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Morning, folks. Welcome to the Sunday Politics. | :00:36. | :00:40. | |
Labour's been hit hard by scandals at the Co-op. Ed Miliband says the | :00:41. | :00:44. | |
Tories are mudslinging. We'll speak to Conservative Chairman Grant | :00:45. | :00:47. | |
Shapps. Five years on from the financial | :00:48. | :00:50. | |
crisis, and we're still talking about banks in trouble. Why haven't | :00:51. | :00:53. | |
the regulators got the message? We'll ask the man who runs the | :00:54. | :00:58. | |
City's new financial watchdog. And he used to have a windmill on | :00:59. | :01:01. | |
his roof and talked about giving hugs to hoodies and huskies. These | :01:02. | :01:06. | |
days, not so much. Has the plan to make the | :01:07. | :01:15. | |
Is immigration really out of control? We meet Romanians working | :01:16. | :01:18. | |
on farms in homelessness and population ships. | :01:19. | :01:19. | |
What is the evidence? And as always, the political panel | :01:20. | :01:30. | |
that reaches the parts other shows can only dream of. Janan Ganesh, | :01:31. | :01:34. | |
Helen Lewis and Nick Watt. They'll be tweeting faster than England | :01:35. | :01:37. | |
loses wickets to Australia. Yes, they're really that fast. | :01:38. | :01:41. | |
First, some big news overnight from Geneva, where Iran has agreed to | :01:42. | :01:44. | |
curb some of its nuclear activities in return for the partial easing of | :01:45. | :01:48. | |
sanctions. Iran will pause the enrichment of uranium to weapons | :01:49. | :01:52. | |
grade and America will free up some funds for Iran to spend. May be up | :01:53. | :02:02. | |
to $10 billion. A more comprehensive deal is supposed to be done in six | :02:03. | :02:05. | |
months. Here's what President Obama had to say about this interim | :02:06. | :02:11. | |
agreement. We have pursued intensive diplomacy, bilaterally with the | :02:12. | :02:17. | |
Iranians, and together with our partners, the United Kingdom, | :02:18. | :02:22. | |
France, Germany, Russia and China, as well as the European Union. | :02:23. | :02:27. | |
Today, that diplomacy opened up a new path towards a world that is | :02:28. | :02:32. | |
more secure, a future in which we can verify that Iraq and's nuclear | :02:33. | :02:37. | |
programme is peaceful, and that it cannot build a nuclear weapon. | :02:38. | :02:44. | |
President Obama spoke from the White House last night. Now the difficulty | :02:45. | :02:50. | |
begins. This is meant to lead to a full-scale agreement which will | :02:51. | :02:53. | |
effectively end all sanctions, and end Iran's ability to have a bomb. | :02:54. | :03:00. | |
The early signs are pretty good. The Iranian currency strengthened | :03:01. | :03:05. | |
overnight, which is exactly what the Iranians wanted. Inflation in Iraq | :03:06. | :03:10. | |
is 40%, so they need a stronger currency. -- information in Iran. | :03:11. | :03:17. | |
France has played a blinder. It was there intransigence that led to | :03:18. | :03:20. | |
this. Otherwise, I think the West would have led to a much softer | :03:21. | :03:25. | |
deal. The question now becomes implementation. Here, everything | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
hinges on two questions. First, who is Hassan Rouhani? Is he the | :03:31. | :03:35. | |
Iranians Gorbachev, a serious reformer, or he's here much more | :03:36. | :03:40. | |
tactical and cynical figure? Or, within Iran, how powerful is he? | :03:41. | :03:47. | |
There are military men and intelligence officials within Iran | :03:48. | :03:53. | |
who may stymie the process. The Western media concentrate on the | :03:54. | :03:57. | |
fact that Mr Netanyahu and the Israelis are not happy about this. | :03:58. | :04:00. | |
They don't often mention that the Arab Gulf states are also very | :04:01. | :04:05. | |
apprehensive about this deal. I read this morning that the enemies of | :04:06. | :04:14. | |
Qatar and Kuwait went to Saudi king. -- the MAs row. That is the key | :04:15. | :04:22. | |
thing to watch in the next couple of weeks. There was a response from | :04:23. | :04:27. | |
Saudi Arabia, but it came from the Prime Minister of Israel, who said | :04:28. | :04:32. | |
this was a historic mistake. The United States said there would be no | :04:33. | :04:36. | |
enrichment of uranium to weapons grade. In the last few minutes, the | :04:37. | :04:40. | |
Iranian Foreign Minister has tweeted to say that there is an inalienable | :04:41. | :04:49. | |
right -- right to enrich. The key thing is the most important thing | :04:50. | :04:54. | |
that President Obama said in his inaugural speech. He reached out to | :04:55. | :04:59. | |
Iran. It failed under President McKenna jab. Under President | :05:00. | :05:06. | |
Rouhani, there seems to be progress. There is potentially now what he | :05:07. | :05:11. | |
talked about in that first inaugural address potentially coming through. | :05:12. | :05:16. | |
In the end, the key issue - and we don't know the answer - is the | :05:17. | :05:21. | |
supreme leader, not the president. Will the supreme leader agreed to | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
Iran giving up its ability to create nuclear weapons? This is the huge | :05:26. | :05:32. | |
ambiguity. Ayatollah Khamenei authorise the position that | :05:33. | :05:37. | |
President Rouhani took to Geneva. That doesn't mean he will sign off | :05:38. | :05:40. | |
on every bit of implementation over the next six months. Even when | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
President Ahmadinejad was president, he wasn't really President. We in | :05:46. | :05:52. | |
the West have to resort to a kind of Iranians version of the study of the | :05:53. | :05:57. | |
Kremlin, to work out what is going on. And the problem the president | :05:58. | :06:08. | |
faces is that if there is any sign... He can unlock these funds by | :06:09. | :06:14. | |
executive order at the moment, but if he needs any more, he has to go | :06:15. | :06:19. | |
to Congress. Both the Democrat and the Republican side have huge | :06:20. | :06:27. | |
scepticism about this. And he has very low credibility now. There's | :06:28. | :06:30. | |
already been angry noises coming from quite a lot of senators. It was | :06:31. | :06:36. | |
quite strange to see that photo of John Kerry hugging Cathy Ashton as | :06:37. | :06:40. | |
if they had survived a ship great together. John Kerry is clearly | :06:41. | :06:50. | |
feeling very happy. We will keep an eye on this. It is a fascinating | :06:51. | :06:52. | |
development. More lurid details about the | :06:53. | :06:55. | |
personal life of the Co-op Bank's disgraced former chairman, the | :06:56. | :07:00. | |
Reverend Paul Flowers. The links between Labour, the bank and the | :07:01. | :07:03. | |
wider Co-op movement have caused big problems for Ed Miliband this week, | :07:04. | :07:06. | |
and the Conservatives have been revelling in it. But do the Tory | :07:07. | :07:11. | |
allegations - Ed Miliband calls them "smears" - stack up? Party Chairman | :07:12. | :07:19. | |
Grant Shapps joins us from Hatfield. Welcome to the programme. When it | :07:20. | :07:27. | |
comes to the Co-op, what are you accusing Labour of knowing and when? | :07:28. | :07:34. | |
I think the simple thing to say here is that the Co-op is an important | :07:35. | :07:39. | |
bank. They have obviously got into difficulty with Reverend flowers, | :07:40. | :07:44. | |
and our primary concern is making sure that that is properly | :07:45. | :07:47. | |
investigated, and that we understand what happened at the bank and how | :07:48. | :07:50. | |
somebody like Paul Flowers could have ended up thing appointed | :07:51. | :07:56. | |
chairman. You wrote to edge Miliband on Tuesday and asked him what he | :07:57. | :08:02. | |
knew and when. -- you wrote to Ed Miliband. But by Prime Minister's | :08:03. | :08:05. | |
Questions on Wednesday, David Cameron claims that you knew that | :08:06. | :08:12. | |
Labour knew about his past all along. What is the evidence for | :08:13. | :08:17. | |
that? We found out by Wednesday that he had been a Labour councillor, | :08:18. | :08:25. | |
Reverend Flowers, and had been made to stand down. Certainly, Labour | :08:26. | :08:29. | |
knew about that, but somehow didn't seem to think that that made him | :08:30. | :08:33. | |
less appropriate to be the chairman of the Co-op bank. There was no | :08:34. | :08:38. | |
evidence that Mr Miliband or Mr Balls knew about that. I ask you | :08:39. | :08:45. | |
again, what are you accusing the Labour leadership of knowing? We | :08:46. | :08:55. | |
know now that he stood down for very inappropriate images on his | :08:56. | :08:59. | |
computer, apparently. You are telling me that they didn't know. I | :09:00. | :09:04. | |
am not sure that is clear at all. I have heard conflicting reports. | :09:05. | :09:07. | |
There is a much bigger argument about what they knew and when. There | :09:08. | :09:12. | |
was a much bigger issue here. This morning, Ed Miliband has said that | :09:13. | :09:17. | |
they don't have to answer these questions and that these smears. | :09:18. | :09:21. | |
This is ludicrous. These are important questions about an | :09:22. | :09:25. | |
important bank, how it ended up getting into this position, and how | :09:26. | :09:29. | |
a disastrous Britannia -- Italia deal happen. -- Britannia deal | :09:30. | :09:36. | |
happened. And we need to know how the bank came off the rails. To be | :09:37. | :09:42. | |
accused of smears for asking the questions is ridiculous. I am just | :09:43. | :09:46. | |
trying to find out what you are accusing Labour of. You saying that | :09:47. | :09:49. | |
the Labour leadership knew about the drug-taking? Sorry, there was some | :09:50. | :10:01. | |
noise here. I don't know what was known and when. We do know that | :10:02. | :10:06. | |
Labour, the party, certainly knew about these very difficult | :10:07. | :10:09. | |
circumstances in which he resigned as a councillor. I think that the | :10:10. | :10:15. | |
Labour Party knew about it. We knew that Bradford did, but not London. | :10:16. | :10:20. | |
Are you saying that Ed Miliband knew about the inappropriate material on | :10:21. | :10:25. | |
the Reverend's laptop? It is certainly the case that Labour knew | :10:26. | :10:32. | |
about it. But did Mr Miliband know about it, and his predilection for | :10:33. | :10:38. | |
rent boys? He will need to answer those questions. It is quite proper | :10:39. | :10:43. | |
to ask those questions. Surely, asking a perfectly legitimate set of | :10:44. | :10:47. | |
questions, not just about that but about how we have ended up in a | :10:48. | :10:51. | |
situation where this bank has made loans to Labour for millions of | :10:52. | :10:56. | |
pounds, that bank and the Unite bank, who is connected to it. And | :10:57. | :11:03. | |
how they made a ?50,000 donation to Ed Balls' office. Ed Balls says that | :11:04. | :11:07. | |
was nothing to do with Reverend Flowers, and yet Reverend Flowers | :11:08. | :11:13. | |
said that he personally signed that off. Lots of questions to answer. | :11:14. | :11:18. | |
David Cameron has already answered them on Wednesday. He said that you | :11:19. | :11:24. | |
now know that Labour knew about his past all along. You have not been | :11:25. | :11:28. | |
able to present evidence that involve Mr Miliband or Mr Balls in | :11:29. | :11:32. | |
that. So until you get that, surely you should apologise? Hang on. He | :11:33. | :11:38. | |
said that Labour knew about this, and they did, because he stood down | :11:39. | :11:43. | |
as a councillor. If Ed Miliband didn't know about that, then why | :11:44. | :11:48. | |
not? This was quite a serious thing that happened. The wider point is | :11:49. | :11:53. | |
about why it is that when you ask perfectly legitimate questions about | :11:54. | :11:56. | |
this bank, about the Britannia deal, and about the background of Mr | :11:57. | :12:02. | |
flowers, why is the response, it is all smears? There are questions | :12:03. | :12:10. | |
about how Labour failed to deal with the deficit and how it hasn't done | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
anything to support the welfare changes, but there is nothing about | :12:15. | :12:20. | |
that. Let us -- lets: To the wider picture of the Co-operative Bank. | :12:21. | :12:29. | |
Labour wanted the Co-op to take over the Britannia Building Society, and | :12:30. | :12:34. | |
it was a disaster. Do you accept that? The government of the day has | :12:35. | :12:40. | |
to be a part of these discussions for regulatory reason. The | :12:41. | :12:46. | |
government in 2009 - Ed Balls was very pleased... But you supported | :12:47. | :12:54. | |
that decision. There was a later deal, potentially, for the Co-op to | :12:55. | :12:59. | |
buy those Lloyds branches. There was a proper process and it didn't go | :13:00. | :13:05. | |
through just recently. If there had been a proper process back in 2009, | :13:06. | :13:09. | |
would the Britannia deal have gone through? First, you accept that the | :13:10. | :13:16. | |
Tories were in favour of the Britannia take over. Then your | :13:17. | :13:22. | |
Chancellor Osborne went out of his way to facilitate the purchase of | :13:23. | :13:25. | |
the Lloyds branches, even though you had no idea that the Co-op had the | :13:26. | :13:31. | |
management expertise to become a super medium. Correct? The | :13:32. | :13:36. | |
difference is that that deal didn't go through. There was a proper | :13:37. | :13:43. | |
process that took place. Let's look at the process. There was long | :13:44. | :13:49. | |
indications as far back as January 2012 that the Co-op, as a direct | :13:50. | :13:56. | |
result of the Britannia take over which you will party supported, was | :13:57. | :14:00. | |
unfit to acquire the Lloyds branches. By January 2012, the | :14:01. | :14:04. | |
Chancellor and the Treasury ignored the warnings. Wide? In 2009, there | :14:05. | :14:11. | |
was political pressure for the Britannia to be brought together. | :14:12. | :14:16. | |
Based on the information available, this was supported, but that process | :14:17. | :14:19. | |
ended up with a very, very problematic takeover of the | :14:20. | :14:23. | |
Britannia. Wind forward to this year, and when the same types of | :14:24. | :14:28. | |
issues were being looked at for the purchase of the Lloyds deal, the | :14:29. | :14:32. | |
proper process was followed, this time with us in government, and that | :14:33. | :14:37. | |
purchase didn't go through. It is important that the proper process is | :14:38. | :14:41. | |
followed, and when it was, it transpired that the deal wasn't | :14:42. | :14:50. | |
going to be done. But it was the Treasury and the Chancellor who were | :14:51. | :14:53. | |
the cheerleaders for the acquisition of the Lloyds branches. But there | :14:54. | :14:59. | |
was a warning that the Co-op did not have enough capital on its balance | :15:00. | :15:02. | |
sheet to make those acquisitions, but instead of heeding those | :15:03. | :15:09. | |
warnings, your people went to Brussels to lobby for the | :15:10. | :15:12. | |
requirements to be relaxed - why on earth did you do that? Our | :15:13. | :15:17. | |
Chancellor went to argue for all of Rajesh banking, not specifically for | :15:18. | :15:22. | |
the Co-op. He was arguing for the mutuals to be given a special | :15:23. | :15:25. | |
ruling. The idea was to make sure that every bank in Britain could | :15:26. | :15:31. | |
have a better deal, particularly the mutuals, as you say. That is a | :15:32. | :15:35. | |
proper thing for the Chancellor to be doing. We could go round in | :15:36. | :15:40. | |
circles here, but in the end, there was not a takeover of the Lloyds | :15:41. | :15:43. | |
branches, that is because we followed a proper process. Had that | :15:44. | :15:49. | |
same rigorous process been followed in 2009, the legitimate question to | :15:50. | :15:53. | |
ask is whether the Co-op would have been -- would have taken over the | :15:54. | :15:56. | |
Britannia. That is a proper question to ask. It is no good to have the | :15:57. | :16:00. | |
leader of the opposition say, as soon as you ask any of these | :16:01. | :16:04. | |
questions about anything where there is a problem for them, they come | :16:05. | :16:09. | |
back with, oh, this is all smears. There are questions to ask about | :16:10. | :16:12. | |
what the Labour government did, the debt and the deficit they left the | :16:13. | :16:17. | |
country with, the way they stopped work from paying in this country. | :16:18. | :16:21. | |
The big question your government has two answer is, why, by July 2012, | :16:22. | :16:26. | |
when it was clear there was a black hole in the Co-op's balance sheet, | :16:27. | :16:31. | |
your government re-confirmed the Co-op as the preferred bidder for | :16:32. | :16:35. | |
Lloyds - why would you do that? Well, look, the good thing is, we | :16:36. | :16:40. | |
can discuss this until the cows come home, but there is going to be a | :16:41. | :16:44. | |
proper, full investigation, so we will find out what happened, all the | :16:45. | :16:48. | |
way back. So, we will be able to get to the bottom of all of this. Grant | :16:49. | :16:52. | |
Shapps, the only reason the Lloyds deal did not go ahead was, despite | :16:53. | :16:56. | |
the Treasury cheerleading, when Lloyds began its due diligence, it | :16:57. | :17:02. | |
found that there was indeed a huge black hole in the balance sheet and | :17:03. | :17:06. | |
that the Co-op was not fit to take over its branches. That wasn't you, | :17:07. | :17:11. | |
it wasn't the Government, it was not the Chancellor, it was Lloyds. You | :17:12. | :17:15. | |
were still cheerleading for the deal to go ahead... Well, as I say, a | :17:16. | :17:21. | |
proper process was followed, which did not result in the purchase of | :17:22. | :17:25. | |
the Lloyds branches. At that proper process been followed with the | :17:26. | :17:30. | |
purchase of the Britannia, under the previous government... Which you | :17:31. | :17:35. | |
supported. Yes, but it may well be that under that previous deal, there | :17:36. | :17:39. | |
was a excess political pressure perhaps put on in order to create | :17:40. | :17:42. | |
that merger, which proved so disastrous. The Tories facilitated | :17:43. | :17:51. | |
it, Grant Shapps, they allowed it to go ahead. I have said, we are going | :17:52. | :17:57. | |
to have a proper, independent review. What I cannot understand is, | :17:58. | :18:01. | |
when you announce a robber, independent review, the response you | :18:02. | :18:07. | |
get to these serious questions. The response is, oh, this is a smear. It | :18:08. | :18:12. | |
is crazy. We are trying to answer the big questions for this country. | :18:13. | :18:16. | |
We have done all of that, and we are out of time. The Reverend Flowers' | :18:17. | :18:25. | |
chairmanship of the Co-op bank was approved by the regulator at the | :18:26. | :18:30. | |
time, which no longer exists. It was swept away by the coalition | :18:31. | :18:33. | |
government in a supposed revolution in regulation. But will its | :18:34. | :18:37. | |
replacement, the Financial Conduct Authority, be different? Adam has | :18:38. | :18:47. | |
been to find out. Come with me for a spin around the Square mile to find | :18:48. | :18:50. | |
out how we regulate our financial sector, which is almost five times | :18:51. | :18:54. | |
bigger than the country's entire annual income. First, let's pick up | :18:55. | :19:01. | |
our guide, journalist Iain Martin, who has just written a book about | :19:02. | :19:04. | |
what went so wrong during the financial crisis. The FSA was an | :19:05. | :19:10. | |
agency which was established to supervise the banks on a day-to-day | :19:11. | :19:15. | |
basis. The Bank of England was supposed to have overall responsible | :19:16. | :19:19. | |
at for this to Bolivia the financial system and the Treasury was supposed | :19:20. | :19:22. | |
to take an interest in all of these things. The disaster was that it was | :19:23. | :19:27. | |
not anyone's call responsibility, or main day job, to stay alert as to | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
whether or not the banking system as a whole was being run in a safe | :19:33. | :19:36. | |
manner. And so this April, a new system was set up to police the | :19:37. | :19:41. | |
City. Most of the responsibly delays here, with the Bank of England, and | :19:42. | :19:48. | |
its new Prudential Regulation Authority. And the Financial | :19:49. | :19:53. | |
Services Authority has been replaced with the new Financial Conduct | :19:54. | :19:59. | |
Authority. Can we go to the financial conduct authority, please? | :20:00. | :20:03. | |
Canary Wharf, thank you. Here, it is all about whether the people in | :20:04. | :20:08. | |
financial services are playing by the rules, in particular, how they | :20:09. | :20:12. | |
treat their customers. This place has got new powers, like the ability | :20:13. | :20:16. | |
to ban products it does not like, a new mandate to promote competition | :20:17. | :20:21. | |
in the market, the concept being, more competition means a better | :20:22. | :20:25. | |
market, plus the idea that a new organisation rings a whole new | :20:26. | :20:31. | |
culture. Although these are the old offices of the FSA, so maybe not | :20:32. | :20:36. | |
quite so new after all. It has also inherited the case of the Co-op bank | :20:37. | :20:40. | |
and its disgraced former chairman the Reverend Paul Flowers. The SCA | :20:41. | :20:44. | |
will be part of the investigation into what happened, which will | :20:45. | :20:47. | |
probably involve looking at its own conduct. One member of the | :20:48. | :20:53. | |
Parliamentary commission into banking wonders whether the new | :20:54. | :20:57. | |
regulator, and its new boss, are up to it. I have always said, it is not | :20:58. | :21:02. | |
the architecture which is the issue, it is the powers that the regulator | :21:03. | :21:07. | |
has, and today, it does not seem to me as if there is any increase in | :21:08. | :21:12. | |
that. And with the unfolding scandal at the Co-op, it feels like the new | :21:13. | :21:16. | |
architecture for regulating the City is now facing its first big test. | :21:17. | :21:23. | |
And the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, the | :21:24. | :21:27. | |
SCA, Martin Wheatley, joins me now. Welcome to The Sunday Politics. The | :21:28. | :21:32. | |
failure of bank regulation was one of the clearest lessons of the crash | :21:33. | :21:38. | |
in 2008, and yet two years later, in 2010, Paul Flowers is allowed to | :21:39. | :21:42. | |
become chairman of the Co-op - why have we still not got the regulation | :21:43. | :21:47. | |
right? We have made a lot of changes since then. We have created a new | :21:48. | :21:52. | |
regulator, as you know. At the time, we still had a process which allowed | :21:53. | :21:56. | |
somebody to be appointed to a bank and they would go through a | :21:57. | :21:59. | |
challenge, but in the case of Paul Flowers, there was no need for an | :22:00. | :22:03. | |
additional challenge when he was appointed to chairman, because he | :22:04. | :22:09. | |
was already on the board. But going from being on the board to becoming | :22:10. | :22:14. | |
chairman, that is a big jump, and he only had one interview? That is why | :22:15. | :22:17. | |
today, it would be different. But the truth is, that was the system at | :22:18. | :22:22. | |
the time, the system which the FSA operated. He was challenged, we did | :22:23. | :22:26. | |
challenge him, and we said, you do not have the right experience, but | :22:27. | :22:31. | |
at the time, we would not have opposed the appointment. What we | :22:32. | :22:34. | |
needed was additional representation of the board of people who did have | :22:35. | :22:39. | |
banking experience. You can say that that was then and this is now, but | :22:40. | :22:42. | |
up until April of this year, it was still the plan for the Co-op, under | :22:43. | :22:47. | |
Mr Flowers, and despite being seriously wounded by the Britannia | :22:48. | :22:52. | |
takeover, to take on 632 Lloyds branches. That was the Co-op's | :22:53. | :22:57. | |
plan. They needed to pass our test as to whether we thought they were | :22:58. | :23:01. | |
fit to do that, and frankly, they never passed that test. It was not | :23:02. | :23:05. | |
the regulator that stopped them? It was. We were constantly pushing | :23:06. | :23:09. | |
back, saying, you have not got the capital, you have no got the | :23:10. | :23:12. | |
systems, and ultimately, they withdrew, when they could not answer | :23:13. | :23:17. | |
our questions. You were asking the right questions, I accept that, but | :23:18. | :23:21. | |
all of the time, the politicians on all sides, they were pushing for it | :23:22. | :23:27. | |
to happen, and I cannot find anywhere where the regulator said, | :23:28. | :23:32. | |
look, this is just not going to happen. I cannot comment on what the | :23:33. | :23:36. | |
politicians were doing, but I continue what we were doing, which | :23:37. | :23:39. | |
was constantly asking the Co-op, have you got the systems in place, | :23:40. | :23:42. | |
have you got the people, have you got the capital? And they didn't. | :23:43. | :23:48. | |
But it only came to a head when Lloyds started its own due diligence | :23:49. | :23:51. | |
on the bank, and they discovered that it was impossible for them to | :23:52. | :23:54. | |
take over the branches, it was not the regulator... In fairness, what | :23:55. | :23:59. | |
we do is ask the questions, can you do this deal? And we kept pushing | :24:00. | :24:05. | |
back, and we never frankly got delivered a business plan which we | :24:06. | :24:12. | |
were happy to approve. Is the SCA going to launch its own inquiry into | :24:13. | :24:23. | |
what happened? -- the FCA. The Chancellor has announced what will | :24:24. | :24:27. | |
be a very broad inquiry. There are a number of specifics which we will be | :24:28. | :24:32. | |
able to look at, relating to events over the last five years. Could | :24:33. | :24:36. | |
there be a police investigation? I think the police have already | :24:37. | :24:40. | |
announced an investigation. I am talking about into the handling of | :24:41. | :24:45. | |
the bank. It depends. There might be, if there is grim low activity, | :24:46. | :24:52. | |
which we do not know yet. You worked at the FS eight, didn't you? I did. | :24:53. | :25:01. | |
Some of those people who were signed off on the speedy promotion of Mr | :25:02. | :25:04. | |
Flowers, are they now working there? Yes, we have some. I came to | :25:05. | :25:09. | |
join the Financial Services Authority, to lead it into the | :25:10. | :25:14. | |
creation of the new body, the SCA. We had people who were challenging | :25:15. | :25:27. | |
and they did the job. There was not a requirement to approve the role as | :25:28. | :25:30. | |
chairman. There was not even a requirement to interview at that | :25:31. | :25:35. | |
stage. What we did do was to require that he was interviewed, and that | :25:36. | :25:38. | |
the Co-op should get additional experience. One of the people from | :25:39. | :25:50. | |
the old organisation, who signed up on the promotion of Mr Flowers to | :25:51. | :25:54. | |
become chairman is now a nonexecutive director of the Co-op, | :25:55. | :26:02. | |
so how does that work? Welcome he was a senior adviser to our | :26:03. | :26:05. | |
organisation, one of the people who made the challenges, and who said, | :26:06. | :26:09. | |
you need more experience on your board. Subsequently he then went and | :26:10. | :26:14. | |
joined the board. Surely that should not be allowed, the regulator and | :26:15. | :26:18. | |
the regulated should not be like that. Well clearly, you need | :26:19. | :26:23. | |
protection, but we have got to get good people in, and frankly, we want | :26:24. | :26:28. | |
the industry to have good people in the industry, so there will be some | :26:29. | :26:31. | |
movement between the regulator and industry. We all wonder whether you | :26:32. | :26:34. | |
have the power or even the confidence to stand up if you look | :26:35. | :26:39. | |
at all of the really bad bank decisions recently, politicians were | :26:40. | :26:43. | |
behind them. It was Gordon Brown who pushed the disastrous merger of | :26:44. | :26:47. | |
Lloyds and RBS. It was Alex Salmond who egged on RBS to buy the world. | :26:48. | :26:51. | |
All three main parties wanted the Co-op to buy Britannia, even though | :26:52. | :26:56. | |
they did not know the debt it would inherit, and all three wanted the | :26:57. | :27:00. | |
Co-op to buy the Lloyds branches - how do you as a regulator stand up | :27:01. | :27:05. | |
to that little concert party? Well, that political pressure exists, our | :27:06. | :27:10. | |
job at the end of the day is to do a relatively technical job and say, | :27:11. | :27:14. | |
does it stack up? And it didn't, and we made that point time and time | :27:15. | :27:18. | |
again to the Co-op board. They did not have a business case that we | :27:19. | :27:22. | |
could approve. The bodies on left and right -- the politicians on left | :27:23. | :27:28. | |
and right gave the Co-op special support. They may have done, but | :27:29. | :27:36. | |
that was not you have made a warning about these payday lenders, but I | :27:37. | :27:39. | |
think what most people would like to see is a limit put on the interest | :27:40. | :27:43. | |
they can charge over a period of time - will you do that? We have got | :27:44. | :27:48. | |
a whole set of powers for payday lenders. We will bring in some | :27:49. | :27:52. | |
changes from April next year, and we will bring in further changes as we | :27:53. | :27:56. | |
see necessary. Will you put a limit on the interest they can charge? | :27:57. | :28:00. | |
That is something we can study. You do not sound too keen on it? Well, | :28:01. | :28:05. | |
there are a lot of changes we need to make. One change is limiting | :28:06. | :28:10. | |
rollovers, limiting the use of continuous payment authorities. | :28:11. | :28:13. | |
Simply jumping to one trigger would be a mistake. Finally, an issue | :28:14. | :28:19. | |
which I think is becoming a growing concern, because the Government is | :28:20. | :28:22. | |
thinking of subsidising them, 95% mortgages are back - should we not | :28:23. | :28:27. | |
be worried about that? I think we should if the market has the same | :28:28. | :28:33. | |
experiences that we had back in 2007 - oh wait. We are bringing a | :28:34. | :28:37. | |
comprehensive package in under our mortgage market review, which will | :28:38. | :28:42. | |
change how people lend and will put affordability back at the heart of | :28:43. | :28:53. | |
lending decisions. -- 2007-08. You have not had your first big | :28:54. | :28:56. | |
challenge yet, have you? We have many challenges. | :28:57. | :29:02. | |
It was once called the battle of the mods and the rockers - the fight | :29:03. | :29:06. | |
between David Cameron-style modernisers and old-style | :29:07. | :29:08. | |
traditional Tories for the direction and soul of the Conservative Party. | :29:09. | :29:12. | |
But have the mods given up on changing the brand? When David | :29:13. | :29:21. | |
Cameron took over in 2005, he promoted himself as a new Tory | :29:22. | :29:25. | |
leader. He said that hoodies need more love. He was talking about | :29:26. | :29:31. | |
something called the big society. He told his party conference that it | :29:32. | :29:35. | |
was time to that sunshine win the day. There was new emphasis on the | :29:36. | :29:39. | |
environment, and an eye-catching trip to a Norwegian glacier to see | :29:40. | :29:44. | |
first-hand, supposedly, the effects of global warming. This week, party | :29:45. | :29:49. | |
modernise and Nick bone has said that the party is still seen as an | :29:50. | :29:52. | |
old-fashioned monolith and hasn't done enough to improve its appeal. | :29:53. | :30:00. | |
The Tories have put some reforms into practice, such as gay marriage, | :30:01. | :30:06. | |
but they have put more into welfare reform band compassionate | :30:07. | :30:12. | |
conservatism. David Cameron wants talked about leading the greenest | :30:13. | :30:16. | |
government ever. Downing Street says that the quote in the Son is not | :30:17. | :30:25. | |
recognised, get rid of the green crap. At this point in the programme | :30:26. | :30:30. | |
we were expecting to hear from the Energy and Climate Change Minister, | :30:31. | :30:33. | |
Greg Barker. Unfortunately, he has pulled out, with Downing Street | :30:34. | :30:38. | |
saying it's for ""family reasons"". Make of that what you will. However, | :30:39. | :30:44. | |
we won't be deterred. We're still doing the story, and we're joined by | :30:45. | :30:47. | |
our very own mod and rocker - David Skelton of the think-tank Renewal, | :30:48. | :30:53. | |
and Conservative MP Peter Bone. Welcome to you both. I'm glad your | :30:54. | :30:58. | |
family is allowed you to come? David Skelton, getting rid of all the | :30:59. | :31:02. | |
green crap, or words to that effect, that David Cameron has been saying. | :31:03. | :31:06. | |
It is just a sign that Tory modernisation has been quietly | :31:07. | :31:11. | |
buried. I do think that's right. Modernisation is about reaching out | :31:12. | :31:17. | |
to the voters, and the work to do that is now more relevant than ever. | :31:18. | :31:22. | |
We got the biggest swing since 1931, and the thing is we need to do more | :31:23. | :31:27. | |
to reach out to voters in the North. We need to reach out to non-white | :31:28. | :31:33. | |
voters, and show that the concerns of modern Britain and the concerns | :31:34. | :31:39. | |
of ordinary people is something that we share. And what way will racking | :31:40. | :31:43. | |
up electricity bills with green levies get you more votes in the | :31:44. | :31:48. | |
North of England? We have to look at ways to reduce energy bills. The | :31:49. | :31:53. | |
renewable energy directive doesn't do anything to help cut our | :31:54. | :31:59. | |
emissions, but does decrease energy bills by ?45 a year. We should | :32:00. | :32:03. | |
renegotiate that. That is a part of modernisation and doing what | :32:04. | :32:09. | |
ordinarily people want. And old dinosaurs like you are just holding | :32:10. | :32:15. | |
this modernisation process back? I am very appreciative of covering on | :32:16. | :32:19. | |
this programme. The Tory party has been reforming itself for more than | :32:20. | :32:23. | |
150 years. This idea of modern eyes a is just some invention. We are | :32:24. | :32:28. | |
changing all the time. I'm nice and cuddly! So you are happy that the | :32:29. | :32:35. | |
party made gay marriage almost a kind of symbol of its modernisation? | :32:36. | :32:41. | |
Fine Mac the gay marriage was a free vote. David Cameron was recorded as | :32:42. | :32:48. | |
a rebel there because more Tories voted against his position than ever | :32:49. | :32:53. | |
before. It was said that this was a split between the old and young, but | :32:54. | :32:57. | |
it actually was a split between those who were religious and | :32:58. | :33:00. | |
nonreligious. It is a misinterpretation of what happened. | :33:01. | :33:07. | |
Is a modernisation in retreat? I think modernisation is an | :33:08. | :33:13. | |
invention. Seven years ago, in my part of the world, we got three | :33:14. | :33:18. | |
councillors elected, two were 80 and one was 21. A few months ago, a | :33:19. | :33:24. | |
25-year-old was chosen to fight Corby for the Conservative Party. He | :33:25. | :33:28. | |
came from a comprehensive School. He was one of the youngest. The Tory | :33:29. | :33:33. | |
party is moving on. So you found three young people? Hang on a | :33:34. | :33:39. | |
minute. You can't get away with that. Three in one batch. Does | :33:40. | :33:47. | |
modernisation exist? Modernisation is about watering our appeal and | :33:48. | :33:53. | |
sharing our values are relevant to voters who haven't really thought | :33:54. | :33:58. | |
about voting for us for decades now. Modernisation is about more than | :33:59. | :34:01. | |
windmills and stuff, it is about boosting the life chances of the | :34:02. | :34:06. | |
poorest, it is about putting better schools in poorer areas. It is also | :34:07. | :34:12. | |
saying that modernisation and the Tory party... When has the Tory | :34:13. | :34:17. | |
party been against making poorer people better off? Or against better | :34:18. | :34:22. | |
schools? Do you think Mrs Thatcher was a moderniser when she won all | :34:23. | :34:26. | |
those elections? The problem we have at the moment is that UKIP has | :34:27. | :34:32. | |
grown-up. If we could get all of those people who vote UKIP to vote | :34:33. | :34:36. | |
for us, we would get 47% of the vote. We don't need to worry about | :34:37. | :34:41. | |
voters on the left. We need to worry about the voters in the north, those | :34:42. | :34:45. | |
people who haven't voted for us for decades. Having an EU Referendum | :34:46. | :34:53. | |
Bill is going to get people to vote. We have to reach out to | :34:54. | :35:00. | |
voters, but not by some sort of London based in need. You have to | :35:01. | :35:04. | |
broaden your base. I agree with you on that. We have to broaden our | :35:05. | :35:09. | |
appeal, but this back to the future concept is not going to work. We | :35:10. | :35:14. | |
need something that generally appeals to low and middle-income | :35:15. | :35:18. | |
voters, and something that shows we genuinely care about the life | :35:19. | :35:22. | |
chances of the poorest. Do you think that the people who vote UKIP don't | :35:23. | :35:31. | |
support those aspirations? We are not doing enough to cut immigration. | :35:32. | :35:34. | |
We don't have an EU Referendum Bill stop we have to get the centre right | :35:35. | :35:39. | |
to vote for us again. Do that, and we have it. Tom Pursglove, the 25 | :35:40. | :35:46. | |
euros, will be returned in Corby because we cannot win an election | :35:47. | :35:59. | |
there. -- the 25-year-old. Whether you are moderniser or | :36:00. | :36:05. | |
traditionalist, people, particularly in the North, see you as a bunch of | :36:06. | :36:13. | |
rich men. And rich southerners. You are bunch of rich southerners. We | :36:14. | :36:18. | |
need to do more to show that we are building on lifting the poorest out | :36:19. | :36:24. | |
of the tax. We need to build more houses. There is a perception that | :36:25. | :36:28. | |
the leadership at the moment is rich, and public school educated. | :36:29. | :36:34. | |
What we have to do is get more people from state education into the | :36:35. | :36:40. | |
top. You are going the other way at the moment. That is a fair | :36:41. | :36:48. | |
criticism. Modernisers also say that. I went to a combo hedge of | :36:49. | :36:55. | |
school as well. -- do a comprehensive school. We need to | :36:56. | :36:58. | |
show that we are standing up for low income. Thank Q, both of you. You | :36:59. | :37:08. | |
are watching the Sunday Politics. Coming up in just | :37:09. | :37:22. | |
Welcome to the part of the programme that is just for us in the West. | :37:23. | :37:29. | |
Coming up this week, UKIP claims we cannot cope with more immigration. | :37:30. | :37:33. | |
We'll Romanians and Bulgarians really flocked to the West Country | :37:34. | :37:37. | |
as they claim? We hear from some of those who are already working here | :37:38. | :37:40. | |
and what has drawn them to live in market towns like Yeovil. Joining us | :37:41. | :37:46. | |
are two politicians whose parties are locked in a fierce battle over | :37:47. | :37:50. | |
the issue of immigration. They are the Conservative MP Ashley Fox and | :37:51. | :37:54. | |
for the UK Independence Party, Neil Hamilton. Before we talk about | :37:55. | :37:59. | |
immigration, let's take a look at the goings`on in the European | :38:00. | :38:04. | |
Parliament this week. Ashley Fox, you have upset the French by trying | :38:05. | :38:09. | |
to stop the parliament's monthly pilgrimage from Brussels to | :38:10. | :38:13. | |
Strasbourg. Once a month, 766 MEPs, 3000 staff | :38:14. | :38:20. | |
and 25 lorry loads of documents shuttle from here in Brussels to | :38:21. | :38:24. | |
this rather similar looking building in the French city of Strasbourg. It | :38:25. | :38:30. | |
is thought the round`trip costs over 100 million euros a year. | :38:31. | :38:35. | |
Environmental terms it is 19,000 tonnes of carbon emissions. | :38:36. | :38:40. | |
French members here should confess what they are doing, they are | :38:41. | :38:43. | |
defending selfish national interest. If the seat of the European | :38:44. | :38:48. | |
Parliament was in my home city of Bristol, I would do the same. | :38:49. | :38:53. | |
That has not gone down well with the French, who insist that sitting in a | :38:54. | :38:59. | |
city on the border with Germany is of huge symbolic significance. | :39:00. | :39:03. | |
We are turning our backs on our history and culture and on some of | :39:04. | :39:06. | |
the founding principles of the European Union. | :39:07. | :39:10. | |
In the end, the European Union voted in favour of trying to change the | :39:11. | :39:16. | |
treaty in favour of these two cities. But to do that they will | :39:17. | :39:21. | |
need your disapproval of the two EU Council of ministers, one of whom | :39:22. | :39:25. | |
happens to be French. Ashley, nice try, but you're wasting | :39:26. | :39:28. | |
your breath because the French will veto it? | :39:29. | :39:34. | |
Not at all. We want get it immediately, but the French and | :39:35. | :39:38. | |
Germans will be coming with their own treaty changes to improve | :39:39. | :39:42. | |
changes in the year was on. The only consent of Parliament to approve the | :39:43. | :39:47. | |
changes. Any deal will need to be done. There is huge momentum for us | :39:48. | :39:53. | |
to have one seat and save 150 million euros a year. | :39:54. | :39:57. | |
The French might have to get something like that up, they will | :39:58. | :40:00. | |
say to us, give up your budget rebate for something you get. | :40:01. | :40:04. | |
This is nothing to do with the budget rebate, it is of a treaty | :40:05. | :40:09. | |
change. They will want amendments to the treaties, and the European | :40:10. | :40:12. | |
Parliament wants one seat. We want the treaty amended for that, and I'm | :40:13. | :40:16. | |
confident within five years we can do a deal. | :40:17. | :40:20. | |
No, has he got a crack? I think it is unlikely the French | :40:21. | :40:25. | |
will ever agree to move the Parliament from Strasbourg because | :40:26. | :40:27. | |
it is a huge symbolic significance for them. But this isn't a matter of | :40:28. | :40:32. | |
a huge question of waste in the EU. If they say 150 million pounds a | :40:33. | :40:38. | |
year and this move, they will only wish that somewhere else. We're not | :40:39. | :40:44. | |
really convinced by this one way or another. | :40:45. | :40:49. | |
It is not a sideshow, it is very important. You might ask Mr Hamilton | :40:50. | :40:54. | |
by the UKIP MEPs did not support this. There are only four of them | :40:55. | :40:59. | |
and they abstain. The whole thing is a Charente. The | :41:00. | :41:03. | |
Parliament has no right to make this decision. It is so much hot air. If | :41:04. | :41:07. | |
the money is not wasted on this, it will be wasted on something else. It | :41:08. | :41:13. | |
makes sense for the Parliament at one Single Place to meet. | :41:14. | :41:19. | |
Why didn't you vote on it? Because you have got no power to do | :41:20. | :41:23. | |
anything. It seems extraordinary you did not | :41:24. | :41:26. | |
even bother to say that we should not have two seats of government. | :41:27. | :41:31. | |
It is of no interest to us at all. We want to be out of the EU. | :41:32. | :41:36. | |
You should be interested in getting the best value for taxpayers' money. | :41:37. | :41:41. | |
The best way to save taxpayers not about money is to get out of the EU. | :41:42. | :41:48. | |
Four out of 13, they cannot be bothered to vote to save money. | :41:49. | :41:53. | |
Would you have ordered a the debate had been held in Strasbourg? | :41:54. | :41:57. | |
We don't vote in Strasbourg on matters which are of no interest in | :41:58. | :42:06. | |
anybody. It is a waste of time. It is a story really out of the | :42:07. | :42:10. | |
news, with politicians claiming we're on the wave of the new mass of | :42:11. | :42:20. | |
immigration from Bulgaria mania. Today UKIP have warned that towns | :42:21. | :42:25. | |
like Yeovil weather is already significant Eastern European | :42:26. | :42:27. | |
community, cannot cope with more immigrants. | :42:28. | :42:34. | |
This is virtual. He is Romanian and works in Yeovil as a taxi driver. | :42:35. | :42:44. | |
We are 40 or 45 Romanians. The reason he has come is simple. | :42:45. | :42:48. | |
More money, more opportunities for me. | :42:49. | :42:53. | |
These Romanians and vulgarians are working on agricultural visas and | :42:54. | :42:58. | |
for advance. They say they are not taking jobs from locals because they | :42:59. | :43:01. | |
are the only ones who want to take the work will stop. | :43:02. | :43:08. | |
I found some jobs in the mania, but it is better here. Better money | :43:09. | :43:17. | |
here. They preferred the good jobs, they don't like working in | :43:18. | :43:20. | |
agriculture. The same happen in my country. I don't want to work in | :43:21. | :43:25. | |
agriculture in my country, I want to hear. | :43:26. | :43:30. | |
But according to the UKIP councillor for central Yeovil, people are fed | :43:31. | :43:33. | |
up with the drain immigration is putting on their committee. | :43:34. | :43:40. | |
The main concern is immigration. Every person I spoke to said | :43:41. | :43:45. | |
immigration. That, he claims, is putting a strain | :43:46. | :43:51. | |
on our public services. When you have got a relatively small | :43:52. | :43:54. | |
town, it can have a big impact on medical services, on education, | :43:55. | :44:06. | |
school places. On housing. There is no doubt things have | :44:07. | :44:09. | |
changed in our committees. Take a look at the number of Polish | :44:10. | :44:12. | |
immigrants in this part of the world. It has gone up significantly | :44:13. | :44:17. | |
since 2001, at least ten times. Here at this Catholic primary School in | :44:18. | :44:20. | |
Yeovil, you can see the impact immigration has had on the area. | :44:21. | :44:26. | |
Back in 2000, none of the pupils years book English as a second | :44:27. | :44:29. | |
language, now it is nearly 50% of the pupils. But according to the | :44:30. | :44:36. | |
headteacher that is not a bad thing. We are an inclusive Catholic school, | :44:37. | :44:40. | |
are priorities to get on with our neighbours. This is a very | :44:41. | :44:44. | |
harmonious place. Most of the parents of these peoples | :44:45. | :44:48. | |
work in the hospitals or for local businesses. | :44:49. | :44:55. | |
What we see is that most of those people coming in, most of whom are | :44:56. | :45:01. | |
economic migrants, become here to work, they do not come here to live | :45:02. | :45:05. | |
on benefits. We are 40 days away from the lifting | :45:06. | :45:08. | |
of working restrictions on Bulgaria and Romania. | :45:09. | :45:12. | |
There is a catastrophe looming ahead. | :45:13. | :45:17. | |
But nobody knows yet how many more people will choose places like | :45:18. | :45:21. | |
Yeovil for their home. Joining us is Jon Fox, an expert on | :45:22. | :45:25. | |
immigration. But first, Neil Hamilton, are you and your | :45:26. | :45:31. | |
colleagues in Yeovil using scare tactics here? | :45:32. | :45:36. | |
The scale of immigration has been truly astonishing. These are numbers | :45:37. | :45:42. | |
that are completely unheard`of in the whole of our history. When Enoch | :45:43. | :45:46. | |
Powell made his famous speech nearly 50 years ago, we were getting | :45:47. | :45:49. | |
immigration of 50,000 a year. In 2010 alone we have more people come | :45:50. | :45:55. | |
to this country, 210,000, that came between 1066 and 1950 to stop we are | :45:56. | :46:00. | |
dealing with a massive problem. If they are working hard and paid | :46:01. | :46:06. | |
taxes, what is the problem? It is not against the individuals | :46:07. | :46:08. | |
coming here, we can understand why they would want to. The average wage | :46:09. | :46:12. | |
in Romania is less than jobseeker's allowance year. I would be not want | :46:13. | :46:17. | |
to come here? Especially when they can qualify by simply turning up. | :46:18. | :46:25. | |
Jon Fox, would you take a guess about how many Romanians and | :46:26. | :46:30. | |
Bulgarians might come this way? No. It is they difficult to predict. | :46:31. | :46:36. | |
We don't even have a good sense of how many people are here at the | :46:37. | :46:40. | |
moment. Census figures will be different from National Insurance | :46:41. | :46:44. | |
registrations. Migrants move, become here, they turn around and got back, | :46:45. | :46:47. | |
then they come back again. It is hard to get a sense of this. This is | :46:48. | :46:53. | |
why the predictions we do see are all over the place. | :46:54. | :46:57. | |
People are worried. They say it is hard to get a doctors appointment at | :46:58. | :47:00. | |
the moment, is hard to get a house, public services are pushed, it is | :47:01. | :47:03. | |
hard to get the job. Can you understand why people are given | :47:04. | :47:06. | |
nervous about possibly more immigration? | :47:07. | :47:12. | |
Yes, sure. And in some places these will be felt more acutely than in | :47:13. | :47:16. | |
other places. But if you look at the overall scale of things, I think you | :47:17. | :47:19. | |
see that we are absorbing this migration fairly well, and we don't | :47:20. | :47:25. | |
have this terrible problem of a strain on local councils, local | :47:26. | :47:27. | |
services everywhere. This is an isolated places, and not in the | :47:28. | :47:33. | |
entire country. Ashley Fox, is there a case for the | :47:34. | :47:39. | |
government saying, we let the Polish in when the rest of Europe said now | :47:40. | :47:43. | |
there has to be transitional controls, therefore, in this case | :47:44. | :47:47. | |
should we have more strength now and let Europe take the strain as we did | :47:48. | :47:53. | |
when the Polish game? There is no doubt there during the | :47:54. | :47:56. | |
13 years of Liberal government far too many immigrants were allowed to | :47:57. | :48:01. | |
comment United Kingdom. It was uncontrolled immigration, and the | :48:02. | :48:03. | |
Labour Party have agreed that was a catastrophic mistake, they are | :48:04. | :48:06. | |
words. The coalition government is committed to reducing immigration | :48:07. | :48:10. | |
significantly, firm but fair controls. | :48:11. | :48:14. | |
What controls are you putting over Romanians and Bulgarians coming in? | :48:15. | :48:20. | |
Those controls expire on the 1st of January 2014. Those are EU laws, and | :48:21. | :48:25. | |
that is the deal that Tony Blair signed. There is nothing we can do | :48:26. | :48:30. | |
other than take the Neil Hamilton route which is to leave the EU. | :48:31. | :48:36. | |
That is correct. We have an open door immigration policy in this | :48:37. | :48:40. | |
country, and each of the three main parties believes in staying in the | :48:41. | :48:43. | |
EU, that means we cannot control our borders from immigration, anywhere | :48:44. | :48:49. | |
else in the whole of Europe. Would you urge the government not to | :48:50. | :48:51. | |
allow Romanians and vulgarians not to come here from the 1st of | :48:52. | :48:56. | |
January? We think there should be a points | :48:57. | :48:59. | |
system for immigration, as Australia does and many other countries. | :49:00. | :49:06. | |
If we had a UKIP government... That is not going to happen by the | :49:07. | :49:10. | |
1st of January. The government should take | :49:11. | :49:13. | |
unilateral decision to close the borders, and do that unlawfully. Why | :49:14. | :49:18. | |
not? Rather, you should have a | :49:19. | :49:21. | |
referendum, which my government wants to do. | :49:22. | :49:27. | |
Yes, possibly in 2017. We're not talking about 2017, we're talking | :49:28. | :49:31. | |
about 1st of January 2014. You want to bring in unlawful | :49:32. | :49:35. | |
measures. We do not accept the legitimacy of the EU. | :49:36. | :49:40. | |
If we had responsibility for taking this decision, we would control | :49:41. | :49:44. | |
immigration. You do not want to control immigration. | :49:45. | :49:50. | |
Let's go back to the expat here, Jon Fox. People are worried about people | :49:51. | :49:55. | |
taking benefits. What can they actually get? | :49:56. | :50:03. | |
The 2004 entrance to the EU have access to benefits after one year of | :50:04. | :50:05. | |
continuous climate. Most of those people can claim benefits just like | :50:06. | :50:12. | |
you and me. Or, like you. The Romanians and Bulgarians have | :50:13. | :50:17. | |
stricter restrictions placed on them for what they can claim, but that | :50:18. | :50:20. | |
will change from 1st of January 2014, when it will be the same as | :50:21. | :50:28. | |
the 2004 entrance into the EU. I will get what benefits are being | :50:29. | :50:32. | |
claimed, we see very clearly that eastern European migrations are | :50:33. | :50:36. | |
making a net contribution. The statistic is the paying 34% more | :50:37. | :50:39. | |
into the system than they are taking out. | :50:40. | :50:44. | |
If they are paying in more than they are getting, why do you object? | :50:45. | :50:49. | |
We're not the individuals coming here. The scale of the problem is | :50:50. | :50:54. | |
what matters here. The numbers that are coming, the speed with which | :50:55. | :50:59. | |
immigration is taking place is placing enormous strains on public | :51:00. | :51:02. | |
services. It is also requiring us because of the numbers to concrete | :51:03. | :51:08. | |
over vastly greater makers of England, because this is an English | :51:09. | :51:14. | |
problem first and foremost. The planning minister wants another 3 | :51:15. | :51:18. | |
million acres of housing. And it is required because of the scale of | :51:19. | :51:20. | |
immigration that is coming in from outside the EU as well, but we don't | :51:21. | :51:27. | |
know what the scale of the problem will be from Romania and Bulgaria, | :51:28. | :51:31. | |
but we do know what the scale of the problem was for the last 15 years. | :51:32. | :51:36. | |
Nearly 1 million came from Poland in the end. | :51:37. | :51:41. | |
There is this image of the people showing up and claiming benefits and | :51:42. | :51:44. | |
being a strain on services, but they are paying a lot of money into the | :51:45. | :51:48. | |
system, more than you and I are paying into the system. | :51:49. | :51:52. | |
It is a question of how quickly you can have services that can respond | :51:53. | :51:56. | |
to the scale of the immigration. Thank you. | :51:57. | :52:00. | |
The protection of honourable children in the West Whatley is not | :52:01. | :52:04. | |
good enough to stop under a new Ofsted Rhegium, two thirds of our | :52:05. | :52:07. | |
councils would not meet the required standard. Somerset is taking | :52:08. | :52:11. | |
measures after being judged inadequate. | :52:12. | :52:18. | |
The shocking realities of front line social work. | :52:19. | :52:28. | |
This was a social worker from Bristol on a TV documentary last | :52:29. | :52:31. | |
year minutes after taking a baby into care. His mother was living | :52:32. | :52:36. | |
with a sex offender. This challenging work has increased | :52:37. | :52:39. | |
dramatically in the last five years. Child protection orders have, by | :52:40. | :52:44. | |
47%, while care proceedings have gone up 64%. The number of children | :52:45. | :52:50. | |
ending up in care has increased by 13%. Bristol was one of only three | :52:51. | :52:55. | |
authorities in the West officially judged to have good child | :52:56. | :52:58. | |
protection. Five were labelled as inadequate. `` adequate. That | :52:59. | :53:08. | |
standard is no longer acceptable. In the future that will require | :53:09. | :53:12. | |
improvement. One of them, Somerset, was told in August that its child | :53:13. | :53:15. | |
protection was completely inadequate. The council knew they | :53:16. | :53:19. | |
were in trouble. They brought in a new director of children's services, | :53:20. | :53:22. | |
experience in helping struggling authorities. This week he was asked | :53:23. | :53:26. | |
if things had improved for the county's children. | :53:27. | :53:31. | |
Yes. Certainly better protected. There is sometimes a bit of | :53:32. | :53:36. | |
mythology that says that all children can be protected of time, | :53:37. | :53:39. | |
that is not true, but we have to make sure that we do our very best | :53:40. | :53:43. | |
of the children be known about we protect very well, that we find out | :53:44. | :53:46. | |
about those children who are at risk and do something about their | :53:47. | :53:49. | |
circumstances. But Somerset is under huge financial | :53:50. | :53:52. | |
pressure. Proposed changes to children centres have caused | :53:53. | :53:57. | |
controversy. Campaigners packed a council meeting and forced a | :53:58. | :54:00. | |
rethink. The council insists it wants to spend more on front line | :54:01. | :54:04. | |
staff, not buildings, but saving money is a factor. | :54:05. | :54:10. | |
The cuts have gone really deep now. Eric Pickles has given local | :54:11. | :54:13. | |
government as almost a sacrificial lamb. I think this government is any | :54:14. | :54:17. | |
fairly serious situation. In key care services, social care and | :54:18. | :54:22. | |
learning disabilities, we're only one bad case away from being in the | :54:23. | :54:26. | |
newspapers. Meanwhile in the chamber, members | :54:27. | :54:28. | |
were reporting through another ?4 million of cuts, with more to come. | :54:29. | :54:32. | |
The leader said other areas are harder hit, so children services can | :54:33. | :54:37. | |
be protected. But winning approval from inspectors is a long way off. | :54:38. | :54:43. | |
Ofsted continue to change the goalposts. Every year they change | :54:44. | :54:48. | |
their inspection process. Yes, we hold our hands up and say this year | :54:49. | :54:51. | |
we did not need their standards. We are working very hard, we have got | :54:52. | :54:54. | |
the right people in place, we have made the right financial | :54:55. | :54:59. | |
commitments. We are doing our best for children in Somerset to ensure | :55:00. | :55:02. | |
they are safe. Nationally, one child a week dies | :55:03. | :55:07. | |
because of abuse. Social workers worried because of increased and | :55:08. | :55:09. | |
decreased resources, make that worse. | :55:10. | :55:16. | |
Joining us is Ray Jones a professor of social work had shared the | :55:17. | :55:19. | |
children safeguarding board for Bristol. Has reduced sauces got | :55:20. | :55:25. | |
anything to do with this problem? It is a combination of things. There | :55:26. | :55:31. | |
is a greater need in the community because of the welfare and benefit | :55:32. | :55:35. | |
changes. Secondly, welfare cuts is bringing less assistance for those | :55:36. | :55:40. | |
families, such as sure start centres closing. And more work is coming | :55:41. | :55:46. | |
through to social workers and there is no commensurate increase in | :55:47. | :55:51. | |
social worker numbers. They're not cutting social worker | :55:52. | :55:54. | |
numbers. Now, they're trying to maintain the | :55:55. | :55:57. | |
numbers of social workers they have, but doing well making cuts in other | :55:58. | :56:02. | |
areas, children's centres for example, so they're not cutting the | :56:03. | :56:07. | |
numbers of social workers, but they're not increasing them in line | :56:08. | :56:12. | |
with increasing demand. Tragically around one child a week | :56:13. | :56:16. | |
dies because of abuse in this country, which is absolutely | :56:17. | :56:18. | |
shocking, but that figure has been static for 20 years. | :56:19. | :56:27. | |
40 years. The first big scandal was a young girl who died in Brighton. | :56:28. | :56:30. | |
Over the years we have learned more and more about how to take children. | :56:31. | :56:35. | |
My concern at the moment is that we are seeing the amount of work coming | :56:36. | :56:39. | |
into social work increasing dramatically. Child protection | :56:40. | :56:46. | |
plans, plans for children, those have gone up dramatically. Someone | :56:47. | :56:52. | |
has got to be around to make sure we implementing those plans | :56:53. | :56:55. | |
appropriately. That requires an increase in resource. Overall we are | :56:56. | :57:00. | |
seeing resources seeing static, the needs of families increasing. | :57:01. | :57:05. | |
We have increased vastly over the last 40 years? The number of | :57:06. | :57:14. | |
resources? But what we have had since the death | :57:15. | :57:22. | |
of baby Peter in 2007 and the story breaking into those in need is an | :57:23. | :57:24. | |
increasing number of children reported to agencies, more work for | :57:25. | :57:28. | |
them to do, and now increasing the capacity for them to do that work. | :57:29. | :57:33. | |
Let's bring in Ashley Fox here. Local authority reductions. The | :57:34. | :57:38. | |
amount of pressure the coalition is putting on them. That has got to be | :57:39. | :57:43. | |
to blame, hasn't it? I don't think it's to blame. Council | :57:44. | :57:48. | |
services are under great pressure. It is very challenging. But just | :57:49. | :57:53. | |
remember why ` we are clearing up the huge budget deficit, 156 Ilium | :57:54. | :57:58. | |
pounds but Labour left us. We have cut that by one third. Taxes have | :57:59. | :58:02. | |
gone up and public expenditure is being cut. But we face a huge | :58:03. | :58:07. | |
challenge clearing up this mess will stop and councillors like those in | :58:08. | :58:11. | |
Somerset are doing their bit and very difficult circumstances. | :58:12. | :58:15. | |
We have to leave it there. Thank you. Now let's take a run through | :58:16. | :58:27. | |
the week in one minute. Brittle's public toilets could soon | :58:28. | :58:30. | |
be flushed away. Amir has proposed closing all but one as he trims his | :58:31. | :58:34. | |
budget I want quarter over the next three years. | :58:35. | :58:39. | |
If you are like me, with an elderly bladder, you need to have access to | :58:40. | :58:44. | |
the loo. And this is a tourist city. Tourists come to the city and expect | :58:45. | :58:49. | |
public toilets. Councillors have called for more | :58:50. | :58:54. | |
time to propose closing 18 children centres after protests from | :58:55. | :58:58. | |
children. We voted through ?4 million of cuts to the budget saying | :58:59. | :59:02. | |
it was the tip of the iceberg. Gloucestershire's controversial | :59:03. | :59:04. | |
incinerator project is being looked at ie government planning inspector. | :59:05. | :59:08. | |
Campaigners say it would be a blot on the landscape by the developer | :59:09. | :59:11. | |
says it is needed and will save millions of pounds. | :59:12. | :59:18. | |
But's cab`drivers save you risk getting lost after being told to | :59:19. | :59:20. | |
ditch their sap maps. Local authority says drivers should know | :59:21. | :59:24. | |
their way around and other devices obstruct the view. | :59:25. | :59:33. | |
That was a week. A word on public loos. Neil Hamilton, in UKIP land, | :59:34. | :59:40. | |
would you have public loos morbidly funded? | :59:41. | :59:44. | |
This is not an issue we are focused on particularly deeply, but on the | :59:45. | :59:48. | |
elections in May we hope to be flushed with success. | :59:49. | :59:53. | |
This is nothing to do with the EU. We have to leave it there. That is | :59:54. | :59:57. | |
all we have time for today. I did it are guests, Ashley Fox and Neil | :59:58. | :00:02. | |
Hamilton. You can watch the programme again on the BCI player, | :00:03. | :00:07. | |
but now we return to Andrew who was waiting for us in London. We'll see | :00:08. | :00:10. | |
those people who want to cycle. We will be returning to this one. Thank | :00:11. | :00:14. | |
you. A little bit of history was made at | :00:15. | :00:25. | |
Prime Minister's Questions this week. A teensy tiny bit. It wasn't | :00:26. | :00:30. | |
David Cameron accusing one MP of taking "mind-altering substances" - | :00:31. | :00:33. | |
they're always accusing each other of doing that. No, it was the first | :00:34. | :00:36. | |
time a Prime Minister used a live tweet sent from someone watching the | :00:37. | :00:39. | |
session as ammunition at the dispatch box. Let's have a look. We | :00:40. | :00:48. | |
have had some interesting interventions from front edges past | :00:49. | :00:54. | |
and present. I hope I can break records by explaining that a tweet | :00:55. | :00:59. | |
has just come in from Tony McNulty, the former Labour security | :01:00. | :01:02. | |
minister, saying that the public are desperate for a PM in waiting who | :01:03. | :01:07. | |
speaks for them, not a Leader of the Opposition in dodging in partisan | :01:08. | :01:12. | |
Westminster Village knock about. So I would stay up with the tweets if | :01:13. | :01:16. | |
you want to get on the right side of this one! We are working on how the | :01:17. | :01:21. | |
Prime Minister managed to get that wheat in the first place. What did | :01:22. | :01:26. | |
you think when you saw it being read out? I was certainly watching the | :01:27. | :01:32. | |
Daily Politics. I almost fell off my chair! It was quite astonishing. He | :01:33. | :01:36. | |
didn't answer the question - he didn't do that the whole time. But I | :01:37. | :01:41. | |
stand by what the tweets said. I have tweeted for a long time on | :01:42. | :01:46. | |
PMQs. Normally I am praising Ed Miliband to the hilt, but no one | :01:47. | :01:52. | |
announces that in Parliament! Because the Prime Minister picked up | :01:53. | :01:56. | |
on what you said, it unleashed some attacks on you from the Labour side. | :01:57. | :02:01. | |
It did, minor attacks from some very junior people. Most people were | :02:02. | :02:06. | |
supportive of what I said. They took issue with the notion of not doing | :02:07. | :02:12. | |
it until 12:30pm, when it wasn't available for the other side to use. | :02:13. | :02:16. | |
Instant history, and instantly forgettable, I would say. Do you | :02:17. | :02:21. | |
think you have started a bit of a trend? I hope not, because the | :02:22. | :02:26. | |
dumbing down of PMQs is already on its way. Most people tweet like mad | :02:27. | :02:36. | |
through PMQs! Is a measure of how post-modern we have become, we have | :02:37. | :02:39. | |
journalists tweeting about someone talking about a tweet. That is the | :02:40. | :02:45. | |
level of British politics. I am horrified by this development. The | :02:46. | :02:48. | |
whole of modern life has become about observing people -- people | :02:49. | :02:55. | |
observing themselves doing things. Do we know what happened? Somebody | :02:56. | :03:00. | |
is monitoring the tweets on behalf of the Prime Minister or the Tory | :03:01. | :03:05. | |
party. They see Tony's tweet. They then print it out and give it to | :03:06. | :03:10. | |
him? There was a suggestion that Michael Goves had spotted it, but | :03:11. | :03:14. | |
Craig Oliver from the BBC had this great sort of... Craig Oliver was | :03:15. | :03:24. | |
holding up his iPad to take pictures of the Prime Minister, which he then | :03:25. | :03:29. | |
tweeted, from the Prime Minister. People will now be tweeting in the | :03:30. | :03:32. | |
hope that they will be quoted by the Prime Minister, or the Leader of the | :03:33. | :03:38. | |
Opposition. I wasn't doing that. I'm just talking about the monster you | :03:39. | :03:44. | |
have unleashed! I hope it dies a miserable death. I think Tony is a | :03:45. | :03:49. | |
good analysis -- a good analyst of PMQs on Twitter. Moving onto the | :03:50. | :03:59. | |
Co-op. You were a Co-op-backed MP, white you? I was a Co-op party | :04:00. | :04:07. | |
member. There are two issues here about the Co-op and the Labour | :04:08. | :04:11. | |
Party. All the new music suggests that the Co-op will now have to | :04:12. | :04:16. | |
start pulling back from lending or donating to the Labour Party, which, | :04:17. | :04:21. | |
at a time when Mr Miliband is going through changes that are going to | :04:22. | :04:24. | |
cut of the union funds, it seems quite dangerous. There are three | :04:25. | :04:30. | |
things going on. There's the relationship that the party has | :04:31. | :04:34. | |
politically with the Co-op party, there is the commercial relationship | :04:35. | :04:40. | |
you referred to, and then there is this enquiry into the comings and | :04:41. | :04:43. | |
goings of Flowers and everybody else. The Tories, at their peril, | :04:44. | :04:51. | |
will mix the three up. There's a lot of things going on with a bang. | :04:52. | :04:54. | |
Labour has some issues around funding generally, and they are | :04:55. | :04:59. | |
potentially exacerbated by the Co-op issue. The Labour Party gets soft | :05:00. | :05:07. | |
loans from the Co-op bank, and it gets donations. ?800,000 last year. | :05:08. | :05:14. | |
Ed Balls got about ?50,000 for his private office. You get the feeling, | :05:15. | :05:18. | |
given the state of the Co-operative Bank now, that that money could dry | :05:19. | :05:24. | |
up. We will see. There's lots of speculation in the papers today. At | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
the core, the relationship between the Co-op party and the Labour Party | :05:29. | :05:33. | |
is a proud one, and a legitimate one. I don't think others always | :05:34. | :05:38. | |
understand that. Here is an even bigger issue. Is it not possible | :05:39. | :05:43. | |
that the Co-op bank will cease to exist in any meaningful way as a | :05:44. | :05:50. | |
Co-op bank? Is the bane out means it is 70% owned -- the bail out means | :05:51. | :06:01. | |
that it is 70% owned, or 35% going to a hedge fund, I think I read. | :06:02. | :06:07. | |
Yes, there is a move from the mutualism of the Co-op. But don't | :06:08. | :06:10. | |
confuse the Co-op bank with the Co-op Group. Others have done that. | :06:11. | :06:22. | |
I haven't. Here's the rub. The soft loans that Labour gets. They got | :06:23. | :06:30. | |
?1.2 million from this. And 2.4 million. They are secured against | :06:31. | :06:39. | |
future union membership fees of the party. What is Mr Miliband doing? He | :06:40. | :06:45. | |
is trying to end that? You have this very difficult confluence of events, | :06:46. | :06:49. | |
which is, could these wonderful soft loans that Labour has had from the | :06:50. | :06:54. | |
Co-op, could they be going? And these union reforms, where Ed | :06:55. | :06:59. | |
Miliband is trying to create a link between individuals and donations to | :07:00. | :07:04. | |
the Labour Party... Clearly, there could be real financial difficulties | :07:05. | :07:08. | |
here. The government needs to be careful, because George Osborne | :07:09. | :07:12. | |
launched one of his classic blunderbuss operations this week, | :07:13. | :07:15. | |
which is that the Labour Party is to blame for Paul Flowers' private | :07:16. | :07:22. | |
life. No, it's not. And that all the problems, essentially... Look at | :07:23. | :07:29. | |
what George Osborne was doing in Europe. He was trying to change the | :07:30. | :07:32. | |
capital requirement rules that would make it easier for the Co-op to take | :07:33. | :07:38. | |
over Lloyd's. If there is to be a big investigation, George Osborne | :07:39. | :07:41. | |
needs to be careful of what he wishes for. This is another example | :07:42. | :07:46. | |
of the Westminster consensus. All of the Westminster parties were in | :07:47. | :07:49. | |
favour of the Britannia takeover. This is how the Co-op ended up with | :07:50. | :07:54. | |
all this toxic rubbish on its balance sheet. All the major parties | :07:55. | :07:58. | |
were in favour of going to get the Lloyds branches. The Tories tried to | :07:59. | :08:02. | |
outdo Labour in being more pro-Co-op. There was nobody in | :08:03. | :08:10. | |
Westminster saying, hold on, this doesn't work. It is like the | :08:11. | :08:15. | |
financial bubble all over again. Everyone was in favour of that at | :08:16. | :08:20. | |
the time. I think there is no evidence so far that the storm is | :08:21. | :08:24. | |
cutting through to the average voter. If I were Ed Miliband, I | :08:25. | :08:29. | |
would let it die a natural death. I would not write to an editorial | :08:30. | :08:34. | |
column for a national newspaper on a Sunday. That keeps the issue alive, | :08:35. | :08:39. | |
and it makes him look oversensitive and much better at dishing it out | :08:40. | :08:47. | |
than taking it. I agree about that. The Labour press team tweeted this | :08:48. | :08:50. | |
week saying that it was a new low for the times. And this was | :08:51. | :09:00. | |
re-tweeted by Ed Miliband. It isn't a great press attitude. It is very | :09:01. | :09:06. | |
Moni. Bill Clinton went out there and fought and made the case. So did | :09:07. | :09:12. | |
Tony Blair. If you just say, they are being horrible to us, it looks | :09:13. | :09:18. | |
pathetic. And it will cut through on Osborne and the financial | :09:19. | :09:23. | |
dimensional is, not political. I shall tweet that later! While we | :09:24. | :09:33. | |
have been talking, Mr Miliband has been on Desert Island Discs. He | :09:34. | :09:38. | |
might still be on it. Let's have a listen to what he had to say. | :09:39. | :09:46. | |
# Take on me, take me on. # And threw it all, she offers me | :09:47. | :09:58. | |
protection. # A lot of love and affection. | :09:59. | :10:10. | |
# Whether I'm right or wrong #. # Je Ne Regrette Rien. #. | :10:11. | :10:25. | |
Obviously, that was the music that Ed Miliband chose. Who thought -- | :10:26. | :10:31. | |
you would have thought he would choose Norman Lamont's theme tune! | :10:32. | :10:41. | |
He chose Jerusalem... He has no classical background at all. He had | :10:42. | :10:52. | |
no Beethoven, no Elgar. David Cameron had Mendelssohn. And Ernie, | :10:53. | :11:00. | |
the fastest Notman in the West. -- fastest milkman. Tony Blair chose | :11:01. | :11:11. | |
the theme tune to a movie. Tony Blair's list was chosen by young | :11:12. | :11:14. | |
staffers in his office. It absolutely was. Tony Blair's list | :11:15. | :11:24. | |
was chosen by staff. The Ed Miliband this was clearly chosen by himself, | :11:25. | :11:28. | |
because who would allow politician to go out there and say that they | :11:29. | :11:38. | |
like Aha. I am the same age as Ed Miliband, and of course he likes | :11:39. | :11:42. | |
Aha. That was the tumour was played in the 80s. Sweet Caroline. It is | :11:43. | :11:54. | |
Angels by Robbie Williams. I was 14-year-old girl when that came out. | :11:55. | :12:02. | |
I thought Angels was the staple of hen nights and chucking out time in | :12:03. | :12:09. | |
pubs. The really good thing about his list is that the Smiths to not | :12:10. | :12:12. | |
appear. The Smiths were all over David Cameron's list. The absolutely | :12:13. | :12:18. | |
miserable music of Morris he was not there. What was his luxury? And | :12:19. | :12:27. | |
Indian takeaway! Again, chosen for political reasons. I would agree | :12:28. | :12:34. | |
with the panel about Aha, but I would expect -- I would respect his | :12:35. | :12:41. | |
right to choose. Have you been on Desert Island Discs? I have. It took | :12:42. | :12:46. | |
me three weeks to choose the music. It was the most difficult decision | :12:47. | :12:50. | |
in my life. What was the most embarrassing thing you chose? I | :12:51. | :12:56. | |
didn't choose anything embarrassing. I chose Beethoven, Elgar, and some | :12:57. | :13:01. | |
proper modern jazz. Anything from the modern era? Pet Shop Boys. | :13:02. | :13:13. | |
That's all for today. The Daily Politics will be on BBC Two at | :13:14. | :13:17. | |
lunchtime every day next week, and we'll be back here on BBC One at | :13:18. | :13:20. | |
11am next week. My luxury, by the way, was a wind-up radio! Remember, | :13:21. | :13:23. | |
if it's Sunday, it's the Sunday Politics. | :13:24. | :13:31. |