:01:45. > :01:55.Should families live like this? We ask why official guidelines about
:01:55. > :01:55.
:01:55. > :07:44.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 349 seconds
:07:44. > :07:54.children in the Breton breakfasts In the south-east, people are about
:07:54. > :07:55.
:07:55. > :08:02.to get the chance... Maybe more police presence on the streets.
:08:02. > :08:06.visible presence. 0 tolerance policy on street crime. I will like
:08:06. > :08:16.to see more active policing on burglary and local crime. It's
:08:16. > :08:17.
:08:17. > :08:25.quite scary. Out on to the south- east has three police forces. The
:08:25. > :08:31.largest has about 3400 employees and an annual budget of �274
:08:31. > :08:37.million. The Sussex force has more than 5000 employees and a budget of
:08:37. > :08:41.�253 million. Surrey has 4500 employees and a budget of �209
:08:41. > :08:45.million. So, what kind of people are standing to become police
:08:45. > :08:49.commissioners? In the south-east, the candidates include local
:08:49. > :08:53.politicians from the main parties, independent candidates, members of
:08:53. > :08:56.police authorities which the police are will replace as a well as
:08:56. > :09:02.former police of his and other professionals. He can get full
:09:02. > :09:04.details of all the more on your local BBC News Web pages.
:09:04. > :09:08.Candidates list their priorities us things like putting more police
:09:09. > :09:13.officers on the beat, fighting anti-social behaviour, zero
:09:13. > :09:16.tolerance and putting more emphasis on tackling domestic abuse. As this
:09:16. > :09:20.is the first time south-east residents get a say in this, what
:09:20. > :09:26.should people be asking when they choose who to vote for? Three thing
:09:27. > :09:35.is. Whether they want a political party candidate or an independent
:09:35. > :09:39.candidate. There might like to think about slogans and targeted
:09:39. > :09:43.policing. Also, what sort of value for money they won for the police.
:09:44. > :09:48.After all, it is their role to insure Poly for money. With it for
:09:48. > :09:51.South East mixture of towns and countryside, people's experience of
:09:51. > :09:54.policing can vary. It can be particularly difficult to make
:09:54. > :09:57.policing more visible in rural areas. And the commissioners will
:09:57. > :10:01.take over at a time when all the forces are in the middle of a
:10:01. > :10:04.programme of cuts. So what impact might commissioners have on the way
:10:04. > :10:08.policing looks on our streets? I think it a will be very difficult
:10:08. > :10:12.for people on the streets of Kent and Sussex and Surrey are to be
:10:12. > :10:17.able to discern a difference. they will have is someone they can
:10:18. > :10:21.go to to raise concerns that they have anybody -- have any. Not only
:10:21. > :10:24.are the police facing cuts but provisional plans are already in
:10:24. > :10:34.place for next year's budgets. It is likely to take a while for the
:10:34. > :10:34.
:10:34. > :39:59.Apology for the loss of subtitles for 349 seconds
:39:59. > :40:03.impact of the new police Hello. This is the Sunday politics
:40:03. > :40:08.and the south-east. Coming up: they have nowhere else to go. Why more
:40:08. > :40:13.and more families are stuck in emergency bed and breakfasts. Our
:40:13. > :40:18.guests are the leader of East Sussex County Council and the Green
:40:18. > :40:22.MEP for the south-east. A thank you for joining us. We will start with
:40:22. > :40:26.the new twist in the airport debate. The owners of that which say they
:40:26. > :40:30.are serious about developing a second runway. It cannot happen
:40:30. > :40:33.until 2019 at the earliest and they could be strong objections from
:40:33. > :40:36.people in West Kent as well as Sussex and Surrey. Plans for a
:40:36. > :40:41.second runway will go forward to an independent review of airport
:40:41. > :40:45.capacity that has been led by Sir Howard Davies. Peter Jones, this is
:40:45. > :40:49.not the complete answer, is it? Even if they get permission for a
:40:49. > :40:54.second runway at Gatwick, that is not enough. It doesn't create the
:40:54. > :41:00.had status. No, it doesn't, but it goes a long way towards it. One of
:41:00. > :41:05.the things I find exciting about this... One of the reasons I think
:41:05. > :41:09.we need it is that if you look at the Thames Valley, the economic
:41:09. > :41:13.performance of the Thames Valley is far superior to our part of the
:41:13. > :41:18.south-east of this country. One of the key differences is that hub
:41:18. > :41:24.airport at Heathrow. I think the more we can move towards a really
:41:24. > :41:29.high quality Airport facility for it will benefit Kent, Sussex and
:41:29. > :41:33.Surrey, the better it will be for Surrey, the better it will be for
:41:33. > :41:40.jobs and the wages of people, and profits of companies. We can betray
:41:40. > :41:44.it has jobs versus the environment. I don't think that is the question.
:41:44. > :41:49.I am very entertained with Mr Jones's response that question. One
:41:49. > :41:56.would think that we didn't have carbon reduction targets, that the
:41:56. > :42:00.UK is legally obliged to meet. We cannot go doubling the capacity of
:42:00. > :42:05.but it to 70 million on a whim, because the gap to Comas want to
:42:05. > :42:09.make as much money as possible. There is proven this benefits in
:42:09. > :42:15.terms of air pollution, noise pollution and the carbon emissions,
:42:15. > :42:18.we cannot afford it. We don't need another airport. We are not poorly-
:42:18. > :42:21.performing in an economic terms because we don't have enough
:42:21. > :42:29.runways. We are poorly performing in economic terms because the
:42:29. > :42:35.coalition government is obsessed with cutting finance to everything.
:42:35. > :42:39.The truth is that the average output in the south-east is only 85
:42:39. > :42:43.% of what it is in the Thames Valley. The big difference is
:42:43. > :42:46.having a hub airport. We are going to come back to jobs again a little
:42:46. > :42:51.booklet on. In the meantime, the big issue right across the south-
:42:51. > :42:54.east, children, forced to live in cramped hostels and they shouldn't
:42:55. > :42:58.be there unless it is a real emergency. That is what the
:42:58. > :43:02.Government's sale in 2004 and four years, the number of families
:43:02. > :43:05.housed in B&Bs was dropping. It is going up again now. And it is a
:43:05. > :43:12.particular problem in the south- east.
:43:12. > :43:16.All right to, you too. Me to this single mum, her 11 year-old son and
:43:16. > :43:20.14 year-old daughter. Very close family in more ways than one. They
:43:20. > :43:26.all live in this one room in a hostel in Kent. Facilities are
:43:26. > :43:36.basic. You haven't got a fridge. No fridge. We have a windowsill fridge
:43:36. > :43:37.
:43:37. > :43:40.which I can show you. This is a fridge. The is only so much I can
:43:40. > :43:45.buy which is perishable at any one time and depending on the
:43:45. > :43:50.temperature, but either lasts for a long time or it doesn't. A it's
:43:50. > :43:53.annoying because sometimes I like to do stuff my myself but because
:43:53. > :43:58.Meyrick mother and my sister are there, I cannot do it and it is
:43:58. > :44:04.kind of hard. Cheers from Kent but she and her children had been
:44:04. > :44:08.living in Canada for years. 13 in emergency temporary housing for
:44:08. > :44:13.eight weeks. Because they've not been back in the country for long,
:44:13. > :44:17.she is not entitled to benefits at the moment. With no money, they
:44:17. > :44:26.needed somewhere to live. The sooner you could be found some sort
:44:26. > :44:30.of proper council housing... And the better. Absolutely. This is not
:44:30. > :44:34.an ideal situation to have a family in. At not having a kitchen or
:44:34. > :44:39.sitting room. We don't have the privacy that we require to have a
:44:40. > :44:43.normal life. And there are not alone. Nearly 700 families and the
:44:43. > :44:46.south-east are housed in this way. Across the whole of the region, the
:44:46. > :44:53.number of families living in temporary bed and breakfast
:44:53. > :44:57.accommodation as a son by 73 % in the last year. That is well above
:44:57. > :45:00.the national average. What we are talking about are not the kind of
:45:00. > :45:03.B&Bs are you still holiday. They are place is run entirely to ruck
:45:03. > :45:08.house families with nowhere else to live. The alternative is temporary
:45:08. > :45:12.accommodation, which is often let- out by councils and is usually less
:45:12. > :45:18.expensive and more Secure. No one likes the B&B option. It has
:45:18. > :45:21.dropped to have -- it is disruptive taught children, and has never
:45:21. > :45:25.supposed to be for longer than six weeks. In the early 1990s, there
:45:25. > :45:30.were a lot of people in this type of accommodation but that had been
:45:30. > :45:34.steadily falling, until now. There is not the temporary accommodation
:45:34. > :45:40.available. When you combine that with the fact that the impending
:45:40. > :45:42.welfare reform changes... We are seeing more and more private
:45:42. > :45:46.landlords saying we don't want housing benefit cases because we
:45:46. > :45:51.don't know whether we would get paid. That call of temporary
:45:51. > :45:56.accommodation is becoming a puddle. Councils are trying to tackle this
:45:56. > :46:01.-- the shortage. Crawley council might ask tenants with empty rooms
:46:01. > :46:08.to take a lot to us. At Maidstone, empty houses might be forced to
:46:08. > :46:13.sell. Although other solutions? The Labour group leader in Canterbury
:46:13. > :46:18.explains what his party did when it ran the council. We identified
:46:18. > :46:23.parcels of land and sold them cheaply to housing associations.
:46:23. > :46:27.This site is one of those parcels of land but we sold off. You can
:46:27. > :46:33.see the result of that decision. There are lots of families being
:46:33. > :46:37.very adequately housed. By do you think more could be done today?
:46:37. > :46:40.certainly could. There are hundreds of families like this on across the
:46:40. > :46:44.south-east and every day in a room like this is a day too long. Is
:46:44. > :46:49.there a solution to this growing problem with charities say it will
:46:49. > :46:52.only get worse as more benefit cap signed reduced? Is there a problem
:46:52. > :46:58.getting worse across the south- east?
:46:58. > :47:03.We are joined by the Conservative leader of Maidstone Borough Council.
:47:03. > :47:07.How many families are in emergency accommodation in the borough?
:47:07. > :47:12.spend approximately �120,000 per annum on bed-and-breakfast and that
:47:12. > :47:17.has increased over the last year or so. Can you put a figure on that
:47:17. > :47:22.the number of families? About 50 families in emergency accommodation.
:47:23. > :47:29.What we are trying to do is take a two-pronged approach. First, we are
:47:29. > :47:34.building more houses in Maidstone, around 10,000 and we require
:47:34. > :47:38.developers to provide 40 % affordable housing. If you have an
:47:38. > :47:44.estate of around 200 houses, you are looking at providing 80
:47:44. > :47:49.affordable houses in that place. In addition, we are taking a fairly
:47:49. > :47:54.tough line on tackling the empty homes in the borough. It is about
:47:54. > :47:59.increasing supply but we also want to increase the supply it of empty
:47:59. > :48:03.homes. He made the headlines have plans to bring those empty homes
:48:03. > :48:10.back into use, most specifically with the idea of compulsory
:48:10. > :48:17.purchase. Are you serious about that? That is the absolute last
:48:17. > :48:21.resort. We have around 560 empty homes in Maidstone. There are many
:48:21. > :48:24.reasons behind the stories of those homes. Some people have been
:48:25. > :48:34.working abroad, our intervention will not be appropriate there. Some
:48:35. > :48:35.
:48:35. > :48:38.will be in respite care. We where will it be appropriate? Be specific.
:48:38. > :48:42.Where there are empty properties and landlords are not put in those
:48:42. > :48:46.properties into the rental sector or the purchase sector, where those
:48:46. > :48:50.properties are not fit for purpose, we will signpost those landlords,
:48:51. > :48:55.provide grants and loans they did incentives as well to bring those
:48:56. > :48:59.properties back into a fit standard. What are the circumstances under
:48:59. > :49:06.which you would force them to give up their home, something that they
:49:06. > :49:10.own or have paid for? Where a landlord is refusing to work with
:49:10. > :49:16.us to put a property on the market that has absolutely no reason not
:49:16. > :49:23.to be on the market, either to be purchased or rented. Thank you very
:49:24. > :49:28.much indeed. There are some pretty catastrophic figures in Brighton.
:49:28. > :49:33.Your Green Party had been the ruling party in Brighton since 2010.
:49:34. > :49:38.It has gone up from 502 families in emergency temporary accommodation
:49:38. > :49:46.to 839. As the most catastrophic increase anywhere the south-east.
:49:46. > :49:52.What are you doing about it? We are building the first council houses
:49:52. > :49:56.and a generation. Furthermore, we have identified 800 sites in the
:49:56. > :50:02.City for affordable housing. That is one end of the situation. We
:50:02. > :50:09.have only been there for two years. This has its roots in Margaret
:50:09. > :50:13.Thatcher and her right to buy programme. The increase to 830 has
:50:13. > :50:18.happened in the last year, while you've been in power. In fact what
:50:18. > :50:27.we are dealing, as I was trying to say, Margaret Thatcher right to buy,
:50:27. > :50:34.that was fined, but... Since 1980, we've had the affordable housing
:50:34. > :50:37.stock dimension. Now, we have this awful prospect of the coalition
:50:37. > :50:45.government and the universal benefit cap which will limit the
:50:45. > :50:50.amount of funding for families to �500. That is what I am told. If
:50:50. > :50:55.that is not enough, the councils, have got a statutory duty to house
:50:55. > :50:58.people, will have to make it up from council funds. It is that
:50:58. > :51:02.Government's fault. You've changed the welfare system. He was forcing
:51:02. > :51:07.people into a situation where they cannot afford their own homes.
:51:07. > :51:11.you've got in Brighton is a failure on a number of fronts, including
:51:12. > :51:16.housing. There are all sorts of other solutions. If you look at the
:51:16. > :51:24.towns of East Sussex, the numbers on nothing like what they are...
:51:24. > :51:30.Hastings, it has gone up. There are 30, not his hundred. The size of
:51:30. > :51:38.Hastings is about the third of the size of Brighton. What is the big
:51:38. > :51:42.idea? I'm a on. -- hang on. I'm impressed with what they're trying
:51:42. > :51:45.to do in Maidstone but also, we must stop thinking that the state
:51:45. > :51:49.can provide the answers. One of the things the government is trying to
:51:49. > :51:52.do now and which could be very potent, is to encourage self-
:51:52. > :51:55.builders. I'm building a house at the moment that my wife and there
:51:55. > :52:05.are lots of young people who would like to get him there. They will be
:52:05. > :52:08.
:52:08. > :52:15.able to produce a home at a lot less cost. Why on earth in 2010, D
:52:15. > :52:22.George Osborne / the council housing budget by 50 %? Council
:52:22. > :52:27.housing is not the answer. People want to tour and their own homes. -
:52:27. > :52:31.- owned their own homes. I live in Brussels half the time to serve in
:52:31. > :52:40.the European Parliament. There is a myth about people needing to buy
:52:40. > :52:46.their own homes. In Belgium, you've got a country which is about to
:52:47. > :52:53.split apart! We are not talking about Belgium. Let's move on to
:52:53. > :52:57.police commissioners. Your clearly passionate about local
:52:57. > :53:01.democracy so you will be voting in the first to Police Commissioner
:53:01. > :53:04.elections, won't you? It is being billed as the biggest change in
:53:04. > :53:07.policing for half a century and as you probably saw earlier, and that
:53:07. > :53:10.of the November is the big day when you will be up to choose which
:53:10. > :53:15.person you think have the best plan to tackle crime way you live in
:53:15. > :53:22.Kent, Sussex or Surrey. As well as our guests of the day, we are also
:53:22. > :53:28.joined from Chatham by Paul Clark, a former MP for Gillingham. I would
:53:28. > :53:35.like to start with you, because for 11 years, you've been on the police
:53:35. > :53:41.authority in Sussex. What is wrong with the police authority? Police
:53:41. > :53:45.authorities around the country are self-appointed oligarchies. They
:53:45. > :53:51.are a dumping ground for those councillors that council leaders
:53:51. > :53:54.cannot find a useful job for. We have an arcane process of putting
:53:54. > :53:58.the independence through the authority. He'd been so tinged
:53:58. > :54:03.there in all the meetings for the last 11 years and are thinking,
:54:03. > :54:07.this is a load of rubbish. I've had interesting thoughts over that
:54:07. > :54:11.period. In Sussex, we've had a particularly good authority but
:54:12. > :54:16.what we discovered when there was an attempt to force through mergers
:54:16. > :54:19.of police authorities a few years ago, was across the nation, police
:54:19. > :54:22.authorities just bend the knee to Charles Clarke and they didn't
:54:22. > :54:28.fight the corner of local policing in the way that they should have
:54:28. > :54:32.done. I support the reforms that have coming in because we will now
:54:32. > :54:35.have a situation where somebody will have the legitimacy and the
:54:35. > :54:38.authority that comes from the ballot box. There is nothing better
:54:38. > :54:42.than the people expressing fare well as to who they want and if
:54:42. > :54:46.they don't do a good job, they can get rid of them. Everybody is
:54:46. > :54:52.wondering how many people will express their will. But we get on
:54:52. > :54:55.to the shore turnout... Is this a political post? Lots of parties are
:54:55. > :55:00.putting forward candidates but we are told there is a strange
:55:00. > :55:06.situation whereby, they will have to make a pledge to be impartial.
:55:06. > :55:11.It's a fudge, isn't it? A it's nonsensical and I have to say, the
:55:11. > :55:15.Commons just that the police authority was just a dumping ground
:55:15. > :55:20.is an insult to those that have worked very hard on all political
:55:20. > :55:22.sides on the police authorities. always said, if there was a problem
:55:22. > :55:28.with the police authority and accountability, deal with that
:55:28. > :55:32.issue, rather than spending �100 million on a balance that nobody
:55:32. > :55:37.wants. What they want is to know there is a police force that is
:55:37. > :55:43.responsive. What you end up doing here is putting power in the hands
:55:43. > :55:47.of what will undoubtedly be one that political person in, would
:55:47. > :55:52.have it is this county or Yorkshire, or whatever it is across the
:55:52. > :55:55.country. It doesn't have to be party political. I know the Greens
:55:55. > :56:03.are not backing any particular candidate but there are plenty of
:56:03. > :56:11.independence. I am appalled to sit next to someone who has been in
:56:11. > :56:17.charge of a police authority for 11 years and thinks it was ineffectual.
:56:17. > :56:27.I admire his honesty! He is certainly candied! The situation is
:56:27. > :56:31.not broke, so why on earth fix it? This is a fudge. I don't want a
:56:31. > :56:36.Conservative or a Labour police chief. I want the police managed in
:56:36. > :56:41.the way they are managed at the moment, by a mix of democratic
:56:41. > :56:50.parties. At the moment, we've got candidates from the English Defence
:56:50. > :56:55.League, anti- immigration policies. We have anti-feminist candidates.
:56:55. > :57:00.wanted to talk where the south-east. At the moment, let's... At the
:57:00. > :57:05.moment, crime is falling. If the main aim is to bring crime down,
:57:05. > :57:09.it's already happening. A You are not going to know whether these
:57:09. > :57:15.commissioners are effective. This week, Damian Green has had to
:57:16. > :57:25.announce to the House that 6778 frontline police officers have been
:57:26. > :57:26.
:57:27. > :57:31.cut in the last two years. 289 of those are in Kent. 1227... It will
:57:31. > :57:37.all have an effect on Kent and the authorities that are watching your
:57:37. > :57:40.programme today. Most of the candidates are saying, Zero
:57:40. > :57:47.Tolerance, will have more police officers on the street. There is
:57:47. > :57:55.not the money to do that. You will not have to raise council tax and
:57:55. > :58:04.you can deliver huge gains by using technology more effectively...
:58:04. > :58:14.Witt now. -- do it now. It is time now for our regular round-up of the
:58:14. > :58:20.
:58:20. > :58:26.Two of our MPs could become the victims of boundary changes. They
:58:26. > :58:33.may lose their seats. Labour and the Lib Dems will not back the
:58:33. > :58:36.plans anyway. It is largely theoretical. Live animal exports
:58:36. > :58:41.have started again at Ramsgate, after the High Court overturned a
:58:41. > :58:45.temporary ban. It will be examined by a judicial review later in the
:58:45. > :58:52.year. More controversy at East Sussex County Council, where
:58:52. > :59:01.demonstrators interrupted a meeting. The council later was under fire.
:59:01. > :59:05.They want to take away people's Hobbs and Jobs. -- jobs and homes.
:59:05. > :59:09.50 years after the Cuban missile crisis, secret tunnels at Dover
:59:09. > :59:18.Castle have been opened to the public. Government officials would
:59:18. > :59:22.have sheltered there in the event We are almost out of time because
:59:22. > :59:26.you to have been chatting so much and it has been so lively. D
:59:26. > :59:36.welcome but level of public engagement you saw at the meeting
:59:36. > :59:37.