:00:27. > :00:32.Afternoon, folks, and welcome to the Daily Politics. The government
:00:32. > :00:36.welcomes proposals to reform the banking system, but will changes
:00:36. > :00:41.damage the UK economy? The union's call for co-ordinated strikes over
:00:41. > :00:46.cuts to pensions. As the TUC conference begins today, we will
:00:46. > :00:50.hear from the general secretary. And it is musical chairs as 50
:00:50. > :01:00.parliamentary seats are abolished. MPs prepare to fight their
:01:00. > :01:02.
:01:02. > :01:08.That should be quite a fight, I bet! All of that in the next half-
:01:08. > :01:11.hour, and with us for the duration is former ambassador to the S --
:01:11. > :01:17.the US, Sir Christopher Meyer. The Prime Minister is on a whistle-stop
:01:17. > :01:20.visit to Russia. Later today he will meet Kremlin leaders,
:01:20. > :01:24.including his counterpart Vladimir Putin. It is the first meeting
:01:24. > :01:29.between Mr Putin and the British prime minister since the murder of
:01:29. > :01:34.Alexander Litvinenko in London, a killing blamed by Britain on the
:01:34. > :01:37.Russian security services. David Cameron has been urged by four
:01:37. > :01:40.former foreign secretaries in yesterday's newspapers to raise the
:01:40. > :01:45.issues of corruption and human rights when he meets the Russian
:01:45. > :01:50.Prime Minister. Both were mentioned in a speech at Moscow State
:01:50. > :01:57.University this morning, when Mr Cameron also called for greater co-
:01:57. > :02:00.operation between the two countries. We face a choice. We can settle for
:02:00. > :02:05.the status quo, where into many areas we are in danger of working
:02:05. > :02:11.against each other and therefore both losing out, or we can take
:02:11. > :02:17.another path that is open to us, to co-operate, to work together and
:02:17. > :02:27.therefore both women. Today I want to make the case that the mess...
:02:27. > :02:30.
:02:30. > :02:33.Let me try this again, carefully, Like me, the Prime Minister did
:02:33. > :02:36.economics at university and not languages, which I think is quite
:02:36. > :02:40.apparent with both of us. Can we talk tough to the Russians and
:02:40. > :02:46.expect to do more trade with them? We can expect to do both, and we
:02:46. > :02:51.should do both. You were in the Russian embassy. I was there in the
:02:51. > :02:56.1960s, the depths of the Cold War, and I went back in the 1980s, still
:02:56. > :03:02.Brezhnev, hanging on by a thread. He died while I was there. They all
:03:02. > :03:06.died in a row. Do you remember the phenomenon of funeral diplomacy?
:03:06. > :03:11.Everybody went out to the funerals of these chaps, and it turned into
:03:11. > :03:15.a huge international meeting. Communist or Putin-Medvedev Ciara,
:03:15. > :03:20.you have to be very strong in dealing with the Russians. I kind
:03:20. > :03:24.of agree with that letter which was signed by the four former foreign
:03:24. > :03:27.secretaries in the Sunday Times. is a tough balancing act. The
:03:27. > :03:33.Russians are notoriously sniffy about the British when we criticise
:03:33. > :03:37.them. Many people will wonder, given recent events in Libya,
:03:37. > :03:42.should we be asked to do business with what many people think is a
:03:42. > :03:47.gangster state? If you only do business with that country's, you
:03:47. > :03:50.end up doing very little business at all. That is one of the
:03:50. > :03:54.realities. But the Russian foreign minister called for the British to
:03:54. > :03:57.take a pragmatic approach to relations with Russia, forget all
:03:57. > :04:02.the human rights staff, but it is difficult to be pragmatic if there
:04:02. > :04:07.is not a proper rule of law, including contract law, for British
:04:07. > :04:14.businesses who invest. Cameron must press the tough but in here.
:04:14. > :04:18.would you categorise Anglo-Russian relations? This is the first time a
:04:18. > :04:23.British Prime Minister has been in Russia since 2005, and they have
:04:23. > :04:29.not been cosy in recent years. I mean, Tony Blair tried to create
:04:29. > :04:32.a cosy relationship with Putin, and it existed at a verbal level.
:04:32. > :04:36.tried to have a cosy relationship with everybody. It did not add up
:04:36. > :04:42.to very much with Russia, that he sure as hell. Looter gave him a
:04:42. > :04:45.kicking. President Assad did the same thing. I had a very great head
:04:45. > :04:50.of department in the Foreign Office when I was dealing with Russia, who
:04:50. > :04:53.said to me that the natural condition of relations with Russia
:04:54. > :04:58.is a cool one, and I think that is true. I think it is true today,
:04:58. > :05:02.whether it is a capitalist Russia or communist Russia. Very
:05:02. > :05:06.interesting, good to have your expertise for the rest of the show.
:05:06. > :05:10.How do you prevent a repeat of the financial meltdown of 2008? That is
:05:10. > :05:13.the question put to John Vickers and his Independent Commission on
:05:13. > :05:17.Banking. He has been thinking about it for more than a year. Their
:05:17. > :05:21.final report is published this morning. It is expected that the
:05:21. > :05:26.report recommends that the UK banks ring-fence their retail banking
:05:26. > :05:31.from the rest of their business. Above all, the riskier investment
:05:31. > :05:35.operations. And that they increase the amount they keep in capital,
:05:35. > :05:39.sort of in the bank as a buffer against future shocks. The Vickers
:05:39. > :05:45.report says that all this will cost the banks. It does not shy away
:05:45. > :05:50.from this, between �4 billion-7 billion, and he was the reforms to
:05:50. > :05:55.be in place by 2019 at the latest. That is read international changes
:05:55. > :05:59.come into banking regulation, too. That means that much political
:05:59. > :06:02.wrangling lies ahead. Banks and many Tory MPs will be lobbying
:06:02. > :06:07.George Osborne for a slower pace of reform, while senior Liberal
:06:07. > :06:13.Democrats have made it clear they want to see the changes pushed
:06:13. > :06:18.through. This is what the Chancellor said this morning.
:06:18. > :06:23.have a commitment now to legislate to get the rules in place while
:06:23. > :06:26.this government and this Parliament is sitting, and then it will take
:06:26. > :06:30.some time for the four rules to come into effect, but that is what
:06:30. > :06:33.John Vickers himself recommends. I think that gets the balance right
:06:33. > :06:38.between showing everybody we are doing it whilst giving everyone
:06:38. > :06:43.time to digest the details and put the changes in place. I enjoyed by
:06:43. > :06:45.David Ruffley, Conservative MP and a member of the Treasury Select
:06:45. > :06:49.Committee, and by the Liberal Democrats former Treasury spokesman,
:06:49. > :06:55.often regarded as the voice of Vince Cable on this earth, Matthew
:06:55. > :07:00.Oakeshott. Let me get this straight, a good or bad thing? Overall, good.
:07:00. > :07:03.Bankers need sorting out. Two problems, is is going to increase
:07:03. > :07:07.the amount of corporate lending to businesses? That is the big
:07:07. > :07:11.question. With the higher cost of capital, it looks like it will be
:07:11. > :07:14.more difficult. The second thing is that his regime is the first of its
:07:14. > :07:18.kind in the western hemisphere. It has never been tried before, and we
:07:18. > :07:21.have to work out whether, if Britain moves first, we are going
:07:21. > :07:27.to be at a disadvantage compared with France, Germany and the Far
:07:27. > :07:31.East. He is sounds like it is good with serious caveats. Those are two
:07:31. > :07:35.powerful question marks, but the thrust is good. Good or bad? Very
:07:35. > :07:39.good. John Vickers has issued a strong prescription, and now we
:07:39. > :07:44.have to make the banks take their medicine. Bank lending could not be
:07:44. > :07:49.worse for businesses than it is now, so we absolutely must have reform
:07:49. > :07:52.and radical reform as he has come out and recommended. Why are we the
:07:52. > :07:55.only ones doing it? No other country has been down this road.
:07:56. > :08:03.Other countries are thinking about it. We have to do it because our
:08:03. > :08:10.back crash was worse than others. Our Paul banks are four times
:08:10. > :08:12.bigger in the economy. -- -- our banks. We have a monopolistic
:08:12. > :08:17.sector were the only four big players. People are not getting
:08:17. > :08:21.proper competition. We have to do it. The things that they have done
:08:21. > :08:24.in East Asia, loan-to-value restrictions, restrictions are the
:08:24. > :08:28.amount of loans you can get proportionate to your income, that
:08:28. > :08:32.is what the Far East and East Asian countries have done. That is
:08:32. > :08:35.without the rather radical regime which is going to push at the cost
:08:35. > :08:38.of capital, which means people going for mortgages and small
:08:38. > :08:43.businesses, in the short run at least, will see an increase in
:08:43. > :08:49.their costs. No other country is doing it. Under the Basel III
:08:49. > :08:53.arrangements which will come into force, it will up the capital
:08:53. > :08:58.requirements anyway. Even without the reforms! That is true, but it
:08:58. > :09:06.is coming over a period of time. is this. These capital requirements,
:09:06. > :09:10.capital adequacy requirements are higher, and though, than Basel III.
:09:10. > :09:13.A much better way, many of us think, is to go in lockstep with the other
:09:13. > :09:18.countries over the next five years so that we are not an outlier.
:09:18. > :09:24.we wait for this, we will be waiting a long time. We have got
:09:24. > :09:28.far bigger immediate problems. This is the British, the first item in
:09:28. > :09:33.the coalition agreement, which we both signed. I do not think he
:09:33. > :09:36.signed it! It is to reform our broken banking system and sort out
:09:36. > :09:42.unacceptable bonuses. We have an immediate problem that we cannot
:09:42. > :09:45.leave until then. You could do bonus legislation... The important
:09:45. > :09:50.thing is to get the structure sorted out now so that the banks
:09:50. > :09:53.never bring the British economy to its knees again. The timetable in a
:09:53. > :09:59.minute, but maybe the reason we need tougher rules is that the
:09:59. > :10:02.American banking system, which went into meltdown along with ours, its
:10:02. > :10:09.combined balance sheets only account for about 60% of American
:10:09. > :10:15.GDP. The combined balance sheets are banks account for 400%! It is a
:10:15. > :10:20.lot more. For that very reason, don't you need tougher rules?
:10:20. > :10:24.think there are ways that you can sort out the problem. The disgrace
:10:24. > :10:30.of bankers being paid for a year, that is obscene, we all understand
:10:30. > :10:34.that. It is still going on. How do stoppered by regulation? You have
:10:34. > :10:37.to break it up so the gambling people are not running the main
:10:37. > :10:43.bank. There are good things in this independent report which tackle
:10:43. > :10:48.that, but the key question must be, financial services are big in this
:10:48. > :10:52.country, and they pay for a lot of public programmes, and it was a
:10:52. > :10:56.cash cow which has done this country very well. Now, and not a
:10:56. > :11:01.defender of Bankers... You are doing quite a good job. I am
:11:01. > :11:04.defending what I consider the national interest. Why should we be
:11:04. > :11:09.an outlier when the rest of Europe, although it has different problems,
:11:09. > :11:14.why should we be implementing Basel III before we have to? That brings
:11:14. > :11:18.me on to the timetable. Bankers have served this country well, we
:11:18. > :11:24.are all sitting here... Not in a last few years, we are sitting here
:11:24. > :11:27.with a �2,000 tax bill each for bailing out banks. It used to
:11:27. > :11:32.account for 25% of revenues and paid for the increases in spending
:11:32. > :11:37.on schools and hospitals that your party called for. It used to, but
:11:37. > :11:39.as the commissioner said this morning, what we have had to put in
:11:39. > :11:43.to bail out RBS would have paid for our universities for five years. We
:11:43. > :11:47.need proper regulation and a proper insurance policies so it never
:11:47. > :11:50.happens again. What is the timetable as far as you are
:11:50. > :11:54.concerned? We need to get on with legislation as soon as possible.
:11:55. > :12:00.Obviously, the exact rate at which he pays in the capital requirements
:12:00. > :12:04.is fine. Vickers is saying that the backstop date is 2019, but he is
:12:04. > :12:08.clearly saying that we want to make a start as soon as possible. I
:12:08. > :12:12.believe the obvious place to see as much of this as we can kiss in the
:12:12. > :12:16.Financial Services Bill next year. It has got an expert committee
:12:16. > :12:19.which already looks good to me. You cannot do financial regulation
:12:19. > :12:26.without including the banks, show we should start next year of the
:12:26. > :12:29.legislation. When you say next year, it is a big deal. Exactly when?
:12:29. > :12:35.Financial Services Bill is waiting to go. Obviously, there is time
:12:35. > :12:39.to... It does not include any of this. It is already quite big.
:12:39. > :12:43.telling you the point. When Vickers has been clever is that the smoke
:12:43. > :12:47.out objections in the interim. We have 100 pages here are because
:12:47. > :12:53.dealing with the bank's' objections, sorting that out. That job has been
:12:53. > :12:57.done. We do not need the bankers rattling their begging bowls.
:12:57. > :13:00.agree with you. My plea is simply this. The broad thrust is fine, but
:13:00. > :13:05.we should not get ahead of our international banking competitors
:13:05. > :13:09.in Europe and elsewhere. If we do, there is a threat to London and all
:13:09. > :13:16.the revenue that it breaks -- brings into this country. Where are
:13:16. > :13:20.you honest? Wearing my tiny hat as a philosopher-historian, I look
:13:20. > :13:24.back to 1933 and see the introduction in the United States
:13:24. > :13:29.of the Act which is not an exact parallel... It actually separated
:13:29. > :13:34.rather than ring fence. You cannot be a retail bank and an investment
:13:34. > :13:38.bank until Mr Clinton said he could. 60 years later, the wheel turns and
:13:38. > :13:42.Mr Clinton says that you can do these things. Here we are in the
:13:42. > :13:46.United Kingdom, contemplating an Act of Parliament which may well be
:13:46. > :13:51.right, which will restore some of these restrictions. The question I
:13:51. > :13:55.ask is whether 60 years from now, someone will pop up and say, the
:13:55. > :14:00.banks are terribly restricted in the business they can do, let's
:14:00. > :14:03.undo some of the stitches. thing is for sure, unless there is
:14:03. > :14:10.an amazing breakthrough in science, we will not be here to talk about
:14:10. > :14:18.it. At small businesses cannot wait 16 months, never mind 60 years!
:14:18. > :14:25.the purposes of this, we will call it roughly-no shot. That is roughly
:14:25. > :14:29.better! Traditionally, this would be the week when journalists like
:14:29. > :14:33.myself would pack our bags for four weeks at the British seaside. I am
:14:33. > :14:38.still doing it for three, but in the old days, when dinosaurs ruled
:14:38. > :14:42.the earth, it all kicked off with the Trade Union Congress conference,
:14:42. > :14:46.the TUC conference, and in these austere times the TUC does not go
:14:46. > :14:51.anywhere. They're holding a scaled- down conference in their HQ in
:14:51. > :14:53.London. A bit of a pity, really, but there is nothing scaled-down
:14:53. > :14:59.about the gender with several trade unions threatening co-ordinated
:14:59. > :15:05.industrial action this autumn over reforms to public sector pensions
:15:05. > :15:10.and the cuts in general. And joined now, it used to be from Blackpool,
:15:10. > :15:15.Brighton or Bournemouth, but from the conference, by the TUC general
:15:15. > :15:24.secretary, Brendan Barber, in downtown London! Does the TUC
:15:24. > :15:27.Some of the my colleagues have been talking of that as part of the
:15:27. > :15:32.campaigning that will be done in the coming period. We've seen some
:15:32. > :15:36.examples of that in recent times, of course, things like UK un cut's
:15:36. > :15:41.protest to highlight the issue of tax avoidance, the billions that
:15:41. > :15:47.the rich aren't paying into the tax system, which they should be. So,
:15:47. > :15:56.that might be a part of the mix. Will it be TUC policy? Last year,
:15:56. > :16:01.you told us that civil disobedience would be counterproductive. I think
:16:01. > :16:06.we're always careful to think threw these things. Of course, our
:16:06. > :16:09.objective is to win broad public support for the powerful case that
:16:09. > :16:14.we're making for a very different approach to running our economy, an
:16:14. > :16:18.approach that delivers fairness, that gets people back to work, that
:16:18. > :16:23.gets growth moving again. That case will be more powerful the more
:16:23. > :16:28.we're able to demonstrate we have broad based public support. Do you?
:16:28. > :16:33.If you had broad-based public support, why have you lost half of
:16:33. > :16:40.your membership in 30 years? Only 15% of people in the private sector
:16:40. > :16:49.are unionised. Less than 20% of 18- 29-year-olds are in unions. I mean,
:16:49. > :16:52.you are quite seriously declining institution. Well, we certainly did
:16:52. > :16:56.lose membership, in particular over the long period of Conservative
:16:56. > :17:03.Government. Very much less so over the period of Labour Government
:17:03. > :17:08.that we had. It still fell. Look, I absolutely acknowledge that our
:17:08. > :17:13.membership has not kept pace with the changing shape of the labour
:17:13. > :17:18.market. We're determined to tackle that problem. We have to reach out
:17:18. > :17:23.in new ways for sure. But look, it's only a few months ago that
:17:23. > :17:27.over half a million people came out onto the streets of London to show
:17:27. > :17:30.powerful broad-based support, not just trade unionists, people from
:17:30. > :17:34.every section of the community, powerful support for our case for
:17:34. > :17:37.an alternative. We need to build on that and to take our campaign into
:17:37. > :17:41.every community in the country. That's what we're determined to do.
:17:41. > :17:45.There is clearly in the country serious concern about the impact of
:17:45. > :17:50.the cuts. Many people in the public sector are worried about the impact
:17:50. > :17:55.of changes on their pensions too. You don't have to be on the extreme
:17:56. > :17:59.left or anywhere else to be worried about these things, but isn't there
:17:59. > :18:05.a danger of your case being put, so many of today's trade union leaders
:18:05. > :18:10.are on the far left, on the extreme, they're hard line, way on the left,
:18:10. > :18:16.tot left of the Labour Party. Why are they so left-wing in the 21st
:18:16. > :18:21.century and doesn't that undermine your case? I don't recognise that
:18:21. > :18:28.description that you give of the current generation of union leaders.
:18:28. > :18:33.Bob crow, Mark sn serwotka, Christine Blower. Yeah, but Andrew,
:18:33. > :18:38.the trade union movement has always had powerful perplts as you well
:18:38. > :18:45.know. Look, I mean, we are all facing the gravest crisis that our
:18:45. > :18:50.economy has endured for generations. That banking crash in 2008, the
:18:50. > :18:53.effects are still being felt. At the moment, our economy absolutely
:18:53. > :18:58.flatlining. The growth that the coalition promised us that would
:18:58. > :19:02.come, private sector jobs to replace public sector jobs and so
:19:02. > :19:06.on, our growth is utterly negligible. More and more people
:19:06. > :19:11.are recognising we might actually have that double-dip recession that
:19:11. > :19:15.I forecast some time ago, as a real risk. Even the IMF and the World
:19:15. > :19:20.Bank are saying we need more stimulus and less austerity. It
:19:20. > :19:27.really is time the Government started to listen You miss the
:19:27. > :19:32.seaside? I'm sorry? Do you miss the seaside? Being by the seaside?
:19:32. > :19:38.miss the seaside? Of course! I miss the seaside but we're having a fine
:19:38. > :19:41.time here in Congress House. Come down and see us. I will. Thank you
:19:41. > :19:45.very much. You must be delighted that the trade unions are going
:19:45. > :19:50.into battle for your gold plated pension. They're not going into
:19:50. > :19:54.battle for my gold plated pension. I think they are. I'm lucky. I am a
:19:54. > :19:58.relic of the old regime before these things happen. You mean, you
:19:58. > :20:03.have a hell of a pension? Fplgts I have a defined benefit pension.
:20:03. > :20:08.Mind you I contributed, handsomely too. So.rest of us too. It's a good
:20:08. > :20:11.pension. So did the rest of us. That's the way it works. Was I
:20:11. > :20:16.going to be the only person contributing to my pension. You're
:20:16. > :20:21.the only one here today who's got that pension. I have been looking
:20:21. > :20:26.round the BBC today and I have seen fatter pensions than my own. Not in
:20:26. > :20:32.this studio. Maybe not. Just one point briefly, I've just come back
:20:32. > :20:36.with Greece, I had a bit of a holiday, on my pension! They've
:20:36. > :20:42.rioted there, they've done civil disowe beadence. They've torn
:20:42. > :20:46.Athens to shreds, but the brutal realities of the economic situation
:20:46. > :20:50.don't change a jot for that. Some similar message has to be sent to
:20:50. > :20:56.our trade unions. We shall see. It will be the issue of the Autumn I
:20:56. > :20:59.suspect. Now if you're an MP with a constituency in England, it's only
:20:59. > :21:03.England at the moment. Scotland and Wales are later. You might be
:21:03. > :21:07.feeling anxious this lunch time. Just landed on the desk is a report
:21:07. > :21:13.telling them whether their constiltwaepbs is due to be
:21:13. > :21:16.abolished or the safe seat will become more marginal. The changes,
:21:16. > :21:26.which will be public tomorrow, are being made in order to reduce the
:21:26. > :21:29.number of MPs from 650 to 600. Why not, the Senate only has 100. David
:21:29. > :21:34.Thompson has been investigating. There are times when you think this
:21:34. > :21:41.place should be cut down to size. Well, you're not alone, because MPs
:21:41. > :21:48.are being asked to shrink the House of Commons. The plan is simple: Cut
:21:48. > :21:51.the number of MPs from 650 to 600, try to make sure that almost all
:21:51. > :21:54.constituencies have roughly the same number of voters and make sure
:21:54. > :21:58.no-one feels too hard done by. Good luck with that. Why? Well, if
:21:58. > :22:01.you're a Conservative, because you think it will save money, and
:22:01. > :22:05.because you also believe that the current system favours labour. If
:22:05. > :22:10.you're Labour you think this is a plot rip the electoral map against
:22:10. > :22:13.you. If you're a Lib Dem, because this was part of the deal that gave
:22:13. > :22:19.you the AV referendum. The fun part will be watching MPs fighting for
:22:19. > :22:25.their political lives. There may be some juicy scrap as head. In
:22:25. > :22:35.Cheshire there's George -- George Osborne and Graham Brady. One is
:22:35. > :22:36.
:22:36. > :22:39.the Chancellor the other argue able the backbencher. Then there's Danny
:22:39. > :22:46.Alexander who could be against Charles Kennedy. Tricky. And in
:22:46. > :22:51.Yorkshire, the gloves could be off behind Ed "bruiser Balls and
:22:51. > :22:54.Hillary Ben. How brutal could it be? You must think of it as musical
:22:54. > :22:58.chair was machetes. When the music stops there will be a limited
:22:58. > :23:02.number of seats and there will be large numbers of members of
:23:02. > :23:05.Parliament. They will be grabbing each other round the throat. It's
:23:05. > :23:10.madness. It's crude politics. It's an accommodation for the liberals.
:23:10. > :23:13.It's the coalition. Is it though? We won't really know until the
:23:13. > :23:16.Boundary Commission publishes its initial proposals rgs starting with
:23:16. > :23:20.England tomorrow. Some experts think it's not the big boy who's
:23:20. > :23:25.have to worry. Proportionately the Lib Dems will be the biggest losers
:23:25. > :23:34.as far as the parties are concerned. They've only got 57 MPs at the
:23:35. > :23:37.moment. So if, as I think they will, changes, that's very serious for
:23:37. > :23:41.that party. Conservative and Labour are both down as well, of course,
:23:41. > :23:45.but because they start with more MPs the impact is less serious.
:23:45. > :23:48.have to agree these changes by October 2013, if they're to happen
:23:49. > :23:54.by the next general election. It's not a done deal. Because by that
:23:54. > :23:59.time, another little row might be brewing. If the coalition is on the
:23:59. > :24:05.rocks in 2013 when it comes back tot Commons, a lot of Lib Dems will
:24:05. > :24:09.say why on earth should we do this. Deal breaker? If the Lib Dems veto
:24:09. > :24:12.it, I think the Conservatives will be so angry it could be. Shrinking
:24:12. > :24:18.the mother of parliments was always going to be tough. Is it a good
:24:18. > :24:22.idea? That might come down to your point of view.
:24:22. > :24:26.Indeed it does. Let's get some points of view. To discuss the
:24:26. > :24:30.changes, Rennard, and Sir Peter Bottomley the Conservative MP for
:24:31. > :24:34.Worthing west. He used to be the MP for Eltham in London before
:24:34. > :24:38.boundary changes in 1997 meant he went often the chicken run I think,
:24:38. > :24:43.as we used to call it. Good or bad, cutting the number of MPs? Fplgts
:24:43. > :24:47.it's in the national interest. Andrew turner on the Isle of Wight
:24:47. > :24:52.can look well over 100,000, I don't see why the rest of us can't as
:24:52. > :24:58.well. 50 seems a small amount. would do it by 10%, each boundary
:24:58. > :25:04.change until either the people say they want more representation or
:25:04. > :25:07.something else squeals. It's wrong that some MPs have little more than
:25:07. > :25:10.50,000 voters. Some MPs over 100,000 voters. It's fair to make
:25:10. > :25:16.the change. Perhaps we could have made these changes though in a
:25:16. > :25:20.better way. Why did your party agree to this deal, which we've
:25:20. > :25:25.just heard will result in the Lib Dems proportionately losing more
:25:26. > :25:30.seats than any other in return for an AV referendum that you lost?
:25:30. > :25:34.don't know the consequences yet. A lot depends on whether Lib Dem MPs
:25:34. > :25:37.stand again at the next general election. They're very effective
:25:37. > :25:41.campaigners. If their constituencies become very
:25:41. > :25:44.different some of them might stand down. If they stand again, people
:25:44. > :25:48.will recognise how good and effective they have been for their
:25:48. > :25:52.community and will vote for them good. -- again. Will there be
:25:52. > :25:56.problems with this. There's always a row with boundary changes?
:25:56. > :26:01.think for the Conservatives and Labour there's likely to be less
:26:01. > :26:06.problem than for the liberals. Both have a tradition of people moving
:26:06. > :26:09.to different areas. The liberals don't have that They're often
:26:09. > :26:13.locally based with deep roots in the community. Have or appear to
:26:13. > :26:16.have. There are few examples of liberals successfully moving from
:26:16. > :26:21.one constituency to another. that a worry? We have to consider
:26:21. > :26:23.this is based on a massive misapprehension that the
:26:23. > :26:27.Conservative Party thought this would be to their advantage and it
:26:27. > :26:32.won't really be. It won't? Labour Party feared they would lose
:26:32. > :26:37.hugely from this and they won't particularly either. That only
:26:37. > :26:44.leaves you. If the Tories aren't to make great gains and Labour isn't
:26:44. > :26:47.going to make great losses, that leaves you, of the national parties.
:26:47. > :26:51.Almost all constituencies will be changed by this review. That will
:26:51. > :26:58.change things for a lot of MPs much it's not just the Liberal Democrats.
:26:58. > :27:01.A lot of people will ask why have all this change for no political
:27:01. > :27:04.reason. Everyone looks at self interest. The reason for the
:27:04. > :27:08.changes are the national interest. Is it better that this country has
:27:08. > :27:13.600 monies in the House of Commons rather than 650? Yes. Will the
:27:13. > :27:18.costs go down? Yes. If MPs are selected and then elected will we
:27:18. > :27:23.behave bet sner yes. If we will still have 600 monies at the end
:27:23. > :27:27.this, plus about 800 and counting in the Lords, last time I looked
:27:27. > :27:35.the Senate had 100 members in the United States and the House of
:27:35. > :27:40.Representatives is 430, something like that. 435 and. Yes and that's
:27:40. > :27:45.a continent of 350 million people. They have state legislatures as
:27:45. > :27:50.well. We have Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff so far. Yeah, I think
:27:50. > :27:54.this could have gone more radically than the intention. 435 US members
:27:54. > :27:58.of the House, 100 senators. Look at the House of Lords, stuffed tot
:27:58. > :28:01.gulls. You can't fit them all in. I would have been, although it's
:28:01. > :28:07.politically impossible, I would have been more radical. We have to
:28:07. > :28:10.leave it there. You're not on the chicken run this time, are you?
:28:10. > :28:14.don't dispute your expression before, I would look at it more
:28:14. > :28:18.kindly. It was called that because to get a new seat they had to take
:28:18. > :28:28.lots and lots of chicken dinners. You're not in the unelected part,
:28:28. > :28:29.
:28:29. > :28:33.it doesn't bother. It does bother you. I meant personally. They're