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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well John Prescott, that's
it isn't it, leaving the New Labour brand behind. You are in trouble, it
was Tony Lloyd I think who said that that's past now, we've had that, New
Labour has gone, it's time to return to Old Labour isn't it.
JOHN PRESCOTT MP: No, he said, Tony Lloyd said
(sic) the government track record that we've delivered, it's interesting
watching that report, it opens up with our statements about economic prosperity
and social radicalism, well in those three years we've largely achieved
that, that's what's quite remarkable about this Labour Government and then
it moves immediately to the funeral march and says that we're in a crisis.
Now the only thing that's changed in a way is some reaction in regard to
the fuel and the pensions, on-going issues that arise as Tony Wright was
saying, out of tax and spend arguments but at the end of the day you know,
this government has delivered. Now when I go to the election, as we will
go in shortly, I don't know when it's going to come, but I'll be arguing
one of delivery. You know, the old card will be out, you know the one I
keep on using on your programme...
HUMPHRYS: ..you don't usually bring
it out in the first thirty seconds of the interview, no but still..
PRESCOTT: ..it came in your programme,
the government has to delivery. When you consider eighteen years ago, we
got a hundred....eighteen years
of a Tory Government and three years ago we got a hundred and seventy
majority. That was not because Tony Blair was a nice looking guy and was
a new fresh face in politics. It was because we had mass unemployment,
because we had high inflation, because we had a crisis in our public services.
All that has been transformed in three years, a government of delivery
and we've got to listen to what people say to us. Some things we haven't
got quite right, you know, we are a human government, sometimes we make
mistakes, sometimes we get it right but we've got the big picture in mind
and we are delivering on that and it's the first time a Labour Government
is going to go to the election, not arguing about cutbacks in public expenditure
but showing where the social radicalism is coming in the investment in
public services, alongside economic prosperity. Economic prosperity and
social justice, both sides of the same coin, but I can't say any Labour
Government has naturally ever achieved that fully, but this one has.
HUMPHRYS: But you know what's
interesting about the last few years, is that you have had a pretty good
run, a wonderfully good run and then at the first whiff of grapeshot, which
we've seen now in the last couple of weeks, cannon fire perhaps rather
than grapeshot, but...
PRESCOTT: The Rawnsley stuff you
mean...
HUMPHRYS: Oh lots of stuff, we're
going to...serious stuff that we're going to get into in a few moments.
But what happens is that you sort of return, the party sort of returns
to the language and the messages of the old class war, I mean we had the
petrol protestors, the blockades and we had Margaret Beckett saying, oh
a bunch of crumbling farmers and we had David Blunkett saying a bunch of
crumbling farmers.... We had Margaret Beckett talking about the industrial
wing of the Countryside Alliance. I mean it all suggests that that New
Labour thing is being gradually kind of pushed aside and I would have
thought you'd had welcomed that rather.
PRESCOTT: No I don't, I don't like
negative aspects in politics...
HUMPHRYS: No, no, but the positive
bits of returning to Old Labour and saying New Labour did its job and now
we're somewhere else.
PRESCOTT: I coined that phrase
of the traditional values in a modern setting and that's where I made the
bridge if you like between the different approaches yet to see achieving
the same objectives. I think this government has done that in the last
three years. Now, the matter of the Countryside Alliance, they've got their
own agenda, every interest group does, of course they are able now to combine
it with the fuel protests that they did and many of them were on the lines
with the hauliers protesting about petrol tax.
HUMPHRYS: And lots of perfectly
decent ordinary people as Tom Sawyer said then...
PRESCOTT: ...I don't doubt that's
the case, if you want to any pump... petrol pump and said to anybody there,
do you think petrol prices are too high, they'd probably say yes, would
you like the tax reduced, say yes. Everywhere you went, if you go to the
shop - would you like the tax reduced. Governments have to make a judgement
in the long term with these matters and it's not that we don't listen,
I think we do react to that. When I hear farmers and others saying we don't
listen, it's the same farmers who've got two hundred and...got seven hundred
and fifty million to begin with since 1979 from us, since we came in three
years ago, another two hundred and fifty million from making their case
to the Prime Minister in April. Now that's a billion pounds, hauliers,
we set up a group actually to look at the problems of hauliers, we got
rid of the fuel duty escalator that the Tories brought in. We reduced the
VAT on lorries as much as one thousand eight hundred pounds. Now, you can
argue, John, if you like we weren't doing enough and people were not satisfied
with what we were doing, but what you cannot argue is that we don't listen
and we act on that, in the proper series of events. We don't take sixty
day notices, there's only one group that can give us notice and that's
the general election.
HUMPHRYS: But I'm not arguing that,
what I am arguing is that you change your approach. That you are in the
process of abandoning this New Labour notion. Now, let me give you an example
as far as the petrol tax is concerned. I mean what we were told at the
beginning, when you continued with the fuel escalator, which you did when
it was handed over to you by the Tories, you said that this was a way of
encouraging people to use their cars less. You yourselves said I will have
failed if we haven't cut the number of journeys and all the rest of it
and hold me to that you said. Well now the message is rather different.
Now you're not saying to people the New Labour thing of it's about the
environment, you're saying actually it was about raising taxes, which is
a different approach.
PRESCOTT: Well let me just say,
in regard to the fiscal policy playing a part in reducing CO2 gases, of
which the Fuel Duty Escalator was originally justified under the previous
administration and we said we...
HUMPHRYS: ... and which you've
continued..
PRESCOTT: Yes which we've continued
and the Prime Minister made clear that was part of clearing up the public
finances messes that we met...
HUMPHRYS: ...and that environment,
that's the point...
PRESCOTT: ..John, I'm just coming
exactly to that, it's the question on the environment you're asking me
that and therefore on environment there is correlation that many people
feel that the higher level of the price for fuel the less they will use
it. That's a debatable proposition but it's certainly, if it's achieved,
does reduce the CO2 gases which is the important thing. But you know the
prices that are rising at the fuel are not due to a tax at the moment,
they are due to a massive increase in...
HUMPHRYS: ...a combination of things..
PRESCOTT: ..but John the real point
is the price is still there, it hasn't gone less, using the fiscal framework,
a regulator if you like to maintain a higher level of price for the fuel,
to improve environmental consideration is there. Now not because of tax,
because of what is happening in the world price of fuel. So we can still
say it is making its contribution to the reduction of nearly two million
tonnes of carbon in this case.
HUMPHRYS: Well on that basis then,
you'd be against cutting taxes, wouldn't you, cutting the petrol duty?
PRESCOTT: You have to make a balanced
judgement and indeed I think that's what Gordon Brown was doing because
over the last few years he's been doing a number of things, for example,
in fact giving greater tax incentives to using more environmentally friendly
cars, reducing tax on a better environmental fuel. All those things are
ways that he's being finding the fiscal framework to meet an environmental
objective. Now, it's not just the Fuel Duty Escalator, he's changed that,
I think he was right to do so but at the end of the day our achievements
and our objectives for the environment to reduce the CO2 tax, which we've
actually agreed at Kyoto will now hopefully become in the Autumn, some
step towards getting an international agreement on that, we are achieving
our objectives.
HUMPHRYS: Okay, but I don't see
how you can have it both ways...
PRESCOTT: By the way I did make
a speech during this crisis with the Nigerian President in which I emphasised
these points again. The fact that it's not carried in the press doesn't
mean to say I'm not saying it.
HUMPHRYS: But let's pick it up
now because this is important. I mean you can't have it both ways can
you - you can't say that it is a good thing
for the environment to increase petrol prices or keep petrol prices high
and similarly it's a good thing to cut them. We're now being encouraged
by Gordon Brown and Tony - he did it again this morning. He acknowledges
that petrol prices are too high. You cannot have it both ways can you.
PRESCOTT: It's a combination John...
HUMPHRYS: I don't see how you can
have...
PRESCOTT: Well, let me just explain
why I think it is. We're talking about a petrol tax - we talked also of
the climate levy with industry, talking how we can use fuel much more
efficiently, how we can get the environmental objectives we've set for
ourselves. There's two particular taxes we're talking about, not just
the one we've ... INTERRUPTION......and it's finding a balance of that
fiscal framework to achieve them environmental.....
HUMPHRYS: Let me remind you what
Michael Meacher said, and this suggests very strongly that the balance
has changed because what Michael Meacher said less than a year ago - your
own minister, the fuel de-escalator is the most powerful instrument for
getting people to understand that there is a big environmental cost in
the use of the car. Something's changed hasn't it?
PRESCOTT: Okay, because the price
brings home to them what an important commodity this is, hopefully you'll
begin the use the public transport alternatives that we're beginning to
provide for it. Wait a minute - using cars less and using public transport
more, but the price is made up of the cost of the fuel and the tax. The
price is still high not because of the tax or the fuel duty escalator,
it's because the price is increased because of the world price. (INTERRUPTION)
Right,
HUMPHRYS:: ........ and the duty
as well.
PRESCOTT: Yes, but the person going
to the pump....
HUMPHRYS: The biggest chunk of
it - the biggest chunk of all.
PRESCOTT: Because we've reduced
the tax share of it, right, and got rid of the duty escalator which would
have brought the tax-payer something like another two hundred million pounds
if you'd have kept it, he has got rid of it, and by that the price hasn't
come down. That's the complaint, but that is the world price, and if the
price is related to the environmental objection then they remain the same.
HUMPHRYS: But the fact is that
you believe as an environmentalist and as somebody along with Michael Meacher
who believes that the high price of petrol is a very good thing in terms
of the environment, and this of course was essentially the New Labour approach.
I mean that was the justification for it, you cannot therefore believe
that it must be kept high and be in line what Gordon Brown and Tony Blair
now seem to be saying, which is where we are now going. We are going towards
cutting prices.
PRESCOTT: John, I know you're striving
very hard to get at what at what you consider to be the New Labour message
and whether we've departed from it, but the fact that we use the environment
- the fiscal framework to actually make a contribution to the environment
is true in every country that's come to an agreement on the Kyoto. That's
not particularly New Labour, it's one of the measures by which you achieve
the environmental objectives that will improve climate and prevent the
kind of disasters we've got in this country.
HUMPHRYS: Alright. Let's turn
to somewhere else where you are I would suggest, abandoning the New Labour
approach. Now this is something where you've won in effect, because I
remember very clearly an interview I did with you a few months ago on this
very subject, and it was about pensions. Now, the New Labour approach
was targeting very clearly targeting the poorest pensioners, it was about
mean testing in other words. And if that meant that the pensioners only
got a seventy-five pence increase on the basic state pension then so be
it. Now you're abandoning that approach aren't you?
PRESCOTT: No, we're not, in fact
you've got the approach wrong. First of all it wasn't just seventy-five
p, but you're on a powerful point.
HUMPHRYS: On the basic state pension?
PRESCOTT: Well, wait a minute,
we're on about actually, I thought you said helping the poorest pensioners.
HUMPHRYS: No, but seventy-five
pence was on the basic state pension.
PRESCOTT: If you asked me about
the poorest pensioners, is it limited to seventy-five p? You're on a
powerful point because a lot of people out there thought it was. The cold
weather payments of a hundred-and-fifty pounds, the whole other things,
the minimum income guarantee which has taken over a million pensioners
out of that poverty and increased their financial circumstances, that's
what we chose to do on pensions, because when we came in we saw what had
happened in regard to pensioners that the top twenty per cent had had a
two-thirds increase in real values because they had other pensions to take
into account, whereas the bottom twenty per cent had only improved by thirty
per cent, so there was a growing disparity between these two groups, and
in our first phase we said we're going to concentrate on the poorest pensioners
who are doing worse out of this deal, This is a major change taking place
in pensions, with second pensioners and those people who have got that
are certainly better off than those relying on the state. Now we came
in and we made that clear, that's precisely what Gordon Brown has done.
Now politically, and this is a big challenge to Labour - if in fact those
pensioners when they get their seventy-five p, and I think I've said it
on your programme before here or the radio, they look at it and say I've
only got seventy-five p. That's not true for the poorest, and I don't
think it's true for many of the others, but nevertheless there were some
that can say that's right. Their perception is they don't think they're
being helped. Now politicians, even if they believe what they're doing
is right have certainly got to convince the electorate that it's right,
and all the logic and all the fairness that we will deploy and can deploy
in regard to pensions still has to convince them and we haven't yet achieved
that.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, what you said
....
PRESCOTT: There's no difference
in new or old Labour, it's just the sense of getting across of helping
those who are poorest in our community and saying that's a proper priority
for Labour as indeed it is.
HUMPHRYS: A lot of people say a
fundamental difference between you and old Labour is that old Labour does
not like means testing, I mean that is a very basic point, but let me remind
you of what you said on this programme.
PRESCOTT: In fact the pensioners
don't like it either John. I agree with that. I didn't like going picking
up my unemployment, when a seventeen year old girl told me: you'd be in
at nine o'clock in the morning Mr Prescott, you won't be late will you.
There's a whole kind of procedure.....
HUMPHRYS: It's about dignity isn't
it?
PRESCOTT: It is dignity, and I
understand that,
HUMPHRYS: And they worry about
it a great deal a lot of old people and they won't got for all this extra
money that you've offered them, they won't go for it because they think,
why should I have to go cap in hand and fill in all these forms and say
you know, we haven't got this and we haven't got that.
PRESCOTT: That's a very fair point
and indeed that business of filling in I know forty pages to say whether
you're on - if your income is still the same as it was last year, that's
why we are talking about tax and credits of dealing with that, and we have
to see how that develops in the next year.
HUMPHRYS: But what you said on
this programme is it's okay to be intellectually convinced about something,
and you've just made the intellectual case for it, for the kind of approach
that New Labour, and I emphasise New Labour too, but you said if the
PRESCOTT:, Be careful. If you start
saying I'm intellectual then God knows.....
HUMPHRYS: ...well, alright, I'll
withdraw that ...
PRESCOTT: ...I've spent years developing
this image...
HUMPHRYS: ...I'll put it in inverted
commas. But what you went on to say was that if the pensioners don't think
that we've got it right, then it's a lesson for all of us and we've got
to think again.
PRESCOTT: Absolutely.
HUMPHRYS; And now what seems to
be happening, is that you are thinking again, that is to say the party
is thinking again...
PRESCOTT: ...sounds as if we're
listening John.
HUMPHRYS: Ah.
PRESCOTT: Ah.
HUMPHRYS: But listening to who?
Listening to the Old Labour argument.
PRESCOTT: Oh no. Listening to
what pensioners are telling us. Our first claim and indeed our party know
because many of them are pensioners and they understand that. Many groups
that are led by Jack Jones and Barbara Castle making clear to us what they
feel that the pensioners feel about our proposals. So in the first phase,
we've gone for the poorest. Nobody doubts that's right, there are problems
about the income determination which is something to consider. The second
stage then is what we do with those people just above that level who are
paying tax who find themselves discriminated. One of the interesting argument
was, we give the Cold Weather Payment of one-hundred-and-fifty pounds,
and we said, people won't be taxed, so given our tax and social payment
situation, some people could get it with one hand and get it taken away
with other. So we said, nobody pay tax on it. But I don't think we've
got any benefit for that. But basically, if you wanted to give it them
and pay tax, I am sure that people who are paying tax say, I'm now paying
tax on it. We've reached a stage where the pensioners are thinking their
perception, feel there might be a better way of dealing with it. Not that
they disagree the poorest should come first, and that we've got some radical
transformations to make, but that's what the debate is about here, making
a correction to the whole situation of pensions that we inherited from
the previous administration.
HUMPHRYS: And where you're at now
in the debate, as I understand it, is that you have accepted, the party,
the government has accepted that there has to be a substantial increase
in the basic state pension, which is what, as I understood you, you were
arguing for a very long time.
PRESCOTT: Yes, and I think what
we've had to do is take it in stages and I'm back to my poorest argument,
but if you take the point of what is the livable pension, we've had recommendations
basically from our House of Commons Social Security Committee, who've said
that the minimum income guarantee that no pensioner should go below....
HUMPHRYS: ...and which many people
won't take for the reasons that we've just discussed...
PRESCOTT: ...well, I mean, you
may be able to achieve that minimum income guarantee in different ways.
I mean, these are the sorts of things you can have discussions about.
But you're talking about the amounts, in this case the ninety pounds.
And of course we have to address ourselves to that particular problem,
we can say, in regard to the old formula on inflation we've done better.
And even if we'd have actually taken the resources of earnings related
from the day we came in, over the life of this parliament, we would have
spent six-and-a-half billion pounds, to the pensioners. That's more than
if we had simply given them earnings related. The difference is, we have
concentrated it more in the areas where it was desperately needed. And
that's the nature of Labour, it is a party of social justice, that has
to be practical about where the money comes from. Now if you like, that's
might what have happened under New Labour, that in fact, our ambitions
are conditioned by what is practical, if you like, that we have brought
a head and a heart. And I think the electorate rather like that. But
it is difficult, and it's not easy, but who the heck said it was going
to be easy?
HUMPHRYS: What the unions have
said is look, let's have a bit more heart, and a bit less head, basically,
certainly as far as the pensioners are concerned. You cannot ignore the
unions can you, in the way that again, under New Labour, it seemed that
you were doing. They are now influential again, sort of, in the Old Labour
way. That's the case, isn't it?
PRESCOTT: Yes, but I hear them
saying, well, in Paul's report, that we might have a meeting every three
months. Did you ever doubt that they weren't having meetings before?
HUMPHRYS: Well yes, because you
didn't. I mean they were lucky to get into the back door at Number Ten.
PRESCOTT; That's not true. I know
it not to be true, and if you go through the whole business of industrial
relations, things like that, there were certainly lots of discussions going
on, always discussions when part...when the government's actually dealing
with it's policies - why? 'Cos trade unions now sit on new policy groups
which all the parties come to - and in Exeter, we decided the programmes
that we're bringing to the conference this year, so trade unions have always
been at the heart of that discussion, they're the heart of the Labour Party.
They're part of it, in a federal structure.
HUMPHRYS: Oh, come on. You know
as well as I do, that an awful lot of trade union leaders have felt cut
out of it for the last several years. You've talked to them privately
and I've no doubt, certainly I've talked to them privately and they've
said, you know look at the way they've treated us. They felt abandoned.
You've now got to bring them back in, you know that as well as I do.
PRESCOTT; ...well, there are two
things here, if you're not kissing them on the cheek and they were being
kissed before...
HUMPHRYS: ...ah come on, you, you
know that there is that real...
PRESCOTT: ...but wait a minute.
Look at the record. Look at what has happened in the improvement at the
place at work, right, look at what has happened at the economy, a million
jobs back at work, a million jobs, they're the sort of things, the minimum
wage, trade unions laid that out, and said, that was what we want from
a Labour government. This Labour government has delivered. And I don't
believe that they feel completely out in the cold for one moment.
HUMPHRYS: But they are now back
in the warm. I mean, let's be quite clear about this. Whatever the ...
PRESCOTT: ...well I'm not against
them being back in the warm. I hope they've always felt warm with me,
I mean, I don't think that this business of being totally ostracised throughout
is necessarily what has happened. People have developed this image a bit
of it, but the unions and the trade unions because of their nature in our
conference, because of where they are situated in the policy reviews of
the party play an important and a proper part of the development of the
Labour Party policy.
HUMPHRYS: Alright. Let's look
at another area, where again, something of a triumph for you, based on
what you've said on this programme and on many others, and that is, Proportional
Representation. Another part of this was New Labour, good heavens, this
was New Labour, the quintessence of New Labour. Dead and buried now, isn't
it? Are you going to read the last rites?
PRESCOTT: Just let it slide away.
I mean, what I've seen operate wasn't certainly to the advantage of the
Labour Party, was it? No, I will agree with you.
HUMPHRYS: You will?
PRESCOTT: Yeah. Put it in a boat
and send it away.
HUMPHRYS: Put it in a boat and
send it away, as opposed to put it...
PRESCOTT; Yeah, along with the
Lib/Labs.
HUMPHRYS: Along with the Lib/Labs.
So that's something else that's gone is it? I mean the ....
PRESCOTT: ...Oh, I'll get myself
into a Clare Short situation here in a minute, now I'll leave....
HUMPHRYS: ...not for the first
time. Don't let me stop you, I mean, far be it ...
PRESCOTT: ...no, but seriously,
one-hundred-and-seventy majority, new kind of politics we've said where
you could get the coalition and Lib/Lab and Proportional Representation,
I was very strongly against it, I have seen nothing that has occurred since
we brought it in to convince me it's in the interest of stable government
and indeed in the interest of the Labour Party, although I put stable government
and the country's interest first.
HUMPHRYS: So, an end to cabinet
committees that Liberal Democrats sit upon.
PRESCOTT: Well, we did go to the
election and say we would sit on constitutional matters and the devolution,
and I fought on that manifesto as much as anyone. I've actually been in
a Labour government where in fact there was a kind of semi-coalition if
you like under Jim Callaghan, because we had a very small majority, we
stayed...
HUMPHRYS: ...you had no choice
in those days did you?..
PRESCOTT: ...I'm not sure it was
very helpful to us but nevertheless we were in it and I was part of not
the government but certainly part of a governing party that had that coalition.
I have seen nothing then, or nothing since that convinces me that Proportional
Representation is in the nation's interest of stable government.
HUMPHRYS: So that part of the New
Labour project...
PRESCOTT: Well, I don't know why
you call..who it belongs to but I've never been a fan of it.
HUMPHRYS: So that's gone. Alright.
PRESCOTT: I don't know, you'd better
ask those who They make the decisions about these matters. And Roy Jenkins
has written a nice little book about it or something, and you can read
it...
HUMPHRYS: ...I trust you've read
it ...
PRESCOTT: No, I'm afraid I haven't.
But I'll be certainly playing a part if it comes to a decision in the
party, like everybody else.
HUMPHRYS: And we can guess what
your message will be. Well, we don't have to guess, you've just told us.
Let's look at something
else that was the symbol in a sense, to many people anyway of New Labour
and that is, you might imagine, is the Dome. Now then, we had a sort of
apology from the Prime Minister about that this morning, though not quite
really, I mean, he said it wasn't quite as big a success...
PRESCOTT: It wasn't an apology.
HUMPHRYS: Well, that's it. You
tell us what it was, I mean ...
PRESCOTT: I watched Tony on the
television and he said he was sorry that it didn't achieve the targets
that he wanted and when we were making that decision, we were told there
would be twelve million.
HUMPHRYS: Twelve million visitors
to the Dome.
PRESCOTT: Visitors to the Dome
and I said, you know, it took, Disney something like five years to get
twelve and they were quite emphatic that you could reach that number, I
was a little suspicious that perhaps this is the way in public finances
you get twelve million multiple it by a price and show there is no public
money involved. I mean all these kind of things led to be very suspicious
about how these project are guaranteed but again we made a decision and
I think Tony said on that, that he wanted you know something that could
commemorate entering into the new Millennium, it was always quite well
underway, we could have stopped it that's true but we looked at the expenditure
to converting that piece of land into something that was a poisonous bit
of land into something that was going to be a very beautiful part of London,
I don't think that's any doubt about that, it's not only the Dome, I have
the Millennium Village that's being built there, the whole development,
the site, right next to the Jubilee Line. By the way the press used the
time me the Jubilee Line would never be ready on the day, it was, but I've
never seen any editor apologising to me for getting it wrong.
HUMPHRYS: But you see, what you
said was if we can't make the Dome work we're not much of a government.
PRESCOTT: Well these are one of
the chats that actually came out of somebody reporting a Cabinet discussion...
HUMPHRYS: ..well you didn't say
that?
PRESCOTT: It's true I did sit in
the Cabinet and I did discuss and I chaired....
HUMPHRYS: I thought you were the
man Tony Blair called in and said: 'well John what are we going to do'
and you said 'go for it'.
PRESCOTT: Well look, if I had the
same facts before me as we had then I would certainly endorse it. I thought
it was right to do it and...
HUMPHRYS: So you were sold
a pup?
PRESCOTT: Pardon?
HUMPHRYS: You were sold a pup?
PRESCOTT: Well I thought it was
right to have an event like that and nobody thought it would end up as
it did but let's be quite honest about it, six million have gone to it,
right...
HUMPHRYS: ...not all have paid...
PRESCOTT: ..well okay, let's say
four or five million have gone to it, that's still the highest kind of
tourist attraction in this country...
HUMPHRYS: ...but it wasn't meant
to be a tourist attraction was it, it was meant to be much more than that.
PRESCOTT: ..for people to go to,
that's the...secondly your own BBC reports show eighty-five per cent of
people enjoyed it, even Clare suggested her son enjoyed it and that she
said those that don't go, don't like it. Well, I mean that is difficult
to deal with, people who won't go to it, perhaps they're reflecting what
the press did about it. We are going to do a major piece of regeneration
on the work, it's involving thousands of jobs, now one doesn't want to
be in the long-term apologising for what is going to be a very worthwhile
investment.
HUMPHRYS: If you listen to people,
as you say you do and people say look this has cost us, the country, it
doesn't matter how you slice it, whether it's Lottery money or whatever,
it has cost us a fortune and it hasn't been what it was promised to be
and to that extent..
PRESCOTT: Well it's clearly cost
a lot more than it was actually promised to do, largely because the figures
that were then thought to be possible were not achieved and therefore we
end up with this kind of deficit if you like, and that is unfortunate but
at the end of the day it's still out of one of the attractions around the
world, basically that was launched at the Millennium, been one of the most
successful for getting people to visit and also over a period of twelve
months.
HUMPHRYS: But you don't want it
sitting there, do you, you know the Dome sitting there until Kingdom come
as a sort of reminder now that it's become, I'm afraid, whether you like
it or not, a bit of a national joke and certainly a national embarrassment,
do you want it sitting there for....
PRESCOTT: Don't forget that originally
it was proposed it will be twelve months and then it will be taken down,
we hope we could find a further legacy for it, negotiations...
HUMPHRYS: ...but as long as it's
there, it's sort of a reminder of New Labour isn't it, you now to go back
to the Old/New Labour theme.
PRESCOTT: ...well I think it's
a wonder architectural structure whatever you might think about it..
HUMPHRYS: ..would you like to keep
it then?
PRESCOTT: ..I would like to keep
it but I mean we have to face the reality, we have to negotiate for its
future to any company that wants to come involved in it and we have those
that are negotiating at the moment and if they were to say they wanted
to keep it fine, if they were to say they didn't, well originally it was
envisaged that it would have to come down and the English partnerships
would take on with regenerating the sites. What we are trying to do is
to keep it as a legacy, it's a wonderful building and indeed I think that
site is going to be a credit in the end to long-term thinking for the regeneration
of that part of London.
HUMPHRYS: But I mean bearing in
mind, as you acknowledged that it costs an awful lot of money, much much
more than was ever expected at the time and you were sold a pup in the
sense that people said, you know this is going to happen, that's going
to happen, it's going to cost this much and there's been no proper financial
control over the thing or anything else as far as one an see. There's got
to be some sort of enquiry, hasn't there, people have to ask some serious
questions to find out what went wrong - public money afterall.
PRESCOTT: The main thing at the
moment is to make sure things were done properly and nobody has suggested
there was anything improper and if they are...
HUMPHRYS: Incompetent...
PRESCOTT: Incompetent, that's an
argument that people will have to justify. I think Mr James, who has come
in to look at the accounts, has clearly shown it wasn't done in a very
adequate way by the company but whatever, he is now sorting out, he's now
assured that he has got the resources now to see it to its completion and
our job now is to see it transferred to whatever further use it will have
in the future.
HUMPHRYS: But there must be questions
asked mustn't there, there must be some sort of enquiry.
PRESCOTT: I've got a feeling questions
have been asked and are being asked constantly and daily.
HUMPHRYS: What about a final thought
then, we've left New Labour behind or not, as the case may be and we've
got Old Labour back, so that's you...
PRESCOTT: I might tell you when
you keep on about this New Labour as such, Tony Blair without a doubt made
a major contribution in that election and his identity...
HUMPHRYS: ...nobody's arguing about
that..
PRESCOTT: This is an important
point John, when people voted for Labour, they thought... a number who
came over to us, are people who had not been voting us for the last eighteen
years and they voted because they thought Labour had changed, they saw
this as a New Labour and it certainly played its part in convincing that
here was a new leader and a party, committed to social justice, traditional
values and modern...
HUMPHRYS: A final quick thought
about you John Prescott, we hear you are going to go into what has been
described as the departure lounge of British politics, the new Cabinet
over Lord, a job you would relish, is that...
PRESCOTT: I'll leave that to the
speculation in the press, they keep on moving and moving don't they. I
get on with the job, I've very happy doing that job, combining both environmental
objectives and improving the quality of life for people, no politician
can have a better job than that. Despite the press, I'll get on with it.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott thank you
very much indeed.
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