22/04/2012 Sunday Politics Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

On the Sunday politics in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire - claims that

disability benefit diskpwraim names again those who have -

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 1726 seconds

discriminates against those who Good afternoon. Coming up today.

After the resignation of a superhead at a flagship school, we

ask where whether the Government's academy programme needs closer

scrutiny. Our guests are Stuart Andrew, the Conservative MP for

Pudsey, Jeanette Sunderland, the leader of Bradford Liberal

Democrats, and Barry Sheerman, the Labour MP for Huddersfield. First

the latest row about getting people off welfare and into work. It is

thoughts thousands of people will lose their disability benefit

following new legislation. The Sunderland politics has been told

that people who have paid -- Sunday politics have been told that people

who paid contributions can only claim allowance for a year. Nick

Morris reports. The main injury I suffered was a broken neck at C2. I

think they call it the hangman's fracture. After a car accident,

June was placed on incapacity benefit. Two years late e Labour

replaced this benefit with the employment and support allowance.

Shifting everyone across to this new benefit is a long process that

is expecting to last until 2014, when June's turn to be reassessed

came, she was devastated by the verdict. They said you have been

awarded zero points and I cracked out laughing to the man on the

phone. Do you realise what's wrong with me? How can you award me no

points? Bear in mind this a year ago when me mental health weren't

so good. I wasn't washing, I wasn't getting clean, I was losing weight.

In the report she said I was an average build, I was clean and

presentable and didn't have problems. She listed things that

she were only a nurse. Making it harder to claim benefits is a

Conner stone policy for the coalition Government. Disability

charitys say this is a farce and warn things are about to get worse.

Last month Parliament passed the welfare reform Act, from now on,

those receiving the benefit who have had a job and paid national

insurance will only receive it for a year. Those who have never had a

job and never paid national insurance contributions, can

receive it in definitely. Hundreds of people in our region who

received the benefit for more than a year have been told their

payments will be cut off this month. When you pay your national

insurance contributions into the system, that is like an insurance

policy and I expect something in return. Like June, Mark in another

part of West Yorkshire, worked his entire adult life, before an

accident in 2009, in which he almost lost an arm. We're not using

his real name, because he is still fighting the Government decision to

stop his benefit. They're pulling the carpet from under me feet.

People say it's a good lifen benefit. I'm not having a good life.

But I have been used to working. When the Government do come up with

these ideas, they are playing with people's lives. A report by

Sheffield Hallam university says regions like ours will be hardest

bit by the reform. There are more people in Yorkshire claiming

employment support allowance than in the south of England and the

figures show that people forced into finding employment will finds

jobs harder to come by up here. The Sunday Politics contacted the

department for work and pensions The UK spends �135 billion on

disability benefits over the last decade. The Government says that

figure has to come down. But as the coalition's measures tighten, are

the right people being made to pay? We jb joined by Stephen Fothergill

who, wrote a report about the reform. But first, Stuart Andrew,

the claim here is that people who have paid national insurance all

their lives can only get this new allowance for a year and people who

have paid nothing can get it. Is that fair. There are two aspects.

One those that can work or might be able to work will go into one

able to work will go into one category.. If they have been paying

national insurance that will come to an ends at the end of year and

if they have savings or income, they will have to rely on that, if

they haven't they will go on to the other part of the benefit. So there

will be support there and there will be other benefits available.

It is not an easy decision. We have gone through a difficult recession,

we have a huge debt and we have a limited amount. It is important we

get it to those who don't have any means to support themselves. Barry

Sheerman we couldn't carry on paying the benefits at that level,

do you accept there must be winners and losers? The shock is this is

the cut off after a year. I don't think that is what was planned by

the previous Labour Government. The medical tests was a Labour

initiative and I would be the first person to say we have to cut our

cloth to suit the time we're in. But the fact is that we want to

make sure that benefits go to the people that need them and what we

see here is I think a disjunction between policy and how it impacts

on the regions as many of these policies do. Jeanette Sunderland

when you're campaigning in Bradford, ahead of the elections and people

say the coalition's cutting my benefits, what do you say to them?

They can always tell me about the person getting the benefit that

shouldn't receive it. That is an interesting take. But should people

with a disability be stopped from work and consigned to benefit

system? I don't think. So that noise t the world most people want

the live in. Where we're is in a difficult situation. What I find

odd is in a year's time benefits reform will change again and a lot

of this difficulty will disafear peer. Stephen Fothergill how will

the changes affect our part of the world? Well Yorkshire's exposed to

the changes, because there are parts of Yorkshire in the

industrial areas that have large numbers of people out of labour

market on incapacity benefit. We are sometimes talk of 10% of all

adults of working age have been parked on these benefits for many

years. So is you're introducing reforms that will drive large

numbers o' off benefit, it will affect disproportionately on the

weakest local economys and the places where it's hardest to absorb

people back into the labour market. You're not easily going to find

another job if you're in Barnsley or Rotherham or Doncaster. These

are difficult labour markets. There are plenty of other people ahead of

you in the queue for work, people with no health problems, never mind

better skills. You accept we can't carry on paying �135 ball year for

people not to work? The long-term solution is to create the jobs.

Being ill has never been an absolute bar to working. What we

can see in the figures, in those parts of southern England, where

the economy is strong, even now, we haven't parked large numbers of

with ill health on bet fits. They have found work. In the difficult

labour markets, particularly the older industrial areas of the north,

that is where we have hidden unemployment and now by putting the

squeeze on those individuals, we're not necessarily going the get them

into work. Unless there are jobs. It was �135 billion over ten years.

Not a year. Stuart Andrew it is about creating the jobs. We did see

a fall in unemployment in Yorkshire, but many people say the jobs still

aren't there. No, we're having to build on those and the figures are

encouraging, but we have a long way to go. I think that is, that has to

be coupled, this benefit changes, has to be coupled with as many

policies as possible that distribute wealth and rebalancing

our economy from the south to the north has been part of what the

Government are trying do. We need to see more of it. Stephen

Fothergill isn't the Government on the right track, do you applaud

what it is doing to try create jobs? We're a long way from

creating a sufficient number of jobs. Yes, rebalancing the economy

is necessary, whether the present set of policies will deliver that,

deliver it in the right places, places like ours and on the right

time scale, I have got to say is still questionable. We have to

leave that particular topic, thank you. In recent times more and more

schools have opted out of local authority control and become

academies. In many areas, that's meant better facilities and

improved exam results. But in some cases it's prompted questions about

the way public money has been spent. Sharon Edwards now reports from a

Lincolnshire academy where the Chief Executive has just resigned

from his �200,000 a year post, following a Government

investigation into financial mismanagement. Remember this place?

A �2 million French education centre owned by a chain of academy

schools in Lincolnshire. Or the all new Olympic-sized sports facilities.

In October we brought you the story of the Priory federation of act

plees and the millions -- accused Meirs and the millions invested in

it by the Government. We reported on the Priory federation and the

chain of schools. Following that report, the Government conducted

its own investigation into financial management. Three weeks

ago, Richard Gilland resigned from the Priory federation. For now the

investigation investigation -- information is going treated with

secrecy. Academies are not under local authority control and there

are claims they're not being properly monitored. Under a local

education authority, this could not happen. There are checks and

balances in place. This is what worries me about the academies

programme, that we're putting our faith in individuals and there is

no guarantee that these individuals will deliver or whether these

individuals are the right person to deliver. And this is what really

worries about about the whole issue of the academy programme. This week

a Parliamentary spending watchdog raised concerns over what it called

an ineffort tabl lack of accountability and say we're

concerned that complainants may be bounced between between the act Mey

and group head quarters with recourse thereafter only to the

Secretary of State. This mother from Lincoln, who doesn't want to

be identified, wrote to the Government to complain about one of

the Priory schools, because she didn't feel the staff or trustees

dealt with her properly. As a parent, I don't feel comfortable

having a child at a school that is not accountable to the local

council. Why? Because I feel they are making their own rules and they

are unchallengable. In a statement Pressure on the Government to

publish the results of investigation is mounting, even

though Lincoln MP doesn't agree. this stage, no I don't think it

should be made public. I think the federation trustees need to do the

response they have to do. And I think that due process should p

allowed to take place and it may be that certain aspeblgts of the

report are made public. I would have thought Karl McCartney as MP

for the area, a lot of people go to Priory federation schools. I would

are have thought he would want to make sure this information is out

in the public domain. The schools enjoy some of the best exam results

in the country, the Department for Education says its investigates

focuses on financial management. But with the coalition pushing for

record numbers of academies, questions of transparency are

continuing to be raised. Barry Sheerman, Labour launched the

programme. Is there enough accountability when it comes to

these academies? No, you have to remember the original idea was

those schools in areas that were, people were not getting a decent

education in the most deprived communities, from 200 and moving to

400 out of over 3,000 schools, that was the idea. The most challenged

schools were given the chance to have that independence. Of course

now the new Government have inverted that and all the most

successful schools are become academies. What you don't have, you

don't have localism, you have centralism and this powerful

education department we have ever had with individual schools having

their own powers, but reporting to the Education Secretary. Michael

Gove is the most powerful Education Secretary in history and the

problem here is - and I don't want to comment on this particular

school - but there are challenges about governance, because no one is

there to hold the ring. Local authorities used to hold the ring,

now no one does. Jeanette Sunderland, Bradford has many

academies. What are parents saying to you? Bradford has been ahead of

the game on lots of things, including having its education

authority outsourced, because it was not capable of holding the ring.

There is no real answer to say we need an LEA doing everything. But

there are no secrets to what makes a good quality school. What is

missing from the model is good quality local governance. And I

would as a Liberal Democrat put that in the hands of councillors

and local councillors being able to hold schools to account. Stuart

Andrew, we're seeing more schools becoming academies and these new

free schools, how do we know that public money is being well spent?

What is important at the start when we are looking at the schools, is

they bring out with the children are leaving, have the best

qualifications. We're seeing already that those schools are that

are academys are bringing out excellent results. But we need to

make sure that there is a form of checks and balances to make sure

that money y is being spent properly. If we can watch this as a

rolling programme, if there are needs to tighten up that. That can

only be a good thing. Free schools are offering opportunities for

parents with children with learning difficulties. I have one that will

open in my constituency. For parents that need some specialist

education for their children. That wouldn't have been available

without the free school policy. I think we have got to have a real

balance in this argument. Barry Sheerman does it bother you that

the head of the accused Meirs are being paid more than �200,000 a

year. -- academies. It seems absurd that schools can get that out of

kilt we are what ordinary people know as a reasonable salary. But

you know that one thing that will happen if you have a powerful head

or chairman of govors that thinks they don't have to be responsible

to the public for public money. So we do need good governance and the

hole in this is here is a Government that believes in

localism and we have centralism. Before we go, I want to touch on

another subject. Just before we go, an update on the long-awaited

decision over the fate of children's heart surgery in Leeds

will be decided in July, following a Court of Appeal ruling in London

on Thursday. The impact of the ruling is that the review of heart

surgery in the north of England continues and it could be that the

centre at Leeds General Infirmary closes and is replaced by

facilities in Newcastle. Stuart Andrew has championed the continued

existence of the Leeds unit. What are you going to do to try and do

that? I think the court case ruling was disappointing, but we have got

evidence from an independent panel that back everything that we have

been saying, that patients from soth u south and West Yorkshire

will not travel to Newcastle and will not be able to reach this

magic 400 operations a year and if you have closed Leeds, Newcastle

will close and that would leave the whole of the north of England with

just one unit. That gives power to our argument for keeping the centre

in Leeds open and we have to make that case. Do you think people in

Bradford will join that campaign? think they have. It is part of same

problem that, London and the south- east is increasingly powerful.

Almost everything ends up there. It is the cities fought back.

would you address that?? More resource, more independence and you

have to counter balance that the south-east all the time is

increasing in power and influence. Are you optimistic? I am, we have a