20/09/2012 Daily Politics

Afternoon, folks. Welcome to the Daily Politics. Now listen up, you

don't hear this very often. There is no easy way to say this. We made

a pledge. We didn't stick to it. And for that, I am sorry. Yes,

that's the sound of a politician apologising. Nick Clegg says sorry

for breaking his pledge on tuition fees. He says he will never again

make a promise he can't keep. But will that be enough to win back

lost voters? Over half a million people will be

affected by a major change to the pensions system when automatic

enrolment kicks in next month. We will talk to pensions minister,

Steve Webb. Conservative chairman Grant Shapps

will be here to explain how and why Downing Street is selling its

expertise abroad. And the government wants us to love

them but it seems the UK public isn't convinced by electric cars.

Motoring journalist Quentin Willson will be here to explain why they

are the future. You just touched the throttle like this, and you are

chasing Mini Coopers, literally. It is lovely to drive and an absolute

hoot. Chasing Mini Coopers? I don't think

All that in the next hour. With us for the duration journalist, author,

broadcaster, educationalist. A man with a very long business card.

It's Toby Young. Welcome back. Thank you. Let's start with the

warning this morning from Michael Wilshaw, the head of England's

schools standards watchdog, who says the coalition's pupil premium

policy to target extra funding at poor pupils in England, for which

the Lib Dems have been taking the credit, is having little impact on

many schools. The government asked us to do a

survey on this, which we did, and we looked at nearly 300 schools to

see how they were spending the money, and it came as a surprise

when inspectors said over 50% said it had made little or no difference

to the way they organised the school and managed it in terms of

supporting the poorest children and we are saying this is a substantial

tranche of government money, it has got to go on those children for

whom it is meant and if it goes elsewhere, it is not spent wisely.

By a miracle of modern planning, our guest of the day, Toby Young,

co-founded a new free school in London and now chairs the school's

board of governors. You were instrumental in starting it. Do any

of your pupils get this premium? What do you use it for? We had 25%

on free school meals in the first year, 28% this year. That is a

proxy for poverty? Yes. You have to be in a household earning less than

�16,000 a year to be eligible. It is a mistake to assume that

children on free school meals will always need extra help. Our highest

achieving girls are on free school meals, and the highest achieving

cohort across England are Chinese gold on free school meals, so it is

a mistake to assume they always need extra help. We spend the

premium on its three instrument lessons to children who want to

take up music -- on a free music lessons. We subsidise school trips,

that sort of things. See you think it would be a mistake to earmark

the money that you get exclusively for the kids with a price on the

head? Les. There is so much red tape that schools have to wade

through -- yes. To insist they ring-fence the pupil premium and

then get them under due diligence about how they spend it will create

another bureaucratic hurdle for them. The important thing is that

children on free school meals should be doing as well as those

who are not. So in a sense, the pupil premium is not a per capita

payment because of the number of kids you have from low income

families, it is a top-up to your funds. Absolutely. The Lib Dems

make a bit too much of the pupils premium and present it as a

fantastic concession they have got out of the Tories and they will

brag about it in the next election campaign but �600 is a fraction of

what you get overwrought for a pupil on free school meals. --

overall. You get about �6,000 for a pupil and an extra 2500 if they are

on free school meals and only an extra 600 for the pupil premium.

You must be encouraged that the girls on free school meals are

doing so well. Absolutely, it is fantastic. Working hard! Anyway...

How i's your lumbago today? -- how is your lumbago? Fine! Is the

arthritis playing you up? Let's face it, none of us is getting any

younger. And yet millions of us don't have a pension. Now I sound

like one of those day-time TV adverts. Like Michael Parkinson!

You can't get coverage cheaper than that! The number of people actively

paying into a workplace pension scheme has dropped consistently in

recent years to little more than eight million. There are about 25

million people in the private sector. Anyway, the government is

Starting from next month, the government will phase-in an

automatic enrolment scheme which will put all workers into a

workplace pension. That's if they are aged between 22 and the state

pension age. Earn at least �8,105 a year. And are not already in a

scheme which meets the minimum standards. Employees can opt out.

But saving in a pension will be the new default setting for anyone who

does not express a choice. Eventually, the automatic level of

contributions will be at least 8% of the individual's qualifying

earnings. This includes three per cent which comes from the employer.

Speaking on a visit to a supermarket today, pensions

secretary Iain Duncan Smith said Britain has a terrible savings

culture. Saving in a pension is beginning to fall. 11 million

people simply do not save enough for their retirement. This is the

opportunity to give people a slow and easy way to save that

guarantees them a decent income in retirement. That is a vital

ingredient for our lives. We spent a lot of years when we are not

working and we need to make sure our income before we retire is set.

Everything we say it needs to go towards a our future, not to the

government's future. Iain Duncan Smith. And with us now

is his colleague, Pensions Minister and Lib Dem MP Steve Webb. The

bottom 10th of her owners, the lowest paid people in the country,

are paying... They're paid did not rise at all last year. -- and their

salary did not rise. Food prices went up, utility bills went up 20%,

things they all have to pay, no choice on that, and now you are

going to take another 4% from their income. How does that work? This is

a voluntary scheme. If somebody is really strapped for cash, they can

opt out. But most people know they need a pension but it is too

difficult and complicated. The employee you would choose a scheme

and put some money in. Behind Iain Duncan-Smith was the sign "buy one

get one free". You put four in and that turns into eight because of

what the workplace will put him. You can say goodbye to any pay rise

next year because the employee will have to put in an extra 3%, so it

is not buy one get one free. Just because you work for a small firm,

it doesn't mean you should retire poorer. So we have tried to ease

the burden on the smaller firms, they don't have to come in for a

few years. It will be done very gradually, but what is the

alternative? But a lot of people who do not take home much already

will see this as another tax. It is another 4% on income tax. Is it 4%

of everything they earn? Above 5,000. That is lower than when

income tax kicks in? Exactly. We want to raise the income tax

threshold, which will help the people you are talking about. We

are bringing this 4% in over five years, and the evidence around the

world is that this is quite possible -- popular. A phrase I

heard at the supermarket was, this is the nudge by needed. I knew I

needed a pension. If you are a 50-year-old owning

�20,000, after 16 years of paying into a scheme with 4% of your

income been taken away every year, you are left with an income at 66,

when they retire, your pension will be �940 a year at! Every year!

if you start saving at 50, not 22, those are the sorts of figures you

will get. The beauty of this is it gets young people in and they can

build on that. We have to get people in earlier. Hand on heart,

can you look at a 50-year-old today, it works out as �18 a week, it is a

pittance. Could you really look at a 50-year-old and say, this is what

you should do? Absolutely. If they invested in a savings account they

do not get the employer contribution. The money is

immediately doubled. The employer contribution bit alarms me. There

is no question that this will increase the burden on small

businesses and that runs counter to the post reshuffle of mood music

that the coalition will make life easier for small businesses. I

wonder if this is a Lib Dem pound of flesh extracted from Michael

Fallon! It has been talked about Labour legislated this, Adair

Turner came up with this idea a decade ago, and with pensions you

want consistent all party support. All the major parties are behind

this because we not have an alternative. People will retire in

poverty if we don't do it. would be bragging in the next

election that this was a concession won by the Lib Dems. I am proud to

be involved with this. These are tough times for people at the lower

end of the income scale. Their income is not going up, and the

things they have to spend money on, these are not discretionary

spending and treats, they have got to pay utility bills and put food

on the table. Because of that, people will say, I cannot afford at

the moment to lose another 4% of my income so I will opt out.

recognise some people may opt out, maybe up to a third, but even then,

maybe 9 million people will be getting into pensions for the first

time. I think it is great. If you got in at the age of 25, and when I

was 25, almost ten years ago now, I did not think about pensions. It is

tough. I wanted the 4% to go and spend it. But if you go in at 25

and you got your three, four and your one up on tax relief, or what

pension would you end up with? you are on �15,000, the state

pension plus this pension will replace most of that so you are

living standards will be about the same. If you are on average

earnings, you need to do more than this, clearly. The challenge is to

get people in in the first place. �140? For a flat-rate pension?

is the figure we are speaking about. The Prime Minister called this the

best thing since sliced bread. He now seems to be less enthusiastic.

Is it going to be dropped and the men did? No. We will publish a

White Paper in the autumn. It will happen and it is the foundation for

what we are talking about today. Get the pension up to a decent

level. The other thing we are seeing is that because the deficit

reduction is not quite going as quickly as the coalition said it

would, and you might not meet the debt target of debts falling to a

percentage of GDP by 2016, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Apology,

he said that there would be no further welfare cuts that we would

accept. But yesterday, he said that more cuts were possible. Where are

we? Where are the Lib Dems? We have always taken the view that cuts

have to be made across the board but our priority is to protect the

most vulnerable. That will always be the way that we approach future

discussions about spending reductions. You are not ruling out

further cuts in the welfare budget? We will try to protect the

I mentioned your glorious leader and his YouTube apology, which I

think we'll be a party political broadcast next week as well. Let's

get your reaction. We made a promise before the election that we

would vote against any rise in fees under any circumstances. That was a

mistake. It was a pledge made with the best of intentions, but we

should not have made a promise we were not absolutely sure that we

could deliver. I should not have committed to a policy that was so

expensive when there was no money around, not least when the most

likely way we would end up in government was with coalition with

either Labour or the Conservatives, who were both committed to putting

them up. A sensible idea to apologise at this point? I think it

took guts. We found we had a lot of things we wanted to talk about, the

tax system, the green agenda, sometimes it is landing on deaf

ears. People say, hang on, tuition fees. Do some extent it's in the

past? It is, but some of our own people are still bruised. We are a

party that prides itself on its integrity and this was a damaging

exercise for all of us. I think clearing the air at this point,

rather than letting it run on to the next election, we need people

to believe what we are going to say and we need to know how we can

learn from what went wrong last time. A gamble? It could expose

them to ridicule? You get nowhere if you do not take chances. He knew

that would be on YouTube but he thought it would be the right thing

to do Foster let's look at the # We made a promise we would vote

against any rise in fees, any rise in fees.

# It was made with the best of intentions, the best of intentions.

# We should not have made a promise we were not sure that we can

deliver. # I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so

sorry. # There is no easy way to say I'm

Even you are smiling! We are going to hire those creatives for our

next election campaign! What is he apologising for? We were quite

clear, we went into an election saying we would get rid of fees.

The difference is, when Labour said they would not introduce fees, they

won the election and did it anyway. You are apologising for breaking

the promise, but not apologising for the policy? The policy is about

saying that when you repay, you repay at higher income levels, only

at the end and not up front. Those elements are good. You mentioned

the trust. Surely the allegation is that you cannot trust what people

say in their manifesto because everything is up for grabs in a

coalition? If we could rewind, would we make that pledge again? No.

I think that we have learned from that, making sure everything is

costed out so that you can rely on it. What I was told us that his

motivation comes from the reaction that it is still simmering among

Lib Dem Party activists? I think you confirmed that? It is the

public and the party. He spent a lot of time out there. He does not

hide in Westminster. He senses that time had not healed this one and he

needed to nail it and he has. should say that Nick Clegg has

given permission to release a charity version of that song. Any

profits are given to the Sheffield Children's NHS Foundation Trust.

You agree it was not costed and you never thought the policy would come

into play? Because it was costed, we thought it could not be done in

a single parliament. It was a long- term plan, but an expensive one.

it was an aspiration, if it was not in your four key pledges, why did

Nick Clegg stand there with a big pledge, in such a public display of

commitment to the policy and sign it, if it was an aspiration and a

long-term commitment? That is the irony. If you take our manifesto,

on the front cover it says four things. This was not one of them.

It says taking people out of tax, the pupil premium, the green agenda,

the front of a manifesto went straight into government. But you

grandstand did this. You all went and signed it? Online, we all

signed on to it. We have learned from that. Toby Young, are you

convinced? Will that do it? I hope it becomes a trend. I would like to

see Gordon Brown follow-up with apologising for promising to end

boom-and-bust. I'd like to see David Cameron apologise for going

back on his 2007 referendum to hold a EU referendum. I'd like George

Osborne to promise for -- apologise for not cutting public expenditure,

which he promised to do so. If this is going to be the content of party

political broadcasts now, it will be in every one until the election.

If they are going to do all of these apologies, the programme will

have to go to 90 minutes! It is the Government wasting

millions of pounds on a electric car charging point that only a

handful of people using? A new report from the Transport Select

Committee says the Government has spent �11 million on 1600 public

charging points and grants for new electric cars. But only 1000 cars

have been registered since the start of last year. Despite this,

we have managed to track down an owner of not one, but two electric

cars. Here is Quentin Willson on why more of us should swap the

petrol station for the charging Electric cars. Slow, boring, not

interesting at all. Wrong. I've got two and they are fantastic. It

costs you �1 to do 100 miles in electricity. You can fast charge

one back to 80% in less than 30 minutes. They are simple to own.

Like plugging in your iPad or your charger, just in here, 30 minutes

The first thing you get with an electric car is this amazing

feeling of silence. You will never have experienced it before. And

speed. We've got this new phenomenon of silence Bede, where

you just touched the throttle, like this and you are chasing many

Qubairs, literally. Absolute fruit. -- You are chasing a Mini Cooper,

Quentin Willson has joined us in the studio. We have been joined

from Liverpool by the Labour MP who chairs the Transport Select

Committee, Louise Ellman. You love the cars, but can you believe that

everybody else will be convinced? It will take some time. The in a

urban myths are huge. They are no good, slow and boring. They are

extremely easy to drive. The technology is here and now. The

major point is that we need to establish a market for these cars

as an alternative to diesel and petrol. We have the highest prices

of diesel and petrol ever. You can drive 100 miles for �1. That sounds

incredible. I use these electric cars for all of my urban journeys.

They are quick, interesting... but on the point of urban journeys,

I could imagine having that, maybe if that was a car that I did go

around town in. But as my only car, are you going to convince people

that this is just about supporting affluent people having two cars,

the second one being electric? are right that you can't go to

Manchester and do 300 miles. There are a range of different engines.

But give us time. This is an emerging market that we need to

push. The UK needs to be the world leader in this technology. We can

create jobs, employment and all of this stuff. He murdered the market

now and say it does not work for people because that technology is

not advanced enough, that would be very wrong. Louise Ellman, is this

wishful thinking by the Government or can this transform our transport

strategy and cut carbon emissions? Well, they certainly could

transform transport strategy. The Government say that they hope to

see tens of thousands of electric cars on other roads by 2015. I do

think that we need to review the strategy to achieve this. It does

need much better promotion of the scheme. People need to know where

the charging points are. The issue of expense needs to be looked at.

It might be very cheap to run them, but even with the Government grant,

people can be asked to take between �25,000 and �30,000 to purchase it.

Tax incentives need to be stable. One of the issues we have found is

that the Government has subtly changed the tax regime without any

consultation. The idea is right. The scheme needs to be reviewed and

we need to encourage the purchase of the cars. How do we know the

strategy has been effective? Looking at what has happened, so

few people have actually purchased them. There is not actually public

information about whether charging points out. We are told there are

1600. But when we looked at the public register we could only find

500. There are eight pilot projects but not necessarily where the cars

are being purchased. All of these things need to be looked at so

there can be greater successful stock would you buy one? I would

I did a bit of research, and it turns out the carbon emissions that

are involved in the production of an electric car, not to mention the

lithium batteries, they are much greater than a carbon emissions

generated by the production of a conventional car. If you have one,

you can just about get back into credit, if you use the car for a

very long time. But if you have two, you will never been credit on

carbon emissions. Putting the carbon emissions to one side,

saying, look, something that reduces our dependency on oil, or

diesel, it is going to make the air Peeress anyway. Let's not get too

wound up with how many grams of carbon-dioxide it takes. If less of

us are driving fossil-fuel vehicles, the air quality will be much better.

Louise is right... Wedd has electricity come from? That is

fossil fuel. Wind and wave, as well. That was 1.8% of electricity

generated. Developing that as well, we need a long-term strategy. Why

are we paying 20% VAT on electric cars? How much did they cost?

�25,000 for that one. All of the people that have bought them, and

they say they are getting grants and it is not helping middle-class

people, they pay much less than petrol cars to run them. If you are

spending �11 million subsidising them, it would be better to reduce

the outlay initially for the price of the car? Well, try and get these

prices down by increasing the scale and getting the market to work. 10

years down the line if we say, we did not let the letter cars survive

and fuel is �4 a litre, we will be very sorry. Louise Ellman, have you

driven one of these cars? I have been in one of these cars. The

Riverside Housing Association in Liverpool are using one of these

cars and showed me how effective they thought it was. This is to be

we need to encourage with more incentives. What does it feel like

from the driver's position? We had speed, a modern sensation. Now you

have silent speed. You have this lovely wave of torque because there

is no loss of power because you do not have a conventional gearbox.

They are really great, really orthodox. The industry has really

pushed forward and former careers. Give them more and they will be

looking at batteries with 200 mile range and you can charge them in 10

minutes. You said he would take on a Mini Cooper? Andrew has won, we

can do Air Race! -- a race. Silent Running is not a great thing,

you need to hear this thing bearing Thank you both very much. UKIP is

gathering for its conference in Birmingham today. I bet most of you

did not know that. You do now. Not you, you know everything. What is

their biggest achievement? Coming second in the last elections for

the European Parliament? They got 12 seats in Strasbourg, or Brussels,

anywhere that it meets. Or is their achievement preventing the

Conservatives from getting a majority at the last election?

There is a theory that they cost the Tories about 20 seats because

the Euro-sceptic vote was split. That has got some people thinking

about a ceasefire between the parties in time for the next

Could Nigel Farage helped David Cameron win the next general

election? In this part of north London, the Tory MP has a majority

over Labour of about 100 but 1,000 people voted for UKIP last time so

securing those votes is important for the Conservatives. Hendon is

also the home of the RAF Museum. The perfect place to discuss a non-

aggressive pact between the two parties. I would like people who

voted UKIP and people who vote for the Conservatives can support the

same candidates. At one end of the scale on local deals and the others

are a full merger, as happened in Canada, where they had split up the

Centre Right with disastrous consequences. The important thing

is to get the policy right, which is trusting people to have a say on

this vital issue. A but there are some big factors that might stop

this idea getting off the ground, such as: What if UKIP voters do not

automatically become Conservative voters? Some of them could switch

their support to other parties instead, which would do the Tories

no favours. And what if getting with UKIP actually puts off other

people and ends up costing the Conservatives votes? And what is

too few people in either party really want to go through with it -

- and what if? The idea of a pact does not appeal to UKIP's newest

recruit, Lord Stevens. He was kicked out of the Tory party for

writing a letter urging people to vote for UKIP. The problem the

Conservative have is that UKIP is becoming a serious political party

and I am not sure that UKIP would agree with it. What would the

promise be? And in out referendum? The Conservatives already agreed to

have a referendum on Lisbon and when they came to power, they tore

up that agreement. So it is unlikely the UKIP battle bus will

be dishing out Conservative leaflets any time soon. More

probable is a repeat of the much less exciting situation from the

last election, where UKIP did not run in seats where the Tory

candidate thought broadly along the same lines as Nigel Farage. Adam

Fleming reporting. And we have been joined by the deputy leader of UKIP

Paul Nuttall, and by Katie Hopkins, the former Apprentice contestant

who has announced she's going to stand in the next European

elections for a new party called the I Want A Referendum Party. It

is not clear what their policy is but it is called I Want A

Referendum Party it! Welcome. His you get much of a threat to the

Tories at the next general election -- is UKIP? It remains to be seen

but the prognosis is that UKIP will top the poll in the 2014 European

parliamentary elections and if the Conservatives are still trailing

Labour at that point, I think David Cameron will come under a lot of

pressure at the conference... you have an idea of what that

accommodation should be? I think an electoral pact between the two,

where by the Conservatives promise not to oppose UKIP in a dozen

constituencies, that is unlikely. UKIP would insist as a price for

that that David Cameron commit the party to a referendum in the next

parliament, but that will shoot the UKIP policy anyway it. For would

you be up for the pact if it was on offer? You never say never in

politics. It all depends on where we are in 2015. If we have won

after the European elections and we are pulling double digits, I think

the Conservatives will find it difficult not to come to us because

it will be clear that they will not be able to form a majority without

UKIP support. But in the Westminster elections, you are

essentially a spoiler. You have a lot of seats in Strasbourg but you

have no seats in Westminster, though you may affect the results

for the Tories in some constituencies. Surely, to make a

break into Westminster you need something along the lines that Toby

Young is suggesting, where you get a clear run in some constituencies.

That may be the case but we have policies that appeal to the

Conservative Party, and their grassroots. We are in favour of a

firm immigration policy, zero tolerance on crime, grammar schools.

And the Conservative Party is in trouble because it as halved their

membership since David Cameron has become leader -- it has halved to

their membership. Katie Hopkins. Why don't you just joined UKIP?

Because I think people are tired of parties that promise a lot and do

not deliver. We have been hearing, we are going to give you a

referendum, we don't get it. Now there might be a strategic alliance,

a packed, a coalition. Why not throw the Green Party in there? We

stand for something very simple. We demand a referendum and in the

European elections there will be a candidate fielded in every region

of England and people can go and cross where it says "we demand a

referendum", and it is not the career politicians that tell us

what we think... The is that you're only policy? No. We are fighting on

things like travellers' sites, small businesses to obtain a grant

funding, a number of things. So you like UKIP? You have other policies.

What is the point? We are a very clear party. 30% of the latest

YouGov poll said they would prefer to have a movement that is solely

for demanding a referendum and that is what we will provide.

completely sympathise with Katie's cause, I am a Euro-sceptic, but

because of that I don't think what you are proposing is a good idea. I

want UKIP to top the poll in 2014 to put as much pressure as possible

on the two major parties. If you are fielding candidates against

UKIP, you will divide the anti- EU the voting. This is a very

political perspective you have both got. I am much more representative

of what people are thinking on the sofa. I don't want to be an

apprentice! I will put it to you that if you are fighting for a

referendum, you are fighting the wrong elections because if you

fight European elections, MEPs cannot force an election and a

referendum. Sometimes if I don't want to hear the answer to a

question, I don't ask it. People do not want to ask it. You both all

the same thing but you are splitting the Euro-sceptic in that

referendum vote. We are not getting a referendum! How long have UKIP

been around? We have just delivered another batch of 100,000 signatures

to parliament, we have the largest mobile network of supporters and we

are fed up with waiting for these guys. We want a referendum and we

would it be for the next election. You can deliver as many signatures

to Downing Street as you like, it is pie in the sky. The only way you

could force that is in the ballot box in Westminster. In 2014, people

can mark clearly that they want a referendum. Katie said it was to

enable people to clearly indicate they want a referendum, and they

can do that anyway by signing a pledge. You should support that

pledge, it is a great campaign, not throw up a spoiler to UKIP, who we

want to win in 2014. Are you worried? Sake lay, but we have seen

it all before. -- a vaguely. It will not make that much difference.

I don't wish to join UKIP. We have queues of people waiting to sign up

when we are campaigning in the streets. Why don't you just mad a

takeover of UKIP? -- Mount. Because they haven't delivered. That is the

bottom line. We see them a lot and they talk a lot but they don't

deliver. Where is the referendum that they have delivered? They have

not won enough elections. indeed. That is why we need a new

group of people. How would you be able to do it more effectively?

Weekend have cross-party support. It is not about what party used

belong to -- we can have cross- party support. It is not about

career politicians, it is about the people. What are you going to do

about this? We have seen it all before. We have had a splinter

groups in the past and spoilers in the European elections. Our ground

is too big. We are polling double digits and in all likelihood...

Will there be many Tories like you, Toby Young, saying that they want

UKIP to come ahead of the polls in the European elections? I am

probably not that unusual. If you look at the people who have

defected from the Conservative Party since the last election,

quite a few of them have defected to UKIP precisely on that issue. It

depends on the Tory party's policy about Europe. If Cameron is not

committed at that point to a referendum, yes, I will be voting

UKIP. We need to check about the money involved. I was in Ireland

for the last referendum and the yes campaign out spent the no campaign

20 fold, because the EU were pouring in money. We cannot allow

that to happen again because it will be a repeat of 1975. Thank you.

You're watching the Daily Politics, and we've been joined by viewers in

Scotland who have been watching First Minister's Questions from

Holyrood. It is a big day in Edinburgh. The

economic future of five million Scots, and the fiscal reputation of

the SNP, is being debated, as Finance Secretary John Swinney

reveals his budget statement to the Scottish Parliament. Scotland's

budget comes from a UK government block grant. In other words, taxes

raised centrally by the Exchequer. There is just over 28 billion

available for the coming year. The Scottish government also has the

power to raise, or reduce, the basic rate of income tax by up to

3p, which would generate an extra billion pounds. But, so far, the

option has never been used. Holyrood cannot borrow on the

international markets. But it can take out short-term loans from the

UK central government. So, at the moment, the size of the cake is not

really the issue, just how you distribute it. Money will be spread

among devolved responsibilities like health, education, justice and

policing, transport, economic development, and rural affairs. The

SNP is expected to make three points:. That they are driving

growth, through protecting capital investment and, in particular,

construction. That they are working hard to counter cuts and alleged

economic mishandling from the UK government. That independence would

offer greater powers and thus greater flexibility to assist the

Scottish economy. Scotland's finance secretary will be making

his budget speech this afternoon. Let's talk now to the BBC's

Scotland political editor, Brian Taylor. What has been said? It is

very contentious, this Budget, because it is 42013-14, and 2014 is

the date pencilled in firmly for the referendum on Scottish

independence. We have a different referendum in play up here! John

Swinney is very tightly constrained. Spending cuts of 11% over the four

years up to 2015. But within that, he is trying as much as possible to

revive growth, and he has done that largely by shifting from Revenue

dated in spending on to Capital Investment, particularly housing

and construction. The SNP said it is looking at ending the pay freeze

for public sector workers. They have said that before, but is it

affordable? It is a very, very contentious question. Strictly

speaking, the pay freeze handled by the Scottish government is only the

employees for which they have direct responsibility, civil

servants, NHS, quangos and senior managements, only 20,000 people,

but it sends a signal to a large part of Scotland and they have

followed that pay freeze, due to end in 20th March 13. John Swinney

signalled that he hoped after that to be able to allow a modest

increase. I guess that would be around 1%. He will defend that

argument on the basis that there has been two years of a freeze for

those earning over 21,000 in the public sector, and it is aware of

engendering a bit of a sense of confidence in two people, as well

as pennies and pounds. So while the debate goes on about whether that

is affordable, what about this spat between Iain Duncan-Smith and Alex

Salmond over how Scotland would pay its benefits bill if it were in

dependent? It is a very substantial row indeed. It has an immediate

element, whereby the SNP and the largest opposition party, Labour,

are delighted to be raising this issue and using it to give a

kicking to the UK government, both Tory and Lib Dem, but there is the

longer agenda. Alex Salmond wants to rebut in advance the argument

being made by UK ministers that Scotland could not afford current

levels of expenditure. He says the welfare budget in Scotland is

substantial but Scotland has been a net contributor to the UK, in other

words, the deficit in Scotland is a lower share of GDP than across the

hall of the UK, so both Scotland and the UK are a economically in a

mess but Alex Salmond is arguing that the bigger mess is the rest of

Thank you. Now, would getting a personal text message from the

Government make you more likely to pay your tax bill? How about if you

were told that other people in your town had already paid theirs? It

might sound like something out of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, but

it is part one idea known as nudging. There is a whole unit in

Number Ten dedicated to saving money using persuasion techniques.

Sounds ominous. The UK is exporting nudging, with offices in Australia

working with the Government team. I am joined by Grant Shapps. How does

that work, sending a text message? What do they say about getting

people to pay fines and file tax returns? Did they say, please,

please, please? Yes, essentially. It is a way of nudging people into

paying something that is outstanding. It's harder to ignore,

even perhaps than a red letter. It's an interesting idea, when you

think a bailiff's letter, with implicit threats and turning up at

the door would be more effective? You would think so, it must get to

the point when bailiffs would be more effective. But I think this

has saved a lot of visits from bailiffs, about �30 million it is

projected to save. This is one small thing that the unit has been

doing. It's based on a theory called nudging, as you said. A lot

of people might have read a book on the same subject. We turned out to

be the only government and the world that has looked at this, put

it into place and used it in policy development and actually trying to

do things like change people's behaviour. Today, there is a big

announcement on pensions and enrolment. That is also part of

this. That would be an ideal part of the so-called nudging?

Suggesting things to people up front, rather than waiting. I was

involved in an energy conference and there was somebody from the

United Number Ten who said one of the problems they had was trying to

persuade people to change their ways in terms of saving energy.

Loft insulation, a big campaign by the Government, that has not worked.

Why is that? It should make perfect sense, your bills are lower and

your house is warmer. Andy while offering subsidies? He s, and yet

people are still not doing it. What we found is that if you said to

people, actually, we will come and sort your loft out in the process,

you get a free loft spring-clean, it got people giving it. It was

actually just the offer of it being hassle-free. It turned out not to

be... They didn't have to make the cost in the first place? Further to

that, even if you are charging people, the fact it is a simple

service that makes it possible and people are wanting to do it. It's

much less to do with economics than traditional government would

traditionally think. You normally think, or for somebody something of

financial value and they will jump at it. The answer to a lot of this

nudging stuff, a lot of it, is that people will respond to things when

they think other people are doing it. You mention things that your

neighbours are doing. That's an incentive to do it yourself.

Changing people's behaviour has only worked on things like paying

your fine, as a reminder. Has it changed their behaviour

permanently? You will have to do it again. So it's failing to change

the way people behave. It is not changing social norms? We know that

this unit has generated something like 20 times the amount it cost to

run it. It's been very successful. It will continue and be exported to

Australia. Simple examples in housing policy, we relaunched the

right to buy. Using the nudging you did, we worked out that people

wanted to find out what their friends and neighbours were doing.

Then there were much more likely to use the right to buy themselves.

it a good thing? I find it difficult to get past the language.

It's very much like something out of the thick of it, the idea of

being nudged by somebody's unit! It was Steve Holton's baby. The fact

it is not being swept under the carpet, does that signal that he is

coming back? He never left! I would not check his travel arrangements

for off the back of this, but it is a serious project. It is starting

to save large amounts of cash in government. The �200 million will

be attributed to this from the work that has already been done. It is

another small thing. You can laugh at it and say, that does not matter,

or you can see that other governments are interested.

much are you going to make from selling it abroad? That is a nifty

idea. It would be useful. The unit is run out of Downing Street. This

would enable extra people to come and work for it. There are 11

people there at the moment. It's a job creation service? It will

create more employment, if you put it that way, but it means we can do

more domestic work as well. Tell us about the countdown clock. The

countdown clock to the 2015 election? Is this part of your

Nanjing? Is it you nudging your staff? I would not mention it to

any other audience other than the Daily Politics. There are 958 days

to go until the next General Election. I said in Central Office,

put that clock up to remind us that is the deadline, the goal, maybe

quicken our pace. Are you going to have other bench marks between now

and does 958 days? I suspect there will be a lot of them along the way.

It is just to focus people's minds. Maybe we could do with one of those.

We can't see them, because they are all the wrong time! Steve Hilton is

coming back, but not to Downing Street? He's working for you?

but he's not coming back to Downing Street. Chairman of the Tory party,

see, you learn things about your own party.

We like to offer something new two- hour viewers. It's a sort of

matchmaking service for the politically confused. As he watched

the great and the good of Westminster tripping through Aller

Studios, you may have wondered, amide left-wing, am I right wing,

none of the above? We decided to kick off with Richard D North, to

go for as his top five tips for At five, the small state. Richard

thinks that the Government should provide the army and the police,

but not much else. At four, the Anglo-American. He says trust

Britain and the States over France and Germany. At three, be an

elitist. Celebrate the top people in society. Everyone, that is, but

the liberal elite! At two practice tough love. Teachers should not

sugar coat the truth, he says. Don't like it? Tough! Number one,

love capitalism. He says businesses and banks are the best hope and

Richard is with us now. He has written a book that gives readers

ideas about how to be a right- winger. What makes you right-wing?

A bump on the head when young? The lure of the jackboot? Who knows.

Reading the Economist when young, having a nice conservative father?

Being in love with the British constitution? Being rather a anti-

liberal, when the 60s came along with that kind of false hope that

everything would be love. I thought it was a by-product of getting

older and wiser? No, I was right wing a very long time ago. Unlike

Toby. It says when you were a teenager you describe yourself as

an anarchist? You were a green head panned? There is a real continuity

between my punk anarchism and mind libertarian Toryism. Have you got

any photographs? I've destroyed them! Did you move to the right

from these days, as you got a mortgage, a wife, a family? You had

to make a living in the world? not sure, in all seriousness, that

it has been a movement. I was anti- state when I was a teenager and I

am against the state now. I accept now that there has to be a minimal

state, that anarchy would not work. But I have not drifted that far

from my days as an anarchist. love with a very good state, I am

an love with a representative democracy that produces an elitist

government, one mandated by the people in a sensible way. I'm in

love worth the Big Society. But only if it includes firms in the

concept of what Big Society is. I like the idea rob voluntary

organisations. I don't believe they are going to run the world. I think

that firms are going to be incredibly important in providing

welfare. Shrinking the state, growing a wiser capitalism is part

of the right-wing mix. It's terribly important to say that the

right wing is deeply conflicted. A proper right-winger would wake up

one morning and feel quite strongly authoritarian. The next morning,

quite strongly libertarian. One morning quite strongly progressive.

What capitalism can bring his progress. At the same time, in love

with tradition. If you are not a conflicted right winger, you are no

right wing of a tall, in my view, you're just a dunderhead.

people that are right wing, are they privately ashamed? Absolutely.

Partly they have been taught by generations of teachers that it is

a nasty business. It includes Hitler and fascism. It is

fashionable, in the right, to say that these were creatures of the

Left, really. I don't think so. I think they were creatures of the

matter right. The hard nationalist right? A particular kind of writer.

There are many other kinds of right. Actually, I think we ought to

accept that really, in a way, almost everybody is right-wing

except when they are being self- consciously liberal and Labour.

great intellectual at Peterhouse College, when people identify

themselves as Conservative students he would say, are you Conservative

because you believe in conservative values or because you believe in

nothing? The correct answer was the second, not the first. It is

certainly anti-utopianism. It does not necessarily mean that you are a

Tory. You're not necessarily for faith, family and the flag. A

right-winger, especially a Moreton Island young right-winger, I would

say they are interested in globalisation, rather than Little

England. So there isn't a model, it is rather complicated to say what

is it to be right-wing? It's very tough. Unfortunately, the right-

winger asked to see that the buck always stops with one. It is

personal responsibility. Everything is one's fault, as a person. One is

responsible for fixing everything, in a weird way. Not by using the

state. Are you not a bit short of modern icons? The right in this

country still appears Mrs Thatcher. She is the last right-wing icon. In

the United States, the Republicans, it is Ronald Reagan, he is the one

that they Riviere, still. That takes us back to the 80s. Here is

the right-wing icon today? Keith Richard, maybe. Of the Rolling

Stones? You are certainly right, granted, the right wing is very

various. The ones that come to mind, handily, are Mrs Thatcher, a UKIP

sort of person. That is actually a rather narrow conception of what

right-wing is. Margaret Thatcher was incredibly important. Keith

Joseph, another great teeth, incredibly important. Terribly

unfashionable and cast as unpleasant, Enoch Powell. Do you

think it is more fashionable now? Perhaps it was embarrassing to

admit that you were right wing, for young people, it was not trendy?

have just had a huge recession, banks have let us down, the

leadership of capitalism has gone wrong. And yet I see no serious

bark of leftism. Octopi is very interesting and quite charming. But

it is hardly a great push of anti- capitalism from the young. There

doesn't seem to be any intellectual resurgence on the left to match the

intellectual firepower of the right of is it intellectual? Mr Obama

looks to be re-elected in America, the polls at the moment suggest

that Mr Miliband will be the next Prime Minister? Other than that,

Great to talk to you, thank you for coming in. We will also do what it

means to be a left-winger, your guide to being a Nazi... Just