09/03/2014 Sunday Politics London

Morning, folks. Welcome to the Sunday Politics.

He's a man on a mission. But is it mission impossible? Iain Duncan

Smith has started the radical reform of our welfare state. No tall order.

And not everything's going to plan. We'll be talking to the man himself.

Nick Clegg's hosting his party's spring conference in York. He's

getting pretty cosy with the party faithful. Not so cosy, though, with

his Coalition partners. In fact, things are getting a wee bit nasty.

We'll be talking to his right-hand man, Danny Alexander.

And are all politicians self-obsessed? Don't all shout at

once. We'll be examining the art of the political selfie.

In London, we're focusing on the biggest social housing landlords.

Can Southwark Council really build 11,000 new homes in the next three

decades? And with me, as always, three of the

best and the brightest political panel in the business. At least

that's what it says in the Sunday Politics template. Back from the

Oscars empty handed, Helen Lewis, Janan Ganesh and Iain Martin. Yes,

three camera-shy hacks, who've never taken a selfie in their life. We'll

be coming to that later. They just like to tweet. And they'll be doing

so throughout the programme. Welcome.

Now, first this morning, the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference in York.

I know you speak of nothing else! The Yorkshire spring sunshine hasn't

made the Lib Dems think any more kindly of their Coalition partners.

Indeed, Tory bashing is now the Lib Dem default position. Here's Danny

Alexander speaking yesterday. Repairing the economy on its own

isn't enough. We have to do it fairly.

isn't enough. We have to do it the agenda a decision to cut taxes,

income taxes, for working people. Now, conference, note that word -

forced. We have had to fight for this at the last election and at

every budget and at every Autumn Statement since 2010 and what a

fight it has been. Danny Alexander joins us now. Are we

going to have to suffer 14 months of you and your colleagues desperately

trying to distance yourself from the Tories? It's not about distancing

ourselves. It's about saying, " this is what we as a party have achieved

in government together with the Conservatives". And saying, " this

is what our agenda is for the future" . It's not just about the

fact that this April we reach that ?10,000 income tax allowance that we

promised in our manifesto in 2010 but also that we want to go further

in the next parliament and live that to ?12,500, getting that over a

2-term Liberal Democrat government. It's very important for all parties

to set out their own agenda, ideas and vision for the future, whilst

also celebrating what we're achieving jointly in this Coalition,

particularly around the fact that we are, having taken very difficult

decisions, seeing the economy improving and seeing jobs creation

in this country, which is something I'm personally very proud and, as

the Coalition, we have achieved and wouldn't have if it hadn't been for

the decisions of the Liberal Democrats. Lets try and move on.

You've made that point about 50 times on this show alone. You now

seem more interested in Rowling with each other than running the country,

don't you? -- rowing with each other. I think we are making sure we

take the decisions, particularly about getting our economy on the

right track. Of course, there are lots of things where the

Conservatives have one view of the future and we have a different view

and it's quite proper that we should set those things out. There are big

differences between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives,

just as there were big differences between the Liberal Democrats and

the Labour Party. I believe we're the only party that can marry that

commitment delivering a strong economy, which Labour can't do, and

that commitment to delivering a fairer society, which the Tories

can't be trusted to do by themselves. You are going out of

your way to pick fights with the Tories at the moment. It's a bit

like American wrestling. It is all show. Nobody is really getting hurt.

I've been compared to many things but an American wrestler is a

first! I don't see it like that. It is right for us as a party to set

out what we've achieved and show people that what we promised on 2010

on income tax cuts is what this government is delivering. But nobody

seems convinced by these manufactured rows with the Tories.

You've just come last in a council by-election with 56 votes. You were

even bitten by an Elvis impersonator! Yes, that is true. --

beaten. I could equally well quote council by-elections that we've won

recently, beating Conservatives, the Labour Party and UKIP. Our record on

that is pretty good. You can always pick one that shows one or other

party in a poor light. Our party is having real traction with the

electric and the places where we have a real chance of winning. If

you're not an American wrestler, maybe you should be an Elvis

impersonator! You told your spring forum... You don't want to hear me

sing! You want to raise the personal allowance to ?12,500 in the next

Parliament. Will you refuse to enter into Coalition with any party that

won't agree to that? What I said yesterday is that this will be

something which is a very high priority for the Liberal Democrats.

It's something that we will very much seek to achieve if we are

involved... We know that - will it be a red line? If you are a number

in 2010, on the front page of our manifesto, we highlighted four

policies... I know all that. Will it be a red line? It will be something

that is a very high priority for the Liberal Democrats to deliver. For

the fifth time, will it be a red line? It will be, as I said, a very

high priority for the Liberal Democrats in the next Parliament.

That's my language. We did that in the next election. The number-1

promise on our manifesto with a ?10,000 threshold and we've

delivered that in this Parliament. People can see that when we say

something is a top priority, we deliver it. Is it your claim... Are

you claiming that the Tories would not have raised the starting point

of income tax if it hadn't been for the Liberal Democrats? If you

remember back in the leaders' debates in the 2010 election

campaign, Nick Clegg was rightly championing this idea and David

Cameron said it couldn't be afforded. Each step of the way in

the Coalition negotiations within government, we've had to fight for

that. The covert overtures have other priorities. -- the

Conservatives. I don't want to go back into history. I'd like to get

to the present. Have the Conservatives resisted every effort

to raise the starting point of income tax? As I said, we promised

this in 2010, they said it couldn't be done. We've made sure it was

delivered in the Coalition. Have they resisted it? We've argued for

big steps along the way and forced it on to the agenda. They've wanted

to deliver other things are so we've had to fight for our priority... Did

the Conservatives resist every attempt? It has been resisted,

overall the things I'm talking about, by Conservatives, because

they have wanted to deliver other things and, of course, in a

Coalition you negotiate. Both parties have their priorities. Our

priority has been a very consistent one. Last year, they were arguing

about tax breaks for married couples. They were arguing in 2010

for tax cuts for millionaires. Our priority in all these discussions

has been a consistent one, which is to say we want cutbacks for working

people. -- we want to cut tax for working people. That has been

delivered by both parties in the Coalition government full top So

what do you think when the Tories take credit for it? I understand why

they want to try to do that. Most people understand what we have just

said. Not if the polls are to be believed... You're under 10%. This

is one of the things, when I talk to people, but I find they know that

the Lib Dems have delivered in government. People know we promised

it in 2010 and we're the ones who forced this idea onto the agenda in

our election manifesto. You've said that five times in this interview

alone. The reality is, this is now a squabbling, loveless marriage. We're

getting bored with all your tests, the voters. Why don't you just

divorced? -- all your arguments. I don't accept that. On a lot of

policy areas, the Coalition government has worked very well

together. We're delivering an awful lot of things that matter to this

country. Most importantly, the mess that Labour made of the economy we

are sorting out. We are getting our finances on the right track, making

our economy more competitive, creating jobs up and down this

country, supporting businesses to invest in growth. That is what this

Coalition was set up to do, what it is delivering, and both myself and

George Osborne are proud to have worked together to deliver that

record. Danny Alexander, thanks for that. Enjoyed York. Helen, is

anybody listening? I do worry that another 40 months of this might

drive voter apathy up to record levels. There is a simple answer to

why they don't divorced - it's the agreement that Parliament will last

until 2015. MPs are bouncing around Westminster with very little to do.

They are looking for things to put in the Queen's Speech and we are

going to have rocks basically the 40 months and very little substantial

difference in policies. Do you believe Danny Alexander when he says

there would have been no rise in the starting rate of income tax if not

for the Lib Dems? He's gilding the lily. If you look back at papers are

written in 2001 suggesting precisely this policy, written by a Tory peer,

you see there are plenty of Tories which suggest there would have been

this kind of move. I can see why Danny Alexander needs to do this and

they need to show they've achieved something in government because they

are below 10% in the polls and finding it incredibly difficult to

get any traction at all. The other leg of this Lib Dem repositioning is

now to be explicitly the party of Europe and to be the vanguard of the

fight to be all things pro-Europe. Mr Clegg is going to debate Nigel

Farage in the run-up to the European elections. If, despite that, the Lib

Dems come last of the major parties, doesn't it show how out of touch

different. They are targeting a section of the electorate who are a

bit more amenable to their views than the rest. They wouldn't get 20%

of the vote. They are targeting that one section. They have to do

disproportionately well amongst those and it will payoff and they

will end up with something like 15%. How many seats will the Lib Dems

losing the next election? Ten. 20. 15. Triangulation! We'll keep that

on tape and see what actually happens!

The Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is a man on a mission.

He's undertaken the biggest overhaul in our welfare state since it was

invented way back in the black-and-white days of the late

1940s. A committed Roman Catholic, he's said he has a moral vision to

reverse the previous welfare system, which he believes didn't create

enough incentive for people to work. But are his reforms working? Are

they fair? As he bitten off more than he can chew? In a moment, we'll

speak to the man himself but first, here's Adam.

Hackney in north London and we're on the road with the man who might just

be the most ambitious welfare secretary there's ever been. It's a

journey that started in the wind and rain on a Glasgow council estate 12

years ago when he was Tory leader. He came face-to-face with what it

meant to be poor. A selection of teddy bears. It's where he

discovered his recipe for reform, according to one of the advisers who

was with him. There are things that if you do get a job, keep your

family together, stay off drugs and alcohol, make sure you have a proper

skill - that's what keeps you of poverty. He, very ambitiously, wants

to redefine the nature of what it means to be poor and how you get

away from poverty. Back in north London, he's come to congratulate

the troops on some good news. In this borough, the number of people

on job-seeker's allowance has gone down by 29% in the last year, up

from around 1700 to around 1200. But the picture in his wider changes to

the welfare state is a bit more mixed. A cap on the total amount of

benefits a family can get, of ?26,000 a year, is hugely popular

but there have been howls of protest over cuts to housing benefit,

labelled the bedroom tax by some. Protests, too, about assessments for

people on disability benefits, inherited from the previous

government. Iain Duncan Smith has been accused of being heartless and

the company doing them, Atos, has pulled out. And then the big one -

and universal credit, a plan to roll six benefits into one monthly

payment, in a way designed to ensure that work always pays. Some of the

IT has been written off and the timetable seems to be slipping.

Outside the bubble of the stage-managed ministerial trip, a

local Labour MP reckons he's bitten off more than he can chew. The great

desire is to say, " let's have one simple one size fits all approach" .

And there isn't one size of person or family out there. People need to

change and they can challenge on the turn of a penny almost. One minute

they are doing the right thing, working hard. Next minute, they need

a level of support and if this simple system doesn't deliver that

for them, they're in a difficult position. And that's the flying

visit to the front line finished. He does not like to hang about and just

as well do - his overhaul of the entire benefits system still has

quite a long way to go. And Iain Duncan Smith joins me now. Before I

come onto the interview on welfare reform, is Danny Alexander right

when he claims the Lib Dems had to fight to get the Tories to raise the

income tax threshold? That is not my recollection of what happened. These

debates took place in the Coalition. The Conservatives are in

favour of reducing the overall burden of taxation, so the question

was how best do we do it? The conversation took place, they were

keen on raising the threshold, there were also other ways of doing it but

it is clear from the Conservatives that we always wanted to improve the

quality of life of those at the bottom so raising the threshold fit

within the overall plan. If it was a row, it was the kind of row you have

over a cup of tea round the breakfast table. We have got a lot

to cover. There are two criticisms mainly of what you are doing - will

they work, and will they be fair? Leslie Roberts, one of our viewers,

wants to know why so much has already been written off due to

failures of the universal credit system even though it has been

barely introduced. Relatively it has been a ?2 billion investment

project, in the private sector programmes are written off regularly

at 30, 40%. The IT is working, we are improving as we go along, the

key thing is to keep your eye on the parts that don't work and make sure

they don't create a problem for the programme. 140 million has been

wasted! The 40 million that was written off was just do with

security IT, and I took that decision over a year and a half ago

so the programme continued to roll out. Those figures include the

standard right down, the aggregation of cost over a period of time. The

computers were written down years ago but they continue to work now.

Universal credit is rolling out, we are doing the Pathfinders and

learning a lot but I will not ever do this again like the last

government, big band launches, you should do it phrase by phrase. Even

your colleague Francis Maude says the implementation of universal

credit has been pretty lamentable. He was referring back to the time

when I stopped that element of the process and I agreed with that. I

intervened to make the changes. The key point is that it is rolling out

and I invite anyone to look at where it is being rolled out to. You were

predicting that a million people would be an universal credit, this

is the new welfare credit which rolls up six existing welfare

benefits and you were predicting a million people would be on it by

April, well it is March and only 3200 are on it. I changed the way we

rolled it out and there was a reason for that. Under the advice of

someone we brought from outside, he said that you are better rolling it

out slower and gaining momentum later on. On the timetables for

rolling out we are pretty clear that it will roll out within the

timescale is originally set. We will roll it out into the Northwest so

that we replicate the north and the Northwest, recognise how it works

properly. You will not hit 1 million by April. I have no intention of

claiming that, and it is quite deliberate because that is the wrong

thing to do. We want to roll it out carefully so we make sure everything

about it works. There are lots of variables in this process but if you

do it that way, you will not end up with the kind of debacle where in

the past something like ?28 billion worth of IT programmes were written

off. ?38 billion of net benefits, which is exactly what the N a O Z,

so it is worth getting it right. William Grant wants to know, when

will the universal credit cover the whole country? By 2016, everybody

who is claiming one of those six benefits will be claiming universal

credit. Some and sickness benefits will take longer to come on because

it is more difficult. Many of them have no work expectations on them,

but for those on working tax credits, on things like job-seeker's

allowance, they will be making claims on universal credit. Many of

them are already doing that now, there are 200,000 people around the

country already on universal credit. You cannot give me a date as to when

everybody will be on it? 2016 is when everybody claiming this benefit

will be on, then you have to bring others and take them slower.

Universal credit is a big and important reform, not an IT reform.

The important point is that it will be a massive cultural reform. Right

now somebody has to go to work and there is a small job out there. They

won't take that because the way their benefits are withdrawn, it

will mean it is not worth doing it. Under the way we have got it in the

Pathfinders, the change is dramatic. A job-seeker can take a

small part time job while they are looking for work and it means

flexibility for business so it is a big change. Lets see if that is true

because universal credit is meant to make work pay, that is your mantra.

Let me show you a quote Minister in the last

-- in the last Tory conference. It has only come down to 76%. Actually

form own parents, before they get to the tax bracket it is well below

that. That is a decision the Government takes about the

withdrawal rate so you can lower that rate or raise it. And do your

reforms, some of the poorest people, if they burn an extra

pound, will pay a marginal rate of 76%. -- if they earn an extra pound.

The 98% he is talking about is a specific area to do with lone

parents but there are specific compound areas in the process that

mean people are better off staying at home then going to work. They

will be able to identify how much they are better off without needing

to have a maths degree to figure it out. They are all taken away at

different rates at the moment, it is complex and chaotic. Under universal

credit that won't happen, and they will always be better off than they

are now. Would you work that bit harder if the Government was going

to take away that portion of what you learned? At the moment you are

going to tax poor people at the same rate the French government taxes

billionaires. Millions will be better off under this system of

universal credit, I promise you, and that level of withdrawal then

becomes something governments have to publicly discussed as to whether

they lower or raise it. But George Osborne wouldn't give you the extra

money to allow for the taper, is that right? The moment somebody

crosses into work under the present system, there are huge cliff edges,

in other words the immediate withdrawal makes it worse for them

to go into work than otherwise. If he had given you more money, you

could have tapered it more gently? Of course, but the Chancellor can

always ultimately make that decision. These decisions are made

by chancellors like tax rates, but it would be much easier under this

system for the public to see what the Government chooses as its

priorities. At the moment nobody has any idea but in the future it will

be. Under the Pathfinders, we are finding people are going to work

faster, doing more job searches, and more likely to take work under

universal credit. Public Accounts Committee said this programme has

been worse than doing nothing, for the long-term credit. It has not

been a glorious success, has it? That is wrong. Right now the work

programme is succeeding, more people are going to work, somewhere in the

order of 500,000 people have gone back into work as a result of the

programme. Around 280,000 people are in a sustained work over six

months. Many companies are well above it, and the whole point about

the work programme is that it is setup so that we make the private

sector, two things that are important, there is competition in

every area so that people can be sucked out of the programme and

others can move in. The important point here as well is this, that

actually they don't get paid unless they sustain somebody for six months

of employment. Under previous programmes under the last

government, they wasted millions paying companies who took the money

and didn't do enough to get people into work. The best performing

provider only moved 5% of people off benefit into work, the worst managed

only 2%. It is young people. That report was on the early first months

of the work programme, it is a two-year point we are now and I can

give you the figures for this. They are above the line, the improvement

has been dramatic and the work programme is better than any other

back to work programme under the last government. So why is long-term

unemployment rising? It is falling. We have the largest number of people

back in work, there is more women in work than ever before, more jobs

being created, 1.6 million new jobs being created. The work programme is

working, our back to work programmes are incredibly successful at below

cost so we are doing better than the last government ever did, and it

will continue to improve because this process is very important. The

competition is what drives up performance. We want the best

performers to take the biggest numbers of people. You are

practising Catholic, Archbishop Vincent Nichols has attached your

reforms -- attack to your reforms, saying they are becoming more

punitive to the most vulnerable in the land. What do you say? I don't

agree. It would have been good if you called me before making these

attacks because most are not correct.

For the poorest temper sent in their society, they are now spending, as

For the poorest temper sent in their percentage of their income, less

than they did before. I'm not quite sure what he thinks welfare is

about. Welfare is about stabilising people but most of all making sure

that households can achieve what they need through work. The number

of workless households under previous governments arose

consistently. It has fallen for the first time in 30 years by nearly

18%. Something like a quarter of a million children were growing up in

workless households and are now in households with work and they are

three times more likely to grow up with work than they would have been

in workless households. Let me come into something that he may have had

in mind as being punitive - some other housing benefit changes. A

year ago, the Prime Minister announced that people with severely

disabled children would be exempt from the changes but that was only

after your department fought a High Court battle over children who

couldn't share a bedroom because of severe disabilities. Isn't that what

the Archbishop means by punitive or, some may describe it, heartless. We

were originally going to appeal that and I said no. You put it up for an

appeal and I said no. We're talking about families with disabled

children. There are good reasons for this. Children with conditions like

that don't make decisions about their household - their parents do -

so I said we would exempt them. But for adults with disabilities the

courts have upheld all of our decisions against complaints. But

you did appeal it. It's just that, having lost in the appeal court, you

didn't then go to the Supreme Court. You make decisions about this. My

view was that it was right to exempt them at that time. I made that

decision, not the Prime Minister. Let's get this right - the context

of this is quite important. Housing benefit under the last government

doubled under the last ten years to ?20 billion. It was set to rise to

another 25 billion, the fastest rising of the benefits, it was out

of control. We had to get it into control. It wasn't easy but we

haven't cut the overall rise in housing. We've lowered it but we

haven't cut housing benefit and we've tried to do it carefully so

that people get a fair crack. On the spare room subsidy, which is what

this complaint was about, the reality is that there are a quarter

of a million people living in overcrowded accommodation. The last

government left us with 1 million people on a waiting list for housing

and there were half a million people sitting in houses with spare

bedrooms they weren't using. As we build more houses, yes we need more,

but the reality is that councils and others have to use their

accommodation carefully so that they actually improve the lot of those

living in desperate situations in overcrowded accommodation, and

taxpayers are paying a lot of money. This will help people get

back to work. They're more likely to go to work and more likely,

therefore, to end up in the right sort of housing. We've not got much

time left. A centre-right think tank that you've been associated with, on

job-seeker's allowance, says 70,000 job-seekers' benefits were withdrawn

unfairly. A viewer wants to know, are these reforms too harsh and

punitive? Those figures are not correct. The Policy Exchange is

wrong? Those figures are not correct and we will be publishing corrected

figures. The reality is... Some people have lost their job-seeker

benefits and been forced to go to food backs and they shouldn't have.

No, they're not. What he is referring to is that we allowed an

adviser to make a decision if some but it is not cooperating. We now

make people sign a contract, where they agree these things. These are

things we do for you and if you don't do these things, you are

likely to have your benefit withdrawn on job-seeker's allowance.

Some of this was an fairly withdrawn. There are millions of

these things that go through. This is a very small subset. But if you

lose your job-seeker benefit unfairly, you have no cash flow.

There is an immediate review within seven days of that decision. Within

seven days, that decision is reviewed. They are able to get a

hardship fund straightaway if there is a problem. We have nearly ?1

billion setup to help people, through crisis, hardship funds and

in many other ways. We've given more than ?200 million to authorities to

do face-to-face checks. This is not a nasty, vicious system but a system

that says, "look, we ask you to do certain things. Taxpayers pay this

money. You are out of work but you have obligations to seek work. We

simply ask that you stick to doing those. Those sanctions are therefore

be but he will not cooperate" . I think it is only fair to say to

those people that they make choices throughout their life and if they

choose not to cooperate, this is what happens. Is child poverty

rising? No, it is actually falling in the last figures. 300,000 it fell

in the last... Let me show you these figures. That is a projection by the

Institute of fiscal studies. It also shows that it has gone up every year

and will rise by 400,000 in this Parliament, and your government, and

will continue to rise. But never mind the projection. It may be

right, may be wrong. It would be 400,000 up compared to when -- what

you inherited when this Parliament ends. That isn't a projection but

the actual figures. But the last figures show that child poverty has

fallen by some 300,000. The important point is... Can I just

finished this point of? Child poverty is measured against 60% of

median income so this is an issue about how we measure child poverty.

You want to change the measure. I made the decision not to publish our

change figures at this point because we've still got a bit more work to

do on them but there is a big consensus that the way we measure

child poverty right now does not measure exactly what requires to be

done. For example, a family with an individual parent who may be drug

addicted and gets what we think is enough money to be just over the

line, their children may be living in poverty but they won't be

measured so we need to get a measurement that looks at poverty in

terms of how people live, not just in terms of the income levels they

have. You can see on that chart - 400,000 rising by the end of this

Parliament - you are deciding over an increase. Speedier I want to

change it because under the last government child poverty rose

consistently from 2004 and they ended up chucking huge sums of money

into things like tax credits. In tax credits, in six years before the

last election, the last government spent ?175 billion chasing a poverty

target and they didn't achieve what they set out to achieve. We don't

want to continue down that line where you simply put money into a

welfare system to alter a marginal income line. It doesn't make any

sense. That's why we want to change it, not because some projection says

it might be going up. I will point out again it isn't a projection up

to 2013-14. You want it to make work pay but more people in poverty are

now in working families than in workless families. For them, workers

not paying. Those figures referred to the last government's time in

government. What is interesting about it is that until 2010, under

the last government, those in working families - poverty in

working families rose by half a million. For the two years up to the

end of those figures, it has been flat, under this government. These

are figures at the last government... You inherited and it

hasn't changed. The truth is, even if you are in poverty in a working

family, your children, if they are in workless families, are three

times more likely to be out of work and to suffer real hardship. So, in

other words, moving people up the scale, into work and then on is

important. The problem with the last government system with working tax

credit is it locks them into certain hours and they didn't progress.

We're changing that so that you progress on up and go out of poverty

through work and beyond it. But those figures you're referring to

refer to the last government's tenure and they spent ?175 billion

on a tax credit which still left people in work in poverty. Even 20

minutes isn't enough to go through all this. A lot more I'd like to

talk about. I hope you will come back. I will definitely come back.

Thank you for joining us. You're watching the Sunday

Politics. We say goodbye to viewers in Scotland, who leave us now for

Sunday Politics Scotland. Coming up here in 20 minutes, the week ahead.

First, the Sunday Politics where you are.

Hello and welcome from us and it's a pleasure to say with me this week

are Heidi Alexander, Labour MP for Lewisham East, and Angie Bray, the

Conservative MP for Ealing central and Acton. Welcome to you both.

Coming up: It's the capital was not biggest landlord and with 20,000 on

its waiting list, Southwark Council faces quite a challenge - has got

the answers? But first, let's see if we can gauge

where we are on the Mayor of London's future ambitions after one

of those periodic bouts of media speculation. Does he want to come

back to parliament? If so, when? And, Angie Bray, just by chance you

were seeing him this week so have you got clarification of what his

intentions are? Clarification is quite a long word. You know what

Boris is like. Not a long word for him! For people like myself, I am

intensely relaxed about whether Boris wants to come back into

Parliament before the general election. If he can find a birth. Or

whether he completes his term as mayor and then tries to come back.

Whatever he decides to do, he will be playing a large role in our

election campaign next year as I think he is in the run-up to the

elections this May. Do you think it's possible he could find a birth?

I don't know. There have been so many rumours - he might be going to

Richmond, South Croydon You see him, you talk to him.

He doesn't give anything away. The impression I got was that he is

mainly focused on completing his term as mayor of London. What do you

think of this? Another bout of speculation. To be honest, I'm quite

fed up of speaking about Boris's political ambitions. I'd rather

Boris spent more time talking about the challenges and his vision for

London. The Tories themselves are getting a little bit fed up about

it. There was one MP in the week who said, "you can't treat the Tory

party leadership as if it's passing the batten on from one called

attorney into another". I think it does distract from the issues. --

from one old Eton scholar to another. I think Boris is that kind

of colourful character. He is like no other politician. Everybody is

fascinated by him, particularly the media. He's going to be a great

political player in the election. Here we are, falling into the trap!

It's always been important but is the issue of housing, or the lack of

it, rapidly heading up the political agenda? This week, Enfield Council

announced plans to buy up hundreds of homes, and Hammersmith and Fulham

said it was looking at new ways for council tenants to buy their

properties incrementally. Southwark Council is already London's biggest

social landlord but is claiming it can build 11,000 more new homes over

the next three decades. This was a cupboard. We boxed it in.

It was full of pipes. We took the doors off. This is where my younger

brother should have been sleeping but he gave it up and sleeps

downstairs in the living room. Maureen Martin lives with her two

sons at the top of her mum's house. She moved back home a year ago

because she could no longer afford to rent privately. Now she's on a

council house waiting list. I live in a house with four, five -

including myself, five - adults and two children under five. There's one

bathroom, one washing machine. It's a struggle. We're all on top of each

other. It's hard. You feel like it's an expectation and something that

you're entitled to, I suppose. At the same time, I've always kind of

hoped that I would find the opportunity to buy my own house or

be in a situation where I wouldn't have to worry about the security of

a long-term home, or living at my mum's at 28 years old. Maureen is

one of 20,000 on Southwark Council's housing waiting list. The

Labour council has sold off or demolished around 1000 council

houses since 2010 and only built 33 new ones. But the council is

promising to build 11,000 new homes over the next 30 years. Critics

argue that this is too far in the future. It's all very well

politicians making grand promises for 30-years' time but that doesn't

help anyone on the waiting list now. We know the council has lots of

money sitting in the bank from council homes that have been sold

off or demolished so that money is sitting there not doing anything at

the moment, so why do they need to continue to sell off council aims?

It's an abuse and is completely wrong. They know it and Southwark

Council is trying to boast about the regeneration of council housing but

you won't convince anybody unless you stop selling off the homes we

got. There are, however, some sales that aren't within the Council's

control. Around a third of the properties sold in Southwark were

done so under the government's right to buy scheme, which allows tenants

who lived in a property for more than five years to buy it for

roughly two thirds of its value. And the council is powerless to stop it.

Despite the positives of Right to Buy enabling people to purchase

their homes, some people say this is making the council housing shortage

worse. The government promised that when they increased incentives for

Right to Buy that every homes sold would be replaced. But actually,

that's not happening in London. Some properties purchased under right to

buy are then sold on to landlords and, in turn, rented out privately.

In Enfield, the council says it's come up with a solution to try to

keep its housing stock under council control. We will be setting up a

private company and we will buy properties in the open market and

potentially move on to develop our own properties. It seems to be the

consensus that Right To Buy is not doing anything to maintain council

housing stock, but some councils are choosing to sell off additional

homes. In the case of Southwark, that doesn't mean that families like

Maureen's can rest easily. I am enjoying in the studio by Ian

Wingfield, deputy leader of Southwark Council. -- joined in the

studio. You have actually sold about 1000 properties? Let's get the

figures straight. Since we have been in office in 2010, 2000 affordable

properties have been built in Southwark, compared to eight years

and the Liberal Democrats when they were selling off 1000 per year. They

were selling off more than 1000 every year for eight years so I

don't need lectures from them. Why do you want to sell them off? If

there are certain properties that are dilapidated, we have to sell

them. We have renovated many of them. We are selling off those which

are uneconomical to refurbish and that money doesn't go into the

drain, it goes into building new properties. Each individual property

that we sell can realise up to 20 more properties and that is

important. How can we think of it is any more than some hyped up PR

campaign saying you are going to build 11,000 more over the next

three decades. That is still 450 odd every year, you have not done that

before so why should you do it now? It was only in the final year of the

last government that councils got the right to build their own

properties again so it is important now to get on with the building. You

cannot just build it overnight. We have to get the right financial

model to make sure we don't lose our homes under Right To Buy. Why so few

over the last three years? You describe it as more affordable that

you have built, why? You don't dispute social rent? No, and I wish

we could have built more but we didn't have the power to do that.

Now we do, that is why we will build 1000 council homes by 2020, we

already have 200 of those in the pipeline, identified sites for

another 200, and we are putting money where our mouths are. Angie

Bray, we mentioned you at the beginning and we can see that every

London council has a problem around delivering more homes. Are you

worried about this? I can totally relate to some of that in that

film, I have had many people come to my surgery, families being forced

into small flats which is not suitable for a large family. We do

have to build more housing right across London, quite right that

councils of different political persuasions are looking at

dilapidated housing stock and asking how they can get rid of some of it

and put some decent quality housing stock up. The other thing is that,

as you alluded to, there is some quite high and valuable properties

that councils find themselves in possession of, sell them off and use

that money to build more council stock. I think that is a really

sensible use. It is not for me to defend a Labour councillor but I can

see what you are trying to do. The residents don't like what you are

doing but in May there is and election so they can make their

voices heard. We have to put things into context. When Labour came into

power they cut a programme by 63% and we have seen the number of

social rented homes dropped in London by 85% in a two-year period

between 2010/11 and 2012/13. For every seven homes that have been

lost under Right To Buy, just one has been started. It is very clear

that the Government has also said a local authority has three years in

which to replace any house which is sold under Right To Buy. After that

time, if they haven't replaced it, that money is confiscated. So yes,

there is a three-year allowance to get houses built. I think this

policy was brought in in 2012, but there is a sanction there, and after

the three years you lose the money that you got for selling off the

house under Right To Buy so that is a pretty good incentive. There is a

crisis. In London we need social rented homes, genuinely affordable

homes for people to live in central London to rent. The demand for

London's bus drivers, street sweepers, it is not going away. What

we see with Right To Buy is that a third of London homes sold under

Right To Buy are being rented out by private landlords for exorbitant

rent. There are government agents running around the council homes in

Southwark trying to persuade people to sell their homes. The last thing

we need is a depletion of our stock. We do certainly think people should

be able to buy their properties if they want to, we are great

supporters of Right To Buy which allows people to fulfil their

ambitions. Councils have the opportunity to build housing now,

they have been given more flexibility with their funding to do

so. If residents don't feel councils are doing their job properly, they

can vote in May. With International Women's Day this week, the issue of

forced marriage has come to the fore. Justine Greening gave a speech

committing the Government to crack down, as with female genital

mutilation and she said, voices are being heard across the world saying

enough is enough. Following the work of the Government fighting female

genital mutilation, Justine Greening announced a crackdown on forced

marriage. The Secretary of State went on to Steph -- to stress there

is a real problem at home. Last year, the UK Forced Marriage

Unit dealt with over 1300 cases, a quarter of which were in London, but

estimates of the abuse are thought to be much higher and some studies

have suggested that up to 8000 marriages take place in the UK

annually, around 200 of those seeking help from the unit were aged

15 years and under. How much progress has there been made over

the last few years? There has been significant progress, and one of the

indicators has been the implementation of the forced

marriage civil protection act and orders which have enabled victim

survivors of forced marriage to seek out protection orders to not only

make sure they are being prevented from forced marriage if they have

been coerced into one, but where there has been a marriage that and

-- proceedings to annul that marriage can take place. These cases

are heard in the upper courts and the lower courts and basically it

empowers victims. In the last... Since 2008 there have been over 500

forced marriage protection orders which is a real indicator... Meaning

that any family or relatives cannot do anything? That's right. But if

they breach those orders, what happens? There have been some

breaches and the Coalition government has made it clear that to

ensure those breaches are prosecuted. Does it happen very

often? From my work in this field, there has been up to five in the

last few years. So that's not very many but you are saying there can be

criminal action taken. It's important to highlight, to state

that crimes related to forced marriage, threats to kill, our

production, harassment, stalking, these sorts of crimes can be

prosecuted under existing legislation, which is really

important. We don't have that much time, so you know the legislation

going through which would criminalise forced marriage itself,

is that necessary? Do we need that or will it drive it underground? The

Government's intention is to send out a clear message and I believe

that that clear message is being articulated, it is a human rights

violation, it is a form of child abuse, and agencies have a

responsibility to make sure they act appropriately if a victim survivor

reports forced marriage or related crimes. The assumption is that

criminalisation alone will not root out this kind of practice and my

concern, and many concerns of activists and NGOs working at grass

roots level is this, where is the investment in non-legal measures to

make sure that victims, from the moment they report to court if they

need to go to court, what is being done to make sure they are

protected? In the last year there were 30,000 women who were turned

away from refuge services, so where is the investment? Where is the

infrastructure to protect victims? Angie? It is a complicated one and I

agree there needs to be much more work done in the communities where

forced marriage still happens, but I do think it is probably right for

the Government to say it is illegal in itself because that makes a

statement, it is a red line. I probably agree on this one. It is a

criminal offence in this country to drop litter, you would think that

forcing somebody to get married against their will would always be a

criminal offence. It is a deeply personal thing, and I think the

important thing is for young women to have trusted people in their own

communities who they can speak to about some of these issues. I would

like to say that the UK government, it would be really timely given that

it is International Women's Day that the Government does not drag its

feet in terms of ratifying the Council of Europe Convention on

combating violence against women. I am grateful for you coming in. Thank

you. Now it is time for the rest of the political news in 60 seconds.

This week the Mayor has said that Muslim children who risk

radicalisation by their parents should be taken into care. Boris

Johnson said they should be removed from their families to stop them

being turned into potential killers. Traffic jams are getting worse

despite the congestion charge. The London commute zone had the biggest

increase in hours wasted rising from 72 hours in 2012 to 82 hours last

year. An inquiry will be held on to the work of undercover police

following the review into the original Stephen Lawrence murder

review investigation. It found a spy worked in the Lawrence camp.

Secondary school places across London were allocated this week. 69%

of pupils receive an offer from their first choice school, while

nine in ten. An offer from one of their first three preferences.

People always try to spin that's cool thing to mean a third of people

haven't got their first choice but to thirds have and it looks like

some of the worries and hysteria that was around a few years ago

about London places is going away, does it not Western Mark I think

there's a huge problem, still, with primary school places and this is

starting to feed through into secondary schools. In Lewisham, they

provided an extra 2006 and replaces since 2008 at primary level. Those

people will need secondary schools to go to as well. The big problem

for me is that the government are still spending money on schools in

parts of the country, through their Free Schools programme, where there

isn't actually demand for additional places. When you've got such demand

in London and the government not properly and adequately funding it,

that seems to be a huge waste of resources. Why are they doing Free

Schools when we have a serious demographic challenge? People are

all very depressed as they haven't got the school they want for their

children. It is slightly below the 69%. I think it's about 65. But

that's 33% or 35% that aren't. It's not just a disappointment for people

who only get their third or fourth choice but seems to be something of

a catastrophe. What that tells me is that there aren't enough schools

that people really want to send their children to yet and I think

there is a job of work to be done in London, as elsewhere, and Michael

Gove is right to focus. We've run out of time. Thanks for being here.

Andrew, back to you. Now, without further ado, more from

our political panel. Iain Martin, what did you make of Iain Duncan

Smith's response to the Danny Alexander point I'd put to him? I

thought it was a cheekily put response but actually, on Twitter,

people have been tweeting while on air that there are lots of examples

where the Tories have demanded the raising of the threshold. The 2006

Forsyth tax omission is another example. Helen, on the bigger issue

of welfare reforms, is welfare reform, as we head into the

election, despite all the criticisms, still a plus for the

government? I don't think so. Whatever the opposite of a Midas

touch is, Iain Duncan Smith has got it. David Cameron never talks about

universal credit any more. The record on personal independence

payment, for example... We didn't get onto that. Only one in six of

those notes have been paid. A toss pulling out of their condiment has

been a nightmare. It's a very big minus point for the Secretary of

State. -- Atos pulling out of bed contract. Welfare cuts are an

unambiguous point for the government but other points more ambiguous. I

don't think it's technical complexity that makes IDS's reform a

problem. The IT gets moved out with time. But even if it's in fermented

perfectly, what it will achieve has been slightly oversold, I think, and

simplified incredibly. All it does is improve incentives to work for

one section of the income scale and diminishes it at another. Basically,

you are encouraged to go from working zero hours to 16 hours but

your incentive to work beyond 16 goes down. That's not because it's a

horrendous policy but because in work benefits systems are

imperceptible. Most countries do worse than we do. -- benefits

systems cannot be perfected. They need to tone down how much this can

achieve even if it all goes flawlessly. There are clearly

problems, particularly within limitation, but Labour is still wary

of welfare reform. -- with implementation. Polls suggest it is

rather popular. People may not know what's involved were like the sound

of it. I think Janan is right to mark out the differences between

welfare cuts and welfare reforms. They are related but distinct. Are

we saying cuts are more popular than reform? They clearly are. The

numbers, when you present people numbers on benefit reductions, are

off the scale. Reform, for the reasons you explored in your

interview, is incredibly compensated. What's interesting is

that Labour haven't really definitively said what their

position is on this. I think they like - despite what they may see in

public occasionally - some of what universal credit might produce but

they don't want to be associated with it. We probably won't know

until if Ed Miliband is Prime Minister precisely what direction

Labour will go. Immigration is still a hot topic in Westminster and

throughout the country. This new Home Office minister, James

Brokenshire, made an intervention. Let's see what he had to say. For

too long, the benefits of immigration went to employers who

wanted an easy supply of cheap labour or to the wealthy

metropolitan elite who wanted cheap tradesmen and services, but not to

the ordinary hard-working people of this country. With the result that

the Prime Minister and everyone else has to tell us all whether they've

now got Portuguese or whatever it is Nanny is. Is this the most

cack-handed intervention on an immigration issue in a long list? I

think it is and when I saw this being trailed the night before, I

worried for him. As soon as a minister of the Crown uses the

phrase "wealthy metropolitan elite" more likely we see it in recession.

We've just had the worst recession in several decades. It's no small

problem but compared to what ministers like James Brokenshire has

been saying for the past few years and also the reluctance to issue the

report earlier, I thought that, combined with the speech, made it

quite a bad week for the department. Was this a cack-handed attempt to

appeal to the UKIP voters? I think so and he's predecessor had to leave

the job because of having a foreign cleaner. It drew attention to the

Tories' biggest problem, the out of touch problem. Most people around

the country probably don't have a Portuguese nanny and you've just put

a big sign over David Cameron saying, this man can afford a

Portuguese Nanny. It is not the finest political operation ever

conducted and the speech was definitely given by the Home Office

to Number Ten but did Number Ten bother to read it? It was a complete

shambles. The basic argument that there is a divide between a wealthy

metropolitan elite and large parts of Middle Britain or the rest of the

country I think is basically sound. It is but they are on the wrong side

of it. What do you mean by that? The Tory government is on the wrong

side. This is appealing to UKIP voters and we know that UKIP is

appealing to working-class voters who have previously voted Labour and

Tory. If you set up that divide, make sure you are on the right side

stop When you talk about metropolitan members of the media

class, they say that it is rubbish and everyone has a Polish cleaner.

No, they don't. I do not have a clean! I don't clean behind the

fridge, either! Most people in the country don't have a cleaner. The

problem for the Tories on this is, why play that game? You can't

out-UKIP UKIP. After two or three years of sustained Tory effort to do

that, they will probably finish behind UKIP. Do we really want a

political system where it becomes an issue of where your nanny or your

cleaner is from, if you've got one? Unless, of course, they're illegal.

But Portuguese or Italian or Scottish... And intervention was

from Nick Clegg who said his wife was Dutch -- his mum was Dutch and

his wife was Spanish. Not communism but who your cleaner is! It's the

McCarthy question! Where does your cleaner come from. A lot of people

will say are lucky to have a cleaner. I want to move onto selfies

but first, on the Nigel Farage - Nick Clegg debate, let's stick with

the TV one. Who do you think will win? Nigel Farage. Clegg. He is a

surprisingly good in debates and people have forgotten. I think Clegg

is going to win. I think Farage has peaked. We're going to keep that on

tape as well! Two 214 Clegg there. Selfies. Politicians are attempting

to show they're down with the kids. Let's look at some that we've seen

in recent days. Why are they doing this, Helen? I'm

so embarrassed you call me reading the SNP manifesto, as I do every

Saturday! They do it because it makes them seem authentic and that's

the big Lie that social media tells you - that you're seeing the real

person. You're not, you're seeing a very carefully manicured, more witty

person. That doesn't work for politicians. It looks so fake and

I'm still suffering the cringe I see every time I see Cameronserious

phone face. Does Mr Cameron really think it big Sim up because he's on

the phone to President Obama? Obama is not the personality he once was.

There is an international crisis in Ukraine - of course we are expecting

to be speaking to Obama! And if you were in any doubt about what a man

talking on the telephone looks like, here's a photo. I must confess, I

didn't take my own selfie. Did your nanny? My father-in-law took it.

Where is your father-in-law from? Scotland. Just checking. Janan, I

think we've got one of you. The 1%! What a great telephone! Where did

you get that telephone? It looks like Wolf Of Wall Street! That's

what I go to bed in. It showed how excited Cameron was to be on the

phone to Obama. All our politicians think they are living a mini version

of US politics. President Obama goes on a big plane and we complain when

George Osborne goes first class on first Great Western. They want to be

big and important like American politics but it doesn't work. We'll

see your top at next week! That's it for this week. Faxed all

our guests. The Daily Politics is on all this week at lunchtime on BBC

Two. We'll be back here same time, same place next week. Remember, if

it's Sunday, it is the Sunday Politics.