25/11/2012 Sunday Politics North West

In the North West: Keeping it in the family - three councillors

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2253 seconds

under one roof, but are there too Good morning. Coming up - keeping

it in the family, three councillors under one roof, but are there too

many politicos in politics? They are people who have actually been

and work in the industries who are the engine room of the economy. We

were last if our politicians properly reflect society and to

better to do that with an two men who chaired debates in the Commons.

Lindsay Hoyle as the Labour MP for Chorley and Nigel Evans is the

Conservative MP for Ribble Valley. Both are Commons deputy speakers

and sure they are in action. Ardour, order. The one of your best

speeches. We would like to get past 1974, back on to this amendment.

you understand? Do you understand? Stop it. Let us take the heat out

of this debate now and stop the Colling. I am almost scared to

carry on after that. So am I a! Days sometimes feel that the

behaviour of MPs in the Commons does let Parliament down? The it

sometimes clearly does when you have several hundred people in the

rain and they are shouting at one another. Some of the cat calls can

be quite funny and intelligent, but sometimes on both sides someone can

let it off. What had that person done wrong? They were having a go

at the Chancellor of the Exchequer all the time, so that they could

not carry on with what they were saying. It happens on both sides of

the House. That is when Lindsay and I have to request control. Neither

of us were shrinking violence. -- shrinking violets. But we do have

the ultimate sanction. If someone has ordered out of the Commons

there peace stops. -- their pay stops. They know where the line is.

Six months ago nine men in Rochdale were jailed for grooming and

sexually abusing young girls as young as 13. But a report out this

week says it is the tip of iceberg. The deputy children's commissioner

found that more than 16,000 children are at risk and in many

cases the authorities are failing them. Jailed for grooming and

abusing girls as young as 13, but the crimes for these young men in

Rochdale were not isolated incidents. More than 2,400 children

were abused by gangs between August, 2010 and October last year.

This report, and this inquiry in fact, commence to just over a year

ago, because of the evidence which began to emerge at the sexual

exploitation of children in the context of both gangs and groups in

different parts of England. In Rochdale, all those convicted

were Asian. His race an issue? Usually in the cases the race of

the culprit is not reported. It is right that we look at all victims

in this matter, and all perpetrators. We must not allow our

response and the figures to be distorted in the interest of

political correctness. The report says that more needs to be done to

spot the warning signs in victims. Volatile behaviour, running away,

self harm and criminal behaviour. IBA to change, I was not myself

anymore. I was drunk all time -- my behaviour changed.

Lancashire police said a leading force when it comes to tackling

sexual exploitation. So far this year they have prosecuted around

100 people, where some forces at prosecuted none. If we look forward

we will find it and as such we are looking for it, we are prioritising

it. Ultimately, we would rather that it does not reach court, we

would rather have stopped it before that.

Local MPs say that people need educating, not blaming. Every boy

and girl is entitled to do proper information on what constitutes a

respectful relationship, so that they can grow into a healthy adult.

We are joined from Leeds by Louise Vaughan from CROP, a charity

working to stop sexual exploitation in towns including Blackburn. Thank

you for joining us. What you think will be the significant impact of

this report? We have to welcome the report because although it is very

sobering, it is almost certainly more than 16,000 children who

actually at risk and more or than 2,400 to have already been abused.

At the moment we have not seen enough joined-up reactions from the

agencies in tackling the problem. If you look nationwide now, you can

identify good pockets of practice. In Lancashire, there are specific

divisions of the police and social services are working together, in

order to identify the victims and work with him. But what is

specifically successful and result in convictions is making sure that

they are involving the parents and families of the children. They are

the people who often spot that something is definitely desperately

wrong. Social services and police can then work as a unit in

partnership but the parents to see how to get the child to start to

trust the adults and is close, and see if we can start to catch their

perpetrators. Do you think that the scheme will

be a piece in this report... Has a surprise see how much there is?

Sadly not. It is almost certainly going to be far higher than has

been mentioned in the report. Our organisation takes calls from

parents are across the country, rural areas, are many areas. They

are desperately trying to keep their children safe from the

grooming process and from these perpetrators. So it is not

surprising. Louise Vaughan, thank you for

joining us. One thing that I should point out

is that attack initiation, but also by now does, and the NSPCC, said

that he did not specifically want to talk about the questions of the

Asian grooming, which we know has been an issue in Rochdale and

elsewhere. To what extent do you think that we might be ducking an

important issue there? I do not think you can ducky any of their

issues as far as children used his -- tell the piece is concerned. We

need to look at their legislation and see if that it is far more

rigorous than it has been until now. But these are not individuals being

abused by family members, which we know goes on far too much at this

point in time, this is gangs. We have to look at a report when it

fully comes out. But I do not think that just because of sums to

accusation that they could be a problem with racial abuse that we

should duck the question. Do you think that might be what has

happened here? It is not highlighted in the report are.

think we need to be honest and upfront and have an open discussion.

The community ought to come forward and say that we have a problem in

the community, this is a gang the area that we need to the cat. That

needs to be brought the attention of social services and police. We

have to accept that whether we like it or not this take place in

Rochdale, it is a gang of Asian youth. This is not a community,

this is a gang within the community. We know that this has been copied

with another areas well. The MP for Rochdale has been very upfront

about where the blame lies. suspect is well that the Asian

community themselves would want this investigated and death there

is an issue they would want it exposed. But what I am trying to

get at his has the report that it in the way that some people very

clearly see that it has. The report is very robust, no matter what

people are saying. We more -- we know that over 2,400 children have

been abused. It is totally unacceptable. What we have to face

up to his, who has taken out is a piece? Is it purely Asian gangs? We

know what is greater than that. But where it is an Asian gang and it is

a problem in the community, quite rightly, the community does not one

that happen and they need to deal with that in the same way as anyone

who knows that abuses taking place. Come forward, let the police nor

and ensure that that is not happen to other young people.

We'll let them to represent us in Parliament and in the council

chamber. How representative of society are ever politicians. The

poor turnout for the police commissioner elections has

certainly raised questions about the interest in politics in our

society. In times gone by, we knew whatever

politicians look like. They looked like white men, then you look like

old might -- old white men with facial hair, then old white men

with less facial hair. But what about today?

This looks like a normal family having breakfast. All three set on

West Lancashire a pirate Council. How often is the discussion around

here about politics? -- Lancashire council. The it is

pretty length -- regular. It is not just a few meetings and council

chambers, you're making a difference. Quite a lot of people

feel quite distanced from politics, if their parents are not involved

they will not know anything to stop -- anything.

Lucy is somewhat of an exception. Councillors in their twenties light

shone make-up just 1.7 per cent of the total. He is in charge of

Trafford council's Budget. It is difficult. I have had to overcome a

credibility barrier. It is something that I want to carry on

doing. I found that their reaction has been quite positive.

difficult is it in Trafford? after it makes it very easy for

people to be involved. They have a lot of their meetings in the

evenings. It you think that he is relatively young age raises a few

eyebrows today, but Sir Robert Peel made the journey to the Houses of

Parliament by the age of 21. Currently, the average age is 52.

Just 3% are from ethnic minorities, and 98 per cent of the region's

councillors are white. You can have difficulties. I remember going to

one Labour selection the ages of going one person said to me, will

you changing the myths we selectee as a candidate to get you a more or

anglicised name -- will you change your name? Nine were previously

lawyers, and nine were formerly at Oxbridge. One play the keyboard for

Rick Astley. I think it is very difficult to explain to people who

have never been in the industry. This end he was elected in his six

days to serve his local area. -- this MP.

We have next and it -- we have met a mixture of races and ages

involved in politics in this region. The variety is now more than it has

ever been in the past, but it is possibly the case that but there

are too few exceptions to the rule. We are joined by Duncan O'Leary

from the think tank Demos. He says that part of his job is to knock

down ivory-tower is in better connect people and communities and

give them a voice. How worried should we be about this question

mark I think it is a problem. country, we have made a decent

progress in recent years. We have far more women in Parliament than

we debt in 1997. We also have more MPs from ethnic minority

backgrounds. One area we have been going backwards on his on social

class and how representative parliament is in that respect. Of

the 2010 intake of MPs, 94 per cent went to university. A large

percentage also went to private school, compared with 7% of the

population. Why does it matter to you so much? I think it matters to

people because when you look at who is making the loss of the land, you

want to see people who look and sound like you. -- the laws of the

land. Do people really worry about it, or is it you worrying about it?

His actual evidence that people are less likely to vote for people if

they are not a woman, are not black, or whatever else? They are two

things. The question of trust in politics. A BBC survey last year

found that while that more than half of people in the middle

classes feel that they are well represented in parliament, a large

percentage of working-class people felt that they were not. It is also

about the type of priorities that are reflected in Parliament

themselves. Most people would agree that getting more women into

Parliament have brought things like family life, getting time off work

to see their children, at the forefront of politics the way they

had never been before. If when you look at the front bench of politics,

do you wish it was more representative? The House should

reflect, quite rightly, the country. I'm proud to have been born and

brought up in my constituency. We have got to reflect better. We have

to recruit better with then a political parties, making sure

everyone has a chance to come forward as an MP. Whatever you're

social background. I do not think that we do recruit well. I think we

could recruit better. We should have more or women members within

the Labour Party. We have to start at that level as well. Quite

rightly, we should reflect the whole of society, not just a small

part of society. The only way to do that is to recruit more people and

give people more opportunities to come forward. He were both white,

middle aged oaks, and perceived to be excellent end peace -- men.

remember when I got elected in 1991 and one of the questions asked to

me was about the make-up of Parliament. At the time I said that

we were doing quite well. But we are going to take another hundred

years to get to the state were more women are being elected. We have to

motivate people to become members of parliament. I can understand why

many of them do not want to become MPs. But we need to do a lot more

to encourage more people to put themselves forward. It is local

associations themselves in the main who select their candidates, and we

have to educate them a bit better. The Conservative Party have a lot

of women sitting on panels to for some strange reason want to select

men. We need a bit of education there as well. The women that we

have an parliaments make a fantastic contribution. We recruit

a lot of young people into politics, we have got him interested. We now

have three councillors under the age of 22. That must be all of

them! There is only 2% of them under 30. The rest of the region is

following. But we are doing a good job. I say that I came off the

council when I was 39 to come off Parliament. I was one of the

youngest councillors. We are now having councillors elected in 19

and 20. It must continue. One in as well. We are making a difference

and we expect the local authorities to do the same. Do you think things

are getting better or worse? depends a bit on the measure that

could take. We have more women and people from ethnic minority

backgrounds, but on the class issue we are going backwards. They are 90

MPs in Parliament to have never worked outside politics as well. As

well as the traditional understanding of diversity that

they might have, there is also the question of life experience that

MPs are able to bring as well. That is to do with their idea of cliques.

It is about broadening out the selection process so that we are

let people who look a bit more like the country were 11. Time for a

round-up of the rest of the week's news now - here's Ryan Mills with

60 Seconds. The Attorney General is to apply to the High Court for

fresh inquests into the deaths of 96 fans at Hillsborough. Dominic

Grieve wants the original verdicts of accidental death overturned.

Around 300 jobs may have to go at Blackpool Council next year to save

more than �13 million. Staff will also be asked to take four more

days' unpaid leave. In a bit of a spin - Liverpool

Mayor Joe Anderson was forced to defend the �90,000 salary on offer

to applicants to head the City's PR department.

Liverpool as an international city with an international brand. We

want to bring in investment and jobs and this will enable us to do

that. Following the leader - the region's

newest parliamentarian, Lucy Powell, joined Ed Miliband as she got to

work as MP for Manchester Central. And what's voter apathy? Undeterred

by the turnout in the police commissioner vote, the South Lakes

MP Tim Farron is calling for directly-elected positions on the

National Park authorities. He says local people currently have no

control. Forget Budget day and the State

Opening of Parliament, it is Lancashire Day next week. Were you

will have an opportunity to display the fantastic Foods, beers and

other products which come from Lancashire at the House of Commons.

MPs from the rest of the country can come and sample what we have

got to do display. We have the names of some cheese and beer

manufacturers. I money is then not ten stone heavier than I am because