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HUMPHRYS: Good morning Mr Hague.
WILLIAM HAGUE: Good Morning
HUMPHRYS: No credibility - that's
your problem.
HAGUE: Er no, I don't think that
actually is the problem we actually had an extremely good year last year
in terms of winning elections and that is what we had to start to do.
We won the European elections outright, we got about two thousand more
councillors than we had eighteen months ago, we run fifty more town halls
across the country than we did a year ago so we had a year of pretty solid
progress on the ground that doesn't disguise the fact we have a lot more
to do - we have an enormous amount of work to do but we have started the
recovery of the Conservative Party and with the launch of the Common Sense
Revolution documents and proposals that we put forward last October, and
we'll be saying a lot more about in the next few months, we've also started
to set out what we would do as an alternative government.
HUMPHRYS: But Ken Clarke, one of
the old war horses of your party says, and I quote, 'it's not yet started
recreating itself as a credible party of government'. Well coming from
somebody like Mr Clarke that is very damning.
HAGUE: No, well obviously I don't
agree with that but what I have to get on with is making sure that we are
the opposition to the Labour Party not that we are having disagreements
in our own party and when you look at what is happening for instance in
the Health Service today there is an issue on which the Conservative Party
is putting forward alternative proposals, is highlighting the terrible
failures and betrayal of this government and it's the Conservative Party
that does that, it's no other party that does that. So we've certainly
become a credible opposition, anybody who comes down to the House of Commons
any day of the week can see that the Conservative Party is what provides
the opposition. I certainly accept that we now have to do more to take
that case out to the country and that we have to win people over in the
country - we've been winning the arguments in parliament but we also have
to win them out in the country to do it around Britain and that's what
we're going to be doing throughout this year.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah - you do absolutely
have to do that. let's look at your position on the NHS and your credibility
in that respect. There's an ICM poll out, you probably won't have seen
the newspapers this morning but you may have heard about the poll, the
ICM poll in the Observer. Only one in four people trust you on the NHS
to have the right policies.
HAGUE: Well only one in twelve
people think that the NHS is improving under the Labour Party so we can
all quote......
HUMPHRYS: But twice as many people
trust the Labour Party........
HAGUE: We can all quote opinion
poll figures in every direction but the truth is it's the Tory Party that
is now putting forward the actual practical proposals. We've launched
the patient's guarantee to say that the most urgent cases should be dealt
with first. We've put forward the proposals for a prostate cancer screening
programme. We put forward proposals to change medical training so that
more doctors would go into the Accident and Emergency Departments now.
We've been suggesting how there could be more use of intensive care beds
for instance in the independent sector in the current crisis in the Health
Service which if that had been done a few weeks ago would have helped to
alleviate it. So we're the ones making the constructive proposals now,
we're making the running on this subject. Yes we have to persuade more
people that we're doing that but we are actually doing it, we've started
to do it.
HUMPHRYS: But that's highly arguable
isn't it because people are persuaded that you do not want to put in the
money that they think is needed for the NHS because you are more concerned
about keeping taxes down than putting money into the NHS.
HAGUE: We are concerned about keeping
taxes down but we're also concerned about proper financial provision for
the Health Service, we also believe that as a country we need to spend
a larger share of our national income on health in total and that means
more public expenditure but it also means more private expenditure on
health, it means enlarging the total amount devoted to healthcare in this
country and that doesn't mean that you can't keep taxes down it means that
you mustn't waste money on other things. We've called a debate in parliament
on Tuesday this week about the Health Service but we've also called a debate
about the waste of money in the running of government. We saw a report
last week that the cost of government political advisors has doubled under
this government. The total cost of running Whitehall has increased by
a thousand million pounds in the last two years under Tony Blair which
is enough to pay for a third of a million hip operations every year. So
it doesn't mean, looking after peoples' health doesn't mean you can't keep
taxes down or reduce taxes but you have to stop wasting money on bureaucrats
and party apparatchiks which is what the Labour Party spend their money
on.
HUMPHRYS: But the trouble is what
you've done is you've - apart from your patient's guarantee which we'll
get on to in a minute, you've also offered a tax guarantee, you are committed
to cutting taxes not just even holding them where they are you are committed
to cutting taxes over a parliamentary term so you cannot guarantee at the
same time spending enough money, putting enough money into the NHS. You
can't have both.
HAGUE: No of course you can provided
that you don't spend money in other areas and I've just mentioned (both
speaking at once) No...no. There are two areas where we need to spend
less money: One is in the administration of government the cost of which
is rising dramatically under the Labour Party and which was held back at
the end of the last government and the other is on welfare spending. We
have been putting forward and we'll put forward more proposals but we've
already put forward several proposals for real welfare reform for reducing
welfare spending. We've put forward our 'Can work - Must work' guarantee
that means that if you don't accept a job when you're offered a job when
you've been unemployed for more than two months you would lose your benefits.
We've put forward proposals to change the way industrial injuries benefit
works. We've put forward new proposals for tackling fraud and we saw in
the report of the Public Accounts Committee just this last week how this
government have manifestly failed to tackle fraud and abuse of the welfare
system so few oppositions in history have been as specific about where
they would reduce government expenditure and that means we can entirely
credibly say, and we certainly mean it, that we would have higher expenditure
on the Health Service but we would also keep peoples' taxes down.
HUMPHRYS: Everything you've just
described about Social Security spending happened of course during the
eighteen years when your party was in power but the important thing is
this - if you are going to do both of those things, that is to say if you
are going to cut taxes, not just holding them where they are but cut them
and put more money into the NHS and other things as you're committed to
doing like education and so on, that will depend on the economic circumstances
at the time common sense dictates that and John Major himself, your predecessor,
as he was leaving the party said 'you cannot deliver tax cuts' and I'm
quoting again, 'in a recession unless there are swingeing cuts in health
and education.' You can't do it. It cannot be done.
HAGUE: No well that's not the case.
I've just been setting out how we can reduce government spending in other
areas.
HUMPHRYS: No but what if there
is a recession? What if the economy doesn't do terribly well as you assume
under this government it's not going to?
HAGUE: Let me explain about that,
people say how will you be able to meet your tax guarantee to reduce the
share of national product taken in taxation in a recession. Well the answer
to that is that it's in a recession when it's actually the easiest to do
that because the proportion of tax in the national income falls anyway..
HUMPHRYS: Yeah but the total amount
going in can't increase can it, that's the point.
HAGUE: That proportion falls anyway,
tax falls proportionately faster when there is a recession. The challenge
actually is how to hold down tax and spending when the economy is doing
well because all governments have a temptation to raise..increase the amount
of money they are spending, all governments have a temptation to actually
take the brakes off in some areas when the economy is doing well and you
can see it in the government's approach now to the costs of spending in
the government itself, to the costs of running the government, you can
see it in its approach to welfare spending. It said it would hold all these
things down but it's actually spending billions of pounds extra. It's when
the economy is doing well that you have to make sure that the tax burden
of the country is not rising over time, and if we are going to compete.
I've been talking to people from other countries in the world over the
last twenty-four hours here. If we are going to compete with these countries
over the next decade in the new economy, in the age of the internet, when
businesses can to anywhere, to any location in the world, we are going
to have to bring down the total tax burden in our country or we will find
businesses, factories and jobs going elsewhere.
HUMPHRYS: Let me remind you what
happened in the last recession and I doubt that you will need much reminding.
1979-1983 when Mrs Thatcher was as she was then, Prime Minister, she raised
taxes from thirty-three per cent of GDP to thirty-nine per cent. Now you,
under your tax guarantee, if the same sort of thing happened to you, if
you had a similar recession and as Ken Clarke has said you can't predict
what the economy is going to do, if that happened to you, you would have,
because you couldn't put up taxes, you'd have to cut spending by fifty
billion pounds. Therefore you cannot possibly make the sort of guarantee
that you are making, that is to cut taxes and simultaneously to put more
into the NHS, common sense isn't it - to use a very popular expression
of yours.
HAGUE: No it isn't because the
instance that you give when the tax burden was increased at the beginning
of the eighteen years of Conservative Government was influenced not just
by recession but by the fiscal condition of the country. Now we are in
a completely different condition because of what was done under the last
Conservative Government to create a growing economy and actually because
of all the tax increases that we've seen under the current government.
They have increased taxes in the last two years by about two per cent of
our gross domestic product, by billions and billions of pounds, the tax
on businesses has gone up by about twenty billion pounds. So, I tell you
there is the scope there to reduce taxation, that we cannot go on as a
country increasing taxation if we are going to compete in the world over
the next decade, that that has to mean real welfare reform and it has to
mean fewer politicians, fewer civil servants, smaller size of government
and it has to mean in the Health Service we have to promote and encourage
not only greater state expenditure but we have to find ways of encouraging
the private sector as well. Just to finish that point, one of the mindless
things this government did, was to take away the tax relief on private
medical insurance for people over sixty, that has had the effect of doing
what: of increasing the waiting list which the government are now struggling
with and totally failing to.. what a stupid, spiteful thing that was to
do.
HUMPHRYS: I'd like to come back
to the whole question of private medicine in a moment if I may, but stick
with this thought for the moment of cutting taxes and simultaneously putting
more money into the NHS. Ignore what I've just said, listen to what John
Major again said, one word it's: mad.
HAGUE: Well it isn't, it's not
mad because I've just explained how it works.
HUMPHRYS: Well I don't think you
have, you see, you can ... Money here and there but you cannot cope if
we have a recession. Clearly you can't cope if we have a recession, you
cannot do both things.
HAGUE: Yes you can, remember the
commitment that we're making is over the life of a Parliament, it's over
the life of a government, it doesn't mean that happens every year, it doesn't
mean it happens in every circumstance within the life of a Parliament but
I come back to my central point on this, which is if it's not going to
be the central objective of British Governments in the coming years to
reduce taxes and to reduce bureaucracy and regulation and the things that
inhibit and restrict businesses over the next few years, then we are not
actually going to succeed in the new world economy because it's countries
that do that that are going to succeed. Here in Florida where I'm sitting,
I'm going to see Governor Bush of Florida this afternoon. What he's doing
is making sure that businesses want to come to Florida, a great silicon
beach here in Florida and he's doing that by lower taxes and less regulation.
We have to compete with places like that, we have to find the ways of doing
that. There isn't going to be a choice about this, it does mean you have
to tackle those areas of government spending that you can tackle but still
make sure we're providing for people in need.
HUMPHRYS: While you're there I
hope you're having a good look at there health system because Tony Blair
in his interview this morning said that what you lot want is a US style
health care system.
HAGUE: Well of course that's not
what we want. We don't want a US health care style. We do want more of
our nation's income spent on health. I have to say that what Tony Blair
says about Opposition policies, which is invariably in the House of Commons
and this morning, a total distortion of the truth, is just an attempt to
distract attention from the stark and comprehensive failure of this government
on the Health Service. It was an early pledge, an early pledge and they
are nearly three years into it now, that they would solve the problems
of the Health Service. They have failed totally, it is a betrayal of people
who voted Labour, it is a betrayal of the people working so hard in the
Health Service, it is a betrayal of the basic promises they made to the
country and they have mismanaged the Health Service. They have pursued
the political distortion of clinical priorities in a way that has done
great harm to patients and angered staff throughout the Health Service
and it is a stark and total failure.
HUMPHRYS: But do you do want to spend
more, you do want us privately to spend more of our money on our health
care. Let me quote you what Liam Fox has said in the newspapers this morning:
philosophically we have moved on. Insurance companies could cover conditions
like hip replacements - Liam Fox of course being your health spokesman
- insurance companies could cover conditions like hip replacements, and
we could leave expensive treatments like cancer therapy to the National
Health Service. Wow, that is a big philosophical move isn't it?
HAGUE: No, what we're saying, certainly
we are moving on, but what we're saying is people need to have more choice,
they need to be able to choose the private sector if they wish to do so.
We don't want anybody to be forced to do so. We wouldn't create any situation
where anyone was forced to do so. We believe in the National Health Service.
Liam Fox is himself the Shadow Health Secretary, and was a GP in the Health
Service, he's totally committed to the Health Service. I use the National
Health Service myself. The Conservative Party's commitment to the National
Health Service is in no way in doubt, but I think everybody can see in
the country now that we have to spend more of our national income on health
and that that will require greater state expenditure but also greater private
expenditure. We need to find ways to make it easier for people to have
private expenditure, but we mustn't force anybody to do so. The availability
of free health care for people is absolutely sacrosanct and we're not going
to change that.
HUMPHRYS: But he's saying leave
the expensive treatments to the NHS. Let's look after ourselves when
it comes to things like hip replacements. Do you agree with that?
HAGUE: No, he's saying give people
the option of doing that, make it easy.
HUMPHRYS: Philosophically we've
moved on.
HAGUE: No, what he's talking about
- he's been very clear about it, is help to create a market where people
find it easier for people to insure themselves for such operations. But
in no way do we want to force people to do that. Remember I've just been
giving an example of how if we cut out the waste in Whitehall the National
Health Service could do a third of a million more hip operations every
year, so we don't need to say all those things should go to the private
sector. We do need to say that the Health Service should carry out the
most urgent operations first. It is ludicrous that heart by-passes, the
lady who we've heard about this week who had a throat operation..
HUMPHRYS: Mrs Skeet..
HAGUE: ...Mrs Skeet, cancelled
four times and it's now inoperable - it is ludicrous that those things
are not being done, while the Health Service pursues the reduction of waiting
lists often in more minor operations, important to the people concerned
of course, but not as life-threatening as those kinds of operations. They've
got to do the most important things first.
HUMPHRYS: Right.
HAGUE: And that's what's we say
in the Patients' Guarantee.
HUMPHRYS: Indeed you do, and the
inevitable result of that, inevitably of course, because if you move some
people up the list and some other people are pushed further down the list,
the inevitable result of that is that there will be longer waiting times
for things like hip operations, and that is going to force more people
if they want to end their pain and get their new hip or whatever it may
be, it's going to force more people to go private. That's the effect of
your policy.
HAGUE: No, that isn't the effect
of our policy. There is rationing now in the Health Service. Let's face
up to this. People are now finding that they have to go private in some
cases in order to save their lives, and we've been hearing this morning,
I think it's in one of this morning's newspapers ..
HUMPHRYS: Yes, the Sunday Telegraph.
HAGUE: ... that someone has had
to re-mortgage their house in order to get a heart by-pass. You hear all
the time about people who have to take their heart by-pass privately which
is a very expensive operation, because the Health Service can't deliver
it on time. Now that rationing is taking place anyway, so I think it's
entirely fair to say let's make sure that the most urgent and the biggest
operations are done first. Whatever we do at the moment with the current
operation of the Health Service some people are going to find that they're
saying, well I'm going to have to go somewhere else to get my operation.
But it shouldn't be the most urgent cases. So when Tony Blair criticises
me for saying the most urgent cases should be dealt with first because
some other people would then feel under pressure to go private, what he's
doing is making the most urgent and desperate cases go private. Now that
cannot be right in the management of our National Health Service.
HUMPHRYS: Let me move to another
area where many believe you have a serious credibility problem, and that
is Europe. Now, you want to amend the Treaty of Rome. Your Shadow Foreign
spokesman has said as much, and you've said it yourself, you want to let
each country decide whether it will in future apply new European legislation,
so-called flexibility. John Major says, and I quote him again "that is
absurd", because of course you would never get the agreement of all the
other countries so to do, and you'd have to have it.
HAGUE: Well, let's be clear about
what we're proposing. We're proposing whether when new treaties are brought
forward, and of course the Treaty of Rome is amended all the time when
new European treaties are proposed - we're saying that when new legislation
is brought forward, and that when that happens after new treaties have
been signed, then countries should have a greater degree of freedom about
what they adopt. And again when you think about it if the European Union
is going to have twenty to twenty-five countries in it, unless you have
a greater degree of flexibility it isn't going to work because if we say
everybody's got to follow the same rules about everything across twenty-five
countries stretching from Eastern Europe down to Spain and up to Sweden
then it isn't going to work in practice. Countries should have to sign
up to the core functions of the European Union: trade, the single market,
the environment, things like that that should be dealt with at an international
level, they must have a greater degree of flexibility. Now people say
to me and you put in the argument, well, who else agrees with that, how
can you win that argument? But that doesn't mean we shouldn't put the
argument. There are many people in other countries who agree with that
argument. I launched this proposal in Hungary earlier last year and I
found a great deal of support for that argument in central and eastern
European countries. If we're not prepared to put the argument, we're just
going ever closer to a more centralised, more closely integrated politically
centralised Europe that I think will be very cumbersome, that won't work
in practice and will turn people away from the European Union.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but you've gone
much further than just saying let's sort of run this flag up the pole and
see if anybody salutes. You said, if we do not get this, if they don't
rally around and agree with me, then I, if I were Prime Minister, I would
block the treaty, in other words block the treaty that would lead to the
enlargement of Europe. You happen to be strongly in favour, as do many
other people of the enlargement of Europe, so you'd be blocking a treaty
that would bring about something that you want to happen. A weird position
to be in isn't it?
HAGUE: Well the enlargement of
the European Union is not necessarily in the same treaty. We don't know
what form these things are going to take. What we would be opposing is
other ways of changing the way in which Europe works. Remember that we
have on the table, we have the report of the so-called wise men in Europe
who proposed great centralisation, who said that more things should be
decided by majority voting, that countries should in effect lose a lot
more of their independence in Europe. I tell you that if a British government
signed up to that it would turn millions of people in Britain against being
in the European Union at all, and the right argument for people who want
to be in Europe and make a success of the European Union is we've got to
make sure it is reformed in a way which British people will find acceptable
and which will work in practice. So that is what we're proposing. We're
not saying veto everything, but we're saying when it comes to changing
the administrative arrangements this is what we've got to insist on, and
of course then people will say, how will you insist on it. Well, they
said to Margaret Thatcher when she went to negotiate the rebate at Fontainebleau,
"You'll never get anywhere because other people don't agree with you".
Well she came back with the rebate, and they said to John Major when he
went to negotiate the opt out from the Single Currency, you'll ever get
it because the other countries don't agree with it. Well he got it, and
so we have to take the same approach, and Conservative governments are
prepared to do that. This government's sell-out in Europe on a regular
basis, they think you can't propose anything unless everybody already agrees
with it, and they just go with the flow, and it's not in this country's
interests, or Europe's interests.
HUMPHRYS: But you've gone much
further haven't you. You've said the next European Union Treaty must contain
a flexibility clause or else I tell you there will be no new treaty. But
you can't say that.
HAGUE: Of course you can say that,
because that concentrates people's minds on it. Other countries don't hesitate
to say that they will insist on their way, other countries have no qualms
whatsoever about saying we are going to get this into the Treaty and putting
forward their point of view, sometimes aggressively. That's how the European
Union works most of the time. So we have got to be prepared to do that,
we have got to make a success of it.
HUMPHRYS: Another area that's damaging
your credibility I submit and that's the whole question of sleaze. Now
when you took over as the leader of the Party you promised to turn the
Tory party into something that was absolutely squeaky clean, everybody
could see that it was squeaky clean, but you failed your first really big
test. You said on this programme, when I asked you about Jeffrey Archer
not very long ago, that he was a man of complete integrity, you had not
doubt about that. You said that in the face of a great deal of evidence
to the contrary. An awful lot of people saying: now come on, this isn't
a man who ought to be running for Major of London, oughtn't to be the Tory
Party candidate. You made a big mistake there, did you not?
HAGUE: With hindsight, yes we did,
yes and I take entirely the responsibility for that. But I think it was
right to be have a democratic selection of our candidate for mayor. There
is no way that we could have known at the time, there's no way I could
have known at the time...
HUMPHRYS: ...well there was actually..
HAGUE: ..about what subsequently
came to light about Jeffrey Archer and in fact no amount of investigation
about it would have brought that fact to light..
HUMPHRYS: ..not true..
HAGUE: ..well that is true because,
unless..
HUMPHRYS: ..you were offered evidence,
you were invited to look at a great deal of material about Jeffrey Archer
which you didn't bother to. You didn't bother to refer it to your own Ethics
Committee, your Ethics and Integrity Committee. Why didn't you do that
at least?
HAGUE: Nobody who offered any such
material was prepared to put it even in writing and it's very difficult
to deal with allegations about people that nobody is prepared even to write
down or tell you what they are, and certainly none of these things concerned
with the fact that subsequently came to light that spelt the end of Jeffrey
Archer's mayoral campaign. So yes, that gave us a difficult few weeks at
the end of last year, but we've taken that in our stride, of course it
was very difficult for the Party at the time. We are selecting a new candidate,
we are doing it by democratic procedure. At least our problem is trying
to make sure that there is a ..that we have a mayoral candidate that actually
commands democratic support and is actually popular among the members.
The problem with the Labour Party it is actually trying to frustrate candidates.
HUMPHRYS: So when is Lord Archer
going to appear now before your Ethics and Integrity Committee, it's been
a long time, why has he not done so, when is he going to.?
HAGUE: The Ethics and Integrity
Committee sets its own rules and timetable which is entirely proper, they
don't take orders from me (INTERRUPTION) on who to...Well, I've called
the Ethics and Integrity Committee in and they arrange their own meetings.
They've got to be ..their report has to be independent of me and they will
be proceeding with that over the next few weeks and I am determined to
make sure that these problems are problems of the past. We have had a lot
of problems at the end of last year, but they are all problems that came
from the past and the party that I am building now, the party that I am
rebuilding is a party that will be able to be absolutely respected for
its integrity. Integrity not only in personal conduct but in political
conduct, in political consistency because we are up against a government
that says anything, that does anything in order to please people in the
short term but doesn't have any real political consistency or integrity
and people will find contempt for that over time. And I am presenting a
party that is consistent in its views, in its principles and in what it
says to the country.
HUMPHRYS: But not seen as a truly
credible Opposition, not doing enough work. I mean if we look at the way
and this is another part of your credibility problem, you're going to be
a tough leader, you're going to knock a few heads together to make sure
that the Shadow Cabinet got down to it and really got stuck into the government,
what we've seen at the start of this great NHS crisis story is Liam Fox,
your Health Spokesman going off on holiday. Now, you're being quoted that,
well he had an open goal there and he missed it. Is that true, is that
your view, do you believe that some of your people simply aren't pulling
their finger out, they're going off on holiday when they should be getting
down to the hard graft.
HAGUE: I think they're working
extremely hard actually and remember we have changed almost the entire
Shadow Cabinet. When I took over, since I took over I've had three reshuffles
of the Shadow Cabinet and there are only two of us now you were in the
Cabinet at the time that we lost the last General Election. The other twenty
members of the Shadow Cabinet are new people who have been ..who I have
brought on and of course then it's quite difficult for some of them at
the beginning to get a public profile because they are not publicly known
figures. And every party leader in this situation has this problem that
first of all people saying why have you got all of those old faces in the
Shadow Cabinet, then when you change them all they say, oh where are all
these new people. Well the new people are coming along and they are working
extremely hard and I think they are going to be extremely effective front
rank politicians.
HUMPHRYS: Quick thought about yourself
then. Poll out again this morning says fourteen per cent, 14 per cent think
you'd make the best Prime Minister, sixty per cent say that Blair would
make the best Prime Minister. You've got a problem yourself haven't you,
he's got the confidence of the country and you haven't.
HAGUE: You can forgive me for not
proceeding on the basis of opinion polls. We should never be put off by
opinion polls. I was shown opinion polls, we've probably talked about them
on your programme about a year ago which said no way could we win the European
Elections, that we were twenty-eight points behind in those European Elections,
that a breakaway faction from our party was going to do almost as well
as the official party. All of that turned out to be complete nonsense.
We've won the elections outright, we've had the biggest swing to the opposition
in any election since the first World War so I can be forgiven after that
for not taking too much notice of opinion polls and for getting on, steadily,
with rebuilding my party and winning support, which is what we are doing.
HUMPHRYS: William Hague, in the
United States, thank you very much indeed for joining us.
HAGUE: Thank you very much.
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