26/06/2012 Newsnight Scotland

Queen's hand, it may suggest that Tonight on Newsnight Scotland, is

it time for a shake-up of the welfare system? The Prime Minister

seems to think so, is he right cutting housing benefit by the 20

fives? The governor of California tells us that Scotland should forge

ahead with same-sex marriages. Good evening. Will David Cameron

succeed where other Tory leaders have failed in reforming the

welfare system? Questions are being asked about he was paid, and if any

reform will have a huge effect north of the border. -- who will be

paid. It is time for a new image. Time to

-- time for the Tories to show who they really are. David Cameron of

talked about those who live their lives on benefits. The state will

support you, you will always fail to take, no matter what you put in.

He spelt out how that made the average worker feel. It has led to

huge resentment of those who pay into the system, because they feel

they are working, and others are getting without having to put in

the effort. To see why this matters to Scotland, you only have to look

at the latest figures. Out of the top ten areas in the UK where money

is spent, seven of them are in Scotland, and four are in Glasgow.

In Scotland, last year, �15 billion was spent on welfare and pensions.

In this area alone, Glasgow �160 million East, �160 million was

spent on welfare. One-in-five households could be affected if the

changes take place. There were hints that the Tories would put in

place regional rates. Some of the reforms would be popular, but many

agree something needs to be done. Why was somebody want to get a job

when they are better off on benefits? It doesn't make sense.

They are having holidays, driving better cars, and I'm working five

days a week for pittance. There are those out there who want to work,

who want to get back into fending for themselves, they can't because

the child care is far too expensive. Her first day back at work, I just

had my baby three months ago, I am back off maternity leave. How's it

going money wise? I am finding it very hard, when I was off, it was

very hard with the wages. Hopefully, now I am back at work, I can bring

some money in. I can get back, feet again. Do you play many benefits?

was just getting maternity allowance, that visit. When you see

others claiming benefits, not working, claiming lots of money,

how does that make you feel? Very jealous. They run a lot of people

who don't have to work. -- there are grey lot of people who don't

have to work, and I pay council tax. I find that their every difficult.

-- I find that very difficult. governments have tried to reform

the benefit system. Is it time to wins out the old, have welcomed a

whole new benefits system? -- rents out of the old. I'm joined by Dr

Jim McCormick from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and the Deven

Ghelani, from the centre from social justice. -- the centre for

social justice. I think the Prime Minister has opened up a debate

that the country has been having fears. People have been having it

in workplaces across the country. People see it as a system that if

you work hard, you wind work, people see it as unfair. You can

tell that from the clip you are playing earlier. The problem is,

they have already aroused a whole shed load of reforms. Iain Duncan-

Smith, his universal benefit, not only has that not come into force,

them are rumours it might be delayed, so why introduce a whole

further system of reforms which may just complicate the original ones?

You were right to points out that the universal credit is a major

reform, a reform for the better. At the same time, it does not mean we

can have a debate -- it does not mean we should not have a debate

about other points of the bar their -- other points of the bar their

system. It is something people wanted to have debate about. Nobody

would say the system works well enough, it is broken. It does not

reward people when they take the risk of a low-paid job. What kind

of reforms should we stand for? Housing benefit for the under 25 is

taking one part of a massive picture, it is not taking the most

important part. We know that young people under 30 have a very high

risk of ending up in the private rental sector over the next ten

years. We know there aren't enough good-quality jobs in the economy.

We know there is a high risk of work poverty. Those are the kind of

issues, we have to look at the future of the labour market.

point that has been made, Deven Ghelani, is the way that David

Cameron has said that people who are out of work, this is people who

are hard-working, only one in eight people receive housing benefit are

out of work, so what we are dealing with, when it comes to the increase

in payments at the start of the financial crash, is not a problem

of the feckless poor, it is a I am not sure about that statistic.

I was reading some information before taking India, and I think

there is more to it than that. -- before I came in here. I do not

think that this is about putting one group of people in work poverty

against another, it is about reforming the system. Far too often,

it works against the positive decisions that people are trying to

make. We need to create a system that works with them. There are

some questions about the future of housing and about the labour market,

but that does not mean that you cannot have a debate about what

kind of system you want at the same time. He would presumably accept

that as we saw, particularly people that live in areas where there are

many people on benefit, people feel very, very angry about this,

because they will go to work every day and they have never had a job

and her family had not had a job, and they can end up like to

families living next door, and the family on the right benefits can

end up with more take-home pay Ben and the people that are working.

There are examples where people can be better off out of work, but that

is the case for insuring that we have a vision of good quality work

where people can earn more by taking the risk and becoming an

example. If you're in Dublin had to wear a lone parent, you can keep

five times as much, sorry, you can and five times more than before you

lose the benefit income. We could have a much more flexible welfare

system. We need to massively increase work incentives and do

something about the very high rates of the child care costs. Focusing

their, I think there would be more of a consensus in Scotland. I am

sure some of the people in that film I would say, hang on, of what

annoys us is that there are these people that came off the state and

we are hard-working, and what you say is effectively, reform the

employment system, but that is not going to happen. It is a problem

that politicians have missed in the decade of growth before the

recession north and south of the border. That destroys human

motivation to keep trying to we look for work and when you're in

work, if the risk is you will lose it quickly, there is a structural

problem with the labour market that we had to deal with in the next few

years. By scrapping housing benefit for under 25, it is political kite-

flying, which is understandable for a party leader, but in the long

term, it is concerning because it takes the eye off the ball on the

big issues about the future of work as much as the benefit system.

idea that was floated by people around David Cameron, although it

was left out of the speech, was the idea of paying differential benefit

rates in different regions of the UK. What is the logic of that? Is

that a runner? I wanted to jumping quickly and something Jim said

about the labour market, there is a separate debate there, but at the

same time, I think this is often about the benefits system as well.

We had during a period of economic growth, and number of people that

remained on benefits right through that period of economic growth. It

wasn't the labour market joy the economy stopping them from getting

into work, one of the major issues was the benefits system. What about

regionalisation? This is a debate that has been opened up in the

context of welfare. Regional benefits is a good one to have her.

There has to dealings to be debate that it stems around different

living costs in different parts of the country. Perhaps benefits

should reflect that. We have got time to have this debate, it is not

something that needs to be responded to two days after the

speech. It is something we want to think about, unless there are some

news that Tim already has on this direction. Briefly? In London,

there is an extremely high housing costs, you need to Ligeti

differential rate of minimum wage rather than the benefits system. --

you need to look at a differential rate. If you have one benefit rate

across the country, in the area with lower wages, the benefits

become a greater disincentive to get work, that has a logic there.

We would have to do some testing, but let's assume that Scotland had

more power in the welfare system, it is unlikely that he would want

to see the Government in Scotland at varying rates of benefit any

time soon, because there are cross- border issues. The important issue

is to look at doing something about the massive tax rate that people

working on low pay will face consistently. Universal credit in

principle should be a helpful step. In practice, you need to make sure

that it interacts with Council Tax Benefit proper late which has been

devolved to Scotland. We need to leave it there. Thank you. The

Scottish government is due to publish details of its consultation

on whether to introduce a bill allowing same sex marriage shortly.

It has been enormously controversial prompting more than

50,000 responses - more than double the number who replied to the

consultation on independence. The Governor of California, Jerry Brown,

has told BBC Scotland, politicians here could learn from his state.

There, the public voted to ban same sex marriage but now the governor

believes there may be a majority in favour. From San Francisco, our

political correspondent, Raymond San Francisco's reputation for

tolerance is legendary. This is a city that not only accepts what

other are deemed unacceptable, but celebrated. -- what the other his

teens. Sunday was gay pride Day, and nobody does it bigger and

brighter than San Francisco. The theme of this year's pride was

equality. Campaigners believe that after years of fighting they will

soon have the right for those of the same sex to get married, and

they want that elsewhere also, including Scotland. They might look

at California because there was a lot of opposition to same-sex

marriage a decade ago. But very regularly, this opposition has

declined. So I would say, today maybe there is a slight majority in

favour of same-sex marriage. California's relationship with

same-sex marriages complicated. In June of 2008, the state allowed

same-sex couples to get married, only for the decision to be

overturned. Proposition eight won a majority at the ballot, arguing

marriage should only be between a man and woman. Since then, the

decision has come to the courts and in the meantime, this ban stands.

Are either never forget, in City Hall, and in the American ceremony,

you hear the words, you hear them at the end, and now by virtue of

the authority vested in me, by the state of California, I pronounce

you spasms for life. I pronounce you, legally married. John and

Stewart got married in the short window that Californian law allowed.

Since then, they have campaigned for others to follow this lead.

There was a moment that I felt, well, this is a first time as a gay

person, as a couple together for years and years, but we feel that

our government is treating us as equal human beings. The couple are

part of marriage equality USA, that aims to persuade politicians across

America to back same-sex marriage. They succeeded here in California,

but how? Sometimes we go to lawmakers in Sacramento and they

would say, I do not have any same- sex couples in my district. I do

not represent anyone with these concerns. It was important to be

able to put them in touch with their road constituents that were

deprived of the freedom to marry and say, you represent me! I need

you have so that I can marry the person that I love. That is the

single most important way to change hearts and minds, from talking to

your neighbour to talking to your representative in the legislature.

It worked for Barack Obama. I think same-sex couples should be allowed

to get married. My daughters have friends whose parents are same-sex

couples. We have sat around the dinner table and spoke about their

friends and their parents and it would not dawn on them that somehow,

their friends' parents would be treated differently. Jenny and Lisa

were on a worldwide trip when they heard about the change apart from

the President. They were delighted. They got engaged wives on holidays

and cannot wait to get a date for Edie recognised wedding. A marriage

is equality. A Civil Union is separate but equal, but we are

going to have a wedding this weekend for a family member, a

heterosexual couple, and it is just different. We want the same thing.

We want our families to recognise what we're doing is just a special

and as big a commitment. My parents emigrated here and are very

religious. Four of them, they definitely do not approve of this,

and when proposition 8 went into the ballot in 2008, they

contributed money to support it. One I found out about this can I

was very hurt, and I feel like for me, having legal marriage

invalidates in some way to them as well. I do not know if I could

change their mind, but it is like, look, this is where society is apt,

and things change and our relationship is just as legitimate.

The main opposition like in Scotland has come from religious

organisations like the Catholic Church, believing that marriage

should be between a man and a woman had believing they have the

majority of the public on their side. The dices in a San Francisco

declined an interview. The governor refused to defend proposition eight

when he was a top law officer. This is why. Our job is not to give

brilliant speech is only, but also to lead the people and get them to

follow. That is a matter of bed each leader in each community has

to make his own decision. Last week, Alex Salmond a visited California

but he says that he backs the change but one's opponents to feel

they are not being ignored. You can have an adequate or process. I am

determined in Scotland that we will have a debate worthy of the

seriousness of this subject. People can have confidence that their

voices are entitled to be heard and has been heard of the process

unfolds. The Scottish government is due to reveal details of the

consultation shortly. If they decide to reform the law, they