13/12/2015 Sunday Politics Wales

Morning, folks. Welcome to the Sunday Politics.

After suggestions that David Cameron was diluting his EU negotiation

demands, Downing Street insists he's still pushing for curbs

But is there any evidence that the rest of Europe is listening?

Jeremy Corbyn says Stop The War is "one of the most important

democratic campaigns of modern times".

And why all the fuss that he went to its Christmas fund-raiser?

Yvette Cooper - one-time Labour leadership contender -

says Britain should be doing more for refugees and migrants

Later in the programme, a senior Labour AM once more done to tackle

poverty. And with me for this final

Sunday Politics of 2015, Tom Newton Dunn of The Sun,

Helen Lewis of the New Statesman and Sam Coates of The Times -

the Dasher, Dancer and Prancer They'll be tweeting

throughout the programme. Downing Street insists that

David Cameron will still push for curbs on in-work benefits

for EU migrants in the UK, despite earlier briefings

to the contrary. The Prime Minister will head

to a crucial summit later this week to make his case for a reformed

British relationship with the EU. However, several newspapers,

citing official guidance, report that Mr Cameron has failed

to convince other European leaders and is already preparing a fallback

to replace his original demand for a four-year wait

for in-work benefits. The Sunday Times headline says

"Prime Minister 'caves in' The Sunday Telegraph describes it

as "Cameron's climbdown And the Independent on Sunday goes

for the same metaphor, describing it as

"Cameron's big EU climbdown". Let's speak now to

Conservative MP Peter Lilley. He was a Cabinet minister

in the Conservative governments of both Margaret Thatcher

and John Major. Welcome to the programme. The Prime

Minister is thought by many of your colleagues not to be asking for a

lot, yet he might not even get what he's asking for. Could he sell a

watered-down deal to his party? It is more a question of whether he can

sell whatever comes out of it to the country. There are lots of Labour

MPs who want to see democratic powers returned to this country from

the European institutions. That's the key issue as far as I'm

concerned. He will clearly get some things because a lot of this has

been pre-negotiated, so he will get something to say about removing the

phrase ever closer union, something to do with benefits, even if

actually it is something we could do anyway ourselves, like apply a

four-year wait to British citizens as well as foreigners. There will be

something, the question is will it be substantial? Will it include a

return of powers to this country to govern itself? What major powers is

he asking to be repatriated? Publicly, there doesn't seem to be

anything on the list, unless some change in relation to free movement

of Labour is somewhere up his sleeve. I do occasionally hear

rumours that he will come back with some genuine return of powers, and

if he does I will be dancing on the rooftops. We have no evidence that's

even part of the negotiation. That is certainly disappointing, it is

rather a strange strategy not to ask for the principal thing we want and

yet still hope to get it. Because we have, over a series of treaties

which David Cameron and I voted against, conceded a whole lot of

powers to Europe beyond what is necessary. The trading area requires

some common lawmaking, but beyond that we concede a lot of powers. We

would like to start the process of getting those powers back. If we

cannot, we will be on a slippery slope to creating a single state.

The reason we are in the position we are, having to renegotiate, is that

the countries of the eurozone are on the road to creating a single state.

There's never been a currency without a single state to run it.

They are forced, because they have created this currency, without a

government to make it work. The question is can we be outside that

process, can removing the opposite direction and get powers back, or

will we be sucked on the slipstream? If we cannot overcome the two

doctrines of Europe that everybody is heading in the same direction,

albeit at different speeds, and powers can only ever go to the

central institutions and never come back to the States, if we cannot

break those two doctrines as far as Britain is concerned, he will not

really have achieved anything. I understand all of that. A quick

final question, if he comes back with even less than he's asking for,

would you vote to leave? If he doesn't come back with some increase

in power to ourselves, I feel for the first time in my life I would be

voting to leave. I voted to stay in 1975 but I would be voting to leave

in those circumstances. Tom, it is turning into a real mess

for the Government, is it not? A huge mess. There was an exposer

yesterday, of the 11pm call every night, coordinated with the Downing

Street switchboard which the ministers have got to tune into. I

can only imagine the horror that went on last night during the call,

which still happens, over the headlines this morning. I think

what's happened here is the four-year ban on migrants' benefit

is dead. You think he's just not going to get it? It died I would say

at least a month ago in the Chatham House speech. He said so in his

speech saying, here is what I want, but by the way I will also accept

what you choose to offer me. The papers reported the next day that it

was dead in the water, so we are talking about the choreographing,

how it happens and whether the Prime Minister himself withdraws it. Or

somebody else might put something else on the table, doing the PM a

favour, to bail him out and say if you don't want this how about that.

Peter Lilley And, when I said can you sell this to your backbenchers

comic said it is a problem for the other parties too but it is

overwhelmingly a problem for the Conservatives and if he cannot

achieve what is being asked for, I would suggest half the Parliamentary

party in my not go with him on this. It is not the climb-down I would

query, but the "big". He needed one totemic issue that looked like he

was doing something about immigration. He couldn't look at the

free movement of people or any kind of free movement cap. He couldn't

tell nostrils any major power he is asking to be repatriated. It will be

hard to make it look like he has come back with something so that

people can say OK, that has changed my mind. If he gets one in February,

can he have the referendum in June? I understand the Electoral

Commission doesn't like the idea of a referendum that would overlap with

the elections in May, and the risk in September is that we will have

another summer migrant crisis and that would be a terrible atmosphere

for those who want to stay in the European Union. There are a lot of

hurdles, first you have got to get a deal in February that looks like a

success. The reason they have done what they've done overnight is

because it has been dragged down into a legal quagmire and David

Cameron has got to have a conversation with his counterparts

to set that entire renegotiation back on the right track. I know that

some people in Brussels as saying he cannot get a deal by February, we

will never get a deal, and if it slips into 2017 you won't

get a deal then either. In June there is this tiny window because --

where you could practically hold a vote. But then as you say you've got

the migrant crisis, which pops up over the summer. I'm told that

dealing with the flow of migration from Turkey will make an enormous

difference to the optics of how Europe is seen to be able to deal

with the migration crisis. Even though that doesn't have a huge

impact on UK migration from the rest of Europe, David Cameron's

renegotiation depends on something truly out of his control. So you're

telling me it depends on the Turks now.

On Friday night Jeremy Corbyn met up with some old friends

Nothing unusual in that, you might think, but this

was a fundraising do for Stop The War Coalition,

the anti-war protest group that Mr Corbyn chaired until his election

And, in case you hadn't noticed, it caused a bit of a stir.

It was the biggest mass demonstration in British history.

The group that organised it, the Stop The War Coalition,

had been founded a year or so before following the 9/11 attacks

and George Bush's declaration of war on terror.

Around a million people marched as Tony Blair prepared to send

Among the speakers, a backbench Labour MP.

Thousands more deaths in Iraq will not make things right,

it will set off a spiral of conflict, of hate,

One of the reasons for its success, I've always thought,

is that everyone was united around one single issue.

We never got bogged down in our political analyses

of what we thought about Saddam Hussein or what we thought

about this dictator or that, or how we thought the political

We weren't there to offer solutions to other people's problems and tell

them how we thought it should be, we were there to stop our government

taking what we considered to be a very bad and negative step.

But despite the broad support, the inner leadership has largely

Stop The War's founding member and convener Lindsey German

was a member of the Socialist Workers Party for over 30 years,

Her partner, John Rees, who's also co-founder

of Stop The War and was a leading figure in the SWP, he also

He sits on the editorial board of Counterfire, a political

organisation created after that SWP split.

He also helped start up The People's Assembly Against Austerity,

Which has been organising protests since 2013.

He's often sparked controversy, reportedly writing in 2006,

for example, that socialists should unconditionally stand

with the oppressed against the oppressor,

even if the people who run the oppressed country

are undemocratic and persecute minorities, like Saddam Hussein.

Andrew Murray was the Stop The War coalition chairman from

He's a member of the Communist Party and chief of staff of

In 2014 he spoke at the launch event of a campaign called

Solidarity With The Antifascist Resistance In Ukraine,

which supports anti-government rebels there.

He took back the chairmanship again in September this year,

taking over from Jeremy Corbyn, who'd held the post from 2011

As well as its elected officers, Stop The War has patrons

including Labour MP Diane Abbott, George Galloway, the writer

Tariq Ali, and Kamal Majid, a founding member of

the Stalin Society, formed in 1991 to defend Stalin and his work.

The 2003 protest against the Iraq war, which took place here

in Hyde Park, was the high point of Stop The War.

The human rights activist Peter Tatchell never played

an official role at Stop The War, though he has participated

But this week he took a very public step back and claimed

the organisation has lost its moral compass.

The shortcomings in Stop The War are driven by basically about half

a dozen people at the top, and those views increasingly are not

shared by many of their long-time grass-roots supporters like me

People are turned off by the sectarianism,

by the selective opposition to war, and by the failure to speak out

against human rights abuses by regimes that happen to be

on the receiving end of US and British military intervention.

Critics like Tatchell have accused Stop The War of trying to silence

those whose views don't fit their own.

Nothing will be achieved by trying to shout down speakers!

This video shows a Stop The War official clashing with a protester

during a rally about western policy in Iran in 2012,

This meeting last month caused controversy when Syrians

in the audience said they weren't allowed to speak.

There is one reason there is no Syrian from this room

on the platform and that's because they support intervention,

and the meeting is against intervention.

APPLAUSE What's really disturbing is the way in which Diane Abbott

closed down the meeting rather than allow Syrian Democratic left

wing and civil society activists to speak.

It's given the impression that she shares the questionable

politics of Stop The War on the issue of Syria.

But Stop The War insists a Syrian contributor did ask a question

from the floor of that meeting and have rubbished the suggestion

they support those who Western governments oppose.

Obviously, you will have seen in recent days Stop The War

explaining that they were opposed to Russian intervention in Syria

as well as British intervention, so they are evenhanded.

The reason I think people may think that is because we are a campaign

based in Britain and our campaigning is obviously overwhelmingly

orientated towards changing our own Government's policy.

Welcome to Islington in north London.

In there is Jeremy Corbyn's constituency office.

This building is also home to the Stop The War coalition,

but it is the figurative proximity rather than the literal one that

I spoke to a number of Labour MPs who voted against air

One told me that he wasn't so much worried about Stop The War

and the influence it may have on Jeremy Corbyn and policy,

but more that Jeremy Corbyn simply shares their views.

There's dissent at the grass roots too.

Last week 500 party members, including councillors,

wrote to Mr Corbyn urging him to take a step back.

Stop The War is not a Labour Party organisation.

There are many people in it who have opposed the Labour Party

and probably continue to oppose the Labour Party.

I don't believe they hold to the values of solidarity,

We also spoke to a number of Labour MPs who were relaxed

about Jeremy Corbyn's connection to Stop The War, an organisation

he's never made any secret of supporting.

On Friday he went to the Christmas do, and said slurs by critics

against Stop The War were an attempt to close down democratic

He knows some of those critics include his own MPs.

We're joined now from Leeds by the Labour MP, Richard Burgon.

Morning, Andrew. The Communist Party of Britain, which has prominent

members in stop the war, says attacks on stop the war are, quote,

a systemic and vicious propaganda oi offensive designed to obscure

British imperialism's agenda in conducting the bombing campaign in

Syria. Do you agree with that? Well, first of all I think I'm in a good

position to answer some of these questions, pause I've only ever been

a member of the Labour Party. I joined when I was 15. What I really

want to focus on is not the members of small political parties who may

be involved in Stop The War Coalition, but the tens of

thousands, in fact they've got an e-mail list of 150,000 people, many

of whom are not in any political party, many of whom are in the

Labour Party. The chairman who has taken over from Mr Corbyn is a

member of the Communist Party of Britain, so what's the answer to my

question? I think the attacks on stop the war are proxy attacks on

Jeremy Corbyn. We haven't had that previously. When Charles Kennedy was

speaking against the Iraq war, which 2 million people attended, Charles

Kennedy wasn't attacked for that, and rightly so. But he wasn't a

member of Stop The War Coalition. He spoke on the stop the war platform.

But he wasn't a member? I'm not a member, there's a really important

point here, it is right that people in democratic society express their

views to MPs, march against things they think are incorrect. I do think

the line and the leadership of the Stop The War Coalition hasn't

changed in the 14 years since it was founded. What has changed is that

Jeremy Corbyn has become leader of the Labour Party, so people in the

media and elsewhere who wish to attack Jeremy Corbyn are using stop

the war to do so. Of course it is not just the media, is it? It is not

even the media. Labour MPses, Tristram Hunt, Stella Creasy, many

more, they've attacked Stop the War Coalition and Jeremy Corbyn's

support for it. I think the majority of Labour members agreed with Jeremy

Corbyn on his analysis on whether or not we should agree to David

Cameron's proposal to bomb Syria. But what do you say to their

criticism of Mr Corbyn's continued association with Stop the War

Coalition? I think they are mistaken. I think that stop the war,

we've got to look at how stop the war has involved people from right

across the political spectrum. When I was on that historical march in

2003, there wasn't just the Lib Dem leader speaking but other people I

spoke to, Conservative voters, so it is not just 57 varieties of

Trotskyite groups that are involved. If it were the case it were merelily

people on the ultraleft you wouldn't have 150,000 people involved or on

the e-mail list. Who is not either a cop thirst, a Trotskyite or a

Stalinist? Well, there are plenty of trade unions involved in the lip...

Among the leadership, the people who lead this, whose names are

associated with it, who doesn't Paul into that small hard left category?

Well, it is a coalition, and that's the point of it. So give me another

name that doesn't fall into that. Well, I wouldn't even know the full

list of people on the board of stop the war, but what I do know is that

there are people from trade unions supporting it, trade unions

supporting it, probably in terms of the membership of Stop the War

Coalition, the biggest composite of that are Labour Party members. But I

do think this is a distraction of the democratic issue. We can't say

that in this country being a member of a Stop the War Coalition

campaign, campaigning against military interventions that were

proven to be disastrous in Iraq and Libya is wrong. It is part of an

open democratic process. People shouldn't be demonised for being

part of it, or Jeremy Corbyn. I'm not doing that, what I'm trying to

do is find out what stop the war really stands for and whether it is

right to Jeremy Corbyn and other Labour people should be associated

with it. They are had an article titled, Sociopaths United. The

United States, Britain and their allies are no less sociopathic than

the enemies they propose to hunt down. So British security forces are

on a par with the beheaders, do you agree with that? I certainly don't

agree with that. I think there've been things published on blogs on

the stop the war website which are essential wrong, which I wouldn't

agree with and the vast majority of people who are members of the Stop

the War Coalition wouldn't agree with. I was reading in the paper

this morning that the management of the website of the stop the war has

changed. If that shows that they are going to be more careful to ensure

that the content of the website on every occasion mirrorst or reflects,

sorry, the view of the leadership of the Stop the War Coalition, then

that's a welcome move. Well, it is certainly, if it is such a splendid

organisation, it has to delete lots of articles it has published. It

blamed the Paris attacks on French policy, claimed that the threat to

the Yazidis was largely mythical, in fact force. And published a poem

that quotes a well known anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. All of that it

has had to take down. Does that sound like a respectable

organisation that the Labour Party should be associated with? Well, the

views that you've uncovered aren't views that I or members of the Stop

the War Coalition would agree with. But the big picture is this. In a

coalition there are always sorts of small numbers of individuals who

come out with unacceptable views. But the fact is I'm interested in

the democratic point, in the 2 million people that marched on 15th

February 2003, in the thousands that protested against the intervention

in Libya and intense the intervention in Syria. I'm not a

pacifist but I think that the truth is that the Stop the War Coalition

and the ordinary people from vicars to pensioners who marched against

the war in Iraq, who marched against the intervention in Libya and have

demonstrated against the intervention in Syria, they've got

it right. Many of the people attacking Jeremy Corbyn and many of

the people attacking the Stop the War Coalition have got it completely

wrong. It is a topsy-turvy world we are in when attending Stop the War

Coalition events is controversial. We are still pretending that Tony

Blair and others got it right in Iraq. We haven't got much time Mr

Burgon. Mr Corbyn stuck to his guns and went to the fundraiser. His spin

doctor says the Labour Party is now slowly co hearing round Mr Corbyn's

views, across a range of issues. Do you agree with that? I do. As I

minced earlier, Jeremy Corbyn didn't instruct or order Labour MPs to vote

against David Cameron's plan to bomb Syria. He gave them a free vote, and

that that was the right thing to do. By a ratio of 2 to 1 Labour MPs

agreed with Jeremy Corbyn's analysis, and by 2 to 1 members of

the Shadow Cabinet agreed with Mr Corbyn. But on working tax credits,

police cuts, issues such as ech attacking George Osborne's failed

cuts and privatisationings the vast, of Labour MPs and members, and a lot

of the public agree with him. Richard Burgon thank you for joining

us and for persevering with the earpiece. I'm glad you stalk with

it. Thank you. Take care. Bye. Yvette Cooper came third

in the contest to become Her campaign only really came

to life back in early September, when she became the first front rank

UK politician to call for Britain to take in 10,000 refugees

from the Syrian war. Now, in her new role as Chair

of Labour's Refugees Taskforce, she's been on a fact-finding visit

to the Jungle refugee 6,000 people are currently living

in what, in most generous terms, Yvette Cooper, a former

Shadow Home Secretary, a Labour leadership contender,

argued over the summer Britain should take more Syrian asylum

seekers than Now a backbencher, she is returned

as a guest of citizens UK not to argue we should fling open

the doors but that the jungle was a problem nobody has tried

to find a solution to. Why do we not have UNHCR here doing

proper assessments of everybody? And therefore actually they need

to go back through You've got to have a proper process

to assess people's refugee status and at the moment

that's not happening. That's the real big tragedy of here,

the people have got stuck here in these awful

conditions and there's no Some would call it hell,

that's a little hyperbolic, It's really purgatory,

since there's a real sense nobody is going anywhere, unless to climb

on board a lorry and illegally And a camp unsuited to summer

is preparing for a winter it's There's an argument which says,

if you help refugees, then somehow that

will create a crisis. No, the crisis is here and now,

the crisis is happening. The question is what we do to stop

the crisis getting worse and worse, so you can't have people stuck

living among the rubbish and the pools of water and the mud

while they're applying for asylum. You've got to have a basic

humanitarian aid in place. At the Medecins Sans Frontieres

clinic on-site, the issue of the conditions and winter

is a problem itself. The problem when we see the camp,

it's very cold, the hygiene And what happens,

the condition...the simple flu passes sometimes

in the bronchal...and that's it. There are many women and children -

yes, they are outnumbered - but they're housed in two sections

of the camp we're not allowed to film in, though clearly some

choose to live in other parts of the camp and walk

the roads around. And it's the issue of unaccompanied

minors with family already legally in the UK that is worrying

some of the volunteers. So, there's a ten-year-old boy

separated from his family and just There are eight-year-olds,

nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds with family in the UK

desperate to look after them, and come here to visit them

and bring them things Do you suspect that people back home

will see this and their natural humanity will say, "this is awful,

that looks really dreadful, we still don't want

lots of them to come"? The problem is you look

around this and you think, how is this northern Europe,

how can this be just a few miles How can this be what is

happening in France? Yvette Cooper would be much happier

if those minors were taken in with their families,

and seems to be singing from a song sheet that says whether we take more

refugees, fewer or none, it may well be a pressing question,

but that the jungle in Calais Welcome back to the Sunday Politics.

Should adults from this can be allowed into Britain? It depends on

their circumstances. Most of them should be playing in France for

asylum and that I think is what you would expect to happen. Some of them

may not be refugees, some of them may have safe homes to go to and

should do so. Clearly there's a lot of people there who have fled Syria,

Afghanistan, who we know are fleeing conflict and persecution. There's a

question about the children. We saw unaccompanied children. There are

people traffickers, some cases where aid workers said they had families

in Britain we were trying to reach. For example I spoke to a 15-year-old

whose brother, his nearest relative is in Britain and he wants to join

him. That's why he is in Calais. Should we let them in? We should

have a process for him to be able to apply. We should be providing that

sanctuary. I understand the children issue but I'm still not quite clear

what your attitude is towards the adults there. Although a lot of

people in this camp may have started as refugees, they are now in France.

They are not in immediate danger of their lives so they now want to come

to the UK because they think economic prospects are better here

than in France. That makes their role economic migrants now. That's

not the reality. They have no safe home at the moment, and I agree they

should be playing right now and they should be assessed where they are.

The French authorities should be doing a full assessment. So why are

they not in there? Good question. Why are we leaving people in such

awful conditions? If the French authorities cannot, we should get

the UNHCR to come in and do a full assessment. There will also be

people, I spoke for example to a single mother with two small

children who had left Syria when her husband was killed in an Assad jail.

She was trying to reach her father and brother, also in Britain. There

should be a process for her to apply for sanctuary in Britain. If you had

a fair system to apply, you might prevent people coming to Calais in

the first place. Should we set up an asylum seeking vetting operation in

Calais ourselves? We have a system the Government set up under pressure

to take refugees from the camps in Syria. I'm talking about the camps

in Calais. I agree but I'm saying we should prevent people coming to

Calais in the first place. Once people have got to Calais, I think

there is a case particularly for those children... We understand the

children but I'm asking about adults because it is hard to know what your

policy is on this. Should we start to say some of them are asylum

seekers, the French are not doing their jobs properly, we will take

them in once they go through the proper procedures - yes or no? Those

who have formally in Britain should be able to apply for sanctuary in

Britain but you need a system. You need to be able to do security

checks and refugee checks. At the moment Britain is only taking 4000

refugees per year. I think we could do more of that, and if we did that

and worked with other countries we should be clearing the problems at

Calais and preventing people coming to Europe on most dangerous boats in

the first place. I know that people think we cannot solve this, it is

too hard, but if we don't it will get worse. Some people may argue

that the more you take in and give proper status to, you will encourage

all the more to come into Europe. People are coming whatever happens.

We are told there is another 5 million waiting to come. At one

point the Government was arguing we shouldn't have search and rescue in

the Mediterranean because that would encourage more people to come, I

think that is immoral. People have come, they are travelling across

Europe. Let me try to pin you down on that. It is still not clear what

you want to do. Let's take the migrants who have made it into the

EU this year. Although the German government took most itself, it

tried to spread the burden through quotas of member states. Should we

volunteer a quota? Yes, I think we should take 10,000 people. Only ten?

The Germans are taking a lot more. The reason I said that figure is

because that meant you would be talking about ten families for every

city or County across the country and I also think the best way to do

with this is to work with faith groups across the country and say

how many refugees do you think you could support in each area.

Germany's Labour market is in a different situation and they have a

different demographic. So 10,000 out of Vermilion, that would be British

response? That would be a good thing to do, but the truth is all

countries will have to work together on this and there isn't a simple

answer. It's not just about what you do in terms of the number of

refugees you give sanctuary to, it's also how you prevent people

travelling. We should reunite families and we have got to do

something about humanitarian relief. There are people living in terrible

conditions, with France and Britain being two of the most powerful

countries in the world you would have thought it is not beyond the

wit of these countries to make sure there is proper humanitarian relief,

sanitation, and heating for people who will suffer not just from

scabies but terrible conditions in those camps as the winter draws in.

Indeed we shall see what horrors the winter brings because we have not

gone through that yet in this migrant crisis. You heard a

colleague of yours saying he thought the Labour Party was now moving

strongly in Mr Corbyn's direction in policy matters, do you agree?

There's been a lot of policies I disagree with, we have that debate

over the summer. The challenge at the moment is that the Labour Party

has an internal focus, looking inwards at ourselves. We have got to

look outwards. You are not answering my question. Let me try one more

time. Is your party moving broadly in Mr Corbyn's direction? I'm not

sure quite what that means because we are having a debate in the party

at the moment about what the policies should be in the future.

The trouble is we cannot just make that debate look inwards when the

Tories are being let off the hook on tax credits, Europe and a series of

things. I will try to make the question more clear next time. Thank

you. It's just gone 11.35,

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

in Scotland, who leave us now Hello and welcome to

the Sunday Politics Wales. A senior Labour AM wants more

urgency from the Welsh Government Where next for military action

in Syria and Jeremy Corbyn's leadership - we hear

from a senior Labour MP. And some glad tidings in the Senedd

- but how much Christmas joy Wales remains the worst performing

part of the UK when it comes That was confirmed by the latest GVA

figures published this week - which indicate how much is produced

for every person working in Wales. But behind the big economic

indicators are people's experiences. And for a significant proportion

of people in Wales that At a time of year when there's

an even greater squeeze on finances, our reporter Bethan Lewis has been

hearing about the reality of trying Thursday afternoon in this sends

advice office in Pontypridd, a debt clinic is being held. We had a

couple asking, begging for a food voucher, because they don't have

food. One of the things we are facing, and the community are

facing, Christmas cannot be nice being spent for your family. They

see the names and faces behind the statistics every day. We had another

client walking into a hospital asking the could live in the

hospital because life is that path outside. Living on ?38 a week. Could

you live on ?38 a week? There is an established definition for poverty,

that behind the jargon, what does it mean in practice? Luc Evans is a

carpet fit in Mountain Ash. He is struggling to pay council tax debts

and rent arrears when he was unemployed. I worked for two years,

then I got a job. Things looking better, but still tried to find the

money to pay off what I/O. Really stressful. You lose a lot of sleep.

Sometimes you are afraid to answer the door if someone knocks. They are

nice people, but it is their job, the bailiffs, like anyone else. Very

stressful. More than one in five people in Wales live in poverty,

around 700,000 people. Many of those live in working households. Over the

last decade and more the percentage of people living in poverty in Wales

has barely changed. Earlier this year an assembly committee said it

was deeply concerned about the Welsh government's lack of progress in

reducing poverty. Areas like the north-east of England have seen a

drop, there has been very little improvement in Wales, with only

London above it in the poverty league table. Christine Chapman is

the chair the which produced a report on poverty in Wales. We are

rich country in a way, but people are still struggling with their

heating bills, food, that is absolutely appalling. There must be

a strong message to the UK Government, things need to change.

From the Welsh government point of view, there needs to be high-level

discussions amongst all the ministers, as to how we can really

address this. Good work is being done. We need to certainly speed

things up. The Welsh government says it is working relentlessly to tackle

the root causes of poverty. Dealing with the effects of UK Government

austerity and welfare reforms, lifting people out of poverty, they

say it is at the heart of its work. For Luke, and others Christmas

brings extra pressures. Making sure my daughter has a good Christmas,

she has food in the house, learning to budget that extra bit more for

Christmas. With basic money, really. Some people go out, they can get the

kids whatever they ask for. It does get stressful. She will appreciate

it more than having everything she wanted anyway. Seven years in the

job, Gemma Jones says there have been changes, but no basic

improvements. I have only seen it get worse, really. I haven't seen

clients coming, they come in and say things about the government, but

they never say that is really good, that has helped me. We don't see

that. I don't know what is going wrong, but we see a lot more clients

in poverty, other than saying they're better off. Making sure

everyone can afford the basics, food, shelter and fuel, is a steady

goal. It's been three months

since Jeremy Corbyn became leader Fair to say he's had a few highs

and more than a few lows. Perhaps the most difficult episode

centred around the vote on air strikes against

so-called IS in Syria. It's just over a week since RAF jets

expanded their strikes Madeliene Moon is the Labour MP

for Bridgend and a member Thank you very much for coming in.

You voted against the air strikes, what made you come to those

conclusions? It is an issue capability. I have been on the

Defence Select Committee for three parliaments, track capability, and

look at how able are our personnel to carry out missions. What

equipment do they have? What are the facts on the ground that lead us to

think we are able to do this, but have the capability to do it. Lots

of people talk about the rights and wrongs, that the first question is

not should we do it, but can we do it? I could not get answers to so

many of my questions about how many planes were we going to send? We had

eight, because we needed eight to fly two. How many other game to

send, given the Tornadoes are old platform? We have a lack of pilots,

engineers and navigators to get the planes in the air. People talk about

the Typhoon, but the typhoon cannot carry the Brimstone missile, which

the Americans are keen to utilise. It seems to undermine any nation

these air strikes can get to grips with so-called Islamic State

fighters in Syria? One my issues was, we have been flying missions in

Iraq, we have managed to take back 30% of the land held by

Daesh. We made the same mistake in Afghanistan, going to Iraq,

splitting our forces and give ability. Since then we have had a

30% cut in our Armed Forces, yet we're still thinking we can fight on

two fronts with an air force considerably diminished. For me, not

acceptable. We heard a couple of weeks ago the Chancellor George

Osborne saying the spending would go up to two percent of GDP, what Nato

countries are supposed to be contributing. Will that make any

difference in the next 4-5 years! That is jam tomorrow, it is not

there to day. We don't have the new Lightning Two aircraft today. We

don't have the new control aircraft today. They are thrown out in the

future, 2020. As part of the Defence Select Committee, you are travelling

to Iraq to see the work there. Is it your concern, those gains achieved

in Iraq could be lost, because attention is focused elsewhere,

particularly in Syria? David Cameron said the head of the snake is in

Syria, but Daesh is not a snake, it is a Hydra. We have to make sure the

people on the ground have the capabilities to fight back, and we

support the grand treats of the people in the country. We can add

value, but we don't fight the war. I was in Iraq, this time last year.

The Iraqis were very clear, they did not want us on the ground, but they

did want us in the air, they need and want our support. That is where

we need to keep fighting. You talk about keeping fighting, but the

position of the leader of the Labour Party is against any more action,

air strikes or otherwise in area and in the region. To what extent does

that make it more difficult to continue to go down the path you

would like to see at least? The real risk is that we get into the very

easy sideshow of internal politics within the political party. We are

at war. My concern quite honestly is about the safety of our personnel,

weather and not we're giving the personnel the actual equipment and

platforms and training, and the numbers to do the job? That is my

priority. That is where the Defence Select Committee is focused. We have

our own battles as a committee to fight. In a sense, every time we say

we want to go somewhere, the MoD finds lots of reasons why we cannot

go there. We are battling that at the moment. We will go to Iraq,

Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Because we need to know. Another group will go

to Jordan, Lebanon. So we have a wide ranging view of what is

happening on the ground. Come back once you have returned safe and well

from Iraq. They keep or your time. Seasonal good tidings

for the NHS earlier this week as the Welsh Government announced

it's budget for next year. There was less goodwill for councils

who face a cut of two per cent. but that was the major department

to see reductions in a budget that felt far less austere

than previous settlements. A rare example of harmony, the

Senedd celebrating the season of goodwill to all. Not easy to get

politicians to sing from the same hymn sheet when it came to last

week's budget. The big winner was health, which the Welsh government

will support ahead of next year's assembly elections. The NHS gets 278

million extra pounds, 0.6 increase compared to 2010. They pointed

Treasury figures showing spending on health is 1% per head higher in

Wales than England. The Conservatives say once you take

inflation into account, the funding for the NHS in Wales is nearly ?6.3

billion, ?93 million less than 2010. That is as a result of the Welsh

government's position not to protect funding between 2010-2013. The

leader of the government said they had ultimately done well. It has led

to better tax returns, more money in the Treasury, allowing the

Chancellor to divvy up more money to the Dibaba administrations. This is

a Welsh government unable at present to raise any of its own money,

dependent on the UK Government. They cannot have it both ways. The gum in

Cardiff is trying to make up for the mistakes in the first part of the

assembly when they devastated health spending, the only part of the UK to

do that. Now taking a knife to local government budgets across Wales.

Councils will see a two percent cut to their budgets next year. Weber

rule, pretty much every department except local government sees a cash

increase. It does not feel like an austerity budget, it feels like the

Welsh government has got extra money, and although there have been

cuts, the government has listened, particularly to the Welsh Liberal

Democrats, the deal we did with them, and the things we have been

saying, protecting key areas. There are still concerns, despite the four

percent increase, health spending will not be enough to get to grips

with the challenges in the NHS. This is too little, too late. Woeful

inadequacies in the health service, nothing in this budget today that

tells us there is a plan to plan properly for the workforce, where

Ruddy extra doctors coming from? Not confident there is going to be any

change of outcomes as a result of this will stop when she appeared on

our programme a fortnight ago, the finance and Mr told us they would be

difficult choices to make because of cuts from the UK Government. With so

many giveaways in the government, DG over a the challenge? This budget

was about priorities, that one thing to put money into that of service.

Nearly 300 million going into the health service, widely welcomed,

also protecting further education, apprenticeship. Making sure we can

protect our schools and social care. About priorities, tough making those

decisions. As it goes into scrutiny, people will be saying why did you

have to pull back on this area spending? Clearly be goodwill were

last that long. Pressure groups and organisations have been warning cuts

will affect various public services. While the Senedd was full of

Christmas cheer, the message was far from festive.

You heard next year's Assembly elections mentioned there -

well let's take a look ahead to them - with Cathy Owens,

a former adviser to the Welsh Government,

and Anthony Pickles, the former chief of staff

Thank you both for coming in. We heard in the report there, a fair

few giveaways, Ralph, massive winner, education, to a certain

extent. To what extent do you think the devil is in the detail? Seems

the giveaway, but an awful lot of losses. They have protected areas

people are worried about. Local services, the NHS, social services,

schools. Things we have not seen, quite a cut in revenue funding in

lots of different areas. Revenue funding is like the environment

portfolio. Economic development, huge cuts across the board apart

from one particular area. There is some extra capital spending, flood

risk. Roads, rail. Also things that are nice to have, that the Welsh

government have been trying to protect in the last five years. New

organisations that have not had cuts, getting some cuts now.

Interesting phone calls, we will see them coming out in the next month or

two. The big winner has been the health service. The Conservatives

have said next year's assembly election is on the health service,

has that Fox been shot? Identikit has, the -- I don't think it has,

the timing is interesting. Carwyn Jones took difficult decisions,

their words effect on outcomes in the NHS. The elections will be seen

as a referendum by many. Looking at the decisions, like they cannot fund

a cancer drug funded Wales will stop independent enquiry, born at

politically in May in the general election with some of the seats we

saw won. The problem with the NHS you throw statistics from one site

to another, a lot more heat than light being shared on the issue.

Treasury figures showing it is 1% higher in Wales than England.

Difficult issue to get to the heart of it. Both sides slinging numbers

and facts and figures? That is true. I think if you look at what

backbenchers are saying, you can see why this decision has been taken.

Five seats held by the Conservatives in Wales, not currently held in the

assembly. There will be some Labour AMs having to decisions about health

spending. The perception of the differences between Wales and

England, which has had a real effect on the opinion polls. England is no

utopia, there are a dozen or so trust in special measures, 60 or 70

accident and emergency units being shut. It is not a panacea. The

argument has been somewhat lost. Labour has lost 15% in the polls in

the last couple of years, largely to do with health, even though people

know there is no crisis here more than England. All of this additional

money, ?278 million additional next year going into the NHS, which could

have been so helpful for organisations that are seen cuts.

The Labour garment is making the political decision to take money

from this part of the budget, putting it mainly into health. We

are talking about an extra ?250 million going to health, in a ?15

billion budget. 47% of the Welsh budget is made up by NHS spending.

Absolutely true. That is because the health element of responsibility,

health and social services. Always been a high proportion. Because of

the responsibilities the Welsh government has. They are spending

more money on health, but also more on social services, and that will

have an impact on the future of England, that is the bit that has

been cut quite drastically. The problem for the Conservatives, in

2011, the Welsh Labour government's manifesto was against these cuts

coming from the UK Government. We hear it every budget. Difficult for

the Conservatives as they get to next May's collections, to say the

cuts are the Conservatives' fault, but you have to blame Labour as

well? I don't think it is. People voted in seats that nobody expected

would-be Conservative gains, because of the outcomes in the economy

across-the-board in the UK. That did not stop on the Welsh border. The

health message is different in Wales, cutting through the general

election. I would not be surprisingly does not cut again in

May. Looking towards May, the great unknown for Conservatives and Labour

will be Ukip, where will they take votes, what will the effect the? If

he were still advising the Welsh, still had a voice to the Labour

leader what would you tell them? Not to be complacent, because people say

you will never have nine Ukip members in the assembly. We might

very well have. They don't have to do anything rather than turn up and

win the seat. You would hope that Labour in the next six months will

be focusing on a couple of core messages, one of those, if you speak

to the business community, they will argue what the Welsh government have

been doing is to support what they are planning on, industry led

investment. Infrastructure, skills, that is important to them. You would

hope they take a grasp of some of the salient issues, in terms of

waiting times that we now and May. Get those messages across, that is

where I would focus my campaign. I guess that applies only to be 70

party? Ukip will be taking votes in droves from the Conservatives. You

cannot be Dubuisson, the polls showing there will be a bounce for

Ukip. Personally I don't believe it, they polled 13% in May, I don't

believe they will call 13% in May. Talking about eight or nine seats.

With the regional situation, we won't get near to that? I don't

think so. That level of complacency is worrying. What is really

happening at the next election, there are many seats where the

Conservatives are challenging Labour to some degree, and the Ukip vote is

the bits making the difference. You could see a lot of seats, like

Wrexham, change hands because of the impact of the Ukip factor. We

delivered for Ukip a system that perfectly rewards them, parties that

come second and third, that is now Ukip.

Don't forget you follow all the latest on Twitter -

we're @walespolitics but for now that's all from me -

Diolch am wilio, a Nadolig Llawen - thanks for watching,

Will David Cameron get his way in Europe?

Are Labour MPs coming to terms with the idea that Jeremy Corbyn

All questions for The Week Ahead and the Year Ahead.

And joining us to gaze into our crystal ball for 2016

is the Conservative MP, James Cleverly.

Welcome to the programme. If the Prime Minister cannot even get his

minimum demands in the renegotiation with Europe, would you vote to

leave? I've always felt his best chance of getting a good result from

Europe is if there is a credible leave campaign, with people like me

saying that if we don't get a good deal for Britain we would campaign

to leave. That might feel like a stone in his shoe at the moment but

unless people genuinely believe that he won't get the best deal for

Britain. He says he rules nothing out. No one

really believes the Prime Minister wants to leave the European Union or

would lead a campaign to do so. But if the country as a whole is making

those kind of noises, the people the Prime Minister is negotiating with,

our partners in Europe, may think it is in their best interests to give

him the deal he's looking for. Should he be asking for more? The

Prime Minister is always at his best when his bold, I think you should be

cheeky with the things he asks for, but recognise we are not going to

get everything. Could we get more than he is asking for? The

particular vehicle that he uses to get results shouldn't be quite so

important as the results themselves. What you are not saying, but it is

clear what you think, he should be tougher with Europe. I don't think

it is possible to be tough enough with Europe. We've got to keep

pushing and if we get something, push for more. Ultimately the deal

he comes back with will be judged by the British people. I understand

that. Tory politicians say that simply because they don't want to

answer the questions I am asking because that is flannel. Most

Conservative backbenchers I speak to think what he's asking for is not

nearly enough. If he cannot even bring that back, I would suggest to

you he will not carry a majority of his MPs in Parliament. The deal on

the table... We have seen this from the Paris climate summit, the deals

are done in the 11th hour so we will know what deal is on the table only

at the 11th hour, then we will judge that deal when we see it. When you

negotiate, you don't come out with demands and then as the negotiation

goes on make these demands even greater! Yes, you do. I've never

seen a negotiation like that, but good luck to you. What demand should

he ask for that he's not asking for now? I will not try to second-guess

because you have got to trade things, give a little bit there...

I'm asking you to tell me what you think he should be asking of Europe

that he's not asking at the moment. Most people would agree we want to

have better control around who gets benefits. No, he's asking for that.

Let me try one more time - what should he ask for that he's not

asking for at the moment? As I said, I'm not going to second-guess that.

I give up! Let me come on to Mr Corbyn. I would suggest to you, Tom

Newton Dunn, that Jeremy Corbyn is ending this year in a much more

secure position than it looked when he first got elected or at the

Labour Party conference. I completely agree with you. When this

crystallised was during the Syria vote, the week before last, when we

thought the majority of Conservative MPs would abstain -- Labour MPs.

Perhaps the Prime Minister's case wasn't that strong but they felt

scared. The Corbyn machine, the unions put a lot of pressure on them

and that was the turning point. He played his part in getting the

Chancellor to withdraw on the tax credit front, he has carried the

bulk of his Parliamentary party on Syria and most of his cabinet as

well, and I would suggest, Helen, that the anti-Jeremy Corbyn forces

are now bereft of a strategy. Yes, they have a huge problem that the

members who voted for Jeremy Corbyn think he is doing really well. The

PLP needs to get behind him. The problem is I think sometimes we get

the narrative on Corbyn wrong. A lot of his deeply held principles, think

about giving that free vote on Syria, he has been a member of the

Stop The War coalition since it started, and yet he didn't say Acme

or you will go. But he will now, given that he is ending the year in

a pretty strong decision, he will, I suggest, in the New Year, start to

remould the Labour Party much more in his image of what he stands for.

Absolutely. I don't think there's much chance of being a successful

challenge to Jeremy Corbyn in 2016 and that's because the members are

broadly behind him. The reason that's a disaster for the Labour

Party is because of what will happen in September, the annual Labour

Party conference by the seaside somewhere. They will use that moment

to push through rule changes to make it harder for the Parliamentary

Labour Party and mainstream forces to fight against what he wants, and

to embed what they think in terms of official Labour Party positions and

what Helen said he should do. When Mr Corbyn won the Labour leadership,

the Conservatives thought Christmas had come early. He is actually

proving to be a tougher leader than you thought. Only lazy observers

would assume his leadership would make life easy for us. He galvanised

a huge number of people in the country. I think he is so wrong on

so many levels it is beyond belief but lots of other people seem to

think he is right. We need to find ways of countering his political

agenda because it is wrong and dangerous, but we need to do so at

the same time as understanding why he managed to have such a

grass-roots appeal. Although you all seem to be agreed he is ending the

year on a strong note, the Labour Party Christmas party was not a lot

of laughs, was it? What happened? It sounded like a slightly awkward

occasion. This is the moment when all of the Labour Party staff get

together, a free fake, one of the Shadow Cabinet plays Santa. You've

got to picture the scene, about ten tables of staff who all pretty much

come from the mainstream, and one and a half tables of allies of

Jeremy Corbyn huddled in one part, and the two clans didn't really mix.

There was only one real moment of dissent it felt like when somebody

at around 1115 PM Port Things Can Only Get Better on, and that is

about as open as Labour Party revolts get. I want to show you a

Christmas party from the Daily Politics archive. Who is our secret

Santa? Here he comes. It is a bit difficult to see. The first clue is

that he is a Labour MP, he's been a member of Parliament since 1983 for

the smallest constituency in Britain. Next clue, he is one of

just 12 Labour MPs to back Plaid Cymru and the SNP's call for an

inquiry into the war. Finally, he chairs the Parliamentary wing of

CND, and you should know this, Meg? Jeremy Corbyn? I thought it was the

real Santa! Yes please, thank you very much. Jeremy Corbyn, having

more fun at the Daily Politics Christmas party than he did the

Labour Party one. Will there be an EU referendum next

year? No. Yes. Yes. No. By this time next year will Jeremy Corbyn still

be a Labour leader? ALL: Yes. If David Cameron loses the

referendum, will he be able to survive as Prime Minister? Yes. You

have got to say that! Will Philip Hammond remained Foreign

Secretary next year? On what? Will he remain Foreign Secretary? No.

They might have to be a reshuffle. Hilary Benn, will he remain as

Shadow Foreign Secretary? No. Will the Government finally approved a

third runway at Heathrow? No, definitely not. Yes. No. Will we

ever get to see the Chilcot inquiry in 2016? Yes. No. I don't know. Will

Donald Trump win the Republican nomination next year? No. No. Who is

going to be the new Mayor of London? Sadiq Khan. Probably Sadiq Khan, it

is a Labour city. Zac Goldsmith, and it is not a Labour city, trust me.

He would be much better at soaking up the second preference votes.

That's a bit technical for us! That's all for today and, in fact,

all from the Sunday Politics this year. I'll

be back here on 10th January. Remember - if it's Sunday,

it's the Sunday Politics. Unless, of course, it's

the festive season.