19/01/2017 Spotlight

me now on BBC Two. That's Newsnight with Emily in

Good evening. Washington.

A South West MP has called tonight for a radical rethink

Sarah Wollaston, who sits on the Health Select Committee,

said all parties should agree a new consensus in the interests

Her remarks came during a health debate held earlier on Spotlight

Johnny Rutherford's report features some of the key issues raised.

Behind me are some of the key decision-makers in the South West.

Tonight they're discussing the problems of the NHS today.

Well, the most immediate pressure is in social care, because that has

I think many of us feel that the government should bring

forward something called the Better Care Fund,

which is new money into social care to bring that forward

There are many things that we need to do, but that

would be the single most effective immediate measure.

Claire is arguing passionately for community hospitals,

Are they sustainable? Some are.

In terms of the number of beds we need into hospitals,

We will retain community hospital beds where they are appropriate

But a patient, an elderly person in a hospital bed who doesn't need

You have muscle wastage, you have exposure to infection,

and if somebody has a confusion or a dementia, being out

of their normal place of residence is the worst place for them to be

Nurses are quitting the health service.

They're going into agencies instead because the money's better,

Cathy, how do you, as Angela says, encourage, incentivise and motivate

staff and reward them so that they want to stay in the NHS?

That's a very good question, and we've been doing exactly that

We would prefer to have a good quality, sustainable,

permanent workforce augmented for surge purposes, really,

when we need to scale up or scale back, to be able to have

the flexibility of agency or casual staff which is very desirable.

Tonight's debate also calls for concern for the future

of the NHS, and calls for patients to stand up for the services.

You know, I really fear for the future of the NHS

And I want to commend Sarah Wollaston, because actually

she's done an amazing job as the Health Select

And she stands up for the NHS as often as possible.

But in terms of what I would say to communities, I would say, fight.

Fight absolutely tooth and nail for the NHS

because government ministers, Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt I think

have behaved absolutely deplorably, and I think the only language

They're not here to speak for themselves and it seems

almost unfair to ask you, Sarah Wollaston, to defend them.

But you are a Conservative MP. Of course.

But what I would say is that these challenges will be there for whoever

And I think what's very depressing is sitting in the Commons chamber

listening to the yahoo of debate, and what we need is for all

political parties to come together and accept the challenge,

just as we had to do with pensions, and actually try and come

to a consensus about how we should fund this.

And that funding issue remains at the centre of the debate,

which you can continue to take part in by telling us what you think

There'll be more on health on tomorrow's Spotlight when

NHS managers reveal the final recommendations of their plans

to close four cottage hospitals in South Devon.

There have been 12 weeks of consultations over

the plans to shut Dartmouth, Paignton, Ashburton

A look at some of the other stories making the news

The number of crimes recorded in Devon and Cornwall

There were significant falls in murder and robbery,

New types of offences such as those committed online

50 firefighters tackled a blaze which closed a road in Dorset.

The fire began in industrial units in Winterbourne Abbas.

One side of the A35 was closed for nearly six hours.

73 properties were left without electricity for several hours.

An end to decades of frustration for motorists is in sight

with the announcement that work on the A30 across Bodmin Moor

The dualling of the road at Temple should end tailbacks

Contractor Kier says the site will be cleared by July 13th.

Swans are to be given security guards to ensure the nest are not

disturbed and thousands of people descend on the Flora Date in May. It

follows an incident last year when a swan made her nest and latex right

on the edge of the road next to Coronation Lake. -- made her nest

and lead her eggs. Increasing demand for new technology

could breathe new life Lithium is in many of the gadgets

we use every day and there are hopes of finding significant reserves

here in the South West. Today the largest programme ever

to explore beneath the surface Experts are not expecting

a gold-rush, but given the desire for electric cars, lithium

is the mineral everyone's interested in as our Business Correspondent,

Neil Gallacher, explains. This is what many old Cornish mines

are full of - water. The conventional challenge

is how to get rid of it. It has been known for decades

that the water in many Cornish mines Until recently, there was only

a limited market for it. But in today's world,

we were all reliant on portable mobile devices, if not electric

vehicles, lithium is suddenly much A major new business

deal has been reached. It covers many parts of Cornwall

which probably harbour reserves of lithium.

A new company is launching what is claimed to be the largest

exploration programme in Cornish history.

It plans to sink boreholes like we've seen in recent years thanks

They hope to spend ?5 million on this and get to commercial

That coincides with the dramatic change in growth in electric cars

which is the main consumer of this product.

A electric cars starting at a low base, but dramatic growth,

particularly after 2020 and going into 2025 went

-- when Volkswagen have said 25% of their fleet will be electric.

Hopefully we will coincide with that, perfect timing.

It's not far-fetched and it's certainly not something

we would expect to see production immediately, but it's a lot

quicker to get something like this into production

than you would a hard rock mine where you're having

From that point of view, it's very exciting.

most of the mining schemes that have been announced over the last 15

years haven't come to fruition, or not yet.

Here there is a double layer of uncertainty.

Not only do they need to persuade investors there's enough lithium

below the granite in Cornwall, they also have to persuade them

there's cost-effective way of getting it out of of the water.

The Government is being urged to do more to tackle environmental

The Conservative MP for North Cornwall, Scott Mann,

told the Commons today that councils in the county needed more

Camelford in North Cornwall suffers from very high levels of pollution

because of the A39 running straight through the town centre.

Would my honourable friend congratulate the work being carried

out by Camelford town council to address the air quality,

and will she work with them and myself to tackle the problem?

Environment Minister Therese Coffey promised to do all she could.

The national government has its part to play,

and so does local government in finding solutions to tackle

local congestion issues and other elements of it.

Of course, we will continue to work with my honourable

It was ten years ago that it happened, and it's an occasion

The container ship The MSC Napoli was beached at Branscombe in Devon.

It prompted incredible scenes when people helped themselves

to the cargo from her containers as it washed ashore.

Spotlight's environment correspondent, Adrian Campbell,

will be reporting on the event on tomorrow's programme at 18:30.

Well, it's been a beautiful day in many parts of the region today

But will it stay that way over the next few days?

We've had some glorious sunshine today pretty much

It has been cold, though, and there's more of it to come.

Frost overnight tonight and at first tomorrow morning.

But also another day when the temperatures are pretty low.

We have the same setup - high-pressure, that doesn't change

But some changes as we head into the weekend.

The really unsettled weather isn't close to us at the moment.

It's across parts of the east and south of Spain, where there's

been some snow over the last couple of days.

But we're drawing in the air from the east.

It's cold coming from southern Scandinavia, and it's that cold air

that gives us another widespread frost overnight tonight.

Very dry air as well, so temperatures will probably get

down as low as -1 or -2 in quite a few places.

And even lower than that, particularly in sheltered parts

of central Devon and parts of Dorset and Somerset.

Still a bit of a breeze along the south coast,

helping to keep the temperatures are a couple of degrees

But for most of us, it's going to be a very cold start

By the time we get to the afternoon, temperatures have recovered -

But I think with the clear skies the game, the frost

A bit different on Saturday - a lot more cloud around

which is capable across parts of Cornwall of producing some spots

But it's still cold, we still have that cold air.

So cloudy and, without the sunshine, still very cold.

4-7 is Celsius is the temperature range for the start of the weekend.

Sunday's a little bit brighter, but we should see some

The high pressure is staying with us into the early part of next week.

Spotlight is back tomorrow morning at 6:25.

Good evening, it will gradually get colder in the UK in the next few

days, something we don't have to worry about in Australia at this

time of year. Of course it's the Australian tennis open at the moment

and there's a big storm moving through Melbourne at the moment.

Hopefully it will have cleared through by the time of