Browse content similar to 09/03/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Morning, folks. Welcome to the Sunday Politics. | :00:36. | :00:43. | |
He's a man on a mission. But is it mission impossible? Iain Duncan | :00:44. | :00:45. | |
Smith has started the radical reform of our welfare state. No tall order. | :00:46. | :00:50. | |
And not everything's going to plan. We'll be talking to the man himself. | :00:51. | :00:54. | |
Nick Clegg's hosting his party's spring conference in York. He's | :00:55. | :00:58. | |
getting pretty cosy with the party faithful. Not so cosy, though, with | :00:59. | :01:02. | |
his Coalition partners. In fact, things are getting a wee bit nasty. | :01:03. | :01:05. | |
We'll be talking to his right-hand man, Danny Alexander. | :01:06. | :01:09. | |
And are all politicians self-obsessed? Don't all shout at | :01:10. | :01:12. | |
In the South ` why a 15`mintte care once. We'll be examining | :01:13. | :01:19. | |
In the South ` why a 15`mintte care visit just isn't enough. Longer ones | :01:20. | :01:22. | |
won't be cheap, but it's wh`t everyone wants ` and one cotncil | :01:23. | :01:23. | |
reckons it has the cash to do In London, we're focusing on the | :01:24. | :01:26. | |
biggest social housing landlords. Can Southwark Council really build | :01:27. | :01:30. | |
11,000 new homes in the next three decades? | :01:31. | :01:34. | |
And with me, as always, three of the best and the brightest political | :01:35. | :01:40. | |
panel in the business. At least that's what it says in the Sunday | :01:41. | :01:43. | |
Politics template. Back from the Oscars empty handed, Helen Lewis, | :01:44. | :01:48. | |
Janan Ganesh and Iain Martin. Yes, three camera-shy hacks, who've never | :01:49. | :01:52. | |
taken a selfie in their life. We'll be coming to that later. They just | :01:53. | :01:55. | |
like to tweet. And they'll be doing so throughout the programme. | :01:56. | :01:56. | |
Welcome. Now, first this morning, the Liberal | :01:57. | :02:03. | |
Democrat Spring Conference in York. I know you speak of nothing else! | :02:04. | :02:05. | |
The Yorkshire spring sunshine hasn't made the Lib Dems think any more | :02:06. | :02:10. | |
kindly of their Coalition partners. Indeed, Tory bashing is now the Lib | :02:11. | :02:14. | |
Dem default position. Here's Danny Alexander speaking yesterday. | :02:15. | :02:19. | |
Repairing the economy on its own isn't enough. We have to do it | :02:20. | :02:21. | |
fairly. isn't enough. We have to do it | :02:22. | :02:30. | |
the agenda a decision to cut taxes, income taxes, for working people. | :02:31. | :02:35. | |
Now, conference, note that word - forced. We have had to fight for | :02:36. | :02:41. | |
this at the last election and at every budget and at every Autumn | :02:42. | :02:44. | |
Statement since 2010 and what a fight it has been. | :02:45. | :02:52. | |
Danny Alexander joins us now. Are we going to have to suffer 14 months of | :02:53. | :02:58. | |
you and your colleagues desperately trying to distance yourself from the | :02:59. | :03:02. | |
Tories? It's not about distancing ourselves. It's about saying, " this | :03:03. | :03:08. | |
is what we as a party have achieved in government together with the | :03:09. | :03:14. | |
Conservatives". And saying, " this is what our agenda is for the | :03:15. | :03:18. | |
future" . It's not just about the fact that this April we reach that | :03:19. | :03:24. | |
?10,000 income tax allowance that we promised in our manifesto in 20 0 | :03:25. | :03:28. | |
but also that we want to go further in the next parliament and live that | :03:29. | :03:36. | |
to ?12,500, getting that over a 2-term Liberal Democrat government. | :03:37. | :03:39. | |
It's very important for all parties to set out their own agenda, ideas | :03:40. | :03:43. | |
and vision for the future, whilst also celebrating what we're | :03:44. | :03:46. | |
achieving jointly in this Coalition, particularly around the fact that we | :03:47. | :03:50. | |
are, having taken very difficult decisions, seeing the economy | :03:51. | :03:56. | |
improving and seeing jobs creation in this country, which is something | :03:57. | :04:00. | |
I'm personally very proud and, as the Coalition, we have achieved and | :04:01. | :04:03. | |
wouldn't have if it hadn't been for the decisions of the Liberal | :04:04. | :04:08. | |
Democrats. Lets try and move on You've made that point about 50 | :04:09. | :04:12. | |
times on this show alone. You now seem more interested in Rowling with | :04:13. | :04:15. | |
each other than running the country, don't you? -- rowing with each | :04:16. | :04:23. | |
other. I think we are making sure we take the decisions, particularly | :04:24. | :04:28. | |
about getting our economy on the right track. Of course, there are | :04:29. | :04:33. | |
lots of things where the Conservatives have one view of the | :04:34. | :04:37. | |
future and we have a different view and it's quite proper that we should | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
set those things out. There are big differences between the Liberal | :04:42. | :04:43. | |
Democrats and the Conservatives just as there were big differences | :04:44. | :04:46. | |
between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party. I believe we're | :04:47. | :04:51. | |
the only party that can marry that commitment delivering a strong | :04:52. | :04:55. | |
economy, which Labour can't do, and that commitment to delivering a | :04:56. | :04:57. | |
fairer society, which the Tories can't be trusted to do by | :04:58. | :05:01. | |
themselves. You are going out of your way to pick fights with the | :05:02. | :05:04. | |
Tories at the moment. It's a bit like American wrestling. It is all | :05:05. | :05:09. | |
show. Nobody is really getting hurt. I've been compared to many things | :05:10. | :05:12. | |
but an American wrestler is a first! I don't see it like that It | :05:13. | :05:20. | |
is right for us as a party to set out what we've achieved and show | :05:21. | :05:24. | |
people that what we promised on 2010 on income tax cuts is what this | :05:25. | :05:30. | |
government is delivering. But nobody seems convinced by these | :05:31. | :05:33. | |
manufactured rows with the Tories. You've just come last in a council | :05:34. | :05:38. | |
by-election with 56 votes. You were even bitten by an Elvis | :05:39. | :05:43. | |
impersonator! Yes, that is true -- beaten. I could equally well quote | :05:44. | :05:53. | |
council by-elections that we've won recently, beating Conservatives the | :05:54. | :05:59. | |
Labour Party and UKIP. Our record on that is pretty good. You can always | :06:00. | :06:02. | |
pick one that shows one or other party in a poor light. Our party is | :06:03. | :06:07. | |
having real traction with the electric and the places where we | :06:08. | :06:11. | |
have a real chance of winning. If you're not an American wrestler | :06:12. | :06:14. | |
maybe you should be an Elvis impersonator! You told your spring | :06:15. | :06:18. | |
forum... You don't want to hear me sing! You want to raise the personal | :06:19. | :06:24. | |
allowance to ?12,500 in the next Parliament. Will you refuse to enter | :06:25. | :06:29. | |
into Coalition with any party that won't agree to that? What I said | :06:30. | :06:33. | |
yesterday is that this will be something which is a very high | :06:34. | :06:39. | |
priority for the Liberal Democrats. It's something that we will very | :06:40. | :06:43. | |
much seek to achieve if we are involved... We know that - will it | :06:44. | :06:49. | |
be a red line? If you are a number in 2010, on the front page of our | :06:50. | :06:54. | |
manifesto, we highlighted four policies... I know all that. Will it | :06:55. | :06:59. | |
be a red line? It will be something that is a very high priority for the | :07:00. | :07:04. | |
Liberal Democrats to deliver. For the fifth time, will it be a red | :07:05. | :07:11. | |
line? It will be, as I said, a very high priority for the Liberal | :07:12. | :07:13. | |
Democrats in the next Parliament. That's my language. We did that in | :07:14. | :07:18. | |
the next election. The number-1 promise on our manifesto with a | :07:19. | :07:21. | |
?10,000 threshold and we've delivered that in this Parliament. | :07:22. | :07:25. | |
People can see that when we say something is a top priority, we | :07:26. | :07:32. | |
deliver it. Is it your claim... Are you claiming that the Tories would | :07:33. | :07:35. | |
not have raised the starting point of income tax if it hadn't been for | :07:36. | :07:40. | |
the Liberal Democrats? If you remember back in the leaders' | :07:41. | :07:43. | |
debates in the 2010 election campaign, Nick Clegg was rightly | :07:44. | :07:47. | |
championing this idea and David Cameron said it couldn't be | :07:48. | :07:53. | |
afforded. Each step of the way in the Coalition negotiations within | :07:54. | :07:59. | |
government, we've had to fight for that. The covert overtures have | :08:00. | :08:02. | |
other priorities. -- the Conservatives. I don't want to go | :08:03. | :08:07. | |
back into history. I'd like to get to the present. Have the | :08:08. | :08:12. | |
Conservatives resisted every effort to raise the starting point of | :08:13. | :08:17. | |
income tax? As I said, we promised this in 2010, they said it couldn't | :08:18. | :08:22. | |
be done. We've made sure it was delivered in the Coalition. Have | :08:23. | :08:27. | |
they resisted it? We've argued for big steps along the way and forced | :08:28. | :08:31. | |
it on to the agenda. They've wanted to deliver other things are so we've | :08:32. | :08:39. | |
had to fight for our priority.. Did the Conservatives resist every | :08:40. | :08:45. | |
attempt? It has been resisted, overall the things I'm talking | :08:46. | :08:48. | |
about, by Conservatives, because they have wanted to deliver other | :08:49. | :08:51. | |
things and, of course, in a Coalition you negotiate. Both | :08:52. | :08:57. | |
parties have their priorities. Our priority has been a very consistent | :08:58. | :09:00. | |
one. Last year, they were arguing about tax breaks for married | :09:01. | :09:05. | |
couples. They were arguing in 2 10 for tax cuts for millionaires. Our | :09:06. | :09:11. | |
priority in all these discussions has been a consistent one, which is | :09:12. | :09:15. | |
to say we want cutbacks for working people. -- we want to cut tax for | :09:16. | :09:23. | |
working people. That has been delivered by both parties in the | :09:24. | :09:26. | |
Coalition government full top So what do you think when the Tories | :09:27. | :09:31. | |
take credit for it? I understand why they want to try to do that. Most | :09:32. | :09:34. | |
people understand what we have just said. Not if the polls are to be | :09:35. | :09:42. | |
believed... You're under 10%. This is one of the things, when I talk to | :09:43. | :09:50. | |
people, but I find they know that the Lib Dems have delivered in | :09:51. | :09:54. | |
government. People know we promised it in 2010 and we're the ones who | :09:55. | :09:57. | |
forced this idea onto the agenda in our election manifesto. You've said | :09:58. | :10:02. | |
that five times in this interview alone. The reality is, this is now a | :10:03. | :10:09. | |
squabbling, loveless marriage. We're getting bored with all your tests, | :10:10. | :10:13. | |
the voters. Why don't you just divorced? -- all your arguments I | :10:14. | :10:21. | |
don't accept that. On a lot of policy areas, the Coalition | :10:22. | :10:24. | |
government has worked very well together. We're delivering an awful | :10:25. | :10:28. | |
lot of things that matter to this country. Most importantly, the mess | :10:29. | :10:31. | |
that Labour made of the economy we are sorting out. We are getting our | :10:32. | :10:35. | |
finances on the right track, making our economy more competitive, | :10:36. | :10:40. | |
creating jobs up and down this country, supporting businesses to | :10:41. | :10:43. | |
invest in growth. That is what this Coalition was set up to do, what it | :10:44. | :10:47. | |
is delivering, and both myself and George Osborne are proud to have | :10:48. | :10:49. | |
worked together to deliver that record. Danny Alexander, thanks for | :10:50. | :10:54. | |
that. Enjoyed York. Helen, is anybody listening? I do worry that | :10:55. | :11:00. | |
another 40 months of this might drive voter apathy up to record | :11:01. | :11:05. | |
levels. There is a simple answer to why they don't divorced - it's the | :11:06. | :11:11. | |
agreement that Parliament will last until 2015. MPs are bouncing around | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
Westminster with very little to do. They are looking for things to put | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
in the Queen's Speech and we are going to have rocks basically the 40 | :11:21. | :11:22. | |
months and very little substantial difference in policies. Do you | :11:23. | :11:28. | |
believe Danny Alexander when he says there would have been no rise in the | :11:29. | :11:31. | |
starting rate of income tax if not for the Lib Dems? He's gilding the | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
lily. If you look back at papers are written in 2001 suggesting precisely | :11:37. | :11:44. | |
this policy, written by a Tory peer, you see there are plenty of Tories | :11:45. | :11:50. | |
which suggest there would have been this kind of move. I can see why | :11:51. | :11:55. | |
Danny Alexander needs to do this and they need to show they've achieved | :11:56. | :11:59. | |
something in government because they are below 10% in the polls and | :12:00. | :12:03. | |
finding it incredibly difficult to get any traction at all. The other | :12:04. | :12:08. | |
leg of this Lib Dem repositioning is now to be explicitly the party of | :12:09. | :12:14. | |
Europe and to be the vanguard of the fight to be all things pro-Europe. | :12:15. | :12:19. | |
Mr Clegg is going to debate Nigel Farage in the run-up to the European | :12:20. | :12:23. | |
elections. If, despite that, the Lib Dems come last of the major parties, | :12:24. | :12:50. | |
doesn't it show how out of touch different. They are targeting a | :12:51. | :12:54. | |
section of the electorate who are a bit more amenable to their views | :12:55. | :12:59. | |
than the rest. They wouldn't get 20% of the vote. They are targeting that | :13:00. | :13:04. | |
one section. They have to do disproportionately well amongst | :13:05. | :13:06. | |
those and it will payoff and they will end up with something like 15%. | :13:07. | :13:11. | |
How many seats will the Lib Dems losing the next election? Ten. 0. | :13:12. | :13:21. | |
15. Triangulation! We'll keep that on tape and see what actually | :13:22. | :13:26. | |
happens! The Work and Pensions Secretary Iain | :13:27. | :13:29. | |
Duncan Smith is a man on a mission. He's undertaken the biggest overhaul | :13:30. | :13:33. | |
in our welfare state since it was invented way back in the | :13:34. | :13:36. | |
black-and-white days of the late 1940s. A committed Roman Catholic, | :13:37. | :13:41. | |
he's said he has a moral vision to reverse the previous welfare system, | :13:42. | :13:45. | |
which he believes didn't create enough incentive for people to work. | :13:46. | :13:49. | |
But are his reforms working? Are they fair? As he bitten off more | :13:50. | :13:54. | |
than he can chew? In a moment, we'll speak to the man himself but first, | :13:55. | :13:58. | |
here's Adam. Hackney in north London and we're on | :13:59. | :14:02. | |
the road with the man who might just be the most ambitious welfare | :14:03. | :14:05. | |
secretary there's ever been. It s a journey that started in the wind and | :14:06. | :14:09. | |
rain on a Glasgow council estate 12 years ago when he was Tory leader. | :14:10. | :14:13. | |
He came face-to-face with what it meant to be poor. A selection of | :14:14. | :14:19. | |
teddy bears. It's where he discovered his recipe for reform, | :14:20. | :14:23. | |
according to one of the advisers who was with him. There are things that | :14:24. | :14:28. | |
if you do get a job, keep your family together, stay off drugs and | :14:29. | :14:34. | |
alcohol, make sure you have a proper skill - that's what keeps you of | :14:35. | :14:40. | |
poverty. He, very ambitiously, wants to redefine the nature of what it | :14:41. | :14:43. | |
means to be poor and how you get away from poverty. Back in north | :14:44. | :14:48. | |
London, he's come to congratulate the troops on some good news. In | :14:49. | :14:52. | |
this borough, the number of people on job-seeker's allowance has gone | :14:53. | :14:56. | |
down by 29% in the last year, up from around 1700 to around 1200 But | :14:57. | :15:03. | |
the picture in his wider changes to the welfare state is a bit more | :15:04. | :15:08. | |
mixed. A cap on the total amount of benefits a family can get, of | :15:09. | :15:14. | |
?26,000 a year, is hugely popular but there have been howls of protest | :15:15. | :15:17. | |
over cuts to housing benefit, labelled the bedroom tax by some. | :15:18. | :15:23. | |
Protests, too, about assessments for people on disability benefits, | :15:24. | :15:25. | |
inherited from the previous government. Iain Duncan Smith has | :15:26. | :15:29. | |
been accused of being heartless and the company doing them, Atos, has | :15:30. | :15:35. | |
pulled out. And then the big one - and universal credit, a plan to roll | :15:36. | :15:38. | |
six benefits into one monthly payment, in a way designed to ensure | :15:39. | :15:43. | |
that work always pays. Some of the IT has been written off and the | :15:44. | :15:48. | |
timetable seems to be slipping. Outside the bubble of the | :15:49. | :15:51. | |
stage-managed ministerial trip, a local Labour MP reckons he's bitten | :15:52. | :15:56. | |
off more than he can chew. The great desire is to say, " let's have one | :15:57. | :16:01. | |
simple one size fits all approach" . And there isn't one size of person | :16:02. | :16:06. | |
or family out there. People need to change and they can challenge on the | :16:07. | :16:10. | |
turn of a penny almost. One minute they are doing the right thing, | :16:11. | :16:13. | |
working hard. Next minute, they need a level of support and if this | :16:14. | :16:17. | |
simple system doesn't deliver that for them, they're in a difficult | :16:18. | :16:21. | |
position. And that's the flying visit to the front line finished. He | :16:22. | :16:28. | |
does not like to hang about and just as well do - his overhaul of the | :16:29. | :16:31. | |
entire benefits system still has quite a long way to go. And Iain | :16:32. | :16:40. | |
Duncan Smith joins me now. Before I come onto the interview on welfare | :16:41. | :16:44. | |
reform, is Danny Alexander right when he claims the Lib Dems had to | :16:45. | :16:51. | |
fight to get the Tories to raise the income tax threshold? That is not my | :16:52. | :16:56. | |
recollection of what happened. These debates took place in the | :16:57. | :17:02. | |
Coalition. The Conservatives are in favour of reducing the overall | :17:03. | :17:06. | |
burden of taxation, so the question was how best do we do it? The | :17:07. | :17:11. | |
conversation took place, they were keen on raising the threshold, there | :17:12. | :17:17. | |
were also other ways of doing it but it is clear from the Conservatives | :17:18. | :17:21. | |
that we always wanted to improve the quality of life of those at the | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
bottom so raising the threshold fit within the overall plan. If it was a | :17:27. | :17:31. | |
row, it was the kind of row you have over a cup of tea round the | :17:32. | :17:40. | |
breakfast table. We have got a lot to cover. There are two criticisms | :17:41. | :17:47. | |
mainly of what you are doing - will they work, and will they be fair? | :17:48. | :17:53. | |
Leslie Roberts, one of our viewers, wants to know why so much has | :17:54. | :17:58. | |
already been written off due to failures of the universal credit | :17:59. | :18:01. | |
system even though it has been barely introduced. Relatively it has | :18:02. | :18:10. | |
been a ?2 billion investment project, in the private sector | :18:11. | :18:17. | |
programmes are written off regularly at 30, 40%. The IT is working, we | :18:18. | :18:23. | |
are improving as we go along, the key thing is to keep your eye on the | :18:24. | :18:28. | |
parts that don't work and make sure they don't create a problem for the | :18:29. | :18:37. | |
programme. 140 million has been wasted! The 40 million that was | :18:38. | :18:42. | |
written off was just do with security IT, and I took that | :18:43. | :18:47. | |
decision over a year and a half ago so the programme continued to roll | :18:48. | :18:51. | |
out. Those figures include the standard right down, the aggregation | :18:52. | :19:02. | |
of cost over a period of time. The computers were written down years | :19:03. | :19:07. | |
ago but they continue to work now. Universal credit is rolling out we | :19:08. | :19:11. | |
are doing the Pathfinders and learning a lot but I will not ever | :19:12. | :19:16. | |
do this again like the last government, big band launches, you | :19:17. | :19:27. | |
should do it phrase by phrase. Even your colleague Francis Maude says | :19:28. | :19:29. | |
the implementation of universal credit has been pretty lamentable. | :19:30. | :19:36. | |
He was referring back to the time when I stopped that element of the | :19:37. | :19:42. | |
process and I agreed with that. I intervened to make the changes. The | :19:43. | :19:47. | |
key point is that it is rolling out and I invite anyone to look at where | :19:48. | :19:54. | |
it is being rolled out to. You were predicting that a million people | :19:55. | :19:57. | |
would be an universal credit, this is the new welfare credit which | :19:58. | :20:02. | |
rolls up six existing welfare benefits and you were predicting a | :20:03. | :20:08. | |
million people would be on it by April, well it is March and only | :20:09. | :20:18. | |
3200 are on it. I changed the way we rolled it out and there was a reason | :20:19. | :20:23. | |
for that. Under the advice of someone we brought from outside he | :20:24. | :20:28. | |
said that you are better rolling it out slower and gaining momentum | :20:29. | :20:32. | |
later on. On the timetables for rolling out we are pretty clear that | :20:33. | :20:36. | |
it will roll out within the timescale is originally set. We will | :20:37. | :20:40. | |
roll it out into the Northwest so that we replicate the north and the | :20:41. | :20:46. | |
Northwest, recognise how it works properly. You will not hit 1 million | :20:47. | :20:54. | |
by April. I have no intention of claiming that, and it is quite | :20:55. | :20:57. | |
deliberate because that is the wrong thing to do. We want to roll it out | :20:58. | :21:03. | |
carefully so we make sure everything about it works. There are lots of | :21:04. | :21:07. | |
variables in this process but if you do it that way, you will not end up | :21:08. | :21:13. | |
with the kind of debacle where in the past something like ?28 billion | :21:14. | :21:17. | |
worth of IT programmes were written off. ?38 billion of net benefits, | :21:18. | :21:26. | |
which is exactly what the N a O Z, so it is worth getting it right | :21:27. | :21:33. | |
William Grant wants to know, when will the universal credit cover the | :21:34. | :21:39. | |
whole country? By 2016, everybody who is claiming one of those six | :21:40. | :21:42. | |
benefits will be claiming universal credit. Some and sickness benefits | :21:43. | :21:51. | |
will take longer to come on because it is more difficult. Many of them | :21:52. | :21:56. | |
have no work expectations on them, but for those on working tax | :21:57. | :22:01. | |
credits, on things like job-seeker's allowance, they will be making | :22:02. | :22:06. | |
claims on universal credit. Many of them are already doing that now | :22:07. | :22:11. | |
there are 200,000 people around the country already on universal credit. | :22:12. | :22:18. | |
You cannot give me a date as to when everybody will be on it? 2016 is | :22:19. | :22:27. | |
when everybody claiming this benefit will be on, then you have to bring | :22:28. | :22:33. | |
others and take them slower. Universal credit is a big and | :22:34. | :22:39. | |
important reform, not an IT reform. The important point is that it will | :22:40. | :22:43. | |
be a massive cultural reform. Right now somebody has to go to work and | :22:44. | :22:49. | |
there is a small job out there. They won't take that because the way | :22:50. | :22:52. | |
their benefits are withdrawn, it will mean it is not worth doing it. | :22:53. | :22:58. | |
Under the way we have got it in the Pathfinders, the change is | :22:59. | :23:02. | |
dramatic. A job-seeker can take a small part time job while they are | :23:03. | :23:06. | |
looking for work and it means flexibility for business so it is a | :23:07. | :23:12. | |
big change. Lets see if that is true because universal credit is meant to | :23:13. | :23:16. | |
make work pay, that is your mantra. Let me show you a quote Minister in | :23:17. | :23:23. | |
the last -- in the last Tory conference. It | :23:24. | :23:46. | |
has only come down to 76%. Actually form own parents, before they get to | :23:47. | :23:52. | |
the tax bracket it is well below that. That is a decision the | :23:53. | :23:58. | |
Government takes about the withdrawal rate so you can lower | :23:59. | :24:03. | |
that rate or raise it. And do your reforms, some of the poorest | :24:04. | :24:07. | |
people, if they burn an extra pound, will pay a marginal rate of | :24:08. | :24:20. | |
76%. -- if they earn an extra pound. The 98% he is talking about is a | :24:21. | :24:24. | |
specific area to do with lone parents but there are specific | :24:25. | :24:31. | |
compound areas in the process that mean people are better off staying | :24:32. | :24:37. | |
at home then going to work. They will be able to identify how much | :24:38. | :24:41. | |
they are better off without needing to have a maths degree to figure it | :24:42. | :24:46. | |
out. They are all taken away at different rates at the moment, it is | :24:47. | :24:52. | |
complex and chaotic. Under universal credit that won't happen, and they | :24:53. | :24:57. | |
will always be better off than they are now. Would you work that bit | :24:58. | :25:03. | |
harder if the Government was going to take away that portion of what | :25:04. | :25:12. | |
you learned? At the moment you are going to tax poor people at the same | :25:13. | :25:18. | |
rate the French government taxes billionaires. Millions will be | :25:19. | :25:22. | |
better off under this system of universal credit, I promise you and | :25:23. | :25:27. | |
that level of withdrawal then becomes something governments have | :25:28. | :25:32. | |
to publicly discussed as to whether they lower or raise it. But George | :25:33. | :25:38. | |
Osborne wouldn't give you the extra money to allow for the taper, is | :25:39. | :25:44. | |
that right? The moment somebody crosses into work under the present | :25:45. | :25:49. | |
system, there are huge cliff edges, in other words the immediate | :25:50. | :25:53. | |
withdrawal makes it worse for them to go into work than otherwise. If | :25:54. | :25:59. | |
he had given you more money, you could have tapered it more gently? | :26:00. | :26:09. | |
Of course, but the Chancellor can always ultimately make that | :26:10. | :26:12. | |
decision. These decisions are made by chancellors like tax rates, but | :26:13. | :26:18. | |
it would be much easier under this system for the public to see what | :26:19. | :26:23. | |
the Government chooses as its priorities. At the moment nobody has | :26:24. | :26:29. | |
any idea but in the future it will be. Under the Pathfinders, we are | :26:30. | :26:34. | |
finding people are going to work faster, doing more job searches and | :26:35. | :26:40. | |
more likely to take work under universal credit. Public Accounts | :26:41. | :26:46. | |
Committee said this programme has been worse than doing nothing, for | :26:47. | :26:55. | |
the long-term credit. It has not been a glorious success, has it | :26:56. | :27:03. | |
That is wrong. Right now the work programme is succeeding, more people | :27:04. | :27:08. | |
are going to work, somewhere in the order of 500,000 people have gone | :27:09. | :27:11. | |
back into work as a result of the programme. Around 280,000 people are | :27:12. | :27:17. | |
in a sustained work over six months. Many companies are well | :27:18. | :27:22. | |
above it, and the whole point about the work programme is that it is | :27:23. | :27:27. | |
setup so that we make the private sector, two things that are | :27:28. | :27:30. | |
important, there is competition in every area so that people can be | :27:31. | :27:36. | |
sucked out of the programme and others can move in. The important | :27:37. | :27:41. | |
point here as well is this, that actually they don't get paid unless | :27:42. | :27:45. | |
they sustain somebody for six months of employment. Under previous | :27:46. | :27:51. | |
programmes under the last government, they wasted millions | :27:52. | :27:54. | |
paying companies who took the money and didn't do enough to get people | :27:55. | :27:59. | |
into work. The best performing provider only moved 5% of people off | :28:00. | :28:06. | |
benefit into work, the worst managed only 2%. It is young people. That | :28:07. | :28:15. | |
report was on the early first months of the work programme, it is a | :28:16. | :28:19. | |
two-year point we are now and I can give you the figures for this. They | :28:20. | :28:24. | |
are above the line, the improvement has been dramatic and the work | :28:25. | :28:28. | |
programme is better than any other back to work programme under the | :28:29. | :28:37. | |
last government. So why is long term unemployment rising? It is falling. | :28:38. | :28:43. | |
We have the largest number of people back in work, there is more women in | :28:44. | :28:48. | |
work than ever before, more jobs being created, 1.6 million new jobs | :28:49. | :28:53. | |
being created. The work programme is working, our back to work programmes | :28:54. | :29:00. | |
are incredibly successful at below cost so we are doing better than the | :29:01. | :29:05. | |
last government ever did, and it will continue to improve because | :29:06. | :29:10. | |
this process is very important. The competition is what drives up | :29:11. | :29:14. | |
performance. We want the best performers to take the biggest | :29:15. | :29:19. | |
numbers of people. You are practising Catholic, Archbishop | :29:20. | :29:25. | |
Vincent Nichols has attached your reforms -- attack to your reforms, | :29:26. | :29:29. | |
saying they are becoming more punitive to the most vulnerable in | :29:30. | :29:35. | |
the land. What do you say? I don't agree. It would have been good if | :29:36. | :29:39. | |
you called me before making these attacks because most are not | :29:40. | :29:50. | |
correct. For the poorest temper sent in their | :29:51. | :29:54. | |
society, they are now spending, as a percentage of their income, less | :29:55. | :29:58. | |
than they did before. I'm not quite sure what he thinks welfare is | :29:59. | :30:04. | |
about. Welfare is about stabilising people but most of all making sure | :30:05. | :30:07. | |
that households can achieve what they need through work. The number | :30:08. | :30:13. | |
of workless households under previous governments arose | :30:14. | :30:16. | |
consistently. It has fallen for the first time in 30 years by nearly | :30:17. | :30:22. | |
18%. Something like a quarter of a million children were growing up in | :30:23. | :30:26. | |
workless households and are now in households with work and they are | :30:27. | :30:29. | |
three times more likely to grow up with work than they would have been | :30:30. | :30:33. | |
in workless households. Let me come into something that he may have had | :30:34. | :30:38. | |
in mind as being punitive - some other housing benefit changes. A | :30:39. | :30:42. | |
year ago, the Prime Minister announced that people with severely | :30:43. | :30:45. | |
disabled children would be exempt from the changes but that was only | :30:46. | :30:50. | |
after your department fought a High Court battle over children who | :30:51. | :30:55. | |
couldn't share a bedroom because of severe disabilities. Isn't that what | :30:56. | :31:00. | |
the Archbishop means by punitive or, some may describe it, heartless We | :31:01. | :31:04. | |
were originally going to appeal that and I said no. You put it up for an | :31:05. | :31:11. | |
appeal and I said no. We're talking about families with disabled | :31:12. | :31:16. | |
children. There are good reasons for this. Children with conditions like | :31:17. | :31:19. | |
that don't make decisions about their household - their parents do - | :31:20. | :31:24. | |
so I said we would exempt them. But for adults with disabilities the | :31:25. | :31:28. | |
courts have upheld all of our decisions against complaints. But | :31:29. | :31:32. | |
you did appeal it. It's just that, having lost in the appeal court you | :31:33. | :31:36. | |
didn't then go to the Supreme Court. You make decisions about this. My | :31:37. | :31:40. | |
view was that it was right to exempt them at that time. I made that | :31:41. | :31:46. | |
decision, not the Prime Minister. Let's get this right - the context | :31:47. | :31:51. | |
of this is quite important. Housing benefit under the last government | :31:52. | :31:54. | |
doubled under the last ten years to ?20 billion. It was set to rise to | :31:55. | :32:01. | |
another 25 billion, the fastest rising of the benefits, it was out | :32:02. | :32:04. | |
of control. We had to get it into control. It wasn't easy but we | :32:05. | :32:08. | |
haven't cut the overall rise in housing. We've lowered it but we | :32:09. | :32:12. | |
haven't cut housing benefit and we've tried to do it carefully so | :32:13. | :32:16. | |
that people get a fair crack. On the spare room subsidy, which is what | :32:17. | :32:19. | |
this complaint was about, the reality is that there are a quarter | :32:20. | :32:24. | |
of a million people living in overcrowded accommodation. The last | :32:25. | :32:26. | |
government left us with 1 million people on a waiting list for housing | :32:27. | :32:29. | |
and there were half a million people sitting in houses with spare | :32:30. | :32:33. | |
bedrooms they weren't using. As we build more houses, yes we need more, | :32:34. | :32:37. | |
but the reality is that councils and others have to use their | :32:38. | :32:40. | |
accommodation carefully so that they actually improve the lot of those | :32:41. | :32:43. | |
living in desperate situations in overcrowded accommodation, and | :32:44. | :32:47. | |
taxpayers are paying a lot of money. This will help people get | :32:48. | :32:52. | |
back to work. They're more likely to go to work and more likely, | :32:53. | :32:55. | |
therefore, to end up in the right sort of housing. We've not got much | :32:56. | :33:02. | |
time left. A centre-right think tank that you've been associated with, on | :33:03. | :33:06. | |
job-seeker's allowance, says 70 000 job-seekers' benefits were withdrawn | :33:07. | :33:13. | |
unfairly. A viewer wants to know, are these reforms too harsh and | :33:14. | :33:19. | |
punitive? Those figures are not correct. The Policy Exchange is | :33:20. | :33:22. | |
wrong? Those figures are not correct and we will be publishing corrected | :33:23. | :33:30. | |
figures. The reality is... Some people have lost their job-seeker | :33:31. | :33:33. | |
benefits and been forced to go to food backs and they shouldn't have. | :33:34. | :33:37. | |
No, they're not. What he is referring to is that we allowed an | :33:38. | :33:43. | |
adviser to make a decision if some but it is not cooperating. We now | :33:44. | :33:46. | |
make people sign a contract, where they agree these things. These are | :33:47. | :33:50. | |
things we do for you and if you don't do these things, you are | :33:51. | :33:55. | |
likely to have your benefit withdrawn on job-seeker's allowance. | :33:56. | :33:57. | |
Some of this was an fairly withdrawn. There are millions of | :33:58. | :34:01. | |
these things that go through. This is a very small subset. But if you | :34:02. | :34:06. | |
lose your job-seeker benefit unfairly, you have no cash flow | :34:07. | :34:11. | |
There is an immediate review within seven days of that decision. Within | :34:12. | :34:17. | |
seven days, that decision is reviewed. They are able to get a | :34:18. | :34:20. | |
hardship fund straightaway if there is a problem. We have nearly ?1 | :34:21. | :34:25. | |
billion setup to help people, through crisis, hardship funds and | :34:26. | :34:33. | |
in many other ways. We've given more than ?200 million to authorities to | :34:34. | :34:36. | |
do face-to-face checks. This is not a nasty, vicious system but a system | :34:37. | :34:42. | |
that says, "look, we ask you to do certain things. Taxpayers pay this | :34:43. | :34:45. | |
money. You are out of work but you have obligations to seek work. We | :34:46. | :34:49. | |
simply ask that you stick to doing those. Those sanctions are therefore | :34:50. | :34:54. | |
be but he will not cooperate" . I think it is only fair to say to | :34:55. | :34:57. | |
those people that they make choices throughout their life and if they | :34:58. | :35:00. | |
choose not to cooperate, this is what happens. Is child poverty | :35:01. | :35:05. | |
rising? No, it is actually falling in the last figures. 300,000 it fell | :35:06. | :35:13. | |
in the last... Let me show you these figures. That is a projection by the | :35:14. | :35:19. | |
Institute of fiscal studies. It also shows that it has gone up every year | :35:20. | :35:24. | |
and will rise by 400,000 in this Parliament, and your government, and | :35:25. | :35:28. | |
will continue to rise. But never mind the projection. It may be | :35:29. | :35:32. | |
right, may be wrong. It would be 400,000 up compared to when -- what | :35:33. | :35:38. | |
you inherited when this Parliament ends. That isn't a projection but | :35:39. | :35:44. | |
the actual figures. But the last figures show that child poverty has | :35:45. | :35:48. | |
fallen by some 300,000. The important point is... Can I just | :35:49. | :35:53. | |
finished this point of? Child poverty is measured against 60% of | :35:54. | :35:57. | |
median income so this is an issue about how we measure child poverty. | :35:58. | :36:03. | |
You want to change the measure. I made the decision not to publish our | :36:04. | :36:06. | |
change figures at this point because we've still got a bit more work to | :36:07. | :36:10. | |
do on them but there is a big consensus that the way we measure | :36:11. | :36:13. | |
child poverty right now does not measure exactly what requires to be | :36:14. | :36:18. | |
done. For example, a family with an individual parent who may be drug | :36:19. | :36:21. | |
addicted and gets what we think is enough money to be just over the | :36:22. | :36:25. | |
line, their children may be living in poverty but they won't be | :36:26. | :36:28. | |
measured so we need to get a measurement that looks at poverty in | :36:29. | :36:31. | |
terms of how people live, not just in terms of the income levels they | :36:32. | :36:37. | |
have. You can see on that chart - 400,000 rising by the end of this | :36:38. | :36:42. | |
Parliament - you are deciding over an increase. Speedier I want to | :36:43. | :36:46. | |
change it because under the last government child poverty rose | :36:47. | :36:49. | |
consistently from 2004 and they ended up chucking huge sums of money | :36:50. | :36:55. | |
into things like tax credits. In tax credits, in six years before the | :36:56. | :37:02. | |
last election, the last government spent ?175 billion chasing a poverty | :37:03. | :37:05. | |
target and they didn't achieve what they set out to achieve. We don't | :37:06. | :37:09. | |
want to continue down that line where you simply put money into a | :37:10. | :37:14. | |
welfare system to alter a marginal income line. It doesn't make any | :37:15. | :37:18. | |
sense. That's why we want to change it, not because some projection says | :37:19. | :37:22. | |
it might be going up. I will point out again it isn't a projection up | :37:23. | :37:35. | |
to 2013-14. You want it to make work pay but more people in poverty are | :37:36. | :37:39. | |
now in working families than in workless families. For them, workers | :37:40. | :37:45. | |
not paying. Those figures referred to the last government's time in | :37:46. | :37:50. | |
government. What is interesting about it is that until 2010, under | :37:51. | :37:56. | |
the last government, those in working families - poverty in | :37:57. | :38:00. | |
working families rose by half a million. For the two years up to the | :38:01. | :38:03. | |
end of those figures, it has been flat, under this government. These | :38:04. | :38:08. | |
are figures at the last government... You inherited and it | :38:09. | :38:14. | |
hasn't changed. The truth is, even if you are in poverty in a working | :38:15. | :38:19. | |
family, your children, if they are in workless families, are three | :38:20. | :38:22. | |
times more likely to be out of work and to suffer real hardship. So, in | :38:23. | :38:27. | |
other words, moving people up the scale, into work and then on is | :38:28. | :38:33. | |
important. The problem with the last government system with working tax | :38:34. | :38:37. | |
credit is it locks them into certain hours and they didn't progress. | :38:38. | :38:40. | |
We're changing that so that you progress on up and go out of poverty | :38:41. | :38:45. | |
through work and beyond it. But those figures you're referring to | :38:46. | :38:49. | |
refer to the last government's tenure and they spent ?175 billion | :38:50. | :38:54. | |
on a tax credit which still left people in work in poverty. Even 20 | :38:55. | :38:58. | |
minutes isn't enough to go through all this. A lot more I'd like to | :38:59. | :39:02. | |
talk about. I hope you will come back. I will definitely come back. | :39:03. | :39:07. | |
Thank you for joining us. You're watching the Sunday | :39:08. | :39:11. | |
Politics. We say goodbye to viewers in Scotland, who leave us now for | :39:12. | :39:12. | |
Sunday Politics Scotland. More than half of local councils | :39:13. | :39:36. | |
currently parcel out their care visits in quarter of an hour slots ` | :39:37. | :39:40. | |
we'll be talking to one that's scrapping that and offering longer. | :39:41. | :39:43. | |
More on that shortly. First let s meet the two politicians who'll be | :39:44. | :39:46. | |
with me for the next 20 minttes Sir Gerald Howarth is the Conservative | :39:47. | :39:49. | |
MP for Aldershot, and Keith Taylor is the Green Party MEP for the South | :39:50. | :39:56. | |
East. You said recently in the House of Commons that the most important | :39:57. | :39:59. | |
issue facing your constituents, the one they have raised most whth you, | :40:00. | :40:04. | |
is immigration. This week Vhnce cable said he was intensely relaxed | :40:05. | :40:08. | |
about people bringing necessary skills here. What is it that you | :40:09. | :40:12. | |
think your constituents see as the problem with immigration? | :40:13. | :40:16. | |
Immigration has been a growhng problem in this country, and it is a | :40:17. | :40:20. | |
question of numbers. It is not a question of the talent of the | :40:21. | :40:23. | |
individuals, it is a question of numbers. We are a small grotp of | :40:24. | :40:27. | |
islands, and there is massive pressure on space. We have hn | :40:28. | :40:33. | |
England and Wales something like 378 people per square kilometre, whereas | :40:34. | :40:40. | |
the Germans have 120 people, sorry, the French have 120 people per | :40:41. | :40:44. | |
square kilometre, and the Gdrmans are somewhere in between thd two. | :40:45. | :40:48. | |
Everybody knows that not only is there a massive pressure on housing, | :40:49. | :40:52. | |
it is no surprise that houshng prices are going up, the Government | :40:53. | :40:59. | |
has been letting immigration run at a quarter of a million per xear On | :41:00. | :41:04. | |
current projections, over the next 15 years, the prospect is that the | :41:05. | :41:09. | |
population will grow to 70 lillion. That is another 7 million, of which | :41:10. | :41:13. | |
5 million will be from migr`tion, which is equivalent to the cities of | :41:14. | :41:17. | |
Birmingham, Sheffield, Oxford and a few others thrown in. We just cannot | :41:18. | :41:21. | |
cope. What about the point `bout the skills, and we are part of ` | :41:22. | :41:26. | |
European market now, with free movement? There are two sep`rate | :41:27. | :41:31. | |
issues. One is the free movdment of people's in the EU, over whhch of | :41:32. | :41:34. | |
course we have relatively lhttle control. `` peoples. As far as | :41:35. | :41:42. | |
non`EU migration is concerndd, then we do have control. There h`s been | :41:43. | :41:49. | |
some success, despite the f`ct that the figures for the last ye`r for | :41:50. | :41:53. | |
immigration overall went up to about 216,000. Figures for those coming | :41:54. | :41:58. | |
from outside the EU went down. And yes, of course, there must be space | :41:59. | :42:04. | |
for us to import needed taldnt, but I do not think that needed talent is | :42:05. | :42:08. | |
on the scale of 140,000 people. Furthermore, we have got undmployed | :42:09. | :42:12. | |
people in our own country, `t all levels, all skill levels. You get a | :42:13. | :42:19. | |
country like India, and you can see the aspirational nature of the | :42:20. | :42:22. | |
people there, it is incredibly exciting. They are going to take | :42:23. | :42:29. | |
your jobs, unless we get re`l about upgrading our skills and our | :42:30. | :42:35. | |
commitment to accepting jobs. Keith Taylor, the Green Party is | :42:36. | :42:39. | |
pressing for policies which make all parts of the EU and attracthve place | :42:40. | :42:44. | |
to live? Absolutely right. What has not been said is that low`grade | :42:45. | :42:47. | |
migrants actually bring mord wealth to this country. `` EU migr`nts | :42:48. | :43:01. | |
This has been a success story. The fact that we are seeing polhticians | :43:02. | :43:05. | |
blaming migrants for low wages, for a shortage of housing, is shmply | :43:06. | :43:15. | |
them being used as a scapegoat. On the housing, if Apple had not | :43:16. | :43:22. | |
slashed its support for housing social housing, there would not be a | :43:23. | :43:27. | |
housing problem. `` if the Government had not. If the dmployers | :43:28. | :43:30. | |
were actually paying proper wages to everybody. So, the numbers `re not a | :43:31. | :43:37. | |
problem? When you are at it, there are 1.9 million Britons livhng in | :43:38. | :43:44. | |
Europe, and 2.3 million EU citizens living here. With respect, xou are | :43:45. | :43:51. | |
talking about space and I al talking about the number of people who have | :43:52. | :43:54. | |
left the country, and the ntmber who have come to the country, which is | :43:55. | :43:58. | |
nothing as critical as you have just suggested. There is another | :43:59. | :44:02. | |
dimension, and that is the cultural issue. There is a massive change | :44:03. | :44:08. | |
taking place in our country. There has never, ever, in the history of | :44:09. | :44:12. | |
these islands, been such a lassive wave of migration of people, from a | :44:13. | :44:18. | |
different culture, into our country. The people of Britain basic`lly have | :44:19. | :44:21. | |
been intimidated in not sayhng anything about it. Rubbish. You may | :44:22. | :44:27. | |
think it is rubbish. I know it is rubbish! It is a view which is held | :44:28. | :44:35. | |
by many of your constituents, and I continue, in my constituencx, it is | :44:36. | :44:40. | |
a very big concern. People want to see the Government doing solething | :44:41. | :44:43. | |
about it. This government is trying to do that but we have a long way to | :44:44. | :44:45. | |
go. The voluntary sector has bedn a | :44:46. | :44:50. | |
mainstay of David Cameron's Big Society idea ` but with regtlar cuts | :44:51. | :44:53. | |
to local authority funding dven charities are feeling the spueeze, | :44:54. | :44:55. | |
with many reporting increasdd demands on their services jtst as | :44:56. | :44:58. | |
the money decreases. In a rdcent survey of Berkshire charitids, a | :44:59. | :45:01. | |
fifth said they'd lost 40% of their funding in the last three ydars | :45:02. | :45:05. | |
Dave Soper is from the Berkshire Community Foundation, which did that | :45:06. | :45:12. | |
survey. That is a huge drop, isn't it? It is. Just to start with, to be | :45:13. | :45:18. | |
fair, you can understand it, the councils have had their budgets | :45:19. | :45:22. | |
squeezed, and they have had to make difficult decisions across the board | :45:23. | :45:25. | |
about how they spend their loney or how they make their cuts. You say it | :45:26. | :45:30. | |
is hitting small charities? It hits small charities more than others. | :45:31. | :45:34. | |
There is a good reason for that Small charities have relied much | :45:35. | :45:37. | |
more on local authority funding just that secondly, if they go into the | :45:38. | :45:41. | |
market to compete with other types of fundraising, where they `re | :45:42. | :45:44. | |
competing with the big charhties, they have not got the same larketing | :45:45. | :45:51. | |
budgets, all the same resources to really take advantage of wh`t might | :45:52. | :45:55. | |
be out there. So, we have sden the cuts, some of it public sector, some | :45:56. | :46:00. | |
of it larger charities ` ard some going to go to the wall? Thdre has | :46:01. | :46:05. | |
already been a survey which says about one in six charities dxpect to | :46:06. | :46:08. | |
go to the wall within the ndxt few years. What sort of people will lose | :46:09. | :46:13. | |
out if that happens? The big charities will not be affected. It | :46:14. | :46:18. | |
will be people who are involved with very small charities, communities, | :46:19. | :46:22. | |
people who rely on local services to have a better life, to benefit. | :46:23. | :46:30. | |
Playgroups, care for the elderly? It could be any of those community | :46:31. | :46:36. | |
organisations that you can think of. Any of those organisations which are | :46:37. | :46:39. | |
making a difference to people in the local neighbourhood. Those `re the | :46:40. | :46:44. | |
ones I work with a lot of these charities, on a day`to`day basis, I | :46:45. | :46:49. | |
am working with 200 of thesd charities all the time. What I tend | :46:50. | :46:54. | |
to find is that the person doing the fundraising is also the person | :46:55. | :46:56. | |
responsible for the front`lhne services. They have not got the time | :46:57. | :47:00. | |
to put in to go out and do some street fundraising, to put on | :47:01. | :47:04. | |
events, even to fill out applications forms for trust funds. | :47:05. | :47:09. | |
Curing the economic crisis that we have had, where you have got | :47:10. | :47:15. | |
organisations giving grants as an endowment, the investment in | :47:16. | :47:20. | |
endowments has been much less. You say this is because councils have | :47:21. | :47:23. | |
had their budgets squeezed, but in the end, it is not efficient, is | :47:24. | :47:27. | |
it, it is going to cost us `ll, in the long run? It will. Sometimes it | :47:28. | :47:33. | |
seems to me that a decision is made quite short term, without any | :47:34. | :47:38. | |
long`term understanding. Thd reason that councils are funding voluntary | :47:39. | :47:46. | |
sector organisations is bec`use in the long run, it says the council | :47:47. | :47:50. | |
money. It is quite often chdaper for the council to have a voluntary | :47:51. | :47:54. | |
organisation keeping and I'll older people, looking after youngdr and | :47:55. | :47:57. | |
disadvantaged people, and it is to have their own people going out and | :47:58. | :48:06. | |
looking after them. `` keephng an eye on older people. These | :48:07. | :48:11. | |
organisations just are not getting that support. My job really is to | :48:12. | :48:15. | |
try to encourage people to give to those local organisations, because | :48:16. | :48:20. | |
people across the region ard still generous, they do give monex to | :48:21. | :48:25. | |
charity. They say they would like to give money to local organis`tions, | :48:26. | :48:29. | |
but in reality, that does not happen. In Berkshire we know that | :48:30. | :48:33. | |
only 10% of the money given to charitable causes actually stays in | :48:34. | :48:37. | |
Berkshire. The rest of it goes to national, regional and international | :48:38. | :48:41. | |
charities. If we can just bring a little bit of that money back into | :48:42. | :48:45. | |
Berkshire, it will make a htge difference to those in small, | :48:46. | :48:48. | |
voluntary organisations. Three quarters of all donations in this | :48:49. | :48:55. | |
country go to 3% of the charities, according to some research! We are | :48:56. | :49:00. | |
missing a trick, aren't we? Absolutely. But I think it `ctually | :49:01. | :49:05. | |
starts with the Government. The aerosol on the poorest people, with | :49:06. | :49:09. | |
benefit cuts, with the bedroom tax `` their assault `` means that | :49:10. | :49:16. | |
councils have not got the money to support the community and voluntary | :49:17. | :49:20. | |
sector. If you look at food banks, for instance, a city the size of | :49:21. | :49:28. | |
Winchester worth of people have been fed by food banks in the last year, | :49:29. | :49:31. | |
and the Government does not give it from central funds 1p. Central funds | :49:32. | :49:37. | |
is taxpayers' money. You ard saying, tax are small? No, I am sayhng, stop | :49:38. | :49:42. | |
giving enormous tax breaks to the rich. Stop encouraging fracking by | :49:43. | :49:49. | |
giving tax concessions to developers. Actually start spending | :49:50. | :49:52. | |
money on the vulnerable people, the people who most need it, rather than | :49:53. | :49:57. | |
make the rich richer and thd poor poorer. It is just old`fashhoned | :49:58. | :50:01. | |
socialism we are hearing from the Green Party. I have no problem with | :50:02. | :50:06. | |
that. The party has nothing to offer. The country is hopeldssly in | :50:07. | :50:19. | |
debt. We inherited a budget deficit, a national overdraft, in 2000, of | :50:20. | :50:24. | |
160,000 million pounds, out of a total spend of about ?750 bhllion. | :50:25. | :50:31. | |
So, it was a massive overspdnd. And we are struggling to get th`t down. | :50:32. | :50:37. | |
We are committed to getting it down. Labour are still committed to borrow | :50:38. | :50:42. | |
and spend. We are trying to get it down to ?110 billion, but that is | :50:43. | :50:48. | |
being added to the national debt every year. Our children ard going | :50:49. | :50:52. | |
to have to pay that off. I want to give Dave the last word. Let me just | :50:53. | :50:59. | |
say that in Oxfordshire, thdy have raised ?800,000, which they found | :51:00. | :51:02. | |
from somewhere else, to provide for longer visits than 15 minutds. We | :51:03. | :51:13. | |
are about to go they are also spending ?34 billion on a | :51:14. | :51:15. | |
replacement for the nuclear submarines! As I said at thd start, | :51:16. | :51:20. | |
I do understand why the councils have had to make cuts. My rdal | :51:21. | :51:25. | |
concern is that I wish more local people would give to local | :51:26. | :51:27. | |
charities, rather than national charities. Giving a few pounds to a | :51:28. | :51:34. | |
small local charity makes a much bigger difference than giving a few | :51:35. | :51:36. | |
pounds to a much larger charity It's widely recognised that in our | :51:37. | :51:41. | |
ageing society, adult social care is a huge problem. For years, local | :51:42. | :51:45. | |
councils have been cutting back on who is eligible for care. Btt they | :51:46. | :51:50. | |
have also been limiting the time spent on visits ` sometimes to just | :51:51. | :51:54. | |
15 minutes. That's supposed to be addressed in the Care Bill, which | :51:55. | :51:57. | |
goes to its report stage next week. But many councils say the only way | :51:58. | :52:01. | |
to avoid the quarter of an hour dash is more cash. Our Oxfordshire | :52:02. | :52:03. | |
political reporter Helen Catt reports. | :52:04. | :52:10. | |
For these two carers, the clock starts ticking here. One evdning | :52:11. | :52:17. | |
visits, they used to have jtst 5 minutes to spend with this couple, | :52:18. | :52:23. | |
to help them both get ready for bed. David is quite unsteady on his | :52:24. | :52:27. | |
feet. 15 minutes was a bit of a rush to get him undressed, ready for bed | :52:28. | :52:32. | |
and into bed. So then we had to rush to his wife and get her down. It was | :52:33. | :52:37. | |
difficult. We were looking `t the time most evenings, and it was a | :52:38. | :52:42. | |
case of going into Dave, and then coming into me and being fahrly | :52:43. | :52:46. | |
quick with us. So, it was not pleasant. Jill and David moved to | :52:47. | :52:55. | |
Oxfordshire from Scotland 2.5 years ago, after a life spent in several | :52:56. | :52:59. | |
African countries. Being able to share those stories with thdir | :53:00. | :53:02. | |
carers is something that makes a real difference to them. Dave | :53:03. | :53:07. | |
particularly, because he cannot hear terribly well, likes to chat to Gary | :53:08. | :53:16. | |
when he comes in. I have got a bit of an impairment, and so he cannot | :53:17. | :53:22. | |
hear me. He has got so used to my voice, he does not hear me `t all. | :53:23. | :53:28. | |
The arguments surrounding 14 minute care visits cut to the heart of the | :53:29. | :53:32. | |
debate about what social care should be. Should it be about just | :53:33. | :53:35. | |
fulfilling someone's basic needs, or should it be more than that? Does it | :53:36. | :53:42. | |
include staying with them for a chat while they drink their tea? | :53:43. | :53:44. | |
Oxfordshire County Council has decided it is the latter. It is | :53:45. | :53:50. | |
spending ?800,000 on extendhng all personal care visits for thd elderly | :53:51. | :53:55. | |
to at least half an hour. I have always been concerned about the fact | :53:56. | :54:01. | |
that older people could think they are getting rushed when somdone | :54:02. | :54:05. | |
comes to their front door. H think it is horrid that they have to | :54:06. | :54:07. | |
choose between may be going to the toilet or having a cup of tda. The | :54:08. | :54:12. | |
funding is split equally ovdr the next two years, although it is | :54:13. | :54:15. | |
unclear what will happen after that, as the money has come from `n | :54:16. | :54:22. | |
unexpected buzz nurse. `` and unexpected bonus. We got thhs extra | :54:23. | :54:27. | |
money to be able to work with. We were able to invest the ?800,00 | :54:28. | :54:33. | |
into adult social care. A strvey by a charity last year found 60% of | :54:34. | :54:40. | |
councils use at least some form of 15 minute care visits. Some councils | :54:41. | :54:44. | |
say those are never full personal care. It is largely accepted that | :54:45. | :54:48. | |
they can be suitable for thhngs like checking whether someone has taken | :54:49. | :54:55. | |
their medication. A report published this week by Age UK says spdnding on | :54:56. | :55:00. | |
social care for older peopld has fallen by ?1.2 billion sincd 20 0. | :55:01. | :55:06. | |
There is a massive funding gap, but on the other hand, we as a country | :55:07. | :55:12. | |
have public spending bill every year or more than ?700 billion. Surely we | :55:13. | :55:20. | |
can find money from within that to give people decency and sochal care. | :55:21. | :55:25. | |
This is just one small aspect. The Government's Care Bill gets its | :55:26. | :55:28. | |
third reading in the Commons this week. It will prevent inappropriate | :55:29. | :55:33. | |
short visits and shift the dmphasis of care on to a person's entire | :55:34. | :55:38. | |
well`being. The Care Bill is a great but Unity. It could be a landmark | :55:39. | :55:46. | |
piece of legislation, but it needs to be backed up by some kind of | :55:47. | :55:53. | |
sustainable funding `` opportunity `` to make sure that we can pay for | :55:54. | :55:57. | |
all of these important things, year`on`year, like the importance of | :55:58. | :56:01. | |
well`being, the importance of high quality care, remaining inddpendent | :56:02. | :56:05. | |
for as long as possible. Thd contributions paid by an individual | :56:06. | :56:11. | |
towards the cost of their c`rer will also be exactly how support will be | :56:12. | :56:14. | |
paid for is a debate which will run and run. So, Keith Taylor, how | :56:15. | :56:22. | |
should we be paying for elddrly care? Well, we need to pay what it | :56:23. | :56:30. | |
costs. The largest slice of local authority spending is in adtlt | :56:31. | :56:33. | |
social care and health. When we are seeing the Government/ local | :56:34. | :56:38. | |
authority grants, there has to be ongoing cuts. But they are `ctually | :56:39. | :56:45. | |
spending more in Oxfordshird. That is just by fluke, not because the | :56:46. | :56:47. | |
Government has made it happdn. That Government has made it happdn. That | :56:48. | :56:51. | |
is because Oxford have been ingenious in counting up thd figures | :56:52. | :56:56. | |
and looking at where income comes from. This is political, and that is | :56:57. | :57:04. | |
what we need, we need a change of priority, away from things which | :57:05. | :57:08. | |
actually make the future worse for people, like the couple we just saw, | :57:09. | :57:12. | |
towards a future which makes it better. In anybody's book, 05 | :57:13. | :57:16. | |
minutes of contact with a c`rer is not enough. Do we not owe it to | :57:17. | :57:23. | |
people like Jill and David there to give them quality care, and | :57:24. | :57:31. | |
independence? Absolutely right. One of the challenges that we f`ce is | :57:32. | :57:34. | |
that there is a growing elddrly population. We are all living | :57:35. | :57:41. | |
longer. Which is a good thing. It is a great thing. We are all m`king | :57:42. | :57:43. | |
more demands on the Health Service and so on. That is why changes have | :57:44. | :57:49. | |
had to be made in the retirdment age, because the figures ard out of | :57:50. | :57:56. | |
kilter. How are we going to meet this bill, then? Keith Taylor says | :57:57. | :58:03. | |
we should just find the mondy. Of course he says that, he is just | :58:04. | :58:07. | |
economically illiterate. We just do not have the money. What thd man | :58:08. | :58:13. | |
from Age UK said is right, we are spending ?700 billion a year, but of | :58:14. | :58:17. | |
course, there are massive ddmands on government expenditure. Pretty much | :58:18. | :58:20. | |
every department except the Health Service and overseas aid has been | :58:21. | :58:26. | |
cut. I have been arguing th`t whilst we are limiting things like 15 | :58:27. | :58:29. | |
minute visits, we should not be spending so much money on overseas | :58:30. | :58:34. | |
aid. There is one suggestion, then? If you are talking economic | :58:35. | :58:38. | |
illiteracy, it is the admission that we are seeing more elderly people | :58:39. | :58:42. | |
while cutting the budget to pay for their services. That is illhterate. | :58:43. | :58:49. | |
I think the point here is that we had a very interesting observation, | :58:50. | :58:55. | |
where she explained that Oxfordshire, by dint of a lhttle bit | :58:56. | :58:58. | |
of extra money from the Govdrnment which they had not expecting, and | :58:59. | :59:02. | |
some savings of their own, they found ?800,000. In Hampshird, I | :59:03. | :59:09. | |
could find you ?1.7 million this afternoon. Have you told Halpshire | :59:10. | :59:16. | |
council this? I have not. The leader of the council wants to stick up | :59:17. | :59:19. | |
some traffic lights on the Pueen's Road about between Farnborotgh and | :59:20. | :59:25. | |
Aldershot at a cost of ?5.7 million, of which 4 million comes from the | :59:26. | :59:28. | |
Government. Scrap it and save all that money. Go to Sussex! Wd have | :59:29. | :59:37. | |
got terrible problems in Sussex I am sure I can find some wasteful | :59:38. | :59:41. | |
expenditure there as well. H will look forward to it. Now our regular | :59:42. | :59:45. | |
round`up of the political wdek in the South in 60 seconds, and this | :59:46. | :59:49. | |
week it's all about people getting together. | :59:50. | :59:58. | |
4000 troops moving from Gerlany will soon be calling Salisbury Plain | :59:59. | :00:03. | |
their home. Local residents have been discussing plans for ndw | :00:04. | :00:09. | |
housing. In Oxfordshire, people were discussing lessons from the | :00:10. | :00:16. | |
flooding. A meeting of the House of Commons Privilege Committee backed | :00:17. | :00:21. | |
the Worthing MP Tim Lawton hn his battle with the Sussex chief | :00:22. | :00:27. | |
constables over a harassment notice. Did you apologise to Mr Lawton? No. | :00:28. | :00:32. | |
There was an apology from the UKIP euro candidate, who said businesses | :00:33. | :00:35. | |
should be able to refuse services to whoever they wanted. At PMQs, Tobias | :00:36. | :00:43. | |
Ellwood, MP for Bournemouth, called for another meeting to come to town. | :00:44. | :00:48. | |
And also does amazing party conferences... And Gosport LP | :00:49. | :00:52. | |
Caroline diner jewels congr`tulated on her wedding, getting togdther | :00:53. | :00:59. | |
with fellow Tory MP Mark Lancaster. `` Carol dining chair. `` C`rol | :01:00. | :01:13. | |
Dinage. What do you say to the suggestion that services should not | :01:14. | :01:18. | |
be obliged to serve gay, was lame and minority people? She saxs people | :01:19. | :01:21. | |
should be able to choose to do what they want if they are running a | :01:22. | :01:25. | |
business. There is too much about the service provider, and not enough | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
about the rights of the indhvidual. Imagine that you happened to be a | :01:30. | :01:32. | |
gay couple, looking for bed`and`breakfast, it is tipping | :01:33. | :01:36. | |
down with rain on a dark night in the middle of nowhere, and somebody | :01:37. | :01:41. | |
opens the door and says, sorry, I am a libertarian, I insist on ly right | :01:42. | :01:45. | |
to refuse you entry! Well, she says that she is not saying, do not serve | :01:46. | :01:50. | |
people like that. What are xou saying? Well, I have no bridf for | :01:51. | :01:57. | |
UKIP, as you might imagine. But I certainly think that shopkedpers and | :01:58. | :02:02. | |
publicans practice that kind of limitation any way. If you turn up | :02:03. | :02:07. | |
to a bar and you are not drdssed properly, you can be thrown out Who | :02:08. | :02:13. | |
wants to turn away business, that is the question. That's The Sunday | :02:14. | :02:15. | |
Politics in the South. Gove is right to focus. We've run | :02:16. | :02:19. | |
out of time. Thanks for being here. Andrew, back to you. | :02:20. | :02:28. | |
Now, without further ado, more from our political panel. Iain Martin, | :02:29. | :02:37. | |
what did you make of Iain Duncan Smith's response to the Danny | :02:38. | :02:43. | |
Alexander point I'd put to him? I thought it was a cheekily put | :02:44. | :02:47. | |
response but actually, on Twitter, people have been tweeting while on | :02:48. | :02:50. | |
air that there are lots of examples where the Tories have demanded the | :02:51. | :02:56. | |
raising of the threshold. The 2 06 Forsyth tax omission is another | :02:57. | :03:01. | |
example. Helen, on the bigger issue of welfare reforms, is welfare | :03:02. | :03:08. | |
reform, as we head into the election, despite all the | :03:09. | :03:11. | |
criticisms, still a plus for the government? I don't think so. | :03:12. | :03:16. | |
Whatever the opposite of a Midas touch is, Iain Duncan Smith has got | :03:17. | :03:20. | |
it. David Cameron never talks about universal credit any more. The | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
record on personal independence payment, for example... We didn t | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
get onto that. Only one in six of those notes have been paid. A toss | :03:31. | :03:34. | |
pulling out of their condiment has been a nightmare. It's a very big | :03:35. | :03:42. | |
minus point for the Secretary of State. -- Atos pulling out of bed | :03:43. | :03:53. | |
contract. Welfare cuts are an unambiguous point for the government | :03:54. | :03:59. | |
but other points more ambiguous I don't think it's technical | :04:00. | :04:04. | |
complexity that makes IDS's reform a problem. The IT gets moved out with | :04:05. | :04:10. | |
time. But even if it's in fermented perfectly, what it will achieve has | :04:11. | :04:13. | |
been slightly oversold, I think and simplified incredibly. All it does | :04:14. | :04:19. | |
is improve incentives to work for one section of the income scale and | :04:20. | :04:22. | |
diminishes it at another. Basically, you are encouraged to go from | :04:23. | :04:28. | |
working zero hours to 16 hours but your incentive to work beyond 1 | :04:29. | :04:32. | |
goes down. That's not because it's a horrendous policy but because in | :04:33. | :04:34. | |
work benefits systems are imperceptible. Most countries do | :04:35. | :04:42. | |
worse than we do. -- benefits systems cannot be perfected. They | :04:43. | :04:48. | |
need to tone down how much this can achieve even if it all goes | :04:49. | :04:52. | |
flawlessly. There are clearly problems, particularly within | :04:53. | :04:57. | |
limitation, but Labour is still wary of welfare reform. -- with | :04:58. | :05:01. | |
implementation. Polls suggest it is rather popular. People may not know | :05:02. | :05:05. | |
what's involved were like the sound of it. I think Janan is right to | :05:06. | :05:12. | |
mark out the differences between welfare cuts and welfare reforms. | :05:13. | :05:19. | |
They are related but distinct. Are we saying cuts are more popular than | :05:20. | :05:26. | |
reform? They clearly are. The numbers, when you present people | :05:27. | :05:33. | |
numbers on benefit reductions, are off the scale. Reform, for the | :05:34. | :05:37. | |
reasons you explored in your interview, is incredibly | :05:38. | :05:44. | |
compensated. What's interesting is that Labour haven't really | :05:45. | :05:46. | |
definitively said what their position is on this. I think they | :05:47. | :05:52. | |
like - despite what they may see in public occasionally - some of what | :05:53. | :05:57. | |
universal credit might produce but they don't want to be associated | :05:58. | :06:05. | |
with it. We probably won't know until if Ed Miliband is Prime | :06:06. | :06:07. | |
Minister precisely what direction Labour will go. Immigration is still | :06:08. | :06:13. | |
a hot topic in Westminster and throughout the country. This new | :06:14. | :06:17. | |
Home Office minister, James Brokenshire, made an intervention. | :06:18. | :06:22. | |
Let's see what he had to say. For too long, the benefits of | :06:23. | :06:26. | |
immigration went to employers who wanted an easy supply of cheap | :06:27. | :06:30. | |
labour or to the wealthy metropolitan elite who wanted cheap | :06:31. | :06:34. | |
tradesmen and services, but not to the ordinary hard-working people of | :06:35. | :06:38. | |
this country. With the result that the Prime Minister and everyone else | :06:39. | :06:41. | |
has to tell us all whether they ve now got Portuguese or whatever it is | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
Nanny is. Is this the most cack-handed intervention on an | :06:47. | :06:51. | |
immigration issue in a long list? I think it is and when I saw this | :06:52. | :06:55. | |
being trailed the night before, I worried for him. As soon as a | :06:56. | :07:01. | |
minister of the Crown uses the phrase "wealthy metropolitan elite" | :07:02. | :07:36. | |
more likely we see it in recession. We've just had the worst recession | :07:37. | :07:43. | |
in several decades. It's no small problem but compared to what | :07:44. | :07:46. | |
ministers like James Brokenshire has been saying for the past few years | :07:47. | :07:50. | |
and also the reluctance to issue the report earlier, I thought that, | :07:51. | :07:53. | |
combined with the speech, made it quite a bad week for the department. | :07:54. | :07:59. | |
Was this a cack-handed attempt to appeal to the UKIP voters? I think | :08:00. | :08:04. | |
so and he's predecessor had to leave the job because of having a foreign | :08:05. | :08:08. | |
cleaner. It drew attention to the Tories' biggest problem, the out of | :08:09. | :08:13. | |
touch problem. Most people around the country probably don't have a | :08:14. | :08:16. | |
Portuguese nanny and you've just put a big sign over David Cameron | :08:17. | :08:23. | |
saying, this man can afford a Portuguese Nanny. It is not the | :08:24. | :08:26. | |
finest political operation ever conducted and the speech was | :08:27. | :08:30. | |
definitely given by the Home Office to Number Ten but did Number Ten | :08:31. | :08:33. | |
bother to read it? It was a complete shambles. The basic argument that | :08:34. | :08:40. | |
there is a divide between a wealthy metropolitan elite and large parts | :08:41. | :08:44. | |
of Middle Britain or the rest of the country I think is basically sound. | :08:45. | :08:49. | |
It is but they are on the wrong side of it. What do you mean by that The | :08:50. | :08:54. | |
Tory government is on the wrong side. This is appealing to UKIP | :08:55. | :09:00. | |
voters and we know that UKIP is appealing to working-class voters | :09:01. | :09:03. | |
who have previously voted Labour and Tory. If you set up that divide | :09:04. | :09:06. | |
make sure you are on the right side stop When you talk about | :09:07. | :09:12. | |
metropolitan members of the media class, they say that it is rubbish | :09:13. | :09:15. | |
and everyone has a Polish cleaner. No, they don't. I do not have a | :09:16. | :09:21. | |
clean! I don't clean behind the fridge, either! Most people in the | :09:22. | :09:27. | |
country don't have a cleaner. The problem for the Tories on this is, | :09:28. | :09:38. | |
why play that game? You can't out-UKIP UKIP. After two or three | :09:39. | :09:43. | |
years of sustained Tory effort to do that, they will probably finish | :09:44. | :09:50. | |
behind UKIP. Do we really want a political system where it becomes an | :09:51. | :09:53. | |
issue of where your nanny or your cleaner is from, if you've got one? | :09:54. | :10:00. | |
Unless, of course, they're illegal. But Portuguese or Italian or | :10:01. | :10:05. | |
Scottish... And intervention was from Nick Clegg who said his wife | :10:06. | :10:09. | |
was Dutch -- his mum was Dutch and his wife was Spanish. Not communism | :10:10. | :10:19. | |
but who your cleaner is! It's the McCarthy question! Where does your | :10:20. | :10:23. | |
cleaner come from. A lot of people will say are lucky to have a | :10:24. | :10:28. | |
cleaner. I want to move onto selfies but first, on the Nigel Farage | :10:29. | :10:33. | |
Nick Clegg debate, let's stick with the TV one. Who do you think will | :10:34. | :10:41. | |
win? Nigel Farage. Clegg. He is a surprisingly good in debates and | :10:42. | :10:44. | |
people have forgotten. I think Clegg is going to win. I think Farage has | :10:45. | :10:50. | |
peaked. We're going to keep that on tape as well! Two 214 Clegg there. | :10:51. | :11:00. | |
Selfies. Politicians are attempting to show they're down with the kids. | :11:01. | :11:04. | |
Let's look at some that we've seen in recent days. | :11:05. | :11:14. | |
Why are they doing this, Helen? I'm so embarrassed you call me reading | :11:15. | :11:52. | |
the SNP manifesto, as I do every Saturday! They do it because it | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
makes them seem authentic and that's the big Lie that social media tells | :11:58. | :12:00. | |
you - that you're seeing the real person. You're not, you're seeing a | :12:01. | :12:06. | |
very carefully manicured, more witty person. That doesn't work for | :12:07. | :12:12. | |
politicians. It looks so fake and I'm still suffering the cringe I see | :12:13. | :12:15. | |
every time I see Cameronserious phone face. Does Mr Cameron really | :12:16. | :12:22. | |
think it big Sim up because he's on the phone to President Obama? Obama | :12:23. | :12:31. | |
is not the personality he once was. There is an international crisis in | :12:32. | :12:34. | |
Ukraine - of course we are expecting to be speaking to Obama! And if you | :12:35. | :12:39. | |
were in any doubt about what a man talking on the telephone looks like, | :12:40. | :12:44. | |
here's a photo. I must confess, I didn't take my own selfie. Did your | :12:45. | :12:50. | |
nanny? My father-in-law took it Where is your father-in-law from? | :12:51. | :12:57. | |
Scotland. Just checking. Janan, I think we've got one of you. The 1%! | :12:58. | :13:11. | |
What a great telephone! Where did you get that telephone? It looks | :13:12. | :13:15. | |
like Wolf Of Wall Street! That's what I go to bed in. It showed how | :13:16. | :13:22. | |
excited Cameron was to be on the phone to Obama. All our politicians | :13:23. | :13:26. | |
think they are living a mini version of US politics. President Obama goes | :13:27. | :13:32. | |
on a big plane and we complain when George Osborne goes first class on | :13:33. | :13:35. | |
first Great Western. They want to be big and important like American | :13:36. | :13:39. | |
politics but it doesn't work. We'll see your top at next week! | :13:40. | :13:43. | |
That's it for this week. Faxed all our guests. The Daily Politics is on | :13:44. | :13:48. | |
all this week at lunchtime on BBC Two. We'll be back here same time, | :13:49. | :13:53. | |
same place next week. Remember, if it's Sunday, it is the Sunday | :13:54. | :13:56. | |
Politics. | :13:57. | :14:01. |