15/12/2016 Daily Politics

Hello, and welcome to the Daily Politics.

Theresa May's meeting with EU leaders as the BBC learns that

Britain's ambassador to Brussels thinks a trade deal could take

as long as a decade, instead of the two years ministers

As we come on air MPs are debating the Government's plans to find extra

funding for social care, paid for by an increase

How far will it go to solving this thorny political problem that

Jeremy Corbyn's angered some in the Labour Party

with his decision to hire a former Sinn Fein member to

We've been speaking to his critics and we'll be asking if they're

And they may not be entirely in tune but are these Labour MPs right

to use a Christmas cover version to target some of Britain's

All that in the next hour, and with me for the whole

of the programme today is the Conservative peer

He used to work in Number 10, where he co-authored the party's

Not the last one, actually, the 2010? Time flies when you are

writing manifestos! He's now at the Legatum Institute

think tank and is also a fellow at the the Jubilee Centre

for Character and Virtues. And as character and virtue

are in short supply on this show, Theresa May is in Brussels this

morning for a summit with her fellow EU leaders,

but she'll be excluded by the other 27 this evening when they hold

a working dinner to discuss Brexit. Number 10 says it's relaxed

about not being invited, You would not want to show you were

upset. Meanwhile, back at home,

the BBC has learned that Britain's ambassador to the EU,

he's called Ivan Rogers, has warned the Government that

a post-Brexit UK-EU trade deal might take 10 years to finalise,

and still fail. Number 10 says it's still confident

a deal can be reached more quickly, and says he was representing

the views of other EU members. Theresa May has spoken briefly

to the cameras outside I welcome the fact that the other

leaders will be meeting to discuss Brexit tonight,

as we are going to invoke Article 50, trigger negotiations

by the end of March next year. It's right that the other leaders

prepare for those negotiations, We want that to be a smooth

and orderly process as possible. It's in the interest

of the rest of Europe as well. Theresa May in Brussels. Does it

matter what the Brussels Ambassador thinks about how long it will take

to do a trade deal, he does not know? None of us know. The truth is

this is stepping into the unknown, but we step in in a highly unusual

way, looking for a free trade deal. Most free-trade deals start with two

countries with barriers between them, uniquely possibly in history

we start with complete free-trade, no barriers, so we can only do harm,

if you like, by putting up barriers, which makes a very different dynamic

and one of the reasons the Government is confident it can be

completed much more quickly. Is it clear even when Article 50 is

triggered that we get to talk traded that two-year period, or is it going

to be all about withdrawal? I think we will get to talk trade. We know

that we cannot have that talks about having the talks before

we press the button on Article 50 and we wait for the Supreme Court

judgment on that, but we will be able to start talks not just with

the EU but with other countries, which is critical, we have do

line-up those other free-trade deals while we negotiate. What they say at

the vivid comedy EU politicians, as with ours, it's all posturing to

some extent until the bargaining begins, but if the European

politicians are seen to be dragging their feet on agreeing some kind of

decent access to the single market, are they going to face huge pressure

from their manufacturers and businesses? They run a huge surplus

with us in good? Yes, at the Legato Institute we have set up a special

Trade Commission and brought some of the best trade negotiators from

around the world, and they think that we can do a free-trade

agreement quickly and, critically, once the politics goes out of it and

you are locked into negotiation, it becomes about business, about the

bottom line, it quickly becomes clear once you start modelling any

barriers all other trade impediments that you cause harm, and whether it

is the Italian debt crisis or German car manufacturers, they are not

going to want to take a hit just for the sake of political posture. David

Davies yesterday, giving evidence to the Brexit Select Committee, Brexit

Secretary of State, he made it clear that when it comes to border

controls it would be a matter for Britain, not a matter for

negotiation. Does it not follow from that, then, that we are talking

about a free-trade agreement rather than access, rather than a single

market membership? You cannot say that on board a market controls if

you want to stay a member of the single market. I think you are

right, we are governed into the unknown, I suspect the integrity of

the EU and what Britain wants to get out, particularly around the

restriction of freedom of movement, is a clean break but a free-trade

agreement with the potential for transitional arrangement around

specific industries if it proves to be complex. At the Legatum

Institute, do you think we can begin with Canada or even Donald Trump's

America or Australia, can we begin to outline, I know we cannot sign

free-trade deals until it is all done and dusted, but can we begin

the conversation is? Once Article 50 is triggered, we can start

undertaking the process. Clearly we are bound by European obligations

until the Article 50 process has started. Interesting.

Social care is an issue that's been rising up the agenda

at Westminster recently, as it's become clearer

that there is a growing crisis in how local authorities pay

for care of the elderly and the disabled as the demands

Jeremy Corbyn focused on the issue at Prime Minister's Questions

yesterday, and we brought you news that the Government was set to allow

councils to raise extra taxes to bring forward planned investment

In the last hour, the Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has been

Last year, we agreed to the request by many leaders in local Government

to introduce a social care Council tax precept of 2% a year, guaranteed

to be spent on adult social care. The precept puts money raising

powers into the hands of local leaders who best understand the

needs of their community and are best placed to respond. In

recognition of the immediate challenges that are facing the care

market, we will now allow local councils to raise this funding

sooner if they wish. Councils will be granted the flexibility to raise

the precept by up to 3% next year, and the year after. This will

provide a further ?208 million to spend on adult social care in

2017-18 and ?444 million in 2018. These measures, together with the

changes we have made to the new homes bonus, will make almost ?900

million of additional funding for adult social care available over the

next two years. Sajid Javid making an announcement

that had already been pretty well trailed.

We asked to speak to a minister about this,

Luckily we're joined by our assistant political

He is not allowed to turn us down, he is paid for this sort of thing!

He's in the central lobby of the Houses of Parliament.

Did we learn anything new? It was pretty much as trailed?

I think what we got was a lot of spin about how ?900 million more

money is being given to local authorities to deal with social

care, but when you strip it down it does not look like that. The vast

chunk of that money is, as we reported yesterday, allowing local

authorities to bring forward some of the money they have set aside for

social care, so it is not new money, it is just frontloading a bit of

money. There is a new pot, the social care grant, ?240 million, but

low and behold it is not all it seems because this is money local

authorities already get for housing, for the new homes bonus. There have

been savings in that soap Sajid Javid has taken the savings from

local councils and given them back to local councils and said, go and

spend it on social care. When you put that together you can say to the

Commons, magic, ?900 million more for social care! In the real world,

the local authorities dealing with huge pressures, it will not make

much difference to them, certainly when you hear the sort of money they

believe is needed, they are talking of a shortfall this year alone of ?1

billion, 1 million elderly and disabled people doing without care.

The scale of the difficulties will not be addressed by simply

repackaging existing local authority funding.

As I listen to you I am getting flashbacks to the days of Gordon

Brown and what he used to do with statistics. It sounds like a

legitimate line of criticism here will be that at best this is a

sticking plaster and probably an inadequate sticking plaster, and the

fundamental issue of the cost, growing cost of social care has not

been addressed? I think this

is the real issue, Andrew, because everyone knows social care has been

the looming iceberg for successive governments, and successive

governments have set up Royal Commission is, we have had white

papers, danced around the houses and done nothing. Theresa May yesterday

said, I am going to be different, I am not going to duck that, so we are

looking for a sign that she will grasp the issue and I have to say

today we did not get that, all we got from Sajid Javid was a promise

of a paper to look at integrating health and social. Everyone knows

that has to be done. We also got a promise of a review of their

funding. More reviews, more papers, I suspect people in the care sector

think we really don't need another with you, what we need is money and

action. Norman, thanks for that, good to

talk to you on that subject again. funding for schools isn't a story

that gets a lot of public attention. But yesterday saw the biggest

shake-up in how the budgets of individual schools are set

for decades, and there Here's Mark Lobel

with all the details. The Department for Education

is calling time on uneven funding in England's schools,

and that's because a couple of years ago central government consolidated

different levels of local authority spending on schools and grants

for ethnic minorities All that's left different schools

getting different amounts of money. To address the problem,

the Education Secretary said yesterday the budgets of around half

of England's primary and secondary Our proposed formula will result

in more than 10,000 schools now gaining funding and more than 3000

of them receiving an And, of course, those that

are due to see gains Now, pay attention at

the back as we explain Right now, English local authorities

get on average ?4600 per pupil. Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham

all get more than ?6,000 per pupil and Nottingham,

Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool At the other end of the scale,

Wokingham, Poole and West Sussex Lincolnshire, Derbyshire

and Barnsley are on less And, to underline the disparity,

let's look at one example in Even though it gets just

above the average, it has similar levels of deprivation

to Tower Hamlets in London but the local authority there spends

over ?2000 more per pupil. Every school here,

from Tower Hamlets to Liverpool, will now lose money,

and every school here, from Natalie Perera, now

at the Education Policy Institute, was a civil servant

at the Department for Education, where she worked on the funding

formula five years ago. Back then, the coalition government

postponed what they felt to be a politically contentious issue

which has now come The losses are definitely

the metropolitan areas, The gainers are a bit more

diverse, so some rural, Is more money going into

deprived areas and, if so, where is that money coming from,

and how is it being allocated? There's more money going

into the deprived pot, and that's coming from the general

pot for all pupils and, when we look at how that pot

is being spent, it looks like, compared to now, there's a bit more

money going into the least deprived neighbourhoods and a bit less money

going into the more deprived Does that fit in with

the rhetoric of helping Yeah, it seems like that's what's

driving or what might be The other surprises were that this

takes place over just two years, so quickly, and that the lump sum

that each school receives is being cut up to ?65,000,

which is particularly bad news There will be a 14-week consultation

on the proposals and a final Then councils will no longer

distribute money to schools by 2019, which means that many of the 20,000

primary and secondary schools in England,

as a result of this settlement, inflationary pressures

and extra pension costs, will have to seriously consider

cutting staff, increasing class sizes and narrowing

their curriculum. And we're joined now

by the Schools Minister, Nick Gibb. Welcome back. I know you are going

to argue this new formula is fair. I will come to that. But is it

possible to be fair at all when the whole schools system in England,

because that is what we are talking about, for the rest of the country

it is a devolved matter, the English schools system faces a massive real

terms cut of ?3 billion. That can't be fair. We have protected because

schools budget in real terms. We are spending a record amount, ?40

billion this year. We have to marshal our resources. We have a

record historic budget deficit to tackle and we've managed to protect

schools from contributing to that reduction in the deficit over the

last six years, but we have to make sure that schools are running as

efficiently as possible, that they marshal their staff and resources,

and we are helping them do that. But the National Audit Office, an

independent and reliable authority, points out that school budgets are

being squeezed by pay rises, the national living wage, higher

employer contributions to national insurance and pensions, the

apprenticeship levy, and you add all of that up and it faces having to

make savings of ?3 billion before the end of the decade. It's

equivalent to 8% real percent cut in funding. It's the worst cut since

your party was last in power. Yes, and we are helping schools to

deliver services more efficiently. It emphasises why having a bearer

national funding formula was so important, because we are addressing

these historic unfairness is in areas like West Sussex, the area

that I represent. Historically, it has been underfunded over the years.

We are addressing that across the country and fairly swiftly. Many

people listening will say, if that's your definition of protecting

schools, you wonder what it would be like if you weren't protecting them.

You seem the rankings, the international rankings done by the

OECD, probably the most authoritative global standard. We

are ranked 27th in that. By week, I mean the UK, 27th in the world, the

lowest we have ever been. -- why we. This isn't a time to be taking 3

billion hand-out. That was 15-year-olds, tested November last

year. We have radically improved the primary school system. We had the

first Sats taken this May under this curriculum. Next year, I am

confident we will see rises in our status. But those figures have not

benefited from those reforms. You have been in power for six years. It

takes a number of years to implement reforms. You have to give schools

and amount of time to prepare for the new GCSEs. They started to be

taught September 2015, so the children who took this test took it

in November 2015 and didn't benefit from that. In time, I am confident

we will see a rise. Other countries are doing better, too. That's why we

have to reform. Over the last six years, because of what we have been

doing on improving school behaviour and standards in schools, 1.8

million more children are today in good or outstanding schools is rated

by Ofsted compared to 2010. We are on that success. We shall see,

because the Pisa rankings are quite hard to fiddle or change. 22nd in

Reading, having fallen out of the top 20 in 2006. That seems a long

way to go. There is another point in pic, which is that you have talked

about the UK figures. If you look at the performance of England in that

period, it has been reasonably stable. What is really interesting

and has not had enough coverage is that Wales and Scotland have been

deteriorating in standard, and they haven't been doing the kind of

school reforms that the Conservative and coalition government have. Those

will take time to pay off, but the truth is that you can't stand still

in this game. If you don't pay attention, and it isn't all about

money, it's about reform, those standards will go backwards. But on

the Pisa rankings, you can desegregate for the former

cremations and, if you do that, England still doesn't look great.

Edge the four nations. If you read the Scottish press, there is a lot

of concern about what is happening in Scottish schools and the

government up there is under pressure but, even when England is

taken on its own, it isn't great. Let's look at some of the winners

and losers in this funding formula. Areas getting more money,

Buckinghamshire, West Sussex, Bath. Areas getting less, wooden, Bolton,

in London. In other words, Tory areas get more, non-Tory areas get

less. -- Wigan, Bolton, inner London. London is still 30% better

funded than any other part of England. This formula is fair. It

puts a great weight on deprivation, an low prior attainment in terms of

pupils. Don't forget, we are addressing atrophied funding system

where the data is out of date. It is ten years old and London in that

period has improved its wealth. The level of free school meals in London

has declined significantly. It is still the best funded part of our

system. You can pick some areas which are non-Tory areas and they

will do a bit better, but overwhelmingly there will be less

funding for schools in Manchester, Liverpool, Wigan, Warrington. There

will be increases in Blackpool and Bolton, I understand that. Secondary

places in Buckinghamshire, West Sussex, Bath, Cambridgeshire, they

will all get an increase. The organisation representing schools in

north-east England, where you only have three MPs, say the new formula

is designed, quote, to divert vital resources from schools in

disadvantaged areas to affluent boroughs. As I said, London is still

the highest funded area in the country. We were very careful with

how we construct of the formula, as set out in the film. We took money

from the basic unit of funding, about three quarters of the total

per-pupil funding. We put a lot into deprivation, which is the highest

significant factor after the basic unit, then lower prior attainment,

then sparsity and rural area issues. The biggest single factor is

deprivation. We believe that, if you want to get social mobility and help

children from poorer families, you need to put money into schools. It's

just so happens that some of those areas are less deprived than they

were ten years ago. The north-east of England, although it has been

doing well recently, nevertheless has lots of areas of deprivation.

Mike Parker, director of schools in the north-east, we remain deeply

concerned that the is doggedly pursuing grounds to pursue an area

cost adjustment that will divert vital resources from schools in

disadvantaged areas to affluent boroughs. I come back to my original

point. In real terms, you are expecting schools to make a

substantial cut and to this at the same time. It seems that a lot of

schools in some of the poorest areas are going to be in trouble. The area

cost adjustment means that you fund schools and reflect an area of

funding to reflect higher salaries that they have to face. The other

areas that have gained have historically been underfunded and

are facing real problems as a consequence. What this has done,

this national funding formula, it has taken a series of principles

that we consulted on for several months, and they won widespread

support from the people we approached, because it is right to

reflect the funding of schools based on deprivation, based on prior

learning, based on the number of children speaking English as a

second language. These are key factors. No other government has

grasped the nettle on this issue. It is very controversial. We decided we

would do it, notwithstanding the other pressures on school funding.

But you are doing this at a time when real budgets have been cut in

real terms, and already 60% of secondary schools in England are

running a deficit. Yes, and we have to... And so is the government. We

have to tackle this historic budget deficit. If we don't tackle it, we

won't have a strong economy. We have the fastest growing economy as a

consequence in the G7 and a million more businesses since 2010,

unemployment below 5%, and this is important for the long-term. 60% of

academy is now spent more than their income. That is why the new formula

is important. But you are taking money away from schools. They will

have to make efficiencies and we are helping schools to determine the

best way of marshalling their staff and procuring. We are working on a

national buying scheme for things like electricity and IT. They have

to do more with less. We have seen that across Whitehall. So far, we

have protected schools from those savings. You say that, but people

will still look at the National Audit Office and wonder if that is

really true. We will see in the years ahead if that is the case.

James, grammar schools, another area of education policy, and there was a

consultation, and you, or your organisation, has contributed. What

was your contribution? Before that, one point on the funding issue. I

set up what is called a multi-academy trust, a group of

schools. We have three schools, one of which is in an inner London

borough, and one of which is in Woking, the lowest funded borough.

The discrepancies in funding between those schools is significant. But

the challenges that they face are not that different. When you see it

and what you can do in each school as a consequence, it brings it home.

There is a historic unfairness and the funding environment is tough.

When you see it up close, that unfairness is quite hard to justify

the parents, why you are doing one thing in one of your schools and not

in the other. OK, what about grammar schools? This is probably, if money

is controversial, academic selection is pretty controversial, too. Unless

you can afford to go privately... The challenge that the green paper

sets out was, is there a way in which selection could be included in

the system in a way which benefits those who need it most? The way I

describe it is, is it a tide that can lift all boats? My view is that,

if you set up selective schools in some of the areas which have been

most stubbornly resistant to interventions, they can act as a

catalyst by bringing together academic staff, affluent shall --...

It sounds like a lot of ifs. You would think the bigger danger is

that, for those that make the grammar school in the inner-city,

they would probably go pretty well, but the others would be left behind.

Which is why you have to decide it carefully. I've suggested a pilot

based on the free school model, where it's controlled by central

government. Knowsley council, one of the lowest performing boroughs, had

its own education commission which suggested creating a grammar school

to do that. There is a case for doing it in some of these low

prosperity or what the government is calling social mobility areas. ...

Are you going to leave it to local areas to determine whether they have

grammar schools or are you going to do as James suggests, that central

government will identify where you believe grammar schools could be

useful? It will be demand led, so it will come from the grassroots. They

will have to demonstrate that there is support for a grammar school. 99%

of existing grammar schools are good or outstanding, and what we are

determined to do is to create more good school places. 1.8 million more

children in good or outstanding schools in the last four years, but

still 1.25 million in schools that are not good enough. You have had a

consultation process. As that come to an end? It closed on Monday. ...

So when will the policy emerged? We will examine all the thousands of

responses and we will say something more in early spring in response to

that. But it is important to give parents more choice and to spread

the expertise. There are many areas of the country where frankly very

able children are not getting quality of education that they need.

This is what this is about. One does the deal go through Parliament? We

will talk about that in the New Year. We will look at the responses

first and continue to talk to colleagues about their ideas about

how we can ensure that more children from deprived backgrounds, from

poorer income families get access to these grammar schools. What we know

is that, when children to attend the schools from the raw families, they

make more progress than their affluent peers. -- from poorer

families. We did ask Angela Rayner from Labour's shadow education bench

to join us but she has been taken unwell.

There's some anger in sections of the Labour Party this morning

after it emerged that Jeremy Corbyn has appointed the former head

of Sinn Fein's London office to work for him.

Jayne Fisher - on the left of this picture in Westminster last year

alongside Martin McGuiness, Jeremy Corbyn and Gerry Adams -

is, according to the Guido Fawkes website, due to start

working in the Labour leader's office in January.

The appointment has caused anger in some parts of the party,

and we've been in touch with some Labour MPs this morning.

One told us that it was "completely bonkers" and was "an early Christmas

Another Labour MP said that the leadership "are completely

divorcing themselves from the rest of the world".

A third told us that it was "another example of shooting

The Daily Politics also spoke to the former First Minister

of Northern Ireland, Lord Trimble, who told us...

"We know from our own intelligence services that Sinn Fein is not

a normal political party and operates under

The IRA remains a proscribed organisation.

It is very foolish of Mr Corbyn to put himself in to a relationship

We also spoke to former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain,

"She is a very experienced parliamentary researcher and carries

a lot of credibility on a cross-party basis.

She has obviously been hired for her expertise

rather than as a former Sinn Fein employee."

We asked the Labour Party for a comment but a spokesman told

us, "We don't comment on staffing matters."

Joining me now is the associate editor of the Daily Mirror,

Kevin Maguire, and Alex Wickham of the Guido Fawkes website which,

as I said, has been covering the story.

Kevin, when you look at the talent available to someone like Jeremy

Corbyn, why would you pick somebody from a Sinn Fein background? She has

been a Labour Party member for 30 or 40 years and is very respected and

talented. One of the criticisms of his office is it has not been run

well. She will bring in a huge degree of professionalism. It is

interesting that people in Labour who are complaining will not be

named because I suspect if you spoke to Colin McGinn or Vernon Coaker,

two MPs who are hostile to Jeremy Corbyn, but have a big interest in

Northern Ireland affairs, they have dealt with her as well, I have dealt

with her professionally for years and she is very good. I had a little

laugh when I saw the picture of Corbyn with Martin McGuinness and

Gerry Adams in Westminster because Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness

were on their way from David Cameron, that is when it was taken.

There are pictures of Martin McGuinness with the Queen. Jeremy

Corbyn, look... He had his picture taken with them when they were not

going to see the Queen or David Cameron. You will be on the right

side of history in engaging people in Northern Ireland and bringing

them in the mainstream of politics. Willie Whitelaw was meeting the IRA,

John Major had contacts. Jeremy Corbyn was not trying to start the

peace process. Jeremy Corbyn wanted peace. One of the problems with

Jeremy Corbyn... He supported getting troops out. So did the daily

Mirror, because at the time there was huge public opinion in favour of

troops out because it was felt the presence of troops was inflaming the

situation and they were becoming targets themselves. It was about

reducing violence. We tried to speak to the two Labour MPs you mentioned

but could not get a comment from them. This woman has been a member

of the Labour Party for a long while. Full marks to Kevin for

giving her a spirited defence, but if you look at it the Tories' main

attack line against Jeremy Corbyn over the last couple of years has

been that he is a friend of terrorists, remember David Cameron

saying that famously to some controversy, and Jeremy Corbyn has

kind of confirmed the worst fears by hiring a woman he was not just a

Labour Party member or former employee of -- employee of Sinn

Fein, there are photographs of her with Brendan McFarlane, a convicted

terrorist, convicted of the shooting of five civilians, photos of her

with other convicted terrorist guy with Hugo Chavez, she is a member of

the pro-Castro Cuba Solidarity campaign, the list goes on. A very

good attempt at defending her, but it won't really wash with the wider

public. Can you imagine knocking on the streets of a constituency that

has been a victim of an IRA bombing if you are a Labour candidate or

Labour MP and asking for those people's votes? It won't wash. I

have been at meetings when Jayne Fisher has been there with the

survivors of violence. The families of people who were killed by the

IRA. People have moved on, there has been the Good Friday peace

agreement. The truth is, Alex, you and some in the Tory party, if

Jeremy Corbyn could walk on water and have healing hands, you would

accuse him of putting therapy workers out of business. It is just

an automatic response. You have got to move on. People have moved on,

and she is not part of that violence in any way. It is a terrible smear

to somehow suggest in any way that she was. Of course, but... Of course

what? Of course she was not involved in violence or supporting it in any

way? Of course she was not involved in violence. But did not supported?

She is standing alongside a man who was jailed for an attack in which

five civilians died. I would challenge Kevin's point about

whether people have moved on. The problem the Labour Party has with

its patron of debate, whether they feel they have moved on in how they

feel about the IRA, Sinn Fein and so on, I have to say as somebody from

an Irish Catholic background it is pretty obvious that the IRA and Sinn

Fein have not done a lot for the reputation of Irish Catholics in

this country who want to integrate and assimilate, and having that

associated with the Labour Party, the Labour leader, I don't think

people have moved on, they may have moved on in a bubble but in reality

they feel strongly about the history of sectarian violence. I can apply

for an Irish passport as well, and I might have to Brexit, and played the

Catholic part as well, and I find when speaking to people about

Northern Ireland they wanted to stay back where it was. They are happy

now that in Northern Ireland you have parties working together, not

always perfectly and there are huge tensions, none of that should be

ignored, but people have moved on, and that is why I don't think... Can

you imagine what Paul Nuttall is going to do with this information?

He is already eating into Labour heartlands, he is already going on

that patriotic is an attack line. Peter Hain, former Northern Ireland

Secretary, not a fan of Jeremy Corbyn's, he says he knows Jayne

Fisher and this is blown out of proportion. Jeremy Corbyn's team

have said she is a lovely person but at the end of the day you can make

those arguments but it does not cut through. When you knock on people's

doors, I spoke to a Labour MP a few months ago who said that they knock

on doors in their constituency, a constituency which was bombed by the

IRA, and the thing they hear is that John McDonnell is the Shadow

Chancellor and has links to the IRA, how can I vote for you? This feeds

into that Tory and Ukip attack line. I can see for your attacks Jayne

Fisher is just collateral damage, you have just taken her to battered

Jeremy Corbyn, I understand that. But if you express it the Rayudu on

doorsteps, yes, people will react badly. -- the way you do. If you

tell them the truth and they meet Jayne Fisher, they will not. Don't

you think, whether right or wrong, shouldn't Mr Corbyn have some people

around him, all leaders need this at some stage, who would protect him

from himself? This is a man as a young MP he hosted two convicted IRA

terrorist in Parliament, two weeks after the Brighton bombing, two

weeks after the IRA tried to destroy the British Government with a bomb,

he invited two convicted IRA terrorists into Parliament. This

appointment, she may be good, she may be smart, she may have her hands

entirely clean of violence and all the rest of it, but this just brings

his record back. Wouldn't be wise advice be to say, Jeremy, there were

other people about? On the specific, he was trying to pull the IRA away

from violence, and in the end it worked. We don't want to overstate

his role... But in the early days, when nobody else was doing it, it

was good that people like Jeremy Corbyn were reaching out, the Good

Friday peace agreement, I was there in 98 in Stormont when it was

hailstones, it was a landmark moment. Of course Tony Blair,

Jonathan Powell, Bertie Ahern, it was a landmark, but you needed

people, you always need in politics and civil society, to reach out and

do some of the early work. But you are right, he needs to widen his

team in Westminster, it needs to be more professional. She is very, very

professional. We are talking about Labour's links to the IRA today,

that is not the message Labour want to put out. It is the message you

always want to put out. No more times that, we are out of time but I

thank both. -- I thank you both. Now to the latest part of our series

looking at the issues faced by key Government departments

in the run-up to Brexit. We've already covered

the Home Office and the Department for the Environment and Rural

Affairs. For today's Brexit Tracker,

we've turned our attention to the Department for Education,

which, since the summer, has also That used to be with the business

Department. You have to keep up with these things.

Ministers and their civil servants in the Department for Education have

to wrestle with many issues as they plan for a post-Brexit

world, not least what leaving the EU will do for the number

Will an exodus of migrants free up places, and how will that affect

Overseas teacher recruitment has increased in recent years,

with many in particular coming from Spain.

Around 17% of university staff are EU nationals,

so education officials will be taking a keen interest in changes

Will an exodus of migrants free up places, and how will that affect

EU students applying for courses starting next autumn will not see

any changes to their loan eligibility or fee status

for the full duration of their course, but politicians

will need to work out what EU students will need

to pay in good time for the subsequent academic year.

University research funding has been guaranteed for projects that start

before the UK leaves the EU, but the Government will now be able

to look again at the long-term future of UK collaboration

Will UK universities be able to continue to participate

in the Erasmus Plus exchange programme, which allows

students to study in Europe for free for up to a year,

The Scottish Government has said that EU citizens will,

like Scots themselves, continue to receive

free university tuition following Brexit, but English,

Welsh and Northern Irish students will still have to pay fees.

Will the post-Brexit settlement with Scotland look to end

These are just some of the issues Education Secretary Justine Greening

and her team have on their plates as the Government moves ever closer

to triggering Article 50 and firing the starting gun on our exit

We're joined now by the former Liberal Democrat schools

He's now chair of the Education Policy Institute.

And our guest of the day James O'Shaughnessy is still here -

he set up an academies trust which runs three primary schools.

David Laws, in 2014, 15, six of teachers who gained qualified status

in England came from overseas. Is that going to be a problem posed

Brexit? It could well be because the approach of the moment that Theresa

May seems to want to take is one that will give, we think, priority

to try to get net immigration numbers back down. At the moment

there are only a restricted number of teaching roles, particularly

generally science subjects are given priority in terms of visas, so if

the EU is subject to the same constraints then I think we will

find it quite difficult to recruit, for example, the many

foreign-language teachers the Government is going to need at this

-- as it in temps to improve foreign-language take-up. It seems

they will have to be liberal with this? I think the message from the

Brexit vote if a majority of people want to see an end to free movement

where people can come and go without having a job. There are some

industries, David talked about one subsector within an industry, where

it inevitably one is going to have to rely on immigration in order to

pull some of those gaps, particularly in the short run. One

of the things that have happened in the last 15 years is instead of

importing a lot of doctors into the NHS we have been training our own to

try to address that so clearly there are things the Government will have

to do here to address that. Of course there will still be inward

migration. So the Government will need to qualify more teachers? We

will need to do some of that work in our own country but one of the

challenges will be what wider impact does our leaving the European Union

have on the growth numbers and public spending? We have a situation

where with the constraints on teacher pay we are seeing

difficulties recruiting into the public sector, including teaching,

so the wider impact on public expenditure will impact on our

ability to recruit new teachers. Will it lead to more of what Mr

Clegg used to get annoyed about, unqualified teachers? I don't think

so, there is clearly a policy choice for the Government on whether to

extend the access to state schools for unqualified teachers. The

evidence shows that even those schools that have the ability to

recruit unqualified teachers don't generally like to use that freedom,

they generally want people with suitable qualifications.

Let's look at universities now. We hear a lot about continued access

for EU students coming to this country. But EU academics make up

17% of university training and teaching research posts. Will we

remain a destination? How universities are regarded, a lot of

them, as world-class. A lot of European universities are not. Can

we continue to be a beacon for them? Absolutely, into microwaves, because

there are definitely going to be both students and staff coming to

universities the argument round immigration is not about the high

skilled end. Politically, it is an easy argument to win. The other

thing is about research. There is concern in British universities at

your feet -- European research programme called Horizon 2020 and

Britain's role post-Brexit. Interesting to note that both Israel

and Tunisia, definitely not members of the EU, are involved in that

programme, so there is no reason to think that Britain couldn't continue

to play a central role in that very important strand of European

research work. I think he is right on the last point, that we could

strike deals to allow access to particular programmes. The big issue

for education is the university sector and the extent to which

Theresa May wants to use control of student numbers to get a quick win

on immigration and reduce net immigration quickly. If she does

that, both for EU and presumably non-EU students, the UK university

's dependence on both students and the huge amount of money that they

bring in could actually be exposed and could do quite a lot of damage

to our higher education sector. So I think there is a lot of legitimate

worry about this. You are going to see strange impact on student

numbers as people try to access the UK before Brexit and then are

uncertain about the consequences of Brexit. It's the big issue in

education. The government, including the coalition government up to 2015,

said it had helped to clean up the higher education sector in terms of

getting rid of colleges and students coming here were now by and large

going to what were regarded as proper institutions. -- getting rid

of bogus colleges. Having done that, would it not make sense to take

student numbers out of the immigration figures? At the time,

something like 900 bogus colleges were closed. So obviously a lot of

progress has been made on that. First, I think the government has

been quite adamant it isn't going to take them out of the figures. There

were discussions yesterday about it. The other thing of course is that,

in theory, students are sort of a replenishing body. The net inflow

and outflow should net off against each other every three years, so

what is actually causing the increase in figures is people who

stay on, and some of them stay on for jobs and studies. They can do

that at the moment. EU students can. Non-ease you students cannot. --

non-EU. To be frank, we have had a pretty clear signal that we need to

do something about lowering immigration, so saying that one way

we are going to do that is by not counting one type of immigration

wouldn't wash very well. It isn't to say that we shouldn't do something

about it, but just taking them out of the figures feels like a con. Do

you feel that people concerned about immigration would regard a Chinese

student coming to study at Imperial as an immigrant? I don't think that

people are worried about it. They were worried about bogus colleges,

of course. That could have been a way of illegal immigration. Yes. I

don't think they are worried about genuine students coming in. One

wants to see the numbers to understand those flows, but what is

important is how the numbers are presented but what the government is

targeting. To me, it makes no sense to have a target that focuses on a

lot of students who are coming in to the benefit of our education system

and economy, and I think what Theresa May should be trying to do

is not to massage or distort the numbers, but looking again at this

net immigration target and make sure she is targeting things that make

sense for our economy and not have a target that causes her to pursue

policies... Briefly, Erasmus, which has benefited many British and

European students, I think 15,000 British students participated last

year. Can we stay in that? Norway, Macedonia and Turkey are all part of

that programme. So you think the answer is yes. We can do if we

strike the right deal and have a proper adult negotiation. That

should be part of it. Now there are already several

political songs aiming to get into this year's Christmas singles

chart, but a group of Labour MPs yesterday launched another -

and they're showing a distinct lack of seasonal goodwill

towards some of Britain's To the tune of Do They Know It's

Christmas, their song names half a dozen companies they say

are mistreating their staff by stripping them of Sunday

pay and other perks following the increase

to the minimum wage. The Labour MP who organised

the recording is Siobhan McDonagh. She joins us now, as does

the Conservative MP Kwasi Kwarteng. It looks like you took all these

people hostage and made them saying. They did of their own volition

because they want to talk about low pay and how people are being hit by

the national with living wage and losing their other conditions. They

are not perks. They signed up for double-time on working Sunday and

bank holidays and there are a group of people out there who are angry

that they have lived by the rules and not been treated right. That is

right, regardless of the athletics, the message is quite strong. --

aesthetics. Marks Spencer has removed premiums for working Sundays

and anti-social hours. Tesco cut overtime pay, changing it from

double to time and a half. B dropped extra pay for Sundays. Cafe

near road no longer getting free lunch while on shift. I think it is

worth complaining about. Having to do ovation before you share in a

bonus isn't the most terrible thing. -- having to do probation. You

appreciate that, with the national living wage, they are having to pay

more money to more people, and these companies are not charities. They

have to make money. They do, but they have to keep doing that. So you

take away a free lunch while you are on shift? Or you don't pay people

for their lunchtime. How much are you saving? How mean. They are well

established companies. These people are good people and they get up and

go to work everyday and, just like all of us, they have to pay their

mortgage and look after their kids and it isn't right and it shouldn't

be happening. The only reason this issue is being talked about on this

programme is because of the video. Your gut and dined out on its desire

to do something for the just about managing. -- your government dines

out. And people losing the perks and conditions are just about managing

and they are losing out. The government has taken hundreds of

thousands of people out of tax. We have increased the personal tax

allowance from 6020 ten to 12,000, so to say the government isn't doing

right by people who are struggling is completely false. I hope that the

boards of these companies will think about it, look again at their next

board meeting and, if they don't look at it, Theresa May will look at

closing these loopholes. These are well liked companies. They are great

companies. Are you worried that this plays to the narrative that Labour

is anti-business? Not that old IMS and new Labour as you get in the

PLP. -- I am as new Labour as you get. I am doing this because we

could find no other way to give voice to these people. Marks

Spencer has had its problems recently but its profits last year

were ?690 million. Now it is saying that it wants to removed premiums

for working Sundays. When I worked as a student, you got more if you

worked on a Sunday. Kingfisher, B finish, pre-tax profits of 436

million in the first six months. Tesco, 71 million pre-tax profit in

the first six months. Cafe Nero, 24 million in profit, up 8.5%, and now

they say to their staff, you can't have a free lunch when they are on

strict. It must cost peanuts. -- on shift. So you want to penalised

successful companies? On the Sunday point, when you were a student, and

I dread to think when that was... No need to get personal. Sundays were

completely different. These people have a contract which gives them

double-time on a Sunday. This group of people in Marks and Spencer have

worked there since previous two 2004. They have done 30 years for

the firm and they love the firm but they are upset it isn't doing right

by them. -- 13 years. What is your position? I have sympathy with both

positions. Do you know some companies that are doing this well?

It is all very well to complain but we have record employment, record

low unemployment. All those people who are going, some of them

conditions, but pay is going up. Who are the companies you think are

doing this well? A company off the top of my head is Pret. Their

employer says, my staff are my bread and butter. There is no way I am

going to do this to them. It is just about fairness. It isn't about

anything bigger than that. Tesco has taken on 15,000 extra seasonal

workers this Christmas, and maybe they are doing that because of this

kind of environment. If you force them to carry on playing fields

perks, they may not take on so many people. -- paying these perks. We

are talking about people who already have contracts though. Witch when

wages have been squeezed for some long, you would think good companies

would want to look after their people. We have got record

employment. There are more people working today in Britain than ever

before. You can't sustain that by increasing wages all the time. This

isn't about increasing wages. We have run out of time. RB Tory MPs

going to produce one? I don't think the singing would be as good. You

could do Pump Up The Jam. How long did that take you? Three days.

The One O'Clock News is starting over on BBC One now.

And I will be on BBC One tonight with Alan Johnson,

Michael Portillo, Miranda Green, John Nicolson, Chas and Dave,

and Brian Blessed for the final This Week of 2016, looking back

MUSIC: Stand By Me by Ben E King