07/07/2013 Sunday Politics South West

families being chased for unpaid council tax. The women following in

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2172 seconds

the footsteps of those who won them Politics in the south-west. The

woman following in the footsteps of those who won them the right to

vote. And for the next 20 minutes I am joined by Adrian Sanders and the

leader of the Labour group on Devon County Council, Richard Westlake.

This week saw the bill for a referendum on EU membership passed

its first test in Parliament unchallenged. It will be the later

stages with the battle will be fought. The Prime Minister heard it

introduced but Labour said the debate was a political stunt and

advised its MPs to stay away. You going to vote for this bill when it

gets to the more crucial stages? I will. I will vote in favour a

referendum. That is unusual. You the only Liberal Democrat who's going to

do that? I think some colleagues will join me. There are Liberal

Democrats right across the country who feel strongly. A lot of us want

to land this boil and start the campaign to remain in the EU and I

will be in favour of us staying in the EU once we have got the

referendum up and running. Richard, this is a mess for Labour. Do you

risk being an anti-referendum party? This is a political stunt.

They have got UKIP and they are losing votes. The Liberal Democrats

recognise they are in trouble. What is happening is you are seeing this

go through Parliament. We need to sort out Europe. We need to sort out

what our position is. We cannot pussyfoot around. Should you not

vote for the referendum? You could have a referendum, but you want to

know what you are going to vote about. It seems to me, you will have

a referendum without the real debate, which we will need, and

certainly after the next Parliament, which is after 2015, and the effect

that will have. We do not know what the economy will look like after

2015, so we do need a debate, but if you rush into something, we could

get an answer that may be detrimental to the country. We will

see. It is three months since the government's welfare reforms kicked

in. Figures obtained by the BBC show the changes to housing benefit and

council tax benefit or already pushing people towards debt. In

Torbay, over 1000 families have been sent final notices changing --

chasing unpaid council tax bills. The situation in Cornwall is

similar. It is what the government wants. Janet Mandeville has swapped

a two-bedroom house for one-bedroom flat. Since April, social housing

tenants with a spare room have had housing benefit cut. She was getting

behind on her rent. It has worked out in the end. I did not

particularly want to move. It is because it did what I needed it to

do, which was to stop the stress about worrying about money. I am

already worried about money, because benefits are not that high. �20 a

week, it was making me ill. Ministers say the reform is designed

to do this. It will free up social housing stock and make the system

fairer. Janet says that is fine in theory, but there are not enough

properties around. I was lucky. I can feel for the people who cannot,

who want to, but cannot. Cornwall Council says four out of ten tenants

affected by this charge or behind on their rent. Other housing

associations are reporting an increase in arrears. It is repeated

for around 20,000 households who are having to pay a chunk of council tax

for the first time since the changes came in. Around one third are in

arrears. Susie is currently on benefits because of illness and she

is now on the brink of becoming a statistic herself after recently

getting a large bill. I got the electric bill last Friday. That is

how close I was. We walk a fine line. You can never tell if it will

be you next. Local authorities have been passed responsibility for the

tax benefit, but with less money. In Cornwall, the funding gap is being

plugged by working age people. are happy to take on more

responsibility but we cannot do so without any money and I am worried

it is being passed on to the poorest families who cannot afford it. Our

job is to make representations to government to say if you want to

trust councils to do more, we will be happy to take on that role, but

we need the money. The recession is hard. Cornwall Council has funds in

place to help the most honourable, like Janet who is getting some help

with their council tax payment. The government says the reforms will

save taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds a year and give councils

incentive is to get people back into work. To discuss this we are joined

by the Conservative MP George Eustice. What is your message to

these people who are in arrears? think there are a number of things

that they can do. Different councils have approached this in different

ways. Some councils decided to absorb the full cost of the

reduction in the council tax support, some like Cornwall tried to

pass it on to working people, but alongside that, a �1 million fund to

support people, and I met the council a couple of months ago to

discuss this, my message is that if people are struggling, do not wait

until you go to court, approached the council and put in an

application to get some support to help you adjust. We are talking

about 20,000 families. interesting thing is that when I

spoke to the council they said they have not had as many people

approaching them as expected, even though they wrote to everyone and

made clear at the funds were available. There are lots of funds

to help people. There is one that the government put in place. It will

not be there next year, will it? They are temporary. What will people

do them? In a year's time, Cornwall Council will be in a better position

to design something that is better tailored. Why will it be in a better

position? We will have seen which people need support. The principle

of this is the right thing to do. It is councils that understands council

taxpayers and they can tailor solutions that work for them, so

they can find the savings more efficiently. Some people will have

full support for council tax, but in a time limited way. It may be that

some of them have 90% or 60%. After one year of running this, when they

have people approaching them for support, they will have a better

understanding. In the meantime, a lot of people will have gone to

court. It is creating a divided society, with some of the wealthiest

people are still having a lot of money despite the recession, and the

poorest people are facing legal challenges. Crime the government has

passed it onto local government but it given them an amount of money

which is shorter than what is required. People who qualify for

this benefit are amongst the poorest families. We said we would be fairer

and we would not hurt those most in need. This policy is doing that and

the government needs to look at this again. There are further cuts in

government funding next year, so the councils will be even less able to

do their own package to help people who are in need next year. You have

to look at this again them. Councils have to look at what works for them

and some councils decided to absorb the full cost. Cornwall Council

decided it could not. Other councils approached it differently. Are we

all still in this together? Yes we are. The point is that there will be

people watching who do not get any council tax support, but might also

be in arrears. If you're going to claim some contribution from people

who have never paid it before, it is inevitable that some people will go

into arrears. I could point to lots of people who are working very hard,

but do not qualify for the benefit and they also struggle to pay these

bills and many of them will also have court summonses as well.

bring in Richard. Would later reversed this? We would look at it

and see after 2015, what the current state is. That is neither a yes or

no. We do not know what will happen in 2015. We would have a fairer

distribution. What we are looking at is local government not getting its

fair share and as Adrian said, we are seeing in the next two years

through the Chancellor's Autumn statement, another severe cut to

local authority spending. Are you gaining support from people who are

having benefits cut? We are gaining support in membership, but I do not

want people to join a party because they find that the -- that there are

benefits have been cut. Especially when it was Labour who left a note

to say there was no money left. cannot argue with that. We need a

shift. I was at a conference in Manchester and it was interesting

that Michael Heseltine was saying that central government should be

looking now to transfer more money to local government so that they can

help those most in need. I want to come back to George. The Bishop of

Truro spoke out and said the benefit changes are driving people to food

banks and it is a scandal that we have them at all in the

21st-century. That is your patch, what do you say? I have got food

banks in my area and it is worth noting the important work they do.

Should people have to go to charity? The use of food banks has been

growing. It increased under the last government. This government has for

the first time allowed job centres, where they think it is appropriate,

to refer people to food banks. There is greater awareness of them and

greater use. The changes we are making are right. We have put a cap

on the total amount that people can claim in benefits in a year at

around �26,000. That is the average for working families. It is wrong

that we are paying more to people on benefits than what working people

get. People are being driven over the edge. There is still a benefit

system there. People still get housing benefit and council tax

benefit. The benefits are still there. They are under pressure

because national finances are under pressure. There is still support.

Fight you for joining us. 100 years ago, women campaigning for the right

to vote were marching through Devon. Various events are being held

to commemorate their journey. We sent Johnny Robert the -- Johnny

Rutherford along. Their dream was for equality and for women to be

given the to vote. In 1913, women marched to London to have their

voice heard. On July three en route to London they passed Plymouth,

exactly 100 years to the date and women once again marched through the

streets, this time in celebration of the great suffrage pilgrimage.

were hoping for an end to sighted Labour, hoping for an end for

children being that having to work. It took 15 years after the March

before women were given an equal vote in 1928. They got us the vote

and they thought this would solve all that. Here we are, 100 years

later, and we are fine, largely? Women are a long way from political

equality but much progress has been made. The south-west provided the

first woman MP and she took up Parliament seat in 1919. She lived

in Plymouth and gave her house to the city as a residence for future

Lord Mayers. Today the Lord Mayor is Vivien Pengelly. We have always had

lady members of Parliament, we have had the likes of Joan Vickers. They

were all well respected members of Parliament. She was the first woman

to lead the city council. My meeting set the standard of how we discussed

the debate. I stuck to my guns. I stayed focused. I was determined to

do what I thought was the right thing for Plymouth. We present our

appeal. Our demand in response to the government's claim that women do

not want the vote! By re-enacting the speeches made a century ago,

these women hope to highlight outstanding campaigns on equal pay

and the cost of childcare. They say they are unlikely to achieve those

goals until there are as many women in politics as men. We are facing an

economic crisis, an environmental crisis, we keep going to war, there

are wars all over the place. It is not going well, guys, we need women

on board and it needs to be half and half. We want half the presence in

the corridors of power. Mary Lidgate ending that report. We are joined by

Rhea Brooke from the Fawcett Society. It is striking watching

that footage how far we have come from the long dresses and stern

faces. Do you agree with the women, although we have come a long way, we

have not come far enough? Apps lately. If you look at the number of

female MPs, the number of women who are counsellors, and you start

looking at council leaders, just over 2.5% of police and crime

commissioners, women do have a long way to go until there is parity

within political life. What can be done? It is about recognising why

women engage with politics and recognising the barriers. If you

think about the role of a councillor, where the expectation is

they will be attending meetings and events in the evenings and at

weekends and look at the cost of childcare, they are in a dilemma. Do

they pay out for childcare, which is incredibly expensive, or do they

attend and do what is expected of them, in terms of their roles as

councillors? Actually, if they claim expenses because they need childcare

in order to carry out their role, that gets played out in the press.

Does participation vary? It does. If you look at London and the number of

councillors there, there are significantly more. The further away

you move, there are fewer MPs. That might have something to do with the

balance between political life and the need to be in Parliament until

late at night and a family life, where you need to go home, and that

balance is hard. Tony Benn suggests that the system needs to be change,

and male and female MP for each constituency. It is a novel idea.

Changing the electoral system to a single transferable vote, would

ensure a better balance of candidates. That would be the

easiest and surefire way of getting more women and people from ethnic

minorities reflecting Britain as it is in Parliament. 100 years on, the

Cabinet is still made up of wealthy males. We have got four females

compared to 27 men. My party cannot claim to be good at this. We have

been looking at how we can attract more women. One of the biggest

barriers is finance. Most men who engage in politics, it is their

hobby that becomes part of their life, that they fund out of their

higher earnings. For women, it is very difficult, with all the other

responsibilities that they take on, if they have children. What about

the paid? I do not think that would have impact at all on the number of

women that would come in, except at the margins. What you need is the

support that she was talking about, support with childcare, which we

tried in Parliament and we have a creche, but we need more women to

fill it up. It is getting the women in in the first place, but having

the facilities there once they get elected. Is there anything that can

be done? These problems do not just exist in politics. You look at

teenage girls and there seems to be more of the cult of the celebrity

rather than someone that you look up to in politics? Politicians, when it

comes to their popularity rating, are well down the list. It is not

something that someone would go into to become popular. I think the

Labour Party has gone a long way to trying to make sure that there is

equality, so that women have opportunities to go for seats and

seats that you can win, not just the seat she cannot. I think she was

right, one of the things we have to look at, being a politician, whether

an MP or a local politician, the call on you is substantial. Today, I

have done a lot of work and when you have got children, you have a

responsibility in the household, it is how we balance that by making

sure that there is equal opportunity. We need to close time

on that discussion. It is time for our regular round-up of the

political week in 60 seconds. The fire service in Devon and Somerset

said it needed to save a further �2.5 million. We continue to make

representation to the government to ensure that the needs of the public

are fully reflected in future assessments, but we need to operate

but the funds made available to us. And mother called on the government

to ban legal highs after her 16-year-old daughter used one and

collapsed. They need to be made illegal and in the meantime, we need

to educate the parents and children about how dangerous they can be.

Duchy of Cornwall was asked to come clean about its tax affairs by a

Cornish MP. The Duke pays income tax voluntarily and perhaps we need to

explore where else we can balance the books with his assistance.

the decision on whether a pink Devon cottage will have to be repainted it

was put on hold. Let us look at the cuts to the fire service, because

that affects Plymouth and Torbay. Is this something which you have been

campaigning against? Yes. I think the issue for the Fire Authority

members, they will have to explain why 20% of the cuts are to

front-line services and only 5% to back office. There are nearly 19,000

people in Torbay engaged in the consultation progress and they said

no to this proposal because they are concerned about public safety.

do you make of that? The general public want to see no cuts to

front-line services. They feel that. The other message is to government

is when you are making cuts to local governments, you are also now