Browse content similar to 21/10/2012. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Should families live like this? We ask why official guidelines about | :01:45. | :01:55. | |
:01:55. | :01:55. | ||
Apology for the loss of subtitles for 349 seconds | :01:55. | :07:44. | |
children in the Breton breakfasts In the south-east, people are about | :07:44. | :07:54. | |
:07:54. | :07:55. | ||
to get the chance... Maybe more police presence on the streets. | :07:55. | :08:02. | |
visible presence. 0 tolerance policy on street crime. I will like | :08:02. | :08:06. | |
to see more active policing on burglary and local crime. It's | :08:06. | :08:16. | |
:08:16. | :08:17. | ||
quite scary. Out on to the south- east has three police forces. The | :08:17. | :08:25. | |
largest has about 3400 employees and an annual budget of �274 | :08:25. | :08:31. | |
million. The Sussex force has more than 5000 employees and a budget of | :08:31. | :08:37. | |
�253 million. Surrey has 4500 employees and a budget of �209 | :08:37. | :08:41. | |
million. So, what kind of people are standing to become police | :08:41. | :08:45. | |
commissioners? In the south-east, the candidates include local | :08:45. | :08:49. | |
politicians from the main parties, independent candidates, members of | :08:49. | :08:53. | |
police authorities which the police are will replace as a well as | :08:53. | :08:56. | |
former police of his and other professionals. He can get full | :08:56. | :09:02. | |
details of all the more on your local BBC News Web pages. | :09:02. | :09:04. | |
Candidates list their priorities us things like putting more police | :09:04. | :09:08. | |
officers on the beat, fighting anti-social behaviour, zero | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
tolerance and putting more emphasis on tackling domestic abuse. As this | :09:13. | :09:16. | |
is the first time south-east residents get a say in this, what | :09:16. | :09:20. | |
should people be asking when they choose who to vote for? Three thing | :09:20. | :09:26. | |
is. Whether they want a political party candidate or an independent | :09:27. | :09:35. | |
candidate. There might like to think about slogans and targeted | :09:35. | :09:39. | |
policing. Also, what sort of value for money they won for the police. | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
After all, it is their role to insure Poly for money. With it for | :09:44. | :09:48. | |
South East mixture of towns and countryside, people's experience of | :09:48. | :09:51. | |
policing can vary. It can be particularly difficult to make | :09:51. | :09:54. | |
policing more visible in rural areas. And the commissioners will | :09:54. | :09:57. | |
take over at a time when all the forces are in the middle of a | :09:57. | :10:01. | |
programme of cuts. So what impact might commissioners have on the way | :10:01. | :10:04. | |
policing looks on our streets? I think it a will be very difficult | :10:04. | :10:08. | |
for people on the streets of Kent and Sussex and Surrey are to be | :10:08. | :10:12. | |
able to discern a difference. they will have is someone they can | :10:12. | :10:17. | |
go to to raise concerns that they have anybody -- have any. Not only | :10:18. | :10:21. | |
are the police facing cuts but provisional plans are already in | :10:21. | :10:24. | |
place for next year's budgets. It is likely to take a while for the | :10:24. | :10:34. | |
:10:34. | :10:34. | ||
Apology for the loss of subtitles for 349 seconds | :10:34. | :39:59. | |
impact of the new police Hello. This is the Sunday politics | :39:59. | :40:03. | |
and the south-east. Coming up: they have nowhere else to go. Why more | :40:03. | :40:08. | |
and more families are stuck in emergency bed and breakfasts. Our | :40:08. | :40:13. | |
guests are the leader of East Sussex County Council and the Green | :40:13. | :40:18. | |
MEP for the south-east. A thank you for joining us. We will start with | :40:18. | :40:22. | |
the new twist in the airport debate. The owners of that which say they | :40:22. | :40:26. | |
are serious about developing a second runway. It cannot happen | :40:26. | :40:30. | |
until 2019 at the earliest and they could be strong objections from | :40:30. | :40:33. | |
people in West Kent as well as Sussex and Surrey. Plans for a | :40:33. | :40:36. | |
second runway will go forward to an independent review of airport | :40:36. | :40:41. | |
capacity that has been led by Sir Howard Davies. Peter Jones, this is | :40:41. | :40:45. | |
not the complete answer, is it? Even if they get permission for a | :40:45. | :40:49. | |
second runway at Gatwick, that is not enough. It doesn't create the | :40:49. | :40:54. | |
had status. No, it doesn't, but it goes a long way towards it. One of | :40:54. | :41:00. | |
the things I find exciting about this... One of the reasons I think | :41:00. | :41:05. | |
we need it is that if you look at the Thames Valley, the economic | :41:05. | :41:09. | |
performance of the Thames Valley is far superior to our part of the | :41:09. | :41:13. | |
south-east of this country. One of the key differences is that hub | :41:13. | :41:18. | |
airport at Heathrow. I think the more we can move towards a really | :41:18. | :41:24. | |
high quality Airport facility for it will benefit Kent, Sussex and | :41:24. | :41:29. | |
Surrey, the better it will be for Surrey, the better it will be for | :41:29. | :41:33. | |
jobs and the wages of people, and profits of companies. We can betray | :41:33. | :41:40. | |
it has jobs versus the environment. I don't think that is the question. | :41:40. | :41:44. | |
I am very entertained with Mr Jones's response that question. One | :41:44. | :41:49. | |
would think that we didn't have carbon reduction targets, that the | :41:49. | :41:56. | |
UK is legally obliged to meet. We cannot go doubling the capacity of | :41:56. | :42:00. | |
but it to 70 million on a whim, because the gap to Comas want to | :42:00. | :42:05. | |
make as much money as possible. There is proven this benefits in | :42:05. | :42:09. | |
terms of air pollution, noise pollution and the carbon emissions, | :42:09. | :42:15. | |
we cannot afford it. We don't need another airport. We are not poorly- | :42:15. | :42:18. | |
performing in an economic terms because we don't have enough | :42:18. | :42:21. | |
runways. We are poorly performing in economic terms because the | :42:21. | :42:29. | |
coalition government is obsessed with cutting finance to everything. | :42:29. | :42:35. | |
The truth is that the average output in the south-east is only 85 | :42:35. | :42:39. | |
% of what it is in the Thames Valley. The big difference is | :42:39. | :42:43. | |
having a hub airport. We are going to come back to jobs again a little | :42:43. | :42:46. | |
booklet on. In the meantime, the big issue right across the south- | :42:46. | :42:51. | |
east, children, forced to live in cramped hostels and they shouldn't | :42:51. | :42:54. | |
be there unless it is a real emergency. That is what the | :42:55. | :42:58. | |
Government's sale in 2004 and four years, the number of families | :42:58. | :43:02. | |
housed in B&Bs was dropping. It is going up again now. And it is a | :43:02. | :43:05. | |
particular problem in the south- east. | :43:05. | :43:12. | |
All right to, you too. Me to this single mum, her 11 year-old son and | :43:12. | :43:16. | |
14 year-old daughter. Very close family in more ways than one. They | :43:16. | :43:20. | |
all live in this one room in a hostel in Kent. Facilities are | :43:20. | :43:26. | |
basic. You haven't got a fridge. No fridge. We have a windowsill fridge | :43:26. | :43:36. | |
:43:36. | :43:37. | ||
which I can show you. This is a fridge. The is only so much I can | :43:37. | :43:40. | |
buy which is perishable at any one time and depending on the | :43:40. | :43:45. | |
temperature, but either lasts for a long time or it doesn't. A it's | :43:45. | :43:50. | |
annoying because sometimes I like to do stuff my myself but because | :43:50. | :43:53. | |
Meyrick mother and my sister are there, I cannot do it and it is | :43:53. | :43:58. | |
kind of hard. Cheers from Kent but she and her children had been | :43:58. | :44:04. | |
living in Canada for years. 13 in emergency temporary housing for | :44:04. | :44:08. | |
eight weeks. Because they've not been back in the country for long, | :44:08. | :44:13. | |
she is not entitled to benefits at the moment. With no money, they | :44:13. | :44:17. | |
needed somewhere to live. The sooner you could be found some sort | :44:17. | :44:26. | |
of proper council housing... And the better. Absolutely. This is not | :44:26. | :44:30. | |
an ideal situation to have a family in. At not having a kitchen or | :44:30. | :44:34. | |
sitting room. We don't have the privacy that we require to have a | :44:34. | :44:39. | |
normal life. And there are not alone. Nearly 700 families and the | :44:40. | :44:43. | |
south-east are housed in this way. Across the whole of the region, the | :44:43. | :44:46. | |
number of families living in temporary bed and breakfast | :44:46. | :44:53. | |
accommodation as a son by 73 % in the last year. That is well above | :44:53. | :44:57. | |
the national average. What we are talking about are not the kind of | :44:57. | :45:00. | |
B&Bs are you still holiday. They are place is run entirely to ruck | :45:00. | :45:03. | |
house families with nowhere else to live. The alternative is temporary | :45:03. | :45:08. | |
accommodation, which is often let- out by councils and is usually less | :45:08. | :45:12. | |
expensive and more Secure. No one likes the B&B option. It has | :45:12. | :45:18. | |
dropped to have -- it is disruptive taught children, and has never | :45:18. | :45:21. | |
supposed to be for longer than six weeks. In the early 1990s, there | :45:21. | :45:25. | |
were a lot of people in this type of accommodation but that had been | :45:25. | :45:30. | |
steadily falling, until now. There is not the temporary accommodation | :45:30. | :45:34. | |
available. When you combine that with the fact that the impending | :45:34. | :45:40. | |
welfare reform changes... We are seeing more and more private | :45:40. | :45:42. | |
landlords saying we don't want housing benefit cases because we | :45:42. | :45:46. | |
don't know whether we would get paid. That call of temporary | :45:46. | :45:51. | |
accommodation is becoming a puddle. Councils are trying to tackle this | :45:51. | :45:56. | |
-- the shortage. Crawley council might ask tenants with empty rooms | :45:56. | :46:01. | |
to take a lot to us. At Maidstone, empty houses might be forced to | :46:01. | :46:08. | |
sell. Although other solutions? The Labour group leader in Canterbury | :46:08. | :46:13. | |
explains what his party did when it ran the council. We identified | :46:13. | :46:18. | |
parcels of land and sold them cheaply to housing associations. | :46:18. | :46:23. | |
This site is one of those parcels of land but we sold off. You can | :46:23. | :46:27. | |
see the result of that decision. There are lots of families being | :46:27. | :46:33. | |
very adequately housed. By do you think more could be done today? | :46:33. | :46:37. | |
certainly could. There are hundreds of families like this on across the | :46:37. | :46:40. | |
south-east and every day in a room like this is a day too long. Is | :46:40. | :46:44. | |
there a solution to this growing problem with charities say it will | :46:44. | :46:49. | |
only get worse as more benefit cap signed reduced? Is there a problem | :46:49. | :46:52. | |
getting worse across the south- east? | :46:52. | :46:58. | |
We are joined by the Conservative leader of Maidstone Borough Council. | :46:58. | :47:03. | |
How many families are in emergency accommodation in the borough? | :47:03. | :47:07. | |
spend approximately �120,000 per annum on bed-and-breakfast and that | :47:07. | :47:12. | |
has increased over the last year or so. Can you put a figure on that | :47:12. | :47:17. | |
the number of families? About 50 families in emergency accommodation. | :47:17. | :47:22. | |
What we are trying to do is take a two-pronged approach. First, we are | :47:23. | :47:29. | |
building more houses in Maidstone, around 10,000 and we require | :47:29. | :47:34. | |
developers to provide 40 % affordable housing. If you have an | :47:34. | :47:38. | |
estate of around 200 houses, you are looking at providing 80 | :47:38. | :47:44. | |
affordable houses in that place. In addition, we are taking a fairly | :47:44. | :47:49. | |
tough line on tackling the empty homes in the borough. It is about | :47:49. | :47:54. | |
increasing supply but we also want to increase the supply it of empty | :47:54. | :47:59. | |
homes. He made the headlines have plans to bring those empty homes | :47:59. | :48:03. | |
back into use, most specifically with the idea of compulsory | :48:03. | :48:10. | |
purchase. Are you serious about that? That is the absolute last | :48:10. | :48:17. | |
resort. We have around 560 empty homes in Maidstone. There are many | :48:17. | :48:21. | |
reasons behind the stories of those homes. Some people have been | :48:21. | :48:24. | |
working abroad, our intervention will not be appropriate there. Some | :48:25. | :48:34. | |
:48:35. | :48:35. | ||
will be in respite care. We where will it be appropriate? Be specific. | :48:35. | :48:38. | |
Where there are empty properties and landlords are not put in those | :48:38. | :48:42. | |
properties into the rental sector or the purchase sector, where those | :48:42. | :48:46. | |
properties are not fit for purpose, we will signpost those landlords, | :48:46. | :48:50. | |
provide grants and loans they did incentives as well to bring those | :48:51. | :48:55. | |
properties back into a fit standard. What are the circumstances under | :48:56. | :48:59. | |
which you would force them to give up their home, something that they | :48:59. | :49:06. | |
own or have paid for? Where a landlord is refusing to work with | :49:06. | :49:10. | |
us to put a property on the market that has absolutely no reason not | :49:10. | :49:16. | |
to be on the market, either to be purchased or rented. Thank you very | :49:16. | :49:23. | |
much indeed. There are some pretty catastrophic figures in Brighton. | :49:24. | :49:28. | |
Your Green Party had been the ruling party in Brighton since 2010. | :49:28. | :49:33. | |
It has gone up from 502 families in emergency temporary accommodation | :49:34. | :49:38. | |
to 839. As the most catastrophic increase anywhere the south-east. | :49:38. | :49:46. | |
What are you doing about it? We are building the first council houses | :49:46. | :49:52. | |
and a generation. Furthermore, we have identified 800 sites in the | :49:52. | :49:56. | |
City for affordable housing. That is one end of the situation. We | :49:56. | :50:02. | |
have only been there for two years. This has its roots in Margaret | :50:02. | :50:09. | |
Thatcher and her right to buy programme. The increase to 830 has | :50:09. | :50:13. | |
happened in the last year, while you've been in power. In fact what | :50:13. | :50:18. | |
we are dealing, as I was trying to say, Margaret Thatcher right to buy, | :50:18. | :50:27. | |
that was fined, but... Since 1980, we've had the affordable housing | :50:27. | :50:34. | |
stock dimension. Now, we have this awful prospect of the coalition | :50:34. | :50:37. | |
government and the universal benefit cap which will limit the | :50:37. | :50:45. | |
amount of funding for families to �500. That is what I am told. If | :50:45. | :50:50. | |
that is not enough, the councils, have got a statutory duty to house | :50:50. | :50:55. | |
people, will have to make it up from council funds. It is that | :50:55. | :50:58. | |
Government's fault. You've changed the welfare system. He was forcing | :50:58. | :51:02. | |
people into a situation where they cannot afford their own homes. | :51:02. | :51:07. | |
you've got in Brighton is a failure on a number of fronts, including | :51:07. | :51:11. | |
housing. There are all sorts of other solutions. If you look at the | :51:12. | :51:16. | |
towns of East Sussex, the numbers on nothing like what they are... | :51:16. | :51:24. | |
Hastings, it has gone up. There are 30, not his hundred. The size of | :51:24. | :51:30. | |
Hastings is about the third of the size of Brighton. What is the big | :51:30. | :51:38. | |
idea? I'm a on. -- hang on. I'm impressed with what they're trying | :51:38. | :51:42. | |
to do in Maidstone but also, we must stop thinking that the state | :51:42. | :51:45. | |
can provide the answers. One of the things the government is trying to | :51:45. | :51:49. | |
do now and which could be very potent, is to encourage self- | :51:49. | :51:52. | |
builders. I'm building a house at the moment that my wife and there | :51:52. | :51:55. | |
are lots of young people who would like to get him there. They will be | :51:55. | :52:05. | |
:52:05. | :52:08. | ||
able to produce a home at a lot less cost. Why on earth in 2010, D | :52:08. | :52:15. | |
George Osborne / the council housing budget by 50 %? Council | :52:15. | :52:22. | |
housing is not the answer. People want to tour and their own homes. - | :52:22. | :52:27. | |
- owned their own homes. I live in Brussels half the time to serve in | :52:27. | :52:31. | |
the European Parliament. There is a myth about people needing to buy | :52:31. | :52:40. | |
their own homes. In Belgium, you've got a country which is about to | :52:40. | :52:46. | |
split apart! We are not talking about Belgium. Let's move on to | :52:47. | :52:53. | |
police commissioners. Your clearly passionate about local | :52:53. | :52:57. | |
democracy so you will be voting in the first to Police Commissioner | :52:57. | :53:01. | |
elections, won't you? It is being billed as the biggest change in | :53:01. | :53:04. | |
policing for half a century and as you probably saw earlier, and that | :53:04. | :53:07. | |
of the November is the big day when you will be up to choose which | :53:07. | :53:10. | |
person you think have the best plan to tackle crime way you live in | :53:10. | :53:15. | |
Kent, Sussex or Surrey. As well as our guests of the day, we are also | :53:15. | :53:22. | |
joined from Chatham by Paul Clark, a former MP for Gillingham. I would | :53:22. | :53:28. | |
like to start with you, because for 11 years, you've been on the police | :53:28. | :53:35. | |
authority in Sussex. What is wrong with the police authority? Police | :53:35. | :53:41. | |
authorities around the country are self-appointed oligarchies. They | :53:41. | :53:45. | |
are a dumping ground for those councillors that council leaders | :53:45. | :53:51. | |
cannot find a useful job for. We have an arcane process of putting | :53:51. | :53:54. | |
the independence through the authority. He'd been so tinged | :53:54. | :53:58. | |
there in all the meetings for the last 11 years and are thinking, | :53:58. | :54:03. | |
this is a load of rubbish. I've had interesting thoughts over that | :54:03. | :54:07. | |
period. In Sussex, we've had a particularly good authority but | :54:07. | :54:11. | |
what we discovered when there was an attempt to force through mergers | :54:12. | :54:16. | |
of police authorities a few years ago, was across the nation, police | :54:16. | :54:19. | |
authorities just bend the knee to Charles Clarke and they didn't | :54:19. | :54:22. | |
fight the corner of local policing in the way that they should have | :54:22. | :54:28. | |
done. I support the reforms that have coming in because we will now | :54:28. | :54:32. | |
have a situation where somebody will have the legitimacy and the | :54:32. | :54:35. | |
authority that comes from the ballot box. There is nothing better | :54:35. | :54:38. | |
than the people expressing fare well as to who they want and if | :54:38. | :54:42. | |
they don't do a good job, they can get rid of them. Everybody is | :54:42. | :54:46. | |
wondering how many people will express their will. But we get on | :54:46. | :54:52. | |
to the shore turnout... Is this a political post? Lots of parties are | :54:52. | :54:55. | |
putting forward candidates but we are told there is a strange | :54:55. | :55:00. | |
situation whereby, they will have to make a pledge to be impartial. | :55:00. | :55:06. | |
It's a fudge, isn't it? A it's nonsensical and I have to say, the | :55:06. | :55:11. | |
Commons just that the police authority was just a dumping ground | :55:11. | :55:15. | |
is an insult to those that have worked very hard on all political | :55:15. | :55:20. | |
sides on the police authorities. always said, if there was a problem | :55:20. | :55:22. | |
with the police authority and accountability, deal with that | :55:22. | :55:28. | |
issue, rather than spending �100 million on a balance that nobody | :55:28. | :55:32. | |
wants. What they want is to know there is a police force that is | :55:32. | :55:37. | |
responsive. What you end up doing here is putting power in the hands | :55:37. | :55:43. | |
of what will undoubtedly be one that political person in, would | :55:43. | :55:47. | |
have it is this county or Yorkshire, or whatever it is across the | :55:47. | :55:52. | |
country. It doesn't have to be party political. I know the Greens | :55:52. | :55:55. | |
are not backing any particular candidate but there are plenty of | :55:55. | :56:03. | |
independence. I am appalled to sit next to someone who has been in | :56:03. | :56:11. | |
charge of a police authority for 11 years and thinks it was ineffectual. | :56:11. | :56:17. | |
I admire his honesty! He is certainly candied! The situation is | :56:17. | :56:27. | |
not broke, so why on earth fix it? This is a fudge. I don't want a | :56:27. | :56:31. | |
Conservative or a Labour police chief. I want the police managed in | :56:31. | :56:36. | |
the way they are managed at the moment, by a mix of democratic | :56:36. | :56:41. | |
parties. At the moment, we've got candidates from the English Defence | :56:41. | :56:50. | |
League, anti- immigration policies. We have anti-feminist candidates. | :56:50. | :56:55. | |
wanted to talk where the south-east. At the moment, let's... At the | :56:55. | :57:00. | |
moment, crime is falling. If the main aim is to bring crime down, | :57:00. | :57:05. | |
it's already happening. A You are not going to know whether these | :57:05. | :57:09. | |
commissioners are effective. This week, Damian Green has had to | :57:09. | :57:15. | |
announce to the House that 6778 frontline police officers have been | :57:16. | :57:25. | |
:57:26. | :57:26. | ||
cut in the last two years. 289 of those are in Kent. 1227... It will | :57:27. | :57:31. | |
all have an effect on Kent and the authorities that are watching your | :57:31. | :57:37. | |
programme today. Most of the candidates are saying, Zero | :57:37. | :57:40. | |
Tolerance, will have more police officers on the street. There is | :57:40. | :57:47. | |
not the money to do that. You will not have to raise council tax and | :57:47. | :57:55. | |
you can deliver huge gains by using technology more effectively... | :57:55. | :58:04. | |
Witt now. -- do it now. It is time now for our regular round-up of the | :58:04. | :58:14. | |
:58:14. | :58:20. | ||
Two of our MPs could become the victims of boundary changes. They | :58:20. | :58:26. | |
may lose their seats. Labour and the Lib Dems will not back the | :58:26. | :58:33. | |
plans anyway. It is largely theoretical. Live animal exports | :58:33. | :58:36. | |
have started again at Ramsgate, after the High Court overturned a | :58:36. | :58:41. | |
temporary ban. It will be examined by a judicial review later in the | :58:41. | :58:45. | |
year. More controversy at East Sussex County Council, where | :58:45. | :58:52. | |
demonstrators interrupted a meeting. The council later was under fire. | :58:52. | :59:01. | |
They want to take away people's Hobbs and Jobs. -- jobs and homes. | :59:01. | :59:05. | |
50 years after the Cuban missile crisis, secret tunnels at Dover | :59:05. | :59:09. | |
Castle have been opened to the public. Government officials would | :59:09. | :59:18. | |
have sheltered there in the event We are almost out of time because | :59:18. | :59:22. | |
you to have been chatting so much and it has been so lively. D | :59:22. | :59:26. | |
welcome but level of public engagement you saw at the meeting | :59:26. | :59:36. | |
:59:36. | :59:37. |