07/11/2013 Question Time

Tonight, we are in Boston, in Lincolnshire. Welcome to Question

Time. As ever, welcome to our audience at

home, to all of you who have come to put the questions, and to our panel.

Conservative defence Minister, Anna Soubry, Labour's Shadow Attorney

General, Emily Thornberry, the leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, the

poet Benjamin Zephaniah, and the Economist has Mac Vicky Pryce,

Ridley detained at her Majesty's leisure earlier this year for taking

her husband's speeding points, which she has written a book about.

Kay Brown has the first question. Have 1000 shipbuilding jobs in

Portsmouth been sacrificed to save the United Kingdom? No more Royal

Navy ships to be built in Portsmouth. 1000 jobs lost there,

over 800 in Scotland. Was it done to save the United Kingdom by keeping

Scotland on side, Nigel Farage? To an extent, yes, but if so, it is

rather silly. Because if the Scots were to vote to divorce themselves

from Westminster next year and our ship building found itself on the

Clyde, not in England, through EU procurement rules we would not be

allowed to source ships from Scotland. Even if it was done for

that reason, it is a mistake. I have to say that I find what has been

done to the Royal Navy by the last Labour government but particularly

by this coalition, even before the 1000 jobs in Portsmouth were

announced to be lost yesterday, Portsmouth had already turned into a

museum city. Pray God that the Argentinians do not invade the

Falklands, because if they did, we would not even be able to do a

single thing about it. The whole thing, in my view, is a crying

shame. I don't want you to go on much longer but you did not address

the key issue of the motive. Do you believe the motive was commercial,

or was it, you can have these ship 's, but if you vote for independence

you will lose the contract? I think that was part of it, but whether it

will really have a massive effect in the Scottish elections, I do not

know. Whether that is the motive or not, it is a massive strategic

mistake to take away from this country's premier naval city, that

has been building ships for nearly six centuries, the ability to go on

doing it. We are now building ships in Korea for the whale may be. What

on earth are we thinking about? -- for the Royal Navy. That is simply

not true. You said we were building ships for the Royal Navy in career.

Supply ship is, yes. The majority, the big ships, costing billions of

pounds, we are building in this country. I did not interrupt you.

Are we building the supply ships there, or not? Hold on, Anna Soubry,

are we having supply ships built in South Korea for the Royal Navy? I do

not know. What I do know... Please let me explain. The two huge

aircraft carriers that are between them well over ?7 billion, which

will be the two largest aircraft carriers are Royal Navy has ever had

are being built in this country. And they will have planes on them.

Again, you are misleading people. Nigel, you have been on often enough

to know that the rules are you do not interrupt all the time, just

occasionally. Those planes will be built by 2017, when the aircraft

carriers will be doing sea trials. One will go into full operation. The

question was about Portsmouth. This day, unfortunately, was always going

to come, because we knew that the two big orders had been placed. We

knew that as a result of those orders being fulfilled there would

be a shortfall in the amount of work until we get the type 26s up and

running. And even if we go ahead and commission those, there will still

be a shortfall in work. That was always known, unfortunately, when we

entered into this agreement, the last government entered into a

contract which everybody agreed was dreadful. We have sorted that out,

fully to our credit. And we have filled a ?38 billion black hole we

inherited from the last government. And far from people running down and

criticising our Royal Navy, we should be praising it for the

outstanding work that it does. Nobody has been questioning that.

Going back to Portsmouth, there will be 11,000 jobs still in Portsmouth

supporting our Royal Navy. What happens if Scotland votes for

independence, to those contracts? We do not know. Haven't you thought

about it? Why don't you know? Am I going to be allowed to finish my

sentence? This is important stuff. We take the view that the Scottish

people will do the right thing, that they will not vote to leave the

United Kingdom. They will remain in the United Kingdom. If that happens,

a decision will be made sometime after the referendum, a decision

which was always planned to take place after the referendum. There is

no connection between the two. The absolutely clear about that. -- be

absolutely clear about that. If Scotland voted for independence you

would reconsider whether to build warships in Scotland? We will take a

decision on the type 26s, as we always planned to do, after the

referendum. The referendum is separate to all of this, and

separate to yesterday's announcement. Yesterday's

announcement was made by BAE Systems on commercial grounds. Why did your

boss, Philip Hammond, Defence Secretary, say that the UK has not,

except in two world wars, placed orders for complex warships outside

the UK. I do not anticipate the UK would wish to do that in future, and

I think there is something they're the people in Scotland need to think

about very carefully. And the question is? Why did he say that?

You would have to ask him but it makes sense to me. He is saying it

Scotland votes for independence they will not get the contracts. The

decision about the type 26s, my view is that the people of Scotland will

make the right decision, which is to stay within the United Kingdom. It

sounds on the face of it as if there was a political decision-making,

whether we like it or not. However, underneath all that there is a

commercial reason why this has happened. Unfortunately Portsmouth

has suffered from this. That is that orders are not forthcoming. So there

has to be some reorganisation. The greatest issue for me is what

happens to defence policy in this country. Is it an indication that we

are going downhill? Or is there still a future? Of course we have

these big orders coming up. We have the aircraft carriers being built.

There will be some planes also that will fit on them, and there will be

more stuff being done. But in terms of GDP, our percentage that goes on

defence, which is very high at present, fourth in the world after

the US, China and Russia, is going to be going down, without doubt,

because we are not, in fact, going to be ordering the huge amount of

stuff we had been before. We had an upswing during labour. Huge amounts

was spent on defence. Do you think it should go down further? Yes, but

in line with our obligations in Europe. It should go down regardless

of jobs on the Clyde or elsewhere? You can still do an awful lot of

supply. What we were hoping for Portsmouth was that we would be

doing a lot of work for other countries that are in fact spending

quite a lot now refurbishing their own capability, such as, for

example, Japan, which is now spending quite a lot, surprisingly,

on this. But those are not forthcoming. It was not that we were

going to be doing a lot of things for us, but for others. The best

thing to do is to do a European initiative. The UK politics of it,

do you think the orders were placed on the Clyde to keep Scotland

onside? The way it has been expressed, you cannot draw any other

conclusion, which is unfortunate. I do not know whether they meant it,

but that is certainly what it sounds like to me. It seems to me as if it

is political blackmail. That is how it strikes me. In what sense? There

is one saying, we will go into the Scottish if they elect to stay in

UK. That's about it. You don't think there's a commercial reason for it?

No. I understand David Cameron has

pledged to make apprenticeships the norm for all school leavers that

choose not to go to university. How will closing shipyards in Portsmouth

improve the employment prospects for young people?

I served in the Navy in the 1970s and 1980s, and we had ten times the

amount of warships then. The Conservative government of the day

caused the Falklands War. They have done nothing since then but cut our

services, not only the Navy but all the services. They have treated us

very badly. In the second row. I am surprised, with the reduced size of

our Armed Forces, that we require even one shipyard these days. Having

done 26 years in the Royal Air Force, the MOD has indicated an

ability to spend, but not to spend wisely. Can I bring you back to the

point made by the gentleman that this was blackmail of Scotland, this

decision? I take what people say that mixed messages have come out of

the government in terms of the reasoning behind this, but I think

on the face of it it looks like it was a commercial decision they had

to make, and they had to decide which yards to go for. And I think

it is tragic that Portsmouth has lost its place as building ships for

the Navy. As has been said, they have been doing this since the time

of Henry VIII. It is tragic that they shipyard needed to close and

the decision was made. I think in future, though, with the referendum

coming up, it may well be that there will need to be a political decision

to be made. We should be clear eyed about that. The UK must not lose its

ability to build ships for the Navy. If Scotland becomes independent, I

think it is quite likely there will be a political decision made as to

whether to go ahead with building those ships in Glasgow. Sorry, can I

also say, because I thought this was going to come up and I haven't

written on my pad, ?38 million black hole? Can I just say, we are getting

this from the Tories all the time. They have been asked to tell us

exactly how it adds up, where they get their numbers from, how it

figures. There is not one reputable economic organisation that can

back-up they say, including the National Audit Office. We asked them

to work out what the ?38 million is, and they do not have an answer. The

sums do not add up. It is -- it has obviously come out of Lynton

Crosby's back pocket, but it does not make any sense. It is not simply

that Portsmouth have lost. People in Scotland, I don't think they are

celebrating, because people in Scotland have also lost jobs. I

think about the workers and their jobs. I do not think about the war

machine. Nigel says, what would happen if Argentina invaded. I look

at it like this, what would happen if absolute peace broke out? What

would happen then? We are so fixated on this thing about war. There are

loads of men and women who have skills to build ships and do other

things, that I think we should start thinking about a civilian ship

making industry here, making ships for people like me, when I retire,

to go on a cruise. I am going to move on, because we spend quarter of

an hour on that. Just to say, we are moving Question Time next week for

reasons that will be apparent to you, from Brighton, just a few

miles, to Portsmouth. Details of how to come to the programme are on the

bottom of the screen. You can comment on what is being said

tonight by text or Twitter. Richard Laight. My family have lived in

Boston for nearly 200 years, and we have to fight for services that seem

to get handed to newcomers on a plate. How can this be right? It is

not right. It is completely unfair and it is wrong. You have the

crisis, and I met a recently retired consultant from a hospital earlier.

What this town has been through is a population explosion over the course

of the last 15 years. That is a direct result of our membership of

the European Union. It is astonishing that since 2001 the

number of EU nationals living in Boston has increased, officially, by

467%. However, that figure is undoubtedly wrong, because that

would say there are an extra 10,000 people from Eastern Europe who have

moved here. We suspect the figure is nearer 20,000. I think it is

important that we conduct this debate along sensible, grown-up

lines. This country has always been welcome to people that have come

from across the world from different cultures, different religions,

people who have claimed refugee status. And we did it since World

War II, 30,000 to 50,000 people each year used to come to this country.

The figure is now half a million each year, and we see our hospitals,

we see primary schools where there are many kids who cannot get into

primary schools being sent 20 miles away. We see a benefit system

designed primarily for people and families who have paid for

generations now being opened up to people who have been here literally

for a few. On top of all of this we are about to open the door on

January the 1st to the whole of Bulgaria and Romania. It is not

right and it is not fair and it is about time we started to put our own

people first. The rhetoric is so negative. I work in a college where

there are students from different back rounds, and the positives that

that brings and the situation where they are prepared for real life

where they will work for international businesses, why are we

so negative about the fact that our children are spending time with

children from other places? I agree with the previous comment,

but we also have to look at the latest OECD report, which indicates

that migrants have been beneficial to this country, not in a negative

way. Mr Farage, please stop scaremongering the majority of

people. It doesn't work. You talked about having a grown-up debate.

Let's have a grown-up debate with facts. I couldn't agree more. I sat

here ten years ago on this panel with David lunk it. As we were about

to open the door to eastern Europe in 2004 -- David Blunkett. He said

there would be a population increase of 13,000 people per year in this

country. I said that was nonsense, because logic said that if you

extend to poor people the ability to come to a rich country, they will

come in huge numbers. And in the first two years, 800 thousand people

came. That, mad, is a fact. -- madam. Mr Farage, that is not backed

up by the figures. You are bandying about figures that don't match the

OECD report. We are talking about the positive contribution. What

about the 1 million young people in Britain who have not got jobs

because they are priced out of the market? I am a working taxpayer!

People come here to work. They come to Boston to work, and they work in

the fields. They pick the vegetables. I am from

Nottinghamshire, and I am old enough to remember the days of the migrant

workers that would, to the fields and do the jobs. Those days have

gone. The real debate is about why there are so many people in our

country who choose not to work. I don't like your tone, Mr Farage. You

are interrupting again. You talk about facts. In my constituency,

your party put out a leaflet saying 29 million people from Romania and

Bulgaria were going to flood into our country. Well, the population is

only 27.5 million between the two of them! You do not talk facts, you

talk prejudice. So everyone can come? Times are tough, we know that.

But when times are tough, there is a danger. History tells us that when

things are not good, you turn to the stranger and blame them, and that is

wrong. I am proud of our country's history, and I am proud that good

people come here. Sometimes, not all of them. But they come here to work,

which we should welcome. Is it a question of immigration or

integration that we have got in this area? There seem to be so many of

our foreign friends in our area, but they live separately. As a nation,

we don't embrace them and ask them to join in what we are doing, and

they don't ask us to join in with what they do. Having lived abroad

for five years and lived in a country where when I went there, I

did not speak the language properly, I had my eldest child in a country

that I don't speak the language, I can see how they are intimidated by

us and people like Mr Farage. I think immigration, managed properly,

has huge benefits for this country. This week, we saw a report from

University College London saying that immigrants in the last ten

years from the EU have paid 34% more in taxes than they have received in

benefits. There was an overall benefit for our country, but it does

need to be properly managed, and it does seem that mistakes have been

made. People get anxious about that. You are right, ten years ago, Labour

made a mistake. We did not put in the controls we should have done for

the new accession countries. We have learned from that, and we should

make sure we put controls in again. We have made mistakes, and people

get anxious about that. They see people, and they believe they are

being exploited. They see them not being paid properly, they see

multi-occupancy, where a house will have eight people in it. They see

people having to pay gang masters, they see it not being properly

controlled and they see themselves being undercut and people having to

work in unsafe conditions which no one else would agree to do. People

should be paid a decent wage. They should not be exploited. It should

not have to pay these sorts of rents, and there needs to be some

control over that. That is right, and we should not allow this to

continue. This is the sort of management we need. You speak of

management, and I agree with you. I want is to have a sensible

immigration policy. I don't want is to have an open door to 29 million

people. Given that you want managed immigration, would you agree that it

is irresponsible, on the 1st of January next year, to say to 29

million people, as many of you that want to come, can? You want to do

this race to the bottom. I have got a note here of your policy. When it

comes to people's writes for work, you want to get rid of maternity

leave, sickness leave. You want to make sure migrants are not allowed

to come into the country, and people here have to work in the same

conditions that those migrants were in. Don't all talk at once. Nobody

can hear what you are saying. I want to hear from members of the

audience. We have had a lot of opposition to the things Nigel

Farage is saying. I want to hear from people who perhaps agree, and

then we will have a debate about it. I live near Mansfield, and we do

have an awful lot of Eastern European is in our area. No

disrespect to them half the time, but my children can't get housing.

If you want to have managed immigration, shouldn't you first of

all have a decent infrastructure? Shouldn't our children or their

children be able to speak the English language first, and have our

primary schools teach English, not Polish and all these other languages

first? By all means have them coming, but have the infrastructure

there so that we have jobs for our children. To cover what has been

discussed, first of all, in my view, I will get back to your

question about housing and so on, I think it was a mistake by the Labour

government to let the Poles and others coming. The forecasts were

made on the assumption that the other countries were going to open

up, and they didn't. So instead of going to Germany, where the Poles

would have gone, they came here because we opened up. Of course, it

has caused social tensions. During the period of substantial migration

from those countries, we had one of the fastest growth rates of any

country in Europe. It was beneficial in many ways. Of course, we don't

have enough housing. Over the last decade, housing construction has

declined substantially for whatever political reasons of the time. There

were huge cut tax in that area. No audible housing has been built in

this country to meet the needs of people in Boston or anywhere else.

It is not just the fact that they are coming here and have special

freedoms, we simply have failed everybody who needs affordable

housing. Now, in terms of the scaremongering we are hearing, we

will not get 29 million. I agree that that figure is an

exaggeration, because the other countries are opening up. So the

Bulgarians, mostly, go to Germany and Austria. The Romanians mostly go

to France and Italy cos of the languages. That is what will happen.

We will get a certain percentage, but nothing like what Nigel Farage

is worried about. And we should welcome that. There are 2 million

Brits who live abroad in Europe. If we want to start putting in

controls... As a foreigner, I lived in England

for quite a long time. Since I moved to Boston two years ago, integration

worries me. I work with people in places where they do not want to

speak English. You talk to them in English, and they answer in their

own languages. They don't want to learn. You try to explain things,

and they talk to you again in their language. The kids in Boston are

suffering with these languages, because my son is only 11 and he has

started swearing in Russian. As I am a foreigner, I tried to teach them

the things of England. They are going to good schools and trying to

study everything in the proper way. But unfortunately, there is a lot of

effects on integration, which does not exist. I agree with Nigel,

despite being a foreigner. That is all right! It is the system of

benefits. Most of them come here and start claiming for kids that do not

exist. They want to claim and get benefits. They have said, there is a

lot of money in England, I am going to take as much as I can. I have

been working all the time I have in here and I have worked hard, but

integration is a big problem and the government has to make it clear to

people when they come to England, otherwise we will lose the identity

of the British way. Be careful, my friend. It is not most of them. It

could never be most of them. My father is from Barbados, my mother

from Jamaica. I was born in Birmingham. When I moved into this

area, I remember coming to Boston and standing by the church. When you

are a black person in Britain and you start to travel, people argue

that it you get a culture clash when you go to Jamaica. Did you have a

cultural experience, some kind of culture shock? Or when you go to

Africa? When I came to Boston and I stood in the town centre near the

church, I remember standing there and looking and seeing all these

people that to me looked white, but I didn't hear any English. And I

remember standing there, thinking, what is this? Now, I am not saying

this negatively. I started to think about this and I started to

understand about migration. I ended up making two television programmes

about it. A lot of the things that people say about the houses and

services are real myths. We have had about three enquiries into them. For

example, one year, a lot of local people said crime had gone up. It

had actually decreased by 2%. The Pilgrim Hospital said that if it was

not for the migrants, they would probably have closed their maternity

ward. Imagine if you had to have a baby and you had to go to Lincoln or

Peter Brooke. You would then really big complaining -- Peterborough.

When I made the film, a farmer took me to one side and said to me,

Benjamin, I used to be a good old-fashioned racist. He was honest.

He said, I would never talk to black people or foreigners. But I tried to

get local people to work on my land, and he couldn't. He said he

couldn't even get his own family to work on his land. And he would

prefer to employ local people, but he couldn't. I understand the

problem with integration, but there are very few foreigners, very few

Eastern European 's now that do not get involved in the political and

cultural life of the area. When my parents came to the Caribbean, they

settled in Austen and Handsworth, and they did not go anywhere else.

They didn't integrate either. It takes a bit of time for you to get

confidence. It takes time to settle and have financial freedom to move

on. The panel talk about scapegoating

and anxiety, at my anxiety for the migrants is a reality. Now, two

weeks for eight Doctor's appointment, four and a half hours

in Accident Emergency waiting to be seen. But you get that all over

the country. We know there are particular difficulties when it

comes to funding in Boston, and I know that the local schools, for

example, make a very good case that because so many children do not have

English as their first language, they actually need more money. The

government has given them a large amount of money. 88% of parents get

their first choice school. I wish in my burrow they had 88% of parents

getting their first choice. We know there are problems with funding for

local authorities and that has been taken up by the local MP. But I

would also say, yes, we do have to control immigration and manage

things properly, and we do have to make sure that when people come

here, frankly, they do not take the make. They do not exploit our

system. How do you manage it with an open border? Vicki made that

argument very well. You are putting fear into it when people do not need

to have that fear. They really do not. It is not them and us. It is

about immigrant -- integration. Integration takes time. The town

needs money. We are waiting too long for appointments. But the other

thing is, as a counsellor, I am finding some of the youngsters that

come, eastern European is coming to the college where I work, I am

having lots of problems with them with anxiety, because when they come

to this country, their parents do not speak English. They go to school

to learn English and they end up feeling with the council, the gas

board, the telephone people. They become the adults within the house.

When they get their teenage years, they are having problems with panic

attacks and anxiety and they have their childhood. The government

should be looking at what happens and we have immigrants coming in.

There's nothing wrong with it. We need them, we want them and they

integrate well. We have too many in Boston because we cannot cope. The

cannot cope. Doctors, hospitals, schools cannot cope. The man up

there on the right, the far right. The original question I mentioned

newcomers. Immediately, Nigel Farage assumed that to mean Eastern

European is. My wife and myself are newcomers, but we come from

Northamptonshire. We are also using the local doctor. And we also have

to wait. But we are not blaming the Eastern Europeans because we have to

wait. Hopefully from Northampton you have integrated fairly quickly here.

It is no different. The figures show that the population of EU migrants

in Boston has risen by 500% since 2001, and that is an underestimate.

That figure holds. That was pressure on schools, hospitals and local

services. That is a fact. It's because it is a nice place to live.

There is a problem with immigrants taking seasonal jobs, but they must

come on a one-way ticket because there are not many people going back

after the jobs have finished. Is the work still largely seasonal? It is

round here. Has it not spread to the 12 months? Not on farms and things.

It does unfortunately make sense, and I am sure you are right, because

going back home does not give them the jobs they would like to have,

because Europe has been in a bit of a mess and crisis. We have certainly

seen lots of people come who would have normally gone back, either

seasonally, or pretty quickly after they made money, because their

economies were doing reasonably well. But that has stopped for a

while. Hopefully you might see lots of people leaving if the Polish

economy does as well as it has done recently. So it may happen.

Unfortunately, we have been hit, which is why there is so much

negative sentiment about it the fact that Europe has done so poorly

economically. I have one case study to tell you and why we need to worry

about what Nigel is saying. I am Greek myself and I came here to

study and I stayed. What has been going on in Greece is that it has

become the entry point for all of the immigrants trying to coming to

Europe. And the population has increased exponentially. It is

extraordinary. What we have there is a strange system where the

Constitution says everyone has to go, the kids have to go to Greek

schools, so they have to learn Greek. Within a couple of years,

they are Greek. They have a problem that the kids then take over. They

are Greek and the parents had to adjust. What has happened is that

the nationalistic tendencies have increased hugely, and we ended up

with a party which took right a lot of seats in government which has now

had its leaders arrested because they were inciting violence against

immigrants. That has become a serious issue in Europe, not just in

Greece. We need to watch that we do not end up in the same situation of

blaming the foreigners for whatever it is that maybe wrong with our own

economy. I just want to remind people, you people here know that

400 years ago people left from this Boston and they migrated to the

United States of America to form another Boston. Nigel, you should go

on a programme called who do you think you are, because I am sure you

would find you have migrants in your family. Actually, Benjamin, what is

interesting about this debate is that everybody around this table

says we should have a managed migration policy into this country,

which I completely agree with. But the elephant in the room, and what

the three parties will not talk about, is the fact that if you are a

member of the European Union which has now admitted very poor

countries, you have no management at all. There are no restrictions on

the number of people coming to Britain next year from Romania and

Bulgaria, and that is irresponsible, stupid and against the interests of

our own people in this country. I still think you are a migrant.

Undoubtedly. I go back to what the lady said about our youths not

wanting to work and not wanting these jobs. Is it a coincidence that

since 2004, youth unemployment has doubled? Is it coincidence? I think

in terms of youngsters, all local jobs should be advertised in the job

centre. I do not think all of them are. 800,000 jobs were not

advertised in this country, only abroad. Yes, and I think they should

be advertised in job centres here. If people want to advertise

elsewhere, that is fine. You might then get a break-up of the

workforce, as opposed to there being an advert somewhere else and people

coming over, which I don't think is right. The future is with the

youngsters and what people have been saying about schools is important.

In my part of inner London we have people from all over the world come

to my area. Many of the mothers do not speak English. We started

teaching English as a second language attached to the school, so

the mothers will come in with the kids. The kids have no problem

learning English. There was a boy arrived from South Korea and in six

months he was speaking fluently, but his mother was a different matter.

The school set up classes attached to the school, because the mums

wanted to be able to talk to the teachers and that was their

motivation. In that way, we can work towards integration. But the key to

this is youngsters. Why did Labour, according to Peter Mandelson, send

out search parties for people to come to this country to work in

2004? I think the point was that at a time of a booming economy, not all

the vacancies could be filled. So we looked around. As I started off,

managed migration can be a huge benefit to a country. And please do

not forget, we have in talking about the National Health Service, and it

would be nowhere without people coming to this country and working

in the national health service. Paul Tuplin, please. With a suspected

terrorist successfully evading the police this week by wearing a

burka, is there now a clear case for banning the burka? This has been

causing some trouble to the Home Secretary, and we will hear from

Anna Soubry in a moment. This is Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, 27, who was

in a mosque and then was curiously, he put on a burka and was then

spotted by CCTV leaving in a burka, which I thought would be no disguise

at all, because how would they know it was him? Apparently they did.

Vicky Pryce, is there a case for banning the burka? I think there

should be freedom for people to wear what they like. So we should look at

the two things separately. Whether someone disguise themselves by

throwing a sheet over their heads and are able to disappear is nothing

to do with whether we approve of women wearing the burka, so let's

agree with that. But in theory, people should be free to choose and

look the way they like, and cover themselves if they want to. My worry

is that a lot of the decisions to wear what ever it is, perhaps your

religion or your family think is appropriate, they may be made either

under duress, or the girls are already indoctrinated enough to

believe this is what they should do, and in the end they may not have

a choice. Because of that, I think the burka is a bad thing. I am not

sure it should be banned, but certainly it should be discouraged

as much as possible, because women should be able to be, like any other

member of the community, engage in any other activity. I was shocked.

Strangely enough, I was about to do a fringe event at the Conservative

Party conference, and I was in some hotel and I saw this lady wearing a

full garment, with her children, trying to eat and egg. I did not

know how they do it, really. She was lifting her veil and eating it. And

I felt so sorry for her at the time. I thought, surely, no one in their

right mind could make a decision to wander around completely covered

up. So my view is, if we can manage to reduce it as much as we possibly

can, but I would not ban it, no. Anna Soubry, your hero, Kenneth

Clarke, said this week that it is a most peculiar costume for people to

adopt, a kind of pie. Is that your view? -- a kind of bag. He was

talking about whether people should be allowed to wear it in court, and

he is right, you should not be allowed to give evidence if your

face is covered. I am absolutely with Vicky Pryce, I would not ban

the burka to be worn around the streets. I am an old feminist. I

wish people did not do it. I wish women did not feel the need to cover

their faces with veils. But I would not deny them the right of doing it.

But as Vicky Pryce says, I think we have to look at why some women do

it. I accept that there are some women who subscribe to Islam who do

it saying that they are feminists and they do it from free choice and

so on and so forth. I find it a peculiar concept, but I would not

and it. I agree with the women. We should

have freedom of expression and religion in this country. However,

we should recognise that there are certain occupations where the burka

in inhibits the interaction between the caregiver and do care receiver,

such as a teacher, nurse or doctor. I would not like it for those

situations. The woman behind you? Oh, the man. The woman. There is a

differentiation between the full face covering burka and wearing a

headscarf. Is it not more of a cultural issue than a religious

issue? If we are a society that accepts the

wearing of the burka in the UK, I appreciate that we are a

multinational country, our western women similarly welcomed wearing

their choice of clothing in strongly Muslim countries? Not, I think.

Nigel Farage, the French have banned the burka. And the Belgians. I don't

know how successfully. UKIP started this debate for years ago. We talked

about whether the burka was appropriate, and we received abuse

from all sides. Now the argument is changing. The important thing here

is that in this country, wherever you come from, whatever your

religion, we have to have equality before the law. That means that if

we can't wear grey -- a crash helmet walking into a bank, then a burka

should not be allowed in a bank. And the same goes for airport security

or getting on the London Underground. Travelling on the

underground 's if I donned a balaclava and went around on the

Circle line all day, it would not be long before I got a call from the

police, worried about who I was. So let's have equality before the law.

I would not say we should and wearing the burka and walking down

the high street. I am sure there are all sorts of unusual clothes that

are worn on Boston high street. Don't forget, one of the bombers

from 7/7 escaped wearing a burka. But not on a bus? Can you clarify

UKIP policy on this? Equality before the law. We do not wish to see the

burka being worn in places where the rest of us would not be allowed to

cover our heads or faces. Simple as that. Emily Thornberry, you are

shadow attorney general. Equality before the law, is that right? I

certainly think that in court, witnesses and defendants should not

cover their face. It is important that juries get an opportunity to

assess people, and they can't do that if their face is covered. The

lady at the back said certain carers, it is important for that as

well. I agree, I would not want my four-year-old or my elderly mother

being looked after by somebody wearing a burka. They need to show

their face. I would not mind if they work in records in the hospital.

They could wear whatever they like in those circumstances. But the

question begins with the idea that there is a man who escaped wearing a

burka, so should we ban the burka? A few weeks ago, somebody underage

TPIM escaped in a taxi. Should we now banned taxis? Benjamin

Zephaniah. This is a keystone cops moment. Police officers used to

chase kids playing truant. One of them got me one day and put me in

the back-seat of car, and I went through the other door. He jumped in

the car and drove off without me! It reminded me of that moment. Look,

there is nowhere in the Koran where it is a woman has to wear a burka.

I had a secretary that used to wear a burka. She did not wear it until

she went on the Underground. She was sitting on the underground and

somebody said to her, you look suspicious, can I look in your bag?

She said, I am a student, why do you want to look in my bag? You make me

nervous, they said. The whole carriage turned against this young

girl. She came to my office that day. I took her home, and she became

politicised. She said, if you can't accept me like I am, I am going to

go back to my shell. I believe that if you are in court, there should be

some kind of compromise where you can give evidence in private and

show your face. But the main thing I would say to the Islamic community

is, look. Women wear veils because they say they don't want to be seen

as sexual objects. Who are you being seen as sexual objects by? Men. So

the problem is with men. We have got five minutes. Mark Finney has a

question. I would like some brief answers to this, but it is topical.

Is the possibility of somebody snooping on our personal e-mails a

small price to pay our security? We had the three heads of security

services before the House of Commons today. Is it a small price to pay to

have them snooping on us, Emily Thornbury? It is a really difficult

balance to get. It is our first duty as politicians to make sure the

citizens are safe. But we also have a duty to ensure that our

fundamental rights are not encroached on unless there is a

really good reason. I don't see why there is a good reason for the

security people to be able to browse people's females. They need a strong

reason to look at people's e-mails. There was a certain amount of

evidence that can be gathered by looking at simply who has contacted

who, and when. That is a different issue. But looking at the content of

any mail, you need to get a court order or permission from someone

else. They should not be allowed access. The checks and balances we

have on our security services at the moment need to be looked at again.

Benjamin Zephaniah? Please be brief. You always want me to be brief! I

would like you to go on for ever! Our adversaries are rubbing their

hands with glee, that is what they said about the leaks from Edward

Snowden in the committee today. Do you agree? No. I hate the idea of

people looking at my e-mails, snooping on me. This has all come

because of the Snowdon thing. When children are in school, we keep

telling them to tell the truth. If they see something that is wrong and

corrupt man they see people in power abusing power, tell the truth. The

National Health Service has had whistle-blowers lately,

whistle-blowers who have asked their jobs and are suffering because of

it. And we punish them for telling the truth. So what are we saying?

That people who are powerful, they don't tell the truth? It is

important that we acknowledge exactly what our security services

are doing. If they are going to snoop on us, they should have orders

from higher up in government. A lot of the investigations they have

done, how many, 34... Most of them come to nothing. So I am completely

against it. They should not be snooping on us. I largely agree. It

is a question of checks and balances. It is difficult, because

it is the duty of every government to make sure all citizens are safe,

and sometimes that means there are an on civil liberties and privacy.

But if the right checks and balances are put in place, whether it is

orders obtained by judges or some form of judicial oversight and

appeal to two judges, I think we can get the right checks and balances.

But it is difficult, because the overriding duty of us all must read

to make sure we are safe, and sometimes that means we have to

encroach on people's privacy. That is too high a price to pay, and that

has been reflected in the shock we have all had. Look at what is going

on in Germany. Why are people adding Angela Merkel's phone? It has gone

crazy and we have had no checks and balances. It has gone too far, and

bringing it back will be very hard to do. We have to be much tougher

about what goes on. It is not very nice in snoop on, but it is better

than being blown up and other people getting blown up. Which

unfortunately now is a reality. I hate the Button, I hate the thought

of being snooped on, but you know what? There are billions of e-mails

and texts being sent every day, and they have not got the facility to

snoop on all of us. They are not looking for you, they are not

worried about any of you. They might want to monitor 12 of the panel.

That really, I take the view of the last contributor, that we do face

serious threats. Benjamin, one of the reasons why 34 potential

terrorist attacks in this country have thwarted is that they have been

able to get on top of it before time . We face tremendous threats in this

modern world, and I think we need to have some faith in our security

services. Our hour is up with those fateful words. Sorry to those who

have not been able to get in. Some members of the panel spoke longer

than they were allowed. We will be in Portsmouth next week. We will

have Ed Davey for the lip of the cats, former Chancellor of the

Exchequer Nigel Lawson and Stella Creasy for Labour on the panel among

others. The week after that, we will be in Salford, in Greater

Manchester. This is a rather curious programme. It has divided the

audience between people who are 30 or under, and 60 or over. You get

the idea. It is a kind of crude generation gap.

We will be seeing what their views are on the education, housing, the

economy and all those things. If you want to come to Portsmouth next

week, you can be any age. Or Salford, if you are under 30 or over

60, go to our website or call us. If you listening to this on Radio 5

Live, you can continue the debate. Here, we have to shut up . My thanks

to our panel and everybody who came here to take part. From Austen, in

Lincolnshire, good night. -- from Austen.