23/06/2013 Sunday Politics London

Sunday Politics. This is George's week. And the papers are full of

stories about rows between ministers haggling with the Chancellor in the

run up to Wednesday's Spending Review. That's today's top story.

The Government has launched an education revolution. The teaching

unions won't have it and are even striking against it. NUT General

Secretary Christine Blower joins us for the Sunday Interview. And a

group of Tory right wingers hanker after a Margaret Thatcher public

holiday. They also want to bring back hanging and ban the burka.

We'll talk to their unofficial shop steward. In London, why has the

Janan Ganesh's scheme to bring derelict homes back into use only

managed to produce eight habitable the brightest political panel that

money can buy. Helen Lewis. Janan Ganesh. And Miranda Green who will

be tweeting throughout the programme. Faster than George North

down an Australian touchline. But first, the Spending Review. George

Osborne says he is looking to cut another �11.5 billion of public

spending as part of his long-drawn out deficit reduction plan. He had

one bit of news for us this morning. He's reached agreement with the

Ministry of Defence about its budget. That happened last night.

And he repeated the Government's key message that the health of the

economy is beginning to improve. think we are moving from rescue to

recovery and you can see that because the economy is growing,

unemployment is coming down, there is a record number of people in

work. It is still going to be, of course, a challenge because the

economic problems that Britain built up over many years are considerable

and you can see what's happening elsewhere in the world, but I think

we are out of intensive care and our job is to secure the recovery and

I'm absolutely confident we can turn the country around. The Chancellor

on the BBC this morning. He's looking a bit more optimistic for a

start. He's talking about another shed load of cuts for 2015-16, so

why is he bothering? He has to do. He's talking about green shoots and

the recovery phase. It's very difficult because he has missed his

targets, we still have an unemployment problem. We are talking

about 0.3% of GDP, not fantastic news, and I don't think he's got

much cause for optimism, frankly. His whole demeanour has changed and

he may be right, he may be wrong. thinks things are getting better.

George Osborne's share price hit the floor lasted and has been creeping

up slowly since because of the tentative economic recovery. I think

the thing which will satisfy him the most is the way austerity itself is

an idea, and it's become less and less controversial in politics. We

are now in the fourth fiscal year of austerity and the level of political

agreement around is actually greater than it was when it began. Three

parties, not too, were broadly in favour and the differences are very

much once of emphasis rather than principle. I don't think any of us

could have foreseen that. I thought austerity, which I broadly support,

which would be much more controversial. I thought would be

civil unrest and more protests, more demonstrations and, instead, all we

have seen are things like the People's assembly which took place

yesterday and it's pretty innocuous stuff compared to Arthur Scargill

and the 1980s. How bruising has this been for the coalition? Absolutely,

Danny Alexander is as much like George Osborne as can be in this

process which is controversial in the Lib Dems said there could be

problems down the line. What is remarkable now is the degree of

consensus about the broad strategic direction and you have had Labour do

this kind of GPS rebooting over the last couple of weeks, which are

still looking a bit awkward but, broadly, they are going in the right

direction. Is that where you end up in the river? It's such a gamble for

them to say we would do things a bit different but not that differently.

If you want to believe in austerity, there's already a big party offering

that and the danger for them is their complicated message about

day-to-day spending and capital spending is too nuanced to get

across. So that's Labour and the Conservatives. What about the Lib

Dems? Well, yesterday Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg had some home

truths for his party's unruly grassroots. He told Liberal Democrat

local councillors, or at least to those that are left, that come the

next Lib Dem election manifesto, they would have to curb their

natural tendency to promise the earth. Building on the approach we

tucked in 2010, on that front page of the manifesto, we will be even

clearer with people about the commitments which are prioritised

for us, and the ambitions which we accept may be affected by resources

and circumstances. As a party with compassion, the desire to offer big

spending commitments will be as strong as it ever has been. But we

will resist the temptation to talk big and end up delivering small.

the Lib Dem Deputy Leader, Simon Hughes is here with us. Your 2015

manifesto will now have read lines, these, as I understand it, will

detail which policies would be non-negotiable in the coalition.

Where does that leave the rest of your manifesto? You want to

implement the whole of it because you want to be a hell party in

government on our own and I always assumed when I joined the party,

when we were younger, we might have to go through a coalition to become

a majority government and we are there. You're not going to form the

government in 2015, though. It's unlikely, but you never know. The

lesson we learned last time as we had a very good manifesto for items,

things we've have delivered, income tax cuts for the poorest, most

important. But we had things like tuition fees which was our policy I

believed in and I thought was right but we couldn't deliver it because

there wasn't a majority in parliament. We were staffed by our

colleagues and therefore, we lead people to believe we couldn't

deliver so we have learned that lesson which is that there are

certain things which we would insist on in any coalition and that people

can expect it to be delivered. the rest would be if you form the

majority government yourself. it's a relevant? The rest could be

negotiated. In this Parliament, two thirds of our manifesto has become

government policy. The point Nick may justly, it's far better to

deliver two thirds of what we believe the country needs than in

opposition. Delivering zero. senior Lib Dem said yesterday the

manifesto would set out the things Lib Dems would die in a ditch to

deliver. Give us an example of that. I think we have to have an

increasingly fairer tax system Army have now. We have gone down the road

very successfully in lifting people out of tax out of the bottom.

under 10,000 would pay tax. Everybody says that. I noticed Ed

Balls this morning suddenly saying he believed in a stronger economy

and fairer society. That's what we have said and labour didn't deliver

so it would mean for me, lifting the tax threshold at least to the

minimum earnings level, 12 and a half thousand. But also making sure

that people at the top with higher incomes pay more. Would that mean a

higher rate of tax than 45%? because as you well know, they are

still paying much more than they were under Labour but it does mean

going after the tax avoidance and the tax evaders. You will hear more

about that. What about the mansion tax? Would you go into coalition

with any party that didn't agree with the mansion tax? I don't think

discussion has finished yet. It's a good idea in principle and needs

more work, in my view, internally. The sort of thing we ought to have

other bottom line, is making sure that every youngster before they

leave school has face-to-face careers advice and guidance which is

not guaranteed at the moment. Those are real practical things. Would you

go into government with a party that wanted to build Trident? I'm a

realist. The other two parties are for it. We think we ought not to be

spending so much on the same extent as now so we have the review

commission. We are waiting for the report. I think there will be

negotiation about that. It's not a red line? What we will be doing...

Increasing tuition fees? We have ended up in a position where most

people have seen a benefit of the new system and the poorest are

applying in similar numbers to good university before. So you were wrong

to propose it? No, we got the tactics wrong. Any constitutional

issues you would make a red line? are two years from the election.

This is good practice for you because you will be asked to gain.

We'll work these things out together. The important thing for us

as we end up with a much fairer society than the Tories left is and

labour left us. Something for me which is an absolute central thing

to the next manifesto is building the sort of number of affordable

homes that we need, not just in London but across the country.

have to have a huge house-building programme. The recent record has not

been good. The last government was worse than the Tories before them

and we hope to do better than that. I think you hear more about this

week. On the spending review, we understand there's a battle going on

between two very famous Liberal Dems, Danny Alexander and Vince

Cable. Whose side are you on? I'd talk to the Chief Secretary this

morning. I gather it will all be resolved by Wednesday. Is Vince

Cable OK to hold out or as Danny Alexander right to say we have to

continue our deficit reduction? Everybody has to continue deficit

reduction. We need to reduce it by a third. We have ring fenced the NHS

and overseas development and schools budgets. There is a battle to make

sure we have investment in apprenticeships, science and jobs.

So who are you supporting? I want the maximum investment we can

deliver to get the economy going. In three days time, you will know the

result. It will be live on the Sunday Politics. People can see more

of you in London on the Sunday London regional opt. You can never

get too much. Two Simons for the price of one. When it comes to cuts

there are one or two areas that still escape the axe. International

Aid is one. Health is another. And the amount we spend on our schools

is the third. So the money for teaching our kids is still there.

But it comes with a whole raft of changes to how English schools work.

It amounts to nothing less than a transformation. Within days of

taking office, Michael Gove rushed through legislation which brought

about a huge expansion in the number of academies. Three years ago there

were just 203. Now there are 2973. He gave organisations the power to

set up free schools, independent of local authority control, with the

ability to experiment. He's rewriting the national curriculum,

the new one being introduced next year which will fundamentally

reformed GCSEs and A-levels to follow in 2015. This revolutionary

zeal hasn't found favour with the teaching unions. At the April

conference, the NUJ unanimously passed a vote of no-confidence in

the Education Secretary and demanded his resignation saying Michael Gove

has based its policies on dogma, political rhetoric and is only

limited experience of education. The General Secretary of the National

Union of Teachers, Christine Blower joins me now for the Sunday

NUJ's record, various school reforms that successive governments had

tried to introduce. Very quickly, when the Thatcher government in the

80s allowed comprehensives to opt out of local authority control the

NUJ oppose that. Yes, in the end, we got rid of it because it wasn't a

good idea. When the last Labour government provide that policy with

its academies programme you oppose that, too. Yes because there is much

better ways of doing what they wanted to do and we didn't oppose

the London challenge which was lauded by Michael will show last

week. You have resisted the spread of academies under this government,

is that correct? Yes, they are on a different basis to the Labour ones

and some of them have been stopped. You are bitterly opposed to the

Coalition Government support for parents teachers charities to set up

free schools, is that correct? Correct, and that's because there's

a huge problem with place planning for the pity of schools opening in

the wrong place. The large number of free schools would have opened have

been secondary when there is a crying need for primary places.

have oppose the national curriculum, league tables, teacher appraisals,

performance related pay. We have opposed all of those things but we

have always offered an alternative. We have always said that all

children and young people have the right to a broad and balanced

curriculum. I understand that but I wanted to establish that this

record, you may be right or wrong, but it would be fair to say you have

opposed almost every major reform to the state education system of the

past 30 years. We did not oppose the company -- comprehensive schools

under Margaret Thatcher. It is your position, as I understand it, that

all children should go to what Alistair Campbell called dog

standard comprehensives, that all children should go to standard

comprehensive schools. There should not be a choice of a different type

of school in the state system, is that correct? No. Our policy is

every child should go to a good local school. Comprehensive?

Comprehensive, nonselective. academies or free schools?

children should go to schools within their local authority area and the

local authority should hold the ring on things like school improvement

and special needs and so on. Even though you sent your daughter

outside of your local authority? said a good local school, not local

authority school. We live in London. We live in a small borough and she

went to a school in an adjacent school Borough which is easiest to

get to on the bus routes. It is a matter of what a local school is. It

was a local authority school. I assume you are against private

schools? The National Union of Teachers does not have a policy of

closing down private schools. you abolish them? It is not an issue

of abolition. We are against the current policy where schools which

work hitherto private eye now allowed to have state money.

would abolish private schools? would not have chosen it for my

children. I am not asking you that, if you had your way, you would

abolish it. I am a servant of the National Union of Teachers. I am

telling you what the policy is. My own view is that society would be a

lot better if all schools were educated in the same system.

Absolutely true. And therefore, the corollary of that is we would not

have private education. Is it fair to say that your educational

attitudes, a uniform it galloped Arianism, is a product of your own

hard left policies? No, wrong altogether. It is a matter of having

comprehensive schools who take all comers and who have curriculum

freedom so they can play to the strengths of all of the young people

who are there. That is actually what we need. We want to make sure that

there are no children who are not getting the very best education.

are opposed to performance related pay for teachers and the union is

going out on strike this week in the north-west, why are you against

this? We are against the vast majority of teachers not getting a

pay rise. Given that there is no more money, axiomatic league, if you

only pay some teachers more, then other teachers will not get any. You

cannot become a teacher unless you pass your induction year, and then

at the moment there are six years, and then you get to the top of the

main scale and then there is a cut-off point which is performance

related. If we made sure all teachers worked to their absolute

strengths we would have no problems. It does not need to be

linked to pay. A final point on this, the School teachers review

body could not find any research which was able to link performance

related pay for teachers to student outcomes where the student outcomes

had improved because there is no method. You have had a huge pay

rise? Me? I have not.You did a couple of years ago. I won

�159,000? Nothing like. What I had was the normal incremental increase.

So it is a normal increase regardless of whether you are any

good or not? I have to be elected. stand in front of my members every

five years and they have two nominate me and vote for me. I would

say that is a pretty high performance bar. You are not just

against good teachers being paid more, you are against bad teachers

being sacked? I am not in favour of bad teachers not being sacked. If

there are teachers having difficulties, you have to make sure

that you do your very best to make sure they can deliver properly. It

is expensive to train a teacher, or at least it has been up until now,

if Michael Gove gets his way they will walk in off the streets, so you

should not just sack people. You should see if there are ways of

making sure they can work well. have hundreds of thousands of

teachers in this country yet only 18 bad teachers have been struck off

for incompetence in the last four decades. I am not entirely sure

where you get those figures from. If you look at figures from the GT see

you would find something different. Why is it in the government's

interest or anyone else's interest to sack people. It is in the

pupils' interest, isn't it? We have to have teachers who can do the job

properly. Some are teaching in a place they do not find easy to teach

in. Schools are not all the same. We have to make sure that everyone is

supported to do the very best job they can. Teaching is not for

everybody and I am happy that some people choose to leave because it is

not the for them. Do you support Stephen Twigg's announcement that

Labour would force free schools and academies to sack teachers who do

not have qualified teacher status? It is just nonsense to be employing

people who do not have qualified teacher status. You would advocate

the sacking of 5000 teachers who do not have this as Mac I would say get

them on courses to become qualified. I think there is hope is a mission

that those people will understand how there is -- I think there is a

presumption that these people will understand how to teach. Private

schools do not have a problem with it. You are against sacking your own

members when they are bad but you are in favour of sacking 5000

teachers even if they are very good? Did I say I was in favour of sacking

them? I said I was in favour of getting them qualified teacher

status. And what if they do not want to? Then they will not be teachers.

Perhaps they can remain in those free schools and do other jobs.

I show you a figure which makes me wonder whether the system you

support is doing well. It is up here on the left. This shows almost 60%

of pupils get five GCSEs, but those on free schools meals which is a

decent proxy for poverty, only 36%. That is the result of our current

comprehensive system. It fails the very people it was meant to help.

That is not a failure of comprehensive education. That is

because we have a monstrously unequal society. I would say there

are contents of schools in London, burning and Leicester who are doing

very, very well by that group. the system is meant to help these

kids on the free school meals and was meant to raise the standards

from the bottom. They are still way behind the average. The fact that

very large numbers of children who are eligible for free school meals

and come from poor homes do not do as well as their peers from middle

class homes is a stain on our society. It should not happen but it

is not just down to schools. There are other things in play. A child

comes to school where they have had no breakfast, they may not have a

bed in which to sleep, you cannot put that all down to schools. I

absolutely agree with you that we need to do everything we possibly

can and one of the things we can do is find the money to provide

universal free meals at schools, not just lunch but also breakfast. Then

people would be in a better position. Let me give you another

figure, 20% of nonselective secondary schools, 20%, no student

achieves enough grades to get to one of our most trusted just

universities, not one. Surely, after 30 years of this experiment, you

have supported an example of how ordinary kids from poor backgrounds

are not getting the opportunities they deserve. And there are a

variety of reasons for that and it is not accessed double, I agree with

you. We do want children and young people who come from poorer homes

with fewer advantages, we do want them to go to those universities,

but a lot of them are going to other universities. It may matter and it

may not. But they should if they want to. Of course they should if

they want to. But there are also issues about the universities, about

the extent to which they do outreach, and the subjects which are

meant to have equal value at a level, the subject is unacceptable.

There are issues beyond the school. But I am not defending the fact that

there are poor children who have few advantages. I am saying it is not

just the schools. It is a matter of this being a very unequal society

and there is no sign of it being improved. Thank you.

It is two and a half months since the government introduced the cup to

housing benefit for people in social housing who are judged to be living

in properties which are too large for their needs. What has been the

impact? Adam has been to Manchester where the council says it is already

counting the cost. Call it the bedroom tax or the spare

room subsidy, Vincent just calls it life. He moved into this one-bedroom

flat this week, very begrudgingly. He had been living in a three

bedroomed house, his grown-up children had long moved out. In

April, his housing benefit was cut because he was not using those

bedrooms. �147 fortnightly, I would have to pay �40 plus. It was just

over �40 plus council tax. It would have been about �45. And what did

that difference mean for you and your finances? It was just

impossible. The government estimates that the number of people affected

by the change is 660,000. Those with one extra bedroom would lose on

average �14 of housing benefit per week. The more empty bedrooms, the

bigger the reduction. There are exemptions for carers and the Armed

Forces. The government is giving �150 million to councils to help

manage the changes. Here at the local housing association, they have

spoken to all of their tenants who will be affected. You are paying for

the extra bedroom, OK. How many are following Vincent and moving into a

smaller place? So far, 80. That is less than 3%. If people are not

downsizing, what can they do? options that are available to them

are very limited. They are essentially taking a lodger, for a

lot of people for reasons of child protection is a complete and utter

nonstarter. To access work, which again in North Manchester is very

difficult for people to do. We have a lot of people who would love to be

in work and sadly are not because of the economics of the area and

because of their own personal situations. Two down star eyes to a

smaller property. Or not pay your rent? Or not pay your rent.At the

town hall they are starting to count the cost of the rent which is going

unpaid. We monitor it very closely because we have to make sure that

the income does flow into housing associations and we think we are 5%

down comparator with last year and that is about �1 million that is not

coming through into the housing providers. I suspect that will get

worse as the year goes on. At least �1 million of rent will go on paid

this year? More than that. If the whole are unable to pay it

collectively adds up to a huge bill. Two weeks ago, Manchester's town

Hall hosted a summit of councils who are opposed to the changes. If you

have reclassified larger flats as one-bedroom flats, others are

offering financial incentives to encourage people to move. A lot are

porting people falling into arrears. Back in the suburbs we found

Vincent's old home. It is empty but it has been offered to a family with

children who will probably moving in a few weeks time. I am glad, really.

So some good has come? I hope so. It is just how it is done. And beg is

chairman of the Work and Pensions Select Committee. She is in our

Aberdeen studio -- and beg. Jackie Doyle is MP for Thurrock. She is in

London. If this policy about making more efficient use of the housing

stock or is it about cost-cutting in saving money? Making more efficient

use of housing stock and having fairness brought back into the

system. Where people are entitled to support with their housing it should

be on the basis of what they need not on the size of a property they

occupy, particularly when we have families on the waiting list needing

houses bigger than they currently have. Public housing should be on

the basis of need? I don't have any argument with that at all but

there's a mismatch between the size of houses people either allocated or

said that they need and the actual housing stock which exists. Housing

associations have been generally building two-bedroom houses,

three-bedroom houses for years now and not one bedroom houses so

there's a shortage of those for people to move into to allow

movement people want. You want people to go to smaller houses.

There's not enough go to. This is a legacy of housing associations being

very poor at managing their stock. Families will be allocated a

three-bedroom house and will view that as their house for life not

like in the private sector. If you need to use the benefits system to

do that, that's what we have to do. The policy is causing huge rent

arrears. The council expects to use �1 million in rent at the moment.

What is the point of a policy that simply ends up with people not being

able to afford their rent? We have the support given by the government

added up to local authorities to use that effectively but local

authorities have a large part to play in making the system work and

they can complain about that all they can get better control over

their housing stock. If we accept there is a mismatch between the size

of the house and the size of the family living there, and there's big

families waiting to get into bigger properties, if you don't like this

approach, what would Labour do? some authorities are doing is

offering incentives for people to downsize and there are other ways of

doing it rather than putting people into arrears. When I grew up in a

council flat my parent did think it was their home for life. Luckily,

they were always in work and we're not dependent on housing benefit but

no one knows when they take a council house, that they will at

some stage in their life start to need housing benefit. They're using

the benefits system to try and socially engineered housing stock,

if the wrong way round. We need to more houses. Your last government

didn't do that, did they? But that's still the answer, build more houses.

If you didn't do it over 13 years, why will you do it next time?

Hopefully it will do. I have been pushing the government to do that

but it's also about building the right houses for the people we

have. People's expectations have gone up and therefore, very often

the houses which are built our two-bedroom houses, and people want

two bathrooms these days. The problem comes when someone comes out

of work or has a health problem which means they can no longer work.

The expectations of always being able to afford the rent then comes

to an end and the housing benefit, using it to manipulate this is not

the right way forward. Simply because, it punishes the people for

the economic situation they are in, rather than looking for a proper

solution. With respect, I am the third generation of someone who was

raised in council housing. My grandparents went from having four

children in the house to living alone and their housing need has

changed. Why shouldn't they be encouraged to liberate that house

for a family to enjoy the same privilege they did? We have to use

the financial situation to encourage it. I understand giving positive

incentives for people to downsize and we should look at that, too.

Because they haven't, we have to do the housing benefit system. What

incentive would you give for someone's grandparents, family is

gone, to move to a smaller place? Councils already have these things

in place. For the pensioner couple, the incentive is a nice house in a

nice area which is cheaper to heat and easier to keep. But sometimes it

needs to be sold to people. Of course, the housing benefit changes

don't affect that. They are still stuck in their four bedroom house

and are less likely to move simply because the one-bedroom flats have

been taken by the people who have been forced of working age.

people of lived in the same area the hell life, have a social support

network, seen their children grow up, and then, in their mid-60s and

70s, you want them to move? That's exactly why we need to look at

fiscal incentives. Yes, if you've lived in the same area for 40

years, it is your home and you have your roots there. If the taxpayer is

going to continue to pay the bill for your rent, you have no

incentive. That's why we need to use carrots as well as sticks to get the

best use of the houses. Is it you're feeling Labour will reverse this

policy if they win the election? would hope they will look at the

policy again. The problem is, people will have arrears, I can't imagine a

future government writing of all sorts of arrears on things. That

would be incredibly expensive so it depends on where we are in two years

time. Thank you both for going head-to-head. It's just after

11.30am. You're watching the Sunday Politics. Coming up in just over 20

minutes. I'll be looking at the week ahead with our political panel.

Until then, the Sunday Politics the government has pledged millions

of pounds to bring empty and derelict homes back into occupation.

But, in London, the mea skin to do that has only managed to bring eight

homes back into use. I'm joined by Labour MP for Ilford South and Simon

Hughes. First of all, we should start with this final chapter in the

rancorous dispute over proposed fire cuts in London. The Fire Brigade

union turned out in force for a protest outside City Hall. Let's

look at the numbers. The closure of 12 fire stations, 520 job cuts. Is

this going to put people 's lives in danger? I believe so. The fire

personnel protesting about their jobs, it's something they know best

about the public are furious. I haven't met a single person who

supports it. Take my borough, losing one fire station completely, losing

a third of the cover, we have doubled the number of fire deaths

over the last ten years. 34. We've had 27,000 fires, double the number.

The most number of vulnerable properties. Over 300 high-rise

buildings which need to be protected. There's not a single good

reason that's been given in the proposal why Southwark fire station

should close and others should lose an engine. It's just not logical.

When you look in the arguments being made, looking at the figures

overall, the number of fire deaths continue to fall, in London. The

Fire Brigade union is not going to vote for this. Turkeys don't vote

for Christmas, do they? 4.5 million people are going to have to wait

longer for fire engines to get to their fires in the area. We know the

first few minutes of any fire is the most dangerous. Lives are going to

put at risk but of course, the cause of this is not just the macro mea

and his policies but also the 25% cut in the budget for the Fire

Service in London which has been forced through which Simon supports.

The macro mea made the decision to is entirely the mea's decision.

you spoken to the mea? I have put in submissions. We have a meeting with

the Fire Service and the public and question the Commissioner. We

couldn't have been clearer. The reduction of attendance times in

every single board in my constituency is clearly not

something that can be compatible with a safer Fire Service and safer

London. I hope this is not the last chapter. I hope it's got a few more

months to run and I hope we see this decision reversed. We will follow at

closely. These are some of the heated debates which goes on in the

Mayor's office. Wednesday saw the question Time where members usually

get their monthly chance to hold the Mayor to account and usually it's a

sedate affair but this one turned I'm at City Hall for the question

Time to see how he's going to celebrate it. This is the action

movie trailer. This has a reputation Brigade. It looks like it's quite

lively, lots of firefighters in the house and the pressing issue for

them is fire cuts. You are not answering my question. You have cut

its budget for your own silly purposes, with that stupid council

tax reduction, 7p a week, which nobody cares about. Jenny Jones are

getting quite cross with Boris. are bringing more part of London

into target response times. It is a fair and reasonable thing to do.

I'm going to adjourn the meeting and we will continue with the

questioning. Well, we don't see that very often.

It's been adjourned while the firefighters are storming out of a

meeting in protest at the cuts. It is quietened down a lot. You can

detect people are not quite so focused now. A few e-mails are being

checked. A completely sick and warped view... So much for straight

to DVD. That was pure box office. People say the assembly lacks teeth

but that sort of grilling is what question Time should be about every

month. Let's find out more, shall we? It was a stormy one and the man

in control was Darren Johnson. Not easy to get people in control.

was an interesting one for you to talk about this week. I do think it

is a really useful session. Obviously not as interesting as that

every month but the fact that we have 2.5 hours of questioning every

month, rather than a half an hour Prime Minister 's question time in

Parliament, I think it allows for a proper in-depth look at some of the

issues and a proper grilling. I think Prime Minister 's question

Time is is far more interesting. talk about grilling. Ken

Livingstone, when you were former Mayor, sitting in that seat

surrounded by that level of scrutiny, how comfortable was it?

enjoyed it. In Prime Minister 's questions, the MP gets to make one

point and the Prime Minister get the last work. The assembly member can

come back and come back again. All these questions will come in. My

staff would go off and find the answers. They would give them to be

the night before, I would read them, but I learn things from the

questioning. Assembly members are picking up what's going on in London

and they will pursue. Very often issues would come up members would

raise which would change the way me and my staff were tackling the

problem or would bring something to our attention we were not aware of.

I'm wondering about the tone of it. This one was exceptional, unlike the

majority of them, where people were asleep, a few members of the public

were engaged, so is that because there isn't that robustness? It

isn't so muscular in the assembly. You can't get somebody to change

what they're going to do. We do normally have a pretty macro snake

meeting, things do tend to get more sedate. The Mayor can run out of

steam a bit and so on but you can get some really in-depth questioning

in a way you just couldn't possibly get in Prime Minister 's question

time because it is a half-hour show, really whereas we get 2.5

hours every month. You can have an opportunity to... The show aspect of

it, here is Boris doing it now. Right in the middle, all eyes on

you, attention. Some may say this can turn into an ego trip. One

person performing cartwheels for as long as they like. I was happy to

answer the questions. Auris does a lot of bluster. I went for the first

couple of years. It seems like they are only getting through half the

questions that they should. I never knew if that was because Boris was

not on top of the detail or because he thinks it is best to fluster and

all of that. Looking at things like the budget, you need two thirds of

the assembly to vote against. It makes it almost a lucid environment

where you can shout bluster if you like but you're not going to change

anything. I was up for the Commons Select Committee on communities and

local government putting the case for additional powers for the local

assembly. How much were you asking for? Some smaller powers. If we had

the hurdle at 60% rather than two thirds to amend the budget, the

assembly could have more of a say. If we could have the power to reject

mayoral appointees at the hearings, small additional powers, I am not

talking about a massive change in the relationship between the Mayor

and the assembly, but small additional powers could help us hold

the Mayor to account. Would you like that? I ran for mayor because that

is all you were given as an offer. I would rather have had a council.

Boris would not have got away with so much if he had a Tory group who

could remove him. Any mayor can sit there and of to the side do deals

with property developers. It is the American model. Let's not forget

that 50 American mayors R.N. Prison for fraud. I want to throw this over

to the others, you have had experience of this, whenever I have

presented the Daily Politics on Wednesday, people would complain

that crazy if it was very noisy in the house and ask why people behave

like children but otherwise people complain it is boring. What do you

think people want? I think people want the entertainment but they do

not like people shouting over each other where you cannot hear what is

being said. In Prime Minister 's questions, the mood can change very

quickly from a serious question to somebody makes a mistake and there

is laughter and you are back to something very tense in seconds. I

do not think Prime Minister 's questions is about accountability.

It is more about presentation and image. The real work is done in

select committees. I have been in Parliament for 21 years and been on

select committees for 18 or 19 years. And the liaison committee.

The real interface for the public is PMQs. Select committees go on behind

closed doors. No, it is televised. Would you maybe learn something from

the May release -- male role model? It has been changed. We did have two

sessions of quarter of our age. I think it is more logical to have a

longer session because it allows some follow up. We also have the

liaison committee to quiz the Prime Minister in town and that can be

quite effective. A prime minister, under this speaker, when he comes to

the house, is required to answer every question from everybody. He

was there reporting on the Fermanagh Summit for an hour and a half taking

questions on Syria mainly and on tax and transparency, two important

issues. I think the system in Parliament works very well and it is

an opportunity for the public to have a go at their lead on the one

hand, but they also want somebody to hold the lead it to account. The

system Ken and I set up for the London government gave a chance for

the Mayor to be quizzed by 25 people. A last word with you, Ken,

because you had a foot in both camps, which one was most fun.

hated Prime Minister 's question. This week, the government pledged

millions of pounds to bring empty and derelict homes back into

occupation but this programme is not new. The scheme has been running for

a year already. However, the Sunday Politics has learned that only eight

properties have been brought back into use. Andrew Cryan reports.

London's North circular. In the 1970s, planners bought these houses

with the plan to knock them down and widen the road. That never

happened. They have lain derelict for decades. The North circular is a

success story Boris Johnson's first term. Hundreds of homes up the

street were once derelict but have now been turned into homes that

people live in. In his first term, the Mayor managed to bring 5139 hens

into use in -- homes back into use. But his third term has been much

slower. Only eight homes have been brought back into use. Labour say it

is not good enough. I think after the first year of the programme, you

have only brought eight homes back into use, most people would look at

that and think something is badly going wrong with the programme. The

buck stops with the Mayor. He has to have a grip on it. Campaigners say

this has slipped down his agenda. Four marks out of ten for Boris on

empty homes, I would give him seven or eight for his first term but now

it is only two or three. The levels are pitifully low. It tends to show

that what was a good programme and started out with a lot of energy has

very seriously tailed off and that is a worry. City Hall say the thing

is to judge them when the programme has finished.

We did ask the Deputy Mayor for housing, Richard Blakeway, to appear

on the programme, but he was not available so Andrew Cryan caught up

with him earlier in the week to ask what exactly is going wrong. Nothing

has gone wrong. Since the Mayor was elected, 10,000 empty homes have

been brought into use. 5000 of them was through GLA funding because of

the substantial investment which the Mayor has overseen. Now it is aptly

be striking that the proportion of homes that were empty for longer

than six months is at the lowest level since the 1970s. Let's park

the first term for a moment and move on to the latest scheme. This is a

project where you have only managed to bring eight homes back into use.

You have only spent 1% of the budget. Your own offices have told

the off the record it is not working right. You're quite happy to sit

here and tell all of London it is a scheme which is working fine?

officers have told me that they will deliver this programme. They will

bring in 1000 empty homes over the period of the funding. I have been

very clear that what we want to see years for the public money is those

homes brought back into use for a significant length of time so we

have set the bar high, five years at least four homes to be used for

affordable housing. When we came to office, there was some scepticism in

the economic conditions, whether you would get long-term empty homes

below 1%. We have done that and we are continuing to maintain that.

far behind is this scheme running? Where did you hope to be a year in?

We have always said the scheme would be back loaded. Specifically, when

you started this scheme, where did you expect to be one year into it?

Do you know the answer? I know we have signed contracts for a

three-year period, I know we have set a really high bar for

organisations to make sure they are really targeting the right empty

homes, homes which have been empty for a significant length of time,

rather than going for something which would have been easier to

bring back into use. Therefore, we are absolutely, confident that we

will continue to do that. Do you have confidence in the national

scheme? No, identical. Empty homes has always been a scandal in London

for years. We need to avoid getting rid of council properties in the

borough where I am the MP for Southwark, the council have sold 600

odd council homes and they have built about 25. That is

unacceptable. We need to make sure that developers are held to the

required amount for affordable homes which they are generally not. It

says 25% -- 35% and they often deliver less. We must not allow

foreign purchases to be buying up increasing amounts of London and

keeping some of them empty or very nearly empty. There is a whole set

of things we need to do. Housing is at the top of the London agenda and

the Mayor and his team needs to do more. Richard Blakeway was saying it

will be back loaded and don't judge it on eight houses, judge it on the

whole plan. But even if the whole plan was fully implemented it is a

drop in the ocean for housing problems in London. We have

thousands, tens of thousands of people who in desperate need.

Homelessness under Boris has doubled. Any MP will tell you, my

casework in the last six months on housing cases has significantly

increased. More and more people are coming to MPs who are absolutely

desperate. We need a national plan for public sector housing and to

allow local authorities to build houses and go ahead quickly.

welcomed the government's plan to be more relaxed about planning

regulations? No, because I do not think that is the problem in London.

The problem actually is more to do with holding the land. The Labour

Party has come out with proposals this week, people have got sites for

development and for building houses but they are holding it because they

want to make more money long-term. We need to get a move on now.

Richard Lake Way says, trust me, and watch how it rolls out. We will

certainly be doing that. -- Richard Blakeway. Now the rest of the

political news in 60 seconds. New council has lost its appeal

against betting company Paddy Power against the council's decision to

reject a new licence for a shop. The judge overruled the appeal. The

council say they are deeply disappointed.

The number of explosions under London pavements has trebled in the

last year. The help and safety executive raised concerns that

Londoners could be at risk after the number of explosions rose to 29 last

year from eight the year before. Transport Minister Stephen Hammond

has vowed to seize the driving licences obtained by illegal

immigrant unless they can prove they have a right to be here. A judicial

review is being sought by Westminster Council over plans for a

29 story tower block that critics say will harm the use of Parliament

at Westminster Abbey. The development is planned for land

near Waterloo row waystation. -- Waterloo row waystation.

Did the judge get it right in his betting shop ruling? I have no

problem with the judge making the decision but the issue goes more

widely. It is about what we have in our high street and what people

want. People want more shops selling food and clothes rather than betting

shops and estate agents. Will this affect your back lard -- backyard?

Week have a lot of payday loans places and authority should have

more control. If the judge makes a wrong judgement we should look at a

way of local authorities dealing with that in the future. What power

would you give a local authority? Under the localism and people can

bring forward neighbourhood plans and they can say we want much more

of this. At the moment, you cannot object to a different type of use

being made of shops in the high street by and large if they are

still a retail outlet or run office outlet. I think communities ought to

be able to shape their community and I have seen already on the South

bank in my part of the world, communities coming together and

saying we want to decide a plan for our area. Some people are saying we

are really keen to shape the old Kent Road and other roads to make

sure they work for the community and are successful and clean and

prosperous and do what we want them to do. That is all we have time for.

big stories that will dominate politics next week with our

political panel. But first the news at noon with Maxine Mawhinney. Good

afternoon. The US whistle blower, Edward Snowden, who has revealed

details of secret US and British surveillance programmes, has fled

Hong Kong from where the US authorities were seeking to

extradite him. He's on a flight bound for Moscow where he's due to

arrive shortly. From Hong Kong, John Sudworth reports.

The hunt for Edward Snowden, the man America wants to bring home, has

taken a dramatic and surprising turn. According to one Hong Kong

newspaper, citing what it calls credible sources, he is at present

on board and Aeroflot flight to Moscow. A statement from the Hong

Kong government confirms he has indeed left the territory although

it doesn't say where he has gone. And it blames the US legal blunder

saying a request for Hong Kong to arrest him did not meet the correct

legal requirements. His departure comes shortly after further

revelations exposing the extent of Britain's own high-tech spying

capabilities with the government's eavesdropping centre GCHQ seem to be

gathering large quantities of Internet and phone call data he also

revealed details of US efforts to hack into Hong Kong's Telecom

indication system to gather text messages and Internet traffic from

across China. Hong Kong may have taken the easy way out. It was

facing a lengthy extradition battle and intense diplomatic pressure from

the US and maybe China, too, where state media today called America the

biggest cyber hacking villain of our time. The report from a Russian news

agency says Edward Snowden is on a flight from Moscow to Cuba on

Monday. As he slips away from Hong Kong, America may find their

whistleblowing IT specialist ends up somewhere much further from its

reach. The Chancellor, George Osborne says he has reached

agreement with the Defence Secretary on MOD spending for the year 2015 to

2016. Speaking ahead of his spending review this week, he said the

civilian numbers would be reduced, but insisted there would be no cut

in armed forces personnel. There will not be a reduction in our

military capability. We won't reduce the numbers of sailors and soldiers

and airmen. We will spend more money on things like cyber which is the

new frontier in defence. Gunmen have killed ten people including nine

foreign tourists after storming a hotel in far northern Pakistan.

Officials say five are from Ukraine, one from Lithuania and three from

China. A tour guide of Pakistani or Nepalese origin was also killed. The

assault happened at the remote base camp of the world's ninth highest

mountain. Two separate militant groups have said they carried out

the attack. That is all for now. There will be more news on BBC One

at 6:30pm. Now back to Andrew. Thanks, Maxine.

So we've got a Spending Review on Wednesday. The Government wants

another �11.5 billion of cuts in 2015/16. The Opposition has to work

out how to say it's all appalling. While saying they would sign up to

it if they win the next election. So how are the two sides lining up for

this phoney war? The big question it exactly right. But they have got

a difficult balancing act. They can point to a few things they would do

differently but the weird thing is, they look very relaxed, the higher

echelons of labour. We saw Ed Balls and this morning on the Andrew Marr

show looking like he's having a whale of a time. George Osborne

looks at hands, relaxed. I wonder if they have got something up their

sleeve they don't know because it looks to me like a nightmare job.

Should they be relaxed? This spending review is more about Ed

Balls and labour rather than George Osborne and the Tories. It only

deals fiscally with one year. It also doesn't deal with tax

increases. So it's far more about labour. They have spent recent weeks

migrating towards the government's position on fiscal policy. That can

only be credible if it is consistent which means their response to this

spending review can't be too shrill and hostile. Ed Balls has to enter a

political dear he's not used to. A magnanimous moderate measured

approach. How is like going to happen? David Millard and a couple

of months ago before he skips town, that David Miliband, couple of

months ago before he skipped town, discussed what you to do within the

available spending envelope not opposing every single cat and it's

quite interesting. It's a general election warmup. If all parties

agree on tackling the deficit, you ought to get a much more adult

conversation about the shape of the nation you want to emerge from a

period of severe cuts. Whether we will get that proper grown-up

conversation because the parties will have different views about

where they want to end up. OK, we haven't had that debate yet from any

side. There is one group of people the Chancellor might struggle to

please next week. And they are on his own backbenches. The other day

some Conservative MPs published their own Alternative Queen's Speech

including a list of 40 bills of which dreams are made of. If you're

on the Tory Right. Top of the list is a Margaret Thatcher Day Bill

which, in tribute to the heroine of the Tory right, would change the

name of the annual August Bank Holiday Monday to Margaret Thatcher

Day. The Alternative Queen's Speech also includes a Face Coverings

(Prohibition) Bill which would ban the wearing of certain face

coverings presumably targeting the burka. There's a Capital Punishment

Bill, which would bring back the death penalty for certain offences.

And a Sexual Impropriety in Employment Bill which would require

that claims by employees alleging sexual impropriety be limited to

cases where the criminal law has been broken, effectively making

sexual harassment claims much more difficult to pursue. No doubt the

Lib Dems have got there I on that one. And the unofficial shop steward

of the Alternative Queen's Speechers is Peter Bone. Welcome. You realise

that it is 2013 and not 1913? are correct on that, correct.

you came up with all of this? modern, reforming agenda. You missed

out birching? Some of these bills are minor. The Margaret Thatcher

days mine. The Face Coverings (Prohibition) Bill is the EDL

pudding balaclavas and face marks on. Not the burka? That would

curiously get caught up in it? wrong to present that a bill quite

that Ray. The purpose of this is to slap David Cameron with a wet fish,

isn't it? -- it is wrong to present that a bill quite that way. As you

well know, many of those bills were in the last Conservative manifesto.

Capital punishment? Burkas. Margaret Thatcher Day? Thankfully Margaret

Thatcher had not passed away. are not being very helpful, are you?

We are putting forward Conservative policies. We have a coalition

government at the moment and poor old David Cameron as one hand tied

behind his back. Some of these ideas like coming out the European

Convention Treaty of human rights and having a British Bill of Rights

is something which was the manifesto before. How much of this agenda are

you taken by? I'm sure it will please you that someone coming from

the left sounds bonkers. But Tory party ran on a much more socially

conformist platform in 2005 and you didn't win an overall majority in

the 2010. This is not the answer to the Tory party problems. We're

talking by getting rid of three parties in the state. Saving money.

Getting rid of the Department of energy, climate change, combining

the offices of the devolved countries, getting rid of the office

of Jeopardy Prime Minister. That is modernising. Limiting the number of

members of the House of Lords. Surely you would welcome that? I

would welcome that. If you had said we were going a new bank holiday I

would be up for that and you could call it whatever you want as far as

I'm concerned. Surely not Margaret Thatcher Day? If you want to annoy

the left, you should call it Tony Blair today. We could Gordon Brown

and a bank holiday. One that people look forward to but it's always a

terrible let down. There is a Ted Heath day, played piano in the

morning, go sailing in the afternoon and have no friends to share any of

it with. I love the one of the Rab Butler day, the best bank holiday we

never had. That's one for older viewers. What you make of it?

Presumably the Alex Douglas Hume Aday doesn't last very long. This

whole set of bills is a condemnation of the Tory right. I give the Tory

right abuse in my column but it's not fair to present these bills as

representative of that movement generally. It's a caucus within the

Tory right. There is far more MPs who are moderate, more politically

centred. Much more socially liberal. Their concerns are much more to do

with cutting taxes, pro-enterprise and Europe than they are to do with

criminal justice. We had cutting taxes and less regulation in these

bills. What is your Europe policy? Helping the government have a cost

benefit analysis. You say that with a straight face. Taking Article 50

now, the two-year period when it out of the EU, start but often when the

referendum is held and the country vote overwhelmingly to come out of

the EU, we can do it and don't have to wait for another two years.

the problem for David Cameron that the caucus of reasonable right are

quite silent. We don't hear from them a lot but we hear from Peter

and his friends quite a lot. This is surely a gift for the other party.

Which of these bills to not think a sensible? I think you have created a

huge problem for your leader because other parties will be able to say if

you vote for a Tory majority, this is what you will get. And it's not

things like that. Bulgarian and Romanian immigration continuing? You

haven't named a single policy that you don't like. I will name one. You

from the left. The only thing which would make me want to wear a burka

is if you banned it. You think it's OK for the EDL to have their faces

covered as they throw things at the police? They are committing a public

order offence and you could arrest them for that. But you can arrest

them for covering their faces. I'm curious about is what didn't

make the cut? What did you think, that is too eccentric? So all the

eccentric stuff was included? try to get a pagan bill to rule out

the coalition but I was overruled. If Peter is complaining that, at the

moment, are quite reasonable centre-right government is governing

in the centre right because the Conservative Party has its hands

tied behind its back, you are presenting this as the alternative

and people will say, thank goodness they have got their back?

haven't actually Toby which bills go too far. These are private members

bills. They are for debate and argument and some of them might find

a way into a future Conservative manifesto. It's a kind of an

alternative manifesto, isn't it? is to encourage these issues to come

forward. I'm afraid you haven't actually come up with one you are

saying is extreme and rubbish, so... I don't agree with standpoint on the

EU, for example. Last week at the G8, we have the prospect again aired

this enormous trade deal between the EU and the USA. If that comes off,

we will make significant progress before the next election, people in

this country will realise that it's enormously to our economic advantage

to be part of this huge trading bloc, the EU. And your position

would look more eccentric. What is much more important is we are part

of a free trade area in the north of banter, as well. The EU is one of

the most protective organisations in the world. It will not let

developing countries sell into the EU and it's causing poverty in

developing worlds. I would still say to you, you haven't produced a

single bill you don't like. Why not just join UKIP and you'll get all of

this? Because they would then come back and vote Conservative again.

OK, we will see if that happens. We'll have to leave it there. There

is an important cricket match on today to watch. That's all. Jo

Coburn will be back with the Daily Politics tomorrow at the earlier

time of 11.00am because of the tennis at Wimbledon. I'll bring you