12/01/2014 Sunday Politics West Midlands

Good morning, welcome. 2014 is barely under way, and the

coalition is fighting over cuts. Nick Legg says Tory plans to balance

the books would hit the poorest hardest. He will not say what he

will cut. That is the top story. Chris Grayling called for a

completely new deal with Europe as he battles will rings from the

European Court of Human Rights. He joins me.

Labour promises to shift house-building up a gear, but how

will they be serious. Have cuts left to the

service being overstretched? With me for the duration, a top trio

of political pundits, Helen Lewis, Jan and Ganesh and Nick Watt. They

will be tweeting faster than France or long scoots through Paris. Nick

Clegg sticks to his New Year resolution to sock it to the Tories,

the is how he described Tory plans for another 12 billion of cuts on

welfare after the next election You cannot say, as the Conservatives

are, that we are all in it together and then say that the welfare will

not make any additional contributions from their taxes if

there is a Conservative government after 2015 in the ongoing effort to

balance the books. We are not even going to ask that very wealthy

people who have retired who have benefits, paid for by the

hard-pressed taxpayers, will make a sacrifice. The Conservatives appear

to be saying only the working age pork will be asked to make

additional sacrifices to fill the remaining buckle in the public

finances. Nick Legg eating up on the Tories

a, happens almost every day. I understand it is called aggressive

differentiation. Will it work for them? It has not for the past two

years. This began around the time of the AV referendum campaign, that is

what poisoned the relations between the parties. They have been trying

to differentiation since then, they are still at barely 10% in the

polls, Nick Clegg's personal ratings are horrendous, so I doubt they will

do much before the next election. It is interesting it has been combined

with aggressive flirtation with Ed Balls and the Labour Party. There

was always going to be some sort of rapprochement between them and the

Labour Party, it is in the Labour Party's interests, and it is intent

macro's interests, not to be defined as somebody who can only do deals

with the centre-right. A colleague of yours, Helen, told me there was

more talk behind closed doors in the Labour Party high command, they have

to think about winning the election in terms of being the largest party,

but not necessarily an overall majority. There is a feeling it was

foolish before the last election not to have any thought about what a

coalition might be, but the language has changed. Ed Miliband had said, I

cannot deal with this man, but now, I have to be prismatic, it is about

principles. Even Ed Balls. Nick Clegg had specifically said that Ed

Balls was the man in politics that he hated. He said that was just a

joke. Of course, it is about principles, not people! When Ed

Balls said those nice things about Nick Clegg, he said, I understood

the need to get a credible deficit reduction programme, although he

said Nick Clegg went too far. The thing about Nick Clegg, he feels

liberated, he bears the wounds from the early days of the coalition and

maybe those winds will haunt him all the way to the general election But

he feels liberated, he says, we will be the restraining influence on both

the Conservatives, who cannot insure that the recovery is fair, and the

Labour Party, that do not have economic red ability. He feels

relaxed, and that is why he is attacking the Tories and appearing

pretty relaxed. He could also be falling into a trap. The Tories

think what they suggesting on welfare cuts is possible. The more

he attacks it, the more Tories will say, if you gave us an overall

majority, he is the one it. He keeps taking these ostensibly on popular

positions and it only makes sense when you talk to them behind the

scenes, they are going after a tiny slice of the electorate, 20%, who

are open to the idea of voting Lib Dem, and their views are a bit more

left liberal than the bulk of the public. There is a perverse logic in

them aggressively targeting that section of voters. In the end, ten

macro's problem, if you do not like what this coalition has been doing,

you will not vote for somebody who was part of it, you will vote for

the Labour Party. The Tories are too nasty, Labour are to spendthrift,

Lib Dem, a quarter of their vote has gone to Labour, and that is what

could hand the largest party to Labour. That small number of voters,

soft Tory voters, the problem for the Liberal Democrats is, if you

fight, as they did, three general elections to the left of the Labour

Party, and at the end of the third, you find yourself in Colour Vision

with the Conservatives, you have a problem.

Chris Grayling is a busy man, he has had to deal with aid riot at HM

Prison Oakwood, barristers on strike and unhappy probation officers

taking industrial action. Prison works. It ensures that we are

protected from murderers, muggers and rapists. It makes many who are

tempted to commit crime think twice. Traditional Tory policy on criminal

justice and prisons has been tough talking and tough dealing. Not only

have they tended to think what they are offering is right, but have had

the feeling, you thinking what they thinking. But nearly two decades

after Michael Howard's message, his party, in Colour Vision government,

is finding prison has to work like everything else within today's

financial realities. The Justice Secretary for two years after the

election had previous in this field. Ken Clarke. Early on, he signalled a

change of direction. Just binding up more and more people for longer

without actively seeking to change them is, in my opinion, what you

would expect of Victorian England. The key to keeping people out of

prison now, it seems, is giving them in a job, on release. Ironically,

Ken Clarke was released from his job 15 months ago and replaced by Chris

Grayling. But here, within HM Prison Liverpool, Timpson has been working

since 2009 with chosen offenders to offer training and the chance of a

job. Before you ask, they do not teach them keep cutting in a

category B prison. The Academy is deliberately meant to look like a

company store, not a prison. It helps. You forget where you are at

times, it feels weird, going back to a wing at the end of the day. It is

different. A different atmosphere. That is why people like it. Timpson

have six academies in prisons, training prisoners inside, and

outside they offer jobs to ex-offenders, who make up 8% of

their staff. It has been hard work persuading some governors that such

cooperation can work. I have seen a dramatic change positively, working

with prisoners, particularly in the last five years. They understand now

what business's expectation is. Timpson do not just employ

offenders, but as one ex-prisoner released in February and now

managing his own store says, the point is many others will not employ

offenders at all. From what I have experienced, on one hand, you have

somebody with a criminal conviction, on the other, somebody who does not

have one, so it is a case of favouring those who have a clean

record. Anybody with a criminal conviction is passed to one side and

overlooked. That, amongst myriad other changes to prison and how we

deal with prisoners, is on the desk of the man at the top. Ever since

Chris Grayling became Secretary of State for Justice, he has wanted to

signal a change of direction of policy, and he is in a hurry to make

radical reforms across the board, from size and types of prisons to

probation services, reoffending rates, legal aid services, and there

has been opposition to that from groups who do not agree with him.

But what might actually shackle him is none of that. It is the fact that

he is in government with a party that does not always agree with him,

he has to abide by the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights,

and in those famous words, there is no money left. We would like to go

further and faster. I would like him too, but we are where we are. If the

Liberal Democrats want to be wiped out at the next election based on

what they believe, that is fair enough. We accept there has to be

savings, but there are areas where we feel that there is ideological

driven policy-making going on, and privatising may not save any money

at all, and so does not make any sense. The question is, we'll all of

that means some of Chris Grayling's reforms need closer inspection?

Chris Grayling joins me now. Welcome. We have a lot to cover If

you get your way, your own personal way, will be next Tory manifesto

promise to withdraw from the European Convention of human

rights? It will contain a promise for radical changes. We have to

curtail the role of the European court here, replace our human rights

act from the late 1990s, make our Supreme Court our Supreme Court

they can be no question of decisions over riding it elsewhere, and we

have to have a situation where our laws contain a balance of rights and

responsibilities. People talk about knowing their rights, but they do

not accept they have responsible it is. This is what you said last

September, I want to see our Supreme Court being supreme again... That is

clear, but let's be honest, the Supreme Court cannot be supreme as

long as its decisions can be referred to the European Court in

Strasbourg. There is clearly an issue, that was raised recency -

recently. We have been working on a detailed reform plan, we will

publish that in the not too distant future. What we will set out is a

direction of travel for a new Conservative government that will

mean wholesale change in this area. You already tried to reform the

European Court, who had this declaration in 2012, do you accept

that the reform is off the table? There is still a process of reform,

but it is not going fast enough and not delivering the kind of change we

need. That is why we will bring forward a package that for the

different from that and will set a different direction of travel. We

are clear across the coalition, we have a different view from our

colleagues. You cannot be half pregnant on this, either our

decisions from our Supreme Court are subject to the European Cup or not,

in which case, we are not part of the European court. I hope you will

see from our proposals we have come up with a sensible strategy that

deals with this issue once and for all. Can we be part of the

Strasbourg court and yet our Supreme Court be supreme? That is by point,

we have to curtail the role of the court in the UK. I am clear that is

what we will seek to do. It is what we will do for this country. But

how? I am not going to announce the package of policies today, but we

will go into the next election with a clear strategy that will curtail

the role of the European Court of Human Rights in the UK. The

decisions have to be taken in Parliament in this country. Are you

sure that you have got your own side on this? Look at what the Attorney

General says. I would be asking Strasberg a

different question to that. If the best in class, he is saying is

enough is enough, actually somebody in Strasberg should be asking if

this has gone the way it should have done. I would love to see wholesale

reform in the court tomorrow, I m not sure it is going to happen which

is why we are going to the election with a clear plan for this country.

Would you want that to be a red line in any coalition agreement? My

mission is to win the next election with a majority. But you have to say

where your red lines would be. We have been very clear it is an area

where we don't agree as parties but in my view the public in this

country are overwhelmingly behind the Conservative party. 95

Conservative MPs have written to the Prime Minister, demanding he gives

the House of Commons the authority to veto any aspect of European Union

law. Are you one of the people who wanted to sign that letter but you

couldn't because you are minister? I haven't been asked to sign the

letter. We need a red card system for European law. I'm not convinced

my colleagues... I don't think it is realistic to have a situation where

one parliament can veto laws across the European Union. I understand the

concerns of my colleagues, but when we set out to renegotiate our

membership, we have got to deliver renegotiation and deliver a system

which is viable, and I'm not convinced we can have a situation

where one Parliament can prevent laws across the whole European

Union. So you wouldn't have signed this letter? I'm not sure it is the

right approach. I support the system I just talked about. Iain Duncan

Smith has suggested EU migrants coming to work in this country

should have to wait for two years before they qualify for welfare

benefits, do you agree? Yes, I think there should be an assumption that

before you can move from one country to another, before you can start to

take back from that country's social welfare system, you should have made

a contribution to it. I spent two and a half years working in Brussels

trying to get the European Commission to accept the need for

change. There is a groundswell of opinion out there which is behind

Iain Duncan Smith in what he is saying. I think we should push for a

clear system that says people should be able to move from one country to

get a job, but to move to another country to live off the state is not

acceptable. You are planning a new 2000 capacity mega prison and other

smaller presence which will be run by private firms. After what has

happened with G4S, why would you do that? No decision has been made

about whether it will be public or private. What do you think it will

be? I'm not sure yet. There is no clear correlation over public and

private prisons and whether there are problems or otherwise. Oakwood

is in its early stages, it has had teething problems at the start, but

the rate of disturbance there is only typical for an average prison

of its category. If you take an example of Parc prison in Wales a

big private run prison, run by G4S, when it was first launched under the

last government it had teething problems of the same kind as Oakwood

and is now regarded as one of the best performing prisons. Why would

you give it to a private company then? We have only just got planning

permission for the so we will not be thinking about this for another few

years. Some of the companies who run prisons are under investigation with

dreadful track records. In the case of G4S, what we have experienced is

acceptable and they have not been able to go ahead with a number of

contracts they might have otherwise got. They are having to prove to the

Government they are fit to win contracts from the Government again.

They are having to pay compensation to the Government and the taxpayer.

What has happened is unacceptable. So why would you give them a 20 0

capacity mega prison? Or anyone like them? It cannot be said that every

private company is bad. In addition to problems at Oakwood, you are

quite unique now in your position that you have managed to get the

barristers out on strike the first time since history began. What

happens if the bar refuses to do work at your new rates of legal aid

and the courts grind to a halt? I don't believe that will happen. When

the barristers came out on strike, three quarters of Crown Courts were

operating normally, 95% of magistrates courts were operating

normally. We are having to take difficult decisions across

government, I have no desire to cut back lately but we are spending over

?2 billion on legal aid at the moment at a time when budgets are

becoming tougher. You issued misleading figures about criminal

barristers, you said that 25% of them earn over ?100,000 per year but

that is their turnover, including VAT. 33% of that money goes on their

expenses, they have to pay for their own pensions and insurance. People

are not getting wealthy out of doing this work. I don't publish figures,

our statisticians do, with caveats in place explaining the situation.

Where you have high-cost cases, where we have taken the most

difficult decisions, we have tried hard in taking difficult decisions

to focus the impact higher up the income scale. But do you accept

their take-home pay is not 100, 00? I accept they have to take out other

costs, although some things like travelling to the court, you and I

and everyone else has to pay for travelling to work. That is net of

VAT. We have had a variety of figures published, some are and some

are not. Let's be clear, the gross figures for fees from legal payments

include 20% VAT. On a week when even a cabinet minister can be fitted up

by the police, don't we all need well-financed legal aid? There is no

chance that as a result well-financed legal aid? There is no

changes people will end up in court unable to defend themselves. We have

said in exceptional circumstances, if you haven't got any money to pay,

we will support you, but there is no question of anyone ended up in

court, facing a criminal charge where they haven't got a lawyer to

defend them. Let's look at how so many dangerous criminals have

managed to avoid jail. Here are the figures for 2012. Half the people

for sexual assault found guilty not jailed. I thought you were meant to

be tough on crime? Those figures predate my time, but since 2010 the

number of those people going to jail has been increasing steadily. If you

put the figures for 2010 on there, you would see a significant change.

We will never be in a position where everybody who commits violence will

end up in jail. The courts will often decided to his more

appropriate to give a community sentence, but the trend is towards

longer sentences and more people going to jail. That maybe but it is

even quite hard to get sent to jail if you do these things a lot, again

and again. In 2012 one criminal avoided being sent to jail despite

having more than 300 offences to his name. 36,000 avoided going to jail

despite 15 previous offences. That is why we are taking steps to

toughen up the system. Last autumn we scrapped repeat cautions. You

could find people getting dozens. As of last autumn, we have scrapped

repeat cautions. If you commit the same offence twice within a two year

period you will go to court. You still might end up not going to

jail. More and more people are going to jail. I cannot just magic another

34,000 prison places. You haven t got room to put bad people in jail?

The courts will take the decisions, and it is for them to take the

decisions and not me, that two men in a bar fight do not merit a jail

sentence. These figures contain a huge amount of offences from the

most minor of offences to the most despicable. Something is wrong if

you can commit 300 offences and still not end up in jail. That's

right, and we are taking steps so this cannot happen any more. Nick

Clegg said this morning you are going to make 12 billion of welfare

cuts on the back of this, he is right, isn't he? People on the

lowest incomes are often not paying tax at all, the rich... But these

cuts will fall disproportionately on average earners, correct? Let's look

at the proposal to limit housing benefit for under 25s. Until today,

after people have left school or college, the live for a time with

their parents. For some, that is not possible and we will have to take

that into account, but we have said there is a strong case for saying

you will not get housing benefit until you are some years down the

road and have properly established yourselves in work. And by

definition these people are on lower than average salaries. Give me a

case in which those on the higher tax band will contribute to the

cuts. We have already put in place tax changes so that the highest tax

rate is already higher than it was in every year of the last

government. The amount of tax.. There is no more expected of the

rich. We will clearly look at future policy and work out how best to

distribute the tax burden in this country and it is not for me to

second-guess George Osborne's future plans, but we need to look at for

example housing benefit for the under 25s. Is it right for those who

are not working for the state to provide accommodation for them?

Thank you for being with us. All three major parties at

Westminster agree there's an urgent need to build more homes for

Britain's growing population. But how they get built, and where, looks

set to become a major battle ground in the run-up to the next general

election. Although 16% more house-builds were

started in 2012/13 than the previous year, the number actually completed

fell by 8% - the lowest level in peacetime since 1920. The Office for

National Statistics estimates that between now and 2021 we should

expect 220,000 new households to be created every year. At his party's

conference last autumn, Ed Miliband promised a Labour government would

massively increase house-building. I will have a clear aim but by the end

of the parliament, Britain will be building 200,000 homes per year

more than at any time for a generation. That is how we make

Britain better than this. The Labour leader also says he'd give urban

councils a "right to grow" so rural neighbours can't block expansion and

force developers with unused land to use it or lose it. The Government

has been pursuing its own ideas including loan guarantees for

developers and a new homes bonus to boost new house-building. But David

Cameron could have trouble keeping his supporters on side - this week

the senior backbencher Nadhim Zahawi criticised planning reforms for

causing "physical harm" to the countryside. Nick Clegg meanwhile

prefers a radical solution - brand new garden cities in the south east

of England. In a speech tomorrow, Labour's shadow housing minister

Emma Reynolds will give more details of how Labour would boost

house-building, and she joins me now. It is not the politicians to

blame, it is the lack of house-builders? We want a vibrant

building industry, and at the moment that industry is dominated by big

house-builders. I want to see a more diverse and competitive industry,

where self build plays a greater role. In France over 60% of new

homes are built by self builders, but small builders build more homes

as well. 25 years ago they were building two thirds of new homes,

now they are not building even a third of new homes. That's because

land policies have been so restrictive that it is only the big

companies who can afford to buy the land, so little land is being

released for house building. I agree, there are some fundamental

structural problems with the land market and that is why we have said

there doesn't just need to be tinkering around the edges, there

needs to be real reforms to make sure that small builders and self

build and custom-built have access to land. They are saying they have

problems with access to land and finance. At the end of the day it

will not be self, small builders who reach your target, it will be big

builders. I think it is pretty shameful that in Western Europe the

new houses built in the UK are smaller than our neighbours. But

isn't not the land problem? France is 2.8 times bigger in land mass and

we are and that is not a problem for them. There is a perception we are

going to build on the countryside, but not even 10% is on the

countryside. There is enough for us to have our golf courses. There is

enough other land for us to build on that is not golf courses. The

planning minister has said he wants to build our National Parks, I am

not suggesting that. The single biggest land border is the public

sector. It is not. There are great opportunities for releasing public

land, that is why I have been asking the government, they say they are

going to release and of public land for tens of thousands of new homes

to be built, but they say they are not monitoring how many houses are

being built on the site. When your leader says to landowners, housing

development owners, either use the land or lose it, in what way will

they lose it? Will you confiscated? This is about strengthening the hand

of local authorities, and they say to us that in some cases,

house-builders are sitting on land. In those cases, we would give the

power to local authorities to escalate fees. This would be the

compulsory purchase orders, a matter of last resort, and you would hope

that by strengthening the hand of local authorities, you could get the

house-builders to start building the homes that people want. Would you

compulsory purchase it? We would give the local authority as a last

resort, after escalating the fees, the possibility and flexible it is

to use the compulsory purchase orders to sell the land on to a

house builder who wants to build houses that we need. Can you name

one report that has come back in recent years that shows that

hoarding of land by house-builders is a major problem? The IMF, the

Conservative mayor of London and the Local Government Association are

telling us that there is a problem with land hoarding. Therefore, we

have said, where there is land with planning permission, and if plots

are being sat on... Boris Johnson says there are 180,000 plots in

London being sat on. We need to make sure the house-builders are building

the homes that young families need. They get planning permission and

sell it on to the developer. There is a whole degree of complicity but

there is another problem before that. That is around transparency

about land options. There is agricultural land that

house-builders have land options on, and we do not know where that is.

Where there is a need for housing, and the biggest demand is in the

south-east of England, that is where many local authorities are most

reluctant to do it, will you in central government take powers to

force these authorities to give it? We have talked about the right to

grow, we were in Stevenage recently. What we have said is we

want to strengthen the hand of local authorities like Stevenage so they

are not blocked every step of the way. They need 16,000 new homes but

they do not have the land supply. What about the authorities that do

not want to do it? They should be forced to sit down and agree with

the neighbouring authority. In Stevenage, it is estimated at

?500,000 has been spent on legal fees because North Hertfordshire is

blocking Stevenage every step of the way. Michael Lyons says the national

interest will have to take President over local interest. Voice cannot

mean a veto. The local community in Stevenage is crying out for new

homes. Do you agree? There has to be land available for new homes to be

built, and in areas like Oxford Luton and Stevenage... Do you agree

with Michael Lyons? The national interest does have to be served

with Michael Lyons? The national will put the five new towns? We have

asked him to look at how we can incentivise local authorities to

come forward with sites for new towns. You cannot tell us where they

are going to be? I cannot. We will have to wait for him. When you look

at the historic figures overall, not at the moment, Private Housing

building is only just beginning to recover, but it has been pretty

steady for a while. The big steady for a while. The big

difference between house-building now and in the past, since Mrs

Thatcher came to power a and including the Tony Blair government,

we did not build council houses. Almost none. Will the next Labour

government embark on a major council has programme? We inherited housing

stock back in 1997... This is important. Will the next Labour

government embark on a major council has programme? We have called on

this government to bring forward investment in social housing. We

want to see an investment programme in social housing, I cannot give you

the figures now. We are 18 months away from the election. Will the

next Labour government embark on a major council house Northern

programme? I want to see a council house building programme, because

there is a big shortage of council homes. That is a guess? Yes. We got

there in the end. -- that is a yes? We will be talking to Patrick homes

in the West Midlands in a moment. You are watching the Sunday

Politics. Coming up in just over 20 minutes, I will look at the week

ahead with our political Hello once again from the Midlands.

I'm Patrick Burns. And we're joined today by two of our eminently

'upwardly`mobile' women politicians. Jill Seymour is a racing certainty

to be elected an MEP in May's European Elections. She's top of

UKIP's West Midlands candidates list. And Emma Reynolds, Labour MP

for Wolverhampton North East, is one of the Guardian newspaper's "rising

stars of 2014". As shadow housing minister, she wants to build five

new towns to help meet demand. Welcome. And only last week in the

Commons, Emma accused the Government of building fewer than half the

number of homes needed to meet that demand here in our part of the

country. She warned that home ownership was becoming harder for

young people and families on low and middle incomes. Fears of a

'house`price bubble' are underlined by figures from the Nationwide

Building Society, showing prices up 6.2% over the past year here. In

Birmingham they're up by 10% year`on`year. Separate findings by

Warwick Business School indicate a 72% risk of a bubble in the west

Midlands. Ministers dismiss suggestions it's being caused by the

Government's Help to Buy programme. Downing Street say almost 750 homes

have been bought, and 6,000 others started, since the mortgage

guarantee scheme came in. Emma, it is easy for you in opposition to

promise new towns but look what happened last time your party was in

government, a storm of protest and your band and the whole thing

because nobody wants houses in their backyard. There has been a growing

gap between demand and supply for decades now and as you have set

out, I said in Parliament we are not building half the number of homes we

need to keep up with demand. That is a real problem for young people and

families. It used to take three years for the average family to save

for a deposit now it takes 20 years or more. We need a real boost of

supply and the problem with Help to Buy is it boosts demand and it could

put up prices even further out of reach. As the chair of the parish

council, how do you feel about a few thousand homes on your doorstep?

We are concerned some of the councils are looking at greenfield

sites, not just green belt sites and they are ignoring the public opinion

and we are against them looking at that avenue.

The past governments have never looked at some of these dying towns

and cities where we could use commercial properties, where there

is dead and empty top floors, a great opportunity to revitalise the

towns and cities by building on those areas.

And thinking about the countryside, the Conservative MP the Stratford

said this issue could be the defining issue, the defining issue

in the countryside in the next general election because of the

demand by developers for space in rural areas.

There are brown field sites in Wolverhampton that are places where

house`builders are building homes, there are greenfield sites around

the country which are suitable for housing and others which are not.

There needs to be the consent from local people for the lands to be

used. We shall see. Coming up: a city on the brink.

Is Wolverhampton really going bust? And who's to blame: spendthrift

Labour councillors? Or a 'slash`and`burn' Conservative`led

Government? We'll have more on this later in the programme. With

apologies to those of you watching in Gloucestershire in the South West

constituency of the European Parliament, most Midlanders will

soon be able to experience democracy on a truly grand scale; by electing

seven MEPs, representing nearly six million people from Ross to Rugby;

Kidsgrove to Kempsey. But will it be a 'breakthough

moment' for the party battling to break`out of Europe? UKIP were

further buoyed`up by the defection to their ranks of two Dudley

Conservative councillors on Friday. Our Stoke political reporter Phil

McCann has been gauging the mood on the streets.

Meet Derrick Huckfield ` he's a rare breed ` one of only a handful of

elected UKIP politicians in the Midlands. He's been a county

councillor in Staffordshire for nearly five years ` he says the

party is about much more than just the EU and immigration. We are going

towards the computer room. He has put council cash into a computer

room. The three main parties are very much the same. They come from

the same educational background, the difference between them is slight.

None of them can be trusted. They are all very similar in what they

say they will do and do. It is difficult to tell one from another.

People have started realising UKIP, by voting UKIP locally and

nationally, they realise UKIP gets the job done. That is what the

Labour Party and the Conservatives and Liberals are doing. He

represents Silverdale in North Staffordshire ` formerly home to one

of the area's biggest collieries ` traditionally a working class Labour

heartland. Here in Staffordshire there are two UKIP councillors, and

there are another two in Worcestershire, plus the two who've

defected from the Tories in Dudley, but it's in Europe where they're

hoping to make real headway in May. In 2009, the Conservatives topped

the poll in the West Midlands with 28% of the vote ` securing two MEPs.

UKIP also won two seats finishing second with 21%. Labour was third

with 17% with the Lib Dems in fourth on 12% ` they got one MEP each. The

case for an independent Britain is strong as ever. The party's come a

long way since LSE professor Alan Sked set it up in 1991. It's been

transformed fringe party to a potential front runner but it's

founding father isn't happy with the way the party has grown. That should

take over from UKIP because UKIP has become reactionary, it has gone

native in Brussels. Perceived wisdom is that the

Conservatives should be most worried by a UKIP surge. So are they? They

are taking votes not from us but all parties. And I think it's a great

pity because I don't think what they are promising if anything they can

actually deliver. There is a complication for UKIP

locally ` both of the MEPs elected last time have left the party. They

also lost councillors in Staffordshire in last year's council

elections, even though their share of the vote went up. Europe's voting

system offers them hope ` will they deliver. A glimpse of our guest Jill

Seymour at the end of Phil McCann's report. But before we throw this

open to her and Emma, let's have an expert view. I've been talking to

the global Chief Executive of the polling organisation YouGov. I began

by asking Stephan Shakespeare, in our Westminster studio, how he

interpreted the remarkably high ratings currently being enjoyed by

UKIP. Well, anything can happen. We saw

the last European elections, around this time UKIP was nowhere and then

when the elections came, they did extremely well. So, they have this

real quality of momentum as they get closer in a European election. We

could possibly see UKIP being the winner of these elections. And even

though that may not be terribly important in Westminster, directly,

it could set of turmoil in the Conservative Party. In the last

European elections, UKIP did pretty well in the West Midlands, two seats

and in a general election they polled 6% and did not come close to

winning seats but they are bullish about getting into Westminster at

the next election. What are their chances? There is a possibility

because they have counsellors and they have built up some support in

particular parts of the country, there was a possibility they could

break through in one or two places but the real effect will be to hurt

the Conservatives in marginal seats. The UKIP do take support from all of

the parties but disproportionately from the Conservatives. Given the

Conservatives are already unable to make a majority in parliament, they

need to win more seats, it looks quite bleak for them. How do you

explain the support they are getting, we know there is a

widespread sense of hostility to the EU, we know there is a

disillusionment with the main Parliamentary parties, we saw that

clearly in the report from Staffordshire so how exactly do you

define where they get support? We know the single most important

thing driving the UKIP vote is a worry about immigration but that's

its self is part of a larger feeling of being left behind, left out and

the Westminster politicians don't understand the concerns on the

street or the ordinary people. This applies to all Westminster

politicians. Nigel Farage gets his big support when his biggest cheers

when he attacks the Westminster political scene. Not so much the

Europe side, not even immigration, it is when he says they are in it

for themselves we are different. As a leading figure in the polling

industry, do you think these ratings are set in concrete or is there a

certain amount of fluidity about the political scene?

There is more fluidity than we have ever had.

We are going into the euro elections and also the pre`general election

cycle, we are not knowing what will happen. The reason for that is have

an improving economy, we have a weak Labour Party suggesting it would be

good for the Conservatives, at the same time we have lots of people

feeling left out of being drawn towards UKIP. The consequence of

that is that Labour could win possibly even win a majority with a

relatively small increase in no vote, on the other hand the

Conservatives if they can make the economy pay, they could also in fact

increase their vote, both things are possible. Most pollsters feel this

is the most fluid situation we have had in living memory.

Jill, he expects UKIP to do well. They might win the European

elections. Apps loony right. We will wipe the

floor. Will cause a total political storm across government and the

board. We will do well. He is also saying it is not at hearts about the

European issue or though there is hostility out there but it is about

this vague sense of disillusionment and the feeling the critical parties

are out of touch with life on the ground.

There is something we are doing right, we are listening and engaging

with the public and the proof is in these by`elections we are doing, in

the West Midlands we are getting 54%, we had one recently at 54% out

of the Midlands. These are council by`elections.

The public are listening to UKIP, not just on European issues, it is

local issues as well. We are covering a cross`section. He

also said, and, that Labour is weak and yet a week Labour Party could be

propelled because of the UKIP factor.

That is a sad indictment of your position.

I disagree with that analysis. We are consistently ahead in the polls.

Only a little bit! Five or 6%.

In some cases more. We have set the political agenda for the last four

months. Ed Miliband in his conference speech in September

promised an energy price freeze, something people are worried about

and set the framework from which all of the other parties and are

scrambling to make some progress. That is the cost of living crisis

affecting families and people across the country. As shadow European

minister until recently yourself, there are genuine European issues,

think about the eurozone, how it impacts on businesses like JCB and

the truth is it will be drowned out, it will be about the domestic

tooling and froing and Punch and Judy politics.

It will depend what happens come May.

It seems a long way away. Five months down attract. I, as you

know, I am an unashamed pro`European, I think one of the

reasons Jaguar Land Rover... It depends when polling is taken. When

there is a conversation about Europe, the Prime Minister did a

speech about Europe, one which I mostly disagreed with but the polls

closed during that time and/or more people saying they wanted to stay in

than leave the European Union. There will be a great risk to investment

if we leave. That is the same rhetoric we have heard for a long

time. People are no falls. Business tends

to agree. Big business is talk that language

but when you talk to smaller businesses they've had enough. I

know that from going around the streets. People know what is going

on. The general consensus is the public are `` they want their say.

This referendum we have been pushing for, we know it will never happen.

The Prime Minister says it will happen.

We want to deliver, we can deliver. It will happen. In May, people have

the opportunity to make their point. The European Elections are only part

of the story of 2014 of course. Thursday 22nd May will also see

polling in 18 of our local authorities. And there's an uncanny

overlap between those elections, and our key Midlands marginal seats in

the general election, less than a year after that.

Dudley has a zoo, a castle and two Parliamentary targets. Dudley

North's Labour majority of just 649 puts it high on the Conservatives

hit list. In Dudley South Labour hope to overturn a Conservative

majority of under 4,000. And our local Parliamentary marginals have

been predominantly two`party affairs. Labour's top ten targets

are all Tory`held apart from Liberal Democrat Birmingham Yardley. And the

Conservatives' top ten are all currently Labour except for Liberal

Democrat Solihull. These places just happen to feature among the 18

councils holding elections in May. Except this time there's a

gate`crasher, the Parliamentary parties Parliamentary party`pooper.

So the bigger parties are fighting on separate fronts at the same time.

UKIP are a party of disaffected voters. A lot of working`class

Labour voters defected to UKIP, the immigration issue in particular and

the state of the economy and living standards. Both parties stand to

suffer in setting key areas. The parliamentary parties must fight on

separate fronts at the same time. If we are going to beat UKIP in Europe

we have do prove what we have achieved in Europe, we have to prove

our commitment to delivering a referendum, a real say for the

people in the West Midlands to decide their future in Europe. We

are the only party delivering on that. The European elections are

ones they do reasonably well in but they get nowhere in the general

election. They cannot win any seats.

And, Jill, he is right, you can do well in European elections but the

evidence is a 6% share and you cannot win a seat in Westminster.

That will not be the case. On May 22 when people vote for UKIP,

they will believe us and keep the consistency. We are making big

inroads now and... How many seats? I don't know, Patrick, I would not

like to make a opinion on that but we are getting existing council is

coming over to UKIP in their droves. We have quite a few things going on.

You will be the first to find out but there is a lot going on. You

have not kept or any peas in the West Midlands.

Zero any peace. None of the UKIP NEPs.

People change their minds. We are going to be strong and we are being

strong. It will happen in the West Midlands. If you think of the

marginals, it is an uphill fight. If you look at Dudley, and other

examples, the Tory marginal seats are the majority 4000. There are

lots of sleep like Dudley North with a small majority which are closer so

far as the Tory target is concerned. People in Wolverhampton and across

the region are disillusioned with this government.

I think they are listening to what we are saying about an energy

freeze, the cost of living, there is a lack of trust in politicians

generally and I regret that and all of the politicians I work with,

whichever party art in it with the right reasons. We are still

suffering from the expenses scandal. We have a real chance in

the West Midlands in Wolverhampton there was a marginal seat on your

list which we can win back and in deadly and elsewhere. What if the

economy starts coming right, your argument is going to start to weaken

and jaw argument, Jill, about the government being disconnected,

people will care less about that as they start offering better about

their prospects. Look, the government wants to

concentrate on that right statistics but what is clear, even if the

economy has started to grow and we should welcome that, people are not

feeling that. That is the problem. I totally

agree, generate the consensus is people are suffering, the economy is

bad, the energy prices are disgusting and it is putting people

in poverty. It is not good.

Now for our round`up of what's been happening in Midlands politics over

the past week, in 60 seconds, it's brought to us today by our

mid`morning presenter on BBC WM 95.6, Adrian Goldberg.

There've been calls for the government to take over the

privately run Oakwood jail near Wolverhampton after a riot. It's the

latest in the series of disturbances.

Picket lines never looked like this before! Lawyers in Birmingham joined

a national walk`out to protest at cuts to legal aid.

A state`owned Chinese firm says it's interested in investing in the rail

projects linked to HS2 in the West Midlands. The China Railway Group

has approached Birmingham City Council.

The Chancellor visited Coleshill car parts maker Sertec to outline some

"hard truths" about the economy. The creation of four hundred jobs there

helped sugar the pill. And Labour`run Wolverhampton City

Council says it's on the brink of insolvency after being asked to find

savings of one hundred and twenty three million pounds. One local MP

says it's partly due to council overspending. Wolverhampton City

Council have debts of ?500 million. The interest on the debt is ?25

million a year. That is the saving the council are looking to do.

He has got a point, this is a story over high spending Labour

authorities mired in debts. I totally disagree with him.

Central government have decided they want smaller local government so why

did the Tories come clean and say they don't want many services at the

local level, they have cut the government grants to Wolverhampton

by 52%. Now they are trying to say if only the council collected

council tax. But there is an overdependence on local services and

the answer is to get the Jaguar Land Rover jobs...

The Labour government was key to getting those jobs.

What is the borrowing he is talking about?

Borrowing is going into putting in place infrastructure that we need,

the only reason Jaguar Land Rover came to Land Rover is because of the

motorway link. We need to build roads.

You are in local government and you are fiscally conservative so no

blank cheque for Wolverhampton. We haven't got an endless pot of

money across the country anyway. I would address the issue where some

of these chief executives in many councils have high salaries and they

are closing care homes and libraries in the community. They should hang

their heads in shame. My thanks to Jill and Emma. Next

week, Telford's Labour MP David Wright will be in BBC Radio

Shropshire's Hot Seat. What with the debate over Accident and Emergency

services, and the introduction of a Council Tax freeze by Telford and

Wrekin's Labour Council, there'll be plenty to talk about from nine

o'clock next Friday morning. And next Sunday, David Gregory`Kumar

will be in this chair. This though is where we rejoin Andrew Neil.

will not be revoked. And I wouldn't want it to go. Thank you, back to

Andrew. Can David Cameron get his way on EU

migration? Will he ever be able to satisfy his backbenchers on Europe?

Is Ed Miliband trying to change the tone of PMQ 's? More questions for

the week ahead. We are joined by Jacob Rees Mogg

from his constituency in Somerset. Welcome to the programme. You one of

the 95 Tory backbenchers who signed this letter? Suddenly. Laws should

be made by our democratically elected representatives, not from

Brussels. How could Europe work with a pick and mix in which each

national parliament can decide what Brussels can be in charge of? The

European Union is a supernatural body that is there for the

cooperation amongst member states to do things that they jointly want to

do. It ought not be there to force -- to enforce uniform rules on

countries that do not want to participate. It is the vision of

Europe that people joined when we signed up to it and came in in 973.

It has accreted powers to itself without having the support of the

public of the member states. This is just a way of preparing the ground

for you to get out of Europe altogether, isn't it? I do not big

so. There is a role for an organisation that does some

coordination and that has trade agreements within it, I do not think

there is a role for a federal state. Europe seems to be dominating the. I

remember your leader telling you not to bang on about Europe, your

backbench colleagues seem to have ignored that. Would you like to

restrict the flow of EU migrants to come to work in this country? Yes. I

think we should have control of our own borders, so we can decide who we

want to admit for the whole world. What we have at the moment is a

restrictive control of people coming from anywhere other than the EU

There is a big decrease in the number of New Zealanders who came in

the last quarter for which figures are available, but a huge increase

in people coming from the continent. Does it really make sense to stop

our second cousins coming so that we can allow people freely to come from

the continent? I do not think so, we need to have domestic control of our

borders in the interests of the United Kingdom. There are still lots

more people coming from the rest of the world than from the European

Union. That has been changing. But there are still more. A lot more.

The permanent residence coming from the European Union are extremely

high. In the period when the Labour Party was in charge, we had to put 5

million people coming here, of whom about 1 billion were from Poland. --

we had 2.5 million people coming here. We have no control over them.

Like the clock behind you, you are behind the times on these figures. I

have stopped the clock for your benefit, because it was going to

chime otherwise! I thought that might be distracting! Only a Tory

backbencher could stop a clock! Helen, when you at this up, it is

preparing to get out, is it not We have had this one bill about a

referendum that seems to have tied us up in knots for months on end. If

Parliament could scrutinise every piece of EU legislation, we would

never get anything else done. It would be incredible. Even Chris

Grayling said earlier that you can not have a national veto on anything

that the EU proposes. I am surprised that Jacob Rees Mogg is talking

about dismantling one of Margaret Thatcher's most important legacies,

the creation of the single market, and the person sent there to dream

it up under Margaret Thatcher said the only way you can run this

sensibly is by not having national vetoes, because if you have that,

guess what will happen? The French will impose lots of protectionist

measures. It was Margaret Thatcher's idea that national

parliaments should never veto. How could you fly in the face of the

lady? Even the great lady makes mistakes. Excuse me, Jacob Rees Mogg

says even Margaret Thatcher makes mistakes! No wonder the clock has

stopped! Even be near divine Margaret made a mistake! But on the

single market, it has been used as an excuse for massive origination of

domestic affairs. We should be interested in free trade in Europe

and allowing people to export and import freely, not to have uniform

regulations, as per the single market, because what that allows is

thought unelected bureaucrats to determine the regular vision. We

want the British people to decide the rules for themselves. If this

makes the single market not work, that is not the problem, because we

can still have free trade, which is more important. If David Cameron is

watching this, I am sure he is, it will be nice for you to come on and

give us an interview, he must be worried. He is beginning to think, I

am losing control. It is a clever letter, the tone is ingratiating and

pleasant, every time, you have stood up to Brussels, you have achieved

something, but the content is dramatic. If you want Parliament to

have a veto, you want to leave the EU, because the definition is

accepting the primacy of European law. The MPs should be clear about

that. It is almost a year since the Europe speech in which David Cameron

committed to the referendum. The political objective was to put that

issue to bed until the next election. It has failed. David

Cameron is going to have to pull off a major miracle in any

renegotiations to satisfy all of this. Yes, it makes me think how

much luckier he has been in coalition with the Liberal

Democrats, because there is a bit of the Tory party that is

irreconcilable to what he wants to do. The Conservative MPs are making

these demands just as David Cameron is seeing the debate goes his way in

Europe. Angela Merkel has looked over the cliff and said, do I want

the UK out? No, they are a counterbalance to France. France one

the UK to leave, but they do not, because they do not want to lose the

only realistic military power Tom other than themselves. Just when the

debate is going David Cameron's way, Jacob Rees Mogg would take us out.

Let me move on to another subject. That is nonsense. The debate is not

beginning to go David Cameron's way. We are having before us on Monday a

bill about European citizenship and spending British taxpayers money so

that Europe can go and say we are all EU citizens, but we signed up to

being a part of a multinational organisation. The spin that it is

going the way of the leader of a political party is one that has been

used before, it was said of John Major, it was untrue then and it is

now. It is, for the continuing deeper integration of the European

Union. I want to ask a quick question. Chris Grayling said to us

that the Tories would devise a way in which the British Supreme Court

would be supreme in the proper meaning of that, but we could still

be within the European Court of Human Rights. Can that circle be

squared? I have no idea, the Lord Chancellor is an able man, and I am

sure he is good at squaring circles. I am not worried about whether we

remain in the convention or not PMQ 's, we saw a bit about this week,

Paul Gorgons had died, so the house was more subdued, but he wants a

more subdued and serious prime ministers questions. Let's remind

ourselves what it was like until now.

What is clear is that he is floundering around and he has no

answer to the Labour Party's energy price freeze. The difference is

John Major is a good man, the Right Honourable gentleman is acting like

a conman. Across the medical profession, they say there is a

crisis in accident and emergency, and we have a Prime Minister saying,

crisis, what crisis? How out of touch can hate the? You do not need

it to be Christmas to know when you are sitting next to a turkey.

It is not a bad line. Is Ed Miliband trying to change the tone of prime

ministers questions? Is he right to do so? The important point is this

was a special prime ministers questions, because everybody was

really sad and by the death of Paul Goggins and in the country, the

legacy of the floods. That was the first question that Ed Miliband

asked about, so that cast a pall over proceedings. When it suits him,

Ed Miliband would like to take a more statesman-like stance, but will

it last? That is how David Cameron started. His first prime ministers

questions, he said to Tony Blair, I would like to support you on

education, and he did in a vote which meant Tony Blair could see off

a naughty operation from Gordon Brown. But it did not last, they are

parties with different visions. Jacob Rees Mogg, would you like to

see it more subdued? I like a bit of Punch and Judy. You need to have

fierce debate and people putting their views passionately, it is

excellent. I am not good at it, I sit there quite quietly, but it is

great fun, very exciting, and it is the most watched bit of the House of

Commons each week. If it got as dull as ditchwater, nobody would pay

attention. Three cheers for Punch and Judy. Ed Miliband is going to

make a major speech on the economy this week. You can now define the

general approach. We had it from Emma Reynolds, we have seen it over

energy prices, this market is bust, the market is not working properly,

and that will therefore justify substantial government intervention.

Intervention which does not necessarily cost money. It is the

deletion and reorganising industries. It constitutes an answer

to the question which has been hounding him, what is the point of

the Labour Party when there is no money left? He says, you do not

spend a huge amount fiscally, but you arrange markets to achieve

socially just outcomes without expenditure. It is quite serious

stance. I am not sure it will survive the rigours of an election

campaign, but it is an answer. Is that an approach, to use broken

markets, to justify substantial state intervention? Yes, and the

other big plank is infrastructure spending. The Lib Dems would not be

against capital investment for info structure will stop Emma Reynolds

talking about house-building, the idea of pumping money into the

economy through infrastructure is something that the Labour Party will

look at. Jacob Rees Mogg, you once thought Somerset should have its own

time zone, and today, you have delivered on that promise! Live on

the Sunday Politics! I try to deliver on my promises!

That is all for today, the Daily Politics is on BBC Two every day

this week, just before lunch. I aren't back next Sunday here on BBC

One at 11am. -- I am back. If it is Sunday, it is the Sunday Politics.