12/01/2014 Sunday Politics London

Good morning, welcome. 2014 is barely under way, and the

coalition is fighting over cuts. Nick Legg says Tory plans to balance

the books would hit the poorest hardest. He will not say what he

will cut. That is the top story. Chris Grayling called for a

completely new deal with Europe as he battles will rings from the

European Court of Human Rights. He joins me.

Labour promises to shift house-building up a gear, but how

will they get a million new homes built by 2020? We will hear from

Emma Reynolds. In London, why you may not get an

ambulance even when the incident may be serious. Have cuts left to the

service being overstretched? With me for the duration, a top trio

of political pundits, Helen Lewis, Jan and Ganesh and Nick Watt. They

will be tweeting faster than France or long scoots through Paris. Nick

Clegg sticks to his New Year resolution to sock it to the Tories,

the is how he described Tory plans for another 12 billion of cuts on

welfare after the next election. You cannot say, as the Conservatives

are, that we are all in it together and then say that the welfare will

not make any additional contributions from their taxes if

there is a Conservative government after 2015 in the ongoing effort to

balance the books. We are not even going to ask that very wealthy

people who have retired who have benefits, paid for by the

hard-pressed taxpayers, will make a sacrifice. The Conservatives appear

to be saying only the working age pork will be asked to make

additional sacrifices to fill the remaining buckle in the public

finances. Nick Legg eating up on the Tories

a, happens almost every day. I understand it is called aggressive

differentiation. Will it work for them? It has not for the past two

years. This began around the time of the AV referendum campaign, that is

what poisoned the relations between the parties. They have been trying

to differentiation since then, they are still at barely 10% in the

polls, Nick Clegg's personal ratings are horrendous, so I doubt they will

do much before the next election. It is interesting it has been combined

with aggressive flirtation with Ed Balls and the Labour Party. There

was always going to be some sort of rapprochement between them and the

Labour Party, it is in the Labour Party's interests, and it is intent

macro's interests, not to be defined as somebody who can only do deals

with the centre-right. A colleague of yours, Helen, told me there was

more talk behind closed doors in the Labour Party high command, they have

to think about winning the election in terms of being the largest party,

but not necessarily an overall majority. There is a feeling it was

foolish before the last election not to have any thought about what a

coalition might be, but the language has changed. Ed Miliband had said, I

cannot deal with this man, but now, I have to be prismatic, it is about

principles. Even Ed Balls. Nick Clegg had specifically said that Ed

Balls was the man in politics that he hated. He said that was just a

joke. Of course, it is about principles, not people! When Ed

Balls said those nice things about Nick Clegg, he said, I understood

the need to get a credible deficit reduction programme, although he

said Nick Clegg went too far. The thing about Nick Clegg, he feels

liberated, he bears the wounds from the early days of the coalition, and

maybe those winds will haunt him all the way to the general election. But

he feels liberated, he says, we will be the restraining influence on both

the Conservatives, who cannot insure that the recovery is fair, and the

Labour Party, that do not have economic red ability. He feels

relaxed, and that is why he is attacking the Tories and appearing

pretty relaxed. He could also be falling into a trap. The Tories

think what they suggesting on welfare cuts is possible. The more

he attacks it, the more Tories will say, if you gave us an overall

majority, he is the one it. He keeps taking these ostensibly on popular

positions and it only makes sense when you talk to them behind the

scenes, they are going after a tiny slice of the electorate, 20%, who

are open to the idea of voting Lib Dem, and their views are a bit more

left liberal than the bulk of the public. There is a perverse logic in

them aggressively targeting that section of voters. In the end, ten

macro's problem, if you do not like what this coalition has been doing,

you will not vote for somebody who was part of it, you will vote for

the Labour Party. The Tories are too nasty, Labour are to spendthrift,

Lib Dem, a quarter of their vote has gone to Labour, and that is what

could hand the largest party to Labour. That small number of voters,

soft Tory voters, the problem for the Liberal Democrats is, if you

fight, as they did, three general elections to the left of the Labour

Party, and at the end of the third, you find yourself in Colour Vision

with the Conservatives, you have a problem.

Chris Grayling is a busy man, he has had to deal with aid riot at HM

Prison Oakwood, barristers on strike and unhappy probation officers

taking industrial action. Prison works. It ensures that we are

protected from murderers, muggers and rapists. It makes many who are

tempted to commit crime think twice. Traditional Tory policy on criminal

justice and prisons has been tough talking and tough dealing. Not only

have they tended to think what they are offering is right, but have had

the feeling, you thinking what they thinking. But nearly two decades

after Michael Howard's message, his party, in Colour Vision government,

is finding prison has to work like everything else within today's

financial realities. The Justice Secretary for two years after the

election had previous in this field. Ken Clarke. Early on, he signalled a

change of direction. Just binding up more and more people for longer

without actively seeking to change them is, in my opinion, what you

would expect of Victorian England. The key to keeping people out of

prison now, it seems, is giving them in a job, on release. Ironically,

Ken Clarke was released from his job 15 months ago and replaced by Chris

Grayling. But here, within HM Prison Liverpool, Timpson has been working

since 2009 with chosen offenders to offer training and the chance of a

job. Before you ask, they do not teach them keep cutting in a

category B prison. The Academy is deliberately meant to look like a

company store, not a prison. It helps. You forget where you are at

times, it feels weird, going back to a wing at the end of the day. It is

different. A different atmosphere. That is why people like it. Timpson

have six academies in prisons, training prisoners inside, and

outside they offer jobs to ex-offenders, who make up 8% of

their staff. It has been hard work persuading some governors that such

cooperation can work. I have seen a dramatic change positively, working

with prisoners, particularly in the last five years. They understand now

what business's expectation is. Timpson do not just employ

offenders, but as one ex-prisoner released in February and now

managing his own store says, the point is many others will not employ

offenders at all. From what I have experienced, on one hand, you have

somebody with a criminal conviction, on the other, somebody who does not

have one, so it is a case of favouring those who have a clean

record. Anybody with a criminal conviction is passed to one side and

overlooked. That, amongst myriad other changes to prison and how we

deal with prisoners, is on the desk of the man at the top. Ever since

Chris Grayling became Secretary of State for Justice, he has wanted to

signal a change of direction of policy, and he is in a hurry to make

radical reforms across the board, from size and types of prisons to

probation services, reoffending rates, legal aid services, and there

has been opposition to that from groups who do not agree with him.

But what might actually shackle him is none of that. It is the fact that

he is in government with a party that does not always agree with him,

he has to abide by the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights,

and in those famous words, there is no money left. We would like to go

further and faster. I would like him too, but we are where we are. If the

Liberal Democrats want to be wiped out at the next election based on

what they believe, that is fair enough. We accept there has to be

savings, but there are areas where we feel that there is ideological

driven policy-making going on, and privatising may not save any money

at all, and so does not make any sense. The question is, we'll all of

that means some of Chris Grayling's reforms need closer inspection?

Chris Grayling joins me now. Welcome. We have a lot to cover. If

you get your way, your own personal way, will be next Tory manifesto

promise to withdraw from the European Convention of human

rights? It will contain a promise for radical changes. We have to

curtail the role of the European court here, replace our human rights

act from the late 1990s, make our Supreme Court our Supreme Court,

they can be no question of decisions over riding it elsewhere, and we

have to have a situation where our laws contain a balance of rights and

responsibilities. People talk about knowing their rights, but they do

not accept they have responsible it is. This is what you said last

September, I want to see our Supreme Court being supreme again... That is

clear, but let's be honest, the Supreme Court cannot be supreme as

long as its decisions can be referred to the European Court in

Strasbourg. There is clearly an issue, that was raised recency --

recently. We have been working on a detailed reform plan, we will

publish that in the not too distant future. What we will set out is a

direction of travel for a new Conservative government that will

mean wholesale change in this area. You already tried to reform the

European Court, who had this declaration in 2012, do you accept

that the reform is off the table? There is still a process of reform,

but it is not going fast enough and not delivering the kind of change we

need. That is why we will bring forward a package that for the

different from that and will set a different direction of travel. We

are clear across the coalition, we have a different view from our

colleagues. You cannot be half pregnant on this, either our

decisions from our Supreme Court are subject to the European Cup or not,

in which case, we are not part of the European court. I hope you will

see from our proposals we have come up with a sensible strategy that

deals with this issue once and for all. Can we be part of the

Strasbourg court and yet our Supreme Court be supreme? That is by point,

we have to curtail the role of the court in the UK. I am clear that is

what we will seek to do. It is what we will do for this country. But

how? I am not going to announce the package of policies today, but we

will go into the next election with a clear strategy that will curtail

the role of the European Court of Human Rights in the UK. The

decisions have to be taken in Parliament in this country. Are you

sure that you have got your own side on this? Look at what the Attorney

General says. I would be asking Strasberg a

different question to that. If the best in class, he is saying is

enough is enough, actually somebody in Strasberg should be asking if

this has gone the way it should have done. I would love to see wholesale

reform in the court tomorrow, I'm not sure it is going to happen which

is why we are going to the election with a clear plan for this country.

Would you want that to be a red line in any coalition agreement? My

mission is to win the next election with a majority. But you have to say

where your red lines would be. We have been very clear it is an area

where we don't agree as parties, but in my view the public in this

country are overwhelmingly behind the Conservative party. 95

Conservative MPs have written to the Prime Minister, demanding he gives

the House of Commons the authority to veto any aspect of European Union

law. Are you one of the people who wanted to sign that letter but you

couldn't because you are minister? I haven't been asked to sign the

letter. We need a red card system for European law. I'm not convinced

my colleagues... I don't think it is realistic to have a situation where

one parliament can veto laws across the European Union. I understand the

concerns of my colleagues, but when we set out to renegotiate our

membership, we have got to deliver renegotiation and deliver a system

which is viable, and I'm not convinced we can have a situation

where one Parliament can prevent laws across the whole European

Union. So you wouldn't have signed this letter? I'm not sure it is the

right approach. I support the system I just talked about. Iain Duncan

Smith has suggested EU migrants coming to work in this country

should have to wait for two years before they qualify for welfare

benefits, do you agree? Yes, I think there should be an assumption that

before you can move from one country to another, before you can start to

take back from that country's social welfare system, you should have made

a contribution to it. I spent two and a half years working in Brussels

trying to get the European Commission to accept the need for

change. There is a groundswell of opinion out there which is behind

Iain Duncan Smith in what he is saying. I think we should push for a

clear system that says people should be able to move from one country to

get a job, but to move to another country to live off the state is not

acceptable. You are planning a new 2000 capacity mega prison and other

smaller presence which will be run by private firms. After what has

happened with G4S, why would you do that? No decision has been made

about whether it will be public or private. What do you think it will

be? I'm not sure yet. There is no clear correlation over public and

private prisons and whether there are problems or otherwise. Oakwood

is in its early stages, it has had teething problems at the start, but

the rate of disturbance there is only typical for an average prison

of its category. If you take an example of Parc prison in Wales, a

big private run prison, run by G4S, when it was first launched under the

last government it had teething problems of the same kind as Oakwood

and is now regarded as one of the best performing prisons. Why would

you give it to a private company then? We have only just got planning

permission for the so we will not be thinking about this for another few

years. Some of the companies who run prisons are under investigation with

dreadful track records. In the case of G4S, what we have experienced is

acceptable and they have not been able to go ahead with a number of

contracts they might have otherwise got. They are having to prove to the

Government they are fit to win contracts from the Government again.

They are having to pay compensation to the Government and the taxpayer.

What has happened is unacceptable. So why would you give them a 2000

capacity mega prison? Or anyone like them? It cannot be said that every

private company is bad. In addition to problems at Oakwood, you are

quite unique now in your position that you have managed to get the

barristers out on strike the first time since history began. What

happens if the bar refuses to do work at your new rates of legal aid

and the courts grind to a halt? I don't believe that will happen. When

the barristers came out on strike, three quarters of Crown Courts were

operating normally, 95% of magistrates courts were operating

normally. We are having to take difficult decisions across

government, I have no desire to cut back lately but we are spending over

?2 billion on legal aid at the moment at a time when budgets are

becoming tougher. You issued misleading figures about criminal

barristers, you said that 25% of them earn over ?100,000 per year but

that is their turnover, including VAT. 33% of that money goes on their

expenses, they have to pay for their own pensions and insurance. People

are not getting wealthy out of doing this work. I don't publish figures,

our statisticians do, with caveats in place explaining the situation.

Where you have high-cost cases, where we have taken the most

difficult decisions, we have tried hard in taking difficult decisions

to focus the impact higher up the income scale. But do you accept

their take-home pay is not 100,000? I accept they have to take out other

costs, although some things like travelling to the court, you and I

and everyone else has to pay for travelling to work. That is net of

VAT. We have had a variety of figures published, some are and some

are not. Let's be clear, the gross figures for fees from legal payments

include 20% VAT. On a week when even a cabinet minister can be fitted up

by the police, don't we all need well-financed legal aid? There is no

chance that as a result well-financed legal aid? There is no

changes people will end up in court unable to defend themselves. We have

said in exceptional circumstances, if you haven't got any money to pay,

we will support you, but there is no question of anyone ended up in

court, facing a criminal charge, where they haven't got a lawyer to

defend them. Let's look at how so many dangerous criminals have

managed to avoid jail. Here are the figures for 2012. Half the people

for sexual assault found guilty, not jailed. I thought you were meant to

be tough on crime? Those figures predate my time, but since 2010 the

number of those people going to jail has been increasing steadily. If you

put the figures for 2010 on there, you would see a significant change.

We will never be in a position where everybody who commits violence will

end up in jail. The courts will often decided to his more

appropriate to give a community sentence, but the trend is towards

longer sentences and more people going to jail. That maybe but it is

even quite hard to get sent to jail if you do these things a lot, again

and again. In 2012 one criminal avoided being sent to jail despite

having more than 300 offences to his name. 36,000 avoided going to jail

despite 15 previous offences. That is why we are taking steps to

toughen up the system. Last autumn we scrapped repeat cautions. You

could find people getting dozens. As of last autumn, we have scrapped

repeat cautions. If you commit the same offence twice within a two-year

period you will go to court. You still might end up not going to

jail. More and more people are going to jail. I cannot just magic another

34,000 prison places. You haven't got room to put bad people in jail?

The courts will take the decisions, and it is for them to take the

decisions and not me, that two men in a bar fight do not merit a jail

sentence. These figures contain a huge amount of offences from the

most minor of offences to the most despicable. Something is wrong if

you can commit 300 offences and still not end up in jail. That's

right, and we are taking steps so this cannot happen any more. Nick

Clegg said this morning you are going to make 12 billion of welfare

cuts on the back of this, he is right, isn't he? People on the

lowest incomes are often not paying tax at all, the rich... But these

cuts will fall disproportionately on average earners, correct? Let's look

at the proposal to limit housing benefit for under 25s. Until today,

after people have left school or college, the live for a time with

their parents. For some, that is not possible and we will have to take

that into account, but we have said there is a strong case for saying

you will not get housing benefit until you are some years down the

road and have properly established yourselves in work. And by

definition these people are on lower than average salaries. Give me a

case in which those on the higher tax band will contribute to the

cuts. We have already put in place tax changes so that the highest tax

rate is already higher than it was in every year of the last

government. The amount of tax... There is no more expected of the

rich. We will clearly look at future policy and work out how best to

distribute the tax burden in this country and it is not for me to

second-guess George Osborne's future plans, but we need to look at for

example housing benefit for the under 25s. Is it right for those who

are not working for the state to provide accommodation for them?

Thank you for being with us. All three major parties at

Westminster agree there's an urgent need to build more homes for

Britain's growing population. But how they get built, and where, looks

set to become a major battle ground in the run-up to the next general

election. Although 16% more house-builds were

started in 2012/13 than the previous year, the number actually completed

fell by 8% - the lowest level in peacetime since 1920. The Office for

National Statistics estimates that between now and 2021 we should

expect 220,000 new households to be created every year. At his party's

conference last autumn, Ed Miliband promised a Labour government would

massively increase house-building. I will have a clear aim but by the end

of the parliament, Britain will be building 200,000 homes per year,

more than at any time for a generation. That is how we make

Britain better than this. The Labour leader also says he'd give urban

councils a "right to grow" so rural neighbours can't block expansion and

force developers with unused land to use it or lose it. The Government

has been pursuing its own ideas, including loan guarantees for

developers and a new homes bonus to boost new house-building. But David

Cameron could have trouble keeping his supporters on side - this week

the senior backbencher Nadhim Zahawi criticised planning reforms for

causing "physical harm" to the countryside. Nick Clegg meanwhile

prefers a radical solution - brand new garden cities in the south east

of England. In a speech tomorrow, Labour's shadow housing minister

Emma Reynolds will give more details of how Labour would boost

house-building, and she joins me now. It is not the politicians to

blame, it is the lack of house-builders? We want a vibrant

building industry, and at the moment that industry is dominated by big

house-builders. I want to see a more diverse and competitive industry,

where self build plays a greater role. In France over 60% of new

homes are built by self builders, but small builders build more homes

as well. 25 years ago they were building two thirds of new homes,

now they are not building even a third of new homes. That's because

land policies have been so restrictive that it is only the big

companies who can afford to buy the land, so little land is being

released for house building. I agree, there are some fundamental

structural problems with the land market and that is why we have said

there doesn't just need to be tinkering around the edges, there

needs to be real reforms to make sure that small builders and self

build and custom-built have access to land. They are saying they have

problems with access to land and finance. At the end of the day it

will not be self, small builders who reach your target, it will be big

builders. I think it is pretty shameful that in Western Europe the

new houses built in the UK are smaller than our neighbours. But

isn't not the land problem? France is 2.8 times bigger in land mass and

we are and that is not a problem for them. There is a perception we are

going to build on the countryside, but not even 10% is on the

countryside. There is enough for us to have our golf courses. There is

enough other land for us to build on that is not golf courses. The

planning minister has said he wants to build our National Parks, I am

not suggesting that. The single biggest land border is the public

sector. It is not. There are great opportunities for releasing public

land, that is why I have been asking the government, they say they are

going to release and of public land for tens of thousands of new homes

to be built, but they say they are not monitoring how many houses are

being built on the site. When your leader says to landowners, housing

development owners, either use the land or lose it, in what way will

they lose it? Will you confiscated? This is about strengthening the hand

of local authorities, and they say to us that in some cases,

house-builders are sitting on land. In those cases, we would give the

power to local authorities to escalate fees. This would be the

compulsory purchase orders, a matter of last resort, and you would hope

that by strengthening the hand of local authorities, you could get the

house-builders to start building the homes that people want. Would you

compulsory purchase it? We would give the local authority as a last

resort, after escalating the fees, the possibility and flexible it is

to use the compulsory purchase orders to sell the land on to a

house builder who wants to build houses that we need. Can you name

one report that has come back in recent years that shows that

hoarding of land by house-builders is a major problem? The IMF, the

Conservative mayor of London and the Local Government Association are

telling us that there is a problem with land hoarding. Therefore, we

have said, where there is land with planning permission, and if plots

are being sat on... Boris Johnson says there are 180,000 plots in

London being sat on. We need to make sure the house-builders are building

the homes that young families need. They get planning permission and

sell it on to the developer. There is a whole degree of complicity, but

there is another problem before that. That is around transparency

about land options. There is agricultural land that

house-builders have land options on, and we do not know where that is.

Where there is a need for housing, and the biggest demand is in the

south-east of England, that is where many local authorities are most

reluctant to do it, will you in central government take powers to

force these authorities to give it? We have talked about the right to

grow, we were in Stevenage recently. What we have said is we

want to strengthen the hand of local authorities like Stevenage so they

are not blocked every step of the way. They need 16,000 new homes, but

they do not have the land supply. What about the authorities that do

not want to do it? They should be forced to sit down and agree with

the neighbouring authority. In Stevenage, it is estimated at

?500,000 has been spent on legal fees because North Hertfordshire is

blocking Stevenage every step of the way. Michael Lyons says the national

interest will have to take President over local interest. Voice cannot

mean a veto. The local community in Stevenage is crying out for new

homes. Do you agree? There has to be land available for new homes to be

built, and in areas like Oxford, Luton and Stevenage... Do you agree

with Michael Lyons? The national interest does have to be served,

with Michael Lyons? The national will put the five new towns? We have

asked him to look at how we can incentivise local authorities to

come forward with sites for new towns. You cannot tell us where they

are going to be? I cannot. We will have to wait for him. When you look

at the historic figures overall, not at the moment, Private Housing

building is only just beginning to recover, but it has been pretty

steady for a while. The big difference between house-building

now and in the past, since Mrs Thatcher came to power a and

including the Tony Blair government, we did not build council houses.

Almost none. Will the next Labour government embark on a major council

has programme? We inherited housing stock back in 1997... This is

important. Will the next Labour government embark on a major council

has programme? We have called on this government to bring forward

investment in social housing. We want to see an investment programme

in social housing, I cannot give you the figures now. We are 18 months

away from the election. Will the next Labour government embark on a

major council house Northern programme? I want to see a council

house building programme, because there is a big shortage of council

homes. That is a guess? Yes. We got there in the end. -- that is a yes?

We will be talking to Patrick homes in the West Midlands in a moment.

You are watching the Sunday Politics. Coming up in just over 20

minutes, I will look at the week ahead with our political panel and

Jacob Rees Mogg. Until then, the Sunday Politics across the UK.

Hello, welcome. With me this week, Bob Stewart, Conservative MP for

Beckenham, and make earlier, welcome to you both. Later on, why

ambulances are more and more not being sent to some incidents. Have

financial cuts played a part? Let's have a quick word on the Mark Duggan

case and the reaction to it, after an inquest jury concluded he had

been lawfully killed by police. It was back in August 2011 that it

happened, and it was what started a sequence of events which sparked

some of the worst rioting seen in London. There have been calls for

calm since while the family considers its next legal steps. What

did you make of this this week's ten jury is made their decision, but

what is clear, despite the main decision, nine out of ten raised

concerns about the handling of the case. We have got to see the IPCC

enquiry come to an end. One of the things that strikes me, it has taken

a long time, and there is still another enquiry, it is painful

all-round. The other big issue is around how the police force reflects

London. Of our 32,000 officers, less than 1000 are black, and many of

them do not live in London. There is a wider issue in terms of community

relations. It is something we need to be looking at a game with the Met

Police. Some people ask, how could this be a lawful killing if a man

was not on the? Did you feel there was an element of perversity? It was

an interesting case. The family are taking further legal action. My

colleague David Lammy sat in the inquest and heard and saw a lot of

what was going on, I did not, I am not going to second-guess a jury,

who were reflective of London. I do think they have to make their

decision. It is important that the family do what they feel they need

to do that is justice, but it is a conclusion, not a verdict, and there

are further investigations going on and questions that have been asked.

With your past and history, somebody who has borne arms, what was your

view when you saw this come through? I thought it was the right

verdict, but we both do not like politicians making comment. I will

make a couple of points. He had a gun in his car. He should not have

had. It seems he may have, holding get. But yourself in the position of

the officers facing that. A man comes out of the car, he may not --

he may be throwing it away, that it could easily look like he is about

to use it. The decision for a police officer to open fire is enormous,

not made in three months, as we have had this inquest, but in seconds. It

is extremely difficult. If you do not want this sort of incident, do

not be associated with a firearm, it is illegal, what was he doing with a

gun in his car? Did you understand the angry reactions and the

protests? One of the senior police officers could not even read his

statement outside the court. It was unfair. Make has already said, it

was a decision of the jury that made that decision, people all like us,

the jury made the frankly, that is the best way in our society of

making such a decision. When the police officer came out and people

were angry, for goodness sake, please remember this, do not be

associated with firearms. I have carried firearms, I have used them,

I hate them. I would not allow a pistol in my house, almost to save

my life. In Ireland, I refused to have one in my house, because I was

frightened. It was possible for this to be a lawful killing verdict and

for him to have been unarmed, because what the intention of the

police officer... The police officer did not... The police officer shot

the man because he thought there was a threat to life. He did not shoot

for any other reason. He did not think, I can just shoot away. He

made the decision, and that is what the jury backed up. What is

interesting here, we have had cases before in London, there has been an

unlawful killing verdict, but still they lead to criminal actions

later, different burdens of proof, and police officers are acquitted.

Here, it is difficult to see what the legal avenue is for the family,

because the jury has decided in an inquest. There are issues around the

intelligence gathering, the IPCC has questions to and set about how it

handled it, it has got to continue the investigation, and in terms of

wider community relations, in my constituency, a lot of people have

been stopped and searched, given that have reduced in recent months,

because of an action by the Commissioner in London, but

middle-aged men who are still angry about being stopped as youngsters,

and still stop now, not stopped spectrally. I have raised this with

my own but recommend, policing by consent, it needs to be respectful,

that is important. I agree with that.

With the region lashed by bad weather, questions have been raised

about London's ability to cope with extreme weather. Many stretches out

West have experienced flooding or at least flood warnings. Even the

government's own special adviser has called for increased spending on

flood defences. Nearly three quarters of a million

properties in London are at risk from surface water flooding caused

by rainfall. If a period of heavy rain coincided with a tidal surge of

the Thames, the effect could be devastating. The Green party are

concerned that not enough is being done to protect the capital. There

are three things that could be done now. We have got to restore some of

our rivers, because they are in concrete bunkers. We should be

planting more trees, not the 10,000 the Met is planting, but hundreds of

thousands, like New York. And we need to take a serious look at the

Thames barrier, which may now not be fit for purpose. Some engineering

expert claimed that the Thames barrier was not built to withstand

frequent extreme weather and that a second barrier should urgently be

considered. The Environment Agency has responded, stating...

Is the capital braces itself for more what weather, the debate over

whether London is adequately protected will not go away.

Let's continue the debate. If the Environment Agency says it is 60

years, it has a 60 year shelf life, should we think about another

barrier? Remember, the reason for the barrier was the 93 floods,

enormous flooding on the East Coast -- the 1953 floods. We should look

at what we are going to do when this barrier becomes inadequate, there is

nothing wrong with that, it will not cost a great deal of money, but

let's plan for it, so we can put measures in. We might have had tidal

surges with this heavy rainfall and broadly it has protected London,

hasn't it? I know from my time in the London assembly, we were talking

then about what happens next with the Thames barrier but I think there

are wider issues. There are issues around pollution when there is heavy

rain, so it is a wider issue about how we deal with flooding across

London, and I think the mayor should be doing more to make sure the

waterways in London are properly supported. Before the Olympics,

there was such a lot of rubbish in those waterways that it caused a

problem. If you get rid of the concrete, you can help prepare. Have

you had many problems in your constituency? I have visited two

houses which have been flooded, the answer is no thankfully, but the

main problems come when the trains are blocked. Are you detecting there

is more fear about flooding? It is not a big issue locally, but there

is an issue with concreting over London. We have had mayors who have

dealt with green issues, but we have not had one that has looked at blue

issues, like the waterways. Do you feel your government has equipped

itself well, or will it be vulnerable? It will be vulnerable

for tax cutting, that is inevitable, but it is doing its best

with what we have got. Every government will be attacked for not

providing enough when things happen, but we have a problem with

liquidity. Particularly liquidity problems over the last few weeks,

good choice of words! Three years ago the London ambulance service

started cutting millions of pounds from its budget and shredding

hundreds of staff, but when it put that plan into reverse a year later

recognising it was not sustainable. As it left the service vulnerable?

Some studies suggest ambulances are increasingly not being dispatched to

certain incidents. London ambulance's control room in

Waterloo. If you dial 999 there is a good chance the call will be dealt

with in this room. Sunday Politics has learned the demand for

ambulances is getting so high that people on the end of these phones

have to be in increasingly acute need to get a vehicle sent out of

them. On New Year's Eve last year the call room was so overwhelmed

that people were not guaranteed a response. It is fundamentally an

acceptable. If at somebody is suffering serious burns, they should

be guaranteed an ambulance. To have arbitrary criteria put in place as

to who will get one, that is taking the NHS into new and dangerous

territory. I think the public will be very worried to hear that. It

breaks the norms we have lived by. We have been warning the Government

of the growing crisis in A We don't believe they have acted on

those warnings and it is patients paying the price. New Year's Eve is

the busiest day of the year the London ambulance but we have also

discovered ambulance responses are increasingly restricted throughout

the year. Since April 2012 London ambulance has had to move its

service to what it calls level D more and more, meaning some people

do not necessarily get an ambulance. This includes

psychiatric, abnormal behaviour, or a suicide attempt. These calls are

put to a clinical area for review, which is a source of concern for

mental health charity Sane. It can be very difficult to judge the

urgency. There is also a chance the problem can get dealt with by the

wrong people. People in crisis do not get that urgent response, and

more and more it is falling to the police. By the last figures, 9000

people with mental illness had to be taken into police custody and suffer

the double punishment of going into a police cell just because there was

nowhere for them to go, no psychiatric services available. Of

those people, they were not creating a nuisance, 80% of them had been

self harming or suicidal. Could it be that the squeeze of resources was

one of the reasons behind the reduced service? I have someone here

who may be able to answer that, Doctor Fiona Moore, welcome to you.

New Year's Eve first, obviously the busiest night of the year, isn't it?

How do you shift things? Were there serious incidents you could not get

too? New Year's Eve is quite unique, and this year was the

busiest we have ever had, so we are seeing an incoming call rate of over

600 calls per hour. We normally have up to 200, so it is a busy time.

Sometimes there are incidents that you might not be able to go to, is

that right? We prioritise our calls and we always respond to those

sickest and most seriously injured patients. Was there anyone, for

instance, trapped in a vehicle, or who suffered burns who you would not

have got an ambulance to one New Year's Eve? We responded to 6000

patients over New Year but we need to be innovative when we have surges

in demand. We have a telephone assessment by senior paramedics,

just as you showed in that clip, in the control room doing a telephone

assessment. We continue to provide ambulance responses and cars to

those most seriously ill and injured patients. Do you accept what Andy

Burnham says, he is shocked and saying that this will not be safe.

Our priority is to respond to the most seriously ill patients and we

have undoubtedly seen a serious increase in demand. Demand has been

going up for the past 11 years and we have seen a surge over the last

couple of years, especially to those calls that we prioritise as category

a or immediately life-threatening. Does an increase in demand and a cut

in the service in the past, although I accept in the past year or so they

have tried to put resources back in, does not contribute to you

making patients less safe? We continue to prioritise those

patients that require an ambulance but increasingly we are looking at

lower priority calls to manage them safely. When you talk of innovation

at a time of emergencies, that worries people. It sounds like it

could be dangerous. We have developed telephone assessment by

paramedics so that we can refer patients to their GP, involving the

NHS more rather than just having a response of taking patients to an

emergency department. Certainly for the seriously ill and injured, the

patients with major trauma, heart attacks and strokes, they go to the

specialist units. So it is right to say that people with mental health

episodes are not likely to get the same attention in the future? We do

not restrict resources to them so they do get responses, even when we

are using the prioritisation so we would perhaps refer more patients to

NHS 111. Does this give you cause for concern? Yes, but I think it is

right back to the Government. There has been a real issue with 111. We

have looked at this in detail and we see how other services which are

privatised are taking the safe option and calling for an ambulance

rather than doing the proper triage over the phone, and that is putting

real pressure on Fiona and her colleagues. In your constituency,

are you happy to see this kind of rationalisation because of money? We

have two, to be honest. Everybody would like more money for the London

ambulance service but we haven't got it so we have got to prioritise. One

of the questions you could have is, is this life-threatening? If it is,

an ambulance is required, and that is why the owner is saying we have

to prioritise. At the lower end of the market, if you like, sometimes

people call ambulances and they don't need them. Isn't the problem

that with telephone assessment, you need to see someone, you need to be

there. You need a response on the ground? It can be a combination of

both, so for some patients it is safe to do a clinical assessment

over the telephone. GPs and nurses do it all the time, and now we

manage 70,000 patients per year over the telephone without needing to

send an emergency response. Will this be developing over the coming

year, and have you got the money you need? We have seen an investment

from GP commissioners over the last year so we have been recruiting

additional members of staff, and so far this year we have recruited an

additional 170. So this will be bedding down and you will be seeing

how this works? We have been doing this for over a year, and it is

something we will continue to do. We will work closely with 111 and we

have seen it work successfully. Now it is time for the rest of the

political news in 60 seconds. Almost 14,000 fines have been issued

to drivers and cyclists during an operation in London sparked by the

death of six cyclists in two weeks. Metropolitan police officers were

sent to 166 key junctions during rush-hour periods. Boris Johnson has

called for stronger controls on welfare claimants from the EU. The

mayor urged a two-year ban on full benefit claims by migrants from

states like Romania and Bulgaria. The price of London's congestion

charge could rise by 15% under new proposals by Transport for London.

It said the cost had remained static since 2009 and it hoped to rise to

?11 50 for a daily rate would deter unnecessary journeys. The mayor has

written to the Home Secretary outlining plans to equip the Met

Police with water cannon. He said he will continue to consult the public

on their views of use of the devices in extreme circumstances. A brief

one on the congestion charge. You were around when Ken Livingstone

introduced it. About time it was put up? I think this looks like the Mary

scrubbing money out of London's pockets. It doesn't seem to be very

strategic. Why now? Why you ?1 50? I haven't seen any data to suggest

this will reduce traffic further so I am sceptical. Transport officials

seem to be suggesting they are pre-empting that so it doesn't

happen. They would say that when they have a big hole in the budget.

We are seeing lower frequency on public transport and yet the

congestion charge is going up. It is literally just filling the black

hole the mayor has got because he and George Osborne are having an

argument about funding in London. Bob Stewart, are you happy to see it

go up? I hate it, I have never liked it. Look at the way it is dealing

with traffic. That is good. I don't come into town any other way than

public transport. My constituents actually normally come by train, the

same way. If you don't want to pay ?1 50 extra, don't come by car. Is

it fair to raise it, since it has not been raised since 2009? He

hasn't been raising it in the interim. Wishy-washy. Personally I

have told you where I stand. I don't like the congestion charge, I never

have. I know it is effective but I don't like it personally. If the

money went into supporting safer cycling, I would be all for it. It

will not be revoked. And I wouldn't want it to go. Thank you, back to

Andrew. Can David Cameron get his way on EU

migration? Will he ever be able to satisfy his backbenchers on Europe?

Is Ed Miliband trying to change the tone of PMQ 's? More questions for

the week ahead. We are joined by Jacob Rees Mogg

from his constituency in Somerset. Welcome to the programme. You one of

the 95 Tory backbenchers who signed this letter? Suddenly. Laws should

be made by our democratically elected representatives, not from

Brussels. How could Europe work with a pick and mix in which each

national parliament can decide what Brussels can be in charge of? The

European Union is a supernatural body that is there for the

cooperation amongst member states to do things that they jointly want to

do. It ought not be there to force -- to enforce uniform rules on

countries that do not want to participate. It is the vision of

Europe that people joined when we signed up to it and came in in 1973.

It has accreted powers to itself without having the support of the

public of the member states. This is just a way of preparing the ground

for you to get out of Europe altogether, isn't it? I do not big

so. There is a role for an organisation that does some

coordination and that has trade agreements within it, I do not think

there is a role for a federal state. Europe seems to be dominating the. I

remember your leader telling you not to bang on about Europe, your

backbench colleagues seem to have ignored that. Would you like to

restrict the flow of EU migrants to come to work in this country? Yes. I

think we should have control of our own borders, so we can decide who we

want to admit for the whole world. What we have at the moment is a

restrictive control of people coming from anywhere other than the EU.

There is a big decrease in the number of New Zealanders who came in

the last quarter for which figures are available, but a huge increase

in people coming from the continent. Does it really make sense to stop

our second cousins coming so that we can allow people freely to come from

the continent? I do not think so, we need to have domestic control of our

borders in the interests of the United Kingdom. There are still lots

more people coming from the rest of the world than from the European

Union. That has been changing. But there are still more. A lot more.

The permanent residence coming from the European Union are extremely

high. In the period when the Labour Party was in charge, we had to put 5

million people coming here, of whom about 1 billion were from Poland. --

we had 2.5 million people coming here. We have no control over them.

Like the clock behind you, you are behind the times on these figures. I

have stopped the clock for your benefit, because it was going to

chime otherwise! I thought that might be distracting! Only a Tory

backbencher could stop a clock! Helen, when you at this up, it is

preparing to get out, is it not? We have had this one bill about a

referendum that seems to have tied us up in knots for months on end. If

Parliament could scrutinise every piece of EU legislation, we would

never get anything else done. It would be incredible. Even Chris

Grayling said earlier that you can not have a national veto on anything

that the EU proposes. I am surprised that Jacob Rees Mogg is talking

about dismantling one of Margaret Thatcher's most important legacies,

the creation of the single market, and the person sent there to dream

it up under Margaret Thatcher said the only way you can run this

sensibly is by not having national vetoes, because if you have that,

guess what will happen? The French will impose lots of protectionist

measures. It was Margaret Thatcher's idea that national

parliaments should never veto. How could you fly in the face of the

lady? Even the great lady makes mistakes. Excuse me, Jacob Rees Mogg

says even Margaret Thatcher makes mistakes! No wonder the clock has

stopped! Even be near divine Margaret made a mistake! But on the

single market, it has been used as an excuse for massive origination of

domestic affairs. We should be interested in free trade in Europe

and allowing people to export and import freely, not to have uniform

regulations, as per the single market, because what that allows is

thought unelected bureaucrats to determine the regular vision. We

want the British people to decide the rules for themselves. If this

makes the single market not work, that is not the problem, because we

can still have free trade, which is more important. If David Cameron is

watching this, I am sure he is, it will be nice for you to come on and

give us an interview, he must be worried. He is beginning to think, I

am losing control. It is a clever letter, the tone is ingratiating and

pleasant, every time, you have stood up to Brussels, you have achieved

something, but the content is dramatic. If you want Parliament to

have a veto, you want to leave the EU, because the definition is

accepting the primacy of European law. The MPs should be clear about

that. It is almost a year since the Europe speech in which David Cameron

committed to the referendum. The political objective was to put that

issue to bed until the next election. It has failed. David

Cameron is going to have to pull off a major miracle in any

renegotiations to satisfy all of this. Yes, it makes me think how

much luckier he has been in coalition with the Liberal

Democrats, because there is a bit of the Tory party that is

irreconcilable to what he wants to do. The Conservative MPs are making

these demands just as David Cameron is seeing the debate goes his way in

Europe. Angela Merkel has looked over the cliff and said, do I want

the UK out? No, they are a counterbalance to France. France one

the UK to leave, but they do not, because they do not want to lose the

only realistic military power Tom other than themselves. Just when the

debate is going David Cameron's way, Jacob Rees Mogg would take us out.

Let me move on to another subject. That is nonsense. The debate is not

beginning to go David Cameron's way. We are having before us on Monday a

bill about European citizenship and spending British taxpayers money so

that Europe can go and say we are all EU citizens, but we signed up to

being a part of a multinational organisation. The spin that it is

going the way of the leader of a political party is one that has been

used before, it was said of John Major, it was untrue then and it is

now. It is, for the continuing deeper integration of the European

Union. I want to ask a quick question. Chris Grayling said to us

that the Tories would devise a way in which the British Supreme Court

would be supreme in the proper meaning of that, but we could still

be within the European Court of Human Rights. Can that circle be

squared? I have no idea, the Lord Chancellor is an able man, and I am

sure he is good at squaring circles. I am not worried about whether we

remain in the convention or not. PMQ 's, we saw a bit about this week,

Paul Gorgons had died, so the house was more subdued, but he wants a

more subdued and serious prime ministers questions. Let's remind

ourselves what it was like until now.

What is clear is that he is floundering around and he has no

answer to the Labour Party's energy price freeze. The difference is,

John Major is a good man, the Right Honourable gentleman is acting like

a conman. Across the medical profession, they say there is a

crisis in accident and emergency, and we have a Prime Minister saying,

crisis, what crisis? How out of touch can hate the? You do not need

it to be Christmas to know when you are sitting next to a turkey.

It is not a bad line. Is Ed Miliband trying to change the tone of prime

ministers questions? Is he right to do so? The important point is this

was a special prime ministers questions, because everybody was

really sad and by the death of Paul Goggins and in the country, the

legacy of the floods. That was the first question that Ed Miliband

asked about, so that cast a pall over proceedings. When it suits him,

Ed Miliband would like to take a more statesman-like stance, but will

it last? That is how David Cameron started. His first prime ministers

questions, he said to Tony Blair, I would like to support you on

education, and he did in a vote which meant Tony Blair could see off

a naughty operation from Gordon Brown. But it did not last, they are

parties with different visions. Jacob Rees Mogg, would you like to

see it more subdued? I like a bit of Punch and Judy. You need to have

fierce debate and people putting their views passionately, it is

excellent. I am not good at it, I sit there quite quietly, but it is

great fun, very exciting, and it is the most watched bit of the House of

Commons each week. If it got as dull as ditchwater, nobody would pay

attention. Three cheers for Punch and Judy. Ed Miliband is going to

make a major speech on the economy this week. You can now define the

general approach. We had it from Emma Reynolds, we have seen it over

energy prices, this market is bust, the market is not working properly,

and that will therefore justify substantial government intervention.

Intervention which does not necessarily cost money. It is the

deletion and reorganising industries. It constitutes an answer

to the question which has been hounding him, what is the point of

the Labour Party when there is no money left? He says, you do not

spend a huge amount fiscally, but you arrange markets to achieve

socially just outcomes without expenditure. It is quite serious

stance. I am not sure it will survive the rigours of an election

campaign, but it is an answer. Is that an approach, to use broken

markets, to justify substantial state intervention? Yes, and the

other big plank is infrastructure spending. The Lib Dems would not be

against capital investment for info structure will stop Emma Reynolds

talking about house-building, the idea of pumping money into the

economy through infrastructure is something that the Labour Party will

look at. Jacob Rees Mogg, you once thought Somerset should have its own

time zone, and today, you have delivered on that promise! Live on

the Sunday Politics! I try to deliver on my promises!

That is all for today, the Daily Politics is on BBC Two every day

this week, just before lunch. I aren't back next Sunday here on BBC

One at 11am. -- I am back. If it is Sunday, it is the Sunday Politics.