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RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE:
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. First Scotland...
now Wales... the Liberal Democrats are taking their place in government...
but is the big prize - Westminster - further away than ever? I'll be talking
to Charles Kennedy.
Britain's cities
have big problems... is the government running away from them? And the
problems in the countryside too... is there really a rebellion against
New Labour out there? All that after the news read by Fiona Bruce.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: The dark side of
Britain's cities... a government report said bold decisions are needed.
But are ministers really ready to take them?
LORD ROGERS: "We need leadership which
actually has a vision that where we live, that 90% of us live, has really
got to function better than ever before".
HUMPHRYS: And ... bucolic Britain...
we're told that Labour's under threat from a rural rebellion.
JOHN JACKSON: "The countryside is
seething with resentment and discontent".
HUMPHRYS: But are rural voters
really turning against Labour?
And our own tribute
to Donald Dewar... the "decent man" of British politics.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: But first the Liberal Democrats.
In a couple of hours they'll vote at their Welsh conference to share power
- we assume anyway - with the Labour Party to run the Welsh Assembly.
They're already in coalition in Scotland. So, so far... so good for them.
But the big prize is to share in the running of the whole country. And
that is beginning to seem even further away than it was at the start of
this Labour government. The promise of proportional representation at
Westminster has faded, if not disappeared altogether, and some of their
policies seem designed almost to alienate those very voters whom they most
need to win more seats. Their leader is Charles Kennedy.
Good afternoon Mr Kennedy.
I don't suppose you'd agree with that basic introduction but we will test
it as we go through the next few minutes.
CHARLES KENNEDY: My lips are sealed..
HUMPHRYS: Well I hope they're not
entirely otherwise..
KENNEDY: ..we'll have a very boring
twenty minutes, yes..
HUMPHRYS: It's not very democratic
this is it. I mean the people of Wales didn't vote you into power, they
gave you very very few seats indeed and now here is your party getting
the opportunity to put through, as your leader in Wales said on the radio
this morning, a very large part of its manifesto. Where's the democracy
in this?
KENNEDY: Well the democracy is
in the voting system. It's a proportionate voting system, the same as Scotland
and that means that you get the number of people that you elect based on
the spread of support that you command. Now I think that it looks a good
deal to me, it looks like a very good deal in terms of the stability of
the Welsh Assembly, but what's very democratic and this is somewhat different
to the way in which the Labour Party in Wales goes about its business as
far as I can see, but from our point of view, it's a very democratic approach
in that our members will decide. I can't sit in this studio in London
today and tell you that they should do this and they should do that. They
will decide what they want to do, that's a very healthy development.
HUMPHRYS: I'm sure it looks very
good to you and very decent and fair and all the rest of it because half
a dozen seats in Wales, that's all you've got out of a potential sixty
in the Assembly and here you are with a great chunk of power. That's what's
not very democratic about it is it.
KENNEDY: Well there's an issue
of principle. Do you think that proportional representation and the fact
that no party tends to command an outright majority given the mix of the
population, the geography, the politics that we have in our country across
the UK as a whole, should any one party just command total power without
having majority support. Now I think on principle that's not a healthy
thing so parties have to co-operate with each other. Heaven's above, the
sun will stop.. you now cease to rise in the east and set in the west because
different politicians can agree with each other. You are running a tribute
in this programme today to Donald Dewar, great friend, great mentor, somebody...
like everybody else..I think it's a tragedy what's happened in the last
few days. I've been in Edinburgh witnessing the tributes that have been
paid to him and paid some myself. There's a man who could have said well
to hell with it all, the winner takes all, I'll just govern under my own
account. He didn't, he said okay, the balance of opinion in our country
is such that there is a gradation, a sliding scale of opinion, I've got
to work with the grain here and he did and he did so successfully.
HUMPHRYS: But in your case you
came bottom of the poll in Wales. Now what we were promised as a result
of this new dispensation in Wales and in Scotland of course, was that there
would be a new kind of politics. And this isn't actually a new kind of
politics, under the old system, before you did this..agreement you reached..your
party in Wales reached this agreement with Labour, what we were getting
was Labour having, if it wanted to do something, to say to all the other
parties, now look this is what we are proposing, let's talk about this
and try and do it... it didn't work, for all sorts of reasons. But that
was a new way of politics and perhaps if other things had been equal and
a bit of a greater effort had been made, perhaps it would have, but now
we've got an old fashioned carve up haven't we..
KENNEDY: ...no, we haven't....we
have not..
HUMPHRYS: We have Labour saying
to your lot, look we've got most seats but not enough, you've got half
a dozen, very few indeed, let's get together and then we can push through
whatever we want to do. The fact that the people of Wales didn't vote for
your party to have that kind of power seems to have been conveniently forgotten.
KENNEDY: Well the people of Wales
will have looked at the way the Welsh Assembly has developed or in some
senses failed to develop since its inception and they and all the commentators
in Wales, you know Welsh politics better than I do, I'm not going to make
any secret about that...
HUMPHRYS: ...I doubt that but anyway...
KENNEDY: Well I think you probably
do, but they people of Wales have seen and the commentators observe that
the Assembly needs stability. That means that you need an adult governing
majority. We would argue and we will continue to argue for more power for
the Welsh Assembly, more authority, more legislative clout, along the lines
of the Scottish Parliament for example. I think that that can be bolted
into position as a result of reaching a principled, public, written agreement,
that's what we are doing.
HUMPHRYS: Okay, you have that in
Wales, now you have it in Scotland already. You are a very very long way
from getting it here at Westminster in London aren't you? Much further
away than you were when you came into power.
KENNEDY: Yes a long way away, you're
quite right.
HUMPHRYS: And that's got to bother
you a great deal hasn't it?
KENNEDY: Well we'll continue to
make the case. I've always taken the view about the party that we want
proportional representation and I think that if you look at what's being
proposed in Wales, it will involve, as it does in Scotland, looking at
local government in Wales, with a view to PR there. Now if you look at
a situation where you've got an Assembly in Wales, a Parliament in Scotland,
potential proportional representation for local government in both countries,
a form of PR for the European Parliament, it becomes very hard to deny,
does it not, PR for Westminster as well.
HUMPHRYS: But Mr Blair's denying
it. The Labour Party is denying it, you heard what John Prescott said
on this very programme a few weeks ago.
KENNEDY: Indeed, they are and if
we can't achieve that under these mechanisms we have to win under the present
system, simple as that.
HUMPHRYS: But you're not going
to get it are you. Just remind people who perhaps didn't heard what John
Prescott said "Just let it slide away. Put it in a boat and send it away
along with the Lib Labs". I mean you hardly needn't me to remind you about
that but things have changed haven't they now...
KENNEDY: That's John's view and
you know he's the Deputy Prime Minister of the country, he's perfectly
entitled to his views. I don't object to him having his views, it's a matter
for the Labour Party. Everybody knows where we are coming from, we want
fair votes for Westminster. Now if we can't get it under present arrangements
we have to go out and win that argument ourselves and that's what we will
do.
HUMPHRYS: Simon Hughes, your own
man, said that if there is no commitment to a referendum in this Parliament
by the end - if there was no commitment by the end of the Labour Party
Conference...
KENNEDY: ...for the manifesto...
HUMPHRYS: ..that's right... then
it would be a fundamental...well - well no, he said no commitment to PR
by the end of the Labour Party Conference, then that would be a fundamental
breach of a commitment and we would have to say and I quote from him: "Sorry,
we can't do business for the rest of this Parliament". So is that what
you are now saying? - because you didn't get that commitment of course.
KENNEDY: Well first of all Simon
is doing business for the rest of this Parliament because there is a huge
amount of home affairs legislation that he deals with that he has to deal
directly with Jack Straw on a week by week basis and does so I think very
successfully. So there is no question that a degree of involvement maintains
between Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party because we are forever trying
to beef up freedom of information legislation to make sure that the denial
of trial by jury is not something that we are going to compromise on. So
there will be a degree of dialogue, there is always going to be that and
there should be sensibly in adult politics.
HUMPHRYS: But he said there was
a fundamental breach here, a fundamental breach of the commitment, do you
agree with that?
KENNEDY: Well, what I have to judge
as the party leader is the extent to which is Tony Blair in particular,
because at the end of the day he's in the job with his party that I am
in with mine - is he wanting to resile on the commitment that was previously
entered into. Now my honest judgement to you, looking you in the eye is
that he's not.
HUMPHRYS: But, but he offered,
he promised that there would be something in the referendum..., in, in
the manifesto, he promised that there would be something done in this parliament
on PR...
KENNEDY: ...oh, that hasn't happened.
HUMPHRYS/KENNEDY: (Both speaking together)
HUMPHRYS: That's a fundamental
breach, isn't it?
KENNEDY: Over a year ago, I said
well, that, you know, that, that's, that's a gone, and Roy Jenkins would,
would take the same view too...
HUMPHRYS: ...A fundamental breach
then, isn't it?...
KENNEDY: ...and, er, that's a great
disappointment, but there we are, we live where we are, and we are where
we are, and I have to deal with the world as it is, and what I am therefore
determined about, is whatever the outcome of the next election, I don't
want the Labour Party to resile on giving the public, not me, not the politicians,
but you, the public, the right to have a say in what the voting system
for our country should be.
HUMPHRYS: ...Yes but, but I was
trying to talk about the rest of this government, the rest of this parliament,
he has...
KENNEDY: ...umm, it might not be
very long...
HUMPHRYS: ...ok..
KENNEDY: ...it might not be long...
HUMPHRYS: ...but, but during it
you are working on Cabinet Committee with them and all the rest of that
sort of thing. Are you not now saying, as a result of what Simon Hughes
says, and what you've agreed here on, in the last couple of minutes, are
you not now saying - that is an end of it, no more co-operation..., because
you did say there'd be no more co-operation if you didn't get that commitment,
so are you now saying...
KENNEDY: ...well, I've always been
quite clear about this, that there couldn't be any future for the kind
of co-operation that has existed if the Labour Party resiles on its commitment
to giving the public a right to choose the voting system.
HUMPHRYS: So you won't be going
off to any more Cabinet Committees, joint Cabinet Committees, nothing like
that.
KENNEDY: No, no, no, no, not, not
saying that at all. We've only had two....
HUMPHRYS: ...so you are co-operating...
KENNEDY: ...well of course we're
co-operating...
HUMPHRYS: ...but I thought, sorry,
I'm puzzled now, I thought you said you weren't going to co-operate if
you didn't get this commitment because we have this fundamental...
KENNEDY: ...the commitment, I've,
John, I've always said, the commitment is the manifesto commitment, because
I acknowledged almost on day one of becoming leader of the party just over
a year ago that it wasn't going to happen in this parliament and that's
the way things were, and it's a disappointment, but there we are. But
a lot of other things could happen, and should happen, and have happened
in fact. There has been legitimate good valuable co-operation of the type
that may be taking place in Wales as we speak. Now, that I think is a
worthwhile objective to pursue in terms of public policy, but the manifesto
commitment for the Labour Party is for me the key thing.
HUMPHRYS: So, Simon Hughes, just
to sort out this once and for all, Simon Hughes was wrong when he said
there has been a fundamental breach of commitment, although you accept
that, but the second bit of it, we would have to say therefore, sorry,
we cannot do business for the rest of this parliament...
KENNEDY: ...I think...
HUMPHRYS: ...Effectively, you're
going to roll over them and tickle your tummy.
KENNEDY: ...No, not at all...I,
I think er, Simon is in a position where he is himself dealing, as I say,
with the Home Secretary of the day on home affairs matters on a regular
basis, doing so very successfully and in a constructive way...
HUMPHRYS: ...what did he mean when
he said we can't do business with ...
KENNEDY: ...I don't know, you'll
have to interview him...
HUMPHRYS: ...well, he's your man.
He's a very senior figure in your party...
KENNEDY: ...well he's, he's your
interviewee, you should have pinned him down much than you obviously do...
HUMPHRYS: ...well I didn't talk
to him. He made that comment afterwards. We tried to get him on this
programme but he didn't show up, but there we are.
KENNEDY: ...ah, you're trying,
you're trying to recoil from it now, you're trying to recoil...
HUMPHRYS: ...on the contrary, we'd
have been very happy to...
KENNEDY: ...it's all your fault
Humphrys.
HUMPHRYS: It's all my fault. Alright,
it usually is, it usually is. But, but you are, let's be quite clear about
it, you are going to carry on co-operating as though, effectively as though
nothing has happened.
KENNEDY: No, look, we are going
to carry on. I am the kind of person that believes that where adult politicians
can co-operate with each other, they should do so.
HUMPHRYS: Notwithstanding breaches
of commitment.
KENNEDY: Notwithstanding occasional
breaches of commitment, but there are breaches, and there are breaches,
and I don't think for a moment that if Labour were suddenly to say, right,
to hell with the public having a choice where it comes to proportional
representation or an alternative voting system or whatever...
HUMPHRYS: ...or an alternative
voting system, now you're not telling me are you...
KENNEDY: ...no, I'm not telling
you, I am using the word...
HUMPHRYS: ...that using an alternative
voting system is acceptable to you, the way the proportional representation...
KENNEDY: ...no, I am not telling
you that. I am talking about an alternative to the voting system.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so you rule out
alternative vote as an alternative to proportional representation.
KENNEDY: Well, it's not even on
the table, so it's not something that we going to rule out.
HUMPHRYS: Well, it's the best that's
on offer, isn't it. It appears to be the best, though nothing's formally
on offer of course.
KENNEDY: Well, hang on. I mean,
your thesis is that nothing's on offer, so it doesn't arise.
HUMPHRYS: Alright. Let's assume
that the best on offer is an alternative vote system. What do you say
to that?
KENNEDY: Well, we're not there
yet, so I don't say anything.
HUMPHRYS: But surely you have to
say to me this morning, non-starter, non-starter, we want a fair voting
system, proportional representation, if the offer is alternative vote,
they'll win it.
KENNEDY: If I go into negotiation
with you, I'd begin by saying, right, that's absolutely out of order, this
is the only thing we'll agree on. That's not much of a negotiation, is
it?
HUMPHRYS: But, the implication
in that is that if they held firm, as clearly they are going to, and said,
I am sorry at the end of all these negotiations Charles, you know, this
is, that's it, I mean, it's alternative vote. You seem to be saying you
would have to consider that. Well, what's happened to the basic fundamental
principle that it was proportional representation, or nothing.
KENNEDY: We stick, we stick to
principle. People know where we stand, Labour knows where we stand on
this. We want the single transferable vote and multi-member constituencies,
you're losing viewers by the way, as we speak, about these details.
HUMPHRYS: Well, I don't think it
is, you see, this...
KENNEDY: ...we have compromised,
we have compromised already, by saying that we will support the commission
recommendations that Roy Jenkins came up with...
HUMPHRYS: ...which they chucked
out...
KENNEDY: ...which is not the milk
and honey of where the Liberal Democrats would start from, so a compromise
has already, already been reached. Another compromise, I think not, but
we will have to see.
HUMPHRYS: So you might - you might
accept AV, you're sitting here this morning and saying that is ruled out
full stop!
KENNEDY: How can you rule out something
that is not even on the table? It's not rational politics.
HUMPHRYS: Lots of things aren't
on the table in politics, but politicians come along and say, you know,
we want this and we want that. There we are. Anyway okay.
KENNEDY: I want the public to have
a choice, that's the key point, the public to have a choice. And if they're
not going to be given that choice, denied that choice, that's the fundamental
stumbling block.
HUMPHRYS: Let's look at some of
your policies that I suggested in the introduction might be potentially
driving away some of your support. They seem almost to be designed to
alienate those voters who helped you get all the seats you got last time,
because you took those seats by and large from the Tories. Now what you're
saying is, we're going to push up taxes, we're going to penalise people
earning more than twenty-one thousand pounds a year, which isn't exactly
a fortune in this day and age.
KENNEDY: Penalise people - penalise
people?
HUMPHYRS: By making them pay more
tax.
KENNEDY: Yep. So whether you're
earning over a hundred thousand pounds a year or just over twenty-one thousand
pounds a year you don't care about a decent Health Service, you don't care
about the fact that your local school hasn't got the investment that it
needs, you're not worried about your elderly parents, you're not concerned
about the fact that your students, your children becoming students are
going to be up to their eyes in debt. That's what we're talking about
raising money for, to spend money on. Now, I think those are good social
objectives and I don't think that alienates people at all.
HUMPHRYS: Nobody would argue that
they're good social objectives, but the other parties are intent on keeping
taxes down or even cutting them.
KENNEDY: Let them get on with it
- let them get on with it. If they want to get into some kind of dismal
Dutch auction about - and I wish - they must be so clever these other two
parties, I wish I knew what the magic elixir was - vote for us and we'll
cut your tax and we'll spend more - that's a marvellous thing isn't it?
HUMPHRYS: You did that with fuel
tax didn't you - exactly that. Touch of opportunism there on your part.
I mean in your last ,.....
KENNEDY: No. We've not been opportunistic
at all.
HUMPHRYS: Well, you said you were
going to put fuel - an extra - in your last alternative budget you put
on extra five pence on fuel duty.
KENNEDY: Yes.
HUMPHRYS: That's gone now. There
was a bit of a punch up over fuel, and it's gone. You've replaced that
with a freeze on fuel duty.
KENNEDY: Two items. First of all
we've seen obviously a national - not short of a national catastrophe in
terms of this issue, and politicians have got to respond to that, but secondly
if you look at what we've done on the record in terms of our voting behaviour
in the House of Commons every budget under Conservative Chancellor Ken
Clarke, Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown, we have opposed the fuel escalator.
Why did we do so? Because we were the people who argued time and time
and time again when it was unfashionable to do so that if you were going
to have more tax on carbon emissions for environmental purposes....
HUMPHRYS: Sure.
KENNEDY: .... Everybody in favour,
HUMPHRYS: Indeed.
KENNEDY: You have to compensate
the people for whom a motor vehicle is not a luxury it's a necessity,
and that's a lot of rural Britain as you well know.
HUMPHRYS: Of course it is, but
that's the point isn't it. Once you see people saying I don't want this,
you run away from it. This is what you've done.
KENNEDY: I don't think we can be
accused of running away from things. Look at our track record over the
course of this last twelve months alone.
HUMPHRYS: Well, here's an example.
We're going to put five pence on back in March - we're going to take the
five pence off again when the people start shouting about tax. The same
tax.
KENNNEDY: What we're saying is
cap it - cap it at the moment.
HUMPHRYS: Same thing, not put tax
on.
KENNEDY: But I say put the investment
into public transport and make sure also that if you raise any more taxes
from the motorist, from the haulage industry, whatever it might be, make
sure that that's compensated by having an equivalent tax for reductions...
HUMPHRYS: You're going to cap it
for five years whatever happens, even if the price of fuel comes down again,
you're going to cap it for five years.
KENNEDY; Well, the price of fuel
as we all know given developments in the Middle East just in the last few
days it.....
HUMPHRYS: It may well change next
year
KENNEDY: It's a very, very unpredictable
thing.
HUMPHRYS: That may change.
KENNEDY: And so, what you have
to do is I think is, set out your shop stall and just be straight with
people.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, but you were straight
back in March, and now you're got another position to be straight on in
November, in October after a spot of trouble.
KENNEDY: And what's the big criticism
of the government? They're not listening, they're not paying attention,
they're not working with the grain of public opinion. You've got to do
that if you want to achieve things in politics. I have no hesitation or
embarrassment about that whatsoever, none whatsoever.
HUMPHRYS: Well, it just doesn't
look very principled does it. You have a principled position because you
know, you're concerned about the environment and therefore you have a position
on that and then there's a spot of bother and you change your principal.
KENNEDY: No. no, the lack of principle
is shifting the goal-posts half way through the game. Every party, Labour,
Conservative, the Nationalists and ourselves all signed up to the idea
that environmental taxation was a good policy to pursue. Then the government
shifted the goal-posts and said: Oh it's not about saving the environment,
it's about more doctors and nurses and teachers. Well, actually no, it
wasn't about that, it was never supposed to be about that. That comes
out of a different pot. People are not daft you know. They can see through
folk like me. If I start saying: Well, we'll tax you from this to spend
on that, or actually we're not going to do that. That's the shiftiness,
that's the lack of principle, and we're not doing that.
HUMPHRYS: Aren't you getting back
to your old problem as Liberal Democrats. People say, no point in voting
for you.
KENNEDY: What's that old problem.
HUMPHRYS: You want to be level.
I'll tell you what it is. No point in voting because they're not going
to have real power. The likelihood of that is shifting further away as
we've just been discussing, and they'll do things we don't like anyway
if they do.....
KENNEDY: How has it shifted further
away?
HUMPHRYS: Well, you just told me.
You just told me the government's reneged on its commitment to you, so
therefore....
KENNEDY: So we can't win under
the existing system?
HUMPHRYS: Oh, well then, if you
do, absolutely fine. However, part of your appeal has always been.....
HUMPHRYS: I'm not prepared to have
that complacent journalistic assumption thrown at me. We can win under
the existing system. We just won a magnificent by-election in Romsey again
historic century-long trends. We had the biggest share of the national
vote we'd every enjoyed as a party. I've been in politics for seventeen
years now in the House of Commons. Twenty-eight per cent. We can win
under the existing system. We want a fairer system. If we have to win
under this one to make it fairer and give people a choice that's what we're
going to do.
HUMPHRYS: Charles Kennedy, thank
you very much indeed.
KENNEDY: Thank you John.
HUMPHRYS: More than a year ago the
architect Lord Rogers produced a report on the state of Britain's cities...
at the request of the government. It was pretty powerful stuff. It said
the problems are so great that a truly radical approach is needed. For
instance, the government should actually intervene to make sure that new
homes are provided in the inner cities rather than out in the rural areas.
So what's the government doing? Well, there's about to be a white paper
published to tell us what's planned. And as Polly Billington reports from
Manchester, there are fears that Ministers will duck the challenge of truly
radical change.
POLLY BILLINGTON: A stone's throw from a thriving
city centre, East Manchester is emptying fast. Those citizens who haven't
fled the social and economic deprivation live in some of the most run-down
housing in the country. The relics of Manchester's industrial past cast
long shadows across the lives of those left behind. And the consequences
of decades of government neglect are everywhere.
East Manchester is home
to some of the oldest industrial buildings in the world and this isn't
the first time there have been attempts to rejuvenate areas like this one.
But the government thinks it has learned the lessons of the failed attempts
of the past. The task of the Urban White paper will be to stop people
building on the countryside and to bring hope to some of the most deprived
communities in the country.
Over decades, cities like
Manchester have developed outwards, gobbling up the green fields that used
to separate it from Bolton, Bury and Oldham. The countryside beyond is
now under threat and the government's advisers want to discourage development
there, and promote it within the city itself.
LORD ROGERS: In East Manchester four out
of five houses are either boarded up or being pulled down. So you have
one house with sort of four, four houses empty around it. Everybody, all
the entrepreneurs, all the people who can get out have got out. They've
gone down from about eighty thousand people to about eighteen thousand
people since the, since the war. Its a ghost town.
BILLINGTON: The plans for turning the area
round are under close scrutiny from residents who have suffered the effects
of years of neglect and failed intervention. Attracting people back to
places with such complex problems will be a mammoth task. Persuading existing
residents that they will also benefit can be hard too.
ACTUALITY.
UNNAMED WOMAN: People have moved out, boards
have gone up, all the shutters. People have been left really in isolation,
because this has happened in every street in our area, and so you know,
through this we've had more crime,
UNNAMED WOMAN: On the plans we've seen today there's
development along the canal for the new yuppie housing. General residents
won't be able to afford this new housing. We want something that we can
afford, that is for our benefit.
BILLINGTON: Big prestige projects like
the Commonwealth Games stadium being built here for 2002, might change
the skyline, but can't solve the complex problems on their own. The government's
many schemes are now working together - a health action zone, an education
action zone and new deal for communities, under a pilot Urban Regeneration
Company. Conservatives want a stronger foundation for regeneration - companies
with more power.
ARCHIE NORMAN MP: We would like to see real regeneration
companies with quite substantial powers involving local authorities and
local people and police and education, and people in education in each
of the major inner city depravation areas of Britain covering quite wide
areas, with substantial powers to make things happen and the vast bulk
of our regeneration money and effort would go through these regeneration
companies, instead of bypassing them and being dissipated.
ACTUALITY.
BILLINGTON: Richard Leese is leader of
Manchester City Council and has overseen several successful projects like
this techno- park in South Manchester. He's worked with the Regional Development
Agency to attract inward investment, and the government's recently given
them more money to encourage jobs. But do RDA's work?
RICHARD LEESE: What we need is for the
regional development agency to be very clear about what its priorities
are. Where its intervention can be successful, and to make sure it does
concentrate in those particular areas. There is always going to be a demand
on it, to spread its very limited resources very, very thinly. We need
to make sure that that does not happen.
NORMAN: We're going to abolish
the RDA's and all the regional bureaucracy that goes with it, and that
will save us 70 million pounds alone, so we put that back into regeneration,
and finally, we are going to address the causes of regeneration, the foundations
of the problem, including the fact that we're fuelling the exodus from
our cities by building all over the countryside.
BILLINGTON: Local authorities believe they
can play a bigger role in regenerating the areas they're responsible for
- if they have more powers. And that could mean changes in the law.
LEESE: Local authorities, government,
other public sector bodies do not have sufficient powers to bring about
the speed of regeneration that is needed in our most deprived communities.
And in order for us to have those powers, we will need to have additional
legislation. I hope very much that the urban white paper will indicate
those areas, where government does intend to legislate to give us the powers
we need.
BILLINGTON: These houses will be razed
to the ground and replaced with higher density homes. The hope is that
Richard Rogers' vision for better city living will be more successful than
previous attempts. He wants to reduce urban sprawl and for communities
to live and work closer together. The government has already changed the
rules in favor of building in town. New planning guidance requires that
brown field sites are considered first, and that green field sites shouldn't
be built on until there's no more room in the cities. Lord Rogers' report
recommended there should be some financial measures to make the inner cities
more attractive. The Government is considering at least one of them - whether
suspending stamp duty will attract people to buy the kind of homes that
will be built here.
ANDREW BENNETT: Stamp duty's important in some
parts, particularly the South East where an awful lot of properties do
now pay stamp duty. Perhaps the solution is to put it up on green field
developments, and down on brown field ones. But, you're into very complicated
definitions of what is a green field site, and what is a brown field site.
BILLINGTON: Halsworth Mill in Andrew Bennett's
constituency in greater Manchester will soon house flats and work units
because government money was spent to regenerate it. But the European Commission
has ruled that giving money to make up the difference between the costs
of building on brown field and green field is anti-competitive. Without
so-called "gap funding" similar schemes in the future might not be viable.
BENNETT: It's a huge brown field
site which can be brought back into use. It's very important that these
sort of developments are encouraged and people don't go off and build out
in the countryside. It's very difficult to recreate the sort of community,
the sort of services that you've got in an area like this.
We've got to have in that
White Paper a replacement for gap funding. We've either got to have sufficient
money put up front so that regional development agencies can do it themselves
or we've got to come up with an alternative to that gap funding. Absolutely
crucial. Almost the way in which you judge the Urban White Paper: is that
financial mechanism in place?
BILLINGTON: Renovating old buildings incurs
VAT of seventeen and a half per cent. New buildings incur nothing. VAT
could be equalized.
BENNETT: It's crazy to have the
high level of VAT on renovation, and no charge on new build. If you want
to encourage renovation - we certainly do in our city areas, lots of mills,
things like that, that can be converted into good housing - then you want
to have an incentive to do that, so why make it dearer to do that, and
cheaper to do it on new build.
BILLINGTON: That may not happen because
the government's reluctant to be seen to raise taxes. Public money is
being poured into the infrastructure to enhance the old industrial district
before the mills are refurbished. There are similar costs to building on
green field sites. When new estates are built out of town, roads are built,
sewers dug, and the taxpayer picks up the bill.
PROFESSOR ANNE POWER: The government needs to be able to
charge the true public costs of building on green field sites. That is
the most important power that it needs and the idea of impact fees is an
attempt to wrap that whole idea up into a single charge. Each drive that
we take, each bit of tarmac that we lay, each brick that we lay, actually
costs us - not just environmentally but socially and economically too and
somebody has to pay that cost. At the moment it is buried in the treasury.
That cost has to be put on the people who are benefiting from moving out
into green field sites - that's the developers and the house buyers.
BENNETT: I think it's a very good
theoretical idea, but I think in practice it's extremely difficult to
measure what the impact is. If you look at perhaps a small patch where
you perhaps put twenty houses onto a green field site they may be able
to be accommodated within the existing services. Put on twice that number
and they can't. So who pays? Is it the first houses or is all the houses?
It's a very difficult mechanism.
BILLINGTON: But buildings alone are not
enough. The social fabric also needs to be improved. In this part of
East Manchester educational achievement is so low, there's an education
action zone to turn round local schools. At the moment the number of school
leavers achieving five GCSE's is half the national average. If our towns
and cities are to be attractive places to live people will need jobs and
good schools for their children.
Five years ago, the Church
of the Resurrection primary school in Beswick had some of the worst results
in the country. Now, it's a beacon school, spreading best practice to
other schools in the neighbourhood. The head teacher Ms Hogarth is enthusiastic
about the school and the role it plays in the local community.
HEAD TEACHER: When I started here we had
ninety pupils on roll. We now have two hundred and fifty. It's, I think
it's a very, very important aspect of regeneration in an area that schools
are successful, that you can attract people through successful schools,
and that's what we're hoping to do within the area.
ACTUALITY
BILLINGTON: Manchester City footballer
Jason Beckford teaches children how to keep fit and stay out of trouble.
In the political game the Tories have identified improving inner city schools
as a first step to bringing people back to an area. Their services-first
policy means tackling crime and raising school standards would precede
any other regeneration initiative.
NORMAN: The regeneration companies
that we will create will have the powers to use some of their funds, to
fund an increase in policing over and above the norm that would otherwise
be available, or alternatively they would have funds to start a new school,
or to help a failing school by bringing in new management and saying we're
going pump prime investment in this school and get the private sector to
invest behind it.
BILLINGTON: There are still obstacles to
the government going as far as some would like. The Treasury, for example,
is said to be reluctant about introducing financial measures that could
result in lower revenues. And there's a political dimension. The reality
is, many people, especially among those aspirational voters that are so
crucial to the government's fortunes, want to like in places like Great
Sankey, on the outskirts of Warrington. It could be the people who put
the brakes on the government's enthusiasm are the voters.
House builders warn without
financial incentives it will be hard to reach the government's target of
sixty per cent of homes being built on brown field land.
PIERRE WILLIAMS: People aspire to a semi
or a detached home in a place where they feel comfortable and secure.
It's what people want. It's a question of whether or not these brown field
sites are viable or not. The house builders are happy to build there but
if the costs are too great, which they often are, then they can't work
for a loss. What we need is funding to fill in that gap between loss and
profit, so those sites can be used.
ANDREW BENNET MP: In the North of England we need
to have really absolute ban on green field development, and in the South
East we need to have a huge amount of pressure put on so that it's very
attractive to go onto the brown field sites and unattractive to go onto
the green field sites.
BARRINGTON: Warrington South's MP Helen
Southworth has temporarily stopped more housing being built here by the
oldest canal in the country, with the help of new government guidelines.
HELEN SOUTHWORTH MP: That's a piece of land, people want
to build houses right the way down to the edge but what local people want
to see is that kept as leisure land and that's what we're working to achieve.
BILLINGTON: The decision on the future
of the land has now gone to a public inquiry.
SOUTHWORTH: It's really important that
there are rules that prevent fields like this from being built on because
the countryside is really crucial to us all and once it's built on, it's
gone for ever, you can't put it back. This is a really significant part
of the leisure, and growing up development, the family place for people
in Warrington. That's part of the reason people come to places like Warrington,
they want to live in this sort of an environment and I want to see it protected.
BILLINGTON: The government's at a crossroads
in its urban planning policy. They must decide what measures they want
to take to fulfil Lord Rogers' vision, while bearing in mind what they
want to do might not be popular with those aspirational voters who want
a house in the country and somewhere to walk the dog - like the locals
on the edge of Warrington.
ANNE POWER: They are trying to broker people's
desire to choose freely where they live, to drive wherever they want and
people being frustrated by seeing buildings going up everywhere and being
stuck in traffic jams and they won't be brave enough to say we all hate
traffic jams and we all hate buildings going up all over the countryside
so let's all move back into cities so they will kind of go a little way
towards encouraging people to move back into cities but not all the way
because they are too scared of the electorate.
LORD ROGERS: Every department in government
has got to act. Education and schools, health and hospitals, employment
and jobs. They all play an important part. Now there's been a tendency
in this country not to accept this. Until we accept this, we will not
have holistic, sustainable cities. We won't have cities that we want to
live in. We can go on pouring money in to any one of those things but
it will never work fully because if you can't actually get to the school,
if you can't get to the hospital if the city is badly managed, if it's
dirty, if the pavements are badly repaired, at all levels, then the city
will not work. Therefore we need leadership which actually has a vision
that where we live, that ninety per cent of us live, has really got to
function better than ever before.
BILLINGTON: There may be some disappointment
if the White Paper is big on vision but small on detail, certainly in east
Manchester where so much has been pinned on finally getting the formula
right. If after eighteen months of reflecting on the contents of Lord Rogers'
report the political will isn't there to make the vision reality, the hopes
of another generation in the inner cities could be dashed once more.
HUMPHRYS: Polly Billington reporting
there on the problems of Britain's cities. But many people who live in
the rural areas say they've got their problems, too and the government's
not paying enough attention to them either. There are reports of a rebellion
brewing in the shires led by the Countryside Alliance who are holding their
conference this week. Paul Wilenius reports from one of Labour's rural
constituencies, Monmouth in Wales, on whether the government should be
getting worried about it.
RHYS PARRY: This is going to be the autumn
and winter of discontent in the countryside, big time. Because it's not
just fuel it's everything we send up that drive, off this farm, off my
neighbours' farms who produce milk, is all being sold at a loss. And this
just cannot go on.
PAUL WILENIUS: Here in the Welsh hills
along with many other rural areas of Britain, there is a scent of rebellion.
Ministers are under fierce attack over fox hunting and the farming crisis,
as it's feared the way of life in the countryside is being destroyed.
But how serious is this uprising and are many of the rural seats now held
by Labour under threat?
At the sheep market at
Abergavenny in the Labour held seat of Monmouth, hard pressed farmers may
fear the bell is tolling for them.
PARRY: You just cannot go on living
on promises or you know you're just going to have to say enough is enough,
we cannot do this anymore.
WILENIUS: Livestock prices are
down, costs like fuel are up, and incomes are falling. New evidence shows
that for some, incomes have plummeted by up to 90 per cent and there are
fears the government isn't listening.
PARRY: Blair is out of touch and
he's arrogant and he proves it by making statements like there's no crisis
in the countryside . He ignores the fact that the fuel is too expensive,
which affects the countryside and the farmers more than anyone, and you
know he just doesn't care so long as he's looking after the city folks.
WILENIUS: The Labour Government
was rocked by the sheer number of the protesters who marched through Westminster
on the Countryside March two years ago. Action was promised then, but
little happened and the leaders of the Countryside Alliance who meet in
London for their annual conference this week, say feelings are running
high.
JOHN JACKSON: The countryside is seething
with resentment and discontent and this is mainly because people feel they
are talking to a brick wall, that they are not being heard. And some very
unfortunate things are being said.
TIM YEO MP: Well I fear we are approaching
a state of revolt in the countryside. That's very sad because we've always
believed passionately that the needs of both town and country are complementary,
they're almost indivisible. And what we have now, I think is a real sense
amongst country people, that this government is not sympathetic to their
views.
WILENIUS: But the whole rural debate
seems to be dominated by the future of fox hunting. The plight of farmers
like Rhys Parry appears to be overshadowed by the fierce battle to save
hunts like this one in Monmouthshire. Already protesting hunters have become
familiar sights at the party conferences and on the streets of London.
But with the Countryside Alliance promising more huge protests, sympathy
for those working the land could be left behind, if the government decides
to press ahead with a ban.
JACKSON: I think that would give
rise, inevitably, to the biggest civil rights protest that Europe has ever
seen. The Countryside Alliance called for an independent enquiry; we got
the Burns Committee and the Burns Report - an absolutely first class report.
Any fair person reading that objectively cannot conclude that there are
public policy reasons for banning hunting.
YEO: I think at a time
when there are so many other urgent and real problems which affect everybody
in the countryside, it's extraordinary that in the coming year, parliament
is likely to devote a lot of time to debating an attempt to ban field sports.
There is a civil liberties issue here. This is a recreation which people
have enjoyed for generations and for others to say that it should now become
a crime, I think shows a degree of intolerance of rural people, that really
is extremely worrying.
WILENIUS: But the idea that these
hunters have the backing of the majority of rural voters, is a myth. The
evidence shows that those who feel the way of life in the countryside would
be ruined by a ban, are in a clear minority. Labour MPs and pollsters declare
that most rural people want this sport outlawed and that the Countryside
Alliance does not represent their views.
BOB WORCESTER: The Countryside Alliance,
are after all a pressure group, funded mainly, I understand by the people
who want to keep fox hunting. I can understand that point of view, but
it's not supported by the majority of people in rural areas. We tightly
define the rural areas to be real rural areas, in enough constituencies,
where it would make a political difference, and we find a majority of people
in those areas, 52%, say that they're in favour of banning fox hunting
in our most recent poll, earlier this year, and only 28% are on the side
of the Countryside Alliance.
HUW EDWARDS MP: When we had a private members bill,
Michael Foster's bill, four out of five of the letters I got in this constituency
was asking me to support Michael Foster's bill. People in my constituency
overwhelmingly believe it's morally wrong to hunt animals with sport, with
dogs as a sport.
WILENIUS: No one in government
seemed to be listening to the voices of the farmers and the hunters. Until
they found an issue which galvanized support, and seemed to touch a chord
in the countryside. It was the high price of fuel.
Rhys Parry was one of
the farmers who blockaded oil refineries during the petrol crisis. Here
at a meeting of Farmers For Action in Raglan near Monmouth last week, they
plan out their next move. They aim to mount more protests and may stop
fuel supplies again within 30 days if the government doesn't come up with
an acceptable plan to cut fuel costs. They also want political support
and the Tories are ready to give it to them.
YEO: What we certainly
can support, very strongly, are people - demonstrating peacefully, protesting
peacefully against the highest fuel taxes in Europe and just trying to
point out to everyone, in town and country alike, just how much damage
is being done, directly as a result of this government and their arrogant
and insensitive response to the protest, is simply making matters worse.
ROSIE WINTERTON MP: When people see members of
the Countryside Alliance, appearing with posters that say Blair Out and
when leading members of the Countryside Alliance say that they want to
bring the Blair Government down, of course they're going to be perceived
as having a political agenda. And when people see farmers protesting about
the fuel duty, when they're appearing in tractors that are run on red diesel,
on which they pay 3p duty, yeah, people are going to say, that looks like
a political agenda, as opposed to a proper protest.
WILENIUS: Countryside campaigners
aim to take to the streets again with the threat of more fuel blockades
and a mass rally next year. But the evidence shows there's no serious
backlash against the government. Indeed Labour support is holding up among
rural voters. Like those in urban areas, they're primarily concerned with
improving health, education and other services.
The myths surrounding
the countryside vote are blown aside by an exclusive analysis by the pollsters
MORI for On The Record of the nation's 86 rural seats. It shows that
in constituencies with a large rural vote, support for Labour since the
election is holding up, at 25 per cent. While for the Conservatives it's
dropped to 33 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats increasing their share
of the vote to 28 per cent.
Yet in constituencies
with no rural vote. Support for Labour has fallen to 47 per cent, while
backing for the Conservatives has risen to 34 per cent. The Liberal Democrat
share of the vote also went up to 15 per cent.
BOB WORCESTER: When you look at the analysis
of people living in rural areas, whether they live in a village or whether
they live in the countryside, what you find is a remarkable symmetry between
the national picture and people living in those areas. They're interested
in the health care, they're interested in education, they're interested
in crime and law and order. They're interested in transport, perhaps that's
up a bit, in the rural areas, because the bus services and the train services
aren't as good as perhaps they should be, in the minds of these people.
But the pure countryside issues, the hunting for instance, when you look
at the salience levels, are way way down the list.
JAYNE HAYCROFT: I think the reality is that families,
whether they live in a rural area or a city, are concerned about their
children's education, their health, the cost of fuel and the cost of food
and the Countryside Alliance doesn't particularly speak up for me on those
issues.
WILENIUS: And it's those core issues
which concern mother of three Jayne Haycroft the most and which the government
must address in the run up to the next election.
HUW EDWARDS MP: Well I think many of the issues
are the same as apply to people in urban areas. They want a good strong
economy, they want decent education for children, they want a decent National
Health Service. That applies equally in rural areas, as it does in urban
areas.
WILENIUS: When the government's
long awaited Rural White Paper finally arrives, probably next month, it
will mainly need to give the government's national policies on health,
education, crime and the economy a rural focus. But despite the anger
over high fuel prices, there's no more evidence of dissatisfaction in the
countryside with the government, than in the towns and cities. And most
significantly, areas where rural voters like Jayne live, include only a
very small number of Labour seats.
WORCESTER: Of the eighty-six seats that
are in true rural areas, defined as we have, by a quarter of their electorate,
being - living in the countryside, eighty-six of those seats and yet fifty
six are held by the Conservatives already, twenty are held by Liberal Democrats
out of the forty seven seats they hold, and only ten are Labour. If the
Conservatives think that they're going to make much in-roads, in to those,
ten is as many as they'll get.
WILENIUS: The Countryside Alliance
holds its annual conference here this week, claiming to represent a broad
coalition of rural voters. But in reality it only speaks for a small section
of the electorate and few of those would ever vote Labour. So Tony Blair
doesn't need to appease the countryside campaigners to do well at the next
election, instead he has to reclaim the trust of ALL the voters on core
issues.
WORCESTER: Well it's clearly been over-hyped,
because all this countryside march, and all of that, we're talking about
at maximum a couple of hundred thousand people, that's one half of one
per cent in a General Election vote. Now, one person in two hundred out
there on the march and the politicians and the media all go bananas, you
know, it's not really there in numbers.
WINTERTON: I believe at the next election,
people in rural areas will vote on a whole range of issues and I believe
at the top of their agenda will be things like health, education, transport,
crime. They will want to see whether the Labour government has delivered
on those issues. If you compare that with what they might feel for example
about fox hunting, I suspect the issues like health, education, transport
and crime, will be the ones that they will decide whether or not they want
to vote Labour on. They'll be looking to see that Labour has delivered
in those areas.
WILENIUS: So to grasp the glittering
prize of an historic second term, Tony Blair doesn't need to dream up specific
rural policies. As long as he can regain the trust of the voters who elected
him last time, he can let the countryside campaigners go their own way.
HUMPHRYS: Paul Wilenius reporting
there.
And finally, Donald Dewar.
There aren't many politicians capable of inspiring the sort of tributes
that have been paid to Mr. Dewar, who died on Wednesday. He was never
one to run away from a good grilling on this programme; we interviewed
him many times over the years. Iain Watson looks back at the man who will
be remembered as the father of the Scottish Parliament.
DONALD DEWAR (July 1st 1999): There shall be a Scottish
Parliament - I like that.
IAIN WATSON: Donald Dewar was Scotland's
first ever First Minister. His dream of devolution fulfilled when the new
Parliament officially opened its doors in the last year of the last century.
But he was determined to ensure this achievement wasn't an end in itself.
He wanted to see a Parliament with a purpose, embodying attributes he himself
had in abundance.
DONALD DEWAR: Wisdom, justice, compassion,
integrity, timeless values, honorable aspirations for this new forum of
democracy born on the cusp of a new century.
WATSON: He first argued for devolution
at Glasgow University, more than forty years ago, alongside John Smith,
who was to become not just Labour's leader, but a lifelong friend. Donald
Dewar was elected to Parliament in 1966 for South Aberdeen, but lost out
four years later, returning to Westminster at the Glasgow Garscadden by-election
in 1978. Years later he would campaign with the SNP to set up a Scottish
Parliament - but he was always wanted a devolved Scotland to remain within
the UK.
DONALD DEWAR: What we want people to do
is to stand and think, will your jobs be safer if England is just another
foreign country.
WATSON: Donald Dewar may not have
looked like the model of a Labour moderniser, but during his long years
in opposition, he stood up for the substance of the New Labour project
- even before Tony Blair had arrived on the scene to put a name to it.
He was in favour of co-operation with the Liberal Democrats; the seeds
of their coalition agreement in Scotland were sown ten years before, when,
as Shadow Scottish Secretary he took his party into the constitutional
convention, the body which drew up the blueprint for a Scottish Parliament.
As John Smith's
Shadow Social Security Secretary, he argued that the rights of the unemployed
should be matched by their responsibilities.
DONALD DEWAR: I expect people who are unemployed
and who are drawing benefit, I expect them to respond to opportunities
that are given to them. If there is a menu of choice, if there is a chance,
then I expect them to respond to it.
WATSON: And later, as Chief Whip,
he kept a parliamentary party, with its competing egos, well disciplined
in the run up to the crucial 1997 General Election. He was seen as a safe
pair of hands by Tony Blair and would always defend the party line.
DONALD DEWAR: We have set out what we're
going to do, we've set out our policy and we're going to hold to it. I
want to make that, underline that very, very heavily, indeed.
WATSON: But he was also a politician
with 'hinterland'. In 1989, On The Record filmed him indulging three of
his great passions all in one evening: the arts, politics and Scottish
history, as he took in a performance by Wildcat, a left-wing theatre group.
But it was as the Scottish
Secretary, after Labour's 1997 election win, that he came to fulfil his
life's work. He campaigned with the SNP in September 1997 to persuade
Scots to vote for a devolved parliament, and to give it tax-raising powers.
And when his boss dropped in to congratulate him, in his own, understated
way, he reported his success.
DONALD DEWAR: Satisfactory I think.
TONY BLAIR: Very satisfactory and well
done.
WATSON: But the last year of his
life wasn't easy. The new Parliament was put under the microscope by the
Scottish media and his administration was buffeted by bad news stories
on education, on health and on the abolition of Section 28, the law which
prevented local authorities from promoting homosexuality.
DONALD DEWAR: It has been a sharp learning
curve for all of us, indeed so sharp that it has at times been the political
equivalent of abseiling.
WATSON: Despite the difficulties,
he drew on his ability to deflect criticism with humour, not hubris.
JOHN HUMPHRYS (ON THE RECORD):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, for a different man, your message
to him is pretty simple?
DONALD DEWAR: Garn!
HUMPHRYS: For the benefit of our English
speaking listeners you'd better translate that message that you want delivered
to him.
DONALD DEWAR: (Laughter) I think I'll
leave it, I'll leave it as it is.
HUMPHRYS: Donald Dewar - who else.
And that's it for this
week. Don't forget our website if you're on the internet. Next week we'll
be on at the slightly later time of half past twelve. Until then, good
afternoon.
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