05/02/2012 Sunday Politics South West

In the South West, the children caring for their parents. Pleading

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1757 seconds

with councillors not to cut the Hello. Coming up on the Sunday

Politics in the South West: The controversial plan to cut the

funding which supports young carers in Somerset. One MP says he is

appalled by the idea and is calling on councillors to think again.

To discuss that and much more, I am joined by the Conservative MP

Sherryl Murray and by the Labour leader for Plymouth City Council

Tudor Evans. Welcome to the programme.

David Cameron was in Plymouth this week and mistakenly referred to the

City as an enterprise zone. What you make of that? We had the recent

announcement that Plymouth was going to see this Marine Energy

Park, and I wonder whether that was the reason the Prime Minister made

this mistake. It is undeniably needed, some kind of investment in

Plymouth. Absolutely, but I would not want to talk businesses in

Plymouth down. They provide a lot of employment for my constituents,

and for people on this side of the Qamar. We have a lot of vibrancy

businesses already in Plymouth which the Government is supporting.

We are cut in corporation tax, providing help for apprenticeship

schemes, and that sort of thing. would have been nice, wouldn't it,

if it was an enterprise zone? Particularly because it is only a

few months before the -- since they turned us down. Perhaps they got

confused. But it is not the first gaffe he has made. He thought the

Americans joined the Second World War in 1939. Or would you like to

see happen in Plymouth? One of the things about the enterprise zone is

that they incentivise rates. The Government are also planning to

localised business rates without equalising them, meaning that areas

like London, which generate a lot of business rates, can subsidise

themselves a lot more, than can businesses in the Plymouth area. In

fact, throughout the South West, we will be at a disadvantage. Sherryl

Murray, will David Cameron be embarrassed by this gaffe? I think

he will probably not having -- not like having made the mistake, but

we have to remember, there is only a certain amount of money in the

pot, and we could not go on the way we were before.

Train passengers in the South West may be green with envy if they

happened to be in an overcrowded, to a carriage and been reading

about the massive investment in High Speed Rail elsewhere. The next

contract is due to start next year in the South West. What incentives

can Piers offer firms to improve It has not been the smoothest of

journeys. Covering the Penzance to Paddington line, criticism of the

current Great Western rail franchise has been widespread.

Protests led to a management reshuffle, more services and extra

carriages, but it came at extra cost to the taxpayer an operator.

Trains like this Paddington to Plymouth service have been run by

First Great Western since 2006. With the new franchise up for grabs,

campaigners say lessons must be learned. First Great Western are

opting out of their current deal next year. That is three years

early. It has triggered a public consultation on how the new 15 year

franchise should look. Chris Owen, a transport campaigner, uses trains

every day, and he has clear views of what the Government needs to

take on board. They need to look at performance and reliability. If

trains do not run on time, people are stuffed. If you cannot get a

seat, you get very upset. The third problem for us in the South West is

journey time. The problem of getting where you want to go at the

time of day you want to travel in a reasonable amount of time. He is

worried that planned improvements to the line and only as far West as

Bristol were are such -- isolate the far South West. We have got the

worst a franchise deal of any part of the country. We need to make

sure that this time round the franchise delivers things that we

want. Experts like Chris predict a gap of around 100 million seats on

mainline services over the next decade despite proposals to bring

in more intercity express trains. Branch lines like Truro to a

Falmouth break records for the numbers using them, and the

Department for Transport are being pressured to introduce extra trains.

But the fears that of mistakes could be repeated made his way to

the House of Lords this week. of most crowded trains are in

government statistics on First Great Western. They pledged there

will be more carriages. The doubt remains whether the ministers will

take the right track. My concern is that in 15 years, passenger numbers

could go up dramatically. The new franchise has to be incentivised by

the Government to want to change. Back at Exeter St Davids, it is all

about getting a seat. There are people standing in first class and

it is always packed. During the commuter hours, there is never

enough seats. It would be nice if there weren't more seats on the

busier journeys. There is two months to go until firms bid for

the new contract, due to start in April 2013.

Joining us from a Exeter studio we have Dr David Boughey, rail experts

from the University of Exeter Business School. People pay a lot

of money for rail tickets. Fares are still going up. Yet the biggest

gripe is that they cannot even get a seat. Do you think that this new

franchise means there will be improvements for Allah service?

think expectations are likely to be incredibly high with a new

franchise. Why wouldn't they be, given the circumstances that

passengers are experiencing? But I am afraid that it will be until

2017 until there is substantial improvement on the line. What kind

of improvement might we see by then? When we get to that point,

the new InterCity Express programme should have started delivering the

new trains across the network, meaning that we will see some of

those new trains heading towards Exeter and the displacement of

other trains that currently run on other lines also in this direction,

which should bring more capacity and faster journey times. And what

kind of government incentives make a big difference to customers? What

could be offered G as part of the consultation process, customers are

invited to say what matters to them. We have heard about the speed of

the journey, but there are other elements around catering, retailing,

space of seeds and luggage space, and all of these can be built into

contract arrangements as part of the franchise. Sherryl Murray, you

travel back and forth between Cornwall and Parliament every week.

You must want see some improvement. Should there be more in reticent --

Investment? Colleagues and I took part in a debate in Westminster

Hall last week, and what we called on the minister to include in the

new franchise was the retention of the sleeper service, improved

capacity, because I have travelled from Plymouth down to Liskeard on a

carriage train when it has been absolutely trapped, and they

pointed out then that the amount of luggage could even impact on safety.

And that is not necessarily good for the economy either? Certainly

not. Tudor Evans, should we be looking to other countries where

there are better models for train services? I have not made a great

study, although I have been on the Japanese railway system, and the

argument would be about taxpayers' money and subsidies. On the NHS to

debate -- High Speed Rail debate, the Government has just spent �500

million to make sure the line does not go through one Tory MP's

constituency. I understand what David are saying by Exeter, but

there is a lot of railway after Exeter which would not be suitable

for the new trains. What we need to look at for the franchise is an

improvement. I think the problem is we have got three our journeys to

Plymouth, and we need more of those. With Cornwall, because Brunel build

the railway would be sweeping bends, some of the high-speed trains

cannot actually travel at speed. That is an argument for more

investments, then, surely. Absolutely.

Children in Somerset to care for a family member are facing a 50% cut

to the money which funds their support network. There are 300 come

-- young carers registered in the county. Somerset County Council is

the only authority in the region proposing these kinds of cuts. An

MP has called it appalling. Councillors say they wish to make

things easier for children by relieving them of responsibilities.

What are we having a 40 tonight? Mashed potato and beans. After a

full day of school, Jasmine Searle gets the tee on.

Her dad mark suffers from severe arthritis, which makes walking

painful and slow. Some days he cannot even get out of bed, so the

bulk of the household chores fall on Jasmine. Do you enjoy cooking?

It gives me and Dad some quality time together. It is good to so --

because Wenham older I'll know what to do. Also growing up fast is her

nine-year-old brother Kelson. Both children are supported by the Young

Carers Project funded by Somerset County Council. They have a project

worker they can talk to and confiding. But the council wants to

make savings and is looking to cut the number of project workers and

replace them with volunteers. Mark thinks that will not work. I don't

think there is going to be continuity mayor, which is very

important for the young people. have just one woman who comes every

week. I talked to her sometimes about Dad and things, but Eddie not

think I would be able to talk to anyone else. Fighting their corner

is Carole Paterson, who helped develop the service. She is

troubled by the council's desire to extricate young carers from their

caring responsibilities, because she thinks it ignores the real

problem. These children, they live in the summer, -- these families,

it is their world. You need to give them support, give them a break.

These kids are so proud of what they do. Somerset County Council

insists it is only trying to make the lives of the young carers

better. What I want to do is relieve the burden. If I can do

that in any small way by working with social services you have a

duty to assess the family. What we want them to do is to come in and

help the young people and the adults provide the proper care, so

that young people may have more free time so they can enjoy other

parts of their lives. One local MP is calling on the council to review

the scale of the cuts. To remove overnight half of the funding for

actually quite a small service that is supporting already 350 young

people between the age of eight and 18, it seems to me to be beyond the

pale. I would appeal to the county council to go back and look at

these decisions. Somerset County Council says it is due to make its

final decision on 15th February. Tudor, we heard the leader of the

council there say that he is hoping to relieve children of their

responsibilities. That is one of the most harmless things I have

ever heard. That is a family that is coping, a family that is doing

their best, a family that has worked out between the three of

them how to run their lives. That kind of patronising behaviour

belongs to a Victorian system of social services, not one of the

21st century. Did I hear the word consultation? Has anybody ask the

children what they think? No. The truth is that it is a money-saving

exercise, it is nothing to do with improving the lives of those kids

or their father. Is this the Big Society gone wrong? We heard they

are going to bring in volunteers. I wonder whether David Cameron would

like the thought that a Big Society is being used to defend cuts to

vulnerable children. Let's face it, what they have said is that they

want to give the children more free time. Nobody wants to see their

child become their carer. I think there is a very fine line to be

drawn between imposing on a child and providing support for them.

What I would like to see is the council talk to these children to

find out... But whereas the money coming from? It is a Tory council

proposing to make these cuts, so where is the money coming from to

relieve those responsibilities? That is the biggest decision. As a

government, we have given local councillors the responsibility to

be able to do their job as a councillor without dictating to

them, like the last government. The councillors have to make their

choice. Tudor, some of these services have expanded over the

years, and it is true that cuts are necessary. It it just one of those

things where services have to contract? This is the week when

Eric Pickles has been pushing again his �250 million gift to local

councils that will only do what they are told. It is about

priorities. Politics is the language of priorities, and in the

case of Somerset, they have got their priorities quite badly wrong.

Thank you. Our regular round-up of the

South West water bills are to go up by nearly 5% in April. A

spokesperson told customers that it could have been worse. Any price

rise is unwelcome, but it is less than the rise in other parts of the

country. Art courses in Falmouth are bearing

the brunt of the tuition fee rise. A study has revealed that nowhere

else in the region has suffered a bigger drop in applications.

The tax Expos at Cornwall Council continues. The Lib Dem leader was

asked to explain why all four councillors who failed to pay their

council tax were I in his party. is something that people are very

upset about and I would rather it had not happened.

MPs warned that cuts to the defence budget appeared in homes at risk.

And the Eden Project is going head- to-head with Torbay in a race to

become home of the Government's Green Investment Bank.

That was our week in 60 seconds. Sherryl Murray, the water story

there. The Government has announced �50 for every customer pay year off

South West Water's bills. But in the same week, we have seen water

bill rises. Isn't that giving with one hand and taking away with the

other? I do not want to mislead anyone. It is �50 from next year.

It is South West Water that have increased the charges. We do have

the biggest coastline to clean up. We do have a very large capital

programme. I will be speaking to them to find out whether there are

any savings, because nobody wants to see any further increases from

water bills. I will be working with other South West MPs, I am sure, to

look at things like subsidising other authorities. At least the

coalition is doing something to mitigate the bill rises? Labour did

nothing. I think you'll find that the bills have gone up to their

highest ever level under the Coalition Government. I think

you'll find that the report that George was born based at his

promise on, a 50 pence reduction, is actually a commission from the

last Labour governments and championed by the previous MP for

Labour in Plymouth. I honestly think you'll find that actually the

reduction is down to Labour. The difficulty we have at the moment is

that with BBA tea, with all these other price rises since the

coalition has been in power... have to say, Labour had 13 years to

deal with the excessive water charges, and they did nothing. I