05/03/2018 Newsnight

You are up to date now.

A Russian man who spied

for Britain falls critically

in a Salisbury shopping centre.

Was he exposed to

a lethal substance?

And was the Russian state involved?

Here's what Putin once said

about Russians who sell secrets.

TRANSLATION:

Traitors will kick

the bucket, trust me.

These people betrayed their friends,

their brothers in arms.

Whatever they got in exchange

for it, those 30 pieces

of silver they were given,

they will choke on them!

We know nothing yet,

but could this be foul play?

We've gathered the experts.

Here comes Bradley

Wiggins up to the line!

Is this what crossing

an ethical line looks like?

The first Briton to win the Tour de

France is accused of enhancing his

performance with medication.

As Bradley Wiggins denies

the charge, we hear from a former

Tour de France cyclist

who admits to doping.

Also tonight...

In Sweden, everyone's pay

is public information.

Hello!

Hello, ma'am, how can I help you?

Hi, I'm looking for some information

about these people, please.

Bjorn Ulvaeus.

Of course.

Stefan Edberg.

I could ask for anyone?

For anyone.

But has this solved

their Equal Pay problem?

It is a cultural thing in Sweden,

we never talk about money,

it is easier to talk about STDs!

Good evening.

When a man falls ill

in a shopping centre,

it doesn't normally lead the news.

When that man is revealed

as a Russian who spied for Britain -

and his condition is considered

critical - the whole thing becomes

a little harder to ignore.

Sergei Skripal was granted refuge

in Britain in a spy swap

between America and Russia

eight years ago.

Nothing much was heard from him

in that time, until yesterday,

when he and a woman in her thirties

were found slumped

on a bench in Salisbury.

Police have declared

a "major incident",

and believe they were exposed

to an unknown substance.

One which may yet prove untraceable.

If the spectre of Alexander

Litvinenko lingers on his shoulder,

we should caution against being too

hasty, assuming we know too much.

Clearly, there are

plenty of unknowns.

But there is much

we need to ask too.

We begin with our diplomatic

editor, Mark Urban.

Yesterday afternoon,

passers-by noticed two people -

apparently unconscious -

on a bench in Salisbury.

The area was investigated by people

in protective suits,

as suspicions built that the two

victims had been poisoned.

They were in Salisbury Hospital

tonight, described

as 'critically ill'.

We are unable to ascertain whether

or not a crime has taken place.

A major incident, however,

has been declared today

and a multi-agency response

has been coordinated.

The BBC established that the man

being treated is Sergei Skripal.

He was convicted by a court

in Moscow in 2006 of being a spy

for British intelligence.

He was sent from the court

to the Gulag, where he

languished for four years.

It was in 2010 that the arrest

of a network of Russian agents

in the United States provided

an opportunity for MI6

to repay its debt to Skripal.

The UK asked for his name to be

added to a list of prisoners the CIA

was putting together.

And in July of that year,

Skripal and three others were put

on a jet from Moscow to Vienna.

The ten accused by the US

of espionage - among

them, Anna Chapman -

were flown from America and,

in the best Cold War traditions,

the two parties of spies crossed

on the tarmac in Austria.

Asked about who might have betrayed

this American spy ring,

President Putin vented

his fury publicly.

TRANSLATION:

Traitors will kick

the bucket, trust me.

These people betrayed their friends,

their brothers in arms.

Whatever they got in exchange

for it, those 30 pieces

of silver they were given,

they will choke on them!

As for Skripal, he flew

from Vienna to Britain,

where he began a life in exile.

Police were today securing the house

in Salisbury where the former

Russian intelligence officer has

lived in recent years.

Mark is here now.

Give us a sense of who this man is.

People who have met him talk

about a tough ex-paratrooper,

special forces, very proud of that

who gravitated towards Russian

military intelligence.

If you believe the court case

that was heard against him back

in 2006, at some point in the late

1990s, he began working for MI6

at a time when it was very hard

to penetrate the GRU.

I talked to Western spies

at the time and they said

post-Soviet collapse,

this was the last element

of the Russian intelligence

community as it had become

that was really tight

and held together.

So the recruitment would have been

quite an achievement for MI6

at the time and as a colonel,

he moved on to the people who run

the panel of the GRU

and he was responsible for personnel

matters so he would have been

in a position to open up a complete

order of battle of the GRU

in Western embassies

throughout the early 2000s,

before being caught.

While he may not be a very top level

of British penetration,

he was a pretty senior agent

is pretty important is to Western

intelligence during those years.

We do not know what made him defect.

What was he doing here latterly?

You can imagine somebody helpful

to that degree to HMG will be looked

after and we know they put his name

forward when these Russian agents

were picked up in America

in 2010 and the Russians,

despite the fact they convicted him

for treason, agreed to send him back

on a plane to get their agents back.

He would have got an MI6 pension

and I understand from people

in the forces that he occasionally

gave lectures about the GRU.

And he also acted as a consultant

going to talk to other intelligence

services as part of his sort

of consultancy, almost.

With MI6 that he did

in return for this package.

Not unlike, in fact,

the type of work that Litvinenko did

in terms of his conversations

with the Spanish as a consultant

or whatever you want to call it.

Yet he is now lying critically ill

in a hospital in Salisbury,

found in a very public place.

What is your sense

of what has gone on?

He was a man without an enormous

number of connections to other

people, in Salisbury or beyond.

And he had a small nuclear family.

We know that his wife died in 2012

and she is buried in the UK.

His son died last year, very early,

but after an illness,

people I speak to say they did not

regard it as suspicious.

But he was clearly in a vulnerable

state, only one member

of the family surviving,

his daughter, and it seems to be

the case that somebody seeing him

last week came to help him out

perhaps at a difficult time

after several months

after the loss of his son.

We know that his son,

although he died in Russia

on a holiday there, was repatriated

to this country and he is

buried in this country.

So all kinds of possibilities that

somehow the repatriation of his son

or the visit of someone else coming

from Russia to see him may have been

a way that could have been used

to fix his location and try and find

out where he was.

These are purely hypotheses

because as you said at the very

beginning of the programme,

no foul play has been proven,

but if you are looking for how

he might have been found,

those are some of the things

you might be looking at.

Thank you.

Stay with us.

We asked the Russian Government

to come on to Newsnight -

they wouldn't, unfortunately.

But joining me now live

from Brussels is former

MI5 agent Annie Machon.

And here in the studio, I am joined

by Bill Browder, who calls himself

Putin's Enemy Number One,

and whose lawyer -

Sergei Magnitsky - was, he believed,

murdered by the Russian Government.

Nice of you both to join us.

Bill, you are right in front

of me, what is your sense

of what has gone on here?

We don't know the details yet,

but when a major enemy of Russia

suddenly becomes critically ill

from an unknown substance,

one has to assume the worst.

And one should start

with the worst assumption

and work our way back from that.

I would assume until proven

otherwise the assumption should be

that this man was poisoned,

with some type of substance

from what is known as

the KGB poison factory.

They have a scientific research unit

in Moscow, part of the FSB,

in which they come up with poison

to assassinate their enemies.

They have used those

before with Litvinenko.

There was another shocking death

connected to my case,

a man who dropped dead in Surrey

in 2012 after blowing the whistle

on a major Russian Government

corruption scheme.

People die on a regular basis

outside the country and so we should

assume for the moment,

until we know otherwise,

that he has been assassinated.

You would be surprised

if the Russian state in some shape

or form were not behind whatever has

happened this weekend?

We have no information,

but the assumption, based

on what we know right now,

it is that this was

an assassination attempt.

Annie Machon, is that going a step

too far or do you see

where Bill Browder is coming from?

I think we are rather jumping

the gun here, I have to say.

We do not know the name

of the woman who was with him,

we don't know what substances might

have been involved.

We don't know pretty much

anything around this case.

It has started to unfold

in the media and it was just two

people who appear to have taken

an overdose of something,

which has now been discredited,

or whatever, on the streets.

It has hit the headlines because it

turns out he is indeed a Russian

defector who is being protected

by MI6 in the UK after

the spice up in 2010.

So there are many

unknowns in this case.

-- after the spy swap in 2010.

It is inflammatory to throw around

accusations, particularly in this

era of Russiagate and Trump.

It is also understandable

that there was an immediate

decontamination exercise

around the case.

Once this person's name had been fed

into the system and once he had been

taken to hospital and the police

reported it, there would have been

a red flag and in the way

of the Litvinenko case,

it would be absolutely normal

for the police to contain this issue

and try and decontaminate in case

there was any potential similarity

to the Litvinenko case,

which was hideous, but we don't

know that yet.

You from a security,

intelligence background.

Explain what happens in a spy swap.

When these people are transferred

from one country to another,

what protection are they given?

He would have been on all the lists

presumably for MI6 and MI5?

Absolutely.

From what I have seen

in the reports, I don't know

from the inside,

from what I have seen,

this guy was a high value asset

for MI6 for at least ten years

and then he was caught

and prosecuted and he went to prison

in Russia in 2006 for identifying

the names of British agents

in Russia, which is the crown

jewels of intelligence.

So it was a very serious crime.

In the UK, we would also see that

as a very serious crime.

And then he was swapped in the 2010

spying ring case involving

Anna Chapman and other Russian

illegals swapped for four

suspects, convicts - in Russia.

So you are looking at a swap of ten

Russian illegals, allegedly,

for four convicted people in Russia,

so he must have been

pretty high-value.

Why would you assume

the state would intervene

at point, Bill Browder?

If this happened in

2008-2010, a decade ago,

why would this happen now?

What you have to understand

about Russia is, you have many

hundreds of thousands of people

who work in different branches

of the security services.

They are not motivated

people, they are not loyal

and necessarily honest people.

Unlike here and other countries,

where people contribute

their service out of patriotism,

they do so for other reasons.

They cannot assume anyone

is going to be loyal.

And so the only way that Putin can

assure loyalty is to absolutely

viciously and completely punish

disloyalty no matter

where and when and how.

And so he has to create an incentive

- a terrible incentive

so that

everybody else around says,

if I in any way via off the track,

terrible things will happen

in the way that it has done to him.

Does that make sense

to you, that this is Putin

reasserting a flexing muscles?

We don't know anything

about foul play at this point,

but as a way of operating

by the Russian President?

It would seem unlikely

in this particular case

because they would not have

handed him back to the West

if they saw him as being a threat.

But also, I find that slightly

bizarre, the statement

from your other guest,

in the sense that a lot of patriots

work for the intelligence agencies

in America and in the UK.

I was one of them,

that was my motivation.

And across the rest of the West.

But a lot of patriots also do

the same thing in Russia and to try

and make a distinction

between the motivation, I think,

is slightly disingenuous.

I don't really know...

I can't really say for sure who is

motivations are where but what I can

say for sure is that Putin,

and we saw this completely

and absolutely with Litvinenko,

the way Putin

operates is to make

examples out of people.

He does not have loyalty anywhere

in his own country, it is

completely full of disloyal people

who are profiting from different

enterprises, etc, and the way

he goes about creating loyalty

is by creating a very,

very severe punishment

for people who are disloyal,

and he said so, we just listened

to him on the television

saying that exact thing.

That if somebody betrays

their brothers in arms,

then terrible things

will happen to them,

there is no mystery about that.

Thank you both very

much for bringing us so

much this evening.

What does it mean to cross

an ethical line to enhance

sporting performance?

It's the charge being

laid at Bradley Wiggins

by a parliamentary committee

report - one that he and Team Sky

have strongly refuted.

At the report's centre

is the concept of

Therapeutic Use Exemptions -

taking usually banned

substances in exceptional

circumstances for medical need.

The committee said it believed

the system was open to abuse,

and was unable to say for sure

what a mysterious package

to Wiggins contained back in 2011.

Bradley Wiggins himself has

denied any drug was used

without medical need and,

in an interview this evening,

claimed that the allegations

were "malicious".

Perhaps the question it

throws up is this one -

some athletes will need

drugs for medication,

but who should decide

who and how much?

Here's Katie Razzall.

COMMENTATOR:

It's a winning ride

to win the Tour de France.

This is malicious,

this is someone trying to smear me.

Six years ago, Bradley Wiggins

won the Tour de France.

The effect it's had,

the widespread effect

on the family is just horrific.

Bowing to the crowd...

I don't know how I'm

going to pick up the pieces up.

Now, the way he won

is being called into question.

This is a man

fighting for his reputation.

It used to be so simple.

The tape is broken and so is

the record athletes have long

been dreaming about.

This sporting legend, we're told,

was sustained on pilchards.

Back then, Roger Bannister

reportedly thought

it was cheating to speak

to your coach on the day of a race.

His passing came just ahead of

a report from the Digital, Culture,

Media and Sport Select Committee,

which pulls no punches.

They had modern-day athletics

in the firing line too,

but when it comes to cycling,

the committee says the application

by Wiggins's Team Sky

for a therapeutic use exemption

for triamcinolone, a powerful

asthma drug with performance

enhancing qualities,

before three of his biggest races,

crossed the ethical line.

So with a drug like triamcinolone,

which is a very powerful drug,

it has very powerful beneficial

side-effects that give riders

and edge, we have taken

evidence to say, if you are...

Actually, you don't need

to take triamcinolone,

there are other methods of treating

asthma more effectively,

which means you don't

have to take that drug.

That drug might only

normally be used for someone

who is about to be hospitalised

because they're so sick.

If that's the case,

if someone is that ill,

why are they competing

in an elite performance event?

He's not cheating

because he's got a TUE.

You don't know the situation

of the particular athlete

needing to use it at that time.

It's certainly pushing

the boundaries of are they using

the system to improve performance

or are they using the system to make

sure the athlete's health

is in the right order?

Pilchards barely come into it.

These days, sporting success

is scientific and at

London Metropolitan University,

athletes use the latest technology

to optimise their performance.

While the committee report is clear

what it's alleging Team Sky did

with its TUEs is not

against the rules because

a therapeutic use exemption

is authorised by the authorities,

it does say the system

is open to abuse.

But where is the line to be drawn

when it comes to ethics

in professional sport,

and can we ever really

ensure there's a truly

level playing field?

Facilities like ours

are not unusual.

You can do heat training here,

you can do cold training,

you can do high-altitude training

where we can limit oxygen levels.

And you can argue that

those things are not universally

available because of the cost

associated with them.

And so, there are so many options

available to athletes to enhance

performance and because races

and competitions are won by very

small margins, then athletes

and those that support them

are looking for every

opportunity just to enhance

the performance of the athlete.

Is the system that regulates

sport fit for purpose?

The select committee wants

a change in the law,

so those who supply sportspeople

with performance enhancing

drugs go to prison.

They also want better medical

record-keeping by team doctors

and others and more scrutiny

of the data.

Others suggest we should follow

Australia and put the monitoring

of what medicines athletes

are provided with into the hands of

an independent body

and many argue

for a fundamental cultural change.

There is too much focus on winning.

We want to be a nation of winners,

we want to win, that is important

to everyone.

However, what is most important

is to win with integrity.

Sir Bradley Wiggins and Team Sky

deny they've ever acted

without integrity.

His former employer said today:

Not at any time during my career

did we cross the ethical line.

These allegations -

I mean, it's the worst

thing to be accused of,

but it's also the hardest thing

to prove you haven't done.

Because we're not dealing

in a legal system.

I'd have had more rights

if I'd murdered someone.

In those heady days

when he was feted and his services

to cycling earned him a knighthood,

surely this "living hell",

as Wiggins calls it now,

would have been hard to imagine.

Earlier, I spoke

to Michael Rasmussen.

He's a Danish professional cyclist

whose most notable victories include

winning four stages of

the Tour de France.

In 2013, he admitted to doping

throughout his career.

I began by asking him

whether today's select committee

report really was a

"smear campaign and witch hunt"

against Bradley Wiggins.

Well, it's not

all about Bradley Wiggins.

It's just as much

about track and field.

So this is not a report

about Bradley Wiggins.

Of course, him and Sky

plays a big part in it.

What do you make of a doctor,

the Team Sky doctor,

just refusing to give

evidence to Parliament?

Did that strike you as odd?

It certainly sounds a little hollow

and if they really wanted

to clear up this mess

and ease the understanding

for everybody,

that would be the

easiest thing to do.

But apparently, they seem

to have a hard time

keeping track of their records.

Do you understand the difference

between crossing an ethical line

and doing something

that was actually illegal?

There is, of course, a difference.

The problem for Team Sky

is that they have been

putting themselves into this

position by saying it out loud, that

they would not accept

any former dopers in the team.

If they had just acted

like everybody else

and not telling the whole world

that they would be whiter

or holier than the Pope,

then it would be a lot

easier for them now.

And do you think Sky the sponsor

is putting pressure now on the team

to clean it up?

I am sure they have been involved

in dealing with the media

strategy all along.

They have been backing

every decision so far.

Now, of course,

it's a little bit different.

Now, it's actually an official

committee that has come up

with an entire report about it

and have concluded that there has

been unethical behaviour

within Team Sky,

so it might put things

into a different perspective

for Sky, the sponsor.

What do you think should happen

to Dave Brailsford now?

Can he remain at Team Sky?

I think it would be

appropriate if he resigned.

Bradley Wiggins has

broken his silence now,

he's given an interview to the BBC.

Do you think he has given

us all the facts now?

The way that the TUEs were issued,

it does not correspond very well

what he wrote in his book,

that he never had any

injections besides vaccines.

And on top of that, it

looks very much like

something you would do

if you wanted to improve your

performance in the Tour de France.

You don't believe his reasoning

that it was for medical need?

In that case, it would be very

convenient to have asthma

and in that time of the year.

So you don't believe him?

I think there's more to it

than what he's saying.

And do you think that whatever

happens from now on,

his legacy is now over?

Well, the problem is

that he didn't break,

didn't break the rules

in the sporting perspective.

But he certainly crossed the line

from an ethical perspective.

Michael Rasmussen there.

Sir Bradley Wiggins said tonight

that he "100%" did not cheat

and that he is the victim

of an attempt to "smear" him.

Team Sky said it "strongly refutes"

the report's

"claim that medication has

been used by the team

to enhance performance."

We are going to be hearing a lot

more about pay transparency -

and not just here at the BBC.

UK companies will soon have

to publish their gender pay gaps -

the gap between the average pay

of men and women.

There are thousands still

to cough up their numbers.

Still, the data in so far shows that

74% of companies pay men,

on average, more than women.

But are we just tinkering

at the edges of what's

needed to address concerns

around gender pay?

And are there other

benefits to being more

open about what we earn?

Helen Thomas reports.

Like the icy waters

around Stockholm's archipelago,

openness is inherently Swedish.

The right to freely seek information

is written into the constitution.

It's known as

'offentlighetsprincipen' -

the public access principle.

It's about a month until

UK companies with over 250 people

had to have published

their gender pay gap.

That's the gap between the

average pay of men and women.

It's different from equal pay,

which is whether men and women

are paid the same

for doing the same or similar jobs,

but it is a step

towards pay transparency.

Here in Sweden, it's a bit easier.

You can request pay information

through trade unions

or equality watchdogs

and companies have to carry out

a full pay audit every year.

And there's another way

that anyone feeling aggrieved

or just curious can take a look

at what their neighbours

or colleagues might be earning.

Hi.

I'm looking for some information

about these people, please.

You have only name?

Yeah, I only have their names.

I think this might be her.

Let me see.

It's very interesting.

Bjorn Ulvaeus?

Of course.

This is his date of birth.

English.

Oh, thank you.

Stefan Edberg?

I could ask for anyone?

For anyone.

Dolph Lundgren.

Of course, just a moment please.

We have only one Dolph Lundgren.

Really?

Well, there is only

one Dolph Lundgren.

It feels a bit odd, actually.

Anyone can get a range

of tax and earnings information

about any Swedish individual.

So I've got the details

of someone I'm due to meet later,

a presenter off a leading

Swedish current affairs programme,

and a range of famous people

from Stefan Edberg

to Bjorn Ulvaeus -

that's Bjorn from

ABBA to you and me.

Sweden's gender pay

gap is about 12%,

below the European average.

The UK's is 18%.

But Sweden's equality minister

still sees a problem.

We know there is an undervaluation

of women's work compared to men's

work and that is really a disgrace.

We have to do more to put pressure

so that these differences disappear.

I think that if a country

or a government wants to change

gender inequalities,

they have to address that

because otherwise, you won't see,

talking about transparency,

that this really is

about a power shift.

So, transparency is very

important and has been for us

but you also have to talk

about gender inequalities.

Back home, only about one-sixth

of the companies required

to report their gender pay gap

have done so.

That leaves about 7,500 to go

before early April then.

It concerns the woman who secured

government support for pay gap

reporting in 2015.

I'm a bit disappointed

with the way the regulations,

the details of those

have been brought up,

because there aren't

any firm sanctions.

There's no fines

that can be imposed on companies.

There is a transparency mechanism,

so if firms are not compliant,

then effectively,

they can be named and shamed.

So what would you actually

like to see happen?

What more would you

like to see happen?

We absolutely need to look

at what more we can do to right this

injustice and that could be more

transparency, it could be people

being able to get more information

from their employer,

it could be more responsibilities

on the companies themselves to do

more digging into their own data

so they are able to justify any pay

differentials that do exist.

Everyone at GrantTree knows

what everyone else earns.

The first day

I got into the company,

I was just sent my pay information

and at first, I was a bit confused.

There was a lot of pay information

on one spreadsheet and I was just

scrolling down and all of the pay

information was on that spreadsheet!

I thought that was pretty startling,

but you get used to it.

The company helps other businesses

apply for government grants.

It uses a type of self-management

called Holacracy and part

of that is pay transparency.

You can go into this

spreadsheet at any time

and everybody is listed in here.

Here's me.

And you can see what

somebody's salary is

and also the reason for it.

If we look here, you can

see my salary is 51,500 from the

pay review that we just

finished earlier this year.

But this isn't about gender

pay or discrimination.

They just think it's a better

way of doing things.

By sharing information about pay

and actually by sharing information

about all of the financial health

of the company with all

of the people who work here,

we build a lot of trust

in that relationship.

And there's an awful lot of work

that suggests that actually,

the amount of trust that

you experience at work, how sort

of psychologically safe you feel,

really has an impact on the quality

of the work that you can do.

One argument in favour

of transparency is that actually,

we're all pretty bad at judging how

we are paid.

Research in the US by PayScale found

that nearly 90% of people

who thought they were underpaid

were actually paid in line

or above market rates.

Greater transparency can of course

cause some problems,

some awkward conversations,

but longer term, there

is evidence it can also

mean improved morale,

better productivity

and improved retention.

In Sweden, transparency seems

to be seen primarily

as a democratic ideal,

not a tool for pay.

Camilla Wagner is a consultant

on gender issues.

Do you think that people use

the tools they have here enough?

No, not enough.

I always advise people, if they are

going into a negotiation,

you should really get

all the information you can.

So just call the Swedish tax

agency and make sure that

you have the information on people

with similar jobs in that

organisation to see what they make.

So why do you think people don't use

the tax information?

Is it sort of cultural reticence?

Yes, it is a cultural thing in

Sweden, we never talk about money.

It's easier to talk about STDs

than it is to talk about how

much money you make,

which is really something we need

to get over if we want

to close the gender gap.

Some think this is all just

a storm over statistics,

that the pay gap can be explained

by seniority, types of work

or career choices, but even among

those who see a serious

and persistent problem,

there is debate.

Is it better to free up information

and allow individuals

to fight their own battles?

Or is government enforcement

needed to stop women

being left out in the cold?

He once described chatting

with the Queen as like 'catching

up with an old mate'.

Certainly, there was a life roundly

lived by the man who not only

invented wind-up radio,

but also worked as a TV stuntman

and aquatic showman.

The death of Trevor Baylis

was announced today, aged 80,

after a long illness.

He was interviewed here

on Newsnight in 2013.

We thought you might appreciate

the chance to listen again to one

of the foremost inventors

of our age.

My name's Trevor Baylis.

I call myself an inventor.

This workshop is where it all began.

This is the graveyard

of a thousand domestic

appliances, if you understand?

I'm known, I guess, for making

the clockwork radio.

That's how I wound it up.

It'll be interesting

to see if it still works.

RADIO CRACKLES.

Yeah.

I was watching a programme

about the spread of HIV/Aids

in Africa and they said the only way

that they could stop this dreadful

disease cutting its way

through all those places

was through radio and

music, communication,

but there was a problem.

Most people in Africa didn't have

electricity and the only other form

of electricity was in the form

of batteries, which were

horrendously expensive.

I'm then thinking

to myself, hang on...

All those years ago, I can see

myself with an old-fashioned

gramophone and I thought,

you know, you wind this thing up

and you can get all of that noise

by dragging a rusty nail around

a piece of old Bakelite,

as it were, and that produces

that volume of sound,

so there must be enough energy

in that spring to drive

a small dynamo which,

in turn, would drive a radio.

Trevor Baylis there.

Tomorrow morning, Public Health

England are launching a new strategy

to prevent childhood obesity.

We got the first peek

and the figures in its

report are shocking.

Children living in poor areas

are twice as likely to be obese

as their wealthier neighbours.

London has the highest rate

of childhood obesity of any peer

global city and the deprivation gap

has increased by over

50% in ten years.

So what's the best

way to tackle this?

This morning's Times quoted

Jamie Oliver questioning how

you change behaviour.

He says middle-class logic

won't affect behavioural

change in our low-income,

unhealthy eating families.

So, what's the best way to get

the healthy eating message

across, or will it only

ever sound patronising?

Jo Lewis is the Food

for Life Policy Director.

Dawn Foster is a

commentator and author.

Nice to have you both here.

Do you think campaigns like this

make any difference?

Food for life is not a campaign

telling people to do things

differently in their lives.

It is a campaign that dries to make

healthy food easy and normal

for families in all walks of life.

We work with schools, nurseries,

caterers and we make sure that

healthy option is normal and easy

and enjoyable for everyone.

So the key thing is, you are not

telling people what to do,

you are just taking away options

that don't work?

Well, that is right,

and making the good food,

the fresh and minimally processed

food easily available.

All the evidence shows childhood

obesity is not some big national

failure of will power.

And that we are, it is just a normal

response to an abnormal environment.

Look at the backdrop,

this is the unhealthy food

environment surrounding bars

and the choices people make,

they are time constraint

and heavily influenced

by what is on offer around them.

Dawn Foster, is that right,

if you just take away the bad stuff,

people will have to eat

the good stuff?

Is that a brutal but fair way

of making us eat more healthily?

I think it is very complex.

Often, people think that

if you take away certain

options in supermarkets,

it may change eating habits.

One of the big issues

is both time and money.

A lot of people don't have the time

to spend a lot of time cooking

and they don't have the knowledge

to help them.

I speak to a lot of families

and have visited homes in fuel

poverty and it is often cheaper

to to cook in a microwave and that

limits what you feed your children.

So you do not turn the other non-?

Yes, it costs a lot more money

and is very fuel intensive

and if you can use the microwave,

it is a lot cheaper and that means

it limits what you can

feed your children.

And when we look at the choices

available for a lot of people,

it is very limited and not

especially healthy.

Take the five day or what you should

be doing, the traffic lights,

do those have any effect or is this

a middle-class conscience salver?

I think a lot of people feel

bombarded by a lot of very

conflicting messages on health.

With five day, recently,

it moved up to eight, or ten,

and a lot of people felt

that was out of the realms

of possibility, very expensive,

and they disregard it.

We are often bombarded

with lots of conflicting issues

and what we needed more time

and more so people can invest.

More legislation?

I would like to see more legislation

so people get paid better

and we can beat poverty.

Then we can look

more at what we eat.

It is a very different thing

to saying we should get rid of buy

one get one free offers,

we should get rid of cheaper fast

food shops on every street corner.

Would you go as far as saying

legislation has to take

over because the public

will is not there?

Yes, the former Chief Executive

of Sainsbury's, when the childhood

obesity plan was published,

he said even the supermarkets

need a level playing

field and legislation.

It is very hard to move ahead

of the others in terms of getting

rid of junk food promotions.

We buy 40% of what we

eat on promotion, it

nearly always junk food.

So we need to see promotions

for healthy food and also I agree

with what Dawn said.

If they went, would you feel

patronised by that,

I can make my own choices

as to when we eat junk food,

or would you say you much prefer

having all the toys taken out

as they did with smoking

because it just levels at?

I think if we look at what food,

as Jo said, is heavily marketed

and make sure fresh fruit

and vegetables were marketed

in the same way and is cheap,

that would change eating habits.

At the moment, big bags of frozen

chips, they are very cheap

and potatoes, most --

expensive if they are loose

and changing the way supermarkets

operate is a good way of doing it

without making people feel

they are dictated to.

The bottom line is that

when you are time poor and finishing

one shift and going straight

to another shift, you don't

want to wait for another and to warm

up or you cannot afford the fuel,

inevitably, it is going to be

the cheapest and quickest

thing to put in the oven.

We all understand that,

I am a mother of two children

and I know what it is like to not

feel I have the money,

the time, the headspace.

If it is like that for me

from a middle-class background,

how much more challenging is it?

We have to get realistic

and sympathetic about what is

influencing eating habits

and the real choices people face,

we have to make it easy.

The best place to begin is one good

meal a day in schools and nurseries

and that is what we're trying to do

with Food for Life.

The evidence is if you get

the children cooking and growing

and understanding where food comes

from, it has a significant impact

on their appetite for fruit

and vegetables and it will set them

up for life.

Thank you both very much.

That's it for tonight.

We leave you with news

of a fresh outbreak of social

media outrage at the BBC,

over the endlessly controversial

series five, episode seven

of CBeebies children's programme

'Show Me Show Me.' On behalf

of the BBC, can we just say

to the haters out there,

we have no idea

what you're on about!

Goodnight.

Fluttering and dancing in the wind.

# Imagine, imagine, imagine,

you're a fluttering kite # Imagine,

imagine, imagine, you flutter

at great height # You zip and dip

and zip and dip and zip and flutter

by # You zip and dip,

you're dancing in the sky # Imagine,

imagine, imagine, you're

a fluttering kite #.