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JOHN HUMPHRYS: David Willetts, if it's
true that you haven't yet done enough to be sure of winning the next General
Election - and I'd guess you'd agree that that probably is true broadly
- then what are you have got to do is broaden your appeal to potential
Tory voters isn't it.
DAVID WILLETTS: We've certainly got to
show that we don't just have robust policies on Europe and robust policies
on tax and the economy but that we are also tackling the social problems
that affect this country and you will hear a lot about that over the days
of our Conference. We will talking about pensioners, we will be talking
about the Health Service, we will be talking about raising standards in
schools, yes and we need to develop the strong positions that people recognise
in some areas and make clear that we've got policies across the whole waterfront.
HUMPHRYS: But the worry for you
is that they will look at what you have said about spending, about public
spending, see that you are going to spend less than a Labour government
would spend and therefore conclude that there will be cuts in public services,
bound to be compared with what a Labour government would spend, because
I know you will spend more but you are not going to spend as much as a
Labour government would.
WILLETTS: We are going to spend
more and we are going to spend more within the growth of the economy and
every elector is entitled to expect of their ministers and their government
that they're sufficiently competent to deliver high quality Health Service
and high quality education without having to take an increasing share of
the total national income. We will spend more but we won't spend more than
the rate of growth of the economy and I think Labour have made a big mistake
getting into this argument and I was amazed by what Margaret Beckett was
saying earlier, they are saying that from now until kingdom come they are
going to have public spending growing more than the economy and therefore
taxes going up indefinitely. You've just seen a taxpayers' revolt..
HUMPHRYS: ..not quite what she
said, it must be said..
WILLETTS: ..but that's a consequence
of what they are committed to. They are saying they have got to have public
spending growing steadily, more rapidly than the economy.
HUMPHRYS: But you talked there
about high quality health, which one would expect you to do, you talked
about high quality education which one would expect you to do. Now you
are committed to matching Labour's spending on health, you are not committed
to matching Labour's spending on education which makes people think, well
they are not that serious then about education are they, not one of their
big priorities.
WILLETTS: But William Hague the
other day, only on Wednesday, was in Birmingham, visiting an inner city
comprehensive school with Theresa May, explaining how our education policies
would mean more money directly getting to the school and the head teachers
and the teachers are fed up with the red tape and the instructions from
David Blunkett and with too much money being withheld for special schemes.
That money instead isn't going to get through to help individual pupils
and individual schools and that means that individual schools will be better
off under our plans.
HUMPHRYS: That may be true in some
cases clearly, if it actually works, but the fact is if you say we'll match
their spending on health but we will not match their spending on education,
people are bound to think that that - education - is a lower priority than
health, bound to. I mean there is no other conclusion.
WILLETTS: Well I think the conclusion
they can draw from our policies on education elsewhere is that we care
a lot about raising educational standards in this country..
HUMPHRYS: Not enough to say we'll
match Labour's spending.
WILLETTS: Well, when Michael Portillo
is Chancellor, as I hope and believe he will be, he will be looking across
the waterfront to ensure that we have the right public spending policies
that backup our priorities and schools are certainly going to be a priority
but he will indeed be looking for areas where Labour are wasting money
and spending in inefficiently and badly. In my area of social security
we have identified savings. I think the New Deal is a complete disaster.
The New Deal is not helping unemployed people into work, that's an area
where we can save money. There are areas were we can save money without
the core public services that people care about being affected and I think
that's what the electorate expect of their politicians.
HUMPHRYS: They expect you, if you
say that education is our priority, which you've always done in the past,
they expect you to say we will spend - as you have already made a commitment
for health, they expect you to make precisely the same commitment for education
and if you don't they are entitled to assume that you will therefore spend
less on education than on health.
WILLETTS: Yes but you see the difference
is that on education we have got a policy that involves changing radically
a funding formula for schools so that more money goes to schools. What
our education policies do deliver is more money for the individual school
and that's what teachers and head teachers care about. And we have also
identified elsewhere significant savings.
HUMPHRYS: Can I offer you one possible
explanation as to why you made the commitment on health and you have not
made the same on education..
WILLETTS: ..I'll be fascinated
John...
HUMPHRYS: ..well good, it's this.
Health was in the headlines for a very long time, NHS in crisis, the papers
were absolutely jammed packed full of it and you said to yourselves, as
good politicians, public concern about this, we'll jump on that bandwagon.
We haven't had the same....it's the bandwagon question, you jumped on it
because you said this is what people are really worried about and of course
when people are losing relatives in conditions that maybe shouldn't have
happened, very emotive, very very powerful political issue. Not the same
sort of thing with education, yes long-term of course, you saw the bandwagon,
you jumped on it.
WILLETTS: Can I say on this bandwagon
question, having sat in William Hague's Shadow Cabinet for quite a while
now, we've had deep and important discussions, not just on health and education,
we discussed fuel duty back at the time of the budget and said at the time
of the budget, long before these protests, we will vote against these increases
in fuel duty, I've been working on pensions reform, how we can offer a
better deal for current pensioners for a long time in advance of the pensioner
protest about seventy-five pence. What does happen, it's true, is that
when these issues get onto the headlines and into the public consciousness,
then there is attention to our policies, but it's not the case that we
sort of suddenly think, oh we'd better have a policy on this. I can assure
you and if you look at the record you will find we already had clear and
effective policies and on pensioners we had a very clear policy on pensioners
and now it's becoming....
HUMPHRYS: ...what you are doing,
you're lumping all the money that Labour is already giving to the poorest
pensioners, money incidentally that you didn't give when you were in power,
I mean this is the important point. You see the poorest pensioners are
- the point that Margaret Beckett made- are a lot better off because of
what Labour did, you didn't do when you were in power and now you're saying
we're going to give them a lot more money actually, it isn't a lot more
money, it might only be a few pence, forty-three pence I believe in the
case of many on the basic state pension. So when you work it out...
WILLETTS Well, you say ours is
a gimmick. First of all our is getting rid of the gimmicks. One of the
reasons why we've been listening to pensioners and acting on what they've
told us is they don't want all these complicated gimmicks. They want money
in the basic state pension, and that's what we're offering them, and even
if there were not a single extra penny going to pensioners ours would still
be the right policy and a better policy, because they want the money as
part of their contributory pension. There is actually three-hundred-and
twenty million pounds extra going to pensioners, and that's very important
because it means that we can say to all pensioners that they'll be better
off under us by varying amounts because the schemes that Labour have brought
in are so complicated.
HUMPHRYS: But sometimes only pence,
I mean even less than Gordon Brown's seventy-five pence - let's be honest
about it..
WILLETTS: But this is a real increase,
this is an improvement in living standards on top of inflation. But what
we've also announced today and what we can say today is that if the up-rating
is not two pounds and three pounds which is what the inflation forecast
has currently been but if the up-rating is not two pounds and three pounds,
but if the up-rating in November is more than that, we will implement that
up-rating, we'll accept that up-rating and we will still do our reform
package on top, and that means that pensioners will be better off under
Conservatives and they'll have a better more honest, more straightforward
way of receiving their pension under us.
HUMPHRYS: But again people, and
the point that Margaret Beckett made again, are entitled to judge you
on your record, and you did not do what the Labour government has done,
which is increased the poorest pensioners' income year on year, on year,
on year.
WILLETTS: Well, you see there is
a myth here. I mean I've been reading in the papers all week Labour
ministers going round saying of course we've been putting all this extra
money into the poorest pensioners. It simply ain't true..
HUMPHRYS: ...Minimum Income Guarantee
not true...
WILLETTS: ..well that is what was
Income Support in our day and which rose in real terms in value in our
day.
HUMPHRYS: Not as much as it's risen
under the Labour Government..
WILLETTS: The main way they've
spent money is on these complicated special schemes like the winter fuel
payment which are not targeted on the poorest pensioners, and those are
the schemes that we're instead going to consolidate into the basic state
pension, and indeed that three-hundred and twenty-million pounds of extra
money is particularly going to go to the pensioners aged over seventy-five
who tend to be the poorest pensioners. So actually what we're proposing
is better targeted on poverty amongst pensions from the measures that it
replaces, and I'm very proud of that package.
HUMPHRYS: Your policies for pensions
in the future, young people today who are going to be drawing their pensions
in thirty years' time or whatever it happens to be relies very much on
them as it were going private, and if the stock market does
well they will do very well, but that's going to increase suspicion isn't
it that you don't really like state provision. I mean it's a point that
Damian Green kept making during that film that you're kind of, that you
appear to be unenthusiastic about it. You've got to be - he used the word
enthusiastic - you've got to be enthusiastic about it, and he used another
word - grudging, that was the word that I wrote down. You sounded grudging
about your whole attitude to state provision.
WILLETTS: Well, I think you'll
have heard that what I was saying for current pensioners was anything but
grudging. What we're talking about for current pensioners is something
that listening to pensioners, they have told us they want and we're strongly
committed to it, and for the future we're offering younger workers an option.
We're saying that if you want to do this we will enable you to build up
a real fund.
HUMPHRYS: You want them to do that
don't you. I mean that is what you want them to do.
WILLETTS: We're going to be very
careful,. We're not saying this is compulsory, we're saying this is simply
an extra freedom which we're offering people, anybody who wants to stick
with the basic state pension can do so and of course we've got a policy
for pensioners, current pensioners which will ensure that they will get
a substantial increase in the value of the state pension. So this is freedom,
but freedom without any losers.
HUMPHRYS: In the very broadest
sense you're taking a bit of a gamble with this election strategy aren't
you. You're banking on the fact that people say yes, of course we like
loads of public spending, but actually when it comes to them going into
the polling booth they refer tax cuts, and you're banking on that aren't
you?
WILLETTS: No, what you're seeing
at the moment and I think that's the fascination of Labour's Conference
last week as against our conference coming up - what you saw at Labour's
Conference was Labour retreating to their core, more old style socialism,
we even had Tony Blair wearing a red tie, and what more significant indication
can you have than that. And what you'll see at our conference is Conservative
social policies on health, on schools, on pensions now, on pensions in
the future which will show that we're the party that is reaching out to
middle Britain in the way that Tony Blair has failed to do.
HUMPHRYS: David Willetts, thanks
very much indeed for coming here.
WILLETTS: Thank you.
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