27/05/2012 Sunday Politics East Midlands

Good morning and welcome to the And here, or will be anti-social

behaviour reforms make life tougher for offenders? And is it time the

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1678 seconds

number of ethnic minority MPs Hello, I'm Marie Ashby. Our guests

this week are Anna Soubry, the Conservative MP for Broxtowe, and

Toby Perkins, Labour MP for Chesterfield. Coming up: Keith Vaz

reflects on 25 years as Leicester East MP. His highs and lows. And we

ask if politicians need to work much harder to get more people from

ethnic minorities into Parliament. First, the case of Fiona Pilkington,

who killed herself and her daughter at Barwell in Leicestershire,

shocked the nation. The family had suffered years of harassment

despite making countless calls to the police for help. Now the

Coalition has launched a raft of reforms to replace the

controversial ASBO system and make the police more accountable to

victims. So will they work? Earlier the chairman of the Nottinghamshire

Police Federation Phill Matthews told our Political Editor John Hess

that they ignore reality. I think it just shows a lack of

understanding from the Home Secretary and Government about what

we do at the moment. We at within the law. What does she think we can

be forced to do that we are not doing at the moment? One is the

ASBO effective enough? They were once they were in place. They were

difficult and time-consuming to get. But once you got them in place they

were quite effective. All this is happening against 20% cuts in

police budgets? Yes. These are time-consuming to resolve and take

a lot of time and effort from the officers. While you are cutting one

in five officers from this county I do not think it will be achievable.

What is morale light among your colleagues just now? Absolutely

rock-bottom. The Home Secretary is not listening to the staff

associations in this country. We have tried to consult and she has

ignored everything we have had to save. A key plank of your govt's

reforms is this so called Community trigger which would force police

and councils to act if five households make a complaint. Phill

Matthews says his officers already do that Phill Matthews has also

told us there's a danger these reforms will take away officers

ability to distinguish between what's serious and what isn't.

have had constituents come to me and I have been very concerned

about the stories they have to tell about when they are making

complaints. Usually about groups of youths. I can think of one case

that was clearly racially motivated. I had to intervene but as soon as I

went to the senior inspector he took it very seriously and made

officers at street level take it seriously. It is important police

can make their own judgments. police are right to be concerned

but they need a big change to the way they work and operate. You get

some great police officers but you also get some of you, in my

experience, do not always take the sort of action people want them to

take an they should be taking. That leads to a number of people

becoming increasingly cynical. We know that things are not being

reported when they should be because when you ring the police

they do not do anything about it. It is not simply about cuts but

also about mind sets. These proposals are good because they put

the victim at the heart of it. Police and other agencies in

Leicestershire have learned some tough lessons from the Pilkingtons

case. The government clearly believes other areas of the country

now have to get the message too. When you are hearing from the

police who are the experts dealing with these things every day on the

ground, they say these proposals show that there is no understanding

of policing. There is a replacement for the ASBO which will not even

because people are to get a criminal record. It is a weakening.

A message going out there that you can do best and not even get a

criminal record. I think at the same time we are hearing about

police cuts and that morale is through the floor, people are going

to be pretty horrified. The message from Theresa May is that we are

going to make its offer for offenders. When Toby says that

people are not being given a criminal record, a criminal record

when you are 14 or 15 unfortunately lives with you for the rest of your

life. I am pleased that children will not get criminal records. I

think that is right. That blights them for the rest of their lives,

doesn't it? Isn't it a good thing that we do not give people criminal

records? There was a case in Nottingham of someone who had an

ASBO on two separate occasions and he abused it. He had ruined the

lives of shopkeepers and now he is doing six months in jail. He would

still be carrying on under the current system. If you commit a

criminal offence you should be dealt with for that. One of the

great treks that we are proposing is that you will be dealt with for

the criminal offence but latched on to that will be the anti-social

behaviour order but also address the reason be person committed that

the fence in the first place which is something that did not happen

before. A isn't it just a watered- down ASBO? It is not. It is about

recognising that all sorts of anti- social behaviour comes in different

shapes and sizes. It might be music played too loudly by neighbours or

stones thrown at windows. It is a huge range of offences? What we are

hearing from the police forces is that they do not think it is

realistic. The reality that the police are facing is that there are

16,000 less of them. They are increasingly stretched and the time

that is going to be taken is not going to be realistic. Next month

marks an important milestone for one of our leading Members of

Parliament. It's 25 years, yes a quarter of a century, since Keith

Vaz was first elected MP for Leicester East. Later we'll be

discussing whether constituency parties should select more ethnic

minority candidates to run for Parliament. First Eleanor Garnier

has been talking to Keith Vaz about his achievements, and his regrets.

The year was 1987 and Labour's Keith Vaz won the seat of Leicester

East one of just four black and ethnic minority MPs to be elected

that year. He was the first Asian MP since the 1920s and the first

ever Asian Minister in the Commons when Tony Blair made him Minister

for Europe. It was an immensely proud moment more for my family.

Minister for justice and then Europe. Interesting going to summit

meetings, strange I don't' think India has been admitted - what is

that guy doing there? Keith Vaz first made his mark in Parliament

as the outspoken supporter of people who'd lost money in the BCCI

banking collapse, and those he confronted included the Bank of

On the case have only just closed I am frustrated. It was a very long

campaign. Those responsible were not brought to justice. He's also

had an impact as Chair of the influential Home Affairs Select

Committee a role that's seen his profile soar. But what's been the

committee's biggest achievement? Probably it has been the phone

hacking scanda. But there have also been other victories. Gurkah.

There's a long list of celebrities Keith Vaz has been accused of

courting he's also criticised for taking himself too seriously 18'05

I was criticised for taking myself too seriously. You can be the most

important man in the world but you still make mistakes and do things

differently. In 2001 he was at the centre of a major controversy over

his role in passport applications by two Indian businessmen - the

Hinduja brothers - who helped fund the Millennium Dome. What one shd

do in circumstances like that is pause and explain and I don't think

That was a mistake in the way in which I handled it, I should have

been better. If we lack judgement it's because the average person may

not have chosen the right path - you learn from your mistakes. Of

course I do - I've made lots of mistakes that I'd like to change.

Through thick and thin he's retained the backing of his

Leicester constituents winning 6 elections on the trot. But how can

Parliament catch up with Leicester and become a better representation

of the Country's ethnic makeup? think it will happen but it I don't

think we need structural change. It has to be done through the

political parties because you can only get to parliament through the

one of the main two or three political parties. I think they

have embraced the race agenda in a very positive way. What's left to

achieve? You can't stop thinking about tomorrow there's more to be

done, everyday, there's lots more to do, everyday there's another

issue that has emerged, there is still a huge amount left to do

after I'm finished perhaps when I'm done I'll be a journalist! Keith

Vaz giving us an insight into his 25 years as an MP. I would like to

applaud his service to this country not only in the word he has done

but in inspiring ethnic-minority is to become elected representatives.

We ought to have 60 or at 70 minority ethnic politicians sitting

in Westminster. I am frustrated and impatient for representative

democracy. Ideally urged the parties to select the deluge of

talent that is in Leicester, my home town, and all around the

country to make sure they get selected and elected and serve our

society as Keith Vaz has done very well. There is a long way to goal.

There is a huge way to go. If we are honest about it we have a real

problem at the moment in politics. Denature and life of being an MP is

such that there are not enough good people coming through from all

walks of life. That is one of the key things I'd read with Keith Vaz.

We want MPs that reflect real life, he is absolutely right. But is that

really happening? You only became an MP at the last election, when

you look around the Commons, do you see today's Britain reflected?

someone remarked that Keith Vaz has been an massive help for other East

Midlands MPs. I think in terms of the issue, the start of the

question was slightly pessimistic. At the last General Election the

number of ethnic-minority candidates almost doubled. There

are 27 now it and it is right to be impatient, we need to do much

better but at the same time we recognised that the Labour Party

has a guarantee for an ethnic minority to get onto a very short

list. We are seeing candidates coming through and I think we will

continue to see improvements but we all need to put pressure on the

parties to increase the pace of change. Deep female shortlist was

pressed and we have had a great improvement in that case, should we

go down the same line in this case? I absolutely. It is the only way

democracies around the world can ensure that for a time limited

period they will become representative of the people in

this country. But once you have trained the structures, as we have

seen time and again, the Labour Party, under Conservatives, the

Conservatives made great strides in collecting 10 new black minority

ethnic MPs but at the end of the day there is still a race penalty.

The talent is not recognised. I know as a matter of fact there is a

deluge of talent that needs to be recognised and tutored and given

the basic opportunity so that they can fulfil their potential. It is

not a lack of talent. His shortlisting the way to go? There

is a very good argument that when you do it for a short period of

time just to jump over this huge hurdle that we have, we do not have

a parliament that begins to reflect modern Britain, I am not totally

convinced but I have got an open mind. Both parties really do go out

and make an effort to try to get people from all sorts of

backgrounds involved in our party and we are not doing that very

successfully. How can it be that Keith Vaz is our own minority MP in

the whole of the East Midlands? know there is a large ethnic

minority across the whole of the East Midlands saw two or may have

one MP is very disappointing but at the same time you have to look at

whatever methods are available to make Parliament more representative.

That is about sex and race and also about people who did not go to

university. I am one of the few who did not. We need to have less, if

you are professional politicians. We want people who have done

something else in their lives and then come into Parliament and have

something more to add. You have been beating best drum for a long

time but do you have any reason to be optimistic on this? I do for one

principal reason. ICD talent every day that wants to come forward in

spite of all the obstacles. What I am emerging -- urging political

parties to do, it is in their interest, parties cannot win the

next General Election unless the target black minority and ethnic

communities to vote for them. People will vote for a political

party when they know there is diversity of faces and views.

if we do not get more candidates, what are the dangers? The danger is

that people will switch off, they will say this democracy does not

look like us or sound like us or reflect our views. What we need to

do is Excite and engage. Everybody benefits from a diverse dynamic in

Government that we can see. I hope you will consider standing for

Parliament because we need people just like you. Thank you for

joining us from London. Now time for a round-up of some of power

other political stories in 60 seconds. You can't keep Barwell out

of the news. A residents group is campaigning to stop a proposal by

Hinckley and Bosworth to build more than 2,000 homes on the edge of the

town. We're used to charting the rise of young politicians on the

Sunday Politics. Not long ago we reported on Ian Campbell taking the

chains of office in Retford. Now Peter Wildgoose has been elected

Mayor of Matlock. He too is just 23. We also like to be there when the

balloon goes up. Rutland and Melton MP, Alan Duncan,has persuaded REG

Windpower to fly these blimps to demonstrate how high turbines

planned for Ketton will reach. The final decision rests with council.

Finally a Bulwell woman has smoked the most expensive cigarette of her

life. Discarding a cigarette end has cost her a �600 fine and �200

in costs after she failed to attend Nottingham court. And that is where