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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE:
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. The
government's publishing its new Crime Bill this week. I'll be asking the
Home Office Minister about Tony Blair's latest threat to crack down on
drug pushers.
Why's the Labour
Party under such pressure in Scotland? I'll be speaking to the first
minister Donald Dewar.
Will Gordon Brown
spend more or cut taxes in his budget next week and will he find the cash
needed to save the coal industry? That's after the news read by Sian Williams.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: Which direction will Gordon
Brown take when he presents his budget next week... reduce taxation to
please the City or boost spending to please old Labour?
The colliery that
says: we need taxpayers' money to keep going. Will the government bail
it out or keep refusing to subsidise ailing industries.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: The new crime bill is being
published this week ... another attempt to make the country safer for all
of us. The crime rate is beginning to rise again and that's a real problem
for a government that's supposed to be tough on crime and tough on the
causes of crime. Mr Blair has been talking in the past 24 hours about
drugs - threatening a new crackdown on the pushers.
The Home Office
Minister Paul Boateng is with me. Mr Boateng before we get on to that,
a quick question if I may about James Bulger. Clearly there's not very
much you can say about it because the Home Secretary is looking at it and
will announce something this week but what is the context in which he is
looking at it again. Is it before there are clearly political concerns,
I mean lots of people out there are deeply worried about this and what
happens to the boys because of the message that it sends, or will the decision
be taken purely in light of what is best for these boys?
PAUL BOATENG: John, the Home Secretary
has made it clear that he is reflecting on the European Convention of Human
Right Court's ruling in this matter and he will have to do that, he is
doing that and he will, as he promised, report in due course to Parliament.
When he is considering these matters and when he reports to Parliament,
he acts in the purely quasi judicial function. He doesn't act as a politician
and therefore it wouldn't be appropriate for me to seek to second guess
him and I'm bound to say that he will make his decision in accordance with
the law and he will uphold the rule of law in the best traditions of our
country.
HUMPHRYS: Let's move on to Tony
Blair talking about drugs. He gave an interview yesterday in which he said
he is going to be very stern on drug pushers and the like because he's
very worried about drugs, as indeed we all are. But it's just more rhetoric
isn't it.
BOATENG: No, far from it. We have
already seen in a prison context what effective focussed action can do.
In our prisons in the last three years we have reduced positive tests by
some twenty-four per cent. We will in this coming week be unveiling the
new Bill that will enable us to extend drug treatment testing orders across
the country. The early results of the pilots are very promising. I visited
on recently in the Wirral looking at pilots across the board. What we
have found is that they are able to reduce consumption and spending on
drugs from four hundred pounds a week to seventy pounds a week. Now that
makes an enormous difference in terms of acquisitive crime. It makes a
difference for instance to whether or not your car is broken into and your
CD player taken out, whether or not an opportunistic burglary takes place.
So yes, we know that effective focussed action can make a difference and
we are determined to see that rolled out across the country.
HUMPHRYS: But I mean the sort of
thing that he was talking about are confiscating the assets of drug dealers
- well that's done already as I understand it. He was talking about rehabilitation
and treatment centres. Well, we have those already. I mean it sounds a
bit like recycling.
BOATENG: On the contrary because
it reveals the purpose and the extent to which we as a government are applying
our minds and our actions to these issues. Like me give you an example
in relation to drugs confiscation. One of the things that makes it so hard
out there in the wider world is the way in which these drug traffickers
flaunt their wealth, whether it's the Mazarati on the local estate, whether
or not it's flash jewellery and what we need to do is to send a very clear
message that if you do engage in drug trafficking, not only are you going
to go to prison and we now have a minimum sentence of seven years for third
time convicted drug traffickers. But also, you are going to lose that
wealth and your family aren't going to be able to..
HUMPHRYS: You already can is the
point I'm making, that's the point.
BOATENG: Sure, but what we need
to do is to look at new ways, for instance of channelling some of that
wealth back into the communities and..
HUMPHRYS: So what are you going
to do, are you going to take it off the drug dealer, take it off Mazarati
Man or whatever and build a youth centre or something?
BOATENG: Exactly. There's no reason
why we shouldn't explore that as one of the options as to how in fact we
get the message over. How we can..
HUMPHRYS: Is that legal?
BOATENG: Well that's why we are
exploring a rang of options and what we are seeking to do and Keith Halliwell,
Mo Mowlam, working across government are working with us in the Home Office,
with the Department of Health, with the DETR, with the Foreign Office because
also we have to use the criminal intelligence at our disposal, working
in co-operation with allies. I was last year with the Director of the FBI
and one of the things that we were discussing then and indeed my colleague
Charles Clarke has discussed since with the Americans and our international
partners in Moscow is how we better co-ordinate our activities across international
boundaries...
HUMPHRYS: ..just stay with the
community thing..
BOATENG: ...in order to defeat
the drug traffickers at their source, very important.
HUMPHRYS: Sure. But stay with the
community idea for a moment which will intrigue a lot of people I imagine.
It will be in the interests of local people to say, look that guy is pushing
drugs and can we have our new youth club or something. I mean is that...
BOATENG: What we are seeking to
do is to be open to ideas and suggestions as to how we can mobilise a broad
coalition against those who come into our communities and peddle drugs.
The sort of experience that my constituents have, the constituents that
many MPs, not just in urban seats but in rural seats have of mums and young
children going out, bottom of a lift shaft, out in a park, their kids
picking up needles. We've got to mobilise the whole community and the drug
action teams, the focussed effort with the police, with the probation service,
with the prison service, with our international partners, with the Health
Service, that we are now applying to this is good news and it is right
that we should highlight it in the way that we do.
HUMPHRYS: There is already as I
understand it a drug section in this new Bill which means that - you touched
on it earlier - which means that if people are arrested for a whole series
of offences, almost anything, they can, if there is a suspicion that drugs
may have been involved in their actions, they can be tested for drug use.
Now it sounds fine but the problem with that is, is that what is then likely
to happen is that they will end up in jail and they will be - rather than
having bail for instance if they have been found using drugs - and they
will then be surrounded by guess who? - drug users. Not good for them.
BOATENG: First of all John, not
almost anything. When people are charged with acquisitive crimes and with
Class A offences it's right that they should be tested because what we
know is that if you get in early in terms of treatment, if you do actually
enable the magistrates when they...
HUMPHRYS: ..but they don't get
treated though, they go to jail and..
BOATENG: That isn't the case you
see because if you do enable magistrates when they are making decisions
about bail to say no we don't think it's best for you, either to go to
prison or back into your home where you are surrounded, potentially in
your home situation by a drug use, by an unhelpful environment, we think
it's a good idea that you should go to a probation hostel which specialises
in accessing treatment for drug abuse. Now, what we know that can do is
to reduce the likelihood for offending whilst on bail. What we also know
is that in our prisons now we have reduced by twenty-four per cent, now
that is a very considerable amount over the last three years the number
of positive tests for drugs.
HUMPHRYS: ..still an enormous amount
going on. I mean Jonathan Aitken I was reading, he said the prison he was
in smelt like the Casbah or something.
BOATENG: Well it isn't for Jonathan
Aitken to seek to make..
HUMPHRYS: Well he has this sort
of expert knowledge that neither you or I have been there.
BOATENG: Well it isn't for him
to seek to make penal policy...
HUMPHRYS: He's just telling it
like it, he's got experience, personal experience.
BOATENG: Well I also have. I also
have.
HUMPHRYS: Well I didn't think you've
been banged up have you - it's slightly different.
BOATENG: Let's put it this way
- I have a more varied experience of prisons than Jonathan Aitken because
I go into different ones every week and I speak to prisoners, I speak to
prison officers and they tell me what's happening. We are winning the
war on drugs in prison and we now have to go out and do that in the wider
community.
HUMPHRYS: Can I move to another
area and that's begging.
BOATENG: Yes.
HUMPHRYS: Sir John Stevens, Metropolitan
Police Commissioner, the new man in charge of the Met. Heck of a job he's
got. He talks about zero tolerance to sweep the beggars off the streets.
Now I seem to have heard this before.
BOATENG: What we know is that Chief
Constables, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, carry out the law. What
we also know is that it isn't for ministers to tell them how to do their
job when it comes to operational matters. I've got every confidence in
the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, every confidence too that our police
and the courts have adequate powers to deal with begging whether it is
of the passive or aggressive variety. But what I do have to say John is
that there is no reason for these people to beg. What they are engaged
in is a criminal act, is an act which all too often shows signs of organisation
and it's not on. It can't be accepted and the police are perfectly right
to explore every option in terms of ensuring that our streets are safe
for ordinary, decent law abiding people to go about their business.
HUMPHRYS: So the notion of zero
tolerance as you say it's up to him how he pursues it...
BOATENG: It's an entirely operational
matter for the police...
HUMPHRYS: Oh come on..... if a
police officer said, 'I'm going to do something very dramatic, a politician
is entitled to say - well he's got our support', so if he says, 'Zero
tolerance', you say - 'Go for it'?
BOATENG: John, the Metropolitan
Police Commissioner has got our one hundred per cent support and I have
no doubt that he will do the right thing by Londoners and by this particular
problem.
HUMPHRYS: But you see why I was
a wee bit sceptical about the notion of driving the, dare I say, 'Squeegy
merchants' as well as the beggars off the streets, that's precisely what
the Home Secretary told us a couple of years ago, you yourself talked about
travellers, the kind of travellers of whom you disapproved because of the
way they were going about things. 'This sort of anti social behaviour
is not to be tolerated. This government will not tolerate it.' Well what
we've actually seen since those comments were made is an increase in the
number of beggars so what's going to be different this time?
BOATENG: Well what you have seen
is concerted effort over the past two and a half years in government to
tackle the issue of homelessness, to tackle the issue of refugee and asylum
seeking..
HUMPHRYS: No, no, tackle specifically
the question of aggressive begging...
BOATENG: ..... so we're now in
a position in which nobody has an excuse to beg in this aggressive fashion
and the police have the powers in order to deal with it. If the police
John come back to us and tell us that they don't have sufficient powers
then of course we will look, because as a matter of criminal justice policy
this is an area of concern, we'll look at making sure that they do have
sufficient powers.
HUMPHRYS: What sort of powers?
BOATENG: But they have sufficient
powers and they haven't given us any indication that they need any more
assistance from government in tackling this problem...
HUMPHRYS: ...so in other words
it's simply that...
BOATENG: ...what we have got to
do is to back the police and the courts one hundred per cent when they
make it clear that this sort of conduct simply isn't tolerable. That's
what myself and the whole ministerial team in the Home Office and indeed
across government will do.
HUMPHRYS: One imagines that that's
what you have been doing for the last few years to...
BOATENG: ...and that is what we
will continue to do..
HUMPHRYS: ..but my point is that
the number of beggars as anybody can tell who walks around the streets
of London or many other big cities and indeed increasingly smaller towns
in England and Wales has actually been going up. So there has to be something
else doesn't there. It's not just good enough for you to say - the police
have got the powers - they've always had the powers...
BOATENG: One of the reasons for
that John is that there's an increase in the number of gypsies from Eastern
Europe on our streets who maintain that this is part of their traditional
lifestyle. Well if it is part of their traditional lifestyle it isn't
acceptable in this country and the police and the courts, backed up by
the government will bring that message home to them.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so you're telling
the police as well...
BOATENG: I'm supporting the police...
HUMPHRYS: You're supporting the
police and if they want to crack down on these asylum seekers from Romania
or whatever, you say - 'Good on you'?
BOATENG: I say the police can be
trusted to do their job and I support them one hundred per cent.
HUMPHRYS: Paul Boateng, than you
very much indeed.
BOATENG: My pleasure.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: Now it's the budget
next week, as if you didn't know and Gordon Brown will, no doubt, play
the prudent Chancellor again. It's a role he enjoys. And over the past
three years he's saved quite a lot for the government's piggy bank. Now
he's under great pressure from his own supporters to spend some of it.
But he's also under great pressure from his new friends in Britain's boardrooms
to cut the tax burden - and, as Paul Wilenius reports, he might have a
problem doing both.
PAUL WILENIUS: The Church - for centuries
it's given the nation moral guidance. And for some politicians it's helped
turn their trade into a crusade.
GORDON BROWN: Our prudence for a purpose
is hard earned and it is hard won and we will not sacrifice it for today's
standing ovations, tomorrow's headlines and next week's easy slogans or
next month's false solutions.
WILENIUS: Gordon Brown is a politician
of strong beliefs. He has high ideals of helping the poor, but thinks he
can only meet them if he's cautious and prudent. Indeed, he's set out to
prove that on taxes, spending and management of the economy the Labour
Government need take no lessons from the Conservatives As the son of a
Scottish Presbyterian Minister, Gordon Brown is steeped in the moral values
of the Church. As Chancellor he's portrayed himself as a financial puritan.
But in his forthcoming Budget and spending review he'll face real temptation
to spend much more on public services, testing his prudence to the limit.
Brown has made prudence his watchword. He's now courted by the businessmen
who once shunned Labour, making the Bank of England independent has broken
Labour's association with high inflation. Over the last three years he's
kept spending tight and direct taxes down. As a result he's gained the
trust of the financial community and the confidence of the electorate.
ANDREW DILNOT: I think people are increasingly
accepting that Gordon Brown really is a prudent Chancellor, we've public
finances improving. Admittedly they've been improving since 1993 but under
Gordon Brown's stewardship we've gone into surplus for the first time since
the 1980s.
KATE BARKER: The main way in which Gordon
Brown looks a lot more prudent than previous Labour Chancellors is that
he's been very successful in setting plans on public spending and sticking
to them. We haven't had public spending overruns, indeed if anything we've
had public spending under-runs, that's certainly gone a long way to making
business feel that we're in new territory with this Labour Government.
WILENIUS: The Protestant work ethic
is also at the heart of Brown's policy and his next Budget is set to follow
in the same direction. Building on his New Deal for young people, the
National Minimum Wage and working family tax credits he will do more for
those in work. But despite the 1p cut in income tax next month, for the
first time the purpose of his prudence is being seriously questioned.
He's facing accusations from the Tories that through stealth taxes the
overall tax burden is going up.
BARKER: The Government was clearly
very worried about the figures that were published a month or two ago showing
that the tax burden in the UK had been on the increase since Labour were
elected. But going into the election they'd clearly like to say: look,
over the last couple of years we haven't increased the tax burden any further
and that probably means, because if he does nothing on 21st of March
the tax burden will rise a little that he will look for ways to roll back
the burden of tax both on the consumer and I think on business.
DILNOT: I think the government
would very much like the tax burden to be falling by the end of this Parliament.
I think they're embarrassed by the fact that the tax burden has gone up,
they seem to be very nervous and twitchy whenever it's mentioned. There's
no way they can get the tax burden back down to the level it was at the
beginning of this Parliament without massive tax reductions that I think
are inconceivable.
1992 CONSERVATIVE PARTY ELECTION BROADCAST: Adding up the cost of all
the promises Labour have made to date, it comes to an astonishing �35 billion
extra a year.
WILENIUS: The devastating attacks
on Labour in the 1992 election campaign on tax have left their mark on
Brown. He doesn't want to be attacked for rising taxes before the next
election, which is now expected in spring of next year. But many in his
own party are opposed to more tax cuts which they believe are aimed at
Middle England as well as neutralising the Tory assault. Brown fears such
a move could leave Labour politically exposed.
DAVE PRENTIS: I would not be in favour
of tax cuts, there have been a number tax cuts over the years. As far
as we are concerned the economy is strong, there's no doubt about that,
the economy will remain strong over the next two to three years .
GILES RADICE MP: I don't think there will
be any big reductions in tax before the next election. We've already achieved
our 10p starting rate, we've had the reduction of 1p in the standard rate
and we've kept the top rate steady, so there won't be any big decreases
in taxes before the next election .
WILENIUS: Gordon Brown doesn't
want to be accused of putting up the burden of taxes and he could cut tax
rates again before the next election. But he's facing growing pressure
from his own party and some voters who want better public services rather
than more tax cuts. They want the Chancellor to show that he can be more
generous and caring than the Tories. Brown now faces the problem that in
the first two years Labour increased spending more slowly than the last
Tory government. To some he was prudent, but to others he just appeared
mean. Now he's got a lot of ground to make up. Many in the party want him
to spend billions of pounds extra on health, education, pensions and so
on. They want Brown to turn his back on tax cuts and start giving generously
to hospitals, schools and much more.
RADICE: We're in the Labour Party
because we want, partly because we want to see extra resources go to public
services. We want to see public services which have been badly starved
in investment - particularly education and health - we want to see them
properly funded .
CLIVE SOLEY: At the end of the day it is
about delivery. We have to show that things like education and health are
better at the end of our first term of office than they were before and
we have to be able to point above all to our own activists and core voters
that that money is going in our step by step increase.
ACTUALITY:
WILENIUS: Taking a close look at
the figures the economy is doing well and Brown has kept spending very
tight.
DILNOT: If you look at current
spending and strip out capital spending there is less spending under this
Labour government than there was under the Conservatives.
WILENIUS: There's no doubt he
has a lot of money to play with, although there's some debate over exactly
how much.
DILNOT: It was far below this at
the beginning of the Parliament, but now you can see the government is
in surplus. I think there's no doubt that the Chancellor's got a bit of
room for manoeuvre, the economy's being doing very well, taxes have been
buoyant, public spending has been growing quite slowly, so if he hasn't
got some room for manoeuvre now I think he never would. I think he might
have seven, eight, nine, ten billion pounds of room for manoeuvre a year
by the end of the Parliament.
PRENTIS: We understand that the
Chancellor has got something like eighteen billion pounds in surpluses,
we also understand that over the next four years those surpluses will rise.
It is our understanding, that all of the money that is needed to restore
our public services to the levels that they were ten, fifteen, twenty years
ago, all the money that is needed is available without borrowing a single
penny and if that is the case I think there is no excuse for not taking
action now. There will never ever be a better time.
WILENIUS: Gordon Brown is putting
the finishing touches to his Budget here at the Treasury, and it could
be his most difficult yet. If he spends too much, he could destroy his
reputation for prudence and lose his new found friends in business. But
if he spends too little he will undoubtedly upset many in his own party
who feel he hasn't delivered enough for Labour's traditional voters.
GORDON BROWN: Our Labour pioneers had a
dream. They had a vision, they saw beyond the here and now because hard
times did not teach them selfishness but solidarity. Our socialism,credible
and radical. Join us, join with Labour, join us, join us on a journey.
WILENIUS: Those who joined Labour,
and stuck with it through the dark times, now feel it is time to deliver.
They feel Brown has done enough to show that Labour can be trusted with
the economy. They want him to show he cares by spending billions of pounds
helping the less well off , and boosting public services .
PRENTIS: Now time is the time for
Gordon to actually show that he has got a heart as well as being an Iron
Chancellor, you know the yellow brick road is there for him and I actually
believe that he could do a great deal of good for this country and for
himself if he does grasp the nettle and deal with the issues that are transparent
to everybody, and if he can deal with them now, well before a general election
I think he will be quids in when he comes to the next election.
RADICE: Its clearly important for
the party; but it's important for the government because we actually have
some major commitments in our manifesto, on education and health, that
there really is going to be a difference; and we've got to show before
the next election that these big increases in education and health investment
are really coming through and are really changing what schools are like
and really changing the National Health Service.
WILENIUS: But here's the biggest
danger and frustration for Brown. His prudence may have helped him amass
a huge war chest, but he will not be able to spend it all. If he starts
pumping too much money into public services and into people's pockets he
could overheat the economy. Inflation could be stoked up, the Bank of England
could be forced to put interest rates again and the Pound would get even
stronger, harming export industries.
DILNOT: It's unlikely that he could
very easily spend all of that money in this budget because if he were to
spend it now I think the City would say hang on a moment Chancellor, you've
got the monetary policy committee raising interest rates which is raising
the strength of the pound and yet here you are in your budget loosening
fiscal policy and trying to boost the economy, surely that can't be right.
BARKER: In terms of this budget
I think that the business community wouldn't like to see a lot of extra
amounts of spending over the next year at all. The real concern is that
Gordon Brown keeps the budget as tight as possible in order to keep pressure
off higher interest rates and that is really the overriding concern for
a lot of smaller businesses, a lot of exporters.
WILENIUS: Brown's standing in the
Labour Party at the moment is rising, but to maintain that he must show
he cares. Party activists and MPs want him to spend freely. But if the
pressure to remain prudent and please Middle England is too great, it
may cost him the popularity he so values in his own party.
SOLEY: He's got to be able to deliver
the economics of it and so far he's done that brilliantly. But that balance
is going to go on tearing our, at the you know the heart and the head of
the Labour movement and the Labour Party, and the Labour government, its
going to go on tearing at it. But at the moment we do need to do more
public expenditure . We need to focus on these key areas, health education,
pensions and so on .We do need to focus on them.
WILENIUS: So to keep the Labour
Party together on its journey, Brown must spending billions of pounds
more on public services. But he must also stop taxes rising to make sure
he doesn't scare away his new Labour converts. The balance between the
two has to be just right - for the light to continue shining on Labour's
prospects at the next election.
HUMPHRYS: Paul Wilenius reporting
there.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: The devolved government
in Scotland is nearly a year old and Labour's in some difficulty. It's
had more than its share of troubles... what with so many political advisers
being forced to resign, scandals over lobbying members of the government
and attacks from Scottish MPs at Westminster on their own first minister,
Donald Dewar and so on. They have been resisting the attempt to impose
a new Labour agenda, dreamed up in London on the people of Scotland.
Well, Mr Dewar personally got a standing ovation from party members at
their conference in Scotland yesterday, but that hardly means his problems
are over. Earlier this morning I asked him how he is going to persuade
Scottish politicians to love New Labour.
DONALD DEWAR MP: I have to say to you it was the
most united and happy conference that I have attended in my very long career
as a Labour politician. It's been a smashing weekend and I don't think
that the tales about doubts and diversions or reservations about the leadership
were borne out in any way at all. You've got to look at the record and
if you've got the lowest unemployment rate in Scotland for twenty-four
years, if you've got ninety-seven per cent of eligible four year olds in
nursery accommodation. If you've got the biggest building programme the
National Health Service has ever seen, if you have got long term youth
unemployment down by seventy per cent and so on right through a whole gamut
of fundamentally important policy issues then I think you can see why the
party is in good heart and confident in the longer run these are the issues
that will come through.
HUMPHRYS: But the problem is you
have to keep trying to persuade your core supporters, the heartlands and
all the rest of it that that is the case. I mean we've seen you telling
them that, we've seen Robin Cook today telling them that. We've seen Tony
Blair himself trying to persuade them that New Labour is good for you.
If they believed it already, perhaps you wouldn't have to do that much
persuading.
DEWAR: I think there is a phenomena
in British politics called 'mid-term blues'. You will remember John, perhaps
unfair to say you remember personally, but you remember '45/'51 and the
government didn't lose a single by-election in the whole six years. Now
you have governments in western democracies and certainly this country
that have great difficulty mid-term. I think we are in good nick, I think
we are in good heart and we are fighting very hard and I believe that the
social justice agenda, the biggest increase in child benefit, the social
inclusion partnerships, the attack on thermal efficiency in the homes,
community ownership. It's a really exciting agenda and I think when people
come to pass judgement on the record of the Scottish administration it
will be a very positive one.
HUMPHRYS: That depends how long
the mid-term blues last doesn't it.
DEWAR: Well mid-term blues, the
name is hint. I think mid term blues tend to be mid-term.
HUMPHRYS: Perhaps all it means
is that it strikes you in mid-term but it may stay with you. You see we
had Peter Hain this morning talking about all this sort of thing in The
Observer. I don't know whether you were able to see that in Scotland, but
he said the problem - not that you don't receive The Observer but whether
you've had time to read it yet - 'the problem isn't just confined to our
heartlands' he said 'there is a core vote, traditional solid Labour support
in every constituency in the land, in the marginal seats. We need that
core vote to turn out to win these seats. We can't rely on the New Labour
vote.'
He was very clear about that.
DEWAR: Let me say to you that I
think the outstanding feature in Scotland is that core votes, heartland
votes become somewhat misleading terms because the Labour Party has attracted
support right across the whole range of communities. I mean I live in a
part of West Glasgow, a fairly prosperous part of West Glasgow, we have
the first Labour councillor we have ever had in history and that is typical.
We now....no-one.....it used to be in the old days, the arguments back
in the eighties that you had to appeal only to the old heartland vote because
the implication was that no other part of the community would be attracted
by Labour. That's no longer the case and our strength, certainly in Scotland,
is that we are in a very real sense a national party and I am sure that
that is going to come through.
HUMPHRYS: But across the country,
Peter Hain makes the point, and I quote him again 'lost the knack of
communicating with The Mirror readership' as opposed to The Mail readership
you'll notice. 'Lost the knack of communicating with The Mirror readership.
We've got to rediscover it' he said.
DEWAR: Well I don't know what that
means but what do think is..
HUMPHRYS: Well you've got a fair
idea - old Labour versus new again.
DEWAR: What I do know is that we
have a unity of purpose about the changes we want to bring into society,
the unlocking of opportunity and if you look at the things that are important
to my administration. I mean it's not just rhetorical slogans, started
perhaps with a promise, five thousand classroom assistants for example
over the terms of this Parliament. Fifteen hundred of them are in place.
If you look at our promises on numeracy and literacy, the money has been
spent and is having an impact and as I say, those who believe that the
economy rather matters, we have the best economic story certainly in Scotland.
We out-perform the United Kingdom in the latest four quarterly figures,
both in the financial services sector growth and in manufacturing growth.
Now these are really big positives and we have the highest number of people
in work in Scotland we've had since 1966. Now that's not a reason for being
apologetic about this administration.
HUMPHRYS: No, no and indeed, and
so long as that is what people focus on maybe that's okay. But the problem
is and it is a problem and perhaps this is what Peter Hain is getting at,
is that the perception is that you are tangled up in a lot of issues that
aren't at the top of the agenda. Apart from the issues that you have just
talked about that clearly matter to people, there are so many things at
the top of the agenda for you that appear to be at the top of the agenda
for you in Scotland that don't get to the heart of what they worry about.
I'm thinking about Section 28 for instance where you seemed to totally
misunder....to under-estimate the level of opposition to what you wanted
to do there. These are the sort of things that you may care about, New
Labour may care about, but a lot of core supporters haven't got them as
high as you have.
DEWAR: I think on Section 28 if
people are prepared to debate the issues responsibly then I think the case
that we are putting forward is a very very strong one...
HUMPHRYS: ...but they're saying
it doesn't matter to us that much, you see, that's the point...
DEWAR: ..well we have made an announcement,
the course of history ran on, we had a consultation period. We got very
strong support for a repeal of that particular section. On the basis that
it is not a safeguard for children in school. It is interesting, one of
the really powerful arguments that Tony Blair deployed the other day, was
that it hasn't applied to English schools for six years and therefore the
suggestion that in Scotland we will be in some way irresponsible or that
pornography will appear in the schools, that children will be involved
in homosexual role playing, it hasn't happened in England, why should it
happen in Scotland? It's not. The safeguard is the professionalism of
teachers, the safeguard is the way in which parents are now involved and
have consultation rights, have the right to withdraw children, these are
the safeguards and Section 28 is discriminatory. If it isn't a safeguard
it should clearly go and if we can concentrate on that we will win this
argument. It's not..
HUMPHRYS: Ah, but again, if the
argument is worth winning from the point of view of your core supporters.
It may be important but it isn't, and this is the point I'm making over
and over again, it isn't at the top of their agenda just as, for instance,
Freedom of Information is not at the top of the agenda - again, terribly
important of course in the long run and a lot of people are concerned about
it but it isn't up there with the best of them as far as your core supporters
are concerned and they're saying - 'Why do we have to mess about with these
things at the moment, we've got other things to worry about?'
DEWAR: I think on Section 28 what
happened was that someone came in with a spectacular promise of vast funding
of a particular campaign and it became a great press issue. Now I mean
I believe very strongly in the freedom of the press, I'm entitled however
to say that they also have to be responsible. That is an issue but there
are many other, as you say, important issues in Scottish politics that
I would want to see them pursuing even if they're pursuing them in terms
of that I and my colleagues have got it all wrong. But I don't adopt your
view that we should be politicians who won't touch something with a barge
pole in case it attracts too much attention in the press......
HUMPHRYS: No...no...no...no...
that's not the point I'm making at all...
DEWAR: You've got to do something
because it's right on the basis of the arguments in your view.
HUMPHRYS: You've got to address
those things that your.. at least I'm quoting other people in your party
- those things, the core supporters, the grass roots, whatever you want
to call them are most concerned about and what they're saying to you is
things like Section 28...of course it may very well be important. Things
like Freedom of Information, very important but those in a sense are Westminster
issues in the sense that they...
DEWAR: No....no....no.....
HUMPHRYS: ...in the sense that
Westminster should make the running. Why? These aren't specific Scottish
issues, so why should the Scottish parliament be dealing with them?
DEWAR: Two things I would say to
you John: I've been trying in the first part of this interview to tell
you about the way we've tackled the central issues...
HUMPHRYS: Indeed and I've listened
to that - yeah...
DEWAR: And we will continue to
do that and I think as
the script unwinds it will become clearer and clearer that we are doing
a good job and reflecting very directly in terms of the social justice
agenda what Scotland wants to hear. Secondly on Freedom of Information
it's not a big issue in Scotland but it's an important issue and we will
get it right and can I say to you that we do intend to have an act through
the Scottish parliament, it won't be just a carbon copy of what Jack Straw
is doing in England but it will certainly and properly take account of
the fact that we are part of the United Kingdom, that information and news
and periodicals and newspapers circulate throughout the kingdom and therefore
it's got to be compatible with. We work with Westminster. Holyrood and
Westminster work together and that's why, for example, the enormously effective
campaign with increase in child benefit, with the Working Families Tax
Credit attacking the poverty tax...the poverty trap which Gordon Brown
has mounted is also very important to us. It complements our policies
on thermal efficiency in the homes, our policy on social inclusion partnership
money....
HUMPHRYS: You make that point -
indeed, but there are other things like, and we don't have time to discuss
this at any great length for obvious reasons, I'm merely using it as an
illustration of the point I've been making. PR, proportional representation,
a constitutional issue which many people are saying 'we don't need to be
bothering ourselves with at this stage'. One of your most senior MEPs,
David Martin says he's seriously concerned about it. Why deal with that
at the moment? It isn't an issue you need to bother about.
DEWAR: Well, what we have done
is very bravely and as a matter of principle, changed the voting system
in the Scottish parliament. I can tell you that if you believe public
opinion matters then the opinion polls suggest an overwhelming majority
in support of what we've done. Sure it's meant that we've had a partnership
administration with the Liberal Democrats. We've had to learn new skills,
we've got to learn ways of working together but we've delivered and it's
gone well and I would defend it as right in principle given the scale and
the context of Scottish politics and I do find it a little...
HUMPHRYS: ..sorry just on that,
defend the extension of it, you're saying?..just to be clear about what
you're saying, defend the extension of it...
DEWAR: I was talking about what
we have done. I mean we've got, of course as you will know, the Curly
Committee looking at various ways of trying to revive and give added zest
to local democracy and the electoral systems is one of them. But what
I find astonishing John and I really do say this to you as someone who
has sat at the other side of a microphone for many years with you is I
don't believe for a moment that you believe that these matters are unimportant
and certainly the changes we made in the electoral system in Scotland in
the Scottish context did have very very far reaching consequences but I
think it's right that the Scottish parliament should reflect more accurately
the pattern of voting in the country and I stand on that.
HUMPHRYS: Well, yeah, the point
I have been making to you is that you should reflect more accurately the
concerns of many of your colleagues who are concerned.
DEWAR: No.
HUMPHRYS: Well, you know we've
heard people saying (both speaking at once) Let me just quote you Ian
Davidson whom you will know very well of course, a Scottish Labour MP.
'Scottish ministers...' he said, 'are giving Labour a bad image.' Now
for a number of different reasons he reaches that conclusion. He says
you, yourself, you cannot control your own ministers. They're briefing
against each other. He says it's 'reminiscent of the dying days of John
Major....' I mean he has a point hasn't he?
DEWAR: I will give full weight
to Ian Davidson's views, but can I tell you that I'm not just interested
in trying to keep the core activists happy. The core activists don't want
that. What they want is the right policies for the country and getting
that reflected in the next General Election at Westminster and the Holyrood...
HUMPHRYS: I'm sure that's the message
being sent out at Westminster..
DEWAR: Just let me say to you....
HUMPHRYS: .. by Tony Blair and
his people.
DEWAR: John, if you had been -
if you had been at the conference this weekend, if you had seen the reception
for Tony Blair, frankly if you had seen the unity of purpose, if you had
seen the enthusiasm - actually it may be a real anorak's point, but this
was the first conference in Labour where we weren't just taking an odd
collection of random motions and cobbling together as corporate composites
and calling them policy. We had working parties, we had ministers up to
answer questions in sessions and colleagues were enjoying it, the conference
was enjoying it, we were growing up as a serious political party.
HUMPHRYS: So when George Galloway,
another of your supporters, although not necessarily your personal supporter,
when he says that you should stand aside for a younger man or a different
man, your message to him is pretty simple?
DEWAR: Garn!. Look - George -
I didn't see George this weekend at the Scottish Labour Party Conference.
He's entitled to his point of view. Come on. Now, we've been talking
or trying to talk about the success of the economic campaign. We've been
trying to talk about how we'd conquer poverty in our society. How we'd
stop a situation in which children in almost every constituency at some
part of the constituency don't get chances because of the pressures of
circumstances of poverty and unemployment. And you are saying to me there
is one Labour MP somewhere who has a rather individual point of view.
Well, fine, he's entitled to it, but that's not what I'm in politics to
worry about.
HUMPHRYS: Just for the benefit
of our English-speaking listeners you'd better translate that message that
you want delivered to them.
DEWAR: Ha. Ha, I think I'll leave
it, I'll leave it as it is.
HUMPHRYS: Donald Dewar, many thanks.
HUMPHRYS: Do let us know if you
have any better explanation than that.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: In a few weeks from now the
government will decide the fate of Ellington Colliery, the last pit in
north-east England. Its owners say it can't survive without government
subsidy... a word that's been written out of the New Labour lexicon. Nine
more mines are under threat and, as Iain Watson reports, the government
has to decide between alienating some of its loyal supporters and jeopardising
its own credentials.
IAIN WATSON: This is living history - The
last working pit in Northumberland. It's already been granted one reprieve
by its owner. The 380 miners here feel they are living on borrowed time.
They know that, very soon, they could be clocking off permanently. Time
is running out at Ellington ...this pit will close by the end of the month
unless the government steps in with enough subsidy to secure its future.
And its owners - RJB mining - say that nine more pits could close over
the next two years unless the government intervenes. Labour's core supporters
- those who kept faith with the party during the long years of Conservative
government - are now saying 'it's payback time.'
KEVIN CHARLTON: Everyone's down, really down.
I mean you've seen one or two lads there coming through, their heads is
down, you know. Miners have always voted Labour we're labour through and
through, bit disappointed with the response we're getting from the Labour
Party, we're expecting them to do something.
DENIS MURPHY MP: Whether it's a debt of honour,
or it's just, I think the phrase is 'fairness not favours,' I think it
is perfectly reasonable for people here to ask for their government's help,
a government and a party that they've supported for many, many years loyally..
Equally I think the government have a responsibility to ensure public
money is spent wisely. I could think of no better way of spending public
money than supporting the miners here
GEOFFREY ROBINSON: I think the Prime Minister and
the Chancellor have difficulty subsidising the coal industry, traditional
Labour, extractive industry and we wouldn't make that a major point of
policy but it does seem to me we have the coal, we have the miners, once
you close them you won't , you won't open them again you won't get people
to go back down again, so we've got the coal, the miners, we've got the
communities, and supplying a very valuable part of our energy needs at
the moment - why close it down?
WATSON: The coal industry is, once
again, in crisis. With a strong pound, it's cheaper for the electricity
generators to buy their coal from abroad. So, RJB Mining - the private
owners of most of Britain's deep mines - has asked for government help.
The Department of Trade and Industry say that they are still sifting through
the figures. But a former Ellington employee is urging his government
to overcome any ideological barriers to state subsidies.
DENIS MURPHY MP: We haven't yet recovered from
the colliery closures of the 1980s and 1990s. Unemployment within the
region, within the constituency has remained stubbornly at more than twice
the national average. We are very good at mining coal - this is the last
colliery in the great northern coal field - I would like to see it remain,
not just for emotional reasons - though I think that's part of it - but
because it provides and helps underpin the local economy.
WATSON: Back in the eighties Ellington
was at the sharp end of the action in the miners strike. When Ian McGregor
took over as coal boss, the industry employed around 200,000 people. This
has fallen dramatically - just 12,000 are left today. The fight to save
the remnants of the industry has moved on and government is being asked
to provide subsidy. They say they might face resistance from the European
Commission. Bailing out an industry from scratch is more difficult than
simply continuing with firm state support. But a former Treasury minister
says all they have to do is ask.
ROBINSON: We can - without any
problems in Europe, I'm quite sure subsidise our coal, it's not a huge
output, it's not a huge industry any longer - I mean the Germans subsidise
theirs to the tune of about two and a half billion pounds a year. There's
no problems if we want to subsidise ours, nobody is going to challenge
it in the courts or with the Competition Commission in Brussels - no I
don't think there is any danger to that at all.
WATSON: But the attitude of the
European Commission has yet to be put to the test. The Department of Trade
and Industry has not even applied for permission to subsidise British
Coal. They say that, morally, it would be more difficult to argue against
foreign coal subsidies if they start pushing for some of our own. But
the European Commission is keen not to be seen as the excuse for British
government inaction. In a series of letters they've sent to the mining
unions they clearly state: "the decision on whether to offer financial
assistance to the coal industry remains the choice of the government of
the member state concerned." If the government does ask for permission
to subsidise coal, some say that Europe may not process the application
quickly. Subsidy sceptics like the Competition Commissioner Mario Monti
may demand that the industry goes further in improving productivity.
MARTIN O'NEILL: I think the issue of state
subsidy is very much one of yesterday's debates and I think that the Director
General in the commission and the commissioner himself, they are all antagonistic
to allowing this. If the government is minded to provide support for the
coal industry it will have to be a scheme which enjoys the confidence of
Europe or it will founder, and it ought to, I think, in order to protect
the interests of the British tax payer, it ought to impose strong conditions
on the current coal owners whose performance to date has not impressed
anyone.
WATSON: The Selby constituency
in Yorkshire is dominated by smokestack industries. The local MP wants
short term government support for the local coal mine, and says Europe
should not be used as a get-out.
JOHN GROGAN: I think the real obstacle
to the DTI is Treasury funding, whether the Treasury would approve funding.
because ultimately it's a British government decision and its a convenient
argument , if you like, that all these evil people in Brussels who might
not agree to a coal subsidy, but I think they would, and having gone
over there and spoken to the officials it's not, the problem isn't in
Brussels it's the political argument here in Britain whether we want to
subsidise coal or not.
WATSON: The control room of the
mighty Drax power station recalls the denouement of just about every James
Bond film. And, in the traditions of the genre, there is a countdown to
disaster. In 1998, the government brokered a deal which locked Drax into
buying coal from the nearby Selby superpit. But that deal is now coming
up for renewal. In other words, Drax will have a licence to kill the local
mine.
DAVID MCMILLAN: We have to make a decision by the
end of the month to extend an option with RJB to continue using coal for
another couple of years or not. There are very intense negotiations occurring
right now to try and make that work; we are going to London to see some
people about what we can do to get some government help. If we do not get
that sort of help, at least in the short term, that come the end of the
month, we'll have to tell our people that we're not going to utilise the
option. That -and I think that when that happens that the Selby coal fields
will be in extreme danger of shut down almost right away.
WATSON: Coal arriving at Drax
from nearby Selby costs 15% more than coal which could be bought on the
world market -even with higher transportation costs. The owners of both
Drax and Selby will meet the Energy Minister Helen Liddle later this month
to ask for government help, to keep their current agreement on track. But
it may not arrive on time. The man who sealed the deal two years ago warns
against having image, and not industry, uppermost in ministerial minds.
ROBINSON: Why I got involved was
because I woke up one Sunday morning to read that half the pits were
going to go and I think it was ten thousand redundancies, something like
this, five or ten, I can't remember now, but large numbers of redundancies
and I thought, why are we doing this? And the only concern at the time
was how the thing should be presented, not whether it was the correct policy
or not.
WATSON: With problems in the
coal industry piling up once again, Geoffrey Robinson hopes the landscape
has now changed. He says it's time the government came clean on its long
term energy strategy. If coal has a part to play, then so too should short
term subsidy.
ROBINSON: I do think the country
has to seriously think about, does it want to have a balanced mixed coal,
energy policy or not, or is it quite prepared to face a future which will
be within a couple of decades or so, within a couple of decades where our
own gas reserves are exhausted and we are dependent for imported gas from
dangerous parts of the world. If on the other hand you want a balanced
output, you want alternative fuels which I happen to think is the sensible
commercial policy then you may have to pay some small premium in times
when sterling is particularly high to enable the generators to buy coal
which isn't prohibitively expensive.
WATSON: But others say that it
is those who run the coal industry who should carry the can for the current
crisis - the government itself has little room for manoeuvre.
O'NEILL: We're not in a position
to restrict imports in a globalised liberal market. You can't do that.
You can't restrict imports and you're severely constrained in subsidising
the indigenous mining industry. So really the mining industry has got to
become more efficient and it's a question then of whether good money should
be thrown after bad.
WATSON: The government intends
to take the heat off the coal industry in the Autumn. They say any bias
in the energy market against coal-fired power stations such as Drax will
be ended. But critics say that this does not address the fundamental problem
- the electricity generators may still find it cheaper to use foreign coal
- placing mining communities under pressure.
GROGAN: I think there would be
real anger in the Selby area if the Selby coal field was forced to close
because the new owners of AES decided to import their entire coal requirement
and I don't think the new owners of Drax particularly want to do that neither,
though they are under some financial pressure I think to cut costs
WATSON: So a powerful new coalition
has been forged. Both big business and the traditional Labour left are
uniting to pile on the pressure to get government help to save British
coal. But others say that these 'unlikely bedfellows' represent the dreaded
forces of Conservatism and that Britain's energy policy must make a decisive
break with the past
GREEN: Most people in the
energy world accept in the long term there's a transition to a non fossil
fuel based economy. I think ministers have got a responsibility, the government's
got a responsibility to be clear with voters, to be clear with consumers
about the direction of policy to make it clear there are going to be the
costs of transition. The government is not abandoning those communities,
it is going to invest in new opportunities and new enterprise in those
communities, and that way to give people the confidence to move from where
we are now, the traditional industries of yesterday to the future industries
that will stimulate jobs for the long term for those communities.
WATSON: But this view does
not go down too well in Labour's heartlands. While MPs who represent industrial
workers would be keen to attract new jobs into their constituencies, they
are equally insistent that traditional industries could have a bright future
too.
ROBINSON: If we have another twenty
years of good coal I see no point phasing it out ahead of time with all
the community distress and hardship that would cause, so I think we really
have to move away from old Labour and new Labour and take a view.
O'NEILL: They know that three years
ago the Labour Government responded to the call from the miners to give
them support and the transition into the new contracts. That support was
given by government. The breathing space was given to the coal owners.
The have done nothing with it and I think that the people in mining communities
across the country like my own recognise that unless the coal miners rise
to the challenge it is not the fault of the government or the workers.
WATSON: But others say Labour's
traditional supporters might not be so understanding. They need at least
a glimmer of hope from the government.
GROGAN: New Labour has to give
clear signals to Old Labour if you like, to the more traditional Labour
areas that New Labour cares not just about the new industries but also
about the old industries, so I think it's extremely important that new
Labour doesn't let coal mining die.
WATSON: Labour doesn't want its
long standing supporters to vote with their feet. Subsidising coal won't
be easy. But failure to do so may prove more costly. If our remaining
mining jobs disappear, Labour's support in its heartlands may also begin
to fade
HUMPHRYS Ian Watson reporting there.
And that's it for this week. Don't forget, you can keep in touch with
us through our Website, the address on your screen now. If you've missed
any of today's programme you can watch it again there and get transcripts
of all our interviews with the leading politicians. Until the same time
next week, Good afternoon.
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