24/06/2012 Sunday Politics North West

In the North West: Raul broadband speeds, a vital economic tool for

the countryside or something for the millionaires to do their

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1995 seconds

Hello, I'm Arif Ansari. Coming up in the next 20 minutes:

Rural broadband. A vital economic tool or something for millionaires

to do their shopping on? And we'll get to that later in the

show. But first I must introduce my guests this week. Jake Berry the

Conservative MP for Rossendale and Darwen and alongside him, Maria

Eagle the Labour MP for Garston and Halewood, and the shadow Transport

Secretary John Woodcock. Now singer Gary Barlow is used to

taking centre stage but not like he has this week. Suddenly people are

more interested in his tax returns than his concert tickets. It

follows allegations in the Times newspaper that he and two other

members of the Manchester band Take That have been using a Jersey-based

investment scheme to avoid paying millions of pounds to the taxman.

Some want him to lose the OBE before he's even had time to

Mesic, jokes and entertainment. Payment in kind, perhaps, for the

Queen's Diamond Jubilee. But not so much tax for Her Majesty's

government. Think of all those people who work

hard and saved heart to the go and see Jimmy Carr. He is taking a

money and stuffing it into an agreement which means he does not

pay taxes. That is not fair. After Jimmy can apologise,

attention turns to Gary Barlow. -- Jimmy Carr. Gary Barlow, Howard

Donald and Mark Owen of Take That put �26 million into a scheme

called Crutchlow called Icebreaker. He did not take the opportunity to

condemn as morally repugnant the tax scheme of Gary Barlow. He is a

Conservative Party support for stop it as a whole new meaning to the

phrase Take That! If he is morally repugnant, why has he been given an

OBE in the birthday Honours? Is investing in those schemes is

not breaking the law. You do not have a moral duty to pay

more tax than you have to. To do so is to effectively make a gift to

the government. There would be fewer dodgy

avoidance of gifts if one at Manchester MP gets his way.

Up I am saying that all schemes which aimed to avoid tax, rather

than being a genuine economic transaction, I'll ruled null and

void. In Michael Meacher's ideal tax

world, everything changes but until then this is a row some may "Never

Forget". Why was the Prime Minister so

interested in focusing on Jimmy Carr? Was that a mistake?

I do not think it was. His tax affairs were made public by the

Times newspaper. It was quite correct that David Cameron looked

at them and thought he should pare a fair share of tax. The difference

with Icebreaker is that not all the details are available but if Gary

Barlow has been found to be avoiding tax in an aggressive way,

something which can be described as morally repugnant, it is quite

right that he pays his fair share. So are you saying that what Gary

Barlow has been doing is morally repugnant or is not?

I am saying that if the details of Icebreaker come to light and this

is an excess dream tax-avoidance scheme, I think David Cameron would

take the same action as he did with Jimmy Carr. Neither should be

exempt from public scrutiny. But surely then you start naming

people left right and centre. By do not think we should go about

naming lots of individuals. I do not think it is appropriate to

start chasing after particular individuals. If the lie is not

collecting tax because there are loopholes, we need to and power

HMRC to close those loopholes and chase after the tax that is owed.

We need to change it. We try to do that in office and then power HMRC.

These rules on tax avoidance change all the time so that HMRC needs to

be well resourced to chase this effectively because the lawyers and

those who devised the schemes are always one step ahead. That is the

important thing. Is this a fundamental problem with

the government? I think it is important that the

government put appropriate resources into her HMRC. The

current government has cut the amount that HMRC has available to

chase these individuals. I do not think this is constructive.

It actually shows the huge importance of this and see abuse

block that the government is bringing in to reduce these tax-

avoidance schemes which are created with no purpose apart from to avoid

tax. The K2 scheme used to be called an employee benefit trust

which a last government tried to show Diana we have shut it down. No

government has managed to shut this down and it is important that we

have an anti- abuse law. The government has put millions of

pounds into going out to finds these high net worth individuals

who are fighting their fair share of tax. We all know it is wrong. We

have to pay income tax but we cannot scare off all the higher

rate taxpayers. They do, she beat a great deal and they have to

contribute to the tax system so that we can fund systems like the

NHS. Will we saw your sister there

saying that Gary Barlow should not get his Op. Is that a position you

share? I do not think that is what she

said. She was highlighting the fact that the Prime Minister was

highlighting a particular individual who was not in the same

with another individual who is a Conservative donor.

But the Labour position is that he should not get the OBE, isn't it?

Labour's position is that if the law is not doing the job of

collecting the tax that is owned and is allowing people to avoid tax

in a way that is not sustainable, then we should change the law and

empower HMRC to change those individuals and close down the

schemes. I am not convinced a general avoidance lot, like Jake

Berry is discussing, is enough to keep up with the fast-changing

arrangements the lawyers and accountants I using to make money

and save money for their clients. We need to be much more upfront,

faster with dealing with these issues. You do not do that by

taking money out of the HMRC's capacity to chase individuals.

To clarify, you and Angela Eagle are perfectly happy for Gary Barlow

to get the Obi he? -- of the OBE he.

This is a Conservative party donor who was doing something similar to

that of a another individual which the Prime Minister said was morally

repugnant. I think her. Was reasonable. It was not an attempt

to chase after a Gary Barlow or anything to do with his honour. It

was the prime minister who started naming individuals, following the

revelations in the Times, and the important thing is we need to

collect tax. Tax is owed from high net worth individuals as well as

ordinary workers who pay through Pay As You earn.

In the House of Commons in March last year we passed emergency

legislation to shut down seven of these sorts of tax schemes. These

schemes have to be notified to the Treasury. We to act quickly to

close them. What about the idea of Michael

Meacher, the we saw in the film there?

The idea has some merits but looking at it, we all look at

avoiding tax when we do things like setting up to pensions or eye-

opening isomers. The actual and see it used measures takes away

legitimate tax avoidance which we all partake in from abusive schemes.

Maybe you're watching this programme back on the iPlayer.

Maybe not if you live in certain parts of the rural North West. And

that's because there are still large areas of the countryside

unconnected to the information superhighway. The government wants

to make high-speed broadband a priority but is it happening

quickly enough? Elaine Dunkley Out in the sticks and off-line.

Cumbria has some of the slowest broadband speeds in the country.

It would save us a lot of time, for starters.

This architect company in Garsdale developed plans for the

reconstruction of a rack its slope Bob broadband speeds means they are

unable to send a lot of data via the internet, instead they sent a

courier to the Middle East. There are a lot of businesses in

this valley and locally that have online businesses. There is a lot

going on and there are people who would like to start a business. I

think it is vitally important that the local rural economy is not left

out. The government has promised over

�17 million of investments to provide 90 per cent of the county

with a high-speed service. The other 10 per cent will be left to

sort things out themselves and that is what the people in the Upper

Eden Valley are doing. We all got together here in the pub

with papers and pens and we looked at people's houses and asked them

to draw pictures of how they would grow a -- of how they would take a

cable. We then went to companies and asked them if they could help

us to deliver this. While areas in the North West's

there is a quiet revolution of residents laying fibre optic cable

and funding it themselves. I will make sure that does not

cause any resistance. The internet can disappear for half

an hour at a time. A dodgy internet system here is

causing chaos for they are online booking system.

It is a major headache. If we have taken a booking and have to update

the internet or want to respond to someone, if the internet is out we

cannot send the response back to the customer. It reflects badly on

the hotel. It makes us look inefficient.

Tourism is big business in this part of the world. A lot of

visitors come here to get away from it all.

We get no signal. But staying connected is still

important. People come in here because we have

a wireless internet and use their phones and their laptops. It is

used as a hot spot for the village. George Osborne announced in the

Budget that millions of pounds would be invested to create super

speed internet for rural areas but not everyone is convinced it is a

good use of taxpayers' money. This policy of rural broadband in

Lancashire is faster internet shopping for wealthy people, lap --

where you like it or not. I am certain it is vital for

business. But the reality is that businesses in Cumbria are doing

much better than the national average. That is despite the lack

of broadband and if you had access to super-fast broadband their

ability to trade with the Continent and further afield would be much

greater. The government hopes to have rural

areas are logging on to high-speed broadband by 2015. It immunity is

having to create their own network, this could be a case of power to

the people. -- for communities. Joining us now in the studio is

Andrew Fleck, the chairman of Fibre Garden, the fibre broadband project

for Garsdale and Dentdale. Why is super-fast broadband such a

priority for you? We are talking about education

facilities for children in these areas, some of them may be two

miles distant from that children of a similar age so it is the ability

to communicate. We are talking about fast speed because we need

real-time data exchange, consultations for the elderly or

the seriously ill. At the moment we have to make a three hour round

trip to hospital. It is also about stimulating enterprise in rural

areas which will otherwise become depopulated.

I you happy with the way the government has been doing this?

A winner like it to be faster and see more investment in those areas.

The comment of it being about shopping online for millionaires is

simply a parliamentary soundbites and should be dismissed as the

rubbish it is. This is about quality of life in those areas.

Maria Eagle, T you agree with what was said about this being internet

shopping for wealthy people? Broadband can be a lot of things.

It is an infrastructure that is essential for business and the

future of the country. It is important we do not fall behind

other countries and our competitors in having that into -- in having

that infrastructure. I think the, it was about priorities and he was

saying that it did not necessarily agree that the money was being

spelt on the right priority. We do not always agree about everything.

A Lancashire MP is entitled to have his opinion about the relative

value for money and priority is being pursued by the local council.

That is what he was doing. I think he needs to plug into a

network and rebid his comment. He is completely out of touch with

people in rural Lancashire. In my own constituency, I know one person

who has set up a business online and turned over a lot of money last

year and is due to make over �100,000 this year. It is about

getting small rural businesses going and, crucially, for those on

a look willow income they can access many facilities for a

cheaper price. Think about the price comparison website.

But should you be doing is quicker than?

I think it David Cameron wants this super-fast. Talking about the 90

per cent super-fast broadband, we have to talk about the 10 per cent

to will be missed out in their entirety. We have to cover the not

spot with a mobile broadband. We have invested in that as well.

I am concerned about the speed at which this is being rolled out. I

think super-fast broad bands is the canals and the railways and the

actual transport connections of the future. We cannot fall too far

behind our youth European competitors. We would like to see

this happening faster. If we look at the level of

investment in relieve rural areas it is pitifully low. We have a

single track road, no mains water or sewerage. We are largely self-

sufficient in these areas. If the cost a little more per capita we

have every right to expect that. But �600,000 for not that many

houses, that is quite a lot of money.

We are building a network that is at the very top end of the

specification with the capability of 100 megabytes per second upload

and download speeds. We will be competing with the central London

for quality of connectivity. We are doing so the very special.

You have sort of got on with it and any yourself, is that what other

come -- other community should do? We are lucky. We have people who

can make this happen in Garsdale and Dentdale. So we have the

capability. We want �150,000 of seed money which will enable us to

build a fantastic network worth �6 million to provide. It is a 40-1

multiplier. There are people in urban areas who

perhaps do not have access because they might not have the money, they

also need to be encouraged to do this. It is important people are

not left behind weather because they in rural areas or because they

do not have computers or internet access because they cannot afford

it. We have seen people who have never used the internet has been

falling answer that has slowed. We need to take that seriously.

I think we're down to the rump of people may be who are not using the

internet. The last 10 per cent or 20 per cent are often the hardest

to reach. If we look back at the show in 10 years' time, this will

seem a bizarre combination. Broadband is the 4th utility. We

need is more than we need a telephone line now and many have to

hurry up and invest in it I get it out to rural areas.

A end to all very much. And now for a superfast roundup of

the week's political news. Here's Neil Morrow in 60 seconds.

A Public Inquiry has begun to decide if a �150 million project

that could create 750 jobs in one of the most deprived areas of

Liverpool can go ahead. Plans for the regeneration of the Great Homer

Street area were first proposed in 2004.

Be processed to LX Police Commissioners around the region has

been criticised for becoming a contest between the main political

parties with independence ruled out because of the cost of running.

If you want to send literature to local voters, you have to pay for

yourself. Given the size of the area covered, you are looking at

thousands of pounds just to get your message out local people.

Unemployment in the North West has gone up again. For the third month

in a row, there has been a rise in the number of people out of work

despite the national figure falling. 325,000 people and now without jobs

Feel free to keep in touch during the week. Follow me or send me a