:00:23. > :00:27.Afternoon, folks. Welcome to the Daily Politics. Are councils
:00:27. > :00:30.failing to find children in care a proper home? The Government has
:00:30. > :00:33.decided to name and shame the best and worst local authorites which
:00:33. > :00:38.arrange adoption in England, and says will take tough action against
:00:38. > :00:41.authorities that fail to deal swiftly with adoption cases. The
:00:41. > :00:44.fair fuel lobby is still hot under the collar about the price of
:00:44. > :00:47.petrol. Over 100,000 people say they want MPs to debate the issue,
:00:47. > :00:53.but will they get the chance? We'll speak to Quentin Willson from the
:00:53. > :01:02.campaign. And as Syria warns the West not to
:01:02. > :01:06.intervene in the country's uprising, we'll be revisiting the Arab Spring.
:01:06. > :01:09.All of that in the next half hour, and with us for the duration, Tony
:01:09. > :01:15.Blair's former envoy to the Middle East, Lord Levy. He also raised a
:01:15. > :01:18.lot of money for the Labour Party. Welcome. Thank you. First, let's
:01:18. > :01:20.talk about growth, because the Government's keen to announce today
:01:20. > :01:24.which businesses in England will benefit from nearly �1 billion of
:01:24. > :01:27.Government support. The money is the second and final instalment
:01:27. > :01:35.from the regional growth fund. The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg,
:01:35. > :01:39.says it will safeguard more than 200,000 jobs. Growth is obviously
:01:39. > :01:42.the key word at the moment, Michael Levy. But do you think the
:01:42. > :01:47.Government, having talked about cutting the deficit, dealing with
:01:47. > :01:51.the debt crisis, that that is crucial, that politicians from
:01:51. > :01:55.across the spectrum have talked down the economy too much and
:01:55. > :02:00.stopped people spending? Obviously there has been a position where you
:02:00. > :02:04.were negative, negative, negative, that message permeates to the fact
:02:04. > :02:11.that people really believe it is so negative, where do we go from here,
:02:11. > :02:15.what do I do? On the other hand, I do believe that there has to be a
:02:15. > :02:20.realistic approach to where we are at. Many people are being squeezed,
:02:20. > :02:23.particularly in the middle income. They really are being hit hard, and
:02:23. > :02:27.therefore they know their own budgets and they know how difficult
:02:27. > :02:30.it is for them. It is almost irrelevant what politicians are
:02:30. > :02:34.saying. People need to assess their own situation and how they can cope
:02:34. > :02:39.and how they can manage with their own budgets. Do you think then and
:02:39. > :02:44.do you agree with Ed Miliband and Ed balls that the answer is to
:02:44. > :02:48.increase spending mead throw boost the economy? I do -- immediately to
:02:48. > :02:53.boost the economy? I do think there has to be a boost to the economy.
:02:53. > :02:58.More than the coalition is doing? Probably yes. I believe that our
:02:58. > :03:04.economy compared to a number of countries in the world isn't in
:03:04. > :03:09.such poor shape, and die think it does need a boost. -- I do think it
:03:09. > :03:12.guz need a boost, in a managed way and not something that's going to
:03:12. > :03:17.be irresponsible, but the economy certainly does need a push at this
:03:17. > :03:20.moment. Does Labour have a better plan, do you think, for doing that
:03:20. > :03:24.and for forcing the banks to lend more to businesses, which is still
:03:24. > :03:28.one of the biggest problems? know, it is always very difficult
:03:28. > :03:35.when you are in opposition, Jo, because you are really talking, you
:03:35. > :03:39.are coming up with plans, but they are not being act vaited. It's a
:03:39. > :03:41.very frustrating position to be in opposition, because it is the
:03:41. > :03:45.Government that's continually calling the shots. But if we look
:03:45. > :03:49.over this last period of time, there has only been one message
:03:49. > :03:55.from this Government - look at Labour did badly. There hasn't been
:03:55. > :03:58.the message, look what we are going to do positively to change things.
:03:58. > :04:01.It's been negative historically on Labour, not look at what we, the
:04:01. > :04:07.Government, are doing to make things better. I think that's where
:04:07. > :04:11.the problem arises. Briefly, Ed Miliband has hired this property
:04:11. > :04:15.tycoon as Labour's fund-raising adviser, a job that you did. He is
:04:15. > :04:20.going to devise new methods of drumming up support through local
:04:20. > :04:24.groups across the country. Is that going to work? My even message is,
:04:24. > :04:27.good luck. I thought it might be. Now it's time for our daily quiz.
:04:27. > :04:37.Today, the United Nations is to announce that the world population
:04:37. > :04:42.
:04:42. > :04:45.has reached 7 billion, so our At the end of the show Michael will
:04:45. > :04:48.attempt to give us the right answer. I will trial.
:04:48. > :04:50.Today is the start of National Adoption Week, where people are
:04:50. > :04:53.urged to consider the possibility of adopting vulnerable children.
:04:53. > :04:57.That all sounds well and good, but with over 65,000 children currently
:04:57. > :05:00.in care in England, only 3,050 were adopted last year. This morning,
:05:00. > :05:03.David Cameron said things had to change and he's promised tough
:05:03. > :05:09.action against local authorities which fail to deal swiftly with
:05:09. > :05:11.adoption cases. Powers already exist to strip local authorities of
:05:11. > :05:14.their adoption responsibilities, but the Prime Minister has said
:05:14. > :05:20.he's ready to enforce them, so better-performing councils can take
:05:20. > :05:22.over, or the service will be contracted out. According to the
:05:22. > :05:28.latest figures, children wait an average of two years and seven
:05:28. > :05:30.months to be adopted. And only 60 babies were adopted last year. The
:05:30. > :05:34.Government has today published league tables ranking local
:05:35. > :05:37.authorities on how quickly they place children in care for adoption.
:05:37. > :05:39.York came top, placing 100% of children with adoptive parents
:05:39. > :05:42.within the 12-month time-frame. Hackney Council, who we'll be
:05:42. > :05:50.speaking to in a moment, came bottom, placing only 43% of
:05:50. > :05:53.children in the 12 months. Earlier this morning, I spoke to the
:05:53. > :05:56.Children's Minister, Tim Loughton, and asked him if he should be
:05:56. > :06:03.focusing on getting more people to come forward to adopt children,
:06:03. > :06:06.rather than criticising councils. The real problem is the whole
:06:06. > :06:10.system, it is not just local authorities who I think need to up
:06:10. > :06:13.their game. It is also the courts, which are taking far too much time
:06:13. > :06:17.going through the courts, but it is also a lot of parents are being
:06:17. > :06:22.discouraged from coming forward. Lots of myths are going around.
:06:22. > :06:26.What's really important ooct this whole campaign we are doing this
:06:26. > :06:31.week is the fact we want to encourage people who think they can
:06:31. > :06:35.offer a foster home or be adoptive parents, urging them to knock on
:06:35. > :06:39.the Town Hall door and saying we are interested. Why are you saming
:06:39. > :06:44.your fire at local councils when you've admitted it is not just
:06:45. > :06:49.about them. The courts are the ones who hold up proceedings and make it
:06:49. > :06:52.extremely difficult to get a completed adoption order in the
:06:53. > :06:57.first year? The whole system is not working properly. You are saying to
:06:57. > :07:00.councils they have to up their game, or else. And I'm also saying to
:07:00. > :07:03.courts, and we are having the family law review published this
:07:03. > :07:06.Thursday, where it will make it very clear that there is too much
:07:07. > :07:10.delay in the courts, there is too much bureaucracy and there is too
:07:10. > :07:14.much overlap in the courts. That needs to be got right as well. This
:07:14. > :07:19.is a joint effort. The crazy thing here is we are all on the same side,
:07:19. > :07:22.whether you are a judge, a social worker or running an adoption
:07:22. > :07:27.sfrbgs or whether you are a Government Minister. The thing we
:07:28. > :07:31.all want to see is a better deal for demids care and more kids for
:07:31. > :07:37.whom it is appropriate to be able to to be adopted to give them a
:07:37. > :07:41.safe, stable, loving family placement. Too many kids are
:07:41. > :07:45.missing out on that at the moment. So how should councils up their
:07:45. > :07:49.game? By looking at examples of best practice elsewhere. We are
:07:49. > :07:54.publishing 15 different tables today with different performance
:07:54. > :07:58.figures on how children in care are doing, how well authorities are
:07:58. > :08:02.doing at getting kids adopted. Things like that. Parts of the
:08:02. > :08:06.country are doing certain parts of the whole adoption process well.
:08:06. > :08:09.The trouble is very few people are doing all of it well together.
:08:09. > :08:14.much should the issue of race for example be taken into account? Is
:08:14. > :08:19.it no longer important? I have made it clear time and again until I'm
:08:19. > :08:24.blue in the face, we issued new guidance in March that ethnic
:08:25. > :08:28.matching must not be a deal breaker An ideal world, if we could find
:08:28. > :08:32.something approaching an ethnic match it would be nice, but it
:08:32. > :08:35.shouldn't be a deal breaker. The most important consideration is,
:08:35. > :08:39.can that perspective adoptive family offer a safe, stable, loving
:08:39. > :08:43.environment for that child? If it can, then let's get on with it
:08:43. > :08:53.rather than all this political correctness about getting some
:08:53. > :08:53.
:08:53. > :08:59.idealistic ethnic match, which usually doesn't exist anyway.
:08:59. > :09:02.much would you give before you give powers away? Hackney do well around
:09:03. > :09:08.children in care and keeping families together. You've got to
:09:08. > :09:15.look ti figures carefully to see where certain authorities are doing
:09:15. > :09:21.well... So the figures are misleading. By saying councils have
:09:21. > :09:25.to up their game, you said Hackney is doing well. I said Hackney is
:09:25. > :09:28.doing parts of its care well but the number of kids they are getting
:09:29. > :09:32.into adoption is poor. I want them to do all of that process well.
:09:32. > :09:36.That's story around the country. That's why I'm not producing a raw
:09:36. > :09:40.comparison. We are producing all the information so people can drill
:09:40. > :09:43.down into what parts of the whole children in care adoption system
:09:43. > :09:48.certain authorities are doing well and where they are not. Let's work
:09:48. > :09:51.on the weak spots. They only need to knock on the door of other
:09:51. > :09:55.authorities that are doing it much better toe get advice and help to
:09:55. > :09:59.see how they can up their game. For many adoption isn't the priority.
:09:59. > :10:03.It is a last resort. We are saying it should be a first resort for
:10:03. > :10:10.many kids for whom there is no safe way back to their birth families.
:10:10. > :10:15.Would you take power from councils who do not, as you say, up their
:10:15. > :10:20.game? Local authorities, who do not do this seriously, if they are
:10:20. > :10:23.still plateauing if they are poor performers or are trending
:10:23. > :10:27.downwards, I'm going be serious questions about are they the right
:10:27. > :10:34.people to continue running an adoption service for children in
:10:34. > :10:39.their care. If there are not, -- if they are not, there are other
:10:39. > :10:42.agencies who may be a better option. With us now is Alan Wood, Director
:10:42. > :10:44.of Children's Services in Hackney, one of the councils at the bottom
:10:44. > :10:48.of the Government's league table for the number of children adopted
:10:48. > :10:52.within 12 months. The threat was pretty clear there. Your record is
:10:52. > :10:56.poor, you are the bottom of this league table, powers could be taken
:10:56. > :11:00.away. Well, our record is actually very good. How is it very good
:11:00. > :11:06.compared to what Tim Loughton has been saying? The Minister referred
:11:06. > :11:09.to a range of data available. The most important piece of data is
:11:09. > :11:13.when Hackney makes an adoptive placement it sticks, it doesn't
:11:13. > :11:17.break down. You have to consider all of these issues like timescale,
:11:17. > :11:21.types of children. We have a deliberate policy of pouring
:11:21. > :11:25.resources into support children in families. Because of that we have
:11:25. > :11:28.significantly reduced the number of children loo are in care. Because
:11:28. > :11:33.we've reduced the number of children in care the width of need
:11:33. > :11:37.among those children tends to be much more acute and needy. We have
:11:38. > :11:41.significant sibling groups for example. We have children with
:11:41. > :11:45.foetal alcohol syndrome, children who are disruptive and missed
:11:45. > :11:49.places in schools. We are dealing with a much more complex set of
:11:49. > :11:54.young people. This data is also two years out of date. Authorities'
:11:54. > :11:59.performance since that time shows a dramatic improvement on timescales.
:11:59. > :12:04.Timescales a narrow slais of a very complex pie chart of information in
:12:04. > :12:07.and data. We've got data but little intelligence and am sis. If you've
:12:07. > :12:10.been so successful in terms of making the adoptions work for the
:12:10. > :12:17.children you have placed, can't you just speed up that process and
:12:17. > :12:21.place more of them? We areed about timeliness. We are all in this
:12:21. > :12:25.together. Our social workers work very hard to get the best
:12:25. > :12:29.placements for our children, but we are not going to make a prospect
:12:29. > :12:34.where there's a prospect of breaking down. Let me give you an
:12:34. > :12:44.example. We made a placement of a large family, including children
:12:44. > :12:50.with a dibble ty. Trialling -- with a disability. We had to extend this
:12:50. > :12:54.because the mother schooled a second place from us. Do you not
:12:54. > :12:58.agree more families would come forward if they didn't think it was
:12:58. > :13:03.such a cumbersome, long-winded and painful process? I think there is
:13:03. > :13:06.some sense in that. We don't have a problem of having a number of
:13:07. > :13:10.families forward. We have lots of people who want to adopt in Hackney,
:13:10. > :13:14.lots of people from across the range ofeth in thisities. That's
:13:14. > :13:19.why it is difficult to get the right placement. It is not that we
:13:19. > :13:26.are losing or don't have adoptive parents but we have complex cases.
:13:27. > :13:32.How much children do you have waiting?? Thisier we think there
:13:32. > :13:34.are 25 children. Out of how many? We have 230 children in care. A
:13:34. > :13:39.small percentage of those will go into it's adoption world. If you
:13:39. > :13:43.look at last year, we had seven children who were placed for
:13:43. > :13:52.adoption. We are talking of small numbers. One child who is adopted
:13:52. > :13:56.after a year and a week makes a complete hash of the percentages.
:13:56. > :14:01.Michael Levy, are Government tables helpful? I don't think so at all.
:14:01. > :14:06.What I really don't understand, if you have got an area where an
:14:06. > :14:10.analysis and a table shows how well they are doing, it is not about
:14:10. > :14:16.praising and shaming, it is about how did you get them to help an
:14:16. > :14:18.area where on the surface it would appear they are not doing well.
:14:18. > :14:22.Because different circumstances, different children, different
:14:22. > :14:27.families, different ethnicity groups. There are so many
:14:27. > :14:31.differences. Why don't we use an area why York, you are doing well,
:14:31. > :14:35.Hackney, perhaps you are not doing so well, getting them together, how
:14:35. > :14:39.can they learn from each other's experiences? This is too sensitive
:14:39. > :14:43.for naming and shaming. This is much more about how do we help each
:14:43. > :14:48.other to deal with what is a problem that desperately needs
:14:48. > :14:52.dealing with? What would your message be to the Government?
:14:52. > :14:55.are all in this together. If we have all of the data available it
:14:55. > :14:58.is a pity there wasn't much more discussion between local
:14:58. > :15:02.authorities and Government about this information. I think we could
:15:02. > :15:06.have put the panoply of information before people. As Michael says,
:15:06. > :15:09.encouraging local authorities to work together is important. We for
:15:09. > :15:19.example support other authorities around adoption placements. So it
:15:19. > :15:19.
:15:19. > :15:23.is not as simple as one slice of a Following the demise of Colonel
:15:23. > :15:27.Gaddafi, many are asking what prospect is there of direct
:15:27. > :15:31.military intervention in Syria? 3000 have been killed in eight
:15:31. > :15:35.months of violence there. This weekend, President Assad warned
:15:35. > :15:39.against such action, saying that foreign intervention would burn the
:15:39. > :15:43.whole of the Middle East. Where does the Arab Spring go from here?
:15:43. > :15:48.If the world watched as a badly injured older man was dragged from
:15:48. > :15:55.a drainage pipe, brutalised and shot dead, you can be sure in
:15:55. > :15:59.Damascus the President of Syria also watched the unseemly demise of
:15:59. > :16:06.Muammar Gaddafi after 42 years of dictatorship. Perhaps as he warned
:16:06. > :16:09.the West not to intervene, in his country, racked with months of
:16:09. > :16:14.unrest and oppression, he is thinking what many are asking,
:16:14. > :16:18.where next? Try to judge what is going to come next is particularly
:16:18. > :16:25.difficult. We do a lot of work on the Yemen and the Yemeni President
:16:25. > :16:30.has defied all predictions on his demise. He was nearly assassinated.
:16:30. > :16:34.People said goodbye to him, and now he is back in Yemen, still rolling.
:16:34. > :16:41.That suggests that President Al Rashad could cling on for much
:16:41. > :16:47.longer than Europeans are expecting. -- President Mashhad. -- President
:16:47. > :16:52.Assad. The third candidate is Bahrain. A country with a deep-
:16:52. > :16:58.seated religious division that goes back further than any spring of
:16:58. > :17:02.this year. Perhaps the West was a little optimistic. We saw the
:17:02. > :17:07.world's media ascend on Bahrain thinking that perhaps this would be
:17:07. > :17:11.the next place for a revolution. Probably, that encouraged the
:17:11. > :17:14.protests, with the protesters thinking they would get Western
:17:14. > :17:18.backing, but the Western governments were not prepared to
:17:18. > :17:22.back them, particularly once Saudi Arabia firmly sided with the ruling
:17:22. > :17:27.family there. The story in Bahrain is not over. And there is no doubt
:17:27. > :17:32.that in a decade, the region has changed out of all recognition. Our
:17:32. > :17:38.response to it has, too. 41 MP collecting the trappings --
:17:38. > :17:48.trappings of dictators from their palaces, the mistakes in Iraq,
:17:48. > :17:49.
:17:49. > :17:53.Afghanistan and the response to 9/11 which he felt have encouraged
:17:53. > :17:57.extremism, this is fascinating. What I found interesting was that I
:17:57. > :18:00.found and his smallest -- Islamist commander who have fought in Iraq
:18:00. > :18:06.and Afghanistan. He said to me that this was the first time the West
:18:06. > :18:10.has to do with the ordinary people. "We will not forget it." I thought
:18:10. > :18:14.that was a remarkable comment. It suggests that the actions of
:18:14. > :18:19.Cameron and Sarkozy and President Obama, that they have started to
:18:19. > :18:24.roll back the damage done since 9/11. If so, not only do we need to
:18:24. > :18:27.focus on what to do with Syria, Yemen and Bahrain's regimes fall,
:18:27. > :18:31.but where else the Arab Spring a touch. We have seen reforms
:18:31. > :18:36.promised in Morocco and all man. There are questions hanging over
:18:36. > :18:42.Saudi Arabia and Algeria, which have all the ingredients for bigger
:18:42. > :18:46.protests to come. Lord Levy is still with us. Should do now be
:18:46. > :18:54.foreign intervention in Libya -- Syria? Absolutely not. -- should
:18:54. > :18:59.they are now be foreign intervention. Syria is very complex.
:18:59. > :19:06.There is a situation. I do not know if people lead -- people read the
:19:06. > :19:12.interview that President Assad did in the Telegraph yesterday. So many
:19:12. > :19:16.different factions within Syria, the issue with Turkey and how
:19:16. > :19:24.Turkey is reacting to Syria. You have the Arab League, in terms of
:19:24. > :19:27.how that is reacting, you have the UN, where China and Russia would
:19:27. > :19:31.against sanctions. You are saying it is diplomatically too difficult
:19:31. > :19:37.queue that it is a very difficult situation. Is it good what is going
:19:37. > :19:46.on in Syria? Of course not. Is the tragic loss of life in disaster?
:19:46. > :19:49.Yes, of course it is. I feel that we have to see what will go on,
:19:49. > :19:54.particularly with Turkey. You have the Syrian National Council
:19:54. > :20:00.operating from within Turkey, you have the Arab League, where they
:20:00. > :20:05.are themselves trying to take measures in Syria to solve some of
:20:05. > :20:13.the issues. You have President Assad saying that he is going to
:20:13. > :20:20.make changes. Do you believe that? I think it is going to be a very,
:20:20. > :20:24.very slow process. And in between, the violence continues?
:20:24. > :20:28.violence is continuing but what would happen if there were Western
:20:29. > :20:33.intervention? I think that would be a greater disaster. A greater
:20:33. > :20:39.disaster than what is going on right now. This is not a simple
:20:39. > :20:46.situation. There is not an end game scenario. This is not one of those
:20:46. > :20:53.situations. You can see why people would argue that British foreign
:20:53. > :20:58.policy smacks of hypocrisy. What is new about hypocrisy within most
:20:58. > :21:04.countries' fallen -- foreign-policy. There is not much new about that.
:21:04. > :21:12.Libya and Syria are very, very different situations. To have
:21:12. > :21:18.imposed a no-fly zone in Libya with a UN resolution, with difficulty,
:21:18. > :21:24.and Arab League agreement, that is a very different situation to the
:21:24. > :21:28.situation in Syria. You knew his father, President Assad's father.
:21:28. > :21:32.What you would -- what would you advise David Cameron to do now in
:21:32. > :21:39.dealing with his son? I have also met the sun on a number of
:21:40. > :21:48.occasions. My advice would be worked through the UN, work closely
:21:48. > :21:56.with the Arab League, work closely with Turkey and evaluate the
:21:56. > :22:00.position on a very regular basis. The informant continually. -- be
:22:00. > :22:04.informed continually. The UN, the Arab League and Turkey, working
:22:04. > :22:10.with them and watching those spaces continually, that would be my
:22:10. > :22:20.advice. Will he go voluntarily? No. Do you regret how close the Blair
:22:20. > :22:20.
:22:20. > :22:28.Government got to Colonel Gaddafi? There are two issues here. Do I
:22:28. > :22:36.regret the fact that one was able to wean Gaddafi and the regime off
:22:36. > :22:40.WMD or the potential of WMD? No. I do not have crept that at all. -- I
:22:40. > :22:45.do not regret that. Two why feel that the subsequent closeness that
:22:45. > :22:50.manifested as a result of that was wrong? Yes. I think there was an
:22:50. > :22:57.issue, winning him off of WMD. There was an issue, can Britain do
:22:57. > :23:01.business? You have a big difference between Syria and Libya going back
:23:01. > :23:06.to the government issue. One has oil and one has vast reserves. The
:23:06. > :23:11.other does not. You may remember that last week we
:23:11. > :23:17.were talking about Europe. After a backbench MPs called for a
:23:17. > :23:21.discussion in the Commons. A petition attributed to debate on
:23:21. > :23:25.documents relating to the Hillsborough disaster. Although
:23:25. > :23:31.getting 100,000 names on a petition is not a guarantee for a debate, it
:23:31. > :23:34.does help. Why is a cut in fuel duty not on the agenda, which has
:23:34. > :23:39.also gain signatures? The rising cost of fuel has been a long-
:23:39. > :23:43.standing problem. In 2000, fuel protests paralysed parts of Britain
:23:43. > :23:47.for seven days causing a crisis in the NHS, emptying supermarket
:23:47. > :23:52.shelves and even closing schools. The protesters have won concessions
:23:52. > :23:59.from the Government. But then Gordon Brown announced that duty
:23:59. > :24:03.rates would be frozen, up till April 2002. But it was not enough.
:24:03. > :24:08.In the 11 years since we have seen the motorways go-slow,
:24:08. > :24:13.demonstrations at oil depot has had been seen. I am joined by Quentin
:24:13. > :24:16.Willson, the motoring journalist. I'm also joined by Natascha Engel,
:24:16. > :24:23.chair of the Backbench Business Committee, responsible for
:24:23. > :24:27.scheduling the debate. Affair fuelled UK campaign has 100,000
:24:27. > :24:32.signatures, the amount needed to look at the debate. When will it
:24:32. > :24:35.happen? -- the FairFuelUK campaign. I'm glad to be given the
:24:35. > :24:42.opportunity to come and explain this. We meet as a committee once a
:24:42. > :24:46.week and once a week only, on a Tuesday. We are allocated time to
:24:46. > :24:50.schedule debates by the Government. The FairFuelUK campaign came to us
:24:50. > :24:57.in the form of Robert Huth and Fenby, to ask for time to debate
:24:57. > :25:01.the petition. To have a vote, we have to have a debate in the
:25:01. > :25:04.chamber, not Westminster Hall. If we were not allocated time in the
:25:04. > :25:08.chamber which was why we could not have the debate. That is the
:25:08. > :25:12.technical explanation but I suppose, in a way, the Government has raised
:25:12. > :25:17.expectations. The public now expects, as you understand, that if
:25:17. > :25:23.they get 100,000 signatures on an electronic petition, they will have
:25:23. > :25:27.a debate. That's right. You have made the distinction between what
:25:27. > :25:31.is the Government and what is the backbenchers. We do not have time
:25:32. > :25:38.or power, we cannot say that we want to have a debating chamber. We
:25:38. > :25:41.have to wait for the Government to allocate time. -- have a debate in
:25:41. > :25:45.the chamber. The Government have brought in this system, of which is
:25:45. > :25:49.welcome, but we do not have the time for the debate. Quentin will
:25:49. > :25:53.not have this debate? We have not said that. The next time we are
:25:53. > :25:57.allocated a day in the chamber, we will look at it to get -- look at
:25:57. > :26:02.it again. Are you satisfied with that? I understand that Natascha
:26:02. > :26:05.Engel is between a rock and a hard place. We have the expectation of
:26:05. > :26:09.consumers thinking that they will get the debate if they get 100,000
:26:09. > :26:14.signatures. This is sending out the wrong message about government
:26:14. > :26:20.accountability. I know you cannot say this on air, but I need to know
:26:20. > :26:22.that we will get a debate, because there is hardship out there.
:26:23. > :26:29.you do everything you can and assure him that he will get the
:26:29. > :26:31.debate? Actually, tomorrow we meet at 1pm and there is the electronic
:26:31. > :26:37.petition on fair fuel but there are also other debates that have been
:26:37. > :26:41.brought to us. It all depends on what it is that comes before us. I
:26:41. > :26:45.would hate to say that, as the chair, I will decide what gets
:26:45. > :26:50.debated but having said that, this is such an important issue. I
:26:50. > :26:58.represent a rural constituency and this is one of my number one Paul
:26:58. > :27:02.Spike issues. It has a high chance of being debated. You surely have
:27:02. > :27:06.the power to say look, let's do it? We are all very supportive of the
:27:06. > :27:11.process, but it is a committee of seven people. There is a high
:27:11. > :27:14.likelihood we will do this. I want the Government to say Rosslea that
:27:14. > :27:19.we are going to talk about this because it is affecting growth and
:27:19. > :27:26.prosperity. The price of petrol has come down just recently. Only
:27:26. > :27:31.slightly. We have two more duty rises next year, 8p. You have
:27:31. > :27:38.Morrisons, as a, NCP car-parks, Tesco's, all saying that footfall
:27:38. > :27:40.has been affected by higher fuel duty. -- ASDA. You say you are
:27:40. > :27:44.supporting the electronic petition but a picture in a difficult
:27:44. > :27:47.position. Is this the right way to go? I think it is the wrong way to
:27:47. > :27:50.go because this has the potential to destroy what we do on the
:27:50. > :27:55.business committee. Increasingly, we are only looking at debate
:27:55. > :27:59.brought to us that have 100,000 signatures attached. I think we
:27:59. > :28:04.need to separate out what his backbench business and what are
:28:04. > :28:08.electronic petitions. If you have electronic petitions, you do not
:28:08. > :28:12.have direct action. That is the spectre that is facing us. If the
:28:12. > :28:21.committee says no for whatever reason, what is your next step?
:28:21. > :28:24.will go into hiding! Prepare for the worst! A mildly phrased letter
:28:24. > :28:30.was delivered to Downing Street this morning. We will get more
:28:30. > :28:33.rockets. I am not saying direct action. God forbid. Let us do this
:28:33. > :28:36.through the political process and get a statement from the Government
:28:36. > :28:42.that they will look at this. We just want a debate. You could be
:28:42. > :28:45.here again on future issues. But I will have to wind it up. Well, just
:28:45. > :28:49.time before we go to find out the answer to a quiz and the question
:28:49. > :28:54.was, what was the population of the world when Lord Levy was born? What