Stewart Jackson Post Conservative Conference 2013

17:22 Wednesday 2nd October 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[C]HRIS MANN: What does one of our leading local MPs feel about the Conference and how it went? Stewart Jackson joined me, the Conservative MP for Peterborough.
(TAPE)
STEWART JACKSON: Well I think what it did was to throw into sharp relief the big battles ahead. Because two or three weeks ago I think the people of this country thought it was going to be a battle about who could manage the country better, in terms of you’re all the same, you promise the same, you all look the same. And I think that that’s been blown out of the water now. We now have the biggest ideological battle I think for the future of our country since 1992. Two very stark competing visions of what Britain will look like after the next General Election, between principally Labour and the Conservatives. And I think that’s good for democracy …
CHRIS MANN: (GRUNTS)
STEWART JACKSON: … and it’s given people a clear choice.
CHRIS MANN: Is it the choice between a party with compassion, that’s Labour, and one, the Conservatives, who don’t really care about people at the bottom of society?
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Stephen Barclay On The Exploitation Of Agricultural Migrant Labour

08:07 Tuesday 1st October 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: As you’ve been hearing this morning, as a result of a BBC Radio Cambridgeshire investigation, four British supermarkets are investigating claims that migrant workers who pick their vegetables in the Fens are being exploited by unlicensed gangmasters. The investigation found that leeks on sale in Waitrose, Marks and Spencer, ASDA and the Co-op had been picked by Eastern Europeans, some of whom claimed to have been threatened and underpaid. Well our very own Jo Taylor has spent the last five months working on this investigation, and I’m pleased to say she joins me now. Morning Jo.
JO TAYLOR: Morning.
PAUL STAINTON: Just remind us what sparked this investigation.
JO TAYLOR: Well we’ve been hearing about this problem for a while. You had Anita on earlier from the Rosmini Centre, but we hardly ever hear from the migrants themselves, the community that’s very hard to get into. So eventually that’s what I went to do, to go and talk to them and find out what was really going on.
PAUL STAINTON: I saw your report on the six o’clock news last night, and it was shocking, some of the things you uncovered.
JO TAYLOR: Yes. It was shocking. What was shocking as well was how widespread some of the things were that I was hearing about. The conditions people, live in, ceilings falling in, mould everywhere. And they’re charged a fair whack for that, fifty pounds a week for the privilege of living in those conditions. Then there was the money people were being left with in their pay packets. Imagine you’re working really hard in the fields all week, twelve hour days. And after the illegal gangmaster’s taken his rent and travel, you’re ending up with twenty pounds. It’s not very much. One of the worst examples, one migrant told me that one week he was left with just forty three pence, which is ridiculous. The other thing that was really shocking to me was the violence I heard about, the having to pay bribes to get that regular work. And if you refused you were threatened with having your personal safety or your life in danger. And these are young people I was speaking to, nineteen years old, twenty years old. They’re far away from home. I just can’t imagine my younger brother for example being in that situation. I would be devastated.
PAUL STAINTON: What have the big supermarkets had to say about what you’ve uncovered?
JO TAYLOR: Well the supermarkets have said that they knew nothing about it. ASDA, Marks and Spencer, the Co-op and Waitrose say they take the allegations very seriously, and they are investigating. They also .. they’re saying this about auditing systems that they have in place, their code of conduct, and the fact that they only use licensed gangmasters.
PAUL STAINTON: Alright. This investigation of course has been making waves. Will it lead to changes for these workers and changes in the way they’re forced to live their lives?
JO TAYLOR: Well I hope so, because the authorities are trying to do something about it. You’ve got the police with Operation Pheasant , where they go into houses of multiple occupancy in the area to check the living conditions, and try and crack down on it in that way. That’s a multi-agency thing. Lots of agencies are involved in that. And you’ve got the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. This is a vast industry. It’s really hard for them to control things. And essentially you need to throw some funding at it.
PAUL STAINTON: Thank you for that Jo. Much appreciated. .. Let’s speak to Stephen Barclay, the MP for North East Cambridgeshire who joins me now. Morning Stephen.
STEPHEN BARCLAY: Good morning.
PAUL STAINTON: What’s your reaction to what Jo’s uncovered? Continue reading “Stephen Barclay On The Exploitation Of Agricultural Migrant Labour”

Unison And Management At Loggerheads Over Hinchingbrooke Hospital

07:39 Thursday 26th September 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: A Cambridgeshire hospital has come in for some serious criticism at the Labour Party conference. Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon was taken over by a private company of course, Circle HealthCare, around eighteen months ago. The hospital was nearly £40 million in debt at the time. Yesterday at the Labour conference Linda Hobson from the union Unison said things at the hospital had actually gone from bad to worse since they took over.
(TAPE)
LINDA HOBSON: The Circle franchise at Hinchingbrookes in Cambridgshire is failing to make the savings as promised. It has had to be bailed out by the NHS, and is cutting jobs. Conference, far from being protected from the cuts, our NHS has been starved of the funds it needs. So-called efficiency savings, rather than being reinvested back into patient care, have been clawed back by Osborne as he tries to buy votes, ahead of the 2015 election.
(LIVE)
PAUL STAINTON: Let’s speak to Tracey Lambert. She’s the Head of Health for Unison in the East of England. Good morning Tracey.
TRACEY LAMBERT: Good morning.
PAUL STAINTON: What does Linda know? She’s a councillor in Newcastle, isn’t she?
TRACEY LAMBERT: Well we’ve had running now for at least three years a campaign and an information campaign in relation to the franchising of Hinchingbrooke by Circle. So it’s well known throughout the organisation. And it was a national publicity campaign, national BBC took up the issue. And of course now Circle are bidding to franchise for hospitals in the West Midlands and in the South West. So they’re trying to take what they’ve done at Hinchingbrooke, which I would agree with Linda has not worked ..
PAUL STAINTON: Well why? Why would you say it’s not worked? Where’s your proof? Because we hear from time to time that they’re doing a good job, that things are going well.
TRACEY LAMBERT: Well, you have to measure, in terms of how well they’re doing, by the eradication of the debt, and the reducing of the debt, which is why they were given the franchise in the first place. And that debt remains the same.
PAUL STAINTON: Well with us is Dr Hisham Abdel-Rahman, the Chief Executive of Hinchingbrooke Hospital. Is that how you measure it? Success.
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Martin Curtis Signals Job Losses In A Tough Budget For Cambridgeshire

17:40 Wednesday 25th September 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[C]HRIS MANN: Cambridgeshire County Council is to face its toughest financial year yet, according to its Leader Martin Curtis. He’s been giving a briefing to journalists this afternoon, ahead of next year’s budget negotiations. Well our reporter Henrietta McMicking was there to meet him and hear what he had to say, and she joins me now. Hello there.
HENRIETTA MCMICKING: Hi Chris. So the purpose of today’s briefing was to explain that the Council believes that very tough decisions are going to have to be made in the coming year, if they’re going to make their proposed cuts. They have said that they want the current net operating budget of £490 million to be cut by £33 million in the current financial year. Now as well as the Council Leader Martin Curtis, I was also speaking to the Chief Executive Mark Lloyd, and he outlined to me the extent of the budget cuts that they’re facing, not just this year, but the wider picture going back the last three years, and going forward for the next five.
(TAPE)
MARK LLOYD: Over the last three years the County Council has worked incredibly hard to make savings totalling £124 million. That includes the year that we’re in right now. And looking across the next five years, we think we need to make another £159 million worth of savings. That’s an awfully big hill to climb.
(LIVE)
CHRIS MANN: Cambridgeshire County Council Chief Executive Mark Lloyd. Now they had some very big announcements to make about jobs and services as well Henrietta. Continue reading “Martin Curtis Signals Job Losses In A Tough Budget For Cambridgeshire”

Lisa Forbes And Stewart Jackson On Ed Miliband

07:38 Wednesday 25th September 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: We’re talking Ed Miliband as well. Full of promises in his speech at his party’s conference yesterday. He pledged to freeze gas and electricity prices until 2017, build thousands of new homes, 200,000 a year, cut taxes for smaller firms, give younger teenagers the vote, repeal the Government’s change to housing benefit. He went on and on and on. And all of that of course is if his party wins the next General Election. If. But it was his big energy freeze that grabbed the headlines. The energy companies though this morning warned such a freeze could lead to energy blackouts. Labour have rubbished those claims, and will write to the big energy companies to explain the policy in greater detail. But we can talk now to Labour’s Parliamentary Candidate for Peterborough, councillor Lisa Forbes, who’s with us and enjoying the conference. Morning Lisa.
LISA FORBES: Good morning.
PAUL STAINTON: Did you enjoy yesterday? He certainly knocked out the bullets and the guns, didn’t he? Brought the big guns out yesterday. Continue reading “Lisa Forbes And Stewart Jackson On Ed Miliband”

The High Street Decline Continues But Slightly More Slowly

07:25 Tuesday 24th September 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[P]AUL STAINTON: A new study out today shows retailers closed an average of eighteen town centre shops a day during the first half of the year. Photography shops, video libraries and travel agents were amongst the biggest losers, although charity shops, bookies and payday lenders helped pick up some of the slack. Tony Bonsignore from our Business Unit’s here. Morning Tony.
TONY BONSIGNORE: Morning Paul.
PAUL STAINTON: We’ve talked about this many times, but when I read that out there, photography shops, video libraries and travel agents, I thought yes, we’ve moved on. It’s a rejigging of the high street. We don’t use those things any more, do we?
TONY BONSIGNORE: Yes, I think that’s right to an extent. I think in terms of the types of shops that are suffering most, I think there’s two things going on here. One is the fact that they are being hit still by this squeeze on household finances. Consumer spending is still under an enormous amount of pressure. But to an extent I think there’s another thing going on here, and I think you’re exactly right. I mean, photography shops .. we saw Jessops go under earlier in the year, didn’t we?
PAUL STAINTON: When was the last time you went to a shop to get some photographs sorted out?
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Margaret Gilmore RUSI On Al-Shabaab

17:38 Tuesday 24th September 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[C]HRIS MANN: Kenyan security forces are continuing to search the Nairobi shopping centre which Islamist militants stormed on Saturday. More than 60 people were killed in that. Three days of national mourning have been announced. There’s speculation the operation is coming to an end. The Somali Al-Shabaab movement said it was behind the attack. Margaret Gilmore is a Senior Research Fellow and expert on national security at the Royal United Services Institute, and she joined me a little earlier.
(TAPE)
MARGARET GILMORE: Obviously we’re in the final throes. We’re hearing a lot of mixed rumours about what’s going on, but I think really we’re at the very final stages. I think we’re starting to get some firm information on who was involved. That will be the next on the line. We’re hearing rumours about the involvement of a British woman, but that hasn’t .. we have to treat that with a little bit of caution at the moment. I think in the next twenty four or forty eight hours we’re going to get very clear insight into the type of person who is involved, how many people have actually been captured, if any, and final numbers of the dead and injured.
CHRIS MANN: Now you study groups like Al-Shabaab, and try and work out what they’re about. So what have they achieved by this, and what do you think might be next? Some people are even speculating they could attack in Britain next. Continue reading “Margaret Gilmore RUSI On Al-Shabaab”

A14 Toll Road Not Certain Under Labour

17:07 Monday 23rd September 2013
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

[C]HRIS MANN: The future of one of our most important road links has been thrown into doubt by the Labour Party. The plan to replace a busy stretch of the A14 through Cambridgeshire with a toll road has been put out to consultation. Many respected organisations have expressed their concerns. Here’s Stephen Joseph from the Campaign For Better Transport.
(TAPE)
STEPHEN JOSEPH: The effects of putting on this toll haven’t been thought through. The evidence from tolls elsewhere, from the M6 toll road, is that actually there’s quite a lot of diversion. People go quite a long way not to pay a toll. So our concern is that the A14 road won’t solve the problems on the A14, and it might make things worse over a much wider area.
(LIVE)
CHRIS MANN: Well now Labour says it could scrap the plan if it wins the next election. MP Maria Eagle the Shadow Transport Secretary has been speaking to BBC Look East’s Andrew Sinclair at the Labour Party Conference in Brighton. And here’s what she had to say.
(TAPE)
MARIA EAGLE: Well I’m concerned about the potential, in a small and densely populated island, of the capacity for people just to go off, increasing congestion on other routes. And so I think that they’ve got to be careful. What they’ve come up with isn’t at all convincing. It’s not convincing that it would be better, or that it would work. And so I think that we would certainly be wanting to have a look at whether or not what they’re proposing is the right way forward.
ANDREW SINCLAIR: Would you go as far as to say you would scrap the toll road if you win the next election?
MARIA EAGLE: Well I think we need to look at how far they’ve got – there are things getting delayed out of the Department for Transport – and let’s see in detail what they’re proposing, and whether or not we think it would work. I think there’s some unconvincing evidence. For example the M6 toll has never made money, and people just use other roads that are nearby. So I think we need to have a close look at whether what they’re proposing will actually do what they say it does, and whether it will work. We will certainly do that.
ANDREW SINCLAIR: Can I just ask you a bit more about this congestion business? Because your concern, from what I gather, is that it will just lead to congestion on other roads. I just wondered if you could explain what your concern is really.
MARIA EAGLE: If we look at what’s happened where we’ve had tolls like the M6 toll, everybody just stayed on the old M6, and they run up onto other roads, many of which aren’t designed for heavy traffic. And so you get displacement, you get more congestion, you get worse air quality. So I think we need to look at whether their proposals would actually work. And I don’t think they’ve been very convincing so far. And so I think we would have a close look at how far they’ve got, what they’re saying, whether or not it would work.
ANDREW SINCLAIR: The Government says it will be a very low toll, about a pound, one pound fifty for every car, the hope being that everyone will want to use the toll.
MARIA EAGLE: The evidence of toll roads, the M6 toll for example, people avoided it. So I think we have to have a look very closely at what they’re proposing, and see whether or not we think it will work. (UNCLEAR) have to do that when we get to the Election. I don’t think that they’re going to have got very far with this by the time we get to the Election. So it will give us an opportunity to have a closer look at what the right way forward is.
ANDREW SINCLAIR: But if a toll road isn’t they way forward, how do you afford the improvements for that road?
MARIA EAGLE: Well look I think we need to have a close look at the entire situation. The thing is they have allocated money for improvements to roads, and new road building. I think we need to do this in the context of the entire programme that they’re proposing, not just deal with a road one at a time. certainly I don’t expect them to have got very far with this, and so that does give an opportunity to have a proper look at the right way forward.
ANDREW SINCLAIR: And so you’re saying that they could easily afford it if they really wanted to.
MARIA EAGLE: No. What I’m saying is I’m not convinced by their proposals, and that I’m perfectly willing to have a proper look at the best way forward for the A14, and some of these ideas more generally, once we get to the Election.
(LIVE)
CHRIS MANN: That’s Maria Eagle, the Shadow Transport Secretary talking to BBC Look East’s Andrew Sinclair. .. Let’s bring in Cambridge’s Labour Party Candidate, that’s Daniel Zeichner, who is live from Brighton at the Party Conference there. Daniel, hello to you.
DANIEL ZEICHNER: Hi Chris.
CHRIS MANN: Let’s try and flesh this out. What exactly is Labour saying? You’d scrap the whole plan, rethink the whole thing?
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