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QUESTION TIME FKR Y901T/01 BRD476880 | 2:00:00 | 2:00:00 | |
. | 2:37:01 | 2:37:08 | |
The government tells us the pain will last longer than they thought. | 2:37:13 | 2:37:15 | |
What do voters think? Welcome to Question Time. | 2:37:15 | 2:37:18 | |
Good evening and a big welcome, as ever, to our audience in Liverpool, | 2:37:24 | 2:37:27 | |
an audience that is at the heart of Question Time, | 2:37:27 | 2:37:29 | |
and, of course, to our panel - | 2:37:29 | 2:37:31 | |
the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, | 2:37:31 | 2:37:33 | |
the shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, | 2:37:33 | 2:37:36 | |
the President of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, | 2:37:36 | 2:37:39 | |
Leanne Wood, the leader of Plaid Cymru, | 2:37:39 | 2:37:42 | |
and the editor of The Financial Times, Lionel Barber. | 2:37:42 | 2:37:45 | |
APPLAUSE | 2:37:45 | 2:37:48 | |
Good. And Steve Kirkbride, you kick off tonight. | 2:37:57 | 2:38:00 | |
Do the panel agree with George Osborne - | 2:38:00 | 2:38:03 | |
are we "All in this together"? | 2:38:03 | 2:38:05 | |
"Are we all in this together?" Tim Farron? | 2:38:05 | 2:38:07 | |
Well, we need to be... | 2:38:07 | 2:38:09 | |
No, the question isn't "need", it's "are we". | 2:38:09 | 2:38:11 | |
-LAUGHTER -OK, well, we need to be is the answer and I think that there | 2:38:11 | 2:38:15 | |
is a clear sense out there, | 2:38:15 | 2:38:17 | |
and if you're brought up in the North, like me, | 2:38:17 | 2:38:20 | |
and you've gone to a comprehensive school, like me, | 2:38:20 | 2:38:22 | |
and you've never experienced wealth, like me, | 2:38:22 | 2:38:24 | |
and probably most people here, | 2:38:24 | 2:38:26 | |
then there is a sense that there are some people | 2:38:26 | 2:38:29 | |
who are enduring these difficult times with more ease than others, shall we say, | 2:38:29 | 2:38:33 | |
when you've got people who are extremely wealthy | 2:38:33 | 2:38:35 | |
who remain extremely wealthy. | 2:38:35 | 2:38:37 | |
That's why it was important, for example, in the statement yesterday | 2:38:37 | 2:38:40 | |
that we increase the amount of tax that wealthy people pay. | 2:38:40 | 2:38:43 | |
Why it was important that we prevented it, | 2:38:43 | 2:38:45 | |
you will remember two months ago, at Tory conference in Birmingham, | 2:38:45 | 2:38:48 | |
they wanted to take ten billion out of welfare. | 2:38:48 | 2:38:50 | |
They wanted to stop young people claiming housing benefit, | 2:38:50 | 2:38:53 | |
they wanted to stop people on low incomes having child benefit | 2:38:53 | 2:38:56 | |
for a third child and above, | 2:38:56 | 2:38:57 | |
and you will have seen that none of those things | 2:38:57 | 2:38:59 | |
were in yesterday's statement. | 2:38:59 | 2:39:01 | |
It is critically important, at a time like this, | 2:39:01 | 2:39:04 | |
that we do protect the interests of those who are the least well off | 2:39:04 | 2:39:07 | |
and those people who are the richest should be paying more. | 2:39:07 | 2:39:09 | |
Should more be being done? | 2:39:09 | 2:39:11 | |
Yes, but I'm in no doubt whatsoever | 2:39:11 | 2:39:13 | |
that yesterday the changes that were made, from our perspective, | 2:39:13 | 2:39:17 | |
for example, the lowest-paid 23 million people in this country | 2:39:17 | 2:39:20 | |
now have an income tax cut, | 2:39:20 | 2:39:21 | |
if you're on minimum wage you've had a 50% income tax cut | 2:39:21 | 2:39:24 | |
in the last two years, | 2:39:24 | 2:39:26 | |
the pension's gone up by the highest amount since Lloyd George introduced it. | 2:39:26 | 2:39:29 | |
These are incredibly difficult times and we, as Lib Dems, | 2:39:29 | 2:39:31 | |
have to fight in the trenches, day in, day out, to make sure that | 2:39:31 | 2:39:35 | |
it's not just the poor who are paying the burden, | 2:39:35 | 2:39:37 | |
it is the rich who pay their fair share. | 2:39:37 | 2:39:39 | |
Where did you lose out? You say you'd like more to have been done. | 2:39:39 | 2:39:43 | |
Well, I personally take the view that we shouldn't have given away | 2:39:43 | 2:39:46 | |
the top rate of income tax down to 45p, | 2:39:46 | 2:39:49 | |
even though that's more than was the case in most of Labour's reign. | 2:39:49 | 2:39:53 | |
I take the view that not only should you be raising more money | 2:39:53 | 2:39:55 | |
from people who are the wealthiest, | 2:39:55 | 2:39:57 | |
you need to be seen to be doing it as well. | 2:39:57 | 2:39:59 | |
I take the view that whilst we're taking more from the bankers, | 2:39:59 | 2:40:01 | |
that is progress, we should be taking even more. | 2:40:01 | 2:40:04 | |
We shouldn't be reliant on Starbucks having to volunteer ten million | 2:40:04 | 2:40:07 | |
in terms of taxation. | 2:40:07 | 2:40:09 | |
We should be changing the tax code | 2:40:09 | 2:40:11 | |
so that incredibly wealthy multinationals | 2:40:11 | 2:40:13 | |
are paying their fair share. | 2:40:13 | 2:40:14 | |
APPLAUSE | 2:40:14 | 2:40:17 | |
Andy Burnham? | 2:40:20 | 2:40:21 | |
Well, no is the answer | 2:40:21 | 2:40:23 | |
and George Osborne can't know many people on benefits | 2:40:23 | 2:40:26 | |
because he thinks all, everybody who is on a benefit | 2:40:26 | 2:40:28 | |
is lying in bed until eight or nine o'clock with the curtains closed. | 2:40:28 | 2:40:31 | |
60% of the people he hit yesterday with his changes to benefits | 2:40:31 | 2:40:35 | |
are the people who he claims are walking past those houses | 2:40:35 | 2:40:39 | |
with the curtains closed, because people get working tax credit, | 2:40:39 | 2:40:42 | |
child tax credit. | 2:40:42 | 2:40:44 | |
Mums who get maternity benefit, | 2:40:44 | 2:40:45 | |
these are the people that he's hitting - | 2:40:45 | 2:40:47 | |
the so-called "strivers," as he says. | 2:40:47 | 2:40:50 | |
And, you know, and the money it raises | 2:40:50 | 2:40:52 | |
is exactly the same as the tax cut, the break is giving to millionaires | 2:40:52 | 2:40:56 | |
by cutting the top rate of tax from 50p to 45p. | 2:40:56 | 2:41:00 | |
And in a week when we learned from the Office of National Statistics | 2:41:00 | 2:41:02 | |
that the top ten percent are 850 times richer than the bottom ten percent, | 2:41:02 | 2:41:09 | |
how could these changes be fair at all? | 2:41:09 | 2:41:11 | |
Are you against the holding down benefits to one percent, | 2:41:11 | 2:41:15 | |
lower than inflation? | 2:41:15 | 2:41:16 | |
We're going to have to look at the bill that comes forward. | 2:41:16 | 2:41:18 | |
Well, this is George Osborne to a T. He sets these political traps | 2:41:18 | 2:41:22 | |
and it's all about trying to put us in a trap. | 2:41:22 | 2:41:23 | |
-We'll look at this bill when it comes forward. -Why is it a trap? | 2:41:23 | 2:41:26 | |
Let me just come back on the general point. | 2:41:26 | 2:41:28 | |
The principle is wrong. | 2:41:28 | 2:41:29 | |
This kind of holding down benefits across the board. | 2:41:29 | 2:41:32 | |
Number one, it's going to hit kids. | 2:41:32 | 2:41:34 | |
It's going to hit the kids of these families who've got no, | 2:41:34 | 2:41:36 | |
they've got no choice about it. | 2:41:36 | 2:41:38 | |
Number two, it's going to damage the spending power of those families | 2:41:38 | 2:41:40 | |
-and that won't help the economy. Three, it's a false economy... -So vote against! | 2:41:40 | 2:41:44 | |
-To fund some of those families... -Are you going to vote against? | 2:41:44 | 2:41:47 | |
-We're going to look at the bill when it... -Why not vote against after what you said? | 2:41:47 | 2:41:50 | |
There'll be a range of measures in there. | 2:41:50 | 2:41:52 | |
I don't want this blanket approach | 2:41:52 | 2:41:53 | |
where you hit all people in this way. | 2:41:53 | 2:41:55 | |
The last thing I want to say | 2:41:55 | 2:41:57 | |
is when people look back on this period | 2:41:57 | 2:41:59 | |
they will consider that phrase, | 2:41:59 | 2:42:00 | |
"We're all in it together," one of the most deceptive | 2:42:00 | 2:42:03 | |
and cruel pieces of political spin this country has ever heard. | 2:42:03 | 2:42:06 | |
APPLAUSE | 2:42:06 | 2:42:09 | |
Woman in the back, there. The woman at the very back. You. | 2:42:10 | 2:42:14 | |
You say, "All in this together," but at the end of the day, | 2:42:14 | 2:42:17 | |
you haven't met what you said you set out to do. | 2:42:17 | 2:42:20 | |
You were going to cut the deficit after so many years. | 2:42:20 | 2:42:23 | |
And, all of a sudden, | 2:42:23 | 2:42:24 | |
the country is lumbered in to have this for an extra six years. | 2:42:24 | 2:42:28 | |
Like, and there's people my age in this country now who are just | 2:42:28 | 2:42:31 | |
graduating uni, have already graduated, | 2:42:31 | 2:42:33 | |
and they're just looking at this bleak, black hole in front of them. | 2:42:33 | 2:42:36 | |
There's no way to get out of it. | 2:42:36 | 2:42:38 | |
That's a generation that's just probably, | 2:42:38 | 2:42:40 | |
-just been lost from this whole mess that's been created. -Francis Maude. | 2:42:40 | 2:42:45 | |
Well, I have children of your age and I don't want them | 2:42:45 | 2:42:49 | |
and their children, and generations to come to have to bear, | 2:42:49 | 2:42:54 | |
pick up the tab for our failure to deal with the deficit | 2:42:54 | 2:42:58 | |
that we inherited. | 2:42:58 | 2:43:00 | |
So we have to do these difficult things, and is painful, | 2:43:00 | 2:43:03 | |
and there's no way of doing this in a way that protects | 2:43:03 | 2:43:06 | |
everyone from the effects of it. | 2:43:06 | 2:43:09 | |
We, it started with the biggest budget deficit | 2:43:09 | 2:43:13 | |
of any country in the developed world. | 2:43:13 | 2:43:15 | |
We've cut it by a quarter. | 2:43:15 | 2:43:16 | |
It's continuing to fall, we need to do more. | 2:43:16 | 2:43:19 | |
And the heaviest burden has to be carried by those | 2:43:19 | 2:43:24 | |
-who are the richest and that is happening... -They're not. | 2:43:24 | 2:43:28 | |
-I'm sorry, Andy, but it simply is the case. -So, why did you cut...? | 2:43:28 | 2:43:31 | |
Read what the IFS has said today. | 2:43:31 | 2:43:32 | |
I have done and they absolutely bear out that the heaviest burden | 2:43:32 | 2:43:35 | |
is carried by the richest. | 2:43:35 | 2:43:37 | |
Why did you go against the...? | 2:43:37 | 2:43:39 | |
-DAVID DIMBLEBY CLEARS HIS THROAT -..and it's right that it should be the case... | 2:43:39 | 2:43:42 | |
Why did you change your mind, then and then not impose the mansion tax? | 2:43:42 | 2:43:46 | |
APPLAUSE | 2:43:46 | 2:43:49 | |
Just to pick up that point, | 2:43:52 | 2:43:54 | |
we have already increased the rate of stamp duty on the largest houses, | 2:43:54 | 2:43:59 | |
raised it considerably above what Labour put in place. | 2:43:59 | 2:44:02 | |
Just this stuff about the top rate of tax, | 2:44:02 | 2:44:04 | |
you know, Labour went for 13 years in government | 2:44:04 | 2:44:08 | |
with a top rate of tax of 40%. | 2:44:08 | 2:44:10 | |
For the last three weeks that they were in government, | 2:44:10 | 2:44:13 | |
there was a top rate of tax of 50p. | 2:44:13 | 2:44:16 | |
And the tax yield fell, actually - | 2:44:16 | 2:44:19 | |
from the people earning over £1 million a year, | 2:44:19 | 2:44:23 | |
the amount of tax they paid fell by £7 billion. | 2:44:23 | 2:44:29 | |
So that actually meant | 2:44:29 | 2:44:31 | |
that because of that pure piece of political posturing | 2:44:31 | 2:44:34 | |
in the dying days of a failed government, | 2:44:34 | 2:44:37 | |
actually, the burden on the rest of the taxpayers rose. | 2:44:37 | 2:44:41 | |
That's not the right thing to do. | 2:44:41 | 2:44:43 | |
OK, the woman here on the right. | 2:44:43 | 2:44:44 | |
APPLAUSE | 2:44:44 | 2:44:46 | |
Do you not think if we're constantly highering the taxes | 2:44:46 | 2:44:50 | |
for the high earners, then we're highering benefits as well, | 2:44:50 | 2:44:53 | |
so those who aren't earning are getting more benefits | 2:44:53 | 2:44:55 | |
and those who are working are getting less money. | 2:44:55 | 2:44:57 | |
You're in danger of sort of promoting being on benefits. | 2:44:57 | 2:45:00 | |
I know my family - my dad would be better off not working, | 2:45:00 | 2:45:03 | |
he'd get more money from benefits. | 2:45:03 | 2:45:04 | |
That's not promoting people to go out and get work. | 2:45:04 | 2:45:07 | |
-He'd be better off on benefits? -Yeah, he would. | 2:45:07 | 2:45:09 | |
Sleeping with the curtains drawn? | 2:45:09 | 2:45:11 | |
In terms of what he had in his bank account, yeah, he would. | 2:45:11 | 2:45:13 | |
-I don't think that's right. -OK. -It's not promoting people going to work. | 2:45:13 | 2:45:16 | |
That's why we're reforming the welfare system. | 2:45:16 | 2:45:19 | |
Nobody wants to support people who are playing the system. | 2:45:19 | 2:45:21 | |
But what this is doing is this blanket approach... | 2:45:21 | 2:45:24 | |
And many of the benefits people get, | 2:45:24 | 2:45:26 | |
like council tax benefit, housing benefit, | 2:45:26 | 2:45:28 | |
these are people who are working who get these benefits. | 2:45:28 | 2:45:31 | |
George Osborne is running this line | 2:45:31 | 2:45:33 | |
that everyone who claims a benefit is bad. | 2:45:33 | 2:45:35 | |
These are people who work hard, try their best. | 2:45:35 | 2:45:37 | |
That bit of help keeps them going | 2:45:37 | 2:45:39 | |
and taking it away really kind of is quite cruel, to be honest. | 2:45:39 | 2:45:42 | |
Andy, the overwhelming majority of people on benefits will actually... | 2:45:42 | 2:45:47 | |
If they're working, they will benefit | 2:45:47 | 2:45:50 | |
from the rise in the personal tax threshold, | 2:45:50 | 2:45:53 | |
which is a total coalition commitment, | 2:45:53 | 2:45:55 | |
and we've raised it way above anything Labour did. | 2:45:55 | 2:45:58 | |
What you called political posturing, the 50p tax rate, | 2:45:58 | 2:46:01 | |
the reduction of that to 45p will give millionaires | 2:46:01 | 2:46:05 | |
£100,000 tax break next April. | 2:46:05 | 2:46:07 | |
How can you possibly justify that? | 2:46:07 | 2:46:10 | |
Because you had 13 years in power... | 2:46:10 | 2:46:11 | |
How can you justify never having done it yourself? | 2:46:11 | 2:46:13 | |
You had 13 years in power and never did it, | 2:46:13 | 2:46:15 | |
until the last three weeks, as he said. | 2:46:15 | 2:46:17 | |
You may have noticed, David, there was a big change... | 2:46:17 | 2:46:20 | |
APPLAUSE Lionel Barber. I'll come back. | 2:46:20 | 2:46:22 | |
-There was a big change in the world economy. -Lionel Barber. | 2:46:22 | 2:46:25 | |
-You may have noticed it. -Lionel Barber. | 2:46:25 | 2:46:27 | |
Are we in this together? | 2:46:27 | 2:46:28 | |
In one sense, you bet, because we're all in a huge hole. | 2:46:28 | 2:46:34 | |
The hole we inherited from the Labour Government, | 2:46:34 | 2:46:37 | |
in terms of this vast, vast hole in public finances. | 2:46:37 | 2:46:43 | |
But on a more serious note, I agree with Andy. We're not. | 2:46:43 | 2:46:47 | |
We're not in this fully together, because the poor, | 2:46:47 | 2:46:52 | |
those out of work, those who are receiving allowances, | 2:46:52 | 2:46:56 | |
even though they're working, even short-time working, | 2:46:56 | 2:46:59 | |
they're having to bear a very heavy price | 2:46:59 | 2:47:01 | |
and I'm talking about the welfare cuts. | 2:47:01 | 2:47:04 | |
They're not being uprated in terms of inflation. | 2:47:04 | 2:47:07 | |
The rich, yes, they are losing | 2:47:07 | 2:47:08 | |
some of the tax benefits on their pension contributions, | 2:47:08 | 2:47:12 | |
but George Osborne made a very serious political error | 2:47:12 | 2:47:17 | |
when he reduced the highest rate of income tax in this country. | 2:47:17 | 2:47:21 | |
I say that because it is not proven in any way | 2:47:21 | 2:47:24 | |
that this was going to create jobs or foster investment. | 2:47:24 | 2:47:28 | |
You could have kept it at 50p and then you would have had | 2:47:28 | 2:47:31 | |
a much more powerful message to everybody in this country | 2:47:31 | 2:47:35 | |
that we really are in it together. | 2:47:35 | 2:47:38 | |
Do you believe, as some of the people | 2:47:38 | 2:47:40 | |
who write in your newspaper say, | 2:47:40 | 2:47:41 | |
and I assume you agree with what they say, | 2:47:41 | 2:47:44 | |
that the proper thing the Government should do | 2:47:44 | 2:47:46 | |
is get the economy moving by pumping much more money... | 2:47:46 | 2:47:48 | |
I think Skidelsky was saying £100 billion of extra spending. | 2:47:48 | 2:47:52 | |
Do you want to see that? | 2:47:52 | 2:47:53 | |
You're suggesting that we are all Keynesians now? | 2:47:53 | 2:47:56 | |
Well, not quite, David. | 2:47:56 | 2:47:57 | |
The fact is we have a huge budget deficit. | 2:47:57 | 2:48:01 | |
It's much bigger than most European countries. | 2:48:01 | 2:48:04 | |
If we were to change the fiscal policy as it stands, | 2:48:04 | 2:48:09 | |
we would risk losing the confidence of the financial markets, which... | 2:48:09 | 2:48:13 | |
Basically, they've given us benefit of the doubt. | 2:48:13 | 2:48:16 | |
Interest rates would likely rise, borrowing costs would rise | 2:48:16 | 2:48:20 | |
and we'd be in an even bigger hole. | 2:48:20 | 2:48:22 | |
Leanne Wood? | 2:48:22 | 2:48:24 | |
I don't think we are all in this together. | 2:48:24 | 2:48:27 | |
In Liverpool, three times as many people this year | 2:48:27 | 2:48:32 | |
will be fed by a food bank than was the case last year. | 2:48:32 | 2:48:36 | |
And throughout the United Kingdom, 200,000 people | 2:48:36 | 2:48:40 | |
will be fed by food banks next year. | 2:48:40 | 2:48:42 | |
That's the modern-day soup kitchen. | 2:48:42 | 2:48:45 | |
How have we found ourselves in this situation in 2012 | 2:48:45 | 2:48:49 | |
in what's the fourth or fifth richest economy in the world? | 2:48:49 | 2:48:52 | |
I just don't understand. | 2:48:52 | 2:48:54 | |
For you to say, Francis Maude, that the highest earners | 2:48:54 | 2:48:59 | |
are bearing as much of the burden of this as the lowest income, | 2:48:59 | 2:49:04 | |
I have to dispute that, because a £5 cut to somebody on benefits | 2:49:04 | 2:49:09 | |
makes a much bigger impact on their life | 2:49:09 | 2:49:12 | |
than a £1,000 cut to a millionaire. | 2:49:12 | 2:49:15 | |
And that's the reality of the situation. | 2:49:15 | 2:49:17 | |
The woman up... | 2:49:20 | 2:49:23 | |
The woman up there. Yes, you. | 2:49:23 | 2:49:24 | |
I think what the general public object to mainly | 2:49:24 | 2:49:28 | |
is the use of the phrase, "We're all in this together," | 2:49:28 | 2:49:30 | |
when we all know we're not. | 2:49:30 | 2:49:32 | |
Personally, I'd rather you said, | 2:49:32 | 2:49:34 | |
"This is really hard, you going to have to deal with it," | 2:49:34 | 2:49:37 | |
rather than trying... | 2:49:37 | 2:49:38 | |
It's like you think we're stupid - by saying, | 2:49:38 | 2:49:41 | |
"We're all in it together," we're going to believe it | 2:49:41 | 2:49:43 | |
and say, "Oh, yes," when we know we're not all in it together. | 2:49:43 | 2:49:46 | |
It is not the same, like Leanne just said. | 2:49:46 | 2:49:48 | |
It's the use of these tag lines that is infuriating. | 2:49:48 | 2:49:52 | |
It is an assumption that Joe Public will buy it, when we don't buy it. | 2:49:52 | 2:49:57 | |
-We're not in it together. -No, you're right. -Francis Maude? | 2:49:57 | 2:49:59 | |
-There's a question... -No, Leanne, let Francis reply to that. | 2:49:59 | 2:50:03 | |
My point is not that it is the same for everybody, it clearly isn't. | 2:50:03 | 2:50:07 | |
You can't do things | 2:50:07 | 2:50:08 | |
which will have exactly the same effect on everybody. | 2:50:08 | 2:50:11 | |
But, actually, the point we're making | 2:50:11 | 2:50:13 | |
is that everyone has to carry some of the pain. | 2:50:13 | 2:50:15 | |
And, you know, we didn't want to be in this position, | 2:50:15 | 2:50:18 | |
we didn't want to be in a position | 2:50:18 | 2:50:20 | |
where we had an economy that hasn't picked up, | 2:50:20 | 2:50:22 | |
the Office for Budget Responsibility... | 2:50:22 | 2:50:24 | |
-ANDY BURNHAM: -Whose fault is that? | 2:50:24 | 2:50:26 | |
The Office for Budget Responsibility | 2:50:26 | 2:50:28 | |
say that it is because of the loss of trade in the Eurozone. | 2:50:28 | 2:50:31 | |
So now you're in, it's what's going on in the world economy, | 2:50:31 | 2:50:34 | |
and when we were in, it was all our fault? It's very... | 2:50:34 | 2:50:37 | |
APPLAUSE | 2:50:37 | 2:50:38 | |
Andy. Andy, since you mention it... | 2:50:38 | 2:50:40 | |
You may have noticed there is a worldwide crash. | 2:50:40 | 2:50:44 | |
Andy, since you mention it, I'll say what was your fault, | 2:50:44 | 2:50:46 | |
for which you've not said sorry - | 2:50:46 | 2:50:48 | |
you actually ran up the biggest budget deficit in the world. | 2:50:48 | 2:50:53 | |
You were Chief Secretary to the Treasury. | 2:50:53 | 2:50:55 | |
It was lower before the crash, and you know that's true. | 2:50:55 | 2:50:58 | |
You left the biggest overdraft, you maxed out the credit card | 2:50:58 | 2:51:02 | |
and it is your children and my children and their grandchildren | 2:51:02 | 2:51:06 | |
who are going to be picking up the tab for it for generations to come. | 2:51:06 | 2:51:10 | |
Man in the second row from the back there. | 2:51:10 | 2:51:12 | |
Undoubtedly, if you take a long-term view, | 2:51:12 | 2:51:15 | |
the optimum corporation tax and income tax rate | 2:51:15 | 2:51:17 | |
doesn't necessarily have to be higher. | 2:51:17 | 2:51:19 | |
If you reduce it, you give rich people an incentive | 2:51:19 | 2:51:22 | |
to remain in the country and companies a reason to invest. | 2:51:22 | 2:51:26 | |
It's likely that by decreasing tax rates you can improve HMRC's income. | 2:51:26 | 2:51:32 | |
That's a very reasonable view | 2:51:32 | 2:51:34 | |
and for Andy Burnham to say, "We'll stick at 50% for income tax," | 2:51:34 | 2:51:37 | |
is not necessarily the best approach to take. | 2:51:37 | 2:51:40 | |
Well, he hasn't said that, actually. | 2:51:40 | 2:51:42 | |
Andy, would you introduce the 50% rate? | 2:51:42 | 2:51:44 | |
If Labour had done yesterday's statement, | 2:51:44 | 2:51:46 | |
we would have reintroduced the 50p rate from next April, | 2:51:46 | 2:51:49 | |
because it is just not fair to hit the lowest paid in this country... | 2:51:49 | 2:51:53 | |
-When you're re-elected... -One second. One second. | 2:51:53 | 2:51:56 | |
..when you a huge amount of money and a tax break | 2:51:56 | 2:51:59 | |
to the highest earners. | 2:51:59 | 2:52:00 | |
Lionel is right - this has to mean what it says | 2:52:00 | 2:52:02 | |
and the Government's failure to do that is, quite frankly, immoral. | 2:52:02 | 2:52:06 | |
-Would you reintroduce it, Andy? -I just said we would! | 2:52:06 | 2:52:08 | |
-If we were doing that statement... -At the next election? | 2:52:08 | 2:52:11 | |
If you win the next election? | 2:52:11 | 2:52:12 | |
If we'd done that statement, we would've reintroduced it. | 2:52:12 | 2:52:15 | |
You can't say yes or no. | 2:52:15 | 2:52:17 | |
I want to go over to the far right, over there. Yes? | 2:52:17 | 2:52:20 | |
The kids in this city are going to be going hungry | 2:52:20 | 2:52:25 | |
because of these cuts. | 2:52:25 | 2:52:27 | |
And you cannot ever say that cuts in tax for some rich person, | 2:52:27 | 2:52:33 | |
who's never had to budget for the food for their kids, | 2:52:33 | 2:52:37 | |
for their kids' shoes, is anything like comparable. | 2:52:37 | 2:52:41 | |
Our kids are entitled to enough food to live decently. | 2:52:41 | 2:52:46 | |
They're entitled to warmth in the winter. | 2:52:46 | 2:52:48 | |
And your Government is taking that directly from the kids. | 2:52:48 | 2:52:54 | |
And the kids are going to suffer! | 2:52:54 | 2:52:55 | |
APPLAUSE | 2:52:55 | 2:52:57 | |
And the person there in grey. In the grey pullover. | 2:53:01 | 2:53:04 | |
Was it right for the Government to cut another penny | 2:53:04 | 2:53:07 | |
off corporation tax, when the level of taxation is already | 2:53:07 | 2:53:12 | |
one of the lowest in the Western world for company taxation? | 2:53:12 | 2:53:16 | |
And we have not talked about tax avoidance yet, have we? | 2:53:16 | 2:53:19 | |
Tax avoidance and tax evasion. | 2:53:19 | 2:53:21 | |
We'll come to that maybe later on. Lionel Barber. | 2:53:21 | 2:53:23 | |
We need to bring companies to this country, | 2:53:23 | 2:53:26 | |
people who are going to invest and create jobs. | 2:53:26 | 2:53:29 | |
There is a lot of competition, | 2:53:29 | 2:53:31 | |
a lot of places where people, countries, | 2:53:31 | 2:53:34 | |
are trying to attract those corporations. | 2:53:34 | 2:53:36 | |
And, in that sense, I think to go for your comparative advantage, | 2:53:36 | 2:53:40 | |
it was a good move, it was an important signal. | 2:53:40 | 2:53:42 | |
But when you have a corporation tax of 21%, | 2:53:42 | 2:53:45 | |
it would be very good if the companies actually paid it. | 2:53:45 | 2:53:48 | |
-LEANNE WOOD: -Yeah, yeah. | 2:53:48 | 2:53:49 | |
I'm going to move on, because we've had quarter of an hour on that | 2:53:52 | 2:53:55 | |
and we'll come back, perhaps, to the economy a bit later. | 2:53:55 | 2:53:58 | |
I want to question from Alison Piers. | 2:53:58 | 2:54:00 | |
Before I do, remember you can join in this debate, | 2:54:00 | 2:54:03 | |
as always, on Twitter. Our hashtag - #bbcqt. | 2:54:03 | 2:54:06 | |
Our Twitter panellist tonight is the Times columnist Hugo Rifkind, | 2:54:06 | 2:54:10 | |
and you can follow him on the @BBCExtraGuest account. | 2:54:10 | 2:54:13 | |
Or you can text your comments, | 2:54:13 | 2:54:15 | |
press the red button to see what others are saying. | 2:54:15 | 2:54:19 | |
I see that the Pope is starting tweeting soon, | 2:54:19 | 2:54:21 | |
so we'll get infallible comments from that source. | 2:54:21 | 2:54:24 | |
Ex cathedra. | 2:54:24 | 2:54:25 | |
Alison Piers, please. | 2:54:25 | 2:54:27 | |
How does the Government plan to ensure | 2:54:28 | 2:54:30 | |
that care and compassion is restored back into the NHS? | 2:54:30 | 2:54:34 | |
"How does the Government plan to restore care and compassion...?" | 2:54:34 | 2:54:37 | |
In light of a speech | 2:54:37 | 2:54:39 | |
that the new Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, made, I think. | 2:54:39 | 2:54:43 | |
Which was he said that in places in NHS hospitals, | 2:54:43 | 2:54:47 | |
"where there should be compassion, we find the opposite - | 2:54:47 | 2:54:51 | |
"a coldness, resentment, indifference, even contempt. | 2:54:51 | 2:54:54 | |
"And in the worst cases, something even darker, | 2:54:54 | 2:54:57 | |
"a kind of normalisation of cruelty, | 2:54:57 | 2:55:00 | |
"where the unacceptable is legitimised | 2:55:00 | 2:55:03 | |
"and the callous becomes mundane." | 2:55:03 | 2:55:05 | |
He said that last Thursday. | 2:55:05 | 2:55:08 | |
Andy Burnham, you're a shadow Secretary of State. | 2:55:08 | 2:55:10 | |
-Did you recognise the description of Jeremy Hunt, of some nursing? -I do. | 2:55:10 | 2:55:15 | |
There are recurrent stories of older people lost in acute hospitals, | 2:55:15 | 2:55:19 | |
disorientated, dehydrated. | 2:55:19 | 2:55:22 | |
I was Health Secretary when the stuff at Mid Staffs Hospital | 2:55:22 | 2:55:25 | |
was happening and I had to reflect very, very carefully on all this. | 2:55:25 | 2:55:27 | |
I think there are some nurses who let down the profession, | 2:55:27 | 2:55:30 | |
but the vast majority don't, they do a fantastic job. | 2:55:30 | 2:55:34 | |
Their job is made harder by people like me at times | 2:55:34 | 2:55:36 | |
giving them too much paperwork. | 2:55:36 | 2:55:38 | |
Sometimes managers cut the front line | 2:55:38 | 2:55:40 | |
but protect management jobs, and that's not fair. | 2:55:40 | 2:55:42 | |
But it goes far deeper than all of this. | 2:55:42 | 2:55:45 | |
I went work shadowing and I shadowed a nurse in the Royal Derby | 2:55:45 | 2:55:48 | |
and I asked her this question, | 2:55:48 | 2:55:50 | |
"Why do we hear these stories coming back?" | 2:55:50 | 2:55:52 | |
And she said to me... The best answer she could give me was, | 2:55:52 | 2:55:55 | |
when she trained 10 or 20 years ago, | 2:55:55 | 2:55:57 | |
they saw people on the ward after surgery in their 60s or 70s. | 2:55:57 | 2:56:01 | |
She said, "Now, we see lots of older people | 2:56:01 | 2:56:03 | |
"in their 80s or 90s after major surgery. | 2:56:03 | 2:56:05 | |
"And it's the complex job of caring for those people, | 2:56:05 | 2:56:08 | |
"it's just so different to what we did when we trained." | 2:56:08 | 2:56:11 | |
And those pressures are huge - | 2:56:11 | 2:56:13 | |
the ageing society really is putting intense pressure | 2:56:13 | 2:56:16 | |
on the NHS front line. | 2:56:16 | 2:56:18 | |
And those older people have social care needs, | 2:56:18 | 2:56:20 | |
mental health care needs, physical needs, | 2:56:20 | 2:56:22 | |
and it's difficult to cater for all of that in hospitals | 2:56:22 | 2:56:25 | |
that, quite honestly, were designed for the 20th century, not the 21st. | 2:56:25 | 2:56:28 | |
So it is a complex question. And it really needs... | 2:56:28 | 2:56:31 | |
Any single thing you would like to see done about it? | 2:56:31 | 2:56:34 | |
Let me give you some specifics on the here and now. | 2:56:34 | 2:56:36 | |
Jeremy Hunt says all of this, | 2:56:36 | 2:56:37 | |
his Government has cut 7,000 nurses from the NHS front line. | 2:56:37 | 2:56:42 | |
And, as I proved this week, contrary to the pledge they've made, | 2:56:42 | 2:56:45 | |
they've cut the NHS in real terms. | 2:56:45 | 2:56:48 | |
The CQC, the Care Quality Commission, | 2:56:48 | 2:56:50 | |
said recently that 16% of hospitals in England | 2:56:50 | 2:56:53 | |
do not have adequate staffing levels. | 2:56:53 | 2:56:56 | |
Just think about that statement for one minute - | 2:56:56 | 2:56:58 | |
16% are running below safe staffing levels. | 2:56:58 | 2:57:00 | |
These are the things he should be addressing, | 2:57:00 | 2:57:02 | |
rather than making grand statements and blaming nurses. | 2:57:02 | 2:57:05 | |
He should be dealing with those things, | 2:57:05 | 2:57:07 | |
supporting the NHS front line so it can give the best quality of care | 2:57:07 | 2:57:10 | |
in the current circumstances. | 2:57:10 | 2:57:13 | |
Leanne Wood. | 2:57:13 | 2:57:15 | |
The Royal College of Nursing have supported the campaign | 2:57:19 | 2:57:23 | |
to promote dignity in the NHS, | 2:57:23 | 2:57:25 | |
and I think that's something worth supporting. | 2:57:25 | 2:57:29 | |
But the fear is, with more cutbacks, | 2:57:29 | 2:57:31 | |
that this is a problem that's going to become worse. | 2:57:31 | 2:57:34 | |
There are lots of pressures on nurses | 2:57:34 | 2:57:36 | |
and medical staff to reach targets. | 2:57:36 | 2:57:39 | |
There are also limited resources. | 2:57:39 | 2:57:41 | |
I know, for example, that medical staff have complained | 2:57:41 | 2:57:45 | |
about shortages of bedding and things like that. | 2:57:45 | 2:57:48 | |
And staff can feel harassed and pressured | 2:57:48 | 2:57:50 | |
when there are long queues in A&E and all those sorts of things. | 2:57:50 | 2:57:55 | |
All of that is reality, | 2:57:55 | 2:57:57 | |
but none of it is to excuse bad and cruel practice. | 2:57:57 | 2:58:02 | |
I think one of the things that could help | 2:58:02 | 2:58:05 | |
is much more linking up between health services and social services, | 2:58:05 | 2:58:09 | |
to ensure that people's whole needs are met, | 2:58:09 | 2:58:12 | |
so that people are not just looked at as a medical problem | 2:58:12 | 2:58:16 | |
but their social needs are addressed, too. | 2:58:16 | 2:58:18 | |
Do you recognise the description of some nurses | 2:58:18 | 2:58:21 | |
as "lacking compassion" and "lacking care" for their patients? | 2:58:21 | 2:58:24 | |
I personally haven't had any experience of anybody... | 2:58:24 | 2:58:27 | |
But Wales is where the Government's been cutting back on the NHS. | 2:58:27 | 2:58:31 | |
-There's been cutbacks... -Have you got experience of that? | 2:58:31 | 2:58:34 | |
No, not personally, but I can't say it doesn't happen either. | 2:58:34 | 2:58:37 | |
The man in the second row there. | 2:58:37 | 2:58:39 | |
I'd just like to say, I think this Government | 2:58:39 | 2:58:41 | |
is determined to bring in privatisation | 2:58:41 | 2:58:43 | |
of the National Health Service | 2:58:43 | 2:58:44 | |
and will systematically reduce the standards | 2:58:44 | 2:58:46 | |
and the care until the rest of the country believes | 2:58:46 | 2:58:50 | |
the claptrap that they're feeding us, so they can bring in their chums | 2:58:50 | 2:58:53 | |
from all these organisations that are members of various boards. | 2:58:53 | 2:58:57 | |
These people will come in and we will be turning up at Casualty | 2:58:57 | 2:59:00 | |
with a credit card in our hands, | 2:59:00 | 2:59:02 | |
and our kids' health care will be absolutely abysmal | 2:59:02 | 2:59:04 | |
if you're not in the top bracket. | 2:59:04 | 2:59:06 | |
Tim Farron, is that a fair...? | 2:59:06 | 2:59:08 | |
-LEANNE WOOD: -Can I just...? | 2:59:08 | 2:59:09 | |
Hold on a second, I'll come back to you. | 2:59:09 | 2:59:12 | |
Is that a fair description of coalition policy on health? | 2:59:12 | 2:59:15 | |
I don't think it is. | 2:59:15 | 2:59:16 | |
The biggest threat the private sector poses | 2:59:16 | 2:59:19 | |
to the National Health Service is the PFI legacy we've inherited. | 2:59:19 | 2:59:22 | |
If you look at the average NHS Trust up and down this country, | 2:59:22 | 2:59:25 | |
why are they struggling financially? | 2:59:25 | 2:59:27 | |
It's cos one pound in five is going to the bankers, | 2:59:27 | 2:59:30 | |
rather than on to the ward. That's an outrage. | 2:59:30 | 2:59:32 | |
That is the legacy we inherited. | 2:59:32 | 2:59:34 | |
To answer the question that Alison asked, | 2:59:34 | 2:59:37 | |
I think, actually, it's a fairly harsh description | 2:59:37 | 2:59:39 | |
of the overwhelming majority of nurses in this country. | 2:59:39 | 2:59:43 | |
But, in my personal experience, | 2:59:43 | 2:59:47 | |
my mum passed away at far too early an age from cancer. | 2:59:47 | 2:59:51 | |
The care that she received was outstanding, | 2:59:51 | 2:59:54 | |
in an NHS hospital a few miles north of here in Preston. | 2:59:54 | 2:59:57 | |
So my personal experience of the NHS is outstanding, | 2:59:57 | 3:00:01 | |
and the compassion that I see from nurses is also outstanding. | 3:00:01 | 3:00:04 | |
But I can't ignore the evidence in my postbag, as a constituency MP, | 3:00:04 | 3:00:09 | |
that there are instances, from time to time, of a complete lack of that. | 3:00:09 | 3:00:13 | |
Or the MP, the Labour MP, Ann Clwyd, | 3:00:13 | 3:00:15 | |
who described her husband "dying like a battery hen." | 3:00:15 | 3:00:18 | |
It was really moving. | 3:00:18 | 3:00:19 | |
She had the last question in Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday. | 3:00:19 | 3:00:23 | |
It was deeply moving to watch that and my heart went out to her. | 3:00:23 | 3:00:26 | |
-There are plenty of people like that. -How do you prevent that? | 3:00:26 | 3:00:29 | |
There are two quick analyses, I guess - | 3:00:29 | 3:00:33 | |
one is it was absolutely right | 3:00:33 | 3:00:35 | |
to move nursing into being a graduate profession. | 3:00:35 | 3:00:37 | |
Absolutely right. | 3:00:37 | 3:00:39 | |
But what a lot of nurses tell me | 3:00:39 | 3:00:41 | |
is that there is an awful lot of emphasis on the clinical stuff, | 3:00:41 | 3:00:45 | |
absolutely right, and a bit less emphasis | 3:00:45 | 3:00:47 | |
than there ought to have been on the human stuff. | 3:00:47 | 3:00:50 | |
The other thing is, I think Leanne mentioned it, | 3:00:50 | 3:00:52 | |
if you have a culture within the NHS of box-ticking | 3:00:52 | 3:00:56 | |
and reaching targets all the time, | 3:00:56 | 3:00:58 | |
then your ability to actually provide those soft skills, | 3:00:58 | 3:01:01 | |
to make sure that someone with dementia actually eats, for example, | 3:01:01 | 3:01:04 | |
is hugely reduced. | 3:01:04 | 3:01:06 | |
There is no league table for compassion. | 3:01:06 | 3:01:08 | |
Therefore, I'm afraid, often that falls off. | 3:01:08 | 3:01:10 | |
Scrapping the target culture is the critical answer. | 3:01:10 | 3:01:13 | |
OK. APPLAUSE | 3:01:13 | 3:01:15 | |
Do you want to come back on that? | 3:01:15 | 3:01:17 | |
I would rather see one pound in every five go to the PFI | 3:01:18 | 3:01:22 | |
than two pound in every five going to the shareholders. | 3:01:22 | 3:01:24 | |
Every nationalised industry in this country is a disaster. | 3:01:24 | 3:01:27 | |
Look at your gas, look at your railways, everything. | 3:01:27 | 3:01:30 | |
Absolutely. We should never have sold them off! | 3:01:30 | 3:01:32 | |
No, exactly. | 3:01:32 | 3:01:33 | |
The National Health Service is the last thing we've got to nationalise. | 3:01:33 | 3:01:37 | |
Then it'd be a complete hat-trick for... | 3:01:37 | 3:01:39 | |
well, our fellows in the blue ties. | 3:01:39 | 3:01:41 | |
-It's happening! -Lionel Barber. | 3:01:41 | 3:01:43 | |
-Lionel Barber. -Andy has described very eloquently | 3:01:43 | 3:01:46 | |
the pressures in hospitals, | 3:01:46 | 3:01:47 | |
particularly when dealing with an ageing population. | 3:01:47 | 3:01:50 | |
The fact is, this week, the chief nursing officer described | 3:01:50 | 3:01:55 | |
nursing care standards in hospitals as very poor. | 3:01:55 | 3:01:59 | |
And hospitals in England are said to be now bursting. | 3:01:59 | 3:02:02 | |
So there is a real problem. How are we going to treat it? | 3:02:02 | 3:02:05 | |
Well, not by pouring money at it, | 3:02:05 | 3:02:08 | |
not by adopting a box-ticking culture. | 3:02:08 | 3:02:11 | |
We've poured lots of money into the National Health Service | 3:02:11 | 3:02:14 | |
over the last ten years. | 3:02:14 | 3:02:15 | |
Part of the problem is management, it's about leadership. | 3:02:15 | 3:02:19 | |
It's about expecting high standards | 3:02:19 | 3:02:21 | |
and finding ways to take off the pressure | 3:02:21 | 3:02:24 | |
from people who are dealing with very, very difficult problems | 3:02:24 | 3:02:28 | |
with patients, in very difficult hours and circumstances. | 3:02:28 | 3:02:32 | |
OK. I want to... I think you've spoken already, | 3:02:32 | 3:02:34 | |
I'd like to come to anyone who hasn't. | 3:02:34 | 3:02:36 | |
I'll come to you, and then to Francis Maude. | 3:02:36 | 3:02:39 | |
My mum had dementia, and in 1999, she was in two hospital wards. | 3:02:39 | 3:02:43 | |
One was excellent and one was quite poor. | 3:02:43 | 3:02:46 | |
So we as a family decided that we wouldn't allow her | 3:02:46 | 3:02:49 | |
to stay in hospital on her own, | 3:02:49 | 3:02:50 | |
so we were there from morning till bedtime, | 3:02:50 | 3:02:53 | |
to make sure she did get fed and she was looked after properly. | 3:02:53 | 3:02:57 | |
I think the problem is, | 3:02:57 | 3:02:58 | |
we learnt as a family how to deal with my mum over the years. | 3:02:58 | 3:03:01 | |
It's hard to explain, but you need to have that sort of understanding. | 3:03:01 | 3:03:06 | |
It doesn't come to you. | 3:03:06 | 3:03:08 | |
It's not something that you can pick up in a hospital ward. | 3:03:08 | 3:03:11 | |
You need to have a real understanding. | 3:03:11 | 3:03:13 | |
I think it's partly down to training as well. | 3:03:13 | 3:03:15 | |
I mean, compassion is compassion, I understand that. | 3:03:15 | 3:03:18 | |
But you do need extra training to look after the elderly. | 3:03:18 | 3:03:21 | |
-Francis Maude. -Well, I think it's... | 3:03:21 | 3:03:23 | |
I think Tim is in the right of it, actually. | 3:03:23 | 3:03:26 | |
I think overwhelmingly, most nurses are compassionate. | 3:03:26 | 3:03:30 | |
I don't have any doubt about that at all. | 3:03:30 | 3:03:32 | |
But that there are examples of | 3:03:32 | 3:03:35 | |
a lack of that kind of human kindness | 3:03:35 | 3:03:37 | |
and compassion is undoubtedly the case. | 3:03:37 | 3:03:40 | |
You mentioned the Ann Clywd experience, and Tim's right, | 3:03:40 | 3:03:43 | |
she was very, very moving in the House of Commons earlier this week. | 3:03:43 | 3:03:48 | |
I think anyone who is a constituency MP will have had letters | 3:03:48 | 3:03:54 | |
from patients and relatives of patients, | 3:03:54 | 3:03:57 | |
concerned about the basic care. | 3:03:57 | 3:03:59 | |
It's very rarely complaints about the medical care, | 3:03:59 | 3:04:02 | |
it's about the basic care. How do you change that? | 3:04:02 | 3:04:06 | |
Well, I think we've had a culture in the NHS which is too much about | 3:04:06 | 3:04:11 | |
bureaucracy and administration and not enough about leadership. | 3:04:11 | 3:04:15 | |
And not enough about asking patients what their experience was. | 3:04:15 | 3:04:19 | |
And I think one of the things that Jeremy Hunt's committed to do | 3:04:19 | 3:04:22 | |
is enable patients in all hospitals | 3:04:22 | 3:04:25 | |
to independently feed in their reactions. | 3:04:25 | 3:04:29 | |
Would you recommend this hospital to your family and friends? | 3:04:29 | 3:04:32 | |
I think a lot of the times when there is a culture in the hospital | 3:04:32 | 3:04:36 | |
of this lack of compassion, a lack of kindness, | 3:04:36 | 3:04:41 | |
actually I don't think the people in the hospital will know about it. | 3:04:41 | 3:04:44 | |
If you start to surface that, then I think people will respond. | 3:04:44 | 3:04:47 | |
Most people aren't unkind, most people want to do the right thing, | 3:04:47 | 3:04:51 | |
want to look after patients right, | 3:04:51 | 3:04:53 | |
and may just not know that actually, that isn't coming across. | 3:04:53 | 3:04:57 | |
Just before we... Have we got any nurses here who want to come in? | 3:04:57 | 3:05:01 | |
-Are you a nurse? -Yes. Three of the panel have mentioned leadership | 3:05:01 | 3:05:05 | |
as being critical in terms of having the right standards, | 3:05:05 | 3:05:08 | |
but I think Andy's point about the reduction in numbers, | 3:05:08 | 3:05:11 | |
it tends to be the experienced, more qualified, | 3:05:11 | 3:05:14 | |
higher-grade nursing posts that are going. | 3:05:14 | 3:05:17 | |
And that's one of the challenges about maintaining those standards, | 3:05:17 | 3:05:20 | |
but care and compassion and kindness costs nothing. | 3:05:20 | 3:05:23 | |
-Where do you nurse? -I've retired, but I'm still a qualified nurse. | 3:05:23 | 3:05:27 | |
There was another nurse with their hand up there, yes, the person there? | 3:05:27 | 3:05:31 | |
I agree that the ageing population | 3:05:31 | 3:05:33 | |
has meant that care has become more complex, | 3:05:33 | 3:05:36 | |
but that's not something that the nursing staff complain of. | 3:05:36 | 3:05:40 | |
They do complain about the two things that Andy touched upon, | 3:05:40 | 3:05:44 | |
which is the amount of paperwork that they have to go through | 3:05:44 | 3:05:47 | |
and also, the lack of staff on the wards to support them. | 3:05:47 | 3:05:52 | |
And particularly the paperwork does take away the time spent | 3:05:52 | 3:05:57 | |
being able to deliver good quality basic nursing care. | 3:05:57 | 3:06:01 | |
What about the issue of care and compassion | 3:06:01 | 3:06:03 | |
that you asked in your question? | 3:06:03 | 3:06:05 | |
How would you like to see that restored? | 3:06:05 | 3:06:07 | |
Um, I think there's almost two elements to this. | 3:06:07 | 3:06:09 | |
I think the care and compassion, | 3:06:09 | 3:06:12 | |
personally, I think that tends to be lacking | 3:06:12 | 3:06:15 | |
generally in society at the moment and I think that that is just | 3:06:15 | 3:06:18 | |
naturally reflected in the profession. | 3:06:18 | 3:06:21 | |
I think mostly with the... really looking at the paperwork | 3:06:21 | 3:06:25 | |
and looking at the staffing levels. | 3:06:25 | 3:06:27 | |
-Time to care, in other words. -Absolutely. | 3:06:27 | 3:06:29 | |
And the man there in the middle, you, sir. | 3:06:29 | 3:06:31 | |
I think what's disappointing | 3:06:31 | 3:06:33 | |
is the way Jeremy Hunt's gone about doing this. | 3:06:33 | 3:06:35 | |
There is a debate to be had about the NHS, definitely, | 3:06:35 | 3:06:38 | |
but what Jeremy Hunt's done, | 3:06:38 | 3:06:39 | |
like so many politicians, which is disappointing, | 3:06:39 | 3:06:41 | |
is use an oblique approach to open up the debate, | 3:06:41 | 3:06:44 | |
as someone at the front said. Using a sideways attack, | 3:06:44 | 3:06:46 | |
he is trying to introduce it into the public. | 3:06:46 | 3:06:49 | |
-That's quite disappointing. -I think that's exactly what he's doing. | 3:06:49 | 3:06:52 | |
Like Michael Gove just blames it all on the teachers, | 3:06:52 | 3:06:55 | |
Jeremy Hunt's doing the same thing, it's all about the staff, | 3:06:55 | 3:06:58 | |
it's nothing to do with them. | 3:06:58 | 3:06:59 | |
Let's remember, they promised no top-down reorganisation. | 3:06:59 | 3:07:02 | |
They brought forward the biggest ever in the history of the NHS. | 3:07:02 | 3:07:05 | |
They promised funding increases, they've cut it in real terms. | 3:07:05 | 3:07:08 | |
They promised no hospital closures, they're closing everywhere. | 3:07:08 | 3:07:11 | |
This prime minister was elected on his promises on the back of the NHS | 3:07:11 | 3:07:14 | |
and he's completely and utterly betrayed it. | 3:07:14 | 3:07:16 | |
I thought they'd abandoned the reorganisation of the NHS. | 3:07:16 | 3:07:19 | |
No, sadly, it's coming through. And as he said, | 3:07:19 | 3:07:21 | |
this is taking the NHS to a complete free-market approach to healthcare. | 3:07:21 | 3:07:26 | |
We celebrated our NHS at the opening ceremony of our Olympic Games | 3:07:26 | 3:07:30 | |
because people believe in its values, people before profit. | 3:07:30 | 3:07:33 | |
The bill they put through Parliament just basically destroys all of that. | 3:07:33 | 3:07:37 | |
And it's the saddest thing. We will carry on fighting it, | 3:07:37 | 3:07:40 | |
but the NHS will not stand two terms of this government. | 3:07:40 | 3:07:43 | |
Andy Burnham, wasn't it...? | 3:07:43 | 3:07:44 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:07:44 | 3:07:46 | |
Wasn't it you who said | 3:07:50 | 3:07:52 | |
it's irresponsible to increase NHS spending in real terms? | 3:07:52 | 3:07:55 | |
Yes, and you know why? | 3:07:55 | 3:07:56 | |
I said it should be frozen in real terms because any... | 3:07:56 | 3:08:00 | |
It would not make sense to give the NHS an increase | 3:08:00 | 3:08:03 | |
if the way you paid for that was hollowing out council budgets. | 3:08:03 | 3:08:06 | |
Leanne is absolutely right about that, these are essentially | 3:08:06 | 3:08:09 | |
one system now, that's the way I want to see it, | 3:08:09 | 3:08:11 | |
full integration of health and social care. | 3:08:11 | 3:08:13 | |
The reason why our hospitals are full, as Lionel said, | 3:08:13 | 3:08:17 | |
is because they can't discharge any more, | 3:08:17 | 3:08:19 | |
there's no support in the community, | 3:08:19 | 3:08:21 | |
so they're running at 90% capacity. | 3:08:21 | 3:08:23 | |
You've got to give the money to social care too. | 3:08:23 | 3:08:26 | |
I said have a balanced approach to giving the money to the NHS | 3:08:26 | 3:08:29 | |
and to social care but this government has actually cut. | 3:08:29 | 3:08:33 | |
Very briefly, Francis, then Leanne. | 3:08:33 | 3:08:35 | |
Just on the spending, the first year was, | 3:08:36 | 3:08:40 | |
of this government's spending on the NHS, those were your plans, Andy. | 3:08:40 | 3:08:44 | |
No, let him answer. | 3:08:44 | 3:08:45 | |
We've increased it since then and we will continue to increase it. | 3:08:45 | 3:08:48 | |
You said that was irresponsible, and we know you mean it because you... | 3:08:48 | 3:08:52 | |
The chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Andrew Dilnot, | 3:08:52 | 3:08:56 | |
wrote to me this week and said you cannot carry on saying that | 3:08:56 | 3:08:59 | |
because you have cut it. | 3:08:59 | 3:09:01 | |
So please do not repeat that falsehood on the television tonight. | 3:09:01 | 3:09:04 | |
We're increasing it from what you left. | 3:09:04 | 3:09:06 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:09:06 | 3:09:08 | |
And let me remind you about the coalition agreement. | 3:09:08 | 3:09:10 | |
"We will increase NHS spending in every year of this parliament," | 3:09:10 | 3:09:14 | |
you haven't done it. | 3:09:14 | 3:09:15 | |
-Actually, we have. -You haven't. -We took your plans and increased it. | 3:09:15 | 3:09:19 | |
Listen to what Andrew Dilnot said this week. | 3:09:19 | 3:09:22 | |
OK, this is a sterile argument. | 3:09:22 | 3:09:24 | |
If we want to know what Labour really thinks about it, | 3:09:24 | 3:09:27 | |
we look at what Labour is doing in Wales. | 3:09:27 | 3:09:30 | |
In Wales, Labour has cut spending on the NHS by 8%, | 3:09:30 | 3:09:35 | |
not freezing it, not increasing it, cutting it. | 3:09:35 | 3:09:38 | |
-Can I just say on this point... -A last point if you would. | 3:09:38 | 3:09:40 | |
Your government has cut the Welsh Assembly's block grant, | 3:09:40 | 3:09:44 | |
and that is why there has to be a cut to the NHS. Now... | 3:09:44 | 3:09:48 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:09:48 | 3:09:49 | |
What I would like to know is, how much the NHS in England | 3:09:51 | 3:09:54 | |
is spending on paying back the PFI loans? | 3:09:54 | 3:09:58 | |
We haven't gone down the PFI route in Wales, | 3:09:58 | 3:10:00 | |
we've got a more independent health service in Wales, | 3:10:00 | 3:10:03 | |
and that has meant there is more money about | 3:10:03 | 3:10:07 | |
because we're not paying back the debt. | 3:10:07 | 3:10:09 | |
-Your party introduced PFI into the NHS. -It was the Treasury minister. | 3:10:09 | 3:10:15 | |
Do you regret introducing it? | 3:10:15 | 3:10:17 | |
I think we won't wind back any further. No, I think we'll move on. | 3:10:17 | 3:10:21 | |
Thank you, Leanne, for the points. We must go onto another question. | 3:10:21 | 3:10:25 | |
This one is from Doreen Squires, please. | 3:10:25 | 3:10:28 | |
Doreen Squires, where are you? | 3:10:28 | 3:10:31 | |
Do the panel trust the press to regulate themselves? | 3:10:31 | 3:10:35 | |
Do the panel trust the press to regulate themselves? | 3:10:35 | 3:10:38 | |
Lionel Barber, you've been in Downing Street today | 3:10:38 | 3:10:41 | |
talking about how the press should control itself. | 3:10:41 | 3:10:45 | |
Do you trust yourselves to regulate yourselves? | 3:10:45 | 3:10:48 | |
Or should there be the law there? | 3:10:48 | 3:10:51 | |
Now, David, you've always been a stickler for accuracy. | 3:10:51 | 3:10:54 | |
So I think it should be pointed out that | 3:10:54 | 3:10:57 | |
I was in Downing Street two days ago. | 3:10:57 | 3:10:59 | |
But, the answer to your question is, yes, | 3:11:00 | 3:11:03 | |
we do trust ourselves to go, | 3:11:03 | 3:11:06 | |
to continue to have a form of self-regulation, | 3:11:06 | 3:11:11 | |
independent regulation. | 3:11:11 | 3:11:14 | |
We accept, and this didn't apply to the Financial Times, | 3:11:14 | 3:11:18 | |
we deal with numbers and statistics | 3:11:18 | 3:11:21 | |
and important things like that, so... | 3:11:21 | 3:11:24 | |
The kind of behaviour that went on in certain | 3:11:24 | 3:11:27 | |
sections of the press, notably criminal behaviour by one newspaper, | 3:11:27 | 3:11:33 | |
is not something that I recognise. | 3:11:33 | 3:11:35 | |
I'm not even sure whether some of my journalists | 3:11:35 | 3:11:38 | |
would know how to hack a phone. | 3:11:38 | 3:11:40 | |
What, in pursuit of fraud, you've never tried that? | 3:11:40 | 3:11:43 | |
I certainly haven't tried it. | 3:11:43 | 3:11:45 | |
-So you're not an investigative newspaper? -No, we very much are. | 3:11:45 | 3:11:48 | |
And again, if you'd seen our expose of Deutsche Bank today, this week... | 3:11:48 | 3:11:55 | |
It was a fascinating, fascinating, fascinating 2,000 word article... | 3:11:55 | 3:12:00 | |
I'm sure we all turned to it first, at breakfast this morning, | 3:12:00 | 3:12:03 | |
nothing else on our lips! | 3:12:03 | 3:12:04 | |
..on mark-to-market accounting, but there we are, we'll leave that. | 3:12:04 | 3:12:07 | |
There is a serious point that went on, | 3:12:07 | 3:12:10 | |
there was a very serious discussion at Downing Street. | 3:12:10 | 3:12:14 | |
All the editors were there, | 3:12:14 | 3:12:16 | |
apart from the editor of the Daily Mail, who had a bereavement. | 3:12:16 | 3:12:20 | |
But this, I've been an editor now seven years, | 3:12:20 | 3:12:23 | |
I've never seen this. | 3:12:23 | 3:12:25 | |
It was really an incredible achievement to herd | 3:12:25 | 3:12:28 | |
that number of cats into one room and get them to agree huge sections, | 3:12:28 | 3:12:34 | |
40 out of 47 recommendations of Leveson were adopted that day. | 3:12:34 | 3:12:39 | |
We are going to embrace Leveson, | 3:12:39 | 3:12:41 | |
and we are going to come up with a new form of regulation | 3:12:41 | 3:12:45 | |
which is going to have serious powers for the new regulator | 3:12:45 | 3:12:49 | |
to investigate newspapers, to enforce with fines if necessary. | 3:12:49 | 3:12:55 | |
And I think this is a huge, important step forward. | 3:12:55 | 3:12:58 | |
And I'd like to make one last point. | 3:12:58 | 3:13:01 | |
One may question the Prime Minister's motives. What... | 3:13:01 | 3:13:07 | |
Whether he really is so attached to the freedom of the press | 3:13:07 | 3:13:10 | |
and free speech, or whether he was worried about the tabloid reaction | 3:13:10 | 3:13:14 | |
if he supported a press law. | 3:13:14 | 3:13:17 | |
I'm going to come down in favour of the Prime Minister, | 3:13:17 | 3:13:20 | |
because he recognised that it is not in the interests of this country | 3:13:20 | 3:13:23 | |
to have a media law, as in South Africa, Hungary, Zimbabwe. | 3:13:23 | 3:13:30 | |
The world is watching us. We don't need a law. | 3:13:30 | 3:13:33 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:13:33 | 3:13:34 | |
OK. | 3:13:34 | 3:13:36 | |
To which I just raise one point, | 3:13:39 | 3:13:40 | |
all broadcasting in this country is done under the law. | 3:13:40 | 3:13:45 | |
-Why not newspapers? -Now, we... | 3:13:45 | 3:13:47 | |
You cannot broadcast on radio | 3:13:47 | 3:13:49 | |
or television without a legal framework. | 3:13:49 | 3:13:51 | |
You have an obligation to be impartial in your reporting. | 3:13:51 | 3:13:57 | |
-Don't you? -We don't, not under the law. And we shouldn't, | 3:13:57 | 3:14:00 | |
we never have had in the history of the press in this country. | 3:14:00 | 3:14:04 | |
The last time the press was licensed in this country | 3:14:04 | 3:14:07 | |
was more than 300 years ago. | 3:14:07 | 3:14:09 | |
We don't want to go back to an inglorious revolution. | 3:14:09 | 3:14:13 | |
OK, the man at the very back there. You, sir. | 3:14:13 | 3:14:15 | |
Lionel says that the press trust the press to regulate themselves. | 3:14:15 | 3:14:20 | |
But as a citizen, we all trusted the banks to regulate themselves, | 3:14:20 | 3:14:24 | |
-and look how well that turned out. -Let's be clear... | 3:14:24 | 3:14:27 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:14:27 | 3:14:28 | |
Hold on, Lionel. | 3:14:28 | 3:14:30 | |
The person right up there at the back there, I can see a hand. | 3:14:30 | 3:14:33 | |
-There we are. -The press are regulating themselves, and failing. | 3:14:33 | 3:14:39 | |
Broadcasters are regulated and they're failing. | 3:14:39 | 3:14:43 | |
There's something wrong, there's something rotten, | 3:14:43 | 3:14:47 | |
in what's going on. Why shouldn't the press have, | 3:14:47 | 3:14:50 | |
why shouldn't the print press have an obligation to be impartial? | 3:14:50 | 3:14:55 | |
Tim Farron. | 3:14:55 | 3:14:57 | |
Just to pick up the point that was made at the back a moment ago. | 3:14:57 | 3:15:01 | |
I think if the... Let's say, for example, | 3:15:01 | 3:15:04 | |
there was a scandal involving the banks, for instance. | 3:15:04 | 3:15:07 | |
Let's say, even MPs. Obviously that would never happen, but let's say. | 3:15:07 | 3:15:11 | |
Let's say there was a scandal | 3:15:11 | 3:15:12 | |
that affected the police force, for instance. | 3:15:12 | 3:15:15 | |
And if after a judge-led enquiry it was recommended that | 3:15:15 | 3:15:18 | |
there should be independent regulation of those outfits, | 3:15:18 | 3:15:22 | |
and yet, those MPs or bankers or senior police officers said, | 3:15:22 | 3:15:26 | |
"No, trust us to regulate ourselves," | 3:15:26 | 3:15:28 | |
Lionel and all the other editors would lay into those bodies, | 3:15:28 | 3:15:32 | |
and quite rightly. | 3:15:32 | 3:15:34 | |
It's important we recognise... | 3:15:34 | 3:15:35 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:15:35 | 3:15:37 | |
This is a city that knows better than most, sadly, | 3:15:37 | 3:15:40 | |
what it's like to be at the sharp end of the abuse of media power. | 3:15:40 | 3:15:44 | |
There is nothing illegal, sadly, about libelling 96 dead people. | 3:15:44 | 3:15:48 | |
And that is one of the reasons, one of the examples that, | 3:15:48 | 3:15:51 | |
when we get to the end of this process, | 3:15:51 | 3:15:53 | |
we have to look those families in the eye. | 3:15:53 | 3:15:55 | |
We have to look the family of Milly Dowler and of the McCanns, | 3:15:55 | 3:15:59 | |
and all those other people who have been victims of press hacking | 3:15:59 | 3:16:02 | |
in the eye and say, we have done something about this. | 3:16:02 | 3:16:05 | |
I am very, very pleased the editors have got together | 3:16:05 | 3:16:07 | |
and responded to Leveson as they have so far. | 3:16:07 | 3:16:10 | |
And I'm open-minded about it. | 3:16:10 | 3:16:12 | |
But the bottom line has got to be independent regulation | 3:16:12 | 3:16:14 | |
so those innocent victims never have to see that repeated again. | 3:16:14 | 3:16:18 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:16:18 | 3:16:20 | |
I accept that the press needs to be regulated independently, | 3:16:26 | 3:16:29 | |
but I don't see... | 3:16:29 | 3:16:31 | |
But it's been said this week that David Cameron is not | 3:16:32 | 3:16:35 | |
completely supporting Leveson, and I'm just wondering why. | 3:16:35 | 3:16:37 | |
Why the Conservative party doesn't support it. | 3:16:37 | 3:16:40 | |
Lord Justice Leveson said it was essential there was a legal framework | 3:16:40 | 3:16:43 | |
which we will come to in a second. | 3:16:43 | 3:16:44 | |
Up to now, Mr Barber has spoken an awful lot of sense, | 3:16:44 | 3:16:48 | |
-I've been very impressed with what he's said. -Thank you very much! | 3:16:48 | 3:16:52 | |
But it has to be acknowledged that three-quarters of the editors that | 3:16:52 | 3:16:56 | |
you walk through Number Ten, is that they've all got papers in Ireland. | 3:16:56 | 3:17:00 | |
They're all signed up there to the restrictions which are there | 3:17:00 | 3:17:04 | |
for the papers in Ireland. | 3:17:04 | 3:17:05 | |
And I don't see all the papers refusing to have anything | 3:17:05 | 3:17:09 | |
to do with Southern Ireland. The argument is a nonsense. | 3:17:09 | 3:17:13 | |
They're signed over there, but they won't sign here. Why? | 3:17:13 | 3:17:16 | |
Francis Maude, Lord Justice Leveson said it was essential | 3:17:16 | 3:17:19 | |
there should be legal underpinning, and the Prime Minister said | 3:17:19 | 3:17:23 | |
everything but the legal underpinning. Why? | 3:17:23 | 3:17:26 | |
And can the press be trusted in your view to regulate itself? | 3:17:26 | 3:17:30 | |
I don't think it's the press regulating itself. | 3:17:30 | 3:17:32 | |
I think everyone agrees there's got to be an independent regulator | 3:17:32 | 3:17:35 | |
which commands trust. And can that happen? | 3:17:35 | 3:17:39 | |
I think the jury's out. | 3:17:39 | 3:17:40 | |
I think the press have got to come together | 3:17:40 | 3:17:43 | |
and put together a regulator. | 3:17:43 | 3:17:45 | |
This is what Lord Justice Leveson himself said, | 3:17:45 | 3:17:48 | |
that the press have got to come together and create | 3:17:48 | 3:17:51 | |
a regulatory body that commands genuine support. | 3:17:51 | 3:17:55 | |
And it will have to earn trust. | 3:17:55 | 3:17:57 | |
But he said essential to have legal underpinning, | 3:17:57 | 3:18:00 | |
ie a law, not just he and his fellow editors agreeing a system. | 3:18:00 | 3:18:06 | |
Yes. You see, I'm not persuaded of that. | 3:18:06 | 3:18:08 | |
I think there has to be statutory underpinning, | 3:18:08 | 3:18:10 | |
it has to have the backing of law and I think everyone agrees that. | 3:18:10 | 3:18:15 | |
The newspapers, the publishers, have got to commit themselves | 3:18:15 | 3:18:18 | |
by contract to accept what this regulator does. | 3:18:18 | 3:18:23 | |
And it's got to command real support. | 3:18:23 | 3:18:26 | |
I think there is a job for the press to do to win trust again | 3:18:26 | 3:18:30 | |
and the jury is out. Lionel and his colleagues will... | 3:18:30 | 3:18:33 | |
So how do you differ from Leveson? | 3:18:33 | 3:18:36 | |
You say there has to be statutory underpinning. | 3:18:36 | 3:18:38 | |
Is that not the same as legal underpinning? | 3:18:38 | 3:18:40 | |
No, because what has been proposed, and I think is plausible, | 3:18:40 | 3:18:45 | |
is an arrangement where the newspapers commit themselves | 3:18:45 | 3:18:49 | |
by a contractual arrangement, which is capable of being | 3:18:49 | 3:18:52 | |
judged in courts, but which doesn't have the statutory underpinning. | 3:18:52 | 3:18:57 | |
The danger with statute is that it is open to abuse of power. | 3:18:57 | 3:19:01 | |
It puts power in the hands of the Government and of Parliament | 3:19:01 | 3:19:05 | |
and actually, I've suffered at the hands of the press. | 3:19:05 | 3:19:08 | |
Lots of people have. That's what you do when you go into public life. | 3:19:08 | 3:19:12 | |
I haven't found it comfortable always, | 3:19:12 | 3:19:14 | |
but I will absolutely defend the right of the press to be free | 3:19:14 | 3:19:19 | |
and to have free comment and that independence, | 3:19:19 | 3:19:22 | |
uncomfortable though it is for those of us in public life, | 3:19:22 | 3:19:25 | |
is to be defended. | 3:19:25 | 3:19:26 | |
The woman here on the left, then I'll come to you, Andy. | 3:19:26 | 3:19:29 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:19:29 | 3:19:30 | |
There are many, many occupations in this country | 3:19:30 | 3:19:32 | |
that we don't allow people to practise if they're not | 3:19:32 | 3:19:35 | |
registered in some way, such as lawyers, doctors, even electricians. | 3:19:35 | 3:19:39 | |
That's because we do that to protect the public | 3:19:39 | 3:19:41 | |
from what harm could happen to them. | 3:19:41 | 3:19:43 | |
I don't see why journalists should be any different from that. | 3:19:43 | 3:19:46 | |
-Andy Burnham, do you? -No, I don't. | 3:19:46 | 3:19:49 | |
You think all journalists should be registered? | 3:19:49 | 3:19:51 | |
-That's what she said. -No, I thought... | 3:19:51 | 3:19:53 | |
-I don't mean registered but they should be subject to regulation. -Like the GMC. | 3:19:53 | 3:19:57 | |
To answer the question, yes, I do trust them, but that's what | 3:19:57 | 3:20:01 | |
Lord Leveson proposed, self-regulation with teeth, | 3:20:01 | 3:20:04 | |
independent self-regulation. | 3:20:04 | 3:20:06 | |
Let's be clear, he didn't propose statutory or state regulation | 3:20:06 | 3:20:09 | |
of the press. Tim's right. I agree with what Tim said. | 3:20:09 | 3:20:12 | |
If any city knows that the current system where the press is | 3:20:12 | 3:20:15 | |
a law unto itself, knows the current system can't go on, | 3:20:15 | 3:20:18 | |
it's surely this city, where 23 years ago | 3:20:18 | 3:20:21 | |
despicable lies were told about the victims, the survivors of a tragedy. | 3:20:21 | 3:20:26 | |
A general slur was cast on the supporters | 3:20:26 | 3:20:29 | |
of Liverpool Football Club and this whole city. | 3:20:29 | 3:20:32 | |
And for 23 years, we lived under that. | 3:20:32 | 3:20:35 | |
The press helped put the lid on one of the biggest cover-ups | 3:20:35 | 3:20:38 | |
this is country has ever seen. It was complicit in that. | 3:20:38 | 3:20:43 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:20:43 | 3:20:45 | |
What troubles me about Hillsborough, | 3:20:51 | 3:20:54 | |
this city boycotted that out-of-control newspaper in result. | 3:20:54 | 3:20:58 | |
But who was listening? London wasn't listening. | 3:20:58 | 3:21:01 | |
It took politicians' and celebrities' phones to be hacked | 3:21:01 | 3:21:03 | |
till someone listened. | 3:21:03 | 3:21:04 | |
But even for Hillsborough the press has been a double-edged sword. | 3:21:04 | 3:21:07 | |
I worked with investigative journalists who in the end helped us | 3:21:07 | 3:21:11 | |
prise the lid back off and expose the cover-ups. | 3:21:11 | 3:21:15 | |
So the free press is absolutely essential. | 3:21:15 | 3:21:17 | |
But it's where those ordinary people at the lowest point in their lives, | 3:21:17 | 3:21:21 | |
the Hillsborough families, the McCanns, the Dowlers. | 3:21:21 | 3:21:24 | |
They are the people who've been demolished by the press in this | 3:21:24 | 3:21:27 | |
country when they're at their most vulnerable | 3:21:27 | 3:21:29 | |
and the press must be forced to make recompense to those people, give them adequate protection. | 3:21:29 | 3:21:35 | |
That's why what Leveson recommends so tremendously important. | 3:21:35 | 3:21:38 | |
APPLAUSE OK, Andy, but just to try... | 3:21:38 | 3:21:41 | |
The key quote from Leveson that the Prime Minister disagreed with | 3:21:44 | 3:21:48 | |
and said was a Rubicon that we should not cross, | 3:21:48 | 3:21:50 | |
or ideally will not cross, and these are Leveson's words, | 3:21:50 | 3:21:54 | |
"it's essential there should be legislation | 3:21:54 | 3:21:57 | |
"to underpin the self-regulatory system." | 3:21:57 | 3:21:59 | |
-Do you agree, yes or no? -Yes, I agree with that. | 3:21:59 | 3:22:03 | |
You do? OK, fine. Leanne Wood? | 3:22:03 | 3:22:05 | |
I agree with that as well. | 3:22:05 | 3:22:07 | |
The Press Complaints Commission has completely failed | 3:22:07 | 3:22:11 | |
as a voluntary body. | 3:22:11 | 3:22:14 | |
The serious transgressors were allowed to opt out of the system. | 3:22:14 | 3:22:19 | |
The problem for me is I'm less concerned actually | 3:22:19 | 3:22:22 | |
with the celebrities and even the politicians, | 3:22:22 | 3:22:25 | |
but the ordinary people who've no recourse. | 3:22:25 | 3:22:28 | |
The only way to challenge a newspaper that has printed | 3:22:28 | 3:22:32 | |
lies about you is to take them through the courts | 3:22:32 | 3:22:35 | |
through the libel laws | 3:22:35 | 3:22:36 | |
and for most people of ordinary income | 3:22:36 | 3:22:39 | |
that's completely impossible. | 3:22:39 | 3:22:41 | |
So I support the Leveson recommendations | 3:22:41 | 3:22:45 | |
to protect the public. | 3:22:45 | 3:22:47 | |
But also to protect freedom of expression. | 3:22:47 | 3:22:50 | |
-That's an important point as well. -OK. -I have a quick point. -Be very, very quick. | 3:22:50 | 3:22:55 | |
It's about the Hillsborough. Andy deserves enormous credit. | 3:22:55 | 3:22:59 | |
He campaigned vigorously on Hillsborough to expose | 3:22:59 | 3:23:04 | |
a lasting injustice. | 3:23:04 | 3:23:05 | |
And he deserves enormous credit for what he did. | 3:23:05 | 3:23:08 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:23:08 | 3:23:10 | |
And I just make this point. | 3:23:18 | 3:23:20 | |
You were able to do that, which you did brilliantly and bravely, | 3:23:20 | 3:23:24 | |
-because of your right of free speech, and freedom of expression. -I accept that. | 3:23:24 | 3:23:28 | |
And we have to guard that really carefully. | 3:23:28 | 3:23:31 | |
Nobody should do this lightly. | 3:23:31 | 3:23:33 | |
Every politician who supports the enactment of Leveson's | 3:23:33 | 3:23:37 | |
proposals on press regulation should feel uncomfortable about it, | 3:23:37 | 3:23:42 | |
but we also have to remember that there are threats to the free press | 3:23:42 | 3:23:46 | |
from within the press. | 3:23:46 | 3:23:48 | |
Two of my colleagues, for example, | 3:23:48 | 3:23:50 | |
have had their regular columns pulled this week | 3:23:50 | 3:23:52 | |
by their separate newspapers because they were too pro-Leveson. | 3:23:52 | 3:23:57 | |
This is what we get sometimes, when you see a press | 3:23:57 | 3:24:01 | |
which is very, very powerful. | 3:24:01 | 3:24:04 | |
The suppression of the truth does not always come from politicians. | 3:24:04 | 3:24:08 | |
It can come from extremely wealthy magnates who own vast numbers of newspapers. | 3:24:08 | 3:24:13 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:24:13 | 3:24:15 | |
Who owns you? Do wealthy people own you? | 3:24:18 | 3:24:22 | |
-It wasn't your paper. -No, we're just owned by someone called Pearson. | 3:24:22 | 3:24:25 | |
-Very simple. -Let's... -Just one little point. | 3:24:25 | 3:24:29 | |
In the next week or so, you'll see proposals from the editors, | 3:24:29 | 3:24:34 | |
from the journalistic profession, | 3:24:34 | 3:24:36 | |
which will support what I said about the industry embracing Leveson | 3:24:36 | 3:24:42 | |
and answering a lot of the questions people have | 3:24:42 | 3:24:46 | |
about responsible behaviour, the ordinary people | 3:24:46 | 3:24:50 | |
who are not well-treated by the press. | 3:24:50 | 3:24:53 | |
There will be some serious meat in proposals in the next few days. | 3:24:53 | 3:24:57 | |
Right, well, we will hold our breath. Or we won't... | 3:24:57 | 3:25:00 | |
No, we WILL hold our breath! | 3:25:00 | 3:25:01 | |
Thank you, David, for that resounding vote of confidence(!) | 3:25:01 | 3:25:05 | |
Edward Lamb, please. | 3:25:05 | 3:25:06 | |
When will the new pay-what-you-want tax rule be rolled out to | 3:25:06 | 3:25:10 | |
the rest of the business world? | 3:25:10 | 3:25:12 | |
"When will the new pay-what-you-want tax rule be rolled out..." | 3:25:12 | 3:25:16 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:25:16 | 3:25:17 | |
".. to the rest of the business world", | 3:25:21 | 3:25:23 | |
or indeed to all of us, maybe, just make voluntary contributions. | 3:25:23 | 3:25:26 | |
Starbucks, obviously at the heart of this. | 3:25:26 | 3:25:28 | |
The managing director has said they will now pay a significant | 3:25:28 | 3:25:31 | |
amount of tax, regardless of whether the company is profitable. | 3:25:31 | 3:25:34 | |
They'll change all their arrangements | 3:25:34 | 3:25:36 | |
and if they've made a loss, | 3:25:36 | 3:25:37 | |
they'll still pay £10 million this year and £10 million next year. | 3:25:37 | 3:25:41 | |
It's the weirdest thing. | 3:25:41 | 3:25:42 | |
Francis Maude understands all this, what is going on? | 3:25:42 | 3:25:46 | |
Well, I think Starbucks have woken up and smelled the coffee. And... | 3:25:46 | 3:25:49 | |
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE | 3:25:49 | 3:25:51 | |
And I think what was significant, this was people power actually. | 3:25:55 | 3:26:00 | |
They are a consumer brand, a retail brand, | 3:26:00 | 3:26:03 | |
and the public were making their feelings known. | 3:26:03 | 3:26:05 | |
People who work hard and pay their taxes actually deeply resented | 3:26:05 | 3:26:10 | |
the fact that here was a multinational that was | 3:26:10 | 3:26:13 | |
avoiding paying tax, although it was operating in this country. | 3:26:13 | 3:26:18 | |
Why didn't you make them pay the tax? | 3:26:18 | 3:26:20 | |
We are, for the first time, introducing | 3:26:20 | 3:26:22 | |
a general anti-abuse provision into the law, | 3:26:22 | 3:26:25 | |
which has never been done before. | 3:26:25 | 3:26:28 | |
So if you have a phony arrangement like every cup of coffee, | 3:26:28 | 3:26:31 | |
we have to pay Holland to serve it here in Liverpool | 3:26:31 | 3:26:34 | |
and therefore we don't have to pay tax - you'll change it? | 3:26:34 | 3:26:37 | |
-They've already done it in Scotland. -What it will do is introduce arrangements so that | 3:26:37 | 3:26:42 | |
if there is something which is plainly artificial, an arrangement | 3:26:42 | 3:26:45 | |
which is clearly artificial, designed for tax avoidance... | 3:26:45 | 3:26:48 | |
I thought that's what the Inland Revenue did all the time! | 3:26:48 | 3:26:50 | |
This is an artificial arrangement, you can't get away with it. | 3:26:50 | 3:26:53 | |
What they do, consistently - four things which George Osborne | 3:26:53 | 3:26:57 | |
announced yesterday which contributed to this - | 3:26:57 | 3:26:59 | |
they're constantly blocking loopholes, | 3:26:59 | 3:27:02 | |
they're looking for loopholes, finding them and blocking them. | 3:27:02 | 3:27:05 | |
-That's what's consistently been done. -OK. | 3:27:05 | 3:27:07 | |
But you're always behind the fair. | 3:27:07 | 3:27:09 | |
What the general anti-abuse provision will do | 3:27:09 | 3:27:12 | |
is enable them to look proactively at artificial arrangements | 3:27:12 | 3:27:16 | |
and ensure that the substance is what's properly taxed. | 3:27:16 | 3:27:20 | |
This is guilty conscience. This isn't paying money they have to pay. | 3:27:20 | 3:27:23 | |
Everybody knows it was legal up to now, | 3:27:23 | 3:27:26 | |
doing what they're doing, and they say they'll pay 10 million | 3:27:26 | 3:27:29 | |
this year and 10 million next year, even if they make a loss. | 3:27:29 | 3:27:32 | |
It's weird! LAUGHTER | 3:27:32 | 3:27:34 | |
What I think they're saying is that they're going to | 3:27:34 | 3:27:36 | |
stop claiming some deductions | 3:27:36 | 3:27:39 | |
which may or may not have been artificial, in order to avoid tax. | 3:27:39 | 3:27:43 | |
-Any coffee drinkers here? -And that's well for them to do. | 3:27:43 | 3:27:47 | |
The woman up there on the left. Yes, you. | 3:27:47 | 3:27:49 | |
They've not paid it for the last three years. | 3:27:49 | 3:27:52 | |
-Is the 10 million too little? -Well, that's a good point. | 3:27:52 | 3:27:57 | |
-What do you think? -To view tax as a voluntary donation given | 3:27:57 | 3:28:02 | |
out of the goodness of their heart | 3:28:02 | 3:28:05 | |
is quite an extraordinary view of life. | 3:28:05 | 3:28:07 | |
I just wonder what small British businesses will think | 3:28:07 | 3:28:10 | |
when they see this kind of behaviour. | 3:28:10 | 3:28:14 | |
We hear all this stuff about playing by the rules from the Government, | 3:28:14 | 3:28:17 | |
but they'd better get these people | 3:28:17 | 3:28:19 | |
playing by the rules for a start, that would help. | 3:28:19 | 3:28:21 | |
It has echoes for me of other things we've seen in Parliament, | 3:28:21 | 3:28:24 | |
in banking - an elite setting their own rules. | 3:28:24 | 3:28:27 | |
It's not going to go down well with the public at all. | 3:28:27 | 3:28:30 | |
A bit rich coming from you. | 3:28:30 | 3:28:32 | |
How long has Starbucks been operating in this country? | 3:28:32 | 3:28:35 | |
Ten years and they haven't paid any... | 3:28:35 | 3:28:37 | |
And how many years of that was a Labour Chancellor in power? | 3:28:37 | 3:28:40 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:28:40 | 3:28:41 | |
-I'm making more of a general point. -I bet you are! | 3:28:44 | 3:28:49 | |
LAUGHTER | 3:28:49 | 3:28:51 | |
We've all woken up to the issue, as you were saying in your question. | 3:28:51 | 3:28:55 | |
I think the point is that it's global brands, multinationals, | 3:28:55 | 3:28:58 | |
who can play one bit of their empire off against another. | 3:28:58 | 3:29:02 | |
"Holland's getting the royalties..." That's the problem. | 3:29:02 | 3:29:05 | |
Margaret Hodge has done a brilliant job exposing this | 3:29:05 | 3:29:07 | |
in the Public Accounts Committee. | 3:29:07 | 3:29:09 | |
It seems to me the Government | 3:29:09 | 3:29:11 | |
does now have to go after this issue very strongly. | 3:29:11 | 3:29:14 | |
There's about £32 billion of uncollected tax from these people | 3:29:14 | 3:29:17 | |
and we need to get finding that money, rather than going | 3:29:17 | 3:29:21 | |
after people at the very bottom who are so-called cheating on benefits. | 3:29:21 | 3:29:26 | |
-Let's get after these people. -You, sir. | 3:29:26 | 3:29:28 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:29:28 | 3:29:29 | |
I set up a company to try to pay my way through university | 3:29:31 | 3:29:34 | |
and it's a real kick in the teeth | 3:29:34 | 3:29:35 | |
to see these multi-million dollar corporations paying nothing, | 3:29:35 | 3:29:39 | |
or even offering money | 3:29:39 | 3:29:40 | |
while I'm having to pay most of the money that I earn out of my company. | 3:29:40 | 3:29:44 | |
It's a real kick up the backside. | 3:29:44 | 3:29:45 | |
-You set up the company and made a profit? -Yes. | 3:29:45 | 3:29:48 | |
I'm a full-time student and to pay my way through university, | 3:29:48 | 3:29:50 | |
I run this company. It's just quite harsh | 3:29:50 | 3:29:53 | |
to see these corporations offering money, | 3:29:53 | 3:29:55 | |
when really they should be getting it | 3:29:55 | 3:29:57 | |
taken away from them if they're operating here. | 3:29:57 | 3:29:59 | |
OK, and you, sir, behind. Three behind. | 3:29:59 | 3:30:02 | |
I think if you look at Google and Amazon, | 3:30:02 | 3:30:04 | |
where they don't have any competition, unlike Starbucks. | 3:30:04 | 3:30:07 | |
Starbucks has made this decision cos they have a lot of | 3:30:07 | 3:30:10 | |
competition on the marketplace and know people will go elsewhere. | 3:30:10 | 3:30:13 | |
They go to the competitors. | 3:30:13 | 3:30:14 | |
They can go to bookshops instead of Amazon. | 3:30:14 | 3:30:16 | |
-Yeah, absolutely, but I think... -Still a few! | 3:30:16 | 3:30:19 | |
LAUGHTER | 3:30:19 | 3:30:20 | |
But I think Amazon is a massive monopoly, as is Google. They know they don't have the same threats. | 3:30:20 | 3:30:25 | |
A quick point - this is true of our Government and the current one. | 3:30:25 | 3:30:28 | |
Governments get too close to big businesses. | 3:30:28 | 3:30:30 | |
This Government has been too close to Google. | 3:30:30 | 3:30:32 | |
All governments need to step back from the press, from big business | 3:30:32 | 3:30:36 | |
-and do the right thing. That was true of us, too. -Leanne Wood. | 3:30:36 | 3:30:40 | |
I don't think anybody should be allowed to decide | 3:30:40 | 3:30:43 | |
how much tax they pay. That should be set out clearly | 3:30:43 | 3:30:46 | |
and the rules should be fair across the board. | 3:30:46 | 3:30:49 | |
There needs to be some sort of international agreement | 3:30:49 | 3:30:53 | |
on tax avoidance. | 3:30:53 | 3:30:54 | |
I'm not sure how much money we're talking here about | 3:30:54 | 3:30:56 | |
because HMRC themselves say that there is £32.2 billion | 3:30:56 | 3:31:02 | |
in tax avoidance every year. | 3:31:02 | 3:31:04 | |
But the TUC say it's £120 billion a year. | 3:31:04 | 3:31:08 | |
It'd be useful to know what we're dealing with. | 3:31:08 | 3:31:12 | |
But surely one of the big problems is the cuts to the staff | 3:31:12 | 3:31:14 | |
who are meant to be going out collecting the taxes. | 3:31:14 | 3:31:18 | |
While the Labour Party were in government | 3:31:18 | 3:31:21 | |
there were 12,500 people, HMRC staff, laid off between 2008-2010, | 3:31:21 | 3:31:29 | |
and a further 5,000 staff have been laid off by the Tories | 3:31:29 | 3:31:34 | |
and the Liberal Democrats between 2010-2012. | 3:31:34 | 3:31:37 | |
But this wouldn't have affected Starbucks. You could see them there. | 3:31:37 | 3:31:41 | |
You don't need 1,500 people to tell Starbucks. | 3:31:41 | 3:31:44 | |
Starbucks is one example. | 3:31:44 | 3:31:48 | |
Clearly, because they are a multinational corporation, | 3:31:48 | 3:31:51 | |
they can play these rules off against each other | 3:31:51 | 3:31:53 | |
in different countries, | 3:31:53 | 3:31:55 | |
which is why you need an international agreement. | 3:31:55 | 3:31:58 | |
But in general, what the Government is doing with its austerity | 3:31:58 | 3:32:02 | |
programme is cutting at the bottom, | 3:32:02 | 3:32:04 | |
while allowing the rich corporations and individuals to avoid paying tax. | 3:32:04 | 3:32:09 | |
And those tax loopholes should be closed down, in my view, | 3:32:09 | 3:32:13 | |
and more people should be taken on in HMRC, with experience. | 3:32:13 | 3:32:19 | |
You've taken on temporary staff with limited experience | 3:32:19 | 3:32:22 | |
and laid off people who can do complex investigations | 3:32:22 | 3:32:26 | |
which can bring the money and... | 3:32:26 | 3:32:28 | |
Point made, thank you. The man up there at the back. APPLAUSE | 3:32:28 | 3:32:31 | |
I'm sure the panel take measures to minimise their tax liability. | 3:32:31 | 3:32:36 | |
This is what the companies have done. | 3:32:36 | 3:32:38 | |
It's the rules that need toughening. | 3:32:38 | 3:32:42 | |
The loopholes need to be plugged. | 3:32:42 | 3:32:43 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:32:43 | 3:32:45 | |
May be the Government should employ the tax advisers | 3:32:47 | 3:32:50 | |
of multinationals to find loopholes and claim money back from taxpayers. | 3:32:50 | 3:32:55 | |
-Poacher turned gamekeeper. -Yeah. -Lionel Barber. | 3:32:55 | 3:32:58 | |
Let's be clear, the company has not committed a crime. | 3:32:58 | 3:33:02 | |
Not even the Government has said what it's been doing is illegal. | 3:33:02 | 3:33:06 | |
What is important... | 3:33:06 | 3:33:07 | |
There's a parallel between the comedian, Jimmy Carr, | 3:33:07 | 3:33:11 | |
who if you remember, it was reported | 3:33:11 | 3:33:13 | |
he'd been engaged in very aggressive tax management | 3:33:13 | 3:33:18 | |
and not paying a lot of tax. | 3:33:18 | 3:33:19 | |
So he said, "I haven't done anything wrong." | 3:33:19 | 3:33:23 | |
But with the public outrage, he changed his mind. | 3:33:23 | 3:33:26 | |
This is what's happened with Starbucks. | 3:33:26 | 3:33:29 | |
They have understood that their duty is not only | 3:33:29 | 3:33:34 | |
to their shareholders - they operate in a community. | 3:33:34 | 3:33:38 | |
And it is really not acceptable to engage in this | 3:33:38 | 3:33:41 | |
kind of aggressive tax avoidance, | 3:33:41 | 3:33:44 | |
when they've made plenty of money, albeit not in this country. | 3:33:44 | 3:33:48 | |
They have the weird coffee bean manoeuvre, | 3:33:48 | 3:33:51 | |
which David Dimbleby alluded to, which I don't understand. | 3:33:51 | 3:33:54 | |
The royalty payments - that's allowed under EU law, | 3:33:54 | 3:33:58 | |
those transfers, so they've seen sense. | 3:33:58 | 3:34:01 | |
I think the broader question, and something | 3:34:01 | 3:34:05 | |
which really shouldn't be forgotten, | 3:34:05 | 3:34:07 | |
is that, yes, people power has worked, | 3:34:07 | 3:34:10 | |
but who will really suffer in the event of a further consumer boycott? | 3:34:10 | 3:34:15 | |
The answer is, those people who've taken risks to | 3:34:15 | 3:34:18 | |
take on work as franchisee of Starbucks. | 3:34:18 | 3:34:22 | |
They're losing money, they may go out of work. This is a problem. | 3:34:22 | 3:34:26 | |
We had someone in our audience | 3:34:26 | 3:34:28 | |
a fortnight ago actually who'd got a franchise. | 3:34:28 | 3:34:30 | |
The money that's been accumulated is in Seattle, | 3:34:30 | 3:34:35 | |
the home of Starbucks, not in this country. | 3:34:35 | 3:34:37 | |
Tim Farron, have to be brief, we're almost out of time. | 3:34:37 | 3:34:40 | |
What is taxation? It's the subscription charge | 3:34:40 | 3:34:44 | |
for living in a civilised society. | 3:34:44 | 3:34:46 | |
Starbucks benefit hugely from living and operating in our society. | 3:34:46 | 3:34:50 | |
Their staff are educated by us, protected by our police. | 3:34:50 | 3:34:53 | |
Those of us that end up with rotten teeth by drinking their frappuccinos | 3:34:53 | 3:34:57 | |
get their teeth looked after on the NHS... I'm a tea drinker, what do I know? | 3:34:57 | 3:35:00 | |
The point is this - the indictment on our society and on government | 3:35:00 | 3:35:05 | |
of all colours is that we've even got to this situation | 3:35:05 | 3:35:08 | |
in the first place. We should stop rattling on about it | 3:35:08 | 3:35:11 | |
and slagging off Starbucks | 3:35:11 | 3:35:12 | |
and just fix the tax code and stop this happening again. | 3:35:12 | 3:35:15 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:35:15 | 3:35:17 | |
Right. | 3:35:18 | 3:35:20 | |
That's it for tonight. | 3:35:23 | 3:35:24 | |
We're in Bristol next week, the last one of the year. | 3:35:24 | 3:35:27 | |
On our panel, Will Self, the author, and the editor of The Times, | 3:35:27 | 3:35:31 | |
having had the editor of the Financial Times, James Harding. | 3:35:31 | 3:35:35 | |
If you want to come, the website address is there | 3:35:35 | 3:35:38 | |
or you can call 0330 123 99 88. | 3:35:38 | 3:35:41 | |
Thanks to you, panellists. | 3:35:41 | 3:35:43 | |
Thanks to you, all this large audience in Liverpool, | 3:35:43 | 3:35:47 | |
for coming along for Question Time. | 3:35:47 | 3:35:49 | |
Until next Thursday, from all of us here, good night. | 3:35:49 | 3:35:51 | |
APPLAUSE | 3:35:51 | 3:35:52 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 3:36:18 | 3:36:19 |