02/02/2014 Sunday Politics Wales

Morning, folks. Welcome to the Sunday Politics. The unions helped

him beat his brother to the top. Now Ed Miliband wants to change Labour's

relationship with them. Who will come out on top? We will be asking

one union baron what he thinks. Cracks in the coalition after

Education Secretary Michael Gove sacks the chairwoman of Ofsted. His

Lib Dem deputy is said to be hopping mad. We will be talking to the new

deputy leader of the Lib Dems, Malcolm Bruce.

Caught a bout of the EU blues? David Cameron has been drowning his

sorrows with the President of France. Who better? We will be

asking if the EU referendum bill is dead in the water.

And bad weather getting you down? Getting from A to B a bit of a

nightmare? Fear not! The leader of the Greens will be here with her

Later in the programme, I speak to traffic and travel report. Dutch

Later in the programme, I speak to Health MInister Mark Drakeford about

Will it provide the kind of reassurance people want?

Yes, all that and more in today's action-packed Sunday Politics. And

blowing more hot air than I have had hot dinners, Helen Lewis, Nick Watt

and Iain Martin. After the row about candidate

selection in Falkirk, Ed Miliband said he wanted to reshape the

relationship between Labour and the unions. The biggest changes involve

union membership of the party, which in turn will affect future Labour

leadership elections. Some claim this is Ed's Clause 4 moment. But

the unions will continue to be powerful at conference and on the

party's ruling committees, and they will still be able to bankroll the

election campaign. Here is Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman,

speaking earlier. What he is proposing for the March the 1st

conference is a huge change in financing, in the election of the

leader, in what goes on at local level. In due course, it might have

implications for the NEC elections and conference. But this is already

a big issue to take forward. Joining me now is Paul Kenny,

general secretary of the GMB union and chair of the Trade Union and

Labour Party Liaison Organisation. Is this Ed Miliband's Clause 4

moment? I don't know about that. It is certainly a bold move,

particularly to have an electoral college, which as you said was the

system which elected him in the first place. Everybody admits that

has needed reforming for some time. Moving to a one member, one vote

situation seems to me to be sensible. I know some people are

upset, mostly MPs, who will lose their golden share. But it is

nonsense that one MP should have the same vote as 1000 party members. So

the MPs have lost out. Have the unions lost out? Well, the system is

currently that union members get a ballot paper, but they have to

declare that they are a Labour supporter and they have to sign to

that effect in order to participate. Then their vote is counted. At the

last election, about 200,000 trade union members gave that indication,

and they participated in that way. That will not change. The way it is

organised will be different. The big change in the electoral college is

that the logical weight given to MPs will disappear. I wonder if you have

really lost anything. At the moment, there are about 3 million people

automatically affiliated from the unions to the Labour Party. If only

10% of them opt in, that will still mean twice as many union individual

members, 300,000, versus about 180,000 Labour Party members. So

union members and maybe even the unions will have as big an influence

on the leadership elections as you do now, maybe bigger? Well, they are

individual votes. Different unions support different candidates. It is

lost in the media myth of barons and block votes, but there is an

individual vote. Different unions recommend different candidates, and

union members vote accordingly. Ed Miliband won more individual votes

by a country mile than David, but it got messed up in the process of this

electoral college. As I have understood the proposals so far,

they are not a done deal. There is a lot of discussion. But it seems

there are three hurdles. Firstly, union members themselves will have

to agree whether they want to affiliate to the Labour Party. If

they don't, the rest of it falls. If they decide they do my they will ask

union members to support that an individual basis the next five

years, which will have financial implications. Then there will be a

third position, which is that people who may want to agree with the

union's position and affiliate with the Labour Party may want to go

further and become active supporters of the Labour Party, participating

in leadership elections. They will have to give their sanction to that

at a third stage. So the implications in terms of

constituency parties and so on are a lot less than the idea that the 3

million who are currently affiliated will change. At the moment, the

unions, because of the automatic affiliation, hand over a affiliation

fees of about ?8 million a year to Labour. You will now get to keep

that money, because the individuals will have to put up the money

themselves. You can keep that money and determine if you give it to

Labour to fight the election campaign, correct? Incorrect.

Firstly, the affiliation fees are paid from what is called the

political fund, which most unions have to set up in order to

participate. The union will continue to pay the ?3 a affiliation fee for

those members who want the union to be affiliated. But you get to keep a

lot more money. In reality, we will see a transitional period of a few

years. Less people will probably say yes, depending on how popular Labour

are, about whether they want the union to give money to the Labour

Party. The GMB has already done this. By the way, don't call me

kneel. It is Andrew or Mr Neil. The unions will have a bigger chunk of

money because the unions will not be handing over all of the money at one

time. But you could still play a major part in funding the Labour

election campaign. We'll how much you give the dependent on what the

Labour Party puts in its manifesto? Of course it will. It will have to

justify our support to Labour for the members who provide money to the

political fund. If we did not argue for the cert is social justice

campaigns and laws we want to see, we would be failing in our job. I

don't intend to hide that from anybody. The unions are there to

fight for their members. That is our job. So you will still be a major

part of the bankroll of the Labour campaign. You will still have 50% of

the votes at a Labour conference, and you will still have a major part

in the Labour National executive committee and the policy committee.

It is right to say the unions are still at the heart of Labour, are

they not? Well, if you sick to break the affiliated link between trade

unions and the Labour Party, the whole thing collapses. That is what

anchors the Labour Party as far as we are concerned. Many of our

members think that when they want to look for ferrochrome and rights,

social justice, housing and the health service, Labour are better it

quipped to deliver that for working people than the current parties.

That is why we have traditionally supported them. But not at all of

our members support Labour, which is why we don't affiliate all of them

to Labour. There are over 30 million people in the British labour force

now. Union membership is only 6.5 million out of that 30. A 6.5% of

that do not vote Labour, they vote Tory or liberal or nationalist in

Scotland. So you are a relatively small pressure group. Why should

Labour be in thrall to you? We are the biggest voluntary organisation

in this country. Sorry about that, but that is the fact. People make

conscious choices. My own union, the GMB, has been growing for eight

years. So this dying picture you are trying to paint... In terms of

accounting for the fact that some do not support Labour, that is why

unions do not affiliate all of their members to the Labour Party. We have

adjusted to that. If you don't like being called Neil, I don't like

being called a barren either. What about Mr Baron? I don't like that

either. We are representatives of working organisations. It may be

inconvenient for politicians to have to listen to working people, but we

will continue to press. Lord Baron, thank you very much.

So, is this a Clause 4 moment for Ed Miliband? Not really, but to his

credit, he is going ahead with this. There was a point at which it looked

as though Ed Miliband would back away from reform. To his credit, he

is trying to create a mass membership party again. But when it

comes to the crucial business of funding a general election campaign,

these reforms will make Labour more reliant on large donations from

trade unions. They could have more power now, because they get to hold

back this money, whereas beforehand, they had to hand it over

automatically. As Mr Kenny just said, how much they handover will be

dependent on good behaviour. Yes, but these are pragmatic reforms. The

fact that Ed Miliband has a lot of capital in not being seen as a

Blairite has helped him get these through . The response has been

muted, which suggests good party management on his behalf. That may

be because they will still have 50% of the votes at a party conference.

Mr Kenny was clear that that could be deal-breaker if they tried to

take that away. They have more places at the NEC than anyone else,

and party members, if only 10% of them signed up, they will outweigh

individual members in the constituencies. It was interesting,

how relaxed Paul Kenny was. He was taking thousands of pounds from the

Labour Party a few months ago because he was annoyed about these

reforms, and now he is relaxed because they still have 50% of the

vote at Labour Party conference and Labour Party Parliamentary

candidates are still selected in the same way. But there is a simple

point here. Yes, you can pick apart what Ed Miliband said and said the

unions have too much influence, but the only way he could have gone all

the way was to break the link with the trade unions, and he was not

going to do that. It was not the Labour Party that founded the

unions, it was the unions that founded the Labour Party. Even Tony

Blair did not break the link. In that context, Ed Miliband has gone

incredibly far. For the last 50 years, this opting into the union,

you have to turn to page 50 of your union terms and conditions to say,

do you want to opt out of the political levy 's that is going to

go, which will mean that when the next Labour leader is elected from

the union votes, they will get their ballot from the Labour Party and you

will append the fast where ballots went out from Unison macro and GMB

with a picture of Ed Miliband on the front of the ballot paper saying,

vote for aid. They were Stasi and Saddam Hussein ways of trade union

members electing the Labour leader, which will go. I am sorry his

Lordship is not still here to answer that question.

HMS Coalition is not a happy ship. The lovey-dovey days in the rose

garden are long gone. It is not a loveless marriage, perhaps even an

open one. The latest split is over the decision by Education Secretary

Michael Gove to replace Labour peer Sally Morgan as head of the schools

inspectorate, Ofsted. Mr Gove's deputy, Lib Dem David Laws, is said

to be spitting blood about her removal, although only through

surrogates. He has not said a word on the record. Here was the

Education Secretary a little earlier. If there is another

opportunity for Sally to serve in a different role at a different time,

then I would be delighted to support her in the role which she thinks it

is appropriate to do. There is nothing wrong with Sally but there

is a principle across government that there should be no automatic

reappointment, and that after three or four years, it is appropriate to

bring in a fresh pair of eyes. That is good corporate practice in order

to ensure that you refresh boards, bring a new perspective, and have

tough questions asked. We're joined now by the newly elected deputy

leader of the Liberal Democrats, Malcolm Bruce. He's in Aberdeen.

Welcome to the Sunday Politics. David Laws is said to be furious

with Michael Gove, is he? I think he is because Sally Morgan has been

doing a good job and that has been generally agreed across the whole

spectrum. I think Ofsted is an impartial body that inspects all

schools and it shouldn't be subject to some kind of political direction.

That is the concern, that she is being removed when she was doing a

good job and most people thought she should be reappointed. It is

strongly rumoured her successor will be a high-ranking Tory backer. Why

hasn't David Laws said this himself, have you spoken to him? I have, and

I know he is not very pleased about it but he will want to speak to

Michael Gove himself when he gets to see him on Monday. The question you

have to take on board is that David Laws is the schools minister,

effectively the one who has engagement with Ofsted, and he is

seeing it being undermined by the Secretary of State. There is a

question that if Michael Gove is so pleased with Sally Morgan why is he

replacing her, and who will he be replacing her with, and on what

basis? Maybe parliament should have a confirmation hearing so that we

can be assured that whoever is put in charge is there because they are

good at it. Why has he licensed his surrogates to save this rather than

saying it himself? He didn't, he knew I was on the programme this

morning so I am giving you the answers as best I can. David is

perfectly capable of speaking for himself. He hasn't so far. You asked

me to come on this programme and David was anxious for me to know he

wasn't happy about it, and I can certainly tell you that. I can also

give you my own opinion which is that Ofsted is not the Department

for Education, it is an independent body. The question you have to ask

is will Michael Gove but someone in charge of Ofsted who will have a

political agenda? If so, that is not what Ofsted should be used for.

Let's move on to your own position. You are 69, white male,

middle-class, what is your answer to the party with diversity problems? I

don't think that is what they voted on. They felt I had a wealth of

experience that would be vulnerable to the party from the period now

until the election, not least because the central issues that will

concern voters are the economy, and I have a track record of promoting

the party's economic policy over many years. But you are not even

standing at the next election. No, but we need to get to the next

election and my colleagues have confidence that I can do a useful

job for the party in that situation. We have developed and delivered

policies that I have helped to shape and I want to persuade people to

understand the Liberal Democrats have made a fundamental difference

to the economic recovery. But you know what has been happening with

the Liberal Democrats and their problems with women. Wasn't this a

chance to select a woman in a major part? You only have seven female MPs

out of 57, not a single Lib Dem woman in the Parliament. Again, why

you rather than making a break and bringing someone in onto major

positions? My colleagues have concluded that the role I am best

qualified to do it, that is why they voted for me. We do only have seven

women and that is an issue we need to address. Two of those women are

ministers, one is a government whip. We seem to have lost our line to

Aberdeen, just as Malcolm Bruce was in full flight defending his

position. I'm not sure if we can get the line back, just bear with me for

a few seconds to see if we can get it. It looks as if we have lost

Malcolm Bruce, I do apologise to Malcolm Bruce and the viewers that

we were not able to continue that interview.

Fierce winds, torrential rain and a tidal surge have brought more misery

to thousands. Official records show that southern England has seen the

wettest January since records began in 1767. I remember it well. The

Somerset Levels have been hit by weeks of flooding, with little

respite from relentless rain. And, the residents of one village on the

Levels, Muchelney, has been cut off for almost a month. We sent our Adam

out with his wellies and a properly filled out risk assessment form. The

very wet road to Muchelney. This village of about 100 residents has

been cut off for about four weeks, and like the weather vane, it feels

a little bit spooky. It came up to here and your front door was there.

Anita is just relieved the water stopped here, practically on her

doorstep. Now it is the practicalities that are the problem.

Driving around for food is quite a hassle. You are foraging. It's not

as bad as that but we do have a few bits in the vegetable garden still,

and we had some nice apples until the rats ate them but we are not

doing too badly on that score. It sounds like the medieval! That's

what it feels like. Talking of retro, who knew Somerset still had a

Coleman, this is Brian's first delivery since Christmas. Everything

has gone old-fashioned. We are now talking to neighbours we might never

have seen before or spoken to so we are getting to know more people in

the village. She's right, there has been an outbreak of Dunkirk spirit,

quite literally. The council and the Fire Brigade have put on this boat

service to get people to work and school. The church has become an

unofficial flood HQ. This is where people pick up their mail, and this

is where the people who run the boat stopped for their tea breaks. It all

seems quite jolly, if a bit boring, but it is no fun for the homes and

businesses that have been inundated, or for the farmers whose land is

underwater, an area the size of Bristol, or for the villages which

are less isolated but where the flooding is worse. People like the

parish chairman are starting to get angry with how the Government has

responded. It was all a bit late. We knew what was going to happen with

the amount of rain on the fields and the Government was so slow to

react. The county council got the boat going quickly but it was

another four weeks nearly before the button was pressed for the major

incident. Right on cue, the cavalry arrived in the shape of emergency

crews from other parts of the UK. The rumour is that they will bring

in a hovercraft but the bad news is that the weather is becoming more

grim this weekend. There has been a surge in bookings at the campsite

where people have seen the Somerset Levels on holiday and would like to

come on holiday, if it ever stops raining. I'm delighted to say we

have got the line back to Aberdeen, somebody has put a shilling in the

meter. We can go back to Malcolm Bruce. We were talking about the Lib

Dem women and your election, I suppose the point some people are

making is that your party has as many knights in Parliament as it has

women and you are one of them. The good news is that for the five MPs

who are standing down, who have had candidates elected in their

constituencies so far, all five candidates that have been selected

are women. We need to fight hard to get behind those women and get them

elected so that we have a much better balanced parliament in the

future, but given that we have few women, you really have to pick

people appropriate for the job and we have appointed the women as I

have said but we need our image to be balanced. How many women

candidates will there be come the next election? At the moment, 12,

five more than we have now, and we haven't finished selection. Where

there are men sitting and standing again, that is not likely to change,

but where they are standing down we are overwhelmingly choosing women,

and in my view good and very able women. What I would want to say to

people is that if you want to see the Lib Dems have more women, go to

those seats and help us hold them. We are told that only 20% of the 57

seats have female candidates and in the unlikely event that you were

able to hold onto them all, it still wouldn't be a sea change to have

20%. The point is you have to build them up. We are supporting female

candidates. These are really good candidates who will make first-class

MPs and I certainly believe you will gradually see the Liberal Democrats

taking them on. We don't have 300 seats that we currently hold like

other parties, but what I can tell you is that increasing --

increasingly we will have female candidates. One newspaper has said

that you will deal with the Chris Rennard fallout quickly and

privately, what does that mean? It means I will not be telling you

because these things are not helped by comments on the airwaves. I hope

it will be possible to have a resolution without people going to

court but I don't think it helps anybody for me to comment on any

aspect of how this will be done and I'm not prepared to do so. If you

are not in full possession of the facts, why did you say you will deal

with this privately? I have come into this halfway through, I don't

have full possession of the facts, I doubt you do, and we have a process

that needs to be followed through. Any comments in public do not help.

Isn't it hypocrisy of a high order to hear from a party that is

constantly calling for transparency in other institutions but when it

comes to your own, you say, I am not going to talk about it. There are

all sorts of disputes that happen in the world and often people don't

talk about them because talking about them aggravates the

situation. I believe you have to deal with them privately and I don't

think trial by media in this context is helpful and I don't believe that

those who choose to make those comments are making it easier to

solve them. There are problems in other walks of life and the Liberal

Democrats are not the only ones with these problems. We are trying to

change that culture and I think we will do it effectively in our own

way. We have a pastoral care officer now and I think that is the right

way to do it. Thank you for that. Let's now go back to the story of

the flooding in Somerset. We are joined by the leader of the Green

party, Natalie Bennett in Millbank. Natalie Bennett, don't the Green

party bears some responsibility for these floods? You have sided with

the Environment Agency in the decision not to dredge rivers and

that is one of the reason why these places have been flooded. Firstly I

want to give my sympathy to everyone dealing with these floods. The

homeowners, the farmers seeing sodden fields for weeks and weeks.

We get that, we all have huge sympathy, particularly because so

little seems to be done to help them. What is the answer to my

question? I think there is strong evidence that dredging is not the

answer. If you think about the flow of the river, where the pinch points

are is things like bridges, weirs and towns. If you dredge the river

in between those barriers, you just make the water faster to those

points. The experts are saying that dredging is not the answer, it may

be in particular cases, but you have to look at each river system on its

own merits and very often the best way of dealing with this is working

out ways to slow the watered down and make sure that people don't

suffer unduly while you are doing that. The west of England

agricultural Society, which I would venture knows more about the

Somerset Levels than either of us, has said that without dredging, this

was a disaster waiting to happen. The local drainage boards have been

calling for years for dredging to be resumed. The National Farmers' Union

has called for it, and the chairman of the West Sussex flood defences

has called for more drainage, and he is a drainage engineer by

profession. So I don't know where your experts are, but the experts on

the ground am not the urban ones in London, seem to think this has not

been caused, but made worse by the failure of the Environment Agency to

continue to dredge. If you look at the example of the planning and

climate change coalition, which is led by the town and country planning

Association, who you would not describe as a group of radical

greens, these people have said we have to look at how we deal with

flooding in the future. But not in Somerset. These are the people

currently being flooded, not somebody sitting in a quango office

in London. They have asked for this to happen and it hasn't, and they

are now flooded in definitely. We have to look at what is happening on

a case-by-case basis. If you look at Germany, there are many cases there

were, to deal with flooding, many farmers are paid to hold water on

their land. Maybe we need to introduce those systems, because we

have to protect farmland, but we also have to protect urban areas for

safety. We saw a horrible flood in Wales were lines were endangered --

where lives were endangered. That is the priority, to protect lives,

property and farmland. Lives are endangered at the moment,

particularly as this stagnant water turns toxic. And yet we are in a

situation, again encouraged by the Greens and the lobbying Environment

Agency, it says it does not want to dredge because dredging is

expensive, yet it spends millions on a bird sanctuary. That is getting

everything totally wrong. The government is getting everything one

by cutting on flood defences. It has not cut on a bird sanctuaries. I

don't know the details of that. But looking at the broader issue, we

have to prepare for climate change. The government has slashed funding

to the Environment Agency and has cut back on the number of staff

available to deal with it and has removed the requirement on local

councils to plan for climate change. These are all gambling the future of

our lives and property and the future of our environment. Hasn't

the high watermark of greenery now gone well past? You don't come out

of the Somerset Levels with any great reputation. The UK government

is now going to start fracking as quickly as it can. Brussels is

loosening the CO2 obligations for 2030. The President of America is

about to give the go-ahead to the keystone pipeline, a totemic issue

for American greens, and your party is in a state of civil war in

Brighton. It is over, isn't it? Absolutely not. We are seeing large

amounts of extreme weather around the world. Any one event is whether,

but we are seeing a lot of it and people are recognising that climate

change is happening. If we are going to quote international experts, I

can quote to you Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary-General, not known as a

radical green, and he said after the IPCC report came out that the heat

is on and we must act. If you go to Christine Lagarde, head of the

International Monetary Fund, again not a radical green, she was asked

what kept her awake at night, and she said, we are not doing enough

about climate change. So actually, people around the world are looking

at what is happening around them are both people on the ground and people

in high positions are saying we have to act on climate change. And in the

case of Britain, that should absolutely not mean fracking. Sorry

to interrupt, but I have evidence that you are planning a little

career change. Don't go away. This is what happens when you let Nigel

Farage present the weather. One thing leads to another and low and

behold, the Sunday Politics now has a new traffic and travel reporter.

Let's go back to Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett. Thanks, Andrew. It

is easy out that, so let's start with our airports. I am pleased to

say that Heathrow's third runway, Boris Island and all short-haul

flights are, just like our arguments, well grounded. We suggest

making or alternative arrangements, like a re-nationalised rail

network, although it would be a glaring omission if we did not admit

that that plan is currently being delayed by Labour Party foot

dragging. Speaking of trains, we are hearing that high-speed two may well

be derailing, or at least getting bogged down in political fog. One

viewer, Ed Balls, has texted in to say he is completely lost. Thanks

for the update, Ed. You are not alone among political commuters.

Meanwhile, dumped UKIP manifestoes are causing major tailbacks across

the South, apparently stretching all the way to Brussels. This does make

driving road tricky, but UKIP's MEPs can, of course, just hop on their

gravy train. The tree had a roundabout is blocked after reports

of a political earthquake. It seems that a green unwound his beard to

block a dodgy gas extractor. A motorist who turned out to be the

environment minister object into the delay and was told to frack off as

furious badgers demanded that he stopped moving the goalposts.

Unregulated traffic in the city of London continues unchecked.

Pedestrians should try to block bankers with sacks of loot rushing

for the payments. But do beware the Lib Dem Exodus that is clogging up

the motorways. Although they are in a jam, or is it a fudge, we are

happy to make way for them, as, like all refugees, we say they are

welcome here in muesli green. That is the travel. Back to you, Andrew.

Natalie, I think you make my point. You are now preparing a new career

in traffic and travel. Well, I do believe in lifelong education and

that was an example of it. We know you have had a tough time today to

get to our studio. Thank you for the effort.

You are watching the Sunday Politics. Coming up in just over 20

minutes, we will have We should be able to set those tolls

to benefit the Welsh economy. Many companies think the tolls are

adding an extra cost but the level of the charge will soon become a

political issue. As decision day approaches, the pressure will pile

up for a big cut in the travelling into and out of South Wales.

Tomos Livingstone reporting there. Joining me now for a wider

discussion about the economy, Labour MP Nia Griffith and Conservative

Alun Cairns. Alun Cairns, we had in that piece that the bridges are

operated by a private contractor but the tolls are due a cut?

The current regime goes back to 1992 when the law was passed and the

finance scheme was set up so the government haven't had the

opportunity to intervene until the concession ends, which is linked to

the kind of income that is generated. It is likely to be 2018

because of the way the economy is picking up. Effectively, the

government haven't been able to do anything up until now but I would

say that where George Osborne has been able to intervene, he was able

to half the rate on the Humber Bridge because it was a direct loan

to the government. Can't he do that in Wales? The law

does not permit that at the moment. When it does happen I'm optimistic

that there will be some sort of scheme that will be friendly to

Wales and to the motorist. Nia Griffith, we heard does it matter

who controls it? Do you have a view? The important thing is that when the

many is paid back for the construction, they do come down.

Whether or not it is collected by the Welsh government or the UK

Government, I do know Carwyn Jones will be looking carefully at the

small print and saying that if this is devolved Wales, is going to be a

cut in the block grant, if that cut was satisfied, then quite clearly

you'd be in a difficult situation in Wales because it be having to charge

the maximum in order to stand still. If on the other hand are more

amenable can be reached with the UK Government than the opportunity is

there. It is easy for Plaid Cymru to call

for a flat rate but they need to say where the money is coming from. We

need to be practical. There's a good model in place on the Humber Bridge

and that is financed from the Treasury. I'm optimistic we can

deliver that in Wales. Let's move on to the economy. Real wages have been

dropping since 2010. The longest period of four since 1964, according

to the office for National statistics.

Alun Cairns, are people in your constituency feeling any richer?

They recognise that the long-term economic plan is working.

Not of their wages are falling. Certainly, because the recession was

the biggest in the century almost. Therefore, there needed to be a

long-term plan to put it right. If there is a significant structural

budget, when the economy when South, then obviously it was going

to take time to turn it around from the mess that was inherited.

Longer than expected. We have to take into account what happens, well

it was deeper than we predicted and you have to take into account the

financial crisis is that took place in Europe. Let's look positively.

The long-term economic plan is working farms to the hard work of

families and businesses across the whole of the UK. Wilson is working

-- going at a faster rate than the rest of England. We have to reflect

on that but there is still a long way to go.

Nia Griffith, good news. The office for National statistics says that

GDP is growing by 1.9 at a moment. Alun Cairns is right, the economy is

on the right track. People have no confidence whatsoever. They were

told it is going to be growing at seven or 8%.

It's about 3%. They can see that actual debt is going to be 198

pounds billion pounds more. People are losing confidence. They can see

what's happened, in the three years that the Conservative government has

been in, they have not made the progress they promised. I think

we're seeing a very, very fragile recovery. People still don't have a

huge amount of confidence and they're being kept very, very hard

because of this drop in wages which is hitting them badly.

It's a fragile recovery. Vince Cable has said the same. The long-term

economic plan is working. Ed Balls called for plan B. There

was a production of a double dip protest taking longer because the

depth of the recession was deeper. We had the biggest deficit of any of

the most developed economies in the world. It takes time to time around

but even the Institute of chartered accountants came at a fantastic

predictions on the top of the productions from the IFA and for so

many others. I remember some of the phrases from the Conservatives,

talking about a balanced economy across the UK.

That isn't happening, is it? If you look at last year, every

sector of the economy grew. It's the first year in decades that every

sector will have grown. That services, manufacturing. We sadly so

even retaining the curfews of the Labour government, manufacturing

went into decline. Fools suffered most. Every sector grew last year.

-- Wales. Labour still has a lot of influence

over the Welsh government. As it failed to ease that influence? We

know our wealth ranking such as it failed to ease that influence? We

know our wealth ranking search visitors, gross value added, Wales

is still bottom of the nations and reasons. -- regions. Some of the

jobs growth Wales programme. The target of 4000 per year, then

people finding people real jobs. Plus a rise in the number of

apprentices and the sharpest fall of any part of the UK in the number of

young people who are without any form of employment. So yes, the

Welsh government is trying hard, but there are macroeconomic factors

controlled by the UK Government which make it difficult. When the

real issues is sadly, the government has chosen to settle money out of

the Welsh economy by hitting low income and middle income people the

hardest. Labour hasn't -- has been in charge since 1997 and we are

rooted to the bottom. They have helped industry. They have

given grants to industry and helped people who have lost their jobs

through being made redundant and so forth.

All those programmes are very important. Without those would be a

lot worse off. Your party has committed to a 50p

top rate of income tax. Isn't that about winning back credibility in

politics than what is good for the economy?

It is about letting those with the broader shoulders take the biggest

burden. When you settle money out of the bottom of the economy, and as

tax credits Wales is losing money, when you take money from the least

well off, that has a knock-on effect immediately in towns and villages

because people haven't got the money to spend. What we should be doing is

making that tax burden a lot fairer and we should never have seen that

kept for those over ?150,000 PA. Completely unfair. Even this week on

Prime Minister's Questions, we had a Prime Minister unable to tell us

whether he would catch that further from 45, even to ?40. He will not do

that. It might sound popular but... Why don't you endorse it? Until

people look at the detail, it doesn't raise money. What is the

point of the tax rate that doesn't raise money? We want to raise the

personal allowance. It has gone down fantastically to ?10,000 and

beyond. Two thirds of the lowest paid, the tax has been removed.

Thank you both of you. Time for a look back at some of the political

stories of the week in 60 seconds. Schools inspectors said the quality

of teaching needs to improve. Two thirds of secondary school require

follow-up visits. Opponents could hold it an indictment of Labour 's

record. A drug testing service to identify harmful chemicals in the

legal highs will save lives. Health Minister Mark Drakeford said samples

can be sent anonymously to a laboratory. The Conservatives say it

is open to abuse by drug dealers. Income tax powers on offer to the

assembly, Tory leader in Cardiff Bay told MPs he is not convinced by

plans to restrict those powers. Welsh Secretary David James said Mr

Davies was giving a personal view. Mr Davies said the Tory agenda

members back. The Sun pointed out a front-page story about schools

weren't applied to Wales. You don't need to speak Welsh to work out what

the paper thought. Smoking and young people has also

been in the news. The UK Government said it would ban the sale of

e-cigarettes to underage teens and UK ministers also came under

pressure to ban smoking in cars when children were on board. The Welsh

government says it supports the ban on e-cigarettes and next month sees

the end of his campaign on raising awareness about the dangers of

smoking in cars. Speaking at First Minister's Questions recently,

Carwyn Jones said research had been commissioned on the impact of

second-hand smoke and children in cars. He would consider legislation

of the voluntary approach hadn't worked.

Isn't it time to put children's rights to good health about

so-called personal freedoms and ban smoking in cars in which children

are passengers? That option is available to us. When that research

becomes available in the summer, we will say that if the voluntary

approach does not work, we will legislate?

Shouldn't you look at this once again? Most people would like this

ban in place. Of course, adults have a freedom to

do as they wish in their own cars but when there are children in the

cars, the children can't get out and make their own decisions. Then the

vast personal freedom to impose their smoking on children is not

something that I would support in a freedom that does not impinge on the

rights of others. That is what smoking in cars with children does.

I am joined in the studio by health Minister Mark Drakeford. What

punishment you think a parent should face if they spoke with a child in

the back seat? That isn't a sensible question,

certainly not the approach we are going to be taking in Wales. We've

had two years of a campaign of education and information. We will

continue to persuade people that are smoking with children in cars is bad

and teams that campaign of this regime to change the way people

behave. So you don't want to change the? I'm trying to get a sense of

how seriously take this issue. Our approach has been clear all the

way through. We begin with persuasion. We try and explain to

people with high smoking with children in cars is bad and we had

considerable success already. We have persuaded more people are

not to do that but we are in the middle of that campaign. We've got

information emerging from it. We've said all the way through that if we

don't succeed in doing it voluntarily, we will see what legit

Asian country. Legislation. The fee -- campaign has been running since

February 2012. Some findings have emerged, that 71%

of cars where they were chosen were smoke-free at the beginning of the

campaign. That has already gone up to 78% on the campaign isn't over.

But we need to drive it up to 90%. People in the same survey said they

believe cars with children in them should be smoke-free. What level

will use it before you decide whether to ban smoking in cars with

children on Bard bought -- wheel away to the evidence.

I will not pre-empt the evidence. We will look at primary children,

secondary school children, secondary schoolchildren, and test peoples

opinions. If left distillation is needed, we

will legislate in. -- legislation. The smoking lobby says it is a

serious invasion of privacy. What next, a ban on smoking at home when

children are present? What's you make of that? I entirely reject

that. Let's not forget... Children are exposed to second-hand

smoke at home as well. They are simply not compatible. In a car, you

are in a confined space. Concentrations of smoke... And when

you smoke, you are putting into the air a combination of substances that

cause cancer, that have arsenic, benzene, formaldehyde, cadmium,

every time you smoke, those things go into the air and children in a

car in a space they cannot get out of and with concentrations of smoke

rising over time. In a house, it is possible for people not to be in the

room where smoking is happening, the area is much more diffuse.

The situation was not comparable. So we have no plans to cut this? We're

talking about smoking cars, nothing else. When I'm going to make up your

mind on one a change and there is necessary?

The UK Government were defeated last week on a Labour amendment. There is

to be a vote in the House of Commons this week.

We'll see whether they -- there may be opportunities to change the way

ways. Wales has been overtaken. You have been campaigning for a long

time and now Westminster are pushing ahead with votes in parliament.

It was the Welsh evidence that was cited time and again in the house of

lawyers debate showing how Wales has been in the forefront. If there are

changes in Westminster, the Welsh government will not want children in

Wales to have any lower level of protection than is available to

children elsewhere in the UK. The charity ten of us would like to

see an outright ban on smoking. To agree? There is a different set of

arguments were out of arguments where adults are by themselves in a

car, doing no harm to anyone other than themselves.

At the moment, we're talking about children who are not in a position

to make decisions for themselves. Let me ask about e-cigarettes. He

see a lot of adverts are those in Cardiff. But you make of those

adverts? I am very anxious about

e-cigarettes. I hear the arguments that they can be a useful tool for

people who are already heavily addicted to smoking and a way of

helping them to reduce that addiction.

I don't dismiss those arguments. But I am far more worried that the

e-cigarettes movement is really normalising smoking and glamorising

smoking. It contains nicotine and that is highly addictive. We don't

want e-cigarettes to become a gateway to real cigarettes.

Should the restrictions on e-cigarettes be exactly the same as

the restrictions on tobacco? Next week I will try and persuade the

assembly to take powers to prevent the provision of e-cigarettes to

children aged under 18 and there are other things that we can do here in

Wales. We have a Public health White Paper

which we will publish in the next few weeks and that will contain

further proposals in this field. But this is a rapidly moving picture and

we need a wider debate with a wider public.

The evidence in a unclear on whether they are harmful not, so you're not

ruling it out, that they should be in the same bracket as tobacco and

is subject to the same rules? There is a very powerful case for being

exactly that. In New Zealand, you could only buy a e-cigarettes at a

pharmacy because they regard them as to be governed as a medicine.

There are things we can do in Wales and we want to explore as a public.

But as this is such a new area and the evidence is unclear, we don't

want to throw the baby out with the bath water and prevent their use

when they can be useful. We have to leave

when they can be useful. We have to Not a complete denial! Hopefully a

Conservative mayor again. Not a good week for David Cameron on

the tricky European front last week. President Hollande said he was not

interested in major treaty reform for 2017. That is when Mr Cameron

hopes to hold his in-out referendum. And the private member's bill to put

that referendum on the statute bill was killed by Labour and Lib Dem

peers in the Lords. James Wharton was the Tory MP behind the bill, and

he joins me now. What happens now? It is out of my hands what happens

now, because Labour and the Liberal Democrats conspired in the Lords to

kill off my bill. One of the options is for another private member to

bring a bill forward when they have the next private member's bill at,

and we can try again. The prime minister has indicated that he will

support that. But whatever happens, it will be in the Conservative

manifesto at the next election. Do you accept that cost this is Tory

policy and not government policy that the government policy elite

macro cannot bring forward a bill? That is the problem. The Liberal

Democrats, despite having promised a referendum in their manifesto at the

last election, now will not allow government time for a bill to

enshrine that in law. That was why I brought it forward as a private

member's bill. David Cameron and the Conservative Party through

everything behind that. To many people's surprise, we got it through

all the House of Commons stages. Sadly, to their discredit, Labour

and Liberal Democrat peers, doing the bidding of their masters in the

Commons, is conspired to kill it. Do you accept that it is Conservative

policy, but not government policy, that you could not use the

Parliament act to get this through the Lords? That is not the case. The

Parliament act is clear that if a public bill passes through the House

of Commons twice in one Parliamentary period, there is a

certain amount of time that has to be between both bills being

presented. There are some procedural steps to be overcome, but there is

no legal reason why the Parliament act could not come into effect. I

was talking about you not having a majority in this case. That remains

to be seen. We saw previously that Labour and the Liberal Democrats

sent enough people to frustrate its progress to make it as difficult as

possible, but not huge numbers to vote against it. On a Friday, huge

numbers of MPs do not attend normally. Getting that number might

prove difficult. The Parliament act, which is a bit of an atomic bomb in

constitutional terms, if that was used, they would turn up to vote

against you. Is it not the case that after the countryside Alliance tried

to involve the courts in the hunting ban that it was made clear that the

Parliament act was not to be used for constitutional issues? I don't

think we know how many would turn up and we don't know how they would

vote. One of the things that has been revealed as I have gone through

the process of getting this bill to get a referendum through the Commons

is that there are big splits in the Labour Party. One of the reasons we

did not see them turning up in large numbers to stop this bill from

happening was that Ed Miliband knew that if he tried to lead his own MPs

through the lobbies to block a bill, the only purpose of which is

to let Britain decides to give people a say on membership of the

union, a lot of his MPs may not have followed him. It is all fantasy

politics anyway. The French president has made clear that he has

no interest in treaty change this side of 2017. He would need a

referendum as well . And he needs that like a hole and had. Merkel is

not keen, as she is in coalition with the social Democrats. Without

the French or the Germans, it will not happen, end of story. The policy

is that we will try to negotiate on getting a better deal. I hear what

you are saying, but I don't recognise it as reality. We have a

strong bargaining position. But whatever the result of that

negotiation, it will be put in an in-out vote to the Britain people.

It is time people were allowed to decide. It has been over a

generation since we last had a say. David Cameron has committed to

delivering that referendum. The Conservative Party will have it in

our next manifesto for the election. Whatever happens to my bill or any

other of the bill that comes forward. If people want a

referendum, the only party that can deliver that in British politics is

the Conservatives. Let me bring the panel in. Nick, where is this going?

It is clear to me and anyone who follows European politics that there

is no appetite for major treaty change in the short run,

particularly for the kind of major changes that Vista Cameron says he

is going to get, and yet the Tories are talking about Europe again when

they should be talking about the economy. And Francois Hollande is

looking at 2017, the year we are meant to have this referendum. There

will be a French presidential election going on, and Nicolas

Sarkozy will be back in play by then. But James has an interesting

point, which is that it is down to Angela Merkel. She would be more

receptive to David Cameron's ideas of reform than people assume. She

has looked over the edge at a Europe without the UK and said, that is not

acceptable, and I am willing to pay a price, not any price, but a price

to keep the UK in the European Union. And the French, because the

UK and France are the only serious military powers in Europe, will

eventually come to that position. So there is more support for David

Cameron than people assume. The French are also not a strong

position in terms of the euro and French economy. The Foreign Office

seem a bit more optimistic about it. Of course they are. Douglas Hurd

once told me, we are winning the arguments on the single currency. Of

course anything from the Foreign Office comes with a health warning,

but if David Cameron had won a majority and was determined to

renegotiate, he is in a strong position with Merkel. There is a

possibility that the French could eventually be talked around. So it

is not entirely bleak on that front for Cameron. When do the Tory party

managers say, look, stop banging on about Europe again? The economy is

going away. We still have an electoral mountain to climb. Let's

just talk about that and not be divided. They should have done that

some time ago. It is already too late. The Tories need a seven point

lead in the polls to get image are tea. The way things are, that would

require a huge change from where we are now . It is very unlikely to

happen. So all this is happening in some bizarre imaginary space with

wonderful rainbows and sunshine. But we can detect the beginnings of a

shift in the last couple of weeks. If you talk to Tory backbenchers,

Douglas Carswell is now saying in public that it is time to stop the

fighting. If they are to get even close to winning the election, they

can't do it if they are all against each other. I don't think it is an

imaginary space. It is likely that David Cameron will have the largest

party in the election. If it is a hung parliament and it is the

Liberal Democrats and the Conservative Party, David Cameron

will save to Nick Clegg we gave you an AV referendum, I am having this

referendum. And it will be difficult for Nick to say no. Let me go back

to Mr Wharton. You are going to get a referendum in the manifesto. Other

than Ken Clarke, everybody wants it. So why don't you just banked that

and get behind the leadership Institute causing endless problems

and coming across as a Europe accessed, divided party? I am

absolutely behind the leadership. David Cameron announced the policy I

am trying to bring forward in this bill. It is in line with the speech

he gave this time last year. But getting that commitment into law

will help to kick-start the negotiation process and mean

everyone will know where we stand. But whatever happens, the

Conservatives are committed to delivering a referendum. And to

address the point that we talk about Europe too much, that is not the

case. We have a good message on the economy, on tackling immigration and

reforming welfare. There is more to do, but this is also an important

part of policy. But at a time when the economic news seems to be

turning in your direction, you are talking about the European

referendum. Your backbench colleagues are trying to change the

Immigration Bill every which way. Dominic Rather is putting in an

amendment is and Mr Nigel Mills has been on this programme, putting in

amendments that are clearly illegal. How is that helpful? The fact is

that we are in a coalition, so there are areas of policy where

Conservatives might want to go further and we are not able to do

that. In other areas, we are delivering good reforms. But this is

not a matter of going further. The mill 's amendment was clearly a

contravention of the Treaty of Rome. That is where you get the headlines

from. Some of your colleagues have a death wish? Would they rather have a

Miliband government if the choice is an impure Cameron one instead? I

don't think anyone in their right mind would rather have a Miliband

government. Then why are they behaving that way? We have had some

disagreements into the leak and debate within the party, but it was

talked about on the panel just now. The Conservative Party is behind

David Cameron and focused on winning the next election. Europe is one

part of that. We have policies in a range of areas, but we are getting

back on the right track. Thank you for being patient with us.

Is this ghost story going to go somewhere? Mr Laws is talking

through surrogates at the moment, but there is a strategy by the Lib

Dems make these differential points now. I think it is fantastic

coalition sports and entertaining, but in terms of out there, it has

almost no traction whatsoever. I don't think any voters know who

Baroness Morgan is and it sounds like one but politicians shouting at

another bunch of politicians about their ability to give each other

jobs. There is a larger point about the way Michael Gove runs his

government. He is notoriously a very polite man surrounded by Rottweiler

is, his advisers. He has made enemies of a lot of people in the

media, and some of that will come back on him in the next 18 months.

We shall see if Mr Laws himself sticks his head above the parapet.

That is it for this week. The Daily Politics is on throughout the week

at midday on BBC Two, except on Wednesdays, when we are on at

11:30am. I will be back next week at the same time. Remember, if it is

Sunday, it's the Sunday Politics. This Bonnaire... The Spanish say

he has broken your treaty. That man will go on

to destroy thousands of lives and there's not a damn thing

we can do to stop him.