26/02/2012 Sunday Politics South

N D south: A new local food bank is being opened every four days. There

are over 3,000 in Salisbury alone. Is this really the affluent south?

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2041 seconds

The management of our civil Waterways is about to switch to a

group of volunteers. Is that any way to run it? I am joined by two

MPs. A lot in the news this week about work experience and Tesco's.

You did some work experience for the Chancellor, was that

intimidating? Well I had been asked the at home mum with my children

and it is very daunting going back into the workplace. I volunteered.

I think the All thing about getting up in the morning, getting dressed

and travelling and going into the office. I think it is very good to

get work Experience and have absolutely no problem about unpaid

placements. The I think the problem is they have people in supermarkets

stacking shelves, it is a minimum wage job and they should be paying

them. People went to count land and a quarter of them left the course

because they were able to get jobs elsewhere. I think it is very good

for our young people. The minimum wage is actually very small for

young people. It is not exactly going to break Tesco's profit

margin. I do not think it is to help Tesco's, it is to help people

into jobs. The people behind this campaign are all Unionists. I have

not heard any people themselves saying we do not want to get out

and get work experience. I do not think that is true. In Oxford we

have had people come to us to make exactly those points about slave

labour. Food prices up 4% last year, worries about cuts to benefits,

rising unemployment, hardly surprising that the number of the

food banks is on the increase. One charity based in Salisbury is

hoping to get one into every major town in the country. We are joined

by a representative from then. It would be a great success if it was

not for the fact that people were in such poverty they have to come

queue for food. A because people are finding themselves in difficult

situations all the time. Food poverty can strike almost anybody.

If you only need one change in circumstance and a job this appears.

Your wages get cut, you are on a minimum income and suddenly you do

not have enough money to cover the basics. People have lots of

possessions go, don't they? Can't the sell things in order to make

sure that their children eat? suspect you could but can you get

out there and sell your television for a few pints in the time you

need to get your children fed that day? It is not be the realistic.

There needs to be a safety net in place. -- very realistic. Your

offer in the first place a few days' supply. Do people keep coming

back? We are crisis support. We offer a 3D supply and we offer it

up to three times and thereafter it has to be an association to ensure

that we have the stocks we need and we can meet the crisis need. We are

not there to be some form -- some form of system for people. The

whole point of food bank is to allow a professional and that

family to work together to get themselves out of that problem that

the RN. We are therefore be initial support and then it is down to the

system to come up with a solution. -- they are in. How much worse do

you think this is going to get with cuts in benefit? There are changes

to benefit and I think there is a huge risk of welfare reform at the

moment. There is always an issue when benefits change. That will

take some time I am sure. You have the housing benefit, Universal

credit as well and the confusion around that is likely to bring

people to you sort of charity? could do. If universal credit is to

work and it is something we would support in theory, the support

systems that go in it for the changes, as long as it is not to

the detriment of people, the need that support. Often we are dealing

with people who find it most difficult to deal with that kind of

change. And how do you feel about these benefit changes that are

coming through? Is there a good bank in Oxford? Yes. Do you feel

that sort of thing is the right thing or should we be paying people

benefits so that they can afford to eat? Rental values in Oxford are

very high so we have had significant impact from the dead

child benefit changes. We are finding people are increasingly

coming to as for additional benefit which we can pay on they are

dipping into their basic income to pay higher rents than they would

otherwise have to do. As a consequence, the food banks are

being very heavily used. By 2015 have a million people in the

country could be using food banks, and that is the forecast, and you

we are one of the most developed countries in the world. It is a

brilliant charity, it is very well supported. Hats off to them, but

isn't it a terrible situation? fact that you could not get a meal

together for your kids that evening is a very terrible feeling. People

do not have savings to fall back on which is something we should work

towards. The proposed benefit cap is 50% more are in pre-tax terms

than the average earnings in my constituency. The week the benefits

system is so complicated I think that a third of the people who come

it is because of confusion and of in error in the benefit system.

think the benefit cap has to be looked at in a context. In Oxford

for example the cap will going in housing costs giving or only �6,000

for everything else in life. People could make a decision perhaps not

to live in Oxford. We have distorted the market giving people

a benefit to live in high-cost areas. We do need to increase the

supply of housing but it has always struck me as strange that we pay

people on benefit to live in very expensive parts of the country

where people who have mortgages cannot afford to live there.

need control systems to have a proper balance. It is a difficult

system. Some people who come to the food banks are living chaotic lives

but there are increasingly middle- class people who have been

organised up until now it? We are seeing more people like that

recently. If you are a husband and wife and you are both self-employed

and the jobs that you do feed off some other industry that has cut

back you might go from being able to support yourself quite happily

with the nice house and the car and on a certain level of that being

through debt which has always been manageable. If your income falls

away it does not take very many months, people do not have savings,

you can get through �3,000 very quickly and then you find yourself

with all those bells stacking up. We live in a beautiful part of the

world but behind those chocolate box villages there are people

living in poverty. There are people in the country out there with a

higher cost of fuel, having to drive to work, these things can

make a huge difference. Family breakdown is a major cause of

middle-class poverty. That often affects men very much as well. We

are have got to bring this to a close but best of luck. Keep up the

good work. This summer a new charity will be formed which will

become the 12th biggest in the UK with a land and property portfolio

of �12.5 billion. It is British Waterways who will move from being

a public body employing civil servants to become a trust. Senior

staff are taking pay cuts but there is also controversy with many users

of the waterways in the South worried about the impact of the

change on then. The still waters of the canal in midwinter. Here

Dunbartonshire bought owners and businesses are expectantly looking

forward to a new era on the canals. A charitable trust is about to

emerge from British Waterways. Funded in part for the next 15

years by the Government, as a charity it will also be able to

raise its own money and will call on volunteers to help out. This

man's business depends on it. want our business -- I do not want

our business depending on the work of volunteers. If they do not do it

took that certain standard, what comeback have we got? I am not sure

how it is all going to work. 200 year-old canal links in Bristol

and Reading. In 2003 fundraisers completed its full restoration

using the National Lottery's biggest-ever grant. From this April

the Government has promised the new waterways charity 39 million a year

and an ownership of a property portfolio. Will it be enough? Some

remain to be convinced. Our biggest concern is capital investment,

large capital investment from lottery heritage funding. It will

be easy for the British Waterways Board trust to gain access to that

but we do have concerns that the trust ensures that the whole

network stays open. You cannot shoot it down until it has had a

chance to fail. Let's see how it goes. And what of the Kennet & Avon

Canal Trust? If you look at what the new charity has to do, it has

to raise money locally as well as nationally, it has to do things

like run cafes because that is a good source of income. Our trust

does that. We presently run for up public trip boats which generate a

good source of income. -- four public trip boards. I think to this

day we are still not convinced that the consideration has really been

understood. Creating a charitable trust from what was a Government

department is not without its risks and challenges. Funding will be in

place for the next 15 years but what is worrying some is that there

is still much to do and it is still very much a work in progress.

Things like the pay of its chief executive and the future of paid

lock keepers and how in time it might take under its wing navigable

rivers like the Thames. They never has had major flooding occasions,

water supply occasions, it cannot be seen as just another 120 miles

of waterway. British Waterways are under no illusion about the passion

of their stakeholders. Already the trust is definitely the way forward

that his best. I think it is the best thing to happen to the

waterways for 60 years. Your only untapped resource is the goodwill

of the people. This is about enhancing the enthusiasm and good

feeling and we are going to do it. So funding is secured a law

questions remain about how the money will be spent and there is no

shortage of opinions on that. -- Balbo questions remain -- although.

There are questions and the tens is -- Thames is a water way that would

be in question. It would have to be still run by the Environment Agency.

There are a lot of volunteers already on the canal. There is a

huge Volunteer Force doing work around the Oxford area to improve

the barge areas and the environment around it. As we have been seeing,

we are all volunteers now, whether working at Tesco's or in a trust or

whatever. If they are competing for those volunteers, that could be a

problem. You can continue for a while running it on the current

basis and then there will be a big need for capital investment to

maintain and repair. If that is going to be gained through

charitable purposes or voluntary contributions that could be

difficult. Thank you for showing the jewel of the Crown in my

constituency! The huge renovation project came from a Lottery grant.

One of the things mentioned was that half a billion pound of

property assets will be transferred into the charity. It will be very

well-funded. The opportunity to manage that portfolio and put money

aside to extend his beer. It is challenging. It is always a chef in

mentality but there is so much enthusiasm. -- chef in mentality. -

- shift. I think people are very excited about the changes. A good

analogy is the National Trust which has over a million members and

maintains a very large estate. If it goes down that track potentially

it has enormous potential. A now our weekly round-up of politics

squeezed into 60 seconds. This week it is all about D3 -- the three R's.

It is about reading and writing and arithmetic. There were questions on

community library volunteers. vast majority of volunteers have

rolled up their sleeves and got on with it. Bracknell in peak Dr

Philip Lee laid out his scheme for NHS patients to get an annual

statement showing the cost of what they have received. It would be

itemised. This place wants to be known as Abingdon on Thames. It is

very nice, so long as the river has water, with a drought! We are

talking about droughts and we are talking about flooding! The Vale of

Whyte Horse got that name but it is actually a dog on the hell! What do

you think of the idea of the NHS giving people a statement of

account? I think it is a good idea but it could have a persuasive

effect on people who have a long- term chronic illness. I am a great

one for letting people know how much these fantastic assets are.

People who do not show up for appointments. If you have an

injured service person or something these slightly dispiriting plot of