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[00:00:00] resin is very pungant smell of it
[00:00:02] in the air right now, the delta wave
[00:00:05] of COVID
[00:00:06] of devastated India and I think it was the coverage that we did for the BBC at
[00:00:10] the time which brought international attention. What's
[00:00:14] happening here could affect the world's ability to recover from the
[00:00:17] pandemic? We've met with families who've had to do the
[00:00:21] unthinkable. Another person came up and asked if we'd like to buy their
[00:00:25] child. The
[00:00:26] of desperation is hard to put in words. Many
[00:00:29] of the stories. we've had to tell are distressing, they are difficult,
[00:00:33] but that's usually an indicator that they are really important stories
[00:00:37] to
[00:00:37] of tell.
[00:00:44] of
[00:00:49] now on BBC News, comprehensive coverage
[00:00:53] of the day's important national and international news
[00:00:56] stories (newsnight):
[00:01:02] of Two nights of
[00:01:06] violence
[00:01:07] of over housing asylum seekers this time in Norfok. New Prime
[00:01:10] Minister, same local concern. How will the
[00:01:14] government
[00:01:14] respond?
[00:01:20] of
[00:01:27] of
[00:01:35] "good evening, of we are news night
[00:01:37] in live from Broadcasting house with top takes and guests
[00:01:40] each week night.
[00:01:45] a Hello, fear and anger over
[00:01:47] me
[00:01:47] of migrants has sparked fresh unrest this time in
[00:01:51] Norfolk, and the row over the early release scheme is onto
[00:01:55] its fourth day, is Andy Burnham
[00:01:58] already grappling..." the same challenges as his
[00:02:02] multiple predecessors. questions for our guests:
[00:02:06] former
[00:02:07] of conservative minister, Paul Skully, labor MP, Rosie
[00:02:11] Writing, and editor of Mill Media, the local
[00:02:15] journalist champion Yoshi Herman, a
[00:02:18] of champion of of local journalism, said it twice, and Nick is
[00:02:22] here
[00:02:24] of too. Across the UK, people repeatedly
[00:02:27] complain. The
[00:02:28] of government fails to consult them. when housing migrants near their
[00:02:32] homes, this happened under the administrations of all
[00:02:35] the
[00:02:36] of recent seven prime ministers we can still remember. this
[00:02:40] is happening again under Andy Burnham and poses him immediate
[00:02:43] dilemma: let's
[00:02:45] of
[00:02:45] a start with the where. fetford is town in
[00:02:48] Norfolk, recorded in the Doomsday book, but in modern
[00:02:52] times it's on the
[00:02:54] of A-11 and famed for its
[00:02:55] of market and its forest. Nick, what's happening
[00:02:59] there? 'well paddy,
[00:03:01] in it's summer and we've got protests again as we had
[00:03:05] last year, but they are of
[00:03:06] a different nature, so you'll remember those protests was at the bell hotel in
[00:03:10] Essex, was outside hotel, what we have in
[00:03:14] Thatford is unrest outside
[00:03:17] of houses which the protesters believe are housing asylum
[00:03:20] seekers, that is different, now after last year's protest, the
[00:03:24] government pointed out outside the hotel that they had a manifesto
[00:03:28] commitment that they were delivering on'. there it is, end asylum
[00:03:32] hotels saving the
[00:03:34] in tax pair millions of pounds and you look at the figures
[00:03:37] today, the government saying it's brought down the number of hotels from
[00:03:40] 213 in July 2024 to fewer
[00:03:44] of than 170 today, so the government
[00:03:48] has had success in that sense,
[00:03:51] a but you have success and there are potentially consequences
[00:03:55] because they talk about putting people on larger sites, military
[00:03:59] bases, barnam is about a mile
[00:04:02] in away of um from the central Thetford and moving people into
[00:04:06] houses, multi-occupancy houses, and there are
[00:04:10] consequences, interesting. Anna Turley, the home office minister is saying that
[00:04:13] she condemns the behavior in Thatford, but saying
[00:04:16] in that community concerns are central to our immigration reforms, but
[00:04:20] the right to protest must never cross a line into violence, she
[00:04:23] said. Phil Mackey is our BBC man there
[00:04:27] in Thetford this evening, Phil. um, it's very dark
[00:04:31] uh, a bit like the
[00:04:32] mood,
[00:04:36] absolutely, yeah, paddy, I don't - what you can make
[00:04:38] a out behind
[00:04:39] of me, a couple of police vans there, and two blocks of flats either
[00:04:42] side of a Culder sack, on this side there's a
[00:04:46] flat which
[00:04:47] of locals of believe is housing a group of asylum seekers
[00:04:50] of and they've been milling around outside
[00:04:53] of for several hours now, there was one arrest earlier on as well,
[00:04:56] um, but gradually the police presence has increased particular. the last few
[00:05:00] minutes or so there's a drone flying above as well,
[00:05:04] in we've occasionally hurt chance of get them out, but pretty much as nick
[00:05:08] outlined, and as you said in the introduction there, these protests..."
[00:05:12] over the last couple of nights, not just in this part of thatford but elsewhere, have
[00:05:16] been where apartments and flats and houses have been turned into
[00:05:20] HMO's, the locals say they haven't been told this was happening to house
[00:05:23] asylum seekers and this is against the backdrop of protests
[00:05:27] about plans to turn a former RAF base nearby into
[00:05:31] a much bigger base from asylum seekers as well, it's very similar to
[00:05:35] the sorts of things we've seen over the last couple of summers, I've seen them in other parts the
[00:05:39] country as well, I think as you can see... a little bit of
[00:05:43] movement around us at the moment, the suspicion is that if
[00:05:46] there are asylum seekers in that apartment, the police are about to try and get them
[00:05:50] out safely. so i've seen pictures of a police line 30 officers
[00:05:53] last night, i also had reports that locals, some locals
[00:05:57] had entered HMO's, houses in multiple application, can you
[00:06:01] confirm that Phil? that's only
[00:06:05] something that we've heard as well here on the ground, i can't confirm it because there's a
[00:06:09] lot of rumor and speculation, what the northf police has as well as local
[00:06:13] MPs, local politicians of all huges have said that they condemn the violence,
[00:06:17] condemn what's happened, it's the sort of thing where we have seen some
[00:06:21] violence, so bricks, not bricks, sorry, rocks thrown, eggs
[00:06:24] thrown uh, but not much much more than that so far
[00:06:28] and four arrests over three night isn't an awful lot,
[00:06:32] there is a sense of, suppose a bit of a party atmosphere if
[00:06:36] you can call
[00:06:36] it that, whole families have been here tonight, very young children,
[00:06:40] teenages, their parents, even grandparents as well, just milling around, maybe drinking a
[00:06:44] canocide, smoking their vapes, chatting about what's going on,
[00:06:48] talking about the perceived unfairness of what's
[00:06:51] happening, they feel that people are are not getting the houses that
[00:06:55] they're wait been waiting on the list for a long time for, and silum seekers are
[00:06:59] jumping ahead them, and there's a great deal of grievance about
[00:07:02] this here, but until now certainly the mood's been
[00:07:06] quite uh quite quite like I said almost festival, it's
[00:07:10] like a sunny evening in August and people have... come out to see what's going
[00:07:13] on, starting to go home, but the police have arrived in larger numbers now,
[00:07:17] paddy. phil, thank you very much. parts of last
[00:07:20] night's protests did turn violent, there were allegations that some
[00:07:24] protesters entered houses in multiple occupation, as I've mentioned, local
[00:07:28] news reporter Henry Durrend was there, we spoke to him from Thepford earlier about
[00:07:32] what he saw, yesterday night when the second night of protest
[00:07:36] sort of came to the four, I i was there first hand and I saw at
[00:07:40] least 20 men yeah but wearing b
[00:07:43] the clavas running in there up the stairs, if i can speak on the sort of feeling amongst the
[00:07:47] people who have involved, lot them are very defensive about their movements,
[00:07:50] people have said to me, especially about the invents on tuesday where five and moved out, they
[00:07:54] said we see this is victory, if this is what we have to do to get silum seekers
[00:07:58] or what we're thought to be asylum seekers out of our town then this
[00:08:02] is what we'll do, it's very there's a militant atmosphere, but at the same
[00:08:06] time lot them are peaceful, it's not it's not completely
[00:08:09] violent. the MP in the area is
[00:08:13] labor's Terry Germy who was born in
[00:08:16] Thepford. The new police and crime commissioner for the county is
[00:08:20] reforms Colin Sutton. Welcome both
[00:08:24] to you. Can I ask you first Colin, are you
[00:08:27] shocked at violence in
[00:08:29] Fetford? Yeah, I i think I'm a bit
[00:08:33] shocked with the violence. Um, and and obviously condemn the
[00:08:37] violence. There's every right to make
[00:08:39] a peaceful protest, and I understand... why the
[00:08:43] residents of thatford are making these protests, absolutely understand
[00:08:46] that uh, we, Northfork constabulry will
[00:08:50] facilitate peaceful process, but when the line is crossed
[00:08:54] and violence is offered and rocks are thrown at police officers and the police officer was bitten
[00:08:57] last night, then quite obviously the
[00:09:01] police will deal with that firmly as as they should
[00:09:05] do. Terry, do you recognize this is the market town you
[00:09:09] were born in? uh, no, to be... with you, it's
[00:09:13] been really disturbing over the past few days, I uh, I love Fetford,
[00:09:17] I was born here, it's my home, and what we've seen over the last few days
[00:09:20] has frankly been disgusting, and that concern is shared by a
[00:09:24] significant number of people that live in Fedford. were you chased
[00:09:28] yourself? not recently, I mean there's been ongoing
[00:09:31] issues uh for the past couple of months following the announcement about the
[00:09:35] Mod Barnam site, and personally I have come under -
[00:09:39] pursuit from people because of that, uh, this has been bum rumbling
[00:09:43] on for a good few weeks and months now and uh this is just the latest flash
[00:09:47] point in relation to HMOs. Colin, just to clear up, have you been
[00:09:51] critical the MP, because you are the PCC, so you've got to
[00:09:55] roll across the county. Are you critical the
[00:09:57] MP? I'm critical the government, and he's an
[00:10:01] MP who wears the colors the government. Um, I, I don't
[00:10:05] know what people in the government actually expect if
[00:10:08] you put these uh, these illegal immigrants into how. is
[00:10:12] in the middle of housing estates, close to schools, next door to
[00:10:16] people, into communities who have absolutely no say in it, then I
[00:10:20] think it's a pretty reasonable expectation that the people there will not be
[00:10:24] happy about it. and we want to make of us um, you
[00:10:27] know, the fact is that we're getting about a thousand a week
[00:10:31] these uh people coming in in small boats and we're running out
[00:10:35] of places to put them. Terry, let's get hear from
[00:10:38] Terry. I think politicians like Colin Sutten
[00:10:42] and others should be absolutely clear in their condemnation of what's
[00:10:45] happened. We've seen vulnerable people targeted, literally pulled
[00:10:49] from their houses. Local residents in Fepford, Fepford
[00:10:53] residents, particularly those of... ethnic communities living in
[00:10:57] fear at the moment that they are going to be misidentified as asylum
[00:11:00] seekers. we've seen female police officers bitten, others
[00:11:04] attacked. we should be clear that I am proud to be British,
[00:11:08] but my British values mean that I respect the rule of law, and we've not seen
[00:11:12] that, and as a police commissioner for Northford, Colin Sutten and others should be very
[00:11:16] clear about their condemnation. Colin, I condemn the
[00:11:20] violence, as I said earlier on, I do not condemn the protests, I think
[00:11:24] everybody... has the right to make a peaceful protest. I
[00:11:27] understand the protests that are going on in Thatford. I understand
[00:11:31] why the people in Thatford are cross, why they're
[00:11:34] scared and why they want to get onto the streets and show that
[00:11:38] protest. There have been protests of RF Barnam um
[00:11:42] virtually every Sunday since the announcement was made and they have been
[00:11:46] peaceful protest involving the whole community from from
[00:11:49] Thatford who do not want this fear of crime brought
[00:11:53] in amongst their community. And if I can just ask you both finally about
[00:11:57] the base, because Nick was telling us, and so was Phil, this is about
[00:12:00] houses in multiple application, operation which have been targeted,
[00:12:04] there's this question of a military base. Terry, are you opposed
[00:12:08] to the military base? There's a sort of blob on the screen there, I'm sorry, let ask
[00:12:12] you, Colin, are you opposed to the military base being used,
[00:12:16] this is a government policy to use larger spaces rather than
[00:12:20] hotels? I am opposed to
[00:12:24] it if the... 'who are living within the base are either
[00:12:27] bused out to local towns as we've seen with weathersfield and towns
[00:12:31] in essex or loud out, it's about mile and a half into the
[00:12:35] town center from this base, even if the home office do not bust
[00:12:39] them um the the these men and they are all men, unverified,
[00:12:42] undocumented, unvetted men will be walking into thatford,
[00:12:46] i'm against that, i think they should be confined within the base, then
[00:12:50] perhaps that's the best place to put them, and terry, are you opposed to use the
[00:12:54] base - other than hotels, do you think this makes sense?
[00:12:58] i've been really clear from the outset that i know RAF Bunumham
[00:13:01] very well, we've grown up with it in Fetford, there are very clear, legitimate
[00:13:04] reasons why that base is not suitable when it comes to
[00:13:08] infrastructure, sewage impact on the local environment, i've been
[00:13:12] working collaborative with all politicians locally to be clear to the government
[00:13:16] why that base is not suitable. thank you both very much indeed and
[00:13:19] apologies to you watching there was a small technical glitch, but we got
[00:13:23] through that. let's... bring in our panel, Rosie Writing, Paul
[00:13:27] Skully and Yoshi Herman, just to you first, Rosie,
[00:13:31] if I can, I'm just looking at the home office statement which Nick gave
[00:13:34] us, the concerns of communities are central
[00:13:38] to our immigration reforms, well your MP from
[00:13:42] your party says he doesn't want the base used, what
[00:13:46] what mish mash is this, yeah, and Terry knows the area
[00:13:50] better than I do, um, so I'm not going to dispute the
[00:13:54] things. that he said, and it is right that local people
[00:13:58] have a say any sort of changes that they they see in the
[00:14:02] area, but I will say the level of of violence that we've
[00:14:06] heard, particularly police officers being attacked in that way,
[00:14:09] it's just not okay, and it's not what we do as a country,
[00:14:13] there is a place for peaceful process, but that level of
[00:14:17] violence is on our streets is not okay. okay, it's a bit of swerve, but
[00:14:21] I'll ask you Paul, does it look to you like the concerns of
[00:14:25] immunity is essential to our immigration reforms has happened with any government,
[00:14:29] including the one that you liked? no, and it it feels like we gone full circle,
[00:14:33] because actually what the conservative government did uh when I was there, they
[00:14:36] were, they put people in bases, there was Edward Lee campaigning against RF
[00:14:40] Scampton in a Lincolnshire, there were people campaigning against the Manson
[00:14:44] airport being used for this, and which is why they thought it's too expensive, and they
[00:14:48] were putting people in one area, they then move to the hotels, that became even more
[00:14:52] expensive, and it feels now labour government are going for. circle and putting them back
[00:14:56] into that, you either have hotels or HMO's where you've got
[00:14:59] people in the community that are often single mails and these kind of
[00:15:03] things and it doesn't sit well with the community, or you're pushing them all in
[00:15:07] one place an RAF base, which is incredibly difficult to might be slightly
[00:15:11] further away, but as you've heard if they're being busted around or or
[00:15:15] that um big crowd that's difficult to manage, I mean
[00:15:19] it's
[00:15:19] a real balancing act, I mean if
[00:15:20] Shabana Mahmoud were here she would say what she's trying to do is reduce
[00:15:24] what? calls pull factors and that if it is assumed that you come
[00:15:28] to this country and you stay a hotel that might be attractive, so that's why the
[00:15:32] home office uses phrases like they're trying to not have hotels
[00:15:36] and have basic. accommodation, but basic accommodation
[00:15:40] means military bases, they're therefore very unpopular local
[00:15:43] communities or houses of multiple occurancy, they're very
[00:15:47] unpopular, so the goal now is reduce the pull factors, but there
[00:15:51] are consequences, sort the back, sort the backlog of asynum out and do
[00:15:54] what Europe are doing and actually um outsourcing this to third
[00:15:57] countries, and Yoshi, does it look to you like Andy
[00:16:01] Burnham is just another prime minister with new name, new
[00:16:05] glasses, the same problem? same problem, but
[00:16:09] funny enough, I remember when he was mayor of Greater Manchester and I was covering up in
[00:16:12] Manchester, he was critical the home office
[00:16:16] repeatedly for dispersing too many asylum seekers
[00:16:19] into poorer areas the north, and he said, well, it's
[00:16:23] wealthy areas that should take more, the home office system is not working, these contracts
[00:16:27] aren't working, so now the interesting thing would be, now he's in government, what is
[00:16:31] his plan to deal with this, because there are not many local communities around the country who are very
[00:16:35] accepting of having large numbers of asylum. so if you give them too much of
[00:16:39] local voice, many them will say no. Andy burn was a big believer in
[00:16:42] devolution, but are you going to devolve that kind of decision? Rosie, this is
[00:16:46] exactly where the rubber meets the road, your new man who ditched
[00:16:50] the old man has got the same problem, now he's got to listen to local
[00:16:54] communities, and they say we don't want
[00:16:56] our our area used, thanks. Yeah, of course, this problem hasn't gone away
[00:17:00] overnight, no, but he's worse because he's he's empowering the communities, and they're
[00:17:04] saying push off, but I think partly the reason.
[00:17:07] shabana has been kept in the home office is to make sure that we can get
[00:17:11] through these immigration reforms, nick mentioned the pool factor,
[00:17:15] but there's also making sure that we're working with other countries at like the
[00:17:19] one-in-one out agreement with France and on keeping the border
[00:17:23] secure as well, there's lots of different moving pieces here and things that we are
[00:17:27] addressing and reforming, we know this is issue, hear it from my
[00:17:30] constituent, people want to have a immigration system that is
[00:17:33] secure, firm and fair, and i think it's with Shabana in that job.
[00:17:37] "That's what we're going to see. Yoshi, you spent lifetime
[00:17:41] studying Andy Burnham. You are basically Manchester a
[00:17:44] stick. Um, is this going to sort of expose
[00:17:48] him? Do you think that the clash between
[00:17:51] Manchesterism, local solutions, and national government
[00:17:54] saying, here you are, you can have a thousand people who've just arrived in Kent,
[00:17:58] is this going to expose Andy Burnham? Well, one the briefings was that Andy
[00:18:02] Burnham felt that these private contracts
[00:18:06] that deal with..." the asylum seeker dispersal were not the right way to go, and
[00:18:10] it should be handled by local councils. there are a lot of local councils who
[00:18:14] don't want that extra thing to have to deal with, because as we've seen on the news tonight, it's a very, very
[00:18:18] complicated issue to deal with. i don't know if it's going to expose him, but i think one
[00:18:22] the big challenges for any burdom is to prove that the British
[00:18:26] state can get things done. there's a backlog as you mentioned Paul,
[00:18:30] can the government get through it. in Manchester, the whole success the city has been
[00:18:33] based on getting through the work and getting things done, getting things moving. and that
[00:18:37] you're absolutely right and but the thing is that you know devolution, I'm a big fan of devolution
[00:18:41] myself, but when you're talking about these kind of issues, we talk about my street,
[00:18:45] my
[00:18:45] my airbase, everybody sits there and say yes we should have more
[00:18:49] disbursal in diff and every other area apart from mine, and that's where it
[00:18:53] becomes really difficult, and this is I'm not pretending this is easy
[00:18:57] solution, buse you you you fluffed it, your party fluffed it, you said stop the
[00:19:00] vote, Rishi Sunak said I should never have said stop, he had more boats than
[00:19:04] when he when he started and when he said that bit, 'he was right,
[00:19:08] the first absolutely, I'm not going to say it's perfect, I mean it's uh, I'm no longer there
[00:19:12] clearly, and uh, I'm not saying it's perfect, but I'm just wondering the
[00:19:16] viewer, the viewer has had every prime minister, we haven't got any prime minister, which is why every
[00:19:20] viewer and the protesters are really angry, what we've got to make
[00:19:23] sure that we don't stray into the violence, and I equally, as I think we all do,
[00:19:27] condemn the violence, but we got to make sure we don't stray into
[00:19:31] that populist area, protest, have your say, but we
[00:19:35] as as well the politicians here'. to actually come up with usable
[00:19:39] solutions? oh yeah, and I do think partly the reason that we're in this
[00:19:43] place is because that backlog was so big, I mean under the last government there was
[00:19:47] a hotel in the town um next to Kettering, that's not there
[00:19:50] anymore, we have started to process those claims, we have not
[00:19:54] putting our head in the sand when it comes to this issue, we've acknowledged from
[00:19:58] the very beginning since walking in in 2024 that this is something that we want to
[00:20:02] address, and also Nick, as we came into the studio tonight, you said
[00:20:05] Paddy, there's a bit of news. tickling from the conservative party
[00:20:09] sort of trying to make new policy tonight? yes, announcement they're going to do
[00:20:13] tomorrow that we've learned about in the last hour or so, which looks pretty significant. here's the
[00:20:17] headline: conservative conservatives to end social
[00:20:21] housing for foreign nationals, so they will end the current
[00:20:24] social housing tendencies for non- EU foreign nationals and
[00:20:28] end all new social housing tendencies for foreign
[00:20:31] national. they're saying there's around about 230,000
[00:20:35] households currently in social house. that will become
[00:20:38] ineligible under this policy, freeing homes for British families as
[00:20:42] the tenencies turn over. here's how it would work, any person
[00:20:46] with with or without children who is not a UK Irish
[00:20:50] or EU citizen would lose their entitlement
[00:20:54] outright, for all future new social housing
[00:20:57] tenancies, only UK nationals would be eligible, all
[00:21:01] other nationalities, including EU citizens, would be
[00:21:04] ineligible for social housing, and this is what
[00:21:08] they're summing up the policy, saying social housing is the most valuable thing the British
[00:21:12] state has to give, it is heavily subsidized, it's desperately
[00:21:15] scarce, and once tendency is granted it can last a lifetime.
[00:21:19] your... nodding, do you see what kemy ben looks up to? yeah, I think it's a really interesting policy, I
[00:21:23] mean you got devil's always in the details in these and what happens to the people that are
[00:21:27] displaced if they're losing their entitlement, are they get being evicted
[00:21:30] or devil, absolutely, so this
[00:21:34] is the first time I'm seeing it, but what is interesting, we know there is a shortage of
[00:21:37] supply in general housing, but there's absolutely scarcity of
[00:21:41] supply in social housing, so actually making sure that social housing is using as
[00:21:45] effectives as possible is an interesting proposal, yeah obviously just
[00:21:48] hearing of this and... shockingly, I agree with the statement
[00:21:52] there in the value of social housing, and that is why we need to build
[00:21:56] more social housing. I think this policy, it
[00:22:00] might grab headlines for the conservative party, but it is not
[00:22:04] addressing the root cause that just is not enough social housing
[00:22:08] in this country, partly because their legacy, and that's why I've
[00:22:12] been so pleased to see Andy talk about addressing the housing crisis
[00:22:15] and building social housing, if we just think the news night viewer exhausted clutching
[00:22:19] the... hip flask, yoshi, immigration was part the Brexit
[00:22:23] referendum 10 years ago,
[00:22:27] and we still seeing new towns with unusual levels
[00:22:31] of violence. Do we rightly think that the system, whoever
[00:22:35] runs it, the system has let down the
[00:22:38] viewer? Yeah, I think so, and it's one of those issues where I think
[00:22:42] a lot of people look at it and think, if the state can't fix this,
[00:22:46] which feels like a relatively basic thing to fix, then then what are they doing?
[00:22:50] sort of thing, they can't do pot holes either, so they actually the argument is
[00:22:54] that that that the pro the state can't do anything, yeah, exactly, and I think that's
[00:22:57] what Andy Burnham has to show is that he can get things going. I mean, on the
[00:23:01] social housing one, it's interesting to see the conservatives in a sense, Andy Buurnam's on
[00:23:05] holiday and the conservatives are trying to grab social housing as one their
[00:23:08] issues, when really it was a burnum issue, wasn't it? he said we're going to do the
[00:23:12] biggest program of councer house building since the second world war, and as soon as he goes
[00:23:16] away, the conservatives are in and grabbing that issue, I think it's fascinated.
[00:23:20] I think something I would I would observe though, when Andy Burnam was the mayor of Greater
[00:23:24] Manchester, we were not building lot of social housing, the vast majority of
[00:23:28] housing that was going out was private housing, we became known as the neoliberal city, and
[00:23:32] now Andy Burnam says he's anti-neoliberalism and he's all about social housing, so I think
[00:23:36] it's just going to be interesting to see is the Andy Burnham that we've seen
[00:23:39] recently, the one that hates neoliberalism, the one that's all in favor of
[00:23:43] building an enormous number of council houses, is that really the version we're going to get
[00:23:47] in government or is it he going to rule the... roughly like you
[00:23:50] ruled Manchester a much more sort of pragmatic center ground kind of way. Well, there's a
[00:23:54] bit of a through line to the last topic that I'd like everyone to
[00:23:58] comment on, which is the row that is growing over the early release of
[00:24:02] prisoners, emergency measure first introduced to stop the
[00:24:06] total collapse the criminal justice system. No one wants that,
[00:24:10] but the issue is who to release and when. The government's planning to release
[00:24:14] around 500 offenders in England, Wales early an
[00:24:17] effort to make space in overcrowded jail. Andy Burnham's now said he wants
[00:24:21] an urgent review to identify any grooming gam
[00:24:25] members who may be freed under his watch. Nick, it's
[00:24:29] an interesting reminder that grooming gang jailed
[00:24:33] people were jailed under different part the law, well somewhere. So Andy
[00:24:36] Burnham, as we know when he became prime minister, make clear he was very uncomfortable about the early
[00:24:40] release scheme. He did review and early this week he announced that
[00:24:44] number of people on various fences uh would be excluded from the
[00:24:48] scheme. One the groups were people. convicted of grooming gang
[00:24:51] offenses, anyone who was convicted before the
[00:24:54] 2003 sexual offenses act under this, was convicted under
[00:24:58] 1956 sexual offenses act, and that was indecent to
[00:25:02] saw, that is not captured by the exclusion from
[00:25:06] the early release scheme, that was revealed by the Times last night, they
[00:25:10] found number of examples, Kenny Vedenock wrote to the prime minister,
[00:25:14] prime minister said Downing Street said today, there is an urgent review looking into
[00:25:17] this, the aim is to ensure... that these people
[00:25:21] would be excluded from the early release scheme, but they have to
[00:25:25] sort of take it in stages, so stage one is there is
[00:25:28] review, the second stage is to identify the
[00:25:32] offenders, and the third stage, if it's deemed appropriate,
[00:25:36] is to exclude these offenders from the early release
[00:25:40] scheme. Rosie, you must be very uncomfortable to be part the
[00:25:43] party that is releasing all these people, what I would
[00:25:47] be uncomfortable is if I thought that... that
[00:25:50] tomorrow or next week someone in Kettering would be
[00:25:54] arrested for serious crime and they weren't convicted because there wasn't
[00:25:58] space enough do you pin that on the tour yes I do, but I'm not
[00:26:01] here
[00:26:02] to I... to go over the conservative, well I'm asking you to, that
[00:26:05] that he's representing the party that ran the country, that had the
[00:26:09] prisons, yeah, obviously no one can blame you for having full prison, yeah,
[00:26:13] and you know it's deeply frustrating that the conservatives had on their manifesto that they were going
[00:26:17] to build all these prison places and they never did it, and that is why we're in, that's
[00:26:21] in why the
[00:26:22] we're places, they increase prison places, what they didn't do is build prisons, I mean and
[00:26:26] whether there's all manner of debate about that, because we're talking about
[00:26:30] asylum seekers, who wants a prison next to them so... "it takes forever to do
[00:26:33] that, and we just didn't do that. Yoshi, it seems like it's taken Andy Burnham
[00:26:37] four days to get a grip on what the actual policy
[00:26:41] he he had it means, is it an, is it his first omni shambles?
[00:26:45] It's not an omni shambles and I think he's politically been more deft than his
[00:26:49] predecessor in saying we're going to do something and we're going to make some kind of change. The
[00:26:52] question for me would be, given that this was such a well-known problem, this has been coming
[00:26:56] down the track for months, did Andy Burnham and his team have a
[00:27:00] plan, did they actually have..." policy, well, don't tell me no,
[00:27:04] because that was Kier Starmer's problem, he did, he spent years and didn't have a plan, the slight
[00:27:08] unraveling the detail might suggest that they didn't
[00:27:11] have a plan ready to go, and now the question is, do they
[00:27:15] have a plan for these other policy areas that they want to legislate in? so there you are,
[00:27:19] it's all very well changing your prime minister, but it's the same problem we
[00:27:23] saw, we was always going to run into this, he's not the
[00:27:26] Messiah, look, the challenges the country faces are difficult, and
[00:27:30] you're right, the challenges haven't changed overnight. because we've changed prime minister, but
[00:27:34] I do think that Andy Burnham is taking people with him on that
[00:27:38] journey, he's communicating with people a way that is explaining why we're
[00:27:41] making the decisions we're making, and I think that's what the public want right
[00:27:45] now. To be fair to Andy Burnham, his premiership happened really
[00:27:49] quickly, and he was in the access talks, him, Lou Hague, James Pernell, his chief of
[00:27:53] staff from the cabinet secretary in these access talks, they couldn't do
[00:27:56] everything in his favor, to criticize Andy Burnham, he
[00:28:00] wouldn't tell the cabinet secretary who his new... cabinet ministers were going to
[00:28:03] be, so that meant that Alex Norris who's the new law
[00:28:06] chancellor, did not sit down with the permanent secretary the Ministry of Justice and
[00:28:10] saying can we work this through? can I ask you all, because it seems to
[00:28:14] me there's a through line listening to you all, which is so many these problems were
[00:28:18] inherited, is Andy Burnham the prime minister to
[00:28:22] sell a version of solution to the public? Paul, yeah, in terms
[00:28:26] of sales, yeah, absolutely, it reminds me of when Boris came out and mayor of London
[00:28:30] and but the but the scrutiny is going to get for. is very very different
[00:28:34] so salesman yes and i
[00:28:35] like the optimism, but let's see the um let's see the
[00:28:38] substance. yes, i don't just think he is a person to sell the
[00:28:42] change the country needs to the public, i think he's a person to actually
[00:28:46] change the country so people really really feel it and i know that's what people are
[00:28:50] crying out for. yeah, look, he's very good at
[00:28:53] communicating story and making things part of a wider story
[00:28:57] that
[00:28:57] that that reveals his his values and the values he wants in the country. i think he'll be really good
[00:29:01] at that. "I think what we're talking about tonight on various issues is he is
[00:29:05] inheriting really, really difficult things, they are much more complicated things
[00:29:09] than he ever had as mayor of Greater Manchester, and the country will ultimately care, as Rosie
[00:29:13] said, can he fix the problems? So I mean it's awful to say to you who's
[00:29:17] made so much to try and make Manchester coverage better and do everything,
[00:29:20] but basically what you're telling us is Manchester's Manchester, it's now
[00:29:24] he's he's meeting national problems, prisons,
[00:29:28] immigration, and it's not the same as running a bus.
[00:29:31] Well, well..." "he did very well with the buses and I think Andy Burnan was on the whole
[00:29:35] very successful mayor of Great Manchester, but I think running any city region
[00:29:39] is totally different kettle of fish from running the country, and within
[00:29:43] a few days of becoming prime minister, if he wasn't already aware of that, he's obviously very
[00:29:47] aware of it now. Can I just do like he has been in the cabinet before, and there's
[00:29:51] things like reforming social care, which he started as health and social care
[00:29:54] secretary and has picked up almost straight away as prime minister, so I I
[00:29:58] don't, I don't, thank you, I'm glad you got that in, I hope you something said. you
[00:30:02] wanted tonight, it's been lovely to meet you, here's the papers a quick scamper, the
[00:30:06] telegraph, tories to end social housing for foreigners,
[00:30:10] uh, nick what's already done that uh, the daily express, we're failing
[00:30:13] sex scgan victims once again, says the express, the guardian,
[00:30:17] cambridge unleash to grotesque racism with arday appointment, says
[00:30:21] the paper in quotes and the sun, i the web,
[00:30:25] tom and zender tie the not again,
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