BBC On The Record - Broadcast: 23.01.00



=================================================================================== NB. THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A TRANSCRIPTION UNIT RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT; BECAUSE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF MIS-HEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY, IN SOME CASES, OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE BBC CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS ACCURACY .................................................................................... ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE: 23.01.00 .................................................................................... 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
NB. This transcript was typed from a transcription unit recording and not copied from an original script. Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy.