02/02/2012 Question Time

Tonight we are in Southport and welcome to Question Time.

And with me on on the panel the International Development Minister,

Alan Duncan, Shadow Justice Secretary, Sadiq Khan, Digby Jones,

forger head of the CBI, who beats the drum for British business. A

campaigns director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, boon boon

boongs and the creator of Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks, Phil

Redmond. -- TaxPayers' Alliance, Emma Boon, and the creator of

Grange Hill, Brookside and Hollyoaks oaks, Phil Redmond.

APPLAUSE Our first question is from Alan Bell. Are Mr Goodwin and Mr

Hester victims of a lynch mob mentality. Sir Fred Goodwin

stripped of his knighthood and Stephen Hester not getting his

bonus. Victims of a lynch mentality? I don't think they have

been. If you see the reasons why the Queen decided to take away Fred

Goodwin's knighthood. She decided did she? Indeed. She could have

refused it? She could have said, "I like the man." Are you sure of

that? I'm positive, David. And the forfeiture committee are not made

up of people from a village with pitch force. They are senior civil

servants, senior lawyers. They looked at the evidence and as far

as Fred Goodwin was concerned there was a 500 page sobering report from

the FSA and the Treasury committee which was very critical about the

dominant role played by Fred Goodwin which led to us the

taxpayers having to pay �45 billion to bail out the Royal Bank of

Scotland as a direct consequence of the decision he made to take over

Amro, which meant they bought into the sub-prime mortgage. As far as

Stephen Hester is concerned, he did the right thing in deciding not to

accept the almost �1 million bonus. I wish the Prime Minister had used

the power he had, the fact that we are shareholders, 84% of that

company is owned by British taxpayers and we have a discretion

to design how much bonus he gets. I don't think the citeteria to

justify a bonus was met and the Prime Minister should have said

know. But Fred Goodwin to me, of course these are important issues,

but I'm interested in the future. What we need to do is change the

culture in our boardrooms to bring about responsibility and restraint.

Change the culture whereby somebody thinks it is acceptable where there

hasn't been exceptional performance to receive an award. Let's deal

with the lynch mob mentality bit. Alan Duncan. It is undenyable that

there are some aspects of the coverage of this issue over the

last few weeks and months which has become very unpleasantly personal

and venomous and guz have the feeling of a lynch -- and does have

the feeling of a lynch mob. Chancellor of the Exchequer for

instance, who said he had to lose his knighthood and it was a good

thing he did, is that the type of person you are thinking of? I think

it is right he lost his knighthood for these reasons. He was give an

knighthood for services to banking. The bank went bust and he was sent

a bill for �45 million. I don't think he ever said sorry. The

Financial Services Authority has written a detailed report which has

been very critical of him personally. So I think in this case

it was right that it should go. Where it was lynch mob? Hold on. It

doesn't mean it has to be accompanied by such echoes in the

papers of hatred. Let me come to the Stephen Hester point. There's a

massive difference between Fred Goodwin and Stephen Hester. Fred

Goodwin can be reasonably accused of having caused the problem.

Stephen Hester is a senior industrialist who has come to pick

up the mess. I think now to accuse him of being in the same mould as

those people who caused the mess is unjust. I want to see a Royal Bank

of Scotland that instead of demanding �45 billion off the

taxpayer can be a successful company, go back into private

ownership and return many tens of billions to this country. You think

they should have had the bonus? don't like bonuses that are paid

short term in cash. I think that bonuses should be long-term in

shares, so that people can't just make short-term money out of

playing... Let me follow the logic through. You shouldn't suddenly be

able to coin it by making short- term profits out of playing with

other people's money. What you ought to be able to to be rewarded

for is exceptional performance over the long term and recognised in the

share price. Should he have got his bonus in the form it was given to

him? It is right that somebody like him should be paid in shares but

not sudden extra lumps of cash. Digby Jones. I do think there is

the faint whiff of the lynch mob of the village green on this generally.

We've got to firstly divide between the emotion and how this plays in

the medium to long term. Secondly, we have got to not lump everybody

together. I personally think a man who can take as the CEO, not acting

on his own by a mile. There were some nipbgts on that board who

agreed to what he did. There were knights sitting in the Financial

Services Authority who consented to what he did, all over thespect run

who were basking in the reflected glory of this man who was making

this superbank. So there's a bit of the pick out and smack that one. I

personally am pleased that this guy's lost his knighthood. I an

incredibly disturbed about the way it happened. Because to say, well,

what are the rules about when someone loses it was always commit

a criminal offence. Suddenly because of this enormous

vilification, no, we'll move those rules and make other rules that.

Might mean that moving on we should have new rules, perhaps not a

criminal offence but add to that the o probery um as a trade body

like the FSA. The people who sat on that... APPLAUSE The people who sat

on that forfeiture committee, some of them are permanent secretariess,

very talented, good, decent civil servants but they got their

knighthoods because they did their job. So it is not just business

that this happens to. I was like to see an honours system, if we can

learn out of this, where you have to do something over and above what

you are paid for. Charitable works, you might have charitable effort or

whatever. The one thing that worries me about that is round the

world firstly with respect, Sir, you lumped Goodwin and Hester

together. Hester wasn't even a banker when all this was happening.

He was working in another aspect of the economy. He's been asked to

clean up the mess. If what we are going to end up with is people

overseas, people with talent coming out of education here thinking, you

actually get in there after all the mess, you are paid to clear it up

and you know what they do? They vilify. You know what they call a

bank run by a civil servant - the Soviet Union. You don't want that.

He lurched them together only that they were victims of the lynch men

talents. I'm a civil servant and I'm... A Dame will you be, not a

knight. I'm facing a pay freeze, a pay cam to come and performance pay

has been frozen in the organisation I work for. You said that Hester,

this wasn't his fault. Well it is not my fault either and my pay's

being frozen. If we are really all in it together people at the top

need to be seen to conforming to the people who've got less.

APPLAUSE I agree with your point that those at the top have to lead

from the front. I think that some of those who are higher paid in our

Civil Service could well take a pay cut. To return to Alan's question

about Fred Goodwin, I think we should have declarations of

interest here. Speaking as a common miss here I have the right

honourable on my left, another here, you are a Lord aren't you? I was

when I came in. A CBE. I think we are the only commoners around this

table. And long may it remain like that. And your point is? You are

closer to getting a knighthood than I am. I think it is right that

Goodwin lost his knighthood. This is silly to talk about this as

though it is a lynch mob. All we are saying is you can't call

yourself Sir any more. Taxpayers now are still picking up the pieces,

still paying for the mistakes that he made. Why should he be allowed

to walk around and call himself Sir still? It is completely

unacceptable. APPLAUSE I couldn't care less about his knighthood

being taken away E I would like him to pay back some of his �20 million

pension. APPLAUSE I think there's a lot to pick out of all of that and

a lot to agree with, but back to a specific question. I think the real

problem is that these two guys have been demonised to run with a

popular news agenda. That's what we've got to be careful of. You are

right about people at the top have got to lead and make sure that the

system is fair. The real issue is the structural problem and how did

we get into it. I don't think we should be allowed, or we shouldn't

allow the news media to deflect from that problem, which has still

got to be solved. They are two separate cases. I today found

myself in a very strange position of having a bit of sympathy for a

banker. I read about the job that Hester has, which is a very high-

paid job with guaranteed rewards. He came to take on this toxic job

of trying to rescue RBS. You've got to be very careful about this when

people are coming in and trying to do a job on behalf of the public

remember, that you are going to be vilified if you don't take the can

for something that happened in New York. We've got to keep coming back

to our politicians and saying how did you let I happen? How did you

let it happen? APPLAUSE I could not agree more with what you just said.

Politicians are as much to blame for this. The toxic combination of

politicians and bankers are what have caused this problem. What we

need as much from politicians as this hall is asking for from

bankers is an apology and understanding for what caused our

economic problem. Still in the Labour Party you have deficit

denial, people who say it wasn't their fault. It most certainly was.

And if you read and want to join this together, the FSA report, it

specifically blames Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Balls for the

way they failed to control the banks and were profligate. You are

saying it was the FSA? It was a combination. That's not my reading

of the report but there'll be another report on the Lloyds TSB

and HBOS, where as taxpayers we had to bail that out as well. Phil is

right, we can't pick them off one by one and take away knighthoods.

It is right that they should be culpable and pay for that but we

need to change the structure. We need transparency. The lady who

said we are all This Week together is right. We need to know what is

expected of us. We all do a day's job and get paid for that. The

exceptional thing that we do should lead to a bonus. The problem that

those who receive these huge bonuss, they receive a huge salary and the

public owns them. They are public servants, so the 1% freeze that you

have to endure, the chief executive and the RBS, which are owned by the

public as well. You get around the world and trying to say generate

money in Britain to pay for schools and hospitals, one of the great

attractions we have is that we have the rule of law, we have

predictable rules and we run our society and economy accordingly. If,

no matter how much it sticks in the craw, if what we do and is seen

around the world as saying, well, we recruited this guy, as Phil said,

we got him out of somewhere where he was highly paid. These are the

criteria and if we then say, by the way, because of this enormous

public opinion you are not going to have it. The one problem you will

have, and my sympathy is with you, madam, is somewhere out in the

world they will say don't come to Britain to invest your money,

because they will tear up your contract.

He should have said this bonus here, I will give it to cancer research

in the morning and bankers would be seen to be socially responsible.

Before you go, can I ask all panellists to speak for slightly

less long or we will get through one question. The woman up there

and then to you. Alan Duncan has already contradicted himself, he

has said let's not make this personal and then listed personal

names from the Labour Party. We need to make this personal. If the

man hasn't done - I am a teacher, if I don't do my job properly, I

don't want a bonus for doing my job but I will get sacked if I don't do

my job properly. A man on ten times my salary has done a rubbish job.

It's ridiculous. We need to make it personal. It is personal.

APPLAUSE. I am not against the fact that Fred

Goodwin has lost his knighthood at all but the fact is, like Digby

Jones said, he's not committed any criminal offence. The fact is there

are four serving peers in the House of Lords that have served time in

prison for offences and served time for it. If we are going - if what

is right for one should be right for the other people and that's

what I am trying to say. APPLAUSE. Sadiq Khan, you are the shadow

Justice Secretary, why is it that peers can go to jail and go back,

Lord Archer, Lord Taylor, and this man gets stripped of his

knighthood? It's wrong t needs to change. I didn't ask whether it was

right or wrong, why does it happen? Because the law doesn't a- the

parliament... Change the law. You are the politicians, change the law.

We should change the law. In other words t would be illegal, you can't

just strip them of a peerage? MPs go to prison for 12 months or

more they can't go back to the Commons. Peers can. Very brief,

please. But he said that the chief executive for RBS should get his

bonus, even though the share prices of RBS are 40% low are than when he

took over. That's not the point. Even though lending... Your

Government, not their Government, set terms that didn't include that.

The success and 84%... We did. 84% of the shareholders of the British

public, we have every year a meeting, they can say no. Correct

me if I am wrong, you were a Minister. Not at the time. You got

your peerage from Labour. Not at the time Steven Hester was

recruited. Before that. David, you can't look so surprised because I

left Government, went to the cross- benches as an independent before

Steven Hester was recruited, at least let's be factually accurate

about it. If you are tweeting tonight, keep us trending. What is

trending? I better learn quickly. Ask the panel to speak more briefly

for our next question, if they would. Stuart Bennett. Why does

India need our foreign aid when it has several billion pounds to spend

on French fighter jets? The news, of course, today that the Indian

Government is negotiating a �6.3 billion contract for French

fighters when they're - we are the top of the list of those that give

them foreign aid. Alan Duncan, you are the Minister, international

development. India is the most difficult country to decide whether

we should give aid to for that very reason. I think that we are leading

the world in what we do in international development. I think

we are right to spend the money we are spending. Many other countries

are looking to us to see how to do it. Some people think we spend 20%

of all Government spending on aid. In fact, it's over 1%. I think most

people in this room would say if you were down to your last 100 quid

would you give a found someone dying in the gutter or buried in an

earthquake, yes, you would N the case of countries like Bangladesh,

Nepal, it's blooming obvious that the poverty is so grinding, a

civilised country will do what they can to help within those limits.

With India, I absolutely admit that they are on the way up. Yes,

they've got some billionaires, yes, they have communication satellites.

Yes, they have defensive weapons. More billionaires than in this

country. It's a a much bigger country. Numbers - let me complete

the logic. If you look at the numbers in India and you take the

three poorest states, there are more of the poorest people there

than you have in the whole of sub- Saharan Africa. You can ignore them

if you want because they have a nuclear weapon and want to buy

fighter jets. If you ignore them the world is never ever going to

get near meeting the millennium development goals set of the eight

main poverty targets. It would mean that hundreds of thousands, if not

millions of people, will die who otherwise could live on the back of

the vaccinations, immunisations, teaching and food that would come

through. Was there no assumption in giving aid you might be favoured in

terms of trade at the same time? And I say that very directly. No.

We do not link aid to trade. We hope that we can by having good

relations overall with the country. And we can have competitive goods

that can be sold into countries. We do not link aid with contracts. The

thing about India, this is the difficult point, the clue is in the

name on the tin. We call it the Department for International

Development, not aid. We don't want countries to be there with their

hand out forever. We want to make them able to live by their own

means. That's why we are coming out of China, we have. We are coming

out of Indonesia, Vietnam. We have come out of Russia. And in due

course we will come out of India, because it is on an upward path and

we should be very pleased that is the trajectory they're heading on.

Emma Boon. It's all very well and good to say if you were down to

your last 100 pounds would you give the last pound to someone who is

poor, that's a nice idea. But really what we are talking about

here is an absolutely huge international aid budget, whilst

almost all the other budgets and spending, as many of you will know,

is being cut. The international aid budget is growing. It's growing at

quite a fast rate. Just freezing that budget would provide a very

large saving for us as taxpayers. How much do you think it would

save? If you know your facts, how many billions are we intending to

spend extra on aid between now and 2013, let's see if you know.

tell me what your aid budget is. You don't know and you give quotes

to every single paper, damming aid. You cannot deny that the aid budget

is growing and thish sue not that we don't want to help inoculate

children, we don't want to give education to poor children in India.

That's what you are saying. Everybody is more than happy to

help in disaster zones. Taxpayers want their money to go on things

like immunisation programmes, those are the sort of things when we feel

we are getting good value. But sadly a lot of the aid programmes

that we know about we have seen that money squandered. You don't

know that. You assert this all the time in the papers with no

supporting evidence. You accuse us of having bad aid when everything...

India has a space programme. always quote the wrong figures. 1%

is what we give. The Government in India is making the choice to spend

money on a space programme, to spend money on fighter jets, when

the India Government could make a choice to spend that money on its

own poor people. APPLAUSE. Why are we paying for it?

You, Sir. Before I progress any further I would like to ask who

contributes, where do you raise the revenue to pay for aid? Where does

it come from, is it taxpayers' money? Why is it the British

taxpayers' responsibility, why is it not the tax-paying Indian

industrialists responsibility. pay for the fighters? To pay for

the aid? For their own development, why is it left with the British

taxpayer? Why do you think? I don't think we should conflate trade with

aid. Are you in favour of the aid? I am. We are a just, generous...

Can you answer the question. We are a just, generous and fair society.

I have been raised believing I am my brother's keeper. I won't walk

on the other side. There are people in India who literally are having

their lives saved because monies you will pay to help children live,

whether it is vaccinations for TB, whether it's sanitation. Would more

lives be saved if they didn't have the space programme? Of course it

would be be better if the Indian Government was saving these lives.

We as a rich country should save those lives and I am really proud

of that, not embarrassed at all. APPLAUSE. More money was raised by

cop cop -- kopblic re-- Comic Relief because we are a fantastic

society. Be proud of that, rather than embarrassed. The man up there.

Why shouldn't the Foreign Office know exactly what was required to

get these planes contract with India? How do you mean? The Foreign

Office's responsibility to find out... And failed to do the deal,

you mean? They didn't get in contact with India well tphouf find

out what the criteria was to get these planes and contracts. Well,

firstly, the facts are that the French have not got the contract.

The Indiaen have made said it's for the French to lose it. It's going

to come this way? That is important. This is not yet a done deal. We

have the chance to full out of the fire. Secondly, I don't agree with

these guys about not having tied aid. So often you see around the

world we, unlike any other developed country, we actually give

money without any conditions at all and to certain places we fulfil

that generous just society that we all believe in. So often we

actually use - the money is used to go and build a piece of

infrastructure where we create create jobs in Japan, America, and

France and you have paid for it. All I would ask is a level playing

field because the other countries don't play the same game and many

of the other developed countries put money in and say we will we

will build it for you but the wealth we create out of it will be

for the taxpayers of our country. All I ask is politicians can sit

here with your money and give it to a country that has a space

programme and buy stuff and the rest, by the way, they paid Bernie

Ecclestone for a Grand Prix, well, you paid Bernie Ecclestone in Delhi.

At the end of the day at some point we need another sort of fairness,

because we are under the cosh in this country. We have to keep

helping the poor of the world, rightly, you are right, gentlemen,

but we have to do it on the same terms as every other country. The

problem is we don't do it. APPLAUSE there is a really big problem with

that argument. It's right. development money doesn't go to big

infrastructure projects. We are not in that business T T. It goes to

tkofts. A few governments, but only... What do governments do with

it? We don't just give them money and say do what you want. We give

money, for instance, to their health department. They then don't

have to give the noun health department and spend it on

infrastructure projects. No, it's normally in a partnership to add to

what they are doing and also to steer the way they do it a better

way. Businesses in Britain pays tax, that tax goes to food in other

countries -- their competitors to get work. These people are out of

work. Where is the fairness in that?

I was wondering all the money that's been sent abroad to

undeveloped countries that need our help, what happens when we need

help? Who around the world is going to help us? We spend about at the

moment under �10 billion on aid, less. So... But you are closing

libraries. Let's look at the Department for International

Development. Would you spend money on disasters like like earthquakes

and things like that. We have international obligations going to

see Britain spending money to the - - to the World Bank and IMF and UN.

You are going to see through the Foreign Office some programmes in

countries because we are in those countries. Lo and behold you have a

Department for International Development. At the end of the day

we are arguing about whether it should be plus or minus, let's say,

�2 billion. OK, it's a lot of money, but it's not going to solve every

single problem in the UK from the police to the health service, to

defence and everything else. What newspapers do is spend this about

20 times over and it's dishonest. OK. Phil Redmond, please. Do you

want me to be as brief as them! to. Just coming back to the

question, the answer is I don't know. But I will take a guess and I

think the guess is attached to changing the name of the project,

it shouldn't be called overseas aid, it should be called overseas

investment. If we decide that investment is in humanitarian aid

that's one thing F we decide it's an investment to encourage buying

fighters that's something else again. But the other thing we

shouldn't forget is we do have a standing in the world and do have a

social conscious about the world and have to trade back and forward

and have to make these kind of gestures every now and then and

coming from the people's Republic I have to remind you we do have a lot

of Indian aid in Liverpool in a fine Jaguar factory that turns out

the Range Rover. In which you may be running as

Mayor of Liverpool, is that right? I don't know. People keep talking

to me about that but would I get to come on here more often? Would that

convince you to go? That's a reason for you not to go, Phil! Andrew

Mitchell, the Secretary of State, says we are a development

superpower. When you hear what Digby Jones says, do you think

that's what it really means, that you should build things, use

British engineers, British industry to provide what he says is the aid

that you are sending, or is it a way of sending cash? As a

developing superpower we should be bidding relationships with people,

trying to understand different cultures and different ways of life.

You said about concrete cash. sorry. We've had enough. The man in

red there. I would like to answer the woman's point when she said,

what will happen when we need help. Do you mean when we need help

paying our Sky bill? People are dying on the streets over there.

was talking about the people in England that are homeless and we

are sending money abroad for people who are in the self same situation

as what notice Britain. If you've got a Sky TV and you can't pay your

bill, that's your bill. If I have a Sky bill I pay it. I don't ask for

help when I pay your bills. Who are you thinking of when you say the

money shouldn't go abroad? Every country has its own Government and

its own people that are in charge of their own country. It always

seems to be that our country is always there handing out millions

of pounds and it is forgetting about our people, the school and

health, hospitals. It does. When MRSA, how many children went to

hospital and they came out with MRSA. Children were dying.

Hospitals in England should be clean, not them going into

hospitals and coming out with loads more diseases and imnesses. Thank

you very much. I've spent the last 45- 50 years working on development

aid all over the world for all organisations, including Defra, or

DFID as it was. I see a lot of corruption. I see a lot of misuse

of aid. I see aid given for buildings which fall down two years

later because there is no contingency there to maintain them.

I see lots of equipment being give within no spare parts and no local

training for the people to maintain and use that equipment. And I see

equipment worth $20,000 or $30,000 sitting there for want of a spare

part worth about �5. Because there is no hard cash there to buy that

spare part and they don't have the wherewithal to maintain it. Because

that training is not given when we give the pieces of equipment. Would

you please comment. What is your comment on that? You've heard the

argument between ow aid should be given, whether it should be given

at all, or in cash. If you give aid you must give them the wherewithal

to maintain whatever you are giving them. You cannot just give cash

away. I agree. You're right. APPLAUSE The man in the middle

there. Perhaps the point is being missed. Especially when you compare

Britain to India. They are two different countries. There's people

starving here and there is colossal Government waste. The point was

made there, what we need to do is stop the outdated system where we

dole money out to Governments and you have to give people the means

to take into it their own hands, people set up their own loans and

businesses and not give it to Third World Governments to embezzle,

which seems to be happening now. You have suched up in what you have

just said exactly what we are trying to do. As I said earlier,

the clue is on the tin. We don't call it overseas aid. We call it

international development. The point is we don't just give a bung

to corrupt Governments. We are strict on what happens. We will not

give budget support to governments we don't trust. We will give it to

programmes to lift people out of poverty. Explain to me how that

squares with a country that can spend �10 billion on jet fighters

from France, pay for a Grand Prix, have a space programme and more

billionaires than us and you give them their money! APPLAUSE

Because... Because I will say it one more time, they are more, there

are more of the poorest people in three states of India than there

are in sub-Saharan Africa. You can ignore them if you want. But France

gives $18 million a year. Again you are linking it to contracts, which

we don't do. We are in the business of trying to stop children dying

and to try and make sure that a country can fend for itself in

years to come. That's the development bit. We are not there

to say, "We're Britain, here is the dosh, get on with it." That's not

what we do. But India should be doing it. They are doing it but

they cannot do absolutely everything. You can take away

communication systems and infrastructure and say, "Only spend

your money on the very poor" but that will retard the development.

The woman on the third row. This point that Digby keeps raising that

just because India has a space programme we shouldn't be giving

them international aid is absurd. For every dollar America spent on

their space programme they got 45 dollars back from diversified

industries and tech knollies. We should be glad that India is

investing in things for future. I fully support everything that Alan

Duncan is saying here. Emma Boon, do you want to come back on that

point? I think the issue here, and the gentleman at the back raised

the point he worked in aid for a number of years. There are a lot of

difficulties with the aid programmes that we are running

abroad. Taxpayers want to see value for money. And taxpayers do not

mind their money going to help the world's poorest where they are

getting that value. I hope that if Alan Duncan says they are working

towards getting better value out of that aid for taxpayers that that is

what we are going to do. But I still believe that the right thing

to do would be to freeze the aid budget at the moment. Everything we

spend you can see on the website and scrutinise it, because all the

information is there. The best argument to keep us doing what we

should be doing is the transparency we've offered all along. Why are

you so hostile to the TaxPayers' Alliance? Because they are rent a

quote without getting their facts right. I don't think that's right.

APPLAUSE Do you recognise this picture? I think if we are annoying

people and Stadeing up for taxpayers' money we are probably

doing something right. APPLAUSE A question from Gareth Thomas please,

Dr Gareth Thomas. The Health Service Journal, the nursing times

and British Medical Journal have said carrying on with the changes

to the NHS would create an "unholy mess". Should the coalition

continue with these plans. There seems to be a united front from the

three journals, should the plans be reconsidered? Digby Jones. When the

country is in such a mess and the nation said come together

politically, some parties, and sort it out and take some incredibly

hard and tough decisions, and accept the unpopularity that comes

with firm government at times, when all the political energy and talent

that we've got on that basis, and I would hope from a responsible

opposition is to try and get us to trade our way out of this mess and

manage this. For the life of me I cannot understand why the

Government then actually chose to open up a new fight? The NHS

obviously needs to change. It needs to reform. Everything, nothing is

stasis in a dynamic society. It has to change to fit a getting-older

population, to fit medical improvements, to fit a moving of

the population. All of that. Of course it does. I reckon a lot of

the stuff in all of this is quite good stuff. But to rush it through

in your first term of Government when all your energy and esmeegs be

going into sorting out the unholy mess we've got in this country. And

why don't we create the business and jobs to create the tax and do

this stuff, why are we spending all this political energy on something

that is unnecessary now? I reckon the quicker they shelve it - notice

I didn't say abolish it, because there'll be some good stuff in

there. But shelve it and get back to sorting out the mess, the better

it will be. APPLAUSE Sadiq Khan. Alan Milburn, the former Labour

Health Secretary said it is a strategic lack of judgment. Do you

think maybe he has right on his side or do you agree with Digby

Jones? I agree with a lot of what Digby said about the NHS. You don't

want reform? We do want reform. It is really important that the NHS

reforms. We've got an ageing population. Social care is

important. But you have an NHS which has to make a huge amount of

savings over the next few years. Inflation in if NHS is high. More

so than in other areas of Government spending. The Government

is embarking on the biggest reorganisation of the NHS since she

was founded in 1945. It will cost �3 billion to reorganise the NHS

plus all the money required to make the savings. When the Royal College

of GPs, the Royal College of nurses, and the Royal College of Midwives

and the Royal College of Psychiatrists all come together and

say this is too much at this difficult time, the it is important

that we pause and listen. This Bill is twice as long as the Bill that

set up the NHS. 1,000 amendments were put down in the House of

Commons two months ago. Another 150 plus were put down yesterday in the

House of Lords. Digby is right. The Government should pause, but more

than that they should drop the Bill and for goodness sake let GPs

commission as they want to do rather than trying to privatise our

NHS. APPLAUSE With so many questions from professionals,

healthcare professionals and politicians themselves, and so many

changes have been made moving towards this Bill y have these

changes been allowed to happen? People have lost their jobs, people

are moving on, the unrest and the uncertainty within the NHS and

wider local authorities and so on, it is so immense at the moment with

this changing culture. The idea that such a massive change to the

NHS coming at the same time as massive, massive cost savings is an

incredible thing to all come at once and to be rushed through. The

panel's view would be welcome on that. Emma Boon, what is your view

from the taxpayers' point of view? The NHS is one of the biggest areas

of spending. Of course we want good value for money from healthcare. We

could look to some of our partners in Europe and look at how they are

getting value out of their healthcare systems and look at how

treatments work over there. We need something that is less centralise

ed. Not managed by politicians. My concern is these reforms are not

necessarily targeted towards saving money. As Sadiq Khan pointed out,

some of these reforms are going to be expensive to put in place.

Taxpayers don't understand what the reforms are going to mean for them,

how their local services are going to change. I would like to see

politicians from all parties working together on NHS reform. I

think it is too important to become a political football. APPLAUSE OK.

As a value-added taxpayer, can I remind Emma Boon we all pay tax, I

don't pay income tax, my income is too low. In the last six months I

have had many appointments cancelled because of staff

shortages. They are starting at the bottom with the nurse and

physiotherapists and doctors. They are having to pay daily car parking

charges while the top level management in their BMWs are

parking for free. APPLAUSE How is that equality? Alan Duncan. Well,

perhaps I can extend an olive branch and say I largely agreed

with what Emma said. I do not agree with what Digby said is. His logic

if I understood it is there's a lot of good stuff in that Bill, so we

had better delay. You are saying there's a lot of good stuff there

but you don't want it to happen now. The thing about the political cycle

is it is important when you've got a new Government to get done the

things you think must get done. It is a very important piece of

legislation. It doesn't stop us doing things on the economy which

is self-evident. What the lady said is important. If there are BMWs for

managers, that's the layer we are trying to strip out. We are trying

to say this to doctors, the people who really have the relationship

directly with you as a patient. Can have far more flexibility to adapt

their practices to the need of a You are making people people

redundant and reemploying them. Well, at the top they're going.

It's my doctors and in my constituency as new organisations

who are going to be able to go to the likes of you with far more

flexible and personally directed patient care F I were you I would

think about that and say actually that's what Wye like to see the NHS

do and I am glad this Bill is going through. Sadiq Khan says there are

thousands of amendments which shows it's a bad bill, do you want to

comment on that. Some of them will be spoiling, sometimes if you are

one amendment there are about 200 others because it's the same kpha

all the way through the Bill, the numbers don't mean... Go way, speak

to us, we will work together and come up with a proper Bill. I am

always happy to work with you. woman Thrupp on the right. --

Thrupp on the right. Having worked in the NHS for 43 years and now

retired, the main people that waste the money within the NHS are

politicians. The policies change too frequently. For instance, they

just set up the last few years the PCTs and now you are saying that

cost billions of pounds, you are now going to change that and go

back to what we had before, strategic health authorities.

Redmond, what is your take on the NHS change? I think that any of us

who have had to be in a hospital over the last few years will know

as soon as you walk in a door that things need to be fixed somewhere.

At the same time, you know that there's a tremendous amount of

really good people working really hard trying to actually fulfil the

service. I think at some stage we are going to have to grasp hold of

the National Health Service and sort it out really. But I actually

do take the point, I think right now is probably the wrong time to

do it. Since about 2008 I think the general public more than the

politicians have known that we were heading for this terrible austerity.

We knew straightaway what was going to happen. People have sort of

getting that now and people are prepared to dig in and they're

prepared to work and actually sort it out. I just think taking on such

a fundamental change to something which is so emotionally embedded

within all of us, that is our National Health Service, at this

particular time I think is a wrong political move and I finally say on

that, I think I am right actually in saying that when the coalition

were campaigning and when they came into Government one of the big

things was that the National Health Service was ringfenced. And it was

going to be protected and I think that's exactly what you should do,

leave it in the ringfence and then talk to the local people. You

should not be trying to steamroll a national policy through but talk to

people about their local hospital, what they want to be changed, how

they can see the change and talk to people here who work within the

system. They'll know more than anybody else exactly what needs to

be changed. APPLAUSE. I want to fit in a couple more

questions. This someone from Larissa McCurry, please. Does the

fall in university applications this year suggest that the

Government were wrong to raise tuition fees? We just heard the

news that applications were down according to the figures by 8.7%

for universities, does this suggest that the fee structure was wrong?

Digby Jones. I think one of the most encouraging statistics is that

for the first year since university education in this country was

really opened up in the 60s, there will be more starts of

apprenticeships in Britain than there will people enrolling at

university. I think if we really do want to make this a skills-based

economy you have got to get 16, 17, 18-year-olds in some sort of

training that doesn't necessarily mean you go off and get a degree.

If out of this we stop looking at it as coming down of university

applications, but look at it as in the whole, we are getting better

training and education in to people coming out of full-time education

at school, then I see this as a positive. The other positive is

that I would rather, especially in times of hardship, Wye rather see

undergraduates enrolling on courses which are going to be of course to

us all in generating wealth to pay tax and create jobs and if some of

the courses that are no longer available, which is responsible for

that, happened to be the courses if I may say are perhaps not the ones

that are as relevant, then I am actually not alarmed by it and the

one thing I would just say to the lady who saw the BMW in the

administrator's car park in Liverpool, why wasn't he driving

because he was being paid by the taxpayer a car made in Liverpool

and not in Munich? APPLAUSE.

Sadiq Khan, university applications. The figures are curious, they

suggest 8.7% overall but the number of 18 18-year-olds has dropped and

we are told in the poorest students the numbers applying for university

hasn't dropped. They're a mixture. The figures show is in England

where this year �9,000 a year tuition fees, they've gone down by

10%. In Scotland by one 1%. In Wales by about 1.5. Clearly having

a tuition fees of �9,000 has an impact on people applying to

universities in England. There is a variety of reasons. Many people

from various backgrounds are risk averse, but the trug thing --

interesting thing is even though they don't get bursaries. And it's

law, science, engineering, medicine all these degree applications down.

I say this, I agree vocational courses are important but I bet

everyone of us, university was the ladder that helped us become mobile

and get jobs we have today. Let's not diminish the chances of others

to climb up the ladder. Isn't it true there was a bulge last year in

people applying to get in before these increases came so there would

be inevitably a statistical drop? Some people didn't take a gap year

out, but what's worrying about these figures, mature students,

there's been a massive drop and the mature students are those who have

done vocational work, want to go to university to improve job prospects

and quality of life they lead and their family who won't be able to

do so because of tuition fees being too high. Phil Redmond. Statistics

are always statistics, aren't they, you can knock them around. The

encouraging thing about this is it is people from low, disadvantaged

communities. The figures have stayed quite steady and I think

that really is what the second - higher education should be about.

The thing about mature students is we got to be careful, that's mature

students doing a second degree. It's not a mature student who wants

to do a first degree. The third point is we really have to get a

hold of the notion is that we never had a free education system. When I

went through university I went through as a so-called mature

student, I don't think I am mature yet, but the point is that I

received a grant to go and do it but then I looked back recently

because of this debate at the rate of tax that I was actually paying

when I went in when I was in the construction industry and when I

came out and I have to say to you now I would rather now take out a

student loan and pay the percentage back that way than have the tax

rates we had in the 70s. We have got to be careful about this, about

education is free, you either pay for it one way or pay for it

another. The woman on the left there. Two members of the panel

have discussed vocational training and how important it is and this

week what have we had happen? Over 3,000 vocational courses devalued.

Are we interested in this country in youth unemployment or interested

in league tables? We need to get that clear.

APPLAUSE. Alan Duncan. I won't dwell on the

tuition feess because you largely answered the question about the

number of people applying and everything else. Let me go straight

to that comment. We are not devaluing vocational qualifications.

What's happened at the moment is that in school league tables

vocational qualifications have often been expressed as if they

were GCS hes, -- GCSEs, which they're not. They can take a

qualification and say that school has had four GCSEs above grade C,

but they haven't. They are taken as equivalent when they bear no

relation whatsoever to the... Wait a minute. You are taking us down a

blind alley again. The issue the lady is raising about what is

vocational is. You have already made a judgment, because it's not a

GCSE. It can't count in league table. That's the value you are

judging. APPLAUSE. You can't do it because the league tables seem to

play into a national curriculum which is set into national targets

and that's not the way it should be. We should be looking for education

to get the best opportunities to people. All we are saying is there

should be... The titles are wrong. You can't say vocation and academic,

you should be talking about a qualification that gives people the

best opportunity. I believe very strongly, as do you too, in the

value of vocational qualifications. But if someone is going to be

fantastically employable they also need some of the basic foundation

blocks of learning to read, write, count and... You get those before

you reach GCSE level or you should do. Why have we still got a very

high adult illliteracy rate which is no different than when I started

to talk about it in 1978? APPLAUSE. Because if you don't concentrate on

those essential building blocks of learning, reading writing, counting,

then you could have a vocational qualification of value but it will

be undermined... Before you get to this point of the school having to

fill in league tables in case it actually needs qualify for Europe.

Emma Boon. I have to agree with one of the points Phil made, that we

haven't damaged the sort of widening of access to university

education. We can see from the figures that actual lay lot of

people whoen bursaries, the number of those hasn't dropped. There was

a lot of scaremongering about fees when they went up. It's right

students pay more towards the cost of their education because they are

the one that is will benefit from it the most. In fact, students

don't pay fees, it's once you graduated then you pay that loan

back and as you said, you felt you had a better deal out of that.

man there in the pink shirt. Jumping back to Alan's point. At

the moment currently what would happen to a school that has

resisted going down the vocational route in terms of their position in

the league tables? Would they be at a disadvantage to schools which

have gone down massively down the vocational? In the East Midlands

you have fabulous exporting manufacturers, JCB, Rolls Royce,

Toyota, Bombardier, quality people and they came together and created

this academy which had engineering at its core and they do a

vocational course which counts towards a GCSE. And this Government,

by the way, the last Government after 11 years of full-time free

and compulsory education ended up with half the kids not being able

to get a GCSE in English and maths, so, they're all to blame, but this

Government have now said to these people in the East Midlands we are

not going to call that a GCSE any more, so you will get lots of

people who say well I understand the currency of a GCSE, I

understand what it is and I see it as a standard with a quality

attached to it. Over here you are teaching them something, what does

it mean? If you can actually link it to something that Britain

understands, you will get more young people going in to proper

work which will general rate wealth, which -- generate wealth. To have

done what they've done to future engineers in this country because

of what they did last week is a real shame. Time is up, thank you

very much. APPLAUSE.

As ever, in the middle of a good argument we have to stop because we

are only allowed an hour and there is a programme after us that will

be fretting if we don't stop now. We better. Andrew Neil, my good

friend s waiting. Next week we are in central London. Our panel is

going to include the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, Alastair

Campbell, head of communications for Tony Blair,

the Liberal Democrat peer Shirley Williams and the presenter Kirsty

Allsop and one other as unknown. The week after is in Nottingham: If

you would like to come you can ring Or visit our website and apply