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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. The
government promised that its New Deal for young people would give the most
disadvantaged a new chance in life. We'll be asking the Employment Minister
why so many still have no hope.
We'll also be reporting from
Northern Ireland as the Ulster Unionists threaten to bring down their own
government.
And how would the Liberal
Democrats run London? That's after the news read by George Alagiah.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: Once again Northern Ireland
stands on the brink. If the guns aren't given up ... will the Stormont
Government really be suspended?
And the woman who
wants to run London for the Liberal Democrats. Is she really offering
London a different direction?
But first the New
Deal. It was one of this government's big ideas: get the young unemployed
into work, train them properly to do a decent job, and you transform society.
They are instantly removed from the burgeoning under-class. Instead of
threatening society they begin to contribute. The government says that
is happening. It's working. But is it? I'll be talking to the Employment
Minister Tessa Jowell after this report from Leon Hawthorne, who says the
government's claims for the New Deal do not stand up to close scrutiny.
LEON HAWTHORNE: The search for a job begins here.
After all it can't be more than a short distance away. The economy is
booming and if you're keen and eager to learn the right skills, all options
are open. Well, that's the theory behind the government's New Deal for
the young, long term unemployed. Not everyone seems convinced. They say
despite the fancy decor at job centres these days the New Deal is all hype
and empty promises.
JESSICA DUNN: It felt like a waste of time
all the time I was on it because I knew there was no job at the end there
was no job prospects at the end.
THERESA MAY MP: The New Deal has been an
expensive failure for the government. It has failed the unemployed. It
has failed businesses and it has failed the taxpayer.
DEREK FOSTER MP: The economy's doing well. The
government is doing well in getting national unemployment down but there
is still a lot of pockets where there are just not enough jobs and that
does effect the performance of the New Deal obviously.
HAWTHORNE: Sheffield is one of those unemployment
black spots. The city's stylish Continental look disguises the fact that
forty thousand manufacturing jobs have evaporated since the 1980s. A generation
of young people here has seen traditional jobs swept away.
Sheffield is one of the
cities chosen to spearhead the New Deal and Town Hall, behind me, is the
former political power base of Employment Secretary David Blunkett. So
this is a good place to come to see how the New Deal really is working.
The political stakes for the government are high. They promised New Deal
would significantly cut youth unemployment and that means the scheme will
be judged on exactly how many jobs it's created and at what price.
Twenty year old Razwana
Kousar is on the New Deal, getting trained to be a seamstress with R.J.
Stokes, a large family business in Sheffield. The government pays the company
a subsidy of sixty pounds a week to employ and train her for six months.
RAZWANA KOUSAR: I've been on for thirteen weeks
and so far I've learned quite a few things. I've made curtains, I've made
cushion covers and pelmets. I think it's been really good for me. It's
really helped me find the right job. It's given me the right training
which I will need.
HAWTHORNE: Obviously, the New Deal has
worked for some, but what of the overall national picture? In its first
full year, beginning April 1998, just over a quarter of a million young
people completed the New Deal.
Of those, 43% ended up
with a long term proper job, with the wages fully paid by the employer.
However, of all the New Deal graduates, 12% went straight back onto other
benefits at the end of it all. Another 27% of those going through the
programme simply disappeared with the Employment Service having no idea
what happened to them. And the remaining 18% went elsewhere, some went
to prison but most went onto other training schemes.
So, statistically Razwana
has a four in ten chance of getting a real job at the end of her training.
The government claims a hundred and seventy thousand young people have
got jobs through the New Deal. But critics say this is statistical sleight
of hand.
MAY: Well the government
makes a number of grandiose claims about the success of the New Deal, but
those claims frankly don't stack up against the evidence of their own figures.
When they claim the numbers that they're getting into the New Deal, about
a quarter of those are people who have gone into very short term jobs and
then gone back into unemployment. So for them the New Deal hasn't worked
at all.
GARY YOUNG: Well of all the people who've
been through the New Deal programme, we reckon about half of them would
have got jobs anyway, just as a result of general economic fluctuations
in the labour market. Now, if you take the number and try to estimate the
number at any point in time of people who are actually in work now, who
wouldn't have been in work without the New Deal we estimate that's about
fifteen thousand people. So, the New Deal has added about fifteen thousand
jobs to the economy.
HAWTHORNE: So although many young people
have been through the New Deal and got jobs, the scheme itself is directly
responsible for creating only a small amount of extra employment. But how
much has each of these extra jobs cost?
YOUNG: Well last year the government
spent two hundred and ten million pounds on the New Deal programme. Now
if you take account of the fact that extra economic activity has been generated
by the programme because people have got jobs and so on, the overall outflow
from the Exchequer is much smaller than that, about a hundred million pounds.
Now with fifteen thousand jobs created by the programme, that leaves us
with a cost per job of about six thousand to seven thousand pounds.
HAWTHORNE: But the taxpayer saves some
money because a quarter of those contacted to join the New Deal drop out
and stop claiming benefit and Sheffield contributes disproportionately
to the almost seventy thousand young people who disappear without trace
when invited to board the New Deal bandwagon.
PAUL CONVERY: There is still a significant
number of young people, about a quarter or so come into the New Deal, who
leave the system and the government doesn't quite know where they've gone.
Now, research that's tried to investigate these destinations suggest that
something like two thirds go into jobs, although it seems that in a lot
of cases they don't keep those jobs for a particularly long period of time.
HAWTHORNE: Those young people that don't
disappear have to visit the local job centre for some career counselling.
All the options are spelt out in detail by an Employment Service that's
rapidly changing its menacing image to something more colourful and user
friendly.
New Deal clients get one-on-one
attention from a personal adviser who tries to arrange the right job training
or educational programme. The idea is to equip people with the skills needed
for the jobs market. But there's concern among some employers about the
size of what's called the skills gap. They complain many of those on the
New Deal lack basic educational or personal skills.
KEITH DANIELS: Many of the New Deal clients
do have very difficult personal histories, either they've suffered through
poor education, or they've perhaps even been in the criminal justice system,
or they are lacking in personal skills and qualities that most employers
would like to see. The subsidy is helpful to an employer but it isn't necessarily
sufficient to bridge the gap between the skills problems that the individuals
have got and what other applicants in the labour market offer.
CONVERY: Well, the young unemployed
population by and large is pretty low skilled, hasn't done a great deal
of work, has perhaps moved from one precarious job to another, really
pretty dislocated from the labour market. Of that, 40% are virtually illiterate
and in-numerate and about 63/64% don't have what's called NVQ Level 2 -
the basic entry level qualification requirement of most employers. Now
that's quite a series of obstacles for those young people to get over.
HAWTHORNE: Twenty-two year olds, Matt and
Andy, have fewer objects in their path to employment. They're both college
graduates who have chosen to chance their arm on the New Deal's environmental
task force, one option if you can't get a job placement. Research at Sheffield
University shows the New Deal works very well for better educated people
like them.
ANKIE HOOGVELT: We found that in Sheffield
a third of the young people who go through New Deal end up with jobs six
months after New Deal. We found in our own research that the third that
was in jobs came from socio-economic backgrounds and from educational backgrounds
that would have predisposed them for this. In other words, they came from
good middle class backgrounds. And so one might argue that the New Deal
has actually not had any impact on those for whom it was designed, namely
those who didn't have the qualifications and the backgrounds to get jobs.
HAWTHORNE: I met a group of three young
people who have been on the New Deal in Sheffield. Unlike the college graduates
on the environmental project, they have fewer formal qualifications and
are not optimistic about their job prospects.
All the training that
some people get on the New Deal, does it actually help them get a job at
the end of it?
JESSICA DUNN: I think, the thing is the
job has to be there in the first place. A lot of people doing training
and there aren't the jobs for the amount of people who are doing the training
and because it's so competitive in the North because there aren't very
many jobs, people who are doing training are doing a lot of training and
then there's always someone more qualified or with more experience and
obviously you can't get experience at something unless somebody gives you
that first chance.
HAWTHORNE: Craig, what kind of work have
you been doing on the New Deal and what do you think of it?
CRAIG HOUSON: Just chopping tress down,
digging paths, paving and a few other things. I don't like it at all.
HAWTHORNE: Do you think you get enough
money for doing that?
HOUSON: No. I get �80 on my Giro
and I'm still getting that now.
DUNN: It's basically working for
your dole isn't it.
HOUSON: Basically you get out of
bed five days a week for nowt.
HAWTHORNE: Ian, tell me about the training
that you've been doing and has there been a job for you at the end.
IAN FLETCHER: The training's been fine,
it's when you go out and try to apply for jobs. You apply for jobs: 'oh
you haven't got the experience or you've got the right experience but you
ain't got the qualifications. It's a Catch 22 basically.
HAWTHORNE: The South Yorkshire Forum is
a community organisation that's trying to solve the problem of unemployment
in Sheffield. They're briefing a team of MPs from the Employment Select
Committee on efforts to revitalise the local economy. The city's just been
granted Objective One status. That means it qualifies for aid from the
European Union to help create new jobs to replace those lost in the manufacturing
sector.
FOSTER: All kinds of barriers in
an area like Sheffield and South Yorkshire which has lost a huge amount
of jobs in recent years in iron, steel and the coal mining industry. They
have got to reinvent themselves as a region and it's no good some of us
longing for those jobs to come back, they never will, that is the past.
You've got to get into those areas of rapidly growing industrial and commercial
sectors.
HAWTHORNE: But the lack of jobs in Sheffield
is the main reason why New Dealers still can't find work. Indeed, the Employment
Service's own league table ranks the city one hundred and twenty four out
of one hundred and forty four in terms of getting jobs for people on the
New Deal.
FOSTER: Well the New Deal is an
exemplar of the government's approach with trying to get people more ready
to take the jobs which are being created and I wholly support that and
it's working reasonably well. But what you've got to do alongside that
in areas like this is also create more jobs.
HOOGVELT: Even if the New Deal
was the best possible scheme in the world, it might still not have the
result that is required because we don't have the jobs here and we are
very unlikely to get them. Sheffield cannot make up for the loss of jobs
suffered in the 1980s, not in this globalised new economy that is emerging.
HAWTHORNE: So the evidence from Sheffield
is that the better educated benefit most from the New Deal. The government's
flagship policy does little to improve the job prospects of a hardcore
of the young, unskilled unemployed. And if a city's local economy is in
decline and jobs are scarce the New Deal can't, in itself, offer the youth
a bright future.
HUMPHRYS: Leon Hawthorne reporting
there.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: So Tessa Jowell not a disaster,
the New Deal, but a bit of a disappointment. We were entitled to expect
rather more for our money weren't we?
TESSA JOWELL: Well I think it's important
to look at the experience of Sheffield which your film was devoted to against
the experience of the New Deal as a whole. If we take the New Deal as
a UK wide programme one hundred and seventy thousand young people have
left benefit and got into work and about seventy-five per cent of those
nationally are in work three months later. Now we monitor very carefully
the performance of every New Deal area and in terms of the number of people
who leave the New Deal, young people who leave the New Deal from the first
stage, what we call the Gateway, Sheffield is I think at the bottom or
next to bottom in the national ranking. If you look at the number of....
The proportion of New Deal people in Sheffield who leave the New Deal having
undertaken one of the training options then Sheffield fares much better,
it's somewhere in the middle. Another important comparison between Sheffield
and the rest of the country is looking at the levels of disadvantage that
young people come onto the New Deal with. The New Deal nationally shows
that something like six out of ten young people leave the first stage of
the New Deal and go into work. The remaining forty per cent have very
serious numeracy and literacy problems. In Sheffield that proportion is
sixty per cent which is why training, education, the further help which
is provided in the later stages of the New Deal is so important.
HUMPHRYS: Right. Well let's break
all of that down a bit over the next quarter of an hour or so and put aside
Sheffield specifically for a moment and look at the national picture as
you said and when you look at that you see that forty-five thousand of
those got, of the hundred and seventy thousand figure that you gave me,
get short term jobs in other words they're not sustained jobs, they don't
last for more than six months. That's not good.
JOWELL: Well to some extent the
fact that twenty-five per cent of young people going into work from the
New Deal are in jobs that we know last less than thirteen weeks which is
the definition, you know, is what you would expect in a dynamic labour
market. All over the country there are vacancies, there are other jobs
for young people to go to if they don't like the job that they've gone
into and they don't always tell us when they move on which is why the overall
percentage of young people leaving the New Deal and going into work is
well over half, about fifty-seven per cent.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah - but I mean you
wouldn't suggest that nationally twenty-five per cent of the labour market
are in jobs that don't last more than a few weeks. That's just not the
case.
JOWELL But before young people
come onto the New Deal let's just look at who the New deal for young people
is seeking to help. It is seeking to help young people aged between eighteen
and twenty-four who have been unemployed for six months. So they are already
facing a degree of disadvantage. Something has gone wrong that has meant
that they haven't gone into work and it is addressing those problems that
the New Deal at every stage is geared to act.
HUMPHRYS: Right but half of them
would have got jobs anyway - the point that was made very forcefully in
that film.
JOWELL: Well I think that is a
very important conclusion from the macro-economic evaluation and it is...
that is the numerical calculation that the New Deal effect in the period
that the research took, the first year of the New Deal, was about thirty
thousand jobs arose precisely because of the New Deal. But we know (both
speaking at once) if I could just finish the point, we know as a matter
of fact that a hundred and seventy thousand young people have moved from
benefit through the New Deal and into work.
HUMPHRYS: Well that's the figure
we're breaking down isn't it and we've already established that forty-five
thousand who got a short term job or a part time job......
JOWELL: ..... no not necessarily
part time......
HUMPHRYS: But a short term job
- they may have gone onto something else indeed but short term job as we've
agreed. We're also establishing........
JOWELL: But about a hundred and
forty thousand have gone on to jobs that last for more than three months....
HUMPHRYS: Indeed - and half of
those, and this is the point I'm making and it's a very important point,
you've acknowledged it, would have got the job anyway because of changes
in the economic circumstances. Now you promised when you came into ....
When you put this scheme forward when you were in opposition that you would
get two hundred and fifty thousand people off the dole, young people off
the dole - that's what you said. It was always a nonsense in a sense to
make that promise, if I could just finish the point I'm making because
by the time you got into power many of those had already got jobs, there
were then only a hundred and seventy thousand still on the dole so it was
eating away at the basic logic of this scheme.
JOWELL: Look I am as eager as you
are to measure at each stage the impact of the New Deal but what is quite
clear is that the first stage of the New Deal which is when the young person
has help with interviews, has help in compiling a curriculum vitae, is
told about the kinds of jobs that are available, is linked to their personal
advisor, their sort of mentor who is there for them to help them to move
from unemployment into work. What is quite clear is that that process
which sees seventy-five per cent of people leave the gateway into jobs
which last for more than three months has a differential effect. For some
people it makes all the difference in the world and for others the benefit
may be marginal.
HUMPHRYS: But that is absolutely
crucial you see.....
JOWELL: It is crucial and what
we can't do is to weight the precise impact but the figures tell us, the
figures are published they are the government's statistical figures that
a hundred and seventy thousand young people since the New Deal launched
have moved from benefit to work.
HUMPHRYS: Sure, and you keep making
that point and statistically it's right. But when you break it down it
tells you a great deal about the scheme. And what it's telling you is
that it's been fine in terms of general youth unemployment, but this scheme,
in order to have proved itself, really to have to proved itself, would
have dealt with the most difficult people. You spent a lot of money, in
other words, and this is the very important point, you spent a lot money
on this deal, where it need not have been spent. That's the point.
JOWELL: No, I don't think that
is the case and the point.....
HUMPHRYS: Well it's sustained by
the experts in the field, the people who......
JOWELL: No, I think the point is,
and every young person who comes onto the New Deal as a condition of their
eligibility for the New Deal has been out of work for six months or more.
HUMPHRYS: And they would have got
a job when economic circumstances changed. That's the whole point, and
what you were trying to do with the New Deal, Gordon Brown, let me tell
you what will remind you, no doubt you will know it, what he said, a few
years ago, our plan, when the scheme was being drawn up, our plan is nothing
less than to abolish youth unemployment. Now that was an enormous thing
to say, and if it were to happen, then of course it would have meant that
everybody, every single young man and woman, who was not employed however
difficult to find a job for, would have got it. That is not what is happening
and those who are at the bottom of the heap, those who are least likely
to find a job are not, under the New Deal, finding a job. That's the basis
of it, that's why it's a flawed scheme.
JOWELL: That is not the case.
HUMPHRYS: Statistically, it is.
JOWELL: Let's take first of all,
the point about youth unemployment. Since the election, youth unemployment
has fallen by sixty per cent.
HUMPHRYS: ....and we'd established
.......
JOWELL: ...and a major forty per
cent
HUMPHRYS: ....nothing to do with
the scheme.
JOWELL: ...no, no, no, that's not
the case...
HUMPHRYS: ....you've acknowledged
it is the case.
JOWELL ....no, no, I have not acknowledged
it is the case. Forty per cent of that reduction is due to the New Deal.
Of course we've seen a combination of the New Deal driving down on youth
unemployment and we've also seen growth in the number of jobs as the figures
we published last week show seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand more people
are in work, at least seven-hundred-and-fifty-thousand more are in work
that at the time of the election.
HUMPHRYS: ...because of economic
circumstances...
JOWELL: ....and we have a buoyant
labour market and we have vacancies all over the country. But let me pick
up a key point from your film and a point that you've also suggested, which
is, this is about job creation.
HUMPHRYS: I haven't used the word
'job creation' actually.
JOWELL: OK, well the film certainly
did. The New
Deal is not a job creation programme. The new deal is about giving young
unemployed people the skills to make them employable...
HUMPHRYS: I understand that..
JOWELL: ...matching skills that
they have to their local labour market.
HUMPHRYS: I understand that but
you can't given them those skills if they are functionally illiterate and
if they are innumerate and forty per cent of them are.
JOWELL: Precisely, which is
why, last week, or the week before last, we announced a ten-point plan
to build on the success of the New Deal so far, in recognition of the fact
that increasingly the New Deal is going to be facing young people who are
increasingly disadvantaged, like the sixty per cent in Sheffield who come
onto the New Deal, not able to....with inadequate standards of numeracy
and literacy, that's why the New Deal will work harder, will build on it's
success, will address the basic skills gap, and will also do things which
are very important to employers, and you know, having talked to the Employment
Service in Sheffield, they confirm the importance of this feedback.
HUMPHRYS: Well I got it, I got
that.......
JOWELL: ...how to present themselves....
HUMPHRYS: .....absolutely, that's
the sort of thing you say, helping young people how to present themselves.
There's a lot of waffle in it, if I may say so, it's ten points and some
of it is incredibly obvious stuff ensuring, but when you get to the really
crucial stuff, ensuring that every young person is literate and numerate,
number one, you don't tell us how you are going to do that, you tell us
how you are going to assess people, to find out whether they are literate
and numerate, but you don't yet have the assessors, and it's going to take
a year to get all of those assessors....
JOWELL: ....well, I don't know
where you get that from John.
HUMPHRYS: From your document.
JOWELL: I mean, the assessment......no,
no, no, we haven't said there's a year before we start doing that...
HUMPHRYS: ...in addition, eleven-thousand,
NDPA's, those are the people who are going to do it, will be trained over
the next twelve months in the handling of identification of basic skills
needed. So we have not even got to begin the process of actually giving
them the education they need. We are simply trying to find enough assessors
in order to establish how many there are.
JOWELL: That is not the case.
It is a part of every personal advisors job to assess basic skills when
the young person comes onto the New Deal. If they haven't got GCSE's,
because what the New Deal is seeking to do is to guarantee that the young
person, before they move to work has standards of literacy which are broadly
equivalent to having GCSE's. Which is the employability threshold.
HUMPHRYS: Right, now given that
they don't have that, let's assume that we've leapt forward a year and
now you have got all these assessors, and the kids come along and the assessor
says, yes, he can't read or write or whatever, or she, what happens to
them then?
JOWELL: Well they then go on, where
they don't have those basic skills, they then go on to courses in order
to teach them those skills.
HUMPHRYS: Do they exist all over
the country today because we've had a little difficulty finding them.
JOWELL: They do, they do. And
if you look at the use of the full time training and education option in
Sheffield, you will see that that is part of the Sheffield programme that
has success which out-performs other New Deals in other parts of the country.
HUMPHRYS: Well, I tell you, you
don't need to go all the way to Sheffield from London, you just pop across
to East London here where Safeway were trying to find some people to do
very very basic jobs like shelf-stacking and manning check-outs and all
the rest of it. They had difficulty recruiting, they tried to recruit
them and they couldn't do so, because the people who were applying for
the jobs couldn't read and write. It isn't happening is it? That is the
problem. And the scheme has been going for a long time and had you not
spent an awful lot of money in ways need not have been spent, perhaps there
would have been enough to spend, when it absolutely had to be spent to
help the most in need.
JOWELL: John, I think you're trying
very hard to make a case, with respect, that is not sustained by the facts.
HUMPHRYS: Oh, I wasn't making
the case, I am simply putting it to you.
JOWELL: You know your film tried
to make the case. There is nobody more determined to build on the success
of the New Deal, to address these issues..
HUMPHRYS: I don't dispute that
for a moment..
JOWELL: ..than I, the Chancellor,
David Blunkett..
HUMPHRYS: It's the way you're doing
it that I'm questioning, not your determination. Of course you want to
do it, I'm questioning whether you are going about it the right way.
JOWELL: What is absolutely clear
after eighteen months of running the New Deal is that we are now facing
levels of disadvantage which mean that the efforts that we make in the
first stage of the New Deal in particular, have to be redoubled in order
to address basic skills, standards of numeracy and literacy and..
HUMPHRYS: ..re-directed as well
as redoubled..
JOWELL: No because the, I mean
this has already been going on but you know we haven't been doing enough
of it in recognition of the levels of..
HUMPHRYS: My point precisely.
JOWELL: The New Deal is a dynamic
programme. You know you wouldn't expect me to say that when we launched
it in 1988 it would continue, you know in its...
HUMPHRYS: No, but you could have
listened to the points that people were making. I can remember sitting
in this very studio with people like the Chancellor, the man who is now
the Chancellor of Exchequer, the man who is now the Secretary of State
for Employment and Education and saying look, these are going to be the
problems and they were saying no, no, no, we are going to crack it and
they didn't say we were going to take years and years and years to get
around to dealing with these youngsters with the biggest problems of all.
They didn't acknowledge the difference, this is the point you see. Now,
if you tell me you are redirecting it, fine, a lot of people say about
time too.
JOWELL: What we are having to do
is to provide for these young people in a period of nine months or a year,
what most of us get through at least eight years of secondary education.
We have to move very fast but don't pretend that it can be done over night.
We are not going to give up on these young people. We are not going to
give up on these young people and all the signs are that the New Deal,
strengthened, refocussed at tackling levels of disadvantage that I don't
think anybody quite believed existed at the levels that they do, will deliver
these young people into work and an alternative to what would otherwise
have happened of a lifetime on benefit. And when the Conservatives you
know criticise and carp about the New Deal, just remember they have opposed
it every step of the way. They are responsible in very large part for the
levels of disadvantage that the New Deal is now tackling.
HUMPHRYS: Tessa Jowell, thank you
very much indeed for coming here this morning.
HUMPHRYS: Now if the IRA does not
start getting rid of its weapons by the end of this month the Ulster Unionists
will bring down the government of Northern Ireland, force the suspension
of the executive. That's the effect of the ultimatum from them last year
and they seem to be sticking to it. David Trimble's post-dated letter
of resignation has already been handed in, just in case. So will decommissioning
begin and what if it doesn't? Jonathan Beale reports from Northern Ireland.
JONATHAN BEALE: August 1975 in South Armagh
and an off duty member of the Ulster Defence Regiment is on his way home.
WILLIAM FRAZER: The gunmen stood in behind
the hedge, waiting for my father to come out. He was just leaving to go
home. He had the same routine for the last thirty years. He got into
the car and reversed out of the lane way. The two murdering gunmen came
out through the hole in the hedge, they shot him through the window. They
talk about the ceasefire. This was during the ceasefire. How can we trust
these people? There's only one way we will have peace or hope in this
country is whenever the IRA hand over their guns. At the minute, everything
is appeasement, it's not a peace process, it's an appeasement process.
BEALE: The Peace Process has reached
another critical stage. But this time the stakes are much higher. The power
sharing executive here at Stormont is finally up and running. Unionists,
Republicans and Nationalists are working together in Government. But Ulster
Unionists are now threatening to pull the plug. They say unless Republican
terrorists start decommissioning their weapons by the end of this month,
they'll effectively collapse the process.
SIR REG EMPEY: The patience of the Unionist
Community has reached absolutely breaking point and I have to say personally,
and I can only speak personally, I personally have reached the end of my
political tether with this.
MITCHEL McLAUGHLIN MLA: Sinn Fein is present here in Stormont
even though that's anathema to us, even the word gives us a pain in the
gut. We're here because this is the place where we can get into political
discourse with our political opponents.
BEALE: It looked like victory,
but last November David Trimble narrowly won the support of his party
to enter into Government with Sinn Fein. The Ulster Unionist leader only
got their backing after promising to review progress on arms decommissioning
by February. He's even signed a letter of resignation as first Minister,
to be used if the IRA fails to deliver. But Unionists say they were given
assurances the IRA was ready to act.
McLAUGHLIN: They got no such assurances
from Sinn Fein. I cannot speak for anyone else who was present. Our view
on it has been stated publicly and our public position is our private position,
that it will be a voluntary process and it is a responsibility under the
terms of the Good Friday Agreement for all of us to co-operate to create
those political conditions that would render any reference to arms struggle
redundant for the future.
JEFFREY DONALDSON MP: David Trimble made it clear that
he would resign as First Minister if there hadn't been credible decommissioning
by the end of January, by the deadline which he has reiterated when he
met the Prime Minister at Downing Street.
BEALE: General John de Chastelain,
who heads the independent body on decommissioning, has to report on progress
by the end of the month. It will be the key to whether the political
process continues and his interpretation of decommissioning is crucial.
Particularly as Sinn Fein's definition seems vague.
McLAUGHLIN: I think that decommissioning
has been achieved in Republican terms in that the IRA are not using their
weapons; that's decommissioning for Sinn Fein. It's not sufficient for
some other people, so it's up to them to give you their definition and
to demonstrate how they can come up with a workable solution.
BEALE: In South Armagh, a Republican
heartland once referred to as bandit country, there's little to suggest
that terrorist weapons no longer pose a threat. The army is still here
in force.
So how long has this base
been here?
DECLAN FEARON: This one has been here fifteen
years, going back to 1985/86 I think.
BEALE: But local residents say
the security services have failed to respond to the IRA's ceasefire. In
their view it's the army's presence that's hindering progress.
FEARON: We want to see them taken
away immediately. You know there is no reason why all of this can't be
taken away within weeks There are some thirty-three of these bases, or
thirty-three look-out posts in this area including five massive military
barracks. There's no reason why all of this paraphernalia can't be taken
away within weeks. Some of them were built within weeks and they should
be taken away as quickly.
BEALE: The Government says it's
already reduced the military's presence. Twenty-six installations have
been closed or demolished. There are now fifteen thousand troops, fewer
than at any time since 1970. For many Republicans that's still far too
many. The Northern Ireland Secretary is expected to publish a review of
security arrangements in a matter of weeks. But Peter Mandelson insists
security will not be compromised nor traded for decommissioning.
DONALDSON: I expect that we will see moves
perhaps on the security towers in South Armagh. That's very high up the
list of priorities for the Republican movement. This government will do
anything to achieve some kind of token act of decommissioning to get people
off hooks and I think there are talks going on that the Government are
engaged in a sounding-out process on the ground with Republicans to see
how much they need to deliver in terms of the Republican agenda on so called
demilitarisation.
BEALE: Republicans have insisted
on further concessions if the IRA is to give up its weapons. They say army
bases in town centres - like here in Crossmaglen - must go. But as well
as demanding significant demilitarisation alongside any decommissioning,
they also want wholesale change to the Royal Ulster Constabulary. That's
now being addressed. But the reforms announced by Peter Mandelson are
unlikely to go far enough to persuade the IRA to disarm.
Like the army, the RUC
hasn't always been seen as a positive force. Continued road-blocks are
a constant irritation - particularly for Republican sympathisers. But
to Unionists the proposed changes are worse than expected. Scrapping
the badge, name and the jobs of six thousand officers is a bitter pill
to swallow. The aim will be to recruit half the new Service from the Catholic
community. But even this may not satisfy those who've tragic memories of
the past.
A December evening in
1975. A gang of loyalist terrorists are on their way to a Catholic pub.
It's alleged they've been assisted by an RUC officer.
MARIE DONNELLY: Patsy Donnelly had pulled up to
get petrol. And Michael naturally stopped and filled up the petrol for
him. And they shot Patsy dead. Could hear this shooting. When they threw
in the bomb, they just said to us "This is your Christmas box you Fienian
bastards. Everywhere went in darkness, everyone screaming, shouting, running,
everywhere.
I want to see peace. For the memory of Michael. There's nothing ever
going to bring him back. But definitely there's nobody's life worth all
that's gone on. Not one life worth it.
BEALE: It's not the only time that
the RUC has been accused of complicity in an attack.
FEARON: Certainly in South Armagh
the RUC have no support whatsoever because people just have never trusted
them and they know the deeds they've got up to in this area. We want to
see the RUC just root and branch changed, it's got to start from right
the bottom, it's got to start with a completely new service. Not tinkering
with the old one.
EMPEY: We're seeing a police service
that was has been butchered for years, cast aside, and that's what's
happening, no matter what anybody says about it. And I know it was a plan
the Government had long before the Good Friday Agreement was ever heard
of, but nevertheless that's the perception and that's the reality. And
what is the other side of that coin? What are the Republicans doing by
way of response?
BEALE: Ulster Unionists say so
far they've made all the moves, having to accept a series of painful concessions.
By setting a deadline for decommissioning they now hope to force the IRA
to act but the Republican Movement is refusing to accept any Unionist timetable.
McLAUGHLIN: I think it will have the same
effect as the other deadlines they have set.
BEALE: Which is?
McLAUGHLIN: Failure in terms of the objectives
that they also mapped out. There's different ways of working with people
and those objectives. I would have thought by now that Unionists would
have realised that Unionists setting deadlines for Republicans is a particularly
inefficient way of going about business.
BEALE: There are some dissident
Republicans who already feel they've given up too much. Francis Mackey
left Sinn Fein when it signed up to the Good Friday Agreement. He didn't
accept it was up to the people of the North to decide whether they wanted
a united Ireland. He believes others are prepared to leave too.
FRANCIS MACKEY: Sinn Fein have made concessions
but the principle of decommissioning, I feel, has already been accepted.
Sinn Fein have to quote their words - turned their constitution on its
head. I said then and I repeat I could not be part of that. Republicanism
has been based on the ending of British rule, based on the will of the
people who voted for this and it has since then been usurped. We continue
to highlight and expose that single issue which remains unresolved in this
process.
TOMMY McKEARNEY: Decommissioning will never be
welcomed by the Republican movement or by Republicans in general. So there
has to be a huge amount of soul searching. However, my instinct tells me
that at present that there is more disenchantment and demoralisation than
any great venom within the Provisional movement and that tends to make
me believe that it will be accepted reluctantly albeit of course some people
will walk away.
BEALE: It's thought most of the
IRA's arsenal is hidden South of the Border. But painstaking searches by
the Irish police have unearthed few stockpiles. Politicians still hope
persuasion will be more successful. But even if the IRA agrees to decommissioning
Sinn Fein dismiss some of the suggestions to make it more palatable.
Like leaving weapons in a sealed bunker.
McLAUGHLIN: I just think it's just a waste
of time and effort to be honest. I mean the idea that governments would
accept and that their legal system could accommodate the idea of guns being
sealed somewhere with everybody's knowledge and nobody will go near them
is outlandish.
BEALE: Few, if any, believe the
IRA is about to get rid of all its weapons even though the Good Friday
agreement requires every rifle and every bullet to be decommissioned by
May the twenty-second. The best hope is that Republican paramilitaries
will offer at least something.
McKEARNEY: Frankly I don't think we are
going to see any dramatic gesture, any great number of weapons publicly
handed over or destroyed. The fact is that so long as some modest gesture
is made which reassures General de Chastelain that the gesture has been
made I think that's as much as anyone can reasonably expect.
EMPEY: We're talking here about
the start of an actual process of physical destruction of materials. We're
not interested in tokenism.
BEALE: Unionists clearly believe
that the IRA and Sinn Fein would take the blame for stalling the process.
But it's not just Republicans whose reputation is at stake.
DONALDSON: People I have talked to who
in November were prepared to give this process another chance for a few
weeks are now saying very clearly 'We have been kicked by the government
on the Patten report. We feel that the RUC have been betrayed by the government
and we are not minded this time to be party to another fudge to save the
government's bacon and to appease the Republican movement.'
McLOUGHLIN: It's collapsed before. There
will be other problems. What Sinn Fein is bringing to this process is a
total and complete commitment to making it work. So if it collapses then
we'll be part of building it up again.
BEALE: It seems the army will not
be leaving Armagh in the near future. Though neither side wants to be
seen bringing down the political process, it is now in jeopardy. Ultimately
it's the governments that will have to decide to put the process in review.
But Unionists and Republicans are ready to blame each other, and ready
to pull out of the power sharing Executive.
EMPEY: The process goes on but
the institutions could very well be suspended. I hope that doesn't happen.
I don't want it to happen. But all I do know is that it is impossible to
sustain these institutions if one of the major parties to them is in default.
And if the General's reports at the beginning of February, end of January
is negative on this issue then we would conclude that default would have
happened.
BEALE: The hunt continues for
a solution. But the deadline is just weeks away and both sides seem prepared
to see the political process falter. It would mean the return of direct
rule from Westminster. The greatest fear though for the people of Northern
Ireland is that the best chance for lasting peace could still slip out
of their grasp.
HUMPHRYS: Jonathon Beale reporting
there.
The race to be Mayor
of London has provided us all with much entertainment. Every time you think
it can't get any sillier ... it does. At least that's true of the Labour
and Conservative Parties...a saga of sex, sleaze and stitch-up. But the
Liberal Democrats chose their candidate months ago. She's been quietly
campaigning away, perhaps too quietly, drowned out by the noise of battle
from everyone else taking great lumps out of each other. Which should
be very good for her, except that her critics say she's offering nothing
different. She is Susan Kramer and she's with me.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon.
SUSAN KRAMER: Good afternoon.
HUMPHRYS: That's the problem isn't
it, you've had trouble getting people to take notice of you, partly because
you're not exactly, forgive me for saying, a national figure, but also
because your policies aren't distinctly different from the others.
KRAMER: I don't think there's been
a policy discussed, I mean far be it, in this race so far. It's all been
sort of selection and fiasco.
HUMPHRYS: You've gleaned a few
policies here and there.
KRAMER: Well that's good because
we've been coming out very strongly on keeping the Tube in public hands
and a coherent way to raise money through bonds to deal with it. I've been
out on the streets..
HUMPHRYS: Ken Livingstone's policy..
KRAMER: Ken Livingstone's policy,
jackdawed from us. I mean, you know, I'm very glad when someone does.
Ken doesn't have it quite right and that's sort of a problem and I mean
that's getting into rather sophisticated issues. The way we want to do
it actually works and works for the financial markets so I think that's
important. But the second area..
HUMPHRYS: Just save that one for
just one second. I mean as you say that will be complicated, it will be
very difficult trying to persuade a mass meeting or something that, you
know, the subtle distinction between what pleases the city and may not.
But it's essentially the same..
KRAMER: I mean it has underlining
it the policy of keeping the Tube in the public's hands and that I'm glad
to share with Ken. I mean I'd really like all the other candidates come
on board with that, lost hope though it is. But I come with a background
in business and finance, I got into this..
HUMPHRYS: Not a politician.
KRAMER: That's not essentially
a politician but I was so frustrated sitting on the Piccadilly Line, stuck
in the tunnel one more time and thought I know how to raise the money to
deal with this and I do believe that is going to be a very convincing fact
for people.
HUMPHRYS: Right, if you weren't
stuck on the Piccadilly Line you'd be stuck and a great big traffic jam
somewhere so that's the other thing isn't it. You want to keep cars, of
course you want - who doesn't - you want to keep cars out of London. Ken
Livingstone wants to tax them to keep them out, you know these workplace
congestion tax. Do you want to do the same?
KRAMER: I want congestion charging
and for two reasons. One is that we have to raise money for public transport
and I intend that every penny of congestion charging goes into public transport
and I don't want to bring in the charges until we start to see some improvement
so people have confidence that is what is going to happen with their money.
HUMPHRYS: So it might be a very
long time before it ever happens.
KRAMER: That's not correct. I don't
know where you've got that from. We would raise the money..
HUMPHRYS: From you, just a second
ago..
KRAMER: ..we would raise the money
with bonds almost immediately..
HUMPHRYS: ..sure but it might take
an awfully long time to improve things.
KRAMER: We'll start to see improvements
come through quickly... that's not true. If you started to inject money,
for example in the bus system, in information systems, countdowns so people
knew where buses were, could move buses fast on priority routes. If we
had concrete plans for putting in place improvements in the Tube. Get down
there, name the stations we can tackle, when are we going to get improvements
on track, when the new signally will start to come in. When you start to
see those kinds of things actually happen you have confidence the congestion
charge you pay will actually be used for public transport.
HUMPHRYS: There will be a congestion
charge even if you sorted out the Tube and many fewer people wanted to
come in to London, that's a bit odd isn't it.
KRAMER: I think we have a confusion
here. You won't sort out the Tube unless you raise the money to do it,
that is one element, it's also a management issue but it's very much a
money issue and one of the mechanisms for that is to borrow and then you
repay that borrowing through the congestion charging mechanism.
HUMPHRYS: Ah, but you've just told
me that you mightn't introduce congestion charging until things have started
to improve so people will know that it's better.
KRAMER: The whole point is if you
go the bond strategy you raise the money now. You do not repay it now,
you have some grace period, a period of time before the repayments kicks
in.
HUMPHRYS: How much, Ken says five
pounds, how much from you?
KRAMER: We've looked at that number
because it's a number that's been developed by London first and Ken and
I have the same sources. I really want to consult. I would like to look
at it very closely but I think it's in that arena. What I am looking at
is it ought to be a bit more than the travel card you pay to use the bus,
Tube and the train because for your five pounds I would also let you, in
a sense, use the bus, Tube and the train because it would act as a travel
card for those purposes. So that's the thinking on how you get to the number.
HUMPHRYS: So if you go to the same
source that Mr Livingstone has gone to for that, you might go to the same
source about workplace parking levies because you want one of those as
well, Ken Livingstone wants one of those as well.
KRAMER: I'm still, I believe we
have to.... I believe the jury is out on workplace parking levies, I'm
not particularly keen on them myself because I don't think they do much
about congestion.
HUMPHRYS: Not 'cause you're scared
of business?
KRAMER: I very much think business
is important. I mean we've been having a good dialogue with business.
It's not a matter of getting the business vote, it's making sure that business
succeeds in London, that is absolutely crucial. We need the jobs, we want
business to thrive. One of the reasons business supports congestion charging,
provided every penny goes into public transport is because public transport
and relief of congestion matters for the life of our businesses.
HUMPHRYS: I'm a bit surprised you're
not very keen this morning on the workplace parking because it's on your
website isn't it, so it's part of your manifesto..
KRAMER: Yes I did say at an earlier
programme that we had some...no the manifesto comes later..
HUMPHRYS: But I mean it's there,
you know if anyone clicks on to your website, then you know they will see
it there and now you're saying...
KRAMER: I only became alert of
the fact that it was on the website .... I don't look at it very often.
It's the truth and we did say
HUMPHRYS: ..perhaps you should..
KRAMER: ..you're right I should.
We did say to people we need to take a re-look at that. What I have said
is, I've got some people looking now at the whole issue of workplace parking
'cause there are arguments pro and con. We will come out with a final decision
by the time of the manifesto which is a few weeks away..
HUMPHRYS: I should hope so and
you'll tell the people running the website.
KRAMER: But my own feeling is -
absolutely yes - I have passed on that message - but I have to say our
focus has been the street campaign and sometimes there are little glitches.
That one has been a glitch.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, for Mayor of London
you'd have to run lots of things all at the same wouldn't you. But anyway...
KRAMER: With a few more resources
than the Liberal Democrats have.
HUMPHRYS: Let's look at the Community
Constable thing. Now that's something else that you want and so does Frank
Dobson and all of that and what's going to be paying for that.
KRAMER: Completely different programmes.
HUMPHRYS: Right, different programmes
but it's got to be paid for.
KRAMER: Let's look at what I'm
proposing, and this has happened by going out and talking with people in
the community. There is as it were an empty space. There is no-one out
on the streets today providing security on the street in our communities
and I have said we must fill that gap and I want to do it with a new force
that would report to local authorities and the mayor. We'd draw in resources
that are already out there, that's some of those resources - the park police,
the state specials, parking wardens but give them training, give them a
common uniform, let's have them in radio contact with the police and their
role is basically to nip trouble in the bud before it develops. Get those
groups of kids, report the graffiti, the rubbish, the broken light, you
know the damaged bus stop so that we actually get a sense of security back
on our streets.
HUMPHRYS: A good idea no doubt
but lots of people would say: 'but again we've got a little problem here
because again, according to the website, the money that's going to provide
all of that is going to be produced by the workplace parking levy'.
KRAMER: Now here I'm sure the website
is better on this and that..no it doesn't come from...
HUMPHRYS: ....well which is true.....?
KRAMER: Not the workplace parking
levy, it talks about the money coming...
HUMPHRYS: It says so. It says
so.
KRAMER: It talks about the money
coming from those original sources, in other words we already have, as
it were, park police and estate specials so you have that as a starting
point. Now the enforcement of congestion charging is going to require
people out on the street to enforce it but we will give them this multiple
role so that again will let us use those funds to build up this particular
force so it does start to work and I've got people now honing in on getting
the numbers absolutely complete.
HUMPHRYS: Well why not get someone
honing in on this thing of your because....(both speaking at once).....
what I'm stuck on, is what you are saying on your website, which the nearest
thing we've got at the moment to a manifesto obviously because we haven't
got a manifesto yet.......
KRAMER: Well you could talk to
me. That's a very good way to do it.
HUMPHRYS: Well indeed but people.....
not everybody in the world can come up and have a chat with you - pleasant
though that would be for them and no doubt for you so what they do is they
go to your website and they see, as we see this very morning, their numbers,
the numbers of the community police, would be boosted by levies from congestion
charges and the workplace parking levy.
KRAMER: Congestion charges is correct......
HUMPHRYS: And the workplace parking
levy?
KRAMER: It's the workplace parking
levy that I'm questioning...
HUMPHRYS: So that should be withdrawn
as well?
KRAMER: Well that has been... I've
always said and I've been absolutely consistent in this so there is a mistake
on the website that I have not come to a conclusion on workplace parking
charges. I don't think particularly they're a good idea.
HUMPHRYS: So in that case you might
have a problem with money for these other things then, mightn't you - if
that's what was going to pay for the community police.
KRAMER: No because the core mass
that we've done has been on the congestion charging, it hasn't included
workplace parking so as I say..
HUMPHRYS: ..a bit draft to put
it in there..
KRAMER: ..it is quite legitimate
to say that we seem to have a slip up on our website and I apologise for
that but that's not the core of what we're doing. We're not websiting,
we're trying to find good ways to provide extra......
HUMPHRYS: Modern days they all
go together. You've got to get it all right these days. You want to rebuild
trust between the police and the ethnic community as well - what a surprise.
Is there a party out there that doesn't want to do that?
KRAMER: Absolutely not I hope because
it really has to come from all of us if you're going to rebuild trust.
What I have said and it's an important statement to make that that matters
to me both as a candidate and if I were privileged enough to become mayor.
It is a crucial task to take on...
HUMPHRYS: ...in which case, can
I just ask you this point. Terribly important, we've very nearly out of
time - can I just ask you this. 'Terribly important', you say, 'absolutely...'
which is odd isn't it because you don't have a single ethnic candidate
in a potentially winnable seat for your party, on your party list.
KRAMER: We have a situation in
our party where it has not met the challenge of bringing in large numbers
of ethnic minorities. Now that is changing and when I go out and campaign
on the streets we have a lot of good people from different communities
who are out there with me.....
HUMPHRYS: Not in time for the election
for the Assembly.....
KRAMER: We are equally guilty.
What I will say is that it was Liberal Democrats who put the language
into the Act that made tackling discrimination a crucial task for the mayor.
Very important and part of our dedicated commitment.
HUMPHRYS: Susan Kramer thank you
very much indeed.
KRAMER: You are welcome.
HUMPHRYS: And that's it for this
week, until the same time next week - good afternoon.
...oooOooo...
FoLdEd
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