17/06/2012 Sunday Politics South East

In the South East, will Shepway District Council's proposal turn

Romney Marsh into a nuclear waste dumped generate jobs or radiate

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1615 seconds

Hello, I'm Natalie Graham and this is the Sunday Politics in the South

East. Coming up, looking for trouble? How Kent and East Sussex

County Council's stand to get millions of pounds from the

government if they can turn around the families that caused social

problems. -- Kent and East Sussex councils. Joining me is the Tory MP

for Dover and Deal Charlie Elphicke and a prospective Labour candidate

for Hastings and Rye Sarah Owen. It has been a -- an awful couple of

weeks for weather but the silver lining is that the hosepipe ban has

been lifted for some people in the South East, but not all. It seems

unfair that some customers have a band and some do not. -- a hosepipe

ban. We need to make sure that we have enough reservoir capacity and

we need to stop the leaks. Near where I am in Deal, there are four

times that a road has collapsed because the sewers have not been

maintained. Is that the answer, Sarah? Or perhaps less reliance on

groundwater? I think that is the answer and there is something we

can do about this. The government could bring forward their water

reform bill, not sit on it for 18 months, and we could get tougher

with the law -- the water companies. They are already fined if they do

not meet their targets. They say that when you look at the ground

they cover and how deep the leaks are, it is an expensive job. People

are paying for water they are not going to receive. The government

does nothing for people in the South East. I would like to see

something done here in the South East. I have met with the water

regulator's and made the case that they need to be much tougher on the

water companies. -- water regulators. When the nuclear power

stations at Dungeness have been recommissioned a bank -- about

1,000 jobs will go from a deprived area. Sharp will -- Shepway

District Council is considering putting forward Romney Marsh as a

side for the country's first nuclear disposal unit. It would

create hundreds of high quality jobs for generations to come, so is

the environmental risk worth it for The government is decommissioning

existing nuclear power stations, including bees in Dungeness, and

plans to build new ones around the country. Both create nuclear waste.

It is asking for a region to volunteer to store the waist and

one option could be set -- could be Shepway. It would become the full -

- the country's first nuclear disposal unit, taking waste from

across the UK. It would be stored under Romney Marsh but the exact

location is yet to be decided. It would be insecure containers in

miles of tunnels and would slowly decay. -- in secure mack. Shepway

District Council is asking for local views. This is what the new

site could look like, with all the waste in one location, whereas at

the moment most of the -- the most radioactive waste is largely kept

at nuclear power stations. There is a lot of local opposition, saying

the move could be dangerous and affect tourism, but Romney Marsh is

one of the most deprived areas of Kent and could benefit.

engineers nuclear power station has employed over 500 people for the

last 50 odd years. Those jobs will be disappearing over time as the

stations are decommission by 2000 a team. At the same number of jobs

will be created by this facility. - - 2018. It would also maintain the

service industries in the area. Shops and restaurants and pubs.

are always being asked to look at what we can do for Romney Marsh.

think we should look at every possible opportunity. However, it

might put some people off. Most of the locals we spoke to were not put

off at all. Far from it, in fact. It needs to be somewhere. If it is

Romney Marsh, so be it. I know people round here don't like it but

I don't see anything wrong with it. I am all in favour, doesn't bother

me at all. Why? It has to go somewhere. If it is not here it

would be somewhere else. I have no problem with it if it creates

problems in the future. Jobs are needed? Definitely. The government

minister responsible for nuclear waste is South East MP Charles

Whilst many politicians in the county are opposed to the plan,

some economists say the council's approach makes sense. Councils have

to exercise leadership. They have an opportunity to replace a nuclear

power station that has brought really good jobs to the area and

they could either do what so many politicians do, jump on a bandwagon,

or they can say, let's think about this seriously and talk to local

people. They are not trying to impose it, by asking local people

what they think. They should be commended for doing that. Looking

after nuclear waste is not something that gets moved around

from pillar for -- pillar to post. It brings jobs really forever.

consultation runs until the end of July and if Kip -- if successful

construction would not start until 2025. But would this be a good way

of securing long-term jobs, or too dangerous to be worth it?

Joining us now is one of the strongest critics of the plan, the

leader of Kent County Council, Paul Carter. You have described this in

the past as utter madness but if you listen to the report that

people on the marshes and want this. They need to look at the facts. I

believe that thought and discussion about this will blight this area.

We are trying to produce good quality jobs. We have millions of

pounds to stimulate good quality jobs in the investment businesses -

- and invest in businesses. Here we are in an earthquake zone that has

had five earthquakes in the last 400 years. It is a totally

unsuitable location, they should be miles away from civilisation.

surely if that is the case it would have been called out long before it

happens. On the principle that there is a desperate need, as you

know, for high-quality jobs in this part of the country, but people who

live there want it, why should they not be allowed to say so? They are

not high-quality jobs. If they go through all the processes and hoops,

the jobs would not be created until 2025. That is when the plants are

decommission. What we should be doing is getting the Government's

to support the building of business in Dungeness. -- the government. We

will be campaigning alongside the local MP. As you alluded to, that

has already been ruled out as a site for a new nuclear power

station. If that fails, what do you do to help the economy? A whole

range of series at of issues. -- a whole range and series. The rail

connections to Sam witch are very good indeed. There are very good

quality jobs there. The East Kent economy has a really good

optimistic future but talk of nuclear dumping grounds in one of

the most beautiful areas of Kent is madness in my view. You are doing

exactly what Dr Tim Leunig said, jumping on the bandwagon. I am not.

I don't want to blight the area and stop investment coming into East

Kent to provide quality jobs. I believe this will stigmatise and be

to the detriment of good-quality investment. For now, thank you very

much. Your constituency is very close to Dungeness and many of your

perspective -- prospective constituents worked there. On the

jobs issue, we are all agreed that it would be good for jobs but I

disagree on the quality of jobs offered by a nuclear dumping

facilities. What was picked up rightly there is that Shepway

residents are being consulted but Labour constituencies like in

Tollbar are not being consulted. If this government decides to dump

nuclear waste on our doorstep, people will be angry. You already

have two nuclear reactors there. You have experience of dealing with

nuclear materials. I believe this is on a much larger scale.

Dungeness is being decommissioned. You saw the very beautiful Romney

Marsh LANs and I don't want those farmers to be blighted with that. -

- lands. We have very delicate flora and fauna as well. Charlie

Elphicke, you are nearby as well, do you agree? Very much so. We need

to build the Dungeness power station. We have a great history in

Romney Marsh of zero carbon energy production. What happens to the

waste generated by the power station? They should stick it under

a mountain in Cumbria. Your government is committed to nuclear

power. We will have more waste. You would transported to Cumbria? --

transport it. It already goes to Sellafield to be processed. The

answer is that this quagmire called Natural England same but there is a

bit of seaweed but needs to be protected, we should put our energy

needs ahead of that. Thank you all for now. Paul cuttable stay with us

because this week East Sussex County Council confirmed it has

signed up to the government's troubled families initiative, so it

would get up to �4000 for each problem house told it can

successfully we debilitate. -- household. They run more than 2500

of such families in Kent. -- there are. Is this a creative money-

saving solution for a poorly thought-out initiative which will

stigmatise those who need help? Paul Carter is the leader of Kent

County Council. You sign up in March, so are you a fan? I think

there is the need to focus on a significant number of families that

are troubled families that need help and support. The government's

initiative is geared to the younger generation and trying to stop anti-

social behaviour and get better school attendance and more young

people in better job opportunities. How easy is that to achieve? You

calculate you will get �8.5 million coming into the county to do it.

Over two or three years. It will be paid on results for the second or

the third year. We have to start in September doing things very

differently in supporting and identifying young people who need

difference support to get them back on track, back into education and

employment and engaged in their communities, being constructive,

not destructive force. You are committed to spending something

like �15 million yourselves. Where will that come from? We have

massive amounts of multi-agency work going on already in supporting

a significant number of families in Kent in different ways. A lot of

that activity is not integrated in the way I believe it should be. I

think the secret of our success will be joining together that

resource, working out where the problems are, looking at the

symptoms and put him in the Cure, help and support in very different

ways that have been done before. -- putting in the cure. We need to use

the information that we have from health authorities, district

council housing authorities, social services authorities, use that

information to work out where the families are and go after it

deprivation before it happens. We need to deal with the existing

problems as well. It doesn't sound like it is going far enough.

wanted to go further. There was a sense that you throw money at these

families and hope they go away. We are using money to solve the

problems, get the kids out of a failed future of crime and getting

be parents back into the workplace. What do you make of it? We can

agree in principle that helping troubled families is a good thing

but nobody here has identified what a troubled family is. Eric Pickles

himself seems to be confused. Is he talking about a families that spill

out into the wider community or just people who are struggling?

think that includes all of those things. An adult out of work,

children not going to score, and also crime caused by a family.

of these are people accessing services which have been cut. It

seems like you are taking with one hand and giving a lot less and with

the other. It will only last three years, this project. We are talking

about generations of problems. I think that shows how little you

understand the problem. Nobody says it is going to stop. If it delivers

what we are expecting, I am sure it will go on for ever. It is about

delivering improved support. can guarantee that there will be

funding for this after three years? If it is successful and reduces the

amount of multi- agency support cost. Sarah made another point,

which is that funding has been taken away by your government to a

lot of grassroots initiatives. need to use the information we have

more effectively to identify families which are going to become

troubled families. We don't do that at the moment to the extent we

should do because of data protection legislation. It is hard

to say, you might become troubled, we are going to act now. In a way

that is worse than acting afterwards. Prevention is better

than cure. It is about providing membership and having a special

focus to secure families in need before they go off the rails to

give our kids the best possible future. When you are targeting the

issue you have to get your figures and facts correct. The data is

based on data from 2005. Since then we have had a recession so there

will be more problem families and as a result of cuts to services...

You are talking about people going back into apprenticeships, those

are all things that have been taken away, so I think this is

showmanship, about grabbing headlines. The coalition government

has put a lot of additional money into apprenticeships. We are going

to have to leave it there. Thank you very much for joining us. It is

time for our round-up of the week's event with Louise Stuarts -- Louise

Stewart. The Hastings and Rye MP Amber Rudd

welcomed a European agreement to end the practice of fish discards.

We have had a problem where the size of the catch has been decided

in Brussels will stop the Health Secretary Andrew Lansley launched

an overhaul of health care in East Kent which could act as a blueprint

for the rest of the country. The hunt goes on. Labour called for

a fresh inquiry into whether the -- weather Jeremy Hunt broke the

ministerial code. What will be launched -- helped by

launching a third inquiry? The Speaker had heard enough and

but Damian Green firmly in his place.

I it needed no assistance from the Immigration Minister. He should sit

and listen to intently. -- I needed no assistance.

With comments like that, who leads the opposition?

Thank you. This agreement to end a fish discards his only an agreement,

it will not necessarily change anything. Not necessarily. Ending

discards is a good thing but that is not the real issue in Hastings

and Rye, it is the issue of quotas. It is how much they are allowed to

catch. We are only seemed half her fish per fishermen every day.

Charlie Elphicke, you were at that visit by the Health Secretary. A

lot of MPs in your constituency unhappy about these changes. And a

lot are enthusiastic! We have GPs and the district council and myself

working together to improve health care and they are delivering a

proper hospital for Dover. Thank you both very much indeed, Charlie