22/01/2016 The Week in Parliament

Hello and Welcome to the Week In Parliament.

Common sense?

Or deeply unfair?

The replacing of grants with loans for poorer students provides

a battleground for the party leaders.

Where is the sense in doing this?

Why are they abolishing those maintenance grants?

He is now in a country with a university system with more

people going to university than ever before.

Also on the programme.

The sister of a man suspected of being the jihadist

in a propaganda video describes her feelings to MPs.

I just miss my brother very much and I am trying to make him realise

that none of this is him.

And after a report into why the opinion pollsters

got their predictions wrong at the general election,

one peer thinks it's time for radical action.

What I am saying is these kind of polls are so important

that they need some kind of regulation.

But first.

It'll save ?1.5 billion a year, but is it fair?

The scrapping of grants for low-income students in England

and their replacement with loans has caused plenty of indignation among

Opposition MPs, who say it'll make universities the preserve

of the affluent and the wealthy.

The Chancellor announced the move last summer,

saying it represented a better deal for the taxpayer.

The student debt won't have to be repaid until a graduate is earning

at least ?21,000 a year, and the Government says there's no

evidence it'll lead to a drop in student numbers.

But the change provided fertile territory for the Labour leader

Jeremy Corbyn to launch his weekly challenge to David Cameron

at Prime Minister's Questions.

This proposal will affect 500,000 students -

not anywhere in the manifesto.

I have a question from a student by the name of Liam,

who says, I am training to be a mathematics teacher,

and will now come out at the end of my course to debts in excess

of ?50,000, which is roughly twice as much as what his annual

income would be.

Why is Liam put into such debt?

What I would say to Liam is that he is now in a country

with a university system with more people going to university than ever

before, and more people from low-income backgrounds

going to university than ever before.

In addition, what I'd say to Liam, and I wish him well,

is that he will not pay back a penny of his loan

until he is earning ?21,000.

I'm pleased to say, Mr Speaker, that Liam is actually trying to be

a maths teacher, which might be able to help the Prime Minister,

because he did say he was earning ?25,000, which is more than ?21,000,

if that is a help.

In 2010, his Government...

In 2010, Mr Speaker, the Prime Minister's Government

trebled tuition fees to ?9,000, defending it by saying they would be

increasing maintenance grants for students

from less well-off backgrounds.

They're now scrapping those very same grants -

they used to boast about them being increased.

Where is the sense in doing this?

Why are they abolishing those maintenance grants?

The sense in doing this is we want to uncap university

places, so as many young people in our country,

who want to go to university, can go to university,

and that's what we're doing.

And before too much shouting from the party opposite,

when they were in Government, it was Labour that introduced

the fees and loans system.

Then on to plans to axe bursaries for student nurses.

The Prime Minister and I would probably agree that we need to be

spending more and directing more resources in dealing with the mental

health crisis in this country.

And I've got a question, from somebody who wants to help us

get through this crisis, by becoming a mental health nurse,

and it's a woman called Vicky from York, and she's got

a very real problem.

I would not have been able to, or chosen to study to be

a mental-health nurse, without a bursary,

for the following reasons.

I'm a single mum.

I need support for childcare costs.

I've got debts from a previous degree.

I'm a mature student of 33.

I would not take on further debts, which would be impossible for me

to pay back, and be fair on my daughter.

She is somebody who we need in our NHS.

We need as a mental-health nurse.

We are losing her skill, her dedication, her aspiration

to help the entire community.

Two out of three Vickys that turn up wanting to be nurses are sent away

by our current system.

So we're bringing people in from Bulgaria or Romania,

or the other side of the world, to do nursing jobs -

we should be training British people who want to do it.

The Prime Minister will be aware that nine out of ten hospitals

currently have a nurse shortage.

Isn't what he is proposing for the nurse bursary scheme

going to exacerbate the crisis, make it worse for everybody

and make our NHS less effective, not more effective?

What is his answer to that point?

I'll give him a very direct answer, which is we are going to see 10,000

extra nurse degree places, because of this policy.

David Cameron doing battle with Jeremy Corbyn.

There was a defeat for the Government during the week,

when peers voted against plans to alter the way trade union members

pay their political levy.

Under the Trade Union Bill, union members would have to agree

to opt in to paying the levy instead of opting out.

The Labour party claims the change could cost it ?6 million a year.

The leader of the Labour peers said the clauses of the Bill which make

the change should be handed over to a parliamentary committee.

Let's be precise.

Our genuinely-held concern is that this aspect of the bill

will have a significant impact on the resources of one major

political party - my party, the Labour Party -

and in doing so, it will both disrupt the political balance

in the UK and have a damaging effect on the electoral process

and on our democracy.

The Government can say that the Bill isn't about political funding

but it is.

Because it has the practical effect of further unbalancing the playing

field in favour of the Conservative Party by practically reducing

the access to funds for the Labour Party.

I believe that it is wrong to single out one political party,

if we are looking at the funding of parties in this country,

and, frankly, to suggest that this Bill is not singling out a political

party is disingenuous.

And those who support this bill will actually say,

that certain provisions are actually designed to enhance certain rights

of trade union members and freedom of choice of trade

union members, etc.

I understand that that is a possible argument,

but, Lords, matters will not start here.

We are in a different place in the way that these matters

are now being discussed.

It is impossible that wider questions about the big donor

culture, and the role of business, will go away.

I do hope that my friends on the front bench will recognise

that to take away, and it will take away funding from the Labour Party,

at a time when the Labour Party is perhaps not at its strongest,

and when Parliament, our parliamentary system depends -

I am not trying to build up the Labour Party -

but our parliamentary system does depend on having a strong

and effective opposition.

We have a proposition that these clauses have no impact.

They are related to the trade unions and nothing to do with political

parties and yet we know the practical effect on one

political party would be devastating.

We have to reconcile and resolve those issues and have them debated

in a committee where they can be balanced against wider issues.

My Lords, this bill is a package of measures, and it is disappointing

that the party opposite have chosen to misinterpret our intentions.

We would merely be adding confusion if we established

a select committee.

Our reforms in this Bill look at how trade union members choose

to contribute to trade union and political funds.

We are not looking at how trade unions fund political parties.

Opt-ins and opt-outs for trade union political funds have always been

a matter for trade union legislation.

Party funding and its regulation have always been a matter

for party funding legislation.

Party funding is rightly outside the scope of this bill and I call

on the House to reject this motion.

But, at the end of the debate, Labour's proposal for a committee

to examine the issue easily won the day.

My Lords, they have voted: Contents - 327.

Not contents - 234.

Therefore the contents have it.

It is a big election year, with votes coming up for the Mayor

of London, Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament,

and then of course the likelihood of a referendum on our EU membership.

All of which would normally create a lot of interest in opinion polls.

But the pollsters' predictions ahead of the general election were wide

of the mark.

As you'll remember, they consistently suggested

the outcome was going to be tight and most likely result

in a hung parliament.

In the event David Cameron won clearly, with an overall

majority of 12.

A report this week explained what had happened.

Here's Alicia McCarthy.

It was the moment it all went wrong for the pollsters.

And we are saying that the Conservatives are the largest party.

As it turned out the exit poll was pretty close to the real result

and significantly different to the hung Parliament the opinion

polls had been suggesting.

A report in the week set out where the pollsters had gone wrong.

In essence it said the samples had too many Labour voters

and too few Conservatives.

What they do is get anyone they can and try and match those people

to the population in terms of some of the things that we know about how

the population looks from the census and so on.

And that approach is perfectly fine in many cases but sometimes it goes

wrong, if there's an important characteristic that they haven't

matched properly between the samples and the population, and that seems

to be the case this time.

With local elections and the EU referendum around the corner

where does polling go from here?

We're going to become more savvy consumers of polling

where we are actually looking at some of the wider issues

that we test.

Things like leadership, like trust in different issues,

which actually were incredibly accurate in the general election.

For the EU referendum that is going to be fundamental

to find out who it is that is going to turn out on the day.

And that is really important to the accuracy of the polls.

Meanwhile in the Lords a Labour peer has pushed through a Bill to change

the way pollsters are regulated.

My Bill would set up a body, like Ofcom for regulating

the newspapers, but they would regulate the polls.

It consists of members of the organisations,

the polling organisations, the parties, and the media,

and they would make regulations and recommendations

about the methods of polling, the arrangements of publication,

so that there would be some control over the polls.

Would you also like to see a ban on any polls being published

immediately before elections?

That is something that the new body would have powers to

consider and recommend.

And it would be for them to decide if it was appropriate,

look at the experience in other countries and if it was that it was

better to ban them and that they would have some kind of reduced

influence in the outcome of an election then that body

could recommend it.

But I am not personally suggesting that.

Lod Foulks there and he's now looking for an MP to take his Bill

through the House of Commons.

A look now at some of the other stories inside Parliament

in the last seven days.

Proposals to ban the sale and supply of so called legal highs have been

approved by MPs after a Commons debate when a former

Home Office Minister said he regularly used the recreational

drugs known as poppers.

There are sometimes, Madame Deputy Speaker,

when something is proposed which becomes personal

to you and you realise

the Government is about do something fantastically stupid and I think

in those circumstances, one has a duty to speak up.

I use poppers.

I out of myself as a popper user.

I would be directly affected by this legislation.

I'm astonished to find that it is proposing to be banned

and frankly so were very many other gay men.

I fear that including the poppers in the ban may undermine the bill

and make it far more difficult to get across the vital message that

psychoactive substances can be and very often are very dangerous.

It is known as a house of experts and the expertise in the Lords

is wide and varied and covering even the experience of prison.

A peer recently out of jail gives the House a picture of life inside.

I thought I'd better try and do something with myself so I spent

a lot of time researching and talking to fellow inmates

about how they got there and also their own sort of situation.

Hardly anyone had heard of the House of Lords and I was really quite

surprised at that.

So many people, for example, asked me where it was.

And what did it do.

And someone imagined that every Lord has a castle.

Someone asked me if they could borrow my castle for a rave.

And so it is quite an extraordinary thing that in prison,

some of these people are fairly intelligent

and they could have a much better future if we could only do

more for them.

Outraged at the painting red of front doors and houses

in Middlesbrough which are occupied by asylum seekers.

MPs demand a repainted by the house painters Jomast,

a subcontractor for the security firm G4S.

I am deeply concerned about the issues raised

about the painting of doors of asylum seeker accommodation

in a single colour.

If you could outline what penalties he has available to him to make sure

that this contractor G4S, who quite frankly have suffered it

great deal of reputational damage over recent times and Jomast,

are held to account.

If there is an acceptance that these doors were painted

in a certain colour, that is appalling and it should have

been discussed and discovered earlier.

If what is required in the short-term is to repaint

the 150 front doors, then frankly this shouldn't be

taking three months or three weeks, the painters should be out now

and it should be done by the weekend.

An enquiry report concludes it is probable that President Putin

ordered the murder of this man, the former KGB agent

Alexander Litvinenko, in London, nine years ago.

The Home Secretary is blunt.

The conclusion that the Russian state was probably involved

in the murder of Mr Litvinenko is deeply disturbing.

It goes without saying that this was a blatant and unacceptable

breach of the most fundamental tenants of international law

and of civilised behaviour.

Putin is an unconstructed KGB thug and gangster

whor murders his opponents in Russia and as we know

on the streets of London.

And nothing announced today is going to make the blindest

bit of difference.

What is certain is that the Russian state, under President Putin,

has killed over 100 opponents.

Lawyers, accountants, journalists, and politicians.

It is a kleptocratic state that uses assassination

as a policy weapon.

And that man again, as Donald Trump gets the support of Sarah Palin

in his eventful campaign for the US presidency.

MPs debate a public petition demanding that Mr Trump

is banned from Britain.

When people feel that we need to stop a poisonous,

corrosive man from entering our country, they will act

in good conscience.

His comments regarding Muslims are wrong.

His policy to close borders, if he is elected president,

is bonkers.

And if he met one or two of my constituents in one

of the many excellent pubs in my constituency,

then they may well tell him that he is a wazzock for dealing

with this issue in this way.

Can I not suggest that actually this is about buffoonery and ultimately

buffoonery should be not met with the blunt instrument of a ban

but with the classic British response of ridicule.

The debate on Donald Trump.

The sister of a British man thought to have appeared in a murder video

produced by so-called Islamic State has been talking in Parliament

about her brother.

In the video, a man with an English accent is seen executing five men

accused of spying against IS.

The man is thought to be Siddhartha Dhar to be from London.

Also known as Abu Rumasaysah, he had been arrested in Britain

on suspicion of encouraging terrorism that he was then able

to travel to Syria.

On Tuesday, his sister Konika Dhar came before the Home

Affairs Committee.

The committee is interested in the narrative of your brother.

The last time I did see him was in September 2014.

He seemed to me to be OK.

I mean, obviously I was always aware that he was a practising Muslim.

He kept his political movements private.

So, he didn't discuss it with you at all?

No.

I mean, I wasn't aware that he went by another name until he had left.

My instant reaction was, Abu who? I don't know that person.

I just remember my brother being the person I grew up with.

I've never known anyone to go through this.

I think it is important for other families to know

what are the appropriate steps one needs to take in order

to get their loved one back, who is the right person to contact.

I thought I did the right thing.

But looking...

I hope it is.

But I'm just a bit sort of wary if I'm making things worse now.

I'm not trying to, I just miss my brother very much and I'm

trying to make him realise that none of this is him.

Can you, in your heart, ever forgive him for what he has done?

He has betrayed the family and obviously the country

in which he lived.

I'm still holding to the firm belief that what I'm seeing is not him

and I haven't had verification otherwise so...

I have said before that if it is, I don't...

It's a difficult one. Yeah, it is.

Is he really my brother if he has done this?

I can't accept that he would ever do that.

I can't accept it.

Is it fair to say, the sense I get from the evidence that you have

given, which in some sense is totally different

from the Sunday Times article, is it you are still coming to terms

with what has happened to you and your family?

Would I be right in saying it is almost as if you are in a bad

dream from which you are hoping to be woken up from?

I think you have put it very well.

I think people underestimate how traumatic the experience is,

not only for the person who has gone out there but the families

who are left behind.

And I think people expect everyone to just get on with it

but it is much harder in tractors.

I just want to try and explore how he is living his life

as you still believe him to be a good man.

If he is over there supporting Daesh, he is probably engaging

in enslaving, in beheading and in rape.

This is what Daesh does.

One of the women that has given evidence, an article

in the Daily Mail about a number of things and someone states,

"the saddest thing that I remember was this little girl,

"12 years old, and they raped her without mercy."

These are the activities that your brother is engaged in.

Do you still believe he is a good man?

I think this is...

quite sort of...

A sensitive topic to talk about.

My opinion will always be biased because he is my brother.

I still don't want to associate the two, the activities that

you have just described with my brother.

And I know that may be hard for many people to believe

but that is because he is my brother and as far as I am concerned,

I grew up with a different person.

Konika Dhar at the Home Affairs Committee.

The new leader of the Democratic Unionist Party Eileen Foster has

held her first question session as First Minister

in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Ms Foster joins an increasing number of women party leaders

in the UK's legislative bodies, as Claire Gould now explains.

Northern Ireland's Eileen Foster is certainly not alone.

In Scotland, all three major parties are led by women.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Labour leader Kezia Dugdale,

and Conservative leader Ruth Davidson.

In Wales, two out of the four main parties are led by women.

Kirsty Williams leads the Lib Dems.

And Leanne Wood leads Plaid Cymru.

In Westminster, both the government and the opposition parties

in the Lords are led by women.

Baroness Smith for Labour

and Baroness Stowell for the government.

That means that only the Commons lacks a woman leader of any party.

The women's equality party formed last year and now busy fundraising

ahead of the local elections wants to see an equal Parliament.

We have come up with a very simple solution which is the next two

cycles of elections, we want to see two thirds

of candidates put forward to be women.

We have calculated that if we do that for 2020 and 2025,

we will achieve equal representation in just ten years.

What we are calling for is equality.

It would be great to have more women leaders because it is aspirational,

it is important for women to be able to see people who look like them

in positions of power.

But what we are talking about is the equal representation

across every level of political life.

Catherine Riley from the Women's Equality Party.

The Lords has welcomed the first new peer of 2016,

Robert Mair,

vice president of the Institution of Civil Engineers will sit

on the crossbenches.

Where does that leave our ermine-o-meter?

At the start of November, there were 820 members of the Lords.

Since then, three have died, three have retired and including

Lord Mayor, six have joined, giving us a grand total once again

of 820 peers and still counting.

Now, let's take a look at some of the quirkiest stories from around

Westminster and the last week.

Here is Alicia McCarthy.

Alex Salmond became the latest MP to take up the phone-in challenge.

He made his debut on LBC taking up where Lib Dem Nick Clegg left off.

What would you ask?

One US TV network has ambitions for Paul Flynn.

He was entitled party leader in the band in the Donald Trump debate.

Fancy that.

There was a fresh incarnation for the mop top Mayor of London.

He became a character in building game Minecraft.

Election battles are often plucky but could Labour's 2015 campaign be

better described as plucky?

New figures show the party spent more than ?570

on chicken suit expenses.

He's got a beard, a bike and an allotment, now Jeremy Corbyn

is to have his own musical.

Satirical song show The Motorcycle Diaries is to hit

the London stage in April.

Alicia McCarthy reporting.

An interesting few days in the Commons and the Lords coming

up with the peers returning to the row over the replacement

of student grants with loans.

So, do join me for the next Week in Parliament.

Until then, from me, Keith Macdougall, goodbye.