09/03/2014 Sunday Politics Wales

Morning, folks. Welcome to the Sunday Politics.

He's a man on a mission. But is it mission impossible? Iain Duncan

Smith has started the radical reform of our welfare state. No tall order.

And not everything's going to plan. We'll be talking to the man himself.

Nick Clegg's hosting his party's spring conference in York. He's

getting pretty cosy with the party faithful. Not so cosy, though, with

his Coalition partners. In fact, things are getting a wee bit nasty.

We'll be talking to his right-hand man, Danny Alexander.

And are all politicians self-obsessed? Don't all shout at

once. We'll be examining the self-obsessed? Don't all shout at

Later in the programme: Taxing questions - we talk to the local

government minister about council tax.

And to the Plaid Cymru leader about taxing high earners.

And to the Plaid Cymru leader about Can Southwark Council really build

11,000 new homes in the next three decades?

And with me, as always, three of the best and the brightest political

panel in the business. At least that's what it says in the Sunday

Politics template. Back from the Oscars empty handed, Helen Lewis,

Janan Ganesh and Iain Martin. Yes, three camera-shy hacks, who've never

taken a selfie in their life. We'll be coming to that later. They just

like to tweet. And they'll be doing so throughout the programme.

Welcome. Now, first this morning, the Liberal

Democrat Spring Conference in York. I know you speak of nothing else!

The Yorkshire spring sunshine hasn't made the Lib Dems think any more

kindly of their Coalition partners. Indeed, Tory bashing is now the Lib

Dem default position. Here's Danny Alexander speaking yesterday.

Repairing the economy on its own isn't enough. We have to do it

fairly. isn't enough. We have to do it

the agenda a decision to cut taxes, income taxes, for working people.

Now, conference, note that word - forced. We have had to fight for

this at the last election and at every budget and at every Autumn

Statement since 2010 and what a fight it has been.

Danny Alexander joins us now. Are we going to have to suffer 14 months of

you and your colleagues desperately trying to distance yourself from the

Tories? It's not about distancing ourselves. It's about saying, " this

is what we as a party have achieved in government together with the

Conservatives". And saying, " this is what our agenda is for the

future" . It's not just about the fact that this April we reach that

?10,000 income tax allowance that we promised in our manifesto in 2010

but also that we want to go further in the next parliament and live that

to ?12,500, getting that over a 2-term Liberal Democrat government.

It's very important for all parties to set out their own agenda, ideas

and vision for the future, whilst also celebrating what we're

achieving jointly in this Coalition, particularly around the fact that we

are, having taken very difficult decisions, seeing the economy

improving and seeing jobs creation in this country, which is something

I'm personally very proud and, as the Coalition, we have achieved and

wouldn't have if it hadn't been for the decisions of the Liberal

Democrats. Lets try and move on. You've made that point about 50

times on this show alone. You now seem more interested in Rowling with

each other than running the country, don't you? -- rowing with each

other. I think we are making sure we take the decisions, particularly

about getting our economy on the right track. Of course, there are

lots of things where the Conservatives have one view of the

future and we have a different view and it's quite proper that we should

set those things out. There are big differences between the Liberal

Democrats and the Conservatives, just as there were big differences

between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party. I believe we're

the only party that can marry that commitment delivering a strong

economy, which Labour can't do, and that commitment to delivering a

fairer society, which the Tories can't be trusted to do by

themselves. You are going out of your way to pick fights with the

Tories at the moment. It's a bit like American wrestling. It is all

show. Nobody is really getting hurt. I've been compared to many things

but an American wrestler is a first! I don't see it like that. It

is right for us as a party to set out what we've achieved and show

people that what we promised on 2010 on income tax cuts is what this

government is delivering. But nobody seems convinced by these

manufactured rows with the Tories. You've just come last in a council

by-election with 56 votes. You were even bitten by an Elvis

impersonator! Yes, that is true. -- beaten. I could equally well quote

council by-elections that we've won recently, beating Conservatives, the

Labour Party and UKIP. Our record on that is pretty good. You can always

pick one that shows one or other party in a poor light. Our party is

having real traction with the electric and the places where we

have a real chance of winning. If you're not an American wrestler,

maybe you should be an Elvis impersonator! You told your spring

forum... You don't want to hear me sing! You want to raise the personal

allowance to ?12,500 in the next Parliament. Will you refuse to enter

into Coalition with any party that won't agree to that? What I said

yesterday is that this will be something which is a very high

priority for the Liberal Democrats. It's something that we will very

much seek to achieve if we are involved... We know that - will it

be a red line? If you are a number in 2010, on the front page of our

manifesto, we highlighted four policies... I know all that. Will it

be a red line? It will be something that is a very high priority for the

Liberal Democrats to deliver. For the fifth time, will it be a red

line? It will be, as I said, a very high priority for the Liberal

Democrats in the next Parliament. That's my language. We did that in

the next election. The number-1 promise on our manifesto with a

?10,000 threshold and we've delivered that in this Parliament.

People can see that when we say something is a top priority, we

deliver it. Is it your claim... Are you claiming that the Tories would

not have raised the starting point of income tax if it hadn't been for

the Liberal Democrats? If you remember back in the leaders'

debates in the 2010 election campaign, Nick Clegg was rightly

championing this idea and David Cameron said it couldn't be

afforded. Each step of the way in the Coalition negotiations within

government, we've had to fight for that. The covert overtures have

other priorities. -- the Conservatives. I don't want to go

back into history. I'd like to get to the present. Have the

Conservatives resisted every effort to raise the starting point of

income tax? As I said, we promised this in 2010, they said it couldn't

be done. We've made sure it was delivered in the Coalition. Have

they resisted it? We've argued for big steps along the way and forced

it on to the agenda. They've wanted to deliver other things are so we've

had to fight for our priority... Did the Conservatives resist every

attempt? It has been resisted, overall the things I'm talking

about, by Conservatives, because they have wanted to deliver other

things and, of course, in a Coalition you negotiate. Both

parties have their priorities. Our priority has been a very consistent

one. Last year, they were arguing about tax breaks for married

couples. They were arguing in 2010 for tax cuts for millionaires. Our

priority in all these discussions has been a consistent one, which is

to say we want cutbacks for working people. -- we want to cut tax for

working people. That has been delivered by both parties in the

Coalition government full top So what do you think when the Tories

take credit for it? I understand why they want to try to do that. Most

people understand what we have just said. Not if the polls are to be

believed... You're under 10%. This is one of the things, when I talk to

people, but I find they know that the Lib Dems have delivered in

government. People know we promised it in 2010 and we're the ones who

forced this idea onto the agenda in our election manifesto. You've said

that five times in this interview alone. The reality is, this is now a

squabbling, loveless marriage. We're getting bored with all your tests,

the voters. Why don't you just divorced? -- all your arguments. I

don't accept that. On a lot of policy areas, the Coalition

government has worked very well together. We're delivering an awful

lot of things that matter to this country. Most importantly, the mess

that Labour made of the economy we are sorting out. We are getting our

finances on the right track, making our economy more competitive,

creating jobs up and down this country, supporting businesses to

invest in growth. That is what this Coalition was set up to do, what it

is delivering, and both myself and George Osborne are proud to have

worked together to deliver that record. Danny Alexander, thanks for

that. Enjoyed York. Helen, is anybody listening? I do worry that

another 40 months of this might drive voter apathy up to record

levels. There is a simple answer to why they don't divorced - it's the

agreement that Parliament will last until 2015. MPs are bouncing around

Westminster with very little to do. They are looking for things to put

in the Queen's Speech and we are going to have rocks basically the 40

months and very little substantial difference in policies. Do you

believe Danny Alexander when he says there would have been no rise in the

starting rate of income tax if not for the Lib Dems? He's gilding the

lily. If you look back at papers are written in 2001 suggesting precisely

this policy, written by a Tory peer, you see there are plenty of Tories

which suggest there would have been this kind of move. I can see why

Danny Alexander needs to do this and they need to show they've achieved

something in government because they are below 10% in the polls and

finding it incredibly difficult to get any traction at all. The other

leg of this Lib Dem repositioning is now to be explicitly the party of

Europe and to be the vanguard of the fight to be all things pro-Europe.

Mr Clegg is going to debate Nigel Farage in the run-up to the European

elections. If, despite that, the Lib Dems come last of the major parties,

doesn't it show how out of touch different. They are targeting a

section of the electorate who are a bit more amenable to their views

than the rest. They wouldn't get 20% of the vote. They are targeting that

one section. They have to do disproportionately well amongst

those and it will payoff and they will end up with something like 15%.

How many seats will the Lib Dems losing the next election? Ten. 20.

15. Triangulation! We'll keep that on tape and see what actually

happens! The Work and Pensions Secretary Iain

Duncan Smith is a man on a mission. He's undertaken the biggest overhaul

in our welfare state since it was invented way back in the

black-and-white days of the late 1940s. A committed Roman Catholic,

he's said he has a moral vision to reverse the previous welfare system,

which he believes didn't create enough incentive for people to work.

But are his reforms working? Are they fair? As he bitten off more

than he can chew? In a moment, we'll speak to the man himself but first,

here's Adam. Hackney in north London and we're on

the road with the man who might just be the most ambitious welfare

secretary there's ever been. It's a journey that started in the wind and

rain on a Glasgow council estate 12 years ago when he was Tory leader.

He came face-to-face with what it meant to be poor. A selection of

teddy bears. It's where he discovered his recipe for reform,

according to one of the advisers who was with him. There are things that

if you do get a job, keep your family together, stay off drugs and

alcohol, make sure you have a proper skill - that's what keeps you of

poverty. He, very ambitiously, wants to redefine the nature of what it

means to be poor and how you get away from poverty. Back in north

London, he's come to congratulate the troops on some good news. In

this borough, the number of people on job-seeker's allowance has gone

down by 29% in the last year, up from around 1700 to around 1200. But

the picture in his wider changes to the welfare state is a bit more

mixed. A cap on the total amount of benefits a family can get, of

?26,000 a year, is hugely popular but there have been howls of protest

over cuts to housing benefit, labelled the bedroom tax by some.

Protests, too, about assessments for people on disability benefits,

inherited from the previous government. Iain Duncan Smith has

been accused of being heartless and the company doing them, Atos, has

pulled out. And then the big one - and universal credit, a plan to roll

six benefits into one monthly payment, in a way designed to ensure

that work always pays. Some of the IT has been written off and the

timetable seems to be slipping. Outside the bubble of the

stage-managed ministerial trip, a local Labour MP reckons he's bitten

off more than he can chew. The great desire is to say, " let's have one

simple one size fits all approach" . And there isn't one size of person

or family out there. People need to change and they can challenge on the

turn of a penny almost. One minute they are doing the right thing,

working hard. Next minute, they need a level of support and if this

simple system doesn't deliver that for them, they're in a difficult

position. And that's the flying visit to the front line finished. He

does not like to hang about and just as well do - his overhaul of the

entire benefits system still has quite a long way to go. And Iain

Duncan Smith joins me now. Before I come onto the interview on welfare

reform, is Danny Alexander right when he claims the Lib Dems had to

fight to get the Tories to raise the income tax threshold? That is not my

recollection of what happened. These debates took place in the

Coalition. The Conservatives are in favour of reducing the overall

burden of taxation, so the question was how best do we do it? The

conversation took place, they were keen on raising the threshold, there

were also other ways of doing it but it is clear from the Conservatives

that we always wanted to improve the quality of life of those at the

bottom so raising the threshold fit within the overall plan. If it was a

row, it was the kind of row you have over a cup of tea round the

breakfast table. We have got a lot to cover. There are two criticisms

mainly of what you are doing - will they work, and will they be fair?

Leslie Roberts, one of our viewers, wants to know why so much has

already been written off due to failures of the universal credit

system even though it has been barely introduced. Relatively it has

been a ?2 billion investment project, in the private sector

programmes are written off regularly at 30, 40%. The IT is working, we

are improving as we go along, the key thing is to keep your eye on the

parts that don't work and make sure they don't create a problem for the

programme. 140 million has been wasted! The 40 million that was

written off was just do with security IT, and I took that

decision over a year and a half ago so the programme continued to roll

out. Those figures include the standard right down, the aggregation

of cost over a period of time. The computers were written down years

ago but they continue to work now. Universal credit is rolling out, we

are doing the Pathfinders and learning a lot but I will not ever

do this again like the last government, big band launches, you

should do it phrase by phrase. Even your colleague Francis Maude says

the implementation of universal credit has been pretty lamentable.

He was referring back to the time when I stopped that element of the

process and I agreed with that. I intervened to make the changes. The

key point is that it is rolling out and I invite anyone to look at where

it is being rolled out to. You were predicting that a million people

would be an universal credit, this is the new welfare credit which

rolls up six existing welfare benefits and you were predicting a

million people would be on it by April, well it is March and only

3200 are on it. I changed the way we rolled it out and there was a reason

for that. Under the advice of someone we brought from outside, he

said that you are better rolling it out slower and gaining momentum

later on. On the timetables for rolling out we are pretty clear that

it will roll out within the timescale is originally set. We will

roll it out into the Northwest so that we replicate the north and the

Northwest, recognise how it works properly. You will not hit 1 million

by April. I have no intention of claiming that, and it is quite

deliberate because that is the wrong thing to do. We want to roll it out

carefully so we make sure everything about it works. There are lots of

variables in this process but if you do it that way, you will not end up

with the kind of debacle where in the past something like ?28 billion

worth of IT programmes were written off. ?38 billion of net benefits,

which is exactly what the N a O Z, so it is worth getting it right.

William Grant wants to know, when will the universal credit cover the

whole country? By 2016, everybody who is claiming one of those six

benefits will be claiming universal credit. Some and sickness benefits

will take longer to come on because it is more difficult. Many of them

have no work expectations on them, but for those on working tax

credits, on things like job-seeker's allowance, they will be making

claims on universal credit. Many of them are already doing that now,

there are 200,000 people around the country already on universal credit.

You cannot give me a date as to when everybody will be on it? 2016 is

when everybody claiming this benefit will be on, then you have to bring

others and take them slower. Universal credit is a big and

important reform, not an IT reform. The important point is that it will

be a massive cultural reform. Right now somebody has to go to work and

there is a small job out there. They won't take that because the way

their benefits are withdrawn, it will mean it is not worth doing it.

Under the way we have got it in the Pathfinders, the change is

dramatic. A job-seeker can take a small part time job while they are

looking for work and it means flexibility for business so it is a

big change. Lets see if that is true because universal credit is meant to

make work pay, that is your mantra. Let me show you a quote Minister in

the last -- in the last Tory conference. It

has only come down to 76%. Actually form own parents, before they get to

the tax bracket it is well below that. That is a decision the

Government takes about the withdrawal rate so you can lower

that rate or raise it. And do your reforms, some of the poorest

people, if they burn an extra pound, will pay a marginal rate of

76%. -- if they earn an extra pound. The 98% he is talking about is a

specific area to do with lone parents but there are specific

compound areas in the process that mean people are better off staying

at home then going to work. They will be able to identify how much

they are better off without needing to have a maths degree to figure it

out. They are all taken away at different rates at the moment, it is

complex and chaotic. Under universal credit that won't happen, and they

will always be better off than they are now. Would you work that bit

harder if the Government was going to take away that portion of what

you learned? At the moment you are going to tax poor people at the same

rate the French government taxes billionaires. Millions will be

better off under this system of universal credit, I promise you, and

that level of withdrawal then becomes something governments have

to publicly discussed as to whether they lower or raise it. But George

Osborne wouldn't give you the extra money to allow for the taper, is

that right? The moment somebody crosses into work under the present

system, there are huge cliff edges, in other words the immediate

withdrawal makes it worse for them to go into work than otherwise. If

he had given you more money, you could have tapered it more gently?

Of course, but the Chancellor can always ultimately make that

decision. These decisions are made by chancellors like tax rates, but

it would be much easier under this system for the public to see what

the Government chooses as its priorities. At the moment nobody has

any idea but in the future it will be. Under the Pathfinders, we are

finding people are going to work faster, doing more job searches, and

more likely to take work under universal credit. Public Accounts

Committee said this programme has been worse than doing nothing, for

the long-term credit. It has not been a glorious success, has it?

That is wrong. Right now the work programme is succeeding, more people

are going to work, somewhere in the order of 500,000 people have gone

back into work as a result of the programme. Around 280,000 people are

in a sustained work over six months. Many companies are well

above it, and the whole point about the work programme is that it is

setup so that we make the private sector, two things that are

important, there is competition in every area so that people can be

sucked out of the programme and others can move in. The important

point here as well is this, that actually they don't get paid unless

they sustain somebody for six months of employment. Under previous

programmes under the last government, they wasted millions

paying companies who took the money and didn't do enough to get people

into work. The best performing provider only moved 5% of people off

benefit into work, the worst managed only 2%. It is young people. That

report was on the early first months of the work programme, it is a

two-year point we are now and I can give you the figures for this. They

are above the line, the improvement has been dramatic and the work

programme is better than any other back to work programme under the

last government. So why is long-term unemployment rising? It is falling.

We have the largest number of people back in work, there is more women in

work than ever before, more jobs being created, 1.6 million new jobs

being created. The work programme is working, our back to work programmes

are incredibly successful at below cost so we are doing better than the

last government ever did, and it will continue to improve because

this process is very important. The competition is what drives up

performance. We want the best performers to take the biggest

numbers of people. You are practising Catholic, Archbishop

Vincent Nichols has attached your reforms -- attack to your reforms,

saying they are becoming more punitive to the most vulnerable in

the land. What do you say? I don't agree. It would have been good if

you called me before making these attacks because most are not

correct. For the poorest temper sent in their

society, they are now spending, as a percentage of their income, less

than they did before. I'm not quite sure what he thinks welfare is

about. Welfare is about stabilising people but most of all making sure

that households can achieve what they need through work. The number

of workless households under previous governments arose

consistently. It has fallen for the first time in 30 years by nearly

18%. Something like a quarter of a million children were growing up in

workless households and are now in households with work and they are

three times more likely to grow up with work than they would have been

in workless households. Let me come into something that he may have had

in mind as being punitive - some other housing benefit changes. A

year ago, the Prime Minister announced that people with severely

disabled children would be exempt from the changes but that was only

after your department fought a High Court battle over children who

couldn't share a bedroom because of severe disabilities. Isn't that what

the Archbishop means by punitive or, some may describe it, heartless. We

were originally going to appeal that and I said no. You put it up for an

appeal and I said no. We're talking about families with disabled

children. There are good reasons for this. Children with conditions like

that don't make decisions about their household - their parents do -

so I said we would exempt them. But for adults with disabilities the

courts have upheld all of our decisions against complaints. But

you did appeal it. It's just that, having lost in the appeal court, you

didn't then go to the Supreme Court. You make decisions about this. My

view was that it was right to exempt them at that time. I made that

decision, not the Prime Minister. Let's get this right - the context

of this is quite important. Housing benefit under the last government

doubled under the last ten years to ?20 billion. It was set to rise to

another 25 billion, the fastest rising of the benefits, it was out

of control. We had to get it into control. It wasn't easy but we

haven't cut the overall rise in housing. We've lowered it but we

haven't cut housing benefit and we've tried to do it carefully so

that people get a fair crack. On the spare room subsidy, which is what

this complaint was about, the reality is that there are a quarter

of a million people living in overcrowded accommodation. The last

government left us with 1 million people on a waiting list for housing

and there were half a million people sitting in houses with spare

bedrooms they weren't using. As we build more houses, yes we need more,

but the reality is that councils and others have to use their

accommodation carefully so that they actually improve the lot of those

living in desperate situations in overcrowded accommodation, and

taxpayers are paying a lot of money. This will help people get

back to work. They're more likely to go to work and more likely,

therefore, to end up in the right sort of housing. We've not got much

time left. A centre-right think tank that you've been associated with, on

job-seeker's allowance, says 70,000 job-seekers' benefits were withdrawn

unfairly. A viewer wants to know, are these reforms too harsh and

punitive? Those figures are not correct. The Policy Exchange is

wrong? Those figures are not correct and we will be publishing corrected

figures. The reality is... Some people have lost their job-seeker

benefits and been forced to go to food backs and they shouldn't have.

No, they're not. What he is referring to is that we allowed an

adviser to make a decision if some but it is not cooperating. We now

make people sign a contract, where they agree these things. These are

things we do for you and if you don't do these things, you are

likely to have your benefit withdrawn on job-seeker's allowance.

Some of this was an fairly withdrawn. There are millions of

these things that go through. This is a very small subset. But if you

lose your job-seeker benefit unfairly, you have no cash flow.

There is an immediate review within seven days of that decision. Within

seven days, that decision is reviewed. They are able to get a

hardship fund straightaway if there is a problem. We have nearly ?1

billion setup to help people, through crisis, hardship funds and

in many other ways. We've given more than ?200 million to authorities to

do face-to-face checks. This is not a nasty, vicious system but a system

that says, "look, we ask you to do certain things. Taxpayers pay this

money. You are out of work but you have obligations to seek work. We

simply ask that you stick to doing those. Those sanctions are therefore

be but he will not cooperate" . I think it is only fair to say to

those people that they make choices throughout their life and if they

choose not to cooperate, this is what happens. Is child poverty

rising? No, it is actually falling in the last figures. 300,000 it fell

in the last... Let me show you these figures. That is a projection by the

Institute of fiscal studies. It also shows that it has gone up every year

and will rise by 400,000 in this Parliament, and your government, and

will continue to rise. But never mind the projection. It may be

right, may be wrong. It would be 400,000 up compared to when -- what

you inherited when this Parliament ends. That isn't a projection but

the actual figures. But the last figures show that child poverty has

fallen by some 300,000. The important point is... Can I just

finished this point of? Child poverty is measured against 60% of

median income so this is an issue about how we measure child poverty.

You want to change the measure. I made the decision not to publish our

change figures at this point because we've still got a bit more work to

do on them but there is a big consensus that the way we measure

child poverty right now does not measure exactly what requires to be

done. For example, a family with an individual parent who may be drug

addicted and gets what we think is enough money to be just over the

line, their children may be living in poverty but they won't be

measured so we need to get a measurement that looks at poverty in

terms of how people live, not just in terms of the income levels they

have. You can see on that chart - 400,000 rising by the end of this

Parliament - you are deciding over an increase. Speedier I want to

change it because under the last government child poverty rose

consistently from 2004 and they ended up chucking huge sums of money

into things like tax credits. In tax credits, in six years before the

last election, the last government spent ?175 billion chasing a poverty

target and they didn't achieve what they set out to achieve. We don't

want to continue down that line where you simply put money into a

welfare system to alter a marginal income line. It doesn't make any

sense. That's why we want to change it, not because some projection says

it might be going up. I will point out again it isn't a projection up

to 2013-14. You want it to make work pay but more people in poverty are

now in working families than in workless families. For them, workers

not paying. Those figures referred to the last government's time in

government. What is interesting about it is that until 2010, under

the last government, those in working families - poverty in

working families rose by half a million. For the two years up to the

end of those figures, it has been flat, under this government. These

are figures at the last government... You inherited and it

hasn't changed. The truth is, even if you are in poverty in a working

family, your children, if they are in workless families, are three

times more likely to be out of work and to suffer real hardship. So, in

other words, moving people up the scale, into work and then on is

important. The problem with the last government system with working tax

credit is it locks them into certain hours and they didn't progress.

We're changing that so that you progress on up and go out of poverty

through work and beyond it. But those figures you're referring to

refer to the last government's tenure and they spent ?175 billion

on a tax credit which still left people in work in poverty. Even 20

minutes isn't enough to go through all this. A lot more I'd like to

talk about. I hope you will come back. I will definitely come back.

Thank you for joining us. You're watching the Sunday

Politics. We say goodbye to viewers in Scotland, who leave us now for

Sunday Politics Scotland. Of Hello and on the Sunday Politics

Wales. The local government minister tells

me she wants councils to be reasonable on tax, and transparent

on pay. Plaid Cymru's leader distances herself from a call to cut

tax for high earners and. Where does the Silk Road lead? To a more

powerful assembly perhaps? I'm joined by two people with opposing

views. But first, Plaid Cymru's spring

conference closed yesterday. Plaid leader Leanne Wood used it to attack

what she calls UKIP's "ugly politics".

But that in turn was a time by one of her predecessors, by Comrie

member David Thomas. She has distanced herself from a call from

Adam Price to lower the top rate of income tax.

In your speech yesterday you talked about all sorts of things, but in

particular you are very critical of the Labour government, more critical

than you have been in the past. I wonder since you have been leader,

you are very conciliatory at the start. Is this a change of

direction? I would say that I have been quite

keen to put forward by Comrie's positive role in government, but to

make sure we scrutinise the government we have got. I intend for

Plaid Cymru to run an excellent campaign in 2016, DFID before the

people of Wales a solid programme of government that is able to meet

their needs and salt people's problems, and in order to do that,

that will result in hopefully a good result for us where we are

government of Wales. People need to be aware of the failings of this

government and there are plenty, and I pointed some of them out.

You said that Labour was bidding under threat the future of

devolution. A very strong thing to say, what did you mean?

We have big failings in our education system, in our health

system, hospitals and civilisation, which risks further exacerbating

those problems, the economy is in decline. We saw the figures for West

Wales and the valleys where the GDP has gone down from 65% of the EU

average to 64%. There are huge problems across the range of

responsibilities of the Welsh government that are not being

addressed, and we have to shine a light on it.

You talked about this economic recovery being hollow, and based on

a spreadsheet, and yet, what is based on a spreadsheet about the

unemployment rate in Wales now lower than the UK averages that is real.

Yes, it is real, but it masks problems that are there. There are

many people on zero hours contracts, many people who are underemployed,

more people working part-time. There are 250,000 people in Wales in

earning less than a living wage. There are a lot of things that need

to be done in terms of turning the economy around. Where I live, youth

unemployment stands at 40%. The Welsh government would try to paint

a picture that everything in the garden is rosy. The recovery that we

have seen is fine on paper, but what it shows to me is that there are

problems being masked in Wales, and also that there is an overheating

economy in London and the region around there in the south-east that

is giving a picture for the whole of the UK which is very imbalanced, and

Wales has lost out a lot due to austerity measures from the

Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition, and all of those problems

have built up over many years. The figures make sure one thing, but you

need to dig underneath us to get the true picture.

The main thrust of your attack was against UKIP. The former leader of

the party has described what you said about UKIP as facile. What you

said was that a vote for UKIP was somehow anti-Welsh, it was against

the interests of Wales. He thinks that is far too simplistic, and a

lot of people whether you like it or not support UKIP in Wales, and as a

result you should treat them more seriously.

I do treat people who support UKIP seriously, that is why I am keen to

point out the risk is UKIP when. Wales faces two very different

futures and they want people to have their eyes wide open. In 2017 we

could be the king had a referendum which cools Wales out of the EU

potentially against the will of the people of Wales. It could be that

the majority of people want to go that way, but I would argue that

when one in ten jobs as reliant on us being in the EU, it is against

the Welsh national interest for us to polite. I vote for UKIP is

therefore a vote against the Welsh national interest. -- it is against

the interest are asked to call out of Europe.

I faced a number of tricky tests since becoming leader of this

party. We have got a job of work to do, but I can be confident now in

having that these arguments forward to our activists that they will go

out onto the streets and make sure that the Plaid Cymru vote gets out.

We are also appealing to disillusioned Liberal Democrat and

green voters who have never had an MEP in Wales and have very little

chance of getting one. If they want to support policies like insuring

climate changes the agenda, the Robin Hood tax, international

cooperation, if those things are important to those waters, what they

really need to do on May 22 is to not stay at home but go out and

support Plaid Cymru and the MEPs. One of the things that has been

under discussion in the last few days is what we could do with

taxation. Adam Price a senior figure in the party indicated that he would

lower the higher rate of income tax is that power existed to Wales. I

think most people will assume you would be against that idea.

I'm not appeared at this point to outline Plaid Cymru's tax policies.

Recently there has been an application of sharing income tax

Paris with Wales... If they come, those powers will not be with us

until 2021. Nobody can predict what the state of the Welsh economy will

be like in 2021. What Adam Price has put forward is for changing the top

rate of tax in the event that we have those tax-raising powers

without a lockstep. Are many ifs there, but it is an interesting

debate. It will form part of the debate in the coming years because

what we must do is raise the level of economic activity in Wales, raise

the level of productivity, and ultimately maximise the take in the

tax pot. There will be a range of debates about how we do that, but we

will get our policy right in time for those tax-raising powers if they

do ever come to Wales. Councils have set their budgets for

the next financial year, and there are cuts all round. Except for

council tax, which will rise by an average of ?42. Meanwhile, there's

continuing criticism of the wages paid to some local authority chief

executives. Cracks are showing at cash-strapped

councils. That is the verdict of the Wales audit office... It says many

authorities don't have clear plans to cope with austerity, so with

bigger cuts about to bite, I met up with local government Minister

Lesley Griffiths and asked whether councils have their house in order.

Local authorities have been told that cuts are coming, and in the

previous years they have had a level of funding to enable them to make

transformational services, and to collaborate with each other at a

level we haven't seen before. Have they done that?

Some have done it better than others. But I think we all recognise

that more needs to be done. This will become a reality now, a

new financial year, new council tax bills. Should the burden falls on

the taxpayer or the services? It is about striking a balance, it

is up to each local authority to set the level that they think is right.

We as a government give them the flexibility to do that. I think it

is the most accountable thing that a local authority can do for its local

population. I am monitoring the budgets, I don't want them to be

unreasonable, and I know that they are taking the views of council

taxpayers into consideration as they have gone round setting the

budgets. I think they are engaging with the public.

What is reasonable and unreasonable? We have seen some

councils go for the maximum 5% increase.

I didn't give them a figure, because I thought I'd give them a figure

they would all think that was a figure they could start with. At the

moment I am analysing all the increases that are coming in.

I don't recall ever seen so many go right up to the limit of 5%.

Badlands on your doorstep, and so council taxpayers face higher bills,

don't they? It is challenging, of course. But I

can only give them what I have. Our budget has been cut so significantly

by the UK government, I can only give them what I have, and they can

only pass on what they have. So it is really important to look at their

council tax, try not to be unreasonable, try not to burden on

the taxpayer, and I hope that is what they have done.

As taxpayers, surely get used to seeing bigger increases in council

tax bills? In Wales, the band D is lower than

in England, so we do have a lower level of council tax than England.

Even in Scotland's weather has been a council tax freeze since 2007, we

are rolling on a par with Scotland. So we do have a significantly lower

council tax in Wales. In England money has been made

available to freeze or even lower council tax. In some borough 's

council tax hasn't cut seven times in the last eight years. What is

happening in England that is not happening in Wales were council tax

bills are going up? It is not correct to say there is a

freeze in England, we now 40 local authorities have had raises in the

last year. It is up to each local authority to decide its council tax

level. They are accountable to local population.

Councils spend a lot of money on hiring senior staff. A report

recently showed that Chief Executive pay ranges from around 105,000 to

around ?195,000. Or do you make of that?

Senior salaries are very much in the news and I notice something the

public are rightly interested in. It is up to local authorities to have

those statements. It is right that the public can access them and they

see how decisions are being taken. When councils are setting senior

salary pay, it must be transparent, the public must realise how they

have come to that, we have also given against the new appointments

over ?100,000 the full council should have the authority to vote on

that, and within the recent democracy act, it is right that when

they want to be should refer the salary to a remuneration panel.

This is the result of a deal between political parties. When will we see

the consequences of that? The gains will be issued in April.

Chief Executive pay ranges by almost ?100,000, how has that come about?

Local authorities are autonomous employers and they said their

salaries and statements. Because of the concerns that I raised, many

people have written to me about this, I think it is right that local

authorities demonstrate how those decisions have been made and the

public have access to it. And is important they can see those

statements easily. You have commissioned a review into

council tax benefit, the scheme that has replaced that, will that money

continue into the next financial year?

We have to look at it. You will appreciate the UK government

completely cut council tax support. We had to pick up the bill. We have

been able to protect that for two years. I want a sustainable scheme

and we are in partnership with local government.

When will you make a decision? Because people are worried that they

may get a council tax bill for the first time ever when the scheme

ends. We want to avoid that, because we

know that some of these people are the most vulnerable in our society.

We will conduct a review as soon as possible.

No date at the moment? Not at the moment.

And BBC Cymru Wales will take a closer look at the finances and

services of local councils over the next couple of days.

Now, the National Assembly needs more power, including over the

police. That's the verdict of the Silk commission which delivered its

second report last week. Jubilation three years ago when

Wales voted for more devolution. The referendum of 2011 boosted the

lawmaking powers of the assembly. It was a resounding Yes vote, albeit on

a small turnout. What a contrast to 1997 when the assembly squeaked into

existence. Since then, reports and enquiries have asked whether we have

the right system of evolution. The latest, the Silk commission, has

paved the way to tax and borrowing powers for the Welsh government. It

says we should go further still, with youth justice and policing

devolved to a bigger assembly with more members. The commission priced

offer a sustainable settlement. Have attracted? Or how long will it be

before we're back here again asking whether the assembly needs more

power? Here to discuss that question and

others are Cathy Owens, a former Welsh government special adviser who

campaigned for a Yes vote in 2011, and Rachel Banner, who led the No

vote. Cathy, the group that Rachel represents one of a slippery slope

of more powers and more devolution, they were writes, when they?

What they were right about is that this commission will not put aside

any discussions about constitutional change. This is not a stable

settlement that will last for 30 years we will continually discuss

constitutional change. Why is that? Why can't we get it

right and put it to bed? Because we are part of a continuum.

There is a small number one in the wonderful sensation, there is a

small number of the other end of what to get rid of the assembly

altogether. Most people are around the middle, only to find a balance,

and that might shift over time. There will not be a moment when we

don't talk about constitutional matters any more. A lot of people

say we have to focus on delivery, and that is absolutely the case. I

think this piece of work stands together very well. There are some

elements that could be interviews tomorrow without changing very

much. It recognises that the settlement is a bit odd and that the

UK government has not really grasp it and other organisations could do

more. It says that the BBC should recognise Welsh voices a bit more.

Rachel Banner, the statement he released when the report came out,

you were appalled at the extent of radical changes. Isn't that a bit

over the top? If the assembly is responsible for educating children

and running hospitals, why not use dusters and police?

At the moment we have an economy in crisis, education and health in deep

trouble, and would like to see the assembly focusing on that rather

than constitutional change. We were told in 2011 that the referendum was

about a tidying up exercise, and here we are just two years on, we

have the Silk commission which was set up by the UK government in the

event of a Yes vote. We were not told of the consequences that we

would see talk about devolution of criminal Justice and tax powers. We

never had a discussion about that, and here we are, and it is likely to

be introduced to manifestoes, not even a second referendum.

That is the opportunity to have a debate about the next ages of

devolution. With respect, when you set up a group of politicians and

the new system there will always be debate about more powers, she do not

have expected this? There will never be a proper

debate. If there was going to be a debate it would be in 2011. Here we

are in 2014 and what we see is comments and promises about the Silk

commission recommendations being tucked away in the back of

manifestoes. We won't have a proper debate about us, and people of Wales

are now seeing radical devolution without a mandate for it.

Democratically elected mandates of democratically elected politicians

in our present that democracy. That is a bit of an issue, True Wales did

lose, and I think we have to respect with the people of Wales are. And I

think that the next discussion is around policing because even though

you might have an issue on health, and I think that has very good job

of seeing some of these figures aren't right, I think most people in

Wales will recognise if we are to reconfigure hospitals with a grab

somebody in Cardiff working on that and making a decision rather than

Jeremy Hunt or Andy Burnham for that matter.

The argument that Rachel Banner makes is that the Welsh government

hasn't done a very good job with the responsibilities and has now. Is it

fair that we should expect the assembly to earn the right for more

powers? Not only with the Welsh government

disagree with that point of view, but the Welsh government that is

represented by the Labour Party keeps getting re-elected in a

democratically accountable system. It is wrong to say that nobody

agrees with what is going on here. The Welsh government keeps getting

re-elected in various different forms, but most people in Wales

really do think that health and education should be decided in

Wales, and that is an argument that Rachel has lost.

No, because I have not argued that health and education should be taken

back to Westminster, although there is now an argument about the

overview of the NHS. They have done a bad job, the Welsh government, on

both of these issues. There is time for it to do better, but it must

start looking at those things because there is a crisis.

Do you say a blanket no to any more powers, or do you distinguish

between some of the things on offer?

I would agree with Cathy on the BBC, that there should be a Welsh voice

from the BBC which currently is not strong enough.

That's not really about the assembly, is it?

True Wales would not support further devolution, and there is no mandate

for further devolution of crime and policing. It would have to go to

referendum. Also tax-raising powers. We argued that a Yes vote

would lead to tax-raising powers. The yes campaign have continually

said that the referendum was not about these things.

I want to move on to the recommendation for more members of

the assembly. Will anyone grasp the nettle and say, we have more power,

we need more members? Lets not forget that constitutional

powers are not devolved. It is something we have to agree as a UK

level. If a package is great to change the constitution and we have

to scrutinised police and criminal justice, you could argue there needs

to be better scrutiny here. Rachel Banner, is that your fair?

Yes, that is what we predicted. We don't need more members, we have

members who have already lost their responsibilities who could come down

to the assembly and help to scrutinise legislation.

We're out of time, I'm sorry to say.

And that's Now, without further ado, more from

our political panel. Iain Martin, what did you make of Iain Duncan

Smith's response to the Danny Alexander point I'd put to him? I

thought it was a cheekily put response but actually, on Twitter,

people have been tweeting while on air that there are lots of examples

where the Tories have demanded the raising of the threshold. The 2006

Forsyth tax omission is another example. Helen, on the bigger issue

of welfare reforms, is welfare reform, as we head into the

election, despite all the criticisms, still a plus for the

government? I don't think so. Whatever the opposite of a Midas

touch is, Iain Duncan Smith has got it. David Cameron never talks about

universal credit any more. The record on personal independence

payment, for example... We didn't get onto that. Only one in six of

those notes have been paid. A toss pulling out of their condiment has

been a nightmare. It's a very big minus point for the Secretary of

State. -- Atos pulling out of bed contract. Welfare cuts are an

unambiguous point for the government but other points more ambiguous. I

don't think it's technical complexity that makes IDS's reform a

problem. The IT gets moved out with time. But even if it's in fermented

perfectly, what it will achieve has been slightly oversold, I think, and

simplified incredibly. All it does is improve incentives to work for

one section of the income scale and diminishes it at another. Basically,

you are encouraged to go from working zero hours to 16 hours but

your incentive to work beyond 16 goes down. That's not because it's a

horrendous policy but because in work benefits systems are

imperceptible. Most countries do worse than we do. -- benefits

systems cannot be perfected. They need to tone down how much this can

achieve even if it all goes flawlessly. There are clearly

problems, particularly within limitation, but Labour is still wary

of welfare reform. -- with implementation. Polls suggest it is

rather popular. People may not know what's involved were like the sound

of it. I think Janan is right to mark out the differences between

welfare cuts and welfare reforms. They are related but distinct. Are

we saying cuts are more popular than reform? They clearly are. The

numbers, when you present people numbers on benefit reductions, are

off the scale. Reform, for the reasons you explored in your

interview, is incredibly compensated. What's interesting is

that Labour haven't really definitively said what their

position is on this. I think they like - despite what they may see in

public occasionally - some of what universal credit might produce but

they don't want to be associated with it. We probably won't know

until if Ed Miliband is Prime Minister precisely what direction

Labour will go. Immigration is still a hot topic in Westminster and

throughout the country. This new Home Office minister, James

Brokenshire, made an intervention. Let's see what he had to say. For

too long, the benefits of immigration went to employers who

wanted an easy supply of cheap labour or to the wealthy

metropolitan elite who wanted cheap tradesmen and services, but not to

the ordinary hard-working people of this country. With the result that

the Prime Minister and everyone else has to tell us all whether they've

now got Portuguese or whatever it is Nanny is. Is this the most

cack-handed intervention on an immigration issue in a long list? I

think it is and when I saw this being trailed the night before, I

worried for him. As soon as a minister of the Crown uses the

phrase "wealthy metropolitan elite" more likely we see it in recession.

We've just had the worst recession in several decades. It's no small

problem but compared to what ministers like James Brokenshire has

been saying for the past few years and also the reluctance to issue the

report earlier, I thought that, combined with the speech, made it

quite a bad week for the department. Was this a cack-handed attempt to

appeal to the UKIP voters? I think so and he's predecessor had to leave

the job because of having a foreign cleaner. It drew attention to the

Tories' biggest problem, the out of touch problem. Most people around

the country probably don't have a Portuguese nanny and you've just put

a big sign over David Cameron saying, this man can afford a

Portuguese Nanny. It is not the finest political operation ever

conducted and the speech was definitely given by the Home Office

to Number Ten but did Number Ten bother to read it? It was a complete

shambles. The basic argument that there is a divide between a wealthy

metropolitan elite and large parts of Middle Britain or the rest of the

country I think is basically sound. It is but they are on the wrong side

of it. What do you mean by that? The Tory government is on the wrong

side. This is appealing to UKIP voters and we know that UKIP is

appealing to working-class voters who have previously voted Labour and

Tory. If you set up that divide, make sure you are on the right side

stop When you talk about metropolitan members of the media

class, they say that it is rubbish and everyone has a Polish cleaner.

No, they don't. I do not have a clean! I don't clean behind the

fridge, either! Most people in the country don't have a cleaner. The

problem for the Tories on this is, why play that game? You can't

out-UKIP UKIP. After two or three years of sustained Tory effort to do

that, they will probably finish behind UKIP. Do we really want a

political system where it becomes an issue of where your nanny or your

cleaner is from, if you've got one? Unless, of course, they're illegal.

But Portuguese or Italian or Scottish... And intervention was

from Nick Clegg who said his wife was Dutch -- his mum was Dutch and

his wife was Spanish. Not communism but who your cleaner is! It's the

McCarthy question! Where does your cleaner come from. A lot of people

will say are lucky to have a cleaner. I want to move onto selfies

but first, on the Nigel Farage - Nick Clegg debate, let's stick with

the TV one. Who do you think will win? Nigel Farage. Clegg. He is a

surprisingly good in debates and people have forgotten. I think Clegg

is going to win. I think Farage has peaked. We're going to keep that on

tape as well! Two 214 Clegg there. Selfies. Politicians are attempting

to show they're down with the kids. Let's look at some that we've seen

in recent days. Why are they doing this, Helen? I'm

so embarrassed you call me reading the SNP manifesto, as I do every

Saturday! They do it because it makes them seem authentic and that's

the big Lie that social media tells you - that you're seeing the real

person. You're not, you're seeing a very carefully manicured, more witty

person. That doesn't work for politicians. It looks so fake and

I'm still suffering the cringe I see every time I see Cameronserious

phone face. Does Mr Cameron really think it big Sim up because he's on

the phone to President Obama? Obama is not the personality he once was.

There is an international crisis in Ukraine - of course we are expecting

to be speaking to Obama! And if you were in any doubt about what a man

talking on the telephone looks like, here's a photo. I must confess, I

didn't take my own selfie. Did your nanny? My father-in-law took it.

Where is your father-in-law from? Scotland. Just checking. Janan, I

think we've got one of you. The 1%! What a great telephone! Where did

you get that telephone? It looks like Wolf Of Wall Street! That's

what I go to bed in. It showed how excited Cameron was to be on the

phone to Obama. All our politicians think they are living a mini version

of US politics. President Obama goes on a big plane and we complain when

George Osborne goes first class on first Great Western. They want to be

big and important like American politics but it doesn't work. We'll

see your top at next week! That's it for this week. Faxed all

our guests. The Daily Politics is on all this week at lunchtime on BBC

Two. We'll be back here same time, same place next week. Remember, if

it's Sunday, it is the Sunday Politics.