Browse content similar to 02/04/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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It's Sunday Morning and this is the Sunday Politics. | :00:38. | :00:41. | |
The Government has insisted that Gibraltar will not be bargained | :00:42. | :00:45. | |
But the territory's chief minister says the EU's proposal | :00:46. | :00:49. | |
After a momentous week, Britain's journey out | :00:50. | :00:55. | |
Can the Prime Minister satisfy her critics at home | :00:56. | :00:58. | |
We speak to the former Conservative leader, Michael Howard. | :00:59. | :01:04. | |
And we have the lowdown on next month's local elections - | :01:05. | :01:06. | |
what exactly is up for grabs, who's going up and who's going down? | :01:07. | :01:10. | |
Later on the Sunday Politics we find out what people across Yorkshire and | :01:11. | :01:13. | |
Lincolnshire want from the Brexit negotiations. | :01:14. | :01:16. | |
Could there perhaps be any surprises? | :01:17. | :01:20. | |
changing their minds. MPs from opposing sides give the view from | :01:21. | :01:23. | |
there constituencies. And with me, as always, | :01:24. | :01:30. | |
the best and the brightest political panel in the business - | :01:31. | :01:33. | |
Steve Richards, Isabel Oakeshott and Tom Newton Dunn who'll be | :01:34. | :01:35. | |
tweeting throughout the programme. For the people of Gibraltar, Clause | :01:36. | :01:40. | |
22 of the EU's draft negotiating guidelines came as something | :01:41. | :01:43. | |
of a shock. The guidelines propose | :01:44. | :01:45. | |
that the Government in Spain be given a veto over any future trade | :01:46. | :01:51. | |
deal as it applies to The UK Government has reacted | :01:52. | :01:54. | |
strongly, saying Gibraltar will not be bargained away | :01:55. | :01:59. | |
in the Brexit talks. Here's the Defence Secretary, | :02:00. | :02:01. | |
Michael Fallon, speaking We are going to look | :02:02. | :02:08. | |
after Gibraltar. Gibraltar's going to be protected | :02:09. | :02:14. | |
all the way, all the way, because the sovereignty of Gibraltar | :02:15. | :02:18. | |
cannot be changed without the agreement of the people | :02:19. | :02:20. | |
of Gibraltar and they have made it very clear they do not | :02:21. | :02:23. | |
want to live under Spanish rule and it is interesting, I think, | :02:24. | :02:26. | |
in the draft guidelines from the EU that Spain is not saying | :02:27. | :02:29. | |
that the whole thing is subject Michael Fallon earlier. Steve, is | :02:30. | :02:40. | |
this a Spanish power grab or much ado about nothing? It could be both. | :02:41. | :02:45. | |
Clearly what is happening about this negotiation and will happen again | :02:46. | :02:50. | |
and again is that at different points individual countries can | :02:51. | :02:55. | |
start playing bargaining cards. They will say, if you want a deal, you | :02:56. | :03:02. | |
have to deliver this, UK. Spain is doing it early. It might turn out to | :03:03. | :03:06. | |
be nothing at all. It is an early example of how to delete recruit | :03:07. | :03:13. | |
after Article 50 is triggered, the dynamic -- how after Article 50 is | :03:14. | :03:21. | |
triggered, the dynamic changes. At certain points, any country can veto | :03:22. | :03:25. | |
it. It gives them much more power than we have clocked so far. Donald | :03:26. | :03:30. | |
Tusk, the head of the European Council, he went out of his way to | :03:31. | :03:36. | |
say Britain mustn't deal by laterally, with individual | :03:37. | :03:38. | |
countries, it has to deal with the EU as a block. Was it mischiefmaking | :03:39. | :03:45. | |
to add this bit in about Spain? Those two things do not tally. I | :03:46. | :03:53. | |
think on our part, when I say we, I mean the Foreign Office and Number | :03:54. | :04:00. | |
10, we dropped the ball. By excluding Gibraltar from the letter | :04:01. | :04:03. | |
of Article 50, they gave an opportunity to the Spanish to steal | :04:04. | :04:08. | |
the narrative. Why this is important, presentation, things | :04:09. | :04:13. | |
looked like they were going quite well for Theresa May when she handed | :04:14. | :04:18. | |
over the letter, for a few hours, and suddenly, you have this | :04:19. | :04:22. | |
incredible symbolism of Gibraltar. For Brexiteers, the idea that there | :04:23. | :04:28. | |
could be some kind of diminishment or failure in relation to Gibraltar, | :04:29. | :04:33. | |
it would be a very symbolic illustration of things not going | :04:34. | :04:37. | |
entirely to plan. Forget the detail, it does not look great. Gibraltar | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
got mentions in the white paper. They did not get a mention in the | :04:42. | :04:46. | |
Article 50 notification. Do you think the British Government did not | :04:47. | :04:52. | |
see this coming? To be honest, I do not think it would make a bit of | :04:53. | :04:55. | |
difference. Theresa May could have an entire chapter in her letter to | :04:56. | :05:00. | |
Donald Tusk and the Spanish and the EU would have still tried this on. | :05:01. | :05:05. | |
For me, it was as much a point of symbolism than it was for any power | :05:06. | :05:11. | |
grab. It was a good point to make. You need to know, Britain, you are | :05:12. | :05:16. | |
not in our club, we will not have your interests at heart. Officials | :05:17. | :05:19. | |
after the press conference, they went on to talk about it saying it | :05:20. | :05:26. | |
is a territorial dispute. It is not! Gibraltar is British. It is very | :05:27. | :05:33. | |
much a shot across the bow is. Whether it comes to pass, it is | :05:34. | :05:37. | |
still yet to be seen. I feel we will be chasing hares like this for the | :05:38. | :05:41. | |
next few years. There will be many other examples. They are greatly | :05:42. | :05:48. | |
empowered by the whole process. Britain has not really got... It has | :05:49. | :05:55. | |
got to wait and hear what their interpretation of Brexit is. They | :05:56. | :05:57. | |
will negotiate, we will negotiate accordingly. I have some sympathy | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
about the letter, the Article 50 letter. They agonised over it, so | :06:03. | :06:08. | |
much to get right in terms of balance and tone. It would have been | :06:09. | :06:11. | |
absurd to start mentioning Skegness and everything else. Why not! | :06:12. | :06:23. | |
Skegness, what did they do? It is a real example of how the dynamic now | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
changes. The Spanish royals are going to come here in a couple of | :06:29. | :06:31. | |
months, that could be interesting. It will be good feelings breaking | :06:32. | :06:37. | |
up, I am sure. -- breaking out. So, after a historic week, | :06:38. | :06:45. | |
the UK is now very much But will it be a smooth | :06:46. | :06:48. | |
journey to the exit door? Or can we expect | :06:49. | :06:52. | |
a bit of turbulence? Are you taking back | :06:53. | :06:54. | |
control, Prime Minister? Big days in politics usually | :06:55. | :06:56. | |
involve people shouting and the Prime Minister getting | :06:57. | :06:58. | |
in a car. It is only a few hundred metres | :06:59. | :07:00. | |
from Downing Street to Parliament. But the short journey is the start | :07:01. | :07:03. | |
of a much longer one and we do not know exactly | :07:04. | :07:06. | |
where we will all end up. This is a historic moment | :07:07. | :07:11. | |
from which there can Moments earlier, this Dear John, | :07:12. | :07:13. | |
sorry, Dear Don letter, was delivered by Britain's | :07:14. | :07:23. | |
ambassador in Brussels to the EU He seemed genuinely upset | :07:24. | :07:25. | |
to have been jilted. Back in Westminster, | :07:26. | :07:28. | |
hacks from around the world were trying to work out what it | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
all meant for the So, here it is, a copy | :07:35. | :07:37. | |
of the six-page letter The letter reaffirms the PM's | :07:38. | :07:43. | |
proposal to have talks on the exit deal and a future trade deal | :07:44. | :07:50. | |
at the same time. It also mentioned the word | :07:51. | :07:52. | |
"security" 11 times and stated a failure to reach agreement | :07:53. | :07:55. | |
would mean cooperation in the fight against crime | :07:56. | :07:57. | |
and terrorism would be weakened. Later, our very own Andrew got | :07:58. | :08:01. | |
to ask her what would happen if Britain left the European | :08:02. | :08:05. | |
policing agency, Europol. We would not be able to access | :08:06. | :08:10. | |
information in the same way as we would as a member, | :08:11. | :08:14. | |
so it is important, I think, we are able to negotiate | :08:15. | :08:17. | |
a continuing relationship that enables us to work together | :08:18. | :08:19. | |
in the way that we have. That night, the | :08:20. | :08:22. | |
Brexiteers were happy. We did not have a Mad | :08:23. | :08:24. | |
Hatter, but now we do. Down the street, even the Remainers, | :08:25. | :08:30. | |
having a Mad Hatters' tea party, I am not sure that is | :08:31. | :08:34. | |
actually Boris, though. The next morning, the papers | :08:35. | :08:43. | |
suggested Theresa May would use security as a bargaining tool | :08:44. | :08:58. | |
and threaten to withdraw the UK's cooperation in this area | :08:59. | :08:58. | |
if no deal was struck. Downing Street denied it, | :08:59. | :08:58. | |
as did the Brexit Secretary. We can both cope, but we | :08:59. | :08:59. | |
will both be worse off. That seems to be a statement | :09:00. | :09:01. | |
of fact, it is not a threat, David Davis had other | :09:02. | :09:05. | |
business that morning, introducing the Great Repeal Bill, | :09:06. | :09:08. | |
outling his plans to transfer all EU law into British | :09:09. | :09:10. | |
law to change later, It is not without its critics | :09:11. | :09:12. | |
but the Brexit Secretary said, among other benefits, | :09:13. | :09:17. | |
it would make trade talks easier As we exit the EU and seek | :09:18. | :09:20. | |
a new deep and special partnership with the European Union, | :09:21. | :09:26. | |
we are doing so from a position where we have the same | :09:27. | :09:29. | |
standards and rules. It will also ensure we deliver | :09:30. | :09:31. | |
on our promise to end the supremacy of European Union law | :09:32. | :09:37. | |
in the UK as we exit. There was, though, a small | :09:38. | :09:39. | |
issue with the name. The Government hit an early hurdle | :09:40. | :09:46. | |
with the Great Repeal Bill. Parliamentary draughtsmen said | :09:47. | :09:49. | |
they were not allowed Great(!) | :09:50. | :09:52. | |
so it is just the Repeal Bill. So far, it had been | :09:53. | :10:00. | |
a tale of two cities. By Friday, there was another, | :10:01. | :10:02. | |
Valletta in Malta, where EU leaders were having a meeting | :10:03. | :10:06. | |
and President Tusk, yes, him again, set out draft guidelines | :10:07. | :10:08. | |
for the EU Brexit strategy. Once, and only once, | :10:09. | :10:15. | |
we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal can we discuss | :10:16. | :10:18. | |
the framework for our Starting parallel talks | :10:19. | :10:20. | |
on all issues at the same time, as suggested by some in the UK, | :10:21. | :10:24. | |
will not happen. The EU 27 does not and will not | :10:25. | :10:32. | |
pursue a punitive approach. Brexit in itself is | :10:33. | :10:37. | |
already punitive enough. The pressure on Theresa May to get | :10:38. | :10:43. | |
the Brexit process going has now gone and the stage is being set | :10:44. | :10:46. | |
elsewhere for the showdown But face-to-face discussions | :10:47. | :10:49. | |
are not likely to happen Before May or early June. No one is | :10:50. | :10:59. | |
celebrating just yet. We're joined now from Kent | :11:00. | :11:06. | |
by the former Conservative The EU says it will not talk about a | :11:07. | :11:14. | |
future relationship with the UK until there has been sufficient | :11:15. | :11:17. | |
progress on agreeing the divorce bill. Should the UK agree to this | :11:18. | :11:25. | |
phased approach? Well, I think you can make too much about the sequence | :11:26. | :11:31. | |
and timing of the negotiations. I assume that it will be a case of | :11:32. | :11:36. | |
nothing is agreed until everything is agreed and so any agreements that | :11:37. | :11:39. | |
might be reached on things talked about early on will be very | :11:40. | :11:45. | |
provisional, so I think you can make a big deal about the timing and the | :11:46. | :11:49. | |
sequence when I do not think it really matters as much as all that. | :11:50. | :11:54. | |
Don't people have a right in this country to be surprised of the talk | :11:55. | :11:58. | |
of a massive multi-billion pound divorce settlement? I do not | :11:59. | :12:02. | |
remember either side making much of this in the referendum, do you? No. | :12:03. | :12:10. | |
A select committee of the House of Lords recently reported and said | :12:11. | :12:13. | |
that there was no legal basis for any exit fee. We will have to see | :12:14. | :12:19. | |
how the negotiations go. I think some of the figures cited so far are | :12:20. | :12:26. | |
wildly out of kilter and wildly unrealistic. We will have to see | :12:27. | :12:31. | |
what happens in the negotiations. As one of your panel commented earlier, | :12:32. | :12:35. | |
there will be lots of hares to pursue over the next couple of years | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
and we should not get too excited about any of them. Would you accept | :12:40. | :12:46. | |
that we make... It may not be anything like the figures Brussels | :12:47. | :12:50. | |
is kicking around of 50, 60 billion euros, do you think we will have to | :12:51. | :12:58. | |
make a one-off settlement? If we get everything else we want, if we get a | :12:59. | :13:04. | |
really good trade deal and access for the City of London and so on, | :13:05. | :13:09. | |
speaking for myself, I would be prepared to make a modest payment. | :13:10. | :13:13. | |
But it all depends on the deal we get. What would modest be? Oh, I | :13:14. | :13:23. | |
cannot give you a figure. We are right at the start of the | :13:24. | :13:26. | |
negotiations. I do not think that would be agreed until near the end. | :13:27. | :13:32. | |
The EU says that if there is a transition period of several years | :13:33. | :13:35. | |
after the negotiations, and there is more talk of that, the UK must | :13:36. | :13:40. | |
remain subject to the free movement of peoples and the jurisdiction of | :13:41. | :13:44. | |
the European Court of Justice, would that be acceptable to you? It | :13:45. | :13:49. | |
depends on the nature of the transitional agreement. We are | :13:50. | :13:53. | |
getting well ahead of ourselves here. You cannot, I think, for any | :13:54. | :14:00. | |
judgment as to whether there should be a transitional stage until you | :14:01. | :14:04. | |
know what the final deal is. If there is to be a final deal. And | :14:05. | :14:08. | |
then you know how long it might take to implement that deal. That is | :14:09. | :14:15. | |
something I think that it is really rather futile to talk about at this | :14:16. | :14:19. | |
stage. It may become relevant, depending on the nature of the deal, | :14:20. | :14:24. | |
and that is the proper time to talk about it and decide what the answer | :14:25. | :14:29. | |
to the questions you pose might be. Except the EU has laid this out in | :14:30. | :14:33. | |
its negotiation mandate and it is reasonable to ask people like | :14:34. | :14:39. | |
yourself, should we accept that? It is reasonable for me to say, they | :14:40. | :14:44. | |
will raise all sorts of things in their negotiating mandate and we do | :14:45. | :14:47. | |
not need to form a view of all of them at this stage. Let me try | :14:48. | :14:52. | |
another one. The EU says if they do agree what you have called a | :14:53. | :14:55. | |
comprehensive free trade deal, we would have to accept EU constraints | :14:56. | :15:00. | |
on state aid and taxes like VAT and corporation tax. Would you accept | :15:01. | :15:08. | |
that? Again, I am not sure quite what they have in mind on that. We | :15:09. | :15:12. | |
will be an independent country when we leave and we will make our own | :15:13. | :15:17. | |
decisions about those matters. Not according to know that -- to the | :15:18. | :15:25. | |
negotiating mandate. As I have said, they can put all sorts of things in | :15:26. | :15:30. | |
the negotiating guidelines, it does not mean we have to agree with them. | :15:31. | :15:34. | |
No doubt that is something we can discuss in the context of a free | :15:35. | :15:40. | |
trade agreement. If we get a free trade agreement, that is very | :15:41. | :15:43. | |
important for them as well as for us, and we can talk about some of | :15:44. | :15:45. | |
the things you have just mentioned. Can you please leave a 20 without | :15:46. | :15:57. | |
having repatriated full control of migration, taxis and the law? I | :15:58. | :16:03. | |
think we will have repatriated all three of those things by the time of | :16:04. | :16:10. | |
the next general election. How high would you rate the chances of no | :16:11. | :16:13. | |
deal, and does that prospect worry you? I think the chances are we will | :16:14. | :16:20. | |
get the deal, and I think the chances are we will get a good deal, | :16:21. | :16:24. | |
because that is in the interests of both sides of this negotiation. But | :16:25. | :16:31. | |
it is not the end of the world if we do not get a deal. Most trade in the | :16:32. | :16:36. | |
world is carried out under World Trade Organisation rules. We would | :16:37. | :16:40. | |
be perfectly OK if we traded with the European Union, as with | :16:41. | :16:45. | |
everybody else, under World Trade Organisation rules. It is better to | :16:46. | :16:49. | |
get the deal, and I think we will get the deal, because it is in the | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
interests of both. Let me ask you about Gibraltar. You have campaigned | :16:55. | :16:57. | |
in Gibraltar when the sovereignty issue came up under the Tony Blair | :16:58. | :17:02. | |
government. The EU says that Spain should have a veto on whether any | :17:03. | :17:08. | |
free-trade deal should apply to the Rock. How should the British | :17:09. | :17:13. | |
government replied to that? As it has responded, by making it | :17:14. | :17:18. | |
absolutely clear that we will stand by Gibraltar. 35 years ago this | :17:19. | :17:25. | |
week, Andrew, another woman Prime Minister Centre task force is | :17:26. | :17:28. | |
halfway across the world to protect another small group of British | :17:29. | :17:31. | |
people against another Spanish-speaking country. I am | :17:32. | :17:37. | |
absolutely clear that our current woman Prime Minister will show the | :17:38. | :17:40. | |
same resolve in relation to Gibraltar as her predecessor did. | :17:41. | :17:52. | |
This is not about Spain invading Gibraltar, it is not even about | :17:53. | :17:54. | |
sovereignty, it is about Spain having a veto over whether any | :17:55. | :17:56. | |
free-trade deal that the UK makes with the EU should also apply to | :17:57. | :18:00. | |
Gibraltar. On that issue, how should the British government respond? The | :18:01. | :18:06. | |
British government should show resolve. It is not in the interests | :18:07. | :18:11. | |
of Spain, really, to interfere with free trade to Gibraltar. 10,000 | :18:12. | :18:15. | |
people who live in Spain working Gibraltar. That is a very important | :18:16. | :18:20. | |
Spanish interest, so I am very confident that in the end, we will | :18:21. | :18:25. | |
be able to look after all the interests of Gibraltar, including | :18:26. | :18:30. | |
free trade. Michael Howard, thank you for joining us from Kent this | :18:31. | :18:31. | |
morning. Although sometimes it seems | :18:32. | :18:34. | |
like everyone has forgotten, there are things happening | :18:35. | :18:36. | |
other than Brexit. In less than five weeks' time, | :18:37. | :18:38. | |
there will be a round of important domestic elections and there's a lot | :18:39. | :18:41. | |
up for grabs. Local elections take place | :18:42. | :18:44. | |
on the 4th of May in England, In England, there are elections | :18:45. | :18:47. | |
in 34 councils, with 2,370 The majority are county councils, | :18:48. | :18:51. | |
usually areas of strength Large cities where Labour usually | :18:52. | :18:58. | |
fares better are not Six regions of England will also | :18:59. | :19:05. | |
hold elections for newly created combined authority mayors, | :19:06. | :19:08. | |
and there will be contests for directly elected mayors, | :19:09. | :19:11. | |
with voters in Manchester, Liverpool and the West Midlands | :19:12. | :19:18. | |
among those going to the polls. In Scotland, every seat in all 32 | :19:19. | :19:21. | |
councils are being contested, many of them affected | :19:22. | :19:23. | |
by boundary changes. Since these seats were last | :19:24. | :19:26. | |
contested, Labour lost all but one Meanwhile, every seat in each | :19:27. | :19:28. | |
of Wales' 22 councils All but one was last elected | :19:29. | :19:34. | |
in 2012 in what was a very strong year for Labour, | :19:35. | :19:40. | |
though independent candidates currently hold | :19:41. | :19:42. | |
a quarter of council seats. According to the latest | :19:43. | :19:44. | |
calculations by Plymouth University Election Centre, | :19:45. | :19:46. | |
the Tories are predicted to increase their tally by 50 seats, | :19:47. | :19:52. | |
despite being in government, But the dramatic story in England | :19:53. | :19:54. | |
looks to be with the other parties, with the Lib-Dems possibly winning | :19:55. | :20:01. | |
100 seats, while Ukip could be seeing a fall, | :20:02. | :20:03. | |
predicted to lose 100 seats. Though the proportional system | :20:04. | :20:08. | |
usually makes big changes less likely in Scotland, | :20:09. | :20:10. | |
the SNP is predicted to increase both the number of seats | :20:11. | :20:13. | |
they hold, and the number In Wales, Labour is defending a high | :20:14. | :20:16. | |
water mark in support. Last year's Welsh Assembly elections | :20:17. | :20:25. | |
suggest the only way is down, with all the parties making modest | :20:26. | :20:28. | |
gains at Labour's expense. Joining me now is the BBC's | :20:29. | :20:30. | |
very own elections guru, Professor John Curtice | :20:31. | :20:32. | |
of the University of Strathclyde. Good to see you again. Let's start | :20:33. | :20:40. | |
with England. How bad are the selection is going to be for Labour? | :20:41. | :20:44. | |
Labourer not defending a great deal because this is for the most part | :20:45. | :20:49. | |
rural England. The only control three of the council they are | :20:50. | :20:53. | |
defending and they are only defending around 500 seats, I nearly | :20:54. | :20:58. | |
a quarter are in one county, Durham. Labour's position in the opinion | :20:59. | :21:02. | |
polls is weakened over the last 12 months and if you compare the | :21:03. | :21:05. | |
position in the opinion polls now with where they were in the spring | :21:06. | :21:17. | |
of 2013 when these seats in England were last fought, we are talking | :21:18. | :21:20. | |
about a 12 point swing from Labour to conservative. The estimate of 50 | :21:21. | :21:22. | |
losses may be somewhat optimistic for Labour. Of the three council | :21:23. | :21:25. | |
areas they control, two of them, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, | :21:26. | :21:29. | |
could be lost, leaving labourer with virtually a duck as far as council | :21:30. | :21:33. | |
control is concerned in these elections in England. In England, | :21:34. | :21:37. | |
what would a Liberal Democrat reserve urgently great? That is the | :21:38. | :21:42. | |
big question. We have had this picture since the EU referendum of | :21:43. | :21:46. | |
the Liberal Democrats doing extraordinarily well in some local | :21:47. | :21:49. | |
by-elections, gaining seats that they had not even fought before, and | :21:50. | :21:57. | |
in other areas, doing no more than treading water. We are expecting a | :21:58. | :21:59. | |
Liberal Democrat skin because the lost the lot -- the lost lots of | :22:00. | :22:03. | |
ground when they were in coalition with the Conservatives. It is | :22:04. | :22:07. | |
uncertain. A patchy performance may well be to their advantage. If they | :22:08. | :22:11. | |
do well in some places and gain seats, and elsewhere do not do | :22:12. | :22:14. | |
terribly well and do not waste votes, they may end up doing | :22:15. | :22:18. | |
relatively well in seats, even if the overall gaining votes is likely | :22:19. | :22:23. | |
to be modest. The elections for mayors, they are taking place in | :22:24. | :22:54. | |
the Labour will that be a hefty consolation prize for the Labour | :22:55. | :22:58. | |
Party? It ought to be, on Teesside, Merseyside, Greater Manchester. We | :22:59. | :23:00. | |
are looking at one content very closely, that is the contest for the | :23:01. | :23:03. | |
mayor of the West Midlands. If you look at what happened in the general | :23:04. | :23:05. | |
election in 2015, labourer work nine points ahead of the Conservatives in | :23:06. | :23:08. | |
the West Midlands. If you look at the swing since the general | :23:09. | :23:10. | |
election, if you add that swing to where we were two years ago, the | :23:11. | :23:13. | |
West Midlands now looks like a draw. Labour have to worry about a | :23:14. | :23:15. | |
headline grabbing loss, and the West Midlands contest. If they were to | :23:16. | :23:18. | |
lose, that wooden crate -- that would increase the pressure for | :23:19. | :23:20. | |
their own Jeremy Corbyn to convince people that they can turn his | :23:21. | :23:24. | |
party's fortunes around, and in truth at the moment, they are pretty | :23:25. | :23:29. | |
dire. The West Midlands has Birmingham as its heart. | :23:30. | :23:33. | |
Chock-a-block with marginal seats. It always has been. I always | :23:34. | :23:38. | |
remember election night and marginal seats in the West Midlands. | :23:39. | :23:46. | |
Scotland, the SNP is assaulting Labour's last remaining power base. | :23:47. | :23:50. | |
The biggest prizes Glasgow. Will it take it, the SNP? Whether the SNP | :23:51. | :23:56. | |
will gain control of Glasgow is uncertain. If you look at what is | :23:57. | :24:00. | |
happening in local government by-elections let alone the opinion | :24:01. | :24:05. | |
polls, in 2012, when these seats were last fought, Labour did | :24:06. | :24:09. | |
relatively well, only one percentage point behind the SNP who were rather | :24:10. | :24:13. | |
disappointed with the result compared to other elections. No sign | :24:14. | :24:18. | |
of that happening this time alone -- this time around. Polls put the SNP | :24:19. | :24:26. | |
ahead. By-elections have found the SNP advancing and Labour dropping by | :24:27. | :24:29. | |
double digits. Labour are going to lose everything they currently | :24:30. | :24:32. | |
control in Scotland, the SNP will become the dominant party, the | :24:33. | :24:36. | |
question is how well they do. In Scotland there is a Conservative | :24:37. | :24:40. | |
revival going on. The Conservatives did well in recent local government | :24:41. | :24:45. | |
by-elections. At the moment, Labour are expected to come third north of | :24:46. | :24:49. | |
the border in the local elections, repeating the third they suffered in | :24:50. | :24:56. | |
the Holyrood elections last year. In Wales, Labour is expecting to lose | :24:57. | :24:59. | |
control of a number of councils. They are the main party in 12 of 22 | :25:00. | :25:05. | |
local authorities. How bad could it be? We're expecting Labour to lose | :25:06. | :25:09. | |
ground. In the opinion polls when these seats were last fought, | :25:10. | :25:14. | |
labourer in the high 40s. Now they are not much above 30%. Cardiff | :25:15. | :25:19. | |
could well join Glasgow was no longer being a Labour stronghold. | :25:20. | :25:24. | |
Look out for Newport. Some of the South Wales councils that Labour | :25:25. | :25:27. | |
control, Labour is probably too but occasionally, Plaid | :25:28. | :25:43. | |
Cymru surprises in this area. They managed to win the Rhondda seat in | :25:44. | :25:45. | |
the assembly elections. Jeremy Corbyn has said he wants to be | :25:46. | :25:47. | |
judged on proper elections, council elections as opposed to opinion | :25:48. | :25:50. | |
polls, but even if he does as badly as John has been suggesting, does it | :25:51. | :25:52. | |
affect his leadership? I think it does on two counts. It will affect | :25:53. | :25:59. | |
his own confidence. Anyone who is a human being will be affected by | :26:00. | :26:03. | |
this. He might go into his office and be told by John McDonnell and | :26:04. | :26:08. | |
others, stand firm, it is all right, but it will affect his confidence | :26:09. | :26:14. | |
and inevitably it contributes to a sense that this is moving to some | :26:15. | :26:19. | |
kind of denoument, at some point. In other words, while I understand the | :26:20. | :26:23. | |
argument that he has won twice in a leadership contest, well, within 12 | :26:24. | :26:29. | |
months, I wonder whether this can carry on in a fixed term parliament, | :26:30. | :26:37. | |
up until 2020, if it were to do so. On two France, it will have some | :26:38. | :26:41. | |
impact. I am not seeing it will lead to his immediate departure, it will | :26:42. | :26:46. | |
mark, but if these things are as devastating as John suggests, it | :26:47. | :26:52. | |
will have an impact. Tom, I'll be looking at a Lib Dem fightback? That | :26:53. | :26:58. | |
is the $64,000 question. It would seem that we should be. One massive | :26:59. | :27:02. | |
reason we're not having a general election a time soon, apart from the | :27:03. | :27:07. | |
fact that Theresa May does not believe in these things, she | :27:08. | :27:09. | |
believes in pressing on, it is because Tory MPs in the South West | :27:10. | :27:15. | |
who took the Lib Dem seats, they were telling Number 10 they were | :27:16. | :27:17. | |
worried they were going to lose their seats back to the Lib Dems. | :27:18. | :27:22. | |
The Lib Dems never went away and local government. They have got | :27:23. | :27:26. | |
other campaigners and activists. It looks credible that they will be the | :27:27. | :27:31. | |
success story of the whole thing. Ukip leader, Paul Nuttall, he says | :27:32. | :27:35. | |
this will be the most difficult local elections his party will face | :27:36. | :27:42. | |
before 2020. A bit of management of expectations. It is unlikely to be a | :27:43. | :27:47. | |
good time for Ukip. They are right to manage expectations. The results | :27:48. | :27:52. | |
will be horrible for Ukip. I agree with Tom about the Lib Dem | :27:53. | :28:12. | |
threat to the Tories. Talking to some senior figures within the Tory | :28:13. | :28:16. | |
party earlier this week, I was picking up that they are worried | :28:17. | :28:18. | |
about 30-40 general election seeds being vulnerable to the Lib Dems | :28:19. | :28:20. | |
because of the Labour collapse. I would normally agree with Steve | :28:21. | :28:22. | |
about the resilience of politicians, the capability of withstanding | :28:23. | :28:25. | |
repeated blows, but Jeremy Corbyn is not in the normal category. I think | :28:26. | :28:27. | |
he is, in the sense that although he get solace from winning leadership | :28:28. | :28:30. | |
contest, anyone who leads a party into the kind of, it is not going to | :28:31. | :28:34. | |
be that vivid, because they are not defending the key seats. If they | :28:35. | :28:40. | |
were to win Birmingham, say, and get slaughtered by the SNP in Scotland, | :28:41. | :28:46. | |
it will undermine what is already a fairly ambiguous sense of | :28:47. | :28:49. | |
self-confidence. We need to leave it there. Thank you, John Curtice. | :28:50. | :28:52. | |
Well, with those elections on the horizon, is Labour where it | :28:53. | :28:54. | |
Former leader Ed Miliband was on the Andrew | :28:55. | :28:57. | |
Marr Show earlier and he explained the challenge Labour faces | :28:58. | :28:59. | |
It is easier for other parties, if you are the Greens or the | :29:00. | :29:04. | |
Liberal Democrats you're essentially fishing in the 48% pool. | :29:05. | :29:07. | |
If you are Ukip, you are fishing in the 52% pool. | :29:08. | :29:11. | |
Labour is trying to do something much harder, | :29:12. | :29:13. | |
which is to try and speak for the whole country, | :29:14. | :29:15. | |
and by the way, that is another part of | :29:16. | :29:17. | |
Our attack on Theresa May, part of it is she's | :29:18. | :29:21. | |
Ignoring the verdict going into this, saying, | :29:22. | :29:28. | |
let's overturn it, looks like ignoring the 52%. | :29:29. | :29:30. | |
By the way, there is more that unites Remainers | :29:31. | :29:35. | |
and Leavers than might first appear, because they share common | :29:36. | :29:38. | |
concerns about the way the country is run. | :29:39. | :29:42. | |
Joining me now is the Shadow Health Secretary, Jon Ashworth. | :29:43. | :29:48. | |
Welcome to the programme. Alastair Campbell told me on the BBC on | :29:49. | :29:52. | |
Thursday that he is fighting to reverse the referendum result. Ed | :29:53. | :29:58. | |
Miliband says that Remain needs to accept the result, come to terms | :29:59. | :30:04. | |
with it. Who is right? We have to accept the referendum result. I | :30:05. | :30:08. | |
campaigned passionately to remain in the European Union. The city I | :30:09. | :30:13. | |
represent, Leicester, voted narrowly to remain in the European Union. | :30:14. | :30:17. | |
Sadly the country did not. We cannot overturn that and be like kinky | :30:18. | :30:21. | |
nude, trying to demand the tide go back out. We have to accept this | :30:22. | :30:27. | |
democratic process. We all voted to have a referendum when the relevant | :30:28. | :30:35. | |
legislation came to Parliament. How bad will the local elections before | :30:36. | :30:43. | |
Labour? Let us see where we get to on election night when I am sure I | :30:44. | :30:49. | |
will be invited on to one of these types of programmes... The election | :30:50. | :30:57. | |
date, the following day. But it does look like you will lose seats across | :30:58. | :31:01. | |
the board in England, Scotland and Wales. What did you make of what | :31:02. | :31:06. | |
Steve Richards said about the impact on Jeremy Corbyn's leadership? We | :31:07. | :31:11. | |
have to win seats, we cannot fall back on the scales suggested. No, | :31:12. | :31:18. | |
your package was right, it tends to be Tory areas, but generally, we | :31:19. | :31:25. | |
have to be winning in Nottinghamshire, Lancashire, those | :31:26. | :31:28. | |
types of places because they contain a lot of the marginal constituencies | :31:29. | :31:32. | |
that decide general elections. The important places in the elections | :31:33. | :31:38. | |
are towns like Beeston, towns you have not heard of, but they are | :31:39. | :31:45. | |
marginal towns in marginal swing constituencies. We have to do well | :31:46. | :31:50. | |
in them. We will see where we are on election night but my pretty is to | :31:51. | :31:53. | |
campaign hard in these areas over the next few weeks. Even people who | :31:54. | :32:01. | |
voted Labour in 2015, they prefer Theresa May to Mr Corbyn as Prime | :32:02. | :32:07. | |
Minister, a recent poll said. Isn't that extraordinary? I have not seen | :32:08. | :32:11. | |
that. I will look it up. It was you Government. -- YouGov. It is | :32:12. | :32:19. | |
important we win the trust of people. You are not winning the | :32:20. | :32:24. | |
trust of people who voted for you in 2015. We have to hold onto people | :32:25. | :32:31. | |
who voted for us in 2015 and we have to persuade people who voted for | :32:32. | :32:34. | |
other parties to come to us. One of the criticisms I have of the debate | :32:35. | :32:39. | |
that goes on in the wider Labour Party, do not misunderstand me, I am | :32:40. | :32:44. | |
not making a criticism about an individual, but the debate you see | :32:45. | :32:48. | |
online suggests that if you want to get people who voted Conservative to | :32:49. | :32:53. | |
switch to Labour it is somehow a betrayal of our principles, it was | :32:54. | :32:57. | |
not. Justin Trudeau said Conservative voters are our | :32:58. | :33:04. | |
neighbours, our relatives. We have to persuade people to switch from | :33:05. | :33:09. | |
voting Conservative to voting Labour as well as increasing our vote among | :33:10. | :33:16. | |
nonvoters and Greens. It seems like you have a mountain to climb and the | :33:17. | :33:20. | |
mountain is Everest. Another poll, I am not sure if you have seen this, | :33:21. | :33:27. | |
in London, the Bastian of Labour, the Bastian of Remain, Mr Corbyn is | :33:28. | :33:37. | |
less popular than even Ukip's Paul Nuttall. That is beyond | :33:38. | :33:42. | |
extraordinary! I do not know about that. The most recent set of | :33:43. | :33:46. | |
elections in London was the mayoral election where the Labour candidate | :33:47. | :33:52. | |
city: won handsomely. He took the seat of a conservative. We took that | :33:53. | :33:58. | |
of a conservative. It was a year ago. We did well then. You had an | :33:59. | :34:11. | |
anti-Jeremy Corbyn candidate. I think he nominated Jeremy Corbyn, | :34:12. | :34:14. | |
from memory. We have not got elections in London but our | :34:15. | :34:18. | |
elections are in the county areas and the various mayoral elections... | :34:19. | :34:28. | |
What about the West Midlands? In any normal year, mid-term, as the | :34:29. | :34:33. | |
opposition, Labour should win the West Midlands. John Curtis says it | :34:34. | :34:39. | |
is nip and tuck. It has always been a swing region but we want to do | :34:40. | :34:43. | |
well, of course. We want to turn out a strong Labour vote in Dudley, | :34:44. | :34:50. | |
Northampton, those sorts of places. They are key constituencies in the | :34:51. | :34:55. | |
general election. Does Labour look like a government in waiting to you? | :34:56. | :35:01. | |
What I would say is contrast where we are to what the conservative | :35:02. | :35:06. | |
garment is doing. I asked you about Labour, you do not get to tell me | :35:07. | :35:10. | |
about the Conservatives. Does it look like a government in waiting to | :35:11. | :35:15. | |
you? Today we are exposing the Conservatives... Reminding people | :35:16. | :35:18. | |
the Conservatives are breaking the pledge on waiting times of 18 weeks | :35:19. | :35:24. | |
so lots of elderly people waiting longer in pain for hip replacements | :35:25. | :35:30. | |
and cataract replacements. Yesterday the Housing spokesperson John Healey | :35:31. | :35:32. | |
was exposing the shortcomings in the Help to Buy scheme. The education | :35:33. | :35:38. | |
spokesperson has been campaigning hard against the cuts to schools. | :35:39. | :35:42. | |
Tom Watson has been campaigning hard against some of the changes the | :35:43. | :35:47. | |
Government want to introduce in culture. The Shadow Cabinet are | :35:48. | :35:50. | |
working hard to hold the Government's feet to the fire. Does | :35:51. | :35:55. | |
it look like a government in waiting? Yes. It took you three | :35:56. | :36:02. | |
times! There is a social care crisis, schools funding issue, a | :36:03. | :36:06. | |
huge issue for lots of areas, the NHS has just got through the winter | :36:07. | :36:10. | |
and is abandoning many of its targets. You are 18 points behind in | :36:11. | :36:18. | |
the polls. We have to work harder. What can you do? The opinion polls | :36:19. | :36:25. | |
are challenging but we are a great Social Democratic Party of | :36:26. | :36:30. | |
government. On Twitter today, lots of Labour activists celebrating that | :36:31. | :36:33. | |
the national minimum wage has been in place for something like 16 years | :36:34. | :36:37. | |
because we were in government. Look of the sweeping progressive changes | :36:38. | :36:42. | |
this country has benefited from, the NHS, sure start centres, an assault | :36:43. | :36:47. | |
on child poverty, the Labour Party got itself in contention for | :36:48. | :36:52. | |
government. I entirely accept the polls do not make thrilling reading | :36:53. | :36:56. | |
for Labour politicians on Sunday morning, but it means people like me | :36:57. | :37:00. | |
have to work harder because we are part of something bigger than an | :37:01. | :37:03. | |
individual, we are in the business of changing things for the British | :37:04. | :37:07. | |
people and if we do not do that, if we do not focus on that, we are | :37:08. | :37:10. | |
letting people down. Is Labour preparing for an early election | :37:11. | :37:19. | |
question Billy burqa? Reports in the press of a war chest as macro for an | :37:20. | :37:24. | |
early election? The general election coordinator called for a general | :37:25. | :37:28. | |
election when Theresa May became Prime Minister. We are investing in | :37:29. | :37:31. | |
staff and the organisational capability we need. By the way, the | :37:32. | :37:37. | |
Labour Party staff do brilliant work. A bit of nonsense on Twitter | :37:38. | :37:42. | |
having a go at them. They do tremendous work. Whenever the | :37:43. | :37:45. | |
election comes, they will be ready. Jon Ashworth, thank you. | :37:46. | :37:53. | |
Hello, you're watching the Sunday Politics | :37:54. | :38:04. | |
Coming up today, we ask what people in our part of the | :38:05. | :38:09. | |
world want to put at the top of the list as we negotiate | :38:10. | :38:12. | |
our exit from the EU - you might be surprised. | :38:13. | :38:16. | |
These are key men in Britain's key industry, and their importance | :38:17. | :38:20. | |
And we ask is renationalisation the way forward | :38:21. | :38:28. | |
for some of our big industries, 70 years after coal | :38:29. | :38:30. | |
And we are joined today by Robert Goodwill, | :38:31. | :38:36. | |
the Immigration Minister and Conservative MP for Scarborough | :38:37. | :38:38. | |
and Whitby, and also by Rachel Maskell, Labour | :38:39. | :38:40. | |
Well, of course it has been an historic week, the formal | :38:41. | :38:46. | |
negotiations to leave the EU are now underway. | :38:47. | :38:49. | |
And Boston in Lincolnshire has become known as the Brexit capital | :38:50. | :38:53. | |
of the country, with three quarters of those who voted wanting to leave | :38:54. | :38:59. | |
So now the process has finally got underway, Kate Sweeting | :39:00. | :39:02. | |
went back to Boston to find out how the town's EU residents are feeling | :39:03. | :39:06. | |
For 12 years Hana has lived and worked in Boston. | :39:07. | :39:16. | |
But they are Czech rather than British nationals, | :39:17. | :39:19. | |
and since the Brexit vote she says their future | :39:20. | :39:22. | |
I haven't cried as much in my life as I've cried since Brexit. | :39:23. | :39:28. | |
It's like a blank, we don't know what's going to | :39:29. | :39:31. | |
We still don't know what this Brexit thing will mean for us. | :39:32. | :39:35. | |
Do you worry about anything to do with Brexit? | :39:36. | :39:39. | |
It's just about there's going to be some stress and some, like, I'm | :39:40. | :39:46. | |
just going to lose my friends, and things like that. | :39:47. | :39:49. | |
But efforts are being made to make Boston's many foreign | :39:50. | :39:51. | |
The town's iconic church, known as the | :39:52. | :39:57. | |
Boston Stump, now has a multilingual chapel to encourage people of all | :39:58. | :40:01. | |
I have seen what has been happening post Brexit. | :40:02. | :40:08. | |
I've made connections with lots of people from different | :40:09. | :40:10. | |
communities and there is a very positive | :40:11. | :40:13. | |
community where people celebrate living here. | :40:14. | :40:20. | |
And even some of those who voted to leave the EU want | :40:21. | :40:23. | |
better integration between Boston's different communities. | :40:24. | :40:30. | |
One Leave voter has set up a Facebook group | :40:31. | :40:33. | |
called Boston More In Common, to encourage that. | :40:34. | :40:35. | |
Boston seemed to be at that point going nowhere and we | :40:36. | :40:37. | |
got a lot of people that were from Eastern Europe and I wanted to | :40:38. | :40:40. | |
become friends with those people and try | :40:41. | :40:43. | |
problems that Boston has with some of the people on both sides. | :40:44. | :40:48. | |
Here in Boston more than 75% of voters opted | :40:49. | :40:52. | |
to leave the European Union in last June's referendum. | :40:53. | :40:56. | |
Nine months on, the process to make that happen has | :40:57. | :40:59. | |
So what do people here hope that will mean for them? | :41:00. | :41:04. | |
I never wanted to come out from it anyway. | :41:05. | :41:06. | |
So I'm hoping that things won't change too much. | :41:07. | :41:09. | |
Has life been different here since the vote? | :41:10. | :41:11. | |
I think it has changed the town, not for the better but for | :41:12. | :41:15. | |
Hopefully the people that are here for that many years, | :41:16. | :41:21. | |
nothing will change, basically, much. | :41:22. | :41:22. | |
Things might change but hopefully for the best. | :41:23. | :41:29. | |
For Hana, life has certainly not been better since the EU referendum. | :41:30. | :41:33. | |
But she hopes that now the official Brexit process has | :41:34. | :41:35. | |
begun she will at least get some clarity on the future. | :41:36. | :41:41. | |
That was Kate Sweeting reporting there. | :41:42. | :41:42. | |
Robert Goodwill, as the Immigration Minister, what do you say to people | :41:43. | :41:45. | |
in Boston and elsewhere across our patch, EU migrants | :41:46. | :41:52. | |
who are worried they may not be allowed to remain here? | :41:53. | :41:55. | |
Well, I say what I've been saying since the referendum, that it | :41:56. | :41:58. | |
is our priority to secure the status of EU nationals living here and | :41:59. | :42:01. | |
indeed the only circumstance where that wouldn't be possible | :42:02. | :42:03. | |
would be if the status of British nationals living abroad in the rest | :42:04. | :42:06. | |
of Europe weren't similarly protected. | :42:07. | :42:08. | |
That's a real priority and it's a shame we couldn't have | :42:09. | :42:11. | |
got that sorted out even before Article 50 was triggered. | :42:12. | :42:14. | |
So they are effectively bargaining chips, people working | :42:15. | :42:17. | |
here, paying their taxes, you can't offer them any guarantees? | :42:18. | :42:20. | |
There are not bargaining chips at all. | :42:21. | :42:23. | |
It strikes me as fairly straightforward that we can secure | :42:24. | :42:25. | |
their status, and as soon as we get around the negotiating table I'm | :42:26. | :42:28. | |
sure that the rest of Europe would want to | :42:29. | :42:30. | |
same rights - the pensioners in Spain, the engineers in Germany - | :42:31. | :42:35. | |
protects all 4 million people living in a country other than their own, | :42:36. | :42:40. | |
rather than just the 3 million that we wish to, really, | :42:41. | :42:43. | |
as soon as possible, secure their status. | :42:44. | :42:47. | |
Rachel Maskell do you accept that the majority | :42:48. | :42:49. | |
of people who voted to | :42:50. | :42:50. | |
leave the European Union, and there were plenty | :42:51. | :42:52. | |
weren't in a majority there, that they did | :42:53. | :42:56. | |
so with an expectation that | :42:57. | :42:57. | |
Well, the reality is that so many people in | :42:58. | :43:02. | |
York, the city I represent, want to ensure that EU | :43:03. | :43:05. | |
citizens are here to stay, and I've just come from a | :43:06. | :43:08. | |
meeting with EU citizens who are incredibly worried about their | :43:09. | :43:10. | |
The reality is the Government could have said on the | :43:11. | :43:15. | |
24th of June that they could remain here and could have guaranteed their | :43:16. | :43:18. | |
future, but have chosen to use them as bargaining chips. | :43:19. | :43:21. | |
These are people with families and lives, and | :43:22. | :43:23. | |
want to know the security of their future. | :43:24. | :43:26. | |
We are already seeing the impact it is having on our NHS as | :43:27. | :43:30. | |
people are choosing not to come here because of the uncertainty over | :43:31. | :43:33. | |
It is a dangerous path the Government have chosen but also | :43:34. | :43:37. | |
And therefore labour are urging the Government to think again | :43:38. | :43:42. | |
It's interesting, Robert, because David | :43:43. | :43:46. | |
Davis, the Brexit secretary, this week said he believed immigration | :43:47. | :43:49. | |
might carry on rising for many years after Brexit. | :43:50. | :43:54. | |
Do you not think that will shock many of the people who | :43:55. | :43:57. | |
Well, we will be able to control the numbers of | :43:58. | :44:00. | |
people coming in, it will be within our power. | :44:01. | :44:02. | |
Free movement will no longer be there. | :44:03. | :44:04. | |
But it is true, industries in the UK, indeed, the UK | :44:05. | :44:07. | |
has created more jobs since 2010 than the rest of Europe put | :44:08. | :44:10. | |
together, so it is little wonder that people are coming here to find | :44:11. | :44:13. | |
a job because their own governments have failed to create jobs for them. | :44:14. | :44:16. | |
We have set our target to reduce it to the | :44:17. | :44:24. | |
You've failed miserably so far to meet that target. | :44:25. | :44:26. | |
Well, while the most recent figure shows a 50,000 fall or a | :44:27. | :44:29. | |
49,000 fall, so that is starting to happen. | :44:30. | :44:31. | |
And we have taken measures to address immigration from outside | :44:32. | :44:34. | |
the EU in a number of ways - we have closed down the bogus language | :44:35. | :44:37. | |
schools, we have clamped down on sham marriages. | :44:38. | :44:39. | |
We will be able to bring measures forward to enable us | :44:40. | :44:42. | |
to control the numbers coming from Europe. | :44:43. | :44:43. | |
And indeed we need to talk to industry, | :44:44. | :44:45. | |
the agricultural sector, etc, to find out what | :44:46. | :44:48. | |
level of employment is | :44:49. | :44:49. | |
But also, more importantly, we need to train British people to | :44:50. | :44:53. | |
take those jobs, and that is maybe where we have failed in the past. | :44:54. | :44:56. | |
Are they genuinely saying they want fewer | :44:57. | :45:01. | |
No, I have been lobbied by the NFU to keep them | :45:02. | :45:05. | |
But, actually, it is interesting that the Bulgarians and | :45:06. | :45:08. | |
Romanians are still coming here in large numbers. | :45:09. | :45:09. | |
They understand there are jobs here to take. | :45:10. | :45:11. | |
We are very pleased that they are coming | :45:12. | :45:14. | |
and we want to secure their statuses, as I have already said. | :45:15. | :45:16. | |
But we cannot allow the status of British nationals abroad not | :45:17. | :45:19. | |
Rachel Maskell, you resigned from Labour's | :45:20. | :45:22. | |
front bench in protest at the party's position over Brexit. | :45:23. | :45:27. | |
Now that the negotiations are underway, | :45:28. | :45:30. | |
do you accept you have to get behind Brexit | :45:31. | :45:33. | |
We obviously want to see the best outcome for the country. | :45:34. | :45:38. | |
But what the country didn't vote for was | :45:39. | :45:40. | |
to leave the single market and leave the customs union. | :45:41. | :45:42. | |
And yet the Prime Minister is driving the hardest of | :45:43. | :45:44. | |
Brexits instead of ensuring that businesses will have that confidence | :45:45. | :45:47. | |
and security, and we are already seeing the lack of foreign | :45:48. | :45:50. | |
investment, we are seeing already able exiting our country through | :45:51. | :45:54. | |
And when we talk about the farming and food sectors, which are | :45:55. | :45:58. | |
so dependent on EU migrant labour, we know that they are incredibly | :45:59. | :46:02. | |
insecure, even to know who is going to pick the fruit | :46:03. | :46:05. | |
It is putting our country on a knife edge unnecessarily. | :46:06. | :46:11. | |
And when the Government are talking about the | :46:12. | :46:13. | |
future will be secure because we will have | :46:14. | :46:15. | |
world, we know that when the leaders have spoken to India, they said, | :46:16. | :46:20. | |
yes, we will have a trade deal, but we want free movement with that. | :46:21. | :46:24. | |
So I think really the Government need | :46:25. | :46:25. | |
to come to terms with the insecurity they are building across the nation | :46:26. | :46:29. | |
for business but also for people in their communities. | :46:30. | :46:33. | |
I think there is a feeling of optimism | :46:34. | :46:37. | |
And, unlike Rachel, I think we should trust the people. | :46:38. | :46:40. | |
Democracy is something our country is built on. | :46:41. | :46:45. | |
A Democratic vote gave us that mandate to leave the | :46:46. | :46:48. | |
People knew what they were voting for. | :46:49. | :46:50. | |
That mandate didn't say leave the single market. | :46:51. | :46:53. | |
It didn't say leave the customs union. | :46:54. | :46:55. | |
Nobody was asked that question and yet the Prime Minister, unelected, | :46:56. | :46:58. | |
has driven through her own agenda to appease | :46:59. | :47:00. | |
I think people were quite clear when they cast their | :47:01. | :47:05. | |
They were voting for decisions to be made | :47:06. | :47:09. | |
in London, not in Brussels, and they understood | :47:10. | :47:11. | |
I don't subscribe to this view that the British people, people who | :47:12. | :47:15. | |
voted Brexit were stupid or didn't understand... | :47:16. | :47:17. | |
But when you talk to the farming community they didn't want | :47:18. | :47:20. | |
to be part of the common agricultural policy because they | :47:21. | :47:23. | |
didn't believe that was best serving them. | :47:24. | :47:25. | |
But they did want to be part of the single market. | :47:26. | :47:27. | |
And we certainly know that our jobs and our | :47:28. | :47:29. | |
Which is why we need a good trade deal, | :47:30. | :47:33. | |
and I'm confident Theresa May will deliver that for us. | :47:34. | :47:35. | |
Well, hang on, because our cameras were out and | :47:36. | :47:37. | |
about across the patch this week as Theresa May began | :47:38. | :47:40. | |
Here is what a selection of people had to say. | :47:41. | :47:45. | |
We don't see that Brexit will hold us up in any way. | :47:46. | :47:49. | |
It is what it is and so we are just going ahead very positively. | :47:50. | :47:52. | |
They are doing an excellent job here. | :47:53. | :47:56. | |
I think it would be crazy if they had to go back. | :47:57. | :47:59. | |
Our fishermen having the right to fish where they like. | :48:00. | :48:02. | |
And our grounds closed to foreigners. | :48:03. | :48:05. | |
That's what I'd like to see but whether it | :48:06. | :48:07. | |
I'd hope that maybe it means we've got more | :48:08. | :48:19. | |
freedom as a country, but then at the same | :48:20. | :48:22. | |
the EU gives us a bit more freedom in terms of trade | :48:23. | :48:27. | |
Because the European Union is going in a bad direction, in my | :48:28. | :48:38. | |
It's time we made us own law and us own rules. | :48:39. | :48:45. | |
We want as good a deal as we had before. | :48:46. | :48:48. | |
I think it is in everybody's interests | :48:49. | :48:50. | |
If I had the choice, I'd like things back to how it used to | :48:51. | :48:55. | |
be, but I know it's never going to be, is it? | :48:56. | :48:58. | |
Rachel Maskell, does that last lady perhaps some up a majority | :48:59. | :49:02. | |
They would feel that for too many years the EU has had | :49:03. | :49:07. | |
Well, it's really interesting, because the White Paper | :49:08. | :49:11. | |
that was produced yesterday, where we thought powers would be | :49:12. | :49:15. | |
repatriated back to Parliament, it seems they are going to be | :49:16. | :49:17. | |
repatriated back to the Prime Minister and the executive. | :49:18. | :49:27. | |
In there they said, in paragraph 313, | :49:28. | :49:29. | |
that they want to make changes to the legislation, not bringing that | :49:30. | :49:32. | |
And paragraph 320 saying, this Henry VIII act, | :49:33. | :49:34. | |
that it won't receive all | :49:35. | :49:36. | |
So what we are seeing, in your own White Paper - | :49:37. | :49:40. | |
you shake your head there, but I have read the White Paper, | :49:41. | :49:42. | |
that there won't be the scrutiny over 1600 | :49:43. | :49:45. | |
different regulations that | :49:46. | :49:46. | |
need to get through our Parliament and just one act in two years. | :49:47. | :49:50. | |
Well, out of those hundreds of thousands of | :49:51. | :49:53. | |
regulations, as part of this Great Repeal Bill that we've | :49:54. | :49:55. | |
heard so much about, are there any you would like | :49:56. | :49:58. | |
I think the Great Repeal Bill makes absolute | :49:59. | :50:00. | |
common-sense that we transfer the Aki as it is called on to our | :50:01. | :50:04. | |
statute book and then we can revisit that | :50:05. | :50:05. | |
to see how we can ensure that | :50:06. | :50:07. | |
we can particularly address the type of regulation we want to get rid of. | :50:08. | :50:13. | |
For example, we were all very frustrated in Parliament that we | :50:14. | :50:15. | |
couldn't scrap the tampon tax because of EU regulation on the | :50:16. | :50:18. | |
So there is a number of areas we need to look | :50:19. | :50:23. | |
at, but we don't need an overnight revolution. | :50:24. | :50:24. | |
Most of that legislation in terms of the environment, in | :50:25. | :50:27. | |
terms of products, in terms of consumer | :50:28. | :50:29. | |
safety, is regulations we | :50:30. | :50:30. | |
But once we have it all transferred we | :50:31. | :50:34. | |
can then revisit that at our leisure. | :50:35. | :50:36. | |
But you're White Paper doesn't say that. | :50:37. | :50:38. | |
I suggest you go and read that White Paper because it | :50:39. | :50:40. | |
talks about making changes and the Government wouldn't want to be | :50:41. | :50:44. | |
constrained in just bringing everything back over, so it is very | :50:45. | :50:47. | |
For example, quite a lot of this legislation refers to institutions | :50:48. | :50:52. | |
in the European Union that we won't be members of. | :50:53. | :50:55. | |
So so if it talks about the European food | :50:56. | :50:57. | |
standards authority, food safety authority, | :50:58. | :50:59. | |
Those are the sort of changes we are talking about. | :51:00. | :51:03. | |
Not the fundamental sort of changes that | :51:04. | :51:04. | |
Can I ask you briefly, you are Immigration Minister, you are in | :51:05. | :51:09. | |
charge of passports, the question a lot of | :51:10. | :51:10. | |
people ask, it has been in a | :51:11. | :51:12. | |
lot of the newspapers, are we going to get back | :51:13. | :51:15. | |
the traditional dark blue British passport? | :51:16. | :51:18. | |
Well, we are certainly looking at the design of the passport. | :51:19. | :51:20. | |
It won't have the European Union on the front, it will | :51:21. | :51:23. | |
be a British passport, and I think it has to be watch this space | :51:24. | :51:26. | |
because we are looking at this, not only at the cover but what we are | :51:27. | :51:30. | |
Well, a new exhibition has opened at the | :51:31. | :51:37. | |
National coal mining Museum in Wakefield, marking the 70th | :51:38. | :51:40. | |
anniversary of the nationalisation of the coal industry. | :51:41. | :51:43. | |
Of course, deep coal mining in our part of the | :51:44. | :51:45. | |
world is pretty much now a distant memory after the last pit | :51:46. | :51:49. | |
But the political debate over nationalisation of other industries | :51:50. | :51:54. | |
These are key men in Britain's key industry, and their | :51:55. | :52:00. | |
The Second World War was over and Britain was trying | :52:01. | :52:05. | |
Coal meant power, power meant progress, so the struggling | :52:06. | :52:12. | |
mining industry was brought into public ownership. | :52:13. | :52:14. | |
The output that was needed to rebuild Britain | :52:15. | :52:20. | |
couldn't have happened under private ownership, so nationalisation | :52:21. | :52:23. | |
allowed that massive influx of investment to be made and it | :52:24. | :52:26. | |
certainly brought huge positive changes. | :52:27. | :52:31. | |
But I think nationalisation wasn't the cure for all ills. | :52:32. | :52:34. | |
It wasn't the fix that people expected it to be. | :52:35. | :52:38. | |
There was actually a huge number of strikes that happened | :52:39. | :52:40. | |
post-rationalisation within the industry. | :52:41. | :52:48. | |
So I think even the NCB themselves were aware they hadn't | :52:49. | :52:51. | |
These images deliberately romanticise the newly nationalised | :52:52. | :52:54. | |
But even in the present, debates about the pros and cons of | :52:55. | :53:07. | |
In this exhibition seeks to provoke debate. | :53:08. | :53:10. | |
There is even a fantasy Question Time panel, featuring | :53:11. | :53:12. | |
figures who have impacted one way or another on industries | :53:13. | :53:14. | |
For the artist it has been a unique challenge. | :53:15. | :53:17. | |
It's trying to get underneath the skin of them as well | :53:18. | :53:20. | |
and understand the motivation or the stories behind even the famous | :53:21. | :53:25. | |
people, I think, and show maybe a bit of a hidden side if possible. | :53:26. | :53:31. | |
Here it was hard not to go too far on Margaret Thatcher. | :53:32. | :53:38. | |
There's no way you can push politics aside here. | :53:39. | :53:40. | |
While clearly nationalisation wasn't a panacea, many former miners say it | :53:41. | :53:44. | |
brought the kind of security that vanished when the industry returned | :53:45. | :53:47. | |
The problem we had over the last 20 years is that we | :53:48. | :53:53. | |
didn't have the security we had before and April were forever | :53:54. | :53:57. | |
looking over their shoulders wondering when is their job going to | :53:58. | :54:00. | |
Whereas when I first started, in 1971, you didn't have | :54:01. | :54:04. | |
You went to the pit, you'd got a job for life. | :54:05. | :54:08. | |
Deep mining's story may be over but this | :54:09. | :54:10. | |
chapter at least is being remembered. | :54:11. | :54:13. | |
We must not let any area become derelict if it can possibly | :54:14. | :54:17. | |
These areas therefore still have a big part to play in our | :54:18. | :54:24. | |
We know what their faults are and there is a | :54:25. | :54:29. | |
bitter legacy of memories of the terrible depressed areas, | :54:30. | :54:33. | |
Some of you older viewers might remember him. | :54:34. | :54:41. | |
Let me ask you, Rachel Maskell, we know Jeremy Corbyn is a big fan of | :54:42. | :54:44. | |
nationalised industries, he has talked about nationalising the | :54:45. | :54:47. | |
He even talked about nationalising energy. | :54:48. | :54:50. | |
Has nationalisation become a dirty word? | :54:51. | :54:52. | |
Well, the first thing we want to do is we | :54:53. | :54:55. | |
nationalise the NHS, 9% now in | :54:56. | :54:56. | |
the private sector, so we do see the real | :54:57. | :54:59. | |
We know there is such chaos in parts of | :55:00. | :55:04. | |
our railway system because of the fragmentation that | :55:05. | :55:06. | |
I doubt there are many rail passengers that don't get those | :55:07. | :55:16. | |
frustrations as they are having to deal with different | :55:17. | :55:18. | |
And of course the mess now created in Southern Rail. | :55:19. | :55:21. | |
And of course what the 1945 Government did | :55:22. | :55:25. | |
with nationalisation was to create good quality jobs. | :55:26. | :55:27. | |
And when we have 910,000 people today - Robert talked | :55:28. | :55:29. | |
about creation of jobs - 910,000 people on zero-hour | :55:30. | :55:34. | |
contracts, people in insecure labour today, 80% of the | :55:35. | :55:38. | |
new jobs created since 2010 being self-employed, where the average | :55:39. | :55:42. | |
wage is ?11,000 or less, it is time that we really ensure that we | :55:43. | :55:46. | |
have a strong industrial strategy for good employment in the future. | :55:47. | :55:51. | |
Well, it's interesting, Robert Goodwill, because... | :55:52. | :55:53. | |
But there was a Yougov poll a couple of years ago | :55:54. | :55:57. | |
that said the majority of the British public, including | :55:58. | :55:59. | |
conservative voters, would support the renationalisation of the | :56:00. | :56:02. | |
railways and also the energy industry, if it had cheaper rail | :56:03. | :56:05. | |
So you can't totally dismiss this, can you? | :56:06. | :56:09. | |
If you look at some of the industries that were nationalise | :56:10. | :56:12. | |
that are now in the private sector, look at Jaguar Land Rover and the | :56:13. | :56:15. | |
These are companies that have done really | :56:16. | :56:21. | |
And, indeed, Rachel mentioned the problems on Southern Rail. | :56:22. | :56:25. | |
I think that has more to do with the unions | :56:26. | :56:27. | |
and their industrial action, and the fact that the investment | :56:28. | :56:31. | |
in the new rolling stock that the workers won't | :56:32. | :56:34. | |
The model of franchising that we have in the UK | :56:35. | :56:37. | |
is one that has been copied around Europe. | :56:38. | :56:39. | |
National Express recently got a franchise in Germany. | :56:40. | :56:41. | |
They have seen the advantage of bringing | :56:42. | :56:43. | |
private sector investment and private sector know-how into the | :56:44. | :56:45. | |
But the British taxpayer subsidises the rail industry to the | :56:46. | :56:48. | |
Much of that money goes to foreign rail companies. | :56:49. | :56:53. | |
The Government might as well be running the railways. | :56:54. | :56:55. | |
The money that is going into the rail | :56:56. | :56:57. | |
sector is investment in the infrastructure, in improving the | :56:58. | :56:59. | |
network, new stations in Birmingham, better | :57:00. | :57:03. | |
And indeed new rolling stock that we've seen in the | :57:04. | :57:08. | |
north of England so we can get rid of those dreadful Pacer trains. | :57:09. | :57:11. | |
Since privatisation we have seen the more | :57:12. | :57:15. | |
than doubling of rail ridership up to 1.6 billion per year. | :57:16. | :57:18. | |
So it has been a success story but we | :57:19. | :57:20. | |
still need to do a lot more in terms of investment. | :57:21. | :57:23. | |
I wish we could bring the rail unions with us in actually | :57:24. | :57:26. | |
On that very point, the reason why there has | :57:27. | :57:30. | |
been industrial action on | :57:31. | :57:31. | |
the Southern Rail has been about public safety and the fact there | :57:32. | :57:36. | |
have been a number of incidents on trains | :57:37. | :57:38. | |
presence of guards, and what they are saying | :57:39. | :57:41. | |
is we want to ensure we put the public safe in the future. | :57:42. | :57:44. | |
And that is what is so important with a safety critical industry, and | :57:45. | :57:48. | |
that is why workers will always think about their passengers first. | :57:49. | :57:52. | |
And therefore to try and put "Unions bad, | :57:53. | :57:55. | |
Private good" in that old Tory argument, really does not fit | :57:56. | :57:59. | |
with the reality of the industrial situation. | :58:00. | :58:01. | |
Unions are great, they represent their workers, they do a | :58:02. | :58:04. | |
lot of good work, but in this case they really don't seem to understand | :58:05. | :58:07. | |
that that new technology, the driver only operated trains, | :58:08. | :58:10. | |
they can see all the doors from the cab, we | :58:11. | :58:13. | |
weren't making anyone redundant in that case, | :58:14. | :58:15. | |
we just want to have that new technology... | :58:16. | :58:17. | |
Unions fight not only for jobs and themselves but | :58:18. | :58:20. | |
also for the public and for public interest and public safety. | :58:21. | :58:24. | |
They've made a very clear case which cannot | :58:25. | :58:26. | |
be argued against, the fact the public have been put at risk | :58:27. | :58:30. | |
And, incidentally, if anyone wants a job | :58:31. | :58:33. | |
as a miner, come up to Scarborough where we've just got 1000 vacancies | :58:34. | :58:37. | |
The new Sirius potash mine has started work, there | :58:38. | :58:41. | |
will be 1000 jobs for miners there, well paid jobs. | :58:42. | :58:43. | |
A private sector investment creating jobs in the mining industry. | :58:44. | :58:47. | |
We've got a lovely image of a pithead behind us. | :58:48. | :58:49. | |
Let me ask you, Rachel Maskell, in the USA | :58:50. | :58:51. | |
this week Donald Trump has reversed Barack Obama's so-called "war | :58:52. | :58:56. | |
He says he wants to protect the industry, preserve jobs. | :58:57. | :58:59. | |
Would you like to congratulate President Trump? | :59:00. | :59:02. | |
I want to project our environment for the future as well | :59:03. | :59:05. | |
and therefore putting the investment in renewable energy | :59:06. | :59:08. | |
And certainly I would say we have so much resource here, as | :59:09. | :59:12. | |
have the US, in being able to put that investment in, and then we'll | :59:13. | :59:16. | |
get really good, sustainable jobs coming out of that. | :59:17. | :59:19. | |
But also we won't be reaping havoc over our climate. | :59:20. | :59:22. | |
And the reality is climate change is now the biggest challenge | :59:23. | :59:26. | |
facing governments, and yet this Government has withdrawn | :59:27. | :59:29. | |
from the renewable agenda, and seems to be drawing back | :59:30. | :59:32. | |
from the opportunities we've got to really be world leaders in this | :59:33. | :59:35. | |
Maybe, many people will say it's frustrating, we still got | :59:36. | :59:39. | |
tonnes of coal under the ground on which we stand. | :59:40. | :59:42. | |
I mean, the stone age didn't finish because we ran out stone. | :59:43. | :59:47. | |
We've moved on to better technology, more renewables, | :59:48. | :59:49. | |
nuclear, cleaner types of energy, gas, which of course is cleaner to | :59:50. | :59:54. | |
burn than coal, so we do need to understand the importance of meeting | :59:55. | :59:57. | |
But we are failing on that because we have dropped out of the top ten | :59:58. | :00:05. | |
A return to coal, as President Trump is suggesting, is not the answer. | :00:06. | :00:09. | |
Before we go, Wednesday was a memorable day - | :00:10. | :00:11. | |
not just the Brexit but for the Morley and Outwood MP | :00:12. | :00:14. | |
Andrea Jenkyns, whose baby son Clifford was born. | :00:15. | :00:18. | |
She received a congratulatory message from | :00:19. | :00:21. | |
colleagues and speaker at John Bercow. | :00:22. | :00:24. | |
And he also extended congratulations to her partner, who | :00:25. | :00:26. | |
I think it right also to congratulate the | :00:27. | :00:31. | |
honourable gentleman, the member for Filton and Bradley Stoke, | :00:32. | :00:33. | |
who I think had some hand in the matter as well. | :00:34. | :00:37. | |
You are always welcome on our programme, of course. | :00:38. | :00:41. | |
Sometimes babies make more sense than the guests we have | :00:42. | :00:44. | |
Thank you very much to our guests today - | :00:45. | :00:49. | |
to Robert Goodwill and to Rachel Maskell. | :00:50. | :00:52. | |
Now let's hand back to Andrew Neill in London. | :00:53. | :00:55. | |
We'll be back after the Easter break. | :00:56. | :01:06. | |
So, what will be the effect of new tax and benefit changes | :01:07. | :01:09. | |
Will the Government's grand trade tour reap benefits? | :01:10. | :01:13. | |
And are the Lib Dems really going to replace Labour, | :01:14. | :01:15. | |
To answer that last question, I'm joined by from Salford | :01:16. | :01:27. | |
by the Lib Dem MP, Alistair Carmichael. | :01:28. | :01:32. | |
Michael Fallon sirs the Lib Dems will replace Labour. How long will | :01:33. | :01:41. | |
it take? We will have to wait and see. Anyone who thinks you can | :01:42. | :01:46. | |
predict the future is engaged in a dodgy game. I have been campaigning | :01:47. | :01:52. | |
with the Liberal Democrats in Manchester... You must not | :01:53. | :01:57. | |
mention... You know the by-election rules. It is only an illustration. | :01:58. | :02:04. | |
Across false ways of the country, the Liberal Democrats are back in | :02:05. | :02:14. | |
business -- across whole swathes of the country. Part of the reason why | :02:15. | :02:18. | |
we are getting a good response is because the Labour Party under | :02:19. | :02:23. | |
Jeremy Corbyn has taken such a self-destructive path. Even if you | :02:24. | :02:28. | |
do pretty well in the local elections, it you have to make up | :02:29. | :02:31. | |
lost ground from the time you did very well in previous times, you | :02:32. | :02:38. | |
used to have 4700 councillors. It will take you a long while to get | :02:39. | :02:43. | |
back to that. You will get no argument from me that we have a | :02:44. | :02:47. | |
mountain to climb. What I'm telling you is, and if this is not just in | :02:48. | :02:52. | |
this round of elections, it is in the other by-elections in places | :02:53. | :02:57. | |
like Richmond, and in by-elections write the length and breadth of the | :02:58. | :03:02. | |
country since last June, the Liberal Democrats are taking seats from the | :03:03. | :03:05. | |
Labour Party under Conservative Party, and not just in Brexit phobic | :03:06. | :03:13. | |
areas. Not just in Remain areas. But in places like Sunderland as well | :03:14. | :03:17. | |
which voted very heavily for Brexit. In fact, that vote was in large part | :03:18. | :03:24. | |
as well a protest against the way in which the Labour Party really has | :03:25. | :03:28. | |
taken these areas for granted over the years. That is why the ground is | :03:29. | :03:33. | |
fertile for us. In the local elections which is what we are | :03:34. | :03:39. | |
discussing today, why would anybody vote for the Liberal Democrats if | :03:40. | :03:43. | |
they believed in Brexit? Mr Farren has said he wants to reverse works. | :03:44. | :03:51. | |
If you are Brexit supporter and you are considering how to cast your | :03:52. | :03:55. | |
vote, first of all, I think you will be looking at the quality of | :03:56. | :03:59. | |
representation you can get for your local area and you are right, we | :04:00. | :04:03. | |
have a lot of ground to recoup from previous elections, we lost 124 | :04:04. | :04:12. | |
seats, communities have now had a few years to reflect on the quality | :04:13. | :04:17. | |
of service they have been able to get and they have missed the very | :04:18. | :04:20. | |
effective liberal Democrat councillors they have had. This is | :04:21. | :04:26. | |
not just about whether you are a believer or remainer, ultimately, | :04:27. | :04:31. | |
that is an issue we are going to have to settle and we will settle it | :04:32. | :04:36. | |
not in the way the Government is having by dictating the terms of the | :04:37. | :04:41. | |
debate, but by bringing the whole country together. I think that is | :04:42. | :04:45. | |
something you can only do if, as we have suggested, you give the people | :04:46. | :04:50. | |
the opportunity to have a say on the deal when Theresa May eventually | :04:51. | :04:53. | |
produces it. The only way you could really replace Labour in the | :04:54. | :04:58. | |
foreseeable future would be if a big chunk of the centre and right of the | :04:59. | :05:04. | |
Labour Party came over and join due in some kind of new social | :05:05. | :05:09. | |
democratic alliance. -- joined you. There is no sign that will happen? I | :05:10. | :05:14. | |
do not see whether common purpose is anymore holding the Labour Party | :05:15. | :05:17. | |
together. That is for people in the Labour Party to make their own | :05:18. | :05:23. | |
decisions. Use what happened to the Labour Party in Scotland. -- you | :05:24. | :05:30. | |
saw. Politics moved on and left them behind and they were decimated as a | :05:31. | :05:35. | |
consequence of that. So was your party. It is possible the same thing | :05:36. | :05:39. | |
could happen to the Labour Party and the rest of the UK. Politics is | :05:40. | :05:44. | |
moving on and they are coming up with 1970s solutions to problems in | :05:45. | :05:51. | |
2017. Alistair Carmichael, thanks for joining us. Let us have a look | :05:52. | :05:56. | |
at some of the tax and benefit changes coming up this week. The tax | :05:57. | :06:03. | |
changes first of all. The personal allowance is going to rise to | :06:04. | :06:07. | |
?11,500, the level at which you start to pay tax. The higher rate | :06:08. | :06:12. | |
threshold, where you start to play at 40%, that will rise from | :06:13. | :06:18. | |
currently ?43,400, rising up to 40 5000. -- pay. Benefit changes, | :06:19. | :06:27. | |
freeze on working age benefits, removal of the family element of tax | :06:28. | :06:33. | |
credits and universal credit, that is a technical change but quite an | :06:34. | :06:38. | |
impact. The child element of tax credit is going to be limited to two | :06:39. | :06:44. | |
children on any new claims. The Resolution Foundation has crunched | :06:45. | :06:51. | |
the numbers and they discovered that when you take the tax and benefit | :06:52. | :06:58. | |
changes together, 80% go to better off households and the poorest third | :06:59. | :07:06. | |
or worse. What help -- what happened to help the just about managing? The | :07:07. | :07:11. | |
Resolution Foundation exists to find the worst possible statistics... It | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
is not clear the figures are wrong? They are fairly recent figures and I | :07:16. | :07:21. | |
have not seen analysis by other organisations. The Adam Smith | :07:22. | :07:25. | |
Institute will probably have some question marks over it. Nobody | :07:26. | :07:29. | |
should be surprised a Tory government is trying to make the | :07:30. | :07:33. | |
state smaller... And the poor poorer. The system is propped up by | :07:34. | :07:40. | |
better off people and so it will be those people who will be slightly | :07:41. | :07:43. | |
less heavily taxed as you make the state smaller. Theresa May will have | :07:44. | :07:51. | |
to stop just talking about the just about managing. And some of her | :07:52. | :07:55. | |
other language and the role of the government and the state when she | :07:56. | :07:59. | |
sounded quite positive... She sounded like a big government | :08:00. | :08:04. | |
conservative not small government. In every set piece occasion, she | :08:05. | :08:08. | |
says, it is time to look at the good the government can do. That is not | :08:09. | :08:16. | |
what you heard from Mrs Thatcher. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown would | :08:17. | :08:20. | |
not have dared to say it either even if they believed it. It raises a | :08:21. | :08:25. | |
much bigger question which is, as well as whether this is a set of | :08:26. | :08:32. | |
progressive measures, the Resolution Foundation constantly argued when | :08:33. | :08:36. | |
George Osborne announced his budget measures as progressive when they | :08:37. | :08:39. | |
were regressive when they checked out the figures, but also how this | :08:40. | :08:43. | |
government was going to meet the demand for public services when it | :08:44. | :08:48. | |
has ruled out virtually any tax rises that you would normally do | :08:49. | :08:52. | |
now, including National Insurance. There are a whole range of nightmare | :08:53. | :08:58. | |
issues on Philip Hammond's in-tray in relation to tax. The Resolution | :08:59. | :09:02. | |
Foundation figures do not include the rise in the minimum wage which | :09:03. | :09:07. | |
has just gone under way. They do not include the tax free childcare from | :09:08. | :09:11. | |
the end of April, the extra 15 hours of free childcare from September. | :09:12. | :09:16. | |
Even when you include these, it does not look like it would offset the | :09:17. | :09:20. | |
losses of the poorest households. Doesn't that have to be a problem | :09:21. | :09:25. | |
for Theresa May? It really is a problem especially when her | :09:26. | :09:29. | |
narrative and indeed entire purpose in government is for that just about | :09:30. | :09:34. | |
managing. What Mrs May still has which is exactly a problem they have | :09:35. | :09:39. | |
at the budget and the Autumn Statement is that they are still | :09:40. | :09:41. | |
saddled with George Osborne's massive ring fences on tax cuts and | :09:42. | :09:48. | |
spending. They have to go through with the tax cut for the middle | :09:49. | :09:52. | |
classes by pushing up the higher rate threshold which is absolutely | :09:53. | :09:56. | |
going to do nothing for the just about managing. When they try to | :09:57. | :10:00. | |
mitigate that, for example, in the Autumn Statement, Philip Hammond was | :10:01. | :10:03. | |
told to come up with more money to ease the cuts in tax credits, came | :10:04. | :10:08. | |
up with 350 million, an absolute... It is billions and billions | :10:09. | :10:14. | |
involved. Marginal adjustment. A huge problem with the actual tax and | :10:15. | :10:17. | |
benefit changes going on with what Mrs May as saying. The only way to | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
fix it is coming up with more money to alleviate that. Where will you | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
find it? Philip Hammond tried in the Budget with the National Insurance | :10:27. | :10:30. | |
rises but it lasted six and a half days. I was told that it was one of | :10:31. | :10:36. | |
the reasons why the Chancellor looked kindly on the idea of an | :10:37. | :10:41. | |
early election because he wanted to get rid of what he regards as an | :10:42. | :10:46. | |
albatross around his neck, the Tory manifesto 2015, no increase in | :10:47. | :10:50. | |
income tax, no increase in VAT, no increase in National Insurance, fuel | :10:51. | :10:56. | |
duty was not cut when fuel prices were falling so it is hardly going | :10:57. | :10:59. | |
to rise now when they are rising again. This is why, I suggest, they | :11:00. | :11:06. | |
end up in these incredibly complicated what we used to call | :11:07. | :11:10. | |
stealth taxes as ways of trying to raise money and invariably a blow up | :11:11. | :11:15. | |
in your face. Stealth taxes never end up being stealthy. It is part of | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
the narrative that budget begins to fall apart within hours. You have to | :11:21. | :11:26. | |
have sympathy, as Tom says, with Philip Hammond. No wonder he would | :11:27. | :11:29. | |
like to be liberated. The early election will not happen. The best | :11:30. | :11:33. | |
argument I have heard for an early election. The tax and spend about at | :11:34. | :11:38. | |
the last election was a disaster partly because the Conservatives | :11:39. | :11:43. | |
feared they would lose. Maybe they could be a bit more candid about the | :11:44. | :11:48. | |
need to put up some taxes to pay for public services and it is very | :11:49. | :11:54. | |
interesting what you picked up on Philip Hammond because he is | :11:55. | :11:57. | |
trapped. So constrained about... You can also reopen the Ring fencing and | :11:58. | :12:05. | |
spending and the obvious place to go is the triple lock, OAP spending. | :12:06. | :12:10. | |
Another case for an election. He cannot undo the promise to that | :12:11. | :12:16. | |
demographic. We will not get to 2020 without something breaking. The | :12:17. | :12:20. | |
Prime Minister, the trade secretary and Mr Hammond, they are off to | :12:21. | :12:27. | |
India, the Far East, talking up trade with these countries, I do not | :12:28. | :12:33. | |
know if any of you are going? Sadly not. Will it produce dividends? The | :12:34. | :12:38. | |
prime Minster is going somewhere too. No, it will not, the honest | :12:39. | :12:45. | |
answer. No one will do a trade deal with us because we cannot do one | :12:46. | :12:48. | |
because we are still in the EU and they need to know what our terms | :12:49. | :12:52. | |
will be with the EU first before they can work out how they want to | :12:53. | :12:56. | |
trade with us. This is vital preparatory work. Ministers always | :12:57. | :13:00. | |
go somewhere in recess, it is what they do. We will not see anything in | :13:01. | :13:04. | |
a hurry, we will not see anything for two years. They have to do it. | :13:05. | :13:10. | |
Whatever side of the joint you are on, Brexit, remain, we need to get | :13:11. | :13:16. | |
out there. -- the argument. We should have been doing this the day | :13:17. | :13:19. | |
after the referendum result. It is now several months down the line and | :13:20. | :13:23. | |
they need to step it up, not the opposite. You can make some informal | :13:24. | :13:30. | |
talks, I guess. You can say, Britain is open for business. There is a | :13:31. | :13:34. | |
symbolism to it. What a lot of energy sucked up into this. | :13:35. | :13:39. | |
Parliament is not sitting so they might as well start talking. We have | :13:40. | :13:45. | |
run out of energy and time. That is it for today. We are off for the | :13:46. | :13:50. | |
Easter recess, back in two weeks' time. If it is Sunday, it is the | :13:51. | :13:54. | |
Sunday Politics. Unless it is that used to recess! -- Easter recess. | :13:55. | :14:23. | |
Marine Le Pen has her eyes on the French presidency. | :14:24. | :14:26. | |
As she tries to distance herself from her party's controversial past, | :14:27. | :14:29. | |
we follow the money and ask, "Who's funding her campaign?" | :14:30. | :14:34. |