13/06/2014 The Week in Parliament

this school goes on. Time now for the Week in Parliament.

Hello, and welcome to the Week in Parliament. A week the Home

Secretary would like to forget. Bad headlines on passports, her personal

adviser sacked and a row with a Cabinet colleague. Was it all

getting a little out of control? Presumably she rushed into the

department and said, Fiona, what have you done? Take it down, make

nice to the Education Secretary and get the Prime Minister on the phone.

Fiona Cunningham, the Home Secretary's personal adviser, is

caught in the crossfire of a ministerial battle. So, why does the

poor old Special Adviser always have to carry the can? It was obviously

part of a trade`off and each side had to give something. There was an

element of it being punishment for bad behaviour, and also to protect

the boss. Meanwhile if you thought Westminster was pulling itself

apart, a whole new cast list was taking part in the Scottish

independence debate. And would you ask Westminster MPs the best way to

be a parliamentarian? Amazingly, it's a service that they offer. But

first, it had all the ingredients of a classic political tale. A split at

the highest level of Government. A leaked letter. A resignation. A

serious falling`out between the Home and Education Secretaries. All this

over how to tackle extremism at five schools in Birmingham. On Monday,

the Education Secretary announced the findings of a long`waited

report. Ofsted concluded that governors are

trying to impose and promote a narrow, faith `based ideology in

what our non`faith schools. Specifically by narrowing the

curriculum, manipulating staff appointments and using school funds

inappropriately, things that should not have happened in our schools

were allowed to happen. Our children were exposed the things that they

should not have been exposed to. As Education Secretary, I am taking

decisive action to make sure those children are protected, and we will

put the promotional British values at the heart of what every school

has to deliver for children. These reports have been kept under wraps,

hidden from parents while they have been leaked in part on the left,

right and centre. Parents who should have been the first to know have

been the last to know about the contents of these reports today, and

I'm sure the Secretary of State will want to apologise to the house for

the contempt with which parents have been treated in this debate. There

has been unacceptably poor and bad governance which has let children,

parents and staff down which must be tackled. An internal letter, made

public, laid bare the rift between departments. The Home Secretary told

MPs her position. I did not authorise the release of my letter

to the Education Secretary following the Cabinet Secretary's review. The

Education Secretary apologised to the Prime Minister and to the

director`general for security and counterterrorism will stop in

addition, in relation to further comments to the times, my special

adviser Fiona Cunningham resigned on Saturday. And at Prime Minister's

Questions, school accountability was the Labour leader's main theme. The

key question for parents is this, if there is a serious problem at their

school, where do they go to get it sorted out? People should be being

taught in our schools in a way that makes sure they can play a full part

in the life of our country. In terms of where you go to if you are

concerned if you are worried about your school, is to the head teacher

and chair of governors. The Prime Minister said that they should go to

the head teacher, but the head teacher was removed and the

governing body was part of the problem. The truth is, it's a hard

question to answer as to who parents can go to because we have an

incredibly fragmented school system where no`one is properly

responsible. If people think there is a real problem there is one

organisation that has responsibility for checking standards in all of the

schools, and that is Ofsted, and that is why what is is so important

is what the Education Secretary said that no notice inspections.

Meanwhile, the Shadow Home Secretary was stepping up the pressure on her

opposite number, Theresa May. Presumably she woke up on Wednesday

morning, as shocked by the headlines as everyone else, and presumably she

was as horrified as the Prime Minister that the gracious speech

that should be talked about today was overshadowed. Presumably she

rushed into the department and said, Fiona, what have you done, take it

down, Russia crushed and make nice to the Education Secretary and get

me the Prime Minister on the phone and I will apologise for this

dreadful departmental mistake on such an important date. Except, she

didn't. She referred to the ministerial code of conduct. Section

3.3 she has responsibility for her special adviser, which is perhaps

why she won't tell us who Theresa leaked the letter?

May gave no answer to any of those allegations from Yvette Cooper. So

was this all a case of a special adviser doing the bidding of her

Minister? In this instance, leaking an internal letter to get her

Minister's case into the public domain? And is this what special

advisers spend all their time doing? Paul Richards used to be special

adviser to the Labour Ministers Patricia Hewitt and Hazel Blears.

While Duncan Brack had the same job with the Lib Dem Minister Chris

Huhne. What were they there to do? Most special advisers never deal

with the media. People get a false impression of what special advisers

do because they only hear about them when something goes wrong, usually

through the media. Most of us never did that. I hardly ever dealt with

the media. I helped the civil servants in the Department of

Climate Change, understanding what Chris's priorities were and dealt

with the outside world in the form of interest groups and I had liaison

with the party but not much outside government. I didn't ever try to

debrief against other ministers or talk to the press about anything. So

you are in fact the eyes and ears of a minister? They should serve as an

early warning so they should be plugged into all kinds of networks

and be able to spot media trends and give an early warning of potential

disasters, but also opportunities as well. Is part of the job having to

do something that you think should be done because the minister would

like it done, but can't actually instruct you to do it is a political

protocol? One of the things about the system is, and Duncan will

agree, is that you spend an awfully long time with the individual. In

car journeys, on trains, in meetings, so you do hear their

views. You never have to guess what they might want you to do, and you

tend to have had the conversation first. So it is very rare that a

special adviser acts unbidden by their loss. `` boss. We came in at

the beginning of the government, and we were trying to make sure the

civil servants understood the policy priorities, which had been voted on

in the manifesto and put into the Coalition programme. Chris and I

helped to write the Liberal Democrat manifesto so we knew what we were

having to do without having to refer to him. I would like to ask you

both, in the current scandal involving Michael Gove and Theresa,

we saw the resignation of Fiona Cunningham. Did Fiona Cunningham

have to go? That was obviously part of a trade`off. Each side had to

give something. There was an element of it being punishment for bad

behaviour and also to protect the boss. It's unfortunate when a

professional gets embroiled in that kind of deal behind`the`scenes,

because I wouldn't agree with her politically, but she was busily

doing a perfectly good job as a professional but she has had to fall

on her sword. That is probably true of the previous resignation of Adam

Smith from culture, media and sport. It looked pretty much like those two

were where somebody had to carry the blame, so it was the special

adviser. So they are expendable? You don't go into the job as a long`term

career move. You don't expect to be there in ten years, and anything is

a bonus. It's just an amazing experience and to survive that long

in an intense environment is doing well. I don't know how you felt, but

I was quite glad to be on the other side and get my weekends back and

feel a bit more relaxed about life. Duncan, you were Chris Huhne's

special adviser and he was under a cloud for a long period. Was it easy

to carry on working during that period? We ignored it as much as

possible. The possibility of him resigning was hanging over us for a

year, but I never thought it was likely, so we just ignored it. I

didn't deal with any of the issues he had with the media and he dealt

with that through lawyers, so it didn't affect the day`to`day

working. But it was a bit of a shock when it did happen and he resigned

and my job came to an end about six hours later. So it is quite brutal.

The end can come quickly. They clap when you arrive at the Department

and show you to your desk, when you leave your out the back door with a

box with your belongings and it's over in hours. Do they bounce back?

Often, yes. If you look at the last Labour leadership contest, all but

one of the candidates had been special advisers and they do provide

a route into politics. From my point of view, it was a useful and

interesting two years in government which helped me do my job now has a

policy researcher much better. Can anything be done about the image

problem of special advisers? We only hear about them when there is a

scandal or something has gone wrong politically. I would normalise it by

having more of them and making it more obvious and maybe having

adverts in the paper for the job and making it less clandestinely and

allow for ministers to have political support, because we are

all politicians. They could be more transparent about job descriptions

and areas of responsibility and contact with the outside world.

Those are all things the Parliamentary committee recognised.

The UK is unusual, because it is unlike Australia and New Zealand,

and very much unlike Europe. If there were more of us, we would do

the job better and it would probably be less disasters ending up in the

media. It would be better for the governance and the taxpayer

actually. Paul Richards and Duncan Brack spilling at least some of the

beans in their time as special advisers.

Last Monday marked 100 days until Scotland votes on whether to go for

independence or stick with the Union. It's been a busy week on the

campaign trail, and Claire Gould has this update.

President Obama gave his support to the better together campaign, saying

looking at it from the outside, the union seems to work well. We

obviously have a deep interest in making sure that one of the closest

allies that we will ever have remains strong, robust, United and

effective. A poll found that 51% of voters thought that the

pro`independence campaign had been far more effective than the Better

Together campaign, which impressed only 23%. However, the no vote

remains ahead in actual voting intentions. Former Prime Minister

Gordon Brown criticised Better Together for being too negative and

told David Cameron that he should debate with Alex Salmond. People who

have never voted in the past are registering. We have to persuade

people. Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon marked the 100 day

milestone by saying that Scotland had the talent and wealth to be an

independent country. But she resisted demands to quantify the

cost of the transition to independence. From television to

penicillin in years gone by, to Dolly the sheep and grand theft or

to today, the people of this small country of ours have made an

outstanding and extraordinary contribution to the modern world.

Harry Potter has come out for keeping the Union, well, at least

his creator has. Edinburgh resident JK Rowling has donated ?1 million to

the together campaign, the largest single donation to the group.

That poll is of course on September 18th. Looking back this week, you've

never been far away from a Theresa May story. On Thursday, the Home

Secretary announced measures to deal with delays in the processing of

thousands of passport applications. But she said there was no magic

answer to dealing with the backlog. There is no big banks, single

solution, so we will take a series of measures. So we will take a

series of measures to address the Lynch points. It is beyond belief

and not credible that ministers were not aware of this problem before it

was raised in the house. Is the Home Secretary aware that it's nothing

short of idiotic to take on responsibility for processing

overseas passports when we are taking on a surge in her department,

which happens every year. The fine parish churches of England. Should

we admire their architecture and their history? Or should we try to

bring them into the 21st century? We should have Wi`Fi in churches,

shouldn't we? If we have that, we can have an app, and that app can

say, look, this is what this building is about and this is what

the place is about. Also, any wise judge will know about having an app

there, they have a captive audience because somebody has used the app.

Just possibly the wrong sort of customer on a long`distance train.

The angry passenger turns out to be a Conservative MP, who describes his

experience to the boss of Network Rail. I've got a picture here of my

young children sitting outside the toilet, when they came down to visit

London last year, and they had to sit on the floor with their young

friends for three hours on a delayed train outside the toilet, and my

daughter was seven there, she is eight years old, against the train

door, the toilet because of the cancelled train due to engineering

work. It might well be that we have made a payment to the train operator

if the fault lay at our door. Obviously I can't comment on this

particular case, but the conversation from the train operator

comes there. Where there's muck, there's brass, or perhaps not. A

Yorkshire MP questions the results of decisions on where to spend money

on the arts. Over the last five years, brass bands have amassed from

the arts Council a total of ?1.8 million. In the same five years,

Opera has received 347 million pounds. I am very pleased that we

fund both of them, Opera is an extremely expensive and brilliant

art. It is expensive because it involves every other art form. If we

fund opera at all, we should do it properly. That is going to cost

money. Digging for victory. The son of the

founder of JCB, who's now the company chairman, makes his maiden

speech in the House of Lords. We need more inventors, more makers, we

need their brains and their hands. The knowledge and their creativity.

The design and their technical skills. Most importantly, we need

them to know that there are valued by society as a whole `` though.

``they are valued. And success at last for the Liberal Democrats at

the ballot box. The annual draw for backbench MPs to put forward their

own parliamentary Bill produces a win for a Cornish Lib Dem. Andrew

George, the winner of today's draw, with a gold medal. The luck of the

draw. You might think after cash`for`questions, the expenses

scandal, and embarrassing ministerial resignations that

Westminster is not the ideal place when you're looking for mentors for

other politicians from around the world. But despite all the scandal,

this is the service provided by the Commonwealth Parliamentary

Association. Well, there was a bit of a fall`off in demand after all

those little local difficulties. But, this week women MPs from Kenya

were in town. The Kenyan Parliament, which operates on both a list system

and first past the post, recently decided that at least one`third of

all its Members should be women. At the moment there are just 59 out of

349. And we're joined in the studio now by an Member of the Kenyan

Parliament, Cecily Bareeri, who's an MP in the governing party, the

National Alliance... And by the British MP Meg Munn, who's a

parliamentary volunteer with VSO and a former Labour Foreign Office

Minister. Welcome to the programme. What were your impressions of the

British Parliament at Westminster? It looks quite traditional, in the

sense that they have kept everything as it used to be. There was that old

tradition, the British tradition. I like how the speaker carry business

on the floor. He was very firm at times. And with particular comments

in Parliament, I think the one thing I would like to carry home is that

open debate. But also the fact that talking to individual members of

Parliament from the House of Commons, there is that support but

the members of Parliament get from the staff that they employ, there is

a lot of technical support around what they do in terms of research,

technical support in legislation. I think that is something that they

have to take more seriously in Kenya. We do not have that kind of

technical support. It is interesting. You have been to see

the Kenyan parliament? Yes, I went to work for a week with the Kenyan

swimming Parliamentary Association. `` women. I was talking to women MPs

rather than going to Parliament. Whatever your impressions of the

political system in Kenya? They struggle with some of the same

issues as ours, because they are elected in constituencies, they have

a small number of women who are elected sexily. `` elected

successfully. They had to have at least one third of their MPs women.

I was helping them to think about how they can put that mechanism in

place. I had to mention that you are stepping down from Westminster. And

a lot of women from other parties, is it that bit harder for female MPs

to keep going for long periods and stints as a serving MP? It is the

case that women tend to stay less time than men, I don't think that is

a bad thing. Hopefully I will be replaced by a woman, we want to get

more people coming in. I did 20 years in social work, I am going to

take my political career outside again, and hopefully do something

else. I think having people coming in, I have been there three times,

spending 14 years in Parliament, then going on to do something else.

It is not a bad model. It is not necessarily negative that women are

prepared to do with moving on `` prepared to move on. Some of the men

need to as ! `` need to as well. The issue is how we get women into

Parliament, we are now at 23%. Hopefully, by the next election, we

should be able to hit 30%. I think we are doing better than the House

of Commons now! Let me say that it is good to watch women with vast

experience like Meg, really retire but not go home, but to mental other

women to get into politics, and the vast experience should be something

to draw on. I love what she is doing, I have done three times now,

now I am thinking, I don't want to be there too long. Thank you very

much for joining on the week in Parliament. This week is probably

not a week that the Home Secretary will want to remember.

Let's get you up`to`date with the weather for the