Browse content similar to 19/03/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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It's Sunday morning and this is the Sunday Politics. | :00:35. | :00:38. | |
She faces huge political fights over Brexit, Scottish independence, | :00:39. | :00:41. | |
After a tumultuous political week, we'll analyse the PM's prospects. | :00:42. | :00:54. | |
With chatter increasing about a possible early General Election, | :00:55. | :00:56. | |
Jeremy Corbyn's campaign chief joins me live. | :00:57. | :01:01. | |
NHS bosses warn health services in England are facing "mission | :01:02. | :01:04. | |
impossible" and waiting times for operations will rocket, | :01:05. | :01:08. | |
unless hospitals are given more cash this year. | :01:09. | :01:11. | |
Here in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire: Providers joins me live. | :01:12. | :01:17. | |
3,000 people will die early because of air pollution. | :01:18. | :01:21. | |
Is it now a bigger threat to public health than obesity? | :01:22. | :01:26. | |
All that to come before 12:15pm, and I'll also be talking | :01:27. | :01:37. | |
to the former leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg | :01:38. | :01:39. | |
from his party's spring conference in York. | :01:40. | :01:41. | |
With me here in the studio, throughout the programme, | :01:42. | :01:46. | |
three of the country's top political commentators: | :01:47. | :01:48. | |
Tom Newton Dunn, Isabel Oakeshott and Steve Richards. | :01:49. | :01:54. | |
They'll be tweeting their thoughts using #bbcsp. | :01:55. | :01:56. | |
So, the political challenges facing Theresa May are stacking up. | :01:57. | :01:59. | |
As well as negotiating Britain's exit from the EU, | :02:00. | :02:04. | |
the PM must now deal with SNP demands for a second referendum | :02:05. | :02:08. | |
on Scottish independence, backbenchers agitating against cuts | :02:09. | :02:12. | |
to school budgets, and a humiliated Chancellor forced to u-turn on a key | :02:13. | :02:15. | |
budget measure just one week after announcing it. | :02:16. | :02:20. | |
Here's Adam Fleming on aturbulent political week | :02:21. | :02:22. | |
Monday, 11:30am, TV crews gather in the residence of the First | :02:23. | :02:39. | |
Minister of Scotland, who's got a surprise. | :02:40. | :02:40. | |
She wants a vote on whether Scotland should leave the UK | :02:41. | :02:43. | |
By taking the steps I have set out today I am ensuring that Scotland's | :02:44. | :02:48. | |
future will be decided, not just by me, the | :02:49. | :02:50. | |
Scottish Government, or the | :02:51. | :02:51. | |
SNP, it will be decided by the people of Scotland. | :02:52. | :02:54. | |
Westminster, 6:25pm the same day, MPs reject | :02:55. | :03:03. | |
amendments to the legislation authorising the Prime Minister to | :03:04. | :03:07. | |
The Bill ceremonially heads to the Lords where peers abandoned | :03:08. | :03:21. | |
attempts to change it and it becomes law. | :03:22. | :03:23. | |
But Downing Street doesn't trigger Article 50 as many had expected. | :03:24. | :03:30. | |
Some say they were spooked by Nicola Sturgeon. | :03:31. | :03:32. | |
We get an e-mail from the Treasury can the | :03:33. | :03:49. | |
We get an e-mail from the Treasury cancelling | :03:50. | :03:50. | |
the planned rise in National Insurance for | :03:51. | :04:02. | |
the self-employed announced the budget. | :04:03. | :04:03. | |
It's just minutes before Prime Minister's Questions at noon. | :04:04. | :04:05. | |
The trend towards greater self-employment does create a | :04:06. | :04:07. | |
We will bring forward further proposals | :04:08. | :04:10. | |
but we will not bring forward increases to NICs later in this | :04:11. | :04:13. | |
It seems to me like a government in a bit of chaos here. | :04:14. | :04:17. | |
By making this change today we are listening to our colleagues | :04:18. | :04:20. | |
fulfil both the letter and the spirit of our manifesto tax | :04:21. | :04:23. | |
Thursday, 7am, Conservative campaign HQ and the | :04:24. | :04:33. | |
Electoral Commission fines the party ?70,000 for misreporting spending | :04:34. | :04:35. | |
But that's not what the Prime Minister | :04:36. | :04:38. | |
Because at 12:19pm she gives her verdict on a | :04:39. | :04:44. | |
We should be working together, not pulling apart. | :04:45. | :04:49. | |
We should be working together to get that | :04:50. | :04:51. | |
right deal for Scotland, that | :04:52. | :04:52. | |
So, as I say, that's my job as Prime Minister and | :04:53. | :04:57. | |
so for that reason I say to the SNP now is not the time. | :04:58. | :05:01. | |
Friday and time for the faithful to gather. | :05:02. | :05:03. | |
SNP activists at their spring conference | :05:04. | :05:05. | |
Conservatives in Cardiff to hear the Prime Minister | :05:06. | :05:16. | |
promote her plan for a more meritocratic Brexit Britain. | :05:17. | :05:19. | |
At 11:10am comes some news about a newspaper that's frankly | :05:20. | :05:21. | |
I'm thrilled and excited to be the new editor of The | :05:22. | :05:28. | |
Evening Standard and, you know, with so many | :05:29. | :05:30. | |
big issues in our world what | :05:31. | :05:32. | |
good analysis, great news journalism. | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
It's a really important time for good journalism that The | :05:38. | :05:42. | |
Evening Standard is going to provide. | :05:43. | :05:44. | |
There was no let-up yesterday as Gordon Brown launched proposals | :05:45. | :05:51. | |
Under my proposals we keep the Barnett | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
Formula, we keep the fiscal transfers, but we also bring the | :05:57. | :05:59. | |
and fisheries back to the Scottish Parliament. | :06:00. | :06:04. | |
And just think, all this and we're still counting down to the | :06:05. | :06:07. | |
What a week in politics. It has been a torrid week for the government, | :06:08. | :06:24. | |
Isabel Oakeshott, but does Theresa May shake it off, or is this a sign | :06:25. | :06:29. | |
of worse to come? We may all be feeling a bit breathless after the | :06:30. | :06:32. | |
events of last week and we are in for a a long war of attrition with | :06:33. | :06:40. | |
the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon's strategy will be to foster over lengthy | :06:41. | :06:43. | |
periods of time as much resentment and anger as she can in Scotland and | :06:44. | :06:49. | |
try to create the impression that independence is somehow inevitable. | :06:50. | :06:53. | |
Is Scotland the biggest challenge for Theresa May in the next year or | :06:54. | :06:57. | |
so? I think it probably is because if you look at how relatively easily | :06:58. | :07:01. | |
the Brexit bill went through on an issue where people could hardly feel | :07:02. | :07:05. | |
more passionate in the Commons, and actually despite all the potential | :07:06. | :07:09. | |
drama it has gone through quite smoothly. To go back to your | :07:10. | :07:12. | |
original question, she just carries on. Don't underestimate the basic | :07:13. | :07:17. | |
quiet and will towards Theresa May amongst the majority of Tory | :07:18. | :07:22. | |
backbenchers. Yes, there are difficult little issues over school | :07:23. | :07:26. | |
funding, sorry, it's not a little issue, it is a big one but she will | :07:27. | :07:29. | |
get over that and treat each thing as it comes and keep pressing on. | :07:30. | :07:34. | |
Has she not called Nicola Sturgeon's Bluff in that the First Minister | :07:35. | :07:38. | |
said I want a referendum, here is roughly when I wanted, the Prime | :07:39. | :07:43. | |
Minister says you're not having one. What happens next? She has done | :07:44. | :07:47. | |
quite well and impact the progress Theresa May made this week in | :07:48. | :07:52. | |
frustrating Nicola Sturgeon was evident when Nicola Sturgeon said, | :07:53. | :07:56. | |
OK, maybe we can talk about the timing after. Nicola Sturgeon has | :07:57. | :07:59. | |
already been the first one to blink. I would slightly disagree with | :08:00. | :08:02. | |
Isabel Oakeshott, I don't agree Scotland will be the biggest hurdle | :08:03. | :08:07. | |
for her. What this week showed as is Theresa May... It was a reality | :08:08. | :08:12. | |
bites week. Theresa May is juggling four mammoth crises at the same | :08:13. | :08:15. | |
time, Brexit obviously which I still think will be the biggest challenge | :08:16. | :08:18. | |
to get a good deal, Trump left field who popped up at GCHQ on Friday and | :08:19. | :08:25. | |
Scotland and the fiscal challenge, this enormous great problem, and it | :08:26. | :08:31. | |
reinforced the point this is not an easy time in politics. The budget is | :08:32. | :08:37. | |
over four years. That was one small problem, the immediate problem is | :08:38. | :08:40. | |
how to fill the social care crisis and the ageing demographic. This is | :08:41. | :08:44. | |
not normal times in British politics and Theresa May does not have a | :08:45. | :08:47. | |
normal workload on her plate, hence why I think we will see more | :08:48. | :08:51. | |
mistakes made as time goes on and as she has this almost impossible | :08:52. | :08:56. | |
workload to juggle. How tempted do you think the Prime Minister is to | :08:57. | :08:59. | |
call an early election? There is more chatter about it now. Is she | :09:00. | :09:05. | |
tempted and if there is will she succumb? I will answer that in a | :09:06. | :09:08. | |
second as Harold Wilson used to say. I want to agree, disagree with the | :09:09. | :09:12. | |
rest of the panel about how she has out manipulated Nicola Sturgeon this | :09:13. | :09:15. | |
week. I think Nicola Sturgeon expected Theresa May to say no to | :09:16. | :09:20. | |
her expected timetable. It would be amazing if she had said yes. She | :09:21. | :09:25. | |
expected her to say no but Sturgeon catalyst that will fuel support for | :09:26. | :09:28. | |
her cause. There is no sign of that. The latest poll this morning shows | :09:29. | :09:34. | |
66-44 against independence and only 13% think they would be better off | :09:35. | :09:40. | |
with an independent Scotland and a clear majority do not want a second | :09:41. | :09:44. | |
referendum. But the calculation of resistance from Westminster combined | :09:45. | :09:47. | |
with Brexit which hasn't started yet, I think this is her | :09:48. | :09:51. | |
calculation, she didn't expect Theresa May to say, sure, go ahead, | :09:52. | :09:55. | |
I'm sure she expected Theresa May to say no, you can't have it at your | :09:56. | :09:59. | |
desired timetable. On the wider point, I think Theresa May is in a | :10:00. | :10:04. | |
fascinating position, she is both strong because she faces weak | :10:05. | :10:07. | |
opposition and is ahead in the opinion polls. But faces the most | :10:08. | :10:12. | |
daunting agenda of any Prime Minister for 40 or 50 years, I | :10:13. | :10:17. | |
think. So it's a weird combination. I don't think she wants to call an | :10:18. | :10:20. | |
election. I don't think she has thought about how you would | :10:21. | :10:23. | |
manipulate it, what the trigger would be, and whether she's got the | :10:24. | :10:27. | |
energy and space to prepare for and then mount a campaign was beginning | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
the Brexit negotiation. Now, you could see the cause would be the | :10:34. | :10:38. | |
small majorities that will make her life hellish, which it will do. | :10:39. | :10:41. | |
Whether a landslide would help is another question, they can be | :10:42. | :10:45. | |
difficult too. But I think the problems outweigh the advantages of | :10:46. | :10:50. | |
going early. Do you think she would go for an early election? I don't | :10:51. | :10:53. | |
and I think you have to look at the rhetoric coming out of No 10 which | :10:54. | :10:57. | |
is so firm on this question, it is a delicious prospect for us as | :10:58. | :11:00. | |
commentators to think there might be an election around the corner but | :11:01. | :11:03. | |
they are so firm on this I can't see it happening. I agree, we are in | :11:04. | :11:08. | |
unanimous agreement on this one. It is superficially attractive because | :11:09. | :11:11. | |
she would love the big majority and she would get a lot more through | :11:12. | :11:14. | |
Parliament especially with Brexit. The nitty-gritty of it makes an | :11:15. | :11:18. | |
early General Election this year almost impossible. How do you write | :11:19. | :11:23. | |
a manifesto on high Brexit versus soft Brexit, it opens up a Pandora's | :11:24. | :11:27. | |
box of uncertainties. And there is enough with the European elections. | :11:28. | :11:32. | |
The EU will say are we negotiating with you or the person who may | :11:33. | :11:35. | |
replace you? How do you keep the Tory party united going to an | :11:36. | :11:39. | |
election? How do you call one, with a vote of no confidence in yourself | :11:40. | :11:43. | |
you may end up losing. Easy on paper but difficult in practice. We shall | :11:44. | :11:45. | |
see. So if Theresa May did go | :11:46. | :11:46. | |
for an early election this spring, The party's campaigns | :11:47. | :11:49. | |
and elections chief Andrew Gwynne Andrew Gwynne, the government, as we | :11:50. | :12:00. | |
have just been talking about, executed one of the most | :12:01. | :12:02. | |
embarrassing U-turns in recent history this week. It has been a | :12:03. | :12:06. | |
torrid time for the Theresa May government. Why are the Tories still | :12:07. | :12:10. | |
so chipper? The Labour Party has been on an | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
early election footing since before Christmas and we are preparing | :12:15. | :12:17. | |
ourselves for that eventuality in case that does come. That means that | :12:18. | :12:21. | |
we've got to get ourselves into a position whereby we can not only | :12:22. | :12:26. | |
challenge the government but we can also offer a valuable alternative | :12:27. | :12:32. | |
for the British people to choose from should that election arise. So, | :12:33. | :12:38. | |
would you welcome an early General Election? Well, of course, I don't | :12:39. | :12:41. | |
want this government to be in power so of course if there is an | :12:42. | :12:45. | |
opportunity to put a case to the British people as to why there is a | :12:46. | :12:48. | |
better way, and I believe the Labour way is the better way than of course | :12:49. | :12:54. | |
we would want to put that case to the country. So, would Labour vote | :12:55. | :12:59. | |
in the Commons for an early election? Well, of course as an | :13:00. | :13:03. | |
opposition, not wanting to be in opposition, wanting to be in | :13:04. | :13:07. | |
government should the government put forward a measure in accordance with | :13:08. | :13:10. | |
the Fixed-term Parliaments Act then that's something we would very | :13:11. | :13:14. | |
seriously have to consider. I know you would have to consider it but | :13:15. | :13:18. | |
would you vote for an early election or not? Well, of course we want to | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
be the government so if the current government puts forward measures to | :13:23. | :13:25. | |
bring forward a General Election we would want to put our case to the | :13:26. | :13:29. | |
British public and that's one of the jobs that I've been given, together | :13:30. | :13:34. | |
Labour Party organisation early into a position where we can fight a | :13:35. | :13:38. | |
General Election -- organisationally. For the avoidance | :13:39. | :13:42. | |
of doubt, if the Government work to issue a motion in the Commons for an | :13:43. | :13:47. | |
early election, the Labour Party would vote for an early election? | :13:48. | :13:50. | |
It would be very difficult not, Andrew. If the Government wants to | :13:51. | :13:54. | |
dissolve parliament, wants a General Election, we don't want the Tories | :13:55. | :13:58. | |
in government, we want to be in government and we want to have that | :13:59. | :14:02. | |
opportunity to put that case to the British people. | :14:03. | :14:05. | |
Are you ready for an early election? You say you have been on a war all | :14:06. | :14:13. | |
but since the Labour conference last autumn, but are you ready for one? | :14:14. | :14:16. | |
How big is the election fighting fund? We have substantial amounts of | :14:17. | :14:19. | |
money in our fighting fund, that is true, because not only has the | :14:20. | :14:23. | |
Labour Party managed to eliminate its own financial deficit that it | :14:24. | :14:28. | |
inherited from previous election campaigns, we have also managed to | :14:29. | :14:36. | |
build up a substantial fund in the off chance we have an election. We | :14:37. | :14:41. | |
have also expanded massively operations at Labour HQ, we are | :14:42. | :14:45. | |
taking on additional staff, and one of the jobs that myself and Ian | :14:46. | :14:49. | |
Lavery who I job share with are currently doing is to go around the | :14:50. | :14:53. | |
Parliamentary Labour Party to make sure that Labour colleagues have the | :14:54. | :14:56. | |
support and the resources that they need, should they have to face the | :14:57. | :15:00. | |
electorate in their constituencies. So you are on a war footing, ready | :15:01. | :15:04. | |
for the fight, you say you would vote for the fight, so have you got | :15:05. | :15:08. | |
your tax and spend policies ready to roll out? That is something the | :15:09. | :15:14. | |
shadow Treasury team will be discussing. One of the things is, if | :15:15. | :15:18. | |
there is an early General Election, the normal timetable for these | :15:19. | :15:21. | |
things gets fast-track because our policy decision-making body, its | :15:22. | :15:26. | |
annual conference, we have the national policy forum that creates | :15:27. | :15:31. | |
policies suggestions. You have been on a war footing since the last | :15:32. | :15:35. | |
Labour conference, that is what Mr Corbyn told us. So you must have a | :15:36. | :15:39. | |
fair idea of what policies you would fight an early election on. How much | :15:40. | :15:44. | |
extra per year would you spend on the NHS? Well, look, I'm not going | :15:45. | :15:48. | |
to set out the Labour manifesto for an election that hasn't been called. | :15:49. | :15:52. | |
I'm just asking you about the NHS. You must have a policy for that. We | :15:53. | :15:57. | |
have a policy for the NHS. So how much extra? I will not set out | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
Labour's tax-and-spend policies here on The Sunday Politics when there | :16:03. | :16:05. | |
hasn't even been election called. You said you had been on a war | :16:06. | :16:09. | |
footing and you are prepared to vote for one, so if you can't Tommy that, | :16:10. | :16:15. | |
can you tell me what the corporation rate tax on company profits be under | :16:16. | :16:20. | |
a Labour government -- tell me that. You will have to be patient. I have. | :16:21. | :16:26. | |
And wait for Mrs May to trigger an early election. If there is an | :16:27. | :16:29. | |
election on the 4th of May the rich would have to be issued on the 27th | :16:30. | :16:34. | |
of March, so that's not long to wait. If that date passes we aren't | :16:35. | :16:40. | |
having an election on the 4th of May and the normal timetable for policy | :16:41. | :16:44. | |
development will continue. All right. You lost Copeland, I think | :16:45. | :16:48. | |
you were in charge of a by-election for Labour, your national poll | :16:49. | :16:52. | |
ratings are still dire, even after week of terrible times for the | :16:53. | :16:58. | |
Tories. Sometimes you even lose local government by-elections in | :16:59. | :17:01. | |
safe seats, including in the place you are now, in Salford. How long | :17:02. | :17:06. | |
does Mr Corbyn have to turn this around? Well, look, the issue of the | :17:07. | :17:10. | |
Labour leadership was settled last year. The last thing the Labour | :17:11. | :17:14. | |
Party now needs is another period of introspection with the Labour Party | :17:15. | :17:18. | |
merely talks to the Labour Party. We are now on an election footing in | :17:19. | :17:25. | |
case Mrs May does trigger an early General Election. We need to be | :17:26. | :17:30. | |
talking to the British people are not to ourselves. So any speculation | :17:31. | :17:34. | |
about the Labour leadership might excite you in the media but actually | :17:35. | :17:38. | |
for us in the Labour Party it's about re-engaging and reconnecting | :17:39. | :17:42. | |
with the voters. Rather than being excited, I feel quite daunted at the | :17:43. | :17:46. | |
prospect of an early election. So I wouldn't get that right. Normally, | :17:47. | :17:52. | |
given the number of mistakes this government has made, and its | :17:53. | :17:56. | |
mid-term, you would expect any self-respecting opposition to be | :17:57. | :17:59. | |
about ten points ahead. On the latest polls this morning you are 17 | :18:00. | :18:05. | |
behind. There is a 27-30 point gap from where you should normally be as | :18:06. | :18:09. | |
an opposition. Are you telling me that if that doesn't change, you | :18:10. | :18:13. | |
still fight the General Election with Mr Corbyn? | :18:14. | :18:18. | |
These are matters for the future. I believe the leadership issue was | :18:19. | :18:26. | |
settled last year. We have had two leadership contest in two years. | :18:27. | :18:30. | |
Would you seriously contemplate going into the next election, if it | :18:31. | :18:35. | |
is early I perfectly understand Jeremy Corbyn is your man, but if it | :18:36. | :18:40. | |
is not until 2020, and you are still 17 points behind in the polls, will | :18:41. | :18:45. | |
you go into the next election like that? There is a lot of future | :18:46. | :18:49. | |
looking and speculation there, I don't know what the future holds, | :18:50. | :18:58. | |
where the Labour Party will be in 12 months let alone by 2020 summit | :18:59. | :19:01. | |
cross those bridges when we come to it. My main challenge is to make | :19:02. | :19:04. | |
sure the Labour Party is in the best possible place organisationally to | :19:05. | :19:06. | |
fight an election, that's my challenge and I'm up for that to | :19:07. | :19:09. | |
make sure we are in the best possible place to make sure Labour | :19:10. | :19:17. | |
returns as many Labour MPs as possible. Thank you for joining us. | :19:18. | :19:22. | |
And we're joined now from the Liberal Democrats' spring | :19:23. | :19:24. | |
conference in York by the former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. | :19:25. | :19:26. | |
Good morning. In his conference speech today, Tim Farron lumps | :19:27. | :19:35. | |
Theresa May with Vladimir Putin, Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump. In | :19:36. | :19:41. | |
what way is Mrs May similar to Marine Le Pen? Of course he is not | :19:42. | :19:49. | |
saying Theresa May is identical to Marine Le Pen, I think what Tim | :19:50. | :19:54. | |
Wilby spelling out shortly in his speech is that we need to be aware | :19:55. | :19:58. | |
what's going on in the world, the International settlement that was | :19:59. | :20:05. | |
arrived at after the First World -- Second World War, that bound | :20:06. | :20:11. | |
supranational organisations is under attack from characters as diverse as | :20:12. | :20:16. | |
Vladimir Putin, Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump, and that by side in so | :20:17. | :20:21. | |
ostentatiously with Donald Trump and pursuing this very hard Brexit, | :20:22. | :20:25. | |
Theresa May appears to be giving succour to that much more | :20:26. | :20:30. | |
isolationist chauvinist view of the world than the multilateral approach | :20:31. | :20:33. | |
that Britain has subscribed to for a long time. The exact words he plans | :20:34. | :20:39. | |
to use are welcome to the New World order, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, | :20:40. | :20:48. | |
Marine Le Pen, Theresa May, aggressive and teenage to, anti-EU, | :20:49. | :20:53. | |
nationalistic. In what way is Mrs May fitting into any of that? In | :20:54. | :20:57. | |
what way is she similar to Vladimir Putin? I'm not aware she has | :20:58. | :21:04. | |
interfered with other people's elections. The clue is in the quote | :21:05. | :21:09. | |
you just read out, which is the world order. The world order over | :21:10. | :21:13. | |
the last half century or more, by the way a lesson I'm afraid we have | :21:14. | :21:18. | |
to learn in Europe because of the terrible bloodshed of two world was | :21:19. | :21:22. | |
in the space of a few decades, was based on the idea might is not | :21:23. | :21:27. | |
right. Strong arm leaders cannot throw their weight around. What we | :21:28. | :21:33. | |
have now with Putin, the populism across parts of Europe and Donald | :21:34. | :21:39. | |
Trump who thinks the EU will unravel is a shift to a radically different | :21:40. | :21:45. | |
view of the world. Mrs May doesn't think any of that. She is not | :21:46. | :21:51. | |
antenatal, not anti-EU, she says she wants the EU to succeed. She's not | :21:52. | :21:56. | |
aggressive as far as I'm aware so I'm not sure why you would lump the | :21:57. | :22:00. | |
British Prime Minister in with these other characters. Let me explain, by | :22:01. | :22:06. | |
choosing this uncompromising approach to Brexit, clearly in doing | :22:07. | :22:14. | |
so she, in my view, maybe not yours or others, is pursuing a self | :22:15. | :22:18. | |
harming approach to the United Kingdom but also pulling up the | :22:19. | :22:21. | |
threads that bind the rest of the European Union together, in so | :22:22. | :22:27. | |
ostentatiously siding with Donald Trump, somehow declaring in my view | :22:28. | :22:31. | |
speciously that we can make up with the trade we will lose, she's not | :22:32. | :22:40. | |
challenging the shift to a more chauvinist approach to world affairs | :22:41. | :22:45. | |
that is happening in many places. You are at your party's Spring | :22:46. | :22:50. | |
conference, I think we can agree any Lib Dem come back will take a long | :22:51. | :22:55. | |
time. Would Tory dominance be more effectively challenged by a | :22:56. | :23:00. | |
realignment of the centre and the centre-left? Are you working towards | :23:01. | :23:05. | |
that? I missed half the question but I think you are talking about a | :23:06. | :23:11. | |
realignment. As a cook a way to get over Tory dominance, would you want | :23:12. | :23:15. | |
that to happen? Are you working towards that? My view is the | :23:16. | :23:21. | |
recovery of the Lib Dems will be quicker than you suggest. People | :23:22. | :23:25. | |
often forget that even the low point of our fortunes in the last election | :23:26. | :23:29. | |
we still got a million more votes than the SNP, it's only because we | :23:30. | :23:34. | |
have got this crazy electoral system... But the SNP fight in | :23:35. | :23:42. | |
Scotland, you fight in the whole country! But I'm saying the way | :23:43. | :23:49. | |
seats are allocated overlooks the fact that 2.5 million still voted | :23:50. | :23:57. | |
for us. But my own view is of course there are people feeling | :23:58. | :24:01. | |
increasingly homeless in the liberal wing of the Conservative Party | :24:02. | :24:05. | |
because they are now in a party which is in effect indistinguishable | :24:06. | :24:08. | |
from Ukip on some of the biggest issues of the day, and homeless folk | :24:09. | :24:15. | |
on the rational, reasonable wing of the Labour Party. I would invite | :24:16. | :24:19. | |
them to join the Liberal Democrats and I would invite everyone across | :24:20. | :24:23. | |
parties to talk about the idea is that bind us because the Westminster | :24:24. | :24:28. | |
village can invest a lot of energy building new castles in the sky, | :24:29. | :24:32. | |
inventing new names for parties when actually what you want is for people | :24:33. | :24:36. | |
on the progressive centre ground of British politics to talk about the | :24:37. | :24:47. | |
ideas that unite them, from the dilemmas of artificial intelligence | :24:48. | :24:52. | |
to climate change. Do you think in your own view, can Brexit still be | :24:53. | :24:57. | |
thwarted or is it now a matter of getting the best terms? I think we | :24:58. | :25:05. | |
are in an interlude, almost a calm between two storms, the storm of the | :25:06. | :25:09. | |
referendum itself and the collision between the Government's stated | :25:10. | :25:14. | |
ambitions for Brexit and the reality of having to negotiate something | :25:15. | :25:18. | |
unworkable with 27 other governments. The one thing I can | :25:19. | :25:22. | |
guarantee you is that what the Government has promised to the | :25:23. | :25:33. | |
British people cannot happen. Over a slower period of time we will work | :25:34. | :25:39. | |
out our new relationship with the European Union. Theresa May said she | :25:40. | :25:43. | |
will settle divorce arrangements, and pensions, so one, negotiate new | :25:44. | :25:49. | |
trade agreements, new climate change policies and so on, and have all of | :25:50. | :25:54. | |
that ratified within two years, that will not happen so I think there | :25:55. | :25:58. | |
will be a lot of turbulence in the next couple of years. Will you use | :25:59. | :26:03. | |
this turbulence to try to thwart Brexit, to find a way of rolling | :26:04. | :26:10. | |
back the decision? It's not about repeating the debates of the past or | :26:11. | :26:14. | |
thwarting the will of the people but it is comparing what people were | :26:15. | :26:19. | |
promised from the ?350 million for the NHS every week through to this | :26:20. | :26:25. | |
glittering array of new trade agreements we will sign across the | :26:26. | :26:29. | |
world, with the reality that will transpire in the next couple of | :26:30. | :26:33. | |
years and at that point, yes it is my belief people should be able to | :26:34. | :26:37. | |
take a second look at if that is what they really want. A couple of | :26:38. | :26:42. | |
quick questions, would you welcome an early general election? I always | :26:43. | :26:50. | |
welcome them, we couldn't do worse than we did last time. That is | :26:51. | :26:56. | |
certainly true. You have a column in the Evening Standard, have you | :26:57. | :26:58. | |
spoken to the new editor about whether he will keep your column or | :26:59. | :27:05. | |
spike it? No, I wait in nervous anticipation. Can you be a newspaper | :27:06. | :27:12. | |
editor in the morning and an MP in the afternoon? Do I think that's | :27:13. | :27:20. | |
feasible? Sorry, I missed a bit. There is no prohibition, no law | :27:21. | :27:26. | |
against MPs being editors. They have been in the past and no doubt will | :27:27. | :27:30. | |
again in the future. He is taking a lot on, he is an editor, also | :27:31. | :27:37. | |
wanting to be an MP, a jetsetting academic in the States, working in | :27:38. | :27:41. | |
the city, I suspect something will give. It seems to me even by his | :27:42. | :27:47. | |
self-confidence standards in his own abilities I suspect he is taking on | :27:48. | :27:52. | |
a little bit too much. Very diplomatic, Mr Clegg, I'm sure you | :27:53. | :27:56. | |
will get to keep the column. Thanks for joining us. | :27:57. | :28:00. | |
Now, for the last six months England's NHS bosses have been | :28:01. | :28:03. | |
warning the health service needs more money to help it meet | :28:04. | :28:06. | |
But in his first Budget, the Chancellor offered | :28:07. | :28:08. | |
no immediate relief, and today the head of | :28:09. | :28:10. | |
the organisation representing England's NHS trusts says hundreds | :28:11. | :28:12. | |
of thousands of patients will have to wait longer for both emergency | :28:13. | :28:15. | |
care and planned operations, unless the Government | :28:16. | :28:17. | |
Warnings over funding are not exactly new. | :28:18. | :28:24. | |
Back in 2014 the head of the NHS in England, Simon Stevens, | :28:25. | :28:27. | |
published his plan for the future of the health service. | :28:28. | :28:32. | |
In his five-year forward view, Stevens said the NHS in England | :28:33. | :28:35. | |
would face a funding shortfall of up to ?30 billion by 2020. | :28:36. | :28:38. | |
To bridge that gap he said the NHS would need more money | :28:39. | :28:41. | |
from the Government, at least ?8 billion extra, | :28:42. | :28:44. | |
and that the health service could account for the rest by making | :28:45. | :28:47. | |
The Government says it's given the health service more than what it | :28:48. | :28:55. | |
asked for, and that NHS in England will have received | :28:56. | :28:57. | |
That number is disputed by NHS managers and the chair | :28:58. | :29:02. | |
of Parliament's health committee, who say the figure is more | :29:03. | :29:05. | |
like ?4.5 billion, while other parts of the health and social care budget | :29:06. | :29:08. | |
have been cut, putting pressure on the front line. | :29:09. | :29:14. | |
Last year, two thirds of NHS trusts in England finished | :29:15. | :29:17. | |
the year in the red, and despite emergency bailouts | :29:18. | :29:19. | |
from the Government, the NHS is likely to record | :29:20. | :29:21. | |
Meanwhile national targets on waiting times for A | :29:22. | :29:27. | |
departments, diagnostic tests, and operations are being | :29:28. | :29:29. | |
This month's Budget provided ?2 billion for social care | :29:30. | :29:37. | |
but there was no new cash for the NHS, leading trusts to warn | :29:38. | :29:41. | |
that patient care is beginning to suffer, and what is being asked | :29:42. | :29:43. | |
And I'm joined now by the Chief Executive of NHS | :29:44. | :29:49. | |
Providers in England, Chris Hopson. | :29:50. | :29:54. | |
Welcome to the programme. Morning, Andrew. I will come onto the extra | :29:55. | :30:01. | |
money you need to do your job properly in a minute but first, part | :30:02. | :30:06. | |
of the deal was you had to make 22 billion in efficiency savings, not a | :30:07. | :30:10. | |
bank that money but spend it on patient care, the front line, and so | :30:11. | :30:15. | |
on. How is that going? So, last parliament we realised around 18 | :30:16. | :30:18. | |
billion of productivity and efficiency savings, we are realising | :30:19. | :30:22. | |
more this year so we are on course to realise 3 billion this year, that | :30:23. | :30:26. | |
is a quarter of a billion more than last year but all of us in the NHS | :30:27. | :30:31. | |
knew the 22 billion would be a very stretching target and we are | :30:32. | :30:35. | |
somewhat inevitably falling short. So it is 22 billion by 2,020. | :30:36. | :30:41. | |
Roughly. That was the time. We are now into 2017. So how much of the 22 | :30:42. | :30:50. | |
billion have you achieved? We realised around 3 billion last year | :30:51. | :30:55. | |
and we will realise 3 billion this year, Court of billion more, 3.25 | :30:56. | :31:00. | |
billion this year, so we are on course for 18-19,000,000,000. By the | :31:01. | :31:05. | |
2021 period? You are not that far away. The problem is the degree to | :31:06. | :31:09. | |
which demand is going up. We have record demand over the winter period | :31:10. | :31:14. | |
and that actually meant we have seen more people than we have ever seen | :31:15. | :31:18. | |
before but performance is still under real pressure. Let me come | :31:19. | :31:23. | |
onto that. When you agreed on the 22 billion efficiency savings plus some | :31:24. | :31:27. | |
extra money from the government, I know there is a bit of an argument | :31:28. | :31:32. | |
about how much that is actually worth, had you not factored in this | :31:33. | :31:37. | |
extra demand that you saw coming over the next three or four years? | :31:38. | :31:40. | |
Let's be very clear committee referred to Simon Stevens's forward | :31:41. | :31:46. | |
view and we signed up to it but the 22 billion was a process run at the | :31:47. | :31:49. | |
centre of government by the Department of Health with its arms | :31:50. | :31:52. | |
length bodies, NHS England and others and is not something that was | :31:53. | :31:56. | |
consulted on with the NHS. But you signed up to it. We always said that | :31:57. | :32:01. | |
the day that that Spending Review was announced, the idea that the NHS | :32:02. | :32:06. | |
where customer demand goes up something like four or 5% every | :32:07. | :32:10. | |
year, the idea that in the middle years of Parliament we would be able | :32:11. | :32:13. | |
to provide the same level of service when we were only getting funding | :32:14. | :32:20. | |
increases of 1.3%, 0.4% and 0.7%, and I can show you the press release | :32:21. | :32:24. | |
we issued, we always said there was going to be a gap and that we would | :32:25. | :32:29. | |
not be able to deliver what was required. The full 22 billion in | :32:30. | :32:35. | |
other words? What we said to Simon Stevens at the Public Accounts | :32:36. | :32:38. | |
Committee a few months ago, the NHS didn't get what it was asked for. | :32:39. | :32:43. | |
Today the NHS, cope with the resources it has according to you. | :32:44. | :32:50. | |
How much more does it need? Are reported is about 2017-18 and we | :32:51. | :32:53. | |
estimate that what we are being asked to do, and again, Andrew, you | :32:54. | :32:57. | |
clearly set it out in the package, we are a long way off the four-hour | :32:58. | :33:02. | |
A target and a long way off the 92%. The waiting times and | :33:03. | :33:07. | |
operations. How much more do you need? And we are making up a ?900 | :33:08. | :33:11. | |
million deficit. If you take all of those into account we estimate you | :33:12. | :33:16. | |
would need an extra ?3.5 billion next year in order to deliver all of | :33:17. | :33:20. | |
those targets and eliminate the deficit. That would be 3.5 billion | :33:21. | :33:24. | |
on top of what is already planned next year and that would be 3.5 | :33:25. | :33:29. | |
billion repeated in the years to come too? Yes, Andrew it is | :33:30. | :33:32. | |
important we should make an important distinction about the NHS | :33:33. | :33:37. | |
versus other public services. When the last government, the last Labour | :33:38. | :33:41. | |
government put extra money into the NHS it clearly said that in return | :33:42. | :33:45. | |
for that it would establish some standards in the NHS Constitution, | :33:46. | :33:49. | |
the 95% A target we have talked about and the 92% elective surgery | :33:50. | :33:54. | |
we have talked about. The trust we represent are very clear, they would | :33:55. | :33:58. | |
want to realise those standards, but you can only do it if you pay for | :33:59. | :34:01. | |
it. The problem is at the moment is we are in the longest and deepest | :34:02. | :34:06. | |
financial squeeze in NHS history. As we have said, funding is only going | :34:07. | :34:10. | |
up by 1% per year but every year just to stand still cost and demand | :34:11. | :34:16. | |
go up by more than 4%. There is clearly a demand for more money. I | :34:17. | :34:21. | |
think people watching this programme will think probably the NHS is going | :34:22. | :34:24. | |
to have to get more money to meet the goals you have been given. I | :34:25. | :34:29. | |
think they would also like to be sure that your Mac running the NHS | :34:30. | :34:33. | |
as efficiently as it could be. We read this morning that trusts have | :34:34. | :34:37. | |
got ?100 million of empty properties that cost 10 million to maintain, 36 | :34:38. | :34:42. | |
office blocks are not being used, you have surplus land equivalent to | :34:43. | :34:47. | |
1800 football pitches. Yes, there are a number of things that we know | :34:48. | :34:52. | |
in the NHS we need to do better but let me remind you, Andrew, in the | :34:53. | :34:57. | |
last Parliament we realised ?18 billion worth of cost improvement | :34:58. | :35:00. | |
gains. We are going to realise another 3 billion this year, 0.25 | :35:01. | :35:07. | |
billion more than last year so these things are being targeted. But | :35:08. | :35:11. | |
having that surplus land, it is almost certainly in areas where | :35:12. | :35:14. | |
there is a demand for housing. Absolutely. So why not release it | :35:15. | :35:20. | |
for housing? You get the money, the people get their houses and its | :35:21. | :35:24. | |
contribution and a signal that you are running NHS assets as | :35:25. | :35:28. | |
efficiently as you can? Tell me if I'm going to too much detail for | :35:29. | :35:33. | |
you. One of the reasons as to why our trusts are reluctant to realise | :35:34. | :35:37. | |
those land sales is because there is an assumption that the money would | :35:38. | :35:41. | |
go back to the Treasury and wouldn't benefit NHS trusts. You could make a | :35:42. | :35:45. | |
deal, couldn't you? That's part of the conversation going on at the | :35:46. | :35:48. | |
moment. The issue is that we would want to ensure that if we do release | :35:49. | :35:53. | |
land, quite rightly the benefit, particularly in foundation trusts | :35:54. | :36:05. | |
which are, as you will remember, deliberately autonomous | :36:06. | :36:06. | |
organisations, that they should keep the benefit of those land sales. | :36:07. | :36:09. | |
Have you raised that with the government? | :36:10. | :36:09. | |
Yes we have. What did they say? They are in discussions of it. We heard | :36:10. | :36:21. | |
somebody who moved from one job and then to another job and given a big | :36:22. | :36:26. | |
salary and then almost ?200,000 as a payoff. There is a national mood for | :36:27. | :36:31. | |
the NHS to get more money. But before you give anybody any more | :36:32. | :36:34. | |
money you want to be sure that the money you have got already is being | :36:35. | :36:37. | |
properly spent, which for us, is the patient at the end of the day. And | :36:38. | :36:42. | |
yet there seem to be these enormous salaries and payoffs. I've worked in | :36:43. | :36:50. | |
a FTSE 100 on the board of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and I | :36:51. | :36:52. | |
have worked in large organisations. I can look you completely straight | :36:53. | :36:55. | |
in the eye and tell you that the jobs that our hospital, community, | :36:56. | :36:58. | |
mental health and ambulance chief Executives do are amongst the most | :36:59. | :37:01. | |
complicated leadership roles I have ever seen. It doesn't seem to me to | :37:02. | :37:06. | |
be unreasonable that in order to get the right quality of people we | :37:07. | :37:09. | |
should pay an appropriate salary. The reality is the salaries are paid | :37:10. | :37:13. | |
are not excessive when talking about managing budgets of over ?1 billion | :37:14. | :37:18. | |
a year and talking about managing tens of thousands of staff. There | :37:19. | :37:26. | |
was a doctor working as a locum that earned an extra ?375,000. One of the | :37:27. | :37:29. | |
problems in the NHS is a mismatch between the number of staff we need | :37:30. | :37:33. | |
and the number of staff coming through the pipeline. What is having | :37:34. | :37:36. | |
to happen is if you want to keep a service going you have to use Mackem | :37:37. | :37:41. | |
and agency staff. Even at that cost? You would not want to pay those | :37:42. | :37:47. | |
amounts. But you are. The chief Executives's choice in those areas | :37:48. | :37:51. | |
is giving the service open or employing a locum. I'm sure you | :37:52. | :37:56. | |
could find a locum prepared to work for less than that. What indication, | :37:57. | :37:59. | |
what hopes do you have of getting the extra ?3 billion? The government | :38:00. | :38:05. | |
has been very clear, for the moment it wants to stick to the existing | :38:06. | :38:09. | |
funding settlement it has agreed. So there was nothing in the budget. Can | :38:10. | :38:13. | |
I finish by making one important point. Please, finish. This is the | :38:14. | :38:19. | |
first time the NHS has said before the year has even started that we | :38:20. | :38:24. | |
can't deliver on those standards. We believe, as do most people who work | :38:25. | :38:29. | |
in the NHS, that the NHS is on a gradual slow decline. This is a very | :38:30. | :38:33. | |
important inflection point to Mark, this is the first time before the | :38:34. | :38:36. | |
financial year starts that we say we cannot meet the targets we are being | :38:37. | :38:41. | |
asked to deliver and are in the NHS Constitution. We have run out of | :38:42. | :38:44. | |
time. Chris Hopson, thank you for being with me. | :38:45. | :38:46. | |
It's just gone 11:35am, you're watching the Sunday Politics. | :38:47. | :38:48. | |
We say goodbye to viewers in Scotland who leave us now | :38:49. | :38:50. | |
Hello, you're watching the Sunday politics | :38:51. | :39:00. | |
Hello, you're watching the Sunday Politics | :39:01. | :39:05. | |
Coming up today: We ask, is air pollution now a bigger threat | :39:06. | :39:09. | |
We meet the father who is convinced pollution contributed | :39:10. | :39:12. | |
My son was a statistic and now I believe it was due to, | :39:13. | :39:17. | |
in part or mostly to do with pollution in this | :39:18. | :39:19. | |
And we meet the campaigners who are fighting to put | :39:20. | :39:27. | |
brain tumours at the top of the cancer funding queue. | :39:28. | :39:38. | |
We are joined today by Natalie Bennett, the former | :39:39. | :39:40. | |
leader of the Green Party, the Green candidate | :39:41. | :39:42. | |
in the Sheffield Central parliamentary constituency. | :39:43. | :39:48. | |
And by Graham Stuart, Conservative MP for Beverley and Holderness. | :39:49. | :39:50. | |
And also by Paula Sherriff, Labour MP for Dewsbury. | :39:51. | :39:53. | |
3,000 people living in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire are expected to die | :39:54. | :39:56. | |
One charity involved in campaigning for more intervention says it's | :39:57. | :40:01. | |
Richard Edwards has been to meet a man who took to politics | :40:02. | :40:08. | |
after being convinced that his baby son died because of air pollution | :40:09. | :40:11. | |
Muzafa Rahman was born just a few streets away from one | :40:12. | :40:18. | |
Each day, thousands of vehicles use these roads and Muzafa is convinced | :40:19. | :40:24. | |
the pollution left behind is to blame for the early | :40:25. | :40:27. | |
My son, who was 15 months old, when he was a baby I was working | :40:28. | :40:33. | |
in Meadowhall and I would often take him in his pram | :40:34. | :40:37. | |
and on a nice day's walk through the subways, | :40:38. | :40:41. | |
through the link, around this beautiful roundabout | :40:42. | :40:44. | |
where the greenery is, not knowing that I was exposing him | :40:45. | :40:47. | |
to a great disease that would eventually take his life. | :40:48. | :40:53. | |
I'm convinced that the virus he contracted through | :40:54. | :40:55. | |
the failure of his heart was related to pollution. | :40:56. | :41:02. | |
Cameron died in 1990, when research into casualties from air pollution | :41:03. | :41:05. | |
But 27 years on, there are official concerns. | :41:06. | :41:11. | |
Just two months ago, the government's Highways England | :41:12. | :41:13. | |
began looking at cutting speed limits on the M1, which in turn it | :41:14. | :41:16. | |
And it's not just a problem in South Yorkshire. | :41:17. | :41:22. | |
Today, few people would deny that pollution is an issue. | :41:23. | :41:25. | |
This is an air-quality management area in Leeds, | :41:26. | :41:28. | |
a place where the problem is so bad, the council is taking urgent | :41:29. | :41:31. | |
A study suggests that 700 people will lose their lives | :41:32. | :41:37. | |
this year alone in Leeds from breathing dirty air. | :41:38. | :41:41. | |
Separate research shows that in just one year, | :41:42. | :41:43. | |
3,000 people across our region died after breathing dirty air. | :41:44. | :41:49. | |
Environmental charity Global Action Plan says the risk | :41:50. | :42:02. | |
to our health from breathing polluted air is huge. | :42:03. | :42:05. | |
We understand that air pollution is a significant risk to public | :42:06. | :42:08. | |
And we know that the equivalent figure in terms of deaths is around | :42:09. | :42:14. | |
40,000 equivalent deaths per year as the overall impact of air | :42:15. | :42:16. | |
In this city of Wakefield, official figures show 178 people | :42:17. | :42:24. | |
died prematurely in just one year from breathing polluted air. | :42:25. | :42:30. | |
It's a concern for the city's MP, who also happens to chair | :42:31. | :42:32. | |
the powerful parliamentary committee that looks at the environment. | :42:33. | :42:36. | |
We're worried about the threat to public health from Britain's | :42:37. | :42:38. | |
We think the government's actions have been too little and too late. | :42:39. | :42:46. | |
They have had an air pollution plan which has been deemed illegal | :42:47. | :42:49. | |
We're waiting for April to see what their new plan is going to be. | :42:50. | :42:55. | |
They have failed to produce an emissions reductions strategy | :42:56. | :42:58. | |
to look at how we deal with this issue across society. | :42:59. | :43:03. | |
There are emissions coming out of construction sites | :43:04. | :43:05. | |
and from all sorts of other areas as well as cars and vans. | :43:06. | :43:09. | |
And the problem is not confined to urban areas. | :43:10. | :43:12. | |
This is semirural Pool in Wharfedale, where pollution | :43:13. | :43:16. | |
levels in the main street are so high, the council is taking | :43:17. | :43:19. | |
I have an inhaler because I suffer with asthma. | :43:20. | :43:23. | |
I've actually started using it a lot more since we've moved back to Pool. | :43:24. | :43:27. | |
He's still only nine and it's not a daily struggle, | :43:28. | :43:31. | |
but I'd like to know how pollution would affect that type of disease | :43:32. | :43:34. | |
Contacted by the Sunday Politics, the government's department | :43:35. | :43:41. | |
for environment says it's spent more than ?2 billion since 2011 | :43:42. | :43:45. | |
to encourage people to use greener transport and is committed | :43:46. | :43:49. | |
to spending another ?290 million to support electric cars | :43:50. | :43:53. | |
If you want to know more about pollution and how to reduce | :43:54. | :44:01. | |
it, check out the BBC website, where there are lots of articles | :44:02. | :44:04. | |
and films following our recent So I Can Breathe campaign. | :44:05. | :44:09. | |
Natalie Bennett, short of banning cars and making us walk everywhere, | :44:10. | :44:12. | |
how do you reduce the health risks from pollution? | :44:13. | :44:16. | |
There's a whole range of measures we can take and that starts | :44:17. | :44:18. | |
That means we've got to really look at encouraging support in things | :44:19. | :44:24. | |
In the Sheffield Green Party, we had a measure in our Budget | :44:25. | :44:30. | |
which sadly didn't go through that would have helped encourage | :44:31. | :44:32. | |
and support taxi drivers, independent business people, | :44:33. | :44:35. | |
But we've also got to reduce the amount of transport. | :44:36. | :44:42. | |
That means not saying to people you can't use your car, | :44:43. | :44:45. | |
it means saying to people there's a wonderful walking and cycling | :44:46. | :44:48. | |
route over there, it means saying to people there's great public | :44:49. | :44:50. | |
transport that's affordable, convenient, reliable. | :44:51. | :44:54. | |
Make that offer to people, people will use that and that | :44:55. | :44:57. | |
will naturally reduce our congestion to the benefit of all of us. | :44:58. | :45:00. | |
Graham Stuart, many of our cities, including Sheffield, Leeds and Hull, | :45:01. | :45:02. | |
have dangerous levels of air pollution. | :45:03. | :45:04. | |
Do you think the government is taking it seriously enough? | :45:05. | :45:07. | |
I think the government, successive governments | :45:08. | :45:09. | |
There is going to be a new plan coming out on April 24 and that | :45:10. | :45:15. | |
The government doesn't have an emission reduction scheme. | :45:16. | :45:23. | |
As I say, we're going to see the next version of the plan, | :45:24. | :45:27. | |
the one that was struck down before, in April. | :45:28. | :45:29. | |
The good news is, if you look back over history, the number | :45:30. | :45:36. | |
of emissions has actually come down massively. | :45:37. | :45:39. | |
We're much better than we used to be and the government has signed | :45:40. | :45:42. | |
up to something called the Gothenburg Protocol, which | :45:43. | :45:44. | |
Actually, it means that by 2020, legally, we'll be obliged | :45:45. | :45:51. | |
to bring our emissions down and even further by 2030. | :45:52. | :45:54. | |
But a lot more needs to be done and the government | :45:55. | :45:56. | |
I agree entirely with the key points Natalie made. | :45:57. | :46:00. | |
It is worth saying the government has been forced into the position | :46:01. | :46:03. | |
It's taken legal action by an NGO to force the government into action | :46:04. | :46:09. | |
We live in a largely industrial region. | :46:10. | :46:15. | |
People need their cars and their vans to get to work. | :46:16. | :46:19. | |
We need much more than warm words from the government. | :46:20. | :46:24. | |
38 out of the 43 directives have actually been failed at the moment. | :46:25. | :46:28. | |
A High Court judge recently described the Defra plan | :46:29. | :46:31. | |
We'll wait to see what comes in April, but I think we need to be | :46:32. | :46:36. | |
looking at measures, including what Natalie alluded | :46:37. | :46:38. | |
to around using public transport and incentivising scrappage schemes | :46:39. | :46:40. | |
for older vehicles and diesel vehicles. | :46:41. | :46:45. | |
Also lifestyle factors including encouraging people | :46:46. | :46:48. | |
when they are sitting outside schools to ensure their | :46:49. | :46:51. | |
There is a direct correlation between air pollution | :46:52. | :46:55. | |
One road in Brixton in London has already surpassed its pollution | :46:56. | :47:01. | |
target for the year within the first five days of 2017. | :47:02. | :47:09. | |
No more warm words from the government, we need some action | :47:10. | :47:12. | |
The Transport Secretary, Chris Grayling, recently said, | :47:13. | :47:17. | |
surprising a lot of people, that people should take | :47:18. | :47:19. | |
a long, hard think before buying a diesel vehicle. | :47:20. | :47:21. | |
Do you think diesel vehicles should be banned? | :47:22. | :47:26. | |
I think what we need to do is move towards electric vehicles. | :47:27. | :47:32. | |
The problem is we have a huge problem with | :47:33. | :47:34. | |
One of the things we need to focus on, that we haven't seen | :47:35. | :47:38. | |
enough discussion of, is the fact that air | :47:39. | :47:40. | |
pollution within a vehicle is about twice as bad | :47:41. | :47:42. | |
People tend to focus on walkers and cyclists being exposed | :47:43. | :47:46. | |
to this air pollution, but on average it's about twice | :47:47. | :47:49. | |
This is a real issue of industrial safety. | :47:50. | :47:53. | |
We think of all those taxi drivers who spend their working life sitting | :47:54. | :47:56. | |
We have people exposed, van drivers, it's very much in their health | :47:57. | :48:03. | |
Governments have been telling us for years, in recent years, | :48:04. | :48:10. | |
that diesels are better for the environment. | :48:11. | :48:13. | |
Now the current government says don't buy diesels! | :48:14. | :48:17. | |
It was the last Labour government, unfortunately from the scientific | :48:18. | :48:20. | |
advice they had at the time, who encouraged the sale of diesels. | :48:21. | :48:23. | |
You can understand why consumers are feeling that on the one hand | :48:24. | :48:26. | |
you tell me to buy one, the next minute you tell me I'm | :48:27. | :48:29. | |
One positive note, as this is a Yorkshire programme. | :48:30. | :48:33. | |
In the East Riding of Yorkshire, when I spoke to the council today, | :48:34. | :48:36. | |
across the East Riding, which is a very large council area, | :48:37. | :48:39. | |
there are no particular blackspots at the moment. | :48:40. | :48:43. | |
The air is pretty clean across the East Riding. | :48:44. | :48:46. | |
The big problem remains in our urban areas and that's why | :48:47. | :48:49. | |
the government is piloting, across five cities, including Leeds, | :48:50. | :48:52. | |
having special areas to encourage and get the vehicles | :48:53. | :48:54. | |
Finally on this, a lot of big cities are bringing in clean air zones. | :48:55. | :49:04. | |
Would you like to see restrictions in somewhere like Dewsbury | :49:05. | :49:08. | |
where older polluting vehicles would be banned from the town? | :49:09. | :49:10. | |
There's a couple of areas in my constituency that come to mind | :49:11. | :49:15. | |
straightaway where this is a huge problem. | :49:16. | :49:17. | |
In terms of diesel vehicles, I don't think it would be problematic to say | :49:18. | :49:25. | |
In terms of diesel vehicles, I don't think it would be pragmatic to say | :49:26. | :49:29. | |
we are going to stop all diesel vehicles from tomorrow, | :49:30. | :49:31. | |
but if we gradually try and phase them out, plus the older vehicles | :49:32. | :49:34. | |
Let's get some more of the week's political news now. | :49:35. | :49:38. | |
Trudy has our round-up in 60 seconds. | :49:39. | :49:44. | |
West Yorkshire's Yvette Cooper led the charge on the government's | :49:45. | :49:47. | |
U-turn over national insurance and suggested another U-turn | :49:48. | :49:49. | |
The Prime Minister has just done a ?2 million Budget U-turn | :49:50. | :49:57. | |
The Prime Minister has just done a ?2 billion Budget U-turn | :49:58. | :50:00. | |
Is that why they want to abolish spring Budgets, because they just | :50:01. | :50:04. | |
Ripping up and starting again is what the Orgreave campaigners | :50:05. | :50:08. | |
They protested outside her office to demonstrate the fact. | :50:09. | :50:11. | |
They want her to change her mind and hold a public | :50:12. | :50:14. | |
inquiry into the so-called Battle of Orgreave. | :50:15. | :50:16. | |
Scarborough MP and Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill | :50:17. | :50:18. | |
was involved in a skirmish when the government pledge to reduce | :50:19. | :50:21. | |
immigration came under fire from Neil Parish, | :50:22. | :50:25. | |
the Conservative chair of the Environment, Food | :50:26. | :50:26. | |
Never in our lifetime, Robert was told. | :50:27. | :50:32. | |
And the 2015 battlebus tour lead to a fine for the Conservatives | :50:33. | :50:35. | |
Lincoln's MP, Karl McCartney, says he acted honestly and is cooperating | :50:36. | :50:40. | |
Let me ask Graham Stuart on that, how worried are you? | :50:41. | :50:49. | |
You could see your fellow Conservative MPs in the dock | :50:50. | :50:52. | |
and effectively elections being rerun over this so-called | :50:53. | :50:53. | |
Let's be clear, no Conservative MP, or Labour or Liberal Democrat | :50:54. | :51:00. | |
When they are, it might be a different matter. | :51:01. | :51:07. | |
There have been breaches by each of the major political parties. | :51:08. | :51:10. | |
It's obviously a serious issue and we need to ensure, | :51:11. | :51:15. | |
for public confidence, that compliance with the rules | :51:16. | :51:19. | |
is absolute and that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. | :51:20. | :51:23. | |
The Electoral Commission did fine the Conservative Party | :51:24. | :51:25. | |
There does need to be a clearer distinction about how much can be | :51:26. | :51:29. | |
spent on local election campaigns and how much can be | :51:30. | :51:32. | |
Every party has historically taken its national buses and put it | :51:33. | :51:36. | |
It's led to the situation where they say you should be | :51:37. | :51:44. | |
The rules are a little unclear and while accepting the criticism, | :51:45. | :51:50. | |
as I know the Conservative Party does, it's also said that greater | :51:51. | :51:53. | |
clarity on the rules to make sure that it's easy to follow | :51:54. | :51:56. | |
for everybody concerned would be the right approach. | :51:57. | :51:58. | |
What's been the story of the week for you, Natalie Bennett? | :51:59. | :52:01. | |
Probably looking at the general state of disarray of | :52:02. | :52:03. | |
The national insurance backdown, which was a huge step | :52:04. | :52:07. | |
for a Chancellor to turn around and disavow something he'd said less | :52:08. | :52:10. | |
We've got a government with a tiny majority that really doesn't | :52:11. | :52:15. | |
It won the support of 24% of eligible voters at the last | :52:16. | :52:20. | |
election on a manifesto that assumed we would stay part of the EU. | :52:21. | :52:23. | |
We really are in a state of turmoil and, desperately | :52:24. | :52:26. | |
for democracy in Britain, we need an election. | :52:27. | :52:29. | |
How would you sum up the political week? | :52:30. | :52:31. | |
We've obviously seen the significant U-turn of the government's flagship | :52:32. | :52:37. | |
Budget policy that lasted just a week. | :52:38. | :52:38. | |
I thought you were talking about Jeremy Corbyn's response! | :52:39. | :52:41. | |
I thought you were going to join everyone else | :52:42. | :52:44. | |
I'm talking about the fact that you do appear to be | :52:45. | :52:48. | |
We've seen access to the single market has gone. | :52:49. | :52:51. | |
I've just found out that my constituency is the second | :52:52. | :52:53. | |
worst in the country, on schools policy, in terms | :52:54. | :52:56. | |
of the budgets that have been cut for schools. | :52:57. | :52:58. | |
Schools are telling me they are having to let staff go, | :52:59. | :53:02. | |
This is going to have a huge legacy problem for our children. | :53:03. | :53:09. | |
On the schools funding, there is potential for | :53:10. | :53:11. | |
The government has consulted on the new funding formula. | :53:12. | :53:20. | |
At a time of constraint, it's very difficult to do redistribution. | :53:21. | :53:23. | |
That is going ahead and I expect the government to go | :53:24. | :53:26. | |
through with that and ensure that those areas which have been | :53:27. | :53:29. | |
historically underfunded get a fairer share of the cake. | :53:30. | :53:33. | |
In my area, which is one of the lowest funded | :53:34. | :53:35. | |
in the whole country, 40 out of 50 schools | :53:36. | :53:37. | |
?7 million a year extra will go to local schools | :53:38. | :53:41. | |
in Beverley and Holderness and across the East Riding | :53:42. | :53:43. | |
In my area, 50 out of 50 schools will lose out. | :53:44. | :53:49. | |
David Cameron explicitly said in your 2015 manifesto that real | :53:50. | :53:52. | |
terms funding would be protected for schools. | :53:53. | :53:57. | |
How do you explain how 50 out of 50 schools in my constituency | :53:58. | :54:00. | |
Because it's about the overall budget and I think you would agree, | :54:01. | :54:06. | |
as someone who campaigns for fairness, that it's | :54:07. | :54:08. | |
about taking a finite budget, albeit one that is protected, | :54:09. | :54:12. | |
and making sure it's fairly distributed across the country. | :54:13. | :54:15. | |
There was no way the existing formula was fair. | :54:16. | :54:18. | |
It was broken, it saw areas like Barnsley, | :54:19. | :54:20. | |
one of the worst funded in the whole country. | :54:21. | :54:23. | |
Some parts of London could be ?1,500 per pupil | :54:24. | :54:25. | |
separate when they are a few hundred yards apart. | :54:26. | :54:27. | |
The thing was broken, that was a legacy of the Labour | :54:28. | :54:29. | |
government and this government is right and courageous, | :54:30. | :54:31. | |
it's politically difficult, to come forward and say no, | :54:32. | :54:34. | |
we've got to treat every child the same, we have to give | :54:35. | :54:36. | |
That's the centre of all our educational policy. | :54:37. | :54:40. | |
What would you say to my teachers who are saying to me we cannot run | :54:41. | :54:43. | |
the school with the proposed funding we are due to receive? | :54:44. | :54:47. | |
If you have historically been overfunded compared to areas | :54:48. | :54:51. | |
like East Yorkshire, if that is what is behind | :54:52. | :54:54. | |
the changes, I would say unless we have a magic money tree, | :54:55. | :54:56. | |
and I know Jeremy Corbyn does but nobody else does... | :54:57. | :55:02. | |
We are still spending more on the interest on the debt | :55:03. | :55:04. | |
That is a huge debate and we'll have to come back to it another time. | :55:05. | :55:15. | |
This week, the Commons Speaker John Bercow hosted a reception, | :55:16. | :55:17. | |
the latest in his long association with the brain tumour research | :55:18. | :55:20. | |
charity, which is campaigning for better funding to help | :55:21. | :55:22. | |
the hundreds of people diagnosed every year. | :55:23. | :55:24. | |
It's claimed the disease kills more people under 40 | :55:25. | :55:29. | |
than any other cancer, but gets just 1% of the funding. | :55:30. | :55:34. | |
Len Tingle has been to meet two women, one from Lincolnshire, | :55:35. | :55:37. | |
one from Yorkshire, who say it's time for change. | :55:38. | :55:42. | |
research into brain tumours and has research into brain tumours and has | :55:43. | :55:49. | |
written a book on the subject. It's a remarkable achievement. In 2008, | :55:50. | :55:55. | |
she herself was diagnosed with a tumour and was given a maximum of | :55:56. | :55:59. | |
three years to live. On good days like today I'm pretty much OK. | :56:00. | :56:04. | |
Sometimes people wouldn't even know. On bad days I can't even get out of | :56:05. | :56:10. | |
bed. I have chronic migraines. It paralyse is the right hand side of | :56:11. | :56:17. | |
my body. If I'm tired or stressed. I try to keep my trust levels down and | :56:18. | :56:23. | |
get regular rest. Now in her six years since diagnosis, she has had | :56:24. | :56:28. | |
extensive brain surgery, chemotherapy and is constantly in | :56:29. | :56:32. | |
and out of hospital. That manages the condition, but she knows there | :56:33. | :56:38. | |
is no cure. I'm lucky. I'm not too disabled, but some people are very | :56:39. | :56:42. | |
disabled. They lose speech, mobility. It takes 30 years from | :56:43. | :56:49. | |
their quality-of-life. There needs to be more research into treatment. | :56:50. | :56:57. | |
We need to speed it up. A lot of us won't be around for years down the | :56:58. | :57:03. | |
line. In a recent report to MPs, the charity brain tumour research said | :57:04. | :57:08. | |
since 2002 there's been a 13% increase in the number of tumours | :57:09. | :57:12. | |
diagnosed in the UK. In the same period just 1% of funding for all | :57:13. | :57:17. | |
counts of research is devoted to brain tumours. That's been noticed | :57:18. | :57:23. | |
in Leeds. This is one of the UK's leading research centres, partially | :57:24. | :57:29. | |
funded by Macmillan, the NHS and the Leeds teaching hospitals trust. | :57:30. | :57:32. | |
There are big contributions from surgeons. People are trying across | :57:33. | :57:39. | |
the world to study brain cancer and the underlying causes and trying to | :57:40. | :57:44. | |
work out why they keep coming back. The reality is we need more research | :57:45. | :57:49. | |
and that requires more funding. What brain tumour research hasn't | :57:50. | :57:53. | |
attracted in the same way that breast cancers have over the last | :57:54. | :57:59. | |
ten to 15 years is big injections of funding for powering research and | :58:00. | :58:03. | |
bettering our understanding. Lisa also has an inoperable tumour. Last | :58:04. | :58:08. | |
week she travelled from her home in Baildon to join other patients and | :58:09. | :58:13. | |
their families lobbying government for more research funding. She says | :58:14. | :58:19. | |
for many time is running out. I've lost lots of friends I've met | :58:20. | :58:22. | |
through this process with brain tumours. We are like a little gang. | :58:23. | :58:28. | |
We keep losing people. We need something to come fast. These | :58:29. | :58:36. | |
patients want a chilling -- an improvement in a chilling statistic | :58:37. | :58:40. | |
they all confront everyday. Brain tumours are now the biggest cause of | :58:41. | :58:46. | |
death in cancer sufferers under the age of 40. | :58:47. | :58:49. | |
Emotive issue. Let me ask you to react to that statistic that brain | :58:50. | :58:53. | |
tumours kill more people under 40 than any other cancer but attract | :58:54. | :58:58. | |
just 1% of funding of research. It's shocking that only 1% of the funding | :58:59. | :59:04. | |
goes to brain tumours. It is right that we have to rely on charities to | :59:05. | :59:14. | |
find that money. There's a five-year-old boy in my constituency | :59:15. | :59:17. | |
who is sadly suffering from a rare, inoperable brain tumour. The family | :59:18. | :59:20. | |
are fundraising to look at alternative forms of treatment. It's | :59:21. | :59:25. | |
very, very worrying. Brain tumours need more funding. I welcome charity | :59:26. | :59:37. | |
donations. Absolutely. Nearly 1.5 billion is spent on cancer research | :59:38. | :59:41. | |
from people giving. They put it into cancer research and it makes a | :59:42. | :59:45. | |
difference. The piece shows the argument why a greater level of | :59:46. | :59:49. | |
funding could go to brain tumours. We have to say well done to Fiona | :59:50. | :59:53. | |
and Lisa and people battling for their own health while also | :59:54. | :59:57. | |
struggling and campaigning. We need from the government and evidence | :59:58. | :00:01. | |
-based allocation of money. The money should go according to the | :00:02. | :00:06. | |
level of need. You all have massive health issues in the areas you | :00:07. | :00:11. | |
represent. Give as one example of the state of the NHS in the areas | :00:12. | :00:17. | |
you represent. In my area they are downgrading to use hospital and | :00:18. | :00:22. | |
there is a proposal to close Huddersfield A It would leave the | :00:23. | :00:27. | |
population of Kirklees without a comprehensive A People would have | :00:28. | :00:33. | |
to travel. The A around that area aren't coping. We are seeing 12 hour | :00:34. | :00:37. | |
trolley waits, people waiting just to be seen, people treated in | :00:38. | :00:44. | |
corridors, waiting rooms. It's in crisis. I worked in the NHS for 13 | :00:45. | :00:50. | |
years before I was an MP and I still often speak to health professionals, | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
people on the front line of the NHS, and they tell me it's a crisis | :00:55. | :00:58. | |
point. You have a number of minor injury units closing in your | :00:59. | :01:03. | |
constituency. The overall picture is with the ?10 billion extra. Isn't | :01:04. | :01:09. | |
that. Funding is declining in real terms. The budget is going up by ?10 | :01:10. | :01:16. | |
billion and specifically the Labour Party refused to match it. Demand is | :01:17. | :01:21. | |
growing even faster, putting pressure on services. The NHS has | :01:22. | :01:25. | |
never delivered better outcomes. Last word to Natalie Bennett. This | :01:26. | :01:32. | |
government is planning to spend 6.6% of GDP on health care by 2020. | :01:33. | :01:39. | |
France and Germany spend 11%. We spend 30% less than Germany does | :01:40. | :01:43. | |
now. There's not enough money in the NHS. The other problem is | :01:44. | :01:48. | |
privatisation of the NHS. A lot of issues. Thank you for your thoughts. | :01:49. | :01:52. | |
We shall now had you back you both. Say goodbye. Goodbye. Back | :01:53. | :01:55. | |
to you. So, can George Osborne stay | :01:56. | :02:01. | |
on as a member of Parliament Will Conservative backbenchers force | :02:02. | :02:04. | |
a Government re-think And is Theresa May about to cap gas | :02:05. | :02:08. | |
and electricity prices? Whose idea was that first of all? | :02:09. | :02:22. | |
They are all questions for the Week Ahead to. | :02:23. | :02:27. | |
Let's start with the story that is too much fun to miss, on Friday it | :02:28. | :02:32. | |
was announced the former Chancellor would be the new editor of London's | :02:33. | :02:36. | |
Evening Standard newspaper, a position he will take up in mid-May | :02:37. | :02:43. | |
on a salary of ?200,000 for four days a week. | :02:44. | :02:48. | |
But Mr Osborne has said he will not be stepping down as MP | :02:49. | :02:51. | |
for Tatton in Cheshire, a job he's held since 2001, | :02:52. | :02:53. | |
Alongside these duties, he's also chairman of | :02:54. | :02:56. | |
While being committed to one day a week at Black Rock, | :02:57. | :03:02. | |
an American asset management firm - a part-time role that earns him | :03:03. | :03:05. | |
Then he's polishing his academic credentials, as a fellow | :03:06. | :03:10. | |
at the McCain Institute, an American thinktank, | :03:11. | :03:12. | |
And finally as a member of the Washington Speaker's Bureau, | :03:13. | :03:20. | |
he also earns his keep as an after-dinner speaker, banking | :03:21. | :03:26. | |
around ?750,000 since last summer. | :03:27. | :03:31. | |
So there you go. Nice little earners if you can get them. The problem, | :03:32. | :03:40. | |
though, is he has put second jobs on the agenda and lots of his fellow | :03:41. | :03:44. | |
MPs are not happy because they have got second jobs but not making that | :03:45. | :03:49. | |
kind of money. No, and a lot of MPs on both sides actually are unhappy | :03:50. | :03:53. | |
about it exactly for those reasons. I find it a very interesting | :03:54. | :03:58. | |
appointment. We have got these people on the centre and centre | :03:59. | :04:02. | |
right of politics who have been used to power since 1997, they have been | :04:03. | :04:06. | |
on the airwaves today, Tony Blair, Nick Clegg, George Osborne, and they | :04:07. | :04:11. | |
are all seeking other platforms now because power has moved elsewhere. | :04:12. | :04:16. | |
So Tony Blair is setting up this new foundation, Nick Clegg refused to | :04:17. | :04:19. | |
condemn George Osborne, Tony Blair praised the appointment. They are | :04:20. | :04:26. | |
all searching for new platforms. They might have overestimated the | :04:27. | :04:29. | |
degree to which this will be a huge influential platform. The standard | :04:30. | :04:35. | |
was very pro-Tory at the 2015 election but London voted Labour, it | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
was pro-Zac Goldsmith but they elected Sadiq Khan. It might be | :04:41. | :04:43. | |
overestimating the degree to which this is a hugely influential paper. | :04:44. | :04:49. | |
But I can see why it attracts him as a platform when all these platforms | :04:50. | :04:54. | |
have disappeared, eg power and government. All of these people who | :04:55. | :05:00. | |
used to be in power are quietly getting together again, Mr Blair on | :05:01. | :05:04. | |
television this morning, George Osborne not only filling his bank | :05:05. | :05:07. | |
account but now in charge of London's most important newspaper, | :05:08. | :05:13. | |
Nick Clegg out today not saying Brexit was a done deal, waiting to | :05:14. | :05:18. | |
see what happens, even John Major was wheeled out again today in the | :05:19. | :05:22. | |
Mail on Sunday. They are all playing for position. I half expect David | :05:23. | :05:26. | |
Cameron to turn up as features editor on The Evening Standard. | :05:27. | :05:33. | |
Brexit and breakfast! With Mr Clegg, did he not? I do not think this is | :05:34. | :05:38. | |
sustainable for George Osborne, I worked at The Evening Standard and I | :05:39. | :05:41. | |
was there for three years, I know what the hours are like for a humble | :05:42. | :05:45. | |
journalist, never mind the editor. If he thinks he can get at 4am | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
everyday to be in the offices at 5am to oversee the splash, manage | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
everything in the way and edited should he is in cloud cuckoo land. | :05:55. | :05:58. | |
What this says to people is there is a kind of feel of soft corruption | :05:59. | :06:02. | |
about public life here, where you see what you can get away with. He | :06:03. | :06:06. | |
thinks he can brazen this out and maybe he can but what kind of | :06:07. | :06:10. | |
message does that send to people about how seriously people take the | :06:11. | :06:15. | |
role of being an MP? He must have known. He applied for the job. The | :06:16. | :06:20. | |
Russian owner didn't approach him, he approached Lebedev, the | :06:21. | :06:25. | |
proprietor, for it. He must have calculated there would be some | :06:26. | :06:29. | |
kickback. I wonder if he realised there would be quite the kickback | :06:30. | :06:33. | |
there has been. I think that's probably right. This hasn't finished | :06:34. | :06:37. | |
yet, by the way, this will go on and on. How on earth does George Osborne | :06:38. | :06:42. | |
cover the budget in the autumn? Big budget, lots of physical changes and | :06:43. | :06:46. | |
tax rises to deal with the messages out of this week. You can see | :06:47. | :06:51. | |
already, Theresa May budget crashes. It could be worse. She's useless! | :06:52. | :06:58. | |
Or, worse than that, me, brilliant budget, terrible newspaper, I've | :06:59. | :07:03. | |
never buying it again. He has hoisted his own petard. He has not | :07:04. | :07:07. | |
bought it properly through. It's a something interesting about his own | :07:08. | :07:13. | |
future calculations, if he wants to stay on as an MP in 2020 and be | :07:14. | :07:17. | |
Prime Minister as he has or was wanted to be he has got to find a | :07:18. | :07:21. | |
new seat. How do you go into an association and say I should be an | :07:22. | :07:24. | |
MP, I can do it for at least four hours Purdy after editing The | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
Evening Standard, making a big speech and telling Black Rock how to | :07:30. | :07:36. | |
make a big profit. The feature pages have to be approved for the next day | :07:37. | :07:40. | |
and feature pages are aware the editor gets to make their mark. The | :07:41. | :07:44. | |
news is the news. The feature is what concerns you, what he is in | :07:45. | :07:49. | |
your bonnet. That defines the newspaper, doesn't it? It is not | :07:50. | :07:55. | |
over yet. Too much 101 on newspapers. And Haatheq at. | :07:56. | :08:02. | |
School funding, the consultation period ends, it has been a tricky | :08:03. | :08:08. | |
one for the government, some areas losing. I guess we are seeing this | :08:09. | :08:14. | |
through the prism of the National Insurance contributions now, it is a | :08:15. | :08:19. | |
small majority, if Tory MPs are unhappy she may not get her way. | :08:20. | :08:24. | |
Talking to backbench MPs who are unhappy the feeling is it is not | :08:25. | :08:28. | |
going to go ahead in the proposed form that the consultation has been | :08:29. | :08:34. | |
on. No 10 will definitely have to move on this. It is unclear whether | :08:35. | :08:38. | |
they will scrap it completely, or will they bring in something | :08:39. | :08:41. | |
possibly like a base level, floor level pupil funding below which you | :08:42. | :08:47. | |
can't go? You would then still need to find some extra money. So there | :08:48. | :08:51. | |
are no easy solutions on this but what is clear it is not going to go | :08:52. | :08:55. | |
ahead in its current form. Parents have been getting letters across the | :08:56. | :08:58. | |
country in England about what this will mean for teachers and so on in | :08:59. | :09:04. | |
certain schools. It's not just a matter of the education Department, | :09:05. | :09:08. | |
the schools, or the teachers and Tory backbenchers. Parents are being | :09:09. | :09:13. | |
mobilised on this. The point of the new funding formula is to allocate | :09:14. | :09:16. | |
more money to the more disadvantaged. That means schools in | :09:17. | :09:21. | |
the more prosperous suburbs are going to lose money. Budget cuts on | :09:22. | :09:24. | |
schools which are already struggling. It comes down again to | :09:25. | :09:28. | |
be huge problem, the ever smaller fiscal pool, ever greater demands, | :09:29. | :09:34. | |
NHS, social care, education as well, adding to Theresa May and Phillip | :09:35. | :09:37. | |
Hammond's enormous problems. Here is an interesting issue, Steve. There | :09:38. | :09:42. | |
was a labour Leader of the Opposition that once suggested | :09:43. | :09:47. | |
perhaps given these huge energy companies which seemed to be good at | :09:48. | :09:51. | |
passing on energy rises but not so good at cutting energy prices when | :09:52. | :09:54. | |
it falls, that perhaps we should put a cap on them until at least we | :09:55. | :09:59. | |
study how the market goes. This was obviously ludicrous Marxism and | :10:00. | :10:04. | |
quite rightly knocked down by the Conservatives, except that Mrs May | :10:05. | :10:09. | |
is now talking about putting a cap on energy prices. Yes, I think if it | :10:10. | :10:13. | |
wasn't for Brexit we would focus much more on Theresa May's Ed | :10:14. | :10:18. | |
Miliband streak. Whether this translates into policies, let us | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
see. That bit we don't know. That bit we don't know but in terms of | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
argument her speech to the Conservative conference on Friday | :10:27. | :10:29. | |
was about the third or fourth time where she said as part of the | :10:30. | :10:35. | |
speech, let's focus on the good that government can do, including in | :10:36. | :10:38. | |
intervening in markets, exactly in the way that he used to argue. As | :10:39. | :10:43. | |
you say, we await the policy consequences of that. She seems more | :10:44. | :10:47. | |
cautious in terms of policy in fermentation. But in terms of the | :10:48. | :10:52. | |
industrial strategy, in terms of implying intervention in certain | :10:53. | :10:55. | |
markets, there is a kind of Milibandesque streak. And there | :10:56. | :10:59. | |
comes a time when she has to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. | :11:00. | :11:05. | |
They talk a lot about the just about managing, just about managing face | :11:06. | :11:10. | |
rising food bills because of the lower pound and face rising fuel | :11:11. | :11:14. | |
bills because of the rise in oil and in other commodities. One of the two | :11:15. | :11:21. | |
things you could do to help the just about managing is to cut their food | :11:22. | :11:24. | |
bills and the second would be to cut their fuel bills. At some stage she | :11:25. | :11:28. | |
has to do something for them. We don't know what is going to happen | :11:29. | :11:31. | |
to food bills under Brexit, that could become a really serious issue. | :11:32. | :11:35. | |
They could abolish tariffs. There has been a lot of talking the talk | :11:36. | :11:39. | |
and big announcements put out and not following through so I agree | :11:40. | :11:42. | |
with you on that but lots of Tory MPs will have a big problem on | :11:43. | :11:56. | |
this and the principle of continually talking about | :11:57. | :11:59. | |
interfering in markets, whether it's on executive pay, whether it is on | :12:00. | :12:01. | |
energy, at a time when Britain needs to send out this message to the | :12:02. | :12:04. | |
world in their view, in the view of Brexit supporting MPs, that we are | :12:05. | :12:07. | |
open for business and the government is not about poking around and doing | :12:08. | :12:10. | |
this kind of thing. Of course, you could argue there is not a problem | :12:11. | :12:13. | |
in the market for energy, it is a malfunctioning market that doesn't | :12:14. | :12:15. | |
operate like a free market should, so that provides even Adam Smith, | :12:16. | :12:18. | |
the inventor of market economics would have said on that basis you | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
should intervene. I was in Cardiff to listen to Theresa May's latest | :12:23. | :12:26. | |
explanation for doing this. By the way, we've been waiting nine months, | :12:27. | :12:30. | |
this was one of her big ideas. You are right, let's see a bit of the | :12:31. | :12:34. | |
meat, please. My newspaper has been calling for some pretty hefty | :12:35. | :12:38. | |
government action on this for quite some time. For the just about | :12:39. | :12:43. | |
managings? Yes and specifically to sort out an energy market dominated | :12:44. | :12:47. | |
by the big six, which is manifestly ripping people off left, right and | :12:48. | :12:51. | |
centre. Theresa May's argument in Cardiff on Friday morning which, by | :12:52. | :12:55. | |
the way, went down like a proverbial windbreak at the proverbial funeral | :12:56. | :13:00. | |
because Tories... You know what I mean Andrew, the big hand coming | :13:01. | :13:04. | |
into from the state telling businesses what to do. They went | :13:05. | :13:08. | |
very quiet indeed. They were having saving the union and Nato but there | :13:09. | :13:12. | |
was no clapping for that. The point being, this is what she needs to do | :13:13. | :13:16. | |
to prove her assault, to prove those first words on the steps of Downing | :13:17. | :13:21. | |
Street. We await to see the actions taken. | :13:22. | :13:23. | |
On that unusual agreement we will leave it there. The Daily Politics | :13:24. | :13:31. | |
will be back on BBC Two tomorrow at noon and everyday during the week. | :13:32. | :13:34. | |
And I'll be here on BBC One next Sunday at 11am. | :13:35. | :13:36. | |
Remember, if it's Sunday, it's the Sunday Politics. | :13:37. | :14:20. | |
I've not given myself that time to sit down | :14:21. | :14:26. | |
Two years ago, former England captain Rio Ferdinand lost his wife | :14:27. | :14:30. |