09/02/2014 The Andrew Marr Show

Good morning. If the flooding of the Somerset Levels teaches us anything,

it is that we need more immigrants. We need to bring them from Romania,

Poland, France and the Netherlands to do our dirty work for us. I am

referring, of course, not to humans, but to beavers. Experts are saying

that the reintroduction of the beaver, now mostly extinct in the

UK, would be the most cost-effective measure of water management around.

And if ministers hate the idea, it is a scientifically proven fact that

very few beavers claim benefits. Joining me today for our review of

the Sunday newspapers, Isabel Hardman, who runs the Spectator

magazine's coffee house blog, and Owen Jones, a columnist for the

Independent. So, back to the main story of the

weekend. David Cameron described the flooding in Somerset as "biblical"

in scale. But it's one of those dramas which has been unfolding far

from Westminster for weeks. Now it's a political crisis, with Government

accused of complacency and neglect, and the Environment Agency in the

dock. I'm joined by Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary. What does

the prime minister mean when he says there will be "no restriction" on

help for those affected? Who will pay for it? And will we see big

changes in the whole approach to flood prevention?

Also this morning, another problem in need of long-term solutions, and

that is welfare. With the Conservatives talking openly about

deeper cuts to the range of benefits, we will hear from Rachel

Reeves, in charge of both pensions and welfare than Labour. She is

tipped as one of the party's rising stars.

Of course, there are plenty of doughty souls who don't need claim a

pension, because they just keep on working. I have been talking to that

wonderful actress, Dame Angela Lansbury. Her first big-screen role

came during the Second World War, and she is about to take to the

London stage at the age of 88. Lucky woman, aren't I? O, my goodness, in

every possible way. What a goer! Finally: A youthful talent. We will

have music from the singer, Jake Bugg. All that is coming up, but

first the news, with Sally Nugent. The prime minister is due to lead

the latest emergency meeting on the flooding crisis today, as weather

forecasters warn that yet more storms are due to hit the country

this week. Climate change is likely to be a factor in the extreme

weather that has hit much of the country in recent months. According

to the Met Office's chief scientist, Dame Julia Slingo. Gales over the

last few days have destroyed sections of railway track, leaving

South West England cut off. Our reporter is in Chertsey.

Yes, here on the River Thames, water levels are continuing to rise and

are set to rise even higher than in 2003, the last time there was a

major flood on this stretch of the river. A very sad incident behind me

on the local side of the river yesterday. A seven-year-old boy died

and 15 others were taken to hospital. It is a mystery as to

precisely what happened, but we understand it was above the a carbon

monoxide incident. The family had been pumping out their property. It

could be that fumes from a generator built up and the family were

overcome. The military are now helping out. Some soldiers have been

busy overnight, not far from here. The Ministry of Defence says 1500

soldiers are on stand-by to help if needed. Some of them were hard at

work in Berkshire last night. But sandbags will not help protect the

main rail line to and from the West Country, where it crosses the

Somerset Levels. It is underwater, and more rain overnight means the

water has continued to rise. There is no indication when this track may

be back in use. The only other rail line into the West Country has been

closed by damage to the track near Crewkerne . That could take several

days to repair. Devon and Cornwall and parts of Somerset are now cut

off I wail from the rest of the country. Replacement buses will have

to do the work. Many big rivers like the Thames are continuing to rise.

The government is warning that the situation will get worse before it

gets better. The government will do what it takes to repair the damage,

shore up the differences, ensure that people can go about their

normal lives, safe from the ravages of this storm. This was Cornwall

yesterday, where huge wave against the headland, leaving the rock

covered in white foam. The strongest winds have now passed, but more

heavy rain is forecast for later in the week.

The military were helping out yesterday evening, trying to stop an

electricity substation near Reading from being overcome by the

floodwaters. The Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service are using a

high-volume pump from another part of the country, because their

specialist equipment is already in the Somerset Levels.

The government is facing calls from Labour to reconsider proposed new

laws requiring employers and landlords to carry out greater

checks on the immigration status of foreign migrants. The immigration

minister, Mark Harper, who was taking the legislation through

Parliament, resigned yesterday after discovering that his cleaner was in

the UK illegally. Investigations have been launched

after a newspaper reported that thousands of confidential files

containing details of Barclays bank customers have been stolen stop the

Mail on Sunday says detailed, sensitive information from a

database of what could be 27,000 files have been sold to brokers.

The government is setting up a new body to try to get the long-term

sick back to work more quickly. The health assessments will not be

compulsory, but ministers hope it will save businesses ?70 million a

year. The TUC says it welcomes the idea, but says it is worried that

the focus will not be on getting people better again.

An aid convoy in Syria has come under attack while attempting to

deliver is supplied to a besieged part of the city of Homs. The United

Nations has urged the Assad regime and rebels to respect a three-day

truce. Despite the attack, the UN says it will not be deterred from

doing its best to deliver aid. A special group -- second group of

civilians was due to be evacuated today.

That's all from me for now. I will be back with the headlines just

before ten o'clock. Back to Andrew. Thank you, Sally. And now to the

papers. A couple of storage to start with which have not made the news on

the BBC. The Observer has an interview with Nick Clegg, who says

Britain must join the debate on a new approach to the war on drugs.

That means legalisation, but politicians can't find them -- can't

bring themselves to say it. And Independent on Sunday has a good

news story for once. It's about skin cells which can be turned into cells

which can then treat diseases like Parkinson's and so forth. A really

big medical breakthrough by their excellent correspondent. And so to a

couple of papers, leading with probably the political story of the

moment, the resignation of Mark Harper, the immigration minister,

because his cleaner was here illegally. The Sunday Times also has

a story about Dyson, swiftly becoming our national hero, who

wants robots made in Britain to transform our lives. The Sunday

Telegraph has the minister again quitting over his cleaner. That will

do for now. Isabel, you are going to lead us off with the flood story,

which dominates the papers. Yes, there is a double page spread in the

Sunday Times about the effects of the flood. A seven-year-old boy has

sadly died, possibly of carbon monoxide poisoning. The story also

looks at the warnings that the Environment Agency and the

government were sent prior to these floods. They knew about the danger

months before, and they did not begin dredging or pumping on the

Somerset Levels early enough. Yes, there was a series of letters which

the government ignored? Yes, and there was a warning from a member of

the Somerset drainage board that ditches in the area were blocked

would not be able to cope with more heavy rainfall. Then there is an

interview in the Mail on Sunday with Eric Pickles, who you will be

speaking to, who as good as says that Environment Agency chief Chris

Smith should go. He says he will not be printing save Chris Smith

T-shirts any time soon. There is an angle about this which has been

missed, which is the focus of the threat to the nation's food

security. That is what the Observer looks at. The point is that

already, this country depends on importing 30% of its food. And as

the National Farmers' Union has pointed out, and their chairman is

interviewed in the paper, over half of reductive farmland in this

country lies within a flood plain -- productive farmland. Flood defences

are currently focused on property, which means focusing on urban areas

rather than agricultural areas. We have had all this talk about letting

farmland go and surrendering parts of the Somerset Levels as well.

Absolutely. The point that is also being made, which is a bit of a

political football, with the dredging versus cuts argument, but

the Environment Agency is obviously doing its best to protect the areas

which are now under attack from floods, but they are cutting staff

by 13% across all regions. The wider point the Observer looks at is, as

extreme weather events become more common and we see them affecting

other areas like the midwest in America and Australia and Ukraine,

there is the threat that extreme weather poses to food security. Onto

another story, Isabel. You have chosen one we might raise later with

Rachel Reeves. It is a story in the Sunday Times that women are now shut

out of the elite under the Tories. It is not just positions in the

Cabinet, it is Cabinet committees that that government policy. The

government has fewer than one in five female ambassadors who have

been appointed since David Cameron came to power in 2010. And this sits

alongside the problem that Tory women MPs are having in beginning to

give up their seats because of macho attitudes in Parliament. Yes, but

although in the case of those who are leaving, there are specific

personal circumstances. To an extent, it is just down to a series

of unfortunate events that it happens to be women who are leaving.

There is a robin, but it is to do with supply. 16% of Conservative MPs

are women. But if you look at the candidate elections they are

making, I have been told that only 30% of people apply to be candidates

are women. So the party is failing to attract women. Whether that is

because women are hearing stories about there being a woman problem

and wondering why to bother banging their head against a wall, I don't

know. You are associated with the centre-right. Can you see the

Conservative Party going for controversial all women short lists?

I don't think they will and I don't think they should, because most

women find those all women short lists difficult to stomach. If I had

to go on an all woman short list to get a job, I would feel

uncomfortable. You want to compete against the chaps on your own

merits. But it is not working in terms of being women through. It is

getting better. Cameron presided over a threefold increase in the

number of female MPs. They have a campaign which involves doing

intensive training with female candidates. But Labour benefit from

having that positive discrimination policy. In 2014 in Britain, 80% of

our parliamentarians are men. Sudan has a higher proportion of women in

their parliament. Talking as a man, which is an unfortunate position to

be in in this context, but there is a higher towards selecting men --

there was a bias towards men and people have an image of what an MP

is and how they should speak, and that seems to benefit men. Just

ahead of this conversation, the government has introduced one extra

female minister into power, and that is a consequence of Mark Harper, the

immigration minister, shuffling off. Yes, the big political story is

Mark Harper. He has been forced to resign. He was the immigration

minister. Looking at what is not in the paper, we are supposed to look

at this through the prism of Mark Harper. His cleaner, who has been

washing his toilet the last few years, has been dispatched out of

the country and will never be heard of again, while he keeps his

backbench job. But the point about why his position was so untenable

was that Mark Harper was the man who introduced the go home vans, which

were sent into racially mixed communities in this country. Clearly

not around his front door. People at the time thought this was an attempt

to use public money to see off the UKIP threat, as the Sunday Telegraph

says. He has also been at the forefront of the immigration

legislation. And here we have the People, mocking up the van which the

government introduced as a pilot scheme. Employing your cleaner

illegally? Text us. Again, this legislation is basically turning

landlords into unpaid border guards. If the immigration minister can't

check whether or not his employee is illegal... There have been lots of

old conversations with people who others depend upon. Are you here

illegally? Can I see your paperwork? It is not how people would talk to

their cleaners or people down the shop. No, and he was caught out

here, because it turns out that this undocumented immigrant had forged

their papers, so he had not checked thoroughly enough. I am not sure how

people would in that situation. At with the immigration legislation now

dead in landlords to do that, that raises questions about how workable

the legislation is. The next story is referring to Rachel Reeves,

having a hard time in Manchester. Yes, this is in the Independent on

Sunday. Jane Merrick has also gone to the constituency to watch the

by-election on folding. Labour think she will hold onto the seat quite

easily, is that your impression? Yes, and also UKIP are going after

the Labour vote. And UKIP are trying to say, Labour has betrayed you.

They want to portray this as UKIP is quite normal coming second. Their

candidate grew up in Wythenshawe on the council estates so he is very

different to Nigel Farage and their message is different to the southern

message, it is about protecting benefits. A bit like the Liberals,

different messages for different parts of the country. Owen, your man

is a threat to the Labour Party. I am from Stockport nearby, and I

think a lot of people look at UKIP voters as Thatcher voters having a

temper tantrum. On economic issues, UKIP voters are often to the left of

the British public, more likely to support taxes on the rich, so you

can see why... Radical nostalgia. It is the case that they are making

inroads with working-class voters on things like immigration which is

often frustration at the lack of housing and skilled jobs. They are

difficult to pin down as well, I asked John Bickley if he was left or

right wing, and he couldn't say, they have to be all things to all

men. This is a rare example of a serving minister coming up with what

they will talk about in opposition. Motives aside, I will probably end

up saying I agree with Nick Clegg. I think this is an important

contribution to the debate. Politicians tiptoe around the issue

of prohibition of drugs, he is making a statement of the obvious

which is nonetheless a radical thing in Britain, which is that cocaine

use is tripled in less than 20 years and according to the social

attitudes survey, sorry the crime survey, well over a third of Britons

have tried illegal drugs at some point, it is a huge source of income

for criminal gangs, and the point he is making... A lot of people would

say there is not a -- enough censure of people using it. If you look at

criminal gangs in Mexico, thousands of people have died, there is

virtually a low-level civil war. Let's move to HS2 which is all over

the papers. You have chosen one from the Independent on Sunday. There is

also one in the Telegraph. This is fascinating. You wonder why

Whitehall projects have gone wrong, then you see people going from

project to project. This is Patrick McConnell, who has moved over from

the NHS. Is he absolutely the right person to run HS2? Is he also the

right person to encourage public confidence in HS2? Sochi is the

other one, we have a cartoon. A brilliant cartoon here in the

Observer, this is Vladimir Putin holding the Olympic flame and a

Russian bear talking about homophobia behind him. It is

important that people are raising the issues of Russia, the laws

promoting persecution, the attacks by police and gay rights protesters,

but I think the point... Just going to the Observer, to avoid striking

too much of a self congratulatory stunts, Britain has come so far, but

the point it makes is about the refugees in Britain. We have a

situation where those trying to claim asylum fleeing homophobic

persecution from many countries across the world are being asked the

most intrusive questions to prove they are gay. I can't read them out,

but just to save to your viewers they are truly shocking. There are

even examples of these refugees filming themselves having sex with

each other in order to prove they are gay. That is exactly the kind of

story to be rampaging across Twitter. Both of you are heavily

involved in social media, and you are both involved in old-fashioned

media, the Independent and the Spectator. How different is your

journalism online from what you do in print? You are always pressure --

under pressure online to move quicker. I suppose you have more

time perhaps in print to go out and research things. In social media,

often with breaking news stories people are more likely to go on

Twitter than turn on rolling news coverage. What -- if an incident

unfolds in central London, he will have people tweeting about it which

news networks use so it has the potential to democratise the

mainstream media. It is a very angry democracy at the moment. If you look

below the line, the level of Fiori and bile is astonishing. The good

thing about social media is that anybody can use it, like that. That

is one of the drawbacks. Back in the day, if you wanted to abuse a famous

person, you had to get the paper, write it out, go to the post office.

Now you can literally abuse anyone in the world like that in a second.

If you want to abuse me, write to me in old-fashioned green ink.

We've had some pretty doom-laden weather forecasts over the past few

days - biblical, says Cameron - but we're short of Noahs, although we

have seen a bit of sun between the westerly onslaughts. So what's in

store today? Over to Sarah Keith-Lucas in the weather studio.

The rest of today is not looking too bad. We will see a slow improving

story for the rest of the day but it is still looking pretty wet for the

next week or so. Three flood warnings are still in place. We have

low pressure still in charge of the weather for the rest of today, and

we have had a weather front spiralling around. The showers

tending to ease away. Still quite a strong breeze blowing in from the

south-west. Inland, some sunshine developing, some light showers, but

feeling quite chilly in that breeze, at the best perhaps seven or eight

degrees. Most of the showers tend to ease overnight, some patchy rain

moving perhaps into the south-east of England, but we will see quite a

cold night to come with some frost developing and possibly some icy

stretches on Monday morning. Monday looks like it will be a quieter day,

much less windy than in recent days. The rain will not be too heavy,

temperatures between six and nine degrees, but more of the same to

come - in the week ahead, more rain in the forecast, more gales and

further problems with flooding so we are not out of the woods just yet.

Pensions and benefits are the biggest area of Government

expenditure - about ?200 billion pounds a year. And despite all the

cuts we've heard so much about it, the bill keeps on rising. Whoever is

in power after the next election will have to control spending, as

Labour's spokeswoman on work and pensions admits. Rachel Reeves is

with me now. Welcome. That is the basic truth, isn't it? You will have

to keep a tight grip on welfare spending. That's true. It is

important we use the potential of everybody so instead of paying out

huge benefits to people, we are helping them get back into work. At

the moment we are paying ?350 million a year out to unemployment

benefits and lost tax revenue for the long-term unemployed, it would

be much better if those people were in work contributing. Similarly, a

basic skills tests to ensure the people claiming job-seeker's

allowance have the skills to be able to get a job. I'm glad we've got

these two Familia policies out to start with because my main question

is that you are committed to the triple lock on pensions. Are there

any cuts that you support? We have said winter fuel allowance should be

cut for the richest pensioners so that is something we would do that

the Government haven't committed to do. The best way to bring down the

working age benefits bill is to make sure more people are in work and in

better paid work. At the moment we have a record number of people not

being paid a living wage and as a result they have to call on housing

benefit. It is also about ensuring more people are in full-time,

decently paid work. The Institute for Fiscal Studies says you need to

take a third out of the welfare bill and you cannot tell me a single

working age benefits you would court. The best way to reduce the

benefits bill is to make sure fewer people are claiming benefits.

Despite the rhetoric from this Government, they are spending ?15

billion more than they planned on welfare, despite the fact they are

making these cuts. The only way you can bring down the Social Security

Bill is to make sure fewer people are claiming them. Forget cuts, it

is about the hope of growth. You have given yourselves a big target

and you say it will be done by increasing employment. No tough

decisions whatsoever. The job is guaranteed to make sure no one can

stay unemployed for more than a year under the age of 25... Both of those

extra spending in the short term. These are tangible things we can do

straightaway, getting people into work and paying taxes on National

Insurance rather than being paid benefits, cracking down on zero our

contracts, and also building more houses. No hard decisions at all,

all about expanding the economy, spending more money, hitting the

rich, but nothing in terms of cracking down on working age

benefits at all? We have been very clear that we will not be able to

reverse any of the changes the Government have made, apart from

bedroom tax. Things like restrictions to child benefit which

we didn't support, we will have to stick with. What about the overall

cap per household? We have said we will support that individual

benefits cap, and we support that principle but nobody should be

better off on benefits than they are in work, and that means having the

benefits cap but also making sure work pays. Housing benefit, is it

out of control? The housing benefit bill is too high. What are you going

to do about it? The housing benefit bill for people working part-time

but who want to work full-time has risen so housing benefit is going to

people who are in work but not able to pay rent so we need to do more to

ensure people are in full-time jobs because we have a record number of

people working part-time but want to work full-time. Also we have got to

build those houses. Rent is going up in the private sector because demand

is massively outstripping supply. We have a review on how we can build

200,000 homes per year, for example saying to developers that they have

the land, if they have the land they have to build the homes. Another

spending commitment. A lot of people watching, including Labour

supporters, will be saying to themselves, if you vote Labour there

will be no difficult decisions on cuts. The reason the housing benefit

bill is going up is because we are not building the housing. We are

saying that under a Labour government, it is not Labour

building 200,000 homes per year, but we will do that by demanding more

from private sector developers as well and that will help control the

Social Security cost. Actually, those houses being available to

people in this country rather than being sold off to investors

overseas. If we build those houses, we enable British families to live

in those homes, we can bring down the benefits bill. The problem is

that as a party, you have set yourself a tough and limited

timetable over four or five years to remove this huge deficit. And of

course, if the economy grows and more houses are built in due course

and more people got to work, then in due course, the benefits bill will

come down. But the problem is to get it down quickly in the short term.

And you appear to have no idea as a party about how to do that.

Actually, we have a commitment to say that anybody who is under 25 and

has been out of work for a year, we will guarantee them a job. In a few

years' time, that is not something we would do. We would do it right

now. How much would that save? At the moment, we spent ?350 million a

year keeping young people out of work. Pity six thousand -- we would

say to those young people, we will guarantee you a job, funded by the

bank bonus tax, 25 hours of work or training. You have to take that or

forfeit your benefits basic skills, you have to go to college and get

them . If you don't want them, you forfeit your benefits. So everybody

would have to go into work or into training. That is our commitment,

that those who are out of work for more than a year, it is the right

thing to do by those people and by the taxpayer. That is highly

ambitious. If you look at what we did with the future jobs fund when

we were in government, that helped 100 hours and people into work and

therefore helped to bring down the benefits bill to those people. This

government are allowing young people to stay on benefits year after year.

900,000 people have been out of work. It is a huge waste of young

people's skills. We have got to do better.

Well, the Oscars are almost upon us. The opening ceremony takes place

in Los Angeles three weeks from today. One recent Oscar recipient

was first nominated for an Academy Award 70 years ago. Dame Angela

Lansbury may be most famous as the beady-eyed sleuth in Murder, She

Wrote, but she has had a truly illustrious movie career. She

starred alongside the likes of Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor,

Frank Sinatra and even Elvis Presley. Dame Angela's return to the

London stage at the age of 88 is in Noel Coward's comedy, Blithe Spirit.

When we met, I began by asking her about her wonderfully wacky

character, the medium Madame Arcati. Madame Arcati is an iconic character

who has haunted me now for a number of years. We did her first on

Broadway almost five years ago, and it was an enormous success. I felt

that Madame Arcati was a role I should play, although I never saw

the original, which was a great success in London. I wanted to play

this part. Once I read it, I knew it was something to get my teeth into.

My mother was a medium before me, so I had the opportunity of starting on

the ground floor, as you might say. I had my first chance when I was

four and a half, and my first ectoplasmic manifestation when I was

five and a half. What an exciting day that was. It is a very poignant

play as well as a funny play. Yes. It is mostly funny. Madame Arcati is

a very intense, serious woman who really believes in what she is

doing. And by mistake but she gets results. This is what makes her

fantastically funny, because you think she is a complete send-up and

doesn't know what she is doing. But it turns out she does. So her

results are hilarious. Now, anyone who knows their politics in this

country knows of the great George Lansbury. Until recently, I did not

know you were his granddaughter. Leader of the Labour Party for a

long time, a great pacifist, pro-women's rights. Do you remember

him? Very well. He was a huge figure in my young life, growing up. He was

in our house of great deal. They were always talking politics. He was

a friend of Gandhi. Oh, yes. You experienced the blitz in the early

days, and then your family took you to America. When you read your

biography, you are almost immediately a star after going to

America. It was very swift. I had some salad days.

Tell the master I went for a walk. By yourself? Of course. Suppose the

master asks where? We remember you alongside a huge number of greater

stars, Ingrid Bergman, Elizabeth Taylor and Elvis Presley and Frank

Sinatra. Of all those people, who sticks in your mind is your closest

friend in that period? Ingrid Bergman war was marvellous to work

with. So serious, but so kind. Ingrid, being Swedish, she had this

lovely quality of being and every woman. I loved her. She was so kind

and worked so hard. In those days, we rehearsed movies, and we don't do

that any more. You learn your lines, you should and that is it.

You would rehearse like a stage play? Yes, we did. It was a whole

world that was totally different and no longer exists. You had your first

Hollywood career, and then you went onstage a lot. You have rebuilt your

career in many ways in a series of great roles. But you are not just an

actress, you are a singer and dancer as well and that was important?

Yes, it was part of my bag of tricks is as a performer. As a youngster in

loved. loved.

# You lovey-dovey kid. Of course, the nine people out of

ten these days, you are best known for Murder, She Wrote. That is the

most successful ever detected series around the world. -- detective

series. I read that when you took it over, you said, no violence. And

that is paradoxically wired has been so successful. I think it is. It was

a show you could watch if you were six years old or 60 or 80. Families

watched it together. And as you say, there was no obvious violence. I

used to say, just give me a corpse and I will solve the problem. That

was what it was about. Apparently, you haven't heard.

Last night, the police arrested him. We knew got the role, had you

any idea that it would make your fortune and make you a household

name the decades? I did not have a clue. I truly went into television,

not aware of what could be achieved by playing the role of a very

simple, liberal woman. And it is running on a loop now, so everybody

under the age of 26 can watch it all afternoon. I know, it is lovely. It

is lovely that people will remember me for that. That is OK. You have

got an Oscar and an opening in the West End after 40 years. Not bad.

Lucky woman, aren't I? Absolutely. Thank you very much. Pleasure

talking to you. No flies on her.

The very vital Angela Lansbury, talking to me there. As the water

levels continue to rise, various careers appear to be an almost as

much danger as those houses on the Somerset Levels. Chris Smith, Labour

peer and chair of the Environment Agency, has been lambasted on all

fronts. Owen Paterson, Environment Secretary and bete noire of the good

folk of Somerset, has now withdrawn from the scene for an eye operation.

Step forward, Eric Pickles, who has been put in charge of the

government's flood response. Welcome, Communities Secretary. Nice

to be here. Is the Environment Agency fit for purpose? Of course it

is. It may have made some misjudgements, but right now, the

women and men of the Environment Agency are working round the clock,

doing fantastic jobs in shoring up our defences and offering advice.

There have been some suggestions about advice on the Somerset Levels

not being as good as it could have been. Is it well led? Parts of it

are well led. It is important now to get about the process of repairing

the damage, assessing the future. Do you think it needs to refocus and

operate differently? It needs to recognise that one solution is not

appropriate. I will be talking about dredging. Dredging might be

appropriate for the Somerset Levels, but this is not appropriate

everywhere. There are areas around Essex where the flooding and

dredging has not been so effective. Clearly, we want to protect people

and make them feel safe in their homes. But there is also important

farmland, and we want to make sure it is there to grow crops and be

part of a vibrant rural Icahn. -- economy. I never think it is going

to be a straight choice. Somebody you wisely wrote last week, just

because we can't protect everything, it does not mean we

can't protect everyone. A lot of people think too much is being spent

on bureaucracy in this agency and not enough on the front line

services. It is the biggest in Europe, bigger than the United

States' Environment Agency. But a reasonably small sum goes on

staffing. That is a strange way of organising their budgets. Well, I am

sure they will be reassessing. You said you would not wear a save Chris

Smith T-shirt. Should he go? That is a matter for him. I don't think I

should not him out. Let me turn back to the question of what is going on

in Somerset. Chris Smith has been criticised a lot. The government

itself was warned several times by different farmers and agencies last

summer that dredging was needed. In each case, there was a refusal. So

the government is responsible, isn't it? We made a mistake, no doubt

about that. We perhaps relied too much on the Environment Agency's

advice. We now recognise that we should have dredged. It is important

now that we get on the process of getting those people back into their

houses once we are able to do some serious pumping. So you think people

including the prime minister's office should apologise to the

farmer who said, you need to dredged now? Well, I will apologise

unreservedly. I am sorry we took what we thought was the advice of

text that is. And there are 3 million running in four extra

dredging 's? I don't know the exact amounts. But there will be money for

dredging, which is going to carry on as far as the eye can see in the

Somerset Levels? Well, they were man-made. It was medieval monks who

did it. You have got better information than me. I did not

realise the march had been around for so long. I will take your word

for that. Can we talk about climate change more generally? The head of

the relevant quango has said this was probably caused by climate

change. He said probably. I have listened to experts, and after a

while it became clear to me that from an educated point of view,

nobody really knows. To a degree, I don't think it matters whether it is

climate change or whether it is part of the cycle we normally see with

the weather. We have to deal with the consequences. We will be trying

to get the south-west going again. As we move towards the middle of

next week, the Thames Valley is likely to see flooding. The reason

the climate change issue might matter is that if it is planned

change, we will have 30 or 40 years ahead of extreme weather, so we have

to think carefully now about new kinds of offences and transport

protection. We have got to ensure there is good

protection around strategic infrastructure, pumping stations,

water, electricity generation, major transport infrastructure, and we are

in the process of making our infrastructure as sustainable as

possible. Protecting infrastructure and farmland and towns will be

hugely expensive. Do you still think it is a good idea to spend so much

money on HS2? We have to understand that if we don't increase the

capacity on that line up to Birmingham, up the whole West Coast,

we will be looking at having to prop up a Victorian railway, 20 or 30

years of disruption. What we are looking at in the south-west is to

get the trains going as quickly as possible, in the meantime we are

putting on extra buses and we have been able to increase the flow of

aircraft. Putting on a bigger service, bigger planes, and we are

trying to make sure the south-west can get on with normal life. I know

there have been these meetings going on, any sense of how long it will

take to reconnect the south-west of the rest of the country by train?

Much depends on what is going on... You saw the size of Brunel 's, that

wonderful stretch of railway, the gap. This will be running political

sore. If it is not collected in a year, a lot of people will be livid

with the Government. I don't think there is any suggestion it will take

a year. I was only throwing that out as a helpful suggestion. I don't

think that is helpful, but there we are. Do you think there will be

parts of the country that we cannot afford to protect, parts of the

coastline where it is just too expensive? From Norfolk and we have

seen movements over the centuries, some villagers have completely

disappeared, and there are parts which are now land bands so that

will always go on but in terms of giving up major amounts of our

country to the sea, of course not. You will fight them on the beaches,

as it were. We will fight them on the Fens. The Thames is now a

concern as well? We anticipate that it will work its way down, already

people are talking to householders about what they can do.

Traditionally there has been quite a lot of flooding in the past so

people are well adapted to it, but we will ensure that pumping

stations, electricity generation and major infrastructure for transport

and rail are protected as we speak. Sitting in those meetings, are you

happy and convinced the Government has got control over this? Anyone

who thinks they can control the weather is over King Canute, but the

problem is it is not how bad the storms have been, they have been

pretty bad, but it is a cumulative effect. It has been said that local

authorities do not have the resources, they have been under the

cosh for a long time. Local authorities should have no problem

about this. I have changed the threshold... So more money can come

in. Absolutely, it is pretty well-established. They have been

doing a fantastic job, and so have individual councillors who have

often been right there at the water's edge. Do you think Mark

Harper, the Immigration Minister, really hard to go? I was sad to see

him go, he was a strong minister and if he was a member of the public he

wouldn't have been regarded as doing anything wrong but he failed that

standard and stuck down. If the Minister can get into that kind of

tangle, don't you think anybody can, and therefore the legislation

is too tough? If this was a member of the public, they would have done

nothing wrong. Now the news headlines. The communities secretary

has apologised to people who have been badly flooded, saying mistakes

have been made over the issue of dredging. He said the Environment

Agency have been guilty of misjudgements. There will be a

meeting on the flooding crisis today, as weather forecasters have

warned more storms will hit the UK this week. Two severe flood warnings

remain in place in the Somerset levels and a third has been issued

along some coastal parts of Dorset. The Government is facing calls from

Labour to reconsider proposed new yours requiring employers and

landlords to carry out greater checks on the immigration status of

foreign migrants. The Immigration Minister, Mark Harper, who was

taking the legislation through Parliament, resigned yesterday after

discovering his cleaner was in the UK illegally. Back to Andrew in a

moment, but first let's look at what is coming up immediately after this

programme. We will be in Leicester at ten, debating the Vatican 's

reaction to the UN report on child abuse. Trophy hunting for big game.

And when it is OK to be funny about religion.

Well Eric Pickles is still with me, and we've been joined again by

Rachel Reeves. You have both presumably been caught up in the

Tube problems this week. Do you agree that Tube strikes should be

illegal? If you had that, presumably you would have the same for

elections. Often it doesn't top 50% so they have to be careful what they

argue for. I thought the effect they had on the UK, London economy would

be pretty bad and people were inconvenienced when the weather was

dreadful, and frankly the turnout wasn't that impressive for the Tube

strike. It just seems a primitive way of going about it. So you agree

with Boris? Both sides are right, Eric is right that it has had a big

impact on London. She will answer for me. I don't think there is a

majority in the House of Commons. Do either of you think there is a

problem with getting women in the House of Commons? Both parties are

troubled. Both are losing female members, this time retiring. When I

was a party chairman I made a big effort to get women in and if I may

say I was pretty successful in doing so. Not very successful, we still

have far too few women. I agree. We found that once we got women to

membership, the final meeting, they did remarkably well. Wants the

Tories get into parliament, they tend to quit. The first major

political party to have a woman as a leader was of course Margaret

Thatcher. Your time will come! All parties need to do more to get women

into Parliament but I'm proud that in the Labour Shadow Cabinet almost

half of us are women and we have done that through a huge amount of

effort with women only short lists, by encouraging women, and reforming

the party. The Conservatives have got an awful lot to do, instead of

this complacency about women who are standing down. I remember Caroline

Flint saying that she felt she was there just is a window dresser when

she was in Parliament. Thank you to both of you. Now, I mentioned

earlier on that it's Oscars season in the film world. Well, for rock

and pop musicians it's also nearly time for this year's Brit Awards.

One singer-songwriter who's hotly tipped to win Best Solo Artist is

19-year-old Jake Bugg from Nottingham. His first album was a

number one hit and having been hailed by one reviewer as "an East

Midlands Bob Dylan" he's back with a new album, Shangri La. I'm going to

be talking to him in a moment, but first here he is in concert last

summer at Glastonbury. Welcome. Your first album was very

much about your background on the streets of Nottingham, since then

you have become this extraordinary global success, first-class lounges

and celebrity and all of that, does that give you problems about what to

write about? No, it is strange after everything that has happened in the

last 12 years to go home and see the life I lived for so long after

everything that has happened, and see it from a different

perspective, it is completely different. Great. We are going to

hear a song from your new album, Shangri La which was recorded in LA.

Malibu. Very exotic. We're almost out of time. Thanks to all my guests

this morning. Next week, we'll have a very busy show - I'll be talking

to the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney. Also, the EU

President, Jose Manuel Barroso. And, that smooth and highly political

screen star George Clooney. So do join me then, but for now we leave

you with Jake Bugg, and his song 'Me And You'. Goodbye.

# All the time people follow us where we go # We both should believe

the path we chose # And I hold you in such delicacy # No they won't

catch you and me # It's all over, all of the time # And if you want

to, I won't mind # # Please don't leave it, I don't

know what to do # No they won't catch me and you # There are too

many flashes # And Gordons around me # There's so little time and places

to see # And we can wait so patiently # No they won't catch you

and me # It's all over, all of the time # And if you want to, I won't

mind # Please don't leave it, I don't know what to do # No they

won't catch me and you # No they won't catch you and me # No they