04/08/2016 Newsnight

It's turning out to be the post that's impossible to fill.

Dame Lowell Goddard has become the third head of the inquiry

into child sexual abuse to step down.

Faced with criticism over the time she's spent abroad

since taking up her post, she offered her resignation this

We'll try to work out what happens to the inquiry now

and we'll ask why it's had such a faltering start.

Also tonight, we didn't get the Brexit budget.

But the Bank of England has given us a Brexit bundle,

a package of measures to prop up the economy.

We are living through a time of considerable uncertainty. One thing

we can do is reduce the uncertainties over the issues over

which we have controlled. Or was it a bit nutty

for the Bank to look so rattled I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't

do that. What is the problem? And will artificial intelligence

help usher in the brave new world It is by any standards a huge

inquiry into an enormous topic. It was originally set

up in 2014 by the then But it got into trouble

before it got going, losing the first two people

who were put in charge - both accused of having connections

that made for conflicts Then it was put on a statutory

footing last year, it was completely reconvened, and all seemed

to be in place. Dame Lowell Goddard,

brought in from New Zealand, She expected it to

last several years. It was all moving slowly,

and so it was not great PR to find Goddard had spent weeks back

in Australasia on top The head of the official inquiry

into past handling of child abuse has resigned. Dame Lowell Goddard, a

New Zealander judge comment Dave noticed today that she will no

longer chair being quest. Her successor will inherit a huge

programme with 13 separate strands covering bodies from the Catholic

Church through to Lambeth Council. The inquiry has had problems since

July 2014 when the then Home Secretary announced it in response

to a rash of abuse revelations. I can now tell the house that the

government will establish an Indic went -- an independent inquiry panel

of experts to consider whether public bodies and other non-state

institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect

children from sexual abuse. Theresa May's first choice to chair the

inquiry in 2014 was Baroness Butler Sloss, a British judge. At her late

brother had been Attorney General in the late 1980s and she might need to

examine his work. After an outcry, she resigned. Then in September

2014, Dame Fiona Woolf was appointed as chair, another lawyer. She

resigned a month later for similar reasons when it emerged she was an

acquaintance of Lord Brittan, whose conduct in the 1980s was also

expected to be reviewed. So, Dame Lowell was appointed in 2015. In

this country, as in other countries, public concern about institutional

failure to protect children from sexual abuse has mounted with the

growing realisation of the sheer scale of this problem. Dame Lowell

faced criticism this week because she spent the equivalent of three

months abroad and the inquiry has yet to hear a witness. I think the

real problem emerged at the hearing last week. Not only did she have to

postpone the hearing into the late Lord Jana for six months after she

had been set -- she had said that she would be hearing evidence from

witnesses, but she seemed completely thrown when counsel for

Leicestershire police asked for a particular order banning publication

of something that had been said, possibly an area of the hearing. The

only assumption I can make is that she simply wasn't up to the job.

Dame Lowell, though, may not be that essential. The inquiry has four

other panellists and a big staff. I personally wonder whether or not we

actually need a chair. Maybe it is too much of a burden for one person.

Everything is finally taking off. I don't think that we should be too

distracted by the unfortunate departure of just one person. The

inquiry continues but, two years in, it is still only getting started.

With me are Raymond Stevenson, founder of Shirley Oaks Survivors

Association and a survivor of abuse himself, and down

the line, Tim Loughton, former Children's Minister.

Good evening to you both. Raymond, what is your reaction to this?

Waiting so long... Let me explain, I was physically abused. The 600

people I represent, half of them were sexually abused, they are going

to be let down in every way, shape or form. They going to be let down.

Some of them went through this 30 years ago in investigations by the

police. Some of them went through this with other investigations. They

kind of really relied on this to be the last swansong, the last chance

to really get justice. Were you happy with Lowell Goddard? We were

unconvinced that this should be handled by one person. We felt there

should be at least six people chairing the separate strands. But

when we spoke to her and when we petitioned, we felt comfortable. But

there was always something lurking in the background, clearly. We're

not so worried about her taking the time off. Was she the right person

for the job in the first place? OK. Tim, why do you think she had to go?

Well, we don't know. I'm deeply disappointed that she has resigned

this evening. It is third time unlucky, as you say, after some

false starts. Theresa May has literally scoured the world to come

up with Lowell Goddard from New Zealand. She had been in place for

18 months. I met her several times and she was in front of the home

affairs Select Committee and we wholeheartedly endorsed her

appointed. She is deeply impressive and I know she is respected by the

people working around her. It's very disappointing and quite baffling

that she has chosen to go today and it's really important that this

inquiry keeps going and the momentum is not lost. The important work it

has already done and the more important work it is now prepared to

do is in no way wasted and can now carry on. Can we just go through a

couple of reasons people have suggested? Maybe she was

inappropriate and needed to go. One is that she took 44 days on top of

her Daniel Levy last year back working or doing other activities in

Australia and New Zealand. Is that a problem? -- on top of her annual

leave. We don't know the full details of that and a lot of that

time it would appear it was spent in Australia where she was looking to

learn the lessons from the Australian Royal commission into

historic sets abuse -- historic child sets abuse which had been

going for many years and was in some ways a precursor of the review that

Theresa May set up back in 2014. I presume she has been doing some

important work there. We've taken so long to get this inquiry, so many

survivors of these ghastly historic sets abuse cases had their hopes

pinning on at last getting to the bottom of the truth of what happened

over many, many decades, a lot of them had put their hopes in Lowell

Goddard, so it is a shame that she has gone but for goodness sake,

let's not keep beating up on those people who have been appointed to do

a really complex and difficult job and one that needs to be done. I do

know if you heard Joshua in Chris Kirk's package saying that to him it

didn't look like she was up to the job, she did not appear to know

enough about the British legal system. In your view, is there

anything in that charge at all? Look at the media, the home affairs

Select Committee, the Home Secretary, the survivors, everybody

else poured over her CV and qualifications add info night when

she was appointed 18 months ago. Everyone agreed that she was a good

appointment and the big issue as to whether she might not be independent

and might know some of the people who were being looked into was the

key question. The fact that she came from New Zealand solved that one. I

had no doubt she was up to the job. She was very impressive when I met

her personally. We unanimously endorsed her. Let's not try to say

she was never up to the job. We don't know exactly why she stood

down but the inquiry needs to get on with its work now. Raymond, within

five minutes of this I was hearing people say it's all part of a

cover-up, they were Ash Nevill wanted this inquiry, it's all done

to undermine the inquiry. Do you believe that? Do you believe there

will be survivors who believe this is all about undermining the wiry?

We have to tell you our position. We absolutely decided to carry out our

own investigations because we were not convinced that this inquiry

would actually happen. We made that very clear at the other inquiry but

although we are participants we reserve the right to pull out. We

think people have to start looking at the conspiracy theory. It's

talked about as if it is pie in the sky that having examined some of the

documents we have, we can understand why there is absolute evidence there

is a cover-up. If people are not willing to talk about it, that's

fine, but we're here today to say we believe it's consistent. Wrong

person, wrong time, should never have been employed, someone needs to

be responsible. This is three times. It doesn't feel like we're just

unlucky any more. People need to be strong enough to say, is there

something untoward going on here? You're shaking your head, I will let

you answer that, but I also want to ask you are what has to be done to

get this inquiry back on track? As briefly as you can, please. Well,

OK, the momentum needs to keep going. As you heard in your report,

the chairman is not the be all and end all, there are hundreds of

people working for this inquiry, four other very distinguished panel

members, a consultant panel of survivors, and academic consultant

panel. Many people part of this inquiry. This needs to go on. The

Home Secretary needs to look at other possible names to take on the

head. The work of the inquiry went on with all the problems we were

having over Baroness Butler Sloss and Fiona Woolf until Lowell Goddard

was appointed as well. But to go back to the conspiracy theories, I

and a stand, people who have had their stories pushed under the

carpet for many years, survivors, may feel very cynical about this.

But those of us who have called for this inquiry for many years and I

note is a now as Prime Minister is absolutely determined that this

inquiry will work and get to the bottom of what happened to so many

people over so many years. Thank you both very much indeed.

So, we keep saying it, we are in uncharted territory.

But today we are in it even more than we were yesterday.

Official interest rates at their lowest since 1694.

And actually, they weren't this low even before 1694, it's just hard

We didn't just get the first change in interest rates for

over seven years today, it was a package of measures.

More quantitative easing, a new corporate bond buying

programme, and a new thing, the Term Funding Scheme,

to make sure the banks pass on the lower rates.

Now, nothing has seemed extraordinary this summer,

but remember for the last few years, we have been hoping

and expecting that financial normality might return.

What we have instead is the next, deeper phase of abnormality.

The Bank of England thinks Brexit is going to do long-term

damage to the economy, which is nothing that

But it also thinks Brexit has done some short-term damage to spending,

which it can ameliorate with these measures.

To explain it all, here's our business editor, Helen Thomas.

The UK economy is taking a real battering. At least, that's the

verdict from the Bank of England. After the vote to leave the European

Union, growth and investment will be lower, the bank forecast.

Unemployment will be higher, and, thanks to the weaker pound,

inflation will rise to above its 2% target, squeezing household income

through Mac. In response, a 4-part plan, bigger and broader than

expected. The benchmark interest rate was cut from half two quarters

of a percent, there is cheaper funding for banks to offset hit to

their profits, more quantitative easing, with ?60 billion in

purchases of UK Government bonds planned, and a new move. Purchases

of ?10 billion of corporate bonds, another effort to lower the cost of

borrowing for companies. In the Black Country, this business owner

is staying upbeat. He has seen a big order from the US since the

referendum, and that will mean new investment in machinery. We would

have preferred to stay. We are staying. We have got to get to grips

with that and be positive about how we deal with the issues that come

up. But the broader picture is worrying. A sharp fall in the PMI

index, a survey measure of activity across manufacturing, services and

construction, clearly had the central bank rattled. Back in

London, the bank's challenge was to calibrate its response, with even

the short-term fallout from Brexit still uncertain and little hard

economic data to go on. The move today smacked of overkill for this

former member of the bank's rate-setting committee. Interest

rates have been so low for so long, it really doesn't justify a further

downward move in interest rates. It isn't going to have much impact, and

there might be more negative effects for savers and for the pound than

positive effects for borrowers. We don't have a lot of economic data

about the position since the referendum, so I think it would be

better to wait until the autumn before making any big judgments

about monetary policy. As usual with exit, however, disagreement is never

far away. If you look at every single piece of data that we have

had since the 24th of June, it is pointing to a fairly abrupt slowdown

in the British economy, possibly recession, some indicators like the

PMI point at more than just a show of recession. If it routes to be too

much, we will see later, but in my view, there was no debate about the

need to come up with more than decent something, and they did.

There was a clear message from the Bank of England today, better to act

early and go big than risk a more severe downturn as a result of the

vote to leave the EU. But that leaves two big questions. First,

what am I does the bank have left is the situation deteriorates from

here? Mark Carney was pretty clear about ruling out negative interest

rates. And second, what help might the bank get from Westminster when

the new Chancellor of the Exchequer unveils his spending plans in the

autumn? On the latter, a rare out work of consensus. The Bank of

England emphasised that Brexit hits the overall potential of the UK

economy in ways it just can't address. In the Midlands, too, the

sense is that the next move. The politicians. I don't think the

interest rate has got that much effect. We finance all our own

development, so if you bring it down from a half of a percent to a

quarter of a percent, not much impact. They can also commit to HS2,

HS2 is not only an infrastructure facility, it is a great employment

opportunity, and it is a good investment for the country. So, the

other important announcement today. A pledge by Philip Hammond that he

would take any necessary steps to support the economy. The Bank of

England surpassed expectations with its package of measures. Perhaps the

next significant milestone for the post Brexit economy is whether the

Chancellor can do the same in the autumn.

Helen Thomas there. I'm joined by Duncan Weldon, former

economics editor of this programme, Brexit campaigner Daniel Hannan and

Pfizer Shaheen, director of the think tank Class. Is Brexit turning

out worse or better than you expected for the economy? I think

most people were expecting some kind of short-term shock. Some of the

numbers show what I would expect. Confidence, jitters, a lot of people

were not expecting the Brexiteer vote, and how shallow that the dip

is, and how long it lasts is all about policy, so it is important

some action is taken. Duncan, do you agree? It is early

days, but the evidence we have so far is pretty bad. Deep dives in

consumer confidence, which is very important, business confidence has

taken a hit. We don't have any hard numbers but everything so far makes

me worried. Come on, Danny! All of that is surveys. What I thought was

interesting was listening to the business owner in that clip, he said

it is pessimistic, but my orders are up, people are investing more, if

you look at what is actually happening rather than asking people

how they feel when they watch all these gloomy reports. We have had a

massive Glaxo Smith Kline investment, Tata saying that they

won't necessarily pull out, Pinewood continuing, Wells Fargo spending

money on EU European HQ in London, so there is no evidence of anything

in the real world. But that is pretty firm data that we have got.

But if you look at even what the bank itself, what the Bank of

England was saying just in May in the run-up to the vote, Mark Carney

said we would be in a technical recession, now he is saying growth

of 0.6%, but the direction is witty good as far as his upward revision

of forecast. Forecasts are going down! The three-year forecast at the

end of the three years, the forecast is now for an economy that is 3%

smaller than it would have been back in May. That is about 40 billion a

year of lost income, and is that better or worse than you would have

thought? As recently as May of this year, the Treasury was saying that

the economy would shrink between 3.6 and 6%, a recession, not slower

growth. The governor of the Bank of England said we would be in

technical recession, or at least there was a strong risk. So already

there sounding more optimistic. Let's just be clear that there is

clearly going to be a slowdown here. This will impact on people's lives,

and what we do about it now is the most important thing to focus on.

That is a very good point. One argument is that monetary policy is

irrelevant to the kind of uncertainty, if companies stop

investing because they don't know whether they will have trade

arrangements that are investment favourable, there is no point in

trying to induce them to make that investment with a cut in interest

rates. To sounded Dickensian, you are pushing on a string. Credit

supply can't make credit demand. The bank is doing everything it can in

the short run, I am not sure it will be enough, and I don't think the

bank thinks will be enough. The bank says, we are doing all of this, and

the economy is still going to slow, unemployment will still increase,

that is a pretty clear signal that the Chancellor needs to do

something. And Faiza, cutting interest rates, we basically have

interest rates as low as they can practically go. This is another

historic low. It might make a bit of difference in terms of money in

pockets for some of those in particular on tracker mortgages,

that will be offset by inflation of course. There are broader measures

we should be thinking about when we think about today's announcement,

essentially before Brexit we had problems in the economy, problems

with debt build-up, the private sector level, and we have to think

also about how these measures will make inequality better or worse.

Theresa May has set out this agenda is important, and today's measures

around quantitative easing make Wealth inequality worse, they make

the rich richer, and that is problematic. Daniel Hannan, some

people say the bank panicked or might have caused panic by making it

look as if you need to throw the kitchen sink at this. I agree with

that. I agree with Duncan, that a quarter percent cut in interest

rates, I think they were too low already, and too low for too long.

You don't look old enough, but you will remember what it was like just

after we left the ERM, Norman Lamont was crucified for saying he could

detect signs of recovery because people were so unsettled by the

change. Actually, looking back, we can see it was the best thing to

happen. Now we have countries from Australia to Uruguay queueing up to

do trade deals with us, we are well out of the problems now overtaking

the eurozone, ten years from now, people will say we should have done

it sooner. Do you agree? Possibly if we make the right decisions now. We

have to make the best of Brexit, certainly, but trade deals done

quickly tend to be bad, so we need to take time. We need to discuss if

we will stay in the common market or not, and what happens going forward,

and that will affect confidence. I do think possibly this could be an

area of isolation as well, so we have to be very careful, and I am

worried that the Bank of England were the first to come up with a

plan, and we haven't heard from the Government yet on their plan, and I

am keen to hear that. I think your point about labour is interesting,

one thing that would be a good confidence boosting measure is to

say in sensitive industries, financial services, fighters --

pharmaceuticals, we will make it easier for them to trade worldwide

and steal a march on the US. Andrea Leadsom says that there will

not be in economic impact of Brexit. She has surely been disproved? The

problem is that throughout the campaign, not just remain

campaigners but the governor of the Bank of England, the Chancellor of

the Exchequer, they were talking about bombs under the economy. You

cannot scare business leaders by saying bad things in newspapers. If

you are broad and you read that George Osborne, Chancellor of the

Exchequer, says we will have an emergency Budget, emergency tax

rises, that is bound to have some impact. We have to leave it there,

thank you all very much indeed. You've heard the phrase,

you know that it means you can But there's more to it

than that, surely? Well, one of Britain's most

prominent businesspeople has the job at IBM, as head of the Internet

of Things business unit there, or the Watson Internet of Things,

Watson being IBM's artificial Harriet Green took over

there at the end of last year after running the travel company

Thomas Cook. She helped turn that company round,

although was embroiled in the controversy over

its unsympathetic reaction to the tragic death of two children

on one of its holidays. A very good evening to you. Let's

start on the Internet of things, that is your new patch. I guess he

will want to understand what it is, but there is no point in giving us

an abstract definition, give us an example of something exciting other

than being able to turn on your heating rightly. Of course. If you

look at all of the data being collected by sensors, it throws out

amazing amounts of information, structured, unstructured. Green

Horizons in China, helping to see the patterns, to analyse the

correlation is, they are able to help reduce pollutants. One of my

favourite little start-ups here in the UK, Bluebell, which is a bell on

a bike which gathers data from other cyclists about what is happening in

the Street, crowd sourced information through the Watson

Internet of things, they actually use that, to be able to make their

travel on the bicycle is safer and better. So some things are already

happening? How does the Internet of things reduce pollution? All of the

information, whether it comes from the weather satellites, from

Government information, plus social media, Watson, with its amazing

capabilities to reason, to correlate these patterns and then to

communicate in natural language to give insight so that the Chinese

government can take action much more quickly on changes in pollutants,

where they are coming from, etc. In fact a 20% reduction in the last

quarter. One is the world by the potential, but at the same time one

wonders whether human beings at the end of it have the capacity to

manage this enormous data-flows, we know there is loads of data washing

over as that isn't captured, that isn't manageable in any way. Is this

going to be the downfall? In the case of having a Watson capability,

this cognitive capability that can help analyse this massive amount of

data, learn about oncology, Watson has learned oncology, and if you

take a country like India with 1 billion people and a thousand

oncologists, to have Watson helping to prevent deaths from cancer, using

these capabilities, it is real life stuff. Let's talk a little about

Brexit because we were talking about it with our chums here, on the

conversation didn't finish before you had to come to you. What is your

take on the effect it has had on our economy? I think we are where we

are. And I think Faiza said it, it is actually what actions we take, so

if we take the technical sector in the UK, which implies 1.5 million

people, ?161 billion of revenue, 500,000 software developers, this is

our opportunity together to be much more agile, to be creating new

start-ups. I think business has an important role to help create jobs

and drive innovation forwards. There are people who say businesses and

fat cats, businesses like yourself, partly to explain public

disenchantment with an economic system, and a lot of the Brexit vote

was a change in the kind of capitalism that you represent... ?

That may well be the case, and what is important now is that business in

its role to help generate jobs, to help create environments where

innovation flows, we have seen recently, things are acquired by

Softbank... And that is a good thing? I think Arm and Softbank are

both part of IBM, they both use the Internet of things, and they have

made commitments to continue investing in Cambridge and to

continue to expand the impact of the Internet of things on people's

lives. I should ask you how you reflect back on your Thomas Cook

days, because the company did improve enormously under you, it did

have this enormous problem, the death of two children, it occurred

way before you were involved in the company at all, but the handling of

it was so botched, everyone acknowledges that. What do you think

when you look back at your time there? I think the role to make

Thomas Cook well so that it could employ the thousands of people that

it employed, could support the customers that it had, really to

transform the business so that it could survive was very important,

and of course with the tragedy that had occurred, making sure that the

health and safety approaches that we had, that this type of tragedy

should never happen again. And if you look at the way that technology,

all of this work to make sure that the monitoring of situations that

occurred don't have to occur again is a very common theme through this.

I should say, we will continue this discussion.

You can send your questions to Harriet

in a Facebook Live chat as soon as we come off air

We will continue talking to Harriet with your questions. But that is

all. Hello. Friday is not looking bad at

all across most of the UK, sunshine pretty much from the word go. A bit

of cloud developing during the day, maybe a few showers across Northern

Ireland and Scotland. But on balance is it is a fine day. You can see a

couple of showers across Northern Ireland, only light and fleeting,

not lasting long at all. 16, 17 in the lowlands of Scotland. The great

thing about Friday is the winds will be light, so in any sunshine it

really will feel very pleasant