Episode 3 Free Speech

Hi Here's what's come up in Fetch for Free Speech - it looks as though

the very last few moments are missing at the moment. Tonight we're

trying something a bit different this evening. We have divided our

audience into people who were privately educated and people who

went to state school. We'll be hearing what they make of the issues

of the week in a moment but we want to hear what you at home think too.

Just tell Tina Daheley. Thanks Rick and a very good evening

to all of you. Here are the hashtags, addresses, Twitter handles

and so on that you'll need to join in tonight's debate online. Using

the latest in Free Speech technology we will be making your Tweets appear

here on this screen. I know we're blown away too. And

here is our panel. Ruth Porter, from the right of centre think tank,

Policy Exchange. Comedian and writer, Russell Kane. Member of pop

super group fifth Story and potential Conservative Party

candidate, Adam Rickitt. And leader of the Green Party, Natalie Bennett.

And that's our panel. The first question comes from our Leaderboard.

Tina? Yes, all week Free Speech viewers have been going to Free

Speech on Facebook, clicking through to the Audience Questions page and

looking through the many questions which have all been submitted by you

at home. This is how it works: people click "like" on the questions

they want to see on the show and we count up those likes to make this,

the Leaderboard. Here it is published at 2pm this afternoon with

the questions and the number of likes they received. The top

question is from Chris Reacord who asked: "Why are working individuals

worse off than people on benefits?" OK so that is the question. Let's

start with you Adam. Well first it shouldn't be that way.

The system should never mean that somebody who is a hard working

family should be worse off than somebody sat on the dole out of

choice. We have got to make a difference between if you're

uncapable or unable to work, society should look after you. We are here

to look after people. But if you can and it is your choice to play the

system, that should be removed. The Government put a benefits cap on,

which means for a family they only get ?500 a week. But if you're a

family on dole, you're still earning ?26,000 thousand a year. If you're a

working family you have to earn 30,000 to do the same. We need to

say it is a benefits trap. If you're a mother with young children, how

can you go out and work? Most of your money will go to child care. We

should support individuals who are trying to work and bring it all

together as a whole. This is good mood lighting. That is

what you asked for? We have to be careful about

generalising about people on welfare. People get payments for all

kind of reasons. A lot of people who are getting benefits are also in

work. There is a group of people working really hard, but they're

struggling to make ends meet. A large part of it is because we are

coming out of a difficult time for the country. What we saw during the

recession was that people largely kept their jobs and we have seen

employment go up, which is great. But it has been difficult, because

the flip side is has meant as economic output went down, we saw

wages go down and people were struggling and so we have ended up

with a situation where people on low pay are getting benefits. The

important question is what can we do to drive up wages, so we see people

who are working hard not having to also be claiming benefits. I think

what the encouraging thing is as we get economic growth, that is the

best way of pushing up wages and that is what we need to focus on,

the policies to push up economic growth.

You disagree with cutting benefits? I think you have to look at the

different types of benefits. About half of the benefit bill goes to

older people. So some of that is things like the state pension. Some

of it is on things like people who are of working age and are working,

topping up their incomes. There is a group trying to find work and people

who are on benefits because they're maybe physically or because of

mental illness unable to work. The questions are different for all

those four different groups. I think the group which perhaps where I do

agree with Adam is the reforms which have been made have focussed rightly

on that group who are currently looking for work. I think it is

right that we say that we need a system which incentivises people

getting into work, so you shouldn't be better off on benefits than in

work. And through doing things like capping benefits at the average

wage, we have made progress. Doing things like simplifying the benefits

system and rolling out universal credit will help. There has been

tremendous progress made. But I think also we need to be focussing

on that group who are in work and saying how can we get more economic

growth to push up wages. The gentleman here. Who I have come

dressed as! I don't understand the obsession

that people have with the small group and I mean really small

percentage of people who are claiming benefits and they have big

screen TVs. We should be looking at the massive companies who cheat out

the taxpayer each year, taking millions of pounds. They still

haven't paid back the money they owe the taxpayer, it is ridiculous we

are victimising a small group of people and victimising a group of

people on the tiny group of people... I don't think you should

say let's just target star bucks. We have to be in it together. I

don't buy the premise of the question.

I am not sure you can sit around on benefits a week and do four weeks

work and be worse off. It is part of the myth that there is this

underclass. It is this monster that has been created so we have

something to hate on and don't focus on the guys you're talking about.

The real problem is you can't earn enough to meet the minimum bills and

you have to have your wages topped up with benefits, because the

minimum wage is too low. That what is they should fix.

We have a minimum wage that is less than the living wage. And simply if

you work full-time, you should earn enough to live on. We need to lift

the minimum wage to make it a living wage. And also in terms of benefits,

I disagree with the benefits cap. We are the six South richest economy in

the world and we have vast numbers of wealthy people and benefits

should be paid to people on the basis of need, not some artificial

cap. The gentleman in the green shirt?

I'm someone that has been unfortunate to be on state benefits

and I can tell you it is ?72 a week. Unless your over 35 to receive

housing benefit you can't get over ?68. We have an ever increasing

homelessness problem. I have worked in a homeless hostel and they are

not pleasant. We have people that are doctors, solicitors, highly

qualified people claiming ESA and JSA. It is so and black and white to

suggest people on benefits earn more than people working. I have lived

it. And it is not true. There is a case that there are multiple

benefits and you can have other benefits.

Where does that benefit go, it goes to the landlord. It is some middle

class person that owns the property. It is those private landlords that

manipulate the situation because you're vulnerable and desperate and

you take the first option. There are landlords out there that don't use

the legal rent deposit scheme and people are losing their deposits

while on benefits. While your on benefits to save for a deposit on a

property is near on impossible. This lady here?

What we need to remember is every story about somebody earning a lot

on benefits there will be somebody who needs benefits to survive. We

need to sort out those who are doing it to get Monday you and those who

need it. The issue is the fact there is a

growing issue of hunger in our country and food kind of places are

having to grow to accommodate families who can't afford food, it

shows the benefit cap is harming people who need it the most and we

are neglecting the lower classes. There are half a million people

dependent on food benefits. The Red Cross is supplying the UK and that

is a disgrace. The gentleman here?

It is, we have seen programmes such as Benefits Street and it is a

disgrace that we are subjected to this sort of, we take a minority and

an issue and the media uses this policy of scaremongering to make us

well, in the case of newspapers or Channel 4 or five, whoever did it,

to make us watch their adverts. We see it on benefits, immigration and

Europe and what needs to happen is the media need to get back in line

and be told you can't do this and create this bubble of fear.

Does anyone favour here of the benefits cap? Yes?

Well... I'm in favour of the cap as a principle. The principle that

nobody should be earning more on benefits than they do on work. But

we need to be looking at tax rates as well. Because the second you earn

over ?10,000 in cash, you're paying 20% tax and national insurance and

VAT and everything else. Tax rates are too high. Now, I agree with the

gentleman down here that big companies are avoiding tax. They're

doing it legally, because the tax system is too complicated. It need

to be ironed out, loopholes removed and with the additional revenue that

generates you can bring tax down for everyone. Especially at the lower

end. Would you agree?

Yes the emphasis should be put on creating a situation in which

benefits are not needed and wages don't need to be topped up. So

everyone is earning what they should be earning to live.

The gentleman here. We live in a world where the rich

get richer and the poor get poorer. We see that happening each day. In

my opinion, we need to fix that problem of you know some rich

person, rich fat person, not offending fat people, but rich

person earning millions and somebody just you know living on the street

and not being able to actually buy a bread roll for themselves. I think

the main problem is that we need to sort these rich people out and make

them pay. Not all rich people are fat and

vice-versa. I am not saying big fat cats is

right. But it is the trickle down effect. But there is becoming, there

has always been a level of higher class, middle class lower class and

now there is this under class where people are not even seeing the

poverty. That is where we need to direct the support and get people

out of this trap. We need to get companies to be

paying their taxes. George Osborne boasts he has brought the rate down

to 20%. But that is the same as small business and these companies

are paying minimum wage, zero hours contracts and collecting enormous

profits and deposits them in tax havens.

Interesting messages. From Billy, people on benefits are too lazy to

find work annoy me so much. They're just too high and too easy

to access. What would your response be Russell?

I grew up in a council street so I think I'm qualified to comment.

Typical council street, there are were a few people who were, ponces

was the word we used. But most are doing the best they can to survive

and when that best isn't good enough because the system is skewed in

people higher in the income chain, these people don't exist there is

not this army of spraying out children, there is a few cases that

turned into poverty porn and lead to hateful comments like you read out.

Greenberg when I think both this audience should be angry at both

Adam and the tweeter. You are claiming there is a class of people

sponging on benefits. I said a lot of people have slipped

below the radar. There are nearly one million young

people unemployed. I used to be editor of the Guardian weekly. I met

those people. They usually had a degree, a Masters, a couple of

languages, they had been an intern and there were desperate to work for

me for nothing. There are huge numbers of people who are doing

everything right and can't get paid jobs.

Exactly, I agree. There are people who cannot get jobs which is why we

have jobseeker's allowance. The question about this was not about

whites are we not supporting people, it was supporting people when they

are sponging the system. It is a tiny minority.

Compared to the tax evaders. That is not the question we were

asked. Corporate tax evasion should be put right. But they also employ

and put money into the system. You are saying the big corporate bosses

only pay minimum wage. They are employing thousands of people as

well. They should be paying the higher rate of tax, 45% rate of tax,

but you can't knock these people because they are paying their fair

dues. We are talking about people's

ability to earn a decent living and we're talking about the tax and

benefits system but there is another important side to this debate, which

is the cost of living. It is not just about the amount of money that

you have got, it is about what that amount of money that will buy for

you. Feeding and housing benefits come up quite a few times. If we

look at child care, food costs, particularly housing, the difficulty

is that at this time during the recession when we saw wages go down,

although they are coming back up again, we have seen the cost of

living go up for people and if we take housing.

It is a toxic combination. Real wages falling, the cost of living

rising. We need to be more imaginative about

this whole discussion and say, how do we reduce the cost of housing?

We haven't got time to be imaginative now. The next question,

being asked from the studio audience.

Shouldn't the best education be available to everybody in the

country, however rich or poor they are?

Shouldn't everybody be entitled to the best education, no matter how

rich or poor they are? Russell. This is a question about is it moral

to have private schools, I suppose, beneath the lines. We have a private

school system, it is called Comprehensive Schools. If you want

to go near a decent Comprehensive Schools you have to buy the mansion

near the Comprehensive School. It is de facto private anyway because you

are paying to be near a school that is good. The thing that was the

generation before mine that was around, you were tested on your

ability and scooped into grammar schools, which a lot of people are

against but the reality is now that if you want a decent education you

have to pay for it, whether at a private school, or a nice area in

Surrey and be nearer comprehensive that get good results. If you are in

a comprehensive near a council estate,

a comprehensive near a council system. It has a shortage of places.

In Surrey, it is nearly a quarter of people who go to private school. The

solution, you have grammar schools but you have to reform the system

more widely so we don't have this ridiculous notion that if you're not

getting A levels you are a failure, that if you want to learn a trade or

skill, in Sweden or Germany it is lauded and praised and just as

worthy. We have in a trade or skill, in Sweden or Germany it is lauded

and praised and just as worthy. We have an aberrant system where you

are told if you cannot write an essay you are not worth anything.

Everyone should have the best education. The way to do that is not

abolish private schools but to make the state system works so fewer

people want to go to private schools.

People don't remember what it is like to be aged between 11-16. When

you are that age, I don't know about anyone else, I just wanted to be

popular and fit in. Most of us want to fit in. If you are dumped in a

bin, where the people who are popular are the hardest, who has

taken drugs, your results and everything else goes like that. I

know the grammars system is immoral and people have been told they have

failed, but if I was around the chance to be around as a bright,

poor kids, I might have done better at school. That is why social

mobility has gone down since the 60s. If you are born in a council

estate now, at the top of a tower block, you have less chance of

getting to Oxford than 30 years ago and that cannot be right.

This question of who gets into Oxford is an important one because

it illustrates something. What we know at the moment is quite commonly

talked about, at the moment there is the same number, there is more

children getting into Oxford or Cambridge who went to one school,

Westminster College, than children across the entire school system, who

are on free school meals. I think that just shows the scale of the

problem that we have got. The reality is for most families they

are never going to be able to afford private schools, so the question is

how we make state schools as good as they possibly can be and it is

partly a question of expectation. Actually expecting people and

encouraging them that they can do well.

The fact is this government, each year cutting funding to state

education in real terms by 3.5%. We have to invest in quality schools.

What we need is everyone to be able to go to a good school near them. We

don't want a situation where you have to cherry picked, parents

travel and children create enormous traffic jams, where people who know

how to play the system get a good school. We need a good local school

for everybody. If you take a contrast with private schools, nine

pupils per teacher, government schools, 22 pupils per teacher. It

is no wonder the results are different.

What we are seeing is academies and free school academies and free

school (APPLAUSE) Academies and free schools are washing up the quality

of teaching. Know they are not. They are

disasters. What we need is local, democratic control of schools.

It is exactly, free schools and academies are devolving more power.

Which is what you are saying we need.

One at a time! Tina, what have you got?

This has come in, Comprehensive Schools do care about their students

as people. The best education should be given

to everybody, it is a case of giving it to people who want to achieve so

maybe we should be selective. Finland has proven that children do

better when not subject to standardised tests. Why don't we

follow their example? Exactly, it is a sausage machine,

trying to shove people through. Ruth!

What we have seen in terms of standardised tests is it is a way of

making sure that our schools are delivering a high quality of

education and what we know is it is things like improving the quality of

teachers aren't getting the best and brightest into schools teaching that

actually makes the real difference for children. We need to be finding

of making sure particularly in the most deprived areas, that is where

the best teachers are going, into those schools.

Adam. I was lucky in that my dad worked

really hard and sent me to boarding school when I was seven. I can say

one thing, there is this myth that the best teachers are going to

private schools. They are not. The teachers that tend to go to private

schools tend to be the ones who go there because they want an easy

life. The state schools are the ones who want to inspire and they are

inspired themselves. Flatulence was the most interesting thing my

teachers taught me at school. We go to boarding school, you are inspired

themselves. We go to boarding school, you towards results. We need

to bring in that same thing to the state school system. The education

is there, the teachers are there, but we need the support helping

children to reach their full capability.

Muscle. Until you skew the balance of

background versus education, we have this thing called the PISA tests,

which shows how much the background and the education influences you,

your mum and dad are half the influence, the school is the other

half. If you have not got a mum and dad who take you to the opera,

between June and September, your brain goes... While the middle-class

kids are still related. If you put those people together, it doesn't

matter how good the teachers are, how good the school is, there is a

limit to how much you can do. Everyone has the same messed up

attitude towards education. There is a muddling up of concepts, equality

and fairness. Sometimes it is not the right thing to make everyone the

same and equal. Why don't we look at what people can do and all the

people who love maths and English, they go to a maths and English

school, the arty people go to an arty school. Instead of, everyone

has to have the same. Free schools then. You are in favour

of free schools. It is social, being at school. You

have lots of people, lots of types, it does not matter if you are

streaming, the law of the jungle goes on. I could not wait to restart

my education at 16 and do it on my own, where I could be proud to get

high grades instead of being bullied.

If children go through state school and go to university, they tend to

outperform those who have been to a private school.

How can Michael Gove expect state schools to be the same as private,

when there is one teacher to ten children, and in a state school, one

adult to 30 children or more and nowadays they don't even have T8s.

That argument is specious, you can have a large class and do

wonderfully. If you want to get a bunch of boys who learn about maths,

they learn about maths, as simple as that.

The lady at the back. I think there is a problem with

society and the structure of it as a whole, that it is a meritocracy I

understand, I understand that conditionis good and it drives

change and passion, but if you focus on grades alone than we are not

going to get the best out of everybody. People are so much more

complicated and complex than just achieving the best results. I agree

with Russell, send people to different schools that build on

their strengths and change society. It is run by the cream skimmed top

in drive at schools. Interesting word order, I get the

idea. I personally believe that I

completely agree with you, schools and colleges are so focused on

achieving academic excellence that students' well-being does not come

into play. I go to a really good sixth form and I am not an A*

student, I am not even talk properly because I am not going to achieve

that academic excellence. There is a huge flaw in the education system,

especially under Michael Gove. I really think it has become so

experimental and we need more investment in our education.

Education is the key to empowerment. APPLAUSE Go on.

Me? Why not?

We are talking negatively about state schools and my state school

was brilliant. We should not forget about that. You have to go to

private school to do well. It is not about that. You can go to a state

school and do really well. But if you are in a challenging

area, some state schools do fantastic but the rule of thumb is,

come on, guys, if you are in a challenged area and everyone is from

a challenged family, it is a de facto private system where I am

spending ?1 million to live in Woodford Green because I know the

competence of school is going to be good, I might as well go to private

school and save money on the house. I agree with what you say about

splitting people up to do what they enjoy, up to 14, I like maths, let's

do maths, I like sport, let's do sport.

You would not say to Usain Bolt, have the same PE.

If someone is into maths, initial history, celebrate it. Let's give

help rather than shame them the way secondary moderns do.

The gentleman with the white T-shirt on the private side?

I want to point out the original question, should everyone have a

fair and equal education? It would be a great idea and make sure we get

the best people rest jobs but would it be possible and as Charles Murray

says, no matter how we dress it up, 15% of the population will be below

to intelligence so they can't get high-ranking jobs and a lot of

money. Someone has to be a cleaner and someone has to work in the lower

classes. We can't have everyone achieving highly.

I don't think private schools are all may make out to be. There is too

much focus on academics and when it comes to mental health there is too

much strength, because you don't get the grades you're out.

Yes? I have been fortunate enough to go

to public school and some very good and very not so good state schools.

I think the divide, as soon as you come in as a child, you have that

class divide. You say these fat cats and people on the bottom line. If

you put them all in the same schools with the over attentive mums and

with kids who are not as well off, the quality would rise.

Education isn't just about, the school isn't completely in control

of your children's education. It is parents.

We were talking about international... International

comparisons and we have far unequal outcomes than most of the rest of

the world. People who are rich get better outcops. That is because we

have an unequal society. Think of the dreadful bedroom tax and we're

asking children of the same gender to share bedrooms. They share until

they're 16. How does the 12-year-old do their homework when the

six-year-old is rung around and playing. So we have inequality of

outcomes. That is what parents need to give

support on. At private school the school fill that role of giving you

support and push you. The parents need to do that as well. You can't

drop your kids off and say that is it, I wash my hands.

And the parents working on minimum...

I'm talking when they're at home at the weekend.

Now lots of people are talking about politics being dominated by people

who are privatery educated and this viewer says it is a problem.

Now to our next debate. And just to alert you our next debate is on

pornography so if that's something you find offensive you might want to

switch over. But if you like it hit record. The question comes from

journalist and former dominatrix Nichi Hodgson who Free Speech spoke

to this week. The first time I spanked somebody I

was about 24. I had a very conventional childhood and I went to

a good girls' school. Got A grades. Went to university to study

literature. When I came to London to work in the media, I was an unpaid

intern and had to general mate some money and became assistant to a

domicatrix. It was through this work that I was

absorbed into the BBSM world. Some say watching porn can be a

feminist act. But it has been a myth. For so many years that women

are not visually turned on by pornography.

The more we can do to counter that by viewing porn and buying it and

encourage people to make the porn we want to watch.

Lads' magazines don't cause rape and neither does porn.

The mass market stuff that most of us consume is of a poor quality.

So that there are some problems with the industry, but we didn't stop

wearing trainers because we found they were made in sweat shops.

The reason we are frightened of it is because we think desire is

immoral. Porn throws back at us our darkest sexual fantasies.

It is a way of exploring things that society doesn't allow you to do with

a regular partner. I don't understand why the age of

pornography is 18, it should be 16 like the age of sexual consent.

The question I want asked is porn really bad for us?

It is just eight. 30 so there are certain words we can't use during

this debate. But I can't tell you what they are. Natalie?

I would say with one in six people in Britain using porn it is not

innately bad. Why is that?

There is no evidence that it is bad. But it is bad for people who haven't

had good sexual education in school and don't realise it is fantasy. One

things we saw the Daily Telegraph having a campaign to improve sex and

relationship education in schools. It is a fact that the guidelines

were written in 2000 and the world has changed a lot, particularly

online since then. We need to look at the fact too many people with

things like lads' Mags are subjected to pornography when they don't want

to see them and page three and the green MP got told to cover up her

chest, because she was wearing a no more page three T-shirt.

But it is five to have page three in Parliament.

It is down to education. People are not taught about sexual education in

school. I can remember my sexual education cast and somebody came in

and gave me a plastic blue penis and said stuck a condom on it and said

well done, now do that when you have sex, or don't have sex. If somebody

tells you not to do something, you immediately think I might do that.

So instead teach about the proper which to protect yourselves and get

sex taught properly. And discuss relationships.

The fact that people have no knowledge that when you get pregnant

you have got to look after the kid. This is a bit off topic. We are

talking about whether porn is bad for us?

The reason people start, I'm a comedian so I have to be careful. I

don't think porn has affected me. But it is the main place I learned

about sex, but it is linked, because teaching sex education at 14 it is a

cringing and embarrassing. It needs to be taught in primary schools like

in other countries. All I got was a drop and run from my mum, a leaflet

and her running out. If an eight-year-old girl says at primary

school where do babies come from and we are in a bizarre situation where

the teacher says you will have to come back at 14 with the baby.

It is Norway or Sweden their rate of teenage pregnancy is one 20th of the

UK and they teach sex education in year one or two. But it is what type

of porn children are given access to. It is oo easy. When I was 14 I

found a job application to be a porn star.

How did it go? I'm wait gt for the reply. I feel

the schools and the parents, if they can address their children and let

them know before they're exposed to pornography they can realise it is

not what it is like. Nichi, you posed the question.

Is porn bad for us. Something that keeps coming up is the difference

between porn sex and real sex. And one person's real sex is somebody

else's porn sex. We have to really...

Stop looking at her! We have to turn on its head all

these ideas that we think we know are true about pornography and sex.

So many of us have imbiemed ridgeous -- imbibed religious teaching and

porn becomes a place where we pour our fears and desires into it and

then we want to torn it off and -- turn it off and society is telling

us it is wrong. So our relationship with pornography is complicated,

because our relationship with sex is and that comes back to education.

Until we are educated to accept your desire. Just because you have a

feeling doesn't mean you have to do it. The same with porn. If we

understand the difference, we are going to have a massive problem with

the way we consume porn and the we we frame it is always negative.

We did a poll of the audience. You have the results.

Yes we asked people about porn. 80% of people have seen porn. 39% in

the past week. And in gender, 59% of men and 20% of women watched porn in

the last week. The gentleman here?

What worries me is whether porn is good for us, but what the Government

will do. It becomes an issue of sensor ship and then where are the

powers going to lead you and will you live in a society where we can't

do what we want and we are going to be sopped by doing -- stopped by

doing things like porn and what else. Censor ship is the crux of the

problem. That has already happened with the

filtering that came in in January. It is not just adult content it is a

category that is undefined. Access to any sex education information and

information about war. It may turn you into a terrorist. I hope you

create a bomb. Once you have the broad categories and the Government

has a register of how we are accessing the internet, that is not

democracy. That is the thin end of the wedge and not the end we want to

be at. This lady here.

It is a fine line between looking at the news on some like, say you're

looking at the news on something that isn't the BBC porn flashes up.

It is a fine line between children encountering that and internet

providers helping parents to stop that and removing porn from the

internet. We have got to find a way too control it.

If you give parent sense of security a and you don't have to worry about

what your children are doing online. Porn is not the only danger and a

lot of 12-year-olds are more clever at the internet than their parents.

People need the education, the help and the parental oversight. Any

filter will give people a false sense of security.

It is true even's better than their parents at the internet. But maybe

we have to educate the parents on how to look after their children.

Mo parents don't want to talk about porn, because they don't know what

they think about it. Ofcom, which regulates contents did a study in

2005 and decided that the best way to protect children from adult

content was to give them sex education and get their parents to

talk to them. Those are the key areas.

I work for a charity and run a sex and relationship education

programme. We go into schools and talk to young people about sex and

relationships and pornography and what we hear a lot is young people

saying they use pornography as a form of sex education and what is

worrying, you talked about the difference between real sex and porn

sex, but there are myths perpetuated by porn. I asked them what they

learned from porn and some of it I can't repeat, but the root of it is

education and talking to parents and they feel a able to talk to their

children to work their internet filters so they feel they're

confident and to be giving young people a form to discuss these

things. It is the secrecy that can lead to some of the problems, as

well as addiction and things like that. I was in Parliament on Monday

speaking about this and had a letter in The Times. We need to think about

it as a public health inquiry, because of the issues of addiction.

Porn addiction is highly contested. The American manual has removed it

from its definitions. We have this debate about porn addiction like an

addiction to cocaine. There is a real difference between a physical

depend si and the chemicals firing you up and porn doesn't work like

that. We can't use the younger generation

as a guinea pig. Do you want there is an age where it

can mess you up for life? There is no evidence. I think the

main issue is if you watch porn as your form of sex education and Dons

understand about consent, the key word, then you practise what you see

in porn on women, you're not going to have healthy relationships. But

this doesn't mean that porn can't be used to educate, because it can.

Some porn is educational. And you can create a new kind of porn.

Who does think that porn is bad for us?

Yes, the gentleman in the white shirt.

I don't want to be smacked in the face! Yes, I do think Paul is bad

because it can totally give you a misconception of what a relationship

is about -- porn. If you watch it from a young age, I do worry about

kids and they are eight years old and can stumble across it and think

what they are doing to each other is a good thing and they are getting a

relationship and doing it and, oh, wait, that is not how it works.

Everybody can agree, it is monitoring it. It is how we can stop

younger children from seeing it. Back in my day before the Internet

started you had movies, they had 18 or 15 ratings and it was hard to get

to a cinema to see an 18 moving. Because the web has moved on much

faster than those bodies trying to police it, we need to bring in

better policing and it should not be done by one company because that is

too much power. It needs to be the parents who do it but it needs to be

more readily available. When the government tried to bring it in

recently you have the NSPCC being blocked, child lying being blocked

the course of the word abuse. We need to make sure it is much more

dependent on families. Parents need to be what -- more aware and alert

about what kids are doing. The largest study of children in

Europe done by a body called EU kids online, more than 22,000 young

people between 9-16, 57% of them said that porn had positively

impacted their lives and 1% reported it negatively impacted. We need to

be careful about talking about children's problems with porn. We

are too quick to say isn't it terrible, but we need to ask them

themselves what their problems. Or what problems might be expressed

later in life. Porn poisons your brain. It is like us women have to

be like that but most of their women -- most of those women are

practically getting raped. Absolutely not, they are consensual

and there and getting paid. The idea that all women have to look like

that, porn has a huge amount of body diversity. Any body part you don't

like about yourself, type it into Google with the word porn and it

will come up. Somebody out there thinks it is wonderful and wants to

see more of it. There is nothing more positive than that. We have to

get past the idea that women are objects to be used in pornography.

Plenty of women like to experience certain sex acts that other people

might find some educated. Porn infiltrates a lot of areas of

our lives that we are not aware of and it is not true that it is just

about the individual. 57% might has positively impacted their lives but

that does not survey the other people. I think it is iffy.

Women's magazines has more to say than porn does. There are so many

different shapes and sizes and ethnicities in porn.

I don't think you can categorise porn into black and white scenario.

Instead of trying to eradicate it, it should be more integrated into

our society and work on how to make it more ethical.

Still bobbing porn has become integrated into our society. We

can't define or draw boundaries around what it is. We have seen this

incredible sexualisation of our society and on the one hand that

openness and ability to talk about sex is a great thing, but it has

thrown up all kinds of different cultural challenges and yes, we can

police and try and protect children to an extent from that, but if you

look at the row over things like the lyrics around songs like blurred

lines just before Christmas, there are so many examples we can think

of, things like not just music videos, just the sexualisation in

general of things in our society, has led to this kind of

commodification of sex. It has led to a kind of misunderstanding of

relationships. It has led to us being talked about

issues around body image for people, unrealistic expectations of each

other. There is all kinds of broader, cultural issues which we

can't, there is nothing the government can do about them, there

are things we need to grapple with and work out what that looks like

for us. Quite a few people fake porn is bad

for you. To become EU here horrid and file

words about porn, women are just objects.

We should celebrate an industry where members are exploited.

We cannot differentiate between fantasy and real relationships.

Most of us, by the time the hormones hit between 12-14, we have not got

the information in their ready to deal with those urges and wanting to

look, the information needs to be put in when you are less of a sexual

being. The information about drugs, family, sex, needs to go in at

primary school. When you say, I have got those feelings, I have been

armed with information and when you go to the pornography you understand

what it is, what fantasy is, because you have been properly educated

prior to the torrent of hormones ripping through your body and

turning your life upside down. We will end that debate because we

are running out of time and move on. If you found that interesting, BBC

Three is showing a documentary after this programme with Jameela Jamil

looking at these issues. Our final question is from the studio

audience. It is Jamie. Where is Jamie? What do

you want to ask? Are arbitrary quota system is the

best way of ensuring that e-mails have access and opportunity in

public life? . We definitely need those. If you take the example of

Green Party policy, we have a policy of 40% of women on FTSE boards and

in Norway was introduced by a right-wing male, who wanted to

improve the quality of the boards in Norway. They put those women in and

the women on those boards were actually better qualified than the

men who remained. We were talking about a meritocracy. We don't have a

meritocracy. We have selection on the basis of if you belong to the

right golf club and went to the right school. The only way we can

deal with the lack of women, 22% of women in Parliament, we need more

women in public life and that requires quotas.

Rhoose? There is a group -- woeful

representation of women in lots of areas. We talked about boards,

Parliament, we can think of so many examples as well. The problem with

quotas is what it does culturally is it sends out further the message

that women should not be respected, women can't get there on their own

and it undermines their credulity. And actually, oddly, it makes the

problem worse. Russell? Agreed, but it is worth

paying that cultural tax for a few years while the system sorts itself

out. Going back to the first question about benefits, we are in a

country where it is much harder if you are woman to carry on working

and get childcare straightaway because there is not proper

childcare when kids are born. It is years before you can get back up and

that holds women in -- that holds back women in the workplace.

I agree with what you are saying, women aren't quite as good so they

need a leg up but the system is broken so it needs a bit of

lubrication, a bit of Greece, just for three or four years and then we

can drop back into a normal system and the system is broken and it is

the price we have to pay. This is part of the issue here, the

obsession with pulling women out as some kind of group.

Women can pull themselves out, they are strong. You talk about women and

childcare. One thing that is interesting is the

way we tend to assume that issues like childcare as if they are

women's issues. Single parents where I grew up, men

were not there. The way the media looks at this, the

way that if you look at when the government announces that they are

changing things which are going to affect the finance that a family

gets around a child or childcare provision, anything like that, the

next day I go through the papers and look at how different journalists

have reported it. What bothers me is the number of people who talk about

those changes and the impact on women. No, they will have impact on

families. You need to get the figures. The

Fawcett Society figures, one fifth of an average woman's average income

from benefits. For men, one tenth. The more in terms of our language

that we keep buying into and suggesting that these things like

childcare should be women's issues, not family issues, the worse we make

the problem. There are a lot of families without

dads around where the kids are left with the month.

They are still families, we can call them families.

Adam? We are off-track. My thing is, the

best person gets the job. The bottom line, if...

What if you can't get to the interview?

The best person should get the job and it empowers everybody, whatever

their colour, their sexuality, their race. If we are not at that level

than that is up to those companies to look at the internal.

Exams for GPs, there is a discrimination against people from

ethnic minorities. They fail the exam or other court has told them to

sort that out. There is discrimination and you have to sort

out discrimination and quotas is one way.

Quotas breed more distrust, more disgruntlement between every body

else. Look at it from a different angle.

When you put quotas some of the reaction of people who are not in

the quota is to get frustrated and angry and it builds resentment

between parties. It is the worst way of doing it.

It is successful, it has worked in Norway and other countries.

You will have to agree to differ because our time is up. We are back

in two weeks' time, on Thursday, in Nottingham, as part of the crime and

punishment system we will come from the old courthouse. There will be

Anna Soubry and one-time prison warden and comedian Ava Vidal.

You don't have to wait until then to get free speech. The questions page

is -- page on Facebook has been reset and is waiting for your

questions. Click like on the ones you most want to see in the

programme and we will count them up and see which comes top.

From us in Winchester, for now, good night. Subtitles by Red Bee Media

Ltd. E-mail: [email protected].