15/04/2012 Sunday Politics North West

And in the North West: In just three weeks, Liverpool will have a

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1744 seconds

mayor, but who? We hear from the Hello, I will -- I am Arif Ansari.

In the next 20 minutes, we hear from the hopefuls for the top job

in Liverpool as campaigning for the mayoral election gets on the home

straight. First, let me introduce this week's

guests. The Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, Louise Ellman, the

Conservative MP for Weaver Vale, Graham Evans, and the Liberal

Democrat MP for Southport, John Pugh. We're also joined by Dr

Stuart Wilks-Heeg from Liverpool University.

In just three weeks' time we will know who's been elected the new

Mayor of Liverpool. It will be the first time any city in the region

has had an election to choose the leader of the council - renamed the

city mayor - and not to be confused with the Lord Mayor in the red

cloak. There are 12 candidates standing for the job. Let's hear

I want to use the new powers which all councillors have to make this a

partnership setting. This is not a city that belongs to the council,

it belongs to tip the 450,000 people who live here. -- it belongs

What I would really like to do in Liverpool is create more jobs and

more growth using my local and global business experience to

improve the city's economy. I am also looking to improve council

services and freeze council tax force for four years. Also to make

Liverpool a cleaner, greener and safer and looking after our green

If elected mayor, I would stop the local cuts. I would keep open the

libraries and Sure Start centre us and reinstate grounds. I would

bring jobs to the area and I would bring trade to the unemployed. I

would reduce my salary by 50%, reduce council executives' pay and

A vote for me is a win for the people of Liverpool. My manifesto

message is all compulsory purchase orders in and around the

communities will be called in and Liverpool has a chance to take his

place on the world stage as a green city with Britain's first green men.

We need slower traffic and less of it so our streets are safer --

Britain's first green mayor. We can have a uniquely welcoming, high-

quality urban environment that we Taxation is too high in this city

and needs to be cut. I will run the city in the interest of the

population and not the interests of the party machines. I will be tied

to no party policy. A big issue is Anfield and the development of the

super stadium there. I what Everton and Liverpool to come together and

start action now on the site -- I So, plenty of people lining up to

take on the job. Stuart Wilks-Heeg. Lot of confusion about what the

city mayor is. Can you sum it up. simple change in some ways and in

some ways a profound change. Previously, the leader of the

council would have been selected by the councillors. Now, the electors

have the say to directly choose who will be elected mayor. And will

that city mayor, the new leader of the Council, will there be more

powerful? Yes and no. They do not have more powers than the leader

would and in that way it is a quite subtle change. The Government has

said they want to give more powers to the mayors. Because they are

directly elected and have this mandate, they have got off powers

which they can use to push at the boundaries, if you like and achieve

more than the leader. We have had a look at half of the candidates. But

what about the issues? I've been looking at some of the challenges

facing Liverpool. Liverpool's been rejuvenating,

rebuilding and rebranding. Bold new buildings display a new city

confidence. But the Town Hall is one of the

dirtiest buildings in Liverpool. Inside it's undergoing something of

a political spring clean with the creation of the new mayor. But

whoever's elected will face a huge challenge, because beyond the city

centre, Liverpool still has big problems. You can make more jobs

and they should make it good for the kids. Heavy industry needs to

be back in Liverpool. We used to have... We were heavily reliant on

those areas. 22% of people in Liverpool are not

working, compared to 12% in the UK. More than a third of Liverpool

wards have unemployment rates twice the national average. And many

people are waiting for better homes. They are building new ones and

expecting us to live in the old ones. The one I went to view needs

to be demolished. Some of them like the place. To be honest, it is not

really good. There are 60,000 social properties

in the city and 14,000 people on the waiting list. Half of them have

a pressing housing need. There are also questions over school

performance. Education isn't very good, is it? I don't think so

anyway. In fact, 45% of children still

leave school without GCSEs in Maths and English, slightly worse than

the national average of 41% but a lot better than it used to be. And

Liverpool's report card is a similar story, improving but with

much more to do. Louise Ellman, you are an MP in Liverpool. When we

look at that problem revolving around unemployment, I am sure you

agree that jobs is one of the main factors in this race but what would

Labour do to get more people into work? Jobs certainly are the

biggest issue. And Labour would continue to attract private

industry into Liverpool, support development of new schools and

houses and that brings jobs with it. Support apprenticeships which they

have already started and create a very business-friendly atmosphere

like they have done by having the global entrepreneurship conference

in Liverpool bringing people from hundred of countries around the

world. But even more so than you have done so far? A good start has

been made. Over the past decade, there has been great growth in

Liverpool under the Labour government and now the Labour

council needs to improve on that. It has already made a very good

start working on the cruise liner terminal, turnaround facility, the

return of major cruise liners to the city. That is what a great deal

of money �1.1000000 pounds worth of benefit to be a, for every cruise

liner. Would you be able to do any better for Labour as well? Industry

and heavy industry and if you look at the decline in manufacturing

that can lead to decline of the Liverpool communities in recent

years. If we can attract international companies to reinvest

into Liverpool, that will bring the jobs and wealth creation. Tony

Caldeira is a local lad, a good business which employs 40 people.

We need more people like him that he is also... But whereas the heavy

industry coming from? He is an international businessman with

contacts in America and China and what his whole campaign is about

his putting Liverpool on the world stage and attracting those inward

investments on the one hand but also saying to people of Liverpool,

that we were the Capital of Culture a few years ago and we can be the

capital of enterprise culture and having a fundamental change in how

Liverpool is received in the world. It is in a great opportunity to

play a part in the world stage. John Coyne? More investment and

doing something about schools and that is crucial. But the problem is

that everyone talks in these general terms but what I am looking

for at our actual policies. Richard Kemp has got a lot of experience in

Liverpool and he held his seat in the war will be a terrible year for

Liberal Democrat. He has done well as a counsellor. He has a

reputation nationally and locally. What is the Lib Dem policy on

getting more jobs into Liverpool? The aim has been to improve the

level of educational of attainment and apprenticeships right across

the board, that is what we needs. Liverpool has to pull pull itself

up by its own bootstraps. Are you worried about the education

statistics that we got about the performance and Liverpool? They are

not impressive and need to be improved. The coalition government

is putting... The record got better in some ways. Things have improved

and Joe Anderson is working very hard at the moment on securing

development in Liverpool and Liverpool waters and that will

bring investment from China and other places and create jobs.

about skills so that people in Liverpool can get better jobs?

Labour is already working hard on improving the level of education

and skills training and supporting the new City University colleges,

we already have one and are working hard to get another. Working with

apprentices, over 600 apprenticeships have been developed

in Liverpool since Labour took control. Joe was promising to build

12 new schools. When all that happened was by this is part of an

agreement with central government after the same government cancelled

the Building Schools for the Future programme. But Joe did not say that

was a failure, he tried to gather private finances to find a new way

forward and he has done it. Building Schools for the Future was

spending money that the country did not have. The area is now aimed

enterprise zone and that will create new jobs. And they are hi-

tech businesses of the future, the next Microsoft and Googles. Very

good quality long-term jobs and along with that will come new

housing but also the Sunday more free school which will bring

science, technology... I am not sure that is Liverpool. It is

Merseyside. Let's pause, because there had 12 candidates in this

race and it is time to hear from The people of the city have been

faced with cuts to the Order of 119 million in the first year, 50

million in the current year and more to come in the next few years.

It is a catastrophe that the services of the city which affect

all disabled, the unemployed. My job in this election is offer a

radical solution an alternative to I think I have got a unique

experience of 30 years as a personnel manager in private

business and 30 years as a counsellor. The key thing about the

mayor deal is to him businesses the opportunity to come into the city.

If we do that, the other problems I think I have got the passion and

the vision to take the City forward and I think people will look at my

record over the last 18 months and see what I have done. The cruise

liner terminal, the apprenticeships that we have created, the jobs we

have created, the housing we have built and they will see a man of

I have been professionally reporting all Liverpool politics

for the best part of 30 years and I know how the City works. I can see

under the bonnet of Liverpool and the way it is governed and a thick

we can do a whole lot better with some new thinking, new faces -- and

I think we can do a whole lot A stand for local people. I will

always put local people first. I will expose the mass emigration

that has been foisted upon us and I will speak out for the silent

majority who do not have a voice at the moment. I also bring business

into the city because I am a marketing consultant and that is

The FA was elected the Mayor of Liverpool, I will provide start-up

businesses with funding and low- cost premises. -- if I was elected

the Mayor of Liverpool. I also intend to develop the city centre

with free parking on Sunday so people can enjoy our beautiful city.

12 candidates, quite a big choice, what do you make of them? The they

are not particularly socially diverse, white males of a certain

age but politically diverse. From the far left light across to the

far right. Lot of interesting ideas that have come from the selection

so far. The kind of things we would normally see in a council elections

so as well as big issues about jobs and education, lots of ideas about

things such as constructing a Liverpool Bay area. Improving

tourist facilities and things like developing a wireless network

around the street lamps in the City, quite intriguing. Lot of things to

put on the table with the many to consider. How much can somebody do

as a mayor that they cannot do as a council leader? This is the right

time for the double to have a mayor and it needs to think about

bringing in the private sector -- the time for the poor to have a

mayor. Labour has already shown that things can be done and more

should be done. But not necessarily more if you have a mayor.

business community say they feel comfortable with a mayor and this

is a time for new thinking and it is the right thing to do. John Pugh.

It does not have control over police and cannot do a great deal

more than the city council leader can do other than centralised power

within himself. I am not sure we are getting a great deal in

Liverpool. You think promises are being made which cannot be

delivered? I think they are much more problems that are not local

problems. What capacities they will have to change things in Liverpool.

Maybe there are promising too much? That is often the case with

politicians. Graham Evans. I think it is a real stage and opportunity

for a mayor to sell a pull and say it is open for business and attract

inward investment -- opportunity to sell at Liverpool. But such a big

stage that these huge independent figures would come on they were not

usually interested in politics, where are they? There are some

independent candidates and they are good can love. They are all talking

about business -- they are good candidates. This is an opportunity

to nationally and internationally raise the status of Liverpool. I

would like to see them to work together to promote the cities of

the North and see if we can close the North-South divide. To go down

to damage it and talk to the Prime Minister. They can do that anyway.

It is a real platform to state their case. People need to look at

what is being promised by individuals to see if it can be

promised and Labour's promises are realistic and her go on what has

already have been issued. Stewart, how much of a different will an

elected mayor make for Liverpool? Only a few outside London, so it is

difficult to say. The economic development is not particularly

strong, this is the first big test case outside London and we will see

if the city's pick up on this agenda following the referenda in

May. A social experiment and the jury is still very much at.

Let's have a look at what else has been going on in the region this

The parents of John Paul Massey, the young boy mauled to death by

his uncle's pit bull, went to Downing Street this week to ask for

more controls on dangerous dogs. John Paul was just four when he

died in 2009. At the time, the Government promised to tighten up

the rules but his parents say so far nothing's been done. Things

could have or should have been changed to stop this happening to

anybody else ever again. Wirral Council's bringing in a

troubleshooter. The council, which was hit by a whistleblowing scandal

under the previous administration in February, has brought in Michael

Frater, who's held senior positions in a number of councils, as

"interim management support". It's been revealed that one of the

candidates who wants to be Mayor of Salford is being investigated by

police on suspicion of money laundering. Paul Massey who was

previously jailed for 14 years in 1999 for stabbing a man, was

arrested in December and remains on police bail. He says he's

completely innocent and that it's a And I should so that there is a

full list of those people standing for the Mayor of Liverpool on our

website, it is BBC .co.uk/Liverpool. Next week we will look at the Mayor