08/01/2016 Newsnight

Not the new politics of 2016 - in either Cameron's Cabinet,

From Trident to Europe, with major policy divisions

Also tonight: for better or worse politics.

This woman took an abortion pill in the one part

of the UK where abortion is still illegal.

She says, "Arrest me, charge me, or change the law."

We put that to Northern Ireland's Justice Minister.

The UK's Chief Medical Adviser says there's no safe level of alcohol.

One week I'm tolding drinking red wine will make my heart better. Then

I won't. I'm told to take strange drugs one minute and not the next

minute. The first week of 2016 has laid bare

the new reality of the way politics is being prosecuted

by the Government Collective Cabinet responsibility

has been all but suspended. Neither David Cameron,

nor Jeremy Corbyn is in control of their senior ministers -

a far cry from the heyday In the Cabinet and in the Shadow

Cabinet there are divisions on the major issues facing this

country that are deeper But is this a weakness

or a strength? Walter Bagehot described

the British Cabinet as the buckle that fastens on legislative part

of the state to the executive part. And starting in the 18th century,

when Sir Robert Walpole's first modern cabinet adopted a united

position to counter the power of the monarch and continuing

through the 19th century, as the growth of the state

demanded a coherent, unified government,

the British Cabinet adopted the convention of

collective responsibility. However much they disagree

in private, Cabinet ministers are bound to support

a united position in public. Any minister who cannot

support the agreed policy, has the option to resign,

and some have done so. The convention held for the most

part throughout the last century, but Liberal members of the national

government were allowed to vote And in 1975, facing a huge Cabinet

split, Harold Wilson allowed his ministers

to campaign on both sides But collective responsibility held

strong throughout the 1980s, when Chancellor Nigel Lawson

strongly disagreed with the poll tax in Cabinet, but held his tongue

publicly and on into the new century when high-profile ministers resigned

in protest at the Iraq war. I intend to join those

tomorrow night who vote It is for that reason,

and that reason alone, and with a heavy heart,

that I resign from the government. But public unity hid

private dysfunction. And when a new Coalition Government

took power, there was no longer even any sense of pretending

that the government was united. Even though he no longer needs

the Lib Dems to govern, he still has a problem

getting his cabinet to back him Like Wilson's Cabinet,

they will now be allowed to campaign on both sides in this

year's referendum. And Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn

is also having trouble enforcing Despite his Shadow Foreign Secretary

opposing him in the Syria debate, he stayed in the post

in this week's reshuffle. With Cabinet unity faltering

on all sides, is a convention of collective responsibility

a thing of the past? Well joining me to chew over this

constitutional conundrum is Sally Morgan, formerly a top

adviser in Tony Blair's Downing Street, Polly McKenzie

who was a policy adviser to Nick Clegg and Catherine Haddon,

resident historian at the Institute Sally Morgan it has been an

extraordinary week. Bizarre. You couldn't make it up, could you? We

will deal with the cabinet, but you have a Shadow Cabinet where Jeremy

Corbyn does not have authority. He does not have authority over the

Parliamentary Labour Party. That is the significant issue and the Shadow

Cabinet are a small section of that. Not only that, he has the

possibility of further revolt, we know he has talked about Hilary Benn

and we know there is many divisions there. Of course he is in an

extremely weak position. My guess is he will produce a cabinet more in

his own liking, but in the end. He has started to do that? But he is

more interested in the party in the country than in Parliament. How

important is collective cabinet responsibility for the government to

work. It is the way in which a Parliamentary party works in

relation to the Parliament and in showing that sort of strength of

purpose. Even though we know that in the past and as a historian you

know, it has been a pretension. Yes and not just at big moments like

1932 and 1975 when they had agreements to differ. But also you

see it in different ways. One of the Tennents of it is they won't talk

about cabinet meetings, but Ministers leak all the time. There

are ways in which ministers find to dissent that go outside the formal

practice. Talking of leaking when it came to the coalition there wasn't

enough leaking to keep Nick Clegg in the public's good books, or the

Liberal Democrat voters' books. Good books, because he turned over on so

many things. The period of coalition demonstrated people can disagree and

semi privately and the world doesn't end. Maybe if there had been more

briefing and more candour about the disagreements, then the Liberal

Democrats would haven't suffered so much, I don't know. They did suffer,

he did roll over on tuition fees. I wonder if it had been much more...

Discussion about that outside cabinet if there had been dissent

the Liberal Democrats would not have come such a cropper? I think when

explaining the tuition fees debate at the start it was very much

sticking to the line of collective responsibility and this is the best

policy. It was only over the years that Nick Clegg started about it

having to be a compromise and people bought that more, there were for the

voters it was too late. What did it look like from your position in the

coalition? In a way it made sense, you have two parties in government.

And different manifestos. Yes and they brought them together. But at

the same time collective cabinet responsibility is partly about party

management and in which case you're managing two parties that is what

happened in 1932, they didn't want the liberals to leave and the only

way to do so was to give them that leeway to talk about their policies.

You talk about 1975, there was only a month between the negotiations and

the referendum. David Cameron faces a yawning period with some some big

beasts campaigning against him. Will that damage him and that whole idea

of collective cabinet responsibility for the Conservatives. It is a

tricky thing to manage N75 the problems they had were through 74

and Tony Benn pushing against that. In 2011 there was a referendum and

cabinet ministers were arguing against each other on platforms, on

the alternative vote and it was two parties, but the world didn't come

to an end, government carries on making decision and some of the time

ministers were campaigning. And whether it looks as David Cameron is

in charge. The Prime Minister said this was not going to happen and has

changed h mind because he can't deliver the cabinet, because several

members said they are not starting. That is like Harold Wilson. That was

weakness as well. I think it is weakness and not new politics. Going

back to your time with Tony Blair there was collective cabinet

responsibility, but we know now that it was a disaster inside and

actually incredibly corrosive. The public knew that. Wouldn't it have

been better if you had aired differences and not had been what

was a real diminution of cabinet? People say that, I don't think that

is accurate. There were big arguments within cabinet and that is

the right place if you're running government, you want to have big

rows. I remember big rows on cabinet meetings such as public service

reform. Give me an example of where somebody who backed down who was

really fighting. There was significant fighting on a range of

health and school reforms. But the rows did take place in cabinet and

you're right of course there was disagreement and Gordon Brown had a

level of disagreement. But cabinet took a decision and packed the

policy -- backed the policy clearly and you do need to have those

arguments. That worked in coalition. I wonder what the public makes of

this. We live in an age where there are leaks from cabinet and there is

pressure and people tweet, social media, the voters want honesty don't

they? Yes the public know when a politician is spinning them a line.

In the long-term within a party it festers the sense that you're only

sticking to the party line, because your being bullied by the boss and

if David Cameron wants to say the referendum was a fair fight, he has

to give the rebels as we assume they will be, the opportunities to

campaign. Where does that put the idea of a Jeremy Corbyn Shadow

Cabinet at the moment. Because when you say it is about the voters and

Diane Abbot said it is about the party people and the party, but

actually it I not just about the party, it is about the PLP and

members of Shadow Cabinet. I find the situation of the Labour Party

alarming, but it is part of a long-term project to slowly build up

a Shadow Cabinet that is cohesive. The cabinet, would that work in

government? The one he has now, no it would be chaos. The difficulty of

saying the public understand, in the end the public want to know what the

government is they're electing. One of reasons it did work in coalition

you had good arguments but you did reach decisions and stuck to them

and went out and... What Jeremy Corbyn and Macdonald said to Hilary

Benn is you rebel all you like, but from the backbenches. That is not

the new politics. It is very old politics in Labour at the moment.

How will this look this period in history? It is difficult to know.

These issues will be massive for the parties and it goes back to past

examples, the reason why collective responsibility was important, it was

about whether the parties would split and reform in different ways

as in the 19th century and lot is about party management, rather than

the strict constitutional issue. Thank you all very much.

That was what one prison officer said of a cell he showed

to the Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales -

an opinion which found its way into Nick Hardwick's final report

He said that prisons had deteriorated to their worst level

in at least a decade, with rising violence,

overcrowding and a rapid rise in the use of legal highs,

and, he warned, it could not go on like this.

He declined to apply for another five-year term and leaves his post

First, looking back, do you think at the last five years, what has been

the most devastating changes? Prisons have got a lot more

dangerous. There were more murders in prisons last year than there have

been for ten years. More suicides than there have been for two years.

There are two suicides a week. There are 550 self-harm Ings harm

incidents a week. And these are all much higher than they have been,

really since we began to keep recordses. It begs the question you

weren't able to make the impact you wanted. Things have started to

change, Michael Gove has started to make changes and we can claim some

credit that the change in policy came about because of some of the

evidence that we presented. But there are things you don't seem to

be able to get a grip of, one is legal highs. Legal highs is the most

serious problem facing the prison system at the moment. It is not only

dangerous for the people taking its, there have been about 20 deaths. But

the trade and the debt and the violence that comes about as a

result of that trade is destabilising prisons. Even well run

prisons are being destabilised by the availability of these

substances. And as ever the engeneral youty of how you get them

into prison. Yes it depends on the prison you're talking about. In a

big prison, where the perimeter maybe a mile, they come over in

drones and in cater puts and tennis balls. Prisoners will get themselves

recalled to prison stuffed with things in unmentional places. There

are other issues, one is also the question of radicalisation. You have

real fears about this. You need to take a sophisticated

approach to this. There are a small number of dangerous men in prison

who are trying to radicalise other. You have to make a distinction

between them and those that develop a genuine religious faith, that will

reduce the risk of them reoffending and gangs who are Muslims as well.

Let's talk about the transgender issue, that is something that has

been a much greater feature in the last two or three years. Managing

transgender prisoners is difficult. Do you think it has been done

properly? I think it needs to be done with a degree of sensitivity.

Some of the sea asides -- suicides we have seen reflects the difficulty

the prison has with anyone who needs different needs. Anyone, mental

issues, transgender. Give me an example? It is about where you put

them and recognising particular a when people first come into prison,

that is when the risk of suicide is greatest. Getting that decision

right, about how you place people, too often you put people where there

is a space. You put people in the wrong prison. How do you choose?

What the policy should be, you make an individual decision based on the

circumstances of that individual. You have been critical about the

impact of private providers in prison. We know there have been

seven members of staff suspended tonight because there has been a big

investigation on Panorama, and the treatment in a youth prison fell far

short. I haven't seen the footage for Panorama, but if the account is

a true, it is a disgrace. But the lesson we should learn, if you put

vulnerable people in a closed institution, they are at risk. And

too often the authorities, the systems take their eye off that

ball. You may not have known about Medway, but Raines broke, a secure

training centre, the contract was taken away from G4S last year. Don't

you think you should be looking at that series of contracts much more

closely? We did pay attention and we were looking at that very closely. I

think... I don't think, what we were saying was contradicted by others. I

don't think the right lessons were learned. I don't manage any present,

and I think there are questions to be asked about wider lessons from

Raines broke, which we set out in diesel, were not learned. I think

the accountability for that... Does the government not have enough

power? I think there are issues. The directors, as they are called, have

the authority to run it. I think there are questions here for the

company. Too many private companies in the prison service in England and

Wales? I do not think it is a question

Wales? I do not think it is a have these problems in the public

sector as well. The managers and people in more senior positions need

to be accountable for what happens in the places they are responsible

for. Thank you for joining us. The panorama programme will be broadcast

on BBC One at 8:30pm. In Northern Ireland

abortion is illegal. The 1967 Abortion Act does

not extend to that part Therefore, anyone who performs

an illegal termination could be Last month a High Court judge

in Belfast ruled that Northern Ireland's position

was incompatible with Human Rights Legislation, and now

the onus is on the Stormont Assembly But women in Northern Ireland

who wish an abortion have been defying the law by buying pills

which are sent to them, to bring on a termination,

thus risking prosecution. One such woman, Suzanne Lee

is in our Dublin studio. Also joining us is Northern

Ireland's Justice Minister David Good evening to you both. First of

all, Suzanne Lee, how many women do you think in Northern Ireland have

taken the abortion pill question what I know you have been involved

in talking to people. What is your estimation? I think it is very hard

to gauge how many people have taken it, because where these pills come

from, they do not release figures of how many people get them because

customs are shut down. For a lot of people it is their only option,

their only way of getting an abortion. I know that when I go to

meetings or... There's even been times when I have been walking down

the street and women will come up to me and tell me that they've ordered

pills, that they've had an abortion. I'd say this happens three or four

times a month. It was a very difficult decision,

I'm sure, for you to go public about this. I just want to take you

through what actually happened. You had an abortion pill sent to you in

Northern Ireland. Did you actually take it within Northern Ireland?

I go to college in the Republic of Ireland, where abortion is also

illegal. But you cannot get the abortion pills sent here because

customs will seize it. So I ordered it from there. But the law is if you

procure noxious substances to induce an abortion, that is what the crime

is. So, do you believe you broke the

law? You must have known when you took this pill that you might be

prosecuted? There is a possibility you would be prosecuted?

At the time when I was pregnant it was always in the back of my mind.

What I was doing was illegal but I didn't want to be pregnant so much

that that just wasn't high up on my list of priorities. Yes, it is

illegal, but no, I don't want to be pregnant, I can't afford to be

pregnant. It just wasn't the right time. So in a lot of ways, it's the

strange double-edged sword where you worried about prosecution but at the

same time you're so relieved not to be pregnant.

David Forde. Technically presumably Suzanne could still be prosecuted?

That is a decision for the police to consider, the Public prosecution

service. They are not issues for the ministers to decide. It is a

possibility, a legal possibility? I wonder if you have sympathy with

Suzanne's plight? One can have sympathy with the

plight of an individual, but Minister's roles are to carry out

their duties and individual sympathies are an issue. The

consultation I conducted last year was around the issue of allowing

abortions in the case of fatal abnormality because of the concerns

people had for the women stuck with the dreadful diagnosis. That would

not necessarily be the case for Suzanne and other women who have

taken the abortion pill? I accept that is not the case, but I'm

talking about where I have expressed sympathy for individuals, where it

showed there was willingness on the part of Minister to say it was a

difficult issue. Do you think the Stormont assembly should come up

with legislation that changes to come within the parameters of human

rights legislation? Is it time for Northern Ireland to move now? I

conducted a consultation which began last autumn, over a year ago, on the

issue of allowing abortion in the cases of fatal Faizal abnormality,

rate, and incest. That is when we should act. I put that in a paper to

the executive, because as a minister I have to get executive approval

before I can seek to legislate. The suggestion that we should legislate

in the case of fatal feet all -- abnormalities in foetuses. I hope I

will have a discussion with fellow ministers eventually on the 21st of

January, at the next state and executive meeting. On the question

of change to the law in Northern Ireland, do you think there is

appetite for changing to the 1967 abortion act, which is in place in

other parts of the United Kingdom? I think there is very little appetite

to change to the 1967 abortion act. I think there could be a sufficient

appetite to legislate in case of the issues we're talking about, fatal

abnormality in foetuses, where there is no life to protect. In the case,

as you heard, of Suzanne, that means that really for people who do not

face these different things, which are sexual crime, and fatal

abnormality in foetuses, it would hold a heavy prison sentence

question mark yes,. But the reality is I can only operate where I get

the acceptance of a majority of the members of the executive, and you

just had a discussion about difficulties within single party

governments and Cabinet ministers disagreeing. I am a minister where

there are four different parties with different views. Suzanne,

nothing being discussed in terms of human rights legislation will make a

difference to many women in Northern Ireland who do take the abortion

hill. I wonder what you feel, public opinion... David Forde is talking

about the fact they are a multiparty government in Northern Ireland. Do

you accept a lot of public opinion will not be on your site in Northern

Ireland? I think that outwardly a lot of people in Northern Ireland

would say that they don't agree with abortion, but privately they would.

I think because abortion is illegal, there is this huge stigma attached

to it. It is not easy for people to come out and say I have had an

abortion, or I support abortion because the parties in Stormont

don't want to address that. Surely the role of the people in Stormont

is to represent the people of Northern Ireland. Essentially what

they're doing is ignoring half the population, sweeping us under the

carpet, hoping they do not have to listen to us and will not have to

deal with us. I don't want their sympathy, I want the right to

control my own body. They're not going to give that to me. I wonder

what that means to you and other women, who are considering this

path. You are actually presumably in contravention of the law and know

that. What will that mean for you? Because I know what I've done is

illegal, and I know that Stormont aren't going to address it, the only

way I can see going forward, is for me to make the law on workable. I've

done this, it's legal and I continue to provide abortion pills for other

people that need them, which is also illegal. I'm tired of hearing bears

no appetite for it. Nobody has ever asked me. Thank you both very much

indeed. At the start of a new year,

when people naturally incline to alcohol abstinance,

or at least a reduced intake, after the excesses of the festive

season, the news that there is no healthy way to drink alcohol,

is like kicking a man or woman 14 units a week is the absolute

maximum for all, according to the Chief Medeical Officer

for England, but unless you, like Nigel Farage, are contemptuous

of what he calls the new "puritannical guidelines," is yet

another new health campaign going to curb your enthusiasm

for the demon drink? Here's our Temperance

Correspondent Stephen Smith. For years and years TV news has had

a desperate craving for stories about how much it's safe

to drink and smoke. Wait a minute, if we all stop

smoking, they'll double You may as well finish that one,

it will soothe your nerves. Once upon a time we could just do

what Pathe News did, and take the word of detached

industry insiders on the risk In my opinion, to single out smoking

as a causal agent, is, on the evidence today,

completely unjustified. Thank you very much,

sir, for your help. Thank you very much for letting me

put our views forward. You better have a cigarette

before you go. VOICEOVER: The chemicals you inhale

cause mutations in your body... But surely the Government's

anti-smoking messages have hit home. I think it's helped a bit,

I think largely what helped is the fact there was

a change in legislation. It became much more expensive,

though I think basically the cost People are much more aware

of the risks, but also it's If you can't smoke on the train,

the plane or the restaurant, then you've got to go and huddle

outside, and that's not really So what chance today's new guidance

on safer drinking? The Chief Medical Officer says it's

been driven by science. Well, that since the first time

in over 20 years we've done a significant scientific review,

and it's very complex, There are short-term consequences,

and preventable mortality. Bringing all of that together,

what we now have are guidelines for low risk drinking,

which is 14 units in a week, spread over two, three, four days,

for both men and women. In the unlikely event that you've

been anywhere near a unit of alcohol this evening, you may be grateful

for that clarification, One week I'm told that drinking red

wine will make my heart better, another time I'm told drinking red

wine won't make my heart better. I'm told I should take all sorts

of strange drugs one minute, The medical advice is chaotic,

all over the place, comes from everywhere, you never know

what the credibility I think it's a pity that

someone with as big a title as the Chief Medical Officer

of Health should say things that are so extreme, that they will

immediately make people say "I'm not Mrs Thatcher's former PR guru

thinks his successors show little savvy about getting the message

right on health. I think it has to be done

with particular skill, and I don't think this government,

or any other government, particularly not the current

Labour Party, has any skill or any belief in the requirement

for there to be a decent Now, I'm going to show you three

things, and you've got to tell me Well, you seem to know what to do

with that one all right. Remember - coughs and

sneezes spread diseases. This campaign apparently helped

a baffled Britain come to terms with the invention

of the handkerchief. When you look back at public health

campaigns, there is remarkably little evidence that they

make a big difference. The other thing which is very

difficult to factor into this is the emotional and psychological,

and therefore physical benefits of being with friends

and having a good laugh. So, if you kind of banned

all alcohol, would you get rid of that entirely or would we go

on sipping cups of coffee I don't know, I think that one

is very difficult to quantify. That is all we have time for. We are