21/10/2012 Sunday Politics South East

Should families live like this? We ask why official guidelines about

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children in the Breton breakfasts In the south-east, people are about

to get the chance... Maybe more police presence on the streets.

visible presence. 0 tolerance policy on street crime. I will like

to see more active policing on burglary and local crime. It's

quite scary. Out on to the south- east has three police forces. The

largest has about 3400 employees and an annual budget of �274

million. The Sussex force has more than 5000 employees and a budget of

�253 million. Surrey has 4500 employees and a budget of �209

million. So, what kind of people are standing to become police

commissioners? In the south-east, the candidates include local

politicians from the main parties, independent candidates, members of

police authorities which the police are will replace as a well as

former police of his and other professionals. He can get full

details of all the more on your local BBC News Web pages.

Candidates list their priorities us things like putting more police

officers on the beat, fighting anti-social behaviour, zero

tolerance and putting more emphasis on tackling domestic abuse. As this

is the first time south-east residents get a say in this, what

should people be asking when they choose who to vote for? Three thing

is. Whether they want a political party candidate or an independent

candidate. There might like to think about slogans and targeted

policing. Also, what sort of value for money they won for the police.

After all, it is their role to insure Poly for money. With it for

South East mixture of towns and countryside, people's experience of

policing can vary. It can be particularly difficult to make

policing more visible in rural areas. And the commissioners will

take over at a time when all the forces are in the middle of a

programme of cuts. So what impact might commissioners have on the way

policing looks on our streets? I think it a will be very difficult

for people on the streets of Kent and Sussex and Surrey are to be

able to discern a difference. they will have is someone they can

go to to raise concerns that they have anybody -- have any. Not only

are the police facing cuts but provisional plans are already in

place for next year's budgets. It is likely to take a while for the

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impact of the new police Hello. This is the Sunday politics

and the south-east. Coming up: they have nowhere else to go. Why more

and more families are stuck in emergency bed and breakfasts. Our

guests are the leader of East Sussex County Council and the Green

MEP for the south-east. A thank you for joining us. We will start with

the new twist in the airport debate. The owners of that which say they

are serious about developing a second runway. It cannot happen

until 2019 at the earliest and they could be strong objections from

people in West Kent as well as Sussex and Surrey. Plans for a

second runway will go forward to an independent review of airport

capacity that has been led by Sir Howard Davies. Peter Jones, this is

not the complete answer, is it? Even if they get permission for a

second runway at Gatwick, that is not enough. It doesn't create the

had status. No, it doesn't, but it goes a long way towards it. One of

the things I find exciting about this... One of the reasons I think

we need it is that if you look at the Thames Valley, the economic

performance of the Thames Valley is far superior to our part of the

south-east of this country. One of the key differences is that hub

airport at Heathrow. I think the more we can move towards a really

high quality Airport facility for it will benefit Kent, Sussex and

Surrey, the better it will be for Surrey, the better it will be for

jobs and the wages of people, and profits of companies. We can betray

it has jobs versus the environment. I don't think that is the question.

I am very entertained with Mr Jones's response that question. One

would think that we didn't have carbon reduction targets, that the

UK is legally obliged to meet. We cannot go doubling the capacity of

but it to 70 million on a whim, because the gap to Comas want to

make as much money as possible. There is proven this benefits in

terms of air pollution, noise pollution and the carbon emissions,

we cannot afford it. We don't need another airport. We are not poorly-

performing in an economic terms because we don't have enough

runways. We are poorly performing in economic terms because the

coalition government is obsessed with cutting finance to everything.

The truth is that the average output in the south-east is only 85

% of what it is in the Thames Valley. The big difference is

having a hub airport. We are going to come back to jobs again a little

booklet on. In the meantime, the big issue right across the south-

east, children, forced to live in cramped hostels and they shouldn't

be there unless it is a real emergency. That is what the

Government's sale in 2004 and four years, the number of families

housed in B&Bs was dropping. It is going up again now. And it is a

particular problem in the south- east.

All right to, you too. Me to this single mum, her 11 year-old son and

14 year-old daughter. Very close family in more ways than one. They

all live in this one room in a hostel in Kent. Facilities are

basic. You haven't got a fridge. No fridge. We have a windowsill fridge

which I can show you. This is a fridge. The is only so much I can

buy which is perishable at any one time and depending on the

temperature, but either lasts for a long time or it doesn't. A it's

annoying because sometimes I like to do stuff my myself but because

Meyrick mother and my sister are there, I cannot do it and it is

kind of hard. Cheers from Kent but she and her children had been

living in Canada for years. 13 in emergency temporary housing for

eight weeks. Because they've not been back in the country for long,

she is not entitled to benefits at the moment. With no money, they

needed somewhere to live. The sooner you could be found some sort

of proper council housing... And the better. Absolutely. This is not

an ideal situation to have a family in. At not having a kitchen or

sitting room. We don't have the privacy that we require to have a

normal life. And there are not alone. Nearly 700 families and the

south-east are housed in this way. Across the whole of the region, the

number of families living in temporary bed and breakfast

accommodation as a son by 73 % in the last year. That is well above

the national average. What we are talking about are not the kind of

B&Bs are you still holiday. They are place is run entirely to ruck

house families with nowhere else to live. The alternative is temporary

accommodation, which is often let- out by councils and is usually less

expensive and more Secure. No one likes the B&B option. It has

dropped to have -- it is disruptive taught children, and has never

supposed to be for longer than six weeks. In the early 1990s, there

were a lot of people in this type of accommodation but that had been

steadily falling, until now. There is not the temporary accommodation

available. When you combine that with the fact that the impending

welfare reform changes... We are seeing more and more private

landlords saying we don't want housing benefit cases because we

don't know whether we would get paid. That call of temporary

accommodation is becoming a puddle. Councils are trying to tackle this

-- the shortage. Crawley council might ask tenants with empty rooms

to take a lot to us. At Maidstone, empty houses might be forced to

sell. Although other solutions? The Labour group leader in Canterbury

explains what his party did when it ran the council. We identified

parcels of land and sold them cheaply to housing associations.

This site is one of those parcels of land but we sold off. You can

see the result of that decision. There are lots of families being

very adequately housed. By do you think more could be done today?

certainly could. There are hundreds of families like this on across the

south-east and every day in a room like this is a day too long. Is

there a solution to this growing problem with charities say it will

only get worse as more benefit cap signed reduced? Is there a problem

getting worse across the south- east?

We are joined by the Conservative leader of Maidstone Borough Council.

How many families are in emergency accommodation in the borough?

spend approximately �120,000 per annum on bed-and-breakfast and that

has increased over the last year or so. Can you put a figure on that

the number of families? About 50 families in emergency accommodation.

What we are trying to do is take a two-pronged approach. First, we are

building more houses in Maidstone, around 10,000 and we require

developers to provide 40 % affordable housing. If you have an

estate of around 200 houses, you are looking at providing 80

affordable houses in that place. In addition, we are taking a fairly

tough line on tackling the empty homes in the borough. It is about

increasing supply but we also want to increase the supply it of empty

homes. He made the headlines have plans to bring those empty homes

back into use, most specifically with the idea of compulsory

purchase. Are you serious about that? That is the absolute last

resort. We have around 560 empty homes in Maidstone. There are many

reasons behind the stories of those homes. Some people have been

working abroad, our intervention will not be appropriate there. Some

will be in respite care. We where will it be appropriate? Be specific.

Where there are empty properties and landlords are not put in those

properties into the rental sector or the purchase sector, where those

properties are not fit for purpose, we will signpost those landlords,

provide grants and loans they did incentives as well to bring those

properties back into a fit standard. What are the circumstances under

which you would force them to give up their home, something that they

own or have paid for? Where a landlord is refusing to work with

us to put a property on the market that has absolutely no reason not

to be on the market, either to be purchased or rented. Thank you very

much indeed. There are some pretty catastrophic figures in Brighton.

Your Green Party had been the ruling party in Brighton since 2010.

It has gone up from 502 families in emergency temporary accommodation

to 839. As the most catastrophic increase anywhere the south-east.

What are you doing about it? We are building the first council houses

and a generation. Furthermore, we have identified 800 sites in the

City for affordable housing. That is one end of the situation. We

have only been there for two years. This has its roots in Margaret

Thatcher and her right to buy programme. The increase to 830 has

happened in the last year, while you've been in power. In fact what

we are dealing, as I was trying to say, Margaret Thatcher right to buy,

that was fined, but... Since 1980, we've had the affordable housing

stock dimension. Now, we have this awful prospect of the coalition

government and the universal benefit cap which will limit the

amount of funding for families to �500. That is what I am told. If

that is not enough, the councils, have got a statutory duty to house

people, will have to make it up from council funds. It is that

Government's fault. You've changed the welfare system. He was forcing

people into a situation where they cannot afford their own homes.

you've got in Brighton is a failure on a number of fronts, including

housing. There are all sorts of other solutions. If you look at the

towns of East Sussex, the numbers on nothing like what they are...

Hastings, it has gone up. There are 30, not his hundred. The size of

Hastings is about the third of the size of Brighton. What is the big

idea? I'm a on. -- hang on. I'm impressed with what they're trying

to do in Maidstone but also, we must stop thinking that the state

can provide the answers. One of the things the government is trying to

do now and which could be very potent, is to encourage self-

builders. I'm building a house at the moment that my wife and there

are lots of young people who would like to get him there. They will be

able to produce a home at a lot less cost. Why on earth in 2010, D

George Osborne / the council housing budget by 50 %? Council

housing is not the answer. People want to tour and their own homes. -

- owned their own homes. I live in Brussels half the time to serve in

the European Parliament. There is a myth about people needing to buy

their own homes. In Belgium, you've got a country which is about to

split apart! We are not talking about Belgium. Let's move on to

police commissioners. Your clearly passionate about local

democracy so you will be voting in the first to Police Commissioner

elections, won't you? It is being billed as the biggest change in

policing for half a century and as you probably saw earlier, and that

of the November is the big day when you will be up to choose which

person you think have the best plan to tackle crime way you live in

Kent, Sussex or Surrey. As well as our guests of the day, we are also

joined from Chatham by Paul Clark, a former MP for Gillingham. I would

like to start with you, because for 11 years, you've been on the police

authority in Sussex. What is wrong with the police authority? Police

authorities around the country are self-appointed oligarchies. They

are a dumping ground for those councillors that council leaders

cannot find a useful job for. We have an arcane process of putting

the independence through the authority. He'd been so tinged

there in all the meetings for the last 11 years and are thinking,

this is a load of rubbish. I've had interesting thoughts over that

period. In Sussex, we've had a particularly good authority but

what we discovered when there was an attempt to force through mergers

of police authorities a few years ago, was across the nation, police

authorities just bend the knee to Charles Clarke and they didn't

fight the corner of local policing in the way that they should have

done. I support the reforms that have coming in because we will now

have a situation where somebody will have the legitimacy and the

authority that comes from the ballot box. There is nothing better

than the people expressing fare well as to who they want and if

they don't do a good job, they can get rid of them. Everybody is

wondering how many people will express their will. But we get on

to the shore turnout... Is this a political post? Lots of parties are

putting forward candidates but we are told there is a strange

situation whereby, they will have to make a pledge to be impartial.

It's a fudge, isn't it? A it's nonsensical and I have to say, the

Commons just that the police authority was just a dumping ground

is an insult to those that have worked very hard on all political

sides on the police authorities. always said, if there was a problem

with the police authority and accountability, deal with that

issue, rather than spending �100 million on a balance that nobody

wants. What they want is to know there is a police force that is

responsive. What you end up doing here is putting power in the hands

of what will undoubtedly be one that political person in, would

have it is this county or Yorkshire, or whatever it is across the

country. It doesn't have to be party political. I know the Greens

are not backing any particular candidate but there are plenty of

independence. I am appalled to sit next to someone who has been in

charge of a police authority for 11 years and thinks it was ineffectual.

I admire his honesty! He is certainly candied! The situation is

not broke, so why on earth fix it? This is a fudge. I don't want a

Conservative or a Labour police chief. I want the police managed in

the way they are managed at the moment, by a mix of democratic

parties. At the moment, we've got candidates from the English Defence

League, anti- immigration policies. We have anti-feminist candidates.

wanted to talk where the south-east. At the moment, let's... At the

moment, crime is falling. If the main aim is to bring crime down,

it's already happening. A You are not going to know whether these

commissioners are effective. This week, Damian Green has had to

announce to the House that 6778 frontline police officers have been

cut in the last two years. 289 of those are in Kent. 1227... It will

all have an effect on Kent and the authorities that are watching your

programme today. Most of the candidates are saying, Zero

Tolerance, will have more police officers on the street. There is

not the money to do that. You will not have to raise council tax and

you can deliver huge gains by using technology more effectively...

Witt now. -- do it now. It is time now for our regular round-up of the

Two of our MPs could become the victims of boundary changes. They

may lose their seats. Labour and the Lib Dems will not back the

plans anyway. It is largely theoretical. Live animal exports

have started again at Ramsgate, after the High Court overturned a

temporary ban. It will be examined by a judicial review later in the

year. More controversy at East Sussex County Council, where

demonstrators interrupted a meeting. The council later was under fire.

They want to take away people's Hobbs and Jobs. -- jobs and homes.

50 years after the Cuban missile crisis, secret tunnels at Dover

Castle have been opened to the public. Government officials would

have sheltered there in the event We are almost out of time because

you to have been chatting so much and it has been so lively. D

welcome but level of public engagement you saw at the meeting