:00:36. > :00:43.Morning, folks. Welcome to the Sunday Politics.
:00:44. > :00:45.He's a man on a mission. But is it mission impossible? Iain Duncan
:00:46. > :00:50.Smith has started the radical reform of our welfare state. No tall order.
:00:51. > :00:54.And not everything's going to plan. We'll be talking to the man himself.
:00:55. > :00:58.Nick Clegg's hosting his party's spring conference in York. He's
:00:59. > :01:02.getting pretty cosy with the party faithful. Not so cosy, though, with
:01:03. > :01:05.his Coalition partners. In fact, things are getting a wee bit nasty.
:01:06. > :01:09.We'll be talking to his right-hand man, Danny Alexander.
:01:10. > :01:12.And are all politicians self-obsessed? Don't all shout at
:01:13. > :01:19.In the South ` why a 15`mintte care once. We'll be examining
:01:20. > :01:22.In the South ` why a 15`mintte care visit just isn't enough. Longer ones
:01:23. > :01:23.won't be cheap, but it's wh`t everyone wants ` and one cotncil
:01:24. > :01:26.reckons it has the cash to do In London, we're focusing on the
:01:27. > :01:30.biggest social housing landlords. Can Southwark Council really build
:01:31. > :01:34.11,000 new homes in the next three decades?
:01:35. > :01:40.And with me, as always, three of the best and the brightest political
:01:41. > :01:43.panel in the business. At least that's what it says in the Sunday
:01:44. > :01:48.Politics template. Back from the Oscars empty handed, Helen Lewis,
:01:49. > :01:52.Janan Ganesh and Iain Martin. Yes, three camera-shy hacks, who've never
:01:53. > :01:55.taken a selfie in their life. We'll be coming to that later. They just
:01:56. > :01:56.like to tweet. And they'll be doing so throughout the programme.
:01:57. > :02:03.Welcome. Now, first this morning, the Liberal
:02:04. > :02:05.Democrat Spring Conference in York. I know you speak of nothing else!
:02:06. > :02:10.The Yorkshire spring sunshine hasn't made the Lib Dems think any more
:02:11. > :02:14.kindly of their Coalition partners. Indeed, Tory bashing is now the Lib
:02:15. > :02:19.Dem default position. Here's Danny Alexander speaking yesterday.
:02:20. > :02:21.Repairing the economy on its own isn't enough. We have to do it
:02:22. > :02:30.fairly. isn't enough. We have to do it
:02:31. > :02:35.the agenda a decision to cut taxes, income taxes, for working people.
:02:36. > :02:41.Now, conference, note that word - forced. We have had to fight for
:02:42. > :02:44.this at the last election and at every budget and at every Autumn
:02:45. > :02:52.Statement since 2010 and what a fight it has been.
:02:53. > :02:58.Danny Alexander joins us now. Are we going to have to suffer 14 months of
:02:59. > :03:02.you and your colleagues desperately trying to distance yourself from the
:03:03. > :03:08.Tories? It's not about distancing ourselves. It's about saying, " this
:03:09. > :03:14.is what we as a party have achieved in government together with the
:03:15. > :03:18.Conservatives". And saying, " this is what our agenda is for the
:03:19. > :03:24.future" . It's not just about the fact that this April we reach that
:03:25. > :03:28.?10,000 income tax allowance that we promised in our manifesto in 20 0
:03:29. > :03:36.but also that we want to go further in the next parliament and live that
:03:37. > :03:39.to ?12,500, getting that over a 2-term Liberal Democrat government.
:03:40. > :03:43.It's very important for all parties to set out their own agenda, ideas
:03:44. > :03:46.and vision for the future, whilst also celebrating what we're
:03:47. > :03:50.achieving jointly in this Coalition, particularly around the fact that we
:03:51. > :03:56.are, having taken very difficult decisions, seeing the economy
:03:57. > :04:00.improving and seeing jobs creation in this country, which is something
:04:01. > :04:03.I'm personally very proud and, as the Coalition, we have achieved and
:04:04. > :04:08.wouldn't have if it hadn't been for the decisions of the Liberal
:04:09. > :04:12.Democrats. Lets try and move on You've made that point about 50
:04:13. > :04:15.times on this show alone. You now seem more interested in Rowling with
:04:16. > :04:23.each other than running the country, don't you? -- rowing with each
:04:24. > :04:28.other. I think we are making sure we take the decisions, particularly
:04:29. > :04:33.about getting our economy on the right track. Of course, there are
:04:34. > :04:37.lots of things where the Conservatives have one view of the
:04:38. > :04:41.future and we have a different view and it's quite proper that we should
:04:42. > :04:43.set those things out. There are big differences between the Liberal
:04:44. > :04:46.Democrats and the Conservatives just as there were big differences
:04:47. > :04:51.between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party. I believe we're
:04:52. > :04:55.the only party that can marry that commitment delivering a strong
:04:56. > :04:57.economy, which Labour can't do, and that commitment to delivering a
:04:58. > :05:01.fairer society, which the Tories can't be trusted to do by
:05:02. > :05:04.themselves. You are going out of your way to pick fights with the
:05:05. > :05:09.Tories at the moment. It's a bit like American wrestling. It is all
:05:10. > :05:12.show. Nobody is really getting hurt. I've been compared to many things
:05:13. > :05:20.but an American wrestler is a first! I don't see it like that It
:05:21. > :05:24.is right for us as a party to set out what we've achieved and show
:05:25. > :05:30.people that what we promised on 2010 on income tax cuts is what this
:05:31. > :05:33.government is delivering. But nobody seems convinced by these
:05:34. > :05:38.manufactured rows with the Tories. You've just come last in a council
:05:39. > :05:43.by-election with 56 votes. You were even bitten by an Elvis
:05:44. > :05:53.impersonator! Yes, that is true -- beaten. I could equally well quote
:05:54. > :05:59.council by-elections that we've won recently, beating Conservatives the
:06:00. > :06:02.Labour Party and UKIP. Our record on that is pretty good. You can always
:06:03. > :06:07.pick one that shows one or other party in a poor light. Our party is
:06:08. > :06:11.having real traction with the electric and the places where we
:06:12. > :06:14.have a real chance of winning. If you're not an American wrestler
:06:15. > :06:18.maybe you should be an Elvis impersonator! You told your spring
:06:19. > :06:24.forum... You don't want to hear me sing! You want to raise the personal
:06:25. > :06:29.allowance to ?12,500 in the next Parliament. Will you refuse to enter
:06:30. > :06:33.into Coalition with any party that won't agree to that? What I said
:06:34. > :06:39.yesterday is that this will be something which is a very high
:06:40. > :06:43.priority for the Liberal Democrats. It's something that we will very
:06:44. > :06:49.much seek to achieve if we are involved... We know that - will it
:06:50. > :06:54.be a red line? If you are a number in 2010, on the front page of our
:06:55. > :06:59.manifesto, we highlighted four policies... I know all that. Will it
:07:00. > :07:04.be a red line? It will be something that is a very high priority for the
:07:05. > :07:11.Liberal Democrats to deliver. For the fifth time, will it be a red
:07:12. > :07:13.line? It will be, as I said, a very high priority for the Liberal
:07:14. > :07:18.Democrats in the next Parliament. That's my language. We did that in
:07:19. > :07:21.the next election. The number-1 promise on our manifesto with a
:07:22. > :07:25.?10,000 threshold and we've delivered that in this Parliament.
:07:26. > :07:32.People can see that when we say something is a top priority, we
:07:33. > :07:35.deliver it. Is it your claim... Are you claiming that the Tories would
:07:36. > :07:40.not have raised the starting point of income tax if it hadn't been for
:07:41. > :07:43.the Liberal Democrats? If you remember back in the leaders'
:07:44. > :07:47.debates in the 2010 election campaign, Nick Clegg was rightly
:07:48. > :07:53.championing this idea and David Cameron said it couldn't be
:07:54. > :07:59.afforded. Each step of the way in the Coalition negotiations within
:08:00. > :08:02.government, we've had to fight for that. The covert overtures have
:08:03. > :08:07.other priorities. -- the Conservatives. I don't want to go
:08:08. > :08:12.back into history. I'd like to get to the present. Have the
:08:13. > :08:17.Conservatives resisted every effort to raise the starting point of
:08:18. > :08:22.income tax? As I said, we promised this in 2010, they said it couldn't
:08:23. > :08:27.be done. We've made sure it was delivered in the Coalition. Have
:08:28. > :08:31.they resisted it? We've argued for big steps along the way and forced
:08:32. > :08:39.it on to the agenda. They've wanted to deliver other things are so we've
:08:40. > :08:45.had to fight for our priority.. Did the Conservatives resist every
:08:46. > :08:48.attempt? It has been resisted, overall the things I'm talking
:08:49. > :08:51.about, by Conservatives, because they have wanted to deliver other
:08:52. > :08:57.things and, of course, in a Coalition you negotiate. Both
:08:58. > :09:00.parties have their priorities. Our priority has been a very consistent
:09:01. > :09:05.one. Last year, they were arguing about tax breaks for married
:09:06. > :09:11.couples. They were arguing in 2 10 for tax cuts for millionaires. Our
:09:12. > :09:15.priority in all these discussions has been a consistent one, which is
:09:16. > :09:23.to say we want cutbacks for working people. -- we want to cut tax for
:09:24. > :09:26.working people. That has been delivered by both parties in the
:09:27. > :09:31.Coalition government full top So what do you think when the Tories
:09:32. > :09:34.take credit for it? I understand why they want to try to do that. Most
:09:35. > :09:42.people understand what we have just said. Not if the polls are to be
:09:43. > :09:50.believed... You're under 10%. This is one of the things, when I talk to
:09:51. > :09:54.people, but I find they know that the Lib Dems have delivered in
:09:55. > :09:57.government. People know we promised it in 2010 and we're the ones who
:09:58. > :10:02.forced this idea onto the agenda in our election manifesto. You've said
:10:03. > :10:09.that five times in this interview alone. The reality is, this is now a
:10:10. > :10:13.squabbling, loveless marriage. We're getting bored with all your tests,
:10:14. > :10:21.the voters. Why don't you just divorced? -- all your arguments I
:10:22. > :10:24.don't accept that. On a lot of policy areas, the Coalition
:10:25. > :10:28.government has worked very well together. We're delivering an awful
:10:29. > :10:31.lot of things that matter to this country. Most importantly, the mess
:10:32. > :10:35.that Labour made of the economy we are sorting out. We are getting our
:10:36. > :10:40.finances on the right track, making our economy more competitive,
:10:41. > :10:43.creating jobs up and down this country, supporting businesses to
:10:44. > :10:47.invest in growth. That is what this Coalition was set up to do, what it
:10:48. > :10:49.is delivering, and both myself and George Osborne are proud to have
:10:50. > :10:54.worked together to deliver that record. Danny Alexander, thanks for
:10:55. > :11:00.that. Enjoyed York. Helen, is anybody listening? I do worry that
:11:01. > :11:05.another 40 months of this might drive voter apathy up to record
:11:06. > :11:11.levels. There is a simple answer to why they don't divorced - it's the
:11:12. > :11:15.agreement that Parliament will last until 2015. MPs are bouncing around
:11:16. > :11:20.Westminster with very little to do. They are looking for things to put
:11:21. > :11:22.in the Queen's Speech and we are going to have rocks basically the 40
:11:23. > :11:28.months and very little substantial difference in policies. Do you
:11:29. > :11:31.believe Danny Alexander when he says there would have been no rise in the
:11:32. > :11:36.starting rate of income tax if not for the Lib Dems? He's gilding the
:11:37. > :11:44.lily. If you look back at papers are written in 2001 suggesting precisely
:11:45. > :11:50.this policy, written by a Tory peer, you see there are plenty of Tories
:11:51. > :11:55.which suggest there would have been this kind of move. I can see why
:11:56. > :11:59.Danny Alexander needs to do this and they need to show they've achieved
:12:00. > :12:03.something in government because they are below 10% in the polls and
:12:04. > :12:08.finding it incredibly difficult to get any traction at all. The other
:12:09. > :12:14.leg of this Lib Dem repositioning is now to be explicitly the party of
:12:15. > :12:19.Europe and to be the vanguard of the fight to be all things pro-Europe.
:12:20. > :12:23.Mr Clegg is going to debate Nigel Farage in the run-up to the European
:12:24. > :12:50.elections. If, despite that, the Lib Dems come last of the major parties,
:12:51. > :12:54.doesn't it show how out of touch different. They are targeting a
:12:55. > :12:59.section of the electorate who are a bit more amenable to their views
:13:00. > :13:04.than the rest. They wouldn't get 20% of the vote. They are targeting that
:13:05. > :13:06.one section. They have to do disproportionately well amongst
:13:07. > :13:11.those and it will payoff and they will end up with something like 15%.
:13:12. > :13:21.How many seats will the Lib Dems losing the next election? Ten. 0.
:13:22. > :13:26.15. Triangulation! We'll keep that on tape and see what actually
:13:27. > :13:29.happens! The Work and Pensions Secretary Iain
:13:30. > :13:33.Duncan Smith is a man on a mission. He's undertaken the biggest overhaul
:13:34. > :13:36.in our welfare state since it was invented way back in the
:13:37. > :13:41.black-and-white days of the late 1940s. A committed Roman Catholic,
:13:42. > :13:45.he's said he has a moral vision to reverse the previous welfare system,
:13:46. > :13:49.which he believes didn't create enough incentive for people to work.
:13:50. > :13:54.But are his reforms working? Are they fair? As he bitten off more
:13:55. > :13:58.than he can chew? In a moment, we'll speak to the man himself but first,
:13:59. > :14:02.here's Adam. Hackney in north London and we're on
:14:03. > :14:05.the road with the man who might just be the most ambitious welfare
:14:06. > :14:09.secretary there's ever been. It s a journey that started in the wind and
:14:10. > :14:13.rain on a Glasgow council estate 12 years ago when he was Tory leader.
:14:14. > :14:19.He came face-to-face with what it meant to be poor. A selection of
:14:20. > :14:23.teddy bears. It's where he discovered his recipe for reform,
:14:24. > :14:28.according to one of the advisers who was with him. There are things that
:14:29. > :14:34.if you do get a job, keep your family together, stay off drugs and
:14:35. > :14:40.alcohol, make sure you have a proper skill - that's what keeps you of
:14:41. > :14:43.poverty. He, very ambitiously, wants to redefine the nature of what it
:14:44. > :14:48.means to be poor and how you get away from poverty. Back in north
:14:49. > :14:52.London, he's come to congratulate the troops on some good news. In
:14:53. > :14:56.this borough, the number of people on job-seeker's allowance has gone
:14:57. > :15:03.down by 29% in the last year, up from around 1700 to around 1200 But
:15:04. > :15:08.the picture in his wider changes to the welfare state is a bit more
:15:09. > :15:14.mixed. A cap on the total amount of benefits a family can get, of
:15:15. > :15:17.?26,000 a year, is hugely popular but there have been howls of protest
:15:18. > :15:23.over cuts to housing benefit, labelled the bedroom tax by some.
:15:24. > :15:25.Protests, too, about assessments for people on disability benefits,
:15:26. > :15:29.inherited from the previous government. Iain Duncan Smith has
:15:30. > :15:35.been accused of being heartless and the company doing them, Atos, has
:15:36. > :15:38.pulled out. And then the big one - and universal credit, a plan to roll
:15:39. > :15:43.six benefits into one monthly payment, in a way designed to ensure
:15:44. > :15:48.that work always pays. Some of the IT has been written off and the
:15:49. > :15:51.timetable seems to be slipping. Outside the bubble of the
:15:52. > :15:56.stage-managed ministerial trip, a local Labour MP reckons he's bitten
:15:57. > :16:01.off more than he can chew. The great desire is to say, " let's have one
:16:02. > :16:06.simple one size fits all approach" . And there isn't one size of person
:16:07. > :16:10.or family out there. People need to change and they can challenge on the
:16:11. > :16:13.turn of a penny almost. One minute they are doing the right thing,
:16:14. > :16:17.working hard. Next minute, they need a level of support and if this
:16:18. > :16:21.simple system doesn't deliver that for them, they're in a difficult
:16:22. > :16:28.position. And that's the flying visit to the front line finished. He
:16:29. > :16:31.does not like to hang about and just as well do - his overhaul of the
:16:32. > :16:40.entire benefits system still has quite a long way to go. And Iain
:16:41. > :16:44.Duncan Smith joins me now. Before I come onto the interview on welfare
:16:45. > :16:51.reform, is Danny Alexander right when he claims the Lib Dems had to
:16:52. > :16:56.fight to get the Tories to raise the income tax threshold? That is not my
:16:57. > :17:02.recollection of what happened. These debates took place in the
:17:03. > :17:06.Coalition. The Conservatives are in favour of reducing the overall
:17:07. > :17:11.burden of taxation, so the question was how best do we do it? The
:17:12. > :17:17.conversation took place, they were keen on raising the threshold, there
:17:18. > :17:21.were also other ways of doing it but it is clear from the Conservatives
:17:22. > :17:26.that we always wanted to improve the quality of life of those at the
:17:27. > :17:31.bottom so raising the threshold fit within the overall plan. If it was a
:17:32. > :17:40.row, it was the kind of row you have over a cup of tea round the
:17:41. > :17:47.breakfast table. We have got a lot to cover. There are two criticisms
:17:48. > :17:53.mainly of what you are doing - will they work, and will they be fair?
:17:54. > :17:58.Leslie Roberts, one of our viewers, wants to know why so much has
:17:59. > :18:01.already been written off due to failures of the universal credit
:18:02. > :18:10.system even though it has been barely introduced. Relatively it has
:18:11. > :18:17.been a ?2 billion investment project, in the private sector
:18:18. > :18:23.programmes are written off regularly at 30, 40%. The IT is working, we
:18:24. > :18:28.are improving as we go along, the key thing is to keep your eye on the
:18:29. > :18:37.parts that don't work and make sure they don't create a problem for the
:18:38. > :18:42.programme. 140 million has been wasted! The 40 million that was
:18:43. > :18:47.written off was just do with security IT, and I took that
:18:48. > :18:51.decision over a year and a half ago so the programme continued to roll
:18:52. > :19:02.out. Those figures include the standard right down, the aggregation
:19:03. > :19:07.of cost over a period of time. The computers were written down years
:19:08. > :19:11.ago but they continue to work now. Universal credit is rolling out we
:19:12. > :19:16.are doing the Pathfinders and learning a lot but I will not ever
:19:17. > :19:27.do this again like the last government, big band launches, you
:19:28. > :19:29.should do it phrase by phrase. Even your colleague Francis Maude says
:19:30. > :19:36.the implementation of universal credit has been pretty lamentable.
:19:37. > :19:42.He was referring back to the time when I stopped that element of the
:19:43. > :19:47.process and I agreed with that. I intervened to make the changes. The
:19:48. > :19:54.key point is that it is rolling out and I invite anyone to look at where
:19:55. > :19:57.it is being rolled out to. You were predicting that a million people
:19:58. > :20:02.would be an universal credit, this is the new welfare credit which
:20:03. > :20:08.rolls up six existing welfare benefits and you were predicting a
:20:09. > :20:18.million people would be on it by April, well it is March and only
:20:19. > :20:23.3200 are on it. I changed the way we rolled it out and there was a reason
:20:24. > :20:28.for that. Under the advice of someone we brought from outside he
:20:29. > :20:32.said that you are better rolling it out slower and gaining momentum
:20:33. > :20:36.later on. On the timetables for rolling out we are pretty clear that
:20:37. > :20:40.it will roll out within the timescale is originally set. We will
:20:41. > :20:46.roll it out into the Northwest so that we replicate the north and the
:20:47. > :20:54.Northwest, recognise how it works properly. You will not hit 1 million
:20:55. > :20:57.by April. I have no intention of claiming that, and it is quite
:20:58. > :21:03.deliberate because that is the wrong thing to do. We want to roll it out
:21:04. > :21:07.carefully so we make sure everything about it works. There are lots of
:21:08. > :21:13.variables in this process but if you do it that way, you will not end up
:21:14. > :21:17.with the kind of debacle where in the past something like ?28 billion
:21:18. > :21:26.worth of IT programmes were written off. ?38 billion of net benefits,
:21:27. > :21:33.which is exactly what the N a O Z, so it is worth getting it right
:21:34. > :21:39.William Grant wants to know, when will the universal credit cover the
:21:40. > :21:42.whole country? By 2016, everybody who is claiming one of those six
:21:43. > :21:51.benefits will be claiming universal credit. Some and sickness benefits
:21:52. > :21:56.will take longer to come on because it is more difficult. Many of them
:21:57. > :22:01.have no work expectations on them, but for those on working tax
:22:02. > :22:06.credits, on things like job-seeker's allowance, they will be making
:22:07. > :22:11.claims on universal credit. Many of them are already doing that now
:22:12. > :22:18.there are 200,000 people around the country already on universal credit.
:22:19. > :22:27.You cannot give me a date as to when everybody will be on it? 2016 is
:22:28. > :22:33.when everybody claiming this benefit will be on, then you have to bring
:22:34. > :22:39.others and take them slower. Universal credit is a big and
:22:40. > :22:43.important reform, not an IT reform. The important point is that it will
:22:44. > :22:49.be a massive cultural reform. Right now somebody has to go to work and
:22:50. > :22:52.there is a small job out there. They won't take that because the way
:22:53. > :22:58.their benefits are withdrawn, it will mean it is not worth doing it.
:22:59. > :23:02.Under the way we have got it in the Pathfinders, the change is
:23:03. > :23:06.dramatic. A job-seeker can take a small part time job while they are
:23:07. > :23:12.looking for work and it means flexibility for business so it is a
:23:13. > :23:16.big change. Lets see if that is true because universal credit is meant to
:23:17. > :23:23.make work pay, that is your mantra. Let me show you a quote Minister in
:23:24. > :23:46.the last -- in the last Tory conference. It
:23:47. > :23:52.has only come down to 76%. Actually form own parents, before they get to
:23:53. > :23:58.the tax bracket it is well below that. That is a decision the
:23:59. > :24:03.Government takes about the withdrawal rate so you can lower
:24:04. > :24:07.that rate or raise it. And do your reforms, some of the poorest
:24:08. > :24:20.people, if they burn an extra pound, will pay a marginal rate of
:24:21. > :24:24.76%. -- if they earn an extra pound. The 98% he is talking about is a
:24:25. > :24:31.specific area to do with lone parents but there are specific
:24:32. > :24:37.compound areas in the process that mean people are better off staying
:24:38. > :24:41.at home then going to work. They will be able to identify how much
:24:42. > :24:46.they are better off without needing to have a maths degree to figure it
:24:47. > :24:52.out. They are all taken away at different rates at the moment, it is
:24:53. > :24:57.complex and chaotic. Under universal credit that won't happen, and they
:24:58. > :25:03.will always be better off than they are now. Would you work that bit
:25:04. > :25:12.harder if the Government was going to take away that portion of what
:25:13. > :25:18.you learned? At the moment you are going to tax poor people at the same
:25:19. > :25:22.rate the French government taxes billionaires. Millions will be
:25:23. > :25:27.better off under this system of universal credit, I promise you and
:25:28. > :25:32.that level of withdrawal then becomes something governments have
:25:33. > :25:38.to publicly discussed as to whether they lower or raise it. But George
:25:39. > :25:44.Osborne wouldn't give you the extra money to allow for the taper, is
:25:45. > :25:49.that right? The moment somebody crosses into work under the present
:25:50. > :25:53.system, there are huge cliff edges, in other words the immediate
:25:54. > :25:59.withdrawal makes it worse for them to go into work than otherwise. If
:26:00. > :26:09.he had given you more money, you could have tapered it more gently?
:26:10. > :26:12.Of course, but the Chancellor can always ultimately make that
:26:13. > :26:18.decision. These decisions are made by chancellors like tax rates, but
:26:19. > :26:23.it would be much easier under this system for the public to see what
:26:24. > :26:29.the Government chooses as its priorities. At the moment nobody has
:26:30. > :26:34.any idea but in the future it will be. Under the Pathfinders, we are
:26:35. > :26:40.finding people are going to work faster, doing more job searches and
:26:41. > :26:46.more likely to take work under universal credit. Public Accounts
:26:47. > :26:55.Committee said this programme has been worse than doing nothing, for
:26:56. > :27:03.the long-term credit. It has not been a glorious success, has it
:27:04. > :27:08.That is wrong. Right now the work programme is succeeding, more people
:27:09. > :27:11.are going to work, somewhere in the order of 500,000 people have gone
:27:12. > :27:17.back into work as a result of the programme. Around 280,000 people are
:27:18. > :27:22.in a sustained work over six months. Many companies are well
:27:23. > :27:27.above it, and the whole point about the work programme is that it is
:27:28. > :27:30.setup so that we make the private sector, two things that are
:27:31. > :27:36.important, there is competition in every area so that people can be
:27:37. > :27:41.sucked out of the programme and others can move in. The important
:27:42. > :27:45.point here as well is this, that actually they don't get paid unless
:27:46. > :27:51.they sustain somebody for six months of employment. Under previous
:27:52. > :27:54.programmes under the last government, they wasted millions
:27:55. > :27:59.paying companies who took the money and didn't do enough to get people
:28:00. > :28:06.into work. The best performing provider only moved 5% of people off
:28:07. > :28:15.benefit into work, the worst managed only 2%. It is young people. That
:28:16. > :28:19.report was on the early first months of the work programme, it is a
:28:20. > :28:24.two-year point we are now and I can give you the figures for this. They
:28:25. > :28:28.are above the line, the improvement has been dramatic and the work
:28:29. > :28:37.programme is better than any other back to work programme under the
:28:38. > :28:43.last government. So why is long term unemployment rising? It is falling.
:28:44. > :28:48.We have the largest number of people back in work, there is more women in
:28:49. > :28:53.work than ever before, more jobs being created, 1.6 million new jobs
:28:54. > :29:00.being created. The work programme is working, our back to work programmes
:29:01. > :29:05.are incredibly successful at below cost so we are doing better than the
:29:06. > :29:10.last government ever did, and it will continue to improve because
:29:11. > :29:14.this process is very important. The competition is what drives up
:29:15. > :29:19.performance. We want the best performers to take the biggest
:29:20. > :29:25.numbers of people. You are practising Catholic, Archbishop
:29:26. > :29:29.Vincent Nichols has attached your reforms -- attack to your reforms,
:29:30. > :29:35.saying they are becoming more punitive to the most vulnerable in
:29:36. > :29:39.the land. What do you say? I don't agree. It would have been good if
:29:40. > :29:50.you called me before making these attacks because most are not
:29:51. > :29:54.correct. For the poorest temper sent in their
:29:55. > :29:58.society, they are now spending, as a percentage of their income, less
:29:59. > :30:04.than they did before. I'm not quite sure what he thinks welfare is
:30:05. > :30:07.about. Welfare is about stabilising people but most of all making sure
:30:08. > :30:13.that households can achieve what they need through work. The number
:30:14. > :30:16.of workless households under previous governments arose
:30:17. > :30:22.consistently. It has fallen for the first time in 30 years by nearly
:30:23. > :30:26.18%. Something like a quarter of a million children were growing up in
:30:27. > :30:29.workless households and are now in households with work and they are
:30:30. > :30:33.three times more likely to grow up with work than they would have been
:30:34. > :30:38.in workless households. Let me come into something that he may have had
:30:39. > :30:42.in mind as being punitive - some other housing benefit changes. A
:30:43. > :30:45.year ago, the Prime Minister announced that people with severely
:30:46. > :30:50.disabled children would be exempt from the changes but that was only
:30:51. > :30:55.after your department fought a High Court battle over children who
:30:56. > :31:00.couldn't share a bedroom because of severe disabilities. Isn't that what
:31:01. > :31:04.the Archbishop means by punitive or, some may describe it, heartless We
:31:05. > :31:11.were originally going to appeal that and I said no. You put it up for an
:31:12. > :31:16.appeal and I said no. We're talking about families with disabled
:31:17. > :31:19.children. There are good reasons for this. Children with conditions like
:31:20. > :31:24.that don't make decisions about their household - their parents do -
:31:25. > :31:28.so I said we would exempt them. But for adults with disabilities the
:31:29. > :31:32.courts have upheld all of our decisions against complaints. But
:31:33. > :31:36.you did appeal it. It's just that, having lost in the appeal court you
:31:37. > :31:40.didn't then go to the Supreme Court. You make decisions about this. My
:31:41. > :31:46.view was that it was right to exempt them at that time. I made that
:31:47. > :31:51.decision, not the Prime Minister. Let's get this right - the context
:31:52. > :31:54.of this is quite important. Housing benefit under the last government
:31:55. > :32:01.doubled under the last ten years to ?20 billion. It was set to rise to
:32:02. > :32:04.another 25 billion, the fastest rising of the benefits, it was out
:32:05. > :32:08.of control. We had to get it into control. It wasn't easy but we
:32:09. > :32:12.haven't cut the overall rise in housing. We've lowered it but we
:32:13. > :32:16.haven't cut housing benefit and we've tried to do it carefully so
:32:17. > :32:19.that people get a fair crack. On the spare room subsidy, which is what
:32:20. > :32:24.this complaint was about, the reality is that there are a quarter
:32:25. > :32:26.of a million people living in overcrowded accommodation. The last
:32:27. > :32:29.government left us with 1 million people on a waiting list for housing
:32:30. > :32:33.and there were half a million people sitting in houses with spare
:32:34. > :32:37.bedrooms they weren't using. As we build more houses, yes we need more,
:32:38. > :32:40.but the reality is that councils and others have to use their
:32:41. > :32:43.accommodation carefully so that they actually improve the lot of those
:32:44. > :32:47.living in desperate situations in overcrowded accommodation, and
:32:48. > :32:52.taxpayers are paying a lot of money. This will help people get
:32:53. > :32:55.back to work. They're more likely to go to work and more likely,
:32:56. > :33:02.therefore, to end up in the right sort of housing. We've not got much
:33:03. > :33:06.time left. A centre-right think tank that you've been associated with, on
:33:07. > :33:13.job-seeker's allowance, says 70 000 job-seekers' benefits were withdrawn
:33:14. > :33:19.unfairly. A viewer wants to know, are these reforms too harsh and
:33:20. > :33:22.punitive? Those figures are not correct. The Policy Exchange is
:33:23. > :33:30.wrong? Those figures are not correct and we will be publishing corrected
:33:31. > :33:33.figures. The reality is... Some people have lost their job-seeker
:33:34. > :33:37.benefits and been forced to go to food backs and they shouldn't have.
:33:38. > :33:43.No, they're not. What he is referring to is that we allowed an
:33:44. > :33:46.adviser to make a decision if some but it is not cooperating. We now
:33:47. > :33:50.make people sign a contract, where they agree these things. These are
:33:51. > :33:55.things we do for you and if you don't do these things, you are
:33:56. > :33:57.likely to have your benefit withdrawn on job-seeker's allowance.
:33:58. > :34:01.Some of this was an fairly withdrawn. There are millions of
:34:02. > :34:06.these things that go through. This is a very small subset. But if you
:34:07. > :34:11.lose your job-seeker benefit unfairly, you have no cash flow
:34:12. > :34:17.There is an immediate review within seven days of that decision. Within
:34:18. > :34:20.seven days, that decision is reviewed. They are able to get a
:34:21. > :34:25.hardship fund straightaway if there is a problem. We have nearly ?1
:34:26. > :34:33.billion setup to help people, through crisis, hardship funds and
:34:34. > :34:36.in many other ways. We've given more than ?200 million to authorities to
:34:37. > :34:42.do face-to-face checks. This is not a nasty, vicious system but a system
:34:43. > :34:45.that says, "look, we ask you to do certain things. Taxpayers pay this
:34:46. > :34:49.money. You are out of work but you have obligations to seek work. We
:34:50. > :34:54.simply ask that you stick to doing those. Those sanctions are therefore
:34:55. > :34:57.be but he will not cooperate" . I think it is only fair to say to
:34:58. > :35:00.those people that they make choices throughout their life and if they
:35:01. > :35:05.choose not to cooperate, this is what happens. Is child poverty
:35:06. > :35:13.rising? No, it is actually falling in the last figures. 300,000 it fell
:35:14. > :35:19.in the last... Let me show you these figures. That is a projection by the
:35:20. > :35:24.Institute of fiscal studies. It also shows that it has gone up every year
:35:25. > :35:28.and will rise by 400,000 in this Parliament, and your government, and
:35:29. > :35:32.will continue to rise. But never mind the projection. It may be
:35:33. > :35:38.right, may be wrong. It would be 400,000 up compared to when -- what
:35:39. > :35:44.you inherited when this Parliament ends. That isn't a projection but
:35:45. > :35:48.the actual figures. But the last figures show that child poverty has
:35:49. > :35:53.fallen by some 300,000. The important point is... Can I just
:35:54. > :35:57.finished this point of? Child poverty is measured against 60% of
:35:58. > :36:03.median income so this is an issue about how we measure child poverty.
:36:04. > :36:06.You want to change the measure. I made the decision not to publish our
:36:07. > :36:10.change figures at this point because we've still got a bit more work to
:36:11. > :36:13.do on them but there is a big consensus that the way we measure
:36:14. > :36:18.child poverty right now does not measure exactly what requires to be
:36:19. > :36:21.done. For example, a family with an individual parent who may be drug
:36:22. > :36:25.addicted and gets what we think is enough money to be just over the
:36:26. > :36:28.line, their children may be living in poverty but they won't be
:36:29. > :36:31.measured so we need to get a measurement that looks at poverty in
:36:32. > :36:37.terms of how people live, not just in terms of the income levels they
:36:38. > :36:42.have. You can see on that chart - 400,000 rising by the end of this
:36:43. > :36:46.Parliament - you are deciding over an increase. Speedier I want to
:36:47. > :36:49.change it because under the last government child poverty rose
:36:50. > :36:55.consistently from 2004 and they ended up chucking huge sums of money
:36:56. > :37:02.into things like tax credits. In tax credits, in six years before the
:37:03. > :37:05.last election, the last government spent ?175 billion chasing a poverty
:37:06. > :37:09.target and they didn't achieve what they set out to achieve. We don't
:37:10. > :37:14.want to continue down that line where you simply put money into a
:37:15. > :37:18.welfare system to alter a marginal income line. It doesn't make any
:37:19. > :37:22.sense. That's why we want to change it, not because some projection says
:37:23. > :37:35.it might be going up. I will point out again it isn't a projection up
:37:36. > :37:39.to 2013-14. You want it to make work pay but more people in poverty are
:37:40. > :37:45.now in working families than in workless families. For them, workers
:37:46. > :37:50.not paying. Those figures referred to the last government's time in
:37:51. > :37:56.government. What is interesting about it is that until 2010, under
:37:57. > :38:00.the last government, those in working families - poverty in
:38:01. > :38:03.working families rose by half a million. For the two years up to the
:38:04. > :38:08.end of those figures, it has been flat, under this government. These
:38:09. > :38:14.are figures at the last government... You inherited and it
:38:15. > :38:19.hasn't changed. The truth is, even if you are in poverty in a working
:38:20. > :38:22.family, your children, if they are in workless families, are three
:38:23. > :38:27.times more likely to be out of work and to suffer real hardship. So, in
:38:28. > :38:33.other words, moving people up the scale, into work and then on is
:38:34. > :38:37.important. The problem with the last government system with working tax
:38:38. > :38:40.credit is it locks them into certain hours and they didn't progress.
:38:41. > :38:45.We're changing that so that you progress on up and go out of poverty
:38:46. > :38:49.through work and beyond it. But those figures you're referring to
:38:50. > :38:54.refer to the last government's tenure and they spent ?175 billion
:38:55. > :38:58.on a tax credit which still left people in work in poverty. Even 20
:38:59. > :39:02.minutes isn't enough to go through all this. A lot more I'd like to
:39:03. > :39:07.talk about. I hope you will come back. I will definitely come back.
:39:08. > :39:11.Thank you for joining us. You're watching the Sunday
:39:12. > :39:12.Politics. We say goodbye to viewers in Scotland, who leave us now for
:39:13. > :39:36.Sunday Politics Scotland. More than half of local councils
:39:37. > :39:40.currently parcel out their care visits in quarter of an hour slots `
:39:41. > :39:43.we'll be talking to one that's scrapping that and offering longer.
:39:44. > :39:46.More on that shortly. First let s meet the two politicians who'll be
:39:47. > :39:49.with me for the next 20 minttes Sir Gerald Howarth is the Conservative
:39:50. > :39:56.MP for Aldershot, and Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for the South
:39:57. > :39:59.East. You said recently in the House of Commons that the most important
:40:00. > :40:04.issue facing your constituents, the one they have raised most whth you,
:40:05. > :40:08.is immigration. This week Vhnce cable said he was intensely relaxed
:40:09. > :40:12.about people bringing necessary skills here. What is it that you
:40:13. > :40:16.think your constituents see as the problem with immigration?
:40:17. > :40:20.Immigration has been a growhng problem in this country, and it is a
:40:21. > :40:23.question of numbers. It is not a question of the talent of the
:40:24. > :40:27.individuals, it is a question of numbers. We are a small grotp of
:40:28. > :40:33.islands, and there is massive pressure on space. We have hn
:40:34. > :40:40.England and Wales something like 378 people per square kilometre, whereas
:40:41. > :40:44.the Germans have 120 people, sorry, the French have 120 people per
:40:45. > :40:48.square kilometre, and the Gdrmans are somewhere in between thd two.
:40:49. > :40:52.Everybody knows that not only is there a massive pressure on housing,
:40:53. > :40:59.it is no surprise that houshng prices are going up, the Government
:41:00. > :41:04.has been letting immigration run at a quarter of a million per xear On
:41:05. > :41:09.current projections, over the next 15 years, the prospect is that the
:41:10. > :41:13.population will grow to 70 lillion. That is another 7 million, of which
:41:14. > :41:17.5 million will be from migr`tion, which is equivalent to the cities of
:41:18. > :41:21.Birmingham, Sheffield, Oxford and a few others thrown in. We just cannot
:41:22. > :41:26.cope. What about the point `bout the skills, and we are part of `
:41:27. > :41:31.European market now, with free movement? There are two sep`rate
:41:32. > :41:34.issues. One is the free movdment of people's in the EU, over whhch of
:41:35. > :41:42.course we have relatively lhttle control. `` peoples. As far as
:41:43. > :41:49.non`EU migration is concerndd, then we do have control. There h`s been
:41:50. > :41:53.some success, despite the f`ct that the figures for the last ye`r for
:41:54. > :41:58.immigration overall went up to about 216,000. Figures for those coming
:41:59. > :42:04.from outside the EU went down. And yes, of course, there must be space
:42:05. > :42:08.for us to import needed taldnt, but I do not think that needed talent is
:42:09. > :42:12.on the scale of 140,000 people. Furthermore, we have got undmployed
:42:13. > :42:19.people in our own country, `t all levels, all skill levels. You get a
:42:20. > :42:22.country like India, and you can see the aspirational nature of the
:42:23. > :42:29.people there, it is incredibly exciting. They are going to take
:42:30. > :42:35.your jobs, unless we get re`l about upgrading our skills and our
:42:36. > :42:39.commitment to accepting jobs. Keith Taylor, the Green Party is
:42:40. > :42:44.pressing for policies which make all parts of the EU and attracthve place
:42:45. > :42:47.to live? Absolutely right. What has not been said is that low`grade
:42:48. > :43:01.migrants actually bring mord wealth to this country. `` EU migr`nts
:43:02. > :43:05.This has been a success story. The fact that we are seeing polhticians
:43:06. > :43:15.blaming migrants for low wages, for a shortage of housing, is shmply
:43:16. > :43:22.them being used as a scapegoat. On the housing, if Apple had not
:43:23. > :43:27.slashed its support for housing social housing, there would not be a
:43:28. > :43:30.housing problem. `` if the Government had not. If the dmployers
:43:31. > :43:37.were actually paying proper wages to everybody. So, the numbers `re not a
:43:38. > :43:44.problem? When you are at it, there are 1.9 million Britons livhng in
:43:45. > :43:51.Europe, and 2.3 million EU citizens living here. With respect, xou are
:43:52. > :43:54.talking about space and I al talking about the number of people who have
:43:55. > :43:58.left the country, and the ntmber who have come to the country, which is
:43:59. > :44:02.nothing as critical as you have just suggested. There is another
:44:03. > :44:08.dimension, and that is the cultural issue. There is a massive change
:44:09. > :44:12.taking place in our country. There has never, ever, in the history of
:44:13. > :44:18.these islands, been such a lassive wave of migration of people, from a
:44:19. > :44:21.different culture, into our country. The people of Britain basic`lly have
:44:22. > :44:27.been intimidated in not sayhng anything about it. Rubbish. You may
:44:28. > :44:35.think it is rubbish. I know it is rubbish! It is a view which is held
:44:36. > :44:40.by many of your constituents, and I continue, in my constituencx, it is
:44:41. > :44:43.a very big concern. People want to see the Government doing solething
:44:44. > :44:45.about it. This government is trying to do that but we have a long way to
:44:46. > :44:50.go. The voluntary sector has bedn a
:44:51. > :44:53.mainstay of David Cameron's Big Society idea ` but with regtlar cuts
:44:54. > :44:55.to local authority funding dven charities are feeling the spueeze,
:44:56. > :44:58.with many reporting increasdd demands on their services jtst as
:44:59. > :45:01.the money decreases. In a rdcent survey of Berkshire charitids, a
:45:02. > :45:05.fifth said they'd lost 40% of their funding in the last three ydars
:45:06. > :45:12.Dave Soper is from the Berkshire Community Foundation, which did that
:45:13. > :45:18.survey. That is a huge drop, isn't it? It is. Just to start with, to be
:45:19. > :45:22.fair, you can understand it, the councils have had their budgets
:45:23. > :45:25.squeezed, and they have had to make difficult decisions across the board
:45:26. > :45:30.about how they spend their loney or how they make their cuts. You say it
:45:31. > :45:34.is hitting small charities? It hits small charities more than others.
:45:35. > :45:37.There is a good reason for that Small charities have relied much
:45:38. > :45:41.more on local authority funding just that secondly, if they go into the
:45:42. > :45:44.market to compete with other types of fundraising, where they `re
:45:45. > :45:51.competing with the big charhties, they have not got the same larketing
:45:52. > :45:55.budgets, all the same resources to really take advantage of wh`t might
:45:56. > :46:00.be out there. So, we have sden the cuts, some of it public sector, some
:46:01. > :46:05.of it larger charities ` ard some going to go to the wall? Thdre has
:46:06. > :46:08.already been a survey which says about one in six charities dxpect to
:46:09. > :46:13.go to the wall within the ndxt few years. What sort of people will lose
:46:14. > :46:18.out if that happens? The big charities will not be affected. It
:46:19. > :46:22.will be people who are involved with very small charities, communities,
:46:23. > :46:30.people who rely on local services to have a better life, to benefit.
:46:31. > :46:36.Playgroups, care for the elderly? It could be any of those community
:46:37. > :46:39.organisations that you can think of. Any of those organisations which are
:46:40. > :46:44.making a difference to people in the local neighbourhood. Those `re the
:46:45. > :46:49.ones I work with a lot of these charities, on a day`to`day basis, I
:46:50. > :46:54.am working with 200 of thesd charities all the time. What I tend
:46:55. > :46:56.to find is that the person doing the fundraising is also the person
:46:57. > :47:00.responsible for the front`lhne services. They have not got the time
:47:01. > :47:04.to put in to go out and do some street fundraising, to put on
:47:05. > :47:09.events, even to fill out applications forms for trust funds.
:47:10. > :47:15.Curing the economic crisis that we have had, where you have got
:47:16. > :47:20.organisations giving grants as an endowment, the investment in
:47:21. > :47:23.endowments has been much less. You say this is because councils have
:47:24. > :47:27.had their budgets squeezed, but in the end, it is not efficient, is
:47:28. > :47:33.it, it is going to cost us `ll, in the long run? It will. Sometimes it
:47:34. > :47:38.seems to me that a decision is made quite short term, without any
:47:39. > :47:46.long`term understanding. Thd reason that councils are funding voluntary
:47:47. > :47:50.sector organisations is bec`use in the long run, it says the council
:47:51. > :47:54.money. It is quite often chdaper for the council to have a voluntary
:47:55. > :47:57.organisation keeping and I'll older people, looking after youngdr and
:47:58. > :48:06.disadvantaged people, and it is to have their own people going out and
:48:07. > :48:11.looking after them. `` keephng an eye on older people. These
:48:12. > :48:15.organisations just are not getting that support. My job really is to
:48:16. > :48:20.try to encourage people to give to those local organisations, because
:48:21. > :48:25.people across the region ard still generous, they do give monex to
:48:26. > :48:29.charity. They say they would like to give money to local organis`tions,
:48:30. > :48:33.but in reality, that does not happen. In Berkshire we know that
:48:34. > :48:37.only 10% of the money given to charitable causes actually stays in
:48:38. > :48:41.Berkshire. The rest of it goes to national, regional and international
:48:42. > :48:45.charities. If we can just bring a little bit of that money back into
:48:46. > :48:48.Berkshire, it will make a htge difference to those in small,
:48:49. > :48:55.voluntary organisations. Three quarters of all donations in this
:48:56. > :49:00.country go to 3% of the charities, according to some research! We are
:49:01. > :49:05.missing a trick, aren't we? Absolutely. But I think it `ctually
:49:06. > :49:09.starts with the Government. The aerosol on the poorest people, with
:49:10. > :49:16.benefit cuts, with the bedroom tax `` their assault `` means that
:49:17. > :49:20.councils have not got the money to support the community and voluntary
:49:21. > :49:28.sector. If you look at food banks, for instance, a city the size of
:49:29. > :49:31.Winchester worth of people have been fed by food banks in the last year,
:49:32. > :49:37.and the Government does not give it from central funds 1p. Central funds
:49:38. > :49:42.is taxpayers' money. You ard saying, tax are small? No, I am sayhng, stop
:49:43. > :49:49.giving enormous tax breaks to the rich. Stop encouraging fracking by
:49:50. > :49:52.giving tax concessions to developers. Actually start spending
:49:53. > :49:57.money on the vulnerable people, the people who most need it, rather than
:49:58. > :50:01.make the rich richer and thd poor poorer. It is just old`fashhoned
:50:02. > :50:06.socialism we are hearing from the Green Party. I have no problem with
:50:07. > :50:19.that. The party has nothing to offer. The country is hopeldssly in
:50:20. > :50:24.debt. We inherited a budget deficit, a national overdraft, in 2000, of
:50:25. > :50:31.160,000 million pounds, out of a total spend of about ?750 bhllion.
:50:32. > :50:37.So, it was a massive overspdnd. And we are struggling to get th`t down.
:50:38. > :50:42.We are committed to getting it down. Labour are still committed to borrow
:50:43. > :50:48.and spend. We are trying to get it down to ?110 billion, but that is
:50:49. > :50:52.being added to the national debt every year. Our children ard going
:50:53. > :50:59.to have to pay that off. I want to give Dave the last word. Let me just
:51:00. > :51:02.say that in Oxfordshire, thdy have raised ?800,000, which they found
:51:03. > :51:13.from somewhere else, to provide for longer visits than 15 minutds. We
:51:14. > :51:15.are about to go they are also spending ?34 billion on a
:51:16. > :51:20.replacement for the nuclear submarines! As I said at thd start,
:51:21. > :51:25.I do understand why the councils have had to make cuts. My rdal
:51:26. > :51:27.concern is that I wish more local people would give to local
:51:28. > :51:34.charities, rather than national charities. Giving a few pounds to a
:51:35. > :51:36.small local charity makes a much bigger difference than giving a few
:51:37. > :51:41.pounds to a much larger charity It's widely recognised that in our
:51:42. > :51:45.ageing society, adult social care is a huge problem. For years, local
:51:46. > :51:50.councils have been cutting back on who is eligible for care. Btt they
:51:51. > :51:54.have also been limiting the time spent on visits ` sometimes to just
:51:55. > :51:57.15 minutes. That's supposed to be addressed in the Care Bill, which
:51:58. > :52:01.goes to its report stage next week. But many councils say the only way
:52:02. > :52:03.to avoid the quarter of an hour dash is more cash. Our Oxfordshire
:52:04. > :52:10.political reporter Helen Catt reports.
:52:11. > :52:17.For these two carers, the clock starts ticking here. One evdning
:52:18. > :52:23.visits, they used to have jtst 5 minutes to spend with this couple,
:52:24. > :52:27.to help them both get ready for bed. David is quite unsteady on his
:52:28. > :52:32.feet. 15 minutes was a bit of a rush to get him undressed, ready for bed
:52:33. > :52:37.and into bed. So then we had to rush to his wife and get her down. It was
:52:38. > :52:42.difficult. We were looking `t the time most evenings, and it was a
:52:43. > :52:46.case of going into Dave, and then coming into me and being fahrly
:52:47. > :52:55.quick with us. So, it was not pleasant. Jill and David moved to
:52:56. > :52:59.Oxfordshire from Scotland 2.5 years ago, after a life spent in several
:53:00. > :53:02.African countries. Being able to share those stories with thdir
:53:03. > :53:07.carers is something that makes a real difference to them. Dave
:53:08. > :53:16.particularly, because he cannot hear terribly well, likes to chat to Gary
:53:17. > :53:22.when he comes in. I have got a bit of an impairment, and so he cannot
:53:23. > :53:28.hear me. He has got so used to my voice, he does not hear me `t all.
:53:29. > :53:32.The arguments surrounding 14 minute care visits cut to the heart of the
:53:33. > :53:35.debate about what social care should be. Should it be about just
:53:36. > :53:42.fulfilling someone's basic needs, or should it be more than that? Does it
:53:43. > :53:44.include staying with them for a chat while they drink their tea?
:53:45. > :53:50.Oxfordshire County Council has decided it is the latter. It is
:53:51. > :53:55.spending ?800,000 on extendhng all personal care visits for thd elderly
:53:56. > :54:01.to at least half an hour. I have always been concerned about the fact
:54:02. > :54:05.that older people could think they are getting rushed when somdone
:54:06. > :54:07.comes to their front door. H think it is horrid that they have to
:54:08. > :54:12.choose between may be going to the toilet or having a cup of tda. The
:54:13. > :54:15.funding is split equally ovdr the next two years, although it is
:54:16. > :54:22.unclear what will happen after that, as the money has come from `n
:54:23. > :54:27.unexpected buzz nurse. `` and unexpected bonus. We got thhs extra
:54:28. > :54:33.money to be able to work with. We were able to invest the ?800,00
:54:34. > :54:40.into adult social care. A strvey by a charity last year found 60% of
:54:41. > :54:44.councils use at least some form of 15 minute care visits. Some councils
:54:45. > :54:48.say those are never full personal care. It is largely accepted that
:54:49. > :54:55.they can be suitable for thhngs like checking whether someone has taken
:54:56. > :55:00.their medication. A report published this week by Age UK says spdnding on
:55:01. > :55:06.social care for older peopld has fallen by ?1.2 billion sincd 20 0.
:55:07. > :55:12.There is a massive funding gap, but on the other hand, we as a country
:55:13. > :55:20.have public spending bill every year or more than ?700 billion. Surely we
:55:21. > :55:25.can find money from within that to give people decency and sochal care.
:55:26. > :55:28.This is just one small aspect. The Government's Care Bill gets its
:55:29. > :55:33.third reading in the Commons this week. It will prevent inappropriate
:55:34. > :55:38.short visits and shift the dmphasis of care on to a person's entire
:55:39. > :55:46.well`being. The Care Bill is a great but Unity. It could be a landmark
:55:47. > :55:53.piece of legislation, but it needs to be backed up by some kind of
:55:54. > :55:57.sustainable funding `` opportunity `` to make sure that we can pay for
:55:58. > :56:01.all of these important things, year`on`year, like the importance of
:56:02. > :56:05.well`being, the importance of high quality care, remaining inddpendent
:56:06. > :56:11.for as long as possible. Thd contributions paid by an individual
:56:12. > :56:14.towards the cost of their c`rer will also be exactly how support will be
:56:15. > :56:22.paid for is a debate which will run and run. So, Keith Taylor, how
:56:23. > :56:30.should we be paying for elddrly care? Well, we need to pay what it
:56:31. > :56:33.costs. The largest slice of local authority spending is in adtlt
:56:34. > :56:38.social care and health. When we are seeing the Government/ local
:56:39. > :56:45.authority grants, there has to be ongoing cuts. But they are `ctually
:56:46. > :56:47.spending more in Oxfordshird. That is just by fluke, not because the
:56:48. > :56:51.Government has made it happdn. That Government has made it happdn. That
:56:52. > :56:56.is because Oxford have been ingenious in counting up thd figures
:56:57. > :57:04.and looking at where income comes from. This is political, and that is
:57:05. > :57:08.what we need, we need a change of priority, away from things which
:57:09. > :57:12.actually make the future worse for people, like the couple we just saw,
:57:13. > :57:16.towards a future which makes it better. In anybody's book, 05
:57:17. > :57:23.minutes of contact with a c`rer is not enough. Do we not owe it to
:57:24. > :57:31.people like Jill and David there to give them quality care, and
:57:32. > :57:34.independence? Absolutely right. One of the challenges that we f`ce is
:57:35. > :57:41.that there is a growing elddrly population. We are all living
:57:42. > :57:43.longer. Which is a good thing. It is a great thing. We are all m`king
:57:44. > :57:49.more demands on the Health Service and so on. That is why changes have
:57:50. > :57:56.had to be made in the retirdment age, because the figures ard out of
:57:57. > :58:03.kilter. How are we going to meet this bill, then? Keith Taylor says
:58:04. > :58:07.we should just find the mondy. Of course he says that, he is just
:58:08. > :58:13.economically illiterate. We just do not have the money. What thd man
:58:14. > :58:17.from Age UK said is right, we are spending ?700 billion a year, but of
:58:18. > :58:20.course, there are massive ddmands on government expenditure. Pretty much
:58:21. > :58:26.every department except the Health Service and overseas aid has been
:58:27. > :58:29.cut. I have been arguing th`t whilst we are limiting things like 15
:58:30. > :58:34.minute visits, we should not be spending so much money on overseas
:58:35. > :58:38.aid. There is one suggestion, then? If you are talking economic
:58:39. > :58:42.illiteracy, it is the admission that we are seeing more elderly people
:58:43. > :58:49.while cutting the budget to pay for their services. That is illhterate.
:58:50. > :58:55.I think the point here is that we had a very interesting observation,
:58:56. > :58:58.where she explained that Oxfordshire, by dint of a lhttle bit
:58:59. > :59:02.of extra money from the Govdrnment which they had not expecting, and
:59:03. > :59:09.some savings of their own, they found ?800,000. In Hampshird, I
:59:10. > :59:16.could find you ?1.7 million this afternoon. Have you told Halpshire
:59:17. > :59:19.council this? I have not. The leader of the council wants to stick up
:59:20. > :59:25.some traffic lights on the Pueen's Road about between Farnborotgh and
:59:26. > :59:28.Aldershot at a cost of ?5.7 million, of which 4 million comes from the
:59:29. > :59:37.Government. Scrap it and save all that money. Go to Sussex! Wd have
:59:38. > :59:41.got terrible problems in Sussex I am sure I can find some wasteful
:59:42. > :59:45.expenditure there as well. H will look forward to it. Now our regular
:59:46. > :59:49.round`up of the political wdek in the South in 60 seconds, and this
:59:50. > :59:58.week it's all about people getting together.
:59:59. > :00:03.4000 troops moving from Gerlany will soon be calling Salisbury Plain
:00:04. > :00:09.their home. Local residents have been discussing plans for ndw
:00:10. > :00:16.housing. In Oxfordshire, people were discussing lessons from the
:00:17. > :00:21.flooding. A meeting of the House of Commons Privilege Committee backed
:00:22. > :00:27.the Worthing MP Tim Lawton hn his battle with the Sussex chief
:00:28. > :00:32.constables over a harassment notice. Did you apologise to Mr Lawton? No.
:00:33. > :00:35.There was an apology from the UKIP euro candidate, who said businesses
:00:36. > :00:43.should be able to refuse services to whoever they wanted. At PMQs, Tobias
:00:44. > :00:48.Ellwood, MP for Bournemouth, called for another meeting to come to town.
:00:49. > :00:52.And also does amazing party conferences... And Gosport LP
:00:53. > :00:59.Caroline diner jewels congr`tulated on her wedding, getting togdther
:01:00. > :01:13.with fellow Tory MP Mark Lancaster. `` Carol dining chair. `` C`rol
:01:14. > :01:18.Dinage. What do you say to the suggestion that services should not
:01:19. > :01:21.be obliged to serve gay, was lame and minority people? She saxs people
:01:22. > :01:25.should be able to choose to do what they want if they are running a
:01:26. > :01:29.business. There is too much about the service provider, and not enough
:01:30. > :01:32.about the rights of the indhvidual. Imagine that you happened to be a
:01:33. > :01:36.gay couple, looking for bed`and`breakfast, it is tipping
:01:37. > :01:41.down with rain on a dark night in the middle of nowhere, and somebody
:01:42. > :01:45.opens the door and says, sorry, I am a libertarian, I insist on ly right
:01:46. > :01:50.to refuse you entry! Well, she says that she is not saying, do not serve
:01:51. > :01:57.people like that. What are xou saying? Well, I have no bridf for
:01:58. > :02:02.UKIP, as you might imagine. But I certainly think that shopkedpers and
:02:03. > :02:07.publicans practice that kind of limitation any way. If you turn up
:02:08. > :02:13.to a bar and you are not drdssed properly, you can be thrown out Who
:02:14. > :02:15.wants to turn away business, that is the question. That's The Sunday
:02:16. > :02:19.Politics in the South. Gove is right to focus. We've run
:02:20. > :02:28.out of time. Thanks for being here. Andrew, back to you.
:02:29. > :02:37.Now, without further ado, more from our political panel. Iain Martin,
:02:38. > :02:43.what did you make of Iain Duncan Smith's response to the Danny
:02:44. > :02:47.Alexander point I'd put to him? I thought it was a cheekily put
:02:48. > :02:50.response but actually, on Twitter, people have been tweeting while on
:02:51. > :02:56.air that there are lots of examples where the Tories have demanded the
:02:57. > :03:01.raising of the threshold. The 2 06 Forsyth tax omission is another
:03:02. > :03:08.example. Helen, on the bigger issue of welfare reforms, is welfare
:03:09. > :03:11.reform, as we head into the election, despite all the
:03:12. > :03:16.criticisms, still a plus for the government? I don't think so.
:03:17. > :03:20.Whatever the opposite of a Midas touch is, Iain Duncan Smith has got
:03:21. > :03:25.it. David Cameron never talks about universal credit any more. The
:03:26. > :03:30.record on personal independence payment, for example... We didn t
:03:31. > :03:34.get onto that. Only one in six of those notes have been paid. A toss
:03:35. > :03:42.pulling out of their condiment has been a nightmare. It's a very big
:03:43. > :03:53.minus point for the Secretary of State. -- Atos pulling out of bed
:03:54. > :03:59.contract. Welfare cuts are an unambiguous point for the government
:04:00. > :04:04.but other points more ambiguous I don't think it's technical
:04:05. > :04:10.complexity that makes IDS's reform a problem. The IT gets moved out with
:04:11. > :04:13.time. But even if it's in fermented perfectly, what it will achieve has
:04:14. > :04:19.been slightly oversold, I think and simplified incredibly. All it does
:04:20. > :04:22.is improve incentives to work for one section of the income scale and
:04:23. > :04:28.diminishes it at another. Basically, you are encouraged to go from
:04:29. > :04:32.working zero hours to 16 hours but your incentive to work beyond 1
:04:33. > :04:34.goes down. That's not because it's a horrendous policy but because in
:04:35. > :04:42.work benefits systems are imperceptible. Most countries do
:04:43. > :04:48.worse than we do. -- benefits systems cannot be perfected. They
:04:49. > :04:52.need to tone down how much this can achieve even if it all goes
:04:53. > :04:57.flawlessly. There are clearly problems, particularly within
:04:58. > :05:01.limitation, but Labour is still wary of welfare reform. -- with
:05:02. > :05:05.implementation. Polls suggest it is rather popular. People may not know
:05:06. > :05:12.what's involved were like the sound of it. I think Janan is right to
:05:13. > :05:19.mark out the differences between welfare cuts and welfare reforms.
:05:20. > :05:26.They are related but distinct. Are we saying cuts are more popular than
:05:27. > :05:33.reform? They clearly are. The numbers, when you present people
:05:34. > :05:37.numbers on benefit reductions, are off the scale. Reform, for the
:05:38. > :05:44.reasons you explored in your interview, is incredibly
:05:45. > :05:46.compensated. What's interesting is that Labour haven't really
:05:47. > :05:52.definitively said what their position is on this. I think they
:05:53. > :05:57.like - despite what they may see in public occasionally - some of what
:05:58. > :06:05.universal credit might produce but they don't want to be associated
:06:06. > :06:07.with it. We probably won't know until if Ed Miliband is Prime
:06:08. > :06:13.Minister precisely what direction Labour will go. Immigration is still
:06:14. > :06:17.a hot topic in Westminster and throughout the country. This new
:06:18. > :06:22.Home Office minister, James Brokenshire, made an intervention.
:06:23. > :06:26.Let's see what he had to say. For too long, the benefits of
:06:27. > :06:30.immigration went to employers who wanted an easy supply of cheap
:06:31. > :06:34.labour or to the wealthy metropolitan elite who wanted cheap
:06:35. > :06:38.tradesmen and services, but not to the ordinary hard-working people of
:06:39. > :06:41.this country. With the result that the Prime Minister and everyone else
:06:42. > :06:46.has to tell us all whether they ve now got Portuguese or whatever it is
:06:47. > :06:51.Nanny is. Is this the most cack-handed intervention on an
:06:52. > :06:55.immigration issue in a long list? I think it is and when I saw this
:06:56. > :07:01.being trailed the night before, I worried for him. As soon as a
:07:02. > :07:36.minister of the Crown uses the phrase "wealthy metropolitan elite"
:07:37. > :07:43.more likely we see it in recession. We've just had the worst recession
:07:44. > :07:46.in several decades. It's no small problem but compared to what
:07:47. > :07:50.ministers like James Brokenshire has been saying for the past few years
:07:51. > :07:53.and also the reluctance to issue the report earlier, I thought that,
:07:54. > :07:59.combined with the speech, made it quite a bad week for the department.
:08:00. > :08:04.Was this a cack-handed attempt to appeal to the UKIP voters? I think
:08:05. > :08:08.so and he's predecessor had to leave the job because of having a foreign
:08:09. > :08:13.cleaner. It drew attention to the Tories' biggest problem, the out of
:08:14. > :08:16.touch problem. Most people around the country probably don't have a
:08:17. > :08:23.Portuguese nanny and you've just put a big sign over David Cameron
:08:24. > :08:26.saying, this man can afford a Portuguese Nanny. It is not the
:08:27. > :08:30.finest political operation ever conducted and the speech was
:08:31. > :08:33.definitely given by the Home Office to Number Ten but did Number Ten
:08:34. > :08:40.bother to read it? It was a complete shambles. The basic argument that
:08:41. > :08:44.there is a divide between a wealthy metropolitan elite and large parts
:08:45. > :08:49.of Middle Britain or the rest of the country I think is basically sound.
:08:50. > :08:54.It is but they are on the wrong side of it. What do you mean by that The
:08:55. > :09:00.Tory government is on the wrong side. This is appealing to UKIP
:09:01. > :09:03.voters and we know that UKIP is appealing to working-class voters
:09:04. > :09:06.who have previously voted Labour and Tory. If you set up that divide
:09:07. > :09:12.make sure you are on the right side stop When you talk about
:09:13. > :09:15.metropolitan members of the media class, they say that it is rubbish
:09:16. > :09:21.and everyone has a Polish cleaner. No, they don't. I do not have a
:09:22. > :09:27.clean! I don't clean behind the fridge, either! Most people in the
:09:28. > :09:38.country don't have a cleaner. The problem for the Tories on this is,
:09:39. > :09:43.why play that game? You can't out-UKIP UKIP. After two or three
:09:44. > :09:50.years of sustained Tory effort to do that, they will probably finish
:09:51. > :09:53.behind UKIP. Do we really want a political system where it becomes an
:09:54. > :10:00.issue of where your nanny or your cleaner is from, if you've got one?
:10:01. > :10:05.Unless, of course, they're illegal. But Portuguese or Italian or
:10:06. > :10:09.Scottish... And intervention was from Nick Clegg who said his wife
:10:10. > :10:19.was Dutch -- his mum was Dutch and his wife was Spanish. Not communism
:10:20. > :10:23.but who your cleaner is! It's the McCarthy question! Where does your
:10:24. > :10:28.cleaner come from. A lot of people will say are lucky to have a
:10:29. > :10:33.cleaner. I want to move onto selfies but first, on the Nigel Farage
:10:34. > :10:41.Nick Clegg debate, let's stick with the TV one. Who do you think will
:10:42. > :10:44.win? Nigel Farage. Clegg. He is a surprisingly good in debates and
:10:45. > :10:50.people have forgotten. I think Clegg is going to win. I think Farage has
:10:51. > :11:00.peaked. We're going to keep that on tape as well! Two 214 Clegg there.
:11:01. > :11:04.Selfies. Politicians are attempting to show they're down with the kids.
:11:05. > :11:14.Let's look at some that we've seen in recent days.
:11:15. > :11:52.Why are they doing this, Helen? I'm so embarrassed you call me reading
:11:53. > :11:57.the SNP manifesto, as I do every Saturday! They do it because it
:11:58. > :12:00.makes them seem authentic and that's the big Lie that social media tells
:12:01. > :12:06.you - that you're seeing the real person. You're not, you're seeing a
:12:07. > :12:12.very carefully manicured, more witty person. That doesn't work for
:12:13. > :12:15.politicians. It looks so fake and I'm still suffering the cringe I see
:12:16. > :12:22.every time I see Cameronserious phone face. Does Mr Cameron really
:12:23. > :12:31.think it big Sim up because he's on the phone to President Obama? Obama
:12:32. > :12:34.is not the personality he once was. There is an international crisis in
:12:35. > :12:39.Ukraine - of course we are expecting to be speaking to Obama! And if you
:12:40. > :12:44.were in any doubt about what a man talking on the telephone looks like,
:12:45. > :12:50.here's a photo. I must confess, I didn't take my own selfie. Did your
:12:51. > :12:57.nanny? My father-in-law took it Where is your father-in-law from?
:12:58. > :13:11.Scotland. Just checking. Janan, I think we've got one of you. The 1%!
:13:12. > :13:15.What a great telephone! Where did you get that telephone? It looks
:13:16. > :13:22.like Wolf Of Wall Street! That's what I go to bed in. It showed how
:13:23. > :13:26.excited Cameron was to be on the phone to Obama. All our politicians
:13:27. > :13:32.think they are living a mini version of US politics. President Obama goes
:13:33. > :13:35.on a big plane and we complain when George Osborne goes first class on
:13:36. > :13:39.first Great Western. They want to be big and important like American
:13:40. > :13:43.politics but it doesn't work. We'll see your top at next week!
:13:44. > :13:48.That's it for this week. Faxed all our guests. The Daily Politics is on
:13:49. > :13:53.all this week at lunchtime on BBC Two. We'll be back here same time,
:13:54. > :13:56.same place next week. Remember, if it's Sunday, it is the Sunday
:13:57. > :14:01.Politics.