31/10/2013 Question Time

Tonight we are in St Austell, and welcome to Question Time.

Welcome to you at home, welcome to our audience, who will be putting

questions to the panel, who do not know the questions until they hear

them from the audience. Conservative Matthew Hancock, former adviser to

George Osborne, now a business minister. Labour's shadow work and

be in is minister, Chris Bryant. Liberal Democrat MP sacked by Nick

Clegg earlier this month, Jeremy Browne. Harriet Sergeant, who spent

three years hanging out with gang members to write her book. And the

campaign for the rights of people who have changed their gender,

recently named the most influential person in the independent

newspaper's pink list, Paris Lees. Steve White has our first question,

Mr White. How will spending ?40 billion on HS2 benefits taxpayers in

rural communities such as Cornel? Rural communities such as Cornwall,

HS2 has had its initial financing approved today. I do not suppose it

will to begin with, but we have to look at what it does for the whole

country. If there is one thing that is wrong with the economy in this

country, it is too focused on London and the south-east of England. We

need to stretch the economic prosperity, if there is going to be

growth, and it has got to stretch beyond that tiny little patch of

London and the south-east. Apart from a thing else, in the interests

of people who live in London and the south-east, because in areas like

this or in my constituency in south Wales, the Rhondda, when you have

dozens of people applying for a job, there are no jobs to go to, and

people are being encouraged to move to where there are jobs, but they

cannot afford to live there because house prices in London and the

south-east are going through the roof. My argument is that HS2, I

really want it to happen, I want to shrink the country, that it cannot

just be spent ?42 billion and give a blank cheque. I worried that ?14

billion of that, a third of the money, is actually the contingency,

so I think we have been absolutely right to say there is no blank

cheque here, we have to push down on the figures and make sure this is

not just a great big train set for ministers to play with, it is

actually about transforming the economy of the country.

Matthew Hancock, is there evidence, apparently there is, in the

transport department, that HS2 will actually take jobs from places like

Cornwall, rural parts of Britain? Because they will go to the narrow

channel that HS2 creates north and south in the country. No, because

HS2 was part of a national infrastructure plan. I agree with a

lot of what Chris said, and in fact I welcome the passion with which he

said it, because HS2 is important, but it is important as part of a

larger plan. For those who worry, like here in St Austell, that we are

not investing in other places around the country, HS2 will only take

about a quarter, just under a quarter of the budget for transport,

and it connects our biggest cities. But that means that three quarters

of the spending is available on transport for everywhere else in the

country, for instance the upgrade is happening on the line from here to

London, and in my constituency of West Suffolk, and elsewhere around

the country. So we have got to make sure that we sort out these

long-term problem that there has not been an infrastructure, and HS2 is

part of that, but only as part of a national plan that makes you

everywhere is better connected. Can you clarify one think you might is

it coming straight out of the pocket of the taxpayer? Or is most of this

money going to be met by government bonds being issued, in other words

the actual damage to the Exchequer is much less than it would appear at

first sight? Has this been decided? The amount that is paid for by the

taxpayer has to be raised, and ultimately, even if it is borrowed,

it has to be paid for. One of the things we have learned over the last

few years is you cannot borrow on the never never as a country. But of

course part of it will be paid for by people paying to go on the line

once it is completed. That is my point, it will not necessarily come

out, or 42 billion, of these people's pockets. It will be paid

for by future profits? Is that part of the plan, why have you not made

it clear? Part of it will be paid for by people, the passengers, but

part of it is about spending infrastructure spending, but it has

got to be part of increasing spending on infrastructure to

improve infrastructure to every part of the country. The man in the

second row from the back there. Are you going to privatise its?

Eventually! It will be built by an awful lot of

companies and the state, so in a sense, how do you build things in

this country? You get people into builds them, the Olympics were built

by hundreds of private companies, employing people locally and all

around Britain. So, you know, we have got to make sure that it is

built in the most cost-effective manner possible. Harriet Sergeant.

The gentleman who asked the question originally asked exactly the right

question, and HS2, unfortunately, is an example of what is going wrong

today in politics. For a start, with the lack of transparency, the report

that came out, and it was only through a special, you know, asking

special investigation that we actually found out that the

Government had suppressed the information, that there are 50 areas

in the country which are not just going to not benefit from HS2, but

they are actually going to be worse off. And one of those is Cornwall,

and in fact the Cornish economy is going to be ?20 million worse off.

So, you know, this is, again, going to be benefiting London businessman

just so they can get some work quicker. Jeremy Browne, as a West

Country MP, do you concur? I take completely the opposite view. I do

not think it will benefit everywhere in the country equally, but no

infrastructure ever does, unless it goes to every town in the country.

It will have a disproportionate benefit, but then so does dualling

the A30 have benefit for people in this area. I support HS2 because it

is absolutely crucial to our future economic prosperity as a country

that we have a massive uplift in our infrastructure and our ability to

transport people, goods and services to market and between cities faster

than we do at the moment. Let me make two very quick points. One is

an historical point, and there were lots of layers when -- naysayers

when Brunel built the first tunnel under the Thames, people saying, we

have managed perfectly well with boats for hundreds of years, this is

a vanity project. No doubt when the M1 was built, people were

protesting. But if we did not have a motorway network, our country would

be in a much worse position than it is in terms of our society, but also

the economy. My second is a global point. If you go to countries like

China, what is very striking is the massive, massive infrastructure that

is happening, airports, high-speed rail, motorway capacity. They are

either doing that because they are stupid and have a wish to waste

their money, or possibly, and my view is this, they are doing it

because they realise that in order to be globally competitive, they

need to have a modern infrastructure. A lot of our

infrastructure dates back to the Victorian era, and I want us to have

a can-do spirit in this country, not a card to spirit, and make sure we

have infrastructure fit for the next 100 years. Jeremy, very briefly, do

you accept the figure that Harriet used, which was KPMG, the freedom of

information request, Cornwall will be ?20 million worse off. Is that

wrong? I think those figures are hard to quantify, to a degree they

are plucked from the air. If we are a more prosperous country, we will

raise more money to pay for public services in Cornwall and the rest of

the country. We are not arguing against HS2. But there is not enough

infrastructure across the rest of the country, and may be the priority

now needs to be not HS2, but other places that have not got any

infrastructure in place. Paris Lees. Absolutely! I am a Nottingham girl,

and actually, Harriet, it is not just going to benefits London

businessman. I read in the paper that it will boost the economy of

Nottingham by 5%, and what the lady said is quite right - we should be

doing it all over the country, and the French have had high-speed rail

since before I was born, they have been travelling at 200 mph since

1981, I'm surprised they are not all dizzy. I just think, why can't we do

that in this country? It is not about whether we can do HS2, we can

do anything we put our minds to it, but let's do it properly and get it

around the rest of the country as well. Can I just say briefly? What

is embarrassing is how long it took to get a just happen. France were

going at 200 mph, but under the tunnel it was 30 mph in Britain. But

to make sure that these things happen, given that it will take a

long time to build, we have got to make sure, if you believe it, that

major parties stay onside, as well as for infrastructure to everywhere

else. Passenger numbers are already at capacity, they are set to

double. Are you complaining about the Labour position? We are going to

build infrastructure... We need parties who say this to support to

get out and supported and vote for it. Do you believe they will support

its? I certainly hope so. You are making it a party political thing.

You either think it is a good idea or not, what has that got to do with

political ideology? Two people have asked... Two people have now at wing

what the Labour position is, and I thought I expressed it at the

beginning. We are in favour of it but it is not a blank cheque. We

have got to have financial discipline and big things like

these, we cannot spend 42 billion on one project without considering the

other parts of the country that might need electrification and so

on. So of course, we are in favour, and, Matthew, you said, why didn't

Labour vote for it? Labour MPs in the House did vote for it. Those

that were there, there were not very many. Not your leader and not your

Shadow Chancellor. Is this not what is wrong with HS2? We are two years

away from an election, and it has become a political football. We have

Labour wanting to show the sort of voters in the cell that, actually,

they are good with money, so they are suddenly becoming very careful

with money. The Conservatives are desperate to Woo voters in the

north, so they are pushing for this train. Why aren't we being given a

little bit more choice? If you have a large sum of money and you are

trying to improve your life, surely you make a list of things that you

possibly could spend it on. Why are we just being told this one think

Schumacher I want to bring in... I want to bring in some members of the

audience of the point that was raised about places that are not

directly in line with HS2, then we will move onto the next question.

Just to say, Mr Brown, I distinctly reading in the Liberal Democrats'

manifesto at the last general election that the Lib Dems would

reopen disused rail lines that were closed down in the Beeching axe in

the 1960s. We don't need HS2, because we have got disused rail

lines here in Cornwall, in rural areas that need to be reopened so

that it gets people off the roads and away from using cars, and using

public transport, because I use it every day, it is late, it is

expensive, God knows how much it costs the taxpayer to pay for rail

cars and buses, but you need to reopen these disused rail lines.

Especially down here and in other areas of the country, rather than

spending billions of pounds of taxpayers' money on HS2 when you

could reopen the Victorian infrastructure that was used back

then. Thank you. Yes, I think, just briefly, it is another example of

state-sponsored capitalism. I think it is crony capitalism, and I think

it is a folly. OK, and you in the front, I will take one more point. I

travel extensively in Western Europe on the high-speed trains. Quite

frankly, I find it shameful that the UK has fallen so far behind, when we

invented the railway, and I fully support HS2, and I hope there are

going to be more high-speed lines. One last point. It's good that

money's being invested to create jobs and you get people saying not

in my back yard and you get people saying, it's not close enough to my

home. It's interesting that Labour are at last pulling in the purse

strings. A question from Harry Samuels. Are bullying tactics used

by Unite at Grangemouth mouth? Should there are restrictions on

what unions can do? I think what we have seen there is quite

extraordinary. We have had a mother and small child beseiged by the

union members standing outside with loud speakers, telling the

neighbours that this man is evil, having posters sent to his family

saying he's on the wanted list. This is just a man who happens to be a

director of a company, a company that also, I believe, is one of

Labour's biggest financial supporters. You sort of think if

that's how Labour's treating its friends, how is it treating its

enemies? I really believe you can't possibly have this kind of

behaviour. It's a dreadful advertisement for trade unionism and

that the politicians must condemn it. What do you make of what Len

McCluskey said, was we need no lectures from Cameron the original

bulling done bully and talking about faceless directors who make

decisions to close down factories and put families out of work, they

need to understand they can't just disappear into leafy suburbia. They

are not faceless, they've got families and those families are

children under five who have been attacked. Chris Bryant. I think

Harriet's absolutely right, the bullying of families - bullying is

not on full stop. I think the kind of culture that sometimes we have in

Parliament, which looks like we are all bullying one another, doesn't

help when teachers are trying to explain why it's bad in schools

actually. And I'm sure there are plenty who can say I behaved like a

bully in Parliament as well, so I accept it. There is a small round of

applause there. Yes! I do think that sometimes directors of companies

need to understand that in particular if they're big

monopolies, they have a responsibility to society. I thought

it was shameful this week that in the House when you had the people

from the big six energy companies only one of them sent their Chief

Executive. All of the chief executives should have been there.

If you're in charge of the company and frankly if you're earning

millions of pounds and many of these people have doubled their wages in

the last two or three years, then I think you have to take

responsibility for your actions and that means that sometimes you do

have to be up there and out there. What did you make of the way that

Unite handled the Grangemouth affair, because it seemed to me they

called the employers' bluff and then the employers called their bluff and

then everything was conceded just like overnight? Was it a good

negotiating tactic? I've only ever been engaged in one event when

Burberry wanted to close its factory in the Rhondda. I was opposed to it

and I was working with Leighton Andrews and the GMB. We always knew

there was a danger in the end we would have to ask for peace. But we

managed to quadruple the amount of support given to the workers and we

got ?1.5 million given to the local community to set up a new charity.

Talking about Len McCluskey. Jack Straw senior Labour member says that

he put internal union politics before the interest of the members.

Are you with Jack Straw or McCluskey? I'm sticking with my

point, I'm afraid. You could be courtious enough to answer mine. I

was going to say, which I think answers your question, which is I

think it looks to me as if they overplayed their hand dramatically

and consequently they would have been better to have done what we did

in relation to Burberry and the GMB and I'm a proud member and I will

not have anybody try to deny that individual trade union members who

are formally tea ladies in schools and all the rest, have a perfect

right to have their voice heard. Paris Lees. I'm a campaigner and I

do feel a lot of sympathy for the union in this, because they

obviously just want to try to make positive changes, but I think it's

better to focus on positive engagement, rather than the tactics

they've used. We see it all the time, groups that have very good

causes and their aims are noble, but they use the tactics that don't win

people over. I guess in response to the question, do we need

legislation? Well, they're either harassing this family or they're

not. I think we already have laws if place for that and I think -- in

place for that and I think bring it under regulation of the press. But

we have laws in place, so why not enforce them? The man in blue. The

idea that we have the faceless directors is poppy cock when we have

the faceless union executives who in this case nearly shut down a factory

employing 800 people just because they wouldn't shift on their

demands. It was down to about a 50/50 vote on the matter. The idea

that 51% and union executives who were putting pressure on their

members, to shut down a factory and make 800 people lose their jobs, I

think is awful. You asked the question. You asked the original

question. Do you think further restrictions on unions are required?

I think the idea of what Unite have called leverage I think it's

sickening to be perfectly honest, that groups of thugs can go around

and, as Harriet said, accuse the people of being evil and put wanted

posters through the door, so yes, I think the further restrictions need

to be in place. Matthew. I think this shows the tremendous gap

between most trade union members, who are hard working and pay their

dues and want to be represented and the leadership and in this case, the

extreme leadership and I agree strongly with what Harry said there,

that holding to ransom a planting that one tenth of the Scottish

company, after political reasons is outrageous in order to have this

intern fale debail -- intern fale debate within -- internal debate

within the Labour Party. It's amazing that the man who is in

charge of this and led the action, is still the chairman of the local

Labour Party. It's extraordinary. We have got to support union members

and I'm a strong supporter of trade unions, but when they're leadership

behave like this, then they need to look at themselves hard in the

mirror. Lady there. What frightens me is the next step is a branch of

the Ku Klux Klan getting on anybody who they don't agree with and

attacking their families. If they attack me, I would have been out

there sorting them. I think it's really easy to condemn the tactics

and they are wrong, but what about the violence that the Tories are

doing to people with mental health issues, people with disability? Like

you say, people that wear suits and stuff. They are hurting the people

of this country every day. And they are not getting condemned for it.

Jeremy Browne. Well, I support constructive trade unions and they

can make a real positive difference on behalf of the people they

represent and the company that they interact with and if you look at the

British car industry, it has gone from strength to strength, with

manufacturing doing well for decades and that's in part because the

unions have had a constructive attitude to inward investment and

the best interests of members and the workforce. That's different from

what has happened in this case and I can only observe that the Unite

union is out of control. It has let power go to its head. It's the

biggest funder of the Labour Party. It selected its own candidate for

Labour leader over and above the Labour leaders and members of

Parliament and the behaviour generally I agree with Jack Straw, I

think that they are running out of control, teR trying to influence

Labour selections. The Falkirk selection remains an outstanding

sore, unresolved and the unions have to get back to what they exist to

do, to advance the day-to-day interests of members. When they get

it right they can make a difference, but they've got it wrong. But one

thing they've got absolutely right is that you've got three politicians

here and we are all virtually identical. We come from the same

kind of back gruned, we have got -- background and we have -- two of us

have the same hair colouring and there are too many working-class MPs

and I support the campaign to try to get more working-class people into

Parliament. You don't boost that by intimidating children. Of course you

don't. I have said that behaviour is absolutely awful. But I do support

trying to change the kind of people who get elected to Parliament and

that's what the Labour Party was originally founded to try to do and

we failed on that recently. I fully accept that. However - that's why I

have an apprenticeship system in my office. You are attacking the whole

basis of the Labour Party. Maybe you should stand down in the Rhondda and

make way for somebody more suitable. At some point I will. I'll stand in

your place. You can stand in my place. You can comment on the issues

by text or twitter. We'll move on. From Glyn Rowatt.

With wind turbines and solar-power fields are we seeing any benefit in

energy costs? You have turbines down here and solar panels in the West

Country. Are we seeing any benefit in energy costs, which is the big

issue of the month. Jeremy Browne? We are seeing a direct benefit in

terms of energy costs from wind generation because it's a more

expensive form of electricity generation, but I think it's

important that we diversify and modernise the way we produce energy

in this country. In 10, 15, 50 years time from now, some of the countries

in the world will have made that transition a will have modern

technologies which enable them to have the energy requirements they

need for industry and households, but compatible with protecting their

environment and the global environment an others won't have.

It's important that we do make that transition, but all new technology,

which it comes on tap, is in its early stages more expensive and gets

developed and improved over time. I'm not saying that wind turbines or

solar farms are the solution to all of our problems, or energy needs and

I think some of the solar farms in particular have been cited in bad

areas -- sited in bad areas and they industrialise the countryside, and I

don't think they're farms in any recognisable sense, but they're the

equivalent of building a new housing estate on a field without having the

benefit of people living in the houses. You would rather have

houses? The regulation. Maybe houses with solar panels? If I was going to

have fields of solar panels, I would have new-build houses and on factory

roofs and other areas before I put them on arable land. My point is, I

think having a reasonable proportion of energy mix from renewable sources

is a desirable objective and we should pursue that. To cut to the

current issue, do you think it fair and right that energy consumers

should be paying for these expensive ways of predeucing electricity at

the moment -- producing electricity at the moment? Would you like to see

them funded by taxation? One way or the other people will pay for them.

It's not quite true. Well, it is. No, because if you don't pay income

tax you wouldn't pay for it. Income tax is a small proportion of the

total taxation for the Government. I think there are a whole range of

measures which are paid for. A lot are to do with loft instalation, for

people on low incomes. I'm not doing a list. All I'm saying is I think

energy reduction is important as well. More efficient use of energy.

The whole range of measures to make us a better and more efficient

country and how we use and generate energy and that is part of that.

Question going back to the question, what the scale wind

turbines here? In Cornwall, we have seen especially in our beautiful

countryside, there is a mass of wind turbines going up, and more recently

these fields of solar panels, and all we do see is an increase in

energy costs, and we are not actually seeing any benefit as a

ratepayer in this county, yet we seem to have masses and masses of

turbines and solar panel fields. Matthew Hancock. Well, wind farms

are, we're told, there to save the environment, but put them in the

wrong place and they ruined the natural environment. So, you know,

we have got to have a mix of energy supplies, but we have got to do it

in a sensible way that is consistent with what people want locally, and

if there is a development, then there is something in it for the

people whose view can be affected and in some cases ruined. And we

have seen over the last few weeks the landing of a deal to build the

first nuclear power station for years, which is low carbon, of

course, and that will mean that it is cheaper than wind turbines, and

if we get that going, then we won't need to build nearly so many wind

turbines and ruin the beautiful views we have right across the

country. Paris Lees. I tell you what, these companies are making a

profit out of something that we all need. We would all agree now that

you need heat, you know, you need electricity to watch this show. The

gas isn't going to last for ever. Why should anybody be making a

profit out of something we all need? It does not make any

difference to you, when you turn the light on, who provide your

electricity or who is providing your gas. Why don't we renationalise it,

and if we are making any profit out of it...

The man in the dark blue than. I take my power from one of the

smaller companies that is based in Chippenham. They have 100% renewable

energy. They have a wind farm in North Cornwall, and my bills have

never been cheaper, and quite frankly the region neuronal energy

has already... The rest of the market has already caught up with

these 100% renewable providers. Can you give us the name and address?

Will it reached... They distribute, as Paris said, it does not matter

who provide your electricity, but you used to pay a premium, but the

market has caught up. Can you get it in the Rhondda? You certainly get

wind farms in the Rhondda, and there has been a lot of local opposition,

and I actually like the look of wind farms. I am sorry, I find it

quite... I am quite amused that this audience gave him an enormous round

of applause for renationalise winning everything, Len McCluskey

would be delighted. There are two things here, we must take climate

change seriously, otherwise there is a real danger that the world's

waters will rise and that will be a problem for the whole of the world.

Secondly, you know, energy... In the end, the energy that we are using at

the moment is not renewable. It is going to run out, it is going to get

even more expensive in 30 or 40 years' time, so we have got to have

other means of energy onstream. I support all of that, but there are

things we could be doing about energy prices now, we could have a

price freeze, that is what Labour is committed to if we are elected in

2015. Secondly, I think we need to reject not just the market in Europe

on energy, and not just in the UK, sorry, but across the whole of the

UK. Energy prices in Europe are going down by 1.7 the set, whilst

they are going up in the UK by 7.7% on average, but they are lower in

the UK than they are elsewhere in Europe because the market there is

rigged as well. We need a completely new approach to the way we organise

the energy market across Europe. The man in the spectacles, the man with

the spectacles there. Did you have your hand up? No, the woman behind

you. It looked like it was your arm, her arm coming out of your

shoulder! Yes. The big six energy companies are essentially a cartel

that can charge whatever prices they like. They hold the consumer in at a

contempt, the House of Commons in at the content, they did not even send

their chief executives. We have a situation where it is being run for

greed and profit, and everyone in this room is paying the price. The

woman in the... Yes, in orange there. Looking at renewable

alternatives, why have we got a wave have that is not being connected?

Why aren't we doing more about wave power when we are an island

surrounded by water? Harriet Sergeant, what do you make of the

point that was made about this being a cartel? Do you think it is a

cartel? I think it is not just the six big ones as well. First of all,

I would like to say that I was around when everything was

nationalised, and I can tell you it was pretty dreadful. I mean, you

know, you have to wait six months for a phone line, the trains were

awful, so I am not a huge fan of nationalising everything again, but

I also don't think that the marketplace is working.

Matthew Hancock, as a representative of the Government, and is those two

points, are the six a cartel, and are they not doing their job in

energy? In energy specifically, we had the news that we would be having

a competition review to look into the question of making the market

more competitive, and I was about to agree with you, sir, because the

answer do this is to go for the competitive, new, small energy

companies which often have lower prices. I, in fact, switch to one of

the smaller energy providers, and we are making it much, much easier to

switch, because at the moment it can take weeks to switch, and we are

going to bring that right down so that it is easy to switch and so

that, instead of having a market where it is... It is not easy to do

any thing to do with these people, you cannot even get them on the

phone. Have you looked at a gas bill? Exactly, and what we need to

do... Can you understand your gas bill? They hold your money! We need

to make it easier to switch in order for everyone to take the decision

you did and go for what is the cheapest option, or the option that

works best for you. Can you explain why it is that the

big 60 their prices so high? If you have switched to a smaller, cheaper

place, why are the big six raising their prices by 10%? I think that

the big six do not think enough people are going to switch, so they

do not think that it matters what happens. And that is a problem, and

we have got to sort it out. This big six thing is quite new. 15 years

ago, there were more than a dozen energy companies, and that dwindled

and dwindled, and the big six arrived, and we have got to make

sure we get more competitors, so that more people can drive down

prices, drive down the profits of these companies by allowing

switching. But we have to do something about the fact that the

companies are too big because they are doing all the different elements

of the market, and we have got to do something about senior executive pay

in these industries where there is a monopoly. I think the chairman of

ScottishPower now gets ?10 million per year. The chief executive of

E.ON, 4.2 million euros. It is not that I'm saying people should never

earned those amounts, but I am complaining about that while prices

have gone up, their salaries have doubled, and that is not on. An

interesting thing from Labour, you sound like Peter Mandelson, no

objection to people earning ?10 million per year? It might be

justifiable in some industries if someone is really talented, but it

is not acceptable in this kind of... How can anyone possibly do anything

that is work that? If Pavarotti managed to sell 10 million tickets

for his opera, I don't object to that, but what I do object to is

when it is made out of enforcing price rises on ordinary people who

will then have to make a choice between heating and eating. One more

point. Lot of the price increases are due to the green taxes. The

regulator approved a 10% increase in transmission costs of electricity,

but most people here probably do know that. That is the reality of

it. You know, it is all right to say we nationalised things, but I

remember walking along Southgate high street and looking in the

window to see when the lights went out. We would love to renationalise

things, Paris, but we can't afford it, we haven't any money. As a

Labour Cabinet minister said before he left government! Briefly, if you

would. Could Mr Hancock identified the smaller, cheaper company that he

has transferred to? We would all like to join it. I'm not sure I

would like to advertise one of them. There are seven new companies. Ed

Miliband was attacked on the name of a company at Prime Minister's

Questions. It is called Ecotricity, there are seven new companies, and

it is great that they should grow. Su McConnel. Why is Chris Grayling

in so much of a hurry to privatise the probation service that he is

prepared to put the public at risk? Paris Lees. I made a very stupid

mistake when I was 16, and I went to prison, just a week after my 18th

birthday. Were it not for the probation service, which helped me

get back on track and... I remember when I was inside that, I think the

statistic that is bandied about, two thirds of first-time offenders end

up back inside within two years of being released, and that was really

depressing, and it really made us feel that the odds are stacked

against us. So I think, for young people, you know, there is a lot

that needs to be done in terms of rehabilitation, and I'm not saying

that it is perfect, but the probation service do a very good job

at the moment. What did they do for you? They helped me back, they

managed my transition back into society, they helped me find work,

they helped me extend my curfew so that I could work as well as go to

college in the daytime. Practical help, they helped find a family

member that you can go and live with, and they work really hard and

actually care about the people they are working with. My worry is that

if we privatise it, when have we privatise something where it has led

to a greater service for people and more care for people? It just

doesn't, you know? Matthew Hancock. The problem of repeat offending is

an enormous one, and the chances of somebody coming out of prison and

going back into prison are extremely high, and they are far too high. And

making sure that we care for people properly and support them and they

come out of prison is so important. For instance, the delay from being

released to getting your first benefits check often pushes people

back into crime because they are desperate. I think the question is,

why are you privatising the probation service? I am answering

the question, because I think what Chris Grayling is doing and

proposing is that people have support when they are in prison, and

that support stays with the same people as they leave and then stays

with them afterwards, and then that the people who support them are then

paid according to how successful they are at keeping people out of

prison. Making sure we get the incentives right on the probation

service is really important, because the vital thing here is to follow

the evidence of what works, what works internationally, because

crucially... There has been assessments of the probation service

in the UK, and overwhelmingly it has been as good and exceptional, but

no-one was talking about those words. There are undoubtedly

exceptional probation officers. A lot of them. But the amount of

people who go back into prison, having been in prison, is far, far

too high, and we need to learn from around the world about what works...

Is privatisation going to help that, though? If you say you want to

give incentives to do better in the probation service, why can't that be

done within the government run probation service? It can be done

within any organisation that can provide the service and the level of

care, and that is what is important. Why can't the current probation

service do that? I'm sure many people in the current service can,

but what matters is not whether the probation service reports directly

to the justice minister, what matters is whether it works in

keeping people out of prison once they have left. Harriet. I have

prevented a gang, and I have known them for about five years, and I

knew them from when they were 16, and as they have gone through

various systems, I have sort of seeing things through their eyes,

and one of them is the criminal justice system. Paris has obviously

had a very good experience of probation, but I have to admit that

I have not. And I have found that these young boys go to prison, they

come out, and we must remember that under the age of 25, you have 75%

reoffending rates within one year. Well, certainly, my boys would have

reoffended within the first day that they came out of prison, because

when teenage boys go to prison, they get a lot to eat, they grow out of

all their clothes, and they would have robbed them the very first day.

I did not find the probation system at all helpful. They were just

simply... For example, they have ?40 when they come out, and the

probation sends them all around the place, and that ?40 goes almost by

the second day. What is your impression of the effect of

privatisation? What do you think it would be? I'm actually quite keen,

because last week went to see a charity that would be affected by

this, St Giles' Trust Charity, who use a lot of ex-offenders in their

charity to help mentor. They would be one of the sort of charity who

would now be useful. We must remember, this is only low and

medium-risk. The high-risk prisoners would remain with probation. They'll

go into the jails and see them right at the beginning of their sentence,

because what goes wrong is there's no overall structure for these boys.

They come out and there's nowhere for them and no job. This is what

will be done and they'll be judged on whether they succeed. How do you

think companies like G4S and Serco are going to take care of people

given their current practises? It's a question I would like to hear

Jeremy Browne on, because he was, until earlier this month, the Home

Office minister in the coalition for the Liberal Democrats. Presumably

this issue came up. Were you in favour of it? What is your answer to

the lady there? It's run by the Justice Department, not the Home

Office, but there is overlap. I am in favour, because as a couple of

members of the panel have already said, the biggest problem that we

have to try to crack is is re-offending and we are up at around

80% for young men coming out of prison within a year. Obviously,

that's bad for those individuals, because we want to try to

rehabilitate them and make a constructive contribution to society

and it's bad for all of us, because they may break into our houses or

cars or whatever it might be. This is an absolutely crucial area that

we need to try to get to grips with. I think if we can find new ways to

make services work better and more effectively, particularly for those

groups of people, then why shouldn't we? Why do we think that one size

fits all? I have been to prisons in the last year as a minister and

there are some very imaginative works being done. There are large

numbers of prisoners who have Miss Used -- misused drugs and some of

the work being done with them, so they have a service which runs

through from when they're in prison and on release continues to support

them when they're released, have had some very good results. There's been

a lot of pilot studies in prisons about what can be done to try to

help prisoners in terms of seeing their families. The issue is

privatisation. I want to go back to the question. Are you getting the

answers that satisfy you? I'm not. I'm very tired. I'm very, very tired

of hearing this coupling of the fact we have an acknowledged and rated

excellent Probation Service and the Government keep mentioning this

problem with young men coming out of prison and re-offending and the

rate. The Probation Service rated excellent have never had

responsibility for that. You have your little trial. You have the

pilot, we do the work extremely well and it's not fair to producing the

statistic about young men out of prison when they've never been the

responsibility of the Probation Service. I think the lady is right.

We all accept the re-offending and governments have not managed to

crack it. It doesn't have anything to do with the privatation of the

Probation Service. I say to Harriet and Jeremy, who have talked very

warmly about the work that certain charities have done, I think

charities should be the added bit. They shouldn't be doing it instead

of the Government. There are lots of reasons for re-offending. In my

constituency, as every constituency MP gets, you get quite a lot of

people who you see five years later again and have problems, but the

reasons for re-offending might have something to do with the fact there

is one million young people unemployed under 25 and the fact

that it's impossible for many people to get housing under the age of 25

and a whole series of social issues let alone the failure to deal with

the massive drugs problem that there is in the country. I just thought

this lady here asked a very good question that really put the finger

on the point for what is the weak part of this. That those big

companies G4S, they are the only ones at the moment who can afford to

invest upfront, because if you're going to judge a company by how if

they can stop someone re-offending within a year, you have to put a lot

of work and a lot of money upfront to do that. So, the small charity

obviously can't do that and that's a weakness. What I'm hoping is that

the big companies will use the small charities, because you need to have

individuals. I think it's a little bit - Maybe I'm being too

optimistic. G4S did such a good job for the Olympics. A gree, it's a

problem. -- I agree, it's a problem. We'll go on to one more question

from Craig LunT. Is anyone served by a creation of a regulator which no

journalists will join. This is a Royal Charter agreed by the Queen

and everybody in the House of Commons and by no newspapers. What

is the point of it all? Paris Already ee section -- Paris Lees? I

campaigned for better media representation for transgender

people and I'm also a journalist, so I'm trying to establish myself in a

media that I'm trying to reform. I can honestly say that the idea that

this industry can regulate itself is like expecting a pack of wolves to

regulate its own hunt. It's just not going to happen. Clearly, they'll

never sign up to something that the Government has come up with. You

will never find a solution that's good for everybody, but there needs

to be somethin They're meant to be self-regulating for 300 years I read

in the Daily Mail, but it's not working. Ofcom does it. Television

does it. What makes newspapers so special? And can I say actually it's

been really refreshing to see Ed Miliband taking on the Daily Mail. I

was surprised because people are terrified of taking on the

newspapers. Ever since then in Prime Minister's questions he had rope in

his penis and it's done him the world of good. Broadly speaking, I

agree with Paris! Including about the last mitt? Your obsessed? I

think ordinary members of the public know that the PCC and the system

we've had didn't work. The people of Hillsborough were not served. They

couldn't get a correction out of the Sun or use the courts because no

criminal offence had been committed when it said that fans had stolen

from dead people's pockets and all that stuff, all of which was untrue,

because the PCC didn't work. What I want is a very simple thing which is

a system whereby people - newspapers have to correct it when they've got

it wrong. Did you vote for the Royal Charter? I can't remember whether

there was a vote, but I campaigned for this for so long now. Do you

think it's fair that under the crime and courts act courts are told that

publishers who don't belong to it Royal Charter, which none of them

wish to belong to, will have to pay not only their own legal fees but

the fees of people who sue them and for a fund to have no case, so

everybody can sue without risk of losing money themselves and the

prior for will have to pay? Is that bullying of the press? The press

sometimes bully as wellment Yes, some of the most vulnerable members

of the society, who don't have the money to take them to court, like

the rich celebrities. It's a very good point. What Lord Leveson tried

to do and what the charter tries to do is tries to say that there should

be a fair system and it's up to the newspapers whether they sign up, but

there will be incentives. It is that if they sign up to the Royal Charter

system then there will be a cheaper way of arbitration. All the

hyperbole and exaggeration and tosh that the newspapers have come out

with in last fortnight is frankly not doing favours. Harriet. I right

for the Dale why mail and the Sunday Times, so I'm not on these people's

side. I think we should judge institutions by how they feel with

their scandals and we have had scandals in the press. That is all

clear. How have they dealt with their scandals? We have two editors

on trial. We have eight journalists on trial in the courts. The News of

the World no longer exists. But let's talk about how other

institutions have dealt recently with their scandals. We'll look at

the BBC. Let's look at bankers. Let's look at the NHS. What happens

there? Aren't their people when things happen, they are rotten

apples, are they in jail? Are any of them on trial? I don't think so.

Jeremy Browne. I'll respond directly. I'm in favour of free

speech and expression and free press, but it's not a completely

unconditional freedom and that freedom comes with responsibilities.

We also ought to protect weak people, vulnerable people from the

effects of the powerful. The powerful can be the State and it can

be companies, but it can be groups of organisations including

newspapers. The winds of change are blowing through large parts of our

country. We know it in Parliament, where it's happened. It's happening

in the trade unions and elsewhere. The days of self-regulating and

don't you worry about too much, and we're not having transparency or

openness, I think those days are going. Not just in the media, but

across the board in services, companies and Parliament. I think

the media have to realise that they have responsibilities. I have to

move you on. Matthew Hancock, the stalemate is between a Royal Charter

and the press, what will happen? What the public want to see is the

press freedoms that we have had for years and that rightly are there to

make sure that politicians are held to account, that our country is run

in a fair and transparent way. But with safeguards to make sure that

the vulnerable are protected and that victims are supported and that

those who can't fight back have a voice in this, but I would not want

that to overrule the fact that we have a fantastic thing in Britain,

which is we stand up to the over-mighty and fight back against

the hierarchy and it's that freedom that the press argue so passionately

for that even though it affects me negatively as a politician, because

they have a go at all -- And expose your expenses? Absolutely, which

wouldn't have happened without a free press and that makes me proud

to be British. The press are the hierarchy. We are talking about 500

of the most elite, pampered, privileged overwhelmingly white and

heterosexual, old-boys club that went to eation and Cambridge. ! Are

you talking about the BBC or the NHS? I wish the Prime Minister would

do it again. We must stop. Our our is up. We'll be in Boston in

Lincolnshire. It's the town with the highest proportion of Eastern

European immigrants in the UK and we'll have Nigel Farage of UKIP

there. And Anna suebury for the Tories and the week after that we'll

be in Brighton and if you can come either to Boston or to Brighton, the

rules are always the same, the number is on the screen:

If you're listening to this on BBC radio live the debate goes on. But

from us here, my thanks to the panel, to all of you who came here

tonight to take part in the programme, until next Thursday, good

night.