04/07/2014 The Week in Parliament

Financial Times, after Wonga was caught sending fake debt

collectors, there are suggestions banks could be using the same

tactic. Now, it is that Week in Parliament.

Hello there and welcome to the programme. Coming up: It's all about

numbers this week, as David Cameron and Ed Miliband slug it out over

England's NHS. He promised the reorganisation in the NHS would make

things better, it has made things worse. Millions more patients

treated, our health service ranked officially the best in the world. An

MP demands to know what happened to a dossier about alleged paedophiles

at Westminster. Also on this programme: We find out why two

groups of pollsters can't make their numbers add up. And you can't vote

if you don't register ` we hear about the latest initiative to get

more people on the list. You will be able to register online. It seems

incredible that it has taken this long to happen. But first, to Prime

Minister's Questions. David Cameron and Ed Miliband traded statistics

over the state of England's NHS. The Government made big changes to the

way the Health Service is run when it came to power in 2010. They

exchanged blows over waiting times and A departments, before Ed

Miliband moved on to another Health Service target. Can he tell us,

since the reorganisation, has the number of people waiting more than

four hours on trolleys got better or worse? The number of people waiting

to get into accident and emergency, people are waiting less time than

they were waiting under the last Labour government. We remember what

the last Labour government gave us, they give us the disgrace of Mid

Staffordshire, for which they have never properly apologised. What they

said about our plans, we have put ?12.7 billion extra into the NHS.

Their view was, it was irresponsible. They opposed reform

to the NHS, and you can see the effect in Wales. No reform, no

money, longer waiting lists, no targets met, people dying on waiting

lists, under a Labour government. He cannot answer the most basic

questions about his targets in the NHS. I can tell him, the number

people waiting on trolleys for more than four hours has up from 61,000

to 167,000 on his watch. He promised the reorganisation would make things

better, it has made things worse. Worse on access to cancer treatment,

worse on A waits, worse on GP access, the NHS is getting worse on

his watch, and there is only one person to blame, and it is him.

Honestly, if he cannot do better than that, he really is in trouble.

What is happening under this Government, millions more patients

treated, a cancer drugs fund for the first time, our Health Service

ranked officially the best in the world. And we know what he would do,

because we've heard from the Director of Policy, who said this:

There will be no interesting ideas will emerge from Labour's policy

review. That is official. And then his gurus come out, they say he has

no vision. Then yesterday, he misquotes statistics, gets them

completely wrong, and the factory he speaks in, the managing director

says that Labour's policy would be a bureaucratic nightmare. I would say

to the people looking glum behind him, cheer up folks, it's only

Wednesday. The nurses have lost quite a considerable amount in their

real pay. The A are bursting at the seams. Then there's the question

of almost every hospital in Britain that is running into financial

difficulties. As a member of the Bullingden Club, is he proud to be

surrounded by this wreckage? Remember it is his legacy, not ours.

Get it done or get out. I just think the picture that the honourable

gentleman paints is completely wrong. Of course there are more

people going to A, and more people, but we are meeting our

targets and waiting times are down by half. He talks about nurses,

there are 4000 more nurses in our NHS than when I first stood at this

dispatch box. There are 7000 more doctors. What he ought to know about

is that we have cut the number of administrative staff, the

bureaucrats we were left with by the party opposite. 19,000 fewer of

those, that is why we are able to treat more patients with more. A

Labour MP has called for a Conservative former Home Secretary,

Leon ` now Lord ` Brittan, to make public what he knew about

allegations of paedophiles operating in Westminster in the 1980s. Simon

Danczuk said the then Home Secretary had been presented with a dossier

which contained allegations against a number of Westminster figures. Mr

Danczuk has recently published a book which helped expose the late

Liberal MP Cyril Smith as a child sex abuser. He was asked how Mr

Smith had got away with his behaviour for so long. I just want

to refer to something that you just said, and you have said it a few

times. One of the reasons Mr Smith was able to get away with what he

was, I think you used the word networking connections. Are you

saying the police and the local authorities were working with him or

complicit with him? I think higher up, higher up the food chain, in

terms of the networks that Smith belonged to, there is no doubts

about it. That for example, he attended... I have spoken to victims

that he abused at the guesthouse, there are other high`profile figures

that are alleged to have attended Elm Guesthouse. An important point

is, actually, one of my predecessors for the Littleborough part of my

constituency, a Conservative MP, produced a dossier in the 1980s,

which he presented to the then Home Secretary, about paedophile

information exchange, about paedophiles operating and networking

within and around Westminster. Now I think there are questions to be

answered... What year was that? It was the mid`1980s. This was 1984,

85. The Home Secretary was Lord Brittan. I would think the then Home

Secretary should step forward. I think it would be helpful for Lord

Brittan to share his knowledge of what ` of how he dealt with these

allegations that were made at the time. What happened to the dossier?

That's a good question. It arrived at the Home Office, but we do not

know where it is, but the enquiry we talk about, is to get to the bottom

of about, is to get to the bottom of this. Well, speaking after that

hearing, Leon Brittan said he'd handed the dossier to his civil

servants to investigate, it was passed onto the appropriate

authorities, and the matter was dealt with properly. The Home Office

then issued a statement saying that a review in 2013 found the

"credible" elements of the dossier, which had "realistic potential" for

further investigation were sent to police and prosecutors, while other

parts were either not retained, or were destroyed.

Now, it may only be July, but in the Commons, we had the last round of

Scotland Questions ahead of the independence referendum on September

the 18th. And in the chamber and out on the campaign trail, it's been all

go. Here's Billy Hill. The SNP's Pete Wishart appeals to

the Scottish Secretary to debate with Alex Salmond as part of the

referendum campaign. He says Alistair Darling just isn't up to

the job. It is worse than the Bannockburn re`enactment if they put

him out to debate with the First Minister! We need the honourable

gentleman himself to do it. What we need is the organ grinder, not the

monkey. Tory MP Rory Stewart says the rest of the UK should start

love`bombing the Scots. Speaking at a debate in London, he says we

should show them how much we love them. KISSING NOISES.

There have been demonstrations outside BBC Scotland in Glasgow.

Pro`independence supporters say the BBC as an unhealthy bias towards the

pro`union side. Ed Miliband says the Labour

Government would have to look at setting up border posts if there is

a Yes vote. Speaking in Edinburgh, he said the rest of the UK might

need to take action against the SNP's proposed looser immigration

policy. And speaking in Perth, David Cameron

says it is time to hear from what he called the silent majority of Scots

who were passionate about the union and do not want to take a big risk

by voting for independence. We do not have to ask people to choose

between the Saltire and the Union Flag. You can be proud of your

Scottishness, proud of the Scottish nationhood, proud of what Scotland

stands for, proud of Scottish history, but still believe in being

part of the United Kingdom. A quick round up there of what has

been happening in the Scotland campaign this week. There was one

other subject that cropped up, this was all about polling. One group of

pollsters has consistently given the No campaign a much bigger lead than

another group of pollsters. It is a psychological argument that has been

ruffling a few feathers, but who is right back who better to tell us

than David Cowan? Is this an important row? On one level, you

might think it is just an argument between specialists, something the

Market Research Society should think about, but it is highly political.

The reason I say that is, because if one set rate that the leaders 6% or

7%, then that makes the possibility for the Yes campaign that much more

easy to achieve. If on the other hand the other group are right, and

people who are saying that the lead for the No campaign is about 20%,

that makes the prospects for the Yes campaign more complicated. So

although it is an argument about methodology and systems, at the

heart of it is a very, very political issue, as to what the

prospects are for the Yes campaign being able to batter away and come

through to the end and be successful. So why are the two

groups coming up with different figures? Fascinating question.

Traditionally one would say, let's look at the way they do it, so there

might be a difference between internet pollsters and people who

conduct polls by telephone. But that is not the case, this is a mixture

of people who are saying there is a much bigger lead for the No

campaign, or a mixture of telephone pollsters and internet posters. The

difficulty I think is that traditionally, when pollsters are

looking at how they measure the success of the individual polls,

they have something to refer back to ` a previous election. But of

course, in this case, there is no previous election. Referendums are

problem, as YouGov discovered in 2011 in the AV referendum. They were

eight points out. So how do you have something to refer to that corrects

whatever your poll is saying at the moment? If you had to jump one way

or the other, who would you say might... `` who would you say is

right? Some easy questions to start with! My sense is that the

difficulty for the Yes campaign is whether you take the narrow polls

were the ones with the bigger lead, there is not, it seems to me, the

momentum for the Yes campaign, which is what they need. And so if I had

to bet the mortgage on it, which is always the test in my family, I

would think that the debate is probably highlighting, not so much

the difference, it is the fact that whatever the difference is, it is

still at the moment No. There are still a surprising number of people

who put themselves down as 'don't know'. What will happen with them? A

lot of those people tend to be people who do not vote. That is

often the case. What evidence I have seen from some of the polls where

they ask the people who say, OK, you say you don't know, however, if I

was to put your foot over an open flame and torment you and force you

into a choice, what would you do? About half still say that they do

not know. But of the other half, when forced to make the choice, most

of the polling I have seen suggests it is about an even split. So there

does not appear to be an army locked away.

David Cowling on the pollster's headaches ahead of a unique event!

Now let's take a brief look at some other news from around Westminster.

Condonation of the murders of three Israeli teenagers. The 16

`year`olds, along with a 19`year`old, were kidnapped as they

hitchhiked home from their religious college. The minister was called to

the Commons to make a statement on their killings, before the death of

17`year`old who was abducted and murdered on Wednesday. Bjoergen

priority is to hold those responsible to account under the

rule of law, and we stand ready to do everything possible to help. To

the British overseas territory for centuries. Tensions have increased

in the row over fishing rights. Spain has imposed strict water

controls, leading to long delays. Gibraltar feels it is under siege.

The government's laudable attempts to de`escalate this dispute have not

worked. They were right to try diplomacy. But they must now take a

more robust approach, as long as this is agreed with the government

of Gibraltar. Why are women still being paid less than men? Labour MPs

say if anything the situation is getting worse. Given that the equal

pay act takes back some 44 years, can the minister tell me why she

thinks it is that it has doubled since the government came to power?

And why it is the case that women in their 20s have seen the gender pay

gap double since her government came to power? What I would say is that

of course the 0.1% increase in the pay gap over the last year is

certainly not things going in the right direction. It was obviously a

very small increase, but yes, to highlight the effect after the eight

equal pay legislation. `` 40 years after equal pay legislation, it is

not good enough that we still have a pay gap in this country. We need to

look at the causes of that pay gap, whether it is time out of the

workplace, for example the new regime which came in this week, with

the new flexible working entitlements, which will help to

change the culture of the workplace. We need to look at the occupational

segregation, as are mentioned. And we need to look at those issues

around this limitation and outdated attitudes, where women are not being

paid to doing the same work, and that is why we are working with

business to do so. `` discrimination. And did you know

that the way you register to vote has changed? Well, if not, the

Electoral Commission has just launched a campaign in England and

Wales, telling you all about it. From now on, people will have to

sign up to vote themselves, instead of relying on the head of household

to do it for them. Most voters on the old register will be

automatically transferred to the new system. But an estimated six million

people are missing from the list in 2011, between six and 8.5 million

people were off the register. If the July research shows that there has

been an increase or it has stayed the same over the past four years,

will you consider this to be a success or a failure? We would all

like to see a more complete there is no question about that. Would you

see it as a success or failure? I would say that we made very clear

when we published the research that showed there were six million people

missing from the register, that there are many underlying reasons

for that. And one of those indeed is the reason that I think you're

carrying out this enquiry, which is that there is a disengagement of

people with politics in this country. So from that perspective,

we certainly think it is important that people can vote if they want to

do so, and that they are not prohibited from participating by

lack of information, and by a not being on the political register. At

the last general election, 19.5 million people were not involved in

the political process. To put that in perspective, the Conservatives

got 10 million votes at the last election. Labour got 8 million

votes. 18 million for the top parties. 19.5 million people not

involved in the British political process. This democracy in crisis? I

think that is one of the questions the committee is asking. We think it

is important that people are not inhibited from participating by a

lack of information or by not being on the register. I don't think we

have any evidence that there were people who went to try and vote and

were unable to because they want on the register, but of course it is

important that people know they have two be registered in order to

participate. It is important, but is British democracy in crisis? That is

not how I would characterise it, I think we all share a concern around

turnout and disengagement and engagement with the political

process. The political and constitutional reform committee in

action there. And appearing alongside Jenny Watson was Alex

Robertson, who is the communications director at the electoral

commission. I am very pleased to say that he is with me now. So Alex,

this whole situation of people not being registered to vote, it's

actually getting worse, isn't it? There were four million in 2000. We

are now told there are six million. Yes, so we publish some research

back in 2005 that identified around 3.5 million people not registered to

vote at that time. And then subsequently published research in

2011, which attested that the number had gone up to around six million.

Lots of different reasons flat, some of which are to do with things like

social mobility. If you move house, the frequency with which you move

house has a big bearing on whether you are registered to vote.

Something around 35% of people who have moved house in the last year at

registered at the correct address. That does tend to have quite a

bearing on these things. But no, it is a very big number, and a very big

concern for us. And we spend a lot of time thinking about how we can

get more people registered, both through the work we do, the way we

can support others, and what any sort of electoral education office

is doing. But it is not exactly difficult to register to vote, is

it? All you need to do is fill in the form and send it back. Well, not

even that, for the first time, in England and Wales now, and in

Scotland, just after the referendum from the 19th of September, you will

be able to vote online. And it seems incredible that it has taken that

long to happen. But you will be able to do that. We think that will make

a really big difference to how easy it is to get people registered to

vote. One of the things that we find that a lot of people don't realise

that they are registered to vote. `` aren't registered to vote. A lot of

people, a common misconception is that if you move house, and you

register for council tax at your new address, you are automatically

registered to vote. You are not. A lot of people think if you are a

young person and turn 18 that you automatically register to vote. You

don't. So there is a lot of awareness raising that we at the

registration officers need to do. And lots of great work that campaign

groups can do to get people registered, particularly those that

work with young people. But isn't there a fear among quite a lot of

people that they give their information over to register to

vote, that could be used for something else? I mean it is a very

secure process. I don't think people should be worried about that. If you

are concerned about that information on our website, which is the

government website, where you can also find out. It is

gov.uk/yourvotematters. That is where people should go. I can

understand why people, if they are concerned about those things, might

ask that question, but actually, I think the answer is very reassuring.

Do you have any idea what proportion of those don't want to vote? It is a

combination of situational factors, like a talked about, just not being

aware, and attitudinal factors. It is very hard to exactly what the

reasons are. But over that period we were talking about before, when more

people fell off the register, there was a general disengagement from

politics. And that will be a factor. People's attitudes towards politics

will inform how hungry they are to register to vote. A reasonable

percentage of people didn't vote in the most recent European elections.

What is that? You do get lots of changes between different elections

in how people vote. Some are very specific to the context. It may be

to do with the type of election, the European elections obviously they

get less people voting in the general election. The closeness of

the contest, the perceived distance between radical parties. There is a

lot of research that looks at that depth. It will vary, specifically,

from context to context. It isn't something that we in terms of

European elections have looked at very closely. You talked there about

online registering. Are there lots of other things that could be done

to make it simpler? Why, for example, when people fill in their

council tax, aren't they registered? Or why doesn't come with their

national insurance number when they turn 16, in readiness for voting?

These are easy things, why aren't they being done? A very good point.

What we are very keen to see is now that we have these changes to the

registration system and can do it online, where to go next? We're

actually linking up with people's interaction with other public

services, particularly when you move house. And that really has such a

big impact on the people that fall off the register. It should be

possible. And it will take time to get the technology right. And it may

be worth pointing out to those listening that there is no central

database of all the electoral registries. There are individual

electoral registers at each local authority. So it isn't possible to

share that so easily at the national level. But on the basic point about

making it more straightforward and easy, absolutely, it totally should

be. And that has to be the direction this moves the next. Thank you very

much for coming into the programme. Alex Robertson, on increasing the

numbers registered to vote, in a week when the row between David