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questioned by the work and pensions committee about the DWP's use of
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“Q: Has the new timetable been subject to a business review?
Shiplee says it is being submitted to the Treasury soon.
Driver says it is before…”
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Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary. Photograph: REX
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Q: Why has this IT project been different from other DWP ones?
Duncan Smith says at the early stages of the project, this was meant to be an "agile" process.
But, as it got going, Duncan Smith thought it looked like a hybrid - part "agile", part "waterfall".
Lord Freud says other programmes had been narrow, delivering one change.
This project involves delivering different benefits that interact.
Q: Has the new timetable been subject to a business review?
Shiplee says it is being submitted to the Treasury soon.
Driver says it is before Christmas, or shortly afterwards.
Q: What's the difference between "waterfall" IT and "agile" IT.
Shiplee says a "waterfall" project is one where you start with a
clear idea of what outcome you want. An "agile" one is one where you
learn as you are going along. Q: And what is this?
Shiplee says the implementation is "agile".
Q: Have you issued a ministerial direction to the department?
No, says Duncan Smith. Not on this, or on anything else.
(A ministerial direction is a rare Whitehall device, a written order
telling civil servants to proceed with a project when they have warned
against it.)
Q: Will there be a further write off?
No, says Driver.
Labour's Teresa Pearce goes next. Q: You are writing off £40m. And you are writing down £90m. So doesn't that take the total write off cost to £130m?
Driver says he does not accept that. Because, over the five years
that the £90m is being written down, the DWP will be getting use from
it.
Glenda Jackson is asking questions now.
She asks about the write-offs.
Mike Driver talks about things being impaired.
Jackson says she does not know what that means.
Driver says the DWP has spent £40.1m on code that it will not be using. That has been written off. Q: How can that happen?
Driver says, when you create a computer system, you have to re-work
code. It is normal to have to re-work 30% or 40% of the code.
Jackson says that if 40% of the code is being written off, whoever commissioned this is an idiot.
Duncan Smith says this is how IT projects are managed. Some bits of
code do not work as anticipated. They have to get written off.
The Financial Times's Jim Pickard has deconstructed what Mike Driver was saying about the accounts earlier.
Updated
Q: Should your red team report have been made public? It was not obvious that these issues were being tackled in 2012?
Duncan Smith says maybe he should have been more open about it. Q: Are there any NAO recommendations that are proving challenging?
Duncan Smith says the DWP is implementing them. But that does not mean they are not challenging.
Labour's Sheila Gilmore goes next. Q: Why did the NAO sound so critical in its report on UC if you were already acting on its recommendations?
Duncan Smith says he had ordered a review of the way UC was being managed.
But, by the time the report came out, he was following every one of its recommendations. Q: Do you accept what it said about a "fortress mentality" in the team?
Yes, says Duncan Smith. That came from a report from the red team that he asked to review the project. Q: When did the red team report to you?
Duncan Smith says he asked them to do their review in 2011. Q: So are you saying the NAO report is of no use because it is so out of date?
No, says Duncan Smith. Quite the contrary.
Lord Freud says, under UC, people get the equivalent of a tax credit
if they are in work. For people under 21, this is particularly
attractive.
Graham Evans, a Conservative, goes next. He says the staff in his local benefit office are keen on UC. Q: There are concerns the system will not be able to accommodate 1.9m changes a month.
Shiplee says the system will eventually be able to handle these numbers. Q: But since the project started, smart phone technology has
changed. Jobcentre staff want claimants to be able to use smartphones.
Shiplee says around 80% of the claimant group are using these devices, not PCs at home.
He says that last week he was sitting in on an interview with a
claimant aged 50 who did not know how to use a computer. He was offered
training.
My colleague Patrick Wintour knows what a UC lobster pot is.
Labour's Debbie Abrahams goes next. Q: How many times has the project been revised?
Lord Freud answers. The original plan was provisional.
Labour's Glenda Jackson goes next. Q: You told us in September it was on time and on budget. How many times has the plan changed?
Duncan Smith says the plan is "in essence" the same as it was. Dame Anne Begg goes next. Q: A year ago you said in a year's time you would have a detailed
plan for the roll out. Now you are saying it will take another year.
Duncan Smith says the DWP has given the committee its plans.
Labour's Sheila Gilmore goes next. Q: If people are sceptical about this being delivered, it is
because the numbers have moved. The OBR is saying only 400,000 will be
on UC in 2015-16. The numbers keep slipping.
Duncan Smith says the way he is doing this is different. He wanted to
do more "front-end loading", so that large numbers got rolled out in
the beginning. But Duncan Smith was worried about that. He had seen what
went wrong with tax credits. He decided to test the system first, and
then start putting large numbers through. Q: Isn't this putting a big pressure on 2016?
Lord Freud says the DWP has learnt to test the system first, before doing "volume".
This is a lesson the DWP has learnt. Q: The OBR has said there is a risk trying to increase numbers that quickly.
Duncan Smith says there is always a risk with IT programmes.
In the private sector, when they run IT programmes, in many they
write of 30-40% of their IT developments because they change, he says.
Stephen Lloyd, the Lib Dem MP, goes next. Q: [To Shiplee] Previously you used to be in charge of delivery for the Olympics. How are you enjoying this job?
Shiplee says he is enjoying it. It is different to him. But he
enjoyed the welfare aspects of the Olympics (job creation), and he is
glad to be doing something similar here. Q: Are there too many managers trying to run this? Is it try that
you said that if the Cabinet Office did not stop interfering,you would
leave?
Shiplee says he cannot comment on tittle-tattle he has not heard. He
is keen to get things moving quickly. He has been working with the
Cabinet Office. Q: You are the delivery guy. How confident, on a scale of 1 to 10, are you that UC will be delivered on scale?
Shiplee says he has never been very keen on 1 to 10s. He believes UC
can be delivered. He is automating a system. But he is also trying to
change the culture. The technology is the enabler. But changing the
culture is a big challenge. Many of the challengers have not been faced
yet. Staff will have to be retrained. But it can be delivered. Q: And will it?
Shiplee says he thinks so.
Labour's Teresa Pearce asks how the people in this group will continue to get their housing benefits.
Duncan Smith says the DWP will support that. Q: But local councils were planning to close down their housing
benefit payment divisions after 2017? They will have to keep a small
operation going.
Yes, says Duncan Smith. The DWP will support that.
Labour's Debbie Abrahams goes next. Q: The OBR says 700,000 claimants won't be able to join by 2017.
Duncan Smith says the DWP took the decision that this was a complex
group. This committee - "in fact you, Ms Abrahams" - recommended this.
It is a very vulnerable group, says Duncan Smith. He would not want to rush them through. Some of them are sick people. Dame Anne Begg talks about people staying on
universal credit (UC) because of the way the "lobster pot" works. That
seems to be a reference to a feature that means that, once you're on the
new benefit, you cannot get out.
Q: How many people will be on UC by next autumn?
Shiplee says he would prefer not to give a figure at this stage.
It will be in the "tens of thousands", he says. That will give a better picture of accuracy. Q: And for full implementation. Last time you said the "opening ceremony" would be 2017.
Shiplee says that is right, except for one group of claimants.
Duncan Smith says the system would be closed to claimants under the old system from 2016.
Nigel Mills resumes his questioning. Q: When you bring in couples next year, will you do that in all areas? Or just some.
Howard Shiplee says they do not want to do a "big bang". They would start in some areas. Q: And what do you mean by saying you would start in the north west?
Shiplee says that means they would start regionally. Q: When will you have it covering the region?
Shiplee says he would expect that to be in the autumn of next year, depending on things working well.
Duncan Smith says, after that, they would move out to other regions.
Mike Driver says the DWP does have an "asset that works". It is working in a live environment.
But, if the software needs to be updated, it can be updated.
Nigel Mills, a Conservative, goes next.
Q: You said the software is written for couples. Isn't it quite simple to change the software to make it apply to couples.
No, says Shiplee. The differences are quite large. Lord Freud, the welfare minster, who is also giving evidence, intervenes.
He says the second generation of software is being written so that it can be accessed by smartphones. That is really taking off.
Kwasi Kwarteng, a Conservative, goes next. (He is the first Conservative to ask a question.) Q: When will you put a business case to the Treasury?
Early next year, says Shiplee.
Labour's Glenda Jackson goes next. Q: When did Iain Duncan Smith accept your view on "digital by default". He used to think that was a good idea.
Duncan Smith tries to answer. Jackson wants to hear from Shiplee. But
Duncan Smith presses on. He says he brought in the red team to look at
this.
Back in 20011-12 he said there had to be a pause, he says. He thought
they were trying to be overly ambitious bringing in digital by default.
The equipment works. But the question is how far you let people access it online. Q: In September you said things were fine. Now it has all changed.
Duncan Smith says it has not all changed.
Jackson says it has all changed.
Duncan Smith says she is conflating so many things that it has become "risible".
Q: How have you changed the IT system? Howard Shiplee, the DWP official in charge of universal credit, it answering.
The original plan involved a mixture of "waterfall" and "agile" IT, he says.
The digital approach is different.
Digital relies on "tin". Q: What does that mean?
Black boxes.
It means you can store material on the web.
Over time, that is cheaper. Q: Why did you not do that at the start?
Shiplee says technology is moving quickly. Q: But we were told two and a half years ago the system was working?
It is working. Q: Why are people using paper and pencil?
They are not, says Shiplee.
In the early days there was a mantra of "digital by default".
But Shiplee says it is unwise to try having everything digital at this stage.
Perhaps "digital by default" was an aspiration too far. Howard Shiplee Photograph: /Parliament TV
Mike Driver, finance director general at the DWP,
is giving evidence alongside Duncan Smith. He says the NAO has agreed
that the DWP can list an IT system worth £151m as an asset. But it is
writing off £40.1m. Mike Driver Photograph: /Parliament TV
Dame Anne Begg, the committee chair, says they will turn now to universal credit.
She says that the committee has received a letter this morning saying
the DWP has written off £40.1m because of changes to the IT needed for
the project.
Duncan Smith says it is a relief to get the proper figure out in public. Some misleading figures have been released, he says. Q: Is this the final write-off?
That depends on whether anything else changes, Duncan Smith says.
Duncan Smith says he has heard a lot of "moaning" about sanctions.
Debbie Abrahams says she is just representing her constituents.
Duncan Smith says a former Labour cabinet minster has talked about
"shirkers versus workers". So it is not just the government pushing
sanctions.
Labour's Sheila Gilmore goes next. Q: A statement has been made saying half of young people doing
work experience get job. Has there been any evaluation since the first
pilot? I have not seen any. Yet this statement has been made.
Duncan Smith says about half the people come off benefits. Q: Has this been evaluated?
Duncan Smith says the DWP evaluates things all the time.
Q: A JCP (jobcentre plus) adviser has told me that claimants
have been set up to fail. Some 5% of claimants are sanctioned every
month. This has increased since the new sanctions regime was introduced.
And this is distorting the statistics. Were you aware of this?
Duncan Smith says he was not aware of this. He would like to see
evidence for this. He is making an allegation about people who work very
hard. Q: He was one of them.
He may have been. But officials have looked into allegations that people are being told to sanction people. Q: Would you meet this person?
Yes, says Duncan Smith. But there is someone in charge of this they should meet first.
If he's got an issue to raise, Duncan Smith would want to know about this.
Iain Duncan Smith Photograph: /Parliament TV
Labour's Debbie Abrahams goes next. Q: The Mail on Sunday quoted the employment minister said the
introduction of PIP had led to a "closing down" effect. You mentioned
the Conservative party conflating some data. Were you involved?
Duncan Smith says the DWP published the data. But CCHQ used this for a news release. Q: So it was just an error.
Duncan Smith says she should talk to the Conservative chairman about this. The briefing material came from them.
The data that was published was correct, he says.
Labour's Sheila Gilmore goes next. Q: In April you said claimants were getting in early, and
claiming disability living allowance, before the personal independence
payment came in. Yet two thirds of those claimants would not have been
affected by the PIP.
Duncan Smith says his comments have been taken out of context. He was
making a point about what might have been part of the explanation. No
one complained about that.
Q: Grant Shapps said 900,000 people had given up claims to
disability benefits rather than be assessed. That is completely false.
Things like this have created "fear and alarm".
Duncan Smith said, in that instance, Conservative Central Office
conflated two sets of statistics. The DWP did not even know those
figures were coming out.
Q: The UK Statistics Authority has been very critical of your use of statistics.
Duncan Smith says he has had two letters from them.
One was two years ago. Another was this year, about the benefits cap and whether it caused people to go back to work.
But the DWP has put out 500 releases. Overall, the Statistics Authority is "very satisfied" with what it has done.
Sometimes the DWP get accused of saying this it has not said.
Iain Duncan Smith gives evidence to the Commons work and pension committee
Iain Duncan Smith is about to start.
Before he does, here's a quote from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation sent out about the hearing before it started.
If universal credit were allowed to fail now, it would be the worst
of both worlds, leaving us with cuts without reform and another broken
welfare system.
JRF strongly supports the principles behind Universal Credit because
it is the only opportunity we have to reform a failing and
overly-complex system. It removes the worst work incentives of the
current system and redistributes resources to households in poverty.
However the government must address its structural and implementation
problems. Our research shows that to make a real difference, welfare
reform needs to be linked to industrial and labour market policy in
order to tackle the barriers that prevent some people from moving out of
benefits and into work.
This includes the prevalence of low paid, insecure jobs, a lack of
affordable childcare, insufficient skills and discrimination against
some groups in the labour market. Joining Universal Credit up to these
other vital areas of policy would help it to succeed.
The fact Iain Duncan Smith has clung on for so long is one of the
great political mysteries of our time and the question must be asked,
how is he still in a job?
He has presided over not only a disgusting campaign of vilification
towards the most vulnerable people in our society but also an absolutely
scandalous waste of public money that could have been better spent
supporting the sick, disabled and unemployed.
I'm giving up the Mandela debate now. There have been some more good
speech - Frank Dobson's sounded very moving from what I heard - but I
can't do everything. The work and pensions committee is about to start.
And here's an extract from Peter Hain's speech.
This is what he said about Conservatives who had tried to defend the
record of the Thatcher government towards apartheid.
Were it it not for the interventions in the media in recent days, I would have let pass correcting the historical record.
I give credit, especially to you, Mr Speaker for volunteering most
graciously that you were on the wrong side of the anti-apartheid
struggle as a young Conservative.
I give credit to the prime minister for apologising for his party's
record of what I have to describe as craven indulgence towards
apartheid's rulers.
And if Nelson Mandela can forgive his oppressors without forgetting
their crimes, who am I not to do the same to our opponents in the long
decades of the anti-apartheid struggle. But it really does stick in the
craw when Lord Tebbit, Charles Moore and others similar tried over
recent days to claim that their complicity with apartheid - and that's
what I think it was - somehow brought about its end. Even, to my utter
incredulity, when Lord Tebbit told BBC World, in a debate with me, that
they had brought about Mandela's freedom. I know for a fact that Nelson
Mandela did not think so.
Peter Hain Photograph: /BBC Parliament
Updated
Here are some extracts from Gordon Brown's speech On Mandela's courage
The man most responsible for the destruction of what people thought
was indestructible, the apartheid system, the man who taught as that no
injustice can last for ever.
Nelson Mandela, the greatest man of his generation, yes, but across
the generations one of the most courageous people you could ever hope to
meet. Winston Churchill said that courage was the greatest human virtue
of all because upon courage everything else depended. And Nelson
Mandela had eloquence, determination, commitment, passion, wit and
charm. But it was his courage that brought all these things to light. We
sometimes think of courage as daring and bravado and taking risks and
recklessness, and it is all these things that Mandela had in admirable
qualities. But Mandela was the first to say that true courage depends
not just on strength of willpower, but on strength of belief ...
On his belief in equality
And what made him this great architect of a free South Africa was
this burning belief that everyone, every man and woman was equal,
everyone born to be free, everyone created not with a destiny to be in
poverty, but created to have dignity in life ...
On his fight against poverty
He himself wrote that in the first part of his life he climbed one
great mountain, to end apartheid. But now in his later life he wanted to
climb another great mountain, to rid the world of poverty, and
especially the outrage of child poverty ...
On his legacy
Hung by Mandela on the bare walls of that bleak prison cell was the
facsimile of the British painting by the famous artist, Frederick Watts.
It is the haunting image of a blinded girl sitting on top of a globe of
the world. And the painting, entitled Hope, it's about the boldness of a
girl to believe that even when blinded, even with a broken heart and
only one string, she could still play music. Her and Mandela's belief,
that even in the most difficult and the most bleak of times, even when
things seemed hopeless, there could still be hope - and I believe that
that explains why over these last few days we've both mourned the death
of Mandela and celebrated his life with equal intensity ...
The man who taught us that no injustice can last forever. Nelson
Mandela, the greatest man of his generation, yes, but across the
generations, one of the most courageous people you could ever hope to
meet … As long as Mandela was alive, you knew that even in the worst
disasters, there was someone there standing between us and the elements
who represented goodness and nobility.
And here is the Press Association story about Brown's speech.
Former prime minister Gordon Brown made a rare appearance in the
Commons today to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela, who taught the world
that "no injustice can last forever".
Brown, who was the first MP to speak after the three main party
leaders, paid homage to the man he described as being as great "as the
continent he loved".
Recalling that he unveiled a statue of Mandela before the former ANC
president, who was accompanied by his wife, Brown described the monument
with its hands outstretched, "but his finger pointing upwards, as it
always did, to the heights: the man most responsible for the destruction
of what people thought was indestructible, the apartheid system.
"The man that taught us no injustice can last forever."
Brown praised Mandela for his courage and his ability to reach out to all people.
"Nelson Mandela, the greatest man of his generation, yes, but across
generations, one of the most courageous people you could ever hope to
meet," he said.
The Labour MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath quoted Winston Churchill and Shakespeare to describe his friend.
"Winston Churchill said that courage was the greatest human virtue of all, because upon courage everything else depended.
"And Nelson Mandela had eloquence, determination, commitment,
passion, wit and charm, but it was his courage that brought all these
things to life," said Brown.
"We sometimes think of courage as being daring bravado, as taking
risks and recklessness, and it is all these things that Mandela had in
admirable qualities."
Mandela's greatest achievement marked him out as the "architect of a free South Africa", but he had many others.
Brown said: "But Mandela was the first to say that true courage
depends not just on strength of willpower, but the strength of belief
and what drove Mandela forward and what made him the architect of a free
South Africa - the one and first great achievement - was this burning
belief that everyone, every man and woman, was equal.
"Everyone born to be free."
He reminded the Commons that Mandela made use of a smuggled copy of the complete works of Shakespeare during his time in prison.
Brown said: "He had marked the words from Julius Caesar... 'A
coward', he says, 'dies a thousand times before his death, but the
valiant takes to death but one'."
Brown, who was last in the Commons on July 9, said: "The most amazing
story that he told me was on the night before they left prison,
collaring all the ANC prisoners together, and saying, yes, they would be
justified in acts of revenge, retaliation and retribution, but there
could never then be a strong, successful and multiracial society.
"And that was his second great achievement, to achieve change through
reconciliation. But you know there was a third achievement, refusing to
rest or relax when he gave up the presidency."
He praised Mandela's wife, Graca Machel, for sharing her husband's
ideals and fighting against child poverty, and said she would "now carry
on his legacy into the future".
Brown, who is also the United Nations special envoy for global
education, spoke of his visit to South Africa which coincided with the
death of Mr Mandela's son of Aids.
He said: "And while in mourning and in grief and shocked by the events, he insisted on coming out to the waiting press with me.
"And he said that Aids was not to be treated as a moral judgment and censoriously.
"It was to be treated exactly like the tuberculosis that he had
suffered as a disease in need of cure. His greatness as vast as the
continent he loved. Showing there that his greatness was the greatness
of the human soul."
So we come here to honour the man, to acknowledge our history, and also for one final reason.
To recognise and uphold the universal values for which Nelson Mandela stood.
The dignity of every person, whatever their colour or creed.
Values of tolerance and respect for all.
And justice for all people, wherever they may live and whatever oppression they may face.
Nelson Mandela himself said: ‘I am not a saint, I am a sinner who keeps on trying’.
His extraordinary life calls on us all to keep on trying.
For nobler ideals, higher purposes and for a bigger and not a smaller politics.
Inspired by his example and the movement he led.
We mourn his loss.
We give thanks for his life.
And we honour his legacy.
On opposition to the anti-apartheid movement
The Prime Minister and I and thousands of others went to sign the condolence book at South Africa House on Friday.
But it is easy to forget now that South Africa House was not always such a welcoming place for opponents of apartheid.
So we should also remember today the hundreds of thousands of people who were the anti-apartheid movement in Britain.
The people who stood month after month, year after year, on the steps of that embassy, when the cause seemed utterly futile.
The churches, trade unions, the campaigners who marched, who
supported the struggle financially, culturally and in so many other
ways.
The people who refused to buy South African produce and supported the call for sanctions.
People whose names we do not know from all over Britain who were part of that struggle ...
It may seem odd to a younger generation that apartheid survived as
long as it did, given that now it seems to have been universally reviled
the world over.
But of course, the truth and the history is very different.
The cause was highly unfashionable.
Often considered dangerous by those in authority and opposed by those in government.
The Prime Minister was right a few years ago to acknowledge the history.
Ed Miliband Photograph: /BBC Parliament
Updated
Hain says Mandela always remained his own man.
He was the icon of icon, and always will be.
Bill Clinton said that, when Mandela walks into a room, we all want to be a little bigger. We all want to be like him.
He won't walk into a room again. But we still do have the chance to be like him.
And Hain has finished now too. I will post highlights from his speech too.
Hain says Mandela should be ranked alongside Gandhi and Churchill.
Mandela commanded fame and admiration from virtually everyone in the world.
He towers above others who have campaigned for human rights. He was
better known, because he was famous in the modern media environment.
The media specialises in knocking people down. But it never did that with Mandela, he says.
Hain says Mandela could be mischievous.
After Hain's marriage in 2003, he introduced her to his wife. Mandela asked if she was his girlfriend.
He could not attend the wedding. But he send a message saying: "Perhaps I will be able to come next time."
Hain says when the Free Nelson Mandela concert was held, some Conservative MPs wanted to stop it being broadcast.
Mandela's struggle for freedom was long and bitter, he says.
All people in Britain say they were against apartheid. And we
probably were. But some people did things about it, and others did not.
Hain mentions those involved in the anti-apartheid movement, like Bob Hughes. Hain says he himself was labelled "Hain the pain".
He apologises for striking a discordant note. Were it not for some of the media coverage, he would let this lie.
He gives credit to Bercow for acknowledging that he was on the wrong
side the apartheid argument. And he says David Cameron has admitted his
party made mistakes.
But he says he was surprised to see people like Lord Tebbit and
Charles Moore argue that the Conservative's stance helped the struggle
against apartheid. Hain says he sees the Conservatives' stance as one of
"complicity".
Mandela himself did not think they helped get rid of apartheid, he says.
Mandela was able to make friends with his old foes, he says.
Hain says he remembers sailing past Robben Island when his family left South Africa.
Even in prison, the black prisoners were treated worse than the coloureds; They were given less meat.
But, even in prison, Mandela became a global figure.
Hain says his mother was often the only person in the white's only gallery in the court at the Rivonia trial.
When Mandela visited the UK, and Hain was a minister, he asked after
Hain's mother. She was in hospital. He insisted on calling her, keeping
the prime minster waiting. He got through and said: "I'm Mandela from
South Africa. Do you remember me."
Peter Hain is speaking now. (I missed Sir Malcolm Rifkind, but will post quotes later.)
Hain thanks Cameron and others for their compliments. They have have
been over-done, he says. There were thousands of anti-apartheid
campaigners, he says.
He thanks Bercow for the role he played in organising today's debate. Bercow is wearing a South African tie, he says.
He says he does not really do heroes. But Mandela has been his since childhood.
His parents welcomes blacks and whites into their South African home,
he says. For many blacks, that was the first time they had been to a
white man's house.
Updated
Gordon Brown has finished now. His speech was terrific. I will post full quotes as soon as I can.
Brown says Mandela hung on his prison walls a picture of a blinded girl sitting on top of the world. It is called Hope.
Her belief, and Mandela's, was that even in the bleakest time there could be hope.
That is why the world has united in grief, he says.
As long as Mandela was alive, there was someone there representing goodness and nobility.
He teaches us that no injustice can last forever.
And he teaches us that when good people come together, there is hope.
Brown recalls sitting next to Mandela at the celebrity concert in London.
Mandela asked who the celebrities were. Brown was not able to help.
They met Amy Winehouse. She told him that he and her husband had a lot in common; they had both been in prison.
Brown says he visited South Africa in the week Mandela's son died of Aids.
Mandela came out and spoke to the press. He said Aids should not be
treated as a moral issue. It should be treated like disease like TB.
He recalls his first meeting with Mandela. Mandela greeted him as the representative of a the colonial power.
And they became close after his children were born.
Brown says after his release from prison Mandela engaged in a third great campaign.
He campaigned against poverty, and child poverty.
Brown says he went to South Africa in 2005 to get Mandela to support debt relief.
Brown says Mandela's views are inscribed in a battered book.
It is the works of Shakespeare.
In Julius Ceasar Mandela has marked the words: "A coward dies a thousand deaths."
Brown says he called the ANC prisoners together on the night before they left prison.
He told them that if they took revenge, there would never be an multi-racial South Africa.
Brown says Mandela taught us no injustice can last for ever.
He was also courageous across the generations.
Mandela said true courage depends on belief.
What made Mandela the great architect of South Africa was the burning belief that everyone was born to be free, he says.
Gordon Brown is speaking now.
Some 51 years ago, in Parliament Square, Mandela asked when a black person would be represented in the Commons.
That visit was important. Mandela knew it might be his last to London.
So it was a great privilege to be able to unveil that statute with Mandela, Brown says.
Clegg says at his 1964 trial Mandela said equality was an ideal for which he was prepared to die.
Mandela liked to repeat the saying about the arc of the moral universe being long, but it bending towards justice.
Nick Clegg is speaking now.
His message transcended people and nations. And his character did too.
Mandela was aware of his place in history. But he wanted to seem humble too.
Clegg said he did not meet Mandela. But, like so many people, he almost feels that he had met him.
He recalls Paddy Ashdown's wife repeatedly saying Mandela was the funniest man she had met.
Clegg says he attended the Free Nelson Mandela concert to mark his 70th birthday.
He remembers wondering how Mandela could met up to the expectations placed upon him.
But he did, he says.
Clegg says that, in honour of Mandela, we should remember the many
human rights organisations around the world that do not have Mandela's
fame.
Britain should stand up around the world for human rights and equality, he says.
Miliband said that when Mandela came to the Labour conference, he
described himself as an unemployed pensioner with a criminal record.
He was the sort of person who sought out not the most important person in the room, but the least important one.
In the spirit of peace and reconciliation, Miliband says South Africa was a British colony.
People went to South Africa House on Friday to sign the book of condolence.
But South Africa House did not always used to be such a welcoming place for anti-apartheid campaigners.
Miliband pays tribute to the many Britons who campaigned against apartheid, or who refused to buy South African goods.
He pays especial tribute to two Labour figures: Bob Hughes and Peter Hain.
Now you would assume that everyone was against apartheid. They were not, he says.
Mandela said he was not a saint. He said he was a sinner who kept on trying. He remains an inspiration, says Miliband.
Ed Miliband is speaking now.
This House normally meets like this to honour a British leader. It is unusual to honour a foreign leader like this.
But Mandela teaches enduring truths, he says.
He represents the power of politics to change the world.
Miliband recounts the sacrifices Mandela made.
When offered the chance to come out of prison (subject to conditions), he said he could not sell his birthrate.
As Desmond Tutu said, suffering cannot damage its victims. But it can ennoble them too.
Mandela was not just the leader of a struggle. He was truly the leader of a nation.
His struggle was one that never ended.
Having been an activist who became a president, he became a president who was an activist.
Cameron says Mandela, the "champion of democracy", is cast in bronze
in a statute in Parliament Square. He seems to be encouraging people
not to give up on democracy.
Cameron pays tribute to Peter Hain and to people like him, who made it their life's work to get rid of apartheid.
Lots of people in the UK tried to get rid of apartheid, either through large measures, or through quiet shows of solidarity.
When Mandela was released, he pushed for reconciliation.
Cameron says one of the great honours of his life was meeting Mandela in his office in South Africa.
And he pays tribute to what Mandela did to get South Africans to recognise the extent of the Aids problem.
David Cameron opens the debate.
Looking back, it can seem natural to see victories over prejudice as
inevitable, he says. But it is not so. Progress is not handed down as a
gift. It is achieved by people, he says.
Nelson Mandela embodies that.
We must never forget the evil of apartheid.
His struggle was made ever more vital by acts of extreme brutality by the apartheid regime, like Sharpeville.
He was a prisoner in a cell measuring 7ft by 8ft. But he never wavered.
He says Mandela resisted offers of release until all conditions had been removed.
John Bercow opens proceedings saying this is a special day to pay special tributes to a special statesman, Nelson Mandela.
Mandela’s fight against HIV is a shining example. He walked out of
prison into a South Africa that did not recognise its slow and
devastating creep. When in Opposition I visited him in South Africa and I
went to an Aids respite centre and orphanage. I will never forget the
rooms of mothers dying slowly. He admitted that during his time as
President he failed to confront the issue. But he had the courage and
humility to recognise this and the resolve to do something about it.
I remember hearing him talk about it and thinking how progressive he
was for a man for whom the outside world had been put on pause for
nearly 30 years. Mandela challenged the widespread view that HIV did not
cause Aids, which was preventing South Africa from confronting the
scale of the challenge. He stood up for South Africans who were living
with HIV and battling for access to the treatments that could keep them
alive. And his moving revelation that his own son Makgatho had died of
Aids led a sea change of public opinion that spurred the nation to
respond.
There is a lesson there for all politicians: the best opinions are
formed not in the court of public opinion but the privacy of your own
conscience.
When the Tories won the 1970 election they reversed Labour’s limited
ban on selling arms to the apartheid state. Then back in opposition in
1974, Tory Leader Ted Heath welcomed the British Lions rugby tour to
South Africa in direct breach of the UN sports boycott of whites-only
South African teams. By contrast Labour’s Africa Minister Joan Lestor
refused normal British embassy receptions and facilities for the Lions.
Consistently, as the struggle against apartheid escalated through the
1980s, Tory MPs aligned themselves with apartheid, enjoying generous
travel and hospitality, one becoming known as the ‘Member for Pretoria’.
One, Gerald Howarth, was even involved in a private prosecution against
me for conspiracy to stop the tours, nearly having me jailed after a
month-long Old Bailey trial in 1972. Conservative Students wore ‘Hang
Nelson Mandela’ badges and Margaret Thatcher denounced him as ‘a
terrorist’ just a few years before he walked to freedom from prison.
When in 1988 the Anti-Apartheid Movement organised a great ‘Free
Mandela’ concert which filled Wembley stadium to bursting, Steve Wonder
flew in. George Michael, Sting, Dire Straits, Eurythmics and a host of
other stars performed. They defied Tory backbenchers who tried right up
to transmission to pull the plug on BBC2’s live broadcast as over 600
million watched worldwide.
MPs and peers pay tribute to Nelson Mandela
At 2.30pm MPs will pay tribute to Nelson Mandela. The whole day has
been set aside for this debate and, according to a Commons source, there
are enough MPs wanting to speak to keep the proceedings going until
10pm.
A similar debate was held to mark the death of Lady Thatcher. But she
was a British prime minister, well known to many of the MPs who spoke
about her in the debate. (And even those who did not know her who
contributed tended to describe her as a big inspiration.) For the
Commons to spend a whole day honouring the memory of a foreigner leader
is much more unusual. Colleagues have been struggling to find a
precedent.
John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, has been pressing for this. The announcement of the debate came from his office on Friday and, according to some reports, he's been planning a special Mandela day in the Commons ever since the summer.
One view at Westminster is that Bercow trying to atone for his record
in the 1980s when he chaired the Federation of Conservative Students and
some of its members (but not Bercow, apparently) used to go around
wearing "Hang Nelson Mandela" T-shirts.
There may be something in that. But a better way to understand Bercow
is to see him as an impresario, or a television editor, constantly
dreaming up new ways to make his show more enticing. (A bit like Ian
Katz at Newsnight - well, not quite the same.) Normally
Bercow's chosen method of livening up the show is to grant an urgent
question. But today's he's gone for the Mandela special edition.
This isn't a complaint. For those of us how write about parliament
for a living, Bercow has been a godsend, and I'm all in favour of
anything (almost) to boost the ratings. But I'm not sure how good
today's effort will be. Very few MPs knew Mandela, and there probably
won't be many who have anything new or original to say. But we'll see.
I'll be covering the first hour or so of the proceedings.
The UK is unusual for having no identifiable framework that allows
public and parliament to understand who is responsible for success and
failure in government. Accountability arrangements for policy ideas and
implementation are muddled. Some view this as a cosy conspiracy that
allows ministers and official to hide behind each other when things go
wrong. But the report says in reality, ‘present arrangements operate in a
messy, unpredictable and opaque fashion that serves nobody’s
interests.'
And here's a comment from Akash Paun, an IfG and the lead author of the report.
Time and again the question of who is responsible for what in
government is fudged and as a result trust in the system has all but
broken down. Even today as the work and pensions secretary goes before a
committee of MPs on the creaking universal credit programme, it is
impossible to tell who is responsible for what.
When things go wrong, it must be made clearer who is responsible and
what are the consequences for that failure. But permanent secretaries
and ministers are working with an appraisal system that blames and
credits no one. Unsurprisingly permanent secretaries see their
objectives as a joke. This year’s objectives, when they are finally
published, must link performance to results and have clear consequences
for success and failure.
We propose some specific reforms that would help ministers and
permanent secretaries to understand each other’s roles and
responsibilities, and to work together more effectively.
These were terrible floods and it was a very difficult event but the
resilience of people here in Norfolk must be praised. The systems worked
well, the flood wardens did a brilliant job and the police, fire
service, lifeboats and the whole community pulled together. This was a
bigger flood than 1953 when 24,000 homes flooded - this time only 1,400
homes were flooded. But that's no help for the people whose homes were
flooded this time.
Updated
Number 10 lobby briefing - Summary
10 Downing Street Photograph: Alamy
Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing. • David Cameron will be accompanied by three former prime
ministers - Sir John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - when he
attends the national memorial event for Nelson Mandela in Johannesburg
tomorrow. Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg will also be there, the
prime minister's spokesman said. He said that invitations were the
responsibility of the South African government, but he went mysteriously
quiet when asked if it was true that Clegg had put his foot down and
insisted on attending. He did not know whether there was any precedent
for so many former prime ministers accompanying the prime minister to an
event like this. Details of their travel arrangements have not been
revealed and, given the state of relations between Blair and Brown,
there have already been jokes about the seating arrangements. Cameron
will be back in London in time for PMQs on Wednesday. • Downing Street claimed that a final decision about whether
or not David Cameron accepted the pay rise being proposed by the
Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority this week would not have
to be taken until 2015. That was because the plans being announced by Ipsa, for a big pay rise from 2015 (11% or 9%, depending on how you define it),
would have to be reviewed in mid 2015, he said. This is what the
spokesman said when asked if Cameron would accept the pay rise.
Ipsa has not made final proposals. Any proposals that they make will be reviewed in mid 2015. So [the question] does not arise.
When it was pointed out that Philip
Hammond, the defence secretary, said yesterday that he expected the
cabinet to take a collective decision about whether or not to accept the
pay rise, the spokesman kept making the point about the proposals
being subject to review in mid 2015. (Under the rules setting up Ipsa,
its plans for MPs' pay have to be reviewed in the first year of a new
parliament.) When pressed, the spokesman said that Cameron "does not
think that MPs' pay should go up while public sector pay is being
restrained" and that he thought "the cost of politics should go down,
not up". The spokesman also said that Cameron still thought it was right
for parliament to "make the decision that it took with regard to making
pay independent". But he kept returning to the point about the 2015
review.
(This seems a particularly feeble position. It seems hard to believe
that Cameron will be able to get through Thursday - when the Ipsa report
is published - without saying whether or not he will accept the pay
rise, let alone a general election campaign. Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg
have said they would refuse such a rise, as have a large number of MPs,
including some cabinet ministers. It does make you wonder what on earth
Cameron is up to. Presumably it's a party management issue. Cameron has
three problems that Ed Miliband doesn't. First, Tory MPs are generally
more accustomed to a high income than Labour MPs (because they are more
likely to have worked in finance, or other highly-paid sectors) and they
may be more resistant to forgoing salary than their Labour
counterparts. Second, many of Cameron's MPs think he is rich and
elitist, and they resent being asked to make financial sacrifices by
someone who can easily afford it. And, third, Cameron has already forced
many of his MPs to take a big financial hit (when he ordered dozens of
them to pay back expenses they could not justify). He could get away
with that once. Four years later, he seems to have concluded that he
does not have the clout to do that again.) • The spokesman defended Iain Duncan Smith's handling of universal credit. • Number 10 refused to back the high court judge who said couples should only have children if their relationship is stable enough for them to marry. Cameron thought marriage was "a great institution", the spokesman said. But he said it was not his job to be prescriptive. • Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, is updating MPs today in a statement (pdf) about British support for the French peace-keeping operation in the Central African Republic. The government is supplying the use of a transport aircraft, but will not dispatch troops in a combat role, Hammond said.
The Number 10 lobby briefing is over.
The main news was the disclosure that three former prime ministers,
Sir John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, as well as Ed Miliband and
Nick Clegg, will attend the national memorial event for Nelson Mandela
in Johannesburg tomorrow as well as David Cameron.
I'll post a full summary shortly.
In his first full interview since two public spending watchdogs delivered excoriating criticism of poor management of the welfare shake-up, Mr Duncan Smith said he “made no excuses” and took “complete responsibility . . . from start to finish”.
He said the IT problems that have dogged universal credit were small
within the context of a £2bn programme that will bundle working-age
benefits into a single payment.
“All IT programmes, let’s be honest, always have elements that get written off,” he said.
After months of criticism from MPs and suggestions that George
Osborne had lost confidence in him to deliver, Mr Duncan Smith hit back:
“No one has got hurt and that’s the important point. I intervened early
enough to stop that happening.”
Scottish consumers will pay more for food if they vote for independence in next year’s referendum because Britain’s big supermarket chains plan to raise their prices north of the border, senior executives have warned.
Top executives representing three of the Big Four supermarket groups – Tesco, Asda, Wm Morrison and J Sainsbury
– told the Financial Times that they currently absorbed the extra costs
of doing business in Scotland into their UK operation. But the big
grocers are privately talking about halting this practice if Scotland
becomes an independent nation.
“We would treat it as an international market and
act accordingly by putting up our prices,” said a top executive at one
of the Big Four. “The costs of distribution are much higher in Scotland
but at the moment that gets absorbed by the UK business.”
Executives have been reluctant to voice their
opinions over independence for fear of censure from the Scottish
National party if they speak out, according to some business groups and
pro-union politicians. But they are slowly beginning to weigh in as the
vote nears. The comments from supermarket bosses echo growing fears over
investment prospects for an independent Scotland.
Supermarket executives say doing business in Scotland is already more
expensive due to a combination of higher transport costs and more
onerous business rates for companies that sell alcohol and cigarettes.
But retailers absorb this into their own UK margins in order to stick to
a “national pricing” policy with stores of the same size.
The decline in productivity since the crisis has been startling, and
Britain’s output per worker is now lower than anywhere else in the rich
world except Japan. Nobody knows why. It may just be that firms were
reluctant to sack people and so during the slump produced less with the
same number of workers. If so, we don’t need to worry about it. But it
may be something more fundamental, such as the impact of the troublingly
low level of business investment that we’re seeing in Britain, or our
failure to educate and train workers properly.
If demography and productivity are dragging our economy down, what
can we do about it? Not a lot, probably. The demographic drag is acting
on the whole world, not just us. Even the Chinese have got used to the
idea that they will get old before they get rich. That’s bad news for
us, as well as for them, since it means they will buy fewer of our fancy
cars and handbags. On the productivity front, an education system that
put our young people ahead of the competition would help; but an endless
series of governments has promised to do that while we continue to slip
down the global league tables.
Probably the best thing we could do to mitigate the problems of
demography and productivity and thus boost growth would be to encourage
as many clever young foreigners to come to this country as possible.
Some hope.
I'm off to the lobby briefing now. I will post again after 11.30am.
Next week the Commons education committee is questioning Michael Gove.
The committee is inviting people to suggest questions on Twitter. Here's an extract from the news release it's sent out.
Submit your question via Twitter between 11am on Monday 09 December
and 5pm on Thursday 12 December. Please add hashtags as below:
#AskGove#places (for questions on school places)
#AskGove#care (for questions on children’s social care)
#AskGove#careers (for questions on careers)
#AskGove (for other questions)
David Cameron is is Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk visiting people affected by last week's flooding. David Cameron Photograph: /BBC News
Iain Duncan Smith's Today interview - Summary
Here is a summary of the main points from Iain Duncan Smith's interview on the Today programme. It was all about universal credit (UC). • Duncan Smith insisted that his plan to introduce UC by 2017 was broadly on track.
By the end of that year (the original target for full implemntation)
"the vast majority of people" would be on it, he said. The only
exception would be about 700,000 people receiving employment and support
allowance (ESA), a disability benefit.
We could easily have tried to rush those people in but we have
decided not to. They are the people who don't have any work requirement
on them and they have had the biggest change going through the work
capability assessment and therefore they need time to get through. I
think it is only fair to give them longer.
Howard Shiplee, the new official brought in in the summer to take
charge of the project, recommended this, Duncan Smith said. He said he
accepted that the plan had changed.
I do accept, of course, that this plan is different from the original plan.
• Duncan Smith said the project was "on budget". He
explained: "The figures that we were given are £2bn to do this and we
will have spent under that by time we get to the end of this programme
... The OBR shows that we will be within the budget." • He said he wanted to avoid the mistakes Labour made when it introduced IT projects.
What we actually did was we reset the programme so that we do volumes
later in the rollout, not so early, and I think that’s fair, because
the lesson we learned from the rollout from the last government, for
example of tax credits, where they put huge volumes through very early
on and the whole system crashed, costing £30bn in fraud - that's the
lesson I was very certain that we needed to learn and not repeat and we
won’t be repeating this.
The Government Digital Service has not at all [been critical] and the
public needs to know, the Government Digital Service is part of the
Cabinet Office and they were in and are in advising us on how to roll
out the new and fully enhanced digital offering.
• He said that eventually people would be able to use iPhone apps to access the UC system.
The Government Digital Service has said that in due course the best
thing is finally to do this through a digital rollout which gives you
much greater scope - people are able to use their apps on telephones
eventually and in iPads. It will be much more up to speed and easier to
moderate later on and that’s why we’re doing that at the same time, and
eventually the two will mesh together and that plan is, I think, a good
plan.
I've taken the quotes from PoliticsHome and the Press Association.
Updated
It's a big day for Iain Duncan Smith. Last week, two hours before
George Osborne delivered his autumn statement, the work and pensions
secretary slipped out an announcement saying that his flagship welfare
reform, universal credit, would not be implemented in full by 2017 as
originally planned. Today he is being questioned by the Commons work and
pensions committee and, although the hearing will cover various issues,
it is likely to focus on universal credit (UC). Rachel Reeves, the shadow work and pensions secretary, put out a news release overnight highlighting the the problems facing UC and, on the Today programme this morning, she renewed her attack.
[The figures] tell us that the programme is now a complete shambles.
At the time of the general election, 1.7m people were supposed to be
claiming universal credit. Instead, the Office for Budget Responsibility
says that just a handful will be. The following year, not 4m, but
400,000 people, and today there are just 2,000 people on universal
credit. All of them are single; all of them are just claiming JSA; no
disabled people; no people with children; no people on tax credits. So
this whole project is now in total disarray.
Duncan Smith was on the programme later, saying that it was sensible
to implement UC carefully. I'll post a full summary of his interview
shortly.
I will be covering the select committee hearing in detail.
Here's the agenda for the day. 9.45am: Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, gives a speech setting out his new cycling plans for London. 11am: Number 10 lobby briefing.
2.30pm: MPs pay tribute to Nelson Mandela. In the Lords peers will also pay tribute. 4.30pm: Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, gives evidence to the Commons work and pensions committee. The session will focus on universal credit and the Department for Work and Pensions' use of statistics in particular.
As usual, I’ll also be covering all the breaking political news as
well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from
the web. I’ll post a summary at about 1pm and another in the afternoon.
If you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
COPY http://www.theguardian.com/
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