30/06/2013 Sunday Politics South

the bee population - a third of hives have gone - could mean not

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1919 seconds

just less honey but higher prices name's Peter Henley. On today's

show: What's the government's plan for bees? There's been a massive

decline in the population - over a third of hives died off over the

winter - and without them to pollinate our food, prices could go

sky high. More on that shortly. First, let's

meet the two politicians who'll be with me for the whole of the

programme. Tony Page is the Labour deputy leader of Reading Borough

Council and Damian Hinds is the Conservative MP for East Hampshire.

And then leave, have you think these cuts will affect you in local

government? Very seriously. We have another 40 million to date out in

the next few years. It will impact on services. Across all of the

councils, the view is pretty dismal. Passed the tipping point? There are

a lot of cuts already. He must've been braced for more cuts are to

mark we were. The spending review has done nothing more than confirm

that. We had the spending review because the intention was to remove

the deficit during this parliament was not that has failed. George

Osborne has had to come forward with a further budget. Is it about not

enough money coming out of the economy because it has shrunk? Or is

it that there were not enough cuts made in the first base? Now you're

asking for more. Economic growth is one of the three things that reduce

the deficit. The combination of factors, we are where we are, still

borrowing quite a lot of money, we need to bring that deficit down

further. Cuts are never easy. They do have to be done because we have

to live within our means. It is disproportionate. Local government

will take its share of spending cuts and we have never resisted that. It

is disproportionate. Eric Pickles has offered us as a sacrificial

lamb. Was it wrong to ring-fence the National Health Service or the Armed

Forces? You cannot avoid the reality that local government is a

sacrificial lamb. Local government is quite efficient and yet they are

under attack. It is a button to protect the health service in a time

have an increasingly ageing population and increase in chronic

illness. We need to provide better opportunities for kids from tougher

backgrounds. We have made some difficult decisions already. But we

have to do more. That is the reality we are faced with as a nation.

It's been Armed Forces Week this week - a chance to acknowledge all

that our servicemen and women do for the country. But with all the recent

cuts to the armed forces - remember it was only the week before that we

heard details of another 4,000 redundancies in the army - are we

really taking our responsibilities seriously? Certainly, in the

Spending Review, Chancellor George Osborne was claiming that we are.

previously committed to funding the military government for four years.

We will now funded permanently. We will do this from the money we have

received from LIBOR finds. It will protect the rest of British values.

Our veterans will not be forgotten. Joining me now is Catherine Spencer

from the Army Families Federation. LIBOR finds, 35 million pounds.

has been pretty tough over last four years. It has been a period of

victory and uncertainty. We have operations going on in Afghanistan

that have been turned into nine-month tour 's meaning that

soldiers will be away from home for significant chunks of time. We to

have redundancy, rebasing from Germany. I was in a Germany

conference yesterday. There were questions about what health care

will be like in the future. There are a huge lover of changes -- there

are a huge and abrupt changes going on. There is unpredictability and

uncertainty. The covenant, although it is all moving in a good

direction, I think most people feel, things like providing tickets for

troops. For sports events and pop concerts. Better counselling,

post-dramatic stress. In the end, is it not about decent housing when

people with back to sort the plane. Making sure that things are

organised properly. Is that happening? Is this a bit of a

distraction? We need to understand what the Armed Forces covenant is.

It is distinct from being that big holistic military covenant idea. The

Armed Forces covenant is a service level agreement. Rita B&Q Jessica

about what it has done. It has improved access to education and

health care. It has made more transparent. -- I am enthusiastic

about what it has done. Just take a devil 's advocate position. You are

jumping the queue as well. Armed Forces should not face

disadvantage, which I don't beg anyone should disagree with. Schools

have to take service personnel even if it goes past been maximum size my

class and everyone else in the class is disadvantaged. That is a good

point and we have been keen to point out that the Armed Forces covenant

should be about equality of treatment. Not positive

dissemination? -- positive discrimination? They need access to

health care without being seen being advantaged. Military children still

have a high level of mobility and that will not change any time soon.

There is an aspiration that we experience more stability and our

soldiers and their families will be based in one location for a greater

period of time. Until then, we need to ensure that our children have

access to good education in the same way that civilian families do.

citizen plus. One of the things happening as part of this military

covenant which went with special consideration, it is that they will

be paper aggression within the Armed Forces but not for a teacher. Is

that right? Teachers do wonderful things our country and for the

younger generation. But I think the sacrifices that our Armed Forces

make on a different level to other people, however valuable their jobs.

The expose of a teacher teaching a soldiers child... You gave the

example of primary school places. That comes under the heading of no

disadvantage because of the mobility of a lot of service families and it

can be difficult to apply for the school of your choice when you're

posted somewhere else. Having that Flex ability is important. We need

to provide additional funding for schools that take children of

service families. It is right in this week to reflect on that. It is

the right thing to do to show gratitude for the service that our

personnel provide. Is it special consideration? I agree with

everything that Catherine has said because Reading is not a garrison

town. It is horses for courses. There is a need for an SLA services

approach that you have described. I don't think anything that has been

proposed is regarded as unfair. One issue that I think is that the

government says they will not be automatic career progression. For a

whole range of people. It amounts to double standards. I would defend it

for public services and I think the government has been very mean minded

in doing down teachers to give a lot to the community and give a lot to

the community. What Michael Gove was saying was that there will not be

paper aggression, there will not be automatic paper aggression. It

should be tied to performance. We have more data than ever before. It

is not a semantic difference is about rewarding the most productive

teachers. We have very different detail about it. That is still to

come. We've heard quite a lot about people

urging a Plan B on the Prime Minister - perhaps not so much about

the Bee Plan. But, if experts are to be believed, it could be almost as

important. What's the Bee Plan? Well, it's what to do to counter the

huge decline in the bee population - that's the buzzy, honey-producing,

fruit-pollinating flying insect. Which, as Tristan Pascoe reports,

has had a pretty miserable winter. Honey is big business. In the UK, we

produce around 25,000 metric tonnes of the stuff year. A sharp decline

in bee colonies across Europe is giving beekeepers the blues. The

issue is not just confined to honey. It'd -- it is estimated that a third

of our food is pollinated by honeybees. A loss of a third of our

honeybee hives is of great concern. Experts say it is the worst since

they started collecting data. years ago, we had similar losses. It

is not unusual to have high losses. It is not pleasant but not unusual.

Pollen is the protein that the bees need. The nectar is the

carbohydrate. The European Commission says that it is in part

due to knee in part due to near -- near chemicals used in pesticides.

The period without them will not be enough. We need a long period where

more objective research can be carried out. The value of bees is

not just to the honey industry, but also to wider crops where it is much

more valuable. 15 minutes away from the beehives at an agricultural

college, the beehives and also declined. We have had a very long

winter this year and it is fair to say that we are a month behind if

not five weeks behind. There are fears about the fall in use of

neonicotinoids. The pesticides are dealing with all pollinators and

they are absolutely critical to a good crop yield if we do not have

them. Fruit prices will rocket. Environment campaigners are calling

on the government to make the issue a priority and come up with a B

action plan. Farmers and producers need to find a way of producing

crops that are not harming these and other pollinating insects. We need

to make sure that when the band comes in in a two-year period to.

Help -- to start helping farmers find new ways of reducing pests.

Back in Dorset, be keepers remain pragmatic. I would like to see no

pesticides used in an ideal world. But we do not live in an ideal

world. Pesticides are designed to kill insects that are causing harm.

It is a very fine line between killing insects that are causing

harm and killing insects that are not causing harm.

And we learned on Friday that the government will be undertaking an

urgent review to come up with a National Pollinator Strategy - so we

may get a Plan Bee after all! Tristan was talking about

neonicotinoids there. You felt that was not as clear a case as it might

be? The government is undertaking a scientific review. Some of the

laboratory tests came up with different results when it was

reserved in reality. They need some field tests. In the end, we have to

look at the weight of the scientific evidence. In times of signing

petitions, I did not think I was sufficiently qualified to sign that.

We need to look at the evidence. still don't know, do we? It could be

so important. I agree with Damien. I don't have the scientific back rent

either but two years seems like a very short time to have this

neonicotinoids free period. There is still a lot of behind-the-scenes

pressure from the pharmaceutical company. They often a malign

influence and transporting what they are saying to government may help. A

trial without their use would be desirable.

Local government has been going through a lot recently - and in one

Surrey town that could soon include divorce. A group of residents in

Farnham is organising a petition to the Queen to allow them to remove

themselves from Waverley Borough Council and set up on their own - a

return, they say, to the situation that held for 700 years until 1974's

local government reorganisation. They were out canvassing opinion and

collecting signatures a couple of weeks ago and one of their number,

Mike Bryan, joins me now. They are out this morning, aren't they?

people? Yes, we have 140 people signed up. They will be out on the

streets right now. How much support in you getting? How is this

democratically viable? Will it work? We have been hugely impressed by the

surge of support that has occurred since we launched on the 10th of

May. Within a few days, we had an overwhelming show of support at the

Farnham society, that pillar of middle England society. There was a

nobleman -- there was an overwhelming vote to support this.

Farnham has been disadvantaged by a lack of democratic accountability at

Farnham Borough Council. -- Waverley Borough Council. Farnham is

Waverley's biggest town but they are underrepresented. There are three

issues that have affected Farnham over the last ten years. It has been

ten years so it has been a long time coming. Waverley has not effectively

engaged Farnham people and Farnham's neighbouring authorities

and they continue to make unbalanced decisions on three big issues. That

is Waverley's core strategy, which has stalled. There is a ten year

saga of plans to redevelop Farnham's high Street and that

relates to other issues. None of that is surprising from a council

that has told me privately they are not interested in what people think

in general terms. Not interested in supporting business activities. I

don't see a link between business retention and accountability to

businesses. If people are marching on the streets, that is not an

issue. That is astonishing. In January, the Waverley council did

not make a formal contribution towards enterprise M3's costs.

is quite a manifesto of complaints. Could we be seeing more of this?

People say there are these things that are being ignored and we want

to break away. I mustn't intrude. I know Farnham is a lovely place. I'm

not go to comment on the merits. Our local government structure has

councils that are much larger than elsewhere in Europe. Somewhere like

Farnham would have its own counsel, probably with its own government 's

powers, which we do not have in this country. We should not be

frightened. There may be elements in Farnham who resisted. It is

bureaucracy and inefficiency? people must have power but let us

not forget that councils and councillors are democratically

accountable. Town councils' powers are restricted to things like

allotments but they do have other powers. People do really kind of

identify with their town, people still talk about the urban district

from 1974 as well. Having responsible it is at local level at

town and parish. It is more efficient at higher levels. They can

collaborate in delivering services on a wider level. They will all be

out on the streets, fighting for your cause. Now our regular around

up in the South in 60 seconds. It is all about the appliance of science.

Some makes of car could be banned from Oxford city centre as an result

of research involving lasers. cars, vans and certainly not

cycles. On oxygen biotech company won a �300 million contract for

research into cancer. Hundreds of extra health visitors are being

recruited across the South. Research proves that investment in early

years pays dividends in later life. MP Tony Baldry called for more

research into the natural function of these fellows. He says that back

during has become the biggest cause of damage in ancient churches.

Finally, nuclear fusion, the search for limitless clean energy. It is 30

years since this project started in oxygen. The next stages in France.

The contribution has been crucial. Until we get nuclear fusion, we have

a problem, haven't we? Wondering whether the lights go out. That was

in the papers. Is it wind power? Will that come to our rescue?

have ground to make up as a result of the last government. We need to

make sure the lights do not go out. There will be a mixture of power

sources. Can we rely on the gas supplies that come from Russia and

Qatar and elsewhere? Successive governments have failed to face up

to the ageing reactors and the need to replace those and we are going

back 30 or 40 years. We do need to have a wider mix. My fear is that

Owen Paterson MP, who has come out against wind farms, is not that

pathetic to renewables generally. We do need a big push on renewables. We

need new nuclear opacity. We cannot rely on the French, who are building

nuclear capacity and town -- and own half of our electric capacity.