14/06/2012 Question Time

Tonight, we are in Stockton-on-Tees and welcome to Question Time.

On our panel here, the Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, the Shadow

Attorney General, Emily Thornberry, the President of the Liberal

Democrats, Tim Farron, the mail obvious Sunday columnist, Peter

Hitchens and the former Director General of the BBC who the Prime

Minister today said was no APPLAUSE

Thank you very much. Our first question comes from Eleanor Walker,

please? Is it appropriate for Rebekah

Brooks and David Cameron to be professionally definitely in this

together? This is of course the Tweet that came from Rebekah Brooks

to David Cameron when he was about to make his big speech. A text

message saying, we are definitely in this together, speech of your

life, yes he cam. We'll go to our non-shrinking violet? I find it

quite difficult that because clearly politicians over many years

have had relationships with newspaper executives and I've no

idea in which context that was said but it seems to me it was sent at a

time when the Sun came out and said we are going to support the

Conservatives. What I think is much more important than what is in odd

e-mails and things is actually what we have seen from the whole inquiry

and what we have known for many years, which is that the

relationship between the political classes and particularly between

Government and News International has undermined our democracy over

20, 30 years. APPLAUSE

And that's surely what Eleanor Walker means? That's part of it.

But in the end, we know that it became that it was mattering too

much to them, they believed that they had to get the Sun and News

International on side and that is very damaging for our society. Now,

actually, I think it's gone. I think it's actually gone. We are

sitting in a very interesting moment where I'm not sure that we

replicate this again. That's why what I think is happening at the

moment is important, that something that's grown up almost from the

Thatcher period, with the honourable exception probably of

John Major where every Leader of the Opposition tried to get a

relationship with News International. I think that has

gone and I think the day that David Cameron stood up in the House of

Commons and said, we've all been too close and it's got to end was a

very important moment. Woman second row from the back?

Surely the people in politics shouldn't be thinking about getting

the newspapers on side as much as they should be thinking about doing

the jobs that they're supposed to be doing regardless of what the

newspapers think of them? Farron? Yes, I think the reality is

that we have been told that the Leveson Inquiry shouldn't end up in

any restrictions on the independence of the media. But how

independent is the media when you've got Chief Executives and

owners of huge media organisation who is have politicians in their

pockets? If I'm honest with you... Is that what you are saying Rebekah

Brooks had in the case of David Cameron? Absolutely and over the

last two years, the other two parties have taken it in turns to

be in Murdoch's top pocket and that's an absolute outrage. I'm not

all that fussed about politicians and journalists being chummy. I

don't want the outcome of the Leveson Inquiry to be a protocol

about how often you can have a point with a journalist. The

reality is, this is about the concentration and abuse of

unelected power. We have a monply, manipulation of unelected power,

it's about Murdoch and all those three must be tackled. This is the

one opportunity we are going to get in generations to tackle the power

of Murdoch and that unelected power and we must not miss it.

APPLAUSE I think I quote him correctly,

Grant Shapps, what Tim just said, that Cameron was in brook brook'

top pocket? Look, if it were, it was only about a day old at the

time of that text. The history was that the Sun newspaper in

particular he had been supporting Labour, famously supported Tony

Blair who flew half way around the world to court Murdoch. This was

the moment at which the Sun decided to stop supporting Labour and a day

or two late tore declare around that time for the Conservatives.

Look, to answer the lady's point before about the newspapers and

what politicians should spend their time doing, I absolutely agree and

particularly ministers like me, we should spend our time trying to

make things better, run the country doing our jobs. You have to explain

to people why you are taking a particular course of action, what

the reason for that approach is and that, I'm afraid, involves modern

communication, one of which is, you need the let people know. One very

good way to do that is through the newspapers. It's not my favourite

way of doing that, I much prefer to Tweet, but if you are not following

me on Twitter, you won't know about it, so in the end, you have to have

those conversations with the media. Let's just go to the question,

Grant. Is it appropriate for Rebekah Brooks and David Cameron to

be "professionally and definitely in this together"? What do they

mean by that? The newspaper decided they were going to switch their

backing from Labour to the Conservatives, that they're in it

together wanting the same outcome which is to be able to put the

Conservative manifesto... Was it appropriate and is it embarrassing

now? Were you embarrassed hearing the Prime Minister on the stand

today? I think that everybody agrees that politicians were too

close over a long period of time and that Greg Dyke is absolutely

right that the moment David Cameron, this Prime Minister who by the way

when he stood up and said this must have known that all of this is very

likely to come out, as he suspected it would do, that actually it's

time to put an end to this. The relaceship has been too close.

he announced the Leveson Inquiry? Yes. Bear this in mind for a molt,

he could have set up a review that said the determines of this review

are only to look at the media and remember this all started over

people's revolt and disgust over some of the excesses of the media

that led to a dead girl's voice mail being listened into. Now,

everyone agreed the media went too far and you could define the terms

of Leveson only to investigate the media, but he did not deliberately

because the relationship between politicians and the media over

generations has been too tight, too close and this is just an example

of that and it's good that he announced the inquiry and it's

doing its job. Isn't this whole Leveson Inquiry a case of the

chattering classes scrutinising its own naval? The ordinary man, I

would say on Teesside and in Stockton-on-Tees, isn't going to

bed every night and losing sleep over this matter and yet it

dominates our television screens hour after hour after hour. There

are far more important questions which ordinary men and women in our

society have to worry about and yet yourselves, top politicians and

people involved in the media seem to be totally absorbed with this

particular item. I think it's time you thought about things like

unemployment, the eurozone, housing and many other things which really

affect ordinary people. APPLAUSE

Absolutely... I absolve Question Time of this

crime because we had a lot of questions about it tonight from our

audience here which is why we are disdiscussing it. Emily Thornberry?

I think actually some of what you say is absolutely true. I think

though that if you ask the public, they think well politicians and the

press have been too close for too long, that's a given. But I think

if we look into how this - what this is about now as opposed to

history, but what is Leveson about now and in terms of the future,

there are some very important things to look at. We are basically

the most important thing about Leveson is that it shows us what

the Prime Minister's real judgment is. He employed Coulson at a time

when there was increasing scandal about hacking and hacking had taken

place under Coulson. He continued to employ Coulson after all the

stuff in the New York Times and continued for more than a year to

employ him when there were accusations flying around. He

continued to be very close friends with Rebekah Brooks during the

whole hacking scandal. There is that part, you know, the judgment

of someone keeping so close to journalists involved in that sort

of thing. Essentially, taking Coulson into Number Ten and

therefore taking... I mean let's not beat around the bush, you know,

taking the Murdochs into Number Ten into the heart of Government.

APPLAUSE Why do the Murdochs want to come into the heart of

Government - clearly they're very interested but the major reason for

them in terms of business is this Government has to decide about an

�8 billion deal and to have your friends so close and so close on

this deal and then to employ Hunt and to give Hunt the job of making

the decision about this �8 billion... They didn't, they

employed Vince Cable. And then, when you have a decision to make,

you decide to have Hunt, even though Hunt is... Why did they give

it to Vince Cable if they wanted it to go through? I haven't suggested

that. You said they employed Hunt? They chose Vince Cable first and he

didn't get the gig. When he employed Vince Cable, Hunt had

written to the Prime Minister saying, in words, I'm very worried

about this, can we have a meeting, the Prime Minister, Vince Cable and

the Deputy Prime Minister and Hunt. Even though he's trying to

intervene, later on when Vince Cable has to go, who gets the job,

Jeremy Hunt. All right.

Peter Hitchens? The we get rid of this horrible exprotion

"appropriate" or "inappropriate" and return to the simple words

right or wrong, was it right or was it wrong?

APPLAUSE. Secondly, it seems obvious that the proper

relationship between the press and politicians is that between a dog

and a lamppost, always, should be, most of the time, has been. And I

do feel that it was extraordinarily unwise in getting so close to

somebody for a senior newspaper executive to get so close to the

executive to get so close to the Government. To actually put

themselves so very much in the Government's pocket that they

became effectively a part of Government. I remember the day that

the Sun came out with its ridiculous trumpeting of praise for

David Cameron and the absurd semi literate article in which he penned

which was the main burden of it was that he was suddenly converted to

the ludicrous cause to the war in Afghanistan for which people are

still dying today when he can't explain when asked why British

troops are still there. There's something unhealthy about

journalists actually becoming servants of Government. I think

that's one of the worst things about this. But there is another

point. The gentleman at the top of the hall said that we should be

discussing more important things. I don't disagree that there are more

important subjects than a lot of what's come up at the Leveson

Inquiry, but it seems to me that freedom of the press is a very

important part. It's construct ago coffin for freedom of the press in

this country. It's amazing to watch politicians who're proposing to

institute surveillance on everybody's phone calls, e-mails

and computer activity, launching an inquiry into the press because of

phone hacking. The thing about phone hacking is it's absolutely

disgraceful and wrong but it's against the law and if you have

been caught doing it and prosecuted for it and convicted for it, you

will go to prison. There is no politicians' complaints commission,

there isn't anything you can do about the politicians who fail you.

There isn't any thing that you can do about judges that fail you. And

we have lawyers and judges happily smiling together as they prepare

regular laces which will make a free press in this country

impossible. That is important. You should bear it very strongly in

With these long drawn-out public inquiries such as huton and Leveson

the politicians never seem to get any blame. With Hutton it was

widely regarded as a whitewash. What's going to happen with

Leveson? The politicians aren't going to get any blame r, they?

Greg Dyke? As the person who did get the blame! I think what matters

in all this is what comes out of it. I think the popular press in this

country has been out of control for 20 years. Not all the time, but a

lot of the time. What has to come out of this is a proper system

whereby an individual can complain, that complaint is properly

investigated. If it's investigated and found wrong has been done,

there is some sort of compensation. That seems to me, that's all you

need to get out of this. It's nothing about censorship, nothing

about stopping you writing what you want to write. It's about saying is

what you've done fair, right, proper? And if it's not, have you

got to compensate someone. I think it's amazing to hear that coming

from a former Director-General of the BBC, an organisation in which

it's almost impossible to complain about anything. You can't even get

through to it most of the time, which is itself enormously powerful

and insensitive to public opinion. In the BBC there is a complete

complaint process and there say right of appeal to Ofcom if you're

not happy. You've obviously never used it. If you had you'd know how

much use that was. I'm amazed about the fuss about the Murdoch empire

being very close to Prime Ministers. Before the last election, David

Cameron had a meeting with the present Director-General of the BBC

in his offices in the Palace of Westminster. I tried and a

colleague of mine tried through Freedom of Information to find out

what had taken place at that meeting. They wouldn't tell us

because the BBC is exempt from Freedom of Information in such

queries and wouldn't and wasn't in any way obliged to tell us. Yet the

BBC is paid for by everybody through a poll tax. That's much

more important than a lot of what we're discussing. Serge in the time

I was there, I didn't think I had one meeting with the Prime Minister.

He wanted to have a meeting with me after I left. I chose not to have

it. When did you have a meeting with him and what was it about, can

you remember the date and who was there? I took a decision...

doesn't recollect that. Took a decision when I was Director-

General that I would stay as far away from politicians in Government

as I could. That's the decision I took because I think there is a

danger of being compromised. Mustn't go on forever, a quick one

from you. The real danger to answer the point made earlier on, which is

a good one about this, is that the Leveson Inquiry does become

something which political obsessives spend all their time

concentrating on. What happens is we get outrage fatigue, we get

bored by the whole thing. This might be a thing for chattering

classes. Who owns our media matters. Rupert Murdoch has been dictating

the terms of debate for 30 years. Talking about unemployment, the

Health Service and economy, what Government does is dictated by what

this man does. So should the ownership be between 20% and 30%.

We've been calling for this for 30 years. I wonder if Ed Miliband said

this when he was schmoozing with Rupert Murdoch at the garden party.

Come on, you're just jealous! APPLAUSE

Grant Shapps, you heard what he said that Government policies on

these issues are dictated by the press. If they were, then we'd be

doing probably a lot better in the polls. I don't think that's the

case. Why would you be doing better? If they were dictated by

the press, presumably you would do all the things they wanted you to

do all the time. The Government is long-term... I'm not with you. If

you did what the Daily Mail or the Guardian said... I don't follow you.

If you did exactly what every campaign wanted in the papers,

actually presumably you might be doing better in the short-term.

Being in Government is about the long-term stuff like fixing the

massive deficit and all the things we may get on to talking about. I

want to pick up one quick point. Peter, I think you're wrong about

the way this is likely tond up in terms of press censorship. I see no

chance, including the Prime Minister today, have made the point

that we thrive from having a vibrant press. That's not the same

as tapping into people's voice mails. There's a clear distinction

between the two. This process has meant every contact I have with a

senior journalist or editor and same with everybody else who helps

run this country is now routinely released. That's a thoroughly good

outcome so far from Leveson. promised you...

APPLAUSE I I promised you a quick line.

There's nothing corrupt like absolute power. I believe here that

this Government has been tainted by the man who had the power in the

media. OK. At that point we'll leave

Murdoch and the rest. If you're tweeting, remember our hash tag is

tweeting, remember our hash tag is BBC QT. Or text us with your

opinions and press the red button to see what others are saying. Now

a question from Nigel Jessop please. Do you agree with community

secretary Eric Pickles that problem families have had it easy for too

long? Problem families have had it easy for too long. Eric Pickles has

said that it was costing �billion a year, 120,000 troubled families

were costing the state �9 billion a year, �75,000 a family. He's about

to spend half a million with local to spend half a million with local

councils on trying to resolve the problem. Tim Farron, are you with

him on this? The reality is there are plenty of people who have

enormous difficulties when it comes to poverty, housing, educational

need. It's not good to stigmatise them though. As somebody who was

brought up... Neighbours from hell David Cameron referred to them,

would you go with that? Does that stigmatise them? It does sometimes.

Somebody brought up in the north of England, under Thatcher's Britain

if you like, my mum spent some time out of work. I recognise the

pressures that lots of families who are not so well off face. It's

wrong to stigmatise them. It's right to help them. If this means

money will be directed to help those families and help those

struggling, that is a good thing. But you don't make things better by

demonising people. APPLAUSE

So, we're talking about the Government which your party

supports. Was Eric Pickles right to say the programme will be more

forceful in language, a little less understanding? We need to be very

understanding. A little less understanding? How do you gauge how

understanding you are. We want to be effective. Whilst the programme

is right, the rhetoric sometimes is not right. Peter Hitchens? I don't

think it's anything, we're entitled to sit here any of us and start

saying anybody is having it easy in the poorer parts of our country.

That's not the point. The point is whether they are being given the

sort of help they really need. I don't think that compassion should

necessarily be expressed by throwing money at these people. I

think that Eric Pickles probably feels the same way, because this

Government is in effect a fraud, which makes Conservative statements

and does no Conservative things, nothing will come of this. But I

think that his general idea that what we need to do is to look at

the reasons why we have so many problem families, which are

fundamentally the destruction of the married family by the

deliberate subsidising of fatherless families and an enormous

welfare dependent class, we might do some good. It doesn't do any

good being rude to people, except to politicians, would deserve it.

It doesn't do any good being rude to people at the bottom end of

society. Many of them are acting perfectly rationally. If you create

an enormous Welfare State, people will obviously go and collect the

welfare offered to them and they will behave in the way which the

Welfare State persuades them to. That's why we're in such a mess.

Until we get serious reform, aimed at bringing back the solid family

life, which people used tone joy in this country, which used to be

particularly good for the upbringing of children. Eric

Pickles is pretending to be a Conservative without actually being

one and offending people without doing any good.

You Sir? I find it quite amazing that we're focusing on welfare when

chief executives in FTSE 100 companies have increased salaries

by 12%. If that money was redistributed there would be less

people on welfare and more people being able to get jobs an be -- and

be able to cope. If the money were redistributed there would be more

people on welfare because there would be more there to spend.

Before I came along today, I was advised to do yoga, deep breathing

and make sure I didn't get wound up by Peter Hitchens. I have already

and we're only on the second question. Given that my family that

I was brought up in was fatherless and I suppose the fact that my

mother was on benefits and we lived in a council estate means we were

one of the problem families that you talk about, Peter. We had a

solid family life. We did well. Me and my brothers did well and my mum

struggled. And how dare you say that women, single parents on

Council estates living on benefits are therefore problem families. How

dare you. How dare you. APPLAUSE

Have I said any such thing, your phony outrage would be justified.

As I didn't, it isn't. You need to do better. You talked about problem

families being fatherless and being on benefit. That describes me as a

child. We were not a problem family. It's the subject under discussion.

I didn't say anything about your family. You're engaging in phony

outrage for political propaganda purposes which is what your party

does. Pathetic rubbish. I'm a HR professional made redundant three

years ago. I've been in and out of interim work while doing my masters.

I'm a single parent. My ex-husband is travelling round the world

earning lots of money tax free. I have to go to the Jobcentre and beg

for a very little bit of money on the Welfare State. I have to go

through such bureaucracy, it's unbelievable. Third time unemployed

in three years. Young people are being interrogated and treated like

something that would be on the bottom of your shoe. It's

disgusting. The people in there aren't capable of giving advice on

recruitment, employment, finding work. There is work out there,

they're not giving the right guidance. It's terrible what you're

saying. APPLAUSE

Grant Shapps? You're in this Government, do you want to answer

her point? The definition of this, I absolutely agree with you Emily.

This is nothing to do with people with one or two parents, who are

rich or poor or anything else. What we're talking about the 120,000

families who are identifiable as being in deep difficulty, deep

trouble and creating problems that if you happen to live in that

community are responsible for 0 -- 80% of the problems around you. I

don't think there's any reason why people in this country should have

to put up with living next door, in the same street as people who are

causing so much disruption to ordinary people's lives. We have a

duty and responsibility to do something about that. You mention

correctly, David, that this costs �9 billion a year in terms of the

costs of clearing up this mess. didn't mention it correctly. I

quoted what you said. Yeah, �9 billion. You incorrectly mentioned

we're spending half a million. It's half a billion on this. Your

statistics are dodgy. I don't really understand where it comes

from. The Government has been asked... Let me tell you. I want to

go back to the young woman sit thring and what she said which was

powerful a moment ago and you heard. What's your answer? Can I just

finish the first point. The first point is the money is being spent

through local councils. Every Council, including all of yours

have signed up to deliver this and if they get the result, in other

words, get people out of crime, get the kids back to school, then

there's a payment by result. It means the money goes to the Council

having solved the problem. Far better than spending �9 billion a

year on a merry-go-round through the courts, the police and the rest

of it as the disruption goes on. With reference to your point. It's

very sad to hear when you go for help and you're trying to dot right

thing yourself and you go there, if you're not getting the level of

professionalism you should be through Jobcentre plus. I know

there are, it varies, there are brilliant professionals in some of

the centres. I've worked in over 500 retail shops. It covered

Lincoln to Aberdeen, across to Manchester. It's the same. I think

people deserve the best possible advice. It's tough times out there.

There are something like 450,000 vacancies in the Jobcentre plus

system right now. There have been a couple better months of job figures

with unemployment falling for a couple of months. We need great

services to make sure that people are connected and it saddens me

when it l -- I hear it's not the case. This Government took 10,000

jobs out of the service, now 4,000 jobs are going back in. I don't

think they're looking at the real type of work. We can trade figures

all day long. No matter what anyone else you say, the country was going

to the wall. If we didn't take action we'd be like Greece or Spain

today or Italy today and the list goes on and on. We were never going

to be that. Yes we were. Our deficit was just as big. There

should be a self-denying audience on the panel saying "the fact of

the matter is ." I'm a children's Councillor, I used to use a library

for my work. David Cameron spends a lot of time talking about the Big

Society. Grant you said about we need the services, the library that

I used to work in was a Big Society all of its own. The elderly round

the corner read the papers. Children used it. Others used the

computers. It had a yoga group, book club and embroidery group and

it was closed down because of the cuts. I find that incredibly short-

termism. Everybody wants, what we need in society, to contribute.

want to bring you back to the question, which was where the

discussion started about so-called problem families and what's being

done there. It feels like these services are being taken away from

the families you're talking about. I've been in the town centre today

and the library has opened up new facilities. Libraries are important.

They're one part of the patch work. Whatever Emily tries to tell you

this country could not carry on Greg Dyke? It saddens me it ends up

in this political debate because there is an issue of an underclass

who got left behind in this country. I don't think we have ever worked

out or know what to do about it. I think the Labour Government threw a

lot of money at it and I don't think that solved the problem. What

I would like to see is it taken out of the political debate, accept

there is a problem, have a proper study and work out what to do about

it. I think truthfully, I don't think Pickles' line helps at all. I

think you've got to try and say, what do you do about 150,000,

200,000 families who are not part of our society, they're separated

from it? People know it's there and you've just got to try to work out

what, what can we do about it, without having the political banter

we are having here. The problem with that is if you try and suggest

what should be done about it you get buckets of slime chucked at you

by the politicians. There is a problem. All serious work on the

problems of problem families, a phrase not introduced to this

discussion by me, in any major advanced country will tell you that

these problems are concentrated where there are no fathers. If you

won't do anything about that, then indeed if you continue to pursue

policies which create more and more fatherless families, you will get

more of it. I'll carry on saying it however many times people chuck

buckets of slime over me because it's important and needs to be

addressed. That's a classic example of the media having too much power

there actually what you've just said there. I wish I did have power.

Going back to the reforms, the problems about -- the issues about

problem families, we should make long-term decisions. Base the

decisions on welfare reforms on what works and what is effective.

That's not down to political whim but it should be evidence-based.

The woman in the centre there? Going on what the gentleman at the

end said about the fatherless families making up a lot of the

problem families in the region. Me and my mum who is here too, we run

a charity, a contact centre in order to bring children and their

fathers or mothers, whoever they are estranged from together. In

January this year, we closed because we had no money. As to what

this gentleman here said, where is, you are saying it's cost �500

million to sort out these problem families but where is it going? We

have no money, we were trying to help in the society but we have no

money, we have closed so where is all this money going? Ask Mr Farron

and Mr Shapps because they are borrowing more money than the

previous Government was. They pretend to be cutting on spending

but they're rolling in it. The man there? It's not about whether you

are a single parent or rich or poor. I've been involved in regeneration

of a poor council estate which I grew up on. The council estate went

down the pan and it went down the pan largely because of the social

problems on the estate. It had nothing to do with what money you

had or anything like that, it was down to a handful of families that

dragged the estate down to its knees. We used to go around

knocking on people's doors. They were undoing five or six bolts off

the door to do it. There was drugs, decent people living in the

properties had a living nightmare. If you turn your back on this and

say this doesn't exist, it does. I'm no lover of Pickles, far from

it, but there are people out there hell bent on destroying decent

people's lives. APPLAUSE

Let's go on to another question. This from Phil Benaiges, please?

Can the panel please recite a poem that they learned at school and

explain how this has been useful if their subsequent careers?

APPLAUSE This of course is because Michael

Gove is suggesting a new National Curriculum which includes plans for

children at five to learn and recite poetry and other things to

spell words that I can't quite spell and learn a foreign language

and all sorts of other things. Which poor sap is going to have to

start on this one. Grant Shapps, can you recite a poem and tell us

how useful it was... Twin it will twinkle little star... I can't

actually and this's probably been my undoing. A feeble effort! Sorry!

We are going to test you next. What Michael Gove wants to do is get

school children learning the basics so you come out with the ability to

add up, to be able to read and write, at a sort of proficient

level. I started a printing company 20 something years ago and I

remember the frustration of going to that Jobcentre Plus that we were

talking about in the previous question and trying to find people

with the basic skills. I wasn't looking for the people who had the

advanced skills for the printing equipment but people to simply

perform the tasks. There is a lot to be said for getting back to a

curriculum which does that so people come out with basic

disciplines. Poetry is an exercise in remembering things, being able

to commit things to memory and use that information later on. It's not

about that itself, it's about the skill while you are learning it

that you pick up. I've bored people to death with poetry for years to

the extent that my children won't sit in the same room when I start

on again about being besy Big Head. -- Bessy Big Head. I'm not sure we

should elect politicians to decide the curriculums in school.

APPLAUSE The Chancellor in the university at

York we have an Institute for An effective education which basically

says what works and it seems to me we are all hide bound by the

education we had, where we came from, what we believe in, our

politics, and I would much rather we looked and said OK, what

actually is effective in teaching kids mathematics, in teaching kids

to read and write at an early age. Let's look at what is effective and

put it into place. But if we are going to change this every five

years as another Government comes in, it's pretty depressing. From

your point of view, does Gove have a strategy, or is he just meddling?

Oh, I think he probably has a strategy but it is meddling.

Tim Farron? I can remember the words to just about every song off

every album the Clash ever made and why, because I found it rewarding

and interesting and it got me excited and all the rest of it and

the way to get kids to remember anything is to make it rewarding

and interesting and exciting for them at whatever age. I think for

my kids, I trust the teachers at our school in Cumbria and their

head teacher to decide the priorities for what my kids should

learn, rather than some boffin in Whitehall and I'm not having a go

at Gove. You aren't having a go at Gove? I wasn't calling him the

boffin in Whitehall. What about the Secretary of State in Whitehall?

It's fine to fly kites... This isn't a kite. He says this is going

to be introduced in September 2014? What we've done in the coalition

Government is reduce the size of the National Curriculum to give

more choice to teachers. I would just question Michael Gove's

consistency in that case given that we are trying to reduce the burdens

on teachers, allow them to teach, concentrate on what they are good

at. Politicians should set good terms of debate and we shouldn't

meddle in the classroom. The woman in the third row.

wonder why Michael Gove is wasting money on a new curriculum when the

country's schools will become academies and won't have to follow

it anyway? Emily Thornberry? James James

Morrison Morrison took good care of his mother...

Thank you very much! The best effort so far. A lot of the

contributions that have been made so far are right. It's not the job

of politicians to meddle in the minutiae of the curriculum. It's

important that the league tables are there, it's important for

parents to today be reassured that children spend a certain amount of

time on the basics. Otherwise, politicians should listen to the

experts who are teachers and we have excellent teachers out there

and we should trust them. APPLAUSE

You see behind what Gove is on about, the way of teaching, is it

trying to provoke a debate? I think Gove in the '60s or '70s had a

childhood that he clearly enjoyed and he clearly enjoyed being at

school. But I think that he looks at our modern schools and wants to

kind of somehow or other import in education that frankly is largely

out-of-date. I don't think that learning the names of the Kings and

Queens of England is the most important thing to learn in history.

I think you need to have an understanding of why we are where

we are. If you don't understand your history, you are doomed to

continue to make the same mistakes. I think we've got a lot to learn

from history, not just learning the names of the Kings and Queens. If

you listen to Gove, that's the kind of thing he wants because that

would have been done in the 50s and 60s, we have moved on since then.

The woman in the front row is? teach five-year-olds, we have been

doing poetry, they love exploring, reading it. Making them sit down

and recite poems would just be a waste of my time and a waste of

their time and I would love Michael Gove to come into school and try

and teach five-year-olds poetry and see what he thinks of it.

APPLAUSE One of the first things that David

Cameron did when he came to power was commission Frank Field to do a

report on early years provision which has been widely ignored. Sure

Start has been cut and now Mr Gove is suggesting that children are

taught French or Spanish because that's where they go on holiday.

The children that I see and advise on don't get holidays, they don't

go to France and Spain, they need good education from the age of

three and not to have things like Sure Start cut.

OK. The man there in the third row? I think the problem with what

Michael Gove said is that we are teaching kids just to learn facts

and we are placing too much stress on teachers and children to pass

exams. Rather than teaching them to actually be good, upstanding

members of society. Are you in favour of the proposals that

Michael Gove puts forward? Pass the test... OK, spell accommodate?

ACCOMMODA... I'll do a poem too.) Recites poem) I'm very pleased...

APPLAUSE I'm very pleased that my head is

full of things like that and also lots of hymns which I remember and

I feel very sorry for anybody who hasn't had the chance to learn them

and I think it's a great condemnation of our school system

that so few people and particularly only those whose parents are rich

can actually afford to have their children taught things like that

and have their minds furnished with beauty for the remainder of their

lives. To pour scorn on it and to say that it's unimportant is to

declare yourself a spiritual desert. Of course people need these things

and what's more, they are a profound part of being British. If

you don't know the literature and poetry and the music of your own

country, you aren't really fully conversant with its history or

character, you've lost touch with what your ancestors knew and you

won't be able to pass it on to your own children or grandchildren. Of

course these things should be taught. I wish Michael Gove had the

power and policies to make it happen. I really do think it would

be a good thing. I also think that people should not, particularly

teachers, should not say these things don't matter. They matter

immensely. At primary school they were asked

to bring in a short story to read to me. The level of tall ept they

showed at under 11 years old in their writing and reading was

fantastic. It's clearly the system that we've got in place is working

y. Are we trying to change it? don't think these are improvements

these proposals? Not necessarily. The children that I was with on

that day were, they could all read very well. They could all write

fantastically. So what they're learning in school is clearly

helping them. They still have good imagination. They're able to read

and write. They can create things. They're learning the things that

they're going to need later in life. I think we'll move on. We have a

question from Sue Jeffrey. Is it right that only rich foreigners

will have the right to live with their partners in this countries.

These proposals announced by Theresa May that you have to earn �

18 ,600 a year before you can bring a partner into a country or a

family into the country. Is that right? Tim Farron? I mean strikes

me that it's important that you've got rules and regulations to deal

with the immigration. But it's also right that it's compassionate. I

represent a part of the world which is not hugely diverse, but the

majority of immigration work I deal with are not people trying it on

with the system, not people trying to get round our borders. They're

couples that want to be together for pity sake. If you want to

regulate, there are issues that need to be dealt with, but this

seems a very wrong way of going about. It we should look at whether

or not people have a future together, whether they love one

another. We should not be separating families. We should be

supporting them. Your priz -- you're President of the Liberal

Democrats, seems to me you couldn't be invited to join the coalition

Government because you disagree with almost everything. I reserve

my right to express my opinion. haven't heard you support one

policy this evening. I regularly do. People tend to listen when I

disagree. Oh, I see. That's the motive. Yes, I mean, I suppose I

speak as a constituency MP in an area in inner London where we have

a great mixture of people. Islington has people from all over

the world. Some of the most mem -- memorable cases, I'm just thinking,

I have in the forefront of my mind, three Somali women, three separate

women, who've come as refugees and who are tying to get their children

over to this country. Their children, they may have brought a

couple of children with them but a couple more are under a tree in

Somalia without anything. I have to advise all of them that they must

get a job. They have to be able to support the children. Many of these

women are not used to working, but two of them I can tell you have got

a job. One of them has two jobs. She is able to show she can support

the children and is in the process of trying to get them over here. I

am concerned that the ambitions of these women will be completely

quashed if we keep raising the bars for them. We need to get the

families together and it is for all of us. I think it's a question of

degree. The other side of the coin, obviously, I understand this too is

we don't want to have people saying well, I need all my family coming

over and then for them to depend on all of us and to depend on the

state. They need to be able to stand on their feet. There needs to

be more compassion in many of these individual cases. My experience as

an MP getting in touch with the Home Office is that they don't use

their discretion enough. They don't give sufficient regard to these

brave women doing their best. you in favour or against the

proposals? I think that it is, as I say, it is something which is... It

is a question of degree and at the moment, there is an internal debate

in the Labour Party as to where that should be. Speaking as a

frontbencher I can't tell you what the Labour Party policy is in terms

of degree yet. I can tell you that the experience I feed into that

debate which is the experience of my constituents. The party hasn't

made up its mind? APPLAUSE

The proposals came out about three days ago. Give us a chance. We want

to make sure that we get this absolutely right. We are, we're not

playing games. We're talking about people's lives.

I work in immigration sector myself. The ladies that you talk about, if

they're getting their children from abroad any way and they've been

granted refugee status, they don't have to meet the maintenance

requirement at all. It's more due to the families who, working class

families would don't earn enough money to meet that bar and the fact

that they have a husband abroad, they have two children in the UK,

it rises from �18,600 to a lot more. I'm sorry, that's my sloppy

language. As far as I'm concerned they came as refugees. But they

were not recognised as refugees, then they had to get exceptional

leave to remain. Now they've got indefinite leave to remain. Now

they have British citizenship. Now they have to get jobs and then they

can get their things over. These are the things they've had to jump.

What do you think of the proposal? It's ludicrous that they're having

to, especially in low skilled jobs. Not everyone has a degree and can

get lots of high paid jobs. �18,600 for just a spouse to get here and

then obviously the children, it can be up to �27,500 for a family of

four. First of all, this isn't about the asylum system in this

country. What we are talking about is the fact under the system that

exists at the moment, if you want to bring another member of the

family in, you only have to be in receipt of � 5,600 a year, for

which you can bring anybody else into the country. Once you've done

that, they'll have to be provided with services, the same as anyone

else who lives here. Somewhere along the line, the rest of the

population needs to pay for this. I think a very reasonable proposal,

which I hope that your party will support is to have a level of

�18,600, the level that we've introduced to say that actually,

you need to be going out, earning money yourself so that when you

bring somebody into the country, that person isn't then relying off

everybody else to provide the services to that individual. Now I

think there's a very strong argument for that. It's part of a

series of different things we're doing in order to make sure that

actually, access to this country comes with provisions, including

for example, learning English. APPLAUSE

I would be interested in hearing Peter's opinion on this,

considering his previously expressed views about fatherless

families. I don't actually see what the two

have to do with each other, but... Hang on, explain what the two have

to do with each other. Just when he was previous live saying that

fatherless families were a large part of the described problem

families and how he would couple that view with the need for the

rich spouse, you know spouses... People should be able to bring

their... So it has nothing to do with it but I'll answer the

question. The point here is a deeper one. Emily Thornberry's

party, as we know because of the astonishing revelations of Andrew

Nether, a former New Labour worker, deliberately hoped to transform

this country through mass immigration during its time in

office. And has very largely succeeded in doing so, as people in

many parts of this country know very well, the extent of the

transformation by mass immigration is unprecedented in our national

history. The Conservative Party pretends to be against this, but

also knows deep down that unless particularly we leave the European

Union, it has no power to act on this matter. Every so ofpbt word

goes out from our Prime Minister, Mr Slippery, to his ministers to

say, will you come up with something which sounds Conservative,

because we're losing too many votes to UKIP. Out comes Eric Pickles

with his stuff about problem families. Out comes Theresa May

with her guidelines about immigration. I promise you, none of

these things will happen. There will be no difference. The mass

immigration will continue at unprecedented levels. If you're in

favour of that, that's fine. What my problem is nobody was ever asked

about whether we wanted this. By the time we discover that it

happened, it was too late to do anything about it. I really think

people should be a bit more discontented about that than they

are. I just wanted to pick up the point

Emily made about what the Labour Party position is. I'm a member of

the party. I would hope the position is going to be one of

compassion on this, the point that you made yourself. I would hope

that we wouldn't be prevaricating about it too long. Does that mean

opposition to it? Absolutely. And we will come out clearly saying

that without having to go through a policy review and getting conva

luted about what is a simple thing. We shouldn't support this

initiative. I mean, you speak on behalf of a

large number of people in the Labour Party. I think there are

people who have the opposite view. It's something we need to resolve

as a party. Got thing is we are a party which has quite a lot of

debate. We tend to have it behind- the-scenes. I hope to speak to you

after about it. It's something we have to resolve as a party. We've

only just heard it and we need tone sure we get our response exactly

right. You have your debates behind-the-scenes? Yeah, we do.

amazed. We have a policy form this weekend behind-the-scenes. Have you

got an opinion? Yes, I think you can probably tell what my opinion

is. I'm here as a constituency MP and frontbench MP as well. 18,650

seems quite a lot of money to me. It's not a lot of money in some

parts of the country, an awful lot in others. If we're saying we're

going to keep husband and wives, genuine married couples apart until

they can earn that sort of money, then I find it offensive. The point

about it is it's the point at which you can stop claiming benefit

automatically. If you get that, you won't get benefit, that's the point.

I'm amazed by that. Almost amazed as any debate. Surely if somebody

is going to come into the country, it's right that the person bringing

them in pays for them so that everybody else doesn't have to,

similar pum as that. -- -- Simple as that. Can UK plc

afford to be compassionate? What's your view? I think that if we're

having so much trouble with problem families and we want to put money

into everything; we can't take on the problems of the world. We're

not as rich as powerful as we think we are. I want to bring up this

question, which we touched on earlier on from Azhar Allahdad.

it right that all our e-mails and Facebook messages can be viewed by

the police and Security Services in the new communication data bill

announced earlier this morning. new announcements that e-mail and

Facebook messages can be viewed by the police. No, it's absolutely

wrong. It's terribly dangerous. Governments should never have this

much power over us. The more we fail to control crime and disorder

in this country, the more powers the Government accrues to itself to

survey and interfere in the lives of the innocent. I think that it is

a very serious threat to liberty. It should be resisted by everybody

with spirit. I agree with Peter entirely. I think it's very

dangerous for governments to constantly give additional powers

to the police, which often are used in a far widing way than is the

intention when they're put into place. I agree with Peter.

Individual liberty says that I should be entitled to privacy.

never support the proposal as it sounded in the question that e-

mails and content of Facebook would be available. That's not actually

in the draft bill today. What it says is that the fact that a

communication has taken place, not what is in that communication, and

only under exceptional circumstances and entirely

retrospectively should be available to the police to investigate crimes

of very serious nature, for example, like the paedophile ring that was

broken last week in Rochdale or rather the men went to prison, or

cases of terrorism. These are exactly the same things which are

available for mobile phone records and for any other telephone.

Nowadays the internet is where that traffic takes place, they need

connection to it. You're the Shadow Attorney-General and just half a

minute left. The proposal to increase access to data has to be

based on evidence. We need to see that evidence as to why it is

necessary. I think we need enhanced safe guards. If we don't have that,

the proposal shouldn't go forward. You want me to be supportive of the

coalition, I supported getting rid of ID cards, getting rid of 28 days

without trial and cob troll orders, I do not support universal internet

snooping. snooping.

APPLAUSE My heart aches and the drouzy

numbness pains my sense. Time is up. Next week in West Bromich. Ken

Clarke, Andy Burnham from Labour, Len McCluskey on the panel. The

week after that we're in Luton. You want to come and take part in the