Browse content similar to 18/01/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Tonight in a Newsnight exclusive, we meet the woman accusing the Met | :00:00. | :00:07. | |
police of abusive psychological torture. | :00:08. | :00:14. | |
It was New Year, and we had a party with a few friends, and he asked me | :00:15. | :00:20. | |
to marry him. I said yes, and we rang my mum and told my mum. | :00:21. | :00:24. | |
of marriage without realising it was "a state-sponsored lie" | :00:25. | :00:27. | |
Port Talbot lays off another 750 jobs. | :00:28. | :00:34. | |
Is it time to admit we just can't compete on steel anymore and let | :00:35. | :00:37. | |
Local boy Michael Sheen and Business Minister Anna Soubry | :00:38. | :00:40. | |
And who's actually responsible for our schools? | :00:41. | :00:43. | |
The chief inspector says the whole system is patchwork, | :00:44. | :00:46. | |
Tonight we bring you the extraordinary tale of Andrea - | :00:47. | :01:07. | |
who says she is the victim of a state sponsored crime. | :01:08. | :01:10. | |
She became engaged to a man who, entirely unknown to her, | :01:11. | :01:12. | |
was for many years working undercover for the Police. | :01:13. | :01:15. | |
For more than two years he promised her a new life, | :01:16. | :01:17. | |
She had no idea what had gone wrong until she started to understand | :01:18. | :01:24. | |
that their whole relationship had been a sham. | :01:25. | :01:26. | |
Living a double life, and sent to infiltrate her group | :01:27. | :01:29. | |
of friends who were being watched, it seems, for their | :01:30. | :01:32. | |
It is not the first time this has happened within the Metropolitan | :01:33. | :01:39. | |
Police. At the end of last year Police | :01:40. | :01:42. | |
chiefs made an unreserved apology to women who were deceived | :01:43. | :01:44. | |
into similar relationships - and paid out substantial | :01:45. | :01:46. | |
compensation. They thought they'd drawn | :01:47. | :01:48. | |
a line under the abuse - but this investigation by Newsnight | :01:49. | :01:50. | |
and the Guardian shows that the problems for | :01:51. | :01:53. | |
the Met are far from over. And I felt very safe | :01:54. | :01:55. | |
with him at that point. He felt like a very | :01:56. | :02:03. | |
committed person. And he was single, as far | :02:04. | :02:07. | |
as I knew, at that point. And it seemed like we just kind | :02:08. | :02:14. | |
of met each other at the right time. The man who shared every aspect | :02:15. | :02:25. | |
of Andrea's life for two years was in fact an undercover officer | :02:26. | :02:27. | |
working for a secret unit Their entire relationship | :02:28. | :02:30. | |
was a state sanctioned lie. That chunk of life, of my life, | :02:31. | :02:37. | |
was completely fabricated. So I spent quite a large portion | :02:38. | :02:44. | |
of my time with someone who didn't This is the man who infiltrated | :02:45. | :02:47. | |
Andrea's life, Carlo Neri. He had a passport and a driver's | :02:48. | :02:57. | |
license in that name. For several months before | :02:58. | :03:00. | |
they started seeing each other in late 2002, he was | :03:01. | :03:03. | |
mixing in her circle We agreed to protect her identity, | :03:04. | :03:06. | |
such as the sensitivity of her story, but this | :03:07. | :03:16. | |
is her real voice. He really made himself very | :03:17. | :03:18. | |
useful within that group. Lots of people in London at that | :03:19. | :03:23. | |
time of that age, we were all in our 20s, early 30s, | :03:24. | :03:33. | |
we didn't have cars. But why target Andrea, | :03:34. | :03:35. | |
not her real name? She wasn't that politically active, | :03:36. | :03:39. | |
but some of her friends were. I've got no idea why I was chosen | :03:40. | :03:44. | |
other than to think that I was probably just quite a safe bet | :03:45. | :03:52. | |
to become respectable in those circles of trade | :03:53. | :03:57. | |
unionists and socialists. They had quite strong views | :03:58. | :04:00. | |
politically, and so did he. Andrea's story raises huge | :04:01. | :04:07. | |
questions about the effects The scale of deception | :04:08. | :04:09. | |
is shocking, and for what? Andrea has no criminal record, | :04:10. | :04:20. | |
and she was simply on the margins of a group of left-wing | :04:21. | :04:23. | |
political activists, mostly linked to | :04:24. | :04:30. | |
the Socialist Party. Andrea met Carlo Neri in September | :04:31. | :04:32. | |
2002 on this demonstration in London He was an official steward | :04:33. | :04:35. | |
responsible for the route, He was with a group of people that | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
I knew, one of whom was a friend He came across as being very | :04:41. | :04:47. | |
straightforward, very down to earth, But not the life and | :04:48. | :04:53. | |
soul of the party. He kind of stepped back | :04:54. | :05:04. | |
a little bit from the crowd. At the time, Andrea | :05:05. | :05:08. | |
was living in a rented flat She thought she had | :05:09. | :05:10. | |
found her life partner. We were pretty much together | :05:11. | :05:18. | |
from the day we met, and we were pretty much inseparable, | :05:19. | :05:21. | |
so he moved in with me within a few Yeah, he did frequently, | :05:22. | :05:24. | |
he was quite expressive. And I think he gave that impression, | :05:25. | :05:35. | |
people were drawn to him because he was kind | :05:36. | :05:43. | |
and gentle and caring. Because it was so serious, | :05:44. | :05:47. | |
Andrea introduced him When she attended her sister's | :05:48. | :05:55. | |
graduation, he was invited. When she went on a family holiday | :05:56. | :06:02. | |
to Whitby in Yorkshire, For the family, he was | :06:03. | :06:05. | |
the devoted future son-in-law. He seemed to gel with | :06:06. | :06:12. | |
them quite well. And he seemed to become very fond | :06:13. | :06:18. | |
of them very quickly. He kind of made an effort to be | :06:19. | :06:21. | |
in contact with them a lot. Back in London, Carlo Neri | :06:22. | :06:26. | |
was attending activist events with Andrea, including one | :06:27. | :06:30. | |
above this anarchist book Because Andrea was known to | :06:31. | :06:32. | |
the group, Carlo Neri was trusted. He became a regular | :06:33. | :06:37. | |
at this kind of event. And Carlo Neri was at the forefront | :06:38. | :06:42. | |
of political rallies, working with anti-fascists | :06:43. | :06:49. | |
and the Socialist Party. Quite often, he would be one | :06:50. | :06:51. | |
of the people who was stewarding. He'd often have to be there really | :06:52. | :06:58. | |
early, and be their right to the end, because | :06:59. | :07:01. | |
when you take that responsibility, you have got | :07:02. | :07:05. | |
quite a different role, and he was very much involved | :07:06. | :07:07. | |
in that aspect of it. Carlo was clearly | :07:08. | :07:10. | |
accepted by the group. His job as a locksmith could have | :07:11. | :07:12. | |
been extremely useful He quite often said people | :07:13. | :07:14. | |
could improve the security of where they lived, | :07:15. | :07:18. | |
and again, that seemed at the time With hindsight, it has a different | :07:19. | :07:20. | |
perspective, really. Because there's a huge amount | :07:21. | :07:30. | |
of people's locks that someone So, Carlo Neri had the keys | :07:31. | :07:32. | |
to activists' flats. We've discovered that he was | :07:33. | :07:45. | |
living a double life. Not only was he secretly reporting | :07:46. | :07:47. | |
back to Scotland Yard, what, we don't know, | :07:48. | :07:50. | |
but he had a wife and a son, Carlo used the actual names | :07:51. | :07:53. | |
of his real family in his cover story, presumably to | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
guard against slip-ups, He brought photos of the kind of key | :07:59. | :07:59. | |
people in his family into our house, and they were in our flat, | :08:00. | :08:10. | |
so I had pictures of his son, his sister, and they were actually | :08:11. | :08:14. | |
his real family members Obviously at the time | :08:15. | :08:16. | |
I didn't know any of this, but now I know they were real | :08:17. | :08:21. | |
people in his real life. And there were always reasons | :08:22. | :08:24. | |
why I didn't meet them. We know that his wife knew | :08:25. | :08:28. | |
he was a police officer. His occupation is written | :08:29. | :08:31. | |
on the birth certificate of his son. We don't know how much, if anything, | :08:32. | :08:36. | |
she knew about his undercover Carlo had to invent stories | :08:37. | :08:38. | |
to maintain both lives. How could he justify time away | :08:39. | :08:48. | |
from the Maida Vale flat and his live-in relationship | :08:49. | :08:50. | |
with Andrea to spend time First, he told Andrea that | :08:51. | :08:53. | |
a new job meant he would have Because of his interest in food, | :08:54. | :09:01. | |
his interest in Italian food, he then got a job working | :09:02. | :09:06. | |
for a company which did import and export of fine quality foods | :09:07. | :09:09. | |
and wines, so he then started to do Very convenient for Carlo, | :09:10. | :09:12. | |
because his sister did in fact run an Italian deli, so he could bring | :09:13. | :09:21. | |
home fine foods and wines. He also found an excuse to be away | :09:22. | :09:26. | |
every other weekend. He was probably away from home | :09:27. | :09:33. | |
for four or five nights And that would be due to work trips, | :09:34. | :09:35. | |
and every other weekend he would go Because as far as I was concerned, | :09:36. | :09:45. | |
I was going to spend my life with this man, and his life | :09:46. | :09:50. | |
was my life, and having that strong relationship with a child | :09:51. | :09:53. | |
is a really important thing. There were no access visits | :09:54. | :09:55. | |
to Cornwall, of course. His son was just down the road | :09:56. | :09:58. | |
in the family home. In terms of his relationship | :09:59. | :10:00. | |
with Andrea, it was going Just three months after they met, | :10:01. | :10:02. | |
he proposed to her, at home in the flat they shared | :10:03. | :10:09. | |
in Maida Vale. It was New Year, we had | :10:10. | :10:12. | |
a party with a few friends. It was a really nice gathering, | :10:13. | :10:15. | |
not a huge party. I said yes, and I rang my mum, | :10:16. | :10:17. | |
we told my mum. Carlo and Andrea spent the next year | :10:18. | :10:29. | |
together, but by Christmas 2003, but by Christmas 2003, | :10:30. | :10:35. | |
the Met and Carlo decided He then began the most | :10:36. | :10:37. | |
cynical of exit strategies, father was on his deathbed in Italy, | :10:38. | :10:41. | |
and he had to be there. He said he was really distressed, | :10:42. | :10:47. | |
and he had been missing for a week. He had been out of contact | :10:48. | :10:51. | |
for a week at that point. But a dying father was not dramatic | :10:52. | :10:54. | |
enough, it seems, for his exit strategy, and while in Italy, | :10:55. | :10:58. | |
Carlo said he had learned something truly terrible | :10:59. | :11:01. | |
about a female relative. He told me that she had been | :11:02. | :11:10. | |
sexually abused by their father. The stuff he was disclosing | :11:11. | :11:17. | |
was horrendous. And I think if you love someone | :11:18. | :11:18. | |
and you are with someone, you have massive amounts | :11:19. | :11:22. | |
of compassion for them. You do for anyone who's | :11:23. | :11:26. | |
experiencing that difficulty, but when you live with them, | :11:27. | :11:28. | |
and you love them, and you see them being in much pain, or so you think, | :11:29. | :11:32. | |
you want to support them. Andrea tried to save | :11:33. | :11:37. | |
the relationship, but Carlo seemed He moved out four months later, | :11:38. | :11:39. | |
taking everything, down to the last He went to live with other | :11:40. | :11:45. | |
activists in the group. Their relationship survived | :11:46. | :11:51. | |
for a while, but in November 2004, two years after they first met, | :11:52. | :11:56. | |
he sent her an e-mail saying And after that, he simply | :11:57. | :12:00. | |
disappeared. Newsnight now on BBC | :12:01. | :12:09. | |
Two with Kirsty Wark. Tonight, the environmental | :12:10. | :12:13. | |
protesters, the undercover cop That was that until activists | :12:14. | :12:15. | |
and journalists, Newsnight included, started investigating how the Met | :12:16. | :12:25. | |
infiltrated protest groups. Campaigners Peter Salmon | :12:26. | :12:37. | |
and Eveline Lubbers devised a survey list of 15 questions following this | :12:38. | :12:39. | |
early work to try to identify For example, did they | :12:40. | :12:42. | |
have cars and vans? Someone must have planned it maybe, | :12:43. | :12:45. | |
and that is what we want to know. It is also about the individual | :12:46. | :12:58. | |
and the undercover officers and the damage they did, | :12:59. | :13:02. | |
but someone thought this all out. The Met police are now under intense | :13:03. | :13:06. | |
pressure over the deployment In November, eight women | :13:07. | :13:11. | |
who unwittingly entered into intimate sexual relationships | :13:12. | :13:16. | |
with undercover police called The worst part of this is to recall | :13:17. | :13:18. | |
that actually when he was with me, The Met have settled seven | :13:19. | :13:26. | |
of their legal claims for damages. Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt | :13:27. | :13:36. | |
issued an abject apology. It has become apparent that some | :13:37. | :13:40. | |
officers acting undercover whilst seeking to infiltrate protest groups | :13:41. | :13:43. | |
entered into long-term intimate sexual relationships | :13:44. | :13:47. | |
with women which were abusive, I acknowledge that these | :13:48. | :13:48. | |
relationships were a violation of the women's human rights, | :13:49. | :13:56. | |
and abuse of police power I unreservedly apologise on behalf | :13:57. | :13:59. | |
of the Metropolitan Police Service. But if the Met thinks they have | :14:00. | :14:10. | |
drawn a line under this affair, In this new case, Andrea says | :14:11. | :14:13. | |
it is like being the victim This kind of level of emotional | :14:14. | :14:17. | |
abuse, I would say, or psychological abuse, was used to keep | :14:18. | :14:24. | |
the relationship on a trajectory It is psychological torture, | :14:25. | :14:26. | |
and it's very damaging. Andrea is now working | :14:27. | :14:39. | |
with the solicitor who has represented all the other eight | :14:40. | :14:42. | |
women who have taken legal action This is clearly a pattern | :14:43. | :14:44. | |
that they worked on. The other women who had | :14:45. | :14:52. | |
relationships all describe similar exit strategies, and in each | :14:53. | :14:54. | |
of those cases, they were harmful, and this is the one of the worst | :14:55. | :14:57. | |
I have heard in related the whole story of sexual abuse and domestic | :14:58. | :15:01. | |
violence that didn't exist, and I think that is | :15:02. | :15:03. | |
a sick thing to do. The Met refused to confirm | :15:04. | :15:09. | |
or deny whether Carlo Neri We know his true name, | :15:10. | :15:11. | |
and quite a few details about his life, including the fact | :15:12. | :15:17. | |
he infiltrated a number of demonstrations here | :15:18. | :15:19. | |
in central London. He has a highly distinctive surname, | :15:20. | :15:20. | |
and we decided not to broadcast this The Metropolitan Police issued | :15:21. | :15:24. | |
a statement to Newsnight. Assisted Commissioner Martin Hewitt | :15:25. | :15:37. | |
told us: Andrea has just been given core | :15:38. | :15:53. | |
participant status in the public enquiry into undercover | :15:54. | :16:13. | |
policing now under way. She has only just begun to process | :16:14. | :16:18. | |
the fact that two years of her life were effectively stolen by the state | :16:19. | :16:24. | |
after our investigation A decade on, and she's | :16:25. | :16:26. | |
rebuilt her life. Rather like the fiery blast | :16:27. | :16:30. | |
furness that powers it, the Tata steel plant in Port Talbot | :16:31. | :16:41. | |
has shown an insatiable appetite It's been losing a million pounds | :16:42. | :16:45. | |
a day - and has swallowed three hundred million pounds of investment | :16:46. | :16:48. | |
in the last four years. The latest brutal round of job cuts | :16:49. | :16:51. | |
there means some 750 will have to go - of more than 1000 jobs in steel | :16:52. | :16:57. | |
axed today across Britain. And that - for the Indian | :16:58. | :17:04. | |
company behind it, Tata - The reason for the difficulties | :17:05. | :17:08. | |
are not particularly new ones - but they're getting | :17:09. | :17:11. | |
harder to overcome. Slowing demand and a seemingless | :17:12. | :17:12. | |
endless supply of cheaper Chinese commodities - plus higher | :17:13. | :17:14. | |
energy costs here - have rendered Britain's | :17:15. | :17:16. | |
own steel making more costly So is there much that the government | :17:17. | :17:18. | |
can realistically do? Jobs in steel are vanishing fast. | :17:19. | :18:03. | |
The clouds of economic uncertainty claimed 750 livelihoods. The steel | :18:04. | :18:07. | |
plant will also see around 100 jobs go. The measures we take, we are | :18:08. | :18:18. | |
very confident we can turn this industry around. The job losses in | :18:19. | :18:24. | |
UK steelworks had their roots in the Chinese construction and | :18:25. | :18:28. | |
manufacturing boom that followed the economic crisis. Steel manufacturers | :18:29. | :18:32. | |
invested in expensive new plants in the hope of supplying this seemingly | :18:33. | :18:37. | |
limitless market but the extra demand never came. If we look at | :18:38. | :18:41. | |
this graph for how the capacity is being used, in the decade following | :18:42. | :18:48. | |
the year 2000 it was around 90%. Since 2009 it has been under 80% for | :18:49. | :18:53. | |
much of the time. For the last year, demand has been contracting. The | :18:54. | :18:58. | |
price has dropped from around ?600 per tonne to around ?200 per tonne. | :18:59. | :19:05. | |
Cheap money has meant loss-making steelworks are kept afloat in debt. | :19:06. | :19:17. | |
The MP whose constituency includes the Port Talbot plant says the UK | :19:18. | :19:22. | |
Government must take much of the blame. What we are asking for is a | :19:23. | :19:27. | |
level playing field. 80% of the Chinese steel sector is state-owned. | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
They are subsidised to the hilt by the Chinese government, in clear | :19:33. | :19:35. | |
violation of international trading rules. Why isn't the government | :19:36. | :19:40. | |
doing more to push the European Commission on that? There is | :19:41. | :19:44. | |
anti-dumping legislation in place. Why don't we use it? We have a | :19:45. | :19:52. | |
government with a lazy ideology that believes the market is right and | :19:53. | :19:56. | |
sets the price and the other is that they are cosying up to Beijing. It | :19:57. | :20:00. | |
is not that long ago since the Chancellor was touring Port Talbot. | :20:01. | :20:07. | |
He was there to publicise help for energy intensive industries like | :20:08. | :20:11. | |
steel-making. The government says it's done much more sense by | :20:12. | :20:20. | |
changing the rules. There is obviously this overproduction of | :20:21. | :20:22. | |
steel that is affecting countries around the world but the steel | :20:23. | :20:29. | |
industry have asked us for action on procuring and energy prices, we have | :20:30. | :20:32. | |
taken action. They want us to take action within the European Union and | :20:33. | :20:36. | |
we've done that as well but we will continue to work with them. I want | :20:37. | :20:42. | |
to have a strong British steel industry at the heart of our | :20:43. | :20:48. | |
manufacturing base. But the steel industry says other European | :20:49. | :20:51. | |
governments are doing far more. The Germans have spent 6.4 billion euros | :20:52. | :20:55. | |
to support energy intensive industries in terms of mitigating | :20:56. | :21:00. | |
the impact of carbon tax. We spent just ?100 million per year. That | :21:01. | :21:04. | |
will rise but it is just simply not enough. The worldwide steel glut is | :21:05. | :21:10. | |
now hitting China, where plants are closing and one boss says his | :21:11. | :21:16. | |
industry is bleeding cash. Some believe we in the UK are better | :21:17. | :21:21. | |
advised to look for new industries. In the long-term, it is not economic | :21:22. | :21:25. | |
to compete with places like China, where the Labour costs are lower. | :21:26. | :21:31. | |
The stability means it is better to invest. It is not a short-term | :21:32. | :21:36. | |
bridging gap or something that if we do it now we will be able to fix, in | :21:37. | :21:40. | |
a couple of years. They will never be economic again. Talk of new | :21:41. | :21:48. | |
industries and economic forces will be of little comfort to the workers | :21:49. | :21:53. | |
of Port Talbot and others who have lost their jobs. In a moment we will | :21:54. | :22:02. | |
hear from and a supreme but first we are joined by Michael Sheen, who | :22:03. | :22:06. | |
grew up in Port Tolbert and has made a film set there. This area is close | :22:07. | :22:12. | |
to your heart. What impact do you imagine this will have? It is | :22:13. | :22:17. | |
incredibly frightening in terms of the repercussions. It is not just | :22:18. | :22:33. | |
the jobs being cut at Tata steel, there is a domino effect for the | :22:34. | :22:40. | |
whole region. Other jobs that are dependent on what is going on at the | :22:41. | :22:46. | |
steelworks. Port Talbot is a town with a lot of challenges already. It | :22:47. | :22:51. | |
is not the most affluent town. The community is facing a lot of | :22:52. | :22:56. | |
difficulties. There was a report, there is already a lot of poverty | :22:57. | :23:00. | |
there and half the people experiencing the effects of poverty | :23:01. | :23:05. | |
are working households. If people in work are experiencing poverty then | :23:06. | :23:09. | |
who knows what will happen when the job cuts happen? It is a frightening | :23:10. | :23:13. | |
time for the town. It sounds terrible, but on an economic level, | :23:14. | :23:20. | |
this is losing ?1 million per day. Should the government continued to | :23:21. | :23:26. | |
hand out cash? This is part of a much bigger picture. The steel | :23:27. | :23:34. | |
industry, through the cuts we've seen in Redcar, and in Scotland, | :23:35. | :23:39. | |
this is not an industry on the up. It is going in one direction. The | :23:40. | :23:45. | |
government says that it is doing everything to help it but the | :23:46. | :23:49. | |
actions and the words don't fit together. I'm not an expert, I don't | :23:50. | :23:53. | |
know what is going on behind the scenes, I know there are a lot of | :23:54. | :23:58. | |
people who feel the government have a lot of positive words but the | :23:59. | :24:02. | |
actions are not backing that up or if they are it is happening too | :24:03. | :24:07. | |
slowly and into small way. Do you know what actions you would like to | :24:08. | :24:11. | |
see? Without asking the government to waste money on something that is | :24:12. | :24:16. | |
not working. I would like to see the government be honest, first of all, | :24:17. | :24:21. | |
about whether they want to support the steel industry or whether they | :24:22. | :24:25. | |
are letting it died by stealth. If they are allowing that to happen, if | :24:26. | :24:30. | |
they don't think there is a way to support the steel industry, if they | :24:31. | :24:33. | |
are dragging their heels over getting involved in the rules that | :24:34. | :24:38. | |
are there, then they need to put into place very quickly support for | :24:39. | :24:42. | |
the communities that have been affected in this way. If there is | :24:43. | :24:46. | |
nothing more for those communities then that is the biggest danger. | :24:47. | :24:51. | |
Let's put some of those point across. Do you accept that he is | :24:52. | :24:58. | |
asking for honesty? He has had that. He makes a very valid point that | :24:59. | :25:04. | |
this is a dreadful day, and so for example when we know, there is no | :25:05. | :25:13. | |
more steel in Redcar, absolutely, need to support that communities so | :25:14. | :25:19. | |
those workers can get into new jobs, no doubt the Welsh government will | :25:20. | :25:23. | |
come up with the same. We are being very honest about it. This has | :25:24. | :25:33. | |
happened in Redcar, in Port Tolbert. You have had the industries saying | :25:34. | :25:37. | |
the government was not alert to crisis warnings, they were asleep at | :25:38. | :25:43. | |
the wheel. We are on top of it. What happened up in Redcar was different. | :25:44. | :25:47. | |
That was a steelworks that had been losing ?600 million over 2.5, three | :25:48. | :25:52. | |
years. That was never going to happen again. It was gone. There | :25:53. | :25:56. | |
were huge problems with the owners. The difference with Tata steel is | :25:57. | :26:02. | |
quite profound. They have been trying to sell beer division based | :26:03. | :26:07. | |
in Scunthorpe for two years. We can to make sure we play a full part in | :26:08. | :26:13. | |
securing that deal. I pack Tata steel want to sell it. Is that | :26:14. | :26:19. | |
right? It was on the market two years ago in Scunthorpe. Turning to | :26:20. | :26:23. | |
Port Talbot, that is very different. They have already brought the | :26:24. | :26:27. | |
consultants in to say, what do we need to do to keep this place and | :26:28. | :26:33. | |
make sure it is sustainable? They brought the consultants in, | :26:34. | :26:39. | |
unfortunately 1000 jobs have already gone. What are you going to do, put | :26:40. | :26:47. | |
more money in? We cannot do that, the state aid rules do not allow it. | :26:48. | :26:53. | |
But what we can do, we have implemented four of the five | :26:54. | :26:59. | |
electricity prices, emissions directive, dumplings, I'm quite | :27:00. | :27:02. | |
happy to discuss what we've done on dumping, and the other thing we've | :27:03. | :27:07. | |
done, we've looked at the procurement rules. That is hugely | :27:08. | :27:11. | |
important. No other government in the European Union has changed the | :27:12. | :27:17. | |
procurement rules. There is a sense among British steel companies that | :27:18. | :27:21. | |
in many cases they are not even allowed to tender for jobs. At | :27:22. | :27:26. | |
Hinckley Point C at a nuclear plant. That is completely different. 60% | :27:27. | :27:35. | |
will be available. Unfortunately... I do not understand that. Some are | :27:36. | :27:44. | |
out to tender. Can I explain why there is a problem? 60% of the steel | :27:45. | :27:48. | |
should be available for British Steel however, 40% is no longer made | :27:49. | :27:55. | |
in this country. But, in terms of the billions of pounds, this is | :27:56. | :28:03. | |
really important, I want to tell you something that a Labour MP has said, | :28:04. | :28:13. | |
he talks about there not being opportunity to bid on nuclear | :28:14. | :28:17. | |
repairs and the justification they were told was EDF was providing for | :28:18. | :28:23. | |
underutilised French manufacturing. Is he wrong? I don't know. You said | :28:24. | :28:28. | |
that in October. You said you would look into it. Yellow mac people say | :28:29. | :28:37. | |
things but when you look at it. EDF acquired electric and he says it is | :28:38. | :28:42. | |
steel companies have not been able to tender. That's what he said. | :28:43. | :28:49. | |
They've not had the opportunity to bid. Can we talk about what the | :28:50. | :28:57. | |
government has been able to do? That is quite important, if the | :28:58. | :29:00. | |
government is promoting British steel or not. We've changed the | :29:01. | :29:04. | |
procurement rules, never been done before. There is now no excuse not | :29:05. | :29:09. | |
to buy British Steel. That's never been done before. We quantified the | :29:10. | :29:14. | |
amount of steel that we anticipate to be available in the billions of | :29:15. | :29:18. | |
pounds we are putting into the industry in this. We've quantified | :29:19. | :29:27. | |
it and shared those figures. You heard the Prime Minister, what he | :29:28. | :29:33. | |
said, we are absolutely determined that we will keep steel production | :29:34. | :29:43. | |
at both Scunthorpe and Port Talbot. The steel industry have asked you | :29:44. | :29:50. | |
not to give China market status. Are you going to? It is the decision of | :29:51. | :29:55. | |
the European Union. Should they have market economy status? In theory, | :29:56. | :29:59. | |
yes, but they need to prove that they will play by the rules. It is | :30:00. | :30:05. | |
really important, in the first time in July, for the first time we have | :30:06. | :30:11. | |
voted in favour of protectionist measures. That's never happened. | :30:12. | :30:16. | |
They were so shocked in the European Union... They said you were helping | :30:17. | :30:23. | |
China by giving it market status. The overall sense is your government | :30:24. | :30:27. | |
is more preoccupied with keeping China happy than keeping Wales | :30:28. | :30:32. | |
employed. That the spend. That is how it comes across. That is how it | :30:33. | :30:37. | |
comes across to you. That was Leanne Wood. I can assure you we have voted | :30:38. | :30:45. | |
in a way that has never happened before to protect steel. Most | :30:46. | :30:49. | |
importantly, the political will express by the Prime Minister to | :30:50. | :30:56. | |
make sure we continue to produce steel at Port Talbot and Scunthorpe. | :30:57. | :31:01. | |
That is the determination and we've delivered on four. | :31:02. | :31:07. | |
I am going to go back to Michael Sheen. Does this give you | :31:08. | :31:13. | |
confidence? There is the political will that they are committed to | :31:14. | :31:16. | |
steal in this country and import Tolbert specifically. Well, I think | :31:17. | :31:22. | |
the workforce in the steelworks and the larger community have been kind | :31:23. | :31:30. | |
of in the dark for a long time. As soon as it started to become clear | :31:31. | :31:33. | |
there were problems, people started to become desperate to find out what | :31:34. | :31:37. | |
the plan was and whether the Government had a strategy to sort | :31:38. | :31:42. | |
this out. I do think anyone in Port Talbot is feeling any clearer now. | :31:43. | :31:46. | |
And in the country itself, the country has suffered so much in the | :31:47. | :31:52. | |
Dinda era after the coal-mining, those communities in places like the | :31:53. | :31:58. | |
Rhondda but I have visited are still feeling decimated by what happened, | :31:59. | :32:01. | |
and I would hate to see that happen in Port Talbot as well. Is it worth | :32:02. | :32:07. | |
the Government spending money on a way of life, community? Of course, | :32:08. | :32:12. | |
that is why we put ?80 million into Teesside. But can I just say to | :32:13. | :32:16. | |
Michael, I went to Port Talbot for a day, and I know that that is where | :32:17. | :32:20. | |
you were born and bred, but what really strikes me is not just the | :32:21. | :32:24. | |
union representatives who are outstanding and genuinely represent | :32:25. | :32:27. | |
their members, but the level of honesty and realism amongst, mainly | :32:28. | :32:33. | |
men, amongst them, and I think they do get it. I was struck when I went | :32:34. | :32:37. | |
to Scunthorpe as well that the men really understood the real crisis | :32:38. | :32:39. | |
the steel industry was in. Michael Sheen. You might understand that you | :32:40. | :32:46. | |
are drowning, but that doesn't mean you don't want a helping hand. I | :32:47. | :32:50. | |
think it was the realism, and even in Redcar, which was a terrible | :32:51. | :32:54. | |
situation, it was this understanding that you can't argue that the price | :32:55. | :32:58. | |
of steel has almost halved, and that is the reality of it. And in which | :32:59. | :33:06. | |
case, I would love to hear what the Prime Minister and the Government | :33:07. | :33:09. | |
have got in store to help the people of Port Talbot if indeed the steel | :33:10. | :33:15. | |
industry is on decline. It is a Welsh government decision. The door | :33:16. | :33:19. | |
is open, we will always help. Thank you both very much indeed. | :33:20. | :33:26. | |
Who is responsible for the oversight of schools | :33:27. | :33:28. | |
when some are academies under schools commissioners | :33:29. | :33:30. | |
and others the responsibility of local authorities? | :33:31. | :33:31. | |
The question lies at the heart of what Ofsted Chief Michael Wilshaw | :33:32. | :33:34. | |
said is going wrong in the schools system, which he described | :33:35. | :33:37. | |
as confusing and ill-defined in a speech today. | :33:38. | :33:42. | |
He also believes the country cannot continue to "fail half its future" | :33:43. | :33:45. | |
by refusing to sort out the quality of vocational training that many | :33:46. | :33:48. | |
young people who chose less academic courses | :33:49. | :33:49. | |
We will hear from so Michael in a minute. | :33:50. | :33:55. | |
Sir Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, | :33:56. | :33:58. | |
has issued a call to arms to improve English | :33:59. | :34:00. | |
education, that it may be one the Government doesn't actually | :34:01. | :34:02. | |
Sir Michael's responding to a new report by CentreForum, | :34:03. | :34:14. | |
an education thinktank, which explains how the gap | :34:15. | :34:16. | |
between poorer children and the rest grows whilst they are at school. | :34:17. | :34:19. | |
As they start school, the gap averages | :34:20. | :34:22. | |
By the time they're 11, it's nine months. | :34:23. | :34:24. | |
And at 16, it reaches almost 20 months, more than a year | :34:25. | :34:27. | |
I think the gap between young people from disadvantaged and advantaged | :34:28. | :34:34. | |
backgrounds is one of the big scars on the face of English education. | :34:35. | :34:38. | |
We've made some good progress in primary education in reducing | :34:39. | :34:40. | |
the gap recently, but it's far too wide | :34:41. | :34:42. | |
in secondary education, and it goes on widening, | :34:43. | :34:45. | |
that gap, every year of a youngster's time in education, | :34:46. | :34:47. | |
and that can't be something that we are | :34:48. | :34:49. | |
Now, Sir Michael's proposals to address this cut | :34:50. | :34:56. | |
For example, he says he wants powerful political figures to feel | :34:57. | :34:59. | |
responsible to local people for the performance | :35:00. | :35:01. | |
But the Government has a policy of encouraging local authority | :35:02. | :35:05. | |
schools to become academies, and that in part is intended | :35:06. | :35:08. | |
to erode the role of local politicians in schooling. | :35:09. | :35:10. | |
The school system is built on an army of volunteer school | :35:11. | :35:17. | |
He says they need a better skill set. | :35:18. | :35:21. | |
In fact, in what would be a potentially expensive | :35:22. | :35:23. | |
move, he said we should consider paying them | :35:24. | :35:25. | |
We know that leadership is a crucial ingredient in high-quality | :35:26. | :35:32. | |
schools, and we have got some fantastic schools here in places | :35:33. | :35:34. | |
The problem is, how do we get that strong leadership | :35:35. | :35:38. | |
right throughout the country when we know from Ofsted reports | :35:39. | :35:41. | |
that it is not there in many parts of the | :35:42. | :35:43. | |
country outside London and the south-east? | :35:44. | :35:47. | |
Sir Michael also worries about children drifting into weak | :35:48. | :35:49. | |
vocational training, so he has called for more university | :35:50. | :35:51. | |
technical colleges, schools that start at 14 | :35:52. | :35:53. | |
and prepare pupils for a specific trade. | :35:54. | :35:59. | |
And again, this won't be much loved in Whitehall where these | :36:00. | :36:02. | |
expensive technical schools have few fans. | :36:03. | :36:05. | |
So Sir Michael says we need better school leadership, | :36:06. | :36:07. | |
better options for children who want a vocational path and better school | :36:08. | :36:10. | |
You certainly can't say that he lacks ambition. | :36:11. | :36:23. | |
Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Chief Inspector of Schools | :36:24. | :36:25. | |
You paint a pretty grim picture in your report today - | :36:26. | :36:29. | |
underperfoming schools, north south divide, school leavers | :36:30. | :36:31. | |
unprepared for jobs, behaviour problems, this | :36:32. | :36:32. | |
You're approaching the end of your term. | :36:33. | :36:40. | |
I am passionate about raising standards in all of our schools. In | :36:41. | :36:50. | |
our last annual report, we said primary schools across the country | :36:51. | :36:53. | |
are doing very well indeed, and you just had a piece about the closure | :36:54. | :36:58. | |
of steelworks in south Wales, in Redcar, where the steelworks closed | :36:59. | :37:03. | |
recently, an area of deprivation and a high degree of poverty, the | :37:04. | :37:06. | |
primary schools there are doing phenomenally well, above the | :37:07. | :37:12. | |
national average, but the secondary schools are failing, and that has | :37:13. | :37:14. | |
been replicated across the country, particularly in the Midlands and | :37:15. | :37:19. | |
particularly in the north. London is doing very well, as are secondary | :37:20. | :37:23. | |
schools in the south-east. And if we are going to improve our secondary | :37:24. | :37:26. | |
school performance, accountability and leadership are key things that | :37:27. | :37:32. | |
will do that. Something like the Northern Powerhouse, presumably | :37:33. | :37:34. | |
Biggins oration by the government to put them north of the heart of what | :37:35. | :37:38. | |
it is doing industrially, will that happen? Yes, and I support what the | :37:39. | :37:44. | |
Prime Minister Chancellor want to do, but education has to be at the | :37:45. | :37:48. | |
heart of that, and if you have too many failing secondary schools in | :37:49. | :37:51. | |
the North and Midlands, we will not achieve that powerhouse. One in | :37:52. | :37:55. | |
three secondary schools in the Midlands and North are not achieving | :37:56. | :37:59. | |
well. In the 16 local authorities, less than 60% of secondary schools | :38:00. | :38:12. | |
are good or excellent, one third of those in the North. We need good | :38:13. | :38:17. | |
leadership and clarity of the accountability system. You have a | :38:18. | :38:21. | |
teacher recruitment crisis. Where has that gone wrong? There has never | :38:22. | :38:26. | |
been a time when I have been teaching, and I have been a | :38:27. | :38:29. | |
headteacher long time in London, there has never been a time when it | :38:30. | :38:33. | |
has been good. It is particularly problematic now because the economy | :38:34. | :38:36. | |
is improving and graduates have more choice of the sort of jobs that they | :38:37. | :38:42. | |
can go into. But there is a problem, and what we need to do as a nation | :38:43. | :38:45. | |
is to sell teaching much more proactively and positively than we | :38:46. | :38:50. | |
have done up to now. Teaching is a great job. Leading teachers is a | :38:51. | :38:55. | |
great job. We hear so much negativity about teaching. And I get | :38:56. | :38:58. | |
really frustrated when I hear that, because ice really enjoyed my life | :38:59. | :39:02. | |
as a teacher, I thoroughly enjoyed my life is ahead, and you talk to | :39:03. | :39:05. | |
lots of teachers and head teachers, they enjoy it. We don't sell | :39:06. | :39:11. | |
teaching as well as we should. I'm thinking of Nicky Morgan calling | :39:12. | :39:15. | |
Michael Gove the former Education Secretary despised and divisive. Do | :39:16. | :39:23. | |
you agree with that? I had a lot of time for Michael Gove. He may have | :39:24. | :39:27. | |
made mistakes here there, but he was passionate about raising standards | :39:28. | :39:31. | |
and raising standards for poor children, and I think he has been | :39:32. | :39:36. | |
unfairly treated. The message he sent was if you want standards to | :39:37. | :39:39. | |
improve, you have got to give power and authority and freedom to the | :39:40. | :39:45. | |
people who really matter, the people on the front line, the people in the | :39:46. | :39:51. | |
classrooms. Take the system away from bureaucrats and give it to | :39:52. | :39:54. | |
people who can really raise standards, people in the classrooms | :39:55. | :39:57. | |
and corridors and playgrounds. I wanted to ask you about the front | :39:58. | :40:01. | |
story of the Daily Telegraph, David Cameron will back the Muslim Veil | :40:02. | :40:05. | |
plan. He says the Prime Minister will give backing to public | :40:06. | :40:09. | |
authorities in terms of schools, the banning of the veil in schools. | :40:10. | :40:13. | |
Would you back that? Si yes, I would. The Prime Minister's view | :40:14. | :40:20. | |
that we have got to make sure that our liberal values, our liberal | :40:21. | :40:26. | |
Western values are protected, people need to listen to that, and the | :40:27. | :40:29. | |
Muslim community need to listen to it as well. We have come a long way | :40:30. | :40:35. | |
in our society to ensure that we have equality for women and that | :40:36. | :40:38. | |
they are treated fairly. We mustn't go backwards. | :40:39. | :40:42. | |
So if it is down to individual organisations to choose to stop | :40:43. | :40:44. | |
Muslim women from wearing the veil, you would recommend it? We would | :40:45. | :40:49. | |
support that, particularly if it is stopping good communication in the | :40:50. | :40:53. | |
classroom and lecture hall. And you think it is? Possibly. My inspectors | :40:54. | :40:58. | |
occasionally see issues with communication. Sir Michael Wilshaw, | :40:59. | :41:02. | |
thank you for coming in. | :41:03. | :41:05. |