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JOHN HUMPHRYS: But first, politics
on this side of the Irish Sea. It's been a good start to the year for the
Conservative Party. They've scored a few hits against the government,
they've had Tony Blair on the run - literally almost - and they've hit
the jackpot with that five million pounds donation from Stuart Wheeler.
Mr Wheeler said he wanted nothing in return, although now that's looking
a little less certain. And the Conservatives still don't seem to be persuading
the nation that they are the best people to run the country after the next
Election. So how can they pull that off with only a few months to go. The
man in charge of their campaign strategy is the Shadow Minister for the
Cabinet, Andrew Lansley.
Mr Lansley, good news
for you this morning, better news I suppose in one sense because we've
now got Mr Wheeler saying he is prepared to give you up to ten million
pounds - would you welcome that?
ANDREW LANSLEY: Well, good afternoon John. Certainly
I'd welcome it because I hope that the Conservative Party will be able
to be fully funded in order to have a highly effective campaign because
I think people have been let down by this Labour Government, they want
to see an alternative, I believe we can offer that alternative and I want
us to have the fullest possible opportunity to present it. As it happens,
I haven't even had the pleasure of meeting Mr Wheeler so I cannot say what
is in his mind, if he wishes to support us to a greater extent then I think
we would certainly welcome that.
HUMPHRYS: Very, very big extent
isn't it, potentially. I mean you are allowed to spend fifteen million
pounds on the campaign, if he gave you ten million pounds that would be
two thirds of it...
LANSLEY: Yes it would be a great
deal of money and it would be about as much as the trade unions give the
Labour Party...
HUMPHRYS: ...he's one man...
LANSLEY: ..the trade unions get
a lot in return and Mr Wheeler asked for nothing in return. As I say I'm
responsible for the co-ordination of policy inside the Conservative Party,
I haven't even met Mr Wheeler. It's also true to say that Lord Ashcroft,
about whom the Labour Party said a great deal, gave considerably less to
the Conservative Party than this and I have had no policy discussions with
him either. So people are not coming to the Conservative Party and trying
to tell us what our policy should be in return for donations, which is
not the same with the Labour Party.
HUMPHRYS: Well you say he wants
nothing in return, in truth and you'll have read what he said in the Telegraph,
the Sunday Telegraph this morning, I'll read you just in case you didn't...although
I suspect you did. He now says that if he doesn't get the money, if he
gives you all that money it will be conditional upon Mr Hague effectively
remaining as the Leader of the Party, if Mr Clarke for instance became
the Leader of the Party, then he wouldn't want to give you the money, if
you changed radically your policy on Europe, then he wouldn't give you
the money. So it's not quite true any longer is it to say that he doesn't
want anything - he wants very very clear policy commitments from you.
LANSLEY: No he's not asking for
any policy commitments, he's expressing a view about the Conservative Party's
policy and he's expressing a view about the leadership of the Conservative
Party and I think anybody who listened to Mr Wheeler earlier in the week
will know that he takes a very positive view of William Hague's leadership
and I share that view. I think the Conservative Party does. Simple fact
is the Conservative Party has a leader in William Hague who can win the
next election, I believe will win the next Election. The issue of our future
leadership therefore simply doesn't arise and as far as our policy is concerned,
we've had this policy for a considerable time. We fought the European Election
on this policy in relation to Europe, we are going to fight the General
Election on the policy. It is subscribed to by the great majority of people
in this country. Mr Wheeler is not alone in thinking that the Conservative
Party should fight to keep the pound.
HUMPHRYS: That's entirely true but I'd
always made the assumption that policy changes were made by your leader
and by your party. Now we have a man who is prepared to finance your campaign,
two thirds of your campaign, saying if you change it I won't give you the
money. Now if that isn't saying I want something in return, then heaven
knows what is.
LANSLEY: The position is exactly
the same if Mr Wheeler were giving us ten pounds or five million pounds,
it doesn't change at all...
HUMPHRYS: ..oh come on...two thirds
- ten million pounds..
LANSLEY: Michael Ashcroft has given
us money in the past. He has never asked for anything...
HUMPHRYS: ..now Lord Ashcroft by
the way...
LANSLEY: ...Lord Ashcroft, fine..
HUMPHRYS: ..yes, one wonders whether
there might have been a connection there...
LANSLEY: ...a very successful businessman
who runs a very successful business and indeed has supported very many
charities, including Crimestoppers..
HUMPHRYS: ...and got a peerage...
LANSLEY: ...and has
become a peer, fine. Mr Wheeler we know is asking for nothing and is expressing
his views. Mr Wheeler does not have to be somebody who has no views. The
point is that the Conservative Party has consistently said, and it continues
to be the same, that we will never change our policy in response to donations,
we will always set our policy according to our view of what is right for
the country. That is what we have done in relation to Europe, we determine
our policy, we don't do it in response to donations. I'm afraid all the
evidence suggests that the Labour Party not only take money from the trade
unions, who buy votes, at Labour Party conferences, but in relation to
the Formula One donation we even know that the Labour Party take donations
that appear on the face of it to influence their policy.
HUMPHRYS: Well indeed, they've
taken some large donations, they had as we know, three two million pound
donations earlier this year. After the first of those of donations, you
said and I quote "this highlights strongly the need for a broader base
of party funding."
LANSLEY: I said that and I still
believe that. Let me explain why I said it because the Labour Party, there
was a degree of hypocrisy in the Labour Party's approach because they were
the ones who were criticising large donations in relation to Michael Ashcroft
in the first instance, even though Lord Lord Sainsbury who is a Labour
Minister, has now, I think if I count it correctly, given them something
like seven million pounds in total. Yet they were also the ones the Labour
Government who did not take forward the Neill Committee recommendation
that there should be tax relief for small donations to political parties.
We supported that tax relief proposal from the Neill Committee, Labour
blocked it in Parliament. They should have accepted that the Committee
on Standards in Public Life had undertaken an enquiry, put forward a package
of proposals, accepted the whole package and that would have enabled all
of us, all political parties to attract more successfully a large number
of small donations, which is absolutely our hope and intention.
HUMPHRYS: So you are quite happy
to have your entire campaign, the whole campaign, all fifteen million...
LANSLEY: ..all we know is this
five million pounds that Mr Wheeler has committed...
HUMPHRYS: ..five million pounds
that he's committed, ten million pounds, up to ten million pounds he's
said...
LANSLEY: ..he may or he may not,
that's up to him.
HUMPHRYS: ..and the rest of it
from a group including Lord Ashcroft, a group of party treasurers who are
themselves pretty well heeled. So you are perfectly happy...
LANSLEY: ..the party treasurers
have improved substantially the extent to which we are receiving money
from a range of smaller donations, people in the sort of one thousand to
five to ten thousand...
HUMPHRYS: ..your membership has
actually fallen hasn't it..
LANSLEY: ..no it hasn't, it's gone
up...
HUMPHRYS: ...it's dropped from
four hundred thousand to three hundred thousand.
LANSLEY: When was it four hundred
thousand? Well before the last election. It's increased since the last
election.....
HUMPHRYS: ....when you last told
us it was which was in 1997.
LANSLEY: Well it's increased since
the last election and the donations.......
HUMPHRYS: Well that isn't what
your figures say...
LANSLEY: ..... the donations to
the party from people who are giving us much lesser sums, has gone up by
about threefold. Michael Ashcroft and his team of treasurers have been
very successful at increasing the number of smaller donors. But elections
are expensive things and a fifteen million pound limit is something that
- if that's what the limit is and we'll wait to hear from the Home Office
- but we would certainly hope
to have a fully funded campaign within that limit.
HUMPHRYS: I shouldn't think you'd
have any problem at all. Ten million from one, five million from another.
But anyway, there you are. Let's see if you're going to be as effective
at getting votes as you are at getting money in because you are having
problems. I know that politicians always say "don't believe the opinion
polls", nonetheless they're pretty devastating. We had Ken Clarke saying
just a few days ago that you have to build and I quote his words, "a positive
appeal and connect with solid policies." There is no clarity in your policies
- you have to - this is me saying it now not him, this isn't the bit that
he said. He said the early bit, "you've got to look", he says, "you've
got to look like a government in waiting"- that is what HE says you've
got to look like.
Now, given that you are
what - a few months away, three months away from an election? You don't
yet look like a government in waiting, you have a mighty big problem don't
you, a mighty big hill to climb.
LANSLEY: That might be your opinion
John but I don't think it's the opinion of many other people.
HUMPHRYS: Don't you think you should
look like one already?
LANSLEY: I think we do. I think
the last party conference was exactly what we were setting out to do and
since it we've added substantially to our policy proposals. I think the
Conservative Party in opposition have presented more policy content, substantive
positive policy content for what we would do in government than any opposition
has ever done.
I mean let's look at the
Labour Party before the last election. The labour Party before the last
election said, 'Oh we'll have an integrated transport policy', and everybody
said, 'oh that sounds like a good thing', and after the election it turned
out there was nothing there at all. It ended up with a document some months
later which included sixty-three questions and we know in fact that their
transport policy has ended in chaos.
HUMPHRYS: Can you talk about your
rather than theirs. That's why your here.
LANSLEY: Okay. And Ken Clarke
went on in the same speech to talk about our education policy, for example.
I mean Labour said that education was their top priority and we've got
a teacher supply crisis and schools that are burdened with red tape and
wondering where on earth the money has gone and where the teachers are?
And Ken Clarke himself commended our policy in relation to free schools,
that we can get money directly into the schools so that people will see
where the money is going. That the money will be provided to education
and not just to the education budgets in the department up in Whitehall
but into schools.
HUMPHRYS: Oh, I didn't say he didn't
like any of your policies he just said you're not connecting, or at least
he implied that you're not connecting with solid policies. And one of
the problems, I assume, that he is considering, he is looking at, is this
whole area of public spending: You talk about education, how you're committed
on
education, you're committed to spending as much on education as the Tories,
you're committed to spending as much on health as the Tories, but you are
going to spend - as Labour - but you are going to spend less overall?
LANSLEY: Indeed.
HUMPREYS: Indeed. Eight billion
pounds less. At least that's hence......
LANSLEY: ....two years......
HUMPHRYS: The problem with this
is that you haven't actually told us where you're going to save a very
very large amount of money - eight billion pounds......
LANSLEY: In fact we've told you,
by stages, a great deal about this. In fact we've gone through the same
process that government goes through except we've had the courage to do
it in the open rather than in secret. Every government says there is a
responsible limit to public expenditure and they set a target. They then
make sure that they review public expenditure and they look for reforms
that will deliver that target while committing resources, additional resources
to priority areas. So for example indeed we are going to be committed
to very substantial increases in health and schools and transport and police
services so that those can be delivered, not only in terms of the resources
but obviously
also in terms of the way in which they are managed to be more effective
than this government has done.
That means that we do
have to make savings elsewhere if we're to meet our targets and we've said
a lot about that, for example, in my own area I have made it clear that
whereas before the last election Conservative Governments held the cost
of administering Whitehall Departments level in cash terms, they've gone
up by two billion pounds over the last three years and over the next three
years we will take most of that increase out of additional administration
in central government departments. David Willetts in the Social Security
budget has shown how four hundred million pounds plus can be saved by reforms
to housing benefit administration. Our 'Can Work - Must Work' guarantee,
not like Labour do which is a sort of if you can work you ought to have
an interview about the possibility of working at some time in the future,
but if you can work you must work - that delivers substantial savings in
the Social Security budget as well. For example, in the last few days
we've published a proposal, which I think is radical and exciting for endowing
the universities by selling the student loan book and at the same time
not only can we save public expenditure but we can deliver a better deal
for students so that students have better payment terms and are able not
to have to repay student loans until they're earning at least twenty thousand
pounds.
HUMPHRYS: Let's go back to the
overall total. You have accounted, it seems, for about five billion, five
point three billion pounds, and some of those figures look a bit dodgy
to an awful lot of people, or at least, rather optimistic, let's put it
like this. You still haven't accounted for the rest of it and you don't
have very long to go, and it begins to look rather as if, it isn't you
won't tell us, but you don't know yourselves, so therefore you can't tell
us.
LANSLEY: No, it's quite, it's quite
the opposite, actually.
HUMPHRYS: Well, here's your opportunity,
tell us where the rest is coming from
LANSLEY: We do know, and in fact,
in a matter of days, not weeks and months, but a matter of days, we will
be able to set out, in detail, how we have met the eight billion target.
HUMPHRYS: Why can't you do it now?
LANSLEY: I'm not going to do it
now, because I don't plan to make our announcements on your programme,
with great respect to you John, but we do know, we have known for some
time how we wanted to reform public expenditure, but what is significant
is that, instead of saying, we have a plan for cutting public expenditure,
what we wanted to do was to show that each of our proposals, some of the
ones I have been talking about, for example this morning, Peter Ainsworth
has been talking about how we're proposing to privatise Channel Four, and
indeed use the Lottery Distribution Fund to endow museums and galleries
and other cultural organisations...
HUMPHRYS: ...upset Channel Four
that will...
LANSLEY: ...it has, it has, of
course it may upset Channel Four but actually it's the best course for
them too, as it turns out. I think ITV will tell you, it's perfectly capable
of running a very successful broadcasting organisation ...
HUMPHRYS: ...are we going to end
up like Channel Five are we...
LANSLEY: ...with public service
broadcasting...
HUMPHRYS: ...trying to make money...
LANSLEY: ...no, I said like ITV,
you can deliver a public service remit inside the private sector and they
will do that - but the point is, that also saves public expenditure. Now
I wanted, we all wanted these proposals to be seen for their own merits,
and that has happened over the last few weeks. Now the time will come
shortly where Michael Portillo and William Hague will therefore be able
to say, we have reformed public expenditure. We are still committed to
substantial increase in priority services, but we can meet those within
a responsible limit for public expenditure overall, because there is a
big economic issue at the heart of this. It will not do for Gordon Brown
to promise to spend seventy-one billion pound extra over the next three
years on the assumption that it is acceptable for public expenditure to
continue to rise much faster than the growth of the economy as a whole.
Ours is the prudent limit, not to increase public expenditure but beyond
the growth of the economy. That means just over sixty-billion pound extra
for public expenditure. Nobody in their right mind wouldn't believe that
the Conservative Party on that basis isn't committed to increasing public
expenditure dramatically, but on the priorities and within a prudent limit.
HUMPHRYS: But if you look at the
biggest chunk of that saving, at least, that's how I worked it out from
what you were saying just then, you're talking about the money that Whitehall
spends on running government, I think you talk...well, one-point-eight-billion
pounds. Yeah.
LANSLEY: ...it's a big, it's a
big change.
HUMPHRYS: ...it's a big chunk.
The reason that that money is being spent, and you took this view when
you were in government, you actually used the expression, spending to save,
is that if you spend a lot of money in certain areas, like on Customs and
Excise, Inland Revenue, and so on and so on, you will actually save a lot
of money for the future. You were persuaded of that when you were in government,
you intended actually...yes, you shake your head, but in nineteen-ninety-seven
you had plans to spend more in nineteen-ninety-eight and nineteen-ninety-nine,
now you're saying, well actually, we're gonna spend less, so what you're
doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
LANSLEY: Well, we could go back
and we could look at Kenneth Clarke's proposals for public expenditure...
HUMPHRYS: ...I did it...
LANSLEY: ...in nineteen-ninety-seven,
and that would not have included, did not include at that time, a two-billion-pound
increase in the costs of running central government departments, it did
not include an increase in the number of civil servants, and the number
of civil servants has gone up by nine-thousand. But as you ask the question,
let me make it clear that that is why we have said that we want to reduce
the cost of administering government departments by one-point-eight-billion,
not by the whole two-billion, because we have specifically left in the
figures one or two areas, for example, those who are responsible for case-work
on immigration and asylum decisions, or indeed, as you mentioned it, those
in Customs and Excise and Inland Revenue who are responsible for some of
those anti-abuse, anti-avoidance measures, so we put, we've left some of
those things there that were precisely some of the priorities that were
indeed being pursued two or three years ago, so we've, we're not acting
irresponsibly, we're acting on the basis of good government.
HUMPHRYS: Police numbers? I mean
last, when you were in power you actually cut the number of police...
BOTH SPEAKING TOGETHER
LANSLEY: ...from nineteen-seventy-nine
they went up by sixteen-thousand...
HUMPHRYS: ...but you are committed
to increasing them this time...
LANSLEY: ...take the last, take
the last...
HUMPHRYS: ...just very quickly,
you are committed to spending the money to increase the numbers of police
on the streets.
LANSLEY: Indeed.
HUMPHRYS: Absolute commitment,
no question about that?
LANSLEY: We are going to reverse
Labour's cut in the number of police which at presently, two-and-a-half-thousand...
HUMPHRYS: ...and you'll spend more
than Labour...
LANSLEY: ...two-and-a-half-thousand
fewer police..well hang on a minute, we, we do not necessarily have to
increase the budget of the Home Office in order to achieve that because...
HUMPHRYS: ...but hang on, hang
on...
LANSLEY: ...because police is only
one element of the Home Office budget...
HUMPHRYS: ...yes, yes, but if you're
gonna have more Police and...
LANSLEY: ...we had more police
three years ago. Are you telling me that we were spending more then?
HUMPHRYS: I'm telling you actually
had after, after a full term of the major parliament you had fewer police
at the end of it than you had at the beginning of it.
LANSLEY: From where we are now,
to three-years hence, there will be substantial increases in the police
budget under a Conservative Government...
HUMPHRYS: ...right, and you will
have to take money from the other Home Office, the rest of the Home Office
budget to pay for those police, that's what you're telling me.
LANSLEY: No, but there's some money,
there's some money already in the Home Office budget, but you actually
find it's not necessarily going to the right priorities, for example, they've,
they've got some very large increases in, in some of the Criminal Justice
changes they're talking about, which are not about, not about improving
our ability to tackle crime, what is vital is that we actually get money
into the front line because the deterrence of crime and the detection of
crime, depends crucially upon the presence of Police on the streets, the
public know that, it's common-sense, we know that, and we're going to do
it.
HUMPHRYS: Sure, but if it means
taking money from the rest of it, rest of, of the policy, of, of the Home
Office budget, you will do so.
LANSLEY: If there are savings elsewhere
in the Home Office budget.
HUMPHRYS: Well...
LANSLEY: You can reform the asylum
system, and we have proposals to reform the asylum system which in that
time-frame can deliver you substantial savings.
HUMPHRYS: Well, and you'll tell
us all the rest of the savings within the next few days. Andrew Lansley,
thank you very much indeed.
LANSLEY: Thank you.
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