01/04/2012 Sunday Politics North West

In the north-west, failed by the system, the long awaited report

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2167 seconds

into last summer's right explains Good afternoon. In the next 20

minutes, failed by the system, the long awaited report into the riots,

we bring you the findings. Now let me introduce you to the guests, we

had MPs from Labour, Liberal Democrats and Conservatives. It is

eight months said Manchester -- since Manchester, Salford and

Liverpool erupted in the worst riots regeneration. More than 450

people were arrested. There are panel has produced a report into

the causes. Our political editor has been looking at it. It was a

smash and grab raid on a city-wide scale. First, Liverpool, then

Salford and Manchester faced concentrated violence and looting.

We know what happened, but why? was just youngsters not bothering

about anybody else, seeing what they could get out of it. Lots of

young ones round here do not seem to get a lot of help. There is not

enough incentive to work. People I know have not been caught red but

I'll not say who. -- not been arrested for it. To avoid people

doing it again, an independent panel was set up to investigate. It

says there are almost 500,000 families without a stake in society

bumping along the bottom. shocked when we are presented with

the starkness of some people's views about their lives. They have

no hopes our dreams. Among the Children should be better protected

from big brand marketing, school should be fined if the failed to

properly teach any pupils to read or write. One shopkeeper targeted

in the rights says there is almost -- one shopkeeper targeted in bit

riot says it is a simple problem. Some of them that commit crimes

every day. That is their job. Dining is in the studio is a member

of the foundation that has been compiling a report. Did you find

what you found match what the panel found? We sports writers across the

country, and we were looking for a more local perspective. -- we spoke

to people involved in that riot across the country. There was a lot

of crossover. Social problems, complex causes, complex solutions,

there was a lot of crossover. did local people say? People were

keen to look at the implications of social policy. In Salford, young

people reported this was the best day of their lives. The feeling was

that this was a question of what we need to do what society to make

this not the best day of their lives. People were positive about

the community work being done in Salford. Many people came out and

clear up the city. People were genuinely shocked about it. At the

beginning there was a lot of rhetoric saying it was pure

criminality, David Cameron was really just saying it was pure

criminality. I think we can see there are so huge number of causes

and a huge number of solutions. When you look at the people

involved, those who were convicted on average had 11 previous

convictions. We really need to look at the criminal system, the

effectiveness of short sentences, which do not seem to be getting

people back onto the right track. When it criticises schools, saying

schools should be fined, is that they are? It is difficult to prove

whether people are being top properly. We need to look at wider

rights happened. We should not be drawn into making excuses. It was

very easy for politicians to become armchair police commanders,

criticise what was happening, in actual fact, our job was to back up

the police, support them, make it clear that the criminal elements

could not be allowed to get away with it. I would like to say that

not everyone who lives in a deprived community took part in

these rights. The overwhelming majority of people were appalled by

it. You can see that by the reaction.

The community stepped in and said it was enough, they are not having

this, and they stopped it from happening. That is very encouraging.

We need to look at the role of government because we have three

members of parliament today. What is government's role in learning

the lessons to make sure it does not happen again? Cutting the

police by 16,000 is not a step in the right direction. When we have

an economy flat lining, that will not help. We need the Government to

take note of what is happening. you look at the police numbers, the

report does not actually talk about that, and if you look at long-term

numbers, they are up in the past four years. It is a red herring.

do not think 16,000 police getting their jobs cut is a red herring.

Losing 16,000 frontline police, both of which you oppose before the

election, will not help. The key is to stop it happening again and cuts

in police numbers is not going to help. It is a bit wider than police

numbers. The government has published a strategy about

integrating people into the workplace, but as there are no jobs

around, more needs to be done to address that. There has been a lot

of talk about troubled families. You were saying it was not all

communities. There are something like 200,000 troubled families in

Lancashire but there was no riots there. Can we blame parenting?

parenting and responsibility. Why do two children from the same weary

at get involved a different levels? Some want to get educated and

others do not. When it comes to troubled families, the government

announcement this week has been fantastic, they have chosen the

areas in the north-west. The panel criticised its saying it was not

targeting the right places. They looked at the 10 largest local

authorities with this problem, moving those forward. �450 million

scheme over three years. I'm not against putting money into troubled

families. We should absolutely be supporting these families. But the

reality is when the Government came when it cut the grants that were

going to local government. Local government in the Metropolitan the

areas have suffered the bigger scale of cuts in the country. It is

struggling, the struggle between local police and government, the

health service, the fire service. We have seen Cup's early on, the

agencies are not in that position to work together. I think taking

the resources away, which is what has happened, we need to look at

that. Let Mark come back in. People understand whichever party was in

government, the cutting would have been similar. If you look at

individual local authorities, you see very different approaches been

taken. Briefly, there are you encouraged that the riots could not

happen again? I am not sure. The report spoke about building on

people's capabilities. That was better than speaking about broken

Britain, more talk about positive aspirations. That is why we need

the emphasis to be on jobs for young people. Thank you. Everyone

has heard of the drug prescribed to expect in mothers which caused

birth defects in babies, but few will recognise this, a drug given

to pregnant women in the 1960s. Some claim it led to children being

born with malformations. The company behind the drugs as it was

safe and it has never been proved. Long-term antibiotics. This woman

takes 60 pills per day. A medical problems might not be obvious but

she has spent most of her life in and out of hospital after being

born with multiple abnormalities to her internal organs. There are lots

of problems. I was in and out of hospital, a lot of tests and

studies. It was only last year on a routine cancer check that he told

they had said and spleens. She is convinced this was because. -- I

had seven spleens. It is because of this drug. It was

launched in 1958, and in 1967 there was claims of a possible link to

malformation. There was also a high rate of miscarriages. The company

stopped promoting it as a pregnancy test in 1970. In 1975, an official

A group launched a legal challenge against the makers of the drug, in

1982. The case was dropped after lawyers advised then there was not

enough evidence against the company. No link has ever been proved. Now

the association has initial funding from the legal-aid panel to mount a

new challenge against the company which has since been taken over. It

says it has new evidence in the form of a letter written by the

medical director in 1967 in which he says the apparent correlation

between the drug and malformation looks rather alarming. We need an

apology, compensation, and also we're not sure of what is going to

happen. I am one of the oldest victims and we do not know what

will happen later on in life. will happen later on in life.

The local MP wants a debate in Parliament about the drug. It is

calling for an early day motion. This is a forgotten drug. I am

appalled by the state of this. So little has been done by the

authorities. Nicholas Ayres tests have shown her problems are not due

to faulty genes, but proving what it calls them is much more

difficult. -- proving what caused them. I have been put back together

so many time, and now it has come back. It is so sad. Because of what

my mum went through and what I have been through, this generation is

suffering because of this. Joining me is a lawyer who is a specialist

in serious injury lot. There is no link between the drug and

disabilities that has been proven, as far as aware. He it has not been

proven, so this will be get the cult -- this will be difficult. A

key element is establishing the relationship between the drug or

the substance and the Ellis. On a different matter, -- and the

illness. Encouraging news for people is closed -- people exposed

to asbestos. There has been a case running for six years, the Supreme

Court ruled on Wednesday that people refuse compensation payments

by employer liability insurers would be entitled to payments. What

happened is the insurers have argued on the wording of certain

policies, that they were not required to pay compensation to

people who were exposed to asbestos. They said the exposure occurred

when they were the insurer, but they were not liable to pay. The

Supreme Court has ruled that if the insurance company was on cover,

they are liable to pay the compensation. This is difficult

because asbestos can take years to develop. This will be another long-

term campaign. How much should government have to get involved in

the sort of campaign? Victim support groups have welcomed this

this week. It is now going to be possible. Some in the insurance

company it have been dragging their It is important to not suffer undue

influence from the vested interests in the insurance industry.,

have campaigned on this issue. is a landmark judgment. It is a

disease that can take many years to manifest itself, but when the cases

were first coming to public attention, it surprised me how many

more people emerged who were saying, we have had these problems, we are

suffering. That is why the judgment this week is so important. This is

one of those issues that transcends party politics and this is a good

decision. It is difficult because it has cost these people lot of

money. The government is proposing changes to legal aid. Is that going

to have an impact? Allies of large is going to vote that asbestos

victims are exempt from that situation. As it stands, that will

not happen. It will be going back to the House of Commons. We will

have a vote on it. Our government has had a habit of overturning

House of Lords amendments. I hope Night time for a look at some of

His appointment this week, Vauxhall car workers were hoping to hear

more about the future of their plant. A meeting failed to come to

any conclusions. The parent company has already said cutting will have

to be done. The new interim chief executive of

the NHS Trust Foundation in Morecambe has been speaking since

starting his new role. He was appointed after problems with the

quality of service that trust, including poor patient safety.

I have no doubt we will have an excellent trust. The services we

will deliver across the hospital will be as good as you get in the

country. Manchester has been told that risks at competitive

disadvantage if it decides not to have a directly elected mayor. The

Government claimed the city could miss out. The leader of the council