24/11/2013 Sunday Politics South West

Morning, folks. Welcome to the Sunday Politics.

Labour's been hit hard by scandals at the Co-op. Ed Miliband says the

Tories are mudslinging. We'll speak to Conservative Chairman Grant

Shapps. Five years on from the financial

crisis, and we're still talking about banks in trouble. Why haven't

the regulators got the message? We'll ask the man who runs the

City's new financial watchdog. And he used to have a windmill on

his roof and talked about giving hugs to hoodies and huskies. These

days, not so much. Has the plan to make

In the South West: The warning from the wind and solar industry that

story talk of cutting green warned that benefit falls will be to

homelessness and population ships. What is the evidence?

And as always, the political panel that reaches the parts other shows

can only dream of. Janan Ganesh Helen Lewis and Nick Watt. They ll

be tweeting faster than England loses wickets to Australia. Yes

they're really that fast. First, some big news overnight from

Geneva, where Iran has agreed to curb some of its nuclear activities

in return for the partial easing of sanctions. Iran will pause the

enrichment of uranium to weapons grade and America will free up some

funds for Iran to spend. May be up to $10 billion. A more comprehensive

deal is supposed to be done in six months. Here's what President Obama

had to say about this interim agreement. We have pursued intensive

diplomacy, bilaterally with the Iranians, and together with our

partners, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China,

as well as the European Union. Today, that diplomacy opened up a

new path towards a world that is more secure, a future in which we

can verify that Iraq and's nuclear programme is peaceful, and that it

cannot build a nuclear weapon. President Obama spoke from the White

House last night. Now the difficulty begins. This is meant to lead to a

full-scale agreement which will effectively end all sanctions, and

end Iran's ability to have a bomb. The early signs are pretty good The

Iranian currency strengthened overnight, which is exactly what the

Iranians wanted. Inflation in Iraq is 40%, so they need a stronger

currency. -- information in Iran. France has played a blinder. It was

there intransigence that led to this. Otherwise, I think the West

would have led to a much softer deal. The question now becomes

implementation. Here, everything hinges on two questions. First, who

is Hassan Rouhani? Is he the Iranians Gorbachev, a serious

reformer, or he's here much more tactical and cynical figure? Or

within Iran, how powerful is he There are military men and

intelligence officials within Iran who may stymie the process. The

Western media concentrate on the fact that Mr Netanyahu and the

Israelis are not happy about this. They don't often mention that the

Arab Gulf states are also very apprehensive about this deal. I read

this morning that the enemies of Qatar and Kuwait went to Saudi king.

-- the MAs row. That is the key thing to watch in the next couple of

weeks. There was a response from Saudi Arabia, but it came from the

Prime Minister of Israel, who said this was a historic mistake. The

United States said there would be no enrichment of uranium to weapons

grade. In the last few minutes, the Iranian Foreign Minister has tweeted

to say that there is an inalienable right -- right to enrich. The key

thing is the most important thing that President Obama said in his

inaugural speech. He reached out to Iran. It failed under President

McKenna jab. Under President Rouhani, there seems to be progress.

There is potentially now what he talked about in that first inaugural

address potentially coming through. In the end, the key issue - and we

don't know the answer - is the supreme leader, not the president.

Will the supreme leader agreed to Iran giving up its ability to create

nuclear weapons? This is the huge ambiguity. Ayatollah Khamenei

authorise the position that President Rouhani took to Geneva.

That doesn't mean he will sign off on every bit of implementation over

the next six months. Even when President Ahmadinejad was president,

he wasn't really President. We in the West have to resort to a kind of

Iranians version of the study of the Kremlin, to work out what is going

on. And the problem the president faces is that if there is any

sign... He can unlock these funds by executive order at the moment, but

if he needs any more, he has to go to Congress. Both the Democrat and

the Republican side have huge scepticism about this. And he has

very low credibility now. There s already been angry noises coming

from quite a lot of senators. It was quite strange to see that photo of

John Kerry hugging Cathy Ashton as if they had survived a ship great

together. John Kerry is clearly feeling very happy. We will keep an

eye on this. It is a fascinating development.

More lurid details about the personal life of the Co-op Bank s

disgraced former chairman, the Reverend Paul Flowers. The links

between Labour, the bank and the wider Co-op movement have caused big

problems for Ed Miliband this week, and the Conservatives have been

revelling in it. But do the Tory allegations - Ed Miliband calls them

"smears" - stack up? Party Chairman Grant Shapps joins us from Hatfield.

Welcome to the programme. When it comes to the Co-op, what are you

accusing Labour of knowing and when? I think the simple thing to say here

is that the Co-op is an important bank. They have obviously got into

difficulty with Reverend flowers, and our primary concern is making

sure that that is properly investigated, and that we understand

what happened at the bank and how somebody like Paul Flowers could

have ended up thing appointed chairman. You wrote to edge Miliband

on Tuesday and asked him what he knew and when. -- you wrote to Ed

Miliband. But by Prime Minister s Questions on Wednesday, David

Cameron claims that you knew that Labour knew about his past all

along. What is the evidence for that? We found out by Wednesday that

he had been a Labour councillor Reverend Flowers, and had been made

to stand down. Certainly, Labour knew about that, but somehow didn't

seem to think that that made him less appropriate to be the chairman

of the Co-op bank. There was no evidence that Mr Miliband or Mr

Balls knew about that. I ask you again, what are you accusing the

Labour leadership of knowing? We know now that he stood down for very

inappropriate images on his computer, apparently. You are

telling me that they didn't know. I am not sure that is clear at all. I

have heard conflicting reports. There is a much bigger argument

about what they knew and when. There was a much bigger issue here. This

morning, Ed Miliband has said that they don't have to answer these

questions and that these smears This is ludicrous. These are

important questions about an important bank, how it ended up

getting into this position, and how a disastrous Britannia -- Italia

deal happen. -- Britannia deal happened. And we need to know how

the bank came off the rails. To be accused of smears for asking the

questions is ridiculous. I am just trying to find out what you are

accusing Labour of. You saying that the Labour leadership knew about the

drug-taking? Sorry, there was some noise here. I don't know what was

known and when. We do know that Labour, the party, certainly knew

about these very difficult circumstances in which he resigned

as a councillor. I think that the Labour Party knew about it. We knew

that Bradford did, but not London. Are you saying that Ed Miliband knew

about the inappropriate material on the Reverend's laptop? It is

certainly the case that Labour knew about it. But did Mr Miliband know

about it, and his predilection for rent boys? He will need to answer

those questions. It is quite proper to ask those questions. Surely,

asking a perfectly legitimate set of questions, not just about that but

about how we have ended up in a situation where this bank has made

loans to Labour for millions of pounds, that bank and the Unite

bank, who is connected to it. And how they made a ?50,000 donation to

Ed Balls' office. Ed Balls says that was nothing to do with Reverend

Flowers, and yet Reverend Flowers said that he personally signed that

off. Lots of questions to answer. David Cameron has already answered

them on Wednesday. He said that you now know that Labour knew about his

past all along. You have not been able to present evidence that

involve Mr Miliband or Mr Balls in that. So until you get that, surely

you should apologise? Hang on. He said that Labour knew about this,

and they did, because he stood down as a councillor. If Ed Miliband

didn't know about that, then why not? This was quite a serious thing

that happened. The wider point is about why it is that when you ask

perfectly legitimate questions about this bank, about the Britannia deal,

and about the background of Mr flowers, why is the response, it is

all smears? There are questions about how Labour failed to deal with

the deficit and how it hasn't done anything to support the welfare

changes, but there is nothing about that. Let us -- lets: To the wider

picture of the Co-operative Bank. Labour wanted the Co-op to take over

the Britannia Building Society, and it was a disaster. Do you accept

that? The government of the day has to be a part of these discussions

for regulatory reason. The government in 2009 - Ed Balls was

very pleased... But you supported that decision. There was a later

deal, potentially, for the Co-op to buy those Lloyds branches. There was

a proper process and it didn't go through just recently. If there had

been a proper process back in 2 09, would the Britannia deal have gone

through? First, you accept that the Tories were in favour of the

Britannia take over. Then your Chancellor Osborne went out of his

way to facilitate the purchase of the Lloyds branches, even though you

had no idea that the Co-op had the management expertise to become a

super medium. Correct? The difference is that that deal didn't

go through. There was a proper process that took place. Let's look

at the process. There was long indications as far back as January

2012 that the Co-op, as a direct result of the Britannia take over

which you will party supported, was unfit to acquire the Lloyds

branches. By January 2012, the Chancellor and the Treasury ignored

the warnings. Wide? In 2009, there was political pressure for the

Britannia to be brought together. Based on the information available,

this was supported, but that process ended up with a very, very

problematic takeover of the Britannia. Wind forward to this

year, and when the same types of issues were being looked at for the

purchase of the Lloyds deal, the proper process was followed, this

time with us in government, and that purchase didn't go through. It is

important that the proper process is followed, and when it was, it

transpired that the deal wasn't going to be done. But it was the

Treasury and the Chancellor who were the cheerleaders for the acquisition

of the Lloyds branches. But there was a warning that the Co-op did not

have enough capital on its balance sheet to make those acquisitions,

but instead of heeding those warnings, your people went to

Brussels to lobby for the requirements to be relaxed - why on

earth did you do that? Our Chancellor went to argue for all of

Rajesh banking, not specifically for the Co-op. He was arguing for the

mutuals to be given a special ruling. The idea was to make sure

that every bank in Britain could have a better deal, particularly the

mutuals, as you say. That is a proper thing for the Chancellor to

be doing. We could go round in circles here, but in the end, there

was not a takeover of the Lloyds branches, that is because we

followed a proper process. Had that same rigorous process been followed

in 2009, the legitimate question to ask is whether the Co-op would have

been -- would have taken over the Britannia. That is a proper question

to ask. It is no good to have the leader of the opposition say, as

soon as you ask any of these questions about anything where there

is a problem for them, they come back with, oh, this is all smears.

There are questions to ask about what the Labour government did, the

debt and the deficit they left the country with, the way they stopped

work from paying in this country. The big question your government has

two answer is, why, by July 201 , when it was clear there was a black

hole in the Co-op's balance sheet, your government re-confirmed the

Co-op as the preferred bidder for Lloyds - why would you do that?

Well, look, the good thing is, we can discuss this until the cows come

home, but there is going to be a proper, full investigation, so we

will find out what happened, all the way back. So, we will be able to get

to the bottom of all of this. Grant Shapps, the only reason the Lloyds

deal did not go ahead was, despite the Treasury cheerleading, when

Lloyds began its due diligence, it found that there was indeed a huge

black hole in the balance sheet and that the Co-op was not fit to take

over its branches. That wasn't you, it wasn't the Government, it was not

the Chancellor, it was Lloyds. You were still cheerleading for the deal

to go ahead... Well, as I say, a proper process was followed, which

did not result in the purchase of the Lloyds branches. At that proper

process been followed with the purchase of the Britannia, under the

previous government... Which you supported. Yes, but it may well be

that under that previous deal, there was a excess political pressure

perhaps put on in order to create that merger, which proved so

disastrous. The Tories facilitated it, Grant Shapps, they allowed it to

go ahead. I have said, we are going to have a proper, independent

review. What I cannot understand is, when you announce a robber,

independent review, the response you get to these serious questions. The

response is, oh, this is a smear. It is crazy. We are trying to answer

the big questions for this country. We have done all of that, and we are

out of time. The Reverend Flowers' chairmanship of the Co-op bank was

approved by the regulator at the time, which no longer exists. It was

swept away by the coalition government in a supposed revolution

in regulation. But will its replacement, the Financial Conduct

Authority, be different? Adam has been to find out. Come with me for a

spin around the Square mile to find out how we regulate our financial

sector, which is almost five times bigger than the country's entire

annual income. First, let's pick up our guide, journalist Iain Martin,

who has just written a book about what went so wrong during the

financial crisis. The FSA was an agency which was established to

supervise the banks on a day-to day basis. The Bank of England was

supposed to have overall responsible at for this to Bolivia the financial

system and the Treasury was supposed to take an interest in all of these

things. The disaster was that it was not anyone's call responsibility, or

main day job, to stay alert as to whether or not the banking system as

a whole was being run in a safe manner. And so this April, a new

system was set up to police the City. Most of the responsibly delays

here, with the Bank of England, and its new Prudential Regulation

Authority. And the Financial Services Authority has been replaced

with the new Financial Conduct Authority. Can we go to the

financial conduct authority, please? Canary Wharf, thank you. Here, it is

all about whether the people in financial services are playing by

the rules, in particular, how they treat their customers. This place

has got new powers, like the ability to ban products it does not like, a

new mandate to promote competition in the market, the concept being,

more competition means a better market, plus the idea that a new

organisation rings a whole new culture. Although these are the old

offices of the FSA, so maybe not quite so new after all. It has also

inherited the case of the Co-op bank and its disgraced former chairman

the Reverend Paul Flowers. The SCA will be part of the investigation

into what happened, which will probably involve looking at its own

conduct. One member of the Parliamentary commission into

banking wonders whether the new regulator, and its new boss, are up

to it. I have always said, it is not the architecture which is the issue,

it is the powers that the regulator has, and today, it does not seem to

me as if there is any increase in that. And with the unfolding scandal

at the Co-op, it feels like the new architecture for regulating the City

is now facing its first big test. And the chief executive of the

Financial Conduct Authority, the SCA, Martin Wheatley, joins me now.

Welcome to The Sunday Politics. The failure of bank regulation was one

of the clearest lessons of the crash in 2008, and yet two years later, in

2010, Paul Flowers is allowed to become chairman of the Co-op - why

have we still not got the regulation right? We have made a lot of changes

since then. We have created a new regulator, as you know. At the time,

we still had a process which allowed somebody to be appointed to a bank

and they would go through a challenge, but in the case of Paul

Flowers, there was no need for an additional challenge when he was

appointed to chairman, because he was already on the board. But going

from being on the board to becoming chairman, that is a big jump, and he

only had one interview? That is why today, it would be different. But

the truth is, that was the system at the time, the system which the FSA

operated. He was challenged, we did challenge him, and we said, you do

not have the right experience, but at the time, we would not have

opposed the appointment. What we needed was additional representation

of the board of people who did have banking experience. You can say that

that was then and this is now, but up until April of this year, it was

still the plan for the Co-op, under Mr Flowers, and despite being

seriously wounded by the Britannia takeover, to take on 632 Lloyds

branches. That was the Co-op's plan. They needed to pass our test

as to whether we thought they were fit to do that, and frankly, they

never passed that test. It was not the regulator that stopped them It

was. We were constantly pushing back, saying, you have not got the

capital, you have no got the systems, and ultimately, they

withdrew, when they could not answer our questions. You were asking the

right questions, I accept that, but all of the time, the politicians on

all sides, they were pushing for it to happen, and I cannot find

anywhere where the regulator said, look, this is just not going to

happen. I cannot comment on what the politicians were doing, but I

continue what we were doing, which was constantly asking the Co-op

have you got the systems in place, have you got the people, have you

got the capital? And they didn't. But it only came to a head when

Lloyds started its own due diligence on the bank, and they discovered

that it was impossible for them to take over the branches, it was not

the regulator... In fairness, what we do is ask the questions, can you

do this deal? And we kept pushing back, and we never frankly got

delivered a business plan which we were happy to approve. Is the SCA

going to launch its own inquiry into what happened? -- the FCA. The

Chancellor has announced what will be a very broad inquiry. There are a

number of specifics which we will be able to look at, relating to events

over the last five years. Could there be a police investigation I

think the police have already announced an investigation. I am

talking about into the handling of the bank. It depends. There might

be, if there is grim low activity, which we do not know yet. You worked

at the FS eight, didn't you? I did. Some of those people who were signed

off on the speedy promotion of Mr Flowers, are they now working

there? Yes, we have some. I came to join the Financial Services

Authority, to lead it into the creation of the new body, the SCA.

We had people who were challenging and they did the job. There was not

a requirement to approve the role as chairman. There was not even a

requirement to interview at that stage. What we did do was to require

that he was interviewed, and that the Co-op should get additional

experience. One of the people from the old organisation, who signed up

on the promotion of Mr Flowers to become chairman is now a

nonexecutive director of the Co op, so how does that work? Welcome he

was a senior adviser to our organisation, one of the people who

made the challenges, and who said, you need more experience on your

board. Subsequently he then went and joined the board. Surely that should

not be allowed, the regulator and the regulated should not be like

that. Well clearly, you need protection, but we have got to get

good people in, and frankly, we want the industry to have good people in

the industry, so there will be some movement between the regulator and

industry. We all wonder whether you have the power or even the

confidence to stand up if you look at all of the really bad bank

decisions recently, politicians were behind them. It was Gordon Brown who

pushed the disastrous merger of Lloyds and RBS. It was Alex Salmond

who egged on RBS to buy the world. All three main parties wanted the

Co-op to buy Britannia, even though they did not know the debt it would

inherit, and all three wanted the Co-op to buy the Lloyds branches -

how do you as a regulator stand up to that little concert party? Well,

that political pressure exists, our job at the end of the day is to do a

relatively technical job and say, does it stack up? And it didn't and

we made that point time and time again to the Co-op board. They did

not have a business case that we could approve. The bodies on left

and right -- the politicians on left and right gave the Co-op special

support. They may have done, but that was not you have made a warning

about these payday lenders, but I think what most people would like to

see is a limit put on the interest they can charge over a period of

time - will you do that? We have got a whole set of powers for payday

lenders. We will bring in some changes from April next year, and we

will bring in further changes as we see necessary. Will you put a limit

on the interest they can charge That is something we can study. You

do not sound too keen on it? Well, there are a lot of changes we need

to make. One change is limiting rollovers, limiting the use of

continuous payment authorities. Simply jumping to one trigger would

be a mistake. Finally, an issue which I think is becoming a growing

concern, because the Government is thinking of subsidising them, 9 %

mortgages are back - should we not be worried about that? I think we

should if the market has the same experiences that we had back in 2007

- oh wait. We are bringing a comprehensive package in under our

mortgage market review, which will change how people lend and will put

affordability back at the heart of lending decisions. -- 2007-08. You

have not had your first big challenge yet, have you? We have

many challenges. It was once called the battle of the

mods and the rockers - the fight between David Cameron-style

modernisers and old-style traditional Tories for the direction

and soul of the Conservative Party. But have the mods given up on

changing the brand? When David Cameron took over in 2005, he

promoted himself as a new Tory leader. He said that hoodies need

more love. He was talking about something called the big society. He

told his party conference that it was time to that sunshine win the

day. There was new emphasis on the environment, and an eye-catching

trip to a Norwegian glacier to see first-hand, supposedly, the effects

of global warming. This week, party modernise and Nick bone has said

that the party is still seen as an old-fashioned monolith and hasn t

done enough to improve its appeal. The Tories have put some reforms

into practice, such as gay marriage, but they have put more into welfare

reform band compassionate conservatism. David Cameron wants

talked about leading the greenest government ever. Downing Street says

that the quote in the Son is not recognised, get rid of the green

crap. At this point in the programme we were expecting to hear from the

Energy and Climate Change Minister, Greg Barker. Unfortunately, he has

pulled out, with Downing Street saying it's for ""family reasons"".

Make of that what you will. However, we won't be deterred. We're still

doing the story, and we're joined by our very own mod and rocker - David

Skelton of the think-tank Renewal, and Conservative MP Peter Bone.

Welcome to you both. I'm glad your family is allowed you to come? David

Skelton, getting rid of all the green crap, or words to that effect,

that David Cameron has been saying. It is just a sign that Tory

modernisation has been quietly buried. I do think that's right

Modernisation is about reaching out to the voters, and the work to do

that is now more relevant than ever. We got the biggest swing since 931,

and the thing is we need to do more to reach out to voters in the North.

We need to reach out to non-white voters, and show that the concerns

of modern Britain and the concerns of ordinary people is something that

we share. And what way will racking up electricity bills with green

levies get you more votes in the North of England? We have to look at

ways to reduce energy bills. The renewable energy directive doesn't

do anything to help cut our emissions, but does decrease energy

bills by ?45 a year. We should renegotiate that. That is a part of

modernisation and doing what ordinarily people want. And old

dinosaurs like you are just holding this modernisation process back I

am very appreciative of covering on this programme. The Tory party has

been reforming itself for more than 150 years. This idea of modern eyes

a is just some invention. We are changing all the time. I'm nice and

cuddly! So you are happy that the party made gay marriage almost a

kind of symbol of its modernisation? Fine Mac the gay marriage was a free

vote. David Cameron was recorded as a rebel there because more Tories

voted against his position than ever before. It was said that this was a

split between the old and young but it actually was a split between

those who were religious and nonreligious. It is a

misinterpretation of what happened. Is a modernisation in retreat? I

think modernisation is an invention. Seven years ago, in my

part of the world, we got three councillors elected, two were 8 and

one was 21. A few months ago, a 25-year-old was chosen to fight

Corby for the Conservative Party. He came from a comprehensive School. He

was one of the youngest. The Tory party is moving on. So you found

three young people? Hang on a minute. You can't get away with

that. Three in one batch. Does modernisation exist? Modernisation

is about watering our appeal and sharing our values are relevant to

voters who haven't really thought about voting for us for decades now.

Modernisation is about more than windmills and stuff, it is about

boosting the life chances of the poorest, it is about putting better

schools in poorer areas. It is also saying that modernisation and the

Tory party... When has the Tory party been against making poorer

people better off? Or against better schools? Do you think Mrs Thatcher

was a moderniser when she won all those elections? The problem we have

at the moment is that UKIP has grown-up. If we could get all of

those people who vote UKIP to vote for us, we would get 47% of the

vote. We don't need to worry about voters on the left. We need to worry

about the voters in the north, those people who haven't voted for us for

decades. Having an EU Referendum Bill is going to get people to

vote. We have to reach out to voters, but not by some sort of

London based in need. You have to broaden your base. I agree with you

on that. We have to broaden our appeal, but this back to the future

concept is not going to work. We need something that generally

appeals to low and middle-income voters, and something that shows we

genuinely care about the life chances of the poorest. Do you think

that the people who vote UKIP don't support those aspirations? We are

not doing enough to cut immigration. We don't have an EU Referendum Bill

stop we have to get the centre right to vote for us again. Do that, and

we have it. Tom Pursglove, the 25 euros, will be returned in Corby

because we cannot win an election there. -- the 25-year-old. Whether

you are moderniser or traditionalist, people, particularly

in the North, see you as a bunch of rich men. And rich southerners. You

are bunch of rich southerners. We need to do more to show that we are

building on lifting the poorest out of the tax. We need to build more

houses. There is a perception that the leadership at the moment is

rich, and public school educated. What we have to do is get more

people from state education into the top. You are going the other way at

the moment. That is a fair criticism. Modernisers also say

that. I went to a combo hedge of school as well. -- do a

comprehensive school. We need to show that we are standing up for low

income. Thank Q, both of you. You are watching the Sunday Politics.

Coming up in just under 20 Hello.

Coming up on the Sunday Politics in the South West: The wind and solar

industry is warning that Tory talk of cutting green taxes is scaring

investors and threatening jobs. And for the next 20 minutes, I'm joined

by The Lib Dem Peer Robin Teverson and Labour Councillor in Plymouth

Nicky Williams. Welcome both of you.

Let's start with council cuts. This week, the Conservative mayor of

Torbay blamed the government for his council's plans to remove funding

from charities which work with drug users and homeless people. Meanwhile

in Somerset the Conservative County Council put plans to cut children's

centres on hold. When you are talking about children's services,

of course it will be an emotive subject. We are going to go out and

continue to listen so we make sure we come up with the right result. 18

children's centres are under threat in Somerset. Is this now the cuts be

inviting? I think it is. `` really biting. There are challenges to all

of the services. Implement, have you seen any children's centres become

vulnerable? `` implement. We are making sure that families in need

are being helped. We have done a lot of work to secure our future. There

has been support of children's centres, but the councils are saying

it is their fault for the budget cuts in the first place. Can there

be such aggressive cuts in spend be upset with the cuts are biting? Cuts

have been biting. Local authorities clearly can now spend the money that

they have left on the services that they want to. There is a lot more

flexibility there. Which services oh or stay is another issue. `` go or

stay. Eg the villages passing the buck? `` you do not feel it is

passing the buck? I am sure that is not the case. There is only so far

it can go, and I think central government will have to be very

careful in the future. Plenty more to discuss today.

This week the Prime Minister denied reports he'd told his team to get

rid of all the green rubbish. His earlier talk of rolling back green

levies is causing concern in the South West. With one renewable

energy expert this week warning David Cameron's comments are already

frightening investors and threatening jobs in the region.

Just how green do the Conservatives want to be? The issue hit the

headlines this week after one newspaper printed claims from what

it called a unnamed senior party member that the PM was making a U

turn on environmental issues. It comes only weeks after this

statement in the Commons. We need to roll back some of the cream

chargers. `` green charges. Last month, David Cameron revealed he was

considering rolling back green levies on energy companies to make

bills more affordable. Such talk inevitably sets alarm bells ringing

in the green energy sector. We need clarity and a long`term framework.

The message we are reviewing is very unhelpful. Many of the 10,000 jobs

in renewables are at some parts `` are at some degree of risk. South

West Conservatives have been pressuring David Cameron to cut the

subsidies given to some forms of renewable energy. Among them, the

Torridge and West Devon MP Geoffrey Cox, who pledged to oppose all new

commercial wind farms in his constituency, and Richard Drax,

whose Dorset South constituency lies near to the proposed Navitus Bay

offshore wind farm. A development he spoke out against

in Westminster this week. Eight other states `` sites have been

identified. There is no World Heritage Site or coastline site. Why

can't we do that? But despite this, Mr Drax is also a supporter of

renewable. He's just had planning approved for a 175 acre solar farm

on his estate in Dorset. Something campaigners were dismayed and

slightly bemused by. He is credited as being opposed to the subsidy that

government is giving to green energy. Apparently he has been very

vocal about that and also about offshore wind farms. Then he

proposes a development of this sort. So are the party that once urged

people to vote blue and go green sending out mixed messages? The

Prime Minister has strongly denied the comments reported in the press.

But those in the renewable energy sector might need a bit more

convincing. Earlier, I asked the Conservative MP

Geoffrey Cox if he thought he'd won his campaign to get the Government

to cut green energy subsidies. I think what we have one is a review,

and it is a perfectly sensible and I think proper thing to do at the time

of extreme financial hardship for many people that we review all of

these kinds of charges that fall heavily on the ordinary consumer and

see whether we can do better for last. What does that mean for jobs

in the region? It doesn't necessarily mean anything for jobs.

But we have heard that there are worries about the threat to jobs in

the green industry. That is a response to mood music, not any

particular detail. The Prime Minister is committed to green

policies. We have the first green investment bank. We have a whole

range of policies on green issues. He did `` do you think he used the

words that were quoted in the newspaper? I do not know, but I know

he is committed to seeing whether we can make this file less heavily on

the householder. There may be people that feel cheated by this, that you

are relaxing the green agenda. I do not buy that. We are not rolling it

back. What we are doing is reviewing its to make it cleaner. But David

Cameron said he was rolling it back. We are rolling it back in the sense

that we want to reduce the charge on the consumer, but there are other

ways of getting this particular cat `` skimming this particular we can

make it default less on the individual householder. But you are

doing it as a knee jerk reaction to Labour talking about freezing

prices. Freezing prices is going to cause massive upset in the

marketplace. Except profits have soared under this government by 70%,

and the average bill has gone up by about ?300 under this Parliament.

That is true, because the wholesale price of electricity and energy has

gone up. Let me just finish one answers so that the message is very

clear. The review is going to look at how we make it lighter on the

householder. There are plenty of other ways of raising this money and

not allowing it to fall so heavily as it does on the householder. At a

time of financial hardship, that has got to be the right thing to do. You

surprised by the negotiations on the deal to get a vast solar farm that

covers around ten football pitches? I do not think it is for me to

comment. I do not know enough about the detail about what Richard is

planning. I simply do not know enough about the detail. It is but

it would get around ?2 million of subsidies, and he has actually been

opposed to these subsidies himself. I am not going to comment on any

personal or individual case, certainly not about a colleague, the

detail of which I certainly do not know. I do want to say that it must

be right to reduce the charge on the householder of these levies. I have

to stop you there. Thank you for joining us. You speak on energy.

What is Jeffrey talking about here? He says that there are other ways to

raise money and not allow it to fall happily on the householder. You have

to put it through direct taxation. I suspect that is what the Chancellor

is trying to do. In some ways, that is quite good. What it does do is

create a whole uncertainty in the industry, particularly in the South

West, and in terms of investment, and this whole argument about cost

to the consumer of electricity, the trouble is, because of the lack of

investment we have had from the big energy companies in the past, if we

stayed stuck to gas and coal, we have seen how price rises go up and

up, and we need to get off of that fossil fuel junkie that we have

become and get renewables in. Are you worried that David Cameron's

comments about rolling back green levies infesting green investment

and jobs are threatened? Absolutely. This is real. This is politics. The

whole reason we have been going through this over a two`year period

is to get investing competence in the industry `` confidence in the

industry, and this is seriously undermining it. I do not think

George Osborne believes in this agenda at all and he is driving

David Cameron to this degree. It is a real split within the Tories will

stop it is bad for investment. `` Tories. Can you make these cuts

without affecting the green industry? I believe that we can. We

need to reset the energy market, which is why we want to do a

two`year freeze, and then we can reset the market by making it much

more fair and transparent and break down the power that the big five

have. Robin was saying that you could freeze the price is now on a

budget should have been doing this a long time ago. Is that what you were

thinking? Yes all stop `` yes. The companies have too much power at the

moment. Under the Labour government, I think it was down to six

companies. We do not have a good enough market and the government

hasn't done enough about it so far. We need a radical change but a price

freeze is a sticking plaster. The price freeze will give us the time,

whilst discontinuing the ?300 extra people have been facing in their

pockets on energy, to actually put the legislation through, to break

the monopoly that these big five companies have. What about the idea

that we need to support green energy in other ways? We need a balanced

market. Yes, we need to support green energy. The problem is, we

have seen that there has been a fall in investment in green energy since

2009, where it was at an all`time high. It has dramatically dropped to

what it is today. There is more renewable generation, it is up about

15% in the second half of the last year. That is quite wrong. It is the

highest it has ever been. It was a 7.2 billion. Before we argue too

much about this, what do you make of the solar farm idea? Do you think

there is any hypocrisy going on there? I think he is a very astute

businessman and it is up to him to put the pathway between his business

and his parliamentary career. We will move on.

Figures out this week revealed nearly 3,000 families in Cornwall

have been hit by what Labour calls the bedroom tax. April's benefit

changes mean people in social housing with spare bedrooms get less

money. They can apply for an emergency bailout to help them

adjust to the cuts but that cash is normally time limited and for some

tenants it's about to run out. When his marriage broke down and his

wife and twins moved out, Matt Pope was left with two spare bedrooms.

He's had to find an extra ?80 a month to pay his rent because of new

rules on under occupancy which have seen his housing benefit cut. It's

been a tough year for him. My wife left and took my children. I had

previously lost my job, and that all of the sudden, I had letters from

the council saying that they were going to charge me for the now

vacant rooms that I had. It felt like the straw that broke the camels

back `` camel's back. I attempted suicide in April. It was a

culmination of all of those issues at that point. Matt fell behind with

the rent and recently got a letter from his council warning him that he

could be evicted if he didn't pay the ?78 he owed. The Council has

spent thousands of pounds and keeping me in this property, for

adapting the place to suit my requirements, to meet my

disability. It would have been easy for me to move into a glow that was

disabled adapted `` a small home that was disabled adapted. Matt has

been claiming discretionary housing payment to help him cover the

shortfall in his housing benefit but the amount has reduced over the past

three months and it is due to end in December. Figures obtained by BBC

Sunday Politics South West show there has been a big rise in the

number of people on benefits asking for emergency cash or what's known

as discretionary housing payment to help them pay their rent. Last year,

between April and September 2012, 1,600 people applied for the help.

This year over the same period, applications have more than doubled,

with 4,100 applying. The government has given councils more funds for

discretionary housing payment this year in anticipation of the impact

of its welfare reforms. But some housing providers say there isn't

enough money to help everyone who needs it. There is variation in the

ways that the local authorities work, and in some of our areas, we

are not being successful. We have one area where we made seven

applications and they were all refused. In Plymouth, the number of

people on benefits applying for emergency cash for their rent has

more than tripled. From 200 last year to more than 700 this year.

Oliver Colvile, the Conservative MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport

says the benefit changes are needed. There are some people who do not

need family houses. The big issue, though, is that there are an awful

lot of people who are living in cramped conditions. And my

constituency, it is about 5,000 families who come and talk to me

about how it is that they have been stuck in cramped accommodation, and

we have to make sure that those people have the right accommodation.

Back in Mid Devon, Matt Pope is now up to date with his rent because the

parish council stepped in and used a community crisis fund to pay off his

arrears. But he's worried about the future because he knows this is just

a temporary fix. A temporary fix for him. It seems there are a lot of

temporary fixes going on. This emergency cash that is being

supplied is only temporary. It is not all temporary. In terms of

forces families and retired people, in terms of foster parents, all of

those have been permanently fixed. Certainly Liberal Democrats would

include disabled people, but we have not been able to persuade our

colleagues in the coalition. A number of local authorities do

manage to fulfil those requirements from money that has been sent out to

local government. There was one specifically that had not responded.

I think that is down to attitude of particular local authorities at that

time how that works. Surely the point of this is to free up some of

these houses, and if you are going to hand out emergency and out of

emergency cash to different people, then you are not actually freeing up

the houses. Maybe you do need to evict a few more people. What we are

doing is putting out enough money for people in need. Yes, the

reconfiguration within the housing market is needed, because what we

had under the previous government was 420,000 fall in the number of

social and council homes in the country. The Labour government

actually introduced spare room tax in terms of people having to live in

the private rented sector. Yes, it has had to spread into the public

sector. It is not good but things have to change. It is fundamentally

unfair, which is why Labour have said they would get rid of it. You

invented it in 2008. But it is inherently unfair. Implement, we

have 600 families who wants to downsize. There is nowhere for them

to go will stop we not `` them to go. It is causing more money because

more people are having to go to private landlords, where it costs

more, so they are claiming more in benefits, so this is a complete

false economy. It is very well to say we need to build more houses,

but if you desperately need those houses now, maybe this is the

solution. We don't have the houses available for people to downsize. We

have an enormous problem in that there are too many people on the

waiting list. We are not building enough houses across the country. We

are trying to put that right under lease of land onto the market and

work with housing associations to bring forward more affordable

accommodation. The stock of social housing and council housing during

the Labour government went down 420,000 nationwide. You have waiting

lists of up to 12,000 people that are not able to get decent housing

because, during the Labour government, you did not build the

houses. The number of housing stock has been reduced because of the

right to buy policy. So why did you not do anything when you were in

government? You didn't. You stop local authorities from replacing the

houses that were sold. Your government stop you from replacing

council houses that you sold under right to buy. We are working with

housing associations to release more land so that we can actually build

more houses. Labour has pledged to work out solutions to actually solve

this problem. The bedroom tax is not a solution. It is just pledging more

and more people into poverty. `` plunging. It is trying to get to a

problem that we inherited as a government. It is not perfect. It is

always fun to debate this but we have to move on because it is time

for our round up of the political week in 60 seconds.

Concern about rising water bills was raised in Parliament. If my right

honourable friend convinced that the regular age or is robust enough and

ensuring that future rises will be kept to a minimum? The problem of

pay day lending was put to the Prime Minister by the MP for Torbay.

Devon and Cornwall's Police Commissioner revealed he's spending

more than half a million on consultants. I think it is

ridiculous. I think he needs to go to the public and say, what do you

think? The majority of them would say to put police back on the

streets. It emerged that some Devon councillors have been failing to pay

their council tax. They bowed these things in and they should be

prepared to pay for them themselves. `` bowed to pay for them

themselves. `` voted these things in. Councillors in Weymouth said

Dorset was missing out on its olympic legacy. These things should

be used now. And the campaign to get a Cornish tick`box on the census was

revived. We haven't much time. Would you like

a Cornish text box on the census? Yes, absolutely. Take away. Do you

think that is ridiculous? Would you like a dev in the box? `` Devon. I

do not see a reason why that data cannot be collected. You never

know, there is still time. That is Sunday Politics in the South West.

Thank you to my guests. Before we go back to Andrew in London, just time

to tell you that, as always, the programme is available to watch on

the eye player, and you can always check out Martin's blog, which you

can go to buy the BBC website. `` through the BBC website.

those people who want to cycle. We will be returning to this one. Thank

you. A little bit of history was made at

Prime Minister's Questions this week. A teensy tiny bit. It wasn't

David Cameron accusing one MP of taking "mind-altering substances" -

they're always accusing each other of doing that. No, it was the first

time a Prime Minister used a live tweet sent from someone watching the

session as ammunition at the dispatch box. Let's have a look We

have had some interesting interventions from front edges past

and present. I hope I can break records by explaining that a tweet

has just come in from Tony McNulty, the former Labour security

minister, saying that the public are desperate for a PM in waiting who

speaks for them, not a Leader of the Opposition in dodging in partisan

Westminster Village knock about So I would stay up with the tweets if

you want to get on the right side of this one! We are working on how the

Prime Minister managed to get that wheat in the first place. What did

you think when you saw it being read out? I was certainly watching the

Daily Politics. I almost fell off my chair! It was quite astonishing He

didn't answer the question - he didn't do that the whole time. But I

stand by what the tweets said. I have tweeted for a long time on

PMQs. Normally I am praising Ed Miliband to the hilt, but no one

announces that in Parliament! Because the Prime Minister picked up

on what you said, it unleashed some attacks on you from the Labour side.

It did, minor attacks from some very junior people. Most people were

supportive of what I said. They took issue with the notion of not doing

it until 12:30pm, when it wasn't available for the other side to use.

Instant history, and instantly forgettable, I would say. Do you

think you have started a bit of a trend? I hope not, because the

dumbing down of PMQs is already on its way. Most people tweet like mad

through PMQs! Is a measure of how post-modern we have become, we have

journalists tweeting about someone talking about a tweet. That is the

level of British politics. I am horrified by this development. The

whole of modern life has become about observing people -- people

observing themselves doing things. Do we know what happened? Somebody

is monitoring the tweets on behalf of the Prime Minister or the Tory

party. They see Tony's tweet. They then print it out and give it to

him? There was a suggestion that Michael Goves had spotted it, but

Craig Oliver from the BBC had this great sort of... Craig Oliver was

holding up his iPad to take pictures of the Prime Minister, which he then

tweeted, from the Prime Minister. People will now be tweeting in the

hope that they will be quoted by the Prime Minister, or the Leader of the

Opposition. I wasn't doing that I'm just talking about the monster you

have unleashed! I hope it dies a miserable death. I think Tony is a

good analysis -- a good analyst of PMQs on Twitter. Moving onto the

Co-op. You were a Co-op-backed MP, white you? I was a Co-op party

member. There are two issues here about the Co-op and the Labour

Party. All the new music suggests that the Co-op will now have to

start pulling back from lending or donating to the Labour Party, which,

at a time when Mr Miliband is going through changes that are going to

cut of the union funds, it seems quite dangerous. There are three

things going on. There's the relationship that the party has

politically with the Co-op party, there is the commercial relationship

you referred to, and then there is this enquiry into the comings and

goings of Flowers and everybody else. The Tories, at their peril,

will mix the three up. There's a lot of things going on with a bang.

Labour has some issues around funding generally, and they are

potentially exacerbated by the Co-op issue. The Labour Party gets soft

loans from the Co-op bank, and it gets donations. ?800,000 last year.

Ed Balls got about ?50,000 for his private office. You get the feeling,

given the state of the Co-operative Bank now, that that money could dry

up. We will see. There's lots of speculation in the papers today At

the core, the relationship between the Co-op party and the Labour Party

is a proud one, and a legitimate one. I don't think others always

understand that. Here is an even bigger issue. Is it not possible

that the Co-op bank will cease to exist in any meaningful way as a

Co-op bank? Is the bane out means it is 70% owned -- the bail out means

that it is 70% owned, or 35% going to a hedge fund, I think I read

Yes, there is a move from the mutualism of the Co-op. But don t

confuse the Co-op bank with the Co-op Group. Others have done that.

I haven't. Here's the rub. The soft loans that Labour gets. They got

?1.2 million from this. And 2.4 million. They are secured against

future union membership fees of the party. What is Mr Miliband doing? He

is trying to end that? You have this very difficult confluence of events,

which is, could these wonderful soft loans that Labour has had from the

Co-op, could they be going? And these union reforms, where Ed

Miliband is trying to create a link between individuals and donations to

the Labour Party... Clearly, there could be real financial difficulties

here. The government needs to be careful, because George Osborne

launched one of his classic blunderbuss operations this week,

which is that the Labour Party is to blame for Paul Flowers' private

life. No, it's not. And that all the problems, essentially... Look at

what George Osborne was doing in Europe. He was trying to change the

capital requirement rules that would make it easier for the Co-op to take

over Lloyd's. If there is to be a big investigation, George Osborne

needs to be careful of what he wishes for. This is another example

of the Westminster consensus. All of the Westminster parties were in

favour of the Britannia takeover. This is how the Co-op ended up with

all this toxic rubbish on its balance sheet. All the major parties

were in favour of going to get the Lloyds branches. The Tories tried to

outdo Labour in being more pro-Co-op. There was nobody in

Westminster saying, hold on, this doesn't work. It is like the

financial bubble all over again Everyone was in favour of that at

the time. I think there is no evidence so far that the storm is

cutting through to the average voter. If I were Ed Miliband, I

would let it die a natural death. I would not write to an editorial

column for a national newspaper on a Sunday. That keeps the issue alive,

and it makes him look oversensitive and much better at dishing it out

than taking it. I agree about that. The Labour press team tweeted this

week saying that it was a new low for the times. And this was

re-tweeted by Ed Miliband. It isn't a great press attitude. It is very

Moni. Bill Clinton went out there and fought and made the case. So did

Tony Blair. If you just say, they are being horrible to us, it looks

pathetic. And it will cut through on Osborne and the financial

dimensional is, not political. I shall tweet that later! While we

have been talking, Mr Miliband has been on Desert Island Discs. He

might still be on it. Let's have a listen to what he had to say.

# Take on me, take me on. # And threw it all, she offers me

protection. # A lot of love and affection.

# Whether I'm right or wrong #. # Je Ne Regrette Rien. #.

Obviously, that was the music that Ed Miliband chose. Who thought -

you would have thought he would choose Norman Lamont's theme tune!

He chose Jerusalem... He has no classical background at all. He had

no Beethoven, no Elgar. David Cameron had Mendelssohn. And Ernie,

the fastest Notman in the West. -- fastest milkman. Tony Blair chose

the theme tune to a movie. Tony Blair's list was chosen by young

staffers in his office. It absolutely was. Tony Blair's list

was chosen by staff. The Ed Miliband this was clearly chosen by himself,

because who would allow politician to go out there and say that they

like Aha. I am the same age as Ed Miliband, and of course he likes

Aha. That was the tumour was played in the 80s. Sweet Caroline. It is

Angels by Robbie Williams. I was 14-year-old girl when that came out.

I thought Angels was the staple of hen nights and chucking out time in

pubs. The really good thing about his list is that the Smiths to not

appear. The Smiths were all over David Cameron's list. The absolutely

miserable music of Morris he was not there. What was his luxury? And

Indian takeaway! Again, chosen for political reasons. I would agree

with the panel about Aha, but I would expect -- I would respect his

right to choose. Have you been on Desert Island Discs? I have. It took

me three weeks to choose the music. It was the most difficult decision

in my life. What was the most embarrassing thing you chose? I

didn't choose anything embarrassing. I chose Beethoven, Elgar, and some

proper modern jazz. Anything from the modern era? Pet Shop Boys.

That's all for today. The Daily Politics will be on BBC Two at

lunchtime every day next week, and we'll be back here on BBC One at

11am next week. My luxury, by the way, was a wind-up radio! Remember,

if it's Sunday, it's the Sunday Politics.