24/11/2013 Sunday Politics London

Morning, folks. Welcome to the Sunday Politics.

Labour's been hit hard by scandals at the Co-op. Ed Miliband says the

Tories are mudslinging. We'll speak to Conservative Chairman Grant

Shapps. Five years on from the financial

crisis, and we're still talking about banks in trouble. Why haven't

the regulators got the message? We'll ask the man who runs the

City's new financial watchdog. And he used to have a windmill on

his roof and talked about giving hugs to hoodies and huskies. These

days, not so much. Has the plan to make the Conservative Party more

cuddly been ditched? In London this week, many have

warned that benefit falls will be to homelessness and population ships.

What is the evidence? And as always, the political panel

that reaches the parts other shows can only dream of. Janan Ganesh,

Helen Lewis and Nick Watt. They'll be tweeting faster than England

loses wickets to Australia. Yes, they're really that fast.

First, some big news overnight from Geneva, where Iran has agreed to

curb some of its nuclear activities in return for the partial easing of

sanctions. Iran will pause the enrichment of uranium to weapons

grade and America will free up some funds for Iran to spend. May be up

to $10 billion. A more comprehensive deal is supposed to be done in six

months. Here's what President Obama had to say about this interim

agreement. We have pursued intensive diplomacy, bilaterally with the

Iranians, and together with our partners, the United Kingdom,

France, Germany, Russia and China, as well as the European Union.

Today, that diplomacy opened up a new path towards a world that is

more secure, a future in which we can verify that Iraq and's nuclear

programme is peaceful, and that it cannot build a nuclear weapon.

President Obama spoke from the White House last night. Now the difficulty

begins. This is meant to lead to a full-scale agreement which will

effectively end all sanctions, and end Iran's ability to have a bomb.

The early signs are pretty good. The Iranian currency strengthened

overnight, which is exactly what the Iranians wanted. Inflation in Iraq

is 40%, so they need a stronger currency. -- information in Iran.

France has played a blinder. It was there intransigence that led to

this. Otherwise, I think the West would have led to a much softer

deal. The question now becomes implementation. Here, everything

hinges on two questions. First, who is Hassan Rouhani? Is he the

Iranians Gorbachev, a serious reformer, or he's here much more

tactical and cynical figure? Or, within Iran, how powerful is he?

There are military men and intelligence officials within Iran

who may stymie the process. The Western media concentrate on the

fact that Mr Netanyahu and the Israelis are not happy about this.

They don't often mention that the Arab Gulf states are also very

apprehensive about this deal. I read this morning that the enemies of

Qatar and Kuwait went to Saudi king. -- the MAs row. That is the key

thing to watch in the next couple of weeks. There was a response from

Saudi Arabia, but it came from the Prime Minister of Israel, who said

this was a historic mistake. The United States said there would be no

enrichment of uranium to weapons grade. In the last few minutes, the

Iranian Foreign Minister has tweeted to say that there is an inalienable

right -- right to enrich. The key thing is the most important thing

that President Obama said in his inaugural speech. He reached out to

Iran. It failed under President McKenna jab. Under President

Rouhani, there seems to be progress. There is potentially now what he

talked about in that first inaugural address potentially coming through.

In the end, the key issue - and we don't know the answer - is the

supreme leader, not the president. Will the supreme leader agreed to

Iran giving up its ability to create nuclear weapons? This is the huge

ambiguity. Ayatollah Khamenei authorise the position that

President Rouhani took to Geneva. That doesn't mean he will sign off

on every bit of implementation over the next six months. Even when

President Ahmadinejad was president, he wasn't really President. We in

the West have to resort to a kind of Iranians version of the study of the

Kremlin, to work out what is going on. And the problem the president

faces is that if there is any sign... He can unlock these funds by

executive order at the moment, but if he needs any more, he has to go

to Congress. Both the Democrat and the Republican side have huge

scepticism about this. And he has very low credibility now. There's

already been angry noises coming from quite a lot of senators. It was

quite strange to see that photo of John Kerry hugging Cathy Ashton as

if they had survived a ship great together. John Kerry is clearly

feeling very happy. We will keep an eye on this. It is a fascinating

development. More lurid details about the

personal life of the Co-op Bank's disgraced former chairman, the

Reverend Paul Flowers. The links between Labour, the bank and the

wider Co-op movement have caused big problems for Ed Miliband this week,

and the Conservatives have been revelling in it. But do the Tory

allegations - Ed Miliband calls them "smears" - stack up? Party Chairman

Grant Shapps joins us from Hatfield. Welcome to the programme. When it

comes to the Co-op, what are you accusing Labour of knowing and when?

I think the simple thing to say here is that the Co-op is an important

bank. They have obviously got into difficulty with Reverend flowers,

and our primary concern is making sure that that is properly

investigated, and that we understand what happened at the bank and how

somebody like Paul Flowers could have ended up thing appointed

chairman. You wrote to edge Miliband on Tuesday and asked him what he

knew and when. -- you wrote to Ed Miliband. But by Prime Minister's

Questions on Wednesday, David Cameron claims that you knew that

Labour knew about his past all along. What is the evidence for

that? We found out by Wednesday that he had been a Labour councillor,

Reverend Flowers, and had been made to stand down. Certainly, Labour

knew about that, but somehow didn't seem to think that that made him

less appropriate to be the chairman of the Co-op bank. There was no

evidence that Mr Miliband or Mr Balls knew about that. I ask you

again, what are you accusing the Labour leadership of knowing? We

know now that he stood down for very inappropriate images on his

computer, apparently. You are telling me that they didn't know. I

am not sure that is clear at all. I have heard conflicting reports.

There is a much bigger argument about what they knew and when. There

was a much bigger issue here. This morning, Ed Miliband has said that

they don't have to answer these questions and that these smears.

This is ludicrous. These are important questions about an

important bank, how it ended up getting into this position, and how

a disastrous Britannia -- Italia deal happen. -- Britannia deal

happened. And we need to know how the bank came off the rails. To be

accused of smears for asking the questions is ridiculous. I am just

trying to find out what you are accusing Labour of. You saying that

the Labour leadership knew about the drug-taking? Sorry, there was some

noise here. I don't know what was known and when. We do know that

Labour, the party, certainly knew about these very difficult

circumstances in which he resigned as a councillor. I think that the

Labour Party knew about it. We knew that Bradford did, but not London.

Are you saying that Ed Miliband knew about the inappropriate material on

the Reverend's laptop? It is certainly the case that Labour knew

about it. But did Mr Miliband know about it, and his predilection for

rent boys? He will need to answer those questions. It is quite proper

to ask those questions. Surely, asking a perfectly legitimate set of

questions, not just about that but about how we have ended up in a

situation where this bank has made loans to Labour for millions of

pounds, that bank and the Unite bank, who is connected to it. And

how they made a ?50,000 donation to Ed Balls' office. Ed Balls says that

was nothing to do with Reverend Flowers, and yet Reverend Flowers

said that he personally signed that off. Lots of questions to answer.

David Cameron has already answered them on Wednesday. He said that you

now know that Labour knew about his past all along. You have not been

able to present evidence that involve Mr Miliband or Mr Balls in

that. So until you get that, surely you should apologise? Hang on. He

said that Labour knew about this, and they did, because he stood down

as a councillor. If Ed Miliband didn't know about that, then why

not? This was quite a serious thing that happened. The wider point is

about why it is that when you ask perfectly legitimate questions about

this bank, about the Britannia deal, and about the background of Mr

flowers, why is the response, it is all smears? There are questions

about how Labour failed to deal with the deficit and how it hasn't done

anything to support the welfare changes, but there is nothing about

that. Let us -- lets: To the wider picture of the Co-operative Bank.

Labour wanted the Co-op to take over the Britannia Building Society, and

it was a disaster. Do you accept that? The government of the day has

to be a part of these discussions for regulatory reason. The

government in 2009 - Ed Balls was very pleased... But you supported

that decision. There was a later deal, potentially, for the Co-op to

buy those Lloyds branches. There was a proper process and it didn't go

through just recently. If there had been a proper process back in 2009,

would the Britannia deal have gone through? First, you accept that the

Tories were in favour of the Britannia take over. Then your

Chancellor Osborne went out of his way to facilitate the purchase of

the Lloyds branches, even though you had no idea that the Co-op had the

management expertise to become a super medium. Correct? The

difference is that that deal didn't go through. There was a proper

process that took place. Let's look at the process. There was long

indications as far back as January 2012 that the Co-op, as a direct

result of the Britannia take over which you will party supported, was

unfit to acquire the Lloyds branches. By January 2012, the

Chancellor and the Treasury ignored the warnings. Wide? In 2009, there

was political pressure for the Britannia to be brought together.

Based on the information available, this was supported, but that process

ended up with a very, very problematic takeover of the

Britannia. Wind forward to this year, and when the same types of

issues were being looked at for the purchase of the Lloyds deal, the

proper process was followed, this time with us in government, and that

purchase didn't go through. It is important that the proper process is

followed, and when it was, it transpired that the deal wasn't

going to be done. But it was the Treasury and the Chancellor who were

the cheerleaders for the acquisition of the Lloyds branches. But there

was a warning that the Co-op did not have enough capital on its balance

sheet to make those acquisitions, but instead of heeding those

warnings, your people went to Brussels to lobby for the

requirements to be relaxed - why on earth did you do that? Our

Chancellor went to argue for all of Rajesh banking, not specifically for

the Co-op. He was arguing for the mutuals to be given a special

ruling. The idea was to make sure that every bank in Britain could

have a better deal, particularly the mutuals, as you say. That is a

proper thing for the Chancellor to be doing. We could go round in

circles here, but in the end, there was not a takeover of the Lloyds

branches, that is because we followed a proper process. Had that

same rigorous process been followed in 2009, the legitimate question to

ask is whether the Co-op would have been -- would have taken over the

Britannia. That is a proper question to ask. It is no good to have the

leader of the opposition say, as soon as you ask any of these

questions about anything where there is a problem for them, they come

back with, oh, this is all smears. There are questions to ask about

what the Labour government did, the debt and the deficit they left the

country with, the way they stopped work from paying in this country.

The big question your government has two answer is, why, by July 2012,

when it was clear there was a black hole in the Co-op's balance sheet,

your government re-confirmed the Co-op as the preferred bidder for

Lloyds - why would you do that? Well, look, the good thing is, we

can discuss this until the cows come home, but there is going to be a

proper, full investigation, so we will find out what happened, all the

way back. So, we will be able to get to the bottom of all of this. Grant

Shapps, the only reason the Lloyds deal did not go ahead was, despite

the Treasury cheerleading, when Lloyds began its due diligence, it

found that there was indeed a huge black hole in the balance sheet and

that the Co-op was not fit to take over its branches. That wasn't you,

it wasn't the Government, it was not the Chancellor, it was Lloyds. You

were still cheerleading for the deal to go ahead... Well, as I say, a

proper process was followed, which did not result in the purchase of

the Lloyds branches. At that proper process been followed with the

purchase of the Britannia, under the previous government... Which you

supported. Yes, but it may well be that under that previous deal, there

was a excess political pressure perhaps put on in order to create

that merger, which proved so disastrous. The Tories facilitated

it, Grant Shapps, they allowed it to go ahead. I have said, we are going

to have a proper, independent review. What I cannot understand is,

when you announce a robber, independent review, the response you

get to these serious questions. The response is, oh, this is a smear. It

is crazy. We are trying to answer the big questions for this country.

We have done all of that, and we are out of time. The Reverend Flowers'

chairmanship of the Co-op bank was approved by the regulator at the

time, which no longer exists. It was swept away by the coalition

government in a supposed revolution in regulation. But will its

replacement, the Financial Conduct Authority, be different? Adam has

been to find out. Come with me for a spin around the Square mile to find

out how we regulate our financial sector, which is almost five times

bigger than the country's entire annual income. First, let's pick up

our guide, journalist Iain Martin, who has just written a book about

what went so wrong during the financial crisis. The FSA was an

agency which was established to supervise the banks on a day-to-day

basis. The Bank of England was supposed to have overall responsible

at for this to Bolivia the financial system and the Treasury was supposed

to take an interest in all of these things. The disaster was that it was

not anyone's call responsibility, or main day job, to stay alert as to

whether or not the banking system as a whole was being run in a safe

manner. And so this April, a new system was set up to police the

City. Most of the responsibly delays here, with the Bank of England, and

its new Prudential Regulation Authority. And the Financial

Services Authority has been replaced with the new Financial Conduct

Authority. Can we go to the financial conduct authority, please?

Canary Wharf, thank you. Here, it is all about whether the people in

financial services are playing by the rules, in particular, how they

treat their customers. This place has got new powers, like the ability

to ban products it does not like, a new mandate to promote competition

in the market, the concept being, more competition means a better

market, plus the idea that a new organisation rings a whole new

culture. Although these are the old offices of the FSA, so maybe not

quite so new after all. It has also inherited the case of the Co-op bank

and its disgraced former chairman the Reverend Paul Flowers. The SCA

will be part of the investigation into what happened, which will

probably involve looking at its own conduct. One member of the

Parliamentary commission into banking wonders whether the new

regulator, and its new boss, are up to it. I have always said, it is not

the architecture which is the issue, it is the powers that the regulator

has, and today, it does not seem to me as if there is any increase in

that. And with the unfolding scandal at the Co-op, it feels like the new

architecture for regulating the City is now facing its first big test.

And the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, the

SCA, Martin Wheatley, joins me now. Welcome to The Sunday Politics. The

failure of bank regulation was one of the clearest lessons of the crash

in 2008, and yet two years later, in 2010, Paul Flowers is allowed to

become chairman of the Co-op - why have we still not got the regulation

right? We have made a lot of changes since then. We have created a new

regulator, as you know. At the time, we still had a process which allowed

somebody to be appointed to a bank and they would go through a

challenge, but in the case of Paul Flowers, there was no need for an

additional challenge when he was appointed to chairman, because he

was already on the board. But going from being on the board to becoming

chairman, that is a big jump, and he only had one interview? That is why

today, it would be different. But the truth is, that was the system at

the time, the system which the FSA operated. He was challenged, we did

challenge him, and we said, you do not have the right experience, but

at the time, we would not have opposed the appointment. What we

needed was additional representation of the board of people who did have

banking experience. You can say that that was then and this is now, but

up until April of this year, it was still the plan for the Co-op, under

Mr Flowers, and despite being seriously wounded by the Britannia

takeover, to take on 632 Lloyds branches. That was the Co-op's

plan. They needed to pass our test as to whether we thought they were

fit to do that, and frankly, they never passed that test. It was not

the regulator that stopped them? It was. We were constantly pushing

back, saying, you have not got the capital, you have no got the

systems, and ultimately, they withdrew, when they could not answer

our questions. You were asking the right questions, I accept that, but

all of the time, the politicians on all sides, they were pushing for it

to happen, and I cannot find anywhere where the regulator said,

look, this is just not going to happen. I cannot comment on what the

politicians were doing, but I continue what we were doing, which

was constantly asking the Co-op, have you got the systems in place,

have you got the people, have you got the capital? And they didn't.

But it only came to a head when Lloyds started its own due diligence

on the bank, and they discovered that it was impossible for them to

take over the branches, it was not the regulator... In fairness, what

we do is ask the questions, can you do this deal? And we kept pushing

back, and we never frankly got delivered a business plan which we

were happy to approve. Is the SCA going to launch its own inquiry into

what happened? -- the FCA. The Chancellor has announced what will

be a very broad inquiry. There are a number of specifics which we will be

able to look at, relating to events over the last five years. Could

there be a police investigation? I think the police have already

announced an investigation. I am talking about into the handling of

the bank. It depends. There might be, if there is grim low activity,

which we do not know yet. You worked at the FS eight, didn't you? I did.

Some of those people who were signed off on the speedy promotion of Mr

Flowers, are they now working there? Yes, we have some. I came to

join the Financial Services Authority, to lead it into the

creation of the new body, the SCA. We had people who were challenging

and they did the job. There was not a requirement to approve the role as

chairman. There was not even a requirement to interview at that

stage. What we did do was to require that he was interviewed, and that

the Co-op should get additional experience. One of the people from

the old organisation, who signed up on the promotion of Mr Flowers to

become chairman is now a nonexecutive director of the Co-op,

so how does that work? Welcome he was a senior adviser to our

organisation, one of the people who made the challenges, and who said,

you need more experience on your board. Subsequently he then went and

joined the board. Surely that should not be allowed, the regulator and

the regulated should not be like that. Well clearly, you need

protection, but we have got to get good people in, and frankly, we want

the industry to have good people in the industry, so there will be some

movement between the regulator and industry. We all wonder whether you

have the power or even the confidence to stand up if you look

at all of the really bad bank decisions recently, politicians were

behind them. It was Gordon Brown who pushed the disastrous merger of

Lloyds and RBS. It was Alex Salmond who egged on RBS to buy the world.

All three main parties wanted the Co-op to buy Britannia, even though

they did not know the debt it would inherit, and all three wanted the

Co-op to buy the Lloyds branches - how do you as a regulator stand up

to that little concert party? Well, that political pressure exists, our

job at the end of the day is to do a relatively technical job and say,

does it stack up? And it didn't, and we made that point time and time

again to the Co-op board. They did not have a business case that we

could approve. The bodies on left and right -- the politicians on left

and right gave the Co-op special support. They may have done, but

that was not you have made a warning about these payday lenders, but I

think what most people would like to see is a limit put on the interest

they can charge over a period of time - will you do that? We have got

a whole set of powers for payday lenders. We will bring in some

changes from April next year, and we will bring in further changes as we

see necessary. Will you put a limit on the interest they can charge?

That is something we can study. You do not sound too keen on it? Well,

there are a lot of changes we need to make. One change is limiting

rollovers, limiting the use of continuous payment authorities.

Simply jumping to one trigger would be a mistake. Finally, an issue

which I think is becoming a growing concern, because the Government is

thinking of subsidising them, 95% mortgages are back - should we not

be worried about that? I think we should if the market has the same

experiences that we had back in 2007 - oh wait. We are bringing a

comprehensive package in under our mortgage market review, which will

change how people lend and will put affordability back at the heart of

lending decisions. -- 2007-08. You have not had your first big

challenge yet, have you? We have many challenges.

It was once called the battle of the mods and the rockers - the fight

between David Cameron-style modernisers and old-style

traditional Tories for the direction and soul of the Conservative Party.

But have the mods given up on changing the brand? When David

Cameron took over in 2005, he promoted himself as a new Tory

leader. He said that hoodies need more love. He was talking about

something called the big society. He told his party conference that it

was time to that sunshine win the day. There was new emphasis on the

environment, and an eye-catching trip to a Norwegian glacier to see

first-hand, supposedly, the effects of global warming. This week, party

modernise and Nick bone has said that the party is still seen as an

old-fashioned monolith and hasn't done enough to improve its appeal.

The Tories have put some reforms into practice, such as gay marriage,

but they have put more into welfare reform band compassionate

conservatism. David Cameron wants talked about leading the greenest

government ever. Downing Street says that the quote in the Son is not

recognised, get rid of the green crap. At this point in the programme

we were expecting to hear from the Energy and Climate Change Minister,

Greg Barker. Unfortunately, he has pulled out, with Downing Street

saying it's for ""family reasons"". Make of that what you will. However,

we won't be deterred. We're still doing the story, and we're joined by

our very own mod and rocker - David Skelton of the think-tank Renewal,

and Conservative MP Peter Bone. Welcome to you both. I'm glad your

family is allowed you to come? David Skelton, getting rid of all the

green crap, or words to that effect, that David Cameron has been saying.

It is just a sign that Tory modernisation has been quietly

buried. I do think that's right. Modernisation is about reaching out

to the voters, and the work to do that is now more relevant than ever.

We got the biggest swing since 1931, and the thing is we need to do more

to reach out to voters in the North. We need to reach out to non-white

voters, and show that the concerns of modern Britain and the concerns

of ordinary people is something that we share. And what way will racking

up electricity bills with green levies get you more votes in the

North of England? We have to look at ways to reduce energy bills. The

renewable energy directive doesn't do anything to help cut our

emissions, but does decrease energy bills by ?45 a year. We should

renegotiate that. That is a part of modernisation and doing what

ordinarily people want. And old dinosaurs like you are just holding

this modernisation process back? I am very appreciative of covering on

this programme. The Tory party has been reforming itself for more than

150 years. This idea of modern eyes a is just some invention. We are

changing all the time. I'm nice and cuddly! So you are happy that the

party made gay marriage almost a kind of symbol of its modernisation?

Fine Mac the gay marriage was a free vote. David Cameron was recorded as

a rebel there because more Tories voted against his position than ever

before. It was said that this was a split between the old and young, but

it actually was a split between those who were religious and

nonreligious. It is a misinterpretation of what happened.

Is a modernisation in retreat? I think modernisation is an

invention. Seven years ago, in my part of the world, we got three

councillors elected, two were 80 and one was 21. A few months ago, a

25-year-old was chosen to fight Corby for the Conservative Party. He

came from a comprehensive School. He was one of the youngest. The Tory

party is moving on. So you found three young people? Hang on a

minute. You can't get away with that. Three in one batch. Does

modernisation exist? Modernisation is about watering our appeal and

sharing our values are relevant to voters who haven't really thought

about voting for us for decades now. Modernisation is about more than

windmills and stuff, it is about boosting the life chances of the

poorest, it is about putting better schools in poorer areas. It is also

saying that modernisation and the Tory party... When has the Tory

party been against making poorer people better off? Or against better

schools? Do you think Mrs Thatcher was a moderniser when she won all

those elections? The problem we have at the moment is that UKIP has

grown-up. If we could get all of those people who vote UKIP to vote

for us, we would get 47% of the vote. We don't need to worry about

voters on the left. We need to worry about the voters in the north, those

people who haven't voted for us for decades. Having an EU Referendum

Bill is going to get people to vote. We have to reach out to

voters, but not by some sort of London based in need. You have to

broaden your base. I agree with you on that. We have to broaden our

appeal, but this back to the future concept is not going to work. We

need something that generally appeals to low and middle-income

voters, and something that shows we genuinely care about the life

chances of the poorest. Do you think that the people who vote UKIP don't

support those aspirations? We are not doing enough to cut immigration.

We don't have an EU Referendum Bill stop we have to get the centre right

to vote for us again. Do that, and we have it. Tom Pursglove, the 25

euros, will be returned in Corby because we cannot win an election

there. -- the 25-year-old. Whether you are moderniser or

traditionalist, people, particularly in the North, see you as a bunch of

rich men. And rich southerners. You are bunch of rich southerners. We

need to do more to show that we are building on lifting the poorest out

of the tax. We need to build more houses. There is a perception that

the leadership at the moment is rich, and public school educated.

What we have to do is get more people from state education into the

top. You are going the other way at the moment. That is a fair

criticism. Modernisers also say that. I went to a combo hedge of

school as well. -- do a comprehensive school. We need to

show that we are standing up for low income. Thank Q, both of you. You

are watching the Sunday Politics. Coming up in just under 20 minutes,

I will be looking at the big events of the week with our political

panel. Until then, the Sunday Politics across the UK.

Hello. Coming up a little later, critics have claimed that benefit

reports will lead to homelessness, displacement and population shifts

across the capital and outside of it, but what is the evidence for

this? With me, a government whip and Conservative MP for Chelsea and

full, and a Labour MP for Eltham. Nice to see you. London Underground

is going to run weekend services aren't -- around the clock, under

plans which also involve ticket office closures, and up to 750 job

cuts. The night Chubut idea will provide services on the Piccadilly

-- the night tube idea will provide services on the Piccadilly, Northern

and other lines. The RMT union says it has not ruled out strike action

in the run-up to Christmas because of threatened job cuts. What will

your constituents say? My constituency has the highest

percentage of Tube users in any constituency in London and the

south-east. My constituents will find it very good news to have a

24-hour underground. That will be popular. It is similar to what they

have in New York City. That will be good news. In terms of what happens

in the stations, the closure of the ticket offices, the stations will

still be staffed and all passengers will still be able to buy tickets at

the station, so overall, it is a very good package for passengers, to

increase packing set -- passenger use. The stations will remain fully

staffed, and I think it is a very good innovation. Should it have

happened a long time ago? Certainly, opening the cheap

overnight and at weekends has to be -- overnight at weekends has to be

popular. But ticket offices closing, that hast to alarm people.

There's a lot of detail we have to look at. Losing those sorts of jobs,

how does that all stacked up in terms of unmanned trains, is the

technology there? How soon are we going to see the technology in place

that makes it safe for people travelling. Boris is very good at

making these sorts of announcements before things are in place. How can

it add up? How can you lose 750 staff - and that is the bottom

estimate - as well as Lott -- running a longer service. How can

you keep that level of security and safety at every station? If you go

into a tube station at a moment, you will always find staff sitting

there, being available to give out tickets when asked. Most people

these days, and this is a technological change over the past

few years, are now choosing to go to the machines because it is quicker.

This is just about redeploying staff to make sure there is a much more

efficient use to get a longer tube operating time that favours

passengers, which I think will be popular amongst Tube users,

particularly on my constituency, travelling on the district line.

There will be fewer people fighting to get taxis home in the middle of

the night. North Greenwich is as far as it comes for us in south-east

London, and obviously, we would like to see more of the mass

transportation systems extended into south-east London. In that sense, we

are the poor relations of London people. Talk and focus on the

Underground assumes it is a London wide issue, but many people from my

constituency will complete or start journeys from home using the London

Underground, but that's it. It is one of the most potent charges made

against the government, but it's benefit reforms will lead to

homelessness and families being forced to move to the outskirts of

the capital. Some councils are having to find extra resources

already to deal with people needing temporary accommodation. We look at

the evidence so far. We will not accept any kind of

Kosovo- style social cleansing. You are not going to see on my watch

thousands of families being evicted from the place where they have been

living. These comments were made by the Mayor on BBC London in 2010, and

were controversial at the time. They have also been proved right.

Including to London Councils, in the 12 months leading up to June this

year, 789 capitals -- households were placed outside the centre.

There were lots of concerns raised by people like us, and the

government provided some extra, transitional housing, which has

prevented Local Authorities from sending large numbers of people away

yet. But in the next year or so, who knows? We might see more people sent

a long way away from their jobs. Bromley's housing advice centre.

More and more people are coming here in need of the council's help. On

the ground in this conservative borough, the reforms do seem to be

causing homelessness. This week, Bromley are drawing ?1 million out

of special contingency funds to pay for more homelessness services this

year. They say it is partly because properties are more expensive, but

also because of the government's welfare reforms. A lot of family

units are making do. The pressures of Christmas and the rest of it, we

always thought that the early part of next year would see the most

telling information come through about how this is going to be

managed, and the pressures we would have on homelessness. You have

already seen an increase as a result of the welfare report, and you think

it will be worse in the New Year? Yes. The pressures we are currently

experiencing, and the drawdown of ?1 million of contingency money, is

part -- is partly because of welfare reforms. Westminster are already on

the record saying that welfare reforms and homelessness are

related. In Croydon and Bexley, it is expected that welfare reforms

will lead to increased homelessness down the line. Here at the housing

charity Shelter, more calls are being made to their homelessness

helpline. The numbers of people being put up in temporary

accommodation, including families with children having to live in the

worst kind of bed breakfast accommodation because there is no us

to put them, is just rising through the roof at the moment. That means

that thousands of children are living in squalid conditions, having

to share toilets with upto 30 other people, we are witnessing all sorts

of unpleasant things in a grotty environment. That is no way to raise

kids. Could it be that while, so far, welfare reform is yet to force

the homeless from London in huge numbers, it may yet come to

materialise? Or it may not, and actually, because of the interim

arrangements, people will have time to adjust and get used to this? What

has happened is that we are seeing people being impoverished by these

austerity measures, the cuts in welfare, and the bedroom tax, and we

are seeing people being forced out of the communities that they lived

in for many years. There just is not the housing to rehouse these people,

particularly in central London. For a wealthy borough like Romney to be

speaking like that, telling us the way that their welfare measures are

hitting into their budget, just tells us that what we are seeing --

Bromley -- is the Government telling us that they are making these

savings in welfare, but actual it, they are dumping that debt onto

local authorities this is all about the housing benefit got out of

control under Labour, doubling to ?20 billion a year. Hammersmith and

Fulham, one of my local councils, has done a fantastic job. They have

put 543 families in temporary accommodation, and only ten of those

families have been forced to move out of the borough. The remaining

ones which have been affected by this, the council, and this is

happening with councils across London, have been successful in

negotiating a lower rent from the. That has been what it has all been

about, trying to have a more effective system, where people are

housed in social, temporary housing, which is much more likely to be the

size for their household, saving us money overall, and very, very few

people have been adversely affected in Hammersmith and Fulham and

elsewhere, I having to move out of London. 57% of households that are

in poverty now in London are in working households. So, it is not

just a question of leaving people behind. We know that 26% of

households in London received housing benefit last year. The idea

that there is this downward pressure on the welfare budget, what we saw

is soaring housing values, and rents going up, that is what was forcing

it up. I will hold my hand up and say, the last Labour government, and

I criticised them at the time, did not build enough houses. But this

government, under Boris Johnson, built fewer houses than we were

building in the 1920s last year, at a time when we have got a housing

crisis. That is what is the root cause of all of this. A Conservative

model borough like Bromley, having to dip into money to pay for these

things, and one of your own local boroughs, Kensington and Chelsea,

also saying it is having to spend a lot more money on homelessness, you

cannot argue with that. The Government has sensibly said that

the transitional arrangements, or special cases, involving people who

are disabled, elderly, the Armed Forces, the discretionary housing

payments will be available. For how long? We will have to see, but at

the moment, we have not seen... It will not happen for ever, though,

will it? As I said, in Hammersmith and Fulham, only ten of those

households have had to leave. This idea of annex a dust from London

simply has not happened. Obviously we need to keep watching the

situation. -- this idea of an Exodus from London. This was all about

reforming the benefit system so that we got a system which is affordable

in the long-term for this country. So it will be painful and there will

be adjustments? It is not a question of unlimited benefits. I can give

you an example of a constituent of mine, a single mother with children,

on the benefit, and the council has just had to accept she will never be

able to pay all her money. Feeding and clothing her children and paying

all her other bills means she will just never have enough money. And

that is what is going on in London at the moment. We had austerity, we

had the debt that was nationalised when we saved the banking system,

and I do not dispute we needed to do that, but that debt is now being

lumped on the poorest people in our society. I think the figures speak

for themselves, there has not been this exodus from london. The

Government has taken action. The benefit bill had got too high. As

long as we protect the vulnerable, the public want to see that benefit

bill come down. We will probably return to this, once the full

universal benefit has been introduced. Now, the ashcan and the

Met Police have been challenged this week over the number of unsolved

crimes in London. -- the mayor and the Met Police. There are 3000 fewer

police officers in London now than three years ago. Met's widget has

been cut by about a quarter, but despite all of this, crime in London

is falling. -- budget. So, are the effects of the squeeze being felt

elsewhere? According to Labour in the London Assembly, it is leading

to a fall in the number of cases solved. This week, they publish

research claiming that only 21% of crimes in London last year ended up

with an official sanction. That is down from 26% in 2008. In Haringey,

for example, there has been a 10% drop in solved crime, and similar

figures for neighbouring boroughs and other boroughs in London. We see

performance sliding, and that can only be an indication that the

police cuts have actually gone too far, that actually, the police force

is so stretched now, it is not able to do the job which Londoners want

it to do. The Mayor told City Hall this week that the fall was down to

a focus on charging suspects and taking them to court as opposed to

issuing cautions and fixed penalty notices, where suspects

automatically accept guilt. We have set a target for sanctions with the

police, and we are working to see an improvement in sanction detection.

But with the Met having less staff and less money, that might be a big

ask. Boris Johnson will be hoping his reforms do not stretch the thin

blue line too far. A criminologist from the University of Kent joins me

now. What is happening, is this an alarming trend, and something which

is happening differently in London from the rest of the country? The

peak of 26% in 2008 was also a peak and nationally. You have got to

remember, the police were put under the cosh by the previous government

to get their detection rates up. In the Met, it was about 13% ten years

ago, and nationally, 18%. By 2008, they had miraculously doubled in

London, going up to 26%, which is the figure that is being quoted. To

an unsustainable rate, you are saying? Well, the rise in London was

much sharper than elsewhere, but everyone was trying to make sure

they got their detection rates up. I do not think the public fully

understands, they think detection means somebody being caught, charged

and taken to court. No, according to the Home Office definition, it is

not just that, you can also count cannabis warnings, penalty notices

for disorder, offences taken into consideration... So by using those

you can boost your figures quite easily? And actually, what is quite

interesting, I looked at the figures for 2008-2009, and nationally, the

cannabis warnings accounted for about 8% of that huge increase. That

has been reined back, it has not gone back down as far in the Met as

elsewhere. What has happened since when TOH- 2009 is that nationally,

the figure has gone down to 27%, and it has stabilised. -- 2008-2009. The

reason for the drop in the last two years, I looked at the figures, is

not that they are charging more people, because that has actually

dropped from 13% to 12%, but they have also dropped off their use of

cannabis warnings by 1%. That accounts for it. So it is possible

to disable that this might now be a much more accurate assessment as to

how good or bad policing is, but what about the figure itself, only

one in five crimes being solved? If you think about it nationally, that

is not putting it in context. But why is London worse than other

cities? It has always been. Actually, if you compare it with the

West Midlands, say, and I have compared it with West Midlands and

great and chest, great and just has always been streets ahead, but you

have got the PAC committee currently looking at whether the crime figures

are fiddled, and finding that massively, they are. So everything

here has to be taken with a big pinch of salt, especially the best

figures. David Blunkett came in and said, this is a disgrace, detection

rates have plummeted to this extent since the heyday in 1980, but well,

of course, after 1980, you got the Police And Criminal Evidence Act,

which stopped people fitting people up, and so you got a drop. They had

started to rise, lung could put everybody under the cosh, people

started getting nervous and looking round for ways to get the figures

better. They are then given targets from 2004, and we see it go up

massively. But if you look over the years -- if you look at this blanket

rate, and the overall drop, if you compare police forces, you always

find that the urban forces have lower detection rates and rural

forces. On that note, I want to hear from you, obviously, crime is coming

down in London like it is everywhere else in the country, but will it

continue to, and will they continue to be able to solve crimes with

these cuts? Two things on that, you're right, crime is coming down,

and very quickly indeed. At the rate at which it is coming down in

London, it is just as fast in the last 18 months as it has been for

the last ten years. Secondly, the number of bodies out on the beat

fighting crime on the front line is more or less the same. There has

been a reduction in police stations and staff in police stations, which

has been part of Boris's reforms, and that has come through into

actually, the crime detection rate more or less flat-lining. Can you

respond to that? There are 2800 less police constables in if you take

community support officers into consideration, 4000 less. They have

decimated safer neighbourhood teams, which everyone across London

accepted were a big success. The big success about Sauber neighbourhood

teams is that they were dedicated to their local ward, they had good

local knowledge, particularly for those really minor, irritating

crimes for local people. In my area, safer neighbourhood teams have not

been decimated. Edgley, the story has been getting police out of

stations, onto the street, fighting crime. Thank you so much. You have

given us a lot to think about. I cannot ask you to share any more

with us at this stage. It is time for the rest of the political news

in 60 seconds. The House of Lords select committee reported to the

London 2012 Olympics. The report finds little evidence of increased

participation in sport and highlights the uneven distribution

of economic benefits of the Games across the UK. A bridge over the

Thames, which would be shared by pedestrians and cyclists, has been

given planning permission. It would link Battersea and Chelsea Harbour.

It has been given the go-ahead by Wandsworth and Hammersmith and

Fulham. Crossrail's first completed tunnel has been unveiled, marking a

key milestone for Europe's largest infrastructure project. 4.25 mile

journey from Royal Oak to Farringdon took 18 months to build. Boris

Johnson has insisted that cycling safety has improved over the last

few years, despite a recent spate of fatalities in London. He said he

would not be deflected from the cause of encouraging more cycling in

London. It has been a tough couple of weeks

for him on this policy, and concerns about cycling. Are you more worried

now about safety here. We even had a Metropolitan Police Commissioner

saying he wouldn't cycle. The amount of attention that has been given to

the issue was helpful, but the figures suggest that the number of

people dying on cycles has not increased. Seriously injured,

remember. As far as I am aware, the figures are not showing that. I

think that trying to make London more cycle friendly and getting more

people cycling, and those two things are strongly linked, it has been

good to have that attention. Boris is very, very keen on cycling, and

has done issued amount. It is very unfortunate that this has happened,

but he is trying to promote cycling and change people 's attitudes. If

we are going to solve congestion problems -- congestion problems on

the roads in London, we have to use the road space more efficiently.

Cycling is a key part of that. The Mayor is right to try to facilitate

more cycle lanes in London, but painting a blue line down the side

of a major road - that isn't the solution. I think we need to start

to think about getting more radical, and getting some space that is

completely separated from vehicle traffic, so we can really encourage

those people who want to cycle. We will be returning to this one. Thank

you. A little bit of history was made at

Prime Minister's Questions this week. A teensy tiny bit. It wasn't

David Cameron accusing one MP of taking "mind-altering substances" -

they're always accusing each other of doing that. No, it was the first

time a Prime Minister used a live tweet sent from someone watching the

session as ammunition at the dispatch box. Let's have a look. We

have had some interesting interventions from front edges past

and present. I hope I can break records by explaining that a tweet

has just come in from Tony McNulty, the former Labour security

minister, saying that the public are desperate for a PM in waiting who

speaks for them, not a Leader of the Opposition in dodging in partisan

Westminster Village knock about. So I would stay up with the tweets if

you want to get on the right side of this one! We are working on how the

Prime Minister managed to get that wheat in the first place. What did

you think when you saw it being read out? I was certainly watching the

Daily Politics. I almost fell off my chair! It was quite astonishing. He

didn't answer the question - he didn't do that the whole time. But I

stand by what the tweets said. I have tweeted for a long time on

PMQs. Normally I am praising Ed Miliband to the hilt, but no one

announces that in Parliament! Because the Prime Minister picked up

on what you said, it unleashed some attacks on you from the Labour side.

It did, minor attacks from some very junior people. Most people were

supportive of what I said. They took issue with the notion of not doing

it until 12:30pm, when it wasn't available for the other side to use.

Instant history, and instantly forgettable, I would say. Do you

think you have started a bit of a trend? I hope not, because the

dumbing down of PMQs is already on its way. Most people tweet like mad

through PMQs! Is a measure of how post-modern we have become, we have

journalists tweeting about someone talking about a tweet. That is the

level of British politics. I am horrified by this development. The

whole of modern life has become about observing people -- people

observing themselves doing things. Do we know what happened? Somebody

is monitoring the tweets on behalf of the Prime Minister or the Tory

party. They see Tony's tweet. They then print it out and give it to

him? There was a suggestion that Michael Goves had spotted it, but

Craig Oliver from the BBC had this great sort of... Craig Oliver was

holding up his iPad to take pictures of the Prime Minister, which he then

tweeted, from the Prime Minister. People will now be tweeting in the

hope that they will be quoted by the Prime Minister, or the Leader of the

Opposition. I wasn't doing that. I'm just talking about the monster you

have unleashed! I hope it dies a miserable death. I think Tony is a

good analysis -- a good analyst of PMQs on Twitter. Moving onto the

Co-op. You were a Co-op-backed MP, white you? I was a Co-op party

member. There are two issues here about the Co-op and the Labour

Party. All the new music suggests that the Co-op will now have to

start pulling back from lending or donating to the Labour Party, which,

at a time when Mr Miliband is going through changes that are going to

cut of the union funds, it seems quite dangerous. There are three

things going on. There's the relationship that the party has

politically with the Co-op party, there is the commercial relationship

you referred to, and then there is this enquiry into the comings and

goings of Flowers and everybody else. The Tories, at their peril,

will mix the three up. There's a lot of things going on with a bang.

Labour has some issues around funding generally, and they are

potentially exacerbated by the Co-op issue. The Labour Party gets soft

loans from the Co-op bank, and it gets donations. ?800,000 last year.

Ed Balls got about ?50,000 for his private office. You get the feeling,

given the state of the Co-operative Bank now, that that money could dry

up. We will see. There's lots of speculation in the papers today. At

the core, the relationship between the Co-op party and the Labour Party

is a proud one, and a legitimate one. I don't think others always

understand that. Here is an even bigger issue. Is it not possible

that the Co-op bank will cease to exist in any meaningful way as a

Co-op bank? Is the bane out means it is 70% owned -- the bail out means

that it is 70% owned, or 35% going to a hedge fund, I think I read.

Yes, there is a move from the mutualism of the Co-op. But don't

confuse the Co-op bank with the Co-op Group. Others have done that.

I haven't. Here's the rub. The soft loans that Labour gets. They got

?1.2 million from this. And 2.4 million. They are secured against

future union membership fees of the party. What is Mr Miliband doing? He

is trying to end that? You have this very difficult confluence of events,

which is, could these wonderful soft loans that Labour has had from the

Co-op, could they be going? And these union reforms, where Ed

Miliband is trying to create a link between individuals and donations to

the Labour Party... Clearly, there could be real financial difficulties

here. The government needs to be careful, because George Osborne

launched one of his classic blunderbuss operations this week,

which is that the Labour Party is to blame for Paul Flowers' private

life. No, it's not. And that all the problems, essentially... Look at

what George Osborne was doing in Europe. He was trying to change the

capital requirement rules that would make it easier for the Co-op to take

over Lloyd's. If there is to be a big investigation, George Osborne

needs to be careful of what he wishes for. This is another example

of the Westminster consensus. All of the Westminster parties were in

favour of the Britannia takeover. This is how the Co-op ended up with

all this toxic rubbish on its balance sheet. All the major parties

were in favour of going to get the Lloyds branches. The Tories tried to

outdo Labour in being more pro-Co-op. There was nobody in

Westminster saying, hold on, this doesn't work. It is like the

financial bubble all over again. Everyone was in favour of that at

the time. I think there is no evidence so far that the storm is

cutting through to the average voter. If I were Ed Miliband, I

would let it die a natural death. I would not write to an editorial

column for a national newspaper on a Sunday. That keeps the issue alive,

and it makes him look oversensitive and much better at dishing it out

than taking it. I agree about that. The Labour press team tweeted this

week saying that it was a new low for the times. And this was

re-tweeted by Ed Miliband. It isn't a great press attitude. It is very

Moni. Bill Clinton went out there and fought and made the case. So did

Tony Blair. If you just say, they are being horrible to us, it looks

pathetic. And it will cut through on Osborne and the financial

dimensional is, not political. I shall tweet that later! While we

have been talking, Mr Miliband has been on Desert Island Discs. He

might still be on it. Let's have a listen to what he had to say.

# Take on me, take me on. # And threw it all, she offers me

protection. # A lot of love and affection.

# Whether I'm right or wrong #. # Je Ne Regrette Rien. #.

Obviously, that was the music that Ed Miliband chose. Who thought --

you would have thought he would choose Norman Lamont's theme tune!

He chose Jerusalem... He has no classical background at all. He had

no Beethoven, no Elgar. David Cameron had Mendelssohn. And Ernie,

the fastest Notman in the West. -- fastest milkman. Tony Blair chose

the theme tune to a movie. Tony Blair's list was chosen by young

staffers in his office. It absolutely was. Tony Blair's list

was chosen by staff. The Ed Miliband this was clearly chosen by himself,

because who would allow politician to go out there and say that they

like Aha. I am the same age as Ed Miliband, and of course he likes

Aha. That was the tumour was played in the 80s. Sweet Caroline. It is

Angels by Robbie Williams. I was 14-year-old girl when that came out.

I thought Angels was the staple of hen nights and chucking out time in

pubs. The really good thing about his list is that the Smiths to not

appear. The Smiths were all over David Cameron's list. The absolutely

miserable music of Morris he was not there. What was his luxury? And

Indian takeaway! Again, chosen for political reasons. I would agree

with the panel about Aha, but I would expect -- I would respect his

right to choose. Have you been on Desert Island Discs? I have. It took

me three weeks to choose the music. It was the most difficult decision

in my life. What was the most embarrassing thing you chose? I

didn't choose anything embarrassing. I chose Beethoven, Elgar, and some

proper modern jazz. Anything from the modern era? Pet Shop Boys.

That's all for today. The Daily Politics will be on BBC Two at

lunchtime every day next week, and we'll be back here on BBC One at

11am next week. My luxury, by the way, was a wind-up radio! Remember,

if it's Sunday, it's the Sunday Politics.