24/10/2013 Question Time

Here we are in Liverpool. Welcome to Question Time.

Good evening. Welcome to our audience here who will be putting

the questions to our panel who, I swear to God, do not know what the

questions are until they're asked them by the audience, despite what

people say. Our panel is the Conservative education minister, Liz

Truss, Labour's shadow energy secretary, Caroline Flint, president

of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, Peter Hitchens, and author

of the book "Chavs", Owen Jones. APPLAUSE Now,

we will take our first question from Joy Buoyed, please. Should the

government introduce a windfall tax, ditch green levies or should we just

wear more jumpers? This is the third time we've discussed this and it

comes up all the time because picture keeps changing. Peter

Hitchens? None of those things. What the government should do is abandon

the ridiculous drive towards green energy, which is the main part of

this price increase which we can control. We can't control the world

price of energy, but we can get rid of this crazy system of milking the

public to subsidise landowners and others to build useless windmills

which most of the time don't produce any power anyway, and which are only

there to serve and a mistaken dogma about man made global warming. How

much could you bring down the price of energy? If you had your way, how

much would it bring down the price of energy? I couldn't give you an

exact figure but I think probably quietly, I would guess, ?50 or ?60

off an average bill would come off as a result of those things, but

what is much more important is far more will come off because all these

green levies and things like the carbon floor tax, are due to hit

even more heavily on the public in the next few years than they are

now. That part of your electricity and bass bill is due to go up. At

the same time, this country is risking serious energy problems

because here we are, a country sitting on huge piles of coal which

refuses to burn it on the grounds that it will create global warming,

while China, for instance, builds another couple of coal-fired power

stations every month. Should we reopen coal mining? I think we

probably should. It is the cheapest form of energy, one we produce

ourselves. It is absolutely absurd to deprive ourselves, as we are

doing at the moment, we have shut down and are in the course of

shutting down more perfectly efficient coal-fired power stations

in this country, not because they don't work but because of European

Union regulations which force us to do this crazy thing. Tim Farron?

Politicians you talk about putting an extra jumper on, or politicians

who have never known what is like to work hard to get next week's rent

and pay the bills, and that is an outrageous suggestion to make. When

it comes to the green levies, it is important to remember what they pay

for: the two million lowest income households to have ?135 off their

energy bills. Those are not green levies, they're redistribution.

Absolutely. Why do you call them green, then? It also includes the

money that we give to elderly people to insulate their homes. That's not

what they're talking about. It's fair. The element of green levies

talk about is not about windmills it's about making sure that people

in this city have jobs in green manufacturing. If we're concerned

about our children today, we've got to be considered about our children

tomorrow and in the future tomorrow. Climate change is happening, the

single biggest threat that this country faces in the decades to

come. What is your policy for the general complaint that prices have

gone up by eight to ten per cent? We have the weakest and most useless of

the regulator looking after our energy sector. Ofgem is pathetic in

the extreme. Ofwat is able to water companies putting up their prices.

If you've to the a watchdog like Ofgem that has no tooth, bite, or

bark, you put that flaming watchdog down and replace it one that can

genuinely cut prices. Liz Truss? I grew up in a house

where my dad was constantly telling me to put a jumper on and turning

the heating off, and once the pipes froze because it was so cold and we

got flooded, so, there is a limit to what you can do with a jumper. We do

need - More should be done with jumpers, though? I am just saying

there is a limit, and we do need. Obviously, there is, but should

people take the advice of wearing a jumper like Number ten said last

week? I don't think it's about jumpers. This is about how expensive

energy is, and the fact that gas prices doubled under the previous

government, because we didn't see investment in new power sources. We

just signed a deal on Hinkley Point which will mean that there is new

energy coming forward in 2023. Nuclear. But we have had years and

years of a lack of investment, lack of a clear energy strategy. Yes,

coal is important in the short-term. We also need to get gas going. We

need to make sure we've got Shell gassing -- shale gassing exploited

in this country. We also need to look at liquid natural gas. One of

my previous jobs was working in a liquid natural gas shipping where

you can sign in long-term contracts. But if we do need to look at the

green taxes to be able to do that because, at the moment, they're

incentivising particular forms of energy that are extremely expensive.

You talk about - there is a point, you talk about gas. No-one is taking

up this point about the green levies. I am just about to say it

before you interrupted me. The point about the gas is we have to import

increasing amounts of it because we no longer make our own, and we have

to import it to run power stations to provide power for the enormous

amounts of time that the windmills don't work because the wind isn't

blowing. What is your point about rolling back the green taxes that

the Prime Minister said he was going to do? What would you like to see

happen? I would like to see that. I think it's wrong that we are

implementing green taxes faster than other countries. We may be

potentially exporting jobs out of our country because energy. You

decided to do it. Because energy is so expensive. 60 per cent of taxes -

These policies were put in place by Ed Miliband. You voted for them, the

Tories voted for them. (All talk at once) Not everybody at once. The

Prime Minister has said he wants to rue them because he now feels we're

moving faster than other countries, and it is potentially damaging to

our economy. It is absolutely not. It is absolutely sensible economics

when people are facing high costs of energy prices. We are taking the

action that Labour didn't take. A nuclear power station hasn't been

built since 1995. We all knew these problems were in the pipeline for

years and years. Labour did nothing to put the new energy supplies into

place, they did nothing to do any nuclear power, which is a renewable

source that has half the emissions of coal to be able to still hit our

carbon targets, but I think there are better ways to grebe targets

which were important. Which are what? Well, investing in nuclear,

investing in shale gas will help us achieve those targets. The man there

Perhaps the public would be more supportive of green taxes if we knew

that would then generate more jobs in the future. I agree with that.

Caroline Flint? First of all to Joy. What we witnessed in the last 24

hours is David Cameron again making up policy on-the-hoof. He's in a

panic, he is clearly sensing there is a huge public discontent with the

way their bills are rising in the last few weeks, but also the last

three years. We've seen ?300 go on bills. Liz, actually, the House of

Commons library has confirmed that bills are going up three times

faster since the general election. They doubled under your government.

Three times since the general election. Let me be clear about

something: what we are witnessing here is a Prime Minister who is

using green levies - and of course we've got to have value for money

and of course we should get jobs out of it - but he's using these green

levies as an excuse for not standing up to these energy companies and the

way they operate. He hasn't got the bottle to do that.

APPLAUSE Can I just make a point? Caroline,

he says your policies are a con trick, that you can't do it. He's

flapping around because he hasn't got any. Let me be clear about what

our policies are. It's not a con We've said when we look at wholesale

prices, not the green levies, we looked at 2009 wholesale prices

dropped by 46 per cent. We never saw that reflected in a reduction in our

bills. Why is that? Because we have ended up after decades since

privatisation with six companies dominating 98 per cent of the

market. They create energy, sell it to themselves and sell it on to us.

The reason why reduce was because John Major took away generation from

supply which led to the big six today. Something needs to be done

about that. Cameron is not up to it. APPLAUSE

A brief answer. A lot of companies drop from 14 to six under Labour.

Don't interrupt, please. Let people have a say. From - From 14 to six

under Labour. What did Labour do to get high-quality low-cost energy

into our country? They say that we needed nuclear power stations, they

didn't build anything; they didn't do anything to promote competition

in the gas and energy markets which we're now doing. That's not true.

Why did the number of companies fall? Now we've got seven new

entrants into the energy markets. We've got in the last two years -

Don't interrupt each other. Caroline, we will see your legacy.

Let's hear from Owen Jones and then one or two members of the audience.

Hold the point you want to counter. I find this new Tory war on green

levies fascinating. Do you remember David Cameron poncing around the

Arctic hugging huskies, the Tory party that changed their logo to a

tree and now they are all against these levies. The important question

about how we deal with this crisis, and it is a crisis. I think it's

fascinating because we heard the swivel-eyed talk, neo- McCarthyite

talk of socialism and markism because of a temporary - price

freeze. What Ed Miliband was proposing was too moderate because

nearly seven out of ten want our energy supply back under the control

of the British people in public ownership. I tell you why that is so

- APPLAUSE I will tell you why that is the road

we have to go down. Last year, the big six made ?3.7 billion worth of

profit. They're now hiking up their prices by ten per cent. They're

going to drive nine million people into fuel poverty, people lying

awake at night panicking between choosing their hom and - heating

their homes go and feeding their kids. Already 20,000 elderly people

eeding their kids. Already 20,000 elderly people die in "excess winter

deaths". According to Age UK you're three more times likely to die and a

cold home as a warm home. For that reason, they have forfeited their

right to control energy supply. Why would nationalisation, you've heard

about the discussion of shortages of fuel and all the rest of it, why

would nationalisation make any difference? Instead of lining the

pockets of greedy shareholders and CEOs, the likes of whom are now

building a ?2 million mansion squeezed from the bills of

pensioners - Two million isn't going to go very far - We can invest that

in saving lives and actually having energy prices which people can

afford. The gentleman there who has had his hand up some time. It's true

that the deal at Hinkley is brilliant for British jobs and

business, but it just astounds me that, given the comments the panel

have made tonight, why the government haven't looked at the

consumer side of the deal in as much depth as the other economics within

the deal. You think the pricing of what Hinkley is going to provide has

not been thought about? Not as in-depth as possibly the job

creation? Over there in the person with the spectacles. Why don't we

get rid of the green levy tax and put more money into nuclear and

coal, getting far more jobs out of nuclear and coal power stations than

you are in windmills. Not in Germany. They've created hundreds of

thousands of new energy jobs. Those are the jobs of the future. Just as

Owen was saying there, in Germany, two thirds of energy generated,

which is solar and wind, is actually coming from individuals and

community-based organisations. The truth is we are apparently the

windiest country in Europe, and it is not just about onshore but

offshore. When I look at the places around our coastline that are

looking to use offshore wind as a way of getting jobs and skills, it

is an important part of the mix. I believe nuclear is part of the mix.

When we were discussing nuclear under the Labour government, David

Cameron said it should be a last resort and the Liberal Democrats

were against using nuclear power, so they've come on a bit since then.

We've doubled renewable energy under the last government and we need to

do more. Investment in renewables has halved in the last two years.

It's about thenism and where we need to be ahead of the curve on jobs,

and also cleaner, cheaper energy in the long run. Let's come back to the

current problem and the winter ahead. This point about nuclear

power, Caroline is saying she's in favour of it, why did Labour do

nothing when they were in government? We have signed a deal

which is more affordable - We set it in train for the deal to be signed.

The electricity price is more affordable than wind power based on

an offshore. Let's talk about the winter ahead and what's going to

happen and what your party is going to do to help people who are in

difficulties as John Major put it, choose between heating in eating.

What is your party going to do about it? We have a cold winter payment,

we have the - That is all in place. A winter fuel allowance. These

policies that were announced in the House of Commons on Wednesday, are

they going to take effect immediately, quickly? Are people

going to see a reduction? I think it's very important that we do

support families struggling to heat their homes. How? We do find

solutions. What are you going to do for those elderly people freezing in

their homes? We're enabling people to get cheaper energy bills by

asking companies to make sure people are on the lowest tariffs. If

everybody is putting up their prices, what is the point of that?

Not everybody is. Four out of six it. You've slashed the money going

to the fuel poor. It is a cheek when you did nothing in office to create

the supply - Only a third of that - The other - (All talk at once).

Watching the two political parties handling our industry is like

watching a drunken man running about with a Mingvase these -- ming vase.

The Tories by privatisation breaking up the electricity generating board

destroyed what was probably the most advanced and skilled centre of

nuclear power generate - generation in the world. Labour finished the

process off by selling Westinghouse, and we now have to beg the French

and Chinese to build nuclear stations for us who pioneered civil

nuclear power. It is so pathetic, it is almost beyond grief. None of them

will be honest about the extent to which our policies are controlled by

the European Union, which as I say is forcing us to close down

perfectly coal-fired power stations which actually means that, as the

power fails, which it will do as a result of this, great parks full of

diesel generators which are terribly eco-friendly will have to be brought

in. They don't know what they're doing. The question of this winter

is of course important but the real question is from between now and

2020 these insane green levies will push the prices up - push the prices

of your gas and electricity up more and more and these people won't even

talk about it, won't do anything about it. They're minute. They're

not minute. All of them are committed to this green lunacy.

Blame them not me. It's basic economics of demand and supply.

There's insufficient supply of energy. It's not because of green

levies. Green levies is about making sure we guarantee the future for our

children. You're not answering the question. The economic point, if you

want to invest in green energy that will create real jobs in this city,

95 per cent of the supply chain of tidal and hydro-energy is completely

and utterly British. That's the way to create jobs. Would you like to

see this spending on green energy come out of taxation and therefore

by implication the richer paying more than the poorer, or are you

happy to have it loaded on to the bills of everybody? I am not

dogmatic about it. Why not? Why should you be? Because it's a

regressive tax. Are you in favour of that? The favour is to be

progressive and green if you can do both. That is the right thing to do.

The critical thing looking at this winter it is life and death, Owen is

dead right. It will be life and death for many people. We have to

tackle supply, which means creating that more creation of energy from

within these shores, but it also means we regulate and regulate now

because within the profit margins of the big six is the ability to cut

bills for millions of people in this country. You know as well of the

bill, of the average dual-fuel bill, about ?1,300 a year, ?50 of that is

going to support the development of renewable energies. That's why we

can't let David Cameron off the hook by blaming these green levies when

the bigger issue is tackling the energy companies. We need reform of

that market, and our policy is to get rid of the present regulator,

and establish a tougher energy watchdog. We've heard in the news

that Ed Miliband wants to put a temporary freeze on bills, and we've

heard John Major wants to put a windfall tax, but should we maybe

not cap the energy companies' - Proper regulation. Cap it at the

rate of inflation? Yes. We can't allow the big six to keep strangling

like us. Liz Truss, is it in the power of the control of Ofgem to

say, "You bring those prices down" as a matter of fact? They could. You

won't accept - They could do that and we did have our RPI minus X

regulation in the industry. The issue is that we don't control

international gas and oil prices. Those go up and down. Ed Miliband

has admitted that his fairy godmother act work if international

prices went up. The point is that if you cap prices and prices go up

internationally, then you end up with the three-day week and the

lights going off. What we need to do is enable investment into our

industry and encourage investment. You didn't do the investment. You

didn't do the investment, Caroline. We believe a tough energy watchdog

should have the power to ensure the energy companies, not just the big

six, pass those reductions on to consumers. We know when they go up,

they go on our bills. You can do that now. We will move on to another

topic. That's the third time in four weeks we've discussed this and each

time brings out something new. If you're listening at home and want to

comment, I am sure you may want to comment. You can text us or you can

Twitter, both at your command. I want to take a question, please

from Helena Brian, please. Is spying on our allies ever acceptable? This

is in the light of Angela Merkel's complaint to President Obama that

she was being spied on, and it turns out now that 35, I am told,

according to tomorrow's Guardiola that 35 heads of state are being

spied on. Is it acceptable? I don't think it's acceptable to use

surveillance and a way which is spying on people who are our allies

who work with us through international organisations, both on

defence and other matters as well. I don't think it's acceptable. Why did

Labour spy on the G20 participants in 2009? I am just saying unless

there's a threat to our security, you have to have a rationale for

this. I don't think fishing trips for spying in that way is the right

thing to do. Our security services, let me say, do a fantastic job for

us in all sorts of ways to help keep us safe, but there have to be rules

within the that and how they operate. Next week, for the first

time, the heads much MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, are going to give public

evidence to the intelligence committee at the House of Commons,

but there have to be rules around this. I think it's quite right that

Angela Merkel is aggrieved at what she has found out. What do you think

they were trying to find out? The whole rationale for spying which a

lot of us security services, which few would quibble is to protect our

security, stop using blown up on buses. The last time I checked,

Angela Merkel wasn't likely to sign up to international terrorism,

neither was, for example, the Mexican president who was also

apparently spied on. Apparently, that was actually for industrial

espionage, effectively. It was the US spying on them for those reasons.

I think there needs to be a wider debate about this. I think it's

welcomed the likes of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning who I think

are genuine American heroes. APPLAUSE What

they've done is they've shone a light on the dark recesses of power,

how extensive this spying is, they've revealed secrets like the

facts of some of the outrageous things that have happened in Iraq

because of the American occupation. The results, for example, of drone

attacks in Pakistan which are increasing the risk of terrorism,

not reducing it, and instead what we should be doing is instead of having

this spying on allies, on ordinary people as well, who were law-abiding

people going about their own business, we should make sure the

security services are accountable, that they don't have this argument,

they're protecting our liberty, therefore they can do exactly what

they want, and we have an accountable security service, and we

have freedom of information to know exactly the sort of things they're

doing. Peter Hitchens? The first problem is

that our allies today might be our enemies tomorrow. Also - Angela

Merkel? People who appear to be our allies might be our rivals. I think

you'll find an awful lot of intelligence work is commercial and

industrial, not military. I think that that is where much of it is

concentrated. If you don't want your country to have that kind of

information, then of course you can take a moral decision and say we're

not going to do it. What do they want to know about Angela Merkel? I

don't know. What would you want to know? Almost nothing I want to know

about Angela Merkel. Except how it was her family came to move to East

Germany which puzzled me when everybody else was trying to get

out. What? Leaving that aside, I don't think tapping her telephone is

going to discover that. I think it's much more worrying that, not the

politicians who ought I think reasonably to assume that probably

has tried to tap their telephones all the time anyway, not the

politicians having their telephones tapped but ordinary citizens are

having their telephones tapped and their e-mails registered and read by

people who have no business doing so. That does outrage me. When the

journalists were found to have hacked into the phones of

politicians like John Prescott, they were hung, drawn and quartered,

regulation was bandid round, everybody went to town on them. I

agree what they did was completely wrong, and it was overreaching to

the enth degree, but why should we feel any different when politicians

are the victims than when the general public are the victims, and

it is the politicians who are actually initiating it?

APPLAUSE Do you think the politicians are

initiating in the sense that he means, agreeing to it? In this

country, any activity of that kind, surveillance activity, ultimately

has to be signed off by the Foreign Secretary, and the home secretary,

and I think that's right because it is a very important matter. When we

spied on the G20 participants, that had been agreed by Labour's home

secretary? That's certainly the case under our government, that it does

have to have senior level sign-off within government. I think the

difficulty here is we're dealing with a much more complex world than

we are in the Cold War where it was clear who the enemies were and where

they were. Now we have terrorist networks embedded in our own country

and other countries. It may be something who looks entirely

innocent, and I I am worried about the way the way GCHG operating

exposed in public so those terrorists find out about the nature

of the surveillance that's going on. We now have much more open world,

technology makes it easier to share secrets, it's easier to get those

things out, and our law enforcement agencies do I think have to have the

power to be able to deal with those threats as they arise, otherwise we

will all be in serious danger. Do they do themselves any service by

tapping Angela Merkel's telephone? I am not defending her telephoning

tapped. If anyone tapped the telephones that the department of

education, they wouldn't find anything more interesting than

what's in the new maths GCSE. Terrorism is being used as a pretext

to do this. You're talking about the Brazilian Prime Minister.

APPLAUSE The head of Germany. I am not

defending heads of states' telephoning tapped. I am responding

to Owen's points about the secreting put out in the public domain, about

how we find out about these activities, because we are in

serious danger from very worrying terrorist networks. Also danger in

having our hard-won liberties and freedoms that our enseverities

fought for,ing taken away from us using the pretext of terrorism. We

must not let that happen. It's about time our government

started standing up for the people of this country instead of leaning

backwards for the Americans all the time. We need to stand up to the

Americans and start fighting back and stop cutting our armed forces as

well. To expand on what the gentleman said there. I am worried

about how long before the EU countries start pointing the finger

at us. It's been known that GCHQ has a close working relationship with

the NSA, so we don't know how far they're going. In all likelihood,

this is happening. I don't know why Angela Merkel moved to East Germany.

It was her parents. Another former communist who moved to the right, I

don't know. This wasn't just intelligence gathering, this is

tapping the phone of a friendly head of state. Let's just ignore for a

moment, and I will come to the civil liberties and a minute, how utterly

stupid is that? Whatever game that the US thought they might get from

this was always going to be completely outweighed by the damage

it has done to the diplomatic relations between two very, very

important countries. The post war effort through the European Union,

NATO, the United Nations, the G20 more recently, in bringing countries

together, sharing interests to make sure we don't go to war again, is

undermined by stupid reckless decisions like this. It forms part

of a culture that runs through certainly the US administration, and

has run through the administration before this one in this country,

where we think people's civil liberties are not as important as

whatever the agenda of the political leaders of the day happen to be. All

more points and we go to another question. I think when you get into

the realm of spying, we're fooling ourselves if we think this is the

first time allies have spied on allies. I am sure the British spied

on the Americans before they came into the Second World War. Once you

get into the realms of spying, well, yes, it's just spice will be spice,

and that is not to kind of give an excuse to them, but I am saying once

you get into that, they've got all this technology, I think they've

been greedy, spoilt for choice and have tapped Angela Merkel's phone

because they can, simply. It's going to blow back on them now.

I think any time you sacrifice liberty for security, it's a recipe

for disaster, flat out. Any time you sacrifice what? Liberty for

security. Like the other people were saying with the spying going on,

it's just been going on for years, and the only difference now is that

you're telling us about it. Thank you very much.

The next question. A nuclear engineer? The question is what is

wrong in having unqualified teachers in preschools if they're qualified

enough in the subject they teach? This is the row about free schools

which is pretty much the same as academy schools between, actually,

between two sides of your party, it seems, because you all said it was a

good idea to have free schools with unqualified teachers, and David Laws

said how brilliant the unqualified teachers were, and suddenly Nick

Clegg saying they've all got to be qualified in the future. What is

wrong with having unqualified teachers who are good for for the

subjects they teach. I agree with the proposals and policies of this

government in terms of the decision to give teachers and head teachers

far more freedom and autonomy. That's right. It's right to use

experts in the classroom to bring them in. Use Lord sugar to talk

about business on a one-off occasion. For your PE lessons, bring

this Suarez. I worked in higher education for for 13 years before I

became an MP, so I don't want to offend everyone I worked with, but

one of the problems we've been moving away from in universities is

we had people with PhDs coming out of their ears, geniuses, and some of

them incapable of communicating that genius to anybody else. It's no

gooding a brilliant expert if you can't teach. What about if you are a

brilliant expert and you can teach? If you're a brilliant expert and you

can teach then don't undermine the teaching profession by not taking

the qualification. I am happy for people to be taken on with a free

school or academy so long as they learn and do it on the job. We need

to remember iffing an expert is a good thing, butting a qualified

teacher is also an incredibly good thing. Our teachers are trained and

we undermine the entire profession and damage our children if we throw

away the importance of having a qualified teacher in the classroom.

What is going on in your party, because you signed up to this policy

in part of the coalition, then David laws comes in as the schools

minister and he says the exact opposite of what you just said. Now

you as president say what you have just said, and your leader says

something else. What's going on? You seem to be all over the shop. I am

not of the view that we are. David Laws defended the free schools. You

said there are plenty of teachers who may not have formal

qualifications but do a superb job. In a specific instance, and you can

say you bring somebody into a class and use them as an expert. You know

that's like that. My take is, and Nick Clegg's take, and it's been

repeated again today, is that you do not, must not, undermine the

teaching profession. This isn't about the ideology about whether it

is right or wrong, this is about the experience of our children in our

schools. Which Liberal Democrat do you listen to? Children in our

schools deserve to be taught by children who know what they are

doing and are capable of teaching. Liz Truss, you're the children's

minister. I think we have to look at why we are doing this. We had a

report from the OECDsy said we have some of the lowest rates of literacy

and numeracy in our population compared to other countries. We need

to make sure that our children get the skills they need at schools so

they can go and get good jobs. We're not doing that at the moment. That's

why we are raising standards in GCSEs, that's why we are changing

the curriculum to make it more effective and have academies and

free schools so they can deliver. The evidence is they are deliver.

Academies are performing better, free schools are getting better

Ofsted reports than other schools are. It is because they have those

freedoms that schools like independent schools, which of course

the Deputy Prime Minister went to, have that they're able to do that.

They're able to bring this the experts, able to bring this the

great physics teachers, engineers, and great artists. Ultimately,

Ofsted goes and inspects those schools to make sure teaching is up

to scratch, and if it is not, we haul them in pretty quickly. We've

also got the exam results to judge by Howell those schools are doing.

We need to do something serious to reform education in this country,

because we know that education is vitally important for the economy,

but we know that we're not getting enough talented people with the

skills they need. One of the things that motivates me so much is I grew

up in Leeds, I went to a comprehensive school, like Owen, I

got into Oxford, but I was one of only a few children to be able to do

that. We need to make sure we don't waste our talent. We've got so many

talented young people, and we're not giving them the education we

deserve. And unqualified teachers is the way to do it. Is that is the

question? Giving best teachers the power to hire the best possible

person, whether they're a great teacher, mathematician, is the way

to do it. Owen Jones? Firstly, I don't want to be too brutal on the

Liberal Democrats, they've done so many U-turns and policy shifts and

terms, Tim, I am surprised you can walk! I've changed nothing. Often

you have the rhetoric of Tony Benn and the voting record much George

Osborne. In terms of the specifics of free schools, Finland has one of

the best education systems in the whole world and they train up their

teachers to a best possible degree. There is a difference knowing how to

teach and being an expert in your particular field. What free schools

are doing, in my view, and I am a person like yourself, proudly

comprehensively educated, my primary school is bottom five per cent by

results, the only boy to go to university, far more ended up in

prison, it wasn't because I was brighter, it was because I had odds

stacked in my favour from day one. If you look in the gap at vocabulary

at age five between an affluent and a poor child, if you look at

children turning up hungry, poor housing or health, these are the

issues that are driving divisions in our education system, not the

structure of schools, and free schools, frankly, on average, and

we've seen in 2011, they're less likely to take in kids from free

school meals, sucking resources from other schools, and going in areas

often where there is a surplus of places. Let's stop scapegoating

comprehensive education for all the ills of society, let's wage war on

the causes of education system inequality, and build an education

system we can be proud of. I want to go back to the questioner. My

thinking is if you are passionate about science, passionate about

mathematics, you have a degree in mathematics and science to back it

up, you can teach. You can? APPLAUSE

Peter Hitchens? I don't know what the evidence is that our current

system much teacher training is particularly successful in training

teachers. As far as I know, it was introduced in the days of Harold

Wilson, and before then, we had rather effective state schools

called grammar schools which have been subsequently abolished in acts

of extraordinary spite. I think it is also true that the independent

schools don't have the requirement that the most state schools have to

employ teachers who have gone through the ordinary teacher

training. It is different, privileged people from privileged

educational backwards. We don't start from the same place in life,

Peter. I will carry on if I might. The point I am trying to make here

is the fact that someone has a qualification doesn't necessarily

make them a good teacher any more than anything else does. What makes

them is a good teacher is that ability to teach, the desire to

teach and communicate which some people have, some people don't, and

that has to be sorted out actually in practice, as all of us found at

school, with the teachers who inspired us, and the teachers who

didn't. What you really need to worry about most of all is making

sure that those children who, at the moment, are denied access to good

education because their parents are not rich, have access to good

education. I think a lot of that good education will be provided by

teachers who don't have formal teacher training qualifications.

Free schools are a stunt and a gimmick as are academies. Free

schools will never, ever change the lives of most people. What all the

parties need to do is admit they made a catastrophic in 1965 by

abolishing selection by ability and bring it back. Those people who sit

on this panel and say they went to comprehensive schools will for the

most part will turn out not to have gone to normal comprehensive schools

but the ones where only some people can go to. How is it they go to

them? Generally because their parents lived in areas that other

people couldn't afford to live in. That is selection by money. That's

selection by money, and it is very, very unfair, and it is quite

extraordinary that parties which claim to be in favour of improving

the situation of the poor constantly refuse to reintroduce a system which

selects by ability. We have it in Kent, and poorer kids are less

likely to do well in Kent where selection is still in place. It is

distorted because it's - Caroline Flint hasn't spoken on this, your

comprehensive school in a - I grew up in Kale Green in Stockport. My

secondary school was above the national average, my sixth form was

below the national average. The comprehensive I went to is an

average comprehensive in Leeds. I checked once with a mate of mine,

and the people of my year, five went to prison, four went to university.

That was a good school, then. We were a bad year. My sister's was

quite good. I went to a comprehensive school in Twickenham

London, my children went to - Twickenham is a middle-class area of

course. Yes, I suppose, but I am not from a middle-class family. It was a

former grammar school. Whenever we have these conversations about how

good the grammars were, only a few young people got the benefit.

Secondary modern wrote off generations of young people and did

nothing for them. Can I come to the free schools. There are 174 free

schools, there are over 21,000 state schools, and the amount of time we

are spending on free schools seems completely a ridiculous amount of

time for the government. On the issue of unqualified teachers, look,

I know from my own children's education we had sports people, we

had other people come in who did master classes, who worked alongside

the teachers. We've always had that provision in the state school system

to use light that skill, but I believe strongly that actually we

should support qualifications for teachers, and if that means we bring

people from industry, or from the army, or elsewhere, they can come in

but they should qualify. Let's listen to the examples of what has

happened recently. The Al Medina school in Derby had unqualified

teachers. In Pimlico, a 27-year-old was put in charge of that school

with no qualification for teaching, no management experience, and

walked, and this is what is going on with this free school policy. I'm

afraid to say, Tim, that when Labour put forward some restrictions on the

legislation around the use of unqualified teachers, I don't know

what you did, but Nick Clegg didn't support Labour on that, and now once

again we've seen when the going gets tough, he walks and tries to cover

himself in glory. Thank you. Just a couple more

points. As a teacher myself, I am absolutely disgusted that it is

acceptable for people not to be trained. It is a profession. You

know, other professions are not treated like that.

APPLAUSE Other professions are treated with a

lot more respect than teachers, and it seems to have a go at teachers

all the time. Anyone can teach. That's what people think. You think?

It's a very, very difficult job. You can't teach until - You need to be

trained how to teach. I agree. I just want to say, I have a PhD and I

am incredibly passionate about my subject but I still think I should

be qualified, and it brings the whole reputation of the job into

question if we can't make sure that people have - You wouldn't have an

unqualified doctor. What is your PhD in? Classics. People should study

Greek and Latin. Do you teach it? I go into schools and I don't think I

am so brilliant that I can then just teach. I volunteer, but I would do a

PGCE if I became a teacher. Well done.

We have to keep moving. The next question, please.

As politicians and political commentators, would you say it is -

what would you say to those who may feel disillusioned with the current

political system. You know well, anybody watching this programme, and

listening to the audiences know, that there is a great disillusion

with everybody involved in politics, so, as politicians and political

commentators, what would you say to people who feel disillusioned? Owen

Jones? I am very passionate about this. I think there's a huge

disconnect with politics and ordinary people in this country. I

think that is partly because politics is increasinglying treated

not as a duty or a service but as a profession where you increasingly

get politicians who have never had a job outside the Westminster bubble,

where you get a situation where if you look at the background of MPs,

they're increasingly not drawn from working class background - actually,

Caroline is an exception, really, if you look at MPs, because over two

thirds of MPs are now from professional middle class backwards.

I think this has a consequence because it means MPs can't relate to

people and their everyday issues. I will give you one example, and I

don't often quote Hazel Blears, I'll be honest with you. I interviewed

her before the last election. I said five million are stuck on social

housing waiting lists in this country. Why didn't Labour do

anything about it. She said to her credit, "We just - there just wasn't

anyone in government who was interested in housing." But if you

had people who had been stuck in a social housing waiting list, someone

in their community or family, and you get those people into

parliament, those issues would be far more widely addressed. How do

you traditionally get them into parliament? Traditionally it was

trade unions and government, they trained up working class people, but

as well as that, I beg people, and I really want to emphasise this point,

politics isn't just the soap opera at the toe, it's not about

parliament. When we look at all the things we won throughout history,

whether it be women's rights, LGBT rights, workers' rights, it wasn't

won because of those above, it was because ordinary people, our mothers

and fathers, grand fathers and grandmothers, often faceless, they

got out there, and fought, and mademade their voice heard. We stand

as a country on the shoulders of giants. We own our gains and rights

to those people. Don't let politicians just be the one if you

like, who pass these laws the. Get out there, be organised and make

your voice heard. That's a proud tradition in this country.

APPLAUSE So you're going to stand for

parliament, then? No, I am not. And I actually want people outside the

Westminster bubble, like people here to stand and put themselves forward.

Peter Hitchens? Those who feel disillusioned with the current

system? Are right to do so. They've been systematically betrayed. I see

no end to it. There are so many issues which have been visited on

this country by an elite of self-selecting closed-minded people,

who are well represented here this evening, and largely incompetent as

well, which have done enormous damage to our way of life. For

instance, who now has anything to say about the deindustrialisation of

this country and the destruction of manufacturing jobs under the

Thatcher government? Who can reverse it? Who can do anything about it?

Who will say anything on this panel about the catastrop of mass

immigration which has changed this country irrevocably into somewhere

completely different from what it was. They won't talk about it, won't

ta seriously about the immense problems of crime and disorder which

affect millions of people in their homes and leave them utterly

vulnerable to all kinds of unpleasantness and violence, and

menace which they never used have to undergo, and there is no sense

whatsoever that there will be any reform of the criminal justice

system or any attempt to put it right again. These are just some of

the subjects which this elite just constantly, constant, refuse to

discuss. Why? Because they themselves have an ideology, have

the ideology of metropolitan bourgeois bow peoplians, they - Are

you a man of the people, then? Well - You're the only person on this

panel who is from - I know - I don't claim to be, but you're making a - I

am simply staying these are the things which they will not do

anything about which they will not say because they themselves benefit.

They themselves benefit from many of the things which do immense damage.

They've benefited from globalisation. They've benefited

from mass immigration. You talk about mass immigrants, immigrants -

They're not effective, their children don't go to bog-standard

comprehensives. They're not - Who are you talking about? They're not

affected by crime. I know what they do. All the time, they will not

discuss these things, they will not do anything about them. They ignore

what you say. You think that a general election time you can do

something about it, no. The people who stand before you at general

election time for the political parties are people who have been

pre-selected. You have no control. If I stood for parliament, or if he

stood for parliament from our positions, which are quite popular,

the fact is the party machines would erase us. The immense amounts of

money they are able to spend, the enormous access they have to

broadcast - You have more access than I have, Peter. It would make it

impossible for anyone - Peter, sorry, the question was what would

you say to people who feel like you clearly do? I just said it. Wait a

moment. What would you say to them about how to change things? Are you

going to stand as an MP? I am sorry. Are you going to stand as an MP? No,

because for the reasons I've just explained. I wouldn't have the

faintest chance. My advice to anybody young enough to do so is to

emigrate before it is too late. For goodness sake. This is a

ridiculous counsel of despair. I think our country's best days are

ahead of us, not behind us, and Peter Hitchens needs to get with the

programme. I got involved politics actually through my mum who was a

member of the CND and used to take me on marches, and I thought this is

interesting and exciting, it was 1980s, there was a big debate about

ideas. I think that if you want to be involved in politics, you can be

involved in politics, and I want more people to be involved in

politics. I think we should make parliament more open, more easy to

access, more friendly to people from different backwards. I think it is

becoming quite an elite of a particular type of professional - I

think that's a problem. I think we need to this about the way it

operates, the terms and conditions, all those kinds of things. I am

excited by the primaries we've done in the Conservative Party to get a

wider group of people involved in politics. Given that up now. You

tried it and gave it up. New ones coming up, actually, David. Maybe

Question Time might be involved. What we need to do is we need to

open up politics, we need to make local government count through

localism so that people are involved. But this idea that

everything is always awful, that's one of the reasons why people turn

off politics because they just here this constant moaning. The Daily

Mail might call you the man who hates Britain after what you just

said! Feel free to call me - It's not Britain I hate, I love the

country, it's the people who run it. The people who live here? The

immigrants? Who are wrecking it, so like anybody who cares about this

country, I am stressed by it. I see no hope from these interchangeable

people. She was a Liberal Democrat. For all I know, she still is.

APPLAUSE I am 19, and so I haven't had the

chance to vote yet, I missed the last general election, and,

unfortunately, missed the Welsh referendum as well, and I guess

going back to the disenchantment point, I guess I hate to use the

argument that they're all the same, or that they're all liars, but I

feel as though coming from a Labour background myself, I feel as though

there is really no difference in itself. They've become, I would hate

to South it, but a centre-right party. I wish there was a new party

on the left, but I feel as though they would never stand a chance of

this private party of three big groups. I wish somebody would

address that. One point of view is that the trade unions represent the

common people, the common man. Wouldn't be it a good idea if the

trade unions put forward their common people. That's what they're

accused of doing. One of the ways in which we measure political

disillusion is by analysing voter turnout at elections. This has been

very low in recent times. Perhaps we could do something practical about

it by having elections on Sundays instead of Thursdays as they do in

some other European countries. I am not sure that would change the views

of politicians. People don't vote because they don't liking what is

offered to them. Tim Farron. Before I answer the question, we've got to

get away from this nonsense peddled by people and people like him that

immigration is a curse in this country. It is a blessing.

See! Look at the hard facts: it is worth ?7 billion to our economy,

never mind anything else. Are people disillusioned with politics and

should they be? People are disillusioned with it, and I am

often myself sometimes, if I am honest with you. I joined the

Liberals when I was 16, I joined Shelter first, I watched Cathy Come

Home and made me cry. People do vote but don't join political parties any

more. I saw around me in the 1980s a bit further north than here half the

parents of the kids in my class, including sometimes at my own, out

of work, and out of hope, and despairing, and the waste of those

lives, and I thought I can either sit back and let that happen or get

involved and I can try and do something about it. I joined the

Liberals not as a career move. I would have been stupid if I had. It

wasn't a glittering route to politics. We're talking about

people's view of you, not your view of yourself! What are people's view

of you? Don't get involved involved in politics because you want to

become a member of parliament. I thought the world is grimmer than it

could be, and we can make a difference, and you will make

certain the people like Peter are proved right if you don't - You're

part of the problem because the Liberal Democrats inspired to their

credit hundreds of thousands of people for the last election, and

then they betrayed them on every single pledge.

APPLAUSE Those people will never trust a

politician again because of what you did. Silence. Caroline Flint. I

think there's lots of examples where we have let ourselves down as

politicians. You therefore can't blame people forking cynical about

what they've seen. But when I joined the Labour Party at FE College, it

was because there was a Labour Club at the further education college. I

had never met an MP in my life, and I joined because I wanted to change

things. I looked at my own family and I felt as passionately then as I

do now that your chance in life shouldn't be determined from the

family you come from and the wealth you have. Everybody should have a

chance to succeed and that's why I joined the Labour Party. But I also

accept after many years now in politics that we should not become

complacent about how we operate. For me, one of the most enjoyable parts

of being a member of parliament is living in Doncaster and going down

on the train to the House of Commons and coming back on a Thursday night

and being where my constituents are and doing the best I can for them.

All right. For me that is about the connection. You said about the

political system. We have a system here where, because of the

constituency link, you can actually see what the laws in Westminster do

to the lives of people in our constituency. If everybody was like

you, nobody would be disillusioned? No, I am not saying that, I think

it's a positive part of what MPs do, and long should that continue.

Everybody is disillusioned with Question Time. So many hands up. You

have to be very, very quick. Thank you. I just want to say that I am

one of the thousands that is very disillusioned. I've always voted

Liberal, exactly Owen, I did feel completely betrayed after the last

election. I did selfishly want to live through a coalition but I hoped

it would be with Labour, not with the Tory party. I don't know where I

would vote exactly now, all I know is I wouldn't vote for the Tories

with with the wreck that you are making of our education system.

APPLAUSE Anyway. That's dishing it out all

round. Our time is up, I'm afraid. Next week, we will be inst Autell in

Cornwall, and the week after that, in Boston in Lincolnshire.

There is the address which is the best way to do it, frankly. You can

telephone: The website just is probably the best

way, and there is a form to fill in. If you're on BBC Radio five Live

listening to this, the debate goes on on Question Time Extra Time. For

us on television, it comes to an end. My thanks to our panel, to the

audience here in Liverpool. Thanks for coming until next Thursday in St

Austell. From Question Time, good night.