16/06/2013 Sunday Politics East Midlands

Here in the East Midlands. The conservative MP who is calling

for David Cameron to go. And why are we always bottom of the

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2333 seconds

league when it comes to health and The conservative MP who is calling

for David Cameron to go. And why are we always bottom of the

league when it comes to health and wealth? The Government should look

at younger ages earlier and inform them about healthier ways to live.

Hello, I'm Marie Ashby and hoping to lift the gloom a little, my guests

this week, the Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire, Andrew

Bridgen and Labour's MP for Leicester South, Jon Ashworth.

Well, Andrew, you have been rather busy causing quite a stir this week,

calling for a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister in a letter to

the 1922 Backbench Committee? wrote that many weeks ago and

informed many people, including the whip's office. That became public

knowledge at the weekend. It was leaked to a national newspaper, it

has caused a stir. It was a newsworthy item, I am disappointed

that it became public knowledge, it should have been confidential.

now he knows you don't want him to be there? Yes, he knows that. But

the thought of having Ed Miliband and Ed Balls in is distressing. But

I do think that mistakes have been made.

Well, as you might expect, Labour have made a lot of this. Looks like

you've got one thing in common now, Jon, you both want David Cameron

out! Absolutely, he has let people down, the economy is in the doldrums

and there is a huge squeeze. But I have to say, they have leaked his

name, what a terrible way to treat a member. I am up for it, I would not

treat our members this way. You have been let down? We will never find

out how it was leaked, now unwell admit it. That's not know one will

admit it. What is the difference between Ed and David? Labour have

largely accepted the austerity measures. We have a different set of

priorities, we want more investment in housing and capital

infrastructure, the other different approach to the economy. It will be

borrowing and spending and labourer. We worry about reducing the

deficit. You are not producing it though! . We are interested in

economy and jobs where I am MP. One of those tangents can create,

politically, situation we did not have to go to. Whatever way someone

votes, you will lose voters. It was unnecessary and politically not

about the issue of same sex marriage. It was very wrong.

next election will be about economy and jobs, I agree. But you are going

massive deficit at the next election. And your party voted

against the deficit reduction plan so far. You will never agree on that

one. Another East Midlands MP who has

been a bit of a problem for David Cameron is Patrick Mercer. The

Newark MP who has resigned from the Conservative Party Whip is now an

independent. He has referred himself to the Parliamentary Standards

Commissioner over allegations that he established an all-party

parliamentary group on Fiji after being contacted by undercover

reporters posing as lobbyists. It has split opinion in his

constituency. Sunday Politics reporter, Rob Pittam, has been to

Newark to find out more. It may look peaceful enough, but

Newark's a town that has had more than its fear share of strife in the

past. It was besieged several times in the English Civil War before much

of the castle was destroyed. Patrick Mercer might have been

expected to adopt a siege mentality himself. He has told us he cannot

give interviews well the Parliamentary enquiry is underway

into his conduct. But he is holding regular surgeries here in the time.

He says he has been buoyed by the support of hundreds of well-wishers.

Among those supporters, Andrew Smith from the National Farmers Union.

have done my role for 20 years, in that time he has been above and

beyond the rest of the MPs in constituency business. I hope he can

carry on doing such a great job. Not everyone agrees, Graham Gustard

is a Newark-based businessman who has been appalled by the allegations

against the MP. Someone who is independent should be free of undue

influence and control, he is not significantly independent. He should

not be standing as an independent. It is a divide that is reflected

everywhere in the town. Do you think he's doing a good job?

Yes, we do. No, he hasn't. Has the but the family? Think he has gone

against everything in democracy. has this split the family? I have no

objection to him staying on. There is agreement on wanting to prevent

this happening in the future. MPs want to prevent other MPs from

taking on second jobs, or give a pay rise to avoid them getting a second

job. I do not think that is a good idea, ex-special leave with the

economy the way it is. -- especially. You should just behave

properly, ethically, and do what you were supposed to be doing. I think

they are getting enough now. Yes, I think they've had enough.

Not everyone, though, is against paying MPs more. We need people

getting a commensurate salary with those who are specialists in the

fields in industry. We want people with real life experience and not

just Oxford and Cambridge router its spending all of their life in --

graduates spending all of their life in university and then in

Westminster. And so Newark finds itself under attack again from an

increasingly hostile electorate. What has gone wrong here, is it down

to individual MPs or is there something wrong with the system that

makes the lobbyists so attractive to the MPs? He has played the price for

it so far, -- he has paid the price for it so far, it will go through

Parliament. Was it him was that the system? Let us not talk about him

specifically. Individual MPs to blame for this system? I think MPs

have to take some of the blame, we are responsible for our own actions.

But it was quite a shabby entrapment plan that caught him out. It will be

a plague on all our houses, no doubt about it. But now, he should not

have done it. Some interesting attitudes in Newark

to MPs being paid more there. Where do you stand on the issue? I do not

think that MPs should be paid more, we have real week jurors squeezed --

we have real wages squeezed already. I would not be in favour of that.

If we paid MPs more would it stop them from taking on outside work?

am not sure that many MPs are looking for work outside. Patrick

Mercer has done the right thing by putting through the committee, but

he did do the wrong thing. Is the money not enough? It is enough for

me. Is the answer to ban you all from doing it? I think we need to

look at it carefully because I know there are other MPs that have

outside jobs as barristers and other things.

You have got a thriving business, how do you find time to be an MP

too? My job has no links to what I do as an MP. You should maybe look

at people taking on interests after they have become a politician. My

job was there before I was a politician. There is a difference

between doing things anyway and then doing things when you have, chairman

or something like that. At the moment the rules are not clear on

that and I think they need to work at that. People are talking about

getting more ordinary people into politics, in fact you have, but are

using you want fewer people like yourself? Actually, yes. Yes I want

to see fewer Labour MPs. Get over it. Yes, we want more ordinary

people getting into Parliament. Absolutely. But how? We have to look

at selection procedures and political parties, we have to entice

people in. We'll flatter look at the hours. There is a debate over

whether the hours are family friendly. -- we also have to look at

the others. Some MPs are saying that nursery should be closed and turned

into a bar. -- that the nursery. What would you do to attract

ordinary people? Yes, we need to attract a cross-section of people.

There needs to be at least one MP that anyone can relate to in the

chamber. But we need to look at the salary package, the pension. As far

as this parliament is concerned, we know we signed up for, but they will

stay the same for this Parliament. Now, we East Midlanders might be

forgiven for feeling a little depressed this week - a whole pile

of reports have put us at the bottom for wealth, health and, well, just

about everything. Parts of our region are among the worst for how

long people live and one of our cities is said to be the poorest in

the country. We will find out what our politicians are doing about it

all in a moment. But first, Des Coleman has been on a not-so magical

MISERY tour. There is high and deployment during

Leicester and a high death rate. But what do you want politicians to do

about it? Think we need to attack younger ages earlier and inform them

about healthier lifestyles and ways to live. What should politicians do?

Scrap the chicken shops. It is a politician 's faults, everyone can

think for themselves. There is better news in Rutland. There are

very good figures here, it is a wealthy community. When it comes to

health, it is in the top ten. you can help to boost pride in the

area. Here we have a lot of events that a lot of local councillors are

involved in. I think that helps to make people feel better about where

they live. From a politician 's point of view, to try to pinpoint

something they could do, that is now. -- that is unmoved. Official

figures say that the lowest disposable income is here in

Nottingham. When it comes to health they are in the bottom ten. I would

not have thought it was such a deprived place having lived here for

years. I am sure there are areas with plums than we have. -- with

worse problems than we have. It is not down to the politicians. It is

not up to them to increase our life expectancy, it is up to people

themselves. Look after themselves, look after their health.

I am joined by Andrew Pritchard, who is the director for policy and

infrastructure for East Midlands Councils - an association of local

authorities in the region. Is it really as bad as all that?

data has been collected in a very localised basis. If you look at it

in generality, you could see that the whole of the East Bali -- the

whole of the East Midlands is out of step with the rest of England.

Are these figures accurate? It seems incredible that Nottingham is the

poorest city in the country and yet the Office for National Statistics

says average disposable income is less than �11,000. If you look at

the boundaries around Nottingham, around the city, it includes more

aware of the areas. There is a clear difference there. If you look at the

hall you get a different conclusion. That is not to say that there are

not challengers, clearly there are. -- if you look at the hall.

There is little doubt there are problems here. What are you as MPs,

particularly the ones in Government, doing about it? We had to drive

growth and employment. But I would disagree because people are moving

here for the quality-of-life, we have an improving population.

everyone feels the benefit of that. Unemployment fell in my constituency

last month. We have two private sector investments coming in the

next couple of years which will generate over 8000 new jobs. Is that

what you see over? I would say it is unbalanced here. Unemployment is

still high on my constituency. It came down by single figures last

month, but it is still higher than it was that the general election.

You can see across the East Midlands in different areas, there are still

levels of deprivation and problems in unemployment. When you look at

the regional growth fund figures which we spoke of, you have to look

further... You always say that MPs need to get together more on this,

are you? Absolutely. MPs do work together. We are all singing from

the same hence G8 -- from the same hymn sheet in this. We want to get

on with that. Any optimistic signs? There are some really good things

around our competitiveness in manufacturing and construction work.

That is really positive. There is good reason to think that there is a

good offer in the East Midlands, there is a good housing offered here

as well. What about big infrastructure? We look at the

electrification upgrade. There are roads that are infrastructure

priorities that are now happening. There is more to do. The initiative

that you have both been leading in the all-party MPs, we have to work

with that in the councils. If we can join that up that would be the

thing. Why is there a reason to be cheerful? Before these projects, in

schemes we are already drawing and near the top. -- already roaring.

What we need to do more of us more strategy. Things are quite localised

at the moment. Perhaps there is a role for more strategic engagement

between council leaders and MPs. Apparently Derbyshire has the best

figures in the country for a liver disease, that is good news. At the

latest figures show that unemployment is falling. There are

reasons to be cheerful. Yes, and in the West Midlands if you compare us

with them, they are significantly higher. The public affairs officer

for British Airways said that all new aeroplanes will have Rolls-Royce

engines which is good news for the East Midlands. Yes, we have great

manufacturers and lots of food manufacturing. A city like Lester

has export of food to the Middle East and India, even. We have lots

of day Brett and communities, and we should be building on that. Would

you like to see politicians shouting up more for the East Midlands?

I think that is what we might need to do. Often we do not tell the

story in the same way that other parts of the country do. Now that

the councils are very active. is always a lot of lobbyists coming

down from Yorkshire saying how good Yorkshire is, I think we should do

more of that. We wanted about the East Midlands. So when a UNIX

meeting? We just did, and we will meet again just before the summer.

What happened at the meeting? were at the ATM meeting to talk

about the election, it was agreed OPEC priority is the East Midlands

economy. -- that our big. We will keep pupils did.

Do you and conservative MPs get together on this? Can you

realistically do anything? People we spoke to are not sure that you can

and we have to take responsibility for ourselves.

Time for our regular round-up of some of the other political stories

here in the East Midlands this week in 60 seconds.

Ignore letters saying that you have to pay for a new fibre-optic of -- a

new fibre-optic cable, it is a scam. A man has been charged with the

explosion near this building. He was remanded in custody after the

explosion of the MP's offices in time.

Local MPs have welcomed a move to suspend the moving of Linfield

hospital's children's heart surgery. Will you ensure that quality of care

including survival rates which matters most to parents is central

to any decision about the future of the services? The future of heart

surgery in England will now be reviewed again, but it is still not

certain that Linfield will stay open. -- Glenfield.

It seems to be good news, will it make any difference? All parties

said that the review into moving line fields was needed. --

Glenfield. We are awaiting further details, for now it is good news.

Some centres will still have to close some way. That's back

somewhere. I think Jeremy Hunt was very brave to admit that the review

was initially flawed, stop it and give confidence to the staff working

in all these areas that their jobs are safe for now. We will have a new

review on the timescale is yet to be set out. We do not want a quick

answer, we want the right answer, it is too important. Does this just

prolong the agony? It is nothing to do with that, we need the right

answer. Is keeping a small centre like Glenfield the answer?

proposal to close that unit was the wrong proposal, that is what we are

seeing. This was not MPs jumping on a bandwagon, we were listening to

local opinions. It is Father's Day, happy Father's Day to both of you.