12/01/2017 Question Time

Welcome to this first Question Time of 2017.

Conservative Leader of the House of Commons, David Lidington.

The Labour MP who chaired the Vote Leave campaign, Gisela Stuart.

Guardian columnist and broadcaster, Paul Mason.

Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences

at the Open University, Monica Grady.

And the businessman and Brexit campaigner

who was a major Ukip donor, Arron Banks.

As ever, you can join the debate on Facebook,

Our first question from Inderveer Kang. Is Donald Trump fit to be

leader of the free world? Arron Banks? I think he absolutely is. He

won the election fair and square. A lot of people question his methods,

maybe. But our experience of dealing with him, we had quite a lot of

interaction between the Brexit campaign and Trump. I think he is

pretty rational, actually. Certainly, in our meetings with him

he was very calm and reflective and he is quite different off-camera.

There is certainly an element of showmanship about what he does and

time will tell whether the sorts of things he is going to do will be

radically better or not. But he has appointed a cabinet of businessmen,

very rich ones, at that. So we will see how it pans out. We saw you with

Nigel Farage in the Golden lift at Trump Tower. What were you talking

about? That wasn't the lift, that was his front door. What did you

talk about? With Nigel, he wanted to talk about the campaign. He was

tired, it had been a bruising campaign, and they shared that

camaraderie. But we talked, interestingly, about how he wants to

redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor in America. I think even

Paul would have been at home there. It was interesting. I would not have

used the showers! That's very naughty. Paul Mason. If any of the

substantive allegations in the security dossier that's being

published now and handed to the American authorities are true, he

can't be the President. If they are true, and they are allegations, then

he is a security risk. Not a security risk to America, but a

security risk to the 800 British troops who will be sent to Estonia

this year to stand on the front line with Russia. There is no proof in

that dossier that he has done any of these things. It looks like raw

intelligence. I have seen secret intelligence. It doesn't look like

that. This looks like the input that intelligence people use to make

decisions. The person who wrote it clearly has no interception

facilities, no data surveillance facilities. But you know, Trump

himself, during the campaign, actually called on Russia to hack

Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is not just a candidate but the former

first Lady of the United States. This means, if any of these things

are true, and they are two things, one is conspiracy with the Kremlin

over years, and misbehaviour in a hotel. The CIA will know about it.

The CIA and FBI -- FBI will know the details. They have the technology.

They know what shade of gold the shower was. So Obama knows. Obama

will know. And I think he has the duty, as do the CIA chiefs, for us,

not just the American people, to level with people in the West what

they think is true. If it is not true, let's move on. Other than

that, of course he has the right. He is the elected President. Look, he

has been elected and will be inaugurated. I think we ought to

have a debate about the people he appoints around him now. We should

have a very serious look at whether the American constitution will be

stress tested, because Congress will have its say as to what the

President can do. I would not have voted for him but nobody asked me. I

don't think we should equate Brexit with Trump. These were two

completely different things. He has been elected leader of the free

world and we have a responsibility to work with him as best as we can,

and the jury is out. The question is, is he fit to be leader? You have

watched his campaign and heard the way he conducted himself. What

politicians are fit to be elected, if you put it that way? He probably

got elected because he wasn't a politician. If you talk about

fitness, we know one thing about the American system. It is enormously

robust and has means to deal with people who are not fit for the

system, and it will be up to the Americans to exercise their

democratic procedures. What we have seen with Donald Trump in the past

is that he is an entrepreneur, has made a fortune and lost one. He has

done all sorts of things which may or may not be dodgy. He has

certainly expressed some extremely unpalatable opinions and shown

himself to be, you know, well, I'm not going to say dodgy, but he has

shown himself to be a strange person. But he has not been

confined. He was the leader of his empire. He was in charge of his own

destiny. As he becomes leader of the free world, the democratically, we

assume, elected leader of the free world. He is going to be hedged

around by advisers. OK, yes, the ones he has appointed but also

others. He will not be able, I sincerely trust, be able to push

that nuclear button, give every home in the USA two guns, as he has said.

He will not be able to do this. He will be constricted. He has to be.

Then he will be a massive disappointment to the people who

voted for him. Maybe. Maybe so. Look at his first policy, he wants to

take on the pharmaceutical industry in America. That is a wonderful

aspiration as his first policy. I think he aims to do what he says.

When he said, I am going to build a big, beautiful wall and the Mexicans

are going to pay for it, he will do it. Whether you agree with it or

not, that is what he will do. But the joke was, and the Mexicans have

agreed to pay for it and no damn American is going to come across it.

Me go back to the question. What do you think? I don't think he is fit

to be leader of the free world. He does not have the right temperament,

he is too aggressive, continually isolating communities and his

relationship with Russia is frankly troubling. In the second row from

the back. It is ridiculous to say he is fit to be President, because when

you compare Obama's leaving message in his message of hope, aspiration

and equality and you compare it to the Trump campaign built on

scapegoating minorities, racism and allegations of misogyny, I really

think his character which he has shown isn't fit to be President at

all. APPLAUSE

It is very well for us to sit here and say he is not fit to be

President. On the 20th of January, he is going

to be the 45th President. We will have to deal with it. And to Paul

Mason, you know, these allegations, they are just that. There is no

evidence being put forward at all. He has denied the allegations. How

do you suggest he proves they are not true. How can you prove they are

not true? It is not for him to prove. These allegations have not

just been made by BuzzFeed. They have gone into the American

intelligence system and they are being assessed by the American

intelligence system. It is for Obama, and the boss of the CIA, to

tell everyone what they think of them. It is not like someone just

sat there and made an allegation. The man who wrote it is an

ex-British intelligence officer. We do not employ idiots in MI6. We

might have done in the past! But this guy sounds like he knows what

he is talking about. Bidden excellent job with the 45 minute

dossier, didn't they? -- they did an excellent job with it. That

pretended to be a worked through judgment and it wasn't. He doesn't

have much time, does he, a couple of days? David Lidington, it is

difficult for you because being in the government you have too cosy up

to him. The react -- the reality is, as the gentleman said, that Donald

Trump, whatever any of us think about him, and he would admit

himself in the US that he is something of a Marmite politician.

He has huge numbers of fervent supporters and numbers who flocked

to the polls to vote for Hillary Clinton to try to defeat him. But he

has been elected, fairly, under the democratic constitutional system the

United States has. They have, as others have said, other

institutions, a Supreme Court, a Congress that has a constitutional

role of its own, and that is a matter for the citizens of the

United States. Our job in the United Kingdom is, yes, David, to work

closely with whoever, Democrat or Republican, is elected by the

American people. Because US power and policy matter to us, to our

security, it matters to things like counterterrorist policy and

cooperation. It matters to the world economy and to trading opportunities

around the world. So we need to work to forge a good working relationship

with Mr Trump and his administration. It doesn't mean we

will agree on everything. There have been numerous occasions when

Conservative and Labour Prime Minister is alike have disagreed

with a particular American administration. But there has been a

constant acceptance of the reality that our national interests involve

working closely with whoever is democratically elected Indian

knighted States. And do you think we are at the front of the queue or the

back, as President Obama has said, in terms of trade agreements? The

initial words from Mr Trump are encouraging. And I know from earlier

roles of mine in government that the United States is a tough negotiator

when it comes to their own economic interests. But let's look for the

opportunities. Let's hear from the audience. The woman in the back row.

The question was, is he fit, and we don't know if he is fit or not. But

a concern is the people he is pointing to advise him. Are they

fit? What experience do they have of politics, of running a huge country

like the USA? Are you uneasy? Very uneasy. What about you, sir? Whilst

I understand he won the election fair and square, he led a campaign

in which he said some of the most deplorable things I have heard from

a politician. It is ironic that he has gone back on so many promises,

watering them down, which shows he is not fit, if he has to go back on

his promises. What did you particularly object to? The Muslim

ban, and I don't think we should be building walls. We should be

building bridges, not walls. APPLAUSE

Arron Banks? I think you have to see in the context of the election. The

whole US media were against him. Yes, there were times where I think

he overstepped the mark, clearly. Where, for you? The Muslim ban. I

think that is demonstrably wrong and I would condemn it. And saying it

doesn't make him unfit? Don't think it does make him unfit. We have seen

some ropey US president, George Bush at the top. OK, maybe he is a bit

unfiltered, that might be the description, but often politicians

are thinking these things and saying it behind closed doors, and he just

comes out and says it. Anybody else? How refreshing it is to have a

non-career politician and how refreshing it is to have strong

leadership in the west. If he had been our leader, he'd have signed

Article 50 before the courts got involved. OK. It might come to a bit

of that. Let's go on, because he will be president, well, not quite

next week, but almost. Anyway, we will be in Peterborough next week.

We will be in London the week after. On the screen is how to apply, if

you want to come to Peter Brock or London a fortnight away, and I will

give the details at the end. Our second question comes from Natalie

Stanley. Is Theresa May wrong to reject the claims made by the

British Red Cross at NHS hospitals are facing a humanitarian crisis?

The British Red Cross this week saying there is a humanitarian

crisis in the NHS and the Prime Minister rejected it. Gisela Stuart.

I think humanitarian crisis probably was a phrase we might expect to see

in other contexts. What do you mean by that? I associate it with war

zones and something more unpredictable. So they were wrong? I

would choose that phrase. Last year this time, we had the junior doctors

strike. The Tory government has stripped money out of social care.

We know that, if you want decent public services, the health sector

will be affected by any cutbacks in social care and its knock-on effect,

and I would really advise Theresa May to listen very carefully to

Simon Stevens. I've worked with him. He understands the health service

and politics and how it connects. He knows that just more money isn't the

answer and what he asked for was greater coordination, bringing

forward the money, and Theresa May would be well advised to listen to

his advice. APPLAUSE

Of course, when you were running the Vote Leave campaign, you said there

would be ?18 billion more for the NHS if you voted out. You stood in

front of that bus saying ?350 million a week, double what is being

spent. We said we had lost control and, as Vote Leave, we said we would

give ?100 million of that to the health service. I still think we

should do that. The phrase was, a communitarian crisis is one

hospitals in Aleppo are being bombed, but what we are seeing now

is hospitals under pressure. -- a humanitarian crisis. It is a mark of

the professionalism and hard work of NHS staff that, despite those

pressures, we are seeing record numbers of people treated at A and

in other parts of the health service, including record numbers

being treated today despite those pressures within the four hour time

limit, but we made to make sure they take action about this. We continue

to direct more money at the NHS. That is what the government is doing

and continues to do. We have to make sure that we also are making certain

that the best practice that we find in the NHS is replicated and

mainstreamed in every trust around the country because, when you look

at the pattern at different trusts, you find they often have a very

varied record in terms of the quality of service they provide. I

think, if we look to the medium-term... No, it's not the ...

It's the hospitals' fault? No, the reason people are treated in record

numbers is due to the response of listen in professionalism and

dedication of NHS staff but, in an organisation as vast as the NHS, NHS

professionals themselves say that they can find ways in certain

hospitals and they are delivering better quality than other trusts. We

had missed Staffordshire -- mid Staffordshire. That will always be

true, but what about Simon Stevens, it is stretching it to save the NHS

is more than he asked for? Uses a lot of words but one of them wasn't

sorry and I think the government should be saying, we are sorry to

the people dying on trolleys, because that is where it's at. I

don't care whether it is a humanitarian crisis, it's a

political crisis and it's a disgrace for a developed country.

APPLAUSE 20 hospitals yesterday declared a

black alert, the worst thing you can declare. The four hour wait target

has not been met since July 20 15. 4 million people waiting for referral

for treatment, getting from the appointment to being treated, and

ambulance targets haven't been on time for 20 months. A doctor is

writing in the Evening Standard tonight that people going having

their bed filled and not being able to get back into the bed after a

serious operation. We should not reduce it to a single cause, because

there are lots of problems in the NHS, ageing, social care, doesn't

work, hasn't got enough money, not enough space and time to innovate,

and the ageing thing is going to carry on hitting us, but the

fundamental thing that lies behind all of this is the lack of money. I

don't want to go kind of ping-pong of political points. I've made my

political point. I would plead with you to get on the phone to Theresa

May and get her and Philip Hammond to simply ring to departments, the

health department and the local councils, the DC LGB and they just

have say one thing, run a deficit. Please, spend what you need now and

you will not be penalised at the end of the year for overspending. That

would solve the crisis now. APPLAUSE

The woman in pink. What Theresa May and Simon Stevens are bickering,

there are people dying with incurable breast cancer, they can't

get the support they need, drugs are being blocked, life-saving drugs for

cancer, and it seems to me that the government is in denial about the

funding needs. I agree to some extent with what Paul is saying

about needing more money. That is indubitably true. But just throwing

money at the problem will not solve it. The NHS is a monolithic

organisation. One size doesn't fit all. It is no good saying, yes,

learn best practice from this trust and go to that trust, but you have

different populations with different requirements, different needs, and

so to try and force the same pattern of behaviour on hospital trusts

isn't going to work. You need more trust lower down, trust with the

doctors and nurses, who are on the coal face, but, you know, they are

not, they are on the ward, but the doctors and nurses and social

workers who are with the communities, looking at community

hospitals which are closing, where people have to travel greater

distances to come to bigger hospitals. Yes, those hospitals have

the fancy equipment which is necessary... Are they closing

because of funding or another reason? Various reasons, different

in different areas. A lot of it is you are saying, it is better that we

have this specialised maternity care it, so we are going to close these

two cottage hospitals there, but if we could have them both, have it

all, you know, Utopia. Let's hear from the woman there. I think a way

to get money back to the NHS is to start charging people for not

turning up to appointments. I got a text message the other day to say,

this is the reminder of my appointment and it costs the NHS

?100 for people who don't turn up. Every time I for an appointment,

there are always signs to say how many people and turned up but I

think it is a disgrace and that is one way for the NHS to get their

money back. OK. You, sir, in a blue shirt. Is this a result of five to

six years of austerity and tax cuts, the fact we are talking about this

now? Shouldn't we, instead of... APPLAUSE

Instead of talking about cutting corporation tax, shouldn't we be

talking about adding 1p or 2p in the pound to my tax bill that would help

to fund the NHS, social care, schools and everything in the public

sector? Don't you think, Mr and Mrs politician from whichever party, we

have it the public sector to hard over the last six years? Arron

Banks. Well, let's start with the principle that most hospitals I have

been to, I think are pretty efficiently run, and I don't think

it is the people working in the hospitals. There is some top-down

management but clearly it is in crisis on funding. There is a lack

of money in the NHS and that sits at the heart of the problem for

government. It goes to the wider principle of the government should

do less and it should do what is really important well. I would agree

that there is a humanitarian crisis of whether it is that is a question,

but it is definitely a crisis. Unless we put the necessary cash

into it, I think it will get worse and worse. Is there any chance you

may relent on this business of saying the NHS has got any money --

enough money now, we set aside enough? We did put in an extra 400

million for particular winter pressures that come up every winter

season. But they are clearly not enough. If you look at the sums of

money overall you have had in... The raw figures for 2015-16, the NHS

budget was 98.1 billion. 2020-21, it will be 119.1 billion. It is going

up, and it is continuing we only do that, in response to the gentleman

who just spoke, because the economy is continuing to grow and generating

the funds that we can distribute to public services, and corporation tax

revenue has gone up. There was a request from Simon Stevens for more

money in the next two to three years. He asked for it in a

Parliamentary committee. You're not giving it, so there is a clay

difference between what the expert says and what the politician says.

Simon Stevens is independent. The Government made the boss of the NHS

an independent body separate from ministers precisely so he could act

as an independent advocate. He did. He also Paul, which you didn't say

is that when the Government made its announcement about NHS spending, he

welcomed that warmly, said that his concerns had been listened to, had

asked for the extra spending to be front loaded which is exactly what

we have done. If I can just - Monica made an important point about

different patterns needed in different parts of the country.

Rural and urban, it's going to Sarah vicious it's why the reform plans

that are being taken forward within the NHS are being locally driven

rather than being imposed top-down. But you know that the NHS and social

care work hand in hand. You cannot keep cutting billions of social care

in Local Government and then think extra funding in the NHS is

sufficient. You cannot cut down training places and then say we

haven't got enough nurses and doctors to recruit in there. Actions

have consequences. You are quite right, you started to move towards

funding the NHS, but, as you're cutting the rest, you are creating a

crisis and a long-term position which will just get worse. What are

the cuts you are talking about in care in the community, council care,

what scale are you talking about? Oh I think it's significant, ?19

billion since 2010 taken out and you have cut the training places for

staff. The two just will make the situation worse. Also David, you

talked about the ?400 million which in the scheme of the NHS is a drop

in the ocean. It's a week's worth. Just under a week's worth. The man

in orange in the centre, let us hear from you and then woman next to you

This crisis isn't new, it comes around like Christmas, ofry year.

This Government and successive past Governments have continually failed

the British public. APPLAUSE.

Action is required. OK. What would you have? More spending? Higher

taxes? It's like pouring money at the top of the funnel, are you sure

it's going to come out at the bottom and reach where it's needed? The

woman next to you? I agree with the woman up there. You can tell me

there is a crisis, but actually do something about it. I also think

it's not a case of let's throw money at it because that's just quantity

of money, where's the quality going, so I also agree with Monica, don't

just throw money at the NHS because how long is that going to last until

the next crisis? Can I just take you back. I was a Health Minister under

Blair. When Blair said we are going to increase the GDP percentage

spending, we increased the places, created NHS Direct and changed the

model and you had a period of probably about ten years when the

NHS was not the topic of Prime Minister's Question Time and it has

returned to that topic because it's deteriorating again.

APPLAUSE. I can remember news headlines when

you were with Tony Blair as a Health Minister visiting a big hospital

with crowds of angry patients outside. There have been crises,

pressures under Governments of all parties, but it's got to be a

combination of the increased spending that does depend on the

productivity and growth of the economy at the end, but also a

flexible, locally driven approach to local reforms and it will need some

reconfiguration of services in some areas. My area, we used to have

cardiac and stroke unit treatments at both the local hospitals. Now

they've been closed, they have been centralised at one of the hospitals.

My constituency hospital lost out and I was quite miffed about that,

to put it mildly. Actually, the outcomes for patients from having

specialist stroke and cardiac units... David, if you start... More

people are living and making complete recoveries from strokes so

we shouldn't decry... So all these complaints are without any basis?

No, they are not. There is a ground for complaint?

Where there are pressures they have to be addressed.

And where there are cases of bad treatment, which in an NHS treating

millions every day, there are bound to be some, then those need to be

investigated. Bad treatment has not been in the headlines this week. It

is absence of treatment, because of absence of money. What is it about

the evidence that you refuse to confront?

APPLAUSE That money is needed to train more

people. We need more radiographers, more

midwives, more nurses, we need more assistant nurses, what used to be

state enrolled nurses. We need more people actually there, and then you

could keep the smaller units going. Yes, have a really skilled people at

the big, fancy, flashy places, but you need the filtration. This

business about, we have a responsibility, Jeremy Hunt was

saying, you know, you should not just trail to A if your perch your

finger, but we need there to be more people there who are trained to say,

right, you are really badly hurt. Are you shocked by the way things

are at the moment? I am shocked. You think there is a genuine public

worry? Arron Banks. I am a successful businessman. If you

starve a business of working capital and cash, you end up making bad

decisions for the wrong reasons. I think we are in danger where it is

being starved for cash. You have enough money to park ?2 billion in

the World Bank pending the fact that we can't spend enough money quickly

enough on the aid budget, but we are starving the NHS of cash. We have to

start working out our priorities. Is it a priority to spend 12 billion

that is misappropriated by foreign governments, or spend money on the

NHS for people in this country? APPLAUSE

Natalie, who asked the question, what do you make of the answers?

I think everybody did not answer the question. My question was is she

wrong to reject the claims, and she is, in my opinion. We can all get

hung up on the semantics and the wording, is it a humanitarian

crisis, but it is a crisis, whatever you put before that word. I would

argue that yes, Syria and Aleppo is a humanitarian crisis, but are those

people suffering any greater than the person lying on a bed in a

hospital corridor, dying, without the treatment they require? Is there

suffering any less? There is no hierarchy of suffering. The fact is,

it needs to be sorted. I have children and a grandparent who rely

on the NHS, and the fact that they do not receive the care they need in

a timely manner angers me, to be fair.

APPLAUSE I work with people who rely heavily

on health and social and there is a crisis.

Those sort of people don't have a luxury of time to sit in A waiting

to be seen. I think we should be moving on to work together. This is

a clarion call for everyone to work together to try and transform the

services. The government has a five-year plan. Frankly, we don't

have time for that. Something needs to be downright now for these

people. A last word to you, David. I describe both how the money is

going, but also in response to the lady in the front row and to Monica,

look at the figures. There are now nearly 11,500 more doctors than in

2010, nearly 5000 more nurses and midwives, and those NHS staff are

treating more people, year-on-year, for different conditions than they

used to. That is a tribute to them, and they are doing it because the

money is being put in. I agree about the need to provide a means at A

for differentiating between those who do need the Accident Emergency

service and those who need some other kind of treatment or advice.

There are some NHS areas that are doing that effectively. I do think

there are some parts of the country that can learn from success

elsewhere. The NHS itself is saying they think perhaps 30% of people who

go to A would be better going through some of -- some other path.

That seems true from international evidence of other industrialised

countries. I can't quite get a handle on whether you are saying

that the complaints here and the things Jeremy Corbyn said in the

House of Commons are justified, or whether it is making politics

against your government? I think it is perfectly accurate to say that

the NHS at the moment is experiencing some severe pressures.

Those are partly the short-term ones of winter, which is always worse,

but this winter is turning out to be particularly bad with some

persistent viruses that are taking more people to hospitals. But also,

there is what Arron and Monica talked about, the fact that we have

an ageing population and therefore there will be an increase in demand.

It's great, people are surviving, living for longer, living

independently for longer, just as it is great that medical science is

producing more drugs and treatment. The way we keep up with it is to

continue to spend more, which this government is committed to do, but

which depends absolutely on the health and vigour of our economy. It

is to secure reforms that make sure the best, most successful practices

are followed, and it is to integrate social care and health care. You

keep saying the economy is going very well, so the man who said he

would pay an extra 2p on his income tax... The economy is continuing to

grow, but this is a world in which there are many economic risks. It is

a world in which we are still to pay off the whole of the deficit we

inherited. We are about two thirds of the way on that task as it is. So

you can never be complacent. That deficit continues to grow. You have

got the deficit down by destroying the NHS. Thank you!

APPLAUSE No, we got the deficit down while we

have increased spending on the NHS year-on-year.

Who are you shaking your head at? The Jeremy Corbyn lookalike on the.

I hope Jeremy Corbyn is not watching. I would not want him to be

insulted that he looks like me. I just think that what we really need

to look at... I'm a Conservative, but I believe we need to look at

huge reforms within the NHS to make it sustainable. Because to say each

year we will give an extra 10 billion, all of this extra money,

don't we actually need to start having a proper debate about

structural reforms towards health in this country? I'm sorry to those

with your hands up, but we have to go on because we have 20 minutes

left, and a question from that Peters. Is restricted access to the

single market a price worth paying for drastically reducing

immigration? I would come to you, David, but you have been speaking a

lot. Paul Mason. I want us to have the maximum possible access to the

single market because although I thought a lot of what the Treasury

and the Bank of England said was politically manipulated during the

Brexit debate, I voted reluctant Remain. I wanted nothing to do with

the way George Osborne manipulated those reports. But what the Bank of

England said is that we would have a hard Brexit in a chaotic Brexit,

which is what the former ambassador to Europe feared when he resigned.

If we have a chaotic Brexit, we will be wiping out all of the growth we

have made in the last ten years. It will be a disaster. So I want the

maximum continuity. I think we have to accept the Brexit vote. We are

leaving Europe. Get over the denial, find some positivity in it, even if

you didn't like it. That is true. We start with the economy and then we

say to people who voted Brexit because they don't like migration,

we will do as much as we can to address the problem is that you are

bothered about. But if you think Britain is suddenly going to become

Trump style closed to foreigners, it can't be. That also would be very

bad for our economy. I want to get away with the minimum amount of

change to free movement that we need really to be able to win back

consent among the British people for an open and high migration and

highly tolerant economy, such as the one I think all of us really want.

APPLAUSE What did Jeremy Corbyn, who you

support and admire, mean when he said this week that the Labour Party

is not wedded to freedom of movement as a point of principle, but nor do

we rule it out? I can't make head or tail of that.

It's simple. Simple! Many in our party and who support us are wedded

to it as aprons are poor. It is a principle of the European Union.

Once you are outside the European Union, the have to decide if you're

going to fight for it forever. Corbyn and the people around him are

saying, once we go to negotiations, we will not be saying that our red

line is freedom of movement. It is not a principle of socialism, it is

part of a treaty we signed. However, because of Corbyn's position, and my

position, the economy comes first. I am willing to layout a series of

things we would try and do on migration, maybe free movement above

a certain salary, maybe for public sector only. I want a debate about

this because many people voted against it. A lot of people who

supported Arron's party. I want to talk to them. They have a duty to be

listened to. But when we go to negotiations, we have to start from

the economy, get what we can to satisfy the British people and

reassure them on migration. And that means, to be honest, on the day we

leave, free movement as we know it will cease. During the whole

campaign there were two things which both sides absolutely agreed on, and

that was, if we vote leave, we will leave the single market. No, they

didn't. I didn't agree with it and I was on a side, so how can you say

that? People voted on what the official side said. No, they didn't.

What I'm saying is that you are deluding the audience deliberately.

Let the audience decide whether they are being deluded. Both sides said a

vote to leave, whether you want on the Remain scythe or believes macro

side, the campaign said that would mean leaving the single market. The

single market is a trading arrangement of 31 countries which

say you have to comply with the same set of laws, you have free movement

of people, money, capital and services, and you also won't have

control over your borders. So the official vote Leave campaign said we

want to take control of our borders, our trade policy and our laws. If we

now say that Brexit means Brexit, you cannot remain a member of the

single market and not have control over your borders, have control over

your laws and control over your trade. You can. Isolating ourselves

from the single market might not matter. Over half of immigration

into this country comes from outside the EU, so Brexit, no Brexit, single

market, no single market, these people will still come in. No one

from the Leave side, not even Nigel Farage and Arron Banks have said

they will stop migration altogether. We will still have migration from

the EU, even if it is vetted. But we risk isolating ourselves from our

biggest trading block. For me, for relatively little gain. Even if you

do one less migration, more will still come from outside. For me,

Britain is on the verge of cutting off its nose to spite its face. For

me, we are playing a very dicey game. You are shaking your head. I

was an ardent Remainer and I led one of the teams here in Solihull. I

realise now that we are out, OK. The point is, I think there is a fiction

being created between membership and access. The United States, China

have access to the single market yet are not wedded to the free movement

principles. We can still have access and yet have control of our borders.

This fiction that is being created by the EU is going to cause problems

when we get to the negotiating table in March. David Lidington, when you

were working with David Cameron in the run-up, you said these trade

agreements were going to take six, seven, eight years and counting. It

is massive, what is at risk. Do you still take that view?

I'm with the gentleman in the blue jumper. I campaigned very hard for a

remain vote. I was hugely disappointed by the result. But if

you call yourself a democrat, you have to accept that result. What we

now have to do as a Government, as a country, is to negotiate hard for

the best possible deal for people of Britain but also part of our

argument saying we want there to continue to be a really close

working partnership between the UK and what will continue to be our

closest neighbours amongst the European countries. Now, part of

that should, in my view, involve as much, not just access to, but

freedom to operate within the European market for British

companies and, for that to happen on a resick Rick Al basis for European

countries here as well, I think it was also clear from the referendum

that very many people who voted to leave did so thinking in terms of

the immigration debate and trying to re-establish national immigration

control. That's what I found on the doorstep when talking to leave

voters again and again. I think it's clear from the result that freedom

of movement as it currently exists cannot continue as before. But

again, we need to find a way that also respects the rights of the

European citizens who've come here, lived here lawfully, worked, lived

and paid taxes and doing a job their employers value, and the rights of

British people living in the other countries as well.

Aaron Banks? Of course every country in the world

has access to the single market. It's a kind of fallacy. In terms of

the actual single market, I think you mentioned the control of

immigration, the fact that the Government's utterly failed to

control non-EU immigration is not a reason not to do it. I mean, you

have rules, you have regulations. I mean, the idea that Theresa May, by

the way, is going to do a deal with Europe, is laughable. David Cameron

went to do a deal, came back with absolutely nothing, I mean

absolutely nothing! And pushed us into a referendum.

Yes, well I'm sorry you are against democratic votes, but that's the way

it goes. But the fact of the matter is, you've got Marine Le Pen being

elected, Gert Vealeders and the EU hasn't budged an inch. This idea

there is going to be negotiations, it's laughable. So, you know, you

are saying we are going to get a wonderful deal, we'll do the best,

there is no doing the best, it is what it is, we have to leave the

single market and trade with the rest of the world.

APPLAUSE. You? Brexit means Brexit and I think

I agree with Gisela that there are two parties in this negotiation and

Aaron's just picked up on the point that if the EU's position would be

if we want to trade with them, we have to apply with, or comply with

their rules and regulations and they are probably not going to budge. Is

the rather than have this ongoing debate about hard Brexit, it's not

our choice. Ultimately, it will be the EU, whether we have a hard

Brexit or soft Brexit because of their rules and regulations. Now we

voted on immigration, to get our laws back into our country and, on

that basis, if that is going to happen, by definition, we are going

to be outside of the rules and regulations and therefore we need

the trade agreements to be in place when we do leave.

Monica? Coming back to the question of restricted access, is it a price

worth do paying to reduce immigration. I think that we should

not be looking to reduce immigration. From the perspective of

the sector in which I work, which is the university sector, research,

innovation, we need people coming to us from Europe, from America, from

China, from the whole world, because we don't have enough skilled people

in this country to fill the jobs that we need. There are not enough

engineers being trained in the whole of Europe to actually fill the

engineering jobs that are required. There simply aren't enough. And so

if we restrict people coming into this country, we are going to

restrict the people who're working and paying taxes and helping to

build our economy, helping to innovate and helping to design. We

are also going to restrict our own people who want to travel abroad,

travel to America, travel to other countries within the EU and beyond,

we are preventing them from having the opportunity to do that, learn

new skills and then bring them back to this country. Very briefly, are

you reconciled? APPLAUSE.

Are you reconciled to the Brexit vote? I am not reconciled. I'm a

good democrat but I'm completely unreconciled, I've felt sick every

day since I woke up on June 24th. APPLAUSE.

It's funny because I've had a sense of liberation every day since the

vote so there we go. APPLAUSE.

All right. You want another referendum? Sorry? Do you want

another referendum. Have another go. I would like one, yes, because I

don't believe that we were given if correct information at the time --

the correct information at the time. APPLAUSE.

I don't want to be accused of being, you know, a Remaining moaner or

whatever, but I feel that at the time we were not given... Sounded

like one! I'm not moaning, I'm making a statement. We have five

minutes left. I would like to take one more question which came up this

week and I think we have just got five minutes to talk about it, a

question from Claire Rex? Should there be a maximum wage cap? Should

there be a cap on wage salaries as was being talked about by Labour?

Paul Mason? Yes, there should be but it won't solve the problem on its

own of what we are trying to do here. We've got a situation in the

world, not just in Britain, where the rich get richer because they're

able to use their assets which rise in value in a way that ordinary

people's assets which is a house you ways basically don't own and a car

you basically don't own just can't. Now, taxation as has to change. Big

official bodies like the OECD think-tank based in pairs well

resourced are coming around to the idea that we have to do something,

otherwise we'll end up with Downton Abbey-style levels of inequality and

it's not just about how much money you have in the bank, it's about the

life chances of your children. If you can't afford private school or

private medicine when the state system is falling apart because the

rich are not paying their taxes, there becomes a social apartheid. So

yes I would like to see a 20 times cap from the lowest to the highest.

But the average rich person knows how to get around that. You know,

David Cameron's dad had all these off shore accounts and all of that,

they know how to get around it so we need to close down the tax havens.

All right. Aaron Banks? In a system where 1% of the population owns 50%

of the the wealth of the country is not capitalism, it's been replaced

by something more sinister. I find myself agreeing with Paul but I

don't agree the cap is the right way of dealing with it. Some sort of

aggressive tax system that basically penalises what I would call unearned

wealth that hasn't been earned through the merit of what you are

doing seems to be to me wholly sensible. It's worse in the States

although they have learnt how to give money more effectively than in

this country. I don't agree with the wage cap but I do think there has to

be some fundamental rethinking of capitalism, how it works and this

kind of corporatism that's kind of replaced it that's insidious and

very dangerous. David Lidington? The answer to the questioner was no, we

have tried in the '70s in particular to put caps and regulations on

wages. It didn't work. But I do think there is a genuine issue

behind that question. For once, and I did agree with partly with what

Paul said, because I think there is a need for action on tax havens.

Let's not kid ourselves that that can be done in one country, that

needs global agreement when money can be moved around on the click of

a mouse. I think that we do need to have greater transparency from

companies about what they're paying the top people and I do think that

shareholders, particularly corporate shareholders, need to hold the high

paid to account. What narks a lot of people is, when you see a company

doing really badly, yet the money paid out to the bosses of that

company seem Toscary on going up year on year. Did you support David

Cameron's idea of a 10-1 ratio from top-to-bottom, were you behind that?

It wasn't my idea, but I agreed with it, yes. So why didn't it hatch?

Because we were not saying that that would be something imposed by law,

but it should be imposed by way of policies. He's in charge of the

Public Services. Public Services have a lot of autonomy. The other

thing that I want to say in response to what Paul and Monica said is

that, if you actually look pat what's happening in the UK at the

moment, the richest 1% are paying 27% of income tax at the moment, the

highest share that there's ever been paid by that top 1%. That's

irrelevant. And we need to maintain a tax regime that ensures people do

pay their fair whack in terms of tax and don't try and squirrel it away.

I agree about progressive taxation. I don't think a wage cap is

workable. I think what narks people is when they see great big

corporations like Amazon and Google getting away with paying no tax in

this country or hardly any tax... APPLAUSE.

Unfor Natalie, if you are wealthy, you can employ a train of

accountants and tax people who'll explain how you can get around the

tax laws. I think we really have to go for fair taxation, fair pay, fair

taxation and make sure it's implemented. Jeremy Corbyn says he'd

like a high earnings cap and some say it doesn't make sense. Which

side are you on? The last Labour Government introduced the minimum

wage which they said always better off in work than out. We have not

kept up-to-date with increasing that minimum wage to not reduce the gap

and you have a progressive tax system on top of that. That is the

answer to reduce the inequality rather than just having the top

down... We have raised that before. We have got to stop, our time is up.

We only have an hour. Apologies to those who had their hands up.

We're in Peterborough next week with broadcaster Piers Morgan

and the American novelist, Lionel Shriver among our panellists.

To come and take part in our audience in Peterborough

or London, go to our website, or call 0330 123 99 88.

If you are listening tonight on Radio 5 live, the debate goes

For us here, it's my pleasure to thank you all very much for coming

on to the panel, to thank you for coming here to Solihull to take

part. Until next Thursday from Question Time, good night.

That I will faithfully execute the Office...

And will to the best of my ability...

The Constitution of the United States...