Catch up on the latest political news from across Kent with Rob Bailey, joined by Conservative Paul Bartlett from Ashford and Liberal Democrat Mike Sole from Canterbury.
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00:00 Welcome to the Kent Politics Show live on KMTV.
00:28 I'm Rob Bailey. It was Brexit's fourth birthday this week, and yet we're still talking about
00:32 reasonable worst case scenarios. That was how Ashford Borough Council described the
00:37 risk of 14-hour delays at Dover when new Brexit checks are imposed in October. And Kent County
00:43 Council leader Roger Goff told a committee of MPs it could get even worse.
00:49 One main concern is how it will impact Kent's £4 billion visitor economy. Here's Deidre
00:54 Wells, Chief Executive of Visit Kent, who gave evidence at the committee.
00:58 I think we need to have a constructive dialogue with the EU and particularly with our partners
01:03 in France. I think there probably is some, two particularly longer-term strategic infrastructure
01:10 challenges that we need government support for. One is around the congestion of the port
01:15 itself and support for the Port of Dover to be able to do all they can to be able to mitigate
01:22 the bottleneck that happens because of the sheer geography of the site. But also I think
01:28 to look at what are we doing more strategically to get more passenger transport off the road.
01:34 So for example, to lobbying for the return of the Eurostar to Ashford and Epsley to ensure
01:40 that people who perhaps before might have got a train over to France are now driving.
01:47 Here with me is Conservative Paul Bartlett from Ashford and Liberal Democrat Mike Soule
01:51 from Canterbury. Thanks for joining us.
01:53 Paul, I want to start by coming to you. What we understand at the moment, and the details
01:58 still aren't actually confirmed, but from October anyone travelling to the European
02:02 Union for the first time, if they're a British citizen, will need to submit themselves for
02:06 face scans, fingerprint scans and biometric checks before they can travel. Obviously Ashford
02:13 have been at Parliament this week talking about the impact. I wonder whether you can
02:16 just explain to us what risks you think that has for Ashford and for Kent.
02:20 Well, it's the longer time that it will take for passengers to get into the Schengen area,
02:26 the EU single travel area. We understand that travellers are going to be required to have
02:34 their fingerprint taken and a face scan taken. That will take two to three minutes for each
02:41 passenger travelling across the channel. And the point is that there isn't the space to
02:49 deal with all of that at Dover or at Dover at pace. So I understand the Department of
02:57 Transport are working with the EU in order to identify potential sites away from the
03:05 port itself in order to do the bulk of the checks.
03:10 But as it stands, that means we're looking at an autumn and potentially leading into
03:13 Christmas of Operation Brock and the ominous sounding Brock Zero, which is the one that
03:18 pushes everything back towards Maidstone. That's the expectation.
03:21 Well, we've had 38 years of stack of Brock. So it's really a constant aggravation for
03:30 people throughout Kent. You're absolutely right. There are additional risks. But this
03:38 EES system has been kicked into the long grass a couple of times by the French government.
03:48 They've recently just postponed it until after the Paralympics because I think they are absolutely
03:54 aware that this will cause difficulties for people coming into France and they didn't
04:00 want to affect their own tourist traffic visiting the Paralympics. So I think they're aware
04:07 of the issues that this will have on the French economy. And so I'm confident that the parties
04:13 will work together between now and October in order to resolve it.
04:18 We heard Visit Kent were part of that Kent emissary up to Parliament to talk about this
04:24 week and the particular concern was about the impact on tourism. And one of the things
04:29 that Deirdre Wells said during that was that there would be a particular impact on coach
04:34 trips to Kent coming in from Europe being put off by the kind of delays they might see
04:40 now and an awful lot of those are coming to Canterbury, Mike, where you're based. Are
04:43 you worried about the impact on the economy of the city?
04:46 Oh, very much. We've already seen a huge reduction in the number of coach trips coming through
04:50 to Canterbury since Brexit. And this is going to add to that. No one is going to come on
04:55 a day trip to Canterbury knowing you could spend 15 hours of it stuck in a queue. It's
04:59 just not going to happen. And those of us who campaigned against Brexit, we warned about
05:04 this right from the start. We knew it was going to be a disaster. There shouldn't be
05:07 a surprise that there are extra checks when you need to come into the country. Nobody
05:12 wrote on a big bus 15 hour delays. And this is what we're going to have. And it's completely
05:18 wrong that here in Kent we're having to put up with this. We're bearing the brunt of Brexit
05:23 in Kent and our roads shouldn't become lorry parks and car parks where people just queue
05:29 up. The government's got to recognise this. It's got to give us a fair deal in Kent and
05:34 recognise that we're the gateway to Europe and the whole country needs to chip in and
05:38 help us sort this out.
05:41 Some people might ask whether there's an element of scaremongering here because this might
05:46 be a very short term problem. People only have to do these checks once effectively.
05:50 So if someone is travelling regularly across to Europe, that two minute delay won't be
05:55 for every trip. And over time we're going to see a much smoother journey. Do you think
05:59 that that might be the case?
06:00 Well, I think it's inevitable that over time the delays will decrease. But the fact is
06:05 they're going to be there to start off with and they will be there for many years because
06:09 not everybody goes to France every year. Some people might only go once every 10 years or
06:16 whatever it may be. So yeah, I think the worst impact will be this year. It will gradually
06:20 decrease, but there's always going to be delays. And certainly whatever happens, those delays
06:25 will be much longer than they were before Brexit.
06:28 Some criticism of Brexit. Now I know that you're on the record in the past being a Brexiteer,
06:32 Paul. Is this an unreasonable cost that Brexit's imposing on Kent?
06:36 No, not at all. It's about making sure that borders are secure. And it's very important
06:43 that we work with our EU partners in order to do that and that we achieve the aims of
06:50 all parties together. I think eight years after the vote, it's just beginning to grate
06:56 a little bit about how dreadful Brexit is and is going to be. I mean, we just need to
07:04 grow up now and live with the new arrangements. Brexit has delivered enormous gains to the
07:12 UK economy. We have the boost to financial services. And it's great news this week that
07:19 finally the Labour Party has got on board with one of the biggest problems of being
07:25 in the EU, the prevention of bankers being able to get their bonuses. And now we finally
07:32 have the Labour Party embracing the idea of enhanced bonuses for the City of London. That's
07:39 the kind of thing that's going to turbocharge the UK economy. And of course, just a little
07:45 thing of rolling out the Covid jab is a lot easier, a lot easier and a lot sooner than
07:51 the rest of the EU. Brexit was a good idea and it's delivering benefits.
07:57 One of the things that was quite notable about the performance up at Parliament this week
08:02 was that Ashford Borough Council sent one of your economic managers there. They said
08:06 that there'd been some survey work done by Ashford Council on the impact that this was
08:11 likely to have. 80% of businesses said Operation Brock, when it's enforced, hits their income
08:17 and that they don't want this to happen. And it's undoubtable, isn't it, that Operation
08:22 Brock has been put in force much more because of issues caused by Brexit at the Port of
08:27 Dover. It's a consequence, isn't it?
08:30 Well, I don't think that's true. I mean, we've had Operation Stack for 38 years and we've
08:37 had succession of governments who failed to tackle the problem that congestion across
08:44 the short straights is causing. The simple answer is that we need additional infrastructure
08:51 in order to move people and goods across the short straights quicker and easier. Dover
08:58 is a very, very constrained site and until there is meaningful investment in the area
09:06 in order to encourage additional transport opportunities. One example of that is, of
09:12 course, closing Ashford for passenger, foot passenger transport. And that's the kind of
09:20 thing that the government needs to work on, work on the additional facilities that are
09:26 necessary in order to get people across the Channel Tunnel swiftly and with some style.
09:32 Mark, I'll bring you in on this. Obviously, the claim that Brexit has been a net positive
09:37 for Kent.
09:38 I completely disagree with that. I was meeting last night with members of the National Farmers
09:42 Union. I mean, the things that they now have to put up with, the veterinary checks and
09:47 the health plant health checks that we've got at the port that didn't exist before.
09:51 We've got to sort those out. We've got to make trading with the EU easier. We've got
09:56 to start building these bridges back as well with the EU. Ideally, I'd like us to see us
10:01 rejoin the single market again. I think that should be our first priority. And we should
10:07 aim towards that so we can trade on a much easier basis with our European neighbours.
10:13 Whether we fully reverse Brexit, I think is a bit further down the line. But moving towards
10:17 a single market, making trade as easy as possible is what we need to do and stop these delays.
10:22 But more importantly, at the moment, dealing with the immediate problem, we've got to get
10:26 money from government to help us solve this problem of the queues that are going to build
10:30 up.
10:31 There's an issue there of Eurostar. Obviously, no international services have run from Kent
10:35 since the pandemic. One of the reasons why they're not coming back is because these new
10:39 checks require infrastructure. They require booths where people can take these fingerprints
10:43 and they require border staff to do that stuff. And Eurostar said it doesn't want to invest
10:49 in that until it knows how smoothly it runs. So this is directly stopping return of those
10:54 vital services that Paul just talked about.
10:55 Yeah, it's so important to get Epstein and Ashford back up again, taking passengers to
11:00 and from Europe. It's important for this country, it's important for Europe as well. And any
11:07 pressure that can be put on Eurostar to do that. But also, if they need infrastructure
11:12 and assistance, the government need to accept that and help them do it. This government
11:17 have enabled Brexit. And if we want to have decent trade and decent transport links with
11:23 the continent, then the government have got to step in and help out.
11:26 Paul, oh, OK, sorry, it's time for a short break. When we return, we'll hear about concern
11:32 over jobs at some of Kent's biggest employers, including Kent County Council. It also includes
11:38 reports of redundancies and restructuring at the University of Kent and issues that
11:42 will affect 200 jobs in children's services and family services at KCC. So stay with us.
11:48 We'll be back soon with more discussion.
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14:42, (upbeat music) Welcome back to the Kemp Politics Show
15:12 live on KMTV.
15:14 Next tonight, we'll turn our focus to reports of trouble
15:16 with two of Kent's biggest employers.
15:19 The University of Kent is reported
15:20 to be putting staff at risk
15:22 and scaling back one of its campuses.
15:24 The university, which is based in Canterbury and Medway,
15:26 blames its financial challenges
15:28 on fixed tuition fees and rising costs.
15:31 Meanwhile, Kent County Council is said
15:32 to be cutting 208 jobs from children, young people,
15:36 and education services.
15:38 We asked Adam Price of Medway Labour
15:40 what university cutbacks would mean to Medway.
15:43 - That is disappointing, but obviously,
15:45 I think it's the University of Kent,
15:48 alongside other large organizations,
15:50 they have to take stock of how their finances stack up.
15:54 They need to take stock of their estate, et cetera.
15:58 From what I've seen,
16:00 I think they're gonna be concentrating on certain courses
16:04 such as business and IT related ones.
16:07 That's not to say that they're gonna put out
16:09 all the other courses as well,
16:11 but I think every organization has to be able
16:13 to cut their cloth and also pay attention
16:17 to what the market needs.
16:18 - Still with me is Conservative Paul Bartlett from Ashford
16:22 and Liberal Democrat Mike Soule from Canterbury.
16:25 And I should say, before we start discussing this,
16:27 I'm a full-time employee of the University of Kent
16:29 and I'm actually affected by this.
16:31 I wanna put that on the record
16:32 just in case there's any conflict of interest here.
16:34 But Mike, I mean, how much of a surprise was it
16:36 for you to hear this week
16:37 that the university is having some difficulties?
16:40 - Well, everyone's having difficulties.
16:42 People at home have been having difficulties
16:43 with the cost of living.
16:44 Local governments having difficulties.
16:47 All businesses have had difficulties.
16:48 High interest rates and inflation
16:51 means that people are having to look at their budgets.
16:53 And of course, the university's got other issues as well.
16:56 Going back to Brexit, unfortunately,
16:58 since Brexit there's been a large reduction
17:00 in the number of European students coming to study.
17:04 We've also, as mentioned in your piece,
17:06 tuition fees have been frozen.
17:08 Now, that's good for students,
17:09 but it's not so good for universities
17:10 who depend on that money.
17:12 So it's tough.
17:14 And universities also need to look at their courses.
17:17 And I think we've seen that at Kent,
17:18 some courses have really grown in popularity.
17:21 Things like business and law are doing really well,
17:24 attracting students, offering UK-class,
17:29 world-beating degrees are great.
17:31 But in other areas, unfortunately, journalism,
17:35 things like--
17:37 - I'll defend journalism to the hilt,
17:39 but I'll let you go.
17:40 - History of art, those sort of courses,
17:42 very good courses.
17:43 But if students aren't coming to them,
17:46 then the university needs to look at how they're financed,
17:48 and that's what they're doing.
17:49 I understand there's gonna be a full consultation on this.
17:51 So nothing's set in stone yet.
17:53 So we'll have to see where it goes.
17:54 But it's understandable that they've got to look
17:57 and see what works and what doesn't.
17:58 - Paul, interesting start to this discussion
18:01 because we heard from a Labour councillor there
18:03 who was talking about market forces in higher education,
18:05 a Liberal Democrat councillor talking about market forces
18:08 and the marketisation of higher education.
18:11 I imagine that you agree as well,
18:12 but do you think higher education should be a market?
18:16 - Well, I think that's right
18:18 because essentially what universities are doing
18:21 is they're providing services to their customers, students.
18:26 And I think it's essential that they do this
18:28 on a commercial footing.
18:30 And of course, they need to charge fees.
18:33 However, it is a regulated fee, and that is set,
18:37 ceilings are set by the government for UK students.
18:42 They are able to charge more for non-UK students.
18:48 And within that straitjacket, if you like, of the pricing,
18:53 they have to provide the services that their clients want.
18:59 Now, a number of the courses that are at risk
19:02 are very valuable courses.
19:04 One assumes that there are other places
19:06 which can provide those services.
19:09 Unfortunately, it may not be in Kent in the future.
19:13 It's a great shame, but we do understand the pressures
19:16 that all businesses are on constantly
19:19 in order to match their services to their clients.
19:24 - Mike, it's always been a difficult issue
19:25 for the Liberal Democrats, the tuition fees.
19:27 Obviously, it blew up spectacularly for you
19:29 in the early days of the coalition in 2010.
19:33 And it's often regarded as being a mistake.
19:35 A lot of Liberal Democrat voters didn't want it.
19:38 But the fee was set at that point at 9,000 pounds.
19:41 It's been reviewed once in that time.
19:44 In 2017, it was raised to 9,250 pounds a year
19:47 for domestic undergraduate students.
19:50 There was no provision in the law at the time
19:52 for it to be raised with inflation.
19:54 That 9,250 pounds per year in 2017
19:57 would be 11,830 pounds today
20:01 at a time when universities, if they were sitting here,
20:04 the university would say that their costs,
20:05 particularly things like energy costs, are through the roof.
20:08 Has the government created an environment
20:11 in which higher education cannot succeed?
20:13 - Well, first of all, Paul asked earlier
20:16 that after eight years of voting for Brexit
20:18 that we move on from that.
20:19 I think after 14 years, since the decision was made
20:22 on tuition fees, we can move past that now.
20:24 And I have not actually heard anything
20:27 from the Labour Party or the Conservative Party
20:29 of any significant plans to change tuition fees
20:32 in the future.
20:34 What we need to look at, though,
20:35 is what we can do at the current situation.
20:38 And I think one thing we could certainly do
20:40 is get EU students back in our universities.
20:42 And we can do that by joining the Erasmus+ programme.
20:45 That would be so much better for the universities.
20:47 Then they would get extra students coming in, extra fees,
20:50 and we wouldn't be having this discussion
20:51 we've got at the moment about withdrawing courses.
20:55 And we should also be looking to support students more
20:57 through bringing back the maintenance grant
20:59 for those on low incomes.
21:00 That would be very, from poor families,
21:02 but very gratefully received, I know.
21:05 - Paul, a European future to save UK universities.
21:08 What do you think?
21:09 - Well, I should think that universities do need
21:13 to attract students from all parts of the world.
21:18 And the UK is well known as a good destination
21:22 for non-UK students.
21:25 And I suspect that that will continue.
21:28 They are able to charge a higher fee for overseas students.
21:33 And I've no reason to think why that won't continue.
21:37 - Well, we'll move on.
21:39 And so the other part of this is that this week,
21:42 Kent County Council, we heard reports of 208 jobs
21:45 being at risk within the children, families,
21:47 young people units, particularly affecting,
21:49 I think, open access children's services.
21:52 Mike, can KCC realistically say
21:57 that these job cuts won't have an impact on public services?
22:01 - No, I think it's foolish to think
22:03 that if you take staff out of the system,
22:06 it's not gonna have an impact.
22:07 There's gonna be less staff there having less contact
22:10 with their clients, with their customers,
22:13 and with residents because of this.
22:15 And the whole thing about family hubs is less centres.
22:20 And I think if you've got less centres
22:22 with less people in them,
22:24 you're going to be able to devote less time
22:26 to the people who need to access them.
22:28 I'm particularly concerned about those in the rural areas
22:31 who will not be able to access the services
22:33 that they previously could.
22:35 And it's no good saying things like,
22:37 "Oh, we can do things on Zoom now."
22:40 You can't replace things like a breastfeeding clinic
22:43 with a Zoom meeting.
22:44 We need to have places where people can get together
22:47 and help can be given to them.
22:49 'Cause in the long term, without that assistance,
22:52 things will be worse.
22:53 We're storing up problems rather than nipping them
22:56 in the bud and helping people at an early stage.
22:59 - Paul, a lot of families out there are struggling.
23:02 They're struggling because of the cost of living crisis.
23:04 We know that there is a lot of places in Kent
23:05 where these family centres provide really important services.
23:09 It's a seven million pound saving from a restructuring,
23:11 including these job losses.
23:13 Is that money, is that saving worth it?
23:15 - Well, let's look at the background to this.
23:20 We had an Ofsted report in 2022,
23:25 and there were findings of an independent review
23:28 of children's care services.
23:32 Both of those found that the services
23:35 that were currently being offered
23:36 did not follow the DFT guidance.
23:39 And so the County Council has received 11 million pounds
23:43 from the DFT in order to ensure that the services
23:47 are now fit for purposes.
23:50 The traditional way or the old way of doing it
23:55 resulted in fragmented services
23:58 and led to crisis intervention.
24:01 So these new proposals will deliver a much better service
24:06 and provide additional targeted help
24:08 for early identification of issues.
24:13 So I'm confident that this is a positive change
24:15 for the future.
24:16 Change is necessary, and we're following the DFT guidance
24:20 and are pleased to do that.
24:22 - There's context to this, isn't there, Mike?
24:24 I mean, this comes off the back of a very, very low settlement
24:27 from government for local authorities.
24:28 Councils across the country are struggling.
24:31 The cuts have got to come somewhere.
24:32 - This is purely a budgetary driven decision.
24:36 This is not as poor-
24:37 - No, no, no, it's not.
24:38 It's not at all.
24:39 It is driven by DFT guidance.
24:43 - Well, I disagree with you there, Paul.
24:45 I don't think we'd be making these cuts
24:46 if it wasn't for the fact
24:48 that local government finances are so stretched.
24:50 Now, I'm not pushing any blame at all for this
24:55 on the Conservative administration at KCC.
24:58 The problem has to come from government
25:00 who are not adequately funding local councils
25:03 to do the jobs that they need to do.
25:05 And especially here in Kent
25:06 where we've got additional pressures as well.
25:09 For example, dealing with unaccompanied asylum seekers.
25:12 That's where the problem is.
25:13 But I don't think we'd be looking at this now
25:16 if we didn't have those financial restraints on us.
25:18 - Paul, there is a big budget gap there, isn't there?
25:24 Do you feel that the government is letting KCC down?
25:26 Is this the Conservative government letting you down
25:28 in terms of what you're able to deliver?
25:31 - They're providing us £11 million
25:34 in order to roll out the new DFT guidance for family hubs.
25:39 What more do we want?
25:41 - Well, it's quite interesting.
25:42 James Cleverley this week was asking for, what,
25:44 £2.6 billion extra pounds to cover the cost of hotels
25:47 for asylum seekers who are stuck in the system
25:51 for trying to get their refugee applications processed.
25:55 £2.6 billion there, £11 million to KCC for this.
25:58 You need bigger amounts of money, don't you?
26:00 - Well, I don't think it's true
26:03 that the government needs to start to raise taxes.
26:07 I mean, absolutely right,
26:08 that more money is needed in order to deliver the services
26:12 that people want, but there's no need to raise taxes
26:17 in order to deal with that.
26:19 I think we're now moving into a tax-cutting regime
26:25 and we'll probably see some news on that
26:27 in the budget during March.
26:29 - Well, a good moment for us to end on.
26:30 That's all we've got time for here at the Kent Politics Show.
26:33 Thanks to both of my guests for coming in tonight.
26:35 We'll be back soon and there's more politics news,
26:38 analysis and opinion under the Politics tab at Kent Online.
26:41 Stay with us here because Kent Tonight is coming up next
26:44 with all the latest news from around the county.
26:47 Have a good evening.
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