:01:31. > :01:34.In the North West: Raul broadband speeds, a vital economic tool for
:01:34. > :01:44.the countryside or something for the millionaires to do their
:01:44. > :01:44.
:01:44. > :34:59.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1995 seconds
:34:59. > :35:02.Hello, I'm Arif Ansari. Coming up in the next 20 minutes:
:35:02. > :35:08.Rural broadband. A vital economic tool or something for millionaires
:35:08. > :35:12.to do their shopping on? And we'll get to that later in the
:35:12. > :35:15.show. But first I must introduce my guests this week. Jake Berry the
:35:15. > :35:18.Conservative MP for Rossendale and Darwen and alongside him, Maria
:35:18. > :35:22.Eagle the Labour MP for Garston and Halewood, and the shadow Transport
:35:22. > :35:26.Secretary John Woodcock. Now singer Gary Barlow is used to
:35:26. > :35:30.taking centre stage but not like he has this week. Suddenly people are
:35:30. > :35:32.more interested in his tax returns than his concert tickets. It
:35:32. > :35:35.follows allegations in the Times newspaper that he and two other
:35:35. > :35:42.members of the Manchester band Take That have been using a Jersey-based
:35:42. > :35:45.investment scheme to avoid paying millions of pounds to the taxman.
:35:45. > :35:55.Some want him to lose the OBE before he's even had time to
:35:55. > :36:01.
:36:01. > :36:08.Mesic, jokes and entertainment. Payment in kind, perhaps, for the
:36:08. > :36:11.Queen's Diamond Jubilee. But not so much tax for Her Majesty's
:36:11. > :36:17.government. Think of all those people who work
:36:17. > :36:20.hard and saved heart to the go and see Jimmy Carr. He is taking a
:36:20. > :36:26.money and stuffing it into an agreement which means he does not
:36:26. > :36:36.pay taxes. That is not fair. After Jimmy can apologise,
:36:36. > :36:37.
:36:37. > :36:44.attention turns to Gary Barlow. -- Jimmy Carr. Gary Barlow, Howard
:36:44. > :36:52.Donald and Mark Owen of Take That put �26 million into a scheme
:36:52. > :36:57.called Crutchlow called Icebreaker. He did not take the opportunity to
:36:57. > :37:03.condemn as morally repugnant the tax scheme of Gary Barlow. He is a
:37:03. > :37:09.Conservative Party support for stop it as a whole new meaning to the
:37:09. > :37:12.phrase Take That! If he is morally repugnant, why has he been given an
:37:12. > :37:17.OBE in the birthday Honours? Is investing in those schemes is
:37:17. > :37:21.not breaking the law. You do not have a moral duty to pay
:37:21. > :37:28.more tax than you have to. To do so is to effectively make a gift to
:37:28. > :37:34.the government. There would be fewer dodgy
:37:34. > :37:40.avoidance of gifts if one at Manchester MP gets his way.
:37:40. > :37:46.Up I am saying that all schemes which aimed to avoid tax, rather
:37:46. > :37:49.than being a genuine economic transaction, I'll ruled null and
:37:49. > :37:53.void. In Michael Meacher's ideal tax
:37:53. > :37:58.world, everything changes but until then this is a row some may "Never
:37:58. > :38:03.Forget". Why was the Prime Minister so
:38:03. > :38:08.interested in focusing on Jimmy Carr? Was that a mistake?
:38:08. > :38:13.I do not think it was. His tax affairs were made public by the
:38:13. > :38:17.Times newspaper. It was quite correct that David Cameron looked
:38:17. > :38:21.at them and thought he should pare a fair share of tax. The difference
:38:21. > :38:26.with Icebreaker is that not all the details are available but if Gary
:38:26. > :38:29.Barlow has been found to be avoiding tax in an aggressive way,
:38:29. > :38:35.something which can be described as morally repugnant, it is quite
:38:35. > :38:39.right that he pays his fair share. So are you saying that what Gary
:38:39. > :38:44.Barlow has been doing is morally repugnant or is not?
:38:44. > :38:49.I am saying that if the details of Icebreaker come to light and this
:38:49. > :38:54.is an excess dream tax-avoidance scheme, I think David Cameron would
:38:54. > :38:58.take the same action as he did with Jimmy Carr. Neither should be
:38:58. > :39:02.exempt from public scrutiny. But surely then you start naming
:39:02. > :39:08.people left right and centre. By do not think we should go about
:39:08. > :39:13.naming lots of individuals. I do not think it is appropriate to
:39:13. > :39:17.start chasing after particular individuals. If the lie is not
:39:17. > :39:22.collecting tax because there are loopholes, we need to and power
:39:23. > :39:29.HMRC to close those loopholes and chase after the tax that is owed.
:39:29. > :39:34.We need to change it. We try to do that in office and then power HMRC.
:39:34. > :39:38.These rules on tax avoidance change all the time so that HMRC needs to
:39:38. > :39:43.be well resourced to chase this effectively because the lawyers and
:39:43. > :39:46.those who devised the schemes are always one step ahead. That is the
:39:46. > :39:50.important thing. Is this a fundamental problem with
:39:50. > :39:53.the government? I think it is important that the
:39:53. > :39:59.government put appropriate resources into her HMRC. The
:39:59. > :40:04.current government has cut the amount that HMRC has available to
:40:04. > :40:09.chase these individuals. I do not think this is constructive.
:40:09. > :40:13.It actually shows the huge importance of this and see abuse
:40:13. > :40:19.block that the government is bringing in to reduce these tax-
:40:19. > :40:24.avoidance schemes which are created with no purpose apart from to avoid
:40:25. > :40:28.tax. The K2 scheme used to be called an employee benefit trust
:40:28. > :40:32.which a last government tried to show Diana we have shut it down. No
:40:32. > :40:35.government has managed to shut this down and it is important that we
:40:35. > :40:40.have an anti- abuse law. The government has put millions of
:40:40. > :40:45.pounds into going out to finds these high net worth individuals
:40:45. > :40:50.who are fighting their fair share of tax. We all know it is wrong. We
:40:50. > :40:55.have to pay income tax but we cannot scare off all the higher
:40:55. > :41:01.rate taxpayers. They do, she beat a great deal and they have to
:41:01. > :41:03.contribute to the tax system so that we can fund systems like the
:41:03. > :41:07.NHS. Will we saw your sister there
:41:07. > :41:11.saying that Gary Barlow should not get his Op. Is that a position you
:41:11. > :41:18.share? I do not think that is what she
:41:18. > :41:20.said. She was highlighting the fact that the Prime Minister was
:41:21. > :41:25.highlighting a particular individual who was not in the same
:41:25. > :41:33.with another individual who is a Conservative donor.
:41:33. > :41:37.But the Labour position is that he should not get the OBE, isn't it?
:41:37. > :41:41.Labour's position is that if the law is not doing the job of
:41:41. > :41:47.collecting the tax that is owned and is allowing people to avoid tax
:41:47. > :41:52.in a way that is not sustainable, then we should change the law and
:41:52. > :41:57.empower HMRC to change those individuals and close down the
:41:57. > :42:01.schemes. I am not convinced a general avoidance lot, like Jake
:42:01. > :42:06.Berry is discussing, is enough to keep up with the fast-changing
:42:06. > :42:10.arrangements the lawyers and accountants I using to make money
:42:10. > :42:15.and save money for their clients. We need to be much more upfront,
:42:15. > :42:22.faster with dealing with these issues. You do not do that by
:42:22. > :42:27.taking money out of the HMRC's capacity to chase individuals.
:42:27. > :42:37.To clarify, you and Angela Eagle are perfectly happy for Gary Barlow
:42:37. > :42:40.
:42:40. > :42:45.to get the Obi he? -- of the OBE he.
:42:45. > :42:51.This is a Conservative party donor who was doing something similar to
:42:51. > :42:55.that of a another individual which the Prime Minister said was morally
:42:55. > :43:01.repugnant. I think her. Was reasonable. It was not an attempt
:43:01. > :43:05.to chase after a Gary Barlow or anything to do with his honour. It
:43:05. > :43:08.was the prime minister who started naming individuals, following the
:43:08. > :43:14.revelations in the Times, and the important thing is we need to
:43:15. > :43:20.collect tax. Tax is owed from high net worth individuals as well as
:43:20. > :43:25.ordinary workers who pay through Pay As You earn.
:43:25. > :43:29.In the House of Commons in March last year we passed emergency
:43:29. > :43:33.legislation to shut down seven of these sorts of tax schemes. These
:43:33. > :43:36.schemes have to be notified to the Treasury. We to act quickly to
:43:36. > :43:40.close them. What about the idea of Michael
:43:41. > :43:46.Meacher, the we saw in the film there?
:43:46. > :43:51.The idea has some merits but looking at it, we all look at
:43:51. > :43:56.avoiding tax when we do things like setting up to pensions or eye-
:43:56. > :44:03.opening isomers. The actual and see it used measures takes away
:44:03. > :44:06.legitimate tax avoidance which we all partake in from abusive schemes.
:44:06. > :44:09.Maybe you're watching this programme back on the iPlayer.
:44:09. > :44:12.Maybe not if you live in certain parts of the rural North West. And
:44:12. > :44:14.that's because there are still large areas of the countryside
:44:14. > :44:17.unconnected to the information superhighway. The government wants
:44:17. > :44:27.to make high-speed broadband a priority but is it happening
:44:27. > :44:34.
:44:34. > :44:37.quickly enough? Elaine Dunkley Out in the sticks and off-line.
:44:37. > :44:41.Cumbria has some of the slowest broadband speeds in the country.
:44:41. > :44:46.It would save us a lot of time, for starters.
:44:46. > :44:49.This architect company in Garsdale developed plans for the
:44:49. > :44:54.reconstruction of a rack its slope Bob broadband speeds means they are
:44:54. > :44:59.unable to send a lot of data via the internet, instead they sent a
:44:59. > :45:04.courier to the Middle East. There are a lot of businesses in
:45:04. > :45:08.this valley and locally that have online businesses. There is a lot
:45:08. > :45:17.going on and there are people who would like to start a business. I
:45:17. > :45:20.think it is vitally important that the local rural economy is not left
:45:20. > :45:24.out. The government has promised over
:45:24. > :45:28.�17 million of investments to provide 90 per cent of the county
:45:28. > :45:31.with a high-speed service. The other 10 per cent will be left to
:45:31. > :45:35.sort things out themselves and that is what the people in the Upper
:45:35. > :45:41.Eden Valley are doing. We all got together here in the pub
:45:41. > :45:46.with papers and pens and we looked at people's houses and asked them
:45:46. > :45:49.to draw pictures of how they would grow a -- of how they would take a
:45:49. > :45:55.cable. We then went to companies and asked them if they could help
:45:55. > :45:58.us to deliver this. While areas in the North West's
:45:58. > :46:04.there is a quiet revolution of residents laying fibre optic cable
:46:04. > :46:12.and funding it themselves. I will make sure that does not
:46:13. > :46:16.cause any resistance. The internet can disappear for half
:46:16. > :46:20.an hour at a time. A dodgy internet system here is
:46:20. > :46:25.causing chaos for they are online booking system.
:46:25. > :46:29.It is a major headache. If we have taken a booking and have to update
:46:29. > :46:33.the internet or want to respond to someone, if the internet is out we
:46:33. > :46:40.cannot send the response back to the customer. It reflects badly on
:46:40. > :46:43.the hotel. It makes us look inefficient.
:46:44. > :46:47.Tourism is big business in this part of the world. A lot of
:46:47. > :46:51.visitors come here to get away from it all.
:46:51. > :46:55.We get no signal. But staying connected is still
:46:56. > :47:00.important. People come in here because we have
:47:00. > :47:05.a wireless internet and use their phones and their laptops. It is
:47:05. > :47:09.used as a hot spot for the village. George Osborne announced in the
:47:09. > :47:12.Budget that millions of pounds would be invested to create super
:47:13. > :47:18.speed internet for rural areas but not everyone is convinced it is a
:47:18. > :47:22.good use of taxpayers' money. This policy of rural broadband in
:47:22. > :47:27.Lancashire is faster internet shopping for wealthy people, lap --
:47:27. > :47:33.where you like it or not. I am certain it is vital for
:47:33. > :47:38.business. But the reality is that businesses in Cumbria are doing
:47:38. > :47:41.much better than the national average. That is despite the lack
:47:41. > :47:47.of broadband and if you had access to super-fast broadband their
:47:47. > :47:49.ability to trade with the Continent and further afield would be much
:47:49. > :47:56.greater. The government hopes to have rural
:47:56. > :48:00.areas are logging on to high-speed broadband by 2015. It immunity is
:48:00. > :48:05.having to create their own network, this could be a case of power to
:48:05. > :48:08.the people. -- for communities. Joining us now in the studio is
:48:08. > :48:13.Andrew Fleck, the chairman of Fibre Garden, the fibre broadband project
:48:13. > :48:19.for Garsdale and Dentdale. Why is super-fast broadband such a
:48:19. > :48:23.priority for you? We are talking about education
:48:23. > :48:27.facilities for children in these areas, some of them may be two
:48:27. > :48:32.miles distant from that children of a similar age so it is the ability
:48:32. > :48:35.to communicate. We are talking about fast speed because we need
:48:36. > :48:41.real-time data exchange, consultations for the elderly or
:48:41. > :48:45.the seriously ill. At the moment we have to make a three hour round
:48:45. > :48:48.trip to hospital. It is also about stimulating enterprise in rural
:48:48. > :48:52.areas which will otherwise become depopulated.
:48:52. > :48:56.I you happy with the way the government has been doing this?
:48:56. > :49:01.A winner like it to be faster and see more investment in those areas.
:49:01. > :49:05.The comment of it being about shopping online for millionaires is
:49:05. > :49:10.simply a parliamentary soundbites and should be dismissed as the
:49:10. > :49:14.rubbish it is. This is about quality of life in those areas.
:49:14. > :49:19.Maria Eagle, T you agree with what was said about this being internet
:49:19. > :49:22.shopping for wealthy people? Broadband can be a lot of things.
:49:22. > :49:26.It is an infrastructure that is essential for business and the
:49:27. > :49:31.future of the country. It is important we do not fall behind
:49:31. > :49:36.other countries and our competitors in having that into -- in having
:49:36. > :49:39.that infrastructure. I think the, it was about priorities and he was
:49:39. > :49:45.saying that it did not necessarily agree that the money was being
:49:45. > :49:50.spelt on the right priority. We do not always agree about everything.
:49:50. > :49:54.A Lancashire MP is entitled to have his opinion about the relative
:49:54. > :49:59.value for money and priority is being pursued by the local council.
:49:59. > :50:02.That is what he was doing. I think he needs to plug into a
:50:02. > :50:08.network and rebid his comment. He is completely out of touch with
:50:08. > :50:13.people in rural Lancashire. In my own constituency, I know one person
:50:13. > :50:18.who has set up a business online and turned over a lot of money last
:50:18. > :50:23.year and is due to make over �100,000 this year. It is about
:50:23. > :50:27.getting small rural businesses going and, crucially, for those on
:50:27. > :50:32.a look willow income they can access many facilities for a
:50:32. > :50:34.cheaper price. Think about the price comparison website.
:50:34. > :50:41.But should you be doing is quicker than?
:50:41. > :50:44.I think it David Cameron wants this super-fast. Talking about the 90
:50:44. > :50:49.per cent super-fast broadband, we have to talk about the 10 per cent
:50:49. > :50:55.to will be missed out in their entirety. We have to cover the not
:50:55. > :50:59.spot with a mobile broadband. We have invested in that as well.
:50:59. > :51:03.I am concerned about the speed at which this is being rolled out. I
:51:03. > :51:09.think super-fast broad bands is the canals and the railways and the
:51:09. > :51:12.actual transport connections of the future. We cannot fall too far
:51:12. > :51:18.behind our youth European competitors. We would like to see
:51:19. > :51:23.this happening faster. If we look at the level of
:51:23. > :51:27.investment in relieve rural areas it is pitifully low. We have a
:51:27. > :51:31.single track road, no mains water or sewerage. We are largely self-
:51:31. > :51:37.sufficient in these areas. If the cost a little more per capita we
:51:37. > :51:42.have every right to expect that. But �600,000 for not that many
:51:42. > :51:46.houses, that is quite a lot of money.
:51:46. > :51:50.We are building a network that is at the very top end of the
:51:50. > :51:55.specification with the capability of 100 megabytes per second upload
:51:55. > :51:59.and download speeds. We will be competing with the central London
:51:59. > :52:03.for quality of connectivity. We are doing so the very special.
:52:03. > :52:09.You have sort of got on with it and any yourself, is that what other
:52:09. > :52:13.come -- other community should do? We are lucky. We have people who
:52:13. > :52:19.can make this happen in Garsdale and Dentdale. So we have the
:52:19. > :52:27.capability. We want �150,000 of seed money which will enable us to
:52:27. > :52:30.build a fantastic network worth �6 million to provide. It is a 40-1
:52:30. > :52:35.multiplier. There are people in urban areas who
:52:36. > :52:39.perhaps do not have access because they might not have the money, they
:52:39. > :52:43.also need to be encouraged to do this. It is important people are
:52:43. > :52:49.not left behind weather because they in rural areas or because they
:52:49. > :52:54.do not have computers or internet access because they cannot afford
:52:54. > :52:59.it. We have seen people who have never used the internet has been
:52:59. > :53:05.falling answer that has slowed. We need to take that seriously.
:53:05. > :53:09.I think we're down to the rump of people may be who are not using the
:53:09. > :53:13.internet. The last 10 per cent or 20 per cent are often the hardest
:53:13. > :53:17.to reach. If we look back at the show in 10 years' time, this will
:53:17. > :53:21.seem a bizarre combination. Broadband is the 4th utility. We
:53:21. > :53:25.need is more than we need a telephone line now and many have to
:53:25. > :53:32.hurry up and invest in it I get it out to rural areas.
:53:32. > :53:34.A end to all very much. And now for a superfast roundup of
:53:34. > :53:37.the week's political news. Here's Neil Morrow in 60 seconds.
:53:37. > :53:40.A Public Inquiry has begun to decide if a �150 million project
:53:40. > :53:44.that could create 750 jobs in one of the most deprived areas of
:53:44. > :53:54.Liverpool can go ahead. Plans for the regeneration of the Great Homer
:53:54. > :53:57.
:53:57. > :53:59.Street area were first proposed in 2004.
:53:59. > :54:03.Be processed to LX Police Commissioners around the region has
:54:03. > :54:06.been criticised for becoming a contest between the main political
:54:06. > :54:10.parties with independence ruled out because of the cost of running.
:54:10. > :54:14.If you want to send literature to local voters, you have to pay for
:54:14. > :54:20.yourself. Given the size of the area covered, you are looking at
:54:20. > :54:23.thousands of pounds just to get your message out local people.
:54:23. > :54:27.Unemployment in the North West has gone up again. For the third month
:54:27. > :54:37.in a row, there has been a rise in the number of people out of work
:54:37. > :54:37.
:54:37. > :54:42.despite the national figure falling. 325,000 people and now without jobs
:54:42. > :54:45.Feel free to keep in touch during the week. Follow me or send me a