31/03/2014 Daily Politics

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Daily Politics. George Osborne is blowing

his own trumpet again. He's just made a speech with a commitment to

fight for full employment and argues his changes to the tax and benefits

system are the most important for a generation.

How does a ?10 a month charge to use the NHS grab you? It's being

proposed by the former Labour Health Minister Lord Warner to help plug

the funding gap. We'll speak to him live.

The impact of climate change is likely to be severe, pervasive and

irreversible according to a major new report by the UN. We'll discuss

what, if anything, can be done about it.

And excessive drinking, expenses scandals and corruption. Just a

normal day in the office of the Daily Politics and they also feature

pretty highly in the history of Parliament. Surprise surprise. We

will take a look back. All that in the next hour. And with

us for the first half of the programme is the editor of Labour

List Mark Ferguson. Welcome to the programme. Let's start with the

proposals from former Labour Health Minister Lord Warner that everyone

should start paying a ?10 a month so-called membership charge to use

the NHS. The plan is from a report for the think-tank Reform and argues

that the money is needed to plug an expected ?30 billion funding gap by

2020. So, could this be a goer? Lord Warner is with me now. Before we ask

you whether it will catch on, where did you get the funding gap from?

Because the now retired or retiring chief executive actually said that

is what the gap would be by the end of the decade. Nuffield trust, the

independent health think tank said it could be over ?40 billion. We

have used the most conservative estimate. I do not think too many

people in the know who I have spoken to think there will not be a great

financial black hole by the end of this decade for the NHS. Without new

sources of funding? We are saying other things as well. The NHS is not

as efficient as it could be. We are in good company. The regulator

saying the same thing. ?18 billion worth of savings Monitor thinks the

NHS could deliver. Anyway you look at it, the funding streams look

inadequate to cope with providing a good quality health service with the

disease profiles we have and tomography we have got. Health

spending is devolved, you are talking about England. But it will

go against the grain. It will go against the grain of the majority of

people in England who say it has to be free at the point of use, that is

what it was setup to. We respect that. We would like to go on putting

more money into the NHS but I do not think you can go on shoving more

money into the NHS from general taxation with the situation we have

got. We have to look for otherwise. We have also got to look at finding

creative ways to get people to in gauge with looking after their own

health better than we have done so far. Your proposal for a ?10 charge

for everybody to become a member of the NHS is what you are proposing is

a starting point. We all also -- we are also proposing exemptions. There

should be some exemptions for children and poorer people as well.

What do you think the reaction will be? The Labour Party has said there

is no prospect of this being introduced by them ever. Long term

Labour would keep the NHS free at point of use. I commend Lord Warner

for thinking seriously about the funding. But you talked about

membership of the NHS. One of the wonderful things about the NHS is

from the moment you are born, you are a member. You do not have to

worry about whether you have paid your bills when you turn up at

hospital. It is not affordable and sustainable according to Lord

Warner, if we want to treat the wide range of diseases and ageing

population. Do you accept that? I am not sure I do. There is still a case

for it being funded through general taxation. The NHS... You think

people would take an increase in general taxation? If we have a

shortfall, it is the kind of conversation we have to be having.

Should spending be ring fenced by some of -- ring fenced? I find it

difficult how Labour could have given this report serious

consideration. You think they are not thinking about it because

politically it would not be palatable. They have got to revisit

issues around the NHS. What are the other charges you would be looking

at? What about charging to go and see your GP, charging for food and

hospital? What we have tried to do with the membership idea is not

actually have a charge for GPs. We have tried not to put a barrier up.

This is an annual subscription. We have suggested one of the things to

be considered, as in France and Germany, is a small charge for the

hotel costs of being an impatient are particularly if you are in for

an exceptionally long time. De Unite union has put out a press release

saying you have a conflict of interest because you have links with

private health care companies. It is rubbish. They are out of date. They

will say there is a conflict of interest where there is this

privatisation of the NHS. Is that how you would see it? I have always

used the NHS and I will go on using it. But I will be a bit more

selective about which hospital I place myself in the charge of. In

terms of social insurance, one of the other things mentioned, do you

think it would ever be politically palatable? They have it in France

which is a far more left-wing country in many ways than our own.

Within the UK it is so much within the day to day, session around

health care that it is free at the point of use and I do not expect

that to change -- within the day to day conversation around health care.

Nearly 50% of MPs said it will no longer be free is used. -- free to

be used. In 2010, George Osborne said he

would eliminate the deficit by 2015. And after years of austerity, it

seems that the Chancellor believes that the public finances are in such

good shape that it is time for a massive give away. Or as Mr Osborne

calls it, the biggest tax reduction in two decades. How will the magical

transformation appear? Tomorrow the tax on company profits will be cut

by 22% to 21%. This will also be reformed and to help companies grow

the tax-free investment allowance will rise to half a million. On

Sunday, the lowest paid workers will only start paying tax after the

first 10,000. Bosses get another bonus with the national Insurance

cut of up to ?2000 per employee. Labour said the Chancellor's smoke

and mirrors routine is just an illusion with the typical household

?900 worse off since the last election. George Osborne has been

speaking just over an hour ago, hailing the new tax regime that

begins this week. The focus of the changes to tax was to encourage more

into work and the Chancellor's speech contained a rather retro

phrase. Over 2 million are still looking for a job. It will take time

to fix it but we will not rest while we have so much wasted potential in

some plants to be macro parts of the country. I am making a new

commitment to fight for full employment in Britain. Making jobs a

central goal of our economic plan. The Chancellor. Unfortunately, no

Treasury minister was available to discuss the speech. Very strange.

They are all fully employed, it seems. We are lucky enough to be

joined by the Jessie Norman a member the Treasury Select Committee. Thank

you for taking time out of your full-time job. Full employment, what

does the Chancellor mean by that? To us it means that everybody has a

job. He means that everyone should be in work to the maximum extent

possible, the full employable resources of the country should be

use. He said he wants us to be at the top of the G7 rankings for the

percentage of people in employment, above Canada, Germany, Japan. It is

formidable. What is the percentage we are talking about? He used a

figure 2 million unemployed, it is 7%. I cannot tell you what the

percentage would be but it would take us from 71% to 73% of people

employed. OK. In terms of rhetoric it is fairly loaded. George Osborne

is parking his tanks on the Labour Party's lawn. The Labour Party has

been talking about full employment. It depends on the Metro use. Labour

would want to see the number of people unemployed for six months or

more reduced to effectively zero. What I would say is that I have not

seen anything from George Osborne today in terms of policy that gets

us to that point other than it is an aspiration. Labour has the

compulsory jobs guarantee that will go in the right direction but I

still think they can go further. Osborne will need to go a lot

further to park his tanks properly and celebrate. What are the policies

that would get closer to that aspiration? The Chancellor

specifically distanced himself from the old-style Labour approach which

would be pumping up demand, classic Labour approach. He is saying we

need to continue to do what we are doing, stimulating the productive

potential of the economy through the kinds of tax reductions he has been

talking about today. Also, working alongside that on the welfare side

to encourage people out of dependency on the state and into

some form of productive and happy work. Are you saying the public

finances, is the Treasury saying the finances are in such a good state

that the country can afford tax giveaways? No, I do not think it

design that. If you look at the cost of the giveaways, some are very

expensive and some less so -- I do not think it is saying that.

Corporation tax reduction is relatively inexpensive. The key

point is to send a message being open for business, and economy on

the up. The numbers are indisputable. You say they are

indisputable but we have a rather large deficit. The Chancellor has

gone on about it being the priority. The priority has shifted. Growth has

come but we still have the deficit. He has not met his own target. 60%

of public spending cuts are still to come. I think that is unfair. On the

Treasury committee we had various experts who have made it clear the

recession that started in 2008 was the longest and deepest we have ever

had. The Chancellor is saying something extraordinarily sensible

which is that you cannot ignore the graveside and growth is fundamental

to reducing the deficit. Difficult balancing act of stimulator growth

and cutting tax and bearing down on debt and deficit. They go together.

Difficult for Labour with growth continuing and the Chancellor seems

to be able to say he can give things away. Whether or not it is fiscally

neutral we can argue about. It makes it difficult for Labour to have a

policy that growth was never going to come back. It has. Jobs have been

created. Labour was never stupid enough to say that jobs and growth

would not come back. Even a dead cat bounce is eventually. Labour will be

saying, we were promised growth but it is relatively meagre and late.

How many jobs? When will they come? The OBR is talking about 5%

unemployment in years to come. It does not feel like full employment

to me. Rather than a big tax giveaway. Would it not be prudent to

fix the roof if the sun is shining? The roof will be fixed by a growing

economy whose tax receipts moved upwards which repay debt. The tax

receipts have not been coming in the stock according to the Financial

Times today disappointing tax rates and the Chancellor should be

worried. Will be more reason for simplification of the tax system so

that people know what they should pay. Anyone would think there was an

election going on next year. The last budget was not election

orientated. Who goes into an election promising widespread

tidings up of the pension system? The extraordinary thing actually is

that the current fiscal straitjacket imposed by our debt and deficit

position makes it very hard for any government to start giving away

enormous amounts of money. This is not a giveaway. This is intelligent

setting of a long-term course. If you look at the numbers involved,

they very. The personal allowance, it is a real commitment. It is not a

giveaway. People are allowed to keep more of their money.

I think that when we come to the end of this Parliament, and people are

asking which tax measure is going to be most memorable, I think that so

far, the polls would suggest it will be not the personal allowance, but

the cutting off the top rate of tax. And that is even though, the measure

was only in place for a few months. However, the impact of saying we are

all in it together, and then cutting tax for the top rate taxpayers, it

does still resonate. There has been a lot of talk by your own

backbenchers about people being dragged into the 50p tax rate. VAT

has gone up. There are things which were taken away that you are just

restoring, you are not really giving any extra? You cannot call it

endless giveaways, and then say we are only restoring things! I can!

The key point about the top rate of tax is that it was designed to raise

more tax, and in fact, it looks like it is doing that. Unfortunately, no

matter what anyone thinks about it, it was a gimmick, and it has been

reversed. As the Chancellor has said, the rich are now paying more

tax than ever before. What about inheritance tax? When do you think

the increase in the threshold for intermittent stacks will happen,

raising it to 1 million, as was promised? -- inheritance tax. I have

no idea. It was an off-the-cuff remark by the Prime Minister. Is

that what it was? I have not assessed that in detail, but I do

not think it is a piece of policy at the moment. Thank you very much.

It used to be a familiar problem - companies relocating to Britain for

cheap labour and materials at the expense of British jobs. Called

"off-shoring" it could leave communities devastated and

governments feeling helpless. Now however, there's a new word in the

economic lexicon - "re-shoring" - the phenomena of companies coming

back to the UK and bringing jobs with them, and it's on the increase.

Here's Alex Forsyth with more. Too many working in manufacturing,

re-shoring might sound like a word made up by economists, which it is.

But it describes a growing trend. A number of firms are bringing their

production operations back to Britain, often from the Far East.

Six months ago, these items were manufactured in China. Now, they are

made at this factory in Tewkesbury, giving the company more flexibility.

They can order smaller quantities, more frequently, and get them to

their customers more quickly. Transit costs less. For the

retailer, it is a big change, to use this British factory. The firm

started out with most suppliers based overseas. This year it hopes

about a 10th of its turnover will come from products made in the UK.

Manufacturers have become more open to be more flexible with retailers,

giving us better payment terms and smaller production batches, so we

can try and test new products very quickly, bring them to market very

quickly and turn them around very quickly. All of this helps cash

flow, and when it comes to costs, rising wages in the Far East mean

that making products there is not as cheap as it once was. It is all good

news for British manufacturers. This factory now employs 150 people,

compared to 60, weight years ago. The new business we have received

has enable us to scale up production. We are producing around

7000 to raise a week now. We do it in a variety of shapes and sizes,

making us very versatile. David Cameron praised this kind of clicks

ability during his speech in Davos, which he used to praise the

re-shoring revolution. If we make the right decisions, we may see more

of what is a small but discernible trend, where some jobs which were

once offshore are coming back from East to West.

Of course, some firms are still heading overseas to make the most of

market opportunities in growing economies. But for the sake of

growth in the UK, the hope is that more businesses will once again want

to mark their products, made in Britain.

And with me in the studio is the chief economist with the

manufacturers' organisation, representing UK manufacturing

companies. What has the Government done, if anything, to encourage this

trend of companies re-shoring? Firstly, this is about what

manufacturers are doing. If companies are bringing production

back, making different decisions from the ones they were making ten

years ago, it is because companies are doing things differently. They

are more innovative, more flexible, more responsive to customers.

Government has helped to a degree I laying some of the foundations for

the kind of business environment which helps with those strategies.

More recently we have seen a particular programme which tries to

help overcome some of the challenges associated with re-shoring, in terms

of finding the right supplier, or making the decision about where best

to make your next investment. But this is mostly about what companies

have done, and how their strategies have changed. But has the motivation

for them to do it, which is always about cost, been a major factor? I

would argue it is not just about cost. In some recent research that

we did, around one in six companies have bought some production back

from a low labour cost economy to the UK. Nobody said it was just for

cost purposes. Companies are more innovative. In order to collaborate

and be more responsive to customers, there are clear advantages to

reducing more in the UK and having more of your supply chain in the UK.

This is encouraging for the manufacturing industry, isn't it?

Absolutely. For too long, under all sorts of governments, we have

knocked down manufacturing, built a business park, set up a call centre

and called it a success. But we are not at the levels which we had

before the crash yet, are we? We have heard endlessly from the

Government about rebalancing the economy, but is that actually

realistic, can we really talk about that? I think it is realistic. We

just have to be a bit more patient. This was never going to be a single

Parliament job. Creating sustainable growth requires us to be much more

focused on investment and export driven growth. When you're

fracturing has to be a key part of that. It delivers half hour exports.

-- manufacturing. Should Labour be focusing -- focusing more of its

attention on rebalancing the economy? I think if you look at

those economies which got through the financial crash test, they were

the ones with the most balanced economies. They did not just rely on

a couple of sectors. The British economy is far too biased,

geographically, regionally, and also between sectors in the economy. If

we can get rid of some of that bias, then we will have much more secure

growth to come. What about skills? It was mentioned in the film,

actually, do we have the right skills to expand in the way that you

would like to see? This has been a key challenge for manufacturing for

decades. If we are looking at re-shoring, the jobs which went

offshore to begin with are not the ones which will come back. They will

be much higher skilled, requiring much higher levels of technical

knowledge. And we do have a bit of a mismatch in terms of what is being

produced from schools and universities and what the industry

needs right now. There is going to be a, isn't there, a skills

shortage? Absolutely. There is a skills shortage at the moment.

Clearly, there is a lot of effort in terms of providing better careers

advice and getting more young people correctly educated. We need to make

sure we have got a really responsive training system to make sure that

people have access to programmes which can retrain people. That is

going to cost money? Absolutely but we really do in the north-east, my

dad, my grandparents, they worked in manufacturing, but if I have

children, will they be able to work in manufacturing? Probably not.

People I went to school with, will they be able to become engineers and

draughtsman and welders? Probably not, those skills just do not exist

any more. Parliamentarians haven't had the

best press over the last few years, and the expenses scandal has been a

big part of that. However, far from being a new phenomena, it seems

expenses were being used and abused over 700 years ago. Take a look at

this. It's a Parliamentary expense claim by one Fulk Peyferer from

1309. At the time, knights were invited to Parliament to discuss

matters with the King and they were paid four shillings a day, including

travel time, and that's twice the amount knights were paid to go to

war. The details were unearthed by the Labour MP Chris Bryant whilst

researching his book Parliament: A Biography - and he joins me now.

What was the motivation? Firstly, the pronunciation is Fulk Peyferer.

He will not sue me, will he?! Related to what Disney, many, many

generations back, I believe. Quite a lot of them are French names,

interestingly. A sickly, I wanted to abolish some of the myths about

Parliament. -- basically. The biggest one, which is trotted out so

often, is that Westminster is the mother of Parliaments. Isn't it? No,

the phrase comes from a Liberal MP in the 19th century, who was

basically arguing that even uncle and, who was the mother of

Parliaments, not Westminster, -- even England -- did not give rights

to everybody. So, it was criticising, not praising, Britain.

I wanted to get rid of that idea. The idea that we modern MPs were the

worst behaved. You mean there were worst behaved? Tell us about some of

the dodgy tales. One of them would be somebody called Ralph, who was

invited to the 1283 Parliament in Shrewsbury, which was basically

convened to witness the hanging, drawing and quartering of the Welsh

Prince, who had rebelled against his English overlords, quite right, too.

But Ralph crapping was a Burgess for London. When he went back to London,

he fell out with a guy over a woman called Alice. When they tried to

beat him up, he sent his friends around to murder the man, and

dressed it up as suicide. When this all came out, he died in the tower,

Alice was burnt at the stake, and 14 of his friends were hanged. There is

a lot of grisly Nass in this book. We showed in the introduction and

image of one of the earliest expenses claims, how did you track

that down? It is in the National Archives. In fact, where I started

from was, who were the very first commoners that we know that came to

Parliament? There was a teenager from Yorkshire, he came down, he was

paid for shillings a day for travelling and so on. The only

reason we know they came is because they have their expenses paid. The

point about four shillings, rather than two, was that the king was

really keen to have good people. Will you be going out to buy the

book? It sounds fascinating. We are lucky in this country to have a rich

political history. You often see American tourists being shown around

Parliament, and they cannot believe that so much has happened within

such a relatively small space. I think the book could be worth a

read. But we can be too overly proud sometimes. We forget that chance has

often played a role. We all think of her is corpus as being a fundamental

British freedom. It has been suspended plenty of times over the

years, not only in Northern Ireland. But it is still a British export

this can well, it is in Latin, of course, but more importantly, when

it came in, it was done in the last few and it's of the Parliament, and

it only got through in the House of Lords because one very fat pier was

counted for ten votes. It should have lost. And in 1713, we nearly

had the same system as in America, where you take the executive out of

the legislature. We only didn't because it fell at the very last

minute, and there was a tied vote. And tied votes in the House of Lords

do not go forward. It is only up to 1800. The second volume is out in

September. Let's look at the state of the Labour Party. Rumblings from

within. MPs saying that they cannot imagine Ed Miliband as a future

Prime Minister, what do you make of it? I really can imagine him as

Prime Minister. In a sense, the history work that I have been doing

has helped. I think there are lots of ways of being a leader. Winston

Churchill and Clement Attlee, completely different in personal

style, I would say come and Attlee was the better Prime Minister. But

you have got to inspire your troops? I and so often he has been the

person who has occupied the political territory first, which

everybody else has though of -- everybody else has then clambered

onto. What about letters saying that he needs to be more radical? For You

always get letters. If people like you are calling for Labour at a

critical time to be more credible and radical, what are you trying to

say about the Labour leadership? People like me will always be

saying, where is the big idea? There is one bit nobody ever comments on

and that is that we have a fixed term parliament. By now normally all

of these programmes would be about, are we going to have a general

election in three weeks time? It is much more difficult for the

opposition. If you lay out your policy platform to early, there is a

danger all of the good things get nicked by the government and the bad

things get torn apart. There is more to come. People were critical last

summer about where Labour was going and whether we had enough on the

plate. The Labour Party conference showed Ed Miliband's team can pull

it out when it is necessary. Very successful conference with you

saying on telly, I think we have to many announcements from the Labour

Party. Surely not! I will be checking that. In a moment, we'll

speak to Tom Newton Dunn from the Sun and Kate Devlin from the Herald.

There they are on College Green outside the Houses of Parliament.

First, let's have a look at what's happening in Westminster this week.

Later today MPs will be debating the Wales Bill that gives new powers to

Cardiff. There are likely to be calls for more to be transferred in

response to the referendum on Scottish independence.

On Tuesday, the main event in the Commons is the Finance Bill that

introduces all the big changes from the Budget, including the latest

increase in the tax- free personal allowance. On Wednesday night, we'll

all be watching the second and final debate between Nick Clegg and Nigel

Farage over the EU. The polls called the first one for Farage so we'll

see if Clegg can swing it for the pro-Europeans at 7pm on BBC Two. And

on Thursday, George Osborne is in front of the Treasury Select

Committee where he's likely to be questioned on everything from his

Budget to the sell off of the Royal Mail. Let's start by talking about

the state of the campaign against Scottish independence. Who is the

mole who has let the cat out of the bag, Kate Devlin? They are searching

for him but nobody knows yet. Number 10 suggested this morning their

energies would going to making the case for the union. Insiders have

told me David Cameron is more keen to make the argument and keep the

eyes on the prize, it is more important to win the referendum than

necessarily find the mole. That does not mean there could not be informal

discussions with ministers. Is it not just a truism that of course

there is talking behind-the-scenes but they do not want to say so in

public? Of course not. I will go further and put my head on the

block. I think it is between Oliver Letwin and Vince Cable. We thought

it was Philip Hammond yesterday. Yesterday he said, was it you? I

don't think so. The construction in the words, what do we do about

Trident nuclear missiles? It is a silly phrase that he would not use.

Oliver Letwin and Vince Cable, they always say silly things. The point

of this is that it is a good talker. That is a plus for the Yes campaign.

It gives them undermining to do. At the end of the day, it will not

undermine the main argument about currency union. Scots still will not

know is the point. They will not know whether we take the pound away

from them until it comes along and that is probably enough for them not

to take the risk. Do you think the better -- the better together

campaigners laddering? -- the Better Together campaign is floundering?

Now you are starting to hear beginnings of this rambling from

Labour and thes as well. There is an awful lot of pressure on the

campaign and the argument they have maimed too negative a case for the

union. As the weekend has shown, there is a fundamental

misunderstanding. The Better Together campaign and Alistair

Darling cannot win the referendum alone. There is a complex

relationship with all of the key players. The idea that Number 10 and

the Scottish Government would take a back-seat in the past couple of

weeks running up to the referendum is nonsense. What they do and the

noises that come out of London and Edinburgh could swing it. Let us

talk about Labour. Are they in trouble. The polls have narrowed.

Rumblings within the party. Economic policy to counter growth under the

government. Are they in trouble? Yes, I think they are. Not terminal,

they can turn around and do enough to get Ed Miliband his cherished

overall majority in 13 months time. They have got to get on with it. My

diagnosis is that they have spent almost four years now stroking

themselves, doing the easy bit, opposing, shouting about the

government's terrible unfairness on this and that. They have not come up

with alternatives. The reason is not because it is easier to not come up

with real, credible alternatives to grab readers of the Sun perhaps, but

also because it is very hard to unite around a single thing that you

may well have five different opinions on if you believe some

commentators. It is easy to night around nothing. -- unite around

nothing. It is only when you start putting out policy ideas, big

radical things like taking on the banks, energy price freeze, then you

have people disagreeing. What do you think? I agree. They have started to

do that this weekend. A chance to remind voters of this idea of

reducing tuition fees to ?6,000 which was first floated in 2011 at

the conference. They are trying to get these kind of ideas out there.

The question is whether they have left it too late. Some Labour MPs

worried at around this time ahead of the 2010 general election, the

charge was that voters did not know enough about what David Cameron

stood for. David Cameron did not win that election of course. Very

interesting. Thank you very much. We are joined for the rest of the

programme by Jake Berry from the Conservatives, Labour's Shabana

Mahmood and Annette Brook from the Liberal Democrats. You may think

they're looking a little nervous and you'd be right. Chris Bryant is

still here and he's got a short quiz for our MPs to see just how much

they know about their place of work. Chris, over to you. Thank you. Who

was the Prime Minister throughout the American War of Independence?

Silence. I think this is a good way of selling us a couple of your book!

A compelling case to read the book. Lord North. What year was the act of

union with Scotland? 1603. No. 1707. Where is the last place outside of

London that Parliament has sat? Have a guess. York. No. Birmingham. Very

loyal. Oxford in 1681. Who was the longest serving Prime Minister of

the UK? William Fittall. A little trick on this question. -- William

Pitt. It is the Earl of Liverpool, one of the forgotten prime

ministers. Put these in order of seniority from the most junior to

the most senior. Marquis, Earl, juke, barren and Viscount. Baron,

Viscount, Perl, Marquis, juke. Well done! How did you know that one? You

would expect the Conservatives to get that right. You failed on that

one. You have bucked the party political trend. Were you

surprised? They were the easy ones. I sent 12 and there were more

difficult ones. The difficulty is that for the most part we boast

about British history and many of us do not know much. It is vast in

terms of how much you have to know. URA historian. It is a strong

argument for having a broader National Curriculum. I did not take

history up to a level which is shameful and makes me very nervous

about these questions. There are curiouser things like people think

that women were always banned from voting until the 20th century. Women

voted previously. It was only in 1832 that it explicitly said only

men could vote. Women were able to vote for a Luxton is -- vote for

elections for Sexton 's and things like that. You have shamed us.

Volume two is out in September. Enough publicity! We have gone from

being the daily Potter looks just like with the Daily Politics to the

Chris Bryant book show. The impact of climate change, we are told it is

going to be severe, evasive and irreversible. It comes from a report

published by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change which argues that nobody on the planet is going to be untouched

by the problem. However, it's not all doom and gloom and the study

does emphasise that things can be done to mitigate the worst of the

effects. I'm joined now by Tom Mitchell, head of climate change at

the Overseas Development Institut, an independent think-tank of

international development and humanitarian issues. Welcome. What

did you think of the report? I think it is the single most complete study

ever conducted on the impacts of climate change. It was completed

over seven years involving nearly 600 authors and covering about

12,000 scientific articles. It is a truly impressive piece of work. It

does provide us with some very clear messages about the future Thomas on

calling it doom laden. -- about the future, some calling it doom laden.

Is it a llama 's? Human systems are at stake if action is not taken --

is it alarmist? It sounds apocalyptic. It is but for very good

reason. We have seen evidence from across the studies to show as those

things are correct. Let us review some of the key messages. For the

UK, more heat waves are more droughts, water shortages and we

will see more flood events caused by extreme reciprocation. Overseas, we

may see food shortages, it may impact on our pockets in the

supermarket. Climate change may exacerbate conflict causing

insecurity and more migration. The messages are serious. They are there

for us to take account of. As I said, if we act now, we can avoid

the worst. What should politicians do? Politicians in the UK

historically have had a good track record of working on climate change.

The climate change Bill gives us very clear indications of what we

need to do in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We have

invested in flood defences, maybe not enough. The track record is

good. The last period, some would argue, has not seen such good

progress. We have got to stay on track and provide resources. In the

UK, because it might be deemed as tomorrow's problem, we may not

always invest in the way we need to. Is it inarguable now that I'm a

change is man-made? -- that climate change is man-made? 14,000 academic

studies on climate change, less than 1%, 0.7% have ever questioned

climate change as a Norman. -- as a Norman. The evidence is as strong as

the links between smoking and lung cancer. It is just a different

timescale, politicians can kick it down the track. This report says it

has got to stop and action needs to be taken now.

Do you agree with the report? Absolutely. Anyone who read this

report this morning, or listen on the radio, like I did, will know

that it is absolutely stark. This is an issue we have to deal with today,

because the consequences in several decades was no time will be huge.

The additions traditionally like getting their hands dirty, sorting

the economy out. -- politicians. This kind of longer term problems

for 50-100 years ahead takes a lot more political will, and cross-party

support, to make sure that we get a good, long-term plan for dealing

with the problems of climate change. As the Government shied away from

making decisions because of austerity, and because we heard from

George Osborne saying he did not want to take any unilateral action

because it was not affordable, do you think that is going to store up

problems in the future? I think we have made good progress in this

party. We said we would be the greenest government ever. And we

have cut the amount of energy the Government uses by 10%, just in four

years. We have launched the green investment bank, we are building new

nuclear power stations to move away from fossil fuels. But you are

scrapping the green levy. The Prime Minister has boasted about the fact

that the eco-levy is going to go, so that people's energy bills will come

down - was that the right thing to do? We have to make things

affordable for the taxpayer. People have a real issue with energy

bills, and I think it has been the right thing to do to help people

have a reduction of about 15-?20 a month. Do you agree with that? If it

was going to be the greenest government ever, and critics would

dispute that, why is it that you as Liberal Democrats have signed up to

scrapping the green levy? Coalition is a matter of negotiation. If we

were governing alone, I think decisions might have been different.

I would describe us as being a green government, but I would have liked a

stronger measures to remain. We do have a real conflict between

affecting the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society at

the moment and tackling climate change. What I think is the big

thing we have to grapple with is coming in with the necessary

measures, but putting proper protection in. I just think while we

have got so many hits on welfare payments at the moment, it is really

difficult to get the balance. It is something I am quite uncomfortable

with, but I would say, we have a proud record, the doubling of energy

by renewable sources, for example, but also, what is important to me is

the fact of being in Europe, being at the table, taking a leading role

in negotiating EU targets on carbon emissions. Very, very important to

tackle climate change across Europe. Do you agree with that? We

do not want to get into a debate about the European Union. But I

think it is right, on the issue of Europe, but we need to get out and

make a positive argument about why we should stay in Europe, which is

what I believe. But politicians should not be scared of the

electorate, it should be for the British people to decide. Let's have

that referendum, which the Conservatives have promised, in

2017, and put the issue to bed for the next 50 years. The trouble is,

in austerity, who should pay for these measures, for green measures?

The truth is that the green agenda presents us with incredible

opportunities for growth. So, the green economy is one of the few

areas where actually we have a positive balance of trade with

China, for example. So, if there was more will from this government, we

could use this as a real opportunity to boost skills and wages, get those

high skilled, high wage jobs which our economy will need. It is a false

choice to say it is one or the other. I am astonished at the

attempt by Jake to rewrite the history of his own government's time

in office. This is a government and Prime Minister which does not know

from one week to the next whether they believe in man-made climate

change or not. One week we will hear about Breen things, the next we will

hear, it is all green rubbish. This government does not know what it is

doing. Actually, the green agenda requires consistently do ship, and I

do not think we have had that from David Cameron. If we look at the

leader of the opposition, who was Energy Secretary in the last

government, his record is not as good as the record this government

has had in power. What about the rhetoric about weeing crap, that

does not give a clear message, does it? -- green crap. Well, factually,

we are the greenest government ever. We have reduced the amount of energy

we use as a government. Was that the right rhetoric to use? It is all

about making our businesses competitive, it is not about

increasing people's energy bills, it is about a long-term solution, make

sure that Britain remains... Can I just come in? We have set up the

green investment bank. How much has actually been loaned out from that

bank? We are now talking about billions. The loans are beginning to

go out as we speak. They are going to local authorities for renewing

their street lighting. We know that 35,000 green jobs have been

created, and I would hope to see very many more. I think out of all

deep recessions, there is a type of industry which comes through, and in

this one, I personally want to see the green sector grow and grow. We

have got our investment in offshore wind, for example, massive

investment in renewables, and lots of exciting green projects across

the country, including one, a major recycling plant, in my constituency.

The Green Party criticises the Government all the time, saying the

rhetoric is not directed at policies which would make a big difference,

do you accept that? I just feel as a nation, we are not grasping the

immediacy of this. I am really concerned for my grandchild. It does

mean actually getting the message out there, not shying away from it.

This is something which has got to be tackled now. But as we have

suggested, we have got to get the right balance between taxation and

protect young people on lower incomes. This does sound alarmist,

whether it is right or wrong, and for a lot of people, they will just

think, there is nothing I can do about it, there is nothing I can do

to affect what is inevitable to some extent. It is up to governments, it

is to other countries. Well, actually, I think there is an

appetite in the country for people to think about the changes they

could make in their own daily lives, which would contribute towards lower

emissions, and as becoming more green, as an economy, as a nation.

There is a responsibility on government to make the case to the

public about the kinds of changes we need to make. But that requires

leadership. We are not going to hit the climate change target for 2020,

are we, that has gone already? And obviously, there is concern that the

Liberal Democrats had to accept a watering down of the 2030 target,

but we do have the proviso in the energy bill so that it can be

implemented in 2016. There is a great deal of effort going in to

meet the European targets, and that is really important. We have got a

good enough record that we can hold our heads up high, and we have got

China bringing in targets now, that has to be good progress. But on your

point about investment, it was fantastic last week to see all of

those new jobs created in the north-east, with the wind turbine

plant, building them here in Britain. That is what we have got to

focus on. Parents who deny their children

affection could face prosecution under new proposals the Government

is considering this morning. It follows a campaign for a so-called

"Cinderella law" from the charity Action for Children. They argue that

whilst there's legislation already in place for physical abuse,

emotional abuse can cause significant harm and more needs to

be done to clamp down on it. Joining me now is a representative of Action

for Children. How exactly will this be enforced or proved? So, emotional

abuse can be noticed now, and it is noticed, particularly through the

care system, with specialist child psychiatrists and others sporting

the signs of emotional harm and harm which is done. We are asking for

that expertise to be applied to the other side of the law, which is the

criminal law. The UK is one of the only countries in the Western world

which does not include all forms of child abuse in its child protection

legislation. What we have been asking for over the last three years

is for this to be updated. The law as it stands dates back to 1933. We

have been working with political parties across the spectrum to look

at an alternative. We have spoken to police, social workers and others

about what we can do to close this loophole. But will it lead to people

reporting their neighbours or friends to social services and

police for spurious reasons? We need to be very clear that this is not

about prosecuting struggling parents, or a debate about good or

bad parenting. When we mean child abuse, we are talking about cruelty,

people who resist attempts to help them, people who resist attempts

made by organisations such as Action for Children to improve parenting

capacity and skill. In most cases, parents are able to improve their

parenting skills. But in some small number of cases, we have to be ready

for the prospect that there are people who seek to intentionally

abuse do you support the measure? I think it is a good thing if the law

is updated to include the full range of abuse which children might suffer

from, including emotional neglect and emotional abuse, which can have

just as devastating an impact on a child is physical or sexual abuse,

which we talk about a lot more. I think it is good that the law should

reflect behaviour which we find to be unacceptable, and which can

attract punishment in the criminal law. Why has it not been introduced

before, it sounds like we are way behind in terms of legislation in

this area? Can I start by saying that Action for Children have run a

fantastic campaign. Anyone who has been getting the Tube into

Westminster will have seen their campaign about the law not having

been updated for 80 years. We believe it is imperative that we do

everything we can to protect our children. I think it is a welcome

development in the law. I think it will empower local authority social

workers, with the fantastic work they do, to have full criminal,

legal protection behind them to go out and protect children. Do you

back it as well? I do, I was a sponsor of the private members'

bill. Obviously, the Government listened carefully and took it away

to look at how practical it was to introduce it. How big a problem is

it averaged what I think this is, it is one more tool in actually making

sure our children are protected properly. It is obviously difficult

to gather evidence when we are talking about emotional abuse. But

when you think of child neglect, the baby lying there with no interaction

whatsoever, of course, the first step is to put lots of support in

parenting skills in, but there comes a point where it goes beyond that. I

think this will help all agencies to work together. Time after time, we

get these serious case reviews, and it is the same story. I think this

is going to put it on the radar. Tragically, we still have these

cases which are every now and then brought to light. With the openness

and transparency, compared to decades ago, why are these things

still happening, will this really impact on the state of children who

are genuinely neglected? We have do continually look at the systems

which are in place. In lots of the cases which have come into the

media, we have had multi-agency meetings, with all of the key

players getting into a room to speak together. Sometimes when you read

those reports, it is as if nothing has happened. These meetings should

not just be a talking shop. In terms of adding in this idea of emotional

neglect, we have to make sure that we have guidelines for

practitioners, and we have to trust in the instincts of social workers

and police officers at the coal face. We

That's all for today. Thanks to our guests. The One O'Clock News is

starting over on BBC One now.