24/06/2012 Sunday Politics South West

In the South West, demands to tackle the rogue element in the

parking industry and should we be getting people off the dole and

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2000 seconds

Hello and welcome to the Sunday Politics in the South West. Coming

Should we replace a foreign farmworkers with people from the UK

dole queues? Well, I am joined this week by a

pair of peers, the Liberal Democrat Robin Teverson and Labour's Larry

Whitty. Tax avoidance, a big story this week. The Prime Minister says

it is immoral, what do you think? Are absolutely. The basic they need

is people... That does not mean that we should all go out and do

everything that is why the -- right up to the line of legality. One MP

said leave that to priests and moral philosophers. We are in

politics because we believe in things, not just because we make

laws, but we believe them. If you think something is wrong, should

she not change the law? That would be dangerous. Absolutely what we

should not do, we have a moral code and we have a legal code and

sometimes they coincide and sometimes they are different. In

the taxation area, we should pay what we do, particularly if we have

good incomes. These two codes do not seem to coincide as far as Ed

Miliband is concerned. He has held back a bit. The issue on which

there may be some criticism. He should not have picked on one

person. The Chancellor previously said it was immoral. The general

issue, almost all politicians would agree is immoral. If highly paid

people abused loopholes in the lot to maximum effect to maximise their

post-tax income, then I think most of us would agree that is immoral,

even if it is not technically illegal. I think the other issue

that we should not focus on individuals, is a moot point. It

was not the Prime Minister who raised it, but he probably should

not have criticised one person, because he immediately asked about

someone else. Do you think it was possibly something that he might

have regretted? Possibly. I think he thought it was a good wheeze at

the time, but it was not entirely of the cuff. In it raised the issue

and I think that is really important, especially in these

austerity times. It may not have been clever, it may have been

slightly clunky, but good to get it on the agenda. We need to raise

another issue now. It MPs this week call for tighter

controls in the park home industry. The Communities and Local

Government Select Committee found evidence of widespread malpractice,

while its chairman describes the is the existing legislation as beyond

inadequate. Jenny Kumah's has been to Exeter where residents are

unhappy with the way the site is maintained. Duly sold up her flat

to downsize to this park home and enjoy her retirement. It seems the

ideal move, but she says it has been frustrating as she feels the

side's owners are not doing enough to maintain it. There is no

suggestion that this operator is engaged in Groeger practices.

it is looking scruffy. There are potholes in the road and as anyone

can see, the gardens look messy, fences are falling down, trees have

become dangerous because they have not been looked after. Residents

are having to get resurgence into deal with those problems. Generally,

if you walk around the site, apart from people's actual properties,

the general parts, the roadways, are a mess. There are a number of

bottles, but the site managers did not want us to fill him and did not

want to do an interview. When I was last at the site, the site manager

sent me a statement. It says that they do take a maintenance very

seriously, they have on site and floating maintenance teams and all

issues reported were dealt with as soon as possible. There are around

2000 park home sides in England, mainly in rural and seaside

locations. Many residents are retired or elderly. This week, a

select committee report found that most sites are well run, but a

minority of rogue operators had infiltrated the industry. There

were some quite alarming stories about harassment, intimidation,

threats, there had been one or two prosecutions of people involved in

the sorts of activities. One of the serious issues is when someone

comes to sell one of their homes, they have to get permission from

the site owner for that sale to go ahead and all sorts of ways we used

to try and deter prospective purchasers. The person selling in

the end had to sell to the owner of the site, often at a lower price.

The report's recommendations include removing existing rights to

approve buyers to stop sale blocking and no upper limit on

fines for those bound to be breaching their licences. At the

moment the maximum that could end up paying his �2,500. The industry

feels that the report has missed an important point. The legislation is

not the answer, enforcement is the answer. A lot of the activities we

are talking about a criminal and the police should be targeting

their resources on criminal activity in this sector. That is

what Parliament should be focusing. Back at her home, it duly feels the

report is a step in the right direction. I at least there is a

report there, people will have to act on it and it will not be swept

under the carpet. More people are thinking that something needs to be

done here. All we can do is hope. Private Member's Bill to bring

about tighter regulation of the industry will come before

Parliament in October. Larry, is the lady from the

industry got a point there. Are these criminal matters and they

should be perceived within the existing law? Some of them are. If

you go through the report, some of them are intimidation and that is

covered by criminal law. You need better regulation and better

enforcement. In this area, it is clear that there is a loophole in

regard to owners of park homes and there are a lot of vulnerable

people in them. I think we do need to tighten up and therefore, I

think all parties are likely to support a Private Member's Bill on

this. They might support are now. Clive Betts, the chairman of the

committee, said the existing legislation was stuck in the 1960s.

Why did you not do something about it when you were in government?

There were a few problems in part cones which we did deal with, like

charging for its electricity and so forth. Actually, this report has

revealed a rather more and we need a more positive approach.

Personally, I would say we did failed to regulate and one of the

reasons this is a big problem is that old people are moving out of

their homes, so that their children and grandchildren can move into

them and they are moving to part cones. The reason they're having to

move is a shortage of housing were generally. It is a not pleasant

situation in the private rental sector. It is the end of the chain

of problems in the housing sector, but it is one we can tackle and we

can tackle fairly straightforwardly. Should we be tackling this in that

way? Are you ask about the criminality sides and I think the

whole point is what has happened recently is there has been an

infiltration by the criminal sectors, because there is a quick

buck to be made out of intimidating vulnerable people and that is why

they make a lot of money, sometimes by forcing sales. We absolutely

need to do something about this and I welcome the fact that we're into

consultation and I hope that it's this Private Member's Bill is fully

backed by the government. We have got to get some of this through, if

the Labour Party come through the lobbyist that is good enough.

about sale blocking? It is complicated, because the owner of

the site along as the road and the pitch itself, were as the resident

owns the house. You have got two owners. The air is an argument

there. In rural areas, there quite a few and adopted roads and you

have similar cinched -- situations. We need to get a balance there,

because they're a lot of site owners out there that there are

excellent landlords and there are a lot of park home sides that are

some of the best areas that you can find. There are beautiful places to

live up, so we must not put everything in that one way. We have

got to revolutionise baps, so that people -- so that owners do not

have a ransom on what their tenants can do.

Picking fruit and vegetables is apparently a job which next to no

one would actually choose to do. Farmers rely on workers from

Romania and Bulgaria who do not have the choice of something better.

Next year, though, they will get full EU working rights, at which

point they are expected to skedaddle leading the fruit farmers

in a predicament. Here at this farm in Cornwall they grow vegetable

plants. In the past, they have struggled to find enough local

Labour at busy times. That is why they have relied on foreign workers.

The majority of migrant workers come into this country on the

seasonal agricultural workers game, which allows farmers to temporarily

recruit overseas workers. He in 2007, the scheme changed to apply

only to migrant workers, coming from Romania and Bulgaria. They are

restricted a migration levels until 2013, when they will get full EU

working rights. The scheme will be phased out at the end of next year.

The James Hosking here on this farm is concerned. Something needs to be

done, because it is so crucial, the scheme needs to be continued. The

reason the scheme is so successful is because it is so well organised,

both for the work are coming in and ourselves. If that scheme was

available for English students are people out of work, where the had

placements and accommodation sorted out and when the finished they knew

they could go on somewhere else. That would make things easier for

them. The Government is being encouraged to get more British

people into agriculture. This Week in Westminster, there were calls to

get people on benefits at working it on the farm. The are schemes and

other countries, like Spain, which allows those in benefits to retain

their entitlement while undertaking seasonal work on a daily call basis.

The so-called contract allows workers to have an indefinite

contract with a farmer or, but his colt work only when there is

suitable work. On those days when there is no suitable employment,

the worker is allowed to claim unemployment benefit. If in my

lifetime, we have always started of employing local casual workers.

biggest issue has always been in benefits and it it is not just the

weekly thing, it is all the fringe things like housing allowance, that

they had been so frightened to lose if the sign of an come and work for

one month. It will actually cost them, because of the do sign of it

takes so long to get back on to it. The government says by 2014, there

will be major changes to the benefit system so this could make

it easier for people on benefits to take on seasonal work. So, will the

scheme to be replaced? Death is says it is working closely with the

Home Office and the Department for work and pensions, but no decision

has been taking yet on whether a successor scheme will be put in

place. One good thing though, this week's debate may have found a

solution to the problem. So many members of parliament had declared

their youthful experience of working in the feels up and down

the land, myself included. I think so many had declared their great

experience and that during the summer recess we might be able to

fill this shortage and ourselves! These two are on the edge of their

seats about this! Setting aside of a rather unorthodox hands on

political solution, how do we get people to do this job that

apparently no one wants to do? most important thing is that

farmers must be able to do it, they must be able to look after their

crops and we would all like our own residents and citizens to be at the

front of the queue. Maybe one of the things that will change with

the Universal Credit, where you do not have order benefits taken of

you if you start to increase the amount of work you do. Maybe that

will help. From a practical point of view, I am sceptical and I think

it is important that DEFRA it does get its act together and starts to

tell our agricultural industry what will happen after December next

year, because we have to gather those crops. Should that involve

opening up the scheme to immigrants from outside the you? Be if we

cannot get enough people from inside, then I would advocate that.

Whether it is Ukraine or Croatia, they will be under similar

restrictions to Romania and Bulgaria now. Yes macro. A Ed

Miliband has announced that Labour would clamp down on immigration.

How would this kind of proposal -- proposals it but that? This is a

fairly well run scheme for a limited period. Most of the people

on it come and go and are well organised. The farming Minister

said if we extend this, how do we make sure those people go back?

under this scheme, the vast majority do go back, because it is

well-documented. There are other schemes, whether his exploitation

of workers and some very nasty practices. They do affect the

agriculture industry. Under this scheme, it is usually pretty well

run. The issue therefore is is this a particular area that will

continue to fail to attract a British Labour, were we need to

have some posted 2014 it scheme? They are right, if the Romanian is

over here and this is the only work he can try to undertake and

suddenly he is free to take any job, which you will in it two years'

time, then made are going to take a job elsewhere. It is an issue. The

scheme it did previously have some non- EU people in it, because prior

to them joining the EU, a lot of polls and Lithuanians were here.

The key issue is that farmers need, in a very restricted period of time,

quality and quantity of labour in order to get the harvest in.

Prisoners? I think we should have prisoners working when we can.

There are serious issues about who is outside the prison walls and how

ought that is looked after. I have absolutely no problem with that at

all, in principle, but there are a lot of practical things that will

have to be sorted out. This is in terms of safety and making sure

incarceration continued afterwards. Time now for our regular round-up

of the political week in 60 seconds. Reports that the Education

Secretary wants to bring back O- levels let the MP for North

Cornwall fuming. There will be some sort of division between two groups

of people about what they can do and what they can study and what we

can hope to achieve. Union leaders in he debt collective sigh of

relief, what else, at the suggestion the Government might

abandon plans for regional pay. are pleased that the Government

seems to be retracting on this and we can now get back to sensible

discussions. An ecclesiastical alternative to the full rest which

this woman finds hideous. I believe there is a man doing a bit of

business with the Church! Taunton MP denies talking down

England's chances in Euro 2012. I said that England had never

reached a final of the tournament that been held outside England.

This was reported as the predicting that England would not reach the

final. Apparently Nick Clegg is not

ecstatic about the idea of bringing back O levels, will this be the

next big coalition bus-stop? have discussions, usually in the

back corridors, but this has come out other publicly! Nick is

absolutely right, we do not want a first and second class students at

the age of 11. All levels, I dread of them and I got through them, but

I think having that divide was bad news. The is could be a red line?

think there will be an amicable solution it somehow. As always!

am sure there will be some. Larry, even Kenneth Baker, the father of

the GCSE, has admitted that it has been dumbed down. What do you

think? I think there are issues of quality and I think the key issue

about these proposals is that they are deeply divisive and I am afraid

it is of a pattern, Michael Gove's educational reforms, he is

attending to divide schools, divide academic achievement. It is a

deeply divisive strategy and I think his starkly, we will look

back and see Michael Gove as the -- as a disaster as Education

Secretary. Regional pay, some people think it is dead in the

water anyway, you already won the argument by the time you had the

debate this week. We probably have because of the practicalities of it

and I think that one thing has to be recognised, with the

disappearance of large elements of regional policy, actually having a

national pay scheme brings resources into those regions that

have lower incomes and low economic performance. I think, to have

regionalised benefits and regionalised pay, that is not a

sensible policy. Will you be the only Liberal Democrat welcoming

this? Isle do not welcome it. It is a bigger issue will be had a

country that does have such big disparities in his regions. I would