Browse content similar to 04/08/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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It's turning out to be the post that's impossible to fill. | :00:00. | :00:08. | |
Dame Lowell Goddard has become the third head of the inquiry | :00:09. | :00:11. | |
into child sexual abuse to step down. | :00:12. | :00:15. | |
Faced with criticism over the time she's spent abroad | :00:16. | :00:17. | |
since taking up her post, she offered her resignation this | :00:18. | :00:20. | |
We'll try to work out what happens to the inquiry now | :00:21. | :00:28. | |
and we'll ask why it's had such a faltering start. | :00:29. | :00:31. | |
Also tonight, we didn't get the Brexit budget. | :00:32. | :00:38. | |
But the Bank of England has given us a Brexit bundle, | :00:39. | :00:42. | |
a package of measures to prop up the economy. | :00:43. | :00:45. | |
We are living through a time of considerable uncertainty. One thing | :00:46. | :00:51. | |
we can do is reduce the uncertainties over the issues over | :00:52. | :00:52. | |
which we have controlled. Or was it a bit nutty | :00:53. | :00:54. | |
for the Bank to look so rattled I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't | :00:55. | :00:58. | |
do that. What is the problem? And will artificial intelligence | :00:59. | :01:13. | |
help usher in the brave new world It is by any standards a huge | :01:14. | :01:15. | |
inquiry into an enormous topic. It was originally set | :01:16. | :01:26. | |
up in 2014 by the then But it got into trouble | :01:27. | :01:28. | |
before it got going, losing the first two people | :01:29. | :01:34. | |
who were put in charge - both accused of having connections | :01:35. | :01:37. | |
that made for conflicts Then it was put on a statutory | :01:38. | :01:40. | |
footing last year, it was completely reconvened, and all seemed | :01:41. | :01:47. | |
to be in place. Dame Lowell Goddard, | :01:48. | :01:49. | |
brought in from New Zealand, She expected it to | :01:50. | :01:52. | |
last several years. It was all moving slowly, | :01:53. | :01:57. | |
and so it was not great PR to find Goddard had spent weeks back | :01:58. | :02:01. | |
in Australasia on top The head of the official inquiry | :02:02. | :02:14. | |
into past handling of child abuse has resigned. Dame Lowell Goddard, a | :02:15. | :02:23. | |
New Zealander judge comment Dave noticed today that she will no | :02:24. | :02:26. | |
longer chair being quest. Her successor will inherit a huge | :02:27. | :02:30. | |
programme with 13 separate strands covering bodies from the Catholic | :02:31. | :02:32. | |
Church through to Lambeth Council. The inquiry has had problems since | :02:33. | :02:55. | |
July 2014 when the then Home Secretary announced it in response | :02:56. | :03:00. | |
to a rash of abuse revelations. I can now tell the house that the | :03:01. | :03:03. | |
government will establish an Indic went -- an independent inquiry panel | :03:04. | :03:09. | |
of experts to consider whether public bodies and other non-state | :03:10. | :03:13. | |
institutions have taken seriously their duty of care to protect | :03:14. | :03:17. | |
children from sexual abuse. Theresa May's first choice to chair the | :03:18. | :03:22. | |
inquiry in 2014 was Baroness Butler Sloss, a British judge. At her late | :03:23. | :03:28. | |
brother had been Attorney General in the late 1980s and she might need to | :03:29. | :03:32. | |
examine his work. After an outcry, she resigned. Then in September | :03:33. | :03:39. | |
2014, Dame Fiona Woolf was appointed as chair, another lawyer. She | :03:40. | :03:44. | |
resigned a month later for similar reasons when it emerged she was an | :03:45. | :03:48. | |
acquaintance of Lord Brittan, whose conduct in the 1980s was also | :03:49. | :03:59. | |
expected to be reviewed. So, Dame Lowell was appointed in 2015. In | :04:00. | :04:03. | |
this country, as in other countries, public concern about institutional | :04:04. | :04:06. | |
failure to protect children from sexual abuse has mounted with the | :04:07. | :04:10. | |
growing realisation of the sheer scale of this problem. Dame Lowell | :04:11. | :04:16. | |
faced criticism this week because she spent the equivalent of three | :04:17. | :04:20. | |
months abroad and the inquiry has yet to hear a witness. I think the | :04:21. | :04:25. | |
real problem emerged at the hearing last week. Not only did she have to | :04:26. | :04:30. | |
postpone the hearing into the late Lord Jana for six months after she | :04:31. | :04:34. | |
had been set -- she had said that she would be hearing evidence from | :04:35. | :04:37. | |
witnesses, but she seemed completely thrown when counsel for | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
Leicestershire police asked for a particular order banning publication | :04:42. | :04:45. | |
of something that had been said, possibly an area of the hearing. The | :04:46. | :04:51. | |
only assumption I can make is that she simply wasn't up to the job. | :04:52. | :04:56. | |
Dame Lowell, though, may not be that essential. The inquiry has four | :04:57. | :05:01. | |
other panellists and a big staff. I personally wonder whether or not we | :05:02. | :05:05. | |
actually need a chair. Maybe it is too much of a burden for one person. | :05:06. | :05:11. | |
Everything is finally taking off. I don't think that we should be too | :05:12. | :05:15. | |
distracted by the unfortunate departure of just one person. The | :05:16. | :05:20. | |
inquiry continues but, two years in, it is still only getting started. | :05:21. | :05:24. | |
With me are Raymond Stevenson, founder of Shirley Oaks Survivors | :05:25. | :05:31. | |
Association and a survivor of abuse himself, and down | :05:32. | :05:33. | |
the line, Tim Loughton, former Children's Minister. | :05:34. | :05:35. | |
Good evening to you both. Raymond, what is your reaction to this? | :05:36. | :05:45. | |
Waiting so long... Let me explain, I was physically abused. The 600 | :05:46. | :05:50. | |
people I represent, half of them were sexually abused, they are going | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
to be let down in every way, shape or form. They going to be let down. | :05:55. | :05:59. | |
Some of them went through this 30 years ago in investigations by the | :06:00. | :06:03. | |
police. Some of them went through this with other investigations. They | :06:04. | :06:08. | |
kind of really relied on this to be the last swansong, the last chance | :06:09. | :06:11. | |
to really get justice. Were you happy with Lowell Goddard? We were | :06:12. | :06:20. | |
unconvinced that this should be handled by one person. We felt there | :06:21. | :06:24. | |
should be at least six people chairing the separate strands. But | :06:25. | :06:28. | |
when we spoke to her and when we petitioned, we felt comfortable. But | :06:29. | :06:32. | |
there was always something lurking in the background, clearly. We're | :06:33. | :06:36. | |
not so worried about her taking the time off. Was she the right person | :06:37. | :06:41. | |
for the job in the first place? OK. Tim, why do you think she had to go? | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
Well, we don't know. I'm deeply disappointed that she has resigned | :06:47. | :06:51. | |
this evening. It is third time unlucky, as you say, after some | :06:52. | :06:55. | |
false starts. Theresa May has literally scoured the world to come | :06:56. | :06:59. | |
up with Lowell Goddard from New Zealand. She had been in place for | :07:00. | :07:03. | |
18 months. I met her several times and she was in front of the home | :07:04. | :07:07. | |
affairs Select Committee and we wholeheartedly endorsed her | :07:08. | :07:10. | |
appointed. She is deeply impressive and I know she is respected by the | :07:11. | :07:15. | |
people working around her. It's very disappointing and quite baffling | :07:16. | :07:18. | |
that she has chosen to go today and it's really important that this | :07:19. | :07:23. | |
inquiry keeps going and the momentum is not lost. The important work it | :07:24. | :07:26. | |
has already done and the more important work it is now prepared to | :07:27. | :07:31. | |
do is in no way wasted and can now carry on. Can we just go through a | :07:32. | :07:36. | |
couple of reasons people have suggested? Maybe she was | :07:37. | :07:39. | |
inappropriate and needed to go. One is that she took 44 days on top of | :07:40. | :07:44. | |
her Daniel Levy last year back working or doing other activities in | :07:45. | :07:48. | |
Australia and New Zealand. Is that a problem? -- on top of her annual | :07:49. | :07:54. | |
leave. We don't know the full details of that and a lot of that | :07:55. | :07:57. | |
time it would appear it was spent in Australia where she was looking to | :07:58. | :08:01. | |
learn the lessons from the Australian Royal commission into | :08:02. | :08:05. | |
historic sets abuse -- historic child sets abuse which had been | :08:06. | :08:09. | |
going for many years and was in some ways a precursor of the review that | :08:10. | :08:14. | |
Theresa May set up back in 2014. I presume she has been doing some | :08:15. | :08:18. | |
important work there. We've taken so long to get this inquiry, so many | :08:19. | :08:22. | |
survivors of these ghastly historic sets abuse cases had their hopes | :08:23. | :08:28. | |
pinning on at last getting to the bottom of the truth of what happened | :08:29. | :08:32. | |
over many, many decades, a lot of them had put their hopes in Lowell | :08:33. | :08:37. | |
Goddard, so it is a shame that she has gone but for goodness sake, | :08:38. | :08:41. | |
let's not keep beating up on those people who have been appointed to do | :08:42. | :08:45. | |
a really complex and difficult job and one that needs to be done. I do | :08:46. | :08:51. | |
know if you heard Joshua in Chris Kirk's package saying that to him it | :08:52. | :08:54. | |
didn't look like she was up to the job, she did not appear to know | :08:55. | :08:57. | |
enough about the British legal system. In your view, is there | :08:58. | :09:03. | |
anything in that charge at all? Look at the media, the home affairs | :09:04. | :09:07. | |
Select Committee, the Home Secretary, the survivors, everybody | :09:08. | :09:10. | |
else poured over her CV and qualifications add info night when | :09:11. | :09:15. | |
she was appointed 18 months ago. Everyone agreed that she was a good | :09:16. | :09:20. | |
appointment and the big issue as to whether she might not be independent | :09:21. | :09:24. | |
and might know some of the people who were being looked into was the | :09:25. | :09:29. | |
key question. The fact that she came from New Zealand solved that one. I | :09:30. | :09:33. | |
had no doubt she was up to the job. She was very impressive when I met | :09:34. | :09:38. | |
her personally. We unanimously endorsed her. Let's not try to say | :09:39. | :09:46. | |
she was never up to the job. We don't know exactly why she stood | :09:47. | :09:50. | |
down but the inquiry needs to get on with its work now. Raymond, within | :09:51. | :09:54. | |
five minutes of this I was hearing people say it's all part of a | :09:55. | :09:58. | |
cover-up, they were Ash Nevill wanted this inquiry, it's all done | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
to undermine the inquiry. Do you believe that? Do you believe there | :10:03. | :10:06. | |
will be survivors who believe this is all about undermining the wiry? | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
We have to tell you our position. We absolutely decided to carry out our | :10:12. | :10:13. | |
own investigations because we were not convinced that this inquiry | :10:14. | :10:16. | |
would actually happen. We made that very clear at the other inquiry but | :10:17. | :10:25. | |
although we are participants we reserve the right to pull out. We | :10:26. | :10:30. | |
think people have to start looking at the conspiracy theory. It's | :10:31. | :10:34. | |
talked about as if it is pie in the sky that having examined some of the | :10:35. | :10:37. | |
documents we have, we can understand why there is absolute evidence there | :10:38. | :10:41. | |
is a cover-up. If people are not willing to talk about it, that's | :10:42. | :10:45. | |
fine, but we're here today to say we believe it's consistent. Wrong | :10:46. | :10:50. | |
person, wrong time, should never have been employed, someone needs to | :10:51. | :10:54. | |
be responsible. This is three times. It doesn't feel like we're just | :10:55. | :10:58. | |
unlucky any more. People need to be strong enough to say, is there | :10:59. | :11:02. | |
something untoward going on here? You're shaking your head, I will let | :11:03. | :11:06. | |
you answer that, but I also want to ask you are what has to be done to | :11:07. | :11:11. | |
get this inquiry back on track? As briefly as you can, please. Well, | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
OK, the momentum needs to keep going. As you heard in your report, | :11:16. | :11:19. | |
the chairman is not the be all and end all, there are hundreds of | :11:20. | :11:24. | |
people working for this inquiry, four other very distinguished panel | :11:25. | :11:28. | |
members, a consultant panel of survivors, and academic consultant | :11:29. | :11:32. | |
panel. Many people part of this inquiry. This needs to go on. The | :11:33. | :11:36. | |
Home Secretary needs to look at other possible names to take on the | :11:37. | :11:40. | |
head. The work of the inquiry went on with all the problems we were | :11:41. | :11:46. | |
having over Baroness Butler Sloss and Fiona Woolf until Lowell Goddard | :11:47. | :11:53. | |
was appointed as well. But to go back to the conspiracy theories, I | :11:54. | :11:58. | |
and a stand, people who have had their stories pushed under the | :11:59. | :12:03. | |
carpet for many years, survivors, may feel very cynical about this. | :12:04. | :12:08. | |
But those of us who have called for this inquiry for many years and I | :12:09. | :12:14. | |
note is a now as Prime Minister is absolutely determined that this | :12:15. | :12:17. | |
inquiry will work and get to the bottom of what happened to so many | :12:18. | :12:21. | |
people over so many years. Thank you both very much indeed. | :12:22. | :12:27. | |
So, we keep saying it, we are in uncharted territory. | :12:28. | :12:30. | |
But today we are in it even more than we were yesterday. | :12:31. | :12:33. | |
Official interest rates at their lowest since 1694. | :12:34. | :12:34. | |
And actually, they weren't this low even before 1694, it's just hard | :12:35. | :12:37. | |
We didn't just get the first change in interest rates for | :12:38. | :12:42. | |
over seven years today, it was a package of measures. | :12:43. | :12:44. | |
More quantitative easing, a new corporate bond buying | :12:45. | :12:46. | |
programme, and a new thing, the Term Funding Scheme, | :12:47. | :12:48. | |
to make sure the banks pass on the lower rates. | :12:49. | :12:51. | |
Now, nothing has seemed extraordinary this summer, | :12:52. | :12:53. | |
but remember for the last few years, we have been hoping | :12:54. | :12:55. | |
and expecting that financial normality might return. | :12:56. | :12:58. | |
What we have instead is the next, deeper phase of abnormality. | :12:59. | :13:00. | |
The Bank of England thinks Brexit is going to do long-term | :13:01. | :13:08. | |
damage to the economy, which is nothing that | :13:09. | :13:10. | |
But it also thinks Brexit has done some short-term damage to spending, | :13:11. | :13:14. | |
which it can ameliorate with these measures. | :13:15. | :13:15. | |
To explain it all, here's our business editor, Helen Thomas. | :13:16. | :13:22. | |
The UK economy is taking a real battering. At least, that's the | :13:23. | :13:31. | |
verdict from the Bank of England. After the vote to leave the European | :13:32. | :13:35. | |
Union, growth and investment will be lower, the bank forecast. | :13:36. | :13:40. | |
Unemployment will be higher, and, thanks to the weaker pound, | :13:41. | :13:44. | |
inflation will rise to above its 2% target, squeezing household income | :13:45. | :13:49. | |
through Mac. In response, a 4-part plan, bigger and broader than | :13:50. | :13:56. | |
expected. The benchmark interest rate was cut from half two quarters | :13:57. | :13:59. | |
of a percent, there is cheaper funding for banks to offset hit to | :14:00. | :14:04. | |
their profits, more quantitative easing, with ?60 billion in | :14:05. | :14:09. | |
purchases of UK Government bonds planned, and a new move. Purchases | :14:10. | :14:15. | |
of ?10 billion of corporate bonds, another effort to lower the cost of | :14:16. | :14:20. | |
borrowing for companies. In the Black Country, this business owner | :14:21. | :14:25. | |
is staying upbeat. He has seen a big order from the US since the | :14:26. | :14:28. | |
referendum, and that will mean new investment in machinery. We would | :14:29. | :14:33. | |
have preferred to stay. We are staying. We have got to get to grips | :14:34. | :14:39. | |
with that and be positive about how we deal with the issues that come | :14:40. | :14:42. | |
up. But the broader picture is worrying. A sharp fall in the PMI | :14:43. | :14:48. | |
index, a survey measure of activity across manufacturing, services and | :14:49. | :14:52. | |
construction, clearly had the central bank rattled. Back in | :14:53. | :14:57. | |
London, the bank's challenge was to calibrate its response, with even | :14:58. | :15:01. | |
the short-term fallout from Brexit still uncertain and little hard | :15:02. | :15:06. | |
economic data to go on. The move today smacked of overkill for this | :15:07. | :15:09. | |
former member of the bank's rate-setting committee. Interest | :15:10. | :15:14. | |
rates have been so low for so long, it really doesn't justify a further | :15:15. | :15:18. | |
downward move in interest rates. It isn't going to have much impact, and | :15:19. | :15:22. | |
there might be more negative effects for savers and for the pound than | :15:23. | :15:28. | |
positive effects for borrowers. We don't have a lot of economic data | :15:29. | :15:31. | |
about the position since the referendum, so I think it would be | :15:32. | :15:34. | |
better to wait until the autumn before making any big judgments | :15:35. | :15:40. | |
about monetary policy. As usual with exit, however, disagreement is never | :15:41. | :15:44. | |
far away. If you look at every single piece of data that we have | :15:45. | :15:49. | |
had since the 24th of June, it is pointing to a fairly abrupt slowdown | :15:50. | :15:54. | |
in the British economy, possibly recession, some indicators like the | :15:55. | :15:57. | |
PMI point at more than just a show of recession. If it routes to be too | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
much, we will see later, but in my view, there was no debate about the | :16:03. | :16:08. | |
need to come up with more than decent something, and they did. | :16:09. | :16:11. | |
There was a clear message from the Bank of England today, better to act | :16:12. | :16:16. | |
early and go big than risk a more severe downturn as a result of the | :16:17. | :16:20. | |
vote to leave the EU. But that leaves two big questions. First, | :16:21. | :16:25. | |
what am I does the bank have left is the situation deteriorates from | :16:26. | :16:30. | |
here? Mark Carney was pretty clear about ruling out negative interest | :16:31. | :16:34. | |
rates. And second, what help might the bank get from Westminster when | :16:35. | :16:38. | |
the new Chancellor of the Exchequer unveils his spending plans in the | :16:39. | :16:42. | |
autumn? On the latter, a rare out work of consensus. The Bank of | :16:43. | :16:48. | |
England emphasised that Brexit hits the overall potential of the UK | :16:49. | :16:51. | |
economy in ways it just can't address. In the Midlands, too, the | :16:52. | :16:57. | |
sense is that the next move. The politicians. I don't think the | :16:58. | :17:02. | |
interest rate has got that much effect. We finance all our own | :17:03. | :17:12. | |
development, so if you bring it down from a half of a percent to a | :17:13. | :17:15. | |
quarter of a percent, not much impact. They can also commit to HS2, | :17:16. | :17:27. | |
HS2 is not only an infrastructure facility, it is a great employment | :17:28. | :17:30. | |
opportunity, and it is a good investment for the country. So, the | :17:31. | :17:35. | |
other important announcement today. A pledge by Philip Hammond that he | :17:36. | :17:39. | |
would take any necessary steps to support the economy. The Bank of | :17:40. | :17:44. | |
England surpassed expectations with its package of measures. Perhaps the | :17:45. | :17:49. | |
next significant milestone for the post Brexit economy is whether the | :17:50. | :17:53. | |
Chancellor can do the same in the autumn. | :17:54. | :17:54. | |
Helen Thomas there. I'm joined by Duncan Weldon, former | :17:55. | :18:01. | |
economics editor of this programme, Brexit campaigner Daniel Hannan and | :18:02. | :18:07. | |
Pfizer Shaheen, director of the think tank Class. Is Brexit turning | :18:08. | :18:16. | |
out worse or better than you expected for the economy? I think | :18:17. | :18:21. | |
most people were expecting some kind of short-term shock. Some of the | :18:22. | :18:27. | |
numbers show what I would expect. Confidence, jitters, a lot of people | :18:28. | :18:32. | |
were not expecting the Brexiteer vote, and how shallow that the dip | :18:33. | :18:37. | |
is, and how long it lasts is all about policy, so it is important | :18:38. | :18:39. | |
some action is taken. Duncan, do you agree? It is early | :18:40. | :18:46. | |
days, but the evidence we have so far is pretty bad. Deep dives in | :18:47. | :18:57. | |
consumer confidence, which is very important, business confidence has | :18:58. | :19:01. | |
taken a hit. We don't have any hard numbers but everything so far makes | :19:02. | :19:08. | |
me worried. Come on, Danny! All of that is surveys. What I thought was | :19:09. | :19:11. | |
interesting was listening to the business owner in that clip, he said | :19:12. | :19:17. | |
it is pessimistic, but my orders are up, people are investing more, if | :19:18. | :19:21. | |
you look at what is actually happening rather than asking people | :19:22. | :19:25. | |
how they feel when they watch all these gloomy reports. We have had a | :19:26. | :19:28. | |
massive Glaxo Smith Kline investment, Tata saying that they | :19:29. | :19:36. | |
won't necessarily pull out, Pinewood continuing, Wells Fargo spending | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
money on EU European HQ in London, so there is no evidence of anything | :19:42. | :19:52. | |
in the real world. But that is pretty firm data that we have got. | :19:53. | :19:56. | |
But if you look at even what the bank itself, what the Bank of | :19:57. | :19:59. | |
England was saying just in May in the run-up to the vote, Mark Carney | :20:00. | :20:04. | |
said we would be in a technical recession, now he is saying growth | :20:05. | :20:08. | |
of 0.6%, but the direction is witty good as far as his upward revision | :20:09. | :20:12. | |
of forecast. Forecasts are going down! The three-year forecast at the | :20:13. | :20:19. | |
end of the three years, the forecast is now for an economy that is 3% | :20:20. | :20:22. | |
smaller than it would have been back in May. That is about 40 billion a | :20:23. | :20:30. | |
year of lost income, and is that better or worse than you would have | :20:31. | :20:37. | |
thought? As recently as May of this year, the Treasury was saying that | :20:38. | :20:40. | |
the economy would shrink between 3.6 and 6%, a recession, not slower | :20:41. | :20:46. | |
growth. The governor of the Bank of England said we would be in | :20:47. | :20:49. | |
technical recession, or at least there was a strong risk. So already | :20:50. | :21:01. | |
there sounding more optimistic. Let's just be clear that there is | :21:02. | :21:05. | |
clearly going to be a slowdown here. This will impact on people's lives, | :21:06. | :21:09. | |
and what we do about it now is the most important thing to focus on. | :21:10. | :21:14. | |
That is a very good point. One argument is that monetary policy is | :21:15. | :21:17. | |
irrelevant to the kind of uncertainty, if companies stop | :21:18. | :21:19. | |
investing because they don't know whether they will have trade | :21:20. | :21:24. | |
arrangements that are investment favourable, there is no point in | :21:25. | :21:28. | |
trying to induce them to make that investment with a cut in interest | :21:29. | :21:33. | |
rates. To sounded Dickensian, you are pushing on a string. Credit | :21:34. | :21:39. | |
supply can't make credit demand. The bank is doing everything it can in | :21:40. | :21:42. | |
the short run, I am not sure it will be enough, and I don't think the | :21:43. | :21:47. | |
bank thinks will be enough. The bank says, we are doing all of this, and | :21:48. | :21:52. | |
the economy is still going to slow, unemployment will still increase, | :21:53. | :21:55. | |
that is a pretty clear signal that the Chancellor needs to do | :21:56. | :21:58. | |
something. And Faiza, cutting interest rates, we basically have | :21:59. | :22:05. | |
interest rates as low as they can practically go. This is another | :22:06. | :22:09. | |
historic low. It might make a bit of difference in terms of money in | :22:10. | :22:13. | |
pockets for some of those in particular on tracker mortgages, | :22:14. | :22:16. | |
that will be offset by inflation of course. There are broader measures | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
we should be thinking about when we think about today's announcement, | :22:21. | :22:26. | |
essentially before Brexit we had problems in the economy, problems | :22:27. | :22:30. | |
with debt build-up, the private sector level, and we have to think | :22:31. | :22:34. | |
also about how these measures will make inequality better or worse. | :22:35. | :22:39. | |
Theresa May has set out this agenda is important, and today's measures | :22:40. | :22:45. | |
around quantitative easing make Wealth inequality worse, they make | :22:46. | :22:51. | |
the rich richer, and that is problematic. Daniel Hannan, some | :22:52. | :22:57. | |
people say the bank panicked or might have caused panic by making it | :22:58. | :23:00. | |
look as if you need to throw the kitchen sink at this. I agree with | :23:01. | :23:05. | |
that. I agree with Duncan, that a quarter percent cut in interest | :23:06. | :23:11. | |
rates, I think they were too low already, and too low for too long. | :23:12. | :23:16. | |
You don't look old enough, but you will remember what it was like just | :23:17. | :23:23. | |
after we left the ERM, Norman Lamont was crucified for saying he could | :23:24. | :23:26. | |
detect signs of recovery because people were so unsettled by the | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
change. Actually, looking back, we can see it was the best thing to | :23:32. | :23:34. | |
happen. Now we have countries from Australia to Uruguay queueing up to | :23:35. | :23:40. | |
do trade deals with us, we are well out of the problems now overtaking | :23:41. | :23:43. | |
the eurozone, ten years from now, people will say we should have done | :23:44. | :23:48. | |
it sooner. Do you agree? Possibly if we make the right decisions now. We | :23:49. | :23:53. | |
have to make the best of Brexit, certainly, but trade deals done | :23:54. | :23:57. | |
quickly tend to be bad, so we need to take time. We need to discuss if | :23:58. | :24:03. | |
we will stay in the common market or not, and what happens going forward, | :24:04. | :24:07. | |
and that will affect confidence. I do think possibly this could be an | :24:08. | :24:12. | |
area of isolation as well, so we have to be very careful, and I am | :24:13. | :24:16. | |
worried that the Bank of England were the first to come up with a | :24:17. | :24:19. | |
plan, and we haven't heard from the Government yet on their plan, and I | :24:20. | :24:23. | |
am keen to hear that. I think your point about labour is interesting, | :24:24. | :24:26. | |
one thing that would be a good confidence boosting measure is to | :24:27. | :24:33. | |
say in sensitive industries, financial services, fighters -- | :24:34. | :24:41. | |
pharmaceuticals, we will make it easier for them to trade worldwide | :24:42. | :24:45. | |
and steal a march on the US. Andrea Leadsom says that there will | :24:46. | :24:50. | |
not be in economic impact of Brexit. She has surely been disproved? The | :24:51. | :24:56. | |
problem is that throughout the campaign, not just remain | :24:57. | :25:00. | |
campaigners but the governor of the Bank of England, the Chancellor of | :25:01. | :25:03. | |
the Exchequer, they were talking about bombs under the economy. You | :25:04. | :25:08. | |
cannot scare business leaders by saying bad things in newspapers. If | :25:09. | :25:14. | |
you are broad and you read that George Osborne, Chancellor of the | :25:15. | :25:17. | |
Exchequer, says we will have an emergency Budget, emergency tax | :25:18. | :25:20. | |
rises, that is bound to have some impact. We have to leave it there, | :25:21. | :25:22. | |
thank you all very much indeed. You've heard the phrase, | :25:23. | :25:27. | |
you know that it means you can But there's more to it | :25:28. | :25:31. | |
than that, surely? Well, one of Britain's most | :25:32. | :25:34. | |
prominent businesspeople has the job at IBM, as head of the Internet | :25:35. | :25:37. | |
of Things business unit there, or the Watson Internet of Things, | :25:38. | :25:40. | |
Watson being IBM's artificial Harriet Green took over | :25:41. | :25:42. | |
there at the end of last year after running the travel company | :25:43. | :25:46. | |
Thomas Cook. She helped turn that company round, | :25:47. | :25:47. | |
although was embroiled in the controversy over | :25:48. | :25:50. | |
its unsympathetic reaction to the tragic death of two children | :25:51. | :25:51. | |
on one of its holidays. A very good evening to you. Let's | :25:52. | :26:04. | |
start on the Internet of things, that is your new patch. I guess he | :26:05. | :26:09. | |
will want to understand what it is, but there is no point in giving us | :26:10. | :26:13. | |
an abstract definition, give us an example of something exciting other | :26:14. | :26:16. | |
than being able to turn on your heating rightly. Of course. If you | :26:17. | :26:21. | |
look at all of the data being collected by sensors, it throws out | :26:22. | :26:26. | |
amazing amounts of information, structured, unstructured. Green | :26:27. | :26:33. | |
Horizons in China, helping to see the patterns, to analyse the | :26:34. | :26:37. | |
correlation is, they are able to help reduce pollutants. One of my | :26:38. | :26:42. | |
favourite little start-ups here in the UK, Bluebell, which is a bell on | :26:43. | :26:49. | |
a bike which gathers data from other cyclists about what is happening in | :26:50. | :26:55. | |
the Street, crowd sourced information through the Watson | :26:56. | :26:57. | |
Internet of things, they actually use that, to be able to make their | :26:58. | :27:01. | |
travel on the bicycle is safer and better. So some things are already | :27:02. | :27:07. | |
happening? How does the Internet of things reduce pollution? All of the | :27:08. | :27:13. | |
information, whether it comes from the weather satellites, from | :27:14. | :27:18. | |
Government information, plus social media, Watson, with its amazing | :27:19. | :27:25. | |
capabilities to reason, to correlate these patterns and then to | :27:26. | :27:28. | |
communicate in natural language to give insight so that the Chinese | :27:29. | :27:34. | |
government can take action much more quickly on changes in pollutants, | :27:35. | :27:39. | |
where they are coming from, etc. In fact a 20% reduction in the last | :27:40. | :27:45. | |
quarter. One is the world by the potential, but at the same time one | :27:46. | :27:47. | |
wonders whether human beings at the end of it have the capacity to | :27:48. | :27:54. | |
manage this enormous data-flows, we know there is loads of data washing | :27:55. | :27:57. | |
over as that isn't captured, that isn't manageable in any way. Is this | :27:58. | :28:04. | |
going to be the downfall? In the case of having a Watson capability, | :28:05. | :28:11. | |
this cognitive capability that can help analyse this massive amount of | :28:12. | :28:17. | |
data, learn about oncology, Watson has learned oncology, and if you | :28:18. | :28:22. | |
take a country like India with 1 billion people and a thousand | :28:23. | :28:27. | |
oncologists, to have Watson helping to prevent deaths from cancer, using | :28:28. | :28:31. | |
these capabilities, it is real life stuff. Let's talk a little about | :28:32. | :28:36. | |
Brexit because we were talking about it with our chums here, on the | :28:37. | :28:39. | |
conversation didn't finish before you had to come to you. What is your | :28:40. | :28:43. | |
take on the effect it has had on our economy? I think we are where we | :28:44. | :28:51. | |
are. And I think Faiza said it, it is actually what actions we take, so | :28:52. | :28:57. | |
if we take the technical sector in the UK, which implies 1.5 million | :28:58. | :29:05. | |
people, ?161 billion of revenue, 500,000 software developers, this is | :29:06. | :29:11. | |
our opportunity together to be much more agile, to be creating new | :29:12. | :29:16. | |
start-ups. I think business has an important role to help create jobs | :29:17. | :29:26. | |
and drive innovation forwards. There are people who say businesses and | :29:27. | :29:32. | |
fat cats, businesses like yourself, partly to explain public | :29:33. | :29:35. | |
disenchantment with an economic system, and a lot of the Brexit vote | :29:36. | :29:39. | |
was a change in the kind of capitalism that you represent... ? | :29:40. | :29:44. | |
That may well be the case, and what is important now is that business in | :29:45. | :29:48. | |
its role to help generate jobs, to help create environments where | :29:49. | :29:53. | |
innovation flows, we have seen recently, things are acquired by | :29:54. | :30:02. | |
Softbank... And that is a good thing? I think Arm and Softbank are | :30:03. | :30:10. | |
both part of IBM, they both use the Internet of things, and they have | :30:11. | :30:13. | |
made commitments to continue investing in Cambridge and to | :30:14. | :30:18. | |
continue to expand the impact of the Internet of things on people's | :30:19. | :30:22. | |
lives. I should ask you how you reflect back on your Thomas Cook | :30:23. | :30:26. | |
days, because the company did improve enormously under you, it did | :30:27. | :30:32. | |
have this enormous problem, the death of two children, it occurred | :30:33. | :30:35. | |
way before you were involved in the company at all, but the handling of | :30:36. | :30:39. | |
it was so botched, everyone acknowledges that. What do you think | :30:40. | :30:43. | |
when you look back at your time there? I think the role to make | :30:44. | :30:51. | |
Thomas Cook well so that it could employ the thousands of people that | :30:52. | :30:55. | |
it employed, could support the customers that it had, really to | :30:56. | :31:01. | |
transform the business so that it could survive was very important, | :31:02. | :31:05. | |
and of course with the tragedy that had occurred, making sure that the | :31:06. | :31:10. | |
health and safety approaches that we had, that this type of tragedy | :31:11. | :31:16. | |
should never happen again. And if you look at the way that technology, | :31:17. | :31:21. | |
all of this work to make sure that the monitoring of situations that | :31:22. | :31:26. | |
occurred don't have to occur again is a very common theme through this. | :31:27. | :31:30. | |
I should say, we will continue this discussion. | :31:31. | :31:35. | |
You can send your questions to Harriet | :31:36. | :31:37. | |
in a Facebook Live chat as soon as we come off air | :31:38. | :31:40. | |
We will continue talking to Harriet with your questions. But that is | :31:41. | :31:52. | |
all. Hello. Friday is not looking bad at | :31:53. | :32:09. | |
all across most of the UK, sunshine pretty much from the word go. A bit | :32:10. | :32:15. | |
of cloud developing during the day, maybe a few showers across Northern | :32:16. | :32:19. | |
Ireland and Scotland. But on balance is it is a fine day. You can see a | :32:20. | :32:25. | |
couple of showers across Northern Ireland, only light and fleeting, | :32:26. | :32:30. | |
not lasting long at all. 16, 17 in the lowlands of Scotland. The great | :32:31. | :32:36. | |
thing about Friday is the winds will be light, so in any sunshine it | :32:37. | :32:39. | |
really will feel very pleasant | :32:40. | :32:41. |