advertisements. that is what pharmaceutical companies want to do, sell their products. they put some amount of work on research. we would like them to do more. we would also like to be able to partner with them more. i am not critical of them, i just think we need to partner purred with regard to michigan and being able to sue, i cannot comment on michigan politics because i am not aware of it. and that antibiotic is an extraordinarily good drug to be used against methicillin- resistant staph. we want to keep in reserve so that when you do have a resistant microbes, you have the big gun. host: when you and i were young, drug companies were not allowed to advertise. what has this done for society? guest: what happens is that you get pressure from the people,

the community, the public, on their physicians rather than leaving up to the judgment of the physician. as a physician and public health official, i think overall it would be best not to try and get into the head of the general public, to give them the opportunity to pressure a physician to give them a drug that may not be best for them. they should direct advertisements towards the physicians to educate physicians about the properties and risks and benefits of the drug, rather than out there so that people can come and shot with their physicians for the drug -- shop with their physicians for the drug t. host: we always appreciate you coming here. we hope you have a great thanksgiving. we will be here tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern time, so if you want to start today with politics, join us for "washington journal." have a great holiday with your

family. h[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> you are watching c-span, greeted as a public service. coming up next, republican governors offer advice to some recently elected counterparts. then prime minister cameron answers questions. then we will head to the white house or the president will offer a pardon to two thanksgiving turkeys.

a deadline to make an emergency gulf of mexico oil spill claim is over. the biggest trader of the fund is laying out more details about what happens next. kenneth feinberg will talk today about reporters about how the process will move forward. so far, about $2 billion has been paid out to about 125,000 people and businesses. the house and senate return to their lame duck sessions next monday. the house will gavel in at 2:00 p.m. engines for charles rangel of new york. federal spending for the remainder of the year and the expiring bush administration tax cuts. the senate returns monday at 2:00 p.m. eastern expanding the oversight of food oversight and recalls.

pending, federal spending and the bush tax cut that expire in january. follow the house on c-span. here is some programs appearing on c-spann thursday. jeff bridges discusses hunger. lawyers discussed the impact of john paul stevens. bill clinton presents the liberty award metal to tony blair. things giving day on c-span. from barack obama to george washington. learn more about the nation's presidents at the c-span library. searchable and all free. it is washington your way. and now governor's offer their

advice to their newly elected counterpart spirit we'll hear from haley barbour, bobby jindal, and christopher christie. they spoke last week. this was about one hour. governor chris christie of new jersey, governor bob mcdonnell from virginia. bill is probably -- he has been

an offer, a communicator, he hosts his own television show, was the secretary of education under ronald reagan. we are thrilled that bill has taken the time to be here with us. please welcome dr. bill bennett, our moderator. [applause] >> are you kidding? you were thrilled i'm here with this lineup? i was once in a room with ronald reagan and margaret thatcher for about a minute and a said, adults can leave. it's a thrill and a great and exciting day for me. when we came on, you might have noticed the power sweeping coming around the left side. the new fashioned look called bookie she -- bulky chic.

we are a great endeavors party and a big party. [laughter] this may have been the biggest republican victory ever. the governors, a wonderful new group of governors we have here. an extraordinary victory. haley barbour said things are going to get better two years ago. you were right. the was brief discussion of changing the name of the republican party. now there is a discussion on the other side to changing their name to republican-right, or republican-left, as the case may be. good policy is good politics.

these are leaders appear. my job is to introduce them. the governors of the elected officials closest to the people. the employment policies that to accuse the difference of solid republican ideas can make. these people have real jobs. real jobs. we'll hear from six people who made a difference in their state, putting ideas into action. they have experienced good politics because of their policy. there will speak in this order unless they decide to break through. it is up to them. governor haley barbour knows how important the nexus between politics and policies are. we'll hear from governor bobby jindal, who i think both parties recognized as one of the sharpest policy mines in the nation and is doing an unbelievable job in turning louisiana around.

bobby jindal in motion, we all saw that during the bp crisis. we will also hear from tim pawlenty, a governor who was brought common-sense conservatism to a very blue state. sensible ideas in education and has developed the idea of sam's club republicanism. we will learn a lot from governor ed daniels. he is a real example that good policy ideas make. he was up for election in a very tough year, 2008. he won reelection by a mere 17 points. we can only wonder what 2008 would have been like if we covered at the level like governor daniel said. mike mcdonald -- bob mcdonnell -- sorry. he is another popular governor of the swing state. he has virginia back where virginia was supposed to be.

when tim was leaving office, his last budget would be balanced. thanks to government.com the tax hikes never happened. he came in, balanced the budget without raising taxes. he found over $1 billion by doing an audit of the virginia department of transportation. lastly, we're joined by governor chris christie. heartthrob, phenomenon, youtube sensation. if i ask the right question, we'll get another 100,000 views on youtube. there is a recent chris christie is so popular, much more than the president. he tells it like it is. there is nothing quite like authenticity. there is nothing like the real thing. you always know where you stand with governor christie. that is something the american people, people of new jersey

deeply appreciate. let's get started. it is an honor to be here. governor haley barbour. >> thank you, bill. the descriptions of us -- built thought when we were talking about the party of the big 10, we were talking about his tailor. >> i started something i should not have started. >> were honored to have served in the reagan administration. good politics -- that is where we all learned this. ronald reagan stood for the policy that the politics is good policies. don't try to do what makes people happy. to what is right. people want you to do what is right. that has never been more truth than today.

today, the american people understand the country is going in the wrong direction. the policies of the obama administration are catastrophic. they understand this election was a repudiation of those policies. i think republicans need to be able to distinguish between disliking the president -- america wants our president to succeed. the american people know the policies of this administration and the pelosi-reid congress are terrible. they know all of the spending has hurt the economy rather than help the economy. you cannot spend yourself rich. your family cannot do it. the government cannot do it. these 1.3 trillion deficits -- $1.3 trillion deficits in the

obama budgets. when we were in the white house, that was the budget. they have deficits today as big as the budget was not so very long ago. the american people know you don't pay back the debt created by those deficits -- our children encroaching -- our children and grandchildren will be paying back that debt. saddling them with $45,000 of debt for every person in the united states. the american people know all that did not work. it has made it harder to create jobs. obamacare, the tax increase around the corner in january, the federal financial reform statute has created uncertainty. how can a business person in the walking hire more people went

the do not know what the effects of mandatory health care is going to be? when the do not know what their taxes are going to be? they do not know what their tax break is going today? what the financial rules are going to be about borrowing money. all that uncertainty is making government the enemy of the job creation. i think we republicans need to understand something that the average american has already figured out. the other side want bigger government and has made a smaller economy. we need to be for a bigger economy accurate and that means smaller growth. that is the question the american people have come to understand and come to grips with. what does that mean for the new republican governor's tax do what you said you were going to do. i promise you, that is good advice. do what you said you were going

to do. when people say, it is too hard. people cannot tolerate cuts. this is going to hurt services. anyone who thinks there is one department that cannot save money does not know what the hell they are talking about. there is no department -- the highway patrol, the crime lab, the economic development -- there's nobody in state government in mississippi that cannot save money. they have had to save money over the last three years. be prepared to do that, and i think you will be enormously successful. >> thank you, governor barbour. >> i want to echo everything governor barbour said. they both made jokes about their size. he joked he would have to lose 40 pounds. they said i had to gain 40 pounds before wanted to run for governor of louisiana.

i want to talk about the policies of the governors have to implement. there are restrictions that washington does not make. we do not print money. we have to balance our budget. our constitution takes a super majority vote to try to raise taxes. we're not raising taxes. it takes a super majority vote to grow the budget faster than a combination of inflation and population growth. we have line item veto power to go and take some of that wasteful spending. this is maybe one of the most important things we can't teach washington, d.c. i have made the suggestion -- we used to pay farmers not to grow crops. maybe we contain -- it is not an original thought.

mark twain said it best. our wallets are safer when they are in recess. we're facing fiscal challenges. we cut our spending. this year's budget is 40% smaller than last year's budget. our overall spending is down 26%. we have eliminated over 6000 government positions. we have privatized services. good policy is good politics. when i was campaigning for governor, i was up front with our people in louisiana. washington was going down the wrong path with all this taxing and borrowing and spending. i made it clear that everything we're going to do was centered around one priority. louisiana has been exporting our greatest asset, our people.

i made it clear to our people our number-one priority was to create a faster-growing private sector economy so our kids and grandchildren could grow up at home. it is important we cut spending and cut government to have a stronger private sector. we had a special session on ethics. you have a lot momentum coming in. you are in your honeymoon period. it is important that we started with ethics reform. i won't bore you with all the jokes. half-hour people were under water and the other half work under indictment on alert governor christie tell you about new jersey politics. we have passed dozens of ethics

laws. we went from 44th worst to second best in public disclosure. top five in the integrity index. over 900 business leaders across the country. we cracked down on corruption. i talked about -- this was not just about symbolism or ranking. it was about sending a strong message. we were told, we could not do it. this is been the way business has been done for decades. we said it is a new day in louisiana. we cut a bunch of taxes. the largest income tax cut. we get rid of business taxes on debt, it equipment. it was our second special session.

i made the commitment that we are not raising taxes. the uncertainty is keeping businesses across our country from investing our capital. we wanted to send a strong message. we welcome business investment in louisiana. we revamped our work force training programs. one of the top concerns is finding a skilled worker. we have the top ranked program, the top training program in the country. steal ideas and examples from other states. georgia has a great work force training program. rick perry said competition among the states is a great thing. we can learn from each other. that has been a great benefit to our state. our workers will be ready to work on the first day.

we have continued to improve education. we have more of our students and charter schools than any other city in america. we have a scholarship program to give meaningful choice to many parents. we have put discipline back in the classroom. we lose good teachers because of a lack of discipline in the classroom. discipline is the number one reason we're losing good teachers. we have strong accountability programs. we have passed a law of red tape and bureaucracy so that our schools could innovate. we had invested in infrastructure. we have invested in roads. it is about results. we had to make tough choices. governors will have to make tough choices to cut their budgets. we were able to show these

charges were made for a reason. we did these to create a strong er private economy. our unemployment rates was -- the best job performance in the south economic performance during the recession. good policy is good politics even as you make tough choices. as long as you explain to your voters why you are making those choices. you were making those cuts so they are going to have better- paying jobs. you kind of expect people to come up and start complaining by the third year. some people did not like the cuts. it would prefer you protect their programs. i have been amazed. the last time louisiana faced a recession this strong was back 's.the 19th 80

we were one of three states in recession. wasn't louisiana growing? this time it is different. -- why wasn't louisiana growing? you have to make the tough choices. family budgets, personal budgets, and businesses, small businesses -- that would be rised. we agree better-paying jobs in the private sector. i agree with the premise of the panel that good policy is good politics. it is important to remind your people what you are making these tough choices. the alternative is the d.c. approach. no state has spent their way into prosperity. some have tried. good policy is good politics.

>> thank you. >> thank you for your great leadership over all these years and decades. we're honored you're here to moderate this panel. i am glad all of our other guests are here. i hope in this panel you see the benefits of the support involved in rga. it has been an honor to serve. i think the election of 2010 affirms the wisdom and common sense of the american people. i think the country basically said to obama and nancy pelosi that we do not like what you're doing. we're telling you to knock it off and we're putting it under new management. all of us like to talk about freedom. some of our friends in the medium snicker at that and say,

it is an old word in doesn't mean much anymore. i think it means as much or more than ever before. when we talk about the scope of government and the reach of government into the lives of america and the lives of our economy, this issue of freedom matters a lot. we sometimes define threats to freedom externally. we're worried about what happened in north korea, as we should be. every day there are internal threats to our freedom to come in the form of school board decisions, county decisions, the federal government decisions. as the push into space and take over space that priestley was reserved for the private market, the crowd and discourage the american spirit and freedom. as they pushed into space that used to be reserved for families and neighborhoods and charity and places of worship,

the pushout and crowd out the american spirit. as they pushed into the private market and do things to discourage of entrepreneurs and dreamers and innovators, the chronic and discourages the american spirit. so this issue of defending freedom and raising it up and educating people about it and applying it to the policy changes and opportunities of our time is important. i think the american people understand that. i think the american people responded to that with the results of this election. i think if the number one issue is the economy and the jobs, don't go to washington d.c. and ask the politicians, most of whom have not worked in the private sector, what are the things we can do to stimulate private sector jobs in the country. the best thing we can do is to ask the people who do that.

ask them. do things to encourage me. to not do things to discourage me. do things to make a more enticing, take risks, and grow. make our cost competitive. when it comes to taxes and regulation and insurance and tort reform and energy costs and permitting, and regulatory burdens, make all of that letter, not have here. one last topic. the issue of education reform and accountability performance. we have a situation where we cannot be successful country without people being educated and skilled and can access the

economy of today and tomorrow. we have 1/3 of our kids dropping out of high school. we have children who are not able to access the economy of today and tomorrow. we have the highest scores in the country. the story is different if you come from an area of concentrated disadvantage. >> it must be you. someone has a low score. do we need to make an announcement next turn off your blackberry. summer like invaders from mars -- it sounds like invaders from mars. >> we have challenges like all states do. we have various rankings. the cnbc business ranking.

minnesota used to be near the bottom. we got near the top 10. we have to make sure it is measured by government spending. we're not going to be a successful country because we are not going to be a successful country because we are the cheapest place in the world. we need to be more competitive. we have to be the smartest country. we have to have the workforce that is innovative and productive and collaborative and a skilled, and we don't have that for all of our citizens. in our state, we have been raising standards. will the first in the nation to have a charter school spirit we require kids to left algebra 1. you also need to have physics. we came in 16th or 17th in the world as a state testing. we took that same test a couple

of years ago and which came in fifth and sixth in the world in science and math. math was an improvement in a decade. those kind of changes are good policies and politics. thanks for being here. [applause] >> now some relaxed and homespun wisdom from our friend, governor mitch daniels. i'm sorry. you would not give me any money at all when you were the direct of omb. mitch daniels, the man on the motorcycle. >> i forgot what the rich vein of humor there was. a very savvy person -- as it tell me about bobby.

[no audio] [laughter] i'm just struck by a moment of enormous opportunity this is for all the principles, to be expressed in a way that matters most, in intangible action and results that come from it. i'm so excited for all our new colleagues. anyone who was a chance to serve. there is clearly an appreciation for the need for rebalancing between the sectors and economies and it has always been there. it will be uphill for anybody who flinches from the job of challenging spending and

challenging government intrusiveness. it is a time in which the skepticism about washington -- i would say the reciprocal confidence in the greater trust worthiness and effectiveness of stay -- it has never been wider. people will be receptive and supportive of actions taken by people in jobs like ours. i am still thrilled. one of the positive aspects -- i heard people talk about the 10th amendment for the first time since high school. a lot of americans -- most of our judges forgot to word "10." people have begun to speak pretty knowledgeably about the importance of freedom and the

importance to fidelity of the original concept that the states should be more vigorous. there is a chance that i have not seen in six years to challenge it credibly and maybe effectively, especially if we do it together, washington's dictates. i would say on the basis of some experience -- i think our fellow citizens have never been so conscious of the need for government to be pursued on a limited basis. and what haley said, i would echo for the new governors. you are going to have a field day, especially if you fall the democrats. -- especially if you follow the

democrats. the fruit hangs low. it is a target-rich environment, especially if you come in after people with a different outlook about what it should do and what it should spend and go for it. you will find in every corner -- states have been to the rear of the last two or three you will never be done in stretching taxpayer dollars for i would urge you to remember americans want government to be more limited. that does not mean inactive. within the sphere which you will define for yourself of what direction do -- for what government should do, i think people expect vigor and they will expect action. it will not suffice.

the better half action items that will improve the lives of everyday citizens. i would urge you to check your rhetoric in the actions of the least fortunate people in your state and those who are only on the first rung of life's latter. there is a huge opportunity -- of life's ladder. for anythink it will be of the folks who just got elected, the best crop of young talent seen in a long time. >> thank you. there was an outpouring of wisdom about politics or even anything the world had ever seen, including fifth-century athens. we have virginia back. bob mcdonnell.

>> thank you. thanks for supporting the rga. we're celebrate this success because of all the help you give us. bill, thanks for and seeing this -- emceeing this. we appreciate that. i realize in our campaign that it was all about jobs and the economy. we started -- my first bumper sticker was "bob for jobs." i thought effort by remember that on election day, we had a good chance of winning. i thought it would be great. wichita that around the campaigns. this election cycle -- driving

policies and then governing like -- getting results was what people wanted. it was a round of job creation, economic development, and things of that work you need to the state. after getting elected, i called bobby jindal and some of the other distinguished governors and said, what worked well for you? how do transmit with the translator policies in the campaign? how did you get them done? it was helpful. it is evident from this climate in this election cycle, with congress been in the lofty numbers of about 20% approval rating, people were tired of partisan fighting. the wanted solutions, ideas, and results. we saw republican governors running on ideas and was thought democrats running away from their ideas. they did not run health care,

cap and trade and the free enterprise system. they ran on attacking republicans on character and other things. it was for much the contrast and the republicans were the pro- idea party in this election cycle. i think it is why we had success with the 23 new ceo's in the states at this meeting. there was a book that talked about the idea of big ideas, and if you paint a big dish and you put the policy you need to it, and people will fall. i think that is important. i've tried to set a goal -- and people will follow. we will invest in america to lead -- we will be the energy capital of the east coast.

we set about turning the first session of trying to get those things done. for most of the governors, the first session, there is a limit to what you can do. the main thing is keeping the main thing, the main thing to correct the main thing is to keep the main thing the main. >> will hear from him later today. -- we will hear from a later today. try to reform our education system. as you pointed up, with their rid of the $2 billion tax increase, we balance the budget by cutting spending and ended up the fiscal year with about $40 million surplus. these principles work. a couple of governors have mentioned -- there has not been a time in america in modern history where people are willing to accept more tax cuts and more

pushing the envelope to come up with innovative solutions than right now. they realize that with credit cards and the business environment, you cannot spend more than you have or you will go broke. running these campaigns and governing as a fiscal conservatives actually works. when we cut education and health care spending in virginia, everybody said there will be 70,000 teachers unemployed and children crying in the street. it did not happen. people manage their resources better. those ideas surrounding fiscal accountability really will drive our governorships for the next couple of years. we said we needed to do a better job competing with other states in this marketplace of ideas. i knew hallie baby -- haley barbour and bobby jindal were

good and getting business to the state. we develop incentives to cash in on that promise that we would be all about jobs. 10% unemployment nationally, 7% in virginia cut 3000 people in our state unemployed. it was unacceptable -- all the trouble we did showed us it was the key issue. focusing on all those things talked about. talking of the lofty goals in rekindling the dream in a state are things people want to hear about. we said we of the -- we said we have to do a better job with our education system. for people to of access, you have to help them well-trained. look at india, china, singapore, the miracles that taken place there over the past 20 years.

tremendous new education systems and more focus on results. we decided the ideas we need to put in place or ideas -- were ideas like better charter schools. virtual schools using technology to exchange information across school districts. and all those things past. we're trying to find other ways to push the envelope. we want to privatize our abc stores. we have the business community behind us. we have the public behind us. we just have to get the legislators behind us. we have to do more work on that. we have to find ways to improve the energy capacity in virginia with some new things. i just think that the promotion of big ideas is more timely now

than ever. the focus on reducing spending and getting back the constitutional route, discussing federalism in the 10th amendment is so critically important. i'm fortunate that i live in a state or the second governor of our state was thomas jefferson. when he said things like government close to the people and that we should not take -- you can't talk about cutting regulations and taxes per it is less of governors that have gone before that had big ideas. we don't mess with jefferson in virginia. i look forward to the questions and it is an honor to be on the panel. >> thank you very much. [applause] james madison did leave to go to the college of new jersey. we talk about policy and

politics. one thing new governors cannot underestimate is that we sit in rooms like this and we talk about these big ideas. we talk about how the public is more willing to accept pain and difficulty than the have before. all of those things are true. the government that you i don't care if you had a republican governor before you -- the mindset was different. one of the biggest struggles governors have and one that i'm still having is to get under control the bureaucracy that you would hurt and to turn around the culture of no, the culture of we don't do it that way. and you also will be surrounded by professional politicians interstate, members of the

legislation, members of your party who now that you have seized the governorship for your party and in their minds for them, they now believe let's not take any risks. all these things you said on the campaign, that sounds really great, cris, and you ran a great campaign. let's get down to will really need to do. let's not take any chances or kick in a body which should kick. and you'll be fine. people maysure that be a little bit angry with us. we will couple up -- cuddle up so that you can't inch your way to 2014 and be in the best position you can beat to win. i am convinced that if that is

what you do, when we come back in 2015, we will not be here. because the public, this acceptance of paint you are talking about on the panel -- the exceptions of pain, what comes coupled with that is a greater expectations. they are not going to hear from us speaking in ways that make them fog over and change the channel, in ways they will throw their newspaper down in disgust and say,, "i voted for him or her and he's just like the other guy." that is a path that most certainly will lead to failure. you will have people in your state who will tell you these things. it will say, listen, don't take on the public sector units.

public sector units are strong and prominent. you cannot do it. do little things to keep faith with your base, but don't take on that fight. that is the wrong philosophy to take. andnow as the governor's, all these folks understand this, that if you don't solve that problem and take on that fight, you never solve the problem. in never solve the underlying problems that we need to soft as a state in new jersey and as a country. that's what it means to take on folks who have not been taken time. a long punta of timperiof in new jersey, that is the teachers' union. you'll get no greater resistance

than from their political advisors when they tell you how many people are in your teachers unions and how much do as they collect at how much they spend and all these other issues. and then everybody loves their teacher. it is true. most people do love their teacher. i love the public school teachers in new jersey. i cannot stand their union. [laughter] the reason i can't is because they tell you that is about the children. the italian they want to do everything for the kids. yet in my state and before i became governor, the average salary increase demanded a public teacher unions was 5% 0in a 0% inflation world.

when i asked them this past year during the budget crisis, and $11 million budget crisis i inherited in a $29 billion budget i asked them to take a pay freeze for one year and to contribute 1 05% of their salary to health benefits, which for the average teacher is $750 for full medical and dental and vision coverage, they called it the great assault on public education -- the greatest assaults on public education in the history of new jersey. we have four children between 7 and 17. our youngest is in the second grade. you have to believe that this scene would occur in your house if you want to believe the teachers' union, that little would come home with

their first report card and her grades were not so good. u.s., what happened -- you asked, what happened? "i cannot study." "why not?" "you made our teachers take a pay freeze." [laughter] madness."op the [applause] giver the pay increase. youaugh. that is the crap i have to listen to in new jersey. you will hear from some of your

advisors. do not to it. you nnot take on those flights. if you care about the politics and and it happens to be right most of the time but is not easy, it is easy when we're sitting around here talking about it. when you get home and the bureaucracy is pressuring you, when you get home and your political people are saying, take your foot off the gas, governor, do the easy things first. i agree with bobby -- to the hard things first. you better understand that political capital is there to be spent.

it will dissipate if you do not spend it. you can spend it or put it in the top drawer of your desk. one day you will open it to and is not going to be there. it is when you get home and the tough choices need to be made. you have to do woit. notyou do not do wit, only will you break faith with all the people who supported you financially and spiritually, but i suggest to you you're putting yourself on the road to political ruin as well and putting your state on a road that will not lead to prosperity and to more optimism or hope for job creation, but on a path to the same old same old.

if this election meant anything, is that they do not want that anymore and they deserve better. it is up to all of us to make sure that doesn't happen. thank you. [applause] >> the program says i am in charge. i'm not really in charge per we have some time for questions. wonderful comment. i had a chance to meet with some of the freshman congress coming in last sunday. i told them i was coming out here. i cannot tell you how impressed they are with you. that is the real job, the real work. there's a lot of work to do with washington. let's think about something big. the governors, the states -- in 1996, republican ideas about welfare reform could come -- came out of welfare reform.

it passed over the objections of the administration. they could not signhe welfare reform bill. the was the federal welfare program. thanks to republican governors, that moved. i think we need instruction in washington. we need to be taught from states. this was not a vote. this was a restraining order. [laughter] that was a stop. if there is a go, what is the big idea, or a couple of big ideas? things you have done that washington can learn from. >> quickly, i hope all of you ran on something that would resemble or could be put together into an agenda. plan.d haley's

we had seven areas of government where we said we would do things. something that you could say the people voted for, and then to it. we had tort reform our first year. i campaigned very heavily on tort reform. the senate voted three times for tort reform. the speaker would not let it come to the floor of the house. so this session ends on sunday. on monday, i called them back into a special session on wednesday for tort reform. the senate passed pro-reform three more times. finally, the speaker caved in because he could not hold the votes anymore. seven-need78-39. i have talked about it in every

speech i've talked about. there's stuff you talked about all the time. make your agenda and claim that you have a mandate and do it. it is not enough just to cut spending. the one you to do something. i used to tell trent lott what he was majority leader -- centers talk about doing things. governors do things -- senators talk about doing things. if it can be drafted into an economic growth job creation plan, that is the thing. i will venture to say everyone of your campaign has those elements. if you have not made it a simple, easy plan, go do it, and then implement or execute that plan. that is what i would say.

>> good politics is essential if we're going to reform and shrink government and make more sustainable. overhaul the government employee compensation and benefit packages. i will give it a couple of quick examples. public employees used to be underpaid and over benefit compared to the private sector counterparts. now by any credible study, they are over benefit and overpaid. their compensation system -- the not aligned -- they are aligned to how many years you have been around. look in the teachers' union area. you asked folks what are you pe'shon? it is based on seniority. the correlation between the security of the staff and the success, the academic success of the students in the classroom is nearly zero. we have to define the strategic mission of the enterprise and make sure we align the money to

the measurement of that enterprise and do a better job. we had bus drivers in minnesota that could work 15 years, retire, and be eligible to receive health care benefits for the rest of their lives. i said, if you don't work the government, to get to work -- do you get to work 15 years and have the government pay for your health insurance? you are paying for that. do think we should and that? of course. we took a 44-day strike, when the longest bus strike in the history of the country. we shut down the entire transit section for 44 days. the congestion was better during the bus strike, not worse, for reasons we still not understand. the public is on our side on this issue. our teachers were back five

years ago and we're going to performance pay. other states are now catching us and doing different versions of that. i had to take k-12 bill hostage. the school did not start because the teacher unions rose up and it was world war ii just to get -- world war iii. now you can go anywhere you want. if you go somewhere that is expensive with crappy results come out you are paying more. 90% of them migrated to a higher quality provider. those are the kinds of changes we need to make. it is important policy and is good politics because the public is with us. it needs to be done.

>> we have got about five minutes left. governor daniels, please. >> basically, do not take any polls. [laughter] apologies to my good friend to do this for a living. do not take any poll -- first of all, it will only depress you because you will start declining in popularity because of gravity. but more to the point, the essence of what he talked about on doing in versus saying, there's a huge difference. it is very hard to talk the public into a different point of view. just words. but you can act in ways that the public may think they do not like, but if it produces results, they will change their mind.

results change people's minds in that words -- it is hard to talk people out of an attitude. you can act in ways that are different, and the media will always pounce on how controversial these things are. i was reminiscent when i was congratulating governor martinez. her predecessor in the middle of my first term was the chairman of the dga. when we were in washington for the national meeting, he was holding press conferences, as the chairman are always asked to do. they kept asking me to forecast results. but he would say it is way too early except for one thing. we would kill the guy in indiana. you cannot possibly made it. he has done this and this. all these things have jarred people. so governor richards and, sorry about your luck, because it did not work that way. [laughter]

i cannot tell you what an opportunity is that awaits you. if you do those things that you thoughtfully concluded will make a material difference, that will change minds. the surveys will not mean much because people are very fair- minded. and if they see action and results, like the new ones are already getting, it will work out just fine. i know that is what lies ahead. >> you're absolutely right about results and doing stuff. but telling the truth is a big deal. and you guys are all truth- tellers. it resonates. they say the best way to show a crooked stick is to show a straight stick right next to it. we have six straight stakes here. >> this president has proven his words exactly right. he may be the mos gifted

speaker we have seen in the white house. yeah, i think this election two weeks ago was amazing. his initial response was he just cannot do a good job communicating. he is given as many speeches as many presidents gave in four years. so you look at what congress wants with these new governors. i think this is exactly right, that the administration, congress needs to be working on what the voters care about. they use this economic challenge to push obamacare, to focus on cap and trade, card check, and these regulations when the voters want them to focus on creating the conditions for private sector growth. what they can learn from governors is to focus on what the voters care about. the top priority in my almost any state is creating the conditions for private sector growth. congressmen do great job and governors do, too.

the first issue is you do not want to do harm. i can tell you many stories of companies in my state who have not invested capital because they're waiting what washington, d.c., is going to do. they can learn from structural forms. everyone of these governors have to balance their budget. whether it is a supermajority vote or limiting government, every governor has to face this. and we also have this honeymoon period. we think we have this great group going to washington, but it will not change until we change the structure. and the third important thing is that they can learn from the states about health care. i agree that health care reform is one of the greatest reforms out of the 1990's. everybody in washington realize that if you incentivize people to go to work, they will go to work. who knew if you incentivized people to stay home, they were not going to go to work?

but it turned out to be agreed in flan -- it turned out to be great. i think the new folks in congress can lessen the one thing that concerns me with obamacare, 60 million new enrollees in medicaid. everyone of these governors will not be confronted with a dramatically larger unreformed medicaid program. instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, they should give the states the flexibility, the same way with welfare reform. states are ready to lead the way with health care as well. >> these two gentlemen not only have good ideas themselves but they cause many good ideas around the country. please send some to washington. we're desperately in need of them. thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> as you can tell, this is closing out the second session. the third session will start probably within the next five minutes. because we're ming quickly. if you need to take a break, this is the time to do it. but be back in three to four. thank you. ♪ >> when all the new governors are sworn in next january, there will be 19 democrats and 29 republicans. one race has yet to be settled in minnesota. that battle is in the recount process, and the decision could be weeks away. one new democratic governor is from colorado, defeating tom tancredo of the american constitution party. he now succeeds the democrat bill ritter who chose not to seek reelection. mr. hickenlooper is a restaurant owner who served as the mayor of

denver since 2003. today the white house, president obama will issue a pardon for two national thanksgiving turkeys, marking the start of the u.s. holiday weekend. two 21-week-old 45-pound turkeys were flown in from modesto, california for the 63rd annual rose garden presentation. you can see that even today it 1:35 p.m. eastern right here on c-span. >> every weekend on c-span3, experience american history tv, starting saturday at 8:00 a.m. eastern. 48 hours of people and events telling the american story. here historic speeches by national leaders and eyewitness accounts of events that shaped our nation. visit museums, historical sites, and college campuses as top professors and leading the story years -- historian to delve into america's best. all weekend every weekend on c- span3.

>> this weekend on the quality "booktv," with polling data, james of the questions muslims about stereotypes, 9/11, a new war on terror. he discusses his findings with the reporter who covered the mideast for "usa today" @ "washington *." starting thursday on c-span2. and now british prime minister david cameron answers questions about his government's domestic and foreign policy agenda. you spoke to members of the british liaison committee and defended his per most -- proposed spending cuts and timetable for withdrawing combat troops from afghanistan by 2015. from london, this is two and a half hours. >> the focus of these sessions is quite different from wednesday's question time. that is a relief. it is not for political jousting between leaders.

not for quick exchanges on national grievance points. it is looking at the role you play and the bureaucracy in the determination of policy. we're looking at a number of areas where we think your own input has been decisive are significant. we will look at individual departments and our own committees. with aoing to start major section on the comprehensive spending regime. it has been questioned by the treasury committee already. how often were you involved simply in order to broker agreements are referee arguments between treasury department? >> well, i was involved from the start, setting the strategy for

the comprehensive spending review, setting their role fiscal mandate for the government, how much we're trying to get dead down and buy when. when it came to the conference of spending review itself, i was involved both in setting the strategy, which departments we will be trying to protect, what areas we're going to try to invest in, what was the thinking behind were to make cuts and how to make them. then i was involved in i think two other ways. one was there what became known as the quad. we had a quadrilateral meeting with the prime minister, me, the chancellor, and the treasury secretary. we met i think nine times. we would use those to go through some of the difficult areas and try to work at what the right policies were, what the right approach was. the second strategy, running the quad meeting speed i think it

was successful in making it a collective decision. obviously, chairing the cabinet. and yes, i was involved in helping to settle some of the individual departments, particularly some of the tricky, difficult issues. for instance, in defense. that was one in particular. but also some other departments. a mixture of things. but mostly strategic and tried to make sure the process was more collegiate and collective than in the past. >> how often or you intervening in the process because you had a strong view about what the policies should be? >> there were disputes between the treasury and the individual departments. but i do not get involved in all of those.

i would get involved if they were not being resolved. so there were one or two areas where they were not been resolved, and i got involved to help resolve them. i mean, the process did work, given the scale of what we were trying to achieve. the process that actually work very well. i think partly because the treasury did a good job that meeting early on with cabinet colleagues. and i think this quad process, we went through difficult areas like how weak or going to try to protect education in early years, what we're are going to do with housing, and welfare, and we had proper substantial meetings between both conservatives and liberal democrat colleagues and the coalition to talk through these issues. one other point, i think the reason why it went relatively smooly is because we took a big decision at the beginning, which i think is inevitable if you are trying to reduce public spending and get the deficit under control, that you have got

to look at the very big areas of public spending like pay, pensions, and welfare. if you do not do that, you're going to make unacceptable cuts in schools, hospitals, and police. and we did, i think, makes and quite big decisions on welfare. you put budgets and spending together with reductions. in public sector pay, we froze it for two years. in the area of public sector pensions, there will be increased contributions. so there are three big decisions that were made. the rest was not easy. it was extremely difficult because of the reductions. but it set the framework. >> it was an article in some areas? >> no, because if you do not do things on welfare, pay, and pensions, you have to be cutting by far more on education and other areas. i thought that was unacceptable. if you want to get the budget deficit under control, you have

to look at the big areas of public spending rather than just thinking you can that cuts across the board in every department. that would not be strategic. we took a strategic view. we wanted to protect serviette -- various departments, all service, and the school's budget. we wanted to protect capital spending because we want to invest in the recovery, and we projected capital spending. we wanted to make sure that while we were making spending reductions, there was a strong element of fairness and social mobility. if you look through the decision to increase nursery education for two, three, and 4-year-old, to introduce a people -- the people premium for universities, i would say there was a strong strain of social mobility to a halt. we did those decisions early on. that was our aim. those were our aims. then that the spending positions at the flow from those aims. >> those issues about education

in the early years and the pupil premium, did they require late intervention by you and the deputy prime minister? >> they were decided that the quad meeting. so the deputy minister and others were there. that is where we decided the strategy for which departments to protect and the fairness we wanted to run through the round in the decision to support the recovery by not seeking further reductions in capital spending. we actually increased capital spending from the plans that we inherited. >> this spending review was described as comprehensive, but it was not really, was it? there were quite a number of areas that were untouchable from the start. >> in the conservative manifesto, we said we wanted to protect the nhs. and we ensure that in our

negotiation with liberal democrats that when the to the coalition agreements that the nhs would be protected. i know it is a contentious decision that some people do not agree with. i think it is right on two grounds. one is the cost pressures in the health service are huge anyway. the drug budget and the aging population. new treatments coming on stream. so it is difficult enough to have an nhs budget that is just increasing with inflation. and secondly, i made no bones about this, if you're trying to get from the biggest budget deficit in the g-20 to the position that you are balancing the books, you have to try to give the country with the. the thing i care about most is our national health service. it is there for us if we get sick. so i think that as you're asking the country to come together and go through a difficult time to get to a better future, to protect the one thing we all care about deeply. >> so you agree that it was not

a comprehensive review, it was a semi comprehensive view at best. you brought up various pieces of opposition. you're excluded a number of areas. >> it was a comprehensive review in that we took positions right across every single department. we took a decision about health care. there will have to be deficiencies in the health service. there is a program to reduce bureaucracy. that was part of a comprehensive set of decisions. >> you understand that ireland is high in the news at the moment. i gave a warning to your office that i might ask about that. do you want now to quaff the widespread reports of the consent -- the contingency basis for a bilateral bailout? >> first of all, i do not think it would be right to speculate about the financial health of

another country in the european union, a country that is a close neighbor, a good friend, a country that we a close political and economic relations with. let me just say that, obviously, if you look at the relationship between britain and ireland, it is one of our biggest export markets. we export more to irend and we do to brazil, russia, india, china combined. perhaps that is not a great reflection of how we're doing in the rest of the world, but that is the facts. our banks are connected to the irish banks. we have an interest in the eurozone being a success, and we have an interest in ireland being a success. so i do not want to rule things out. but i do not think we should be speculating. >> said there special conditions and a special relationship that you have with arlen that might lead one to want to do a bilateral bailout rather than using a purely european mechanism? >> and what everybody to

understand the mechanism. the last government before the new government came to office agreed in the european union that the european financial mechanism, which is basically there to help countries that get in trouble, is established under qualified majority voting. it was supported by the last government. it was not something that we advised. and that is the mechanism that is their and can pay out money to support countries that are in trouble. that exists, and we part of that, whether we like it or not. >> i have one general question with respect to this. have you in your planning, and i presume there is planning, looked at the facts that a bilateral bailout will come out from the bottom line and will therefore increase the deficit,

therefore alter the numbers in the csi unlike what would be created by a european bella? >> i will give a technical answer. the point you make is absolutely right. money lent to other countries through the mechanism is a contingent liability. they just used the head room between the european budget, what they spend and what they're able to spend, they use that had room to make a contingent low. it is not money you really have to raise. whereas the bilateral loan is the money where you have to god and raise in order to land. >> and you have to come to the house for approval. >> in any event, if these things were to happen, obviously, one would want to have an early discussion in the house of commons. >> one can take it from your answers that you're heavily engaged in these debates and issues? >> i have tried to answer the questions as best as i can.

>> given that article 3 of the mechanism you have referred to can only be activated under the regulations, the european regulations, can only be activated by ireland itself and not by qualified majority votes, and ireland has not activated this, is the chancellor and the coalition government joining up with germany and the other member states to participate in this mechanism before is activated? and wire the european bank and the commission in the dump -- and wire the european banks in the commission in dublin before it is activated? are they trying to course island -- ireland that they can manage for the time being? why are we taking part in this mechanism and not doing a bilateral arrangement which will enable us to be about to go

outside the european framework? >> first of all, we're not trying to coerce ireland to do anything. that is not any part of our plans. i think the technical position you put out is absolutely right. i do not really want to go into any conversations that have taken place. i think that counts as speculation. but i think the position, as you and i understand it, is that this mechanism exists and is operated by qmv. britain is a part of it because of the action of the last government. it has funds available because of the way it was set up. and that is the situation we inherited. >> once you got into the system, it has to be activated by ireland, and they say they do not want to get into it at this stage. >> i cannot answer for the irish government, obviously. >> i take it both options are still open. of course, neither my be

pursued. that is to say the european mechanism and the bilateral mechanism. >> i think going any further would be speculating in to the fate of another country, and i do not think we should do that. >> i wanted to get us back to the breadth of the comprehensive spending review. you have said this across parliament that we should do all we can to find value for money and savings, to protect front line services. my committee just took a study of the value for money savings that we saw the last conference and spending review. the machinery of government and the department failed to deliver. only 40% of savings are found, and only a third of those with genuine value as opposed to cuts. i wish you the best in your attempt to succeed in this in

denver -- in this endeavor. but were you to fail, we do then find other cuts or would you lower the 81 billion pound target? >> you put the question very fairly. i think one of the reasons why it in the past some of the value for money savings have not been found is there was not quite the same need to find them. the garments were often faced -- and departments were often faced with rising baselines and were told to spend what you can to save even more. we are in denver situation. because departments really can see that in some cases there baselines' being produced. baselines will have to work with the help of the cabinet office and others to really make sure that it would get back office costs, central administration first, and they're being held by government that is freezing public sector pay, reducing welfare payments, in dealing with the issue a public sector

pensions, all of which benefit departments at the same time. we are not planning for failure in finding these savings, but the savings we set out across the four years need to be achieved. we want to achieve the maximum amount of them through these sorts of the efficiencies that you talk about. >> and if you do not? that was really the question. because i can see that there is a real endeavor to centralize control rather strongly in cabinet office to ensure savings are secured. but i have to say that i am is skeptical as to whether you will achieve what you have set out to do. what i am interested in is if that were to happen, we do then come back with further cuts are with you reconsider your 81 billion pound -- >> the base line of production is set out. >> so further cuts?

>> no, the departments have got to deliver those reductions. we are helping because we are freezing public sector pay and we are increasing and improving procurement. we're doing langston help them. but those the garments have to deliver those reductions. we discussed it yesterday in a chamber. policing hmic -- they say it is quite possible to get 12% reductions in police spending. reducing the number of officers on the beat, without doing that. how do you make up the gap between that and at the reduction? obviously, we're adding in the two-year pay freeze. this is an example. we're making changes to police pay and conditions. and we're changing paper work, which will go in addition to what hmic has said.

but the departments have got to deliver this. i think it is working. u.s. why we're doing this and why we're trying to do so much with parliament. the fact is, if we were not doing this, if we took the plans we inherited, then at the end of the parliament, we would still have a structural deficit around 3%. we would be adding to our debt /gdp ratio. it would still be getting worse. for all the pain of cuts, the situation would still be getting worse. does not seem to be a sensible way to go back. we have got to get to a situation where we have dealt with the worst part of the problem. >> i hear that and take that as saying american samoa was skeptical as with the departments will find it without tapping front-line service. can i give you three examples from the work we have done today? aside from a short-term decision that can have a longer- term impact or perhaps an unintended consequence of the decision, take hmic as my first

example. .hey're facing a cut in staff they have 18 million accounts going back going2004 - 2 -- going back from 2004 to 2008. they told us last friday that they are writing off three of those four years in terms of money opposed to government. we're writing off about 650 million pounds. with their lack of staff, they're unlikely to be about to tackle 2007 and 2008 properly. the total amount owed to government is 1.4 billion. your unintended consequence is cutting staff and then losing money and then leading to further cuts elsewhere. >> i ask the treasury to look at that issue. but in the spending review, we did actually announced that yes,

there are some efficiencies being driven through hmrc, as there are in other departments. we put extra investments into a part of hmrc to raise an additional amount of revenue. >> what we have been told by them is that is separate. >> it is separate. >> it is separate. >> you will still lose the staff and collecting the 1.4 billion a mood to us. >> we cannot examine the department's from trying to be more efficient. but there was a separate decision made to try to recover 7 billion pounds of revenue. >> let me give you another example. it might seem trident. i can understand the political reasons for delaying it. but the reality is there. we're going to have to spend 1.2

billion to 1.4 billion astra on extending the life of the vanguard submarines. we will have to spend an extra 1 billion on an extra order on the submarine for keeping should only capacity going. is that sensible? >> i do not agree with you about this second part. the submarine was part of the defense program. you're shaking your head, but it was. and it should be part of the program. i separate that decision, which i think is the right decision, which we took in the strategic defense review from the decision we have taken over trident. i asked very specifically, can we look very closely at the costs of the trident replacement? can we see how much is necessary to spend it both them and in the future. now we have all the experience of the current vanguard

submarine operating. can we make a better estimate of how long their life is? and you can make this decision a little bit later. you can cut off spending from this parliament. and overall, that would not add to the cost. it was the right decision to take. this was part of a very -- and we're going to get to the strategic defense review, but it came out to be a very thorough piece of work. >> we do know that the additional cost of extending the life of the vanguard summer rains, so our point of view is that it looks like a short-term decision with long term extra expenditures for government. >> i believe it is a reduction of 750 million pounds and some 3 billion pounds over the next 10 years.

i am sure that the defense minister will come in front of your committee and go through it in detail. but we're doing the defense review. it is important we look at the costs of triton's in that review. we managed to save over 700 -- 750 million pounds over the review. i was assured that we could do this, having no gap of capability between the existing submarines and new submarines. i was told it was possible to do this without more spending. it seemed to be sensible to do. >> i would like to move on with defense. what role did you play in the defense review? >> again, a sort of chairmanship of role. i chaired the national security council, the new committee, the

leading cabinet committee which we have established. it works extremely well. it has met about 18 times since the government was formed. seven of those meetings covered the strategic review. i chaired those meetings to set the strategy we wanted to follow as the country. we look at the biggest threats and opportunities to us. and in what defense posture we should take. from that, what decisions we should take about submarines and destroyers and all the rest of it. in addition to the chairmanship role, obviously, the service chiefs have a direct line to the prime minister, and they like to make their views known. they did that. we had very good exchanges. i had a number of bilateral meetings with the defense secretary and with the chancellor. i played quite a role at the end. there was a gap between the

treasury and the ministry of defence that was widely reported, and i helped to bring together both parties at the end to get what i think was a good and sensible outcome. it was mostly a strategic role. there was interference at the end. >> what was the most difficult area, comprehensive spending? >> yes, i think it was. it is one of the must overspend departments. it was a train crash when we took over in terms of 30 billion accepted commitments were they overspent. >> is that 30 billion? >> yes, you're right. but it is an important area that we have to get right. defense was part of an overall strategic area of security which may be complicated.

there were one or two areas like the decision of the aircraft carriers that were very difficult to get the right answer to. i believe we got the right answers, but it took a lot of time and work, and it was tough. >> you said youot involved right at the end. at that stage, we have the letter from the secretary of defense to you, which somehow found its way to the telegraph. what effect did that letter have in the process? >> i do not think it had a huge impact. you know that ministers stand up for their departments and make the case for their departments. sometimes they do it or leak and sometimes in a letter. -- sometimes they do it orally and sometimes in newspapers. the paper does have a problem with leaks.

the fact is, i think that it was a good outcome in terms of here we are as a country with this vast deficit that we have to deal with. defense made their contribution, and it does not touch what we're doing in afghanistan because that comes out of the reserve. it sets good, long-term decisions that were made over things like carriers and army numbers and future requirements for the air force. >> sticking with that letter, it would not have been so influential if it was just between him and you. if it was not leaked, it would not have had such an effect. a difficultit was thi area to deal with, there will

always be discussions about the fans and the tricky procs of getting it right. leaks do not help. they add to the public pressure. the meetings are under huge external scrutiny. everyone wants to know what happened at the national security council. other times, no one is interested. i think it will change what was it generally collected discussion. i do not want to underestimate this. when we talk about the defense in the united kingdom, for the first time in a long time, there was that the -- the business department, it development, defense, the prime minister, foreign secretary having a proper discussion about what is the right defense posture for the u.k. and where we spend our money in order to deliver it. throughout this whole spending review process, i have tried to

make it more collective, mark allegiant, more of a government discussing these things -- more kelly jedd and more coming together as a government and discussing these things. we have tried to have more of a collective discussion. >> i will come back to that process in a moment. there are several questions concerning the uplift for the defense budget for 2015. you said on the day of the review that your view is that require moreae will work in the years beyond 2015. so that is your view. it is clearly the secretary of state's own strong view. but it seems not to be

government policy. what you intend to do to turn your own strong view into government policy? >> the short answer is to put it into a manifesto and win the election. >> if that view is not government policy, the ministry of defense will have to start making severe cuts from 2012 onwards. >> i think the point is the ministry of defense and now has what it has not had for a long time. it has got its budget numbers out until 2015. it knows that one party has committed to real term increases. it has not specified how much between 2015 and 2020. i think that is necessary to deliver the levels we have talked about for 2020. other parties have to make their views clear. i think that is a great planning horizon. the mod is out a long time.

two and three years ago, there were massively over spending. 38 billion pounds in the red and clear what would happen next. i think they're in a much better position now. it is basically a flat 34 billion pounds through five years, and we have to make sure we have good people in at the ministry of defense making sure we get value for money. i am enthusiastic. we have a new secretary in new chief of defence staff. we need new material and get people in that department to make sure it delivers for the very large amount going into it. >> in the defense review, you also announced a 10-year voting budget for the ministry. presumably, you will be building into a comprehensive spending review before the next election this sort of left that you are saying is your strong view it

should be in place. >> we think we should have a defense review every four or five years to help this process. it will be a debate within government about what more we can say about defense spending. it will be debated every year between now and 2015. we are in a coalition. i think we have come to a good outcome on a defense review. the two parties have a slightly different track record, and they can come together and make sense of a difficult set of questions. i am sure we can go on doing that. >> it is widely understood -- [inaudible] was a last-minute decision taken over the weekend. until then, they were tuesday. [inaudible]

that provoked a reaction and was published as a letter. did it have a role in promoting the idea of that letter and encouraging them to try to close down this debate? >> i have read both letters. i am delighted that they wrote such a letter on the decision. but i do not have all the details on how the letter came into being. >> [inaudible] >> i do not know. i will not be surprised, but i do not know. i would be very happy to write to you. the substance of the issue is in really difficult and fascinating. who writes what letter is less important. the reason the decision was made relatively late was that this was the most difficult question in the defense review that we

debated and discussed as a national security council over and over again. i will tell you how my own view changed to give you a sense of how deeply this was discussed. coming at it as an amateur, it seemed to me at first that the obvious answer was to keep the existing carriers and use it as a bridge from carrier to carrier with the new carriers that came in. that was the amateur straightforwardv group amateuriew. -- that was my amateur, straightforward view. by the end of this process, well that was the easiest thing to explain in parliament to the media, to the public, it was actually the wrong decision. i was convinced it was the wrong decision. i think we have now made the right decision which is to keep

tornado. except there is a capability act of having a carrier now and the carrier in the future. a tornado is a more capable aircraft. the other one has a fantastic record. i grew up with an aberration of what that is. but today, the tornado is operating in afghanistan. and the big question right now is how we can best support our troops and our effort in afghanistan, and that is by keeping the tornado. that is why i think we can to the more difficult, the more complicated the, but the right view. i was trying to explain that to the committee. i was trying to prove that this was a proper discussion and debate process, rather than a sort of let's do what is easy. it would have been much easier to just keep them and say it is

a simple answer to the question. it would be the wrong answer. that is why i feel so strongly about it. >> i find it unacceptable if number 10 does not enter in that way. it is important that we get to the bottom of that. we will wait for your reply. >> evidence was given before the treasury select committee, saying that the letter was written to be leaked. i am sure you did not say it that way. >> no, it was a leather whip -- it was a letter with the point of view of the secretary of state. if you look at what we did, the reductions over four years, is a lot less than reductions in other departments. when you look at the effect that we're getting for that money, whether you're looking at the

army or the air force, you can see that we will have it. it is still the fourth biggest defense budget in the world. we're going to have the best summer rain anyone has got in the world. we have it -- we're going to have the best summer rain. we have a brand new aircraft carrier. >> on the carrier decision, of the early did you personally explore the scope for renegotiation -- how the early did you explore the scope of the renegotiation? >> fairly thoroughly. this was a question asked repeatedly. can we go back to the a questione mark can we look at the contracts? can we change the contracts? the answer was clear. i think it is something a select committee might want to look into. the lions were pretty tightly drawn. we're in a situation where if we cancel the second of the two

carriers, it would have cost a large amount of money. >> i recognize that they would have to have a contract, and some aspects will be security confidential. but would you agree to provide that contract to my select committee with the -- security aspects redacted to enable us to examine the scope of the negotiations? >> i would be happy to provide what we can under the rules. >> you make the rules, prime minister. >> i wish it was as simple as that. you find out that you do not make quite as many rules as you would like. but we will do what we can. >> thank you very much. >> prime minister, you and your party has said that you're committed to widening participation in higher education. a recent study by the institute

of physical studies has reported that educational maintenance has significantly raised the process for students from lower income backgrounds. if the government in the run-up to the general election was committed to this, why is it now being removed and what steps are being taken to replace it? >> we had to look at every area of spending very closely because of the catastrophic state of the public finances that we inherited. and 11% budget deficit, the biggest in the g-20. we had to come out of this. we looked at the educational maintenance. there is that research that you quoted. other research shows that 90% of the money is effectively dead weight cost.

it seems to me there two points to make. one is we're going to be legislating to raise the effective participation at age to 18. if we are doing that, doesn't make sense to be paying people to stay on at the same time as doing that -- but does it make sense to be paying people to stay on at the same time? and if we bring decision making to their lowest levels, we will be halting the money resources that college and school heads have to try and target that sort of money on people who need it most. i think that is a better approach than the one we inherited. but i accept that there will be spending reductions in this area. >> when do you anticipate your proposals coming onstream? >> we are looking at this at the moment. there will be an announcement forthcoming. i do not have the exact date for when this will be introduced. >> so there is a considerable

gap between the implementation of the cuts and the implementation of these proposals seeking to address the issues. what will happen in the meantime? >> i do not think there should be a gap. and we hope it will be a smooth process. we are moving to the situation where we will be legislating to raise the participation age to 18. agai we have to make big decisions about how to focus the money on education. the big decisions we have made it to put the money into the school's budget. that is why the spending pupil is being frozen in cash terms across the parliament, and we are introducing a 2.5 billion pound premium above that. so they have more money following them to whatever school they choose to go to. we have got to hardware some progressive thinking into our

educational system. and we're getting rid of a lot of specific grants, trusting the head teachers with the maximum amount of money that we can for them to choose how to spend it. that is that every approach from the last government, which i think that a lot of their budgets for education and made it very complicated. we think is right to trust head teachers more. >> where you have a mechanism for funding colleges? >> yes, we will. we're looking for more to centralized, less bureaucratic mechanism than what we have inherited. going around these colleges, the have complained about the massive dislocation of the number of bodies that have to go to for funding. they would like a simpler system. it will be much more simple than all the other bodies we have inherited. >> i want to talk about the

implications of the rising tuition fees. they are rising from these proposals, potentially of to 40,000 pounds of debt to be acquired from university tuition and accommodation. given the fact that it is much harder to sell the benefits of the university education to students from low-income and loess operational families, this will be a huge challenge to keep the level of applications up. the latest statistics show rise of about 2,000 a day. it has been dropping in comparison to the private sector. you look at organizations like aim higher. are you going to keep it? if not, what are you going to replace it with? aim higher has been very successful. >> the most important thing is that the new system we are

introducing, because it is one not pay anything up front and because no one starts paying back until they are earning 21,000 pounds compared with 15,000 pounds now, and it means it is a more progressive system. in the good will be possible to encourage people from low-income backgrounds to go to university with this sort of system. it is an all party review commission by the labor government but with conservative support. it does give a boost to the maintenance arrangements. it is a combination of arrangements. nobody pays anything up front. you do not payback until you're earning 21,000. this makes it a much more progressive system. we still have a challenge to get out to schools and into private areas to encourage people to apply for university. we will never get more social milk -- mobility unless we do that. if you look at the policies we're adopting as a whole, the people -- pupil premium and

children getting free time at university, i think all those things can help us as a government and as a country. >> i want to move on to the science budgets as a whole. i am on record as praising the work that has been done in maintaining flak cash -- flat sh for the research council's budget. i have been probing an area where i cannot get a straight answer from. there is not interaction between the ground report, the science settlement, the budget, the immigration cap, the closure on the effect of the overall

capacity for science in the u.k. what advice were you given on the interaction of those things? >> matt mead try to get through this. first of all -- let me try. first of all, the flat cash supplement for science gives a good baseline for science in our country. we looked at what is happening at university and the immigration rules as well. i would argue that they're all heading in a pro-science direction. the university changes because we're giving focus and support on science degrees. i think this system a gradual contributions will focus the mind of the undergraduate much more on what a good course is and what will give me a good start in life. all of that is a very pro-

science. we're looking at overhauling the system we inherited and having a tighter control of immigration, which this country badly needs. 200,000 is too high in needs to come down. we should have proper regard for people to come to this country and make a real contribution. right now, the system does not work like that. they're people coming in under so-called tier one rules and doing unskilled jobs. >> that is going away from my question. >> i a sorry. >> just tell us when you expect the criteria to be known. >> on immigration? >> yes. >> we're getting through this. i would hope that next week we might be able to make enough progress to make an announcement. >> so all your answers are ."edicated on a"i think

so i would say you did not get advice on the collective impact of all of those issues one upon another. perhaps that might need some thinking about. we have not got a strategy that engages upon issues like, are we going to retract the next people coming in to be are successful nobel prize winners? how many university departments are going to close as a result of this policy? you do not know the answer to that, do you? >> i had a proper meeting with the adviser when i became the prime minister. i wanted to make sure this was a pro-science government. i have appointed our science minister, and as you said, you support him. i think it is a pro-science government. lots of different policies will have an impact on science. i hope to demonstrate that they will have a good effect.

>> finally, it is a great pity of the chief scientific adviser said that he was disappointed about not being consulted on changes in his own department. this headline says stupid, ignorant, foolish, and a loss of scientific expertise. i have been assured today that my concerns and the concerns of the scientific community will be looked at. isn't it time we have more transparency and proper engagement with the scientific community to stop these mistakes being made? >> i guess i should take away what you're saying and have a greater think about it. the system of having a chief

scientific adviser and scientific advisers in each department is a way to work on this. how we cracked the problem completely? i do not think we have, but it is a good start. >> [inaudible] you said you'd be involved in taking a strategic look at this and you wanted to protect company spending. you name and number of areas where you would take that approach to. looking at the actual facts, capital spending has been trumped by a 11%. it does not suggest that transport is so important for growth.

>> i would dispute your figures. we're going to be spending over 30 billion pounds on transport structure for over 30 years. what the next government had planned. those are the facts. over all we are spending 9 billion more on capital projects. the reason i did not have toet too involved in the transport budget is negotiations went quite well. they went quite well. the reason that they went well -- >> the figures being used were not figures that came from anywhere else. it might be true but you cannot say that you protected capital spending. >> i think that we can. the point is that the last government announced a lot of cuts in capital spending. we inherited that situation. we took that and in some cases

that money back in. more than the less government had planned, it is a fact. i think that that is important. the reason it was a relatively straightforward strategy was because we attempted to protect and enforce capital. i did not get involved in that area. i did have conversations in london about the importance of the tube and cross rail, both of which we have managed to protect and get ahead. it is a good settlement for transport capital. like every other department, there are reductions in spending. >> at the moment there are very

successful regent structures that have political forces working to decide strategic priority for transport. there is widespread agreement that the proposed enterprise will not be able to conflate those propertie looking for strategic localized transport. what are you going to do to make sure that the regional will is determined by an and effective way -- determined in an effective way? >> i think that the regional bodies are often quite bureaucratic and distant. in some cases there are studies done, without much actual action. i do not think it is a perfect system. >> in this instance, speak --

speaking specifically about transport and regional allocation and how it is decided with all of the evidence from around the country, local authorities see no further set of replacement. your own secretary of state, and other structures -- found other structures. >> he did allocate money properly but it should be done on the basis of how the greatest economic return will come back on transport projects. we asked questions about what would have the greatest impact on growth. those transport infrastructures along the m4 and m5.

>> [unintelligible] >> those are not on my list. >> [unintelligible] >> the danger, prime minister, is that without these affect the decisions being made regionally or locally, decisions made effectively all become socialized. the secretary of state has admitted to the committee that if the criteria adopted nationally were to have more investment in london and less investment in the other regions, that would be a very important sector. do you have an interest in this change the to have decided upon, this regional sector and prioritization will not work in the case of transport? >> absolutely. i think that we can make

success to go with the grain of what people want locally and regionally. if you look at the positions that we took, there were major investments in the region. that is the government being extremely conscious of that. >> just to clarify -- >> delighted to. >> prime minister, looking back 16 years we cannot be content about the current state of the royal network given the major improvements with passengers currently bracing themselves for another hike in fairs. does this not make it more important that we get the nature of franchising right? and that such evidence as there is suggests logger franchises

will encourage the success of more investment actually banned in partnership of network to bring about the kinds of improvements that ad in totals. >> basically i read with that. i think that short-term franchises have meant that there is incentive on the operator to invest in the long-term health of the line. i think that where we need to go is longer-term franchises with tough consequences for not living up to what they have to do. we have to look at what cost in the industry have gotten so out of control. when there has been an examination of the case for the extension of , costs are absolutely astronomical.

-- extension of a line, the costs are absolutely astronomical. >> looking at the way in which you try to drain the government thinking speaking to benefit changes, the you perceive a problem here being the level of the bill as written? because there is a shortage of supply with an objective to rectify that more than the house's bill in the recession. the money for new affordable housing being cut by december. >> this is an extremely good question. we have to ask ourselves what we have been chasing around. increased costs without building many houses. it seems to me that we have got to do two things.

the first is the deficit problem. we have got to look at the explosion benefits up by 50% over the past five years. we have got to look at that. is there a system that will encourage greater house building and use the constraints of supply? yes, we have cut the capital building going into house building, and i would argue that that system was not working. it has pushed up the price of land. anyone owning a bit of land has done extremely well, thank you. we do not seem to have build very many houses. getting proper housing benefits and making difficult decisions while introducing real changes to how we support social housing and house building, which i believe will make a difference. for instance, the new homes

bonus will mean that from now on when local authorities build houses in their area or all-out houses to be built, they will actually benefit. right now there's not much of a benefit to those authorities that the side to support house building. we need to change that fundamental regard. >> taking the first point about new wages, it is to make existing houses. stating the market rent. what about increasing the build for housing benefits? >> first of all, how it affects increased house building, going to a rent space model if they can build social housing, that will make that -- >> [unintelligible] >> it will put pressure on the

housing benefit bill to make sure that we get on top of the housing benefit situation. >> can you point to something that shows that if you read distribute the funds available for this process, amongst a number of houses needed for progress before the recession came, amounting to 1,300 pounds topically. >> [unintelligible] if you ask local policy leaders, the ones i have spoken to say that right now although there is a lot of targets, there is not much in it for us as local authorities whereas under the new homes bonus, they will keep the additional revenue that they get. it is quite a big move that we

are trying to make from a top- down, centralized system. keeping the business rate getting more houses built, keeping the revenue for those extra houses. it is a change in the system. given that what we just had did not produce rocketing house of benefits with record number of people on housing waiting, given the evidence that we have benefited change, particularly the 30th percentile actually meaning that areas of cities no longer afford and housing benefits, as well as those on low incomes, in mixed communities with it the policy of cog. >> of course we will, but what we are trying to do is something we can share across the political spectrum, moving

the situation to pay taxes -- >> for and work? -- foreign work? >> support of mixed communities brings a situation now where you have people claiming per year that it has a benefit. 20, 30, 40, 50,000 pounds. people in sheffield pit -- paying their taxes so that others could live there where they could not dream of living. >> picking up on what you just said, prime minister, i think that a lot of people expect these houses to be brought under control. for example, there are quite a lot of different aspects to the

policy. i do not understand the rationale for at. they are to lose 10% of the housing benefits, seeing here and elsewhere, i cannot see a government that explains the rationale to cut the 10%. >> i think that the rationale, everyone knows that people on a job seeker's allowance, in some cases that fact means that the incentive to work is less because of the danger of losing your job seeker and housing benefits. the idea behind the 10%

reduction is to sharpen the senses. in london there are 43,000 people that have been on job seeker for longer than one year. there are people who are available for work and seeking a job the. in london, in any given months there are 400,000 new vacancies in a year. 90% of the people do find a job before the end of the year. we will be introducing a work program to make sure that we help everyone find a job as quickly as possible. hopefully it will have as little effect as possible with housing benefits and incentives to work that are worth pursuing. >> purported to save 100 million, 110 million the year after, it also counts that you

are looking to perhaps less than the marginal rate for someone going into work. people that are going to lose 10% of their house and benefits in that year, training something particular. it may be the position of someone who has done everything the government has asked them to, that are on gnc with appointments for them with applications out to hundreds of thousands of jobs, but they are unable to find a job. this will be the first claim of welfare history in this country where someone has done everything the government has told them and are still going to lose the housing benefits. that is quite a big change.

what is the rationale behind that? this country will fold and they will have less money to advocate the work to do with the money pays for in the costs that pay for themselves. >> we all know that there is a problem with people on job seekers with maximum housing benefits as incentive not to work. >> some of these individuals who have already given their house over to the chief, what about the 10% of the housing benefits? to assess the claim of housing benefits, that income will get you to work. >> what we are saying is that we

should do much more than encourage to help those people that work in the first place. the work background is going to be tailored health and support and obviously we can get pple into work faster with getting tax revenue for the people getting into work. the problem of housing benefit is your id is, up 50% over the last five years. it seems to me that you have got to take steps to deal with it. a range of different steps with housing benefit caps moving through the different percentile, and a number of other things including the single room rate extension, none of them are easy. i completely except that none of these are easy. in terms of getting on top of

housing benefits, but then saying that you missed the change, we have to try to find a package of changes. if all we are able to do is to stem the increase, perhaps a modest reduction. >> this particular measure might be seen as temperate on gse for a year. >> i think it has come to a straight point of disagreement. >> this is just from a constituency point of view. mixed community is undoubtedly the case of capital that you will reduce by a housing benefit changes. it means that people where you live, where i live, westminster,

they will be forced out two areas like i represent, where there is already social unrest caused by the very rapid changes in populations and black of affordable housing. is the social unrest a price worth paying? >> putting it down together, asking the people in your constituency whether or not they're happy to pay for the people living in central london, that is more likely to lead to social unrest, if people find out how much money they are paying in taxes for people that live in houses that could never dream of.

>> order. >> is not helped by that. >> order. >> this wednesday afternoon, we all should comedown. [laughter] yesterday there was a robust exchange over police numbers. today the constable in manchester confirm that if you cut those benefits, he will lose a quarter of his work force over four years. taking an independent study in the thousands, which is definitely going to affect front-line services. do you agree? >> i do not necessarily agree. the chief constable has said that the quota in terms of their

own speeches, that the end result has been put into frontline with a more efficient and effective service for the people of greater manchester. while the situation is on saddling, the end result will be more and since finding more figures, total police officers 8000. police sff, 4200. look, whoever is in government sitting here, we would both be having to reduce the budget, making difficult decisions, telling the police you have less money over the next four years. politicians need to work out if they can get more with less. when you look at 4000 staff as

opposed to 8000 officers, looking at 187,000 people, you have got to do better. it seems to be saying that the end result will be a good front line beating. we should get behind that. >> backing of the staff as mentioned yesterday in your reply, i have listed 86,000 -- 8600 posts in the local police office. the fact is that we are not expecting police officers that we want to see on the beat that constituents want doing the kinds of jobs, for example -- >> quite right. there has to be a lime, absolutely. for understandable reasons the last government targeted a number of offices doing hr

doingit, and it -- rh, it, and back office functions. what we have to focus it on is visible policing on our streets, minimizing the back office that is there to support that. briefing police over the years is a difficult decision but we are looking at the allowances to try to rationalize that some of them would bring the reform that i mentioned yesterday to stop others from massively reducing the hours. but we all need to say to police forces, and i will have this conversation, what are you doing to procure your vehicles? combine your diversity? there is a huge amount. i do not want to see forcible amalgamations. but you can certainly amalgamate much of the support function to

save money. we have hardly even scratched the surface. >> your own chief constable mentioned a basic reduction in service that meant providing something that was not provided before. if it is a result of the counts from other parts of the country, would you look again at the police budget meant to make sure that they have the resources they need? >> all of this is an ongoing process, looking at how well we are doing, how the money is being spent and if we are getting money for the rest of it. we need to start from that position. i had the chief constable come to my constituency to discuss this. she said that looking at things like a 15% production was manageable.

if we can make a difference between the 15% that some consider manageable and others set out, we can do that through paperwork reductions and changing allowances. i think that this is deliverable without seeing a reduction in front line policing. of course it will be a challenge, but let's start from the proposition that we are all saying to our forces -- what are you doing and what should you be doing? >> the week before last, clearly mistakes were made. i do not know if there will be the metropolitan police commissioner investigation, but would be provided by the police and the government of the future? >> i have not spoken to the police commissioner. i was obviously focused on the g-20.

in our conversation he did not mention this at all. i think that this was a failure of intelligence, planning, and will not happen again in front of that building. we saw the blue line swept away by that very badly behaved crowd of people. now, that should not happen again. there are plenty of numbers to stop that from happening again. >> no problems. >> with regards to the northern ireland increase in terrorist threat, recognized by the home secretary back in september when

she increased the assessment level, the subject to search assessment level -- is it your understanding but they will devolves this coming forward to us? the security situation is troubling and has been discussed. clearly we have looked at all of the things we can do to help. as well as the plans that we have. we are stunned by the commitments made by the former prime minister for police services and capital expenditure. obviously decision makers need to make decisions about how to make their money, but security

should not be concerned. >> the conservative party said they would honor the understanding of the matter as evolved. will the northern island executive have sufficient money to provide the resources they need. there is a growing aspect of spending going entirely to security matters. we believe that they have what they need, but we are standing by the former prime ministers goals, meeting those and something we need to keep under review. there was agreed access as proposed by the former prime minister that we will stick to. it is important, having been involved in policing and justice, that we say to our

colleagues that she must make the best decisions with the budgets the to have. come back to us if there is a real problem. we should not try to stand on their shoulder the entire time. >> i understand that it is up to them how to allocate the money given cuppa but the committee from ireland and just last week said that in spite of the difficulties they have had, they had assurances that there was nothing left along the border area with the public. can we give the same guarantee? >> i believe so. i would not want to deceive you in any way, but believe that we can. it is the discussion that we had made in general to remember all of the involved areas with

northern ireland spending 25% higher per head in the u.k. with a settlement from the 6.9%. many of the apartments are tougher than that. dropping the line on what guarantee can be given. >> the secretary of state has said that there will not be any more open mandate or extensive public with inquiries into the past. again, given the budget constraints, if that team were able to carry out the work that needed to carryout, being responsible for the network of the people in northern ireland at were affected by the troubles -- >> that is a very good question. i think that we should try to avoid open-ended increase.

it does put a burden on the team with a huge amount of work to do. of course, that is something that we can look at. coming to terms with the past is a very big part of the peace process and i would like us to try to do that while avoiding these competing ideas, if we can. >> what about these other issues >> especially given the government's aspiration. >> you have given great fanfare towards helping each other. what does this mean particularly with relation to france for policy? you said that on the basis of the greatest economic concerns, there is development in the affairs. what are you doing so that when

decisions are made, they are not just economic, environmental, or social decisions. just to finish on this, what will take its place? how can it be monitored? >> you are quite right to pull me up on the defense. all transport projects are looked at in terms of economic benefit. taking into account the impact on the environment and all of those issues. what we have tried to do in a difficult spending round is put money into things that will make a difference, like carbon capture and storage or the

green central bank with real money to spend. rather than so much monitoring and evaluation. because of the last government's climate change bill that we supported as proposed, we have a carbon budget to see how we are making progress. obviously there were difficult decisions in the spending round, but overall when you look at what we managed to do on the green front, in terms of renewable feet incentives and the rest upset, i think that you have gotten a fairly warm welcome and deservedly so. briefly as about these proposals for the second banking group as described. is there going to be a cabinet

crosscutting committee regarding the green government a state policies imbedded into regional policy and transport? >> it is a very good point. what we have done across government is held each department quite clear structural reform plans, setting out what each department is going to do in terms of the legislation in the importance it will make. explaining what it will do to reach the outcome, begging a huge question about the cut across government. we do need to have a crosscutting structural reform that we will put in place. you are completely right about that. perhaps i can present you with some ideas as to how that will work. this is obviously the most

important of them. >> you employed mr. green to review government efficiency regarding procurements. do those specifications include sustainable procurement? >> his commission was really to look at cost savings. it was not part of an agreed agenda. it was more about getting someone from the outside to look at procurements and things that government does, providing confidence that we can actually remove some of these back-office costs. >> is the danger not that that was set to shift the government for actual grain procurements?

seen as improving local economies to reduce the emissions across the board? >> i do not think it will embed that thinking because and where we are providing transferrin information, it is the best thing that you can do on this front. also publishing the carbon footprint of our supply chain. but the specific purpose was to look broadly across government and at cost-saving measures and what they could achieve. because we have these budgets through the bill and this approach on transparent information with carbon footprint in, this will sound like a garden, but we are wired into this approach. >> finally, the green investment plan that is so important, is it truly going to be a band?

for more of a trance -- dispute between treasury and the business department at the cabinet level more than comprehensive spending. >> yes. >> prime minister, there is no more ardent supporter than myself. another policy being suggested as a fixture of supplement, can you tell us what criteria you would use to judge the success or failure of your government? >> when we produce the structural reform plan that goes across government for carbon and greenery, we will be giving you the weapons, as it were, to defeat us. in these structural reform plans there are very clear.

in the one for the crisper few apartment, delivering carbon capture and storage pilots establishes a green deal with what about what it means to be done. introducing the initiative by a certain date. i do not want us to wait for five years time. i want to give you the tools so that when i come back here, whenever that is, you can ask about why it was not done. in the past we set targets for things, makes them, and actually set the that that was taken. we have a good list of things in this area, introducing a fees and tariffs as mentioned, along with electricity market reform and 10% cuts by the end of the

first year. there is a good set of things that we will be able to negotiate within the carbon government that was set out. >> in terms of quantifiable motions, how many renewable, low carbon energy projects are being planned and funded? how much money is the green investment lending to our bankers? >> absolutely. proving that cabinet ministers are already complaining over the plans that they have not be able to meet before the committee. which is part of the point, in that way. having a second planhat is measurable and identifiable with their own concrete things. i hope they will chart the courses as they go along.

>> given the suggestion from a climate change committee that electricity generation should be compromised, putting that in context it would mean in 80% reduction. >> basically, yes. people are just only waking up to this, but if we are going to move to a world of electric cars and advanced sources of heat pumps and effective electricity in our homes, there is potentially a massive increase in electricity demand. meeting all the targets we are committed to, intensive discussions knelt as to how to make that happen. to what extent do we need tools

to make this happen in nuclear, gas, wind and other renewable. >> the first composition that was funded, have you decided how to fund de remaining 3? >> we have not yet. as you said, we are committed and it was important to have that 1 billion pounds. not to mention it is difficult to hang on to that tough million pounds. but in britain much further had run the country. >> do you except that if we are going to achieve these goals, which will enable us to achieve the carbon budget committee baseon the other one coming

out next month, do you accept the inevitable consequences there coupled with our concerns? the inevitable consequence being this amid of higher interest? >> i think that electricity prices were going to rise anyway is. because of so much of our electricity infrastructure being out of date, so much of our nuclear industry coming to the end of its life, there was going to be an increase in electricity prices. the current debate is about what kind of model goes forward. do we want to go on with the model that we have had? or do we simply want targets for carbon reduction delivery? or do we want to take a slightly more plan to view, that we might want to try to effectively shield the public from accepting

further rises in electricity prices by having long-term guarantees? there is a proper debate going on around the table about what sort of model will deliver what you will want, which is the carbonized electricity, security supplies, and certainty over pricing. pricing is on an upward trajectory, which it would have been anyways, but with a slightly more planned approach we might be able to protect people from these oscillations in prices. particularly with the discovery of shale gases, game changer is in neg -- in energy prices. should we take a risk on that basis? >> these debates often occur in the winter when people are worried about energy prices.

>> this is much more looking ahead, how will we structure the electricity market democrats will all of the subjects that have not yet been completed regarding immigration or controls for this issue of energy policy, so far i would argue that we have gone through difficult subjects and we have come up with something that will take a little bit of time. >> [unintelligible] risk of animal disease outbreak. why do you propose these budget cuts on the green department? >> as proposed that is slightly pejorative. we did find reductions across

the government. those that were not tempted had to find some big reductions. we looked at the important areas of spending and have preserved them. over the next four years and brought us to the pit review that we have actually added to, as it should be possible for local areas to topple the fences. in terms of animal health, we are getting 356 million pounds every year on this. it is only fair to ask industry and agriculture to share some of these costs and decision making of how the money is spent. >> in part we already topping up the constituency. in may of 2008 you were very

concerned about the level of funding and the roles that were split for fear of a shortage in the spending review. we were not aware of the impact of cuts on the direct society, taking over the role of subject management fees. >> that is an extremely good point. what i would say to that is that the government has interest rates on flood defenses, which i think that we are doing. yes, there is a concern that rural areas get less, but you can never find the same number at risk as you can buy a large urban areas. there is this sort of frustration that sometimes just because you do not make a mark for what would be funded, you tend to get nothing instead of everything. there is this idea, used

properly, that we support in the answers today, it should be possible for communities to say that if we just got a little bit of funding, we could answer this ourselves. >> we know that you like trees. if the government approves the tree planting program, can you give your assurance today that in a constitutional state for an innovative projects like this that trees are being planted for bio-diversity and sub-defense issues without jeopardizing any of the others at all? >> it is a duty to have a good tree planting program in this country. i do not think is absolutely

right if you own a piece of forest, the question is -- is their access does it support bio-diversity? those questions, 70% of england's forests being owned by private individuals, the idea that it is only worthwhile in benefiting the nation or the public is not applied to other areas and i do not think it needs to be applied to the forestry commission. we simply want them to do their job. something that young people should not be worried about. >> are you aware [unintelligible] parliament foreign speech -- parliament plus queen's speech with a flood of policy? >> i am not aware and i do not see why it should cause a delay. the reason for having this long session is to get in sync with

between speeches in the spring and summer, when the election would be. producing legislation before it takes place might be an excuse for an old been a friendship. >> in term de carbonizing the electricity sector, going forward you expect to begin using more nuclear power and accept that there are purchases on these issues to get them built in time? >> i do think that nuclear is likely to prop -- likely to play a good part in the new mixture of electricity and it should be done on the basis of no specific nuclear subsidy. we should not be giving guarantees on cleanup costs if

they are not prepared to take responsibility. but i am encouraged by those who are going ahead with capacity in this country, confident that the decisions that need to be made are being made. it seems to be cracking on with decisions that are necessary to give that certainty. >> try for a short answer. >> you have covered issues with massive science and engineering implications. yet you seem to except there has not been, in establishing your science policy, crosscutting collaboration. will that work starts tomorrow? >> i will certainly do that.

>> questions of national strategy, did you ever hear of an organization called alag? it was an advance group then fall passed the nuclear banking collapse in the commission. unfortunately, the prime minister excluded it from his national security strategy. would you except that there is a need for organization and agreed that a lack of that kind of strategy is in evidence? >> the answer to that is probably yes. i think that government inevitably in the modern world

gets very focused on the short- term and on what has to be delivered. the next queen's speech or legislation. it is important to try to get the people in government to stop and set back, look at the big picture and think strategically. it can be extremely difficult because of all of the pressures of political and government life. i would hope that in strategic defense review, we did separate security strategy from other works so that we could spend some time, although the argument of all is that you should spend longer. i do accept the premise that there is not enough strategic government thinking as a whole. >> we very much welcome the establishment of the national security council.

but we do suggest that the government, we recommend that the government should recognize that there is a community of strategic thinkers in government and that they should be treated as such and trained as such. college courses for six months with strategic thinking, would you take these recommendations forward? focusing across the government like the educators of statisticians? more so the they are given better support of the assessment. >> i have a feeling that part of the problem, somewhere, is that it is all very well training out the strategy.

making sure the politicians listened to what the strategists are telling them. inevitably there are huge amounts of pressures and this is about how national debate works. we have got to do that better as a country. >> the strategy has become a very ubiquitous term in place of the word plan. the plan of action nippur is actually -- the plan of action

is actually strategic in the short term. could i invite you to consider the ministers could do their jobs better with different parameters, much like it is done through the intelligence community. there needs to be a broad range of policy. >> i agree with that. this is not just mother and double pie. actually planning for the long

term, the way that you create something like the national security council the machinery of the cabinet is underneath and much of the strategic thinking is being done about brazilians, threats, future development. things like cyber-warfare being a massive problem today and in the future. advising us strategically about these issues. >> teh nfc has very few staff and we do recommend that the national security council the responsible for such contingencies. the possibilities and opportunities -- >> it will be difficult to do that. i saw the report. without being careful, the national strategy suddenly becomes, if you are so broad,

the national security council losing its important focus on security and getting into something where we would lose what is very vital. >> the council's efforts to include the going against the grain of cost-reduction, department of budgets tend to hinder cross-department to work -- cross-departmental work. bills that you have incentivized across the department? -- goals that you have incentivized across the department? >> beginning in government, should we be able to cool it down? it gets fantastically complicated. if the security council is discussing pakistan and comes to

conclusions about what our relations should be, the department should be following those conclusions. and every department has a consequence of what the national security council is deciding. it does not matter what the entire department has pooled other than what ministers have incentivized and judged on the delivery of what the national security council decided. >> i had the privilege of being there when you signed the treaty with france the other day. what power are you going to give to bilateral agreements over multilateral agreements? how do you see them bumping into each other? >> i do not think it is either or. nato is the core of our security

and i am going to their counsel this weekend. the reason for the french agreement, we are two countries with very similar armed forces that both want to see sovran capability enhanced. it makes sense to combine in some areas because we will get more bang for our buck or franc. sorry, euro. [laughter] where was i? i do not think that you have to choose between the two. what is our best -- national interest? what maximizes it? does it have been a budget? does it deal with france? yes, it does. >> can you see an offering of bilateral assistance to france? in military at