15/04/2012 Sunday Politics East

Here in the East: The campaign gathers pace for

hundreds of candidates facing election on May 3rd.

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1738 seconds

And we reveal who is being hit the Hello and welcome to the programme.

Coming up, how women and in particular all the women are

bearing the brunt of job cuts in this region. We can reveal that the

number of women are losing jobs has increased by one third.

First come up let's meet our guest. Baroness Angela Smith, formerly MP

for Basildon and Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat Business Minister

and MP for North Northorpe. Let's talk about the price of stamps

first, people are apparently stocking up. -- north Norfolk.

This cannot be right, cannot? one likes price increases, but the

price had been massively below the European average. In a way, the

most important thing is to protect the universal service. This is the

fact that you can pay the same amount to serve -- to send a letter

anywhere in the United Kingdom. The same price to anywhere, six days

per week. Detecting that is critically important. The last

Labour Government introduced competition so that the Royal Mail

was facing really tough competition. -- protecting that is critically

important. We are taking some really tough measures and getting

Royal Mail back in order. This is an operational decision from the

Royal Mail want the price of stamps. Ansell a Smith, despite backbench

opposition, the Royal Mail sell-off did start under Labour, is that a

mistake under Tyneside? Will be making it very clear that full

privatisation was never an option for the Royal Mail. The price is

61p for one first class stamp. The service has gone worse. I do not

agree with that. So early, Norman, I listened to shoot, so please

listen to me. I got my post on Friday after 4:30pm. This has never

been the case, it has always been before lunchtime. The future is

really bright, we have protected every postman's pension by taking

over a massive deficit from the Government and making sure the

Royal Mail will be in a fit state to compete in the future and be a

really successful company. The future is bright. I am not as

convinced as you. It you can afford the price of a

stamp, there is the time to begin for a postal vote. We have till

Wednesday to register. Here is a look at how this year's elections

are shaping up. The care silkier in Norwich's one of 19 across the

region holding elections on May 3rd. -- the council here in the Norwich.

Later there are running Stevenage and Ipswich. The Liberal Democrats

are in charge of Cambridge, and called Chester, Milton Keynes and

Norwich are in no overall control. Our councils will be electing one

third of their seats, apart from Daventry, which has a boundary

change. It will be electing all of its 36 new seats. For a reminder of

how would the region stands at the moment, the Conservatives are

defending 182 seats, Labour just 49 and the Liberal Democrats with 46.

The last time these seats were fought was 2008. Gordon Brown was

the Prime Minister, we were about to hit a recession and Labour did

badly. In theory, this you should be a good one for Labour. There

will be some interesting battles. In Milton Keynes, the Conservatives

are fighting their coalition partners, trying to gain overall

control. In Cambridge, the Liberal Democrats are under threat from

Labour in the only council they still run in the region. That is

unless they finally managed to take control of Colchester, where they

hope to increase their two-seat advantage over the Conservatives.

Great Yarmouth is a straight to be fight over the Conservatives and

Labour, with Labour needing to gain a four-seat to snatch control from

the Tories. Clipper's hopes are also high in Harlow, where the

Conservatives currently hold the council. -- Labour's corpse. Labour

are also working to make gains here in a Norwich where the Green Party

are just three seats behind. Degrees are fielding some new

candidates this time, with six of their seats are up for election,

Labour's success could depend on how well does new faces perform. We

are a joint by Stuart Agnew, a member of the European Parliament

for the UK Independence Party. Your party has not really made any

kind of breakthrough at the local level, why is that? We have made a

breakthrough at the local level, just look at Ramsey in Cambridge a

worthy have full control of the town council, we have a district

councillor and we are causing great effect in the district council.

that is a town council rather than a County Council. Build from the

bottom, that is what Peter is doing. We have two other people like him

in the region, we have a man who had jobs will know all about and we

have another Smith in Great Yarmouth. Norman Lamb, let's talk

about recent history, or where be shocked by last year's results? He

lost 12 seats in last year's council, north nor fog. How much of

able was that to you? It was not nice to lose seats like that.

have not been in Government since the Second World War and we realise

that being good -- that being in Government is tough. Our message is

that the -- at steel local level we're working to protect services.

In every Liberal Democrat council we have a frozen council tax, that

is not the same in every other council. At the national level, we

are working in Government to reduce that the tax burden for people on

low and middle incomes. This year, 21 all and middle income earners

will get a tax cut on top of a �200 tax cuts last year. We are focusing

on are those hard-working people whose budgets are squeezed into the

tell to get by. Angela Smith, Labour made gains in the East last

year, but there are areas in which you are not getting through, what

can be done? It will be interesting be sure. Significantly, at there

will be the number of seats past the fighting. We are fighting a

full slate of candidates, whereas the Norman's party are not fighting

a full slate of candidates in any council. He -- the United Kingdom

Independence Party have a greater number of candidates in some

councils than the Liberal Democrats. We have found it easier to get good

candidates through this election, I am confident we will make

significant gains across the regions. Actually, this year be

have made again from Labour and gains from the Conservatives in

local councils. By-elections are a different thing, you have lost a

third of your seat. I am not denying that, if you try and to the

right thing and I am absolutely convinced that working with another

party to try and get this country head of the mess it has been in was

the right thing to do. Let's bring Stuart Agnew back in. If you as a

party cannot break in locally to a greater extent, what does that

mean? We are breaking through, we are moving forward all of the time.

We are right behind the Liberal Democrats, by one point or half a

point behind them. That is not say much at the moment. You can say

that the UK Independence Party are a little small fry, but we keep

getting bigger. We are standing 121 candidates this time. Four years

ago there was 56. Terrific growth. We will follow the progress of the

local elections as they continue. The latest unemployment figures

will be published this week. They are expected to show a rise, West

unemployment in the race -- in a day East has been rising over the

past year. Analysis by this programme shows that middle-aged

and older women are being hit harder than any other age group and

are most likely to be out of work for longer. 93,000 people over 35

are out of work in the east, an increase of 19% on last year. The

majority are men but the number of women are losing their jobs has

increased by one third. Today be able to a mock exam forger

customer-service cause. At Milton Keynes College they provide courses

for many unemployed people every year. Many in the class are young

people who have never had a proper job. Among them also are people who

until recently have been in work for most of their adult lives.

have never been made redundant and never not had a job. It is so, yes,

very hard and frustrating as well. I was only ever made redundant once,

his years ago. I got a job straight away. I was offered around six jobs

at the same time, I have never had this problem, ever. These women

represent a growing trend. Middle- aged and experienced, but finding

it hard to get another job. Jackie worked for more than 15 years at a

distribution warehouse which closed last year, so, too, did enough.

Dorothy ran at jewellery business. They are all looking for work.

is actually hearts just getting a response from the company, even to

acknowledge that they have it received your application. That is

frustrating and demoralising. You begin to doubt your own ability.

am finding that the jobs I am applying for appear to be several

jobs rolled into one, so I think it is hard for any one person to have

that multitude of skills. According to official figures, the number of

men in the east over the age of 35 who are out of work has increased

by 12% over the last year. The number of older women out of work

over the same period has increased by 33%. I fear it will get worse.

The cuts that are coming into the public sector had yet to be fully

implemented, and we know that in the public sector there are more

women currently employed there. It will get harder on them. There is a

number of things he can do. The work programme is in place, if

providing tailored support for individuals to help them overcome

the barriers they personally face in getting into employment., also,

looking at people wanting to move into self-employment. This will

help women looking to set up for themselves in business. Milton

Keynes is a growing town with plenty of employment opportunities.

At the local college, they believe the key to helping people back into

work is training. There is a skills mismatch between the skills they

have acquired a their working lives and the skills now acquired --

stills are now required by the economy. The first thing we need to

do is IT training. You will find that going forward in the market

place, every job requires a degree of IT knowledge and understanding.

We need to get the skills and place before we consider things like

healthcare or engineering. economic Secretary has taken a

close interest in getting people back to work. She be so they held a

surgery for young people in our Norwich constituency. Chloe Smith

police Government money for training schemes and the new Youth

Contract should make things easier. It is a tragedy to be out of work,

and people want to be at work. Especially people who have

experience and a good CV from elsewhere. The Government's work

programme is designed to work across age groups, across men and

women and young adults. It is designed to help people in a

personalised way, getting work that's a is them. The people I met

in Milton Keynes College attended all of the courses they can and

still apply for jobs. They told me they do not want to live on

benefits, they want to work. Middle-aged, particularly middle-

aged women, is it a neglected area. We bring a wealth of experience, we

may need some retraining and are the other companies prepared to

invest in that? The longer you're unemployed, it seems to be getting

harder and that affects our conference. Whereas I was a

confident person, last year, I just expected to get a job but now it is

2012 And I am not quite sure what the future hold. Norman Lamb, as a

party, if you have the Youth Contract. You have work experience

plans, but what is being done as a coalition Government and as a party

for all the women? The first thing to see is that unemployment is

dreadful, and the impact it has on your self-esteem is a really

significant and so we all have to take this incredibly seriously. It

is actually quite a long-term trend. In the past decade, unemployment

among them and went up by 24%, under the last Labour Government.

This is a challenge the whole of Europe if faces. What is being done

for older women? Hit it is about helping everyone back into work.

Although women have a particular challenge, but it is about learning

new skills. We must make sure that Britain is in the best placed to

win a new work in the future economy. We face a massive

challenge from Asian economies and if Europe does not become more

competitive and if the United Kingdom in particular does not, we

will see this trend continue and by taking really tough action to get

the deficit under control, I am convinced that the UK is now a much

better placed than most other European countries to get

employment back up to two good levels. So nothing specific for

older women? They qualified just like everyone else does for all of

the schemes that both Goldthorpe and Simon read talked about in the

cut. Angela Smith, what would Labour do to help this particular

sector? The report highlighted a couple of things. One is the skills

issue. Another is that women of the siege never expected not to have

the work. They have worked all of their life and thoughts Clive would

get easier. Now they must work longer to get their pension. The

work programme is there, and I have spoken to women on the work

programme, they say it is not tailored to their needs. We must

ensure that when we have these programmes that look at giving

people the skills they need, they cannot always just be targeted to

young people. If we do not employ the skills of the older workforce,

women of my age, you have a chance to say something, do it. We will

not have the economy in the future and, p a able to fill the vacancies.

Let's just talk to Stuart Agnew about the bigger picture. UK

unemployment is pretty bad, but it is worse in other countries in

Europe. It is dreadful. In certain Eurozone countries, it is

frightening. They are not growing, they are contracting here on year.

Greece has been contracting. It shouldn't be in the euro, the

austerity measures are only making matters worse. The Greeks will see

its in and we will see it in Portugal and Spain, where the

victims of a horrendous social political experiment called the

euro. Do you agree with Norman Lamb that it is about creating work

opportunities by encouraging business into the United Kingdom?

One way you can encourage businesses to reduce the burden of

legislation on them, and so many small businesses, the legislation

comes from the European Union. I can give you three examples.

Companies in a Hertfordshire and at which are doing quite different

things and suffering from the new legislation. We do not have them to

speak to today unfortunately. agree be must tackle for

legislation. Coming from both the UK Government and the European

level. If Europe is to be able to compete with emerging economies in

Asia, we have got to beat welcoming for businesses. The Government must

accept a deficit and growth and jobs crisis. With these women do

not get jobs he will not address any of these issues. Jobs is the

most important issue. There is some light, I was talking to the head of

a large recruitment business and they were saying that they are

seeing a significant increases month on month on the number of new

jobs coming through, so there is hope for the few to. Thank you both.

Stuart Agnew, thank you for your time. Now a for her sixty-second

round up. This week, politicians from across

the parties paid their respects to -- parliamentarians. For much Prime

Minister John Major joined a mourners at the funeral of Lord

Newton of Braintree. How well you remember him? With

very great affection, be have a lot of fun together. And if your idea

of fun is backing a winner, Jimmy welcome plans for a new casino in

Milton Keynes. At a time when the council does not have a lot of

money, to be able to have money to put towards things that may benefit

what other areas of the community is something worthwhile. One Eric

Pickles's mind was alcohol abuse when he visited Great Yarmouth.

we must find alternatives to the people who just drift into drinking.

Welcome any Stan Ed Balls of would pensioners in Harlow before the big

game. People here need the extra help, but it seems that with this

Chancellor it is already richer getting the benefit. No doubt he is

hoping his party fare better than his team did this weekend.

Angela Smith, what about those measures against alcohol abuse? On

reflection, was Labour wrong to bring him round the club drinking?

It is not round-the-clock drinking that is the problem, many people

enjoy drinking at different times of the day, it is the abuse of a

call that is the problem. Many people enjoy alcohol and it does

not lead to abuse. What I am sceptical about his alcohol minimum

pricing. How do not think it will tackle the serious problem. Let's

see what Norman Lamb says. The minimum price, 40p Brigitte, it

will cost �2.7 billion annually, will address the budget? It was a

Liberal Democrat manifesto commitments and we are now doing it

in Government. The scale of alcohol abuse in this country is framing.

We're out of scale with Europe when it comes to liver disease and

trouble on her street. France has always had round-the-clock drinking

but has not had these issues, it is the cultural issues. We are out of

time. Thank you both. That is all from us, do not forget you can