:00:20. > :00:25.We're in the Queen Mary University of London. Welcome to Question Time.
:00:25. > :00:29.And with me on our panel tonight, the Health Secretary, Andrew
:00:29. > :00:34.Lansley, the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who is hoping to
:00:34. > :00:41.win that post back. Dr Phil Hammond, a GP, a stand-up comedian and who
:00:41. > :00:46.writes for Private Eye. Mark Littlewood, director a free market
:00:46. > :00:56.think-tank and the deputy editor of the Evening Standard, Sarah Sands.
:00:56. > :01:00.
:01:00. > :01:04.APPLAUSE Our first question from Peter
:01:04. > :01:11.Mammato, please. Is it appropriate for the Defence
:01:11. > :01:16.Secretary to bring a friend to work?
:01:16. > :01:22.Andrew Lansley? I hope all have friends at work and friends who
:01:22. > :01:28.visit us at work. The purpose of your question is to say, where are
:01:28. > :01:33.the boundaries? Liam himself, I saw him at the House of Commons and say
:01:33. > :01:37.to the Commons he had made mistakes and apologised for those because he
:01:37. > :01:42.allowed the distinction between his private life and his public
:01:42. > :01:48.responsibilities to be blurred. He accepted that and apologised for it.
:01:48. > :01:52.Ynd that there are investigations being con-- beyond that there are
:01:52. > :01:56.investigations being conducted. I will not judge anything beyond that.
:01:56. > :02:00.Do you think, as one of his friends said today, it would turn the Prime
:02:00. > :02:05.Minister into John Major if he bowed to pressure and got rid of
:02:05. > :02:10.Fox? No, I don't think there is any comparison. I don't know what that
:02:10. > :02:13.is supposed to imply. From my point of view, I work with Liam, I have
:02:13. > :02:21.known him for a long time. I think he's been an excellent Defence
:02:21. > :02:25.Secretary. He's had a terrible legacy from Labour. He had to go
:02:25. > :02:30.through a tough process of dealing those and doing a strategic
:02:30. > :02:35.security and Defence Review. I think he's given leadership and
:02:35. > :02:40.support to the armed services in Afghanistan and libyafplt over this
:02:40. > :02:44.year-and-a-half they have -- Libya. Over this year-and-a-half they have
:02:44. > :02:48.performed magnificently. I think if you look from the public interest
:02:48. > :02:54.point of view, is he a good Defence Secretary? Absolutely, I think he
:02:54. > :02:59.is. You would like him to stay? I think Liam Fox has got every
:02:59. > :03:05.right to bring someone in to give him advice. The root is you appoint
:03:05. > :03:09.them as a special adviser. They are paid about �60,000 a year. I think,
:03:09. > :03:13.given the track record of civil servants in the Ministry of Defence
:03:13. > :03:19.and senior military officials who have almost bankrupted one
:03:19. > :03:24.Government after another with dire advice I am pleased to see a sharp
:03:24. > :03:30.mind brought in from the outside. Why was it not made a legitimate
:03:30. > :03:34.appointment. As it hasn't been, I think we need to know what rules
:03:34. > :03:39.the finances around here. What was he earning and who was he getting
:03:39. > :03:44.the money from. If they answer that the issue will go away. You had
:03:44. > :03:50.special advisers, paid a lot more. �120 how thousand. Brought in, they
:03:50. > :03:55.ran everything. They had to go.... They ran everything, not you?
:03:55. > :03:59.no. It is different. The American model of politics is what Tony
:03:59. > :04:04.Blair brought to London. The advisers were running the system.
:04:04. > :04:10.We didn't have all those civil servant types. I found it easier to
:04:10. > :04:14.get things done. I would like to see a lot more clearing out of
:04:14. > :04:19.senior civil servants and people brought in to make sure Governments
:04:19. > :04:25.can get their policies through an often resistant Civil Service. They
:04:25. > :04:32.should say, who was paying what and was there any undue influence?
:04:33. > :04:35.Until he does say that.... What would you call "Undue influence?"
:04:35. > :04:41.commercial interest? If a commercial firm was paying that
:04:41. > :04:45.adviser and that adviser was influencing the contract that is a
:04:45. > :04:49.huge problem. We need to be told and the issue can go away. I can't
:04:49. > :04:56.understand why it's being allowed to drag on and on and more
:04:56. > :05:01.speculation around it all. Sarah Sands? Well he is becoming less a
:05:01. > :05:07.friend by the day. By yesterday he was an imagine farry friend. He was
:05:07. > :05:13.described as a Walter Mitty figure. By the end of the week he may have
:05:13. > :05:20.no relationship at all with Mr Fox. I think it is Dr Fox. Obviously, it
:05:20. > :05:30.looks odd to have best man on a business card, so adviser was the
:05:30. > :05:33.
:05:33. > :05:36.option. I mean, you say... You mean, According to Ken if you want
:05:36. > :05:41.someone in because you cannot trust your civil servants he seemed to
:05:41. > :05:45.get a good deal. Mr Werritty didn't seem to make much money out of this
:05:45. > :05:49.at all, or he was sponsored. Whether he can survive I think is
:05:49. > :05:53.an interesting question. We did see all the cavalry brought out in the
:05:53. > :06:02.House of Commons to protect him. It has slightly become a press verses
:06:02. > :06:05.the Government, which I think is what Dr Fox is now playing on. Or
:06:05. > :06:12.his friends, more friends telling Cameron, the Prime Minister, that
:06:12. > :06:18.he would be looking weak to dismiss. The man there? Isn't this half of
:06:18. > :06:22.the problem that it has become acceptable by Ken and Andrew and
:06:22. > :06:30.Government generally in a democracy that it is OK to bring in your
:06:30. > :06:34.buddys and pay them �120,000 as special advisers? It is ridiculous!
:06:34. > :06:40.I think that is an excellent point. Actually Cameron did promise to
:06:40. > :06:46.sort out lobbyingch he said it was the next big -- lobbying was the
:06:46. > :06:55.next big problem. This chap seems to lobby and he's not in the box.
:06:55. > :07:01.We are playing the next Where's Wally? It's called where's Werritty.
:07:01. > :07:05.You don't go on 44 trips for no reason. You could have won him in a
:07:05. > :07:09.raffle. He could be doing something unusual. We won't know until the
:07:09. > :07:12.tests are back! With all these things you have to investigate them
:07:12. > :07:16.independently. My experience of health service investigations f you
:07:16. > :07:19.do them house and do them in secret you don't get to the truth of the
:07:19. > :07:23.matter. You need someone independent, putting out the
:07:24. > :07:27.answers in the public domain. don't count the Cabinet Secretary
:07:27. > :07:34.as somebody like that? No. You need somebody with the appearance of
:07:34. > :07:39.being independent. APPLAUSE
:07:39. > :07:44.Yes? I want to ask Mr Lansley, you say Liam Fox has apologised N this
:07:44. > :07:49.situation it is a clear miss judgment. Is an apology enough?
:07:49. > :07:52.you make mistakes it is good to apologise. That is what he did at
:07:52. > :07:58.the first opportunity. Can you apologise for anything that you
:07:59. > :08:03.have done wrong? If you make a mistake would you not apologise.
:08:03. > :08:08.Nobody knows what you're doing with that! I see the point you're making.
:08:08. > :08:12.Actually, you know, he, not only did he apologise, but he had taken
:08:12. > :08:16.the step of instigating an investigation, which the Prime
:08:16. > :08:20.Minister said, I would like the Cabinet Secretary to do it. That is
:08:20. > :08:27.fine. I'm surprised Ken says it is dragging on. It's only been about
:08:27. > :08:32.six days. I mean are we not capable of realising if you're going to
:08:32. > :08:36.have a welter of accusations, allegations against people, which
:08:36. > :08:40.include, much of which may not prove to be true, it's better
:08:40. > :08:47.actually to have a proper investigation and not to prejudge
:08:47. > :08:53.it. So long as the... As long as the NHS reforms take! My brother's
:08:53. > :08:58.in the Armed Forces. I don't think a sorry, a simple sorry for
:08:58. > :09:03.somebody who just follows the Ministry of Defence around is
:09:03. > :09:10.correct. What about the security of the country where he was following
:09:10. > :09:15.him around - the information he was partial to? It's just wrong. My
:09:15. > :09:20.brother, he serves in Afghanistan. He had two terms there. He's
:09:21. > :09:25.serving now and you can't get a word out of him for where he's been,
:09:25. > :09:31.where he's going. He takes it serious and serves Queen and
:09:31. > :09:34.Country. You can't just, "Oh, let me take my friend around." He has
:09:34. > :09:44.duty to this country. There are failings there for recognising what
:09:44. > :09:45.
:09:45. > :09:49.his duties are. APPLAUSE
:09:50. > :09:54.The original question was this, wasn't it: Is it OK to have friends
:09:54. > :10:00.visiting you at the office? No it is OK for the Defence Secretary to
:10:00. > :10:06.bring a friend to work? I wish our politicians listened a lot more to
:10:06. > :10:10.experts and their friends rather than following what the civil
:10:10. > :10:15.servants advise them. In Liam Fox's case it is straightforward. Look,
:10:15. > :10:20.on the face of it looks like odd behaviour. I don't know many people
:10:21. > :10:26.who take their best man with them on 18 trips to Dubai. It looks odd
:10:26. > :10:29.behaviour. Something which looks like odd behaviour is not a firing
:10:29. > :10:33.offence for the Secretary of State for defence. There are two things
:10:33. > :10:39.we need to discover. I think the Cabinet Secretary will get to the
:10:39. > :10:43.bottom. Was there any impropriety? If there was a suggestion that
:10:43. > :10:48.defence contracts were being skiched up, that is a firing --
:10:48. > :10:53.stitched up, that is a firing offence. Was security breached? If
:10:53. > :10:58.yes, Fox has to go. But for God's sake n a mature democracy, let's
:10:58. > :11:03.take a few days, at least, to sort this out. These are serious charges.
:11:03. > :11:06.We only need the patience of a few more days to get to the bottom of
:11:06. > :11:13.them. Does Liam Fox's own statement, on Sunday, answer one of those
:11:13. > :11:18.points, when he said, I do accept that given Mr Werritty's defence-
:11:18. > :11:23.related business interests my frequent contacts may have given an
:11:23. > :11:27.impression of wrong doing? Because the code covers the impression of...
:11:28. > :11:33.He says Werritty has defence- related business interests.
:11:33. > :11:38.don't know what they are. Is there real impropriety here? If it turns
:11:38. > :11:44.out he is a Walter Mitty character, that is odd, but relatively
:11:45. > :11:49.harmless. If it turns out worse than that, then he has to leave the
:11:49. > :11:56.Cabinet. Do you not think that the British taxpayer is sick and tired
:11:56. > :12:01.of seeing their money get wasted? APPLAUSE. It's not taxpayers' money.
:12:01. > :12:05.We don't think he's paid by the taxpayer. He seems to be able to
:12:05. > :12:09.travel around the world on little money. We don't know how he's
:12:09. > :12:14.funded this, he probably can sort out the economy by the money he
:12:14. > :12:19.makes by doing relatively little. Who is funding all this?
:12:19. > :12:24.Echoing the previous comments from the middle of the audience, Liam
:12:24. > :12:30.Fox is a public servant, and you know, if this was the head of an
:12:30. > :12:33.NHS Trust, who may have a friend, a best man who may be the head of a
:12:33. > :12:38.pharmaceutical company, or something like that, if they were
:12:38. > :12:43.allowed confidential meetings there would be an outcry and his position
:12:43. > :12:50.would be in question. So, there's no question that Fox has given this
:12:50. > :12:55.guy too much access. OK, let's go on. Chandrika Chopra?
:12:55. > :13:05.How wise it is to persist with the NHS reforms when health
:13:05. > :13:05.
:13:05. > :13:08.professionals oppose them so strongly? All right, Andrew
:13:08. > :13:13.Lansley? But not the whole sorry, but jaust the answer to that
:13:13. > :13:17.question, if you would -- just the answer to that question, if you
:13:17. > :13:21.would. The premise is that health professions are against this. Take
:13:21. > :13:24.one central principal here, which is that doctors and nurses should
:13:24. > :13:30.take greater responsibility for designing services on behalf of
:13:30. > :13:32.their patients. Actually, across the NHS that is supported. The
:13:32. > :13:35.Royal College of General Practitioners and the BMA and the
:13:35. > :13:42.Royal College of Nursing have supported that principal. The
:13:42. > :13:47.principal of the legislation that there should be greater democratic
:13:47. > :13:50.credibility. People by and large support that. Now, I know there are
:13:50. > :13:54.a lot of things people say they don't like. Half the time they are
:13:54. > :13:58.saying there are things in the bill which are not there that they don't
:13:58. > :14:03.like. Things they imagine the bill is introducing competition to the
:14:03. > :14:07.NHS. Actually it does not change the scope of competition at all. If
:14:07. > :14:11.you construct a different argument and base it on a miss
:14:11. > :14:16.representation of what is in the bill, it is easy then to get people
:14:16. > :14:20.to say, I am against the bill. We've had a lot of miss reputation.
:14:20. > :14:23.We've had a lot of occasions when frankly from my point of view we've
:14:23. > :14:27.had to explain. There have been occasions when people wanted
:14:27. > :14:31.reassurance. We went to enormous lengths to make certain when we
:14:31. > :14:34.were listening to people and pausing the bill, to take the NHS
:14:34. > :14:38.Future Forum, a team of experts and professionals from across the
:14:38. > :14:43.service, go out across the country, hundreds of meetings, thousands of
:14:43. > :14:46.contributions, to arrive at a place where the forum told us what the
:14:46. > :14:56.professionals across the service, as well as the patients and the
:14:56. > :15:08.
:15:08. > :15:13.public needed. We accepted every This depends on trust. APPLAUSE
:15:13. > :15:21.difficulty with this is it is 353 pages - it is impossible to
:15:21. > :15:25.understand it. It is unreadable. What did you say? It is wonk. This
:15:25. > :15:30.is unreadable. There is no narrative. You would think if you
:15:30. > :15:38.would read that you would hear words like transparency, openness,
:15:38. > :15:45.accountability. They are not in there. How many times does the word
:15:45. > :15:52."competition" appears? 86. Co- operation? Nought. Integration.
:15:52. > :15:59.appears. There is a duty... Collaboration? There is a duty in
:15:59. > :16:05.the legislation for integration of services. 86 competitions, four co-
:16:05. > :16:13.operations, no integration, no collaboration. The point is the
:16:13. > :16:19.reason... There is no reason to argue about it. Andrew, I let you
:16:19. > :16:25.speak. Let me speak, please. What is your impression about the
:16:25. > :16:30.reaction of the NHS professionals? Does it matter? Yes, it does.
:16:30. > :16:33.the professionals always against reform? It is not just the
:16:33. > :16:38.professionals, it is probably the vast majority of patients. Nobody
:16:38. > :16:42.has managed to read this thing. The thing they... You clearly have. You
:16:42. > :16:46.have done a word count on it! thing that worries people most is
:16:46. > :16:54.this element of competition. The NHS needs to rediscover its
:16:54. > :16:58.humanity. If you look at Mid-Staffs, there is a real problem. If you
:16:58. > :17:06.look at competition - and Labour did this - the competition cherry
:17:06. > :17:11.picked the easy cases. In the NHS20% of patients take up 80% of
:17:11. > :17:17.resources. I can see patients here, you are fairly fit, I will cherry
:17:17. > :17:27.pick you. You have five or six diseases, you are a bit expensive,
:17:27. > :17:29.
:17:29. > :17:35.I'm not interested in you. The only way to focus the NHS is to
:17:35. > :17:41.integrate it. Although Andrew will say there has been a change in here
:17:41. > :17:49.- it has never happened yet. What they want is collaboration and keep
:17:49. > :17:57.as many patients out of hospital as they can. It doesn't change...
:17:57. > :18:00.says it, but will it do it? You are not trusting the doctors and nurses
:18:00. > :18:03.themselves. We designed the service around the needs of patients. We
:18:03. > :18:09.give the doctors and nurses the ability to commission the services
:18:09. > :18:13.that they need for their patients. Then we make certain that it is
:18:13. > :18:18.democratically accountable... right. There are five people around
:18:18. > :18:24.- hang on. We have five people on this panel and a lot of hands up.
:18:24. > :18:29.Mark Littlewood? We need a bit of a reality check. I know the National
:18:29. > :18:34.Health Service is thought of very fondly by a majority of people. It
:18:34. > :18:39.saved my live seven years ago. Let's not kid ourselves. Let's not
:18:39. > :18:43.fall for a myth. Let's not believe it is the envy of the world - it
:18:43. > :18:50.isn't any more. Better health provision is being given in much of
:18:51. > :18:55.Europe, many other OECD countries and we have a substantial financial
:18:55. > :18:58.problem. NHS spending has trebled in the last 30 years. Life
:18:58. > :19:01.expectancy amongst the poorest elements of society has not
:19:01. > :19:06.improved as much as life expectancy of the richest elements of society.
:19:06. > :19:11.So it is not even helping the people at the lower end. We need a
:19:11. > :19:16.reality check. The NHS model, if it is the envy of the world, has been
:19:16. > :19:19.copied by no-one. It isn't the envy of the world. I would like to say I
:19:19. > :19:23.welcome Andrew Lansley trying to tackle some of these problems about
:19:23. > :19:29.efficiency. I would like to see something which gives patients
:19:29. > :19:36.control and power, you, the guys in the audience, not the doctors, or
:19:36. > :19:40.the Commissioners - patients. One of the problems we have got is that
:19:40. > :19:44.it is not responsive enough to patients who need care. There are a
:19:44. > :19:54.lot we can learn from other systems in the world that produce better
:19:54. > :20:00.results at much lower costs. APPLAUSE The person there in the
:20:00. > :20:06.fourth row? I think you are completely wrong. The NHS...
:20:06. > :20:12.APPLAUSE When the NHS was established in 1948, whatever it
:20:12. > :20:15.was, all the OECD countries followed suit. There was Japan,
:20:15. > :20:19.Australia and Canada, they all used the same system. Everything you
:20:19. > :20:23.have just said is wrong. It has one of the highest rates of
:20:23. > :20:32.satisfaction in Europe. It has one of the greatest levels of outcomes
:20:32. > :20:40.that there are and it has a lower percentage of GDP use than any
:20:40. > :20:47.other countries. Let's be careful. Please not just... Are you saying
:20:47. > :20:54.they have better healthcare policies? Yes. Your chance of
:20:54. > :20:59.survival if you are diagnosed with cancer in the US... You are
:20:59. > :21:03.completely wrong. Let's not fall for this nonsense that the only two
:21:03. > :21:07.available healthcare systems on the planet are the National Health
:21:07. > :21:13.Service or the USA. I don't think the USA is a good system at all. We
:21:13. > :21:18.can learn a lot from Singapore. They don't spend as much. It is not
:21:18. > :21:21.just what we have got or America. We can do better than that. The
:21:21. > :21:27.European systems use insurance models, a more market-based
:21:27. > :21:31.approach. Which have lower satisfaction rates and longer
:21:31. > :21:38.waiting times. We really think we are the only people who have
:21:38. > :21:44.cracked this? It is nonsense. woman in green? Ultimately, this is
:21:44. > :21:48.a time sensitive issue. There are people's lives at stake. How would
:21:48. > :21:52.the panel answer the Shadow Health Minister's point that while we are
:21:52. > :21:56.having these protracted debates, it is stopping us from fixing the NHS
:21:56. > :22:02.we have got now. We are not making those reforms because we are having
:22:02. > :22:06.this debate. He says drop the bill and we will help you reform NHS
:22:06. > :22:11.commissioning, the new - Andy Burnham. Ken Livingstone?
:22:11. > :22:14.simple reality is that we, according to the Commonwealth
:22:14. > :22:19.Institute, have the most cost- effective healthcare in the world.
:22:19. > :22:24.We spent 8% of our wealth on the NHS. In America it is 16%. France
:22:24. > :22:28.and Germany, it is 10%. I think what the reason the Government is
:22:28. > :22:31.doing this is it can't go to the American system in one big step,
:22:32. > :22:35.they couldn't get it through. It is starting to push down the road of
:22:35. > :22:38.more and more privatisation, more and more profit and when you are
:22:38. > :22:42.adding profit to the cost of an operation, there will be less
:22:42. > :22:45.operations done at the end of the day. When you think that this
:22:45. > :22:50.Government promised not just that there would be no top-down
:22:50. > :22:55.reorganisation of the NHS, they promised, Cameron promised to
:22:55. > :22:59.increase spending on the NHS in real terms and a moratorium on
:22:59. > :23:09.hospital closures. I have never seen such a deliberate pattern of
:23:09. > :23:12.
:23:12. > :23:16.lies in an election... APPLAUSE Ken, Labour's line was to say it is
:23:17. > :23:21.irresponsible to increase NHS spending? Not just Labour's line,
:23:21. > :23:26.Andy Burnham's view. That is Labour. Exactly. Sorry, I don't get your
:23:26. > :23:30.point. And he is still their Shadow Health Secretary. He has been
:23:30. > :23:34.reappointed in circumstances where he was telling us that we ought to
:23:34. > :23:39.be cutting the NHS budget and we are not. We are increasing the NHS
:23:39. > :23:45.budget by �12.5 billion. I don't know where you have been around all
:23:45. > :23:49.my life. I'm not here simply to parrot the Labour Party line. I am
:23:49. > :23:53.broadly in agreement with the vast majority of Labour's policies. I
:23:53. > :23:58.was profoundly unhappy with the partial privatisation measures Tony
:23:58. > :24:03.Blair's Government introduced which has helped land us in this mess. It
:24:03. > :24:13.should all be free at the point of delivery. There should be no profit
:24:13. > :24:19.motive at all. It will be. The man there? If you keep your remarks
:24:19. > :24:22.brief, I would be grateful. Yes? was wondering when 60 senior
:24:22. > :24:27.medical officials have sent off a letter describing the health
:24:27. > :24:33.reforms as "unpopular and undemocratic" surely it would be
:24:33. > :24:38.reprehensible to follow through with them? APPLAUSE Sarah Sands?
:24:38. > :24:41.Talking earlier about the issue of trust and the public trust doctors,
:24:41. > :24:47.they don't trust politicians. It doesn't mean the doctors are always
:24:47. > :24:51.going to be right. I think there is a problem and we have seen from the
:24:51. > :24:54.protests outside that people feel very strongly about this. The
:24:54. > :25:00.National Health Service is the religion of the British people. The
:25:00. > :25:04.trouble is then you say anything must happen to it and any
:25:04. > :25:08.efficiencies are a back door privatisation. It means we can
:25:08. > :25:13.never talk about it in a rational way. That does worry me. Very
:25:13. > :25:18.important, I want old people treated with dignity, I want
:25:18. > :25:24.children treated in medical emergencies. We have had feelings
:25:24. > :25:33.of a powerless in the face of a monolithic bureaucracy. If you can
:25:33. > :25:38.find a better way of ordering paper for the National Health Service and
:25:38. > :25:44.do it a bit cheaper, I think the fact we can't look at it because
:25:44. > :25:52.this is an attack on the NHS and I know your motives are impure, that
:25:52. > :25:56.puts us in a difficult position. APPLAUSE OK. There are still many
:25:56. > :26:04.people with their hands up. You have a clipboard in front of you. I
:26:04. > :26:11.beg you to speak briefly if you would? A few pressing points.
:26:11. > :26:21.you mean you will speak briefly? Absolutely. 80 to 100 billion will
:26:21. > :26:22.
:26:22. > :26:25.be handed to United Health America. It has been called the derevolution
:26:25. > :26:30.of the National Health Service. Let's talk about the 120 billion
:26:30. > :26:35.uncollected through tax avoidance. Let's talk about the 1% of tax
:26:35. > :26:40.breaks that the richest, the ten billion... All right. You are now
:26:40. > :26:44.reading it. Dr Hammond? Do you want to answer his point? I think it is
:26:44. > :26:49.an interesting point. If you involve private providers they are
:26:49. > :26:54.there to make a profit motive. I have no objection to them coming in
:26:54. > :26:57.on occasion if the NHS can't deliver. Every single model are
:26:57. > :27:02.moving towards integrated care. It is patients who fall between the
:27:02. > :27:07.bits of the NHS, particularly the elderly. You must do everything you
:27:07. > :27:10.can to keep them in their homes. The NHS are a bit like the French
:27:10. > :27:16.rugby team. While we have had headless management, some really
:27:16. > :27:20.good things have been happening on the ground. There have been falls
:27:20. > :27:24.in emergency admission. There is a wonderful organisation in North
:27:24. > :27:29.West London where they are working, they are sorting out their chronic
:27:29. > :27:35.diseases and stopping people going into hospital. All of this has been
:27:35. > :27:39.done without the Health Bill going through. The bit of legislation -
:27:39. > :27:43.you can't win over the hearts and minds. If people don't believe in
:27:43. > :27:48.competition, it will never work. Integration is the way forward.
:27:48. > :27:53.me reassure you. It is whether they trust you. Of course. I am looking
:27:53. > :27:56.for trust, particularly because I have spent now nearly eight years
:27:56. > :28:01.as Shadow Health Secretary. My responsibility in all that time has
:28:01. > :28:08.been to arrive at a place where people do believe the NHS will
:28:08. > :28:13.improve continuously under a Conservative administration. My
:28:13. > :28:19.commitment - and I made it to the Conservative Party - was that while
:28:19. > :28:26.I am Secretary of State the NHS will not be privatised, it will not
:28:26. > :28:30.be fragmented. The reason why there are general practitioners is
:28:30. > :28:34.because they are getting the opportunity as doctors and nurses
:28:34. > :28:40.to design services themselves. is happening now. If it is
:28:40. > :28:43.happening now, why? We have arrived at a point where the Primary Care
:28:43. > :28:47.Trusts and the Strategic Health Authorities know that they are
:28:47. > :28:51.going to be abolished when the Bill goes through. There is an argument
:28:51. > :28:56.that has been put that you needn't have brought up this Bill. You have
:28:56. > :29:00.had eight years to think about it. You could simply have built on what
:29:00. > :29:05.Labour was already doing and... That is the point about legislation.
:29:05. > :29:11.Difficult though it is to go through that process... You need it.
:29:11. > :29:14.You do. You can't abolish Primary Care Trusts without doing it. In
:29:14. > :29:24.the year before the election, Labour increased the management
:29:24. > :29:24.
:29:24. > :29:28.costs in the NHS by �350 million. All right. We reduced it by �329
:29:28. > :29:32.million. All right. No. Wait, please. This is a programme. I know
:29:32. > :29:36.there are a lot of important points and you have made many. I must stop
:29:36. > :29:44.you. We have to hear what the audience say as well. The woman in
:29:44. > :29:48.the striped shirt? There seems to be a myth that the NHS reforms are
:29:48. > :29:52.a future act but as someone that works in the NHS the impact is
:29:52. > :30:02.already being felt and the lack of confidence is having an impact now.
:30:02. > :30:14.
:30:14. > :30:19.How dare the Government have their hands on our public service before
:30:19. > :30:23.going after the money at the top. Close the loopholes. Don't even
:30:23. > :30:28.think about abolishing the 50% tax rate. Let's get the money back from
:30:28. > :30:38.the top and then we can work down. Hands off our public service - all
:30:38. > :30:43.of it! The man at the top right there.
:30:43. > :30:47.was mentioned earlier, when we arrived today we were met by a
:30:47. > :30:54.lively demonstration against the Health Secretary's proposals. They
:30:54. > :30:58.even burst into our pre-Question Time coffee and cakes. This shows
:30:58. > :31:04.how passionate they are to protect their's and our National Health
:31:04. > :31:08.Service. Are they right? They are. Is there any vested interest?
:31:08. > :31:13.Everybody in the world has some vested interest. They don't trust
:31:13. > :31:16.the meddling of bureaucrats and politicians. We've heard a lot of
:31:16. > :31:21.complaints here. Anybody coming to the support of what the Government
:31:21. > :31:25.is trying to to? I think there is actually a misconception about the
:31:25. > :31:30.NHS being perfect, considering the fact that on the policy of life
:31:31. > :31:34.index, published this year, the UK had a massive dip in its health
:31:34. > :31:41.care section. Whereas other countries, such as France, scored
:31:41. > :31:43.near perfect in that area. I don't necessarily think we can get
:31:43. > :31:47.benefits from the system being implemented now, the privatisation
:31:47. > :31:52.of it. We can learn from other countries, such as France, in this
:31:52. > :31:58.area and improve the NHS rather than keep it as it is. The person
:31:58. > :32:03.there? How do you make sure that you micromanage this reform,
:32:03. > :32:08.especially at the GP, primary care level, to make sure the
:32:08. > :32:12.consequences don't actually happen? The intention may be good. How do
:32:13. > :32:16.you make sure that the unintended consequences don't happen. What
:32:17. > :32:21.kind? Abuses, I mean at the moment, GP power. You give them so much
:32:21. > :32:27.money. Who is going to make sure that the money is well spent? The
:32:27. > :32:31.GPs don't clog up time and claim money which can happen at the
:32:31. > :32:35.moment. Rip off their clients? have to have somebody making the
:32:35. > :32:38.decision about how and where the money is spent. Shall we buy this
:32:38. > :32:43.service from this company or that from that company? Somebody has to
:32:43. > :32:47.make the decisions. I prefer Andrew Lansley's view that those decisions
:32:47. > :32:50.are better made by medical professionals than bureaucrats.
:32:50. > :32:54.They won't necessarily get everything right, all of the time.
:32:54. > :32:58.They won't. Errors will be made. The question is whether you put in
:32:58. > :33:03.place a system more likely to produce better results. The thing
:33:03. > :33:10.people like about the NHS is the equal access to all. That, I think
:33:10. > :33:15.everybody is agreed with. It won't be the question of if you are rich
:33:15. > :33:21.you get good care and if you are poor you get none. How you deliver
:33:21. > :33:25.it, to deliver it in the most efficient way possible. You don't
:33:25. > :33:29.micro-manage it. I don't want Andrew Lansley doing that. I want
:33:29. > :33:35.to work it myself with medical advice on the ground. It won't be
:33:35. > :33:39.perfect, but that is a better system than the creeping
:33:39. > :33:44.bureaucracys. If you have comment on this at home and you are
:33:44. > :33:54.on this at home and you are tweeting, you can join our debate D.
:33:54. > :34:04.
:34:04. > :34:13.Is it acceptable for MPs to tweet while in a parliamentary debate?
:34:13. > :34:18.They decided that tweeting was allowed. The procedures are often
:34:18. > :34:22.so tedious I would sit out of line and I notice a lot of
:34:22. > :34:26.correspondents do it. Should they tweet? From the point of view of
:34:26. > :34:30.the journalists the more that tweet the better. It is all stories for
:34:30. > :34:34.us. Are you in favour of your colleagues tweeting? I think I
:34:34. > :34:37.wouldn't do it myself. If you're in the House of Commons, you're there
:34:37. > :34:41.in order to participate in the debate. I think it is a good idea
:34:41. > :34:46.to concentrate in the debate if you are in there for that purpose. The
:34:46. > :34:51.truth of the matter is people do it everywhere now. I suspect they will
:34:51. > :34:58.in the House of Commons. That is the way the world is going. You can
:34:58. > :35:03.use any hand-held electric device, providing it is silent and used in
:35:03. > :35:07.a way that does not impair decorum. You can take papers into the House
:35:07. > :35:13.of Commons with you. I suppose that technically means we are getting to
:35:13. > :35:18.a place where people could be providing prompts on iPad screens
:35:19. > :35:23.or something. Instead of being whispered to.
:35:23. > :35:33.If anybody can reduce this to 146 characters I will give them a
:35:33. > :35:37.medal! 146 characters. I would say this,
:35:37. > :35:42.the House of Commons is a stuffy old place. Its ability to connect
:35:42. > :35:46.with the public in any meaningful way is zero. The protocols are
:35:46. > :35:51.absurd. It is stuck in the past in a lot of procedures. You don't have
:35:51. > :35:54.to rip that up to embrace some modern ways of MPs communicating,
:35:54. > :35:58.not just to journalists but to their constituents. We will be
:35:58. > :36:01.living in a very, very old fashioned democracy if we start to
:36:01. > :36:07.say that MPs cannot use mobile devices to say what they are
:36:07. > :36:10.thinking. You be the judge about whether they are concentrating in
:36:10. > :36:17.the debate or whether they are passing comment on to you as the
:36:17. > :36:19.constituent. A brief comment. Are we in fear of
:36:19. > :36:25.allowing our MPs to become celebrities almost rather than
:36:25. > :36:30.catering for society? Trying to trend. The person up
:36:30. > :36:35.there on the far left. If they are tweeting it shows they are awake in
:36:35. > :36:40.the chamber for a change! APPLAUSE
:36:40. > :36:47.And you, Sir? Maybe it will allow them to communicate with their
:36:48. > :36:51.unofficial advisers. OK! Let's go on. Anita Chin, please.
:36:51. > :36:55.Should we be encouraging the nation's youth to follow their
:36:55. > :36:59.Irish counter parts and emigrate around the globe to look for work?
:36:59. > :37:04.This is in the light of the figures that nearly one million young
:37:04. > :37:08.people are unemployed. Should we encourage them to follow the Irish
:37:08. > :37:13.example? Sarah Sands? I think it is a global market now. It is
:37:13. > :37:20.something that probably they have to think about. I am surprised and
:37:20. > :37:23.so impressed just by the ingenuity and resilience of the young
:37:24. > :37:27.graduates now. We have seen in universities themselves they are
:37:27. > :37:32.starting to look abroad. We have to look at job creation. It is the
:37:32. > :37:37.most important thing. Given the state we're in, that has
:37:38. > :37:43.to come from the private sector. So, how we do that - we have to
:37:43. > :37:46.look at it in a hard-headed way of where the jobs are. That may mean
:37:46. > :37:49.going abroad. I have known relatives of mine who have gone to
:37:49. > :37:55.be doctors abroad because there were opportunities or where the
:37:56. > :37:59.skills market is. I was talking to someone from Cisco technology firm
:37:59. > :38:03.who said there are tonnes of jobs but they don't have the people
:38:03. > :38:07.trained for it. In Britain? technology. There are jobs. There
:38:07. > :38:10.are thousands of jobs in technology. They were so wareed about the --
:38:10. > :38:13.worried about the lack of skills that I are talking about setting up
:38:13. > :38:18.their own academies to educate people from the start. I think
:38:18. > :38:24.people will have to think much more creatively about jobs in this tough
:38:24. > :38:28.environment. Well, I mean there may be some young people, very talented,
:38:28. > :38:32.who speak fluently a foreign language with go and work in China
:38:32. > :38:36.or Brazil. The majority of our young people don't have a fluent
:38:36. > :38:40.second language. We have a duty to provide a range of jobs for kids
:38:40. > :38:43.coming through our education system, whether they are the 45% who have
:38:43. > :38:48.been to university or the ones who have not. That means rebuilding and
:38:48. > :38:52.reviving our economy. We should be seeing something like a cut in VAT.
:38:52. > :38:57.We should be encouraging with tax breaks, firms to hire and take on
:38:57. > :39:00.more people. We should be looking at, say areas where there are huge
:39:00. > :39:04.housing problem. Here in London and other parts of Britain. Putting
:39:04. > :39:08.people back to work. Building the homes people need. There is a vast
:39:08. > :39:12.amount we need to do. You will not be able to while the Government is
:39:12. > :39:17.cutting its own spending. At a time like this, in an economic downturn
:39:17. > :39:21.the state should be helping to gear up the economy, put people back to
:39:21. > :39:31.work so they are coming off benefit and paying tax. That is how you pay
:39:31. > :39:35.back the debt. Some of what Ken said I agree with.
:39:35. > :39:39.Which bit? The Government can do things to actually help young
:39:39. > :39:44.people get back to work. Mainly it's getting out of the way. We
:39:44. > :39:50.live in a country now in which the tax code, the rule book for tax is
:39:50. > :39:54.about 14,000 pages long. This is Fife or six times as long as the
:39:54. > :39:59.complete works of Sheikh. What about cutting tax?
:39:59. > :40:05.-- of cutting Shakespeare. What about cutting the tax? I would
:40:05. > :40:08.slash tax. And VAT? I think VAT is probably too high. You may even
:40:08. > :40:12.raise more money by cutting it. think you can get growth back in
:40:12. > :40:16.the economy for the one million or so unemployed youth? It doesn't
:40:16. > :40:20.happen overnight. If you had a serious plan to deregulate now and
:40:20. > :40:24.start to reduce tax now, you could see the results in the next year or
:40:24. > :40:32.so. The coalition doesn't have that plan. And Osborne's plan is wrong n
:40:32. > :40:37.other words? Osborne is right to get spending under control. That is
:40:37. > :40:45.a... The Government's plan for growth seems to be to pray that it
:40:45. > :40:50.happens. There's very, very small steps in some areas of labour
:40:50. > :40:54.market reform. I would like to see de-regulation, that helps small and
:40:54. > :40:57.medium-sized enterprises who tend to pick up those who are not as
:40:57. > :41:05.well qualified. This war on red tape to get Government out of the
:41:05. > :41:10.way would do an enormous amount to help these young people find work.
:41:10. > :41:14.If I may, I would like to go back to the question. I think, yes,
:41:14. > :41:18.we're in a global market, but actually our young people are our
:41:18. > :41:22.future. I want them to see their future here with us. Actually when
:41:22. > :41:26.I look around the world, I and when I think about, for example, the
:41:26. > :41:30.pressures in terms of immigration to this country in order to do jobs
:41:30. > :41:34.here, I think actually we are a good place to come and work. Lots
:41:34. > :41:38.of people believe we're a good place to come and work. Yes, we
:41:38. > :41:42.have tough times. They are extremely difficult. We have a
:41:42. > :41:47.legacy and an international set of economic circumstances which make
:41:47. > :41:51.it incredibly difficult. We have got to have growth and growth is
:41:51. > :41:54.not going to come through abandoning the reduction of the
:41:54. > :41:59.deficit, because actually the entire.... He agrees with you on
:41:59. > :42:04.that. He says there are things you are not doing like cutting VAT.
:42:04. > :42:07.are doing things. We are cutting tax for people on low incomes so
:42:07. > :42:14.they will have more money in their pockets. We are putting for
:42:14. > :42:18.business, we're taking corporation tax to the.... About de-regulation?
:42:18. > :42:25.We have been, net we have reduced regulation since the election. That
:42:25. > :42:30.is turning a tide, because there has been a tide of new regulation.
:42:30. > :42:33.We were promised a bonfire, not a trim.
:42:33. > :42:37.How does a bonfire of regulation help when the banks are not lending
:42:37. > :42:46.to small businesses and everybody is crying out for money they cannot
:42:47. > :42:51.get hold of? APPLAUSE It helps enormously. I will tell
:42:52. > :42:55.you why it helps. By rowing back on red tape you don't get a boom in
:42:55. > :42:58.the economy, you don't convert microbusinesses into massive
:42:58. > :43:02.multinational companies. The amount of time and effort that small
:43:02. > :43:07.businesses have to go through to comply with the rules, let's say
:43:07. > :43:12.you have your bank loan sorted, just to comply with the rules is so
:43:12. > :43:17.intensive that you are making the businesses.... George Osborne, at
:43:17. > :43:20.the budget, put forward a moratorium until 2015 on impact on
:43:20. > :43:24.the small businesses. That is where the jobs are coming
:43:25. > :43:28.from. The question is whether young people are right to travel. Not to
:43:28. > :43:34.travel? To emigrate. I think, yes, they are. They are
:43:34. > :43:37.not going on holiday. Going abroad to get a job. It was said, life
:43:37. > :43:42.without work goes rotten. It is true. We talked about inequality in
:43:43. > :43:50.this country. They have got wider under Labour. If you have no house,
:43:50. > :43:54.no future to life you are unlikely to go to Waitrose for the oily fish
:43:54. > :43:58.and sun dried tomatoes and all the stuff that will keep you healthy.
:43:58. > :44:02.The knock-on effect for the health service when people become anxious,
:44:02. > :44:06.depressed T number of NHS managers you have made profoundly anxious
:44:06. > :44:11.because you announced you would get rid of their jobs at the time we
:44:11. > :44:21.are trying to make savings. If you put job insecurity into people's
:44:21. > :44:21.
:44:21. > :44:24.mind it profoundly affects their mental health. The answer to Anita
:44:25. > :44:31.Chin's question? If they are competing, yes, I think they should
:44:31. > :44:35.go abroad to get a job. I will go to other members of the audience.
:44:35. > :44:42.Isn't it a shame that our youth have to go abroad to get jobs when
:44:42. > :44:46.investment should be in this country making sure that they get
:44:46. > :44:55.the right, investment to get jobs here? Isn't it a shame they have to
:44:55. > :45:04.go abroad? Do you think people should go
:45:04. > :45:07.abroad, like the Irish? It is rhetorical. The global market is
:45:07. > :45:10.shrinking. Skills are needed around the world. Many of us in this room
:45:10. > :45:14.have parents who have come from abroad. Why shouldn't our children
:45:14. > :45:17.go abroad again to make a living for themselves if it's not possible
:45:17. > :45:26.here. There are many people who come here to do exactly that.
:45:26. > :45:33.The Government pumped in �75 billion recently. What seems to be
:45:33. > :45:36.happening is that it is stagnating in the banks. What is the
:45:37. > :45:42.Government doing with that money that's going into the economy? What
:45:42. > :45:47.are they doing to create jobs? will the �75 billion do? That's
:45:47. > :45:51.right, in order to create jobs. Does anyone know? It will increase
:45:51. > :45:55.inflation, a year or two down the road. A large amount of it will go
:45:55. > :45:59.abroad. Instead of spending �75 billion printing money, I would
:45:59. > :46:07.rather see them spend �20 billion putting people back to work on
:46:07. > :46:12.works programmes, building houses. APPLAUSE The woman in the striped
:46:12. > :46:16.shirt? Surely it would be better to encourage British unemployed people
:46:16. > :46:25.or young people graduating to take jobs in this country rather than
:46:25. > :46:29.allowing EU migrants to take them? APPLAUSE A quick point - the NHS
:46:29. > :46:37.would only exist because of workers from overseas. They have propped up
:46:37. > :46:43.the NHS for over 60 years and we should be grateful. APPLAUSE Andrew
:46:43. > :46:47.Lansley, would you answer that woman's point? Make your point
:46:47. > :46:53.again. Surely we should have the right people in this country to run
:46:53. > :46:58.our NHS? What do you mean by that? Not having people come from abroad?
:46:58. > :47:04.Yes. We should have the right skills here. 500,000 nurses I think
:47:05. > :47:09.are from abroad. The NHS has depended over a generation from
:47:09. > :47:13.people coming to work in the NHS... Why can't you train people in this
:47:13. > :47:18.country to do it? We are training people to do it. You have 300,000
:47:18. > :47:23.people in the NHS who have come from abroad? In years past, we
:47:23. > :47:28.weren't training enough doctors, dentists or nurses. We are training
:47:28. > :47:32.more. We are ensuring that we can meet our needs. If you are a medic,
:47:32. > :47:42.a doctor, with the levels of skill we are talking about you are
:47:42. > :47:46.working in an international - I know I was at... Dubai?!
:47:46. > :47:51.LAUGHTER I was at one of our leading Children's Hospitals and I
:47:51. > :47:56.was talking to somebody who was describing his career to me. He had
:47:56. > :48:01.worked in California, Cairo and he was working in Britain. He was a
:48:01. > :48:04.very, a leading paediatric surgeon. That is what you have got to expect.
:48:04. > :48:10.My point is when you look at people from around the world wanting to
:48:10. > :48:13.work in this country, yes, they do want to work here. So we shouldn't
:48:13. > :48:17.be so pessimistic about ourselves. If other people around the world
:48:17. > :48:24.with skills want to be here, we should realise that we are a good
:48:24. > :48:29.place for people with skills to be here. The man on the gangway there?
:48:29. > :48:34.Part of the issue that is being discussed here is there's youth
:48:34. > :48:40.that feel disengaged with the workplace at the moment. Sarah
:48:40. > :48:44.Sands makes this point of Cisco who are going to the lengths of putting
:48:44. > :48:49.in place a training programme for the youth. The problem exists that
:48:49. > :48:52.we need to have qualifications on the same level, academic and
:48:52. > :48:56.vocational. Instead of these companies going to the lengths of
:48:56. > :49:02.saying we might have to put in place our own work programme. It
:49:02. > :49:08.should be encouraged by the Government to do that. APPLAUSE
:49:08. > :49:16.Yes? You talk all about these apprenticeships, so many hundreds
:49:16. > :49:19.out there. Where are they? Three people in my family can't get an
:49:19. > :49:23.apprenticeship. Where are they? What were you saying about your
:49:23. > :49:28.family? I have three people in my family trying to get
:49:28. > :49:36.apprenticeships. Not one of them can get one. Explain a bit more.
:49:36. > :49:41.They get kicked from pillar to post. What apprenticeships are they
:49:41. > :49:46.looking for? Motor and two in electrical. They go to companies
:49:46. > :49:50.and say have you got any apprenticeship posts open? They are
:49:50. > :49:54.given a phone number for a body to go to. They get kicked from pillar
:49:54. > :50:01.to post. We are pushing as a Government forward... You are not
:50:01. > :50:07.pushing hard enough! Then we will do more. APPLAUSE We have increased
:50:08. > :50:11.the number of apprenticeships... Why can't they get one? When Phil
:50:11. > :50:15.talks about the problems of people not being in work and the
:50:15. > :50:17.implications that has, the largest part of that is people on
:50:17. > :50:22.incapacity benefit, that is where the work programme is tremendously
:50:22. > :50:25.important. In the course of this Parliament we will see 2.5 million
:50:25. > :50:30.people go through the work programme. It could have the impact
:50:30. > :50:34.of increasing employment by up to 300,000. One more point, the man
:50:34. > :50:39.with the beard? I work in the higher education sector. I teach in
:50:39. > :50:44.it. Let me tell you with the abolition of EMA and the trebling
:50:44. > :50:48.of tuition fees combined with university cutbacks, I tell you
:50:48. > :50:58.young people are terrified about what is going to happen to them,
:50:58. > :50:58.
:50:58. > :51:02.even more so... APPLAUSE Even more so when I graduated in 2006, before
:51:02. > :51:06.the crash, when the market was flooded with graduates which was
:51:06. > :51:10.largely caused by Labour's ridiculous 50% target of everyone
:51:10. > :51:14.going through higher education which isn't workable. Some people
:51:14. > :51:21.simply are not suited to higher education. That is not saying they
:51:21. > :51:31.are stupid. We need to get these skills back into the country.
:51:31. > :51:35.
:51:35. > :51:40.APPLAUSE We will leave it there. We will go on to a final question from
:51:40. > :51:45.Jon Fawbert. Will overregulating the press put democracy itself in
:51:45. > :51:49.peril as Paul Dacre asserted yesterday? This is the conversation
:51:49. > :51:57.going on at the Leveson Inquiry in the press in the light of the phone
:51:57. > :52:00.hacking and what you can do to regulate. Paul Dacre of the Daily
:52:00. > :52:04.Mail was against the regulations that were being proposed. Ken
:52:04. > :52:09.Livingstone, what do you make of what he said? I don't want to see
:52:09. > :52:15.any stit regulation of the media in that sense. -- any state regulation
:52:15. > :52:25.of the media in that sense. I don't like the idea that someone like
:52:25. > :52:25.
:52:25. > :52:31.Rupert Murdoch can decide what we read and what we see. Or Paul Dacre,
:52:31. > :52:37.so a real free press would be one that wasn't owned by multi-
:52:37. > :52:40.billionaires. APPLAUSE So what Dacre says is British's
:52:40. > :52:45.commercially viable free press is the only really free media? It is
:52:45. > :52:49.in hock to the people who own it. What chance have I got of getting
:52:50. > :52:54.the Daily Mail, or the Daily Telegraph, or the Times endorsing
:52:54. > :53:00.me for Mayor next year because their owners won't let them? What
:53:00. > :53:05.will the London Evening Standard do, Sarah Sands? We will do what's best
:53:05. > :53:08.for London. We are open-minded. am relaxed immediately(!) You will
:53:08. > :53:13.have the Guardian behind you. The important thick is it is a
:53:13. > :53:17.competitive and it is a vibrant press. -- important thing is it is
:53:17. > :53:22.a competitive and it is a vibrant press. We are an industry that is
:53:22. > :53:27.on our knees at the moment. Everyone agrees that the News of
:53:27. > :53:34.the World behaved horribly. I went last week to a police station to
:53:34. > :53:39.look at a notebook that had all my numbers on, the number of my
:53:39. > :53:43.numbers on, the number of my husband. It's a horrible feeling. I
:53:43. > :53:49.think there is a danger that this is going to be used because there
:53:49. > :53:54.are a lot of other interests in a muzzled press. Powerful people
:53:54. > :53:57.would like to control the press. I don't think Paul Dacre was
:53:57. > :54:03.exaggerating when he said what you end up with is Zimbabwe. You may
:54:03. > :54:08.not love the press. It can be boisterous and vulgar and sometimes
:54:08. > :54:15.unfair. I take all that. I still believe it is better there than not
:54:16. > :54:24.there. It has to self-regulate. What have you done? They are
:54:24. > :54:34.getting desperate. Phil Hammond? would be wary if regulations
:54:34. > :54:36.
:54:36. > :54:45.stifled good journalism. It is the closest thing, the Private Eye, we
:54:45. > :54:48.have to a free press. It's patients and parents raising concerns who
:54:49. > :54:53.then get journalists on their side who hold these institutions to
:54:53. > :55:00.account. So really good investigative journalism is vital.
:55:00. > :55:06.You have to invest in it. It is the one thing that holds people to
:55:06. > :55:10.account. The man up there? APPLAUSE Could the panel please address the
:55:10. > :55:16.myth that we have of free press? British libel laws are some of the
:55:16. > :55:21.worst in the world. You need only publish something in Heathrow for
:55:21. > :55:24.someone to come here and sue you about it? I agree they are
:55:24. > :55:31.restrictive. You need a good lawyer! I have been writing for
:55:31. > :55:34.Private Eye for almost 20 years now. I broke the Bristol heart scandal.
:55:34. > :55:38.I thought my career was on the line. Nothing happened. I guess because
:55:38. > :55:43.the story was true. If you get your story true, you have an editor who
:55:43. > :55:52.backs you up, generally, you are protected. Private Eye has never
:55:52. > :56:00.won a libel action. They have... Never lost! They always lose.
:56:00. > :56:03.are they still going? Who is funding it?! I agree with much of
:56:04. > :56:08.what has been said. A free press is extremely important. You have to
:56:08. > :56:11.bear in mind that that will mean there are a lot of press vehicles,
:56:11. > :56:18.media outlets that you don't personally like because there will
:56:18. > :56:23.be a diversity of choice. The BBC has a colossally bigger share of
:56:23. > :56:29.the TV market than Ru purt Murdoch could ever dream of. Thank God.
:56:29. > :56:34.Let's have choice. I hope that Ken wouldn't be worried about Fox News
:56:34. > :56:39.existing in the United Kingdom. It adds to the spread of choice.
:56:39. > :56:42.you think the Government is gunning for the press? We have got into an
:56:42. > :56:47.unfortunate situation which is where you want the press and
:56:47. > :56:50.politicians to be daggers drawn, it has now got to a dangerously
:56:50. > :56:55.hostile relationship. The press are crucial at holding people to
:56:55. > :57:00.account. We can be quite confident about it now. The internet, blog
:57:00. > :57:06.sites, we have a plethora of people who by putting down ten quid and
:57:06. > :57:14.buying a URL, they can become their own investigative journalists. That
:57:14. > :57:20.is a very exciting time. OK. OK. Andrew Lansley, let me put a quote
:57:20. > :57:24.from Paul Dacre to you. "Am I alone in detecting the rank smells of
:57:24. > :57:28.hypocrisy and revenge in the political classes current moral
:57:28. > :57:33.indignation over a British press that dared to expose their greed
:57:33. > :57:37.and corruption." I don't think that is justified. It wasn't politicians
:57:37. > :57:44.who encouraged the News of the World to go out phone hacking,
:57:44. > :57:50.trying to get into people's... expenses. It was all before then.
:57:50. > :57:54.You are getting your own back. indignation is not just amongst
:57:54. > :57:57.politicians. There is public indignation. There is a sense that
:57:57. > :58:01.newspapers, the press seriously overreach themselves. I don't think
:58:01. > :58:05.it was about getting the story right. If it was, there wouldn't
:58:05. > :58:11.have been any problem. It was going into people's private lives and
:58:11. > :58:15.often making things up. Is there a move for licensing the press in the
:58:15. > :58:20.way that... What I think everybody is looking for is to move to a
:58:20. > :58:26.place where the press are not simply able to be judges and
:58:26. > :58:29.prosecutors and juries, that there has to be independence and
:58:29. > :58:34.standards have to be pursued independently. There is a place for
:58:34. > :58:37.regulation. Mark makes the point about getting a range of voices in
:58:38. > :58:41.the media. That is why several years ago, when I was a backbencher
:58:41. > :58:47.with David Putnam, we worked together on putting the public
:58:47. > :58:51.interest test into media mergers which is the test that was applied
:58:51. > :58:55.when the News International were trying to take over BSkyB because
:58:55. > :59:00.regulation for competition and for choice and for plurality has its
:59:00. > :59:03.place. We can't go any further. Our hour is up. We have to stop
:59:03. > :59:10.Question Time. We will be in Glasgow next week and Winchester
:59:10. > :59:13.the week after that. If you want to come to either of those programmes,