07/02/2013 Daily Politics

Afternoon, folks, welcome to the Daily Politics. A Government U-turn

on education, Michael Gove decide and not to abandon GCSEs after all.

But he does plan to beat them up. He made a lengthy statement in the

Commons this morning. We will bring you the latest.

Do not come here it is damp, cold and miserable. Ministers have been

trying to discourage Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants coming to

Britain. Are they waiting an aggressive, negative campaign? I

will be asking the formal Bulgarian prime minister.

The British prime minister joins other EU ministers in Brussels this

afternoon. He says he will fight for a real freeze in the US -- EU

budget. And the political book of the Year

award is going to be announced. We will bring the winner into the

street year. It is a busy day today. With us for

the duration is Leanne Wood, the leader of Plaid Cymru, the party of

Wales. It is the first time we have had tea in the studio. It is, yes.

Welcome. First, the perils of live radio phone-ins. Nick Clegg was

doing his regular weekly phone-in on the London radio station LBC

went a certain chap called Boris from Islington came on the line.

Listen to this. A caller from Islington. Hello, Nick, it is Boris

from Islington. When are you going to get all those Government

ministers out of their posh limousines on to public transport

like anybody else? How can you expect a Government to boat for

increases in infrastructure spending when they sit in their

chauffeur-driven limousines paid for by the taxpayer rather than

getting on public transport? Nick, get them out of their limousines.

Boris, over and out. Nick Clegg realised who it was instantly. He

is not on the line? That is a pity. Boris, if you are listening, I

think we have cut the amount of tax pear money which is used to pay for

the cars for ministers. It is about 70%, we have massively slashed it

and changed it. You may wonder what the connection with Wales is. We

have discovered the Welsh Secretary used his ministerial car to travel

110 yards from the Welsh Office to Downing Street. What do you think

of that? Most people will have difficulty understanding the

rationale for it. Maybe it was raining. What is wrong with an

umbrella? Maybe it was windy. so many people are struggling to

make ends meet with the austerity measures that have been meted out,

and there is an increasing number of people accessing food banks, it

is difficult to understand why politicians would have perks like

this. That is on top of the scandals that we have seen. You do

not think senior ministers, the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor,

should not have ministerial cars? There may be an argument having a

driver to go to certain meetings, but for 100 yards? 100 yards, to

John Prescott got into trouble for that. He said his wife had just had

her hair done! But if you have got sensitive papers, the point of a

car for a minister it is not only is it quite secure, but you can

carry on working at making phone calls. Everybody else who goes to

work daily is working on the train or maybe has papers that are

confidential. Everybody else can manage. There is no country in the

world that does not give its ministers a chauffeur-driven car.

think Sweden. Politicians are expected to use public transport in

Sweden. The Prime Minister in the television series has a car. Does

she not cycle? Do Welsh ministers get cars? Yes, there are a fleet of

cars in the National Assembly for Wales. That is one of the things we

should be considering whether or not a fleet of cars is in the best

and public interest. But the money saved would be peanuts. They would

all use minicabs. It would be even more expensive. You could say

peanuts would be saved, but lots of peanuts makes up quite a big pot of

money potentially. The Education Secretary is making a statement to

the Commons on that you turn. He was going to scrap GCSEs and now he

is not. We were watching that statement earlier and we will bring

you a bit of it later in the programme. But we have our own

political exam for you. It is the Daily Politics quiz. Yesterday a

new hereditary peer, Viscount Ridley, was elected to the House of

Lords. You might think it is a contradiction that hereditary

members are elected, but they are and it does not seem to bother them.

There were no fewer than 27 candidates for a one vacancy.

Viscount Ridley also holds another hereditary title which he shares

with the name of a cheese. But which cheese? Is he Barron

Wensleydale, Lord Yarg, Earl cheddar, or the Mikey of Lymeswold.

At the end, Leanne Wood will give us the correct answer. Or she will

have a guess. How is your Polish? Mine is fluent. Last week Polish

was the main language spoken in England after English according to

the 2011 census, but when the next census happens might we all be

speaking Romanian all Bulgarian? Temporary measures imposed in 2005

to protect the British labour market expire in December and they

cannot be extended. This means people from those countries will be

allowed to come to the UK to work and lives and will have the same

rights as others from the European Union. The last time this happened

was in 2004. The Labour Government did not make any transitional

arrangements and it grossly underestimated the number of Polish

people and Eastern Europeans coming to the UK went eight European

countries joined the EU. This Government is said to be

considering a negative poster campaign to stop people from coming

and to correct the impression that Britain's streets are paved with

gold. The communities and local Government secretary, Eric Pickles,

told me of an influx of Romanians and Bulgarians which would add to

existing housing problems, but he refused to give me an estimate of

the numbers of people he might move to the UK. That is not something I

think would be helpful in terms of offering numbers just yet. Why not?

You would have to have a degree of confidence in terms of the numbers

before publicly stating them. Harper is the Conservative

Immigration Minister and he is chairing a committee on the issue

and said restrictions could be imposed on access to the NHS and

some benefit payments. But the Bulgarians have hit back with their

own poster campaign. They have hit back with their own campaign and it

ends up saying why do you not come and live here? Good question. We

are joined in the studio by Conservative MP Mark Reckless who

sits on the Home Affairs Select Committee. First, let's speak to

Sergei Stanishev, the former Prime Minister of Bulgaria, now the

leader of the European Socialists in the European Parliament. Welcome

to the Daily Politics. What do you make of the British Government's

attitude to your country and to Romania? Good day to you. First of

all, I can tell you that the weather currently here is not much

better than the United Kingdom. This argument about the weather is

not very strong indeed. But take it for British humour. The important

thing is to stick to the facts and figures. According to the British

statistics, the official statistics, in 2010, there have been 35,000

Bulgarians living in the UK altogether. This cannot create any

real problem to the labour market or to the social security system

because according to the same figures there have been 600

unemployed Bulgarian citizens in the United Kingdom. It is really a

drop in the ocean. Most of the Bulgarians have go and study

because the overall number of students is more than 5000 students,

Bulgarian and Romanian together, and they are bringing more than 30

million euros in taxes and living expenses to the UK economy. I

remember when Bulgaria was joining the European Union in 2007, there

were the same fears and scary tales in the UK media. Then I issued the

media that they would have no problems. This came to be true.

I just interrupt you, but the scary tales are coming from the

Government rather than the media. Our estimate we have been given is

that there are 130,000 Romanians and Bulgarians immigrants already

in the UK. Do you have any idea went all the border controls

comedown how many Bulgarians and Romanians will come to Britain?

is mostly a risk when the Government is taking such positions.

I would like to remind you according to EU law, which has to

be respected by every country including the United Kingdom,

restrictions should be lifted. This was said by the spokesperson of the

European Commission on this issue. This is fair because we all give

something to the European Union, we all benefit from this and I can

assure you, I am absolutely confident there will be no influx

of Bulgarian emigrants to the UK. That is fine, but what is the

answer to my question? I asked you how many do you believe it will

come? I cannot say. It is up to the institutions, but I do remember the

same scare existed for many years ago and it did not happen. I

mention to you the number of Bulgarians who currently lead in

the United Kingdom. I understand that. We learned to date in the

newspapers that Britain is now the biggest magnet of all in Europe for

immigrants from all over. We have overtaken Germany and Spain. More

people now come to this country as immigrants that any other country

in the European Union. If you cannot give me a number, is it not

reasonable to assume that Bulgarians and Romanians will be no

different? They will like the look of Britain and they will want to

come? I am one of those Bulgarians who used to live in the UK as a

student. I studied at the LSE. I am back in Bulgaria and many young

Bulgarians have more prospects and chances not only in Bulgaria, but

in many other European countries. I think it is not a matter of

domestic scary policy. I would like to relate it to another European

debate which is ongoing in the United Kingdom in a very strange

way. Currently those politicians and leaders who insist in further

reducing the European budget are actually calling for a more at

immigrants to come to the UK or other countries because when you

reduce the funds for development and confusion, for Social Security

in the new member countries, in the less developed countries of the

European Union, then you are asking them to come to your country.

have to leave you there and thank you for joining us from Bulgaria.

It is good to see you, come back and speak to us again. Let me bring

in Mark Reckless in the studio. Should the British Government

really be going to Bulgaria and Romania and saying, do not come

here, we are a horrible place? not sure we should be having a

negative advertising campaign. would you want to run down your own

country? Indeed, but the background to this is the Labour Government

said 13,000 would come, but vast I remember it well, we covered it

on the Daily Politics. They got the calculation of how many would come

totally wrong. I accept all of that but your Government's response now

is to give us no estimate of how many Romanians and Bulgarians,

agreed? The Government's concerned if it does give an estimate, if

it's too high it will be used of scare-mongering, if it's too low it

will be be come phrasency. Do you think they have a secret estimate

that they are working on, they're just not telling us? I wouldn't ask

the Government to do the impossible. There is an interaction between our

membership of the EU, not having border controls, anyone being able

to come to this country and having a welfare system where people don't

understand it, where people who haven't contributed to our system

can come and immediately start gaining benefits. That's the

problem. I want to come on to that, for the moment I want to deal -

because it's an important issue, I want to stick with the overall

issue at the moment. Migration Watch, which is a private thinktank,

it says it expects about 50,000 people from Romania to come each

year and Bulgaria until 2019. Does that sound reasonable to you?

Migration Watch are a respected institution. I understand. I take

their estimate very seriously. I don't know because other labour

markets are opening at the same time. I am not sure - I just what's

difficult to estimate, Denmark and Ireland have a similar system in

terms of welfare benefits, but how much the ability to very quickly

gain in work benefits when you are getting an income which is pretty

high compared to Romania and Bulgaria, I don't know what impact

that's going to have. Given the Poles and other east Europeans came

in numbers not predicted, I know you thought the Government was

wrong but not sure you knew there would be so so many, what damage

did it do this country? I think it's made people feel we don't have

control of our borders. But what damage, that may be true but that's

part of being a member of the European Union. We have free

movement of labour. And of capital. What damage did it do to have all

these hard-working, motivated, in many cases well-educated people,

come to this country? In particular areas where that movement of people

has been concentrated, it's put a lot of pressure on public services

and I also think that people at the lower end of our labour market who

are often competing with new people coming in, they may well have seen

wages depressed bay degree and -- by a degree and other people have

been prepared to take those jobs. said Wye come back to the matter of

welfare. Do you think that those who come here, that both welfare

benefits and NHS treatment should not be available to them? In terms

of welfare benefits, one change I really think we should make is we

should stop paying child benefit to children who are not resident in

this country. I think that's very, very important. Is that it, would

you make more changes? The other issue in terms of benefits, we have

tax credits where people in low or middling paid jobs, on a non-

contributory basis get that tax credit. Romanians and Bulgarians

are likely to get that too, probably against EU law not to do

that. People will been given benefits particularly if they have

children, that's a real problem about how our system interacts with

membership of the EU. What do you make of this? Costs and benefits to

the free movement of people, people from the UK move to other countries

and get the benefits from those countries, too. I think the point

about workers at the lower end of the pharget having their -- market

having their wages depressed is a good point but that could be

overcome by social protections for all workers across the board to

protect those wages. What does that mean? By ensuring a decent standard

of living in terms of wages so that terms and conditions can't be

undercut, strong trade unions, as well. Doesn't sound like you are

going to get many changes. That might make it even more expensive

to give benefits, but we could have changes. If people want to take

back control of our immigration system, then in 2015 if they vote

for a Conservative Government they will get a referendum to choose

whether they stay part of it. are you going to vote in that?

would be very - I wish the Prime Minister well in trying to get

powers back. I think it's likely I would be on the side campaigning to

come out but I also... You will vote no probably? The Prime

Minister's right to try and get... I get that. I wanted a yes or no.

We should be an independent country. Thank you.

Immigration isn't the only talking point in Europe this week. EU

leaders arrive in Brussels this afternoon to try to carve out a

deal on the EU Budget. They've been talking about that at the European

Parliament in Strasbourg, too, where are very own Jo Co is.

Here I am again in Strasbourg. The European Parliament as of now backs

the Commission's proposal for a 5% increase in the long-term budget,

something called the MFF from 2014 but within the European Parliament

not all MEPs agree with that line. I have three MEPs here to discuss

that with me. Welcome to all of you. Let me come

to you, first of all. Why should there be an increase in the budget

for the EU when everyone across Europe is suffering economically?

Because the EU budget is 95% investment budget and in these days

of economic crisis we need growth and jobs and the only way to do it

is to have investing possibilities and the European budget is 95%,

there is no EU member states budget like this for investment, which is

used for growth and jobs. People might say you would say that, your

country is a big recipient of money. No. These MEPs from Britain, of

course, are big contributors. What do you say to Derek and Marta who

are calling for the overall budget to be brought down? We are

recipient, but you have to think that - invest in one corner of

Europe, of EU is bringing benefits also in other corner. So you cannot

say that in Romania if you work on European money is only Romania is

the beneficiary, it's also all - there are also other companies

working in Romania. What do you say to that? Does David Cameron

actually have any real chance of getting an agreement that reduces

the overall budget? Well, I think we need to think that the past

seven years were supposed to have turned the European Union in a very

competitive market, state of the art in innovation and energy and

what has happened, all this money that taxpayers in the European

Union put into this budget have not actually produced the results that

were expected. Is David Cameron going to achieve his aim? I think

he should achieve the aim of reducing the budget because there

is no justification to increase it. We have not achieved the aims, who

can guarantee we are going to achieve the aims for the future,

even if we get more money? Where is the support going to come from for

David Cameron's position? Labour called for a real terms cut and yet

you agree with Mr Marinescu that we need money for growth? There's

going to be a lot of smoke and mirrors at this summit, they may

well reduce the budget. But first of all, we don't know where it's

going to be a real terms freeze or cut. Second thing I would say is

this is a missed opportunity. We have a one in seven-year chance

here to reform the EU budget. We should be looking at savings, but

also we should be looking to invest more money in things which promote

jobs and growth so the regional funds, infrastructure, youth

guarantee scheme, research and development. Where would you cut

then, in order to bring the budget down? The question to answer to Mr

Cameron, you want 200... The common agricultural policy. That That

doesn't seem to be on the table. There's opportunities to make

savings in the budget, for example, a billion euros a year going export

subsidies, like for tobacco and alcohol, let's cut those. There's

Strasbourg session here, every year it costs 180 million to come to

Strasbourg. There are savings to be made. They should be making those.

External action surveys that has provided no benefit in its years of

existence. Baroness Ashton has not achieved anything and that costs.

This is an opportunity to make savings in the member states

because they reduce... It's not an opportunity... External services,

because we can use the European ones if we want to have only one

voice. This is not happening. Baroness Ashton responded to me

individually that the external action service would not replace

national embassies. Is this about member states fighting their

corners and forgetting about the bigger picture? Absolutely. Some

member states are going to fight for struck structural funds. They

should have taken this opportunity. We should be putting more money

into structural funds. Wales, is a net beneficiary of funds, we gain

and in Wales most of the infrastructure projects, most of

the training schemes, research and development is paid for by the EU

and that's the type of thing you should be funding. About Angela

Merkel back David Cameron in these negotiations? I think she should.

Will she? I think she will because she needs the UK. That's the issue.

The The European Union needs the United Kingdom, so she will, of

course, back him. All right. The UK also needs EU, in my opinion.

European Union needs the UK more than the UK needs the European

Union. It would be the other way. We could have a longer discussion

about this, thank you to all three. No doubt the discussions will go on

and on. Thanks. And we'll stick with Europe and the

in/out referendum promised by David Cameron after the next election.

The Prime Minister's betting that the referendum will be popular with

the British people but how will it go down in the devolved nations? We

asked people in Cardiff whether they thought Wales should leave the

If that happens, then we are becoming our own little - instead

of being united as one it's going to be everybody going separate ways,

wouldn't that make it worse off? Stay, I think. We received a number

of funds to bring companies into Wales, our company being one of

them. These more marginal areas away from the centre benefit from

forms of regional aid which come from Europe, which the UK

Government or the English Government doesn't care to hand out

so often. If we were to have a referendum nationally and the UK

were to vote to leave Europe what do you think Wales should do?

on as Europe is responsible for most of the health and safety,

without it we would be in a poor place. It's got to be what's right

for Wales, not for England. cannot leave the European Union. We

are united with England really. We are not a country in the European

Union. That question doesn't arise really.

Nice hat! And we're joined now by the Welsh

Office Minister Stephen Crabbe and the leader of Plaid Cymru, Leanne

Wood, is still with us. Are the people of Wales less or

more Eurosceptic than the English say? I think it's in Wales'

national interest to remain within the EU. We as the people have said

in the film, we benefit from structural funds. I know your

position. I understand that. You would want to stay in. The people

in general, are they more or less Eurosceptic? I would say less

tprrbgs that film -- from that film you have shown as well. Our films

are brilliant but they're not scientific. What do you think?

Judging from my constituency, I can say there is increasing demands for

reform of our relationship with Europe. The question your reporter

wasn't asking was do people in Wales want to see our relationship

change and reformed? I think if that question was asked would you

find more people saying yes we want more value for money out of the

European Union and less intrusion and less regulation. What do you

say? But you want out, that's your party's position. The Prime

Minister is clear, we think there are benefits of being in the

European Union. But you have to recognise that there's a real

appetite out there in parts of the UK for reforming our relationship

with Europe, getting more value for money and that ties in with the

budget debate this weekend but also in terms of intrusiveness of

regulation, businesses want change, too. If you get the - if you can

repatriate some powers, the party's position, you would vote to stay in

or if you don't get that, if the khoeuts is the status quo, or

leaving what would you do? That's a hypothetical question. Where are

you on this? Is there enough time in Wales for certain powers - you

are in favour of devolution, why not repatriate some powers to the

$:/STARTFEED. Of course we want to see reform. There are aspects of do

you -- the European Union, and the weight of money involved. None of

that is going to change. I was listening to the French ambassador

this morning and one of the interviewers razed it and he just

kicked it out of touch, saying that is impossible, Strasbourg is

symbolic of the war generation of everything that Europe stands for.

It is the peace city on the German border with France. It is never

going to happen. This is the difficulty David Cameron has got.

He is not going to get the changes he wants. This is why we should be

backing the Prime Minister this weekend. He wants to get these

European politicians to recognise the reality we are in. We cannot

carry on spending more and more or. But you know how much Wales is

benefiting. How many jobs would be lost in Wales where that budget to

be cut? Thousands. Of Wales receives a lot of support from

Europe and over the last 10 years has it helped really grow the

economy of Wales? We have fallen further behind. We could be worse.

But is there a real future for Wales if that future means it is

continually dependent on subsidies from London or Brussels? No way. No,

we cannot continue being subsidised, absolutely not, and that is why my

party has said economy and jobs have to be the top priority. We

want to be independent and depend upon ourselves. I know that is a

long-term goal, but you are not like the SNP, you are not in favour

of independence tomorrow or next year or the year after? There is

the affordability question for us and in the interim we want the

National Assembly for Wales to have powers over taxation and the powers

to change the economy. It is more devolution. His Wales in decline?

Over the last 10 years we have fallen behind. 20 years. But there

is some light at the end of the tunnel. Why it is that light,

spotting the incoming train? Unemployment is frozen. Youth

employment continues to fall and we are putting in investment in rail

services and transport infrastructure, broadband. There

are 50,000 more people out of work now than before the recession

started and there are 50,000 people who are under employed in Wales. We

are far from problem-free. Final word. We need to be ambitious for

growing our economy, not just to rely on a European subsidy. I would

agree with that. I am not sure if the Scottish viewers have joined us

yet. Not yet, they are late, they are getting later, but when they

joined as they will be welcome. In fact, I have been told viewers in

Scotland have joined us now. They were watching First Minister's

Questions. Few have just missed our conversation about Wales, but we

are moving on to a conversation about the Bank of England. Mervyn

King is making way for his Canadian opposite number, Mark Carney, who

is charging more than Mervyn King ever did, and he is getting a

housing allowance of �250,000. That is not bad for a European bank.

Last year he suggested a great target and has been taking

questions from the Treasury committee. He was asked earlier

about his comment of growth rather than inflation. The response to

remarks that I made and what was read into that remarks that I main

suggests an appetite, at least to me, for a proper debate about the

monetary policy for England. I know the Chancellor said he welcomed

that debate there should be that debate, a relatively short debate,

because I do not think that the uncertainty is think anybody's

interest. That is the new governor of the Bank of England. He is

Canadian. He might sound like an American to you. But you can tell

the difference in their accents. Political commentator Max Kaiser is

here. What do you make of the new governor? He is doing a job in

starting to print money to pay a salary, which is going to be in the

millions. But we have to pay for inflation in this country. The eels

are moving up and this is the last thing they want to see and there is

a problem with inflation in the UK. They say it is 2.7%, but when you

add in the costs of food and energy, the scandal of horsemeat, that is

an inflation story, substituting cheaper meat because there is an

inflation problem and Mark Carney is going to exacerbate that problem.

What is this story about milk? hear this anecdotally that there is

a problem with watered-down milk and the horse meat story is a big

story and that is an inflation story. You are substituting

expensive meat with cheap meat. The real inflation in the UK is running

at 7% or 8% for the person on the High Street. What do you make of

his idea? I am not sure he is going to do it, but he has thought about

replacing the 2% inflation target with an economic growth target.

This is a lot of central bank trickery. They want to show that

the overall GDP is bigger relative to debt and they will allow

inflation to creep higher, said they can print higher GDP numbers,

so there bond rating will hopefully remain at 888. Mark Carney is a

servant of the banks and the banking establishment. The average

person in the UK will have higher inflation. We know he is a big fan

of the Daily Politics and when he what is this, give him one piece of

advice. Tell him what he should do. The he should resign immediately

and let markets set interest rates and get back to market capitalism.

We do not want a central Politburo into straight Communist setting the

interest rates. We will pass that a lot anyway. Let's move to the big

story of the day as the Education Secretary Michael Gove is scrapping

plans to replace some GCSE exams in England. It comes five months after

he announced controversial proposals to introduce a tougher

qualification, the English Baccalaureate certificate in

English, maths and science in 2015. Labour is calling it a humiliating

climbdown. In a statement this morning, this is what the Education

Secretary had to save. Last September, which outlined plans for

changes to GCSE is designed to address the dumbing-down and loss

of rigour in those examinations. We have consulted and there is a

consensus the system needs to change, but one of the proposals

are put forward was a bridge too far. My idea that we end the

competition between exam boards to offer GCSEs in court, academic

qualifications and have just one, a new exam in each subject was one of

reform to many at this time. The exam regulator, Ofqual, was clear.

There were significant risks in trying to both strength and

qualifications and to end competition in large parts of the

exams market. I will not proceed with plans to have a single exam

board offering a new examine each academic subject. Instead, we will

concentrate on reforming existing GCSEs broadly along the lines we

put forward in September. That was Michael Gove in the Commons not so

long ago. We are joined by Kevin Gage, a former schools minister,

and Kevin Brennan, who has just hot-footed it from the Commons. As

I understand it, the Government line and is that we have backed

down on wood into a Baccalaureate. But actually the substance of the

change, it is broadly the same. Is that what you are claiming? Sort of.

There will no longer be one exam board for each subject. That has

been dropped. That is when he said he listened and he said he was

wrong to propose that. He listened to Ofqual and the select committee

and teachers and unions. But the rigour and the demand to make sure

our GCSE qualifications are on a par with the rest in the world,

that they are examined at the end of the cause in most subjects, that

modules are abandoned, that we get rid of this resit culture, far too

many exams, that will go, and the curriculum will be more rigorous.

It will be knowledge-based to insure school leavers have a rich,

cultural and scientific literacy when they go on to further study

and work. What do you make of that? If this is eight-week, I would like

to see a U-turn! This is a massive change. Michael Gove has dropped

this proposal which we said all along was a disastrous proposal for

this Baccalaureate certificate and he is keeping GCSEs. In fact, some

of the other changes will get rid of the English Baccalaureate idea

altogether because no longer will that be the accountability measure

for schools. That opens up the creative side. It will be

incorporated into the accountability measure and it will

be the best of eight and of that eight two have to be English and

maths. It is a very important measure in this Baccalaureate

combination of maths, English, science, history. The combination

is going to be called the English Baccalaureate? Yes, indeed. He is

shaking his head. I went to the Department this morning and was

presented with documents and his stake and given five minutes'

notice. The change originally was to move to a Baccalaureate style

exam, but we already have something called the English Baccalaureate,

and correct me if I am wrong, this is not an exam in English, this is

a combination of Baccalaureate tight exams for England. That is

correct. It is a performance measure in the tables.

Understanding the exams these days is more difficult than doing them!

In 1996, half of the students took this combination. Or they took

hires. By the time we came into office in 2010, it had fallen to a

5th. We have got to get back to youngsters taking this academic

range of subjects, the subject at the Russell group of universities

said... The top universities in the country. That is right. Michael

Gove have dreamt this up on the back of a cigarette packet. I was

told it was an envelope. I am not sure how big the envelope was, but

I think you are wrong. There was the leak to the Daily Mail last

year that we were going to have O- levels and GCSEs. What the

Government is trying to address is the competition between the exam

boards. Over the years it has resulted in grade inflation. Ofqual

says that has happened. There have to be other measures and Ofqual

will have to make sure an exam boards will have to look to

themselves to ensure they are not competing for market share among

schools on the basis of, you will get a good grade if you come to our

exam board. The exam boards will not compete for the market share.

Grades will go down. Let me ask you this question. Clearly you are

going to have great fun at Michael Gove's expense. I want to come back

to the serious issue which is do you support the beefing up of

GCSEs? It is a serious issue and Michael Gove was tried to laugh it

off and he is causing mayhem, so it is a serious issue. We want to work

with the Government if they remained the Government and to get

a consensus about the right kind of conform -- reform for exams at 16.

We have got a participation aged up to the age of 18. Does Labour

Stanford tougher GCSEs? We stand for rigour and high standards, yes,

absolutely, but in the longer term we need to look at the evidence of

what is the best kind of reform. In Wales they have taken similar

England's now coming back into line with Wales, is that right? Wales

has had the Welsh Baccalaureate for a decade now running alongside

GCSEs. That's an A-level qualification. Ah, right. We have

had a Baccalaureate for a decade. If you lot don't know how are the

rest of us supposed to know! I know. You know. It's been in place for a

decade. This is not news for us in Wales. Is it true really that you

had to drop the idea of doing a Baccalaureate because it's highly

unlikely most people could have spelled it? Well, spelling is now

restored as an important element of most of the GCSEs. They wouldn't

have been able to spell it. Would you like to have a go?! Only joking.

Let's not do that. We are going to let you go, but thank you for

coming in today. We are going to stick with education.

Because if England's record is bad, could Wales's be even worse? Last

week, the Welsh education watchdog, Estyn, revealed that fewer schools

had achieved good or excellent inspections compared with the year

before. And on health - another devolved power - the First Minister,

Carwyn Jones, said this week that the health service in Wales will

collapse unless hospitals are reorganised. So has devolution been

good or bad for Wales? We sent Susana there to take a look.

It's one of the oldest towns in Wales, and it celebrates its

history. It gives pride of place to a local doctor, William Price who

defied English rules and this is a nation that has been free to go its

own way from England on issues like health and education ever since

devolution 14 years ago. But if you live here in Wales your

health is likely to be worse than if you lived over the border in

England. As are your exam results. This is where many of the local

children go. One of Welsh education's success stories.

These maths GCSE pupils are in a school that's been classed as

excellent but nationally, Welsh results have been on the decline.

In 2002, over 57% of children in England got A-C grades at GCSE,

compared with a higher level of around 59% in Wales. But then the

tables turned. By 2011, England had almost 70% A-C grades, while Wales

was on 66.0%. During that period, the Welsh Government cut school

funding. In 2010-11 that gap was around �600 per pupil, per year.

That's for me, as a head teacher of a school this size equates to half

a million per year I could be spending on pupils. The Welsh

Government has long been opposed to testing children. But now it's

planning to bring in numeracy and literacy tests for 7-14-year-olds.

The politician in charge of education says that's not an

acceptance devolution has been bad for Welsh education. There was a

period when we didn't focus strongly enough on overall school

improvement and what I have been trying to do since I became

Minister during the coalition Government is introduce that real

focus on school improvement so we are looking, for example, we banded

secondary schools so we know which are the strong performers. There

then's health. Life expectancy is lower in Wales than in England but

can that be pinned on devolution? We are on top of most of the league

tables, you don't want to be on top of in terms of public health

problems and that pre-dates devolution. There's no doubt. To

blame devolution for that simply seems rather bizarre and churlish.

But I meet someone who's campaigned against more devolution here, she

says it's led to gimmicks instead of better health provision. Free

prescriptions and free car parking, which obviously people love, but it

means that there's less money spent on care, or other fundamental

aspects of the health service that are falling behind care in England.

But is that down to devolution itself? Or could it just be about

what those in charge choose to focus on?

Leanne Wood is still with us and Nick Gibb. Why is Wales doing badly

in schools and health? Well, if we take education first. It depends

which part of the education system that you look at. So, pupils up to

the age of 11 seem to be faring OK. We have introduced the foundation

phase in Wales for pupils up to age seven, that's an idea taken from

Finland which has been shown to be a success. But it's beyond 11 that

the gap opens up between pupils in Wales and England. Is that because

you took none of the reforms of England? I don't think that's the

reason. You are against all the English reforms, aren't you? All of

them? Which ones are you in favour of? We have taken a different route

in Wales. Your route has been no reform. It there has been reform,

we have introduced the foundation phase. You don't have academies.

That's correct. You don't have free schools, you don't have testing.

You don't have league tables. That's right. So what bit of the

the English reforms do you have do you have? None of those! There are

some very good things about the Welsh education system. But I think

because the effort has gone into the foundation phase, maybe the eye

has been taken off the ball tprr the 11-Plus. Grades in Wales are

falling. Yes, we need to do better. I guess my point is that a lot of

people, and I will come to Nick in a minute, they say they're falling

- Blairites may say this privately as well as Conservatives, they're

falling because under old Labour, old Welsh Labour you refused to go

down any of the reform routes that seems to have improved schools in

England. But Plaid Cymru, you're old, old Labour. I wouldn't accept

that. Well, you are against all these things. That doesn't

necessarily - what's good for England doesn't necessarily mean it

will work in Wales. It is because the gap is widening. There does

need to be attention on post-11 education, no doubt about that. The

results that we have had have shown we are lagging behind, no doubt

that we are not doing as well as we could and more more effort needs to

go into pupils 11-16. What do you say. The mistake was in 2004 when

Wales abolished Sats at the end of primary school. That's tests to get

an across the board of a particular age group to assess where they are.

Yes, every child in this country is tested at 11 on English and maths.

You mean England? And And in Wales they abolished that in 2004. I

don't accept there aren't problems in primary school, as well. The

Welsh inspectorate said that half of all primary schools and

secondary schools had to do better when it came to literacy. And if

you look at the GCSE results, in 2001 they abolished league tables

and academics attributes the widening gap in GCSE performance to

the fact that they don't publish the GCSE results in Welsh schools.

It is an important factor in driving up standards. Do you

support support hrfps. They don't publish results? You can't compare

one school with another to see how they're doing. That's an important

part of accountability. This is being looked at now in Wales. There

are kind of - league tables being published. They're not exactly the

same. That's banding systems. Too broad, you need lots of information

for parents to look at. That's how you raise standards. That's why

this gap is widening and why Wales is falling down. Does Wales have a

Russell Group university? Yes, Cardiff. That's the only one?

Well, I am not sure if that's a fact or not. There's other factors.

That's not great, is it. Despite all the constraints on public

spending we have ring-fenced school spending, we have increasing

spending on health in - and that's a decision that Labour opposes here.

They're delivering that in Wales and we have seen the results.

have one more item, people are waiting, I apologise. I let it go

on too long. Scotland has four Russell Group universities, I

thought I would add that in. So, it was the hottest ticket in

Westminster last night but guess what? Once again, my invitation

seems to have got lost in the dreaded BBC post system. I'm

talking, of course, about the hotly contested Political Book of the

Year Awards - which had so pretty high profile nominees.

Alastair Campbell has published another volume political diaries -

this time starting with 9/11 and focusing on the build-up to the

Iraq war. Andrew Adonis, the man behind Tony

Blair's education reforms, has written on, you guessed it,

education, education, education! Our very own Andrew Marr has

written a book to accompany his TV series charting the history of the

world. Now how did Nick Robinson sneak in

there? Must have been an administrative error! Anyway, his

book looks at life reporting on the frontline of British Politics -

something I would obviously know little about.

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson were nominated for their book on

Why Nations Fail. And, finally the Politics of

Coalition by Robert Hazell and Ben Yong looks at the unlikely love in

between the Tories and the Lib Dems. But we at the Daily Politics only

deal with winners on this programme. And here she is - Caroline Shenton

who "blew up" the competition with her book The Day Parliament Burned

Down. I'm also joined by MP Keith Simpson

who is also chairman of the judges who awarded the prize. Welcome to

you both. Congratulations. You are doing a bit of advertising, not

sure we allow that at the BBC, but too late to stop it! Well done to

you. Why did she win? Because she was best, I mean, it was...

worked that bit out! There was other good books there, but what we

all collectively concluded and there was to disagreement, was that

it was a fascinating subject. It was more than just the fire. It had

contemp contempanous elements and it was readable. And it was at the

time an incredible national disaster. I am told you could from

the South Downs you could see this flame. The King and Queen saw it in

Windsor and I assume the old buildings were stunning. They were

amazing but very degraded by 1834. They had been a fantastic site of

Europe in the middle ages and early modern period but they had become

completely a mess, a tinderbox waiting to go up. Would they have

had to go at some time? I think the way the architecture was going they

could have been done over. great Westminster Hall survived.

That survived. I love walking through that, with the wonderful

roof. It survived after a terrific effort by volunteers and firemen

and the arrival of the great floating engine coming up the river

when the tide rose and shot water over the eastern flank of the

Palace. You have written academic works before but this is more

popular, did you enjoy writing for a wide eb epber audience - wider

audience. I loved it. What was the number two? I can't tell you, that

would be unfair but it would be safe to say that he did serve in

the last Labour Government. Good, well done, Andrew, you were

second. Time to find out the answer to our quiz. Which cheese was it? I

have no idea. I am hoping somebody will tell me. It was Wensleydale.

Thank you. You didn't know that, did you. That's all for today.

Thanks to our guests. The 1.00pm news is starting over on BBC 1 now.

I am back tonight when Michael Portillo will talk about the