:01:28. > :01:34.Here, the battle between Communities Secretary Eric Pickles
:01:34. > :01:36.and community councils. And the bosses' leader who claims
:01:36. > :01:46.that cutting pupils at vocational qualifications will hit
:01:46. > :01:47.
:01:47. > :30:02.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1696 seconds
:30:03. > :30:05.Hello. I am Marie Ashby. Our guests this week are the Labour MP for
:30:05. > :30:08.Leicester West, Liz Kendall, and the Lib-Dem candidate for Ashfield,
:30:08. > :30:10.Jason Zadrozny. Liz Kendall is shadow Health Minister and she is
:30:11. > :30:13.playing a key role in the fight against the government's Health
:30:14. > :30:16.Bill. Jason was just a whisker away from overturning a 10,000 Labour
:30:16. > :30:22.majority in Ashfield at the last election. Next week the Lib-Dems
:30:22. > :30:25.hold their regional conference. What does the future hold for the
:30:25. > :30:31.Liberal Democrats in the East Midlands, the only region in the
:30:31. > :30:37.country without a single Liberal Democrat MP? I think things are
:30:37. > :30:41.starting to look up for the Liberal Democrats. We have had the news of
:30:41. > :30:46.two very impressive by-election gains in Northamptonshire, one with
:30:46. > :30:50.a 30 % swing to the Liberal Democrats. I think there will be
:30:50. > :30:55.much positive discussion at the conference. Would it help if you
:30:55. > :31:00.stop blaming Labour for everything? If Labour were not to blame for
:31:00. > :31:06.everything, that would be a possibility. I think people see us
:31:06. > :31:09.in a different light. In different is the Liberal Democrats are
:31:09. > :31:15.becoming more acceptable because we have our message and a record in
:31:15. > :31:19.government. We fed the Liberal Democrat Sea would have had an even
:31:19. > :31:26.bigger uphill climb against the Government's health bill, wouldn't
:31:26. > :31:32.you? No, I think the government has had trouble on its health bill
:31:32. > :31:36.because doctors and nurses think it is wrong. Patience and the public
:31:36. > :31:41.are starting to see the consequences in increased waits for
:31:41. > :31:46.treatment and more waste. That is the real reason why the Government
:31:46. > :31:52.has got problems. In the interest of patients and the taxpayer, the
:31:52. > :31:57.Government should drop the Bill. you find it difficult to stomach
:31:57. > :32:02.the extent to which Nick Clegg has hitched his wagon to David Cameron?
:32:02. > :32:07.We are in a coalition and we have to stand by some things that are
:32:07. > :32:13.not Liberal Democrat policy to get through that. Are I understand you
:32:13. > :32:19.have had discussions with senior Labour will -- with senior Labour
:32:19. > :32:22.officials in Nottinghamshire about switching to Labour? No. It would
:32:22. > :32:28.be irresponsible for any opposition member not to have discussions
:32:28. > :32:33.about ways of working with other parties. So you have spoken to
:32:33. > :32:39.Labour officials, but not about joining Labour? Not about joining
:32:39. > :32:43.Labour. But I speak to all sorts of officials about how we can say what
:32:43. > :32:50.we mean when we're giving our messages and making sure that they
:32:50. > :32:54.come through. We have put through the biggest pension rises ever and
:32:54. > :32:59.changes to the tax system that a stand-alone Conservative government
:32:59. > :33:07.would never have done. And you joining Labour has never been
:33:07. > :33:13.brought up? No, it is not on the cards. But you have resigned from
:33:13. > :33:18.the East Midlands executive of the Liberal Democrats? Yes, because I
:33:18. > :33:25.have other responsibilities. It is only fair to lead brand new people
:33:25. > :33:30.come through. There are bound to be Liberal-Democrats that an unhappy
:33:30. > :33:38.with the coalition, but that is not translating to more support for you,
:33:38. > :33:48.the Labour Party? Eight days. In my constituency, the remaining liberal
:33:48. > :33:49.
:33:49. > :33:53.Democrat councillors lost their seats to Labour. -- it is. People
:33:53. > :33:58.who voted Liberal Democrat last time say to me that they cannot
:33:58. > :34:03.believe that after pledging to scrap tuition fees, to reorganise
:34:03. > :34:08.the NHS, they just do not recognise what they see and they feel
:34:08. > :34:14.betrayed by that. But I know that Labour has to work really hard to
:34:14. > :34:21.get back the support of people. We do not take that for granted and we
:34:21. > :34:23.will be campaigning for every vote. This week has also seen a war of
:34:23. > :34:25.words between Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and fellow
:34:25. > :34:28.Conservatives on Nottinghamshire county council over spending cuts.
:34:28. > :34:32.He has accused them of making disproportionate cuts in the money
:34:32. > :34:37.they give the voluntary sector. It is a charge they vigorously deny.
:34:37. > :34:42.And their deputy leader, Martin Suthers, joins us now.
:34:43. > :34:48.If you have cut the grants that you give voluntary groups by �1 million,
:34:48. > :34:53.34 %, when the money you get from central government is being reduced
:34:53. > :34:59.by 8%. Is it any wonder that Eric Pickles sees that as
:35:00. > :35:04.disproportionate? That is perfectly true, we did carted by 34 %. But
:35:04. > :35:12.let's make it clear that you will not find another county in the
:35:12. > :35:16.country that was giving �3 million in voluntary aid to that sector.
:35:16. > :35:20.Most of the support to the voluntary sector raised through
:35:21. > :35:26.commissioning services, and the grant aid, we take the view that it
:35:26. > :35:32.should be the icing on the cake. We're probably finding the
:35:32. > :35:38.voluntary sector to the tune of about �25 million. Why so much in
:35:38. > :35:42.one year, so fast and so hard in one year? Partly to get the
:35:42. > :35:48.voluntary sector to make the same hard decisions over overheads that
:35:48. > :35:54.we're having to make. Over a four year appeared we will be facing a
:35:54. > :35:58.reduction in government support of around 38 %. That sort of figure.
:35:58. > :36:04.We have had some great success in doing that because across the
:36:04. > :36:08.voluntary sector, they have been cutting back on overheads and
:36:08. > :36:13.collaborating with each other, applying successfully for
:36:13. > :36:19.substantial sums of lottery funding. It has made them think about those
:36:19. > :36:23.issues so we get better value for money, and they get stability.
:36:23. > :36:29.These cuts have got to be made and you are basically saying we have
:36:29. > :36:32.got to get them done? I think that in Nottinghamshire they are
:36:32. > :36:37.disproportionately cutting from the voluntary sector and front loading
:36:37. > :36:43.the cuts. The reason that is a problem is because most of them run
:36:43. > :36:48.on very low overheads. If you take a big cut in the first year, many
:36:48. > :36:54.will end up closing. It is important because voluntary
:36:54. > :37:01.organisations provide a lifeline for many people. RDA cutting the
:37:01. > :37:05.lifeline? I think they are. The Tory government is making massive
:37:05. > :37:09.cuts, and the council's on top of that are doing that
:37:09. > :37:14.disproportionately to the voluntary sector. There are difficult
:37:14. > :37:19.decisions to make but in my experience, voluntary organisations
:37:20. > :37:27.do not have massive overheads. We're starting from a different
:37:27. > :37:31.position, from virtually any other county council. That is part of it.
:37:31. > :37:36.Over the four year period you will find that because we're achieving
:37:37. > :37:42.stability, that maintaining the 2 million for the next three years,
:37:42. > :37:46.which is what is in our budget strategy, then over that time the
:37:46. > :37:50.cuts will be proportionate, but the voluntary sector will have the
:37:50. > :37:57.stability of knowing where they are. We are entering into three-year
:37:57. > :38:04.agreements with as many of them as we can. Did you vote against this
:38:04. > :38:11.34 % cut? Yes, and there were some issues which the Liberal Democrats
:38:11. > :38:15.raised then. The cuts were front loaded. I do not think they are so
:38:15. > :38:19.disproportionate across the medium term. They hit the voluntary sector
:38:19. > :38:25.in a way that perhaps we would not like, but the medium term gives
:38:25. > :38:28.them some stability. One of the fundamental principles of the
:38:28. > :38:35.coalition government in terms of local government is that local
:38:35. > :38:39.people should decide. Like it or heated, the Conservatives have an
:38:39. > :38:44.outright majority on Nottinghamshire council, and Eric
:38:44. > :38:48.Pickles should not be meddling. problem with front loading the cuts
:38:48. > :38:54.to the voluntary sector is if they work on a shoestring and have small
:38:54. > :39:01.budgets, they will be decimated and they will close. That is the real
:39:01. > :39:08.concern. I think the cuts go too fast. We need to make sure that we
:39:08. > :39:12.retain a good voluntary sector. They are absolutely vital. It is
:39:12. > :39:19.hypocritical of a coalition government that said they wanted
:39:20. > :39:24.Big Society. Do you want to decimate the voluntary sector?
:39:24. > :39:34.is not happening. We work very closely with them. And we will
:39:34. > :39:34.
:39:35. > :39:41.continue to do so. �5 million has gone to help people with learning
:39:41. > :39:47.difficulties, two point five times the grant aid budget. Taking the
:39:47. > :39:51.attitude that we have has given us a positive response. Citizens
:39:52. > :39:58.Advice Bureaux, for instance, we now say to them, here is �2,000
:39:58. > :40:04.grant, you decide, not politicians, you decide where to spend that
:40:04. > :40:10.money. You have about �25 million in unallocated reserves, you could
:40:10. > :40:17.take money out of that, would that be a solution? Apart from the fact
:40:17. > :40:27.that we have to keep reserves for any unexpected contingencies...
:40:27. > :40:28.
:40:28. > :40:32.a rainy day? Yes, but there are problems that will rise. There is a
:40:32. > :40:42.very ambitious programme on the road network Q. We cannot squander
:40:42. > :40:43.
:40:43. > :40:46.the reserves in the meantime. -- road network.
:40:46. > :40:48.Next, an unlikely critic of the government's decision to downgrade
:40:48. > :40:51.pupils' vocational qualifications. In future they will count for less
:40:51. > :40:54.in schools league tables. But bosses leader Lord Digby Jones says
:40:54. > :41:02.that is bad news for pupils and employers in the East Midlands. Rob
:41:02. > :41:11.Whitehouse reports. This story has been a gift, you
:41:11. > :41:16.could say a gift horse. That is to those who are opposed to vocational
:41:16. > :41:22.education. Our schools really teaching horse management, how to
:41:22. > :41:26.mark out? Yes, that is one of the 3,000 vocational courses being
:41:26. > :41:31.downgraded by the Government after they heard the results of a highly
:41:31. > :41:37.critical report. A lot of vocational qualifications are just
:41:37. > :41:42.that. They do not belong in a measure of how well as school is
:41:42. > :41:47.providing education for children. The Government says that many
:41:47. > :41:53.schools are using GCSE equivalent courses to boost their position in
:41:53. > :41:59.the school league tables. At this college in Derby they denied the
:41:59. > :42:05.charge. We set our curriculum up to benefit our students, not to chase
:42:05. > :42:09.league table rankings. These students learning catering skills
:42:09. > :42:13.in the college kitchen certainly value their course. I would not
:42:13. > :42:19.like them to go because people would be struggling without them.
:42:19. > :42:27.It is a massive help for me. I want to be a chef. Do you think it will
:42:27. > :42:32.help you get a job? Yes. At this prestigious Academy, it is
:42:32. > :42:37.the downgrading of their engineering diploma, once
:42:37. > :42:43.equivalent to five GCSEs, soon to be just one, that has caused real
:42:43. > :42:48.offence. They insist it is a rounded course. A qualification
:42:48. > :42:53.like this really prepares young people. It gives them core skills
:42:53. > :42:58.in engineering. That is what employers tell us they want. That
:42:58. > :43:03.is what our partner organisations like Rolls-Royce and tie or a tap
:43:03. > :43:10.tell us they want young people to leave with. It is the message this
:43:10. > :43:14.sends to bosses that worries some. I hope the government will change
:43:15. > :43:18.their mind. It is worth fighting for this one because it is
:43:18. > :43:23.important for the country and the East Midlands economy.
:43:23. > :43:28.pretending that everything is equal and everything is suitable for a
:43:28. > :43:33.15-year-old, we have not increased his stake is a vocational
:43:33. > :43:37.qualifications, we have done the opposite. But a public school that
:43:37. > :43:43.charges �9,000 per term is more than happy to defend the value of
:43:43. > :43:48.such courses. Abbotsholme School, set in the Derbyshire hills,
:43:48. > :43:54.regards this kind of education as essential. Vocational courses
:43:54. > :44:02.provide an education for life, not just University. They provide
:44:02. > :44:06.skills for pupils to be implied. Doing this for occasional cause
:44:06. > :44:11.will ensure that I have practical skills to do they know any medicine
:44:11. > :44:16.at university. It is totally different from being in a classroom,
:44:16. > :44:21.but in the real-world, I think it means more to people. Abbotsholme
:44:21. > :44:26.school was created by an educational vision a, a man called
:44:26. > :44:31.Dr Cecil Reddie. His aim was to instil education for life. The
:44:31. > :44:37.staff here feel that he would not approve of the current bonfire of
:44:37. > :44:41.vocation or qualifications. Clearly a lot of concern, but some
:44:41. > :44:47.people will say that Labour was asking for trouble when it decided
:44:47. > :44:52.to let schools and colleges trade so many GCSEs for Vocational
:44:52. > :44:57.qualifications? We have got to make sure that children do not end up
:44:57. > :45:03.taking subjects if they want to go to university, that those
:45:03. > :45:07.universities will not accept. We also need to make sure that people
:45:07. > :45:11.get good quality vocational qualifications. It is interesting
:45:11. > :45:17.that businesses are saying that they valued good quality
:45:17. > :45:21.qualifications. It is vital for the country. We need to get the balance
:45:21. > :45:26.right and my concern is that the Government is throwing the baby out
:45:26. > :45:32.with the bathwater. That engineering qualification is now
:45:32. > :45:38.worth one GCSE instead of five. that is developed by good, high
:45:38. > :45:41.quality businesses. It worries me that those good quality vocational
:45:41. > :45:47.courses that business's value and young people like doing are going
:45:47. > :45:51.to be thrown out. Wasn't this widely interpreted as a way of
:45:51. > :45:58.making the school league tables League better anyway? We need to
:45:58. > :46:03.find a way of really stretching children. But also to value the
:46:03. > :46:11.vocational qualifications. I think the government is going too far.
:46:11. > :46:16.Whose camp are you in? Professor Wolf's or Digby Jones? A little of
:46:16. > :46:21.both, as you would expect from a Liberal Democrat. I think there has
:46:21. > :46:26.been a downgrading of occasional qualifications. I was not brilliant
:46:26. > :46:35.in the classrooms so I did a practical qualification.
:46:35. > :46:40.National Diploma in performing arts? Yes, and it did me no harm. I
:46:40. > :46:45.knew where it was leading. Now we have nearly 170,000 students are to
:46:45. > :46:50.doing courses that do not leading to many were caught other
:46:50. > :46:57.qualifications. I can understand why there is a last of -- why there
:46:57. > :47:04.is a loss of aspirations. In my constituency, sometimes there is
:47:04. > :47:07.fourth-generation unemployment. everyone is academic? And no, but
:47:07. > :47:13.the head teachers in my constituency will say to me,
:47:13. > :47:18.actually, vocational qualifications sometimes act as a hook backing to
:47:18. > :47:28.academic qualifications. They see they can succeed and they can use
:47:28. > :47:36.their skills at. We need to concentrate on our core subjects as
:47:36. > :47:42.well. Our reputation for languages is terrible? Yes, literacy and
:47:42. > :47:45.numeracy are the absolute basics. I am worried about moving towards a
:47:45. > :47:51.curriculum which does not recognise the value of occasional
:47:51. > :47:55.qualifications. I have so many businesses saying to me, we do not
:47:55. > :47:58.get the people we need with the skills we need come and getting
:47:58. > :48:01.jobs is what we need in the East Midlands.
:48:01. > :48:11.Time now for our regular round-up of the week's political stories in
:48:11. > :48:12.
:48:12. > :48:16.the East Midlands. A dozen East Midlands MPs have
:48:16. > :48:20.called on David Cameron to cut subsidies to the wind-power
:48:20. > :48:25.industry. They want brand new planning rules to make it easier
:48:25. > :48:29.for local communities to object to wind farms. Nick Clegg is hit back
:48:29. > :48:33.saying he is a massive supporter of renewables.
:48:33. > :48:36.Senior Conservative councillors are calling on their leader and
:48:36. > :48:42.Leicestershire to resign. It follows an investigation into his
:48:42. > :48:47.travel expenses to Europe. He denies any wrongdoing.
:48:47. > :48:51.This Leicester teenager is not playing his protest by the book. He
:48:51. > :48:57.has made a YouTube video to speak out against the closure of his
:48:57. > :49:02.library on his estate. I believe this decision should be reversed.
:49:02. > :49:06.Finally, the Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has been named old person of
:49:06. > :49:14.the year by the magazine that describes itself as the antidote to
:49:14. > :49:22.youth culture. And to think, he is only 71!
:49:22. > :49:28.What do you think Ken will make of that? I think so, it is a bit of
:49:28. > :49:38.fun, but the serious side is that age is not a barrier to anything.
:49:38. > :49:44.
:49:44. > :49:48.do not think he is an old person. I think 70 is the brand new 50. I