:02:53. > :02:57.Lack of affordable housing is the biggest social justice crisis in
:02:57. > :03:02.this country, according to the planning minister, Nick Boles. On
:03:02. > :03:06.Newsnight tonight, he reveals a new policy to encourage more house
:03:06. > :03:10.building which what he jokes are bribes, or Boles Bungs, cash for
:03:10. > :03:13.communities that agree to new house anything their area. You can build
:03:13. > :03:21.a new playground for local kids or do whatever you like with new money.
:03:21. > :03:25.I wanted to call it the Boles "bung". We will debate the idea and
:03:25. > :03:29.ask if anything else might solve the housing crisis.
:03:29. > :03:33.Stay in the European Union, a blunt message from the Obama
:03:33. > :03:38.administration on Britain's future. What has it to do with them? We
:03:38. > :03:45.will ask a euro-sceptic MP and a former state department spokesman.
:03:45. > :03:52.After attacking US gun control laws following the Connecticut shootings,
:03:52. > :04:02.Piers Morgan will not be deported from America, we ask if he regrets
:04:02. > :04:07.calling the gun lobby "stupid"! Hello, good evening, if the
:04:07. > :04:09.community town or village where you live is prepared to accept new
:04:09. > :04:13.housing developments, community groups will be given hard cash,
:04:13. > :04:16.perhaps hundreds of thousands of pounds. The idea is being
:04:16. > :04:20.implemented right now by the planning minister Nick Boles, who
:04:20. > :04:24.caused a row on Newsnight last month, by explaining why Greenfield
:04:24. > :04:28.sites would need to be built on if Britain is going to meet the demand
:04:28. > :04:33.for housing. Tonight Mr Boles goes even further. He reveals to us his
:04:33. > :04:37.latest plan to use an existing levy or tax on house builders, to give
:04:37. > :04:41.local communities some hard cash, as a big incentive to say yes to
:04:41. > :04:51.development. We will debate the wisdom of all of this in a moment,
:04:51. > :04:52.
:04:52. > :04:56.first here is the political editor. Meadows and moors, valleys and
:04:56. > :05:02.viaducts, we are on a journey among it all to find the great bricks of
:05:02. > :05:06.Great Britain. If a Domesday Book itemised every piece of the country
:05:06. > :05:10.many years ago, where have we gone on to build.
:05:10. > :05:16.Newsnight is back on the road with the planning minister, last month,
:05:16. > :05:22.on this programme, he said only 9% of this land was developed. He was
:05:22. > :05:27.accused of making his sums up on the back of a fag packet. This,
:05:27. > :05:31.then, is the fag packet. More modest, modern, Domesday Book, on
:05:31. > :05:36.the walls of the minister's office in Whitehall. There has been quite
:05:36. > :05:42.a row about how much of England is actually developed. Some
:05:42. > :05:48.campaigners have said, oh it's 15%, it is 25%, that is affected by
:05:48. > :05:53.urban development. And you said? said it is 8.9%. The idea that some
:05:53. > :05:57.how there is nowhere to build in the south-east is just not true, as
:05:57. > :06:01.this map, I think demonstrates. Everywhere needs housing, in the
:06:01. > :06:04.deep countryside, Cumbria, where we are going, is a good example,
:06:04. > :06:09.people still want their kids to be able to live in the village that
:06:09. > :06:19.they grew up in. If you don't build any houses, they can't. Because you
:06:19. > :06:19.
:06:19. > :06:23.know, holiday makers buy the houses, at stratospheric prices.
:06:23. > :06:27.Destination one, we are heading to what the minister's map suggested
:06:27. > :06:31.are yawning voids, the co-ordinates that test Nick Boles's assertion,
:06:31. > :06:41.that we have so many green and pleasant fields, some of them can
:06:41. > :06:46.
:06:46. > :06:50.be offered up. This is Brough.
:06:50. > :06:53.It is on its high street that Leslie lives with her four children
:06:53. > :06:59.in a rented home. She and her husband are professional carers for
:06:59. > :07:04.their neighbours in Brough, priced out of the market, Leslie is on
:07:04. > :07:08.Nick Boles's conscience. What can he do to help her?
:07:08. > :07:18.A short drive through forbidding foggy moors to Crosby raifrpbs
:07:18. > :07:24.worth, where the minister tells her just what he's going to do. Good
:07:24. > :07:27.morning everybody. We are in the Upper Eden Valley, nestled near the
:07:27. > :07:29.Cumbrian lakes and Yorkshire National Park, on the front here is
:07:29. > :07:33.planning policy S Newsnight is here, because it is the first in the
:07:33. > :07:38.country to put the views of its community into planning. It will
:07:38. > :07:41.hold a vote on the outcome. Nick Boles chose here to make an
:07:41. > :07:44.exclusive announcement. What we have decided is that for those
:07:44. > :07:50.areas that have a neighbourhood plan, and get it through the
:07:50. > :07:55.referendum, then 25%, a quarter of the revenues from the community
:07:55. > :08:00.infrastructure levy, will go to the neighbourhood to spend on what the
:08:00. > :08:03.hell you like. That money will come to you if you build new houses.
:08:03. > :08:10.Does anybody feel they want to respond to the announcement that
:08:10. > :08:14.Nick has made. The bribe! I wanted to call it the Boles "bung". This
:08:14. > :08:18.is a new pot of money that the council might once have thought
:08:18. > :08:25.100% their's to spend. What do they make of it? The days when we are
:08:25. > :08:29.going to sit back and get allocations for anything are gone.
:08:29. > :08:33.You are prepared to accept 25% of your pot dwindling. The important
:08:33. > :08:36.point to make this is a new revenue stream. This isn't money that the
:08:36. > :08:40.district council is already getting of which we are taking away 25%,
:08:40. > :08:45.this is a new tax, that is bringing in new revenues and we are saying,
:08:45. > :08:53.you are going to get 75%, and 25% will go to the neighbourhoods, if
:08:53. > :08:57.they have a neighbourhood plan. are those priced out reassured.
:08:57. > :09:02.deems what affordability is in affordable housing. My husband and
:09:02. > :09:06.I work as carers in the community, and we still can't reach, you know,
:09:06. > :09:11.getting a deposit together for the mortgage, paying the monthly rent
:09:11. > :09:16.with four children. Where do we stand at the end of the day. What
:09:16. > :09:20.assurances do we have? That it will be affordable for us. Your
:09:21. > :09:25.situation is absolutely typical, I am afraid. It is a huge national
:09:25. > :09:28.crisis, I think, for my money, I think it is the biggest social
:09:28. > :09:31.justice crisis we have, it is bigger than bad schools that we
:09:31. > :09:36.have plenty of bad schools, it is bigger than people without jobs
:09:36. > :09:38.that we have lots of people who are desperate for jobs. After digesting
:09:39. > :09:42.Nick Boles's exclusive announcement, people in that meeting would later
:09:42. > :09:45.e-mail that programme, they would express concerns that since his new
:09:45. > :09:49.fund will not all flow to the council, councils might be more
:09:50. > :09:53.resistant to neighbourhood planning, because of this, they suggested, it
:09:53. > :09:57.just wouldn't work. The minister, though, remained adamant it would
:09:57. > :10:01.help people like Leslie. He took her to what he thought was an
:10:01. > :10:05.affordable home. With the work we do it varies, so it needs to be
:10:05. > :10:10.something that I know at least my husband will earn within that month.
:10:10. > :10:15.Rents at the moment, we are paying what we could pay on a mortgage, in
:10:15. > :10:21.rent, but it is finding the deposit and going through everything.
:10:22. > :10:25.much is that a month that you would think was doable? About �500-�600.
:10:25. > :10:29.It is very, very hard, this is going to take a very long time to
:10:29. > :10:35.change. The situation we have with the housing market in England is 40
:10:35. > :10:39.years in the making. How does that strike you, he is saying we are
:10:39. > :10:43.many years away from your situation being made easier? Then at the end
:10:43. > :10:49.of the day if it doesn't help me t will help my children.
:10:49. > :10:53.Over at the Dales, to the cafe not far away, where Labour has a
:10:53. > :10:56.different take. Housing starts are down 9% on last year, the point I'm
:10:56. > :11:04.making really is the Government's strategy to deliver more housing
:11:04. > :11:10.isn't working anywhere. So we want them to really look at how they put
:11:10. > :11:15.more delivery mechanisms into the system, so that all areas, because
:11:15. > :11:20.absolutely every area needs more housing and more affordable housing.
:11:20. > :11:24.That was the north of England, where empty houses exist, they just
:11:24. > :11:27.aren't cheap enough for Leslie, in the south there are different
:11:27. > :11:31.pressures, that is why Nick Boles said in order to unblock the log
:11:31. > :11:36.jam, you have to open up other possible options, go for
:11:36. > :11:40.Greenfields. So to Harlow, and one such Greenfield, it has been guilt
:11:40. > :11:44.on, we brought one of the minister's fiercest critics to it.
:11:44. > :11:48.Is the lack of housing because too little land is available, or is it
:11:48. > :11:51.another reason. You think it is land, if you release more land the
:11:51. > :11:56.house builders will build. You have to look more closely at the housing
:11:56. > :12:00.market. The house builders have a low output, high margin model. They
:12:00. > :12:04.will build the houses they think they can sell. The demand is there,
:12:04. > :12:08.unquestionably the demand is there, prices have gone up stratferically,
:12:08. > :12:12.why are people not building if it is so easy. What is stopping them,
:12:12. > :12:14.I don't think it is a lack of land. You have to come up with an
:12:15. > :12:17.alternative explanation, I have an explanation. I'm not the Government.
:12:17. > :12:20.Your Government and the last Government are in denial about this,
:12:21. > :12:26.when we built enough houses in this country the state built a lot of
:12:26. > :12:31.them. Throughout the 1970s the state built over 120,000 house as
:12:31. > :12:34.year. Private sector house building since the war is pretty steady, the
:12:34. > :12:38.real loss is in public house building, it is cut even more
:12:38. > :12:43.recently. This is the what it looks like
:12:43. > :12:50.after building on green fields, this is what it looks like before.
:12:50. > :12:52.Down the road, here the bulldozers are poised to roll into this more
:12:52. > :12:56.consensus green field plan. If the Government is going to offer you
:12:56. > :13:00.money, you can spend it on something? You can always spend
:13:00. > :13:03.money, but is it a useful project to the area. There is nothing I can
:13:03. > :13:07.think of that sort of money will satisfy in the area. If you were
:13:07. > :13:11.talking about millions, maybe. Couldn't you as a community do
:13:11. > :13:15.something with �100,000? Of course you can. It doesn't address the
:13:15. > :13:22.first problem we looked at. This development defies all of the
:13:22. > :13:28.original plans for Harlow. That they don't overlook various areas.
:13:28. > :13:32.That the road system is capable of carrying it, et cetera. Just before
:13:32. > :13:35.Christmas, the think-tank that Mr Boles used to run said this
:13:35. > :13:38.Government's policies says it is currently on course to build
:13:38. > :13:43.300,000 fewer new homes than the plans of the previous Government,
:13:43. > :13:48.presiding over the lowest rate of house building since the 1920s.
:13:48. > :13:54.Nick Boles needs his bribes and his bungs to work.
:13:54. > :13:57.The planning minister, Nick Boles, is here. Along with three
:13:57. > :14:01.interested partners, Roberta Blackman Woods, and Simon Jenkins
:14:01. > :14:06.and John Stewart. Do you agree that something must be
:14:06. > :14:09.done, and this might be the right something? Something must always be
:14:09. > :14:12.done. What do you mean by that? Something must be done to address
:14:12. > :14:16.the housing shortage? There is always a housing shortage too.
:14:16. > :14:20.There is plenty of land to build houses on. There is more derelict
:14:20. > :14:25.land in this country, post- industrialisation than in any
:14:25. > :14:30.history in Britain. Building on in a few meadows outside Harlow will
:14:30. > :14:34.not solve the housing crisis. There is plenty of sites with planning
:14:34. > :14:38.permission existing that hasn't been used yet. Two million houses
:14:38. > :14:41.could be built on juggling the figures. The issue is how you treat
:14:41. > :14:46.planning. Selling planning permissions, in effect, through
:14:46. > :14:49.bribes, is not the way to plan this country. You should decide to build
:14:49. > :14:54.where it is appropriate, it might be on greenfield sites in places.
:14:54. > :14:57.The issue has to be one of planning. Do you plan work that appropriate
:14:57. > :15:02.development should take place, protecting beautiful areas and
:15:02. > :15:04.country areas, which are going fast, or do you say, let rip, let money
:15:04. > :15:09.determine it and bribe anyone we can to build houses, that is not
:15:09. > :15:11.the way to approach planning. problem is planning, not just what
:15:11. > :15:17.we heard. You are bribing people with their
:15:17. > :15:24.own money, it is public money? trouble s firstly, Simon started
:15:24. > :15:30.with something that isn't drew. The CPRE, I don't agree with the figure
:15:30. > :15:36.even they say there is only enough brownfield land for 1.25 million.
:15:36. > :15:40.They agree only 460,000 can be built in areas where we need
:15:40. > :15:44.housing most, London and the south- east and the south west. There are
:15:44. > :15:47.only over 100,000 homes empty for more than six months. The idea that
:15:47. > :15:51.there are land out there that we can put two million houses on to
:15:51. > :15:55.solve the problem is frankly not true. Let him come back on this.
:15:55. > :16:02.Also this question, there is a degree of nimbyism, we all like our
:16:02. > :16:06.local area to look good, we are quite conservative, about that.
:16:06. > :16:09.Isn't this saying this is a good way to encourage people to have a
:16:09. > :16:14.stake in what is happening in their area? The agreements in place
:16:14. > :16:18.already, which is the way you tax developers to provide roads,
:16:18. > :16:23.schools and so on, that's in place already. We are making housing very
:16:23. > :16:27.expensive in this country by the fancy schemes. That is not true,
:16:27. > :16:31.economically, if Simon had spent a little time looking at economic
:16:31. > :16:35.theory, what he would realise is the 106 agreement and the levy,
:16:35. > :16:40.drives down the price that the developer pays the landowner for
:16:40. > :16:45.the land. The landowner's best alternative use for this land
:16:45. > :16:50.agriculture, agriculture land prices are 10,000 an acre,
:16:50. > :16:53.development prices are �2 million an acre. From where you sit, is the
:16:53. > :16:56.problem planning question, or that people don't like new developments
:16:56. > :17:00.in their areas, and don't like what is being planned, or is it, frankly,
:17:00. > :17:03.that we are all broke and can't afford new housing any way? In the
:17:03. > :17:08.short-term it is a question on the demand side, it is a question of
:17:08. > :17:11.mortgages, since 2007 we have seen horrendous crisis in the economy
:17:11. > :17:15.and mortgage market. If we go back over the last 20 years, it is
:17:15. > :17:18.largely a supply problem. The planning system in this country
:17:18. > :17:22.controls the supply of land. You have to have a planning permission
:17:22. > :17:28.available to build legally, so it controls the supply of land. Can I
:17:28. > :17:32.pick up on this point about a bribe or bung, I'm sorry minister I find
:17:32. > :17:36.the term unfortunate used. It is his term? It was meant to be a
:17:36. > :17:40.joke! The point about the community infrastructure levy, which is where
:17:40. > :17:47.the money is coming from. It is an infrastructure levy, it is a levy
:17:47. > :17:49.on land value to pay for the infrastructure that we require to
:17:49. > :17:52.facilitate development. That is only proper and right. Whether it
:17:52. > :17:56.can be paid for by the land is another question. It is only right
:17:56. > :18:00.it should be the case. If some of that is taken off and given to
:18:00. > :18:03.local communities, as long as it is spent on infrastructure that is
:18:03. > :18:10.fine, it is not a bung or bribe, it is not cash in pockets. They are
:18:10. > :18:13.going to put a roof on the village hall, or build a primary school, or
:18:13. > :18:17.a park. Are you persuaded by this, you are in favour of localism, and
:18:17. > :18:21.local people having a say, presumably you are in favour of
:18:21. > :18:25.cash going to all those wonderful things, what is wrong with the
:18:25. > :18:28.idea? We are happy that the Government is taking the
:18:28. > :18:33.infrastructure levy forward, we lobbied for it, we are happy for
:18:33. > :18:36.local communities to benefit from it. It is not enough, on its own it
:18:36. > :18:39.is not enough to deliver affordable houses across the country. We will
:18:39. > :18:44.come on to what more should be done. Are you saying, then, that this
:18:44. > :18:47.idea is at least worth a look, you think it might work? We think it's
:18:47. > :18:52.worth having at the edges, but it is not going to deliver the amount
:18:52. > :18:55.of housing that we need. The Government, you know the minister
:18:55. > :18:58.is now saying he recognises there is a huge crisis in housing, the
:18:59. > :19:04.Government have got to upscale their efforts, we really want them
:19:04. > :19:08.to be looking at issues like. Bring some passion and vision back into
:19:08. > :19:12.planning, stop saying that planning is just an obstacle all the time,
:19:12. > :19:18.we can use planning to deliver growth. We can use planning to
:19:18. > :19:21.develop new garden cities, urban extensions. Using what for money?
:19:21. > :19:24.This is really interesting, there are pots of money, we think the
:19:24. > :19:28.Government isn't using the money that is available effectively. They
:19:28. > :19:32.could be looking at SIL, they could be looking at the Regional Growth
:19:32. > :19:35.Fund, money going to other things. Bring this together, use it
:19:35. > :19:39.stragically. So we get, not only housing, and I think we have to be
:19:39. > :19:41.careful not only to talk about housing, we need to talk about
:19:41. > :19:46.building places, building communities that people want to
:19:46. > :19:50.live in. They need schools, and they need jobs as well as houses.
:19:50. > :19:54.actually don't disagree with a lot of what was said. We are using all
:19:54. > :19:57.of those different pots of money to try to unlock sites. I share her
:19:57. > :20:02.passion for garden cities and the way they were developed. My case in
:20:02. > :20:05.a sense is very simple, the last Government, I believe, tried to
:20:05. > :20:09.force people to accept development. And it didn't work. They just
:20:09. > :20:14.didn't take it, we're a very old, democratic country, we won't be
:20:14. > :20:16.told what to do. My job, therefore, is to try to persuade people. It is
:20:16. > :20:20.partly to persuade them of the social justice problem, which is
:20:20. > :20:22.very real for all of their kids. But it is also to persuade them
:20:23. > :20:26.that new development can benefit their community, can benefit the
:20:26. > :20:31.people who live there now, and that's what I'm trying to do.
:20:31. > :20:35.you buy into the structure too, the idea of to have a referendum, to
:20:35. > :20:41.have local people being brought on board? I have no problem with that,
:20:41. > :20:43.in principle. It is going to split communities, the real problem here
:20:43. > :20:49.are the landowner, they are the people who get the huge profits out
:20:49. > :20:54.of it. The idea that you some how produce some local harmony by these
:20:54. > :20:58.serious, I mean Nick is bribing people to have housing estates and
:20:58. > :21:00.wind turbines, the money involved is very considerable. Quite why the
:21:00. > :21:03.whole community doesn't get it I don't know, that is another
:21:03. > :21:06.question. The question is where do you want the development to take
:21:07. > :21:12.place. Britain is a low-density country, the houses are like the
:21:12. > :21:17.houses we are looking here, most of Europe they have flats. If you have
:21:17. > :21:20.a housing crisis you build high- density, where you have roads and
:21:20. > :21:24.facilities in existence already. This meadow development is just
:21:24. > :21:28.crazy. Those of us, and I don't know about anybody else, those of
:21:28. > :21:32.us who have more than two homes. I have two homes, one I own on a huge
:21:32. > :21:36.mortgage, one that the taxpayer, thankfully rents for me in my
:21:36. > :21:41.constituency. Simon has at least two homes, I have been to two of
:21:41. > :21:45.them. Those of us who have two homes or more, have to be careful
:21:46. > :21:51.about telling people they need to build in the top floor of a flat,
:21:51. > :21:55.when people want a house with a garden. Do you see a cultural
:21:55. > :21:58.difference in this country when you come here, you are originally from
:21:58. > :22:01.New Zealand. We don't want to live in flat, people want to own their
:22:02. > :22:05.own homes and feel priced out of the market? There is a strong
:22:05. > :22:08.preference for homeownership, as in other countries like New Zealand,
:22:08. > :22:11.it is definitely the case. There is opposition to development of all
:22:11. > :22:18.kinds, and house anything particular, because it is the most
:22:18. > :22:22.common form of development, as an Antipodean I find puzzling. What
:22:22. > :22:26.Nick is talking about is you are addressing issues people are
:22:26. > :22:29.worrying about. If the local people hear there is a housing development
:22:29. > :22:34.and there are another 50 houses, the first thing is congestion on
:22:34. > :22:37.the road F you live where I live there is already congestion, if
:22:37. > :22:41.this is relieving congestion by fund ago round about or road
:22:41. > :22:46.widening. If it is a bung that goes on unnecessary things, I would be
:22:46. > :22:49.concerned about that. Minister, isn't this quite small beer, though.
:22:50. > :22:53.The part of the housing crisis is more and more people rent, we have
:22:53. > :22:56.to get used to that, the British idea that we will own our own homes,
:22:56. > :23:00.perhaps, there is a generation finding that incredibly difficult.
:23:00. > :23:04.Even though you may do things around the edges, as was suggested,
:23:04. > :23:08.it won't work for most people? not willing to accept that. In the
:23:08. > :23:13.19th century, homeownership was a privilege, it was the exclusive
:23:13. > :23:19.preserve of people with money, or rich parents. We can either head
:23:19. > :23:22.back to that, that is where we are heading, homeownership sank by 5%
:23:22. > :23:25.in the last decade in England. We can go back there, or recognise we
:23:25. > :23:29.have a huge amount of undeveloped land, that isn't special, all of
:23:29. > :23:38.the special land, 40% of it is protected by various destinations,
:23:38. > :23:43.there is a huge amount of it undesignated. In Germany what is
:23:43. > :23:49.home occupation? It is low. problem is in cities. How many
:23:49. > :23:53.homes do you own. I'm paying for your house, bloody hell! The issue
:23:53. > :23:56.is here is city housing, there is a shortage of house anything cities.
:23:56. > :23:59.Housing in cities is badly managed at the moment. People don't occupy
:23:59. > :24:03.enough of the houses the Government is doing the right thing to
:24:03. > :24:08.encourage them to get rid of surplus bedrooms. This business of
:24:08. > :24:12.trying to get people to build on meadows is a total distraction. It
:24:12. > :24:15.is about planning cities properly for people to live in.
:24:15. > :24:18.There is nothing new in senior American politicians, or even
:24:18. > :24:22.diplomats for that matter, saying they want Britain to play an
:24:22. > :24:26.influential role in the European Union. What is highly unusual is
:24:26. > :24:29.for a senior diplomat at the US State Department, Philip Gordon, in
:24:29. > :24:32.this case, to criticise the very idea that Britain should hold a
:24:32. > :24:36.referendum on the EU. He warned that referendums can turn countries
:24:36. > :24:41.inward. All this comes as leading British business figure, including
:24:41. > :24:44.Richard Branson, sir Martin Sorrell, the head of the CBI, sir Carr ka,
:24:44. > :24:48.warn that wholesale renegotiation of EU membership, could damage
:24:49. > :24:52.British business and put EU membership in peril. Allegra
:24:52. > :24:55.Stratton is here with background. What has been said and what is the
:24:55. > :25:00.reaction in Downing Street? Downing Street is saying that actually they
:25:00. > :25:03.agree, that they too want Britain to have a strong role with the EU,
:25:03. > :25:09.full stop. What Philip Gordon said, was it is in America's interest for
:25:09. > :25:12.Britain to be at the forefront of the EU. He said it was in America's
:25:12. > :25:17.interests, especially above all EU countries if Britain is in there.
:25:17. > :25:22.If you have this referendum you are turning inwards. This is classic
:25:23. > :25:26.megaphone diplomacy, the problem is it is screechingly loud when we are
:25:26. > :25:32.weeks away where the Prime Minister will give the speech where he will
:25:32. > :25:36.set out where he thinks. He has to tow the line, with the euro-
:25:36. > :25:41.sceptics, one across the table from us, will decide that part of the
:25:41. > :25:48.British public and people in his own cabinet. And on the one land,
:25:49. > :25:53.and some senior politicians who sound euro-sceptic, they are more
:25:53. > :25:57.pro it than they sound, so George Osborne, and sometimes David
:25:57. > :26:01.Cameron. He may agree with Philip Gordon, but in the speech he has to
:26:01. > :26:05.offer up something substantial to people who he has kept waiting for
:26:05. > :26:10.a long time. Philip Gordon is saying this is an internationally
:26:10. > :26:16.awaited event. Marc Reckless is well known for his
:26:16. > :26:26.demands for a referendum, and we have an Assistant Secretary of
:26:26. > :26:31.
:26:31. > :26:35.State in the Obama administration, What is it to you about these
:26:35. > :26:39.comments? The response to the Financial Times, where Richard
:26:39. > :26:46.Branson expressed concern about the uncertainty that a decision and
:26:46. > :26:50.referendum would create. We live in an integrated world. We require
:26:50. > :26:54.collective action to solve global and regional challenges. Trend, if
:26:54. > :26:57.you think about it globally, is to strengthen international
:26:57. > :27:04.institutions, not weaken international institutions, and
:27:04. > :27:10.from a US perspective the EU has been good for the UK, having the UK
:27:10. > :27:13.vocal has been good for Europe. It service the interests of the United
:27:13. > :27:17.States. What do you think of this, it is clearly in American interests
:27:17. > :27:20.that they have a strong ally in Britain, and politicians actually
:27:20. > :27:25.of both parties in the United States, for many years, have said
:27:25. > :27:29.Britain is only really strong if it is strong in Europe? The US may
:27:29. > :27:33.like Britain being an advocate for US interests in the EU, there may
:27:33. > :27:36.be some people in New York who wouldn't mind too much if EU
:27:36. > :27:40.regulation were to stifle competition from the City of London.
:27:40. > :27:45.But, ultimately what matters, is the interests of the British people.
:27:45. > :27:49.I think this debate has really moved on in the last two years
:27:49. > :27:53.particularly. It now does look like the British people will have a say
:27:53. > :27:57.in the referendum, for the first time ever, no-one under the age of
:27:57. > :28:01.55 has such a vote, where we decide whether we want to govern ourselves
:28:01. > :28:05.or continue to be governed through the European Union. Are you in any
:28:05. > :28:10.way irritate bid what was said today, or you think this is --
:28:10. > :28:17.irritated by what was said today, do you think the Americans have an
:28:17. > :28:22.interest, even if it is not in line with your views, even if what PJ
:28:23. > :28:27.Crowley was saying we get a good deal for the world and the country?
:28:27. > :28:30.Earlier in his remarks he said it was a matter for the British
:28:30. > :28:33.Government, Philip, and the British people, and I think that is really
:28:33. > :28:37.important that is recognised. Ultimately we had to look at what
:28:38. > :28:42.is in the interests of the British economy. Do we want our own laws,
:28:42. > :28:46.perhaps the US might like us to moderate slightly how EU
:28:46. > :28:51.regulations affects them. Our economy, so much of it is governed
:28:51. > :28:56.by EU regulation. We have to obey single market rules exporting to
:28:56. > :28:59.the EU, why should we obey them for the domestic economy and exporting
:28:59. > :29:03.else where Let me ask about the referendum question. What was
:29:03. > :29:06.picked up is the implication that perhaps the referendum is the wrong
:29:06. > :29:10.thing, it would make us turn inward was the suggestion. It might do
:29:10. > :29:14.exactly the opposite, might it not? It might give people a chance to
:29:14. > :29:19.express their opinion for origins on a matter that affects us very
:29:19. > :29:22.deeply? Sure, and as Philip Gordon said, this is a matter for the
:29:22. > :29:27.British people, ultimately. On this side of the Atlantic, you know,
:29:27. > :29:31.there is a lot of attitudes about US membership in the United Nations,
:29:31. > :29:35.it comes up over four years, there is a sliver of our population that
:29:35. > :29:38.does not think that, or thinks that the United States membership in the
:29:38. > :29:44.United Nations is a challenge to our sovereignty. We happen not to
:29:44. > :29:47.put that to a vote. To the larger question, the reality is domestic
:29:47. > :29:51.issues have broader international implications. There is nothing
:29:51. > :29:55.wrong with voices in Europe or in the UK saying to the United States
:29:55. > :29:59.politicians, look, we don't care how you solve your debt and
:29:59. > :30:03.spending crisis, but if you fall off a cliff, at some point in the
:30:03. > :30:08.future, and you go back into recession, that is going to have a
:30:08. > :30:11.profound impact in Europe, and likewise, I think it is perfectly
:30:11. > :30:15.appropriate for the United States to say, look if you take steps,
:30:15. > :30:18.while they can be logical from a domestic standpoint, end up
:30:18. > :30:22.weakening what has become a very significant international
:30:22. > :30:26.institutions in the EU, if you think that will be helpful to the
:30:26. > :30:29.world. Do you think the Obama administration thinks Britain is a
:30:29. > :30:33.less important ally if we are not in the EU? I don't think this is an
:30:33. > :30:35.Oort or, this is a win, win, win for the United States. There is a
:30:35. > :30:42.great convergence of interest between the United States and the
:30:42. > :30:45.UK. And this pillar is vitally important, when then you put shared
:30:46. > :30:50.bilateral interests in the context of an EU, or in the context of NATO.
:30:50. > :30:55.It is not an either-or proposition, it is the fact that the special
:30:55. > :30:58.relationship between the United States and the UK has multiple
:30:58. > :31:03.venues through question effective action can be achieved. Is that the
:31:03. > :31:06.way you see today's comments, or is it to go back to what you said at
:31:06. > :31:12.the start of the conversation, there are clearly American economic,
:31:12. > :31:15.domestic and political interests in what we do, and perhaps the pro-
:31:15. > :31:19.pond regins of opinion there, or those who think about it, is we
:31:19. > :31:24.should stay in the EU? I think it is inconceivable that American
:31:24. > :31:28.people would allow a NAFTA court strike down EU laws, the idea that
:31:28. > :31:31.the American people would accept being governed in a way this
:31:31. > :31:35.country has been governed. They are telling us what they think about
:31:35. > :31:39.what we do, does that cause you concern? We have very important
:31:39. > :31:42.defence relationships with the US, the US is our largest single
:31:42. > :31:45.trading partner, but at the moment that trade relationship is run by
:31:45. > :31:48.the European Union. What I would like to see is that trade
:31:48. > :31:52.relationship run in British interests, rather than tying
:31:52. > :31:56.ourselves to one declining continent in the EU, we should
:31:56. > :32:00.trade freely across the world, and negotiate a free trade deal with
:32:00. > :32:05.the United States and rising economies in China and India and
:32:05. > :32:09.elsewhere, and trade dols that are in the British interests, opening
:32:09. > :32:13.up our agricultural market to the US and other countries, we have
:32:13. > :32:19.huge ambition to do better deals in the British interest.
:32:19. > :32:24.A couple of years ago the TV satirist, Armando Iannucci, the man
:32:24. > :32:29.behind The Thick of It, explained his job was sometimes made more
:32:29. > :32:34.difficult that some things in real- life politics were beyond satire.
:32:34. > :32:38.Imagine the mid-term report congratulations and then an next
:32:38. > :32:42.that had pledges gone wrong, that remained a secret, until a
:32:42. > :32:45.Government aide was photographed with the document revealing the
:32:45. > :32:51.internal debate on how long to bury the bad news, you couldn't make it
:32:51. > :32:54.Come n imagine this is Downing Street, and you are a senior
:32:54. > :32:58.Government adviser. The Government is about to publish its Mid-Term
:32:58. > :33:01.Review, there will be some good stuff in it, and some not so God
:33:01. > :33:08.news. Obviously you would rather everyone focus on the good news.
:33:08. > :33:13.The question is, what do you do with the bad news. Do you, (a)
:33:13. > :33:19.publish it all at once, and hope, on balance, you come out ahead in
:33:19. > :33:25.the coverage, or do you (b) publish only the good news, and sneak the
:33:25. > :33:29.bad news out later, only on the Government website. Do you do (c)
:33:29. > :33:32.inadvertantly tell everyone what you are doing, by showing
:33:32. > :33:38.photographers a memo cussing your options.
:33:38. > :33:43.I'm guess you won't have plumped for (C) that is exactly what
:33:43. > :33:47.Government adviser, Patrick Rock, has done. The memo talks about
:33:47. > :33:57.problematic areas, unfavourable copy and broken pledges, that could
:33:57. > :33:59.
:33:59. > :34:04.be published without fanfare. But, guess what they have now got.
:34:04. > :34:07.(fanfare) The fanfare was deafening when the 24,000 document was
:34:07. > :34:11.published this afternoon, the Government had guaranteed that
:34:11. > :34:15.every journalist would be pouring all over it. Now the storing story
:34:15. > :34:19.wasn't so much missed targets and broken pledge, no, it was a
:34:19. > :34:23.Government incompetence, and allegations of deception. So it was
:34:23. > :34:28.certainly happy new year for the Labour leader and his first Prime
:34:28. > :34:33.Minister's Questions of 2013. the Prime Minister tell us why on
:34:33. > :34:39.Monday, when he published his Mid- Term Review, he failed to publish
:34:39. > :34:46.his audit of coalition broken promises. We will be publishing
:34:46. > :34:50.absolutely every single audit of every single prob mis, all 39 --
:34:50. > :34:54.promise, all 399 pledges set out in the Mid-Term Review. He's a PR man
:34:54. > :34:57.who can't even do a relaunch. Half way through this parliament, we
:34:57. > :35:03.know they are incompetent, they break their Prom mys and the nasty
:35:03. > :35:09.Party is back. So, what does the document say?
:35:09. > :35:13.Well, some of the pledges haven't been kept yet, but may be delivered
:35:13. > :35:17.over the next two-and-a-half years, like having a free vote in the
:35:17. > :35:22.Commons over fox-hunting, that appears pretty unlikely. Others
:35:22. > :35:25.look pretty difficult to describe as kept, for example, the
:35:25. > :35:29.guarantees that health spending increasing in real terms in each
:35:29. > :35:33.year of the parliament. The UK Statistics Authortiy has concluded
:35:33. > :35:38.it would be fair Tory say there has been little change in -- fairer to
:35:38. > :35:41.say there has been little change in health spending. What about the
:35:41. > :35:45.top-down reorganisation of the NHS, the document suggests that has been
:35:45. > :35:48.kept, if so, what was all the business about abolishing strategic
:35:48. > :35:52.health authorities, and Primary Care Trusts, and giving more
:35:52. > :35:59.commissioning to gpts, it seemed pretty top-down at the time. Don't
:35:59. > :36:03.hold your breath waiting for legislation creating fewer and more
:36:03. > :36:07.equal-sized constituencies, Nick Clegg is refueinging to support the
:36:07. > :36:12.changes because the Conservatives won't support Lords reform. The
:36:12. > :36:22.publication of the Mid-Term Review on Monday, had real echos of Tony
:36:22. > :36:26.Blair's annual reports. Line-by- line we are delivering on the
:36:26. > :36:29.contract. Now it is claimed it is PR. In the end Tony Blair gave up
:36:29. > :36:34.his Annual Reports after three years, perhaps concluding that no-
:36:34. > :36:39.one really cares what Governments say about how jolly well they are
:36:39. > :36:42.doing. I think all Governments end up doing this, despite their
:36:42. > :36:46.experience, they still think that good news is news to journalists.
:36:46. > :36:50.It is not, unfortunately, they get their headline for a few hours, on
:36:50. > :36:55.the first day, then you lot go around picking holes in it, or you
:36:55. > :36:58.look at the processology, which is exactly what has happened today.
:36:58. > :37:04.Poor Patrick Rock isn't the first minister or adviser to get snapped
:37:04. > :37:09.revealing a document. No comment, gracious smile, look good. In fact
:37:09. > :37:14.the mishap has even made it into an episode of the TV comedy, The Thick
:37:14. > :37:20.of It. What would possess you to talk about the streets with notes
:37:20. > :37:25.just there for anybody to see. Patrick Rock joins Labour
:37:25. > :37:29.minister's Caroline Flint and Hazel Blears, and exConservative minister,
:37:29. > :37:33.Andrew Mitchell. Perhaps most serious was Bob Quick, parading
:37:33. > :37:36.details of a yet to happen anti- terror raid. Perhaps one finding of
:37:36. > :37:41.the next Government review is ministers and advisers should all
:37:41. > :37:44.be issued with folders and envelopes to put their sensitive
:37:44. > :37:49.developments in. There is no hotter hot button issue
:37:49. > :37:52.in the United States than guns and what to do about them. After the
:37:52. > :37:58.Connecticut school shooting Barack Obama opened up the emotionally
:37:58. > :38:02.charged debate, and into it stepped the former Mirror editor, Piers
:38:02. > :38:06.Morgan. He criticised America's gun control laws, enshrined in the
:38:06. > :38:10.second amendment to the constitution. Since then almost
:38:10. > :38:13.100,000 people have signed a petition calling for him to be
:38:13. > :38:17.deported. The White House issued a statement defending Mr Morgan's
:38:17. > :38:23.right to free speech. Tonight he had a flavour of how some Americans
:38:23. > :38:27.think about it, when he invited the man who started the petition on to
:38:27. > :38:30.the programme. 1776 will commence again if you try to take our
:38:30. > :38:34.fiefrpls, it doesn't matter how many lemmings you get on the street
:38:34. > :38:40.being for them to have their guns taken, we will not relinquish them,
:38:40. > :38:45.that is why you will fail, do you understand, the establishment knows
:38:45. > :38:49.that no matter how much propaganda, the revolution will rise again. My
:38:49. > :38:53.family was at the core starting Santa Ana, because they came to
:38:53. > :38:57.take the guns of Texas. Don't try what your ancestors did before.
:38:57. > :39:02.Come to America, I will take you out shooting, you can become an
:39:02. > :39:06.American and join the Republic. you finished? Yes I am finish. You
:39:07. > :39:12.will not take my right. There you are, just before I came on air
:39:13. > :39:16.strikes I spoke to Piers Morgan. Do you regret telling Americans
:39:16. > :39:21.what laws are appropriate in their own country and not your's?
:39:21. > :39:25.really. Because I live here. I'm a legal resident in America, the
:39:25. > :39:29.constitution and Bill of Rights applies to me equally as it does to
:39:29. > :39:33.an American. What happens here affects me and my life and that of
:39:33. > :39:38.my family. The guns issue here is now, I think, so dangerous, and so
:39:38. > :39:43.out of control, that something has to give. If I can help frame the
:39:43. > :39:50.debate in a way that is constructive to getting new gun
:39:50. > :39:54.control legislation, then great. But framing in a de -- a debate,
:39:54. > :39:59.you were telling the gun components they were stupid? They were having
:39:59. > :40:03.stupid comments. When you have a massacre like the Sandyhook school
:40:03. > :40:08.massacre and 20 young people blown to pieces by a deranged young man
:40:08. > :40:13.getting Assault Rifles if he wants from a local superstore like Wal-
:40:13. > :40:17.Mart. The reaction of the gun loby that I had, on my show at CNN, was
:40:17. > :40:22.to say more guns less crime, arm everybody, arm the teachers, arm
:40:22. > :40:26.all the movie theatre receptionists, arm everyone at a church, temple
:40:26. > :40:30.and shopping mall and the spiralling descent into gun madness
:40:30. > :40:34.continues. And I do find it stupid and dangerous. I do think that most
:40:34. > :40:39.people in Britain, in particular, where we remember what happened
:40:39. > :40:45.after Dunblane were we brought in very draconian gun control law, and
:40:45. > :40:50.guess what, we have between 30 and 40 gun murders a year, America has
:40:50. > :40:54.11,000-12,000. You can't be surprised as a vit -- at the vit
:40:54. > :40:58.roll, telling them as a foreign in their country that their laws stink
:40:58. > :41:02.which, is effectively what you have just said? I don't know that at all.
:41:02. > :41:06.For all the vitriol I'm getting, I'm getting a lot of people
:41:06. > :41:10.crediting me, a lot of Americans are very concerned about this, who
:41:10. > :41:14.think what I'm trying to do, which is exactly what the President is
:41:14. > :41:17.trying to do and many other people, like the Mayor of New York are
:41:17. > :41:21.trying to do, it is not about banning all their guns or attacking
:41:21. > :41:24.the second amendment, it is a specific campaign to take the
:41:24. > :41:28.military-style assault weapons off the streets and out of civilian
:41:28. > :41:32.hands. They have been used in the last four mass shootings in America,
:41:32. > :41:36.they are the preferred weapon of choice for mass shooters. They load
:41:36. > :41:39.them up with these ridiculous high- capacity magazines that you can put
:41:39. > :41:44.100 bullets in to fire in less than a minute. They are killing machines.
:41:44. > :41:47.They need to be outlawed. Everybody will understand the arguments,
:41:47. > :41:50.particularly over here, they understand exactly what you are
:41:50. > :41:54.saying, you are now a political activist, not a journalist? I don't
:41:54. > :42:00.mind what you call me. I'm comfortable with what I'm doing,
:42:01. > :42:06.and I will continue do doing it, if it makes me popular or unpopular,
:42:06. > :42:11.it doesn't matter, it is what I believe in.
:42:11. > :42:14.The called War on Drugs was declared by President Nixon first,
:42:15. > :42:19.and declared lost in 2011, inbetween many politicians try to
:42:19. > :42:22.avoid the phrase, with the Obama administration suggesting it was
:42:22. > :42:25.counter-productive. Whatever you call t the efforts by the United
:42:25. > :42:31.States to control the production of narcotics abroad, and their
:42:31. > :42:34.consumption at home, the results have involved conflicts in Panama
:42:34. > :42:37.and elsewhere, and the incarceration of thousands of young
:42:37. > :42:41.Americans for drug crimes. The House I Live In is a new film on
:42:41. > :42:45.the War on Drugs, by the director, Eugene Jarecki, and one of the
:42:45. > :42:54.contenders for an Oscar, the film argues the war has been a disaster.
:42:54. > :42:59.Here is a flavour. I'm not a big Superdrug dealer. I have weed. I do
:42:59. > :43:04.what I have to do, I know how to survive, I dib and dab if I have to.
:43:04. > :43:09.It is not hard to tell these are the junkies. Yeah. I think the
:43:09. > :43:15.economy thrives off the drug money. We have judges getting high too.
:43:15. > :43:19.Cops sniffing coke, people with good college jobs who can afford
:43:19. > :43:22.the habits. That is the difference. The boys are behind us. The biggest
:43:22. > :43:29.drug industry in the world isn't in Mexico or Columbia, or in
:43:29. > :43:33.Afghanistan, it is in the United States. One of the realities is,
:43:33. > :43:36.most people getting arrested in this country or drugs are selling
:43:36. > :43:40.drugs to support their own habit. If you stand in a federal court,
:43:40. > :43:50.you are watching poor, uneducated people, being fed into a machine
:43:50. > :43:50.
:43:50. > :43:54.like meat to make sausage. It is just bang, bang, bang, next.
:43:54. > :43:57.Somebody down the road said we will fight a war against illicit drugs,
:43:57. > :44:01.because drugs are bad. OK, there is no argument there, think about
:44:01. > :44:06.where we are 30 years later. If you look at all the money spent on drug
:44:06. > :44:10.enforcement, on prison, probation officers, judges, narcotics agents,
:44:11. > :44:14.on adix, and everything else that has expanded due to the war on
:44:14. > :44:18.drugs, it gratifies us because it makes us feel tough on crime. But
:44:18. > :44:22.to what end, we are the most jailing country on the planet.
:44:22. > :44:26.Beyond saud dough Arabia, China or Russia, nobody jails their
:44:26. > :44:31.population at the rate we do. And yet drugs are purer than ever
:44:31. > :44:35.before, they are more available. There are younger and younger kids
:44:35. > :44:42.willing to sell them. If it was draconian and it worked, but it is
:44:42. > :44:48.draconian and it doesn't work, and it leads to more.
:44:48. > :44:52.You can see a full version of the film, The House I Live In, on
:44:52. > :44:57.Storyville on Monday night. Eugene Jarecki directed it, and he's here
:44:57. > :45:00.tonight. You say that the War on Drugs has failed, the slogan has
:45:00. > :45:04.clearly failed, the Obama administration has distanced
:45:04. > :45:08.themselves from it. You can't say taking the drug problems has not
:45:08. > :45:14.made America a safer place than in the 1990s, because crime has gone
:45:14. > :45:20.down, and much of it drug-related? Crime went down for lots of factor,
:45:20. > :45:25.we have created more crime. There is a study that says when you
:45:25. > :45:28.incarcerate 300 people out of every 100,000, that is the tipping point
:45:28. > :45:33.that provides public safety. The moment you go beyond that you
:45:33. > :45:38.foster crime what we do in America is take the non-violent and punish
:45:38. > :45:43.them as though they were violent. We do 740 people per 100,000, among
:45:43. > :45:47.the black community it is 4,000 people. A lot of people make the
:45:47. > :45:51.point it is disproportionately punitive among the black population.
:45:51. > :45:56.I lived in Washington in the 1990s you were 20-times more likely to be
:45:56. > :46:00.murdered than in Belfast, that was mostly drug crime, it was mostly
:46:00. > :46:04.drug crime? It was violent crime. That is drug territory, that has
:46:04. > :46:10.largely gone? No, the violent crime that happens over drug territories,
:46:10. > :46:15.because of the illegality of drugs, if you look in Portugal and Greece,
:46:15. > :46:18.that once they legalise the violence goes away. We learned from
:46:18. > :46:21.prohibition that violence is attached to the drugs. You and I
:46:21. > :46:27.wouldn't be talking about the matter if we were talking about the
:46:27. > :46:29.incarceration of the violent. Who has a problem with that. America's
:46:29. > :46:33.700% explosion of the prison population, is because we
:46:33. > :46:37.incarcerate the violent with the non-violent. Is your solution the
:46:37. > :46:42.decriminalisation of the drugs, saying we should trade in them, and
:46:42. > :46:46.a trading decision, which street corner you deal on? It starts with
:46:46. > :46:51.dealing with it as a health problem, it is that. We should treat drugs
:46:51. > :46:55.certainly we treat alcohol. It is a far more destructive drug than any
:46:55. > :47:01.on the schedule of legal drugs. Its track record of human destruction
:47:01. > :47:05.and public safety and health is peerless. We treat those on the
:47:05. > :47:10.schedule of illegal drugs far more harshly than alcohol, because there
:47:10. > :47:14.is a big business attached to T it defies common sense. It is true
:47:14. > :47:21.there is big business, one of the reasons things are criminalises is
:47:21. > :47:27.society make as moral statement about it. You criminalise murders
:47:27. > :47:32.or rape because you don't think there will be any more, but you do
:47:32. > :47:36.that because they are wrong? That is the nature of it, we unleashed
:47:36. > :47:41.the dogs of war when we launched the War on Drugs. If you want to
:47:41. > :47:44.talk about policies reformed and taxing and regulating drugs, as
:47:44. > :47:48.Washington and Colorado have voted to do. We have laws in America that
:47:48. > :47:52.are so surreal, for example, in California, there are people with
:47:52. > :47:57.non-violent third strieblgs who have life sentence, down the hall,
:47:57. > :48:03.a murder, one of the violent people we should be concerned with are out
:48:03. > :48:08.in 15 years. We are punishing the non-violent more hysterically than
:48:08. > :48:12.the violent. In Holland, where the use of cannabis has been decriminal
:48:12. > :48:18.niceed, they are tougher on it, they don't -- decriminalised it,
:48:18. > :48:22.they are tougher on if, they don't want drugs tourists. You couldn't
:48:22. > :48:28.have more draconian policies than in the United States. We lead the
:48:28. > :48:31.world in demand. We have 40 years of it, and spent �45 billion
:48:31. > :48:34.dollars. We have cheaper drugs more available than before. The violent
:48:34. > :48:39.crime you are talking about, that has been part of the regime that I
:48:39. > :48:42.would say, let's go after violent crime, when you have
:48:43. > :48:45.criminalisation of non-violent petty offence, the police are
:48:45. > :48:49.invent advised to spend their evening on it rather than policing
:48:49. > :48:59.the violence. We will look forward to the film. A quick look at
:48:59. > :49:21.
:49:21. > :49:25.Over 47 million litre water pump from it each day, it hosted its
:49:25. > :49:30.first birth in 1924, and fewer than 10% of its stations are south of
:49:30. > :49:40.the river. London's Tube is celebrating its 150th birthday.
:49:40. > :49:49.
:49:49. > :49:54.# The public gets # What the public wants