in

practice it meant some people were sent to prison for relatively minor

offences and never released. The policy has now been abolished, as we

have discovered for Newsnight, the backlog is so great that some 5,500

people are still languishing in prison with no release date. Every

few months Wendy makes it journey from her home in Ellesmere Port near

Liverpool, to see her son Richard. Who is in prison in Lancashire. When

he was 18 Richard was given a 17-month minimum sentence for

assault and attempted robbery. Eight years later he's still in prison. He

has lost so many years of his life. It's silly, it is wrong he's in

there and forgotten about, basically. Richard is serving what

is known as an indeterminate sentence for public protection, or

an IPP, which means throughout his time in prison he's never been given

a release date. In order to get released IPP prisoners must prove to

a parole board that they are no longer a danger to the public. If

they are unsuccessful they could wait two years before they get

another hearing. In Richard's case he hasn't always been perfect. Three

years ago he failed a drugsest it, but his family and lawyers argue

that in eight years he's never been violent. So why is he still in this

prison. David Blunkett introduced IPPs ten years ago when he was Home

Secretary. They were meant to be applied to serious, violent and

sexual offences. People are being let out of prison when everybody

concerns knows that this is going to happen again. He had in mind people

like Roy Whiting, who murdered eight years old Sarah Payne, he had been

in prison before for a serious sexual crime. The Government

estimated that IPPs would be given to 900 offenders, but it was applied

far more widely. By 2012 there were 6,000 IPP prisoners. I would stand

in that window whenever I was out on the wing and just watch freedom.

Shaun Lloyd was released from prison three weeks ago. He spent some of

his sentence at Cardiff Prison, just a few hundred yards from where he

grew up. At the age of 18 he was given a tarrif of two years and nine

months after committing two street robberies. He ended up serving more

than eight years. Do you you deserved to go to prison? Yeah. I

think I deserved to go to prison obviously but not for the length of

time that I have done because it is just messed me up, like. Is that all

the stuff from your cell? Yeah, everything. Like all IPP prisoners,

Shaun was required to take offender behaviour courses to prove to the

Parole Board that he was no longer a risk. The problem is, they are in

short supply. Prisoners can wait months to get on them. As an IPP

prisoner, with no release date, seven years over tarrif, my head was

battered, my head was gone. I was suicidal. Donna comes to this

graveyard in Surrey every week, so that she can feel close to her

brother, Shaun, who committed suicide after three years in prison.

He had serious mental health problems and was a recovering drug

addict. He had been given an IPP sentence of two years and five

months for forcing someone to take money out of a cash machine. Donna

was the last person to speak to him alive. He rang me in the morning and

he just said that you know I love you all and that look after my mum

and I just can't take no more Donna. I can't, I don't know what's

happening with my life. I just can't take no more. And that was it, he

just said I love you and goodbye. Shaun had been told he needed to do

a drug rehabilitation course and transferred to another prison to do

it. But the course wasn't available. It was this, Donna says, that tipped

him over the edge. For people like Shaun that are very vulnerable not

having that deadline of saying, OK I know Shaun done bad things, I know

people in prison do bad things, but if he had a date when he could have

been coming out, I think he would have still lived with a little bit

of hope. The IPP sentence was abolished by the then Justice

Secretary, Keneth Clarke, two years ago. He called it a stain on the

criminal justice system. But it was not retrospective. There remains

within the system 5,500 IPP prisoners, nearly two thirds are

over tarrif. At the current release rate it will take nine years to

clear the backlog of over-tarrif prisoners. We told the former Home

Secretary, David Blunkett, about Wendy's son Richard and his eight

years in prison. I would say that this is an injustice, I would say

that the original intention had nothing to do with circumstances

where people would be held way beyond the normal tarrif in a

situation wherein some instances they have not been able to take the

necessary course and demonstrate the ion necessary, the change in their

behaviour. In terms of the families that are watching, what would you

say to them about your role in this? Well I would say that I implemented

what I believed was necessary to safeguard the public. But you get it

wrong? I regret very much that we were not clearer in terms of the

criteria laid down, and tougher in saying what the judges should and

shouldn't do. And we were not effective enough in putting in the

necessary resources to ensure that the rehabilitation courses were ail

available. So you got it wrong? We certainly got the implementation

wrong, but the intention, in my view, was correct. Wendy has just

finished a two-hour visit with her son Richard. They talked about his

next parole hearing, which is in two weeks time. He's anxious, just wants

it over and done with to find out what is happening either way.

Doesn't want to build his hopes up too high unless he gets another

knockback. For someone who only got an 18-month sentence, he has done a

heck of a long time. If Richard is moved to an open prison, he's likely

to stay there for a year to 18 months, which means he will have

spent ten years inside. I'm joined now by Crispen Blunt who worked with

Keneth Clarke to abolish these sentenced. What do you think when

you hear these stories? I know we did precisely the right thing. These

sentences were both unjust and stupid. The effect was, as we heard

from David Blunkett, they were not administered properly, so the

system, there were 6,500 of these prisoners in prison when I became

Prisons Minister, with P,000 beyond tarrif. The Parole Board were

releasing one in 20 of those who applied for release. The system was

just filling up. There was a stage in the process where we would end up

with 25,000 of these people in the prison system if something hadn't

been done. It began to be addressed in 200le 8, we managed to get it

abolished in the first piece of legislation in 2012. When you hear

how big the backlog is, and it would take nine years at the current rate

to clear this, what do you think the Government should do. It will

accelerated and a very defensive parole board shouted at by John

Reid, and they were releasing too many people, their reaction was to

be defensive and not release many people, and not make sensible

judgments about when people should be released. So you had a low

release rate. All of these things get dealt with when people have more

programmes and get themselves to place where the Parole Board can

have more confidence about being released. I think under Keneth

Clarke and I the Parole Board would have had more confidence that they

will be supported by ministers in take sensible decision, I believe

that still to be the case. We had statement from the Government

tonight saying the release of prisoners serving indeterminate

sentences is entirely a matter of the Parole Board, and we have no

intention of retrospectively withdrawing IPP sentences. Is that

the right response? The normal, when you change sentences you do not

normally make it retrospective. Sentencing regimes exist at the time

you are accept tenseited. There are people under particular release

programmes because that was the law when they were sentenced, and that

is the general principle. You say that is general, but could it be

applied retrospective? It could have done, but there wouldn't be

collective agreement to do it. How I wanted to address that was making

absolutely crystal clear to the national offender management service

that every day someone spent in prison, beyond their tarrif, when

they hadn't completed the appropriate programmes, was then a

self-inflicted injury. It meant we were keeping them in prison at the

tax-payers' expense longer than they needed to be, without putting them

in the best place to make the best presentation to the Parole Board. We

have seen what it has done to some families, completely destroyed them,

what is your message to Chris Grayling, given the numbers on

outstanding indeterminate sentencing. The figures have gone

down by 1,000 since I left in 2012. There has continued to be progress

here, so gradually, and because now the tap has been turned off, because

the sentences are no longer being imposed. That allows the system to

focus more resources in terms of their sentence planning to make sure

they complete their programmes whilst they are doing their

punishment tarrif, and therefore they can have a better chance of

being released at the first application to the Parole Board.

That can't be sped up, there are some people, you know, you heard

from Shaun, who was in there for eight years on a sentence that was

fewer than three to beginning? I entirely agree with you. There must

be plenty more like that. You must be thinking we can seriously

accelerate this? Certainly the point I was putting rather strongly to the

senior officials of the national offender management services is they

had to focus resources in this area. I was having reports made regularly

to me about the progress we were making and making sure that

resources were being properly focussed. If people weren't getting

to the Parole Board having at least had the chance to complete their

programmes and address their offending behaviour, then it was

both unjust and administratively stupid. Thank you very much for

coming in. In the confusion of an unprecedented event, like a missing

airliner, there is always claim and counter claim. Tonight an earlier

suggestion has resurfaced that the Malaysian airlines plane was sending

signals to a satellite for four hours after the aircraft went

missing, an indication it was still flying. One pilot who knows what

mid-flight emergency feels like is Chelsea Sullenberger, the hero of

the landing that came to be known as "The Miracle on the Hudson". I spoke

to him before we went on air and talked to him about how rare it is

to have a plane simply vanish? It is very rare, it has happened over the

60-year history of jet travel. In almost every case, with very few

exceptions wreckage or the aeroplane itself is found. In almost every

case the recorders are eventually found or recovered. Could a plane

just disappear from radar, could plane have flown undetected for

another four hours? Ground-based air traffic control radar only extends

200 miles beyond the shoreline. Over open water where there is no radar

coverage it could fly for an extended period of time. Is it your

sense it might have happened in this case? It is very early. We have

hardly any information or real hard evidence or data. But there is some

indication that there are some primary or basic radar returns that

might be correlated with this flight that indicate it headed to the south

west, and perhaps continued in that direction. They are talking about

the Indian Ocean now as a search ground, is it possible that the

plane landed somewhere else undetected? Again, absent data we

would simply be speculating. But that is theoretically possible. What

is the first response of a pilot, would you contact somebody, would

you try and connect with the ground? In spite of what many think, that

actually is not the first thing, or even the second thing or sometimes

even the third thing that a pilot would normally do. We have a very

clear set of priorities, in fact we call them simple simply I have aate,

navigate, communicate, in that order. That makes sense when you

realise that somebody from outside the aeroplane is calling for rescue

forces of where you are if you are uncertain of it and they couldn't

provide much more assistance to you, it is up to the pilots in the

cockpit to solve the problems they are facing. During the miracle on

the Hudson, aviate came first, and navigate, how long before you

communicated your position to those on the ground? It was probably 35

seconds after the bird strike and Jins were lost. A lot happened in

those 30 seconds. The entire time for the thrust loss to the time we

went down was 230 seconds. The work rate was so high that my first

officer and I didn't have time to have a conversation about what had

just happened. Tell me of the way this investigation is being handled

so far, by the Malaysian authorities? It is complicated in a

number of ways. The aircraft was manufactured in the United States.

The engines were manufactured in Great Britain, I think. The airline

is based in Malaysia, air traffic controllers were involved from

Malaysia and Vietnam. It is an international effort. I'm not

terribly surprised that there is some confusion or disagreement about

facts when there are so few facts. We know that Americans are now

involved in the investigation warships we are told are involved

and sent to the straits. If you were leading the the in -- the

investigation, what would you do? One of the most promising avenues is

to look at the primary radar communications recorded by the

Malaysian side and see if there was in fact a turn to the south west and

see what direction it went and begin look anything that direction. Which

I believe some of the search pattern indicates the Malaysians have

already done. Thank you very much indeed. The 40p tax rate used to be

the rate that Conservative Governments of the past thought the

rich should pay, increasingly those on more moderate salaries are also

being dragged into the 40p bracket. Now there is growing unease amongst

today's Conservatives that it is a failure to adjust the rate is

penalising many who are far from wealthy. In a moment we will debate

the political argument behind the figures. This is our policy editor

first. The Chancellor's reforming budget cuts the basic rate of tax by

2p, but the highest earners see their top rate slashed by 20p and

the opposition erupts in fury. Shame slam shame shame Back in the day the

40p tax rate even made it on to Newsnight. Nigel Lawson had just cut

it from 60p. The 40p band is no longer the highest rate of income

tax reserved for the very richest. It is now causing trouble for a new

reason. Lots of people now earn more than about ?40,000 a year, the

threshold for the 40p rate. In 1990, under 7% of tax-payers earned more

than the 40p threshold. That was about 1. 7 million people. But that

has risen to 16% of tax-payers. That is 4. 7 million. Many of whom you

wouldn't regard as big earners. Back in 1990 it would have taken a 50%

pay rise to get the average teachers into the 40p tax bracket. Nowadays a

lot of them are there. The average London secondary school teacher

earns ?40,000. The police are there, male officers ranked Sergeant or

below, they average more than ?40,000 a year. Nurses are much

worse paid than policemen or teachers, but even so, 15% of nurses

are higher rate tax-payers. How did that happen? Paul Johnson, director

of the Institute for Fiscal Studies explains. This has been happening

for a long time, 30 years at least. Earnings have risen a bit faster

than prices on the whole. But the point at which you start to pay

higher rate tax has only gone up in prices, it drags more people in.

That happened since 2010. Since 2010 the coalition has drawn more people

into the 40p band deliberately as a way of making it a bit cheaper to

increase the personal allowance and increase the point at which people

start paying income tax at all. To get the proportion of the work force

in the 40p bracket, back down to 1990 levels, the threshold would

need to rise from just over ?40,000 to around ?67,000. A big jump like

that just isn't easily affordable. But some Conservative MPs think that

the threshold needs to start moving in that direction. If we want to

look after middle Britain. , you know a certainly think an area where

a lot of people have been saying the Chancellor should look hard at is

this concept of fiscal drag, where more middle-class earners are forced

to pay 40% rate. Has the Conservative Party lost the ability

and right to campaign as a tax cutting party? We have cut taxes. We

have cut taxes for 26 million people. We have cut taxes to the

extend, at the lowest threshold, so there are two-and-a-half million

more people who aren't saying tax. So we have been tax cutting, but the

emphasis has been focussed much more at the lower end not the higher end.

It is hard to offer much assistance to higher rate tax-payers.

Politically they are a hard sell. They are well off. Economically they

are big payers, they contribute two thirds of all income tax receipts,

being generous to them is very expensive.

George Osborne, the current Chancellor has helped out higher

rate payers with the rise in the personal tax allowance to nearly

?10,000. But that policy is associated with the Liberal

Democrats. No wonder some Conservatives now long for a little

bit of Lawsonian tax cutting that they can campaign on. Chris Cook

discussed that, and Lord Lamont a former Chancellor of the Exchequer,

and Lord Oakeshott a Lib Dem peer. Do you have any sympathy with those

who don't consider themselves to be amongst the wealthy and yet have

been dragged into the 40p bracket? Obviously life is hard for many

people, including people on middle incomes, but it is even harder for

the people at the bottom of the scale, particularly people

struggling on ?8,000 or ?10,000 a year, they are the people the

Liberal Democrats have been determined to help and concentrate

on the help on in jacking up the tax threshold so fast. But the people in

the middle are not wealthy, they are secondary school teachers living in

London, facing the cost of living, seeing 52p in their pound going to

the Treasury? They may not be stinking rich, but by the standards

of the country as a whole, they are middling rich. Remember as it just

pointed out, we are talking about the top sixth of people. There are

30 million tax-payers. Less than five million of them are paying this

rate. To an awful lot of people certainly outside London and the

south-east, earning ?800, ?900 a week is pretty well off. We mustn't

be Londoncentric here. It still sounds quite a lot of money and

quite a nice bracket to be in? It may be quite a lot of money, but

emphasis on the "quite". We are talking about balance, of course

there is an argument for giving relief at the bottom, but will that

be at the price of really squeezing the centre, people who are teachers,

nurses, tube drivers, or Staff Sergeant in the army, people just

earning ?40,000, it is not a lot of money. Those people have been

dragged into this 40% ban. This has gone up 36% since 2010, it is

thought by 2015 there will be six million people in this band. When

Nigel Lawson first introduced it, it was one in twenty, today it is one

in six. The Government has actually stopped those people being worse

off, actually because of the affect of the raising of the tax threshold

at the bottom. Since 2010, and Monday is desperately tight, we have

been through an economic crisis with real wages squeezed, these people on

the 40p rate are slightly better off than they would have been, they gain

more by getting a tax threshold than any other. The Government has

protected that, and I don't think they are the priority. Lord

Oakeshott is right, but it is only the half story, they are better off

than they would have otherwise been, that is true. But they are dragged

into the 42% because they have to pay a diminished rate of national

insurance as well. That is moderate incomes that is on. If it goes on as

a policy it will be dead. We are raising more and more tax from the

higher, from fewer and fewer people. The people paying 40% who he is

saying are a small group are giving as much tax revenue as all the basic

rate people put together. Now that can't be right. I think you are

going to hit a buffer if you go on squeezing and squeezing and

squeezing. In a few years time when things are easier it could be looked

at again. We are still recovering from a desperate economic crash, and

real wages and earnings are well below than at the peak. Average

earnings for most people in work are going up at 1% a year. Public

services are being under enormous pressure. It is not the priority to

give a tax cut to the relatively well off. Where do you put the

limit, we have heard ?67,000, that would cost a lot of money. Where

would you put it now? I think there ought to be rise in the threshold of

40% maybe to ?44,000 or something like that as a first step. But long

run you can't go on and on not increasing this commensurate with

earnings, because you will end up dragging more people. You will end

with a situation where the 40% becomes a basic rate. That is

complete nonsense. Do you agree with the question that Chris put, that

the Conservatives have, at present, lost the ability to call themselves

the party of tax cutting? No, I don't agree with that. Obviously

everyone has benefitted, all but a few people, from the personal

allowance, but that is very limited. If we go on and on with the policy

we will lose the ability to call ourselves the tax cutting party.

Because more and more people will be paying a rate of tax which when it

was introduced by Nigel Lawson was intended to be the tax rate of the

very rich. The Liberal Democrats will only concentrate on the bottom

percentile. We still think that people who are struggling with major

problems, and people in work trying to have the benefit of going to

work. That should be concentrated down there. Let me just say, we have

enormous pressure on public services and spending. I'm proud tonight, I

have just been to see my first grandchild at St Thomas's Hospital,

I'm delighted the National Health Service is there and I'm happy to

pay the tax to keep it going. Would you advise in the suggest measure on

this one to David Cameron? They have to do something at some point that

everybody is being squeezed, but the people in the middle more than

anyone else. Not so long ago the OACD warned that Britain was relying

on too narrow a base for incomes tax. We don't think we are all in it

together if you cut the tax rate for the rich now.

If you have a child or you have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit

Disorder, chances are you think it exists. But a Dr Richard Sal says it

doesn't. He thinks it is the symptoms of other conditions, and

thousands of children are treated with drugs they don't need as a

result. His theory has kicked off a controversy.

Often has trouble keeping attention on tasks. Avoids or doesn't want to

do things that... . It is the most common condition in the UK, these

were helped to point out what ADHD is. 11-year-old Kye was identified

with the disorder when I was six. Like most people with ADHD, he has a

secondary condition, in his case mild autism. You can handle it and

have pretty severe cases where you can have talking difficulties, you

can get angry, a bit too easily. Just lash out at people. You don't

think before you do anything. I go through phases of running away from

home. The number of children like Kye, recognised as suffering from

ADHD has more than doubled in a decade. But rates in this country

are still a fraction of what they are in the US where 8. 8% of

children are now diagnosed with the condition. Some British doctors

believe many ADHD cases are often missed. There is now a broad

scientific consensus that a complex mix of genetic and environmental

factors are responsible for the condition. Everyone can get bored

and fail to pay attention, and lots of people do daft things. But this

is part of human variation, it is when it is extreme, and, most

importantly, when it is impairing. The fact that it is messing up their

lives and they can't help it. That is when you have an ADHD diagnosis?

It is, it must be ADHD in its own right, not because of some other

undetected condition. A new book creating a lot of controversy... The

title of the book "ADHD Does Not Exist". One doctor disagrees with

the main consensus, he argues those symptoms can be caused by something

as simple as poor eyesight or diet. That is raising a lot of eyebrows?

It is just an excuse according to one American scientist. Ky, he's

mother takes issue with it, and she says her son has worked hard to

control the condition and crucial have controlled his aggressive and

disruptive behaviour. Let him raise a child with the condition, it is

easy to sit outside and judge.? You feel it is real? Yes, nobody thinks

otherwise. If you need the support, there isn't enough support out there

for them. I'm not excusing bad behaviour in any way. Kye is getting

the help needs, and more children need this kind of support. Sceptics

think too many are misdiagnosed with a disorder that simply doesn't

exist. We had hoped that Dr Richard Sol would be joining us tonight, but

we have had problems getting him into the right studio in Chicago.

We're joined by Andrea, who founded the national Attention Deficit

Disorder information and support service. We are grateful you have

come in. Is it conceivable that it has been misdiagnosed so widely that

it has been symptoms that have been mistaken for ADHD when it was

something else? You know this is a condition that has been so widely

researched. 10,000 research papers over many years. Research conducted

by the top academic researchers in the world. It is the most researches

condition it is. You say that as if that is the end of the research, if

somebody is producing a new understanding that suggests maybe

that children have been drugged needlessly. Put on medicines

needlessly, are you not considered in considering that? I have read his

book and it seems to me this is an 80-year-old man living in the 1950s,

the information in his book is outdated. There is a chapter in his

book where he talk about a child who displays all the symptoms of ADHD,

very impulsive, hyperactive, distractible, runs around. And he

says this boy has something I called neurochemical distractibility

impulse disorder. That is exactly the same thing. He streets with

Ritalin. He also talks about finding children who have had an eyesight

problem or diet street problem and working out by solving the

fundamental, the real, as he would say, issue, you get rid of the

symptoms that had been understood as ADHD? He's talking about something

different. When you make a diagnosis of ADHD, the first thing is rule out

all of those things. You also have to understand that America and the

UK are very different in the way they approach and diagnose and treat

ADHD. We are very ruling out any Tory condition that might mimic

ADHD. That is not the case in the US. Will this have ramifications

here? What the book has done, it is a very good publicity stunt, he has

called his book ADHD Does Not Exist, that is not what he says in the

book. The title is to mislead you, he says in the book he has given the

provocative title to get the publicity and sell his book. I wish

you were here to give us the response for that, thank you very

much for coming in. Before we go I will take you through the papers:

Now, on what instrument did Bach compose his cello suites. You might

think the cello, but research by a conductor suggests that the genius

wrote it on a cello, but an extricked instrument. He will bring

the instrument alive at the Queen Elizabeth Hall playing with the

orchestra in the age of enlightenment. Here we have the

third cello suite. Good night. No doubt you have plans for the

weekend, looking OK for most of us. We are not there yet, a foggy start

to the day across England and