06/07/2017 Question Time

Tonight we are in Burton on Trent, and welcome to Question Time.

And on our panel tonight, one of the leading Brexiteers

on the Conservative backbenches, Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Labour's Shadow Justice Secretary, Richard Burgon.

The co-leader of the Green Party, Caroline Lucas.

The Mirror columnist, Susie Boniface.

And David Cameron's former Director of Communications

during the EU referendum, Craig Oliver.

And just to remind you, you can join in from home, of course.

Our hashtag, BBCQT.

On Twitter, Facebook.

Our text number 83981.

And our first question from Beth Astley-Serougi, please.

Does the panel agree with David Cameron that it is selfish

to give the public-sector a pay rise?

David Cameron said this week it was selfish to give,

selfish to claim that a public-sector pay

rise was acceptable.

It wasn't.

Who should start on this?

Caroline Lucas, you start.

Well, I'll tell him what selfish is.

Selfish is when you spend ?26,000 on a garden shed.

Selfish is when you roll out austerity and you are meanwhile

getting around ?100,000, is it, for every

speech that you make.

I mean, quite frankly, how dare he say that?

You know, people are absolutely struggling and we know that

when it comes to the NHS, for example, we've got more nurses

and midwives leaving the NHS now than joining

for the very first time.

We've got a crisis in our NHS and we are taking our public-sector

workers for granted.

They are being treated with contempt by this Government.

So absolutely we should be investing in those public services.

Come on, we are, what is it, the fifth biggest economy

in the world, and are we saying we can't properly pay public-sector

workers who have been struggling for so long?

And to see Theresa May lecture that nurse in a programme you were doing,

David, saying there is no magic money tree, do you know what,

the cat is out of the bag?

Because we saw with the agreement with the DUP that there certainly

is a magic money tree and it's worth about ?1.5 billion!

APPLAUSE

Of course, what he actually said was, giving up on sound finances

isn't being generous.

It's being selfish.

Giving up on sound finances.

Do you think the last seven years has been sound finances

from this Government?

They've missed every single target they set themselves when it came

to getting rid of the deficit.

They have absolutely driven this country into pretty much chaos

when it comes to public services.

I would love to see sound finances but I don't see it coming

from this Government.

Jacob Rees-Mogg.

I think you've got to work out where we started from.

When the Conservatives got in in 2010, a Labour minister said,

there is no money left.

The deficit was ?150 billion.

Things had to be done that were difficult and unpopular,

and were difficult for the people suffering from them.

Nobody wants to have a situation where hard-working people aren't

getting pay increases.

Government doesn't do this because it's unkind.

It does it because we had to get the public finances in order.

Do you realise that debt interest that we pay every year is now more

than the wage bill for the NHS?

That's the scale of the problem.

And the Government then has choices.

And we, as voters, have choices.

If you want to increase pay in the public-sector,

you have to work out where the money comes from.

It could come from increased taxation.

But we currently have the highest level of tax as a percentage

of GDP that we have had since the late 1960s.

The top 3000 taxpayers pay as much in income tax as the lowest

9 million taxpayers.

There is only a certain amount that you can get from them.

So, if that's true, what do you make of what's been going on this week,

which is the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, and Michael Gove,

two senior members, hinting or saying directly

that the Government should give way?

I will come to that but it's important to look at the options.

That's one option, increased taxation.

The other is that we borrow more and our children pay for it.

Now, having just had another child, I don't think it's really fair

that the first thing I should say to him is, "You're going to pay

to make my political life a bit easier".

And the third thing you can do is reallocate from other priorities.

Somebody mentioned HS2.

I happen to agree that that would not be my

priority for spending.

APPLAUSE

I personally would raid the overseas aid budget,

which I think is too big.

APPLAUSE

And I look forward to the ?10 billion a year net

that we will get back once we leave the European Union.

APPLAUSE

What do you make of what seems to be going on in Government

at the moment, with these voices saying,

"She should give way, she should be more liberal

in the public-sector pay"?

I mention Boris Johnson, I mention Michael Gove.

Well, you have to look at public-sector pay

in amongst these choices

and in amongst what would be happening to the economy.

But I'm asking about the Government.

Have they got one voice or six voices?

They have one voice because they are bound

by collective responsibility.

They aren't doing very well at it.

Well, we have a former spokesman, who knows how difficult

it is sometimes to get everybody singing quite in tune.

Although it's probably best if politicians don't sing.

But the Government understands that these difficult choices are there.

What Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have been saying is that they are

recognising that there is a pressure, and that this

leads to the debate that we are having now.

But, ladies and gentlemen, ultimately it is up to you.

Which of those choices do you want to make?

Do you want to risk even higher taxes?

Do you want to risk higher borrowing, or would you go

with what would be my solution, and reallocate from other areas that

are to my mind a lower priority?

APPLAUSE

The woman at the back there.

On the right at the back.

Being as you said that we haven't got a magic money tree,

can you justify why you've actually given 1.5 billion to Northern

Ireland and how are we actually going to pay that back?

No, you can't answer that.

We'll come onto it.

Richard Burgon.

I'd love to.

Yes, I know you would but you've been speaking

at some length already.

It's good to be at the Jacob Rees-Mogg show.

He makes some interesting points, but what he did say is that there

are difficult choices to be made.

And when a Conservative, whether it be Theresa May,

whether it be Boris Johnson or Jacob says there are difficult choices

to make, that's usually a code for cuts and bad news for those

who can least afford it.

And our public-sector workers, who work in our hospitals,

work in our fire stations, work in our schools,

are a bit sick of patronising pats on the head from Conservative

politicians every time there's a terrible disaster,

or every time the exam results come round.

Because what they need is not to be thanked by Conservative politicians,

because they get thanked by members of the public every day.

What they need is a real pay rise.

Because their pay hasn't stood still.

Their pay has gone down.

Nurses, for example, are having 14% less in real

terms pay than in 2010, and there are stories

of nurses using food banks.

And when it comes to what's selfish, I think David Cameron personally

defines selfishness, for many reasons, but partly

because he selfishly walked away after he left this country

in an absolute mess.

APPLAUSE

Let's just hear from Craig Oliver,

who I said was David Cameron's spokesman through this.

Have you spoken to Cameron about this comment he made?

I haven't spoken to him specifically about this and fortunately I don't

have to defend everything David Cameron says any more.

But what I would say is I do think we are coming to a time, and I think

the Conservative Government is probably recognising that

you can't keep squeezing the public-sector in

the way that it has been.

People have had a real terms pay cut, and there's a struggle to fill

nurses' and teachers' jobs.

But the point I think is really important here is exactly

what you were saying about the Cabinet.

We cannot have Cabinet members going out there and making up policy

on the hoof and pretending that there is, frankly,

no choice to be made, no difficulty to be made.

What needs to happen is the Government needs

to be talking in private, making those hard choices

and then making the case, because at the moment

they are looking like they have no plan and they have no message.

So Cameron has got it wrong, in your view, by saying sound

finances are what matter?

No, and I think it was slightly disingenuous to say that he said

people didn't deserve a pay cut.

A pay rise.

I'm sorry.

What he was saying was that what is desperately unfair

is that we spend tomorrow's money today, because as Jacob was saying,

that is going to affect our children and grandchildren

and that is not fair.

Can we just remember that when those people are being paid a pay rise,

they therefore pay more tax on that pay rise?

We don't have a situation where taxpayers are over

here and public-sector workers are over there.

public-sector workers are paying tax, and that goes

back into the Revenue, and that creates more money,

which you can then invest.

So this idea that the money simply isn't there is wrong.

And if you want to look at another place to find it,

look at corporation tax.

Why are we reducing corporation tax yet further, to be some kind

of basically a tax haven floating off the side of Europe.

That is no vision for what this country should be, trying to get

down to 17% corporation tax.

Corporations should pay their way, not putting everything

on to the poorest countries.

So you're basically saying we should borrow more money?

No, I'm saying corporations should be paying more money,

and I'm saying if you paid people more money, they would then pay more

taxes and you get a virtual circle.

I love hearing somebody who works for an investment bank talk

about borrowing money.

Let's just cut through the rubbish for a moment and get back

to the original question.

Yes, it's selfish.

Jacob, did you take the 10% pay rise in 2015?

Caroline?

Caroline didn't.

Richard, you were freshly in Parliament then, I believe.

Well, we don't agree with austerity for everyone else.

It's not hypocrisy because...

Yes or no, did you take the pay rise?

Yes or no?

Answer the question.

That was my question.

I will answer your question, because as I'm a politician I'm one

of the few members of society that is trusted even

less than journalists.

But what I would say is that the difference is we are not

saying that MPs deserve the independently decided upon pay

rise and other people don't.

We are saying that our public-sector workers deserve a pay rise.

And the real story of hypocrisy...

Sorry, her question wasn't that.

I'll wait for the Richard Burgon show for the moment.

Caroline's right.

The public-sector is the only group of individuals,

and there's 5 million of them in this country, and they're

the only group of people who pay for their own pay rises.

None of the rest of us have to do that in any other organisation,

and we should really stop this business that we've been

going on now for seven years of demonising the people

who administer our pensions, who sort out the roundabouts,

who provide the nursing, who keep us safe with the police

force, make sure our houses don't burn to the ground and go back

in and pull us out when they do, and stop saying they are the reason

we are in this problem.

We do not have a huge amount of problems because

of the public-sector.

The public-sector is what stops as being just a group of individuals

who live on a rock in the North Sea.

The public-sector is doing something for other people,

is what makes us a society.

Without them, we are just feral.

We need to say thank you to them, and thank you very much

for everything you do.

APPLAUSE

I'd like to hear from our audience.

I'd like to go back to the questioner first

and then hear from others.

What do you make of it?

I think it was disgraceful that David Cameron was

insinuating or even said that.

I think the public-sector is what keeps this country going.

It is vital.

The Government can't keep saying, they are heroes, etc,

and not back that up by giving them a pay rise.

It's disgraceful.

The man on the corner.

You, sir.

During the last eight years or so of Conservative leadership

and eight years of cuts, we still, the Conservatives

are still blaming Labour for the deficit.

The deficit has actually tripled during that time.

I mean, what's the reason for that?

How can they still be blaming them?

Ridiculous.

And the man there.

Firstly, I'd like to congratulate Jacob on the birth

of his sixth child.

But I also want to ask him, obviously he can afford to clothe,

feed and educate six children.

What does he have to say about the nurses and other members

of the NHS who can't afford to feed themselves and house

themselves as well?

OK, Jacob, you answer that.

Yes there is a slight misunderstanding, I think.

The pay cap doesn't mean that people aren't getting any pay rises.

There are grade increments, and the average level five nurse has

received a 3.8% increment increase on top of the 1% guideline increase.

So where the cut has been is on a new entrant.

If you were a new entrant in 2010 and a new entrant now,

you get 5% less in real terms than in 2010.

But as in the period you've been working for the NHS you will have

got grade increments, you will not have had

that real terms pay cut.

That's a very important point.

On my own personal affairs, which I don't think are very

relevant, but I will answer because I've been challenged

and it's only fair that I answer.

I take no personal living expenses at all that MPs are entitled to.

I have always refused to take those because I don't think that

you should subsidise my lifestyle because I can afford it.

And that was my decision, but other MPs are not in that

position and they ought to get an amount to help with second homes.

Thank you.

I'd like to hear, because you are an audience right

across the political spectrum, I'd like to hear from somebody

who supports what Cameron said, that sound finances are important.

Let me hear from somebody who thinks that.

You, sir, yes.

With the spectacles.

There's the gentleman over here just said that the deficit has gone up

by three times under a Conservative

Government, it hasn't.

The debt's risen, the deficit's closed, they are two

totally different things.

I hear so many people on the television mixing the two up.

We still have a deficit and Caroline Lucas has said

we should bring down corporation tax - Put it up.

Put it up, sorry.

France have announced today they're bringing theirs down.

We've got a lot of competitors out there.

So, you know, we have to be very careful what we do.

We're in choppy waters and we do need some sensible

people at the helm.

OK.

APPLAUSE

The person at the very back there. Yes.

Me?

I'm not saying I agree with what Cameron says -

I'm not saying I agree with what David Cameron says,

I'm agreeing with him that says it's not just doctors who are not

getting a pay increase, it's everybody as a whole.

I know there's teachers that haven't had pay increases.

If you work out their annual wage and you work it by hourly,

they're actually getting paid less than the living wage.

So it's not just doctors, it's everyone collectively who's not

getting a pay increase.

Craig Oliver, how hard done by do you think the public-sector

is compared with the private?

Well, the evidence is that actually the public-sector is actually doing

a bit better than the private-sector at the moment.

Not normally.

There has been reports in the last few days saying that.

APPLAUSE

So you think they're doing better.

Richard.

I think it's really important we don't try to divide working

people into the public-sector and the private-sector and try

and get one to resent the other.

Politicans do that.

The truth is, most people, whether they're working

in the public-sector or in the private-sector,

haven't been getting the deal they deserve since 2010 and have

seen their living standards reduce.

I make no apologies for praising people in the public-sector

and the private-sector.

What about employers themselves who run businesses and employ people?

Good point. Let me answer it.

You live in a bubble.

You live in a Westminster bubble where you don't know the real world.

OK.

Can I answer - You don't pay business rates.

You don't pay pensions.

You're in a bubble.

You are in a bubble, I'm afraid.

You've got to start realising there are people self-employed

in this country that generate growth whether they employ one

person or 50 people.

All I ever hear is - let's look after the public-sector.

Do you know what it's like running your own business?

You don't because you're a politician, you haven't got a clue.

All right.

APPLAUSE

OK, let Richard Burgon answer that.

OK.

Firstly, I do live in the real world, I live in Leeds,

the constituency I represent.

Secondly, if you let me answer, you're right about the importance

of small business and Labour does talk about it.

That's why, in our manifesto, one of our policies was to bring

in paternity pay, maternity pay and sick pay for the self-employed

because we do - Hang on, sir, let him have his say.

- for the self-employed.

For the self-employed, and that's the point you're making.

Richard, no self-employed person can cease, close down their company

and take a year off because they've had a child.

I had a child last year - APPLAUSE.

Let's listen to Susie. I'll come to you.

Susie Boniface.

I'm self-employed, I'm afraid I don't employ other people,

I just work for myself, but I had a child last year.

The statutory maternity pay is ?100 a week, I'd have been on the street

within three months if I'd relied upon that and also,

when I went back to work, if I'd taken a year off,

I'd have found I had no customers, no clients, no nothing.

I'd have been absolutely on my arse.

For the self-employed, maternity and paternity

leave is a waste of time.

It's not right that people who're self-employed don't get these

benefits when they pay national insurance as well.

So I think it's important that they have those rights

and a Labour Government would have given them those rights.

Who keeps my customers in place for when I go back?

That's a decision that people who're self-employed should be able to make

by introducing paternity pay, maternity pay and sick pay,

that'd help them make the decision.

I want to go to the man in the green shirt there.

I'll come to you Caroline, suitably green, after him.

Yes.

We're talking about Cameron's speech, he used the word "selfish"

about public-sector workers.

I've worked in schools and children's services for 40 years.

If Cameron wants to see selfless people, get into a school,

get into a hospital, he'll see people working selflessly.

He'll see people working past their hours.

If he wants to see that kind of thing and say that kind of thing

and earn the right to say it, get out and see them, they're there.

APPLAUSE

It's really important that you actually look

at what David Cameron said, and what David Cameron

said was stacking up the deficit, stacking up debt,

which is ?1.7 trillion, is what is selfish.

He did not accuse public-sector workers of being selfish

in anyway, and it is wrong to say that.

APPLAUSE

OK.

Somebody proposes a solution to this, Peter Bright.

Should we reduce or scrap the foreign aid budget to help

solve funding issues closer to home?

APPLAUSE

Should we reduce or scrap the foreign aid budget to help solve

funding issues closer to home?

You've touched on that Jacob already, so I'll

come to you in a moment, but Caroline Lucas.

No, I don't think we should and that's for two reasons.

APPLAUSE

First of all, Britain has a proud tradition of being a country that

cares about the development in poorer countries.

Britain also has a bit of a record, unfortunately, of having caused

quite a few problems in poorer countries and therefore

some justice and some recompence wouldn't go a miss.

But also, there's a question here about what's in our own self

interest, and if we care about a world where people can feel

secure wherever they live, if we care about a world

where people don't have to risk their lives on boats

going across the Mediterranean - and there's over 2,000 people who've

risked their lives and died in the Mediterranean

this year alone.

If we want to live in a safer world overall, then I think the money

we put into our aid budget is money incredibly well spent.

OK, and you actually want to...

APPLAUSE

At the election, I think you wanted to increase it

from ?13 billion to somewhere around ?16 billion, didn't you?

We wanted it to go to 1%, yeah.

How many billion would that be?

I think, as you say, from ?13 billion.

Up from ?13 billion to ?16 billion?

Yeah.

So, all right.

Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Well, I can give a one word answer - yes.

APPLAUSE

I think there are real problems.

Sorry, you can't give a one word answer because it

was reduce or scrap?

Well, it should be reduced or scrapped, but reduced.

Not scrapped?

All right.

I would maintain emergency relief, which I think only

the Government can do.

APPLAUSE

And I think there are some elements of the overseas aid budget

where money has been very well spent.

The money on camps near Syria, to provide people with a place

of refuge, when they are fleeing in fear of their lives,

I think is something we should be proud of what our

country has done.

APPLAUSE

Sponsoring the Ethiopian Spice Girls and the various other things

where money has gone are not money well spent.

I think that should be done by, ladies and gentlemen,

your private charity.

All of you, I expect, give to charity and you can choose.

It's not for politicians to take your money in general

taxation and give it to charitable causes.

But if you want development, and my background is

as an emerging markets investor, what you want to help

countries succeed is trade.

South Korea is the most wonderful and impressive nation.

After the Korean War, it's GDP per capita

was lower than Somaliland.

It is now an OECD nation.

It's one of the 30th richest countries in the world

and it's done that by trade because we were willing

to buy their goods and that's a great opportunity -

to come to a subject we may come to later,

once we're out of the European Union and take away all the customs

tariffs, that we impose still on developing nations,

to help them boost themselves by selling us things we want.

Peter Bright's question was "to help solve funding

issues closer to home."

Are you arguing that we should cut the ?13 billion that goes abroad

and use it for the nurses and for the teachers?

Well, you've got to be very careful because I don't want to fall

into the trap of spending the same money many times, and you may notice

that politicians do this.

They say they'd cut the overseas aid budget and then they're going to pay

for nurses and teachers and a new hospital and more money

on the defence services and so on and so forth.

So I think you've got to work out your choices.

Where would you put it?

Where would yours?

At the moment, I would put it into housing.

I think that is the greatest issue facing our nation,

obviously following what happened in Grenfell Tower, I think there's

going to need to be significant Government expenditure in that area,

and I think that would be a sensible way to find it and apply it.

APPLAUSE

Craig Oliver?

I think the foreign aid budget is a very easy target for people

and they seem to think that you can just take it and apply

it to all our problems and everything will be solved.

But I think we live in a compassionate country

and I think we also made a promise to some of the poorest

people in the world.

You see projects like The Gabby Project, which deals with malaria,

it's done an amazing job out there.

If compassion isn't really doing it for you, then

there's our national security.

I saw, when we were in Government, that Ebola, which was a real

threat to the world, was solved because British money

went into Liberia and Sierra Leone and it made a real difference.

At a time when this country is considering Brexit,

I would say using soft power around the world, we're going to need

as much friends as we can, so it's money well spent.

APPLAUSE

If I go to the question, Peter Bright, what do you think?

I think when times are really difficult, like with all the public

spending issues we have right now, I don't think it'd be a bad thing

to have a dynamic foreign aid budget, so when times are good

we can give a little bit more and when times are tough,

and we need to sort out some problems at home, maybe

we could scale it back a little bit and help the nurses

and teachers and doctors.

APPLAUSE

Susie Boniface.

Well, Peter, in answer to your question, I don't think it

should be reduced or scrapped.

I don't think it's an either or sum that it's us or them,

but I do think you can render it totally unnecessary

to have a foreign aid budget in the first place.

Now, as Jacob mentioned, emergency relief, which always gets

forgotten about when people talk about scrapping foreign aid, going

to help people in disaster zones.

I don't think anybody wants to scrap that.

We have to protect that part of the budget.

But the other part of emergency foreign aid which people

often complain about, the Ethiopian Spice Girls funding,

and this kind of thing.

I've been in disaster areas where I've seen the aid

come in off a plane, go in a warehouse and come out

the back again being sold on.

I've seen corporate regimes being propped up by governments

in what they call soft power and it's wrong and it's not fair

and it's not reasonable and it's not the way we should

have our money being spent.

But what we could do is, if we spent every single penny

of that part of the foreign aid budget on schools.

If we could put a school, the entire western world,

could put a school in every village in the world, we could educate every

child and, in 20 years, they wouldn't need our

help any more.

They would be able to lift themselves out of whatever

problems they have.

We wouldn't have to keep funding them.

That would surely be the best long-term aim,

is to ensure that we don't have to keep throwing aid at corrupt

regimes and the Del Boys who are selling aid out

the back of warehouses.

APPLAUSE

The man at the very back there, in the blue shirt.

You there, in the back row.

I'm Danish and I've lived here for 30 years, I see people

here squabbling over aid to countries that are

poorer than we are.

We do not want for anything.

The easiest thing to solve this problem is, the Government

or the next politicians, on the next election, to say -

1p more income tax, that will solve the problem rather

than scaremongering and go, you have to pay more tax

if anybody else comes in.

OK, Richard Burgon.

Well, I think we need to be able to be proud of Britain's role

in the world when it comes to supporting some of the poorest

people in the world and some of the people living

through situations that, thank goodness, we don't

have to live through.

But I think sometimes it is easy to assume that if we didn't

have a foreign aid budget, then all these awful things that

have happened in this country, because the Government's unnecessary

political decisions, wouldn't happen.

The bedroom tax doesn't exist because of the foreign aid budget.

The fact that people don't get paid a real living wage doesn't exist

because of the foreign aid budget.

The housing crisis doesn't exist because of the foreign aid budget

and the failure of the state locally and nationally to be give

the proper support to people after the Grenfell Tower disaster

is nothing to do with the foreign aid budget.

APPLAUSE

OK.

We are half-way through our programme.

I'm going...

Could I say one thing.

Say one thing.

I just want to say, having worked for a development

organisation for ten years, I just want to challenge

the view of development and aid that's been given,

particularly by Susie just now.

Of course there are some places where corporation happens.

Of course there are and that is wrong.

But also I just want to say that there is so much positive

stories to be told about our aid budget and the way in

which it is supporting women's empowerment, for example.

I also want to say it isn't just to do with charity,

there is a question here about justice.

For years and years this country has essentially had a trade policy

which is undermining the lives of poorest people in poorer

countries because we are basically exporting goods into their markets

which undermine the prices that their farmers get for it.

So there is something here about justice, it's

not just about charity.

We live in a very, very interconnected world.

We've had an impact on the rest of the world.

Some of it's good, but some of it is less good and it's

about time we addressed that well.

All right, I want to go on.

We get this question time and again, ever since the election,

indeed before the election.

I want a show of hands and see if you could...

How many of you believe in what Peter Bright suggested

reducing or scrapping the foreign aid budget?

Could you stick your hands up and let's just see.

How many of you think we should keep it as it is?

Yeah, that's pretty evenly divided.

Thank you very much.

Question Time, we're off the air over the summer.

Question Time is back on Thursday, 14th September.

Just to say this, so you know where things stand.

It's not too early to apply.

We're going to be in Stratford in East London and Bridgwater

in Somerset on the 21st.

So if you want to apply, you can go online, the address is there.

Let's go on with another question.

Ashmal Qamar, please, let's have your question, can we?

OK.

Given that 48% voted Remain, why is a hard Brexit being seen

as the will of the people?

Ah, well.

Craig Oliver, you were the man there right through the campaign and lost.

48%.

Why do you think hard Brexit is being considered

the will of the people, if indeed it is?

Well, look, I accept that Remain lost a referendum and I accept

that we are going to leave the EU.

But what I don't accept is that we need to have

an ideological, hard-line Brexit.

It's a real problem for this country and I worry that the Government

is putting red lines ahead of realism and putting principle

before practical necessity.

I was talking to somebody in the Cabinet the other day

and they told me that Liam Fox is struggling to come up with any

evidence that he will do international trade deals that

will in any way balance out leaving the single market

and the customs union.

We are in a situation where inflation is rising

at the moment because our currency is dropping because of Brexit.

There's been a 75% drop in investment in the car industry,

96% fewer nurses from the EU are applying to come to Britain.

Now, Chris Patten was talking about the general election.

He said the Conservative Party was overconfident and they thought

it was going to be a walk in the park and it turned out to be

a walk in a cemetery.

Let's make sure we don't make the same mistake on Brexit.

OK.

APPLAUSE

What do you make of this week's poll which says 54% would now

vote to remain in the EU?

Well, I think...

Does it make you feel you screwed up pretty badly?

No, I think it's extremely volatile out there and I think anybody

who trusts an opinion poll at the moment, as we were saying

before the programme, it's a pretty tricky time.

Opinion polls are not very accurate at the moment.

But what I do think is clear, I used to spend a lot of my time

talking to businesses and they are incredibly worried

about the fact that they can't move people in and out of this country.

They are saying, "We might have to move our headquarters

abroad because of this".

Now, people who want to be ideological about that need

to listen to that because we need a Brexit that works for the economy

and jobs and not ideology.

Jacob Rees-Mogg.

You are either in the European Union, or you leave it.

APPLAUSE

This is not only my view, this is the view of Donald Tusk,

one of the presidents of the European Union,

who said there is no such thing as hard and soft Brexit,

there is being in the European Union, or out.

And if we're out of the European Union, we cannot

have our laws determined by the European Court of Justice.

We cannot have all our regulations set by being in the internal market.

And we can't lose all our trading opportunities by being

in the customs union.

And this was clear at the election.

I brought a quotation in case this came up,

from Wolfgang Schaeuble, a very senior German politician.

He let the cat out of the bag after the referendum because he said

he had been asked to say this by one George Osborne, the then Chancellor.

And he said, "If the majority in Britain opt for Brexit

that would be a decision against the single market".

In is in.

Out is out.

We knew what we were voting for.

We voted.

APPLAUSE

And democracy must deliver.

Now what Craig was talking about, with companies, that's

then our own immigration policy.

We could have an immigration policy that makes it easy for senior

executives to come in and go, or we could have a lunatic one that

stops them coming in.

But that's got nothing to do with being in the European Union.

Indeed, we could have a better one because we could have the same

for Americans, Australians and Indians, as we have for

Belgians, Romanians and Bulgarians.

And that would be our choice.

It would be nothing to do with the EU.

And we can deal with inflation because we have very

high tariffs on food and on clothing and footwear.

So the word hard Brexit doesn't actually mean anything to you?

Hard Brexit is a term used by people who don't want us

to leave the European Union and regret the results.

And they pretend there is a soft Brexit.

APPLAUSE

Jacob, you said something tonight that's simply not true.

You're saying it's absolutely binary, and that you can't leave

the EU and actually have some of the benefits of it.

Well, you can.

You could decide to have the ECJ, the European Court of Justice,

have some jurisdiction.

You could choose to have the customs union.

I've been told that in Government they understand that you'd have

to increase trade with far-flung markets by 4000% to balance

the problems of leaving the customs union and the single market.

You are taking people for fools if you are claiming that it is just

simply a binary decision and it's not going to have any

impact on the economy.

Because it is already.

This is terminological inexactitude.

The truth is that if we still have our laws determined

by the European Court of Justice, then our Parliament is no longer

able to make all our laws and the votes of the British people

do not count, because our laws are made and interpreted

by a foreign court.

That's nonsense.

We're under the ECJ now and we make laws.

We are under the ECJ now, and we voted to leave.

Nonsense.

We cannot allow our law to be overturned by Brussels if we have

left the European Union.

APPLAUSE

It is not only a binary decision, it is a most

obviously binary one.

Who your judges are, who interprets your law,

is fundamental to whether you're an independent nation or not.

Jacob, we set tax in this country, we set security in this country,

defence, education, health.

Once you go past that, there is very little

that the European Court can get involved in.

I'm so glad that we set tax in this country.

We can't set the tax rate on women's sanitary items because that's

determined by the European Union.

Susie Boniface.

Isn't it wonderful that a referendum that was called in order to stop

the Tories arguing has done such a brilliant job?

They are fighting like cats in a sack.

If we ever do Brexit, they won't know what to argue

about at their dinner parties, will they?

The fact is that Brexit, whether you voted Leave or Remain,

was not a win or lose situation.

You were at a fork in the road, and we opted for one fork.

ALARM BEEPS

And now we are in this situation,

we're all going down that fork.

It's time for bed.

This is my stopwatch saying it's bedtime.

Carry on, Susie.

We've gone down a fork and the fact is that Brexit is now the most

important issue of a generation.

It's not going to affect most of us in this room particularly that much.

It's going to affect our children and grandchildren

more than it does us.

And this is a situation where politicians who are sitting

here bitching and arguing, frankly, about stuff

they can't know the answer to, should put their egos and ideologies

to one side.

All our parties should come together in a rainbow coalition and get us

through this next period of Brexit, together, for our best

interests, not in theirs.

APPLAUSE

You, sir, in the third row from the back with spectacles on.

Yes, I can't believe we're still arguing about Brexit

after the recent tragedies.

We're going out of Europe and that's it.

And about time we realised that.

OK, and you in the front.

The problem is actually the Leave guys didn't know

what they were campaigning for, so those of us voting also didn't

really know what's going to happen.

It was a campaign based on, we're going to leave the EU

hopefully but we don't know what's going to happen after that.

So the hard Brexit, soft Brexit, the people who voted to stay,

generally were the young people that are actually going

to be affected by it.

When you're just going, it doesn't matter about you lot,

it's fine, we're going to go for the hard Brexit.

Get on with it.

You know, you might have kids, grandkids, you're going

to have to live with it.

Richard Burgon.

Well, Britain is leaving the European Union.

Labour did campaign, as everyone knows, passionately,

for a remain and reform agenda.

Passionately?

Seven out of ten!

It was passionate.

The fact is...

LAUGHTER

The fact is, Jeremy Corbyn and his team toured

the length and breadth of the country putting forward

the argument that we should remain in the European Union but reform it

to make it more democratic so it is run more in the interests

of the majority of people.

However, the vote has taken place.

Labour respects and accepts the outcome of the referendum.

Britain is leaving the European Union.

And at a time when we've had years and years of trust

in politicians reducing, I think it would be very,

very dangerous for the political establishment to be perceived

as trying to wriggle out of a decision in saying to people,

vote again and again until they get the answer the MPs want.

Is Labour's view that we stay in the single market?

Labour wants an economy first Brexit, jobs first Brexit.

What we want is a risk free access to the single market

and the equivalent benefits of being in the customs union.

And that means there's going to be a lot of tough

negotiating to take place.

You think the EU are just posturing when they say you can't do that?

Well, I know that the EU has said that Britain has to be

in the single market, and come what may, but that's

the point of negotiations.

There's 18 months of these negotiations to take place.

That's a starting point.

We need to go in there.

I think it's right as well, by the way, that Labour has said

that all EU citizens who made their lives here,

some 3 million of them, should get to stay.

That's very important.

And that we therefore invite the EU to make a reciprocal

arrangement for UK citizens.

The chief negotiator says you can't stay in the single market,

you can't just think you can stay in and keep all the benefits,

it's not possible.

That's what negotiations are for.

That's his opening negotiating gambit.

We're going to negotiate.

I was just going to say that Labour continues to speak out of both sides

of its mouth on Brexit.

As somebody who sat in the referendum campaign and had

people like John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn cancel

interviews at the last minute, and then just go on and criticise

the campaign, rather than passionately campaigning

for it, it's just simply not true.

And perhaps you can clear something up tonight.

Does the Labour Party believe we should stay

in the single market, the customs union and

the European Court of Justice?

Because millions of people voted for you thinking

that is your policy.

Well, I've just said that what we want is tariff-free access

to the single market.

And there's a tactical difference of opinion between some

in the Labour Party.

Some think that means we have to be in the single market,

and some think that means we can get tariff-free access

to the single market.

There's a long way to go with these negotiations but what we want to do

with these negotiations is yes, put democracy first,

but also put the economy and jobs centre stage.

But we don't want is what the Tories want, which is to try and use Brexit

as a smoke screen to create a low-tax haven for the super-rich

off the shores of Europe.

The final thing I'd say is this.

The reality is that, as things stand, the way the economy is run,

whether we are in the European Union or out of the European Union,

the majority of people, 99% of people, are still being held

back, and that's a problem.

Society isn't fair as it is now, whether we are in the European Union

or out of the European Union.

APPLAUSE

The woman up there, second row from the back.

Yes.

I agree with the previous lady's point at the front.

Jacob said earlier that we knew what we were voting

for when we voted in the EU referendum, but I don't believe that

a lot of people did.

What about the famous slogan on the side of that bus?

What's happened to that.

A lot of people didn't understand fully what we were voting for.

Caroline Lucas, do you agree with that point?

I absolutely do agree with it, and I don't think it's patronising.

I don't think it's patronising because the Leave campaigners,

the leaders of the Leave campaign, didn't do it by accident.

They were very deliberately not nailing their colours to any

particular version of what Leave would look like, because they knew

if they did that they would actually have a divided campaign.

So I sat on plenty of panels alongside Dan Hannan,

one of the prominent MEPs from the Tory party who said again

and again, of course we'll be able to stay in the single market.

Leaving the EU, of course it's possible to stay

in the single market.

So people didn't necessarily know what a hard Brexit,

what a soft Brexit was.

It wasn't on the ballot paper.

And my point would be that Theresa May does not have a mandate

for the kind of Brexit she's trying to pursue.

She didn't have a mandate on the 23rd of June because it

wasn't there on the ballot paper in the referendum, and she certainly

doesn't have it now, when she went back to the country

to try to get a mandate from harder Brexit and had it thrown back

in her face and she's got a smaller majority.

What we are saying in the Green Party is that now that

people are beginning to learn more about what Brexit really means,

learning, for example, that there is not ?350 million

going to the NHS every week, if only there were,

and as Craig has already said, the economic consequences of Brexit

are becoming clearer, that is why I think it would be

right to give people the right to have the final say on the deal

that comes back from Brussels.

So when the negotiations have finished, come back to the people,

not just to Parliament, which is what Theresa May is saying,

give it back to the people.

You started this process, you should be able to end it.

If you like it, then go for it.

But if you don't, then you should be able to stay in.

APPLAUSE

On that point of the people having a second say in a referendum.

It's the first say on the deal.

It's not a second say, it's the first say on the deal.

This is characteristic of the EU.

Vote in the way that Brussels doesn't like,

and you have to vote again until you've done

what they tell you.

It seems to me, we had a referendum, we decided to leave,

and that must be implemented, or we deny democracy.

You, sir.

I just want to say, I'm sick and tired from

the younger generation, younger voters, of ageism.

Anybody who's middle-aged or above is accused of, "Oh,

well, you don't care, your vote doesn't matter

to us", and all this.

And then the likes of Caroline and others, who basically accuse us

of not knowing why we voted.

My decision to leave was made up a long, long time

before the referendum, like most people I spoke to.

That rubbish on the side of the bus, I didn't personally believe.

I thought, yes, we're going to get some of the money

back into the coffers.

But I didn't believe that all that money is going into the NHS.

And anybody who believed that was stupid anyway.

But, sir, there are people out there who voted Leave thinking that

that would still allow them to be part of the single market.

There are people, self-evidently, out there who did believe that.

So it's very clear.

The people I speak to had made their minds up well before

the referendum was called.

What did you think of...

APPLAUSE

What if people were persuaded by that?

What did you think of that if you think it wasn't truthful?

Well, look at the BS that's told by all politicians,

and all political parties, every general election.

What do you say to the person in the front here, who did say young

people are going to inherit this?

What do you say to her?

Well, I'm working, I'm a taxpayer, I could turn round and say -

well, I'm older than you, I'm wiser than you, life

experience, so my vote counts more in that aspect.

My vote is more valuable in that aspect.

Which is not fair.

It's a comeback.

What do you say to him?

What says you've got more life experience,

just because you're older, it doesn't mean you've

done that much.

I didn't say I did.

APPLAUSE

I didn't say it.

I'm not here to fight with you, I'm here to watch them.

What right do you have to say to older voters

their vote doesn't matter?

Those who voted to leave, that your vote doesn't matter

because you're going to be dead in less time than us.

My point wasn't that your vote doesn't matter.

My point was, we didn't vote for a hard or soft

Brexit or not to leave, we didn't know what

we were voting for.

To leave -

I did.

There was no definition.

Leave or remain.

There was no definition on that ballot paper.

OK.

The person in the second row from the very back and then we'll

take one more question.

Yes, you.

I'm a young person, I'm 17 years of age,

and I was for Brexit.

I think that the media portray us as one tin to remain

in the European Union is wrong.

I would have wanted Brexit.

I think if 16 and 17-year-olds were given the vote statistically

them having 100% turnout and 100% voter remain would only have just

clutched a remain win any way, so I don't think

it was worth it.

OK.

So I'd say the very word "Brexit" itself is rather

an empty signifier.

In regards to the campaign, I think the reason there was no promise

to stay in the single market or leave is because the moment

you make that promise you isolate voters.

If you leave it as open as possible possible, then that campaign

is rather more appealing.

It's not that people don't understand, it's just that the word

itself is kind of all encompassing, I suppose.

OK.

I think we've got time for one more question.

Let's take this one from Laura Mawson, please.

Should people leave university with ?50,000 worth of debt?

The issue that came up indeed at the election when Labour promised

to make university free again.

Susie Boniface.

No.

Laura, they shouldn't have to.

The thing about tuition fees, it's the worse possible

deal for the taxpayer.

We used to pay the university tuition upfront, we now pay

in arrears, with 3% interest on top, plus the retail price index,

which is the most expensive way of judging inflation.

Most graduates, who are only going to start paying for this over

over 30 years or so, after they earn over ?21,000,

many of them will be defaulting long-term on that.

There will be debt collectors that we the taxpayer have

to pay to hound them.

What will end up happening is the total final bill will be

for by the taxpayer, it will also be paid for by those

graduates who were too poor to start paying back their student loans,

?10,000, so they are paying general income tax

and we all start paying back.

It costs far, far more in the long run.

As someone who lectures at different universities around the country,

I've got to say as well I think it creates an idea that education

is something you can purchase and that it gets delivered

to your brain, like an Amazon parcel, and it's just there.

Education is like gym membership, you can pay for it,

but unless you apply yourself you're not going to turn into an athlete.

I think the tuition fees debacle has both affected the quality

sometimes of what people perceive their education to be,

but it hasn't affected the actual quality they're receiving.

It's certainly lent to a worse deal for the taxpayer.

We're all paying more as a result of the tuition fees thing.

It's not just students who are leaving without debt,

it's the general taxpayer that is having to cough up the bill.

APPLAUSE

I'd say, who would be 18 now?

You're staring down the barrel of having a pension that's probably

going to be worthless.

It's very expensive to buy a house.

It's probably out of your reach.

On top of that, you're being asked to have a ?50,000 worth of debt

before you've even started if you've gone to university.

But I think there's a huge problem with this.

Susie was saying education used to be free.

In fact the reason why it was free was because very few

people went to university.

We are now in a situation where far more people do.

The Labour Party are saying, well, we can give it all the way free.

That would cost ?60 billion.

?60 billion over the next Parliament.

I think we should look at tuition fees and and see if there are ways

in which we can ease it.

It's definitely wrong that people are charged interest

when they are studying and not earning.

Actually, what political parties need to do is look wider than that

and have a bigger offer to young people.

The Conservative Party probably needs to have a much

bigger offer on housing for young people.

APPLAUSE

Richard Bourgon.

When I think about it we see how far backwards we've gone,

someone growing up a young person in my constituency now,

leaving university, has less chance of a debt-free life.

Less chance of a well-paid job.

Less chance of a mortgage.

Less chance of a council house and less chance of a decent pension

at the end of their working life than someone leaving

school at the age of 15 in my constituency did 40 years ago.

That's not right.

So I'm proud that Labour went into the general election,

that we just had, and got 13 million votes, 40% of the vote,

on the basis of a policy of free university education, with a leader

who has always supported and always voted for free education.

We all benefit, we all benefit from education.

When we go to hospital and someone treats us,

who has been to university, we're all benefitting from that.

When our children go to school and our children are educated,

we're all benefitting from the education of the people

who work in the school.

It was alarming to see the report that said that young people

from working-class backgrounds are coming out of university

with more debt than their more affluent counterparts at university.

That's wrong.

We all know, don't we, we all know that there's

working-class people bright enough to go to the university

they want to, but have to make the economic choice to go

to a different university and that's not

a restriction of choice of a more affluent face.

So I'm proud of Labour's policy.

Why do the figures show more people from disadvantaged backgrounds

going to leading universities now than ten, four, five years ago?

Well, they're coming out with more debts on average, ?57,000.

Why are they going if the debt is problem?

Why are more of them going to university?

Because people have aspiration.

People want to get on.

People want to contribute in the best way.

People want to be educated.

I don't believe, by the way, that education is just

about being paid more.

Once you start charging, especially this amount of money,

we're encouraging people to think of university as a kind

of investment that returns a personal - that yields

a personal financial return at the end of.

it.

I also believe in education for education's sake.

That's really important.

OK, you, sir.

APPLAUSE

We all keep saying about Theresa May with her magic money tree

which you accuse her of.

I think Labour must have a magic money forest because all this

stuff they're giving away is unbelievable.

APPLAUSE

Jacob.

I think that gentleman's made the best comment of the night,

it is hard to follow.

APPLAUSE

I think that the point you were making, David,

is actually the key one.

There's been a 72% increase in applications to university

from people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds

and the reason for that is that loans have allowed the number

of places at university to increase because they are funded by the loans

rather than directly by the Government.

What matters is the term of the loan.

So, yes, there is this large nominal debt, but it only begins to be

paid back after people are earning over ?21,000.

It's written off after 30 years.

It does not count on people's credit score and it is collected

through the tax system.

So there'll be a 9% collection above ?21,000.

Nobody will have to pay all of that back.

There'll be no debt collectors knocking on your door

if you can't pay it back.

They won't knock-on my door, I didn't get a degree.

I'm the only person here who didn't need to get a degree.

After 30 years it's simply written off and it's taken through PAYE.

That means that it ought to be no disincentive to people go

and you've seen numbers rise.

Let's just look briefly at what they do in Scotland

because in Scotland it's free.

Where have they paid for that from?

They've paid for it from further education.

So the people who are going to be the elite, who are going to earn

over their careers ?200,000 more are being paid for by those

who are going to further education who are going

to have fewer opportunities.

That seems to me to be outrageous and you have to decide - who pays.

Is it going to be the people, under very favourable

terms who will benefit, or is it, ladies and gentlemen,

going to be people on the minimum wage who are just beginning

to pay tax.

That is a choice we have to face.

All right.

The woman in the second row.

APPLAUSE

Yes, you.

I worked in education with 16 to 18-year-olds for over 30 years.

I also have three young grandchildren who have all chosen

to take apprenticeships, modern apprenticships

and are all funding their own way.

I don't feel they are in anyway disadvantaged by not having gone

to university and racked up huge debts.

I think that the modern apprenticeships which are on offer

now are a huge opportunity for young people rather than

racking up huge debts.

All right.

The woman in pink there in the third row.

In the pink dress, yes.

My son is paying off, he's over the threshold,

he's started to pay his tuition fees back.

But actually, having paid all year, the interest

on it is punitive, he's ended up

owing more than he's paid off, how can that be right?

How much is he paying off, as a mter of interest, do you know?

I don't know, in the hundreds, I can't remember, he's only just

over the threshold to start to pay.

It's meant to be ?90 a year if you earn over ?22,000.

He ended up with owing more than he started with,

how can that be right, trying to talk to the student

loans is interesting.

Putting 6% interest on a student loan is a complete disgrace.

It's just disgusting.

The woman in the third row here. You, yes.

What I want to know is, if the Labour Party do

get rid of this fee, what about the people that

have already paid it?

Will they get that paid back to them?

Well, that's a question for another general election, I suppose.

Caroline Lucas?

I just thought it's very interesting how Jacob spent the first half

of the programme saying that Government debt is really bad

and we need to avoid it at costs and he's just spent the last ten

minutes saying that student debt is absolutely

fine and don't worry about it at all.

APPLAUSE

I think it doesn't give a good start to our young people

when they start off their lives with up to ?57,000 of debt.

If you look at some of the issues on university campuses right now,

there's an epidemic of mental health problems, people being incredibly

stressed about this thought that they're going to have

to pay back so money.

It is wrong.

This interest rate of 6% is absolutely scandalous.

In terms of what are the alternatives.

Let me just tell you that universities in France, in Germany,

in Austria and Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal

and Spain all charge massively less, it's about ?2,000 a year.

We're paying in England the highest student fees in the whole world.

There are alternatives.

Do you know what.

The people who benefit from an educated workforce,

as Richard said, is all of us.

There's also businesses too who benefit from having an educated

workforce to go and work for them.

So why don't we have a business education tax, it's being called

by the union UCU, a small tax on some of the richest companies.

That will go into it.

It would be something that would be shared that way.

Incompetent stead of having this idea that a university education

is some kind of private commodity, it isn't.

It's a public good.

We all benefit from it.

Tax people hire by all means, when they actually get out

of university, but don't put this burden on all of our young people

right from the start.

The man in the blue.

Very brief. We have to close the programme.

I think there are too many people going to university.

The time was when we had apprenticeships,

like the lady said down there.

Higher education should be for the brightest people,

whatever their background.

The rest we used to have HNC, ONC, HND, a load of practical courses.

Would you have it free for fewer people or still...

A good solution would be, getting to university should

be academically hard and financially easy.

OK.

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

On that note, our hour is up.

That's all from Question Time.

Until Thursday, 14th September, when Question Time will be

in Stratford in East London and the week after that

in Bridgwater in Somerset.

If you'd like to come and take part in the programme in our audience, go

to our website or call 0330 123 99 88.

If you're listening on Question Time on 5 Live,

Question Time Extra Time follows.

Here, my thanks to our panel, to all our audience from from all

the Question Time team at the end of this series, here

in Burton-on-Trent, good night.

APPLAUSE

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