05/03/2017 Sunday Politics South West

It's Sunday Morning and this is the Sunday Politics.

The Chancellor says that to embark on a spending spree

in Wednesday's Budget would be "reckless".

But will there be more money for social care and to ease

The UK terror threat is currently severe,

but where is that threat coming from?

We have the detailed picture from a vast new study of every

Islamist related terrorist offence committed over the last two decades.

What can we learn from these offences to thwart future attacks?

The government was defeated in the Lords on its

We'll ask the Leader of the House of Commons what he'll do if peers

In the South West, the pensioners hoping this week's budget

And the Royal Navy's battle to recruit enough sailors.

All that coming up in the next hour and a quarter.

Now, some of you might have read that intruders managed

to get into the BBC news studios this weekend.

Well three of them appear not to have been ejected yet,

so we might as well make use of them as our political panel.

Tom Newton Dunn, Isabel Oakeshott and Steve Richards.

They'll be tweeting throughout the programme.

Philip Hammond will deliver his second financial

statement as Chancellor and the last Spring Budget

for a while at least - they are moving to the Autumn

There's been pressure on him to find more money

for the Health Service, social care, schools funding,

But this morning the Chancellor insisted that he will not be

using the proceeds of better than expected tax receipts to embark

What is being speculated on is whether we might not have borrowed

quite as much as we were forecast to borrow. You will see the numbers on

Wednesday. But if your bank increases your credit card limit, I

do not think you feel obliged to go out and spent every last penny of it

He is moving the budget to the autumn, he told us that in his

statement, so maybe on Wednesday it will be like a spring statement

rather than a full-blown budget. Tinkering pre-Brexit and in November

he will have a more clear idea of the impact of Brexit and I suspect

that will be the bigger event than this one. It looks as if there will

be a bit of money here and there, small amounts, not enough in my

view, for social care and so on, possibly a review of social care

policy. A familiar device which rarely get anywhere. I think he has

got a bit more space to do more if he wanted to do now because of the

politics. They are miles ahead in the polls, so he could do more, but

it is not in his character, he is cautious. So he keeps his powder dry

on most things, he does some things, but he keeps it dry until November.

But also, as Steve says, he will know just how strong the economy has

been this year by November and whether he needs to do some pump

priming or whether everything is fine. He said it is too early to

make those sorts of judgments now. What is striking is the amount of

concern there is an Number ten and in the Treasury about the tone of

this budget, so less about the actual figures and more about what

message this is sending out to the rest of the world. I think some

senior MPs are calling it a kind of treading water budget and Phil

Hammond has got quite a difficult act to perform because he is

instinctively rather cautious, or very cautious, and instinctively

slightly gloomy about Brexit. He wanted to remain. But he does not

want this budget to sounded downbeat and he will be mauled if he makes it

sound downbeat, so he has to inject a little bit of optimism and we may

see that in the infrastructure spending plans. He has got some room

to manoeuvre. The deficit by the financial year ending in April we

now know will not be as big as the OBR told us only three and a half

months ago that it would be. They added 12 billion on and they may

take most of that off again. He is under pressure from his own side to

do something on social care and business rates and I bet some Tory

backbenchers would not mind a little bit more money for the NHS as well.

He is on a huge pressure to do a whole lot on a whole load, not just

social care. There is also how on earth do we pay for so many old

people? There is the NHS, defence spending, everything. But his words

this morning, which is I am not going to spend potentially an extra

30 billion I might have by 2020 because of improved economic growth

was interesting. You need to hold something back because Brexit might

go back and he was a bit of a remain campaign person. If you think

Britain is going to curl up into a corner and hideaway licking its

wounds, you have got another think coming. That 30 billion he might

have extra in his pocket could be worth deploying on building up

Britain with huge tax cuts in case there is no deal, a war chest if you

like. He will have more than 27 billion. He may decide 27 billion in

the statement, the margin by which he tries to get the structural

deficit down, he will still have 27 billion. If the receipts are better

than they are forecast, some people are saying he will have a war chest

of 60 billion. That money, as Mr Osborne found out, can disappear. He

clearly is planning not to go on a spending spree this Wednesday. It is

interesting in the FTB and the day, David Laws who was chief Secretary

for five minutes, was also enthusiastic about the original

George Osborne austerity programme and he said, we have reached the

limits to what is socially possible with this and a consensus is

beginning to emerge that he will have to spend more money than he

plans to this Wednesday. This is not just from Labour MPs, but from a lot

of Conservative MPs as well. People will wonder when this austerity will

end because it seems to be going on for ever. We will have more on the

budget later in the programme. Now, the government was defeated

last week in the House of Lords. Peers amended the bill that

will allow Theresa May to trigger Brexit to guarantee the rights of EU

nationals currently in the UK. The government says it will remove

the amendment when the bill returns But today a report from

the Common's Brexit committee also calls for the Government to make

a unilateral decision to safeguard the rights of EU

nationals living here. If the worst happened,

are we actually going to say to 3 million Europeans here,

who are nurses, doctors, serving us tea and coffee in restaurants,

giving lectures at Leeds University, picking and processing vegetables,

"Right, off you go"? No, of course we are not

going to say that. So, why not end the

uncertainty for them now? will help to create the climate

which will ensure everyone gets to say because that's

what all of us want. That is why we have unanimously

agreed this recommendation that the government should make unilateral

decision to say to EU citizens here, yes, you can stay, because we think

that is the right and fair thing to do.

And we're joined now from Buckinghamshire by the leader

of the House of Commons, David Lidington.

Welcome back to the programme. The House of Lords has amended the

Article 50 bill to allow the unilateral acceptance of EU

nationals' right to remain in the UK. Is it still the government was

my intention to remove that amendment in the comments? We have

always been clear that we think this bill is very straightforward, it

does nothing else except give the Prime Minister the authority that

the courts insist upon to start the Article 50 process of negotiating

with the other 27 EU countries. On the particular issue of EU citizens

here and British citizens overseas, the PM did suggest that the December

European summit last year that we do a pre-negotiation agreement on this.

That was not acceptable to all of the other 27 because they took the

view that you cannot have any kind of negotiation and to Article 50 has

been triggered. That is where we are. I hope with goodwill and

national self interest on all sides we can tackle this is right that the

start of those negotiations. But it is not just the Lords. We have now

got the cross-party Commons Brexit committee saying you should now make

the unilateral decision to safeguard the rights of EU nationals in the

UK. Even Michael go, Peter Lilley, John Whittington, agree. So why are

you so stubborn on this issue? I think this is a complex issue that

goes beyond the rise of presidents, but about things like the rights of

access to health care, to pension ratings and benefits and so on...

But you could settle back. It is also, Andrew, because you have got

to look at it from the point of view of the British citizens, well over 1

million living elsewhere in Europe. If we make the unilateral gesture,

it might make us feel good for Britain and it would help in the

short term those EU citizens who are here, but you have got those British

citizens overseas who would then be potential bargaining chips in the

hands of any of the 27 other governments. We do not know who will

be in office during the negotiations and they may have completely

extraneous reasons to hold up the agreement on the rights of British

citizens. The sensible way to deal with this is 28 mature democracies

getting around the table starting the negotiations and to agree to

something that is fair to all sides and is reciprocal. What countries

might take on UK nationals living in the EU? What countries are you

frightened of? The one thing that I know from my own experience in the

past of being involved in European negotiations is that issues come up

that maybe have nothing to do with British nationals, but another issue

that matters a huge amount to a particular government, it may not be

a government yet in office, and they decide we can get something out of

this, so let's hold up the agreement on British citizens until the

British move in the direction we want on issue X. I hope it does not

come to that. I think the messages I have had from EU ambassadors in

London and from those it my former Europe colleague ministers is that

we want this to be a done deal as quickly as possible. That is the

British Government's very clear intention. We hope that we can get a

reciprocal deal agreed before the Article 50 process. That was not

possible. I understand that, you have said that already. But even if

there is no reciprocal deal being done, is it really credible that EU

nationals already here would lose their right to live and work and

face deportation? You know that is not credible, that will not happen.

We have already under our own system law whereby some people who have

been lawfully resident and working here for five years can apply for

permanent residency, but it is not just about residents. It is about

whether residency carries with it certain rights of access to health

care. I understand that, but have made this point. But the point is

the right to live and work here that worries them at the moment. The Home

Secretary has said there can be no change in their status without a

vote in parliament. Could you ever imagine the British Parliament

voting to remove their right to live and work here? I think the British

Parliament will want to be very fair to EU citizens, as Hilary Benn and

others rightly say they have been overwhelmingly been here working

hard and paying taxes and contributing to our society. They

were equally want to make sure there is a fair deal for our own citizens,

more than a million, elsewhere in Europe. You cannot disentangle the

issue of residence from those things that go with residents. Is the

Article 50 timetabled to be triggered before the end of this

month, is it threatened by these amendments in the Lords? I sincerely

hope not because the House of Lords is a perfectly respectable

constitutional role to look again at bills sent up by the House of

commons. But they also have understood traditionally that as an

unelected house they have to give primacy to the elected Commons at

the end of the day. In this case it is not just the elected Commons that

sent the bill to be amended, but the referendum that lies behind that. It

is not possible? We are confident we can get Article 50 triggered by the

end of the month. One of the other Lords amendments

will be to have a meaningful vote on the Brexit deal when it is done at

the end of the process, what is your view on that? What would you

understand by a meaningful vote? The Government has already said there is

going to be a meaningful vote at the end of the process. What do you mean

by a meaningful vote? The parliament will get the opportunity to vote on

the deal before it finishes the EU level process of going to

consideration by the European Parliament. Parliament will be given

a choice, as I understand, for either a vote for the deal you have

negotiated or we leave on WTO rules and crash out anyway, is that what

you mean by a meaningful choice? Parliament will get the choice to

vote on the deal, but I think you have put your finger on the problem

with trying to write something into the bill because any idea that the

PM's freedom to negotiate is limited, any idea that if the EU 27

were to play hardball, that somehow that means parliament would take

fright, reverse the referendum verdict and set aside the views of

the British people, that would almost guarantee that it would be

much more difficult to get the sort of ambitious mutually beneficial

deal for us and the EU 27. Your idea of a meaningful vote in parliament

is the choices either to vote to accept this deal or we leave anyway,

that is your idea of a meaningful vote. The Article 50 process is

straightforward. There is the position of both parties in the

recent Supreme Court case that the Article 50 process once triggered is

irrevocable. That is in the EU Treaty already but we are saying

very clearly that Parliament will get that right to debate and vote. I

think the problem with what some in the House of Lords are proposing, I

hope it is not a majority, is that the amendments they would seek to

insert would tie the Prime Minister's hands, limit and

negotiating freedom and put her in a more difficult position to negotiate

on behalf of this country than should be the case. One year ago you

said it could take six to eight years to agree a free-trade deal

with the EU. Now you think you can do it in two, what's changed your

mind? There is a very strong passionate supporter of Remain, as

you know. I hope very much we are able to conclude not just the terms

of the exit deal but the agreement that we are seeking on the long-term

trade relationship... I understand that, but I'm trying to work out,

what makes you think you can do it in two years when only a year ago

you said it would take up to wait? The referendum clearly makes a big

difference, and I think that there is an understanding amongst real the

other 27 governments now that it is in everybody's interests to sort

this shared challenge out of negotiating a new relationship

between the EU 27 and the UK because European countries, those in and

those who will be out of the EU, share the need to face up to massive

challenges like terrorism and technological change. All of that

was pretty obvious one year ago but we will see what happens. Thank you,

David Lidington. Now, the Sunday Politics has had

sight of a major new report The thousand-page study,

which researchers say is the most comprehensive ever produced,

analyses all 269 Islamist telated terrorist offences

committed between 1998-2015. Most planned attacks were,

thankfully, thwarted, but what can we learn

from those offences? For the police and the intelligence

agencies to fight terror, Researchers at the security think

tank The Henry Jackson Society gave us early access to their huge

new report which analyses every Islamism related attack

and prosecution in the UK since 1998, that's 269 cases

involving 253 perpetrators. With issues as sensitive

as counterterrorism and counter radicalisation, it is really

important to have an evidence base from which you draw

policy and policing, This isn't my opinion,

this the facts. This chart shows the number

of cases each year combined with a small number

of successful suicide attacks. Notice the peak in the middle

of the last decade around the time of the 7/7 bombings

in London in 2005. Offences tailed off,

before rising again from 2010, when a three-year period accounted

for a third of all the terrorism cases since the researchers

started counting. What we are seeing is a combination

of both more offending, in terms of the threat increasing,

we know that from the security services and police statements,

but also I believe we are getting more efficient in terms

of our policing and we are actually A third of people were found to have

facilitated terrorism, that's providing encouragement,

documents, money. About 18% of people

were aspirational terrorists, 12% of convictions were related

to travel, to training And 37% of people were convicted

of planning attacks, although the methods have

changed over time. Five or six years ago,

we saw lots of people planning or attempting pipe bombs and most

of the time they had Inspire magazine in their possession,

that's a magazine, an Al-Qaeda English-language online

magazine that had specific More recently we have seen

Islamic State encouraging people to engage in lower tech knife

beheading, stabbings attacks and I think that's why we have

seen that more recently. Shasta Khan plotted with her

husband to bomb the Jewish In 2012 she received

an eight-year prison sentence. She's one of an increasing

number of women convicted of an Islamism related offence

although it is still overwhelmingly a crime carried out

by men in their 20s. Despite fears of foreign terrorists,

a report says the vast Most have their home in London,

around 43% of them. 18% lived in the West Midlands,

particularly in Birmingham, and the north-west is another

hotspot with around 10% Richard Dart lived in Weymouth

and tried to attend a terrorist He was a convert to Islam, as were

60% of the people in this report. He was a convert to Islam, as were

16% of the people in this report. Like the majority of cases,

he had a family, network. What's particularly interesting

is how different each story is in many ways,

but then within those differences So your angry young men,

in the one sense inspired to travel, seek training and combat experience

abroad, and then the older, recruiter father-figure types,

the fundraising facilitator types. There are types within

this terrorism picture, but the range of backgrounds

and experiences is huge. And three quarters of those

convicted of Islamist terrorism were on the radar of the authorities

because they had a previous criminal record, they had

made their extremism public, or because MI5 had them

under surveillance. To discuss the findings of this

report are the former Security Minister Pauline Neville-Jones,

Talha Ahmad from the Muslim Council of Britain, and Adam Deen

from the anti-extremist group The report finds the most segregated

Muslim community is, the more likely it is to incubate Islamist

terrorists, what is the MCB doing to encourage more integrated

communities? Its track record on calling for reaching out to the

wider society and having a more integrated and cohesive society I

think is a pretty strong one, so one thing we are doing for example very

recently I've seen we had this visit my mosque initiative, the idea was

that mosques become open to inviting people of other faiths and their

neighbours to come so we were encouraged to see so many

participating. It is one step forward. Is it a good thing or a bad

thing that in a number of Muslim communities, the Muslim population

is over 60% of the community? I personally and the council would

prefer to have more mixed communities but one of the reason

they are heavily concentrated is not so much because they prefer to but

often because the socio- economic reality forces them to. But you

would like to see less segregation? Absolutely, we would prefer more

diverse communities around the country. What is your reaction to

that? Will need more diverse communities but one of the

challenges we have right now with certain organisations is this

pushback against the Government, with its attempts to help young

Muslims not go down this journey of extremism. One of those things is

the Prevent strategy and we often hear organisations like the MCB

attacking the strategy which is counter-productive. What do you say

to that? Do we support the Government have initiatives to

counteract terrorism, of course we do. Do you support the Prevent

strategy? We don't because it scapegoats an entire community. The

report shows that contrary to a lot of lone wolf theories and people

being radicalised in their bedrooms on the Internet that 80% of those

convicted had connections with the extremist groups. Indeed 25% willing

to Al-Muhajiroun. I think this report, which is a thorough piece of

work, charts a long period and it is probably true to say that in the

earlier stages these organisations were very important, of course

subsequently we have had direct recruiting by IS one to one over the

Internet so we have a mixed picture of how people are recruited but

there's no doubt these organisations are recruiting sergeants. You were

once a member of one of these organisations, are we doing enough

to thwart them? If we just focus on these organisations, we will fail.

We -- the question is are we doing enough to neutralise them? The

Government strategy is in the right place, but where we need to focus on

is the Muslim community or communities. The Muslim community

must realise that these violent extremists are fringe but they share

ideas, a broad spectrum of ideas that penetrate deeply within Muslim

communities and we need to tackle those ideas because that is where it

all begins. Are you in favour of banning groups like Al-Muhajiroun?

Yes, it was the right thing to do and I can tell you the community has

moved a long way, Al-Muhajiroun does not have support. Do you agree with

that? Yes, but it is very simplistic attacking Al-Muhajiroun. ISIS didn't

bring about extremism, extremism brought about ISIS, ISIS is just the

brand and if we don't deal with the ideological ideas we will have other

organisations popping up. The report suggests that almost a quarter of

Islamist the latest offences were committed by individuals previous

unknown to the security services. And this is on the rise, these

numbers. This would seem to make an already difficult task for our

intelligence services almost impossible. Two points. It is over

80% I think were known, but it shows the intelligence services and police

have got their eyes open. But the trend has been towards more not on

the radar. That has been because the nature of the recruitment has also

changed and you have much more ISIS inspired go out and do it yourself,

get a knife, do something simple, so we have fewer of the big

spectaculars that ISIS organised. Now you have got locally organised

people, two or three people get together, do something together,

very much harder actually to get forewarning of that. That is where

intelligence inside the community, the community coming to the police

say I'm worried about my friend, this is how you get ahead of that

kind of attack. Should people in the Muslim community who are worried

about individuals being radicalised, perhaps going down the terrorist

route, should they bring in the police? Absolutely and we have been

consistent on telling the community that wherever they suspect someone

has been involved in terrorism or any kind of criminal activity, they

should call the police and cooperate. As the so-called

caliphate collapses in the Middle East, how worried should we be about

fighters returning here? Extremely worried. They fall into

three categories. You have ones who are disillusioned about Islamic

State. You have ones who are disturbed, and then you have the

dangerous who have not disavowed their ideas and who will have great

reasons to perform attacks. What do we do? Anyone who comes back, there

should be evidence looked into if they committed any crimes. But all

those categories should all be be radicalised. You cannot leave them

alone. Will we be sure if we know when they come back? That is

difficult to say. They could come in and we might not know. There is a

watch list so you have got a better chance. And you can identify them?

This is where working with other countries is absolutely crucial and

our border controls need to be good as well. I am not saying and the

government is not saying that anyone would ever slip through, but it is

our ability to know when somebody is coming through and to stop them at

the border has improved. An important question. Given your

experience, how prepared are away for a Paris style attack in a

medium-size, provincial city? The government has exercised this one.

It started when I was security minister and it has been taken

seriously. The single biggest challenge that the police and the

Army says will be one of those mobile, roving attacks. You have to

take it seriously and the government does. All right, we will leave it

Now, Brexit may have swept austerity from the front pages,

but the deficit hasn't gone away and the government is still

Just this week Whitehall announced that government departments have

been told to find another ?3.5bn worth of savings by 2020.

Last November the Independent office for Budget Responsibility

said the budget deficit would be ?68 billion in the current

It would still be ?17 billion by 2021-22.

On Wednesday the Chancellor is expected to announce

that the 2016-17 deficit has come in much lower than the OBR forecast.

Even so, the government is still aiming for the lowest level

of public spending as a percentage of national income since 2003-4,

coupled with an increase in the tax burden to its highest

So spending cuts will continue with reductions in day-to-day

government spending accelerating, producing a real terms cut of over

But capital spending, investment on infrastructure

like roads, hospitals, housing, is projected to grow,

producing a 16 billion real terms increase by 2021-22.

The Chancellor's task on Wednesday is to keep these fiscal targets

while finding some more money for areas under serious

pressure such as the NHS, social care and business rates.

We're joined now by Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Welcome back to the programme. In last March's budget the OBR

predicted just over 2% economic growth for this year. By the Autumn

Statement in the wake of the Brexit vote it downgraded back to 1.4%. It

is now expected to revise that back around to 2% as the Bank of England

has again. It is speculated on the future. It looks like we will get a

growth forecast for this year not very different from where it was a

year ago. What the bank did was upgrade its forecast for the next

year or so, but not change very much. It was thinking about three or

four years' time, which is what really matters. It looked like the

OBR made a mistake in downgrading the growth in the Autumn Statement

three months ago. It was more optimistic than nearly all the other

forecasters and the Bank of England. It was wrong, but not as wrong as

everybody else. We don't know, but if it significantly upgraded its

growth forecast for the next three or four years, I would be surprised.

It also added 12 billion to the deficit for the current financial

year in the Autumn Statement, compared with March. It looks like

that deficit will probably be cut again by about 12 billion compared

to the last OBR forecast. It is quite difficult to make economic

policy on the basis of changes of that skill every couple of months.

That is one of the problems about having these two economic event so

close together. My guess is the number will come out somewhere

between the budget and the Autumn Statement numbers. There was a nice

surprise for the Chancellor last month which looked like tax revenues

were coming in a lot more strongly than he expected. But again the real

question is how much is this making a difference in the medium run? Is

this a one-off thing all good news for the next several years? If

growth and revenues are stronger, perhaps not as strong as the good

news last month, but if they are stronger than had been forecast in

the Autumn Statement, what does that mean for planned spending cuts? It

probably does not mean very much. Let's not forget the best possible

outcome of this budget will be that for the next couple of years things

look no worse than they did a year ago and in four years out they will

still look a bit worse, and in addition Philip Hammond did increase

his spending plans in November. However good the numbers look in a

couple of days' time, we will still be borrowing at least 20 billion

more by 2020 than we were forecasting a year ago. Still quite

constrained. George Osborne wanted to get us to budget surplus by 2019.

That has gone. Philip Hammond is quite happy with a big deficit and

is not interested in that. But what he is thinking to a large extent, as

you have made clear, there is a lot of uncertainty about the economic

reaction over the next three or four years. He says he wants some

headroom. If things go wrong, I do not want to announce more spending

cuts or more tax rises to keep the deficit down. I want to say things

have gone wrong for now and we will borrow. And I have got some money in

the kitty. He will not spend a lot of it now. I understand the

Chancellor is worried about the erosion of the tax base and it is

hard to put VAT up by more than 20%, millions have been taken out of

income tax, only 46% of people pay income tax, fuel duty is frozen for

ever, corporation tax has been cut, the growth in self-employed has

reduced revenues, is that a real concern? These are all worries for

him. We have as you said in the introduction to this, got a tax

burden which is rising very gradually, but it is rising to its

highest level since the mid-19 80s, but is not doing it through

straightforward increases to income tax. Lots of bits of pieces of

insurance premium tax is here and the apprenticeship levied there, and

that is higher personal allowance of income tax and a freeze fuel duty,

but at some point we will have to look at the tax system as a whole

and ask if we can carry on like this. We will have to start increase

fuel duties again, or look to those big but unpopular taxes to really

keep that money coming in to keep the challenges we will have over the

next 30 years. He is going to set up a commission on social care. He has

had quite a few commissions on social care. Thank you for being

with us. It's just gone 11.35,

you're watching the Sunday Politics. We say goodbye to viewers

in Scotland who leave us now I'm Lucy Fisher.

minutes, the Week Ahead. Coming up on the Sunday Politics

here in the South West. The pensioners hoping the Chancellor

will come up with some answers on social care

in this week's budget. More money should be made available

by central government. Quite frankly I think a lot

of people will be prepared to pay another percentage on income tax

to fund it. And for the next 20 minutes I'm

joined by the Conservative MP for Newton Abbot Anne Marie Morris

and the Liberal Democrat peer So the House of Lords have told

the government to think again about whether EU citizens living

in the UK should have their right to A Lords amendment guaranteeing

their right goes back Anne Marie, is this a chance to give

some very worried people No, I don't think it is,

because I think you have to recognise that if you are a national

of one country living in another country, you need to look

at how you'll be treated So for the UK to unilaterally say

people living in the UK from an EU nationality will have their rights

protected because how is that going to impact

their rights as EU citizens? You need both parties to agree

the rights of both the UK citizens living in Europe and of the EU

citizens living here. Judith, what do you make

of that argument? It's sort of the way

the House of Lords works. Whichever amendment on this

particular topic and there were quite a few on this topic

in general, gets to the top of the list, that is

the one you vote on. That one just happened

not to exclude... not to include the issue of UK

citizens living in the EU. So what we're really doing

is saying to the government, If you were there and listening

to the debate, the debate Is it right that the Lords stand

in the way of a referendum result and the will of the House of

Commons? Our role is to

scrutinise legislation. We voted on this and

the vote was overwhelming. It then goes down to the Commons

and the Commons will look at it and say "Don't like this" or "Yeah,

that's all right." They will then come back to us

and say either "We like it" And we will say, "All right

then" or "Look at it But eventually it's the elected

House that gets the final say. So the Prime Minister

will get her Bill. When the Chancellor delivers his

first spring budget this week, he is under pressure to stump up

some more cash Amid signs that stronger

than expected tax receipts could give him some room

for manoeuvre, in the South West the message is that struggling high

streets and care for the elderly and vulnerable should be top

of Mr Hammond's list. Hoping for a good hand

at Truro Bowls Club's Hopes here too the Chancellor's hand

in the spring budget will reveal more cash for the NHS

and social care. Margaret is waiting

for a hip op with a story I cannot go in there

until they clear all the beds so there are people like myself

waiting for an operation in a lot Given the go-ahead by ministers,

councillors across the South West have put up to 3% extra on council

tax bills in recent weeks, They have clubbed together to send

a message to Whitehall and it's a message being echoed both

here and at Westminster too. More money should be made available

by central government. Quite frankly I think a lot

of people would be prepared to pay another percentage on income tax

to fund it. I think it should be coming

centrally, as with the NHS and probably social care and the NHS

should be fully integrated. I would ask our Chancellor

in his forthcoming budget to address this by urgently giving a lifeline

to social care. But the Chancellor is still

committed to a diet of austerity. Government departments have been

told to find further spending cuts of up to 6% and this week a warning

that the economic outlook is uncertain amid reports

the squeeze is being felt Your Cornish pasty might be getting

more expensive as a weak pound is causing imports of food

ingredients and other things like fuel to be more expensive

and that cost is beginning to be The bills go up but our

wages don't go up. They go up by 3%, 4%,

5% but our wages go up I don't know how some

of the places actually stay open. The struggling high street behind

another issue which has prompted a chorus of disapproval from MPs

of all stripes and hopes concessions I'm sorry to hear about all

the difficulty with business rates. Gay has owned this shop

in Looe for 38 years. She's one of thousands facing higher

bills after a nationwide Because the expenses

outweigh the income, Signs there might be extra help

for the hardest hit have been We are a peninsula

of small businesses. If they were a big company

and we add them all together, there would be an outcry nationally

about how they are being treated so just because they are separate,

we need to look at them as a unit and say they are doing good

things for our economy. Ministers have said overall

the business rate changes make the system fairer and on social care

they insist they have already given We'll find out on Wednesday

whether there is a trump card up the Chancellor's sleeve as talk

of a controversial death tax to help plug the gaps

has emerged once again. Anne Marie, people in the piece very

worried about social I know that's something you've

spoken out about in the Commons. What should Philip Hammond do

to try and sort this out? In the short term, what we need

is the Better Care fund increased and the spending,

which is targeted for further down That's right, but if you

from the start move it from where it was to be spent

to being spent now, you're right And secondly, if we put

in that transition funding for the sustainable transformation

plans, that will revolutionise it. And as for your question,

where is that money coming from... Small businesses don't

like their taxes going up. You can't set one against the other

because what people have rightly said is that they are prepared

to contribute money to ensure that we have the NHS

and the social care we need. Business rates started out as a tax

on the properties of businesses and the whole thing is unfair,

fundamentally, so I'm not surprised the business community

is saying this is wrong. You came into Parliament for small

businesses, one of the things. So this is something you disagree

with completely, is it? I think the government has had two

bites at the cherry, The small businesses,

particularly the pubs, are particularly badly served

because the way the calculation People voted people

like you in to sort this out. At the moment, the government

has failed them. I haven't because I'm

fighting their corner. Theresa has also said on social care

she will look at it in the autumn. While I don't agree with what's

happening now, I do believe that the Prime Minister

and Mr Hammond do have in mind to look at the business rates

and social care in the autumn. Judith, is that something you think

Philip Hammond will look at? What do the Lib Dems think

the Chancellor should do? He really has no choice

but to look at it and to look I think the autumn is

leaving it a bit late. I would like to see something coming

up with this particular What would be very sensible would be

to put it into the Better Care fund, which was a Lib Dem institution

from Norman Lamb, and actually say, health and care, sort

it all out together, because it is the interface

between the two that causes Because people that end up

in hospital have nowhere to go. It's a combined effort

that needs some work. One of the gentleman said

he would be prepared to pay a little bit more and I think we need

to have a serious conversation It's getting increasingly

more and more expensive. There has been talk in the papers

of having a death tax to pay In the past I know the Chancellor

before he was Chancellor But I think people might be prepared

to pay some sort of hypothecated taxation towards health

and social care. It's something people have turned

against quite a few times in the past but now is probably

the time that it is worth I think that's right

because if we get the integration right, people will get

the services they want. For me, more important

is giving it to the people Right now I'm concerned

that the money goes to, if you like, the middleman,

by which I mean I would like to see it go

direct to the providers. You and Sarah Wollaston abstained

on the council funding settlement. Why not do the same sort of thing

and vote against the budget, if this isn't what you want

and the government isn't delivering? Voting against something very much

depends upon the totality of what you are voting

for or against. That was about something very

specific and I didn't agree with what they had done with regard

to social care. The budget is hopefully,

if they make some changes that The NHS, social care

and small business rates, You could make a stand,

couldn't you? Let's see what the rest

of the budget says. Nobody apart from the Chancellor

knows what's in it. For me to say I'm definitely

going to abstain would I really don't know what I will do

because I want to see Another way of looking at it

would be to say that, historically, this money was given to local

authorities because they actually Perhaps it makes more sense to give

the money and move the whole social care element within the health

ministry and then you can actually At the moment you have to have two

ministries having a conversation. They have also got

different priorities. So it makes far more sense

to look at it in the whole. You make the government

solely responsible? You have the Secretary of State

for Health and he has a senior minister who has responsibility

for social care. And you think the councils

would breathe a sigh of relief? They wouldn't like it

but you can't have it both ways. Moving on, military experts say cuts

to the Royal Navy in the 2010 Strategic Defence Review

are to blame for its It follows the cancellation

of the Culdrose Air Day after the commander of the Cornish

base said operations In the meantime, the senior service

is now looking to tempt former sailors to rejoin the Navy as it

struggles to find 1,000 crew members Here's our defence

reporter Scott Bingham. These helicopters and their air

crews are training hard for vital roles on board the new carriers,

HMS Queen Elizabeth But like much of the Navy,

things here are stretched. With seven squadrons

based at the station, the commanding officer has said 80%

of his front-line personnel are either on operations or at very

high readiness ahead of deployments As a result, this year's public air

day, an annual summer event, One former Admiral says

that is a mistake. This all relates

to alack of manpower. I personally believe

there is strength in manpower itself and things like air days and putting

people out on parade occasionally I think is rather

important for the totality The new carriers nearing completion

will go some way to addressing But with a crew of 500

needed for each, it's now This is HMS Raleigh in Cornwall,

where the Royal Navy The latest government figures show

that the Navy's regular strength has fallen since April 2013,

when it was just over 31,400. And there was a surplus

of around 750 personnel. In December last year,

it had dropped by nearly 2,000 to just under 29,500,

leaving a deficit of more At HMS Raleigh, they talk

of growing their own. Recruits have to be rained

and that takes time. It desperately needs experienced

sailors now and is looking to attract those who may have left

back to the senior service Codenamed From Street To Fleet,

this ad has been reported as being aimed at over 55s -

a sort of Dad's Navy if you like. Though the MoD denied this,

it admits there is no upper age limit and each application will be

judged on a case-by-case basis. What you're seeing here

is a government under David Cameron that decided it would cut the Navy

right back, ignored probably the siren calls that this would be

a mistake because you never know what's coming, and now,

seven years later, the Navy finds itself in a fix

because of what happened in that The Navy needs to get out

of that fix quickly. HMS Queen Elizabeth is expected

to be ready for her first The demands on the service's ships,

aircraft and personnel are unlikely Judith, you're the defence

spokesperson for defence. Do you think there's a problem

with the Navy being overstretched? There are not enough people

coming in and young men and women are seeing

their careers very different. My husband served in

the Navy for 30 years. These days, people are thinking

four, maybe six years, we've got that on our CV,

we've trained as an engineer and we So people are leaving

in a way they never used to. Why would they want

to do something else? Certainly the SDSR 2010 one wasn't

terribly sensible but very often we've had SDSRs in the past that

have got rid of the wrong They've looked at numbers and not

at skills and this is pretty much So that is something you would

disagree with with your party? Hindsight is wonderful

if you just look at numbers. There was a big

affordability issue in 2010. There's an affordability

issue now as well. I know you are concerned

about the fall in sterling If you look at the 2015 SDSR,

with all sorts of wonderful bits of kit that we are going to come

on stream, pretty well all of them are going to be

coming from the States The pound currently buys 20% less

than it did as a result There are ways of

hedging all of that. But it means if we are buying

predominately from abroad, then it's So it's expensive to buy these

things we are committed to, at the same time Donald Trump

is saying we have to up We are relatively comfortable

about our 2% so that's fine. Anne Marie, when you campaigned

for Brexit, did you think that there might be a fall

in sterling and that it would have Was that something

you thought through? When you look at the overall

Brexit decision, clearly, on either side, could you guarantee

what was going to happen afterwards? I'm still for Brexit

and I still think economically We have not had this dreadful

recession that was forecast. And I think to say that Brexit has

caused the currency rate to change Markets are markets and you will see

what happened in America... So the fall in sterling has

nothing to do with Brexit? It is part of but not

the totality of the reason. The fall in sterling

and the expense of buying Clearly it matters but that is

the commercial reality and in terms of the percentage,

while Judith is right, a lot of our equipment

is at the moment sourced If you take the defence budget

as a whole, it's relatively small, about 10%, and this is also

an opportunity for the British companies to start saying,

let's make it at home. But that can take 15 years

to bring it through. But Harriet Baldwin has signed

contracts in the last few months to buy helicopters from Boeing

and we have got huge contract But we have to make decisions

now about the future. That doesn't mean to say

going forward, particularly when we get the Brexit deal done,

that we can't then start beginning to work with our own industries

to get them to start One of the problems with defence

is the long lead time. Those magnificent carriers

were ordered by the Labour We are talking about

really long time frames. The other thing I would say

with regard to the air day, Dawlish had to cancel its air day

as well in light of what happened at Shoreham and it was down

to health and safety. They are not saying this

is health and safety. Air days are great to have

but they are not something that But sometimes they can

encourage recruitment. A big air day, sometimes that can

encourage a drive in recruitment. The funny thing with this is,

there is the money for people, How many times in over a 10 year

period or 20 year period do We are launching one

aircraft carrier. The second will come on quite

quickly afterwards but it will go straight into mothballs

because we don't have the men There are long lead times

for many of these things. It is time for our regular round-up

of the political week in 60 seconds. Plymouth Labour councillor

Jonny Morris has been suspended It's appalling and I'm ashamed this

has happened in Plymouth and when this happens you need

strong leadership and people to get out there and actually say

this is unacceptable. Cornwall Council is to spend more

than ?300,000 bidding for the Duchy Despite protests, the Boundary

Commission is pressing on with plans for a Devonwall constituency

straddling the Tamar. And Taunton Deane MP Rebecca Powell

showered praise on the government Perhaps you, like many

other honourable friends and members here today,

took a shower this morning. Shower gel products containing them

can result in 100,000 micro beads or plastics being washed down

the drain every time we use them, into the water system and then

into the marine environment. Anna Marie, should Labour's Jonny

Morris resign for making He's behaved incredibly foolishly

and it's completely unacceptable I would have said the thing

that should happen now is his constituents,

yes, he should resign, but his constituents,

because that's who he's answerable to, should mount a petition

to him because that would put on the pressure,

but it's not acceptable. The Labour Party acted very quickly,

they couldn't do anything else, but it's 2017 and we shouldn't be

doing this sort of thing. What about, moving back to something

different, Truro's bid to be ?300,000 when we are

about to leave Europe? We were chatting about this before

we came in and I think even if we aren't selected,

even if we don't win the bid, it will be really good for Cornwall

because there's an awful lot of stuff we haven't

thought about doing. We can think through the plans

and strategy and still learn. I am going to have

to stop you there. That is the Sunday Politics

in the South West. Now back to Andrew

with the week ahead. need Crossrail as well. We will be

poring over the entrails of the budget next week. Thank you very

much indeed. So the Brexit Bill is back in

the Lords next week and the Lib Dems They've ordered pizza and camp beds

to encourage their peers to keep talking all night,

only to be told by the Lord's authorities that their plans fall

foul of health and safety laws. Laws that they probably voted for.

What did you make of David Liddington's remarks on the Lords

amendments, particularly not just the one on EU nationals, but on what

is regarded as a meaningful vote at the end of the process? Let's be

clear, as ministers like to say, the meaningful vote vote is by far the

biggest thing that will happen in Parliament. It puts EU citizens into

a tiny corner. It will decide not just who is going to have the final

say on this, but who the EU is negotiating with. Is it directly

with Theresa May or is it with Parliament? Who will decide the

shape of Brexit, Parliament or Theresa May? The Lords amendment is

just the first chapter. They have voiced Theresa May to give them a

veto on everything she does, and there is a possible chance in the

Commons could uphold this amendment. The meaningful vote amendment? The

meaningful vote amendment. But is it a meaningful vote if the choice is

to either back the deal or crash out of the deal? That is what the remain

supporting MPs or hardline people who want to remain fear. What they

want is the power to be able to send Theresa May back to the negotiating

table. Why is that anathema to many Brexit supporters? They believed it

would crucially and critically undermine Theresa May's negotiating

hand and also create a long period of uncertainty for business. There

is already great uncertainty and this could extend it. The

government's position is in there was a proper, meaningful vote which

Parliament could reject what was on offer, that would be an incentive to

the EU to give us a bad deal? I think that is the fear. If you are

saying to the people you are negotiating with that that is

another authority and Theresa May will have to go back and have all of

this approved, I think it would have a very significant undermining

effect on her negotiating hand. Things change from day to day. We

are talking about 2019 and 2018 at the earliest, but if the government

lost a vote on the Brexit deal, would he not have to call in someone

else? That is why the vote will be meaningful even if the amendment on

this meaningful vote will be lost. You cannot do a deal on something as

historic as Brexit and have Parliament against you. So, whatever

form this vote takes, whenever it happens, it will be hugely

meaningful. Whatever label that is given and if she lost it she would

call a general election. She could not impose it. To call a general

election now you need a majority of MPs which she will not have, so

maybe she will not get her election after all. It would be very unlike

Labour not to vote for an election. It would be very unlike Labour not

to vote for an election. The elections to Stormont have given

a boost to the republicans and put the long term status

of Northern Ireland in some doubt. Sinn Fein's leader Gerry Adams

spoke to reporters Yesterday was in many,

many ways a watershed election, and we have just started a process

of reflecting what it all means, but clearly the union's majority

in the Assembly has been ended, and the notion of a permanent

or a perpetual unionist majority Is he right? Is this a watershed?

The nationalist vote in the assembly will now come to 39 and the

Unionists 38. It is only one member, but it is significant. This is a

very serious moment and because of everything else going on with Donald

Trump and Brexit it is taking a while for people here to realise

just how significant this is. Talking to someone who only recently

left a significant role in Northern Ireland politics last night, they

said they were very worried about what this means. It is likely there

will be a call for some kind of international figure to chair the

talks to try and see if there is a way of everybody working together.

All sides will probably try to extract more money from the

Treasury, but it is a very dangerous moment. Should we regard Michelle

O'Neill, who has replaced Mr McGuinness as the leader, it is she

the First Minister death probably not quite. An interesting thought.

Indeed, the daughter of an IRA man, a fascinating concept in itself. But

there are are still a large amount of MLAs who will not give Sinn Fein

what they need. But what effect does this have on the legacy of the

prosecutions and the great witchhunts which the British

Government has vowed to end. There is a majority left on the Stormont

assembly to end those. But some would keep them going for time

continuing, which is a headache for Theresa May. You have now got 27

Sinn Fein members, 28 DUP, then the SDLP bumps up the numbers a little

bit. You have got the British Government transfixed with Brexit

which has huge implications for the border between North and South in

Ireland, and the Irish government is pretty wavering as well and if there

is an election there, Sinn Fein could do well in the Dublin

parliament as well. There are a lot of moving pieces. There are and

there is a danger that we look at everything through the prism of

Brexit, but I found Friday and this weekend fascinating. Theresa May and

Scotland were Nicola Sturgeon is framing Brexit entirely through an

argument to have a second referendum on independence which she wants to

hold it she possibly can. And the Irish situation with the prospect of

a hard border with Northern Ireland voting majority to remain, quite a

substantial majority, again a few of the instability at the moment. That

We will be keeping an eye on it for sure.

Yesterday, US President Donald Trump tweeted allegations

that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had ordered

his phones to be tapped during the election campaign.

"Terrible!", Trump wrote, "Just found out that Obama

had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory.

I'm not quite sure what McCarthyism that is.

He followed up with a series of tweets comparing it to Watergate.

"How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very

The sacred election process, I think at one stage he said it was a dodgy

election process, but now it is sacred.

You are frightened to go to bed at night, you do not know what you are

going to wake up to. Completely uncharted territory here. Little

more than a month ago at the inauguration they were making the

veneer of small talk and politely shaking hands. He saw Barack Obama

and Michelle off on the helicopter. You do not know what is coming next.

Is there a scintilla of evidence to back up Donald Trump's claims? Yes,

there is, although he is very muddled about it all. I will

explain. Remember what happened to Mike Flynn, talking to the Russian

and Ambassador will stop they were listening. Barack Obama does not

sign of warrants, but somebody else did. So why on earth would you not

want to listen to the president elect himself in case he might also

be breaking the law. Does that sound to you like convincing evidence or

just a supposition? I think Tom should go and work for him, that is

the most credible interpretation I have heard for a long time. Start

tweeting the case for the tweet. What is interesting about this is my

theory is he does not really like the idea of being a president. That

wild press conference he gave a couple of weeks ago there was one ad

lib that did not get repeated which was, I suppose I am a politician

now, as if he was humiliated at the idea of being a president. He likes

being the businessman with a swagger tweeting around the clock. And

campaigning again. He keeps going to what looked like campaign rallies. I

disagree with you about him not liking being president. I think he

loves the idea of being the president, but the reality is so

frustrating on every level, finding he does not have unlimited room for

manoeuvre and so many things have been put in place to stop them doing

things he would do in the business environment. We have had two more

tweets from him this morning, I guess when he woke up. Who was it

who secretly said to the Russian president, tell Vladimir that after

the election I will have more flexibility? Who was that? Possibly

Hillary Clinton. Is it true the Democratic National committee would

not allow the FBI access to check server or other equipment after

learning it was hacked? Can that be possible? This was all an issue in

the campaign. He is now a president. Shall I point out the flaw in Tom's

theory. They were not bugging Michael Flynn's phone, it was the

Russian Ambassador's telephone they were barking. Mr Neil, I would never

contradict you on this programme. But if you suspect there was

criminal activity going on, as there was by Michael Flynn, why would you

not want to put on a tap? I don't know. That is it for today.

I'll be back next week here on BBC One at 11am as usual.

The Daily Politics is back tomorrow at midday on BBC Two.

But remember - if it's Sunday, it's the Sunday Politics.

The thing that's so clear is that it's 100% honest.

We're right in the middle of the action.

The remarkable story of British photography.