23/06/2013 Sunday Politics South East

calls for the government to encourage more house-building in its

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2112 seconds

spending review, but with the is Sunday Politics in the

south-east. Are we failing to educate our permit children? Fewer

16-year-olds on free school meals achieved good GCSE results than

anywhere else in the country, but how can schools in coastal towns and

rural amenities turn around that underachievement? Joining us to

discuss that and other issues is the Conservative MP for Sittingbourne

and Sheppey, Horden Henderson, and the Green party MP Carline Lucas

from Brighton Pavilion. We will start with Brighton because you

could say it has been a rubbish week for residents of the city and the

ruling Green Party. Note bins were collected or street swept for seven

days because of a strike by members of the GMB union. Workers have been

protesting against changes to their terms and conditions by the council,

with some members writing an angry letter demanding the resignation of

the council leader Jason Kitcat. Caroline. Would you like to see him

go? We need to move forward. We now have a suspension of the strike,

which I welcome. It has been a difficult week but I am delighted

the council has been able to move forward, and have put an offer to

the GMB who will now put that question to their members. We all

appreciate now the wonderful work the GMB workers do, and we are glad

they are there. But it will be hard to move on and such a damaging wheat

has divided your party's opinion beyond Brighton. Surely Jason

Kitcat, continue. All parties have considered -- have difficulties. At

party has doubled a difficult way and that has made divisions. But the

challenges of the council has faced in finding a solution that will be

fair to the workers. We have been trying to sort out the mess that

previous administrations, not least the Conservative Administration,

left for us. It has been difficult and we have done a lot of work. We

are now moving forward. Jason Kitcat was re-elected as leader of the

council, so he moves forward, and it is going to be a positive story.

one stage, you appeared to be supporting the GMB union against the

council. Whose side were you on? I publicly gave my support to the

strikers because I wanted to make sure we got a positive response for

them. These are low paid workers and the idea we would have to face cuts

to already low pay was too much. I'm back on eyes difficulties, because

this is about equality and it is right that those workers who have

not had equal allowances in the past now have them. It was a difficult

challenge for the council. I am glad that pressure on all sides has been

brought to bear and we will now have a suspension of the strike. Gordon,

I do not expect you to be an expert on Brighton bins, but the strike has

done damage to the Green Party. Do they have too much power? I cannot

comment about my own local authority, let alone Brighton, but

it highlights that it is easy for opposition parties, especially the

smaller parties, to sit back and criticise what is happening. It is

when you get into some sort of power that you realise you have to make

difficult decisions, and this bat amongst the Greens has proved that.

I know you want to say more, Caroline, but we have to leave it.

Business leaders are calling on the government to encourage more home

building in next week's spending review. Greenfield sites have been

earmarked and are awaiting the go-ahead, but they face opposition.

Nobody relishes deciding whether environmental concerns or home needs

should come first. The south-east needs nearly 400,000

new homes I2026. Our towns and cities are running out of room, it

plans to build on open ground are usually met with fierce opposition.

The planning minister says it is time to face reality. Either we say

it is fine, people are working hard, earning normal wages, but may never

be able to buy a property, or we will have to lean on the

grandparents to give them a deposit, or we grapple this, accept that our

population is growing, and build some houses on undeveloped land, and

there is lots of it. Across the south-east, plans are being put

forward to build thousands of homes in new communities on countryside

land. There are plans to build homes on green belt land in Oxted and

Brighton and in the Kent area of outstanding natural beauty near

Dover. House prices and rents are high. Tina and Phil and their

children live in a house in Maidstone. Both parents work that

they cannot afford to buy here and there are no larger homes to rent.

They don't want to move away from family and friends, so their

daughter and two sons share a bedroom. My daughter has to share,

so she hasn't got her own space, and I feel that I want them to have

their own rooms. You want to keep the village as a village. You don't

want it to become a housing estate, but you have to realise that you

have to go along with progress. housing association is now building

a new homes here, and Tina hopes her family will be able to move into

one, but Maidstone needs many more. Maidstone's population is expected

to grow by 15% in the next 20 years. That is more than 22,500 extra

people, and the council estimates it needs to build nearly 15,000 new

homes for them to live in. Councillors are calling on

house-building companies to put forward proposals. The most

controversial is for 5000 homes on farmland between the villages of

Leeds and offered. Councillors say the development plan has outgrown

itself. Roughly a quarter of new homes are on brownfield land. We saw

efforts to increase that number from the planning system and the house of

lords, but you have to accept that there isn't going to be enough

brownfield to build all the homes we need. We need to look at some

greenfield sites. The local chamber of commerce agrees that of town

development is needed to keep Maidstone competitive. You won't get

the market to come to Maidstone unless you provide the location for

them that the market wants, and that is near the motorway. Then you have

to think about housing. How is the housing going to be key to that?

That that takes major and bold decisions about how to locate that

housing. But convincing residents to support greenfield building is a

tricky task. Maidstone's councillor in charge of planning says

developments can mean people miss out on government incentives to

improve infrastructure. When the decisions coming, they will go to

appeal, but if we are proactive and identify sites only when necessary,

we can make sure that they are allocated and only that site will be

developed, nothing around it. You will get contributions from the

developer to the local surgery and local parks, you can control design

and make them sustainable. report that tomorrow will call for a

new independent body to give better and advice on shaping policy. As the

south-east's population outgrows our existing towns, should we sacrifice

some greenfield for housing to foster green shoots in our economy.

I would say new houses, because it is beneficial for myself, but I like

green fields as well. There is a balance to be struck. I think we

have a housing shortage. Unfortunately, decisions have to be

taken to take the fields in order to achieve the development. You can't

do it otherwise. Jasper Gerrard, the Liberal Democrat candidate for

Maidstone, is fighting plans to build 15,000 homes there. As you can

see, this is a difficult issue, but regardless of the exact numbers, it

is right at the council should raise its targets, it is we have a housing

crisis. There should be a balance. The problem is they are not

following any kind of balance. They have introduced this thing and said

to any developer, come forward with proposals and we will consider

developing it. 90% of the sides are on green fields, which is shocking

as many areas need regeneration. You will have to be some building on

greenfield sites, at first used the Brownfield sites, and cancelled the

local communities. Don't just impose this from the centre of Maidstone by

the council. Let local people decide. If you left it to local

people, you may not get any housing. You heard that quote, you won't get

the market to come to Maidstone. People want to be near the

motorways. You only have to listen to Maryport has. She said you have

to regenerate town centres. In towns like Maidstone, shoppers may find

its neglected and will cease to go there. Maidstone bar Council have

decided to build a retail park near the motorway. All that will do is

kill the town centre further and require more infrastructure. Take

the fact that in all places, there has been a massive increase in birth

rate, an increase in kids coming to school. Kent county council have

made no extra provision for school spaces. If you build it in thousands

houses, the average household takes six car journeys a day. That's

90,000 extra car journeys and date you will be adding to live in

Maidstone. Should people not come to Maidstone then? If you involve

yourself in the planning process, you could get those schools.

Maidstone Borough Council often haven't demanded that developers

provide extra facilities. A site in Maidstone was proposed for a school,

but they have now decided it will be another housing estate. The are

forcing developers to provide the infrastructure, so they will have

soulless communities spread further in the countryside. We have seen

this outside Ashford, and the danger is that they will do this to the

Weald. This was known as the garden of England. Conservatives say that

conservative conservators -- conservationists say the

Conservatives seem hell-bent on turning into a patio. Is it time to

take control back from government? You could say it is not working

because we haven't had time to make it work get. But housing targets

have gone down since you gave them to local authorities will stop I

agree with Bob Jasper said. With housing, you have to ask yourself

why you need more housing. You needed to house people in your

community, that the problem with major big developments of 5000,

10,000, is that you are sucking more people into your area that not

solving internal problems. But Tina and fill their are living in a

village, but they have not got the housing they need for their family.

Why should they move out? That is where we need to have organic

growth, so we need villagers and planning rules to be loosened, so

you can have a development. We do not need 5000 home developments. You

need a balance right. In my constituency, we have sacrificed a

lot of our area over the last 20 years for increased housing. I think

we have had enough. I don't want to see any more major developments in

my area. But people urgently need a home. They do, and we already have

planning permission in Sittingbourne and Sheppey for four or 5000 houses.

Let's get them built, most of them on Brownfield sites, before we look

at greenfield sites. The point I wanted to make is that it is not

just the total number of houses that is important, it is whether they are

affordable housing, and under the coalition government, they have

created only so far a fifth of the houses they promised to build in

terms of affordable housing. We have to make sure the people who need it,

the people on the waiting lists, have somewhere to live. The Green

party has given permission for a housing developer and on a

greenfield site, which no other party has allowed. Nick Boles, the

planning Minister, says Holmes make people happier than Greenfields. Do

you agree with that? That is too simplistic. Writing has the sea on

one side and a pat on the other, so we have nowhere else to go. This

land was privately owned, so at any moment the person who owned it could

sell it and we would have no control, so we have a proposal for a

sustainable to 90. We have zero carbon homes and a showcase for

sustainable building. That is exciting, it will have good

transport links to the city, so when it is sustainable, I think although

Brownfield sites are your first option, when it doesn't exist, if

you have to move to greenfield sites, do it in a sustainable way.

We will have to leave it there. Now, disadvantaged children in rural

communities and coastal towns in the South East of England are being let

down by the education system, according to the Chief Inspector of

Schools. Official figures show schools are failing to support the

poorest children in towns like tasting, Hertford, Lewes and

Ashford. The council is rolling out plans for specific partnerships with

more successful schools, but will this be enough to turn things

around? I'm joined by the Southeast regional director of Ofsted. As I

understand it, the problem has being that apparently good schools are

filling a minority of pupils and you're in spectres haven't been

picking up on that. You are right, and that is one of Sir Michael

Wilshaw's first recommendations in his lecture this week. The first

recommendation is for Ofsted and they need to be more challenging,

more critical when reviewing the achievement of a school. It is here

we see some of the greatest problems, because we have smaller

numbers of disadvantaged pupils that get hidden away in the much larger

institution of a school, so the overall attainment figures will be

hiding the poorer performance of those disadvantaged children.

will you now down grade schools who are filling those pupils?

Michael has made it very clear in his report that for those schools

that have previously been judged to be outstanding, where there is a

very large and growing gap, we will re-enter them. As the regional

director for the Southeast, I have put the local authorities on high

alert over this issue for the last two or three months. I have met with

them all, written to them twice, once in broad terms but the second

time specifically identifying those of disadvantaged children in their

local authority areas. I've followed that up to see what action they are

taking. Let's talk about the London challenge. It worked well, are

shooting good teachers into less good schools. Michael will Short

wants to do that in the South East but there are problems with that,

not least the practicalities, the geography of getting a teacher in

one part of the Southeast to another. There are challenges with

all of these issues, but it is not a reason not to press forward with it.

One reason why London challenge was so successful and ruled out into

city challenges was a tremendous amount of political will and

support, and general support across the board. For that reason, I have

written in May to all of the MPs across the Southeast, urging them to

come and talk to me about the challenges. I have laid out that my

biggest priority across the South East is the challenge of the

achievement of free school meal pupils. But at it is such an urgent

issue for us. Thank you very much for joining us. Caroline, what do

you think of this idea of taking a teacher in a good school and putting

them into an area of need? I welcome his focus on those students who are

not doing as well as they should. The idea you do it by parachuting

individual teachers into the schools, I am not sure about. This

city challenge was more about schools working in partnerships or

one school working in partnership with another school, and that seems

a more collaborative approach than parachuting individual teachers in

and then having their own personal circumstances. I would have thought

a more long-term solution would be to build on what really worked out

of city challenge which was that partnership approach, not this

fragmented approach that we get in academies and free schools, not

working together. Gordon, what Michael Wilshaw is saying goes

against the government educational strategy. He is saying we need to

take charge of this and we will decide where teachers go. There is a

rule for putting in good experienced head teachers into schools, but the

question goes further. One problem is, how does Ofsted assess whether a

school is failing? One problem we had is that the system is geared

towards ensuring a percentage of the pupils attain a certain standard.

said that has been a problem. written to Michael Gove asking him

to change the system, so it assesses the advance at child has made

between the age of five and 11. big problem is parents, and that

they are not engaged, how do you make sure a school or local

authority does the right thing by a child whose parents don't care?

just shows education is part of a wider hole, and you have to look at

everything from housing to security, and within the content -- within the

context of the government 's overall policies, especially for families on

low incomes, it is perhaps not surprising that families have

worries about tax and putting enough food on the table. Do you melt that

I can do you welcomed the proposals? Michael Wilshaw is right

to focus on development but saying education on it own can solve it

isn't enough. You are taking housing benefit away, you are taxing

families. It is rubbish and patronising too many poor people to

say they don't care for their children. You cannot equalise -- you

cannot equate. It is time to move on. We need a round-up of other

political events. Kent police have been pursuing easy

to solve crimes rather than focusing on victims, according to a report by

her Majesty 's Inspectorate of Constabulary, around a 10th of

primes of crimes or in accurately reported. I can give you that

insurance. Victims are at the heart of everything we do. Fans to build a

Tesco on the seafront have been criticised by Mary Portis. She says

it shows the government are not serious about regeneration. The

Brighton MP asked Caroline Lucas if she would support a ban on the

paper. I do not agree with her. It is important we can read all

newspapers on the estate, including the Sun newspaper. And the city of

culture 2017 won't be in the South East. Neither Hastings nor East Kent

made the cut this time around. Caroline, is it the most pressing

issue to stop MPs reading the Sun or page three? I was talking about

media sexism, making the link between sexes and violence against

women, and within that context, it is right to say that if kids can get

hold of page three in buses and house of commons. But it is a

symbolic way of saying get our own house in order. You don't think