02/02/2014 Sunday Politics West Midlands

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

traffic and travel report. Dutch In the midlands: ten years after

Birmingham was done a banana 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 5 % 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, 1 , 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 3 0

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

Hello. Welcome to the Sunday Politics in the midlands. I am

joined by the Prime Minister's right`hand man and a formal Euro MP

who is hoping to stage a political comeback. He is David Cameron's

parliamentary private secretary. And Labour's lead candidate in the West

Midlands. According to the American chat show horse `` horse show host

Jean Reno, politics is just a stage. Are the main parties just too

uncool for the thespians? Rufus hound announced he is planning to

stand in the forthcoming unit `` European elections. Gavin, what do

you make of this? Is this a gimmick or good for politics? Anything that

brings people 's attention to politics can be a good thing. You

want to see people with no real commitment to the communities. It is

not a joke politics. We hope people go into it with a good art and real

intention to make an improvement. Nina, Rufus has strong issues about

things like the health service. Is there a concern that someone like

him is turning to a small party like this, perhaps a protest groups,

instead of turning to the main political parties. I think it is up

to Rufus as to why he has decided it. What people want in their

elected representative as someone who understands their concerns, we

will stand up and make sure the needs of that local community,

whether it is in the health service, education, and in terms of

investment and jobs, those are the issues. I hope that confining to one

issue is a problem for a politician. Those may be the issues,

but it must be helpful to have a celebrity person on board. That will

help, won't it? I think that is down to this electorate, it features the

person and the electorate. Of course, everybody is looking for a

little bit of extra publicity. That is accepted. In our party, we have

our few stars as well. Indeed you do, Eddie izzard is a big fan of the

Labour Party. Is it something you would like to see more of, more

people in the public eye getting involved in politics? We want to

bring as much interested in politics. We want to bring passion

into politics. It is about a whole range of people, it does not matter

what you background is, as long as you have a passion for your

community and principles. That is the sort of people we want pounding

the streets getting your message across. So celebrities are very

welcome to join us. Coming up, the good news keeps on coming for the

Chancellor with the economy improving. But is it happening here

in the Midlands or is it just a London thing? We will have more on

that later in the programme. How would you feel about having to

produce photo I D to prove who you are when you go to vote. That is

what is being proposed after a number of boat rigging scandals. We

have 60 locations where there have been problems, that includes

Birmingham, Coventry and Wallsall. The new measures will in the minute

fraud. Opponents say it could damage the democratic process. Our

political reporter has been to Aston, an area that was blighted by

fraud a decade ago. At the 2004 local elections and

Birmingham, of vote rigging scandal rocked the political world and made

headline news. Boxes of evidence, a demonstration and an historic

occasion. Weibo `` Labour councillors were involved in a

postal fraud `` postal vote fraud. It led to political mudslinging and

public protests. This man is a community activist in Aston, one of

the wards where the election had to be rerun. It was a difficult time.

The media was focused on the area given the massive postal fraud and

irregularities that two ways. The electoral commission is worried that

communities from Pakistan and Bangladesh could be at risk. People

voted according to who they wanted, not being forced to vote in a

particular manner. What do you think about the idea of bringing in photo

ID at polling booths? It could be the way forward. This may put off

people going to vote. It was in this room here at the Birmingham and

Midland Institute that that famous banana republic, it was made and

said the system was open to fraud. So what to do? The electoral

commission says it wants every individual to register to vote for

themselves, rather than one person in the house all doing it. ``

household. It wants every voter to have ID at the polling station,

something like a passport or driving licence. And it is bringing a strict

code of candidates `` for candidates. We need to up our game

and we have done that over the past few years. The electoral commission

comes and looks at what we are doing in order to learn how to improve

things across the area. We have turned around. The electoral

commission says voter ID is already working in Northern Ireland but not

everybody thinks it is a good idea. It is not necessary. There has been

a problem identifying with. Falters in the system. The electoral

commission has done very little on that. `` voters in the system. John

Henning has voted `` campaign for stronger regulation. It is normally

who do not vote whose vote is cast by somebody else. These proposals

would substantially deal with that. It would make it harder. Obviously

it is not the complete solution. There are problems with people being

intimidated into voting in particular ways during postal votes.

West Midlands police said they investigated 21 cases in 2012.

Electoral fraud is an issue that has not gone away.

Joining me now is Peter Wardle who is chief executive of the electoral

commission. He has been at conference advising police on how to

deal with the issue. There have been a limited number of these cases

especially in urban areas. Is this a sledgehammer to crack a walnut? We

have made a lot of changes to the postal system says the 2040 40s and

Birmingham. In 2006`2007 we change the system. People have designing

give the date of birth when the vote by post. This year we are

introducing a new system which makes it much harder to create a false

identity on the ill `` register, which is one of the things people

would do when they tried to commit postal fraud. It becomes popular

with people who find it more convenient and do want to take part

in democracy. So why the photo ID? That will not help with the postal

vote problems. That will help with people voting in polling stations

which the majority of people do. With the evidence we collect we are

seeing more cases and more concern of people attempting to impersonate

other voters in the polling station. It is hard to detect that. How do

you know that? On a nationwide basis whether please read collect all the

information and cases and we see a trend over the years between

tightening up the postal vote system, there are limited attempts

that the electoral system is safe in the country, where people tried to

defraud the system, they are equally interested in polling station fraud

and there are very few controls on that. What we have found talking to

voters as well as people in the system, talking to voters, they are

concerned still about the security of the system. They want to be able

to trust the system. What we have said is the time has come to change

the system that was originally entered in the 19th century where

fewer than the `` have the adult population could vote. In those days

you relied on people to identify imposters. We are often concerned

about voter apathy and people not turning out to vote. Is there a

concern that by making it more difficult that it can put people

off? They might think, I have not got my passport, I cannot be

bothered to go to the polling station. We are absolutely concern.

That is why we have said it should not be rushed. We are going to work

for at least the next 12 months with the electro` commission, talking to

voters, talking to political parties, the police and the people

who run elections out local level, to look at how rescue more work.

We're not suggesting it should be into just before 2019. The important

thing about getting it right is to make sure people who are concerned

they don't have ID have got an alternative. That is we do not put

people off. Nina, this did involve Labour activists at the time,

particularly the case ten years ago. At the time, was your party guilty

of trying to play it down slightly because it was generally your

activists that were involved? Not at all. We have taken a robust and

strong stance against it. We have put in place systems that really

make sure that no activist can ever get involved in something like this

again. I think that the electoral commission are the first to say that

what we have is beyond what any other party, or any other region,

have done. So I believe that we have learnt from it, we have put in

strong measures, and we want to make sure that only the people who should

vote to vote. I am concerned about the system of IDs. You think that

could be a disincentive? For some people. Not everybody have an idea.

Most people do have an idea and have no problem with that. There are

those who are more on the margin. `` and IDE. Are the proposals are good

idea? The voting showed that over 90% of people harder in fuel `` are

in favour. They can turn up to a polling station. If I knew someone

was on the electoral roll, I could present myself and say that I was a

person and cast a vote. Of course I would not. There is a weakness in

that system. It is right to properly consult, carefully work with local

authorities and see if this can be taken forward. But the electoral

commission is an independent nonparty political body. It would be

bad if politicians do not listen to their advice. You heard what was

said there. The Labour Party feels it has got its house in order. We

heard from Birmingham City Council saying the same thing. Are you as

confident as they are that what `` when we have the European elections

in May that everything will be all right? I have spent the whole day in

the last few days with police and local authority representatives

right across the country, that was all about how we maintain

vigilance, it is really important for the health of our system, the

trust in our system. You mention people having apathy in the system.

People need to know that if they come to vote, their vote will be

safe, no one will interfere with it or steal it. We need to work really

hard and that includes with the parties who don't want trust in the

system to melt away because of things people have done. We are keen

to hear from a lot of people about how this will be tackled. We do

already have a system of ID in Northern Ireland. It does not depend

on passwords and driving licences. It is a different political

situation there. I am sorry, we will have to leave it there.

The Chancellor George Osborne must be barely able to contain themselves

as the good economic news just gives on coming. In the last couple of

weeks he has seen unemployment go down, inflation falling and GDP

going up. Here in the Midlands the last fortnight has brought news of

major investments at Cadburys and Birmingham and from Nissan in

Coventry. But there are warnings that while things are getting

better, much of the recovery is happening not here, but in London.

While the politicians argue about whether we are feeling better off,

the GDP figures released this week showed the UK plc grew by 1.9% in

2013. The largest growth since before the recession. In the

Midlands, Nissan announced the ?6 million contract with a Coventry

firm to develop new green taxis. We have the skills base year to do what

we want and obviously it is urging as our business. We change the way

that people think about mobility and in particular taxis, particularly by

the use of electric taxis which is part of the mandate that we are to

create the electric London taxi. Good news. But as the Governor of

the Bank of England has warned, much of the growth is coming from the

consumer sector, not manufacturing or construction. The economy is

still smaller than it was in 2008. Also out this week was a report from

the Centre for cities which told us the recovery is being driven by

London and that we are underachieving. The report is bang

on. Over many years Birmingham and other cities like Manchester have

not pull their weight on a whole range of things. Employers, business

start`ups, average wages. That is in stark contrast with countries like

France and Germany. Cities where they have control over their

destiny. The solution is devolving more power and cash to the regions.

Where have we heard that before? Indeed we have heard it before, most

recently in the review carried out by Lord Heseltine on behalf of the

government. It was launched here in the Midlands. Gavin Williamson, we

heard the Centre for cities report suggest that the recovery is largely

happening in London, not here in the Midlands. Do you think that is fair?

Certainly not. We have seen growth year. We see massive investment, not

just on Mike and said she, ?500,000 in Land Rover Jaguar. The Midlands

is in the Premier position to benefit. Is it powering ahead? 75%

of our economy is still focused in the consumer sector. Unemployment

here is still above the national average, 220000 and region are still

unemployed. They would say we are not powering ahead and we... We have

seen the highest number of business start`ups here and biggest drops in

unemployment here in the West Midlands. These are positives. I do

not want to talk our region down. This is the workhouse of the whole

of the UK in terms of creating jobs, manufacturing jobs, and driving

exports forward. That is where we have some great success stories.

People 's white Rolls`Royce have been investing. This is how we

create a balanced economy. `` people like. We are reversing things under

the last government and that is what we want to see growing. I could see

you shaking your head. What about this idea of devolving power to the

regions? Birmingham, Coventry and Stoke`on`Trent see we do not want

that. Eight out of ten jobs that have been created are created in

London. This idea that we have this massive growth year and the number

of jobs created rings hollow to me. Devolution, when we had this in

2010, for every pounds that was given to the company, they were

bringing in another eight. In 2010 they had ?2 billion. Do you want

development agencies back? You do need some form of regional

organisation that really encourages inward investment. Labour has

suggested we have regionals back, the real economic drivers here in

the West Midlands is the small and medium`sized businesses. We need to

make sure that they can access funding and they can create those

jobs. To come back to this, you two have different views on this. Your

party has spoken so much about rebalancing. Yet for all you are

saying about manufacturing, it is just not really materialising. We

are seeing real growth in manufacturing, we have seen output

grow. We are producing more cars here in this country than in Italy.

We are actually seeing more money. The government has committed more

money to the Midlands than any other region. This is good news. I am

sorry, we are going to have to leave it there. This will be a key issue

at the next election. Here is a round`up of political week in 60

seconds. It is brought up `` as this week by Sarah Falkland.

13 people were arrested during disturbances at the University of

Birmingham. The students were protesting against rising tuition

fees and low staff wages. The county council wants to rent this hole out

or sell it. It is a valuable, historic and educational resource.

To lose that along with moving the library and radiating the art

gallery would be a tragedy. The government has investment another ?6

million at the business park near Wolverhampton. It is a fantastic

example of how this particular part of the world is thriving at the

moment. Conservative MP for West Worcestershire has been appointed by

the Prime Minister as the new trade envoy to Russia. And the Solihull MP

has missed out to become the Lib Dem deputy leader losing to Sir Malcolm

Bruce by two votes. And finally, as we heard there, she

missed out on becoming the Libertarian deputy leader this

week. `` Lib Dem. Disappointing to see, not to see more women in

prominent roles. Clearly, for the other parties it is a real issue.

When you look at the Cabinet at the moment, you have four out of 22 the

Lib Dems only have seven MEPs. `` seven MPs. Labour can be proud on

this. Our last intake, we had 50% were women MPs. Although in this

region, there are... All the candidates are women. At the moment

we have 11 women out of 63 in this region. Five Labour, five

Conservative. Your party does not have a great record on this, Gavin?

Nina is right about the Cabinet. Only for women. We are trying to

improve the number of women we have in government and parliament. Before

the last election we had 18 women, now we have over 48 who got elected

in 2010. We have a long way to go, we have a long way to improve it.

People who have been selected as candidates are women, we have got to

get that higher and we will work to make sure that happens. What more do

we need to do? I think there has to be a recognition to see that having

something similar to what Labour does, to make sure that more women.

The other parties could follow our party `` example to look at the

Cabinet make up, make sure there are role models in that position which

encourages more women to come forward. Encouraging those women.

Malcolm Bruce is stepping down in 2015, so maybe Laura Lee will get

another chance then. That is where we need to leave it today. Thank you

to our guests today. There is a busy week of budget setting this week

over the next seven days. Stage into your local BBC Radio Scotland on the

latest on that. Patrick Burns returns to the seat next week. ``

your local 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.