24/01/2016 Sunday Politics Scotland

migrants, as the Port of Calais is forced to close overnight

after migrants attempted to force their way onto a Channel ferry.

David Cameron appears increasingly confident he'll bag a deal on EU

In the first of three Sunday Politics debates,

the leave and remain campaigns go head-to-head on immigration.

And speaking exclusively to this programme, Ed Miliband's former

pollster Deborah Mattinson criticises Labour's official report

into why the party lost the general election for failing to face up

I think it was a whitewash and a massive missed opportunity.

Coming up on Sunday Politics Scotland.

Is time being called on the government's

The independent poverty tsar calls for it to be scrapped and councils

weigh up their options over cuts to services.

So, the Port of Calais was forced to close for a while yesterday

after migrants managed to breach security and board a ferry.

Amateur footage captured the moment a group managed to break

through security fences and head towards the P ferry.

The incident happened during a protest at the port,

The head of the Road Haulage Association here in Britain has

renewed demands for the French military to intervene.

As it happens, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn,

was in northern France yesterday, visiting the migrant camps

While he was there, he reiterated his calls

for the British Government to do more to help migrants.

I talk to people all over the country and not everyone is that

cold-hearted, not everyone else has a stony heart.

They are prepared to reach out, and I think we need a response

And indeed Germany has done an enormous amount,

other countries have done varying amounts,

and I think we should be part of helping

to bring a European-wide support to people, and that's what I'm

Jeremy Corbyn yesterday. Beth, what we make of the story, the government

will allow unaccompanied children refugees, already in Europe, to come

into Britain? Some of my government sources have suggested that is not

what David Cameron would like to do, if you think about how he dealt with

the crisis in August, he said we will take some Syrian refugees but

we will take them from the camps in Syria and around Syria, we will not

take them from Calais, because he thinks this is a push factor and it

makes people come over. What the government might end up doing, they

might agree to take refugee children unaccompanied, but only from Syria

and the Middle East, not from Calais. What about the kids who have

made it here? They could be bad way. Nick? The signals on government,

they have not made any decisions yet and the announcement is not

imminent, but Beth makes a very important point, the Prime Minister

said you do not want to encourage people to make that journey,

therefore the instinct is to take people from the neighbouring

countries. Apart from unaccompanied kids, they have come across in

terrible conditions, and they are in Calais and Dunkirk. The call to take

these children, from that report, that says that is a fair proportion

of the 26,000 unaccompanied children that have come to Europe. The

figures in that report are terrifying, in 2014, of the 13,000

unaccompanied children that ended up in Italy, 3000 went missing, and of

the African children that went to Italy, half of them had been subject

to some form of sexual abuse, it is the most horrific figures. That 3000

figure, endorsed by Jeremy Corbyn, also endorsed by the cross-party

International Development Select Committee, said there is edible

pressure on the Prime Minister on this one. -- formidable. The

humanitarian case has been strongly but by Jeremy Corbyn and others, but

it is marginal. 3000 children, that would be great for them, but 37,000

migrants have come to Greece in January alone, and the mud has not

even ended, ten times the number that came in last January -- the

month. The problem is getting bigger and bigger, and the response has

been wholly inadequate. It has, it looks marginal, but that is about as

much as you can expect, until there is EU wide agreement about how to

distribute what you might call the burden of the influx, but there is

nothing close to that agreement and there's not even a deal between the

EU and Turkey about ceiling borders and dealing with human traffickers

let alone a deal within the EU about which country bears how much of the

burden. Until then, you just have these improvised solutions, 3000

here, France taking a bit more, and there is no certainty that the

unaccompanied children are overwhelmingly Syrian, there is the

suspicion that Syrians travel as complete families and the

unaccompanied children are disproportionately from Somalia, for

example, similarly distress, but not the problem that they think they are

dealing with. This plays into the referendum question, there is the

nervousness in the in campaign, that a referendum in September, after a

summer of large sums of migrants coming in, kids or otherwise, would

affect the result one way or another. That is a big story, and we

will come back to that at the end of the show.

Last week, the long-awaited autopsy into Labour's defeat at the general

The report by Margaret Beckett concluded that Ed Miliband wasn't

judged to be as strong a leader as David Cameron, and that Labour

had failed to shake off the myth that Labour was responsible

But parallel research was also commissioned to inform

the Beckett Report, and despite being completed in July,

The former Labour pollster Deborah Mattinson carried out this

research, and has spoken exclusively to the Sunday Politics.

We are saying the Conservatives are the largest party.

We all know what happened on election night.

Instead of a hung parliament, David Cameron walked

back into Downing Street with a majority of 12.

Labour got it wrong, as well, suffering a net loss of 26

Friends, this is not the speech I wanted to give today.

Ed Miliband resigned within hours, but

it has taken eight and a half months for the party

to publish its own inquiry into what went wrong.

Margaret Beckett's report is called Learning The Lessons From Defeat.

It doesn't, says one pollster, who has worked for several former

Just a few weeks after the election defeat, Deborah Mattinson

was commissioned by the acting leader

Harriet Harman to research why Labour lost.

She says the evidence was meant to feed into the Beckett

I did brief Margaret Beckett so I was somewhat

disappointed not to see some of that reflected back.

Yes, I think she picked up on the economy but there

was actually no analysis, it is reduced effectively to one

And there is a lot of quite defensive stuff about

the fact this does not necessarily mean that anti-austerity is wrong.

"Of course we had a great business strategy, what a pity the voters

"That was probably the fault of the media".

Quite apologetic, lots of defensive stuff

in there, but nothing that actually really shone a light on what had

Do you accept that when Labour was last in power it

No, I don't, and I know you might not agree with that

Margaret Beckett's report acknowledges that Labour failed

to shake what she describes as the myth

that the party caused the financial crisis.

Deborah Mattinson says that for people in her focus groups

Frankly, they did not trust Labour to manage the economy

effectively, they were very concerned about that.

In their minds, they are seeing a conflation

rightly or wrongly, and their sense that

Labour would waste money, their money, and run the economy

Voters could not see him as Prime Minister.

But Margaret Beckett concluded that Ed

Miliband faced an exceptionally vitriolic and personal attack

People looked at Ed Miliband and did not see him

And if you look at every election since the 70s,

what we see, the party that has the leader with the best ratings

is the party that wins, there is no exception to that.

I get it, that people weren't prejudiced against immigration,

I get it and I understand the need to change.

The Beckett Report acknowledges that Labour did not quite get it

on issues like immigration and benefits, and that the fear

of the SNP propping up a minority government scared off many voters.

But Deborah Mattinson says Labour was losing support in Scotland well

before the independence referendum and the surge in SNP support.

Put simply, she said voters did not feel

that Labour was on their side, and the party still does not

I feel very concerned that the lessons

will be learned and I can't see how they will be learned,

because that was the vehicle, that was the moment,

and if this report does not address those issues then I'm not

No political party has a divine right to exist and unless Labour

really listens to those voters, that it must persuade,

it stands no chance of winning the next election.

And we've been joined by the former Shadow Cabinet minister

Michael Dugher - you might remember he was sacked by Jeremy Corbyn

Deborah Mattinson says the better report is a whitewash, is she right?

-- Beckett Report. That is a bit harsh, does it have all the answers,

though, of course not, and I think Deborah Mattinson make some very

fair observations in that piece, but what Margaret concludes in her

report, it is not a massive shock to those of us that were knocking on

doors last May and have thought long and hard about it since, we were not

trusted enough on the economy, and that was the big issue, but also on

immigration and welfare, we were seen as out of touch, and also

leadership being the most important thing in any race. She makes those

conclusions, in the report, and I think the key thing now, is to

listen to the issues that she raises, but also listen to Debra and

many others who have made a contribution since the report came

out. We have got to face up to the difficult issues as to why we lost,

if we are going to win again. Voters found Ed Miliband the

personification of the Labour brand, that was the problem, well-meaning

but ineffectual. I'm likely to deliver -- and likely to deliver on

promises. Did you detect that at the time? I was very close to Ed

Miliband and I gave him some advice, some of which he took and some of

which he didn't. I wanted him to be a success, I saw him in private and

you have strong he did beat, and often he got very unfair coverage in

the media and often he did not do himself justice in his performances

-- I saw him in private and how strong he did beat. The real lesson

here, for any lead at the Labour Party can you have got to play to

your strengths and you have got a fundamentally address your perceived

weaknesses. The private polling showed the Tories were in the late,

was that not a warning that things were going wrong? -- in the lead.

I'm not sure how much private polling I was shown. You did not see

this? The year before the election, I was appointed Shadow Secretary of

State for Transport, I was not so much part of the central operations

and I did not see private polling. Many of us thought that we were

getting difficult conversations on the doorstep, but we were told

consistently, including by the pollsters, that we were neck and

neck and there was a perception that we were doing better in the

marginals, as well. That turned out to be catastrophically wrong, but

one of the things that is not in Margaret's report is about the

organisational lessons, that does speak, if you have a million

conversations, what are you doing with the data? I remember in the

last two days of the campaign, I was sent to Derbyshire, Amber Valley,

and in Yorkshire, to Rothwell, but I should have been sent to Morley to

help Ed Balls, and Derby North to help Chris Wood this. The campaign

has got to base what they do on the information, and in 2010 we took

very hard decisions, six months away from polling day, based on the

information we had about prioritise in resources, but are not sure that

happens this time. -- I'm not sure. Deborah Mattinson looks at the

boundary changes before the next election, and she thinks the Beckett

Report made a failure to confront why you lost enough. Her conclusion

is this, Labour's future is in profound jeopardy - is it? I think

we have a massive challenge at the next election. I don't think any

political party has a right to be successful in the future. I am an

optimistic person. Labour, when we have got our act together, when we

have been in touch with the public we have shown we can win. Is

Labour's continued existence a question mark? We have got to start

getting in touch with the public. One thing the report did slightly

skirt around, the question over politics as an identity. People like

myself have been banging on about this, not just in the weeks before

the election but for months and years before, and we need to face up

to that. No political party has a right to exist, but I think if

Labour gets our act together, if we stop picking fights with ourselves,

if we face up to the difficult issues in this report and elsewhere,

we can be successful in the future. In what ways, as things stand at the

moment, what ways will Labour be better, in better shape, under

Jeremy Corbyn heading into the 2020 election than it was in the 2015

election? What is one of the main conclusions from the Beckett Report,

it said we did make some gains, 1.5%, but we were stacking up area

-- support in areas where we were already strong. If they think you

are out of touch on immigration and welfare, you had better start

talking about immigration and welfare. Jeremy Corbyn seems to want

almost no limit on immigration, it is hard to detect if he would have

any limits, and he is rather against welfare reforms. I'm not sure that

is an election winning strategy. On immigration, I made this point to

him, you have got to understand this is the second biggest issue

nationally, it is the biggest issue in many constituencies including

mine, and I said that many of the answers are about stopping pressure

on wages and conditions. There are good centre-left solutions to these

problems, about Europe dividing more help for communities facing these

changes. I made the point to him, on welfare he is right to say we should

be standing up to help the most vulnerable, but in my experience you

only get heard on those issues if the public think you are for real in

terms of wanting to be tough on people who are frankly making

decisions not to go into work so you have got to get the balance right.

Do you accept, given his huge support among party members, that

Jeremy Corbyn will lead you into the next election? He faces a big test

in May. We have seen the polls and the ratings, any big test is a real

election. He faces a big test because he was clear that a

left-wing agenda is the key to transforming our fortunes in

Scotland, I hope he's right. We need to win in London but we have got to

show we can make big gains in the rest of London as well and we have

got to hold onto power in Wales as well. But even if he fails these

tests, do you think there will be an attempt to remove him? We have got

to get behind Jeremy and he has got to show us that he can deliver and

turn things around. We need to get behind him. People are very clear

about what Jeremy stands for. He has achieved remarkable cut throughs.

Over the next few months we will see more of that so he has got to be

given a chance because he has a huge mandate by the party members but he

has got to show he can turn that into real support from the public.

That means also winning the support of people who voted Conservative

last time. It is not an easy challenge, we are behind him in that

but he has got to show he can learn the lessons that Margaret Beckett

has talked about and Debra and others as well. We have got to stop

it there, thank you. The hole Labour is in is deepest

in Scotland, where the once-mighty party now holds just

one Westminster seat. If Jeremy Corbyn is to win

the general election in 2020, he needs to claw back

support from the SNP, and the first test of his appeal

north of the border is coming up fast in elections to

the Scottish parliament in May. Speaking to Andrew Marr this

morning, the leader of the SNP took aim at Mr Corbyn, criticising

a plan he's floated to keep Britain's Trident submarines

minus their nuclear warheads. I wonder what you made

of Jeremy Corbyn's suggestion that you could keep the Trident

submarines, therefore keep the jobs in Scotland, but not have

nuclear missiles on them. I think it was ridiculous

and I think it's a sign of just how tortured these debates are becoming

within the Labour Party. On Trident, I agree

with Jeremy Corbyn. I'm not in favour of the renewal

of Trident, and we might have a vote on that in the House of Commons

sooner rather than later. I think the real challenge

for Jeremy Corbyn is, can he get his party

into the position he wants it to be in so we can have any

chance at all of stopping For Labour to sit on the fence

on this issue or have a free vote on this issue will leave them

without a shred of credibility. And I've been joined now

by the Shadow Scottish Secretary, Let's pick up on the point from

Nicola Sturgeon about Trident. In Scotland the electoral choice on

this is clear, if you are unilateral disarmament, you vote SNP. You

couldn't vote Labour on this issue because people don't know what you

stand for. The Labour Party has been clear, a motion was passed almost

unanimously to reject the renewal of Trident on that policy basis. But it

is not party policy. There is a policy review happening at the

moment so the Scottish Labour Party's policy on this is clear. It

is a Scottish election don't forget. These Trident issues are diverting

us away from big issues of policy in terms of public services. The

Deborah Mattinson research found Scottish voters felt abandoned by

the Labour Party. When did Labour start taking Scottish voters for

granted? It has been clear from a number of reports that have been

done that there has been a process in the party where we have not

devolved the party as much as Scotland. The Scottish party, in

1999 it was a tremendous opportunity for the Scottish Labour Party but I

don't think we have caught up with that. I think under Kesia's

leadership she is refreshing that. You face further electoral disasters

in Holyrood in May. No one is under any illusion this will be a

difficult election, but what Kesia is trying to do is get a positive

policy platform together, reconnect with Scottish people, respond to

what Scottish people have been saying on the doorsteps, and she's

doing that on the basis of responding to what the Scottish

people want. That's what people want to have. What the Shadow Cabinet was

told by your own election director is that he expects you to lose all

of your constituency MSPs, just as you lost all of your constituency

MPs bar you last May. What can you do to avoid that? The important

thing is to go back to Kezia Dugdale's policy. She wants to

change the policies of the Scottish Labour Party in order for us to have

a policy platform that is incredibly positive. What is the most

distinctive Scottish policy initiative since Jeremy Corbyn

became leader? This isn't about Jeremy Corbyn, it is about Kezia

Dugdale. We have helped to buy scheme for first time buyers, we

want to build 60,000 affordable homes, we want to put the 50p tax

rate back in to close the educational attainment gap, they are

just a few of the policies she has announced already. She is one of the

few people in this election campaign actually talking about the policy

issues of Scotland. Nobody is talking about these kinds of issues.

Do you think that collection policies you have outlined are

enough to stave off a further electoral humiliation? It is just

the start of a policy platform she will be announcing in the run-up to

the elections. Help to buy is a Tory policy. This is about resolving a

housing crisis that has been created by an SNP government. We are not

holding them to account because people are obsessing over things

like polls. The transport system is creaking at the seams. This has got

to be dealt with and there is a real opportunity to talk about the powers

the Scottish Government currently has and new powers. Let's talk about

tomorrow's Scotland. How much would a top rate 50p tax for Scotland

raised? Up to 10 million, depending where you would have any change but

every single penny would go into educational attainment. When the

Conservatives cut the tax rate to 45p, the Treasury were projecting it

would cost ?3 billion a year to satisfy. That was for the whole of

the UK, so 60-110,000,000 is a lot of money we can use to cut the

educational attainment gap. Why is Jeremy Corbyn not cutting much ice

north of the border? He has won a significant mandate within the

party, he needs to win that now within the country but what we are

concentrating on now is Kezia Dugdale as a new leader. I am

interesting that you stress all the time Kezia Dugdale, is Jeremy Corbyn

and asset or a liability in May? He is an asset because she wants us to

invest in public services, he wants to use the powers in the Scottish

bill to transform the Scottish Parliament... So why are the polls,

if you have got Kezia Dugdale and Jeremy Corbyn doing all the right

things, why are the polls so dire for you in Scotland? We will fight

for every single vote and seat, we fight to win every election but

whilst we are talking about polls and not holding the Scottish

Government to account for a dreadful record in Government for eight years

and not talking about positive policies being put forward, we will

not get any traction in the polls. Let's get this campaign onto real

issues that ordinary Scots want to talk about on the doorsteps, which

is about holding the Government to account for a dreadful track record,

and get some policies on there that says to the people the Scottish

Labour Party has changed and we can talk about tomorrow's Scotland and

how we can transform people's lives. Thank you.

The huge influx of migrants into the EU from Syria and elsewhere

is putting the future of the EU in "grave danger",

that was the stark warning from the French Prime Minister

Tomorrow, EU interior ministers will discuss a possible two-year

suspension of the Schengen system of passport-free travel.

It all comes as David Cameron seeks to put the finishing touches

to a new deal for the UK inside the EU before

But how is the migrant crisis affecting his renegotiation?

Since January 2015, nearly 1.1 million migrants have arrived

in Europe, the vast majority coming by sea.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that nearly 4 million

migrants will have reached the EU by the end of 2017.

Tomorrow, EU interior ministers will discuss a possible suspension

of the passport-free Schengen area and the re-introduction of border

and introducing a new dispersal scheme to distribute migrants more

It's an extra headache for David Cameron as he seeks

to renegotiate the terms of our membership of the EU.

The Prime Minister's preferred option is a four-year ban on new EU

migrant workers claiming in-work benefits.

But that's unlikely to satisfy many Conservative backbenchers.

Former Cabinet minister Liam Fox, who has already said

he will campaign to leave the EU, said yesterday that he "didn't

expect a British prime minister to have to take the political

begging bowl around the capitals of Europe just to change our own

Over the next three weekends we will be staging three debates

Joining me now to discuss immigration and the EU are the Ukip

MEP Diane James, who's campaigning for Britain to leave the EU,

and the Conservative MP Damian Green, who supports

The French prime ministers as the future the EU is in grave danger, so

why would we want to stay in it? -- Prime Minister says. It is useful to

as, it makes us safer and more secure and more prosperous and

therefore it is worth saving, from our perspective and to the other

member countries. Why does it make us more secure? The way that we

cooperate with other European countries, the European

institutions, things like the European arrest warrant, data share,

these are very useful to our police and security services. We share data

with the United States, as well. But not on the same automatic basis as

we do with Europe. There is automatic sharing of intelligence

between Britain and the United States. There is can we have a

separate treaty with them, it is not as automatic and quick. -- there is,

we have a separate treaty. We can change information within minutes

with other European countries, and it takes days and weeks with other

countries, and that means in cases of terrorism and sadly we live in a

dangerous world, with global terrorism, that kind of European

cooperation is increasingly important. Diane, we face a

migration crisis, what is your solution, to turn Britain into a

fortress Britain? No, it isn't, but it is to regain border control for

the United Kingdom, and that is a position endorsed by a number of

countries, and number of member states across the EU, you have five

countries which every imposed border controls to some extent. There is

still free movement of people. France said last week they will

extend their border control, their passport control as an emergency

measure because of the terrorist attacks in Paris. Border control is

needed because under the current system freedom of movement, people,

services, transport, that also means freedom of movement for terrorists

and weapons, that come from the Balkan states. We don't have border

controls? Yes, but not sufficient, Balkan states. We don't have border

if someone comes in from the Mediterranean states or from the

Balkan states, they have gained entry into the European member zone.

They can't then move around. If they get their passport, ultimately...

That can take ten years. It is five years in Germany, it can be granted

sooner if the Dublin agreement is changed and asylum seekers get a

faster processing, they can then come to the United Kingdom. It is

not five years in Germany, it is a comment if you have a criminal

record, you can't get one, and the things that Niger Farage was saying

about the scenes in Cologne, that was wrong. -- Nigel. The out

campaign is saying that border controls are what we need, strong

border controls, and pulling out of Europe would have the practical

effect, our border controls which act have a, thanks to the treaty

with the French government, they would certainly come back to Dover

-- our border controls which we have at Calais. Migrants would find it

much easier to get to this country and claim asylum here. But if they

couldn't get in, they did not qualify, we would have the power to

deport them? We were, after a legal process, but they would be stopped

not at Calais, it would be at Dover, when they are in Britain, and once

they are here they can claim asylum and because we have proper legal

processes it takes a lot of time and expense to deal with that. He has

all the accused me of getting my facts wrong, but he has got his

facts wrong. The agreement in terms of stationing our teams and our

support staff and control, in the French ports, that is a France UK

agreement, it has nothing to do with the European Union. If you are

suggesting that the agreement between France and the United

Kingdom gets torn up because we leave the EU, that is fanciful and

misleading and I don't agree with you. France signed the treatment

with us as a fellow member of the EU and the French interior minister has

said that they would look at the treaty, of course it would be at

risk, do you think the people of Calais want that camp

help address any of this? The area of renegotiation and this is about

the extra pull factor that comes from the perception that the British

benefits system is easier to access compared with other countries, and

therefore there are people coming here simply to make the benefits

system and I think what many people think about immigration, they are

moral axed about people coming here to work and pay taxes but they don't

like people coming to use the welfare system -- they are more

relaxed. But it has been said this will not have a big impact, you

might marginalise one pull factor, but with rises in the national

minimum wage, you have increased the pull factor on the other hand. It's

a boiler fairness, that is what -- that is a boiler fairness, that is

what people want... It is unlikely to have a big impact. This will have

very little impact on the numbers. I think people can make a distinction

between those who are coming here to work, who benefit our economy and

benefit all of us. But we have agreed it is unlikely, even if it is

fair, it is unlikely to have any impact on the numbers. We don't

know. The OBR has had a good guess. They are guessing, it is a guess.

Nigel Farage said he would cut immigration even if that meant lower

economic growth, do you agree? There are two parts to your question,

George Osborne has predicated his fiscal strategy on high numbers of

immigration, but we have done this on individuals who come here on a

points system to deliver real value to this country, who are not

subsidised by the tax credit option and who actually meet the needs that

we have in the United Kingdom, and currently, as we know, we want

engineers and medics and nurses and lawyers. Ukip strategy has never

been to stop those individuals coming, but what we are saying, the

impact of low skilled immigration on this country is negative. That is

our position. Even if it meant slow economic growth, you would still cut

the numbers? It would not mean slower economic growth. We have made

our position very clear in terms of the value of the money that we would

not be paying in terms of membership of the EU, coming back to the United

Kingdom's economy, and balancing the whole position, that would be a

positive for us as a country. The Prime Minister has refused to leave

a group of 40 Eurosceptic backbenchers in the Conservative

Party, who want to asking to do much more. Should he not make them? The

Prime Minister meets backbenchers all the time. He has not meant this

group, they wrote to him in November and he has not met them. -- he has

not met this group. Anyone who would like to meet the Prime Minister has

ample opportunities to do so, I'm a backbencher, I can speak to the

Prime Minister, and all of these points have been raised. It is

possible that this story is slightly overblown. Thank you very much. We

will be coming back to these stories in the weeks ahead.

And next week we'll be debating the economic effects of leaving

It's just gone 11.35, you're watching the Sunday Politics.

We say goodbye to viewers in Scotland who leave us now

High-quality childcare, an end to the council tax freeze,

and improving life chances for young people -

just a few of the recommendations from Scotland's

The debate about local services continues as the Finance Secretary

gives local authorities more time to decide

whether to accept his funding package.

David Cameron meets his Czech counterpart

in Prague to try and reach a deal over EU reform.

And will it be enough to prevent Brexit?

Now, the government's adviser on poverty caused a bit of a stir

this week when she suggested freezing

council tax might not be a very good way of tackling poverty.

She also made some fairly gnomic remarks

about other universal benefits and about whether young people

are treated fairly by the benefits system.

Let's try to find out exactly what she meant.

Naomi Eisenstadt joins me now from Dunstable.

The council tax freeze, why do you think it should be phased out or

even just abolished? There is a Commission on Local Tax Reform. It

is going to take a while to get that commission to make their

recommendations. In the meanwhile, the reason that the council tax

freeze does not help poor people is that the poorest people do not pay

council tax, it does help better off people because housing has not been

revalued for 25 years. People living and the most expensive properties,

their taxes have not changed. I think this benefits are better off

people. It disadvantages to people because local authorities need the

funding to fund services that help the poorest people in the main. In

effect, the council tax freezes subsidise middle-class people?

Exactly. Both Scottish Government does have ways of helping the

poorest families. I think there are progressive things that the Scottish

people are -- Scottish Government are doing, but more discretion is

needed over spending. The way they decided that discretion is deciding

needed over spending. The way they for themselves what to charge in the

property tax. Property tax is easy to collect because you can't move

your house offshore. It is our good tax, a progressive tax. What about

other universal benefits which are provided by the Scottish Government?

Does your argument not apply to them? It certainly applies to things

like the fuel subsidy but older people get. I get that subsidy. I

think that is wrong. My income is fine. I do not even have to ask for

it. There are some universal benefits in times of austerity, but

I think pensioners have benefited enormously... I was thinking of

prescription charges, without argument not apply equally?

It is arguably subsidising the middle classes. All universal

benefits help everyone, not just the poor is. The difficulty is that

there is our balance between the bureaucracy in administering means

tested benefits which can be costly and the stigma associated with means

tested benefits are against how do you spend your money most

effectively? I think that we have gone too far in Scotland on the

universal side, not far enough on the targeting. On the targeting, we

need to make a culture of public services more respectful and avoid

stigma that way. Have we gone too far on the issue of tuition fees?

That is interesting. I think the tuition fees are a good thing. The

argument I am making other better chances for young people is that we

haven't put a comparable effort, energy and thinking into those young

people who are not going to go to university. There has been a lot of

work on employability, the task force on unemployment, but just as

we sped huge amount of time and effort on understanding the under

fives, and we have won that argument on what a crucial period of life

that is, one of my recommendations is to think much more carefully on

what works for older children and young adults in the sense that...

Can I just ask you specifically about tuition fees? People might

argue that that money could be better spent on giving grants so

that more people from disadvantaged backgrounds can get into further

education, or indeed to help people who do not go into further

education. I think that I would like to look much more carefully first at

what policies would help, how much they cost and then if you need to

even it out. I would not want to say let's do away with tuition fees

before we have some evidence on what would replace it. What I am

recommending and the report is the current policies in place for

apprenticeships need to be strengthened, the need for urgency.

But I think we need a wider review on older children, young adults more

generally before we see the policy should be taking money away from one

group and giving it to the other. We do not know what needs to be done to

give it to the other. We have not done enough thinking and analysis on

this. Is there an argument on having universal benefits? The argument is

that gives the middle classes at stake in the welfare system. If you

get a benefit from it, you think you have a stake in bed. I think that is

absolutely right. My argument would be on child benefit would be to keep

it universal, but to tax it as part of income. Why shouldn't it be part

of family income and subject to that same taxes. Better of people would

pay back as part of their income tax. It's much easier to administer

universal benefit than a targeted benefit. I believe in the universal

NHS and I universal education system. But I universal NHS does not

mean everybody gets the same, everybody gets what they need. You

made a slightly ambivalent comment about the possibility of the

Scottish Government introducing reforms to the welfare system. You

urged caution because you said you were worried about tampering with

the UK wide benefit system. What did you mean? Unless you have complete

revolution, you are tied into some of the UK benefits. One of the most

damaging was things like sanctions, sanctions against people on

unemployment benefit who do not turn up for interviews. One of the women

I spoke to was sanctioned when she was in hospital on a ventilator.

That Scottish Government is not allowed to do anything to mitigate

sanctions. You mess with one bits of the system, but other bits are still

in place. There is a fundamental tension in benefits which is the

simpler you make them, the more rigid they are. The more confiscated

you make them, the more flexible BR to account for particular

circumstances, but they are difficult to administer. But that

balance between the simplicity so that they are clear and everybody

understands how it works, which is the purpose of Universal Credit,

that simplicity makes them Bridget and therefore for many people on

fear. -- makes them Bridget. Is there too much of against young

people -- too much of our bias? I cut myself as one of them. I

people -- too much of our bias? I is the reforms are being

overprotective towards older people. If you look at poverty rates in

Scotland, the only group that is better off after housing costs is

older people. If you look at families with children, after

housing costs, the poverty rate increases. If you look at young

people, after housing costs, the poverty rates increases. Thank you

for joining us. Well, Naomi Eisenstadt hasn't been

the only one to indicate concern Earlier this month, Moray Council

announced it was discussing the option of raising

council tax to pay for vital services, which would make

it the first to defy the SNP government and scrap the eight

year nationwide freeze. Since then, the Finance

Secretary, who lauded its continuance in his draft budget

in December, has said he will give all councils more time to consider

the funding deal after several indicated they couldn't make

a decision ahead of last week's David O'Neil is president of Cosla,

the local authorities' First of all, can we have some

facts? Have you had discussions with a Scottish Government about the

council tax freeze, any indication that they are prepared to

reconsider? The discussions I have had showed that they are not

prepared to reconsider the council tax freeze. They take the view that

the council tax freezes very popular, popular with families.

Something being popular does not make it right. I am dubious, there

is talk that there is going to be some movement here. You have not had

any suggestion from the Scottish Government that they might remove

the penalties on councils that do it up council tax? We have not

concluded discussions with the Scottish Government, we hope to do

that this week. But so far, there is no indication that they are going to

move. If Moray Council does decide to put its council tax up, it will

be penalised? That is what the Scottish Government are telling us.

You think the hazard tax freeze should go? It is an affront to local

democracy. Local authorities cannot decide what money they are going to

spend at where they are going to spend it. We are told by a national

politician how much money to spend at where to spend it. If national

politicians want to run local services, they should stand for the

council. The problem with that is for

politicians who have said tax will not or are they now have to turn

around and say the arm. This parliament is now effectively at a

named. It will dissolve in a couple of weeks before the new financial

year Texan. Government have delivered their manifesto

commitment. I do not know whether the intent to code it in their

manifesto for the elections of 2016 later this year but it is an affront

to democracy. National governments are telling local communities how to

run services and how much money to spend. How would you reply to a

point John Swinney made in a slightly different context to flood

relief. He made the point in a debate in Parliament that councils

have something like almost ?2 billion in emergency reserves. Why

not use that money? You can only use the reserve once. When it is gone it

is gone. Councils in terms of flood relief and any emergency will spend

the money as and when it is needed and worry about the processors later

but you can only use the reserve once. But they are not using them is

the point John Swinney was making. You can run down reserves and

rebuild them later. The point she was making that in the case of

things like flooding it was not reasonable for councils to start

handing more money when they already had money and the Scottish

Government said it would make money available later that the can spend

now. He would spend the money now but when flooding has taken place

local government will be via spending money and doing what needs

to be done and they will seek to get the money back later and no doubt

will use reserves to do that. What would you say to the council tax

there who might say I do not want my council tax to go up and I am hard

up and I do not see any difference to council services. Without the

effects of these cuts? For the ordinary citizen, what do the seat

that are the result of budget is being cut? Councils have been good

over the last seven or eight years at riding out inefficiencies that

you cannot keep doing that. -- driving out. They might say that is

good it proves the was found in the system that could be cut because

frankly my services have not been eroded so that proves it was

possible to cut the budgets of councils without any effect on

service. That is a fair comment to make that there was found in the

system but there is not now. You are now cutting lifeline services to the

most vulnerable. Hypothetically for council tax but you would say people

like David O'Neill were protesting against council tax cuts in 2010 and

now admitting Edward wrong to do that and the was fat in the system

so why should we believe that no? The low hanging fruit has all gone,

you are cutting into the bone now. Like what? A whole range of

services. Let me give you examples. Around about 75 cent of the budgets

that local authorities have spent on education, health and social care,

we have been told those unimportant services as, indeed, the R and the

our priorities. We have got to be protected and any cuts that have to

come art from the other 25%, libraries, leisure centres, roads.

That type of spend will bear the front of the cuts. We are way beyond

the time of having found in the system. We are way beyond the time

of seeing easy systems and savings to be made. You think the council

tax is appropriate? It is way beyond its sell by date and the council tax

freeze had made that worse. What should replace it? The COSLA view is

that we should be replacing the council tax with a proper tax for

the reasons your previous contributor stated, the raft good

reasons to continue with the property -based tax. Thank you very

much. David Cameron continued his charm

offensive in Europe this week in his attempt to reach

a deal on EU reform. Meanwhile, here, the former SNP

deputy leader Jim Sillers announced that he would be campaigning

to leave Europe, which, he said, had opposed

Scottish independence. Our reporter Andrew Black has been

looking at whether the PM is making It's the final countdown. As the

date of this referendum draws ever nearer, David Cameron has been

continuing his tour of European countries hoping to woo foreign

leaders into backing his vision to renew the terms of written's EU

membership. His latest stop was in Prague where he met the Prime

Minister of Czechoslovakia who promptly rejected Mr Cameron 's

proposal for a four-year ban on in work benefits to new arrivals to the

UK. Not great for the PM given that welfare changes are crucial to

getting a the form deal but has he dropped by the economic forum in

Davos earlier this week Mr Cameron has been keeping up date in the hope

he might get an agreement on alternative welfare cards. Meanwhile

he told local business leaders who want Britain to remain in a reformed

EU to get out there and start making their case. I call further

developments, the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, once the UK to stay

in the EU even though she thinks a vote to leave could trigger another

Scottish independence referendum. This week came the news

veteran independence campaigner, Jim Sellers, would be fighting for the

UK to leave the European Sellers, would be fighting for the

Meanwhile, for David Cameron, the clock is ticking, he is hoping that

at the EU summit next month clock is ticking, he is hoping that

will be talks before calling the EU referendum which might come as early

as June. Matt Qvortrup is a professor

of Political Science and International

relations at Coventry His latest paper is

about the EU referendum. You have a brick sent on it, please

explain? I tried to make a mathematical

explain? I tried to make a countries will leave or stay in the

EU and things will be decided. Economies can predict the rate of

economic growth and so on. In a similar way, not quite scientific

work in a similar way you can predict the outcome of referendums.

What is the outcome? It depends. You are qualifying already. It depends,

let me finish, please come it depends on the turnover rate. If

there is a very high turnout that is collocated with the no vote then a

lot of people not normally interested in politics will pen to

be, as we know from the 44 other referendums we have had on this

titular issue, if we have the height turnout a lot of people not normally

interested in politics would come out to vote and the lot would be

negatively predisposed towards the EU and would vote to leave. If we

have a turnout close to the Scottish referendum then there will be a no

vote of 40% but if we only have a turnout of 65% likely had in the

parliamentary elections then David Cameron will just sleep in with 64%.

I should add to listeners that I wrote an article for the Scotsman a

couple of years ago without predicted the outcome for the

American presidential election that was more accurate than opinion polls

so I do have some sort of credibility. Right! What makes you

think that the referendum you have looked at in Europe have in about a

load of different things, not necessarily great in out EU

referendums, what makes you think you can extrapolate from these past

ones which might have been about specific treaties or is the civic

measures for things like security, you can extrapolate from that to an

end or I'd referendum in Britain? We had the 1975 referendum here in

Britain where, had we not voted for the right ministers renegotiated

treaty back then in 1975, we would have left the EU we also had more

exotically Greenland ported to leave the EEC as it was then. We have a

number of examples of, specific example. The other ones are to do

with whether really like Europe or not, most voters do not have an

encyclopaedic knowledge about the various bits of the treaties but it

is basically do you like the United Europe or do you like a less united

Europe. One of the tendencies we have seen, of course you can never

be like with like, but it is generally is eating in most of the

referendums about the campaign whether you want more Europe or not.

The other thing that we also see in referendums is it is often about the

economy and most politics is about your daily life, do you want higher

inflation or lower inflation and most people will not spend all their

time reading political articles and what have you. They will focus on

the economy. One of the paradoxical factors we have had also in all of

the other 44 referendums, if the economy is good then people tend to

vote against the EU and if the economy is bad they feel the

probably better stick with it even if they do not love it that might be

a good idea for pragmatic reasons. Your advice to the campaigns to stay

in the European Union would be by all means campaign but make it

really boring? Yes, and do not get a lot of people to turn out which

matrix Link by David Cameron, all jokes aside, I he would want the

vote in the summer when most people are planning holidays and might even

be away on holiday. The other reason why he is any bit a holiday is that

most referendums, irrespective of whether on the EU or any other

thing, the longer you have been in office the less likely you are to

win. If you take the Scottish referendum last year, that was held

after, I think, it was a second term they had been in office for a long

time and had disappointed quite a lot of voters and therefore where

less likely to be given the benefit of the doubt. If we go back in

recent Richie Shastri the give Aleutian referendum in 1997 it was

only a couple of months after the Tony Blair government had won and it

was still a honeymoon field. David Cameron is now in his second term

and is in danger of being out of the honeymoon period. It has only been a

conservative government for a year but the general tendency is you lose

2%... I want to ask about something I found very interesting. You find

that spending shed loads of money on a campaign does not mean you will

win it? You can spend a lot of money but it depends how you are spending

it and what really decides a referendum is not money. We have had

loads of referendums. The Irish referendums, often they have said no

to the EU and well it has been out by a factor of one two 20 the no

camp have been able to Lyon things to dream the debate in a way that

resonated with the a lot of Irish voters. Don't you think it is not

just about money one of the things that will be cheering up the people

of written is we had Len McCluskey from the Unite union saying he would

campaign for staying in. The CBI well. It is the fact right across

the board you have politicians, your bosses and your trade union saying

this is not a good idea, your jobs could be at risk? There is a

tendency, sorry if I sound boring like a statistician, that is what I

am, here is a tendency when the elite consensus, the big and

powerful are all in favour of it you have do think carefully before you

make your decision. At the same time we have had referendums in

comparable countries like Ireland, Denmark and Sweden where the whole

establishment where in favour of more integration and the voted no.

In Sweden, for example, everybody from Abbott to Volvo campaign for

Sweden to adopt the euro and they had a slogan saying what about my

mortgage if we bought for Europe? -- Abba. We have two capture minds and

imaginations. OK, the Swedes defied Abba, almost unthinkable. Now to end

off with, you have been very critical saying the busy good chance

of the no vote at your conclusion nonetheless is that most referendums

actually end up owing in the favour of the pro-Europeans? The lazy there

is a myth that people are against it.

On average, the yes side gets over 60% of the vote. It is for the

government to lose that momentum, which they might be doing in this

case. But overall, statistically speaking, the probability of winning

the referendum is much greater than the probability of losing it. Thank

you. Let's look at what has been

happening this week and look at what is coming up

in the week ahead. Joining me now is Shabnum Mustapha,

who is a former special adviser to the Liberal Democrats,

and Isobel Lindsay, who is the co-vice

chair of Scottish CND. That must have cheered you up at the

end. You are getting very depressed. I was. It is going to be a public

vote, in the hands of the public. It could go either way. There is a

possibility that the UK could vote to leave, but the possibility they

could vote to domain. I am in favour of Britain remaining within the EU

and all our political leaders should be making a positive case. One of

the things highlighted the is it is not necessarily a foregone

conclusion? Not at all. And one of the big differences between this and

the campaign in 1975 is that then there was still an element of

idealism around the European project. I think that has gone. I

think have seen it... There was our big left-wing campaign against

Europe at the time. The left-wing campaign was principled. But there

is an ugly campaign around racism and protection of the status quo.

But I think the differences now people are looking at Europe and the

RCN some appalling governments there, looking at... Particularly

some of the Eastern European ones, the racial attitudes... Are the more

likely to conclude we have got to stay in Europe a change of those

attitudes or conclude we do not want anything to do with that? For those

wanting a yes vote, that has got to be the argument. And the SNP are not

quite getting this right at the pleasant. By and large, they are

doing art let's vote yes, it's in Scotland's interest. They have got

to be much more critical and use the kind of argument that we deplore a

lot of what is going on, but we need more liberal voices. We have to use

that other co-department. Otherwise they will be just seen as part of

the noise, the elite consensus noise. Talking of the SNP, what Nyom

a eyes and start receiving. -- Nyom a ice and

that universal benefits are subsidies to the middle classes?

Masquerading as progressive taxes. I think there is a bit of that and

what she said. She made it very clear about the benefits, the

universal NHS and universal education, we are talking about

benefits to pensioners... But also prescription charges, council tax

freeze, three buses. I think there is or was going to be a debate

amongst parties about what things to give away to people. That is why but

the last few years, we have seen a lot of parties have positive

policies for pensioners. They have done quite well. In the past, they

were not doing well and there was a lot of pensioner poverty. These are

important issues, but if you start targeting a lot of benefits, people

who pay taxes will question what they get out of this. All parties

had to get a balance between universal and targeting. Whether you

target all benefits I'm not sure all taxpayers would... It is a difficult

one for the SNP. If politicians cut your taxes, it is difficult for

anyone to say they are going to go up. It is difficult for all the

parties. The council tax freeze came in because the SNP was thwarted in

its intention to perform local taxation. It desperately needs

reformed. We know that. But we are the quality of virus was quite wrong

is... If you are a politician, all the options are unattractive. An

attractive to some sections of the community. People who lose make a

lot of noise, people who gain ten to stay quiet. But she was wrong in

suggesting that the council tax did not affect the low paid. One of the

big problems of the council tax, probably in terms of absolute games,

yes, one time only the well of game more, but the council tax hits the

low paid very badly. I want to highlight some things in the paper.

The Sunday Herald had a story about Pete Wishart, again about the

election. Are you happy with this? There seems to be a chorus of people

of Syrian independence, can we forget about that for file? I think

the manifesto, there has got to be the permission requested to have,

under certain circumstances, another referendum. That is not a guarantee.

David Cameron has already said not on my watch. If Scotland's votes to

stay in Europe and the UK leave, we want another referendum, the UK

Government will turn around and say you do not have a mandate. This is

why, in the manifesto, there has to be a form of wording which seeks

authority to do this under certain circumstances. But it has to be

qualified. You are presumably against independence, but there does

seem to be people coming out and just saying calm down, we are not

going to do this, why do you think that is? Even if you remember during

the general election debates when you had the Scottish bid and the

Scottish party leaders, Nicola Sturgeon was booed by the audience

when the issue of a second referendum came up, I think they

have come to realise that it is not our fault winner for them, it is not

popular. This morning, Nicola Sturgeon said that if the UK votes

to leave the EU, that could trigger a second referendum. But if she does

not have a mandate for that in her manifesto, how would she then

trigger it? It seems to be a bit of a mess. In your view, there should

be something. But it would have to be an stark commitment. If Scotland

votes yes, and the rest of the UK votes no, we will do this? They will

not know by the time of the Woodward collection -- Holyrood elections,

but I think the house to be something in the manifesto which

said it could happen. Like you both very much.

I will be back at the same time next week.