20/05/2012 Sunday Politics West Midlands

In the Midlands: we reveal the financial splits in the classroom

as MPs back calls for the shire counties to get more money for the

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1797 seconds

Hello. I am Patrick Burns. We are mixing an exotic cocktail this week

bringing together central and local government. An explosive

combination or a complementary combination? Let us find out.

Councillor Darren Cooper is the Labour leader of Sandwell County

Council. Harriett Baldwin is the Conservative MP for West

Worcestershire. You as a public sector worker, Darren, as an NHS

mental health nurse, also a council leader, you see this great debate

over public sector pensions from both sides. Where do you stand on

this question about whether they are affordable? I think they are

affordable and I think that when I took up my original role as a

mental health nurse in 1981, I signed a contract and it it said

that I would get a decent pension when I retired. The current attacks

that are perceived by public sector workers by the government on the

pension situation is leading to a lot of discontent. Your government

stands accused of going back on a commitment that successive

governments have made over the years to public sector workers like

Darren. We all want our public sector workers to have good

pensions. The thing that has changed is that we are all living

longer. One person in three born today, one goal, will live to 100.

That is why we need to retire later and pay more during our working

lives. Is there not a basic issue of fairness? I think that we all

want to make sure that people retire with good pensions and the

public sector defined benefit pension is a good pension. We want

to make sure that is sustainable for all generations to come. That

is the key at the end of the day. Everybody should be, irrespective

of whether you work in the public or private sector, everyone should

be able to retire on a good pension. The bottom line for people in the

public sector is that they feel what is being suggested as a

further tax. Coming up a little later, are city kids worth more

than their country cousins? Why should a child at school in a shire

county have �1,000 less spent on them than those in the town just up

the road? Our top story this week, he was the

inspiration behind people power in a Wyre Forest and now he is

targeting Stafford. Dr Richard Taylor hopes his new political

party National Health Action will mark a general election challenge

against coalition MPs who as he puts its blindly followed the

government's top-down health policies. The former independent MP

declared his intentions just as the Health Secretary was having his

encounter with the nurses at their annual conference. Beware, there is

for photography in this report. Clinical staffing levels have gone

up. The issue of the balance of staff... I am sorry, it has, by

nearly 4000. With his characteristically high

embarrassment threshold, Andrew Lansley was resolutely upbeat has

is, if -- policies came under fire at RCN's annual conference. He is

convinced that a bigger role for GPs and wider competition

throughout it will be its salvation. But the man who sensationally

defeated all of the main parties over Kidderminster Hospital's

downgrading is now going to take on the coalition and people much --

Polish and MPs. One that comes to mind is Stafford. We will be

perhaps contacting them and wondering if we can affiliate with

them. I would like to dream that we can contest 2030. I do not know.

They will be very carefully selected. Echoes of the Referendum

Party's decapitation strategy designed to unseat Conservatives 15

years ago. Four or Jimmy Goldsmith's billions, they failed

to gain eight single seat. Wyre Forest showed Dr Taylor can be a

winner albeit bent a seat where half was the only show in town.

Fighting up to 30 in a national campaign dominated by a wider range

of issues might be a tougher proposition. For anyone with a

message to get across, a first- past-the-post general-election may

be about the hardest way of doing Whatever became of the Jury Team or

Veritas? Do not write in. We are also joined by Calum Paton, the

Professor of Public Policy at Keele University and a former chairman of

the North Staffordshire Hospital Trust. I suppose it is difficult

for a new party starting up to fight an election challenge but if

anyone can do it, Dr Taylor can. guess that is right. He had a great

success in Kidderminster and Wyre Forest. That was a single-issue

campaign. This time around what he has got to do is intervene in a

general election across a wider canvas but I think these reforms to

the English NHS, not the rest of the UK, Aso a necessary and I think

that come the next election the funding crisis of the NHS will have

bitten so deep that in fact he will have a receptive national as well

as local audience. What he has to do is be careful with his targeting,

as I am sure he knows, and made sure he does not intervene where

Labour has a chance of beating the coalition or where anti coalition

Lib Dems have a chance of beating the Tories. How does he achieve

that? There is the possibility he could split the boat that is

hostile to the government's policies are -- split the vote.

is the law of unintended consequences in first-past-the-post

elections but that is not an argument for not meeting -- making

a stand. What he has to do is make it clear that he is fighting on a

broad canvas and the that he is fighting not in a partisan sense

but at the same time making sensible calculations. He will do

that, I have no doubt, to the best of his ability. The success

criteria will be keeping this issue of Andrew Lansley's steam rolling

reforms are live as an example of this arrogant government's policy.

We are hearing quite a lot of hostile words about your government

both from the professor and Dr Taylor. Do you have a word

specifically for your party colleague in Stafford Hook has

obviously been singled out as top of the hit-list as far as Dr Taylor

is concerned? He has done a fantastic job representing his

constituentss over the Stafford Hospital issues. These reforms are

about abolishing Primary Care Trust and strategic health authorities,

giving the power to commission health services to the front line,

two doctors and nurses, giving public health budgets to people

like Darren and allowing a layer of middle management, 100% increase in

the number of managers under the previous government, to be fed

through to frontline services. how seriously do you take what

would obviously be a carefully targeted threat to coalition MPs?

They will think long and hard about how they go about this. Is there

slogan going to be, bring back Primary Care Trust? What do we want,

strategic help the parties? When do we want them? Now. What patients

care about is the treatment they get in their local communities and

I think with the doctors in my area looking really enthusiastic about

commissioning the services and improving things for patients it

will be patients who are voting at the next election. You are a health

professional, Darren. Maybe Dr Taylor should sign you up. Can I

say first and foremost I do not think we need any other political

parties. We have a political party that has stood up and will continue

to stand up for the NHS. But it might do damage to the other two

big parties and were bound to your advantage? No, one is sure, a

single identity parties like the Green Party, -- one issue. They are

embroiled in one issue. One people elect governments, they want a

government that is competent, that will deliver and a government that

is going to maintain its promises. Unfortunately, this government has

fallen short of that. Let me ask you both about greater independence,

greater competition. How is the public going to be convinced that

it will deliver by 2015? The public will have to be convinced by seeing

better-quality so if they are treated faster and more

responsibly... I have huge confidence that my local community

hospitals in West Worcestershire, the local acute hospital, they will

rise to the challenge. Calum Paton, do you go along with that? What

will the NHS look like? question is not Harriett's joke

about restoring... New Labour did a lot of good things but

unfortunately Harriett's party is creating the mother of all

reorganisations and anything that New Labour did is dwarfed by this

monumental folly. If the election is not forced on -- fought on

health alone, it will be dominated by the wider economic question.

agree but I have this feeling... You are right, everyone says the

NHS will be top of the tree in the election and it never is. This time

around in 2015 up the economy will be number one but part of that will

be what if the economy is doing to public services. The Tory-led

coalition is making a trip on the public. It is saying we are not

cutting the NHS but we are freezing its spending. We have to draw a

line at this part of the conversation. Thank you, Calum

Paton. Some of our biggest local

authorities are calling on the government to plug a �100 million

gap in at school funding. It is an injustice they say that schools

receive such varying amounts of money for the pupils they teach.

For example, the government pays �1,000 a year more for a charge to

go to school in Birmingham than it does in Rostov. -- in Worcester.

It is a stressful time of year. This 16-year-old boy has got his

GCSEs coming up. Christopher Whitehead is a comprehensive with a

wide range of pupils from a variety of backgrounds. Within its

catchment area lies one of the most deprived wards in the West Midlands.

Despite factors like these, schools and Worcestershire are the 5th

worst funded in the country. In fact, children in this county

have around �1,000 less spent on their education every year and a

pupil in Birmingham. -- than a pupil in Birmingham. I envy the

head teachers in Birmingham because they have a huge opportunity to

recruit the best staff, pay more than we do, use the money

creatively. We could really do with that money. It is year on year but

we are falling behind other schools. One of those schools in Birmingham

which is significantly better funded is this one, Perry Beaches.

It used to be a failing school but thanks to its head teacher it is

now rated outstanding. Some think the headteacher insists is not

purely down to the extra cash. is a school that has been hugely

successful with the same amount of money as it always and ever has had.

The difference has been the way in which the money has been utilised

and the way in which the money has been led to support students'

learning. The funding gap does stretch right across the West

Midlands. In Worcestershire, high- school pupils have an average of

�4,600 spent on their education The government has acknowledged

there is a problem. It has upset some of its own backbenchers saying

nothing will be done this side of a general election. It is up to us as

local MPs to push as hard as we can to make the case for changes to be

made now. It is not acceptable to put the problem of having

acknowledged that the funding system is flawed and we are not

getting a fair deal. We want fairness and progress before the

next election. With frustrations still bubbling under the surface,

surely the government will be hoping its move to postpone a

decision on school funding will not backfire.

An expose of assignment there from our reporter armed only with a

marker pen. Harriett your colleague is obviously getting pretty

impatient. Do you share that view? I am completely backing him on this

because it is something we feel very strongly about in

Worcestershire. We have �1,000 less than our neighbouring schools in

Birmingham per pupil per year. would cost the Exchequer... It is

clearly harder to do in a time when resources are wider -- widely

constrained. The pupil premium is set at a fixed amount across the

whole country. I would like to see the amount for every pupil to be

the same across the country and then to reflect the differences in

salaries in places like London or perhaps the levels of deprivation

coming through the pupil premium. Then things like special

educational needs and other things like English language needs should

be reflected separately. In the meantime, the authority is getting

�700 a head on average more than in it Harriett's. How can that be

right? The priority has to be where the Maddie is needed. This is

indicative of everything Michael Gove does. He makes a dog's

breakfast... You had a run-in over Building Schools for the Future. He

says he has a better scheme now and the old scheme was bureaucratic.

Let me clear it up. �150 million has gone out of the education

economy in Sandwell if you take Building Schools for the Future.

The intervention funds we used to get, we have got a proven track

record of really getting schools are moving in the right direction.

We will end up with about �6 million over the next couple of

years for Sandwell. That is nothing compared to the 150 million...

Questions for both of you, a stalk in it was stuck or parts of

Hereford -- a school in a part of Hereford can have the same inner-

city problems but the basket case of a formula does not allow it to

be expressed because the but but but the formula is completely

outdated and opaque and incomprehensible to the majority of

people. Only recently they took out 27 factors... But you are not going

to do anything about it until the next election. We are pushing hard

on this. We are aiming to get a fairer funding on an ongoing basis

for the income for schools. Is he open to persuasion? I would hope

that Harriett would have a word in Michael Gove's the next time she

bumps into him. Every time I do, are asking the same point. We do

not want to talk about Michael Gove or vote but it there does need to

be a reflection on the formula. Time now for the rest of this

political week in the Midlands in 60 seconds.

Just weeks after it was given the green light by Government Ministers,

HS2 is now rated as red-amber by civil servants. Protesters say it

is time to scrap the London to Birmingham line.

Not for sale, that is the message from West Midlands's police as it

puts on hold plans to sell off parts of the service to a private

firm. The number of people out of work is

down to 228,000, a rate of 8.5%. It is the third quarter in a road that

numbers have fallen. A Gloucestershire campaign group

wants academy schools to follow guidelines designed to tackle

childhood obesity. Going green, the party so long

associated with tree-hugging and muesli is making serious headway.

The Green Party now have 13 councillors in the region after the

local elections and the defection of a Liberal Democrat in Solihull.

Over the last two years, the Liberal Democrats have moved away

from what I think of a as some of their core values.

13 it Green councillors, it is not exactly a tidal wave. There is one

new one in was stuff. It is a rebuff to the self proclaimed

greenest government ever which is actually going back on the claim.

There are lots of small parties having their moment in the sun. In

Germany, the pirate party has got 11% in the polls. In between

general elections sometimes the smaller parties get a protest vote.

Protest vote says Harriett. It will not go to Labour, is it? They may

be disaffection with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats

but it is not going to you? dispute that because if you look at

the local election results in my own borrow we did very well.

Birmingham is now a Labour council as is doubly. But I think there is

a word of caution here for all of the big political parties. We need

to reconnect with the public in a positive way. Is that not a very

important point. The lesson of these elections, we have seen it

with the male role results as well, there is a rejection. -- we have

seen it with the results of the mayor elections. You have got to

focus on getting the economy right and then people will give us their

backing. We will see. Time will tell. That is about it from us in

the Midlands. My thanks to Darren Cooper and Harriett Baldwin. Next

week our guests will be Paul Uppal the Conservative MP for