18/12/2012 Newsnight Scotland

January and the Met place say they are -- their investigations

continue. Tonight on Newsnight Scotland:

Is there a political consensus building against universal

benefits? This is Ferguslie Park in Paisley,

officially the most deprived area in Scotland. How does paying

benefits to middle class families help the families who live here?

And the heart of darkness. What is it about Scots, especially middle-

aged Scottish men, that drives so many to kill themselves?

Good evening. First it was Joanne Lamont then it

was Nick Clegg, then it was Joanne Lamont again. From the left, the

idea that people should receive some benefits, regardless of their

income is beginning to be questioned. Benefits like free bus

passes for the over 60s, free prescriptions and in Scotland, free

tuition fees. One such benefit, child benefit, has already ceased

to be universal. From next month it will be means-tested. So, in these

times of austerity, what should and shouldn't be universally provided

This is a story about making hard choices in difficult economic times.

Choose to provide people with one benefit and then you are choosing

not to fund something else. And elected Governments in Edinburgh

and London have made their own choices and both have chosen to

provide benefits to people regardless of how well off they are.

In Scotland, the big particular particular ticket benefits are free

tuition fees and free prescriptions. This is Ferguslie Park. Should

benefits be means-tested so people in areas like this might get a

greater concentration of resources or should they be given to everyone

regardless of whether they need them or not?

Drive a few miles away and you are in one of the most affluent areas

in Glasgow. A world apart in terms of income, but some of the

advantages are the same. Residents here get free

prescriptions, free bus travel and winter fuel allowances, but are

these benefits they don't need? What would happen if they were

taken away? APPLAUSE

And that possibility raised its head yesterday. Nick Clegg told a

press conference basically there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Support fairness by making clear that money should not be paid to

those who don't need it. Looking again at universal benefits paid to

the wealthiest pensioners for example.

Joanne Lamont put her head above the parapet a few months ago when

they kick started the debate on universal universal universali ity?

We need to be honest about the the sustainability of free higher

education and the impact it will have on academic standards? This

man says take universal benefit away at your peril.

Only looking at one side of the argument, universal benefits is

flawed. If you take the middle classes out of the Welfare State,

they are not going to support it. You won't get support for the

system that is likely to address inequalities. We know this from

looking at Sweden where the middle classes get something back for the

support of the Welfare State. I don't care if Rod Stewart gets a

free bus pass or millionaire's kids free university education as long

as they are paying for it in their tax.

They argue we are going a different way from the rest of the UK. .P-

Everyone says Scotland is not that different from the rest of the UK.

But they vote to the left. They like the idea of being more sharing

and more collective. Actually, polling in Scotland

suggests support for universal benefits like tuition fees and free

bus travel is well, not universal. But there are political no go areas

for any Government. The public would not support removing benefits

like free access to GPs and free hospital meals. But there is a

debate about what should be universally provided and it looks

like it will be one of the big political issues of the next few

I'm joined by Robin McAlpine of the Jimmy Reid Foundation and in our

London studio is Graeme Cooke of the Institute of Public Policy

Finance. Is this a trend that politicians that we would normally

consider to be left of centre are questioning the universality of

benefits? What Joanne Lamont was doing today was pointing out that

the essence of politics is priorities especially when there is

less money around. There is a trade-off to be struck between

access to higher education and the quality and standards of the

education pro provided and the costs and who pays for it. There is

choices to be made about where universalism is most and less

important and it is grown-up politics to have an honest debate

about that. But you wouldn't see it that way,

would you? It is fine that we have a debate about it, but I have

problems with the suggestion that we look at this only true the prism

of a set Budget of afford affordability and we don't think

about what works, what makes a difference, what really improves

society? The answer is we have not come up with any system which is as

good at eradicating poverty and promoting equality across society

as a universal universal Welfare State.

Let's get back to the philosophy in a moment. Let's take one example

and it is one of the things that has been raised by Nick Clegg and

from his own point of view, Iain Duncan Smith which is winner fuel

payments which are paid -- winter fuel payments which are made Peaud

to middle -- paid to middle-class people who don't need them. Can you

see any justification for making that a universal benefit? There is

no point in having this this debate in the abstract. Governments raise

taxation and they spend and they have to balance those two out over

a cycle and it seems to me hard to justify taking away tax credits

from low income working families when you are protecting universal

winner fuel allowance and free TV TV licences for well off pensioners.

In principle, it would be great if we could provide these things to

everyone with no limits, but there are limits and and politics is

about making priorities and choices and what is most important? And

where do you want to defend universalism on education and

health and schools? There are many pensioners that need it, but it is

a particularly acute example, isn't it? I mean I think the bedrock of

the Welfare State is the contributingtry, the basic State

pension that should go to to to everyone that contributed to the

system either through working or caring and the winter fuel

allowance and free TV licences which are going to well off

pensioners and significant sums of money could be saved if those

benefits only went to the people on low incomes. And politics is about

making those priorities. Let's stick to winter fuel payments.

You have got lots of general arguments in your your leaflet. How

would you justify that payment being universal?

Supporting universalism doesn't mean supporting every possible

expenditure that you could make from the Welfare State, but I want

to shift the argument away from that because the fairness isn't in

how you spend it, the the fairness is how you raise it. If we allow

this debate to become a question of which piece of expenditure is or

isn't more beneficial to one one group or another group, we take our

eyes off the picture. I see the point. But you have argued in

pieces that you have written that an unspecified they are involved in

an attack on the Welfare State. When I ask you about a specific

thing that people like Iain Duncan Smith and Nick Clegg are

questioning, you back off and say, "I don't like attacks on universal

ben benefits, but that one is fine.". If we want to create the

best possible means of running our country, we don't start with winter

fuel allowances. The inefficiency of managing means-tested benefits

such as winter fuel has two massive down sides. It is incredibly

inefficient. Fraud, error and administrative costs are high. More

important if we keep winter fuel payments only for the poor, we do

not have social buy in. Well, I wonder if you would agree

with that because many of the universal benefits which people say,

"No, you can't take them a I them away." Are recent. I don't think

winter fuel payments date back that long? Free education in Scotland,

under the previous Government there was a form of graduate tax. Free

prescription have been in for a year or two. A lot of these things

are new things, aren't they? At one level Robin is right because you

need to have systems where people pay in and have a a progressive tax

system. It is in more institutions like the NHS, free education that

people really do bind people together. It is in those areas I

would defend universalism. I think it is important to extend

universalism into areas like childcare, but given there are

limited resources, that might mean you have to scale back universalism

in areas like cash payments. What you are saying might might be

an argument for universalism which is bringing people together for

example children from different backgrounds which could help the

children from less well off backgrounds perhaps as the one

could help ones from better off backgrounds and that's something

I think there are institutions and places in society when people from

different backgrounds come together and benefit from each other. But I

am not convinced that the cash transaction that goes from the

Government to someone's bank account is vital for building

social Solidarity around the welfare state. I'd think we need to

get past these general arguments. We need to have a realistic

conversation about what we want to prioritise and where universalism

is more or less important. Adam, you would think that idea of things

that bring people together is not about criteria. It is an excellent

criteria. One of the things I think is interesting about this debate is

that I have not heard anyone say we're going to have to lives with

rising rates of crime because we cannot afford the police. What I am

uncomfortable with and will be apt to be aware of is creating one box

into which we put things that a right-wing ideologues would like to

see attacked and calls on affordable and another boxer would

put essentials. If we are going to have this debate, we have to step

right back and look at overall budget priorities. Thank you very

much. How many Scottish people do you

think will themselves? 200, 300? The bad news is that according to

statistics, 1533 people to their lives in Scotland in 2009. -- June

2009 and 2010. What is it about Scot's that so many enter their own

lives? Image of the suicide rates per

hundred 1000 of the population. In 2002, seven -- Scotland at 17.6 but

by 2010 it was 14.7. Statistical comparisons are difficult, but some

of the data is disturbing even if it is not surprising. Three-

quarters of our suicides are male. In 1968, a Scottish working man

with six % more likely to kill themselves than his equivalent in

England. By 2010, he was 75 % more likely. The Scottish women, it the

incidence is twice as bad than four English counterparts. It is the

third worth in Scotland. Norway has moved in the other direction.

Scottish male suicide figures compare with Sweden. Things are

significantly worse in Finland, Poland and Hungary. They are

getting better faster than we are. Southern Europe is better than the

north. Of course, you cannot make too much from statistical

generalisations about individual tragedies. But there are trends and

similarities which may help people understand, predict and prevent

some suicides. There is no typical Scottish suicide. If there were, he

would be male, he would be aged between his mid-30s and mid-50s. He

would be much more likely poor and rich. He would probably not be from

the Western Isles but could be from Glasgow, or the Highlands, or

Shetland or Galloway. He would have a skilled trade and probably be

single. He may well have been in hospital, perhaps as a previous

attempt of self-harm. He is likely to have had our recent prescription

for a mental health drug. Finally, he would end his own life in his

own home, by hanging or strangulation. I am joined from

Edinburgh by Professor Stephen Platt, the chair of the suicide

information database. Do you have any idea by the suicide rate here

should be getting worse? suicide rate in Scotland as well as

England has actually been coming down in the last ten years. The

problem is that our rate remains about 80 % higher than that rate in

England and Wales. So what is coming down but the gap is not

closing? Know. You say 80 % higher. Why should that be? We carried out

some research recently with colleagues in Manchester and

Glasgow and looked at this. Despite our best efforts, it is difficult

to explain all the reasons for the difference. Half of it is

unexplained. Or perhaps we can explain, it is largely down to

differences and a worse situation with regard to psychiatric health

or ill-health and alcohol related and drug-related problems. On top

of that, you have also got issues around social deprivation and the

break-up of communities. The major contribution it seems to be around

psychiatric, alcohol and drug factors. Give me a portrait of your

conception of people most at risk. The people most at risk are men,

far more than women, in the Thirties to 50s, living in the most

deprived circumstances. Either personally or in the areas they

live. This is part of a wider pattern common across the whole of

the UK, so there is nothing special about this. These are people born

around the mid-50s to the mid-70s. Some sociologists working on this

have talked about a bar for generations. At group of people,

particularly men, who are caught between a much more traditional,,

up traditional background, traditional culture, very little

change compared to a younger generation, this does -- the so-

called new generation who are much more independent minded. People in

this group are often struggling to know exactly where they fit. They

have also been faced with enormous social changes, higher divorce rate

and more single living, more partnering at losing partners,

changes in the world of work, many social and economic changes that

they had had to cope with, and they are often men in a situation where

they do not feel that they had either of the emotional literacy or

the skills to deal with this. last bit you said, is that why you

think men rather than women? Yes, because men, at this is a class

difference, men basically have fewer skills in relation to dealing

with psychological and emotional problems and greater difficulty in

knowing where to go for help. And that is across the whole all social

classes. Briefly, the standard figure here it there is one was for

Shetland. Has anyone done any work and why that should be. It is high

in the Highlands and Islands, the suicide rates have been high in

Glasgow and those are the main places. My hunch is that the reason

for these high rates are different. I think they have a late in Glasgow

very much to issues of social deprivation, whereas in the

Highlands and Islands I think the issues are to do with loneliness

and the strains of rural living, particularly in the farming

community. Thank you very much. The papers. The Scotsman, Christmas

rail strikes. The Scottish Daily Mail, Scots are punished by unfair