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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE:
21.01.01
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. The
Tories have had a good time attacking the government, but can they convince
us they're a government in waiting. I'll be asking the man who'll mastermind
their campaign. The Northern Ireland peace process has stalled. I'll
be talking to the man they hope can get it started again. And if the Scots
give elderly people free care in old peoples homes, will the rest of the
country have to follow their lead? That's after the news read by Fiona
Bruce.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: The government's been told
it should provide free care for old people. But is it going to happen
only in Scotland?
And Northern Ireland's security
arrangements are blocking the road to progress towards peace in the province.
Can there be agreement in time to save the Belfast government from collapsing?
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.
HUMPHRYS: This week the Scottish Labour
Party was supposed to tell elderly people in Scotland that if they needed
personal care in old people's homes the taxpayer would foot the bill.
That's what the Scotland Commission - the Sutherland Commission - has
recommended for the whole country. But the government has not exactly rushed
to embrace the idea. If it does happen in Scotland, but not in England
and Wales, it would prove very difficult for them indeed. David Grossman
reports.
DAVID GROSSMAN: Getting old ain't what it used
to be. We're now living longer and stronger than ever before. The Paisley
Piranhas is a Seniors ice hockey team, not for them a stroll in the park
to feed the ducks. Believe it or not, some of the players crashing round
the ice and are well into their seventies. In a society increasingly obsessed
by youth, they prove that retiring from work needn't mean retiring from
life.
These players are obviously in splendid health, but one concern that worries
us all is what will happen if we can no longer take care of ourselves.
At the last election, Labour picked up votes from the middle classes by
promising they'd no longer have to sell their homes to pay for long term
care. Now though, the government at Westminster is pleading a lack of funds.
Here in Scotland, Henry McLeish's Scottish Executive seems to have found
the money. Mr McLeish's expected generosity is threatening to make Mr
Blair look uncaring and miserly just before a General Election.
DAVID HINCHLIFFE MP: I believe that the long term
care issue will possibly prove in the very near future, to be another seventy-five
p issue for the Labour Party and I worry about that because when people
realise that we have this unfairness, we have this problem that won't be
easily resolved, then there will be great pressure on Labour MPs in particular
to do something about it.
ACTUALITY
GROSSMAN: Giving thanks for plenty
at a retirement home in Edinburgh. Few issues are more emotive than how
much of society's wealth is distributed to our oldest citizens. Tony Blair
promised to end the practice whereby the only way the elderly could get
long term care was to sell their homes. He set up a Royal Commission to
look at how best to deliver on that promise.
Headed by Sir Stewart Sutherland, an Edinburgh academic, the commission
concluded that only the board and lodging element of care, the so called
hotel costs, should be means tested. Everything else, it said, should
be free.
SIR STEWART SUTHERLAND: Right at the core of this was the
belief that people who are in need should have that need met. This is
basic in all of the up bringing I've ever had. It's basic in the way in
which people in our country think, I have no doubt, meet that need. We
don't for example say to somebody when they come in to hospital in need
of a operation for lung cancer, how many fags a day did you smoke, this
is your own fault. We actually see them as someone in need and we respond
as a humane civilised society.
GROSSMAN: In Scotland, health is
one of the range of services now provided by the Scottish Parliament and
Scottish Executive. When Scotland's first minister, Henry McLeish took
office, he gave his backing to delivering the full Sutherland Commission
recommendations, much to the delight of his Liberal Democrat coalition
partners. Indeed all the parties in the Scottish Parliament agree with
him. Scotland's health minister is due to make an announcement on Wednesday.
MARGARET SMITH MSP: We've got a long tradition
in terms of wanting to see good funding of public services and decent social
services available to our population. And I think what the Scottish Parliament
allows us to do is to actually feed in to the experts working in the fields,
to talk to carers, to talk to professionals and say to them, if you have
the money available to you and you now have a Parliament available here
to make these things happen, how would you improve the services to the
people of Scotland, how do you think we should proceed? And we've done
that with long term care, we've taken the evidence, we've talked to the
people involved and they're saying to us, go ahead, implement this in full.
GROSSMAN: Such a move would be
very popular in Scotland. Angus Gillon is a frequent visitor to the Edinburgh
care home, where is father is a resident. The Reverend Blair Gillon may
be ninety-four and retired from the church but he continues to study.
What he can't do is take care of himself and paying for help is now eating
away at his capital.
ANGUS GILLON: In order to pay for his care,
my father is using all his pension income, he's using the interest from
the capital from the sale of his house and in addition, there is a small
proportion of his capital, going simply to pay for him to reside here.
Now, if any change were to come and some proportion of that were subsidised
by the Scottish Executive, Scottish Parliament, or provided by the Scottish
Parliament, I guess that that would make our lives and his life a little
bit more comfortable because we could look further ahead to the future.
At the moment he's becoming more dependent as you do as you get older and
we're not sure what lies ahead.
GROSSMAN: The prospect of having
two different prescriptions for long term care north and south of the border
puts Scotland's First Minister Henry McLeish in an awkward position.
Tony Blair would far rather he opted for the same remedy as England and
Wales - where spending on long term care has risen but is targeted on those
most in need. The UK government fears that if Scotland goes ahead with
the plan for free care, this fact will be lost, amid a flurry of unflattering
comparisons to Scotland. But Edinburgh isn't Westminster.
JOHN McALLION MSP: Oh Henry McLeish faces completely
different political pressures from Tony Blair. We have the main opposition
party, the SNP, pressing us from the left and they of course are demanding
the full implementation of Sutherland. Even the Conservatives in Scotland
are demanding the full implementation of Sutherland. And Henry really didn't
have any political space to go to, other than agree with them because if
he did then Labour would would lose out significantly in terms of the left
of centre vote that tends to dominate in Scottish politics.
GROSSMAN: Coming to see how the
other half live - a coach-load of pensioners from the north-east of England
on a visit to Scotland. This could become something of a promised land
to pensioners from the rest of the UK. Although these visitors from the
Durham Friendship Centre have come to see the famous buildings and beautiful
scenery - they're also flashing a few admiring glances at the health-care
system in Scotland. Another country where they do things differently.
It's among people like this that the government could meet considerable
hostility. If a day-trip over the border to Scotland reveals a health-care
system that's managing to fund the full recommendations of the Royal Commission
Report, there are plenty of voters in the rest of the UK who will want
to know why they are apparently being left behind.
FRANK HEDGES: If the Scots can afford it,
then I'm quite sure that we can afford it in England. It can't be right
that you pay into National Insurance for all your life, and then, because
you have the bad luck to be somebody who needs long-term care, your small
savings are eroded, completely eroded by paying for your long-term care.
JOAN McELROY: I think it's very unfair.
If they pay the same taxes as us, why can't we have the same benefit?
And I don't see why I should have to sell my home to pay for care. I've
worked hard to get a home and people who are on benefit all their lives
are still going to get benefit, that I'm going to have to give up my home
for.
GROSSMAN: The reward for three
hours on the bus is one of Edinburgh's finest views. The reward for a working
life spent saving and paying taxes may now depend on the Blair government's
distinction between types of care. In the future the NHS will only pay
for nursing case, for example handing out medication. Other care, like
help with dressing, will be called personal care and will be means tested.
That's say critics, is completely unworkable.
SIR STEWART SUTHERLAND: If it weren't so tragic, it would
almost be a joke in the profession. How do you decide when a bath is a
social bath and when it's a medical bath? It's absurd just to have to
ask the question. But the current government plans will require that to
asked and answered and charges made accordingly.
They will have to set up a large bureaucracy to work out where the charges
fall, who should pay, and then they've got to go and collect it. That
will take a lot of money out of the actual provision of care into bureaucracy.
HINCHLIFFE: I can see understandable
anger, particularly where you are in the north of England, not that far
from Scotland and over the border the policies are very distinct and different
and in most people's perception a good deal fairer. I think that that
will lead to pressure to bring about certain changes. It may indeed bring,
bring about legal challenges at some point.
GROSSMAN: A care assistant helps
residents with their daily routine. The UK government's answer to the
difficulty of drawing up legally robust definitions of nursing care and
social care is to give that decision to nurses, so that for each case,
an assessment would be made and the distinction not fixed but flexible.
DR LIAM FOX MP: We don't have a problem
with the government's judgement that there are better ways of using a large
amount of money than extending the nursing care through to personal care,
our worries with it are really with definition, on how, in terms of legislation,
you can clearly define what is nursing care and what is personal care and
how you would separate that out in practice. For example, would it create
perverse incentives for nurses to actually say somethings were nursing
care when they're really personal care, in other words, in order to make
them free for patients?
ACTUALITY
GROSSMAN: Everyone likes a bit
of a flutter - but Henry McLeish may well be gambling with his political
future. He can't please both London and Scotland. He's already upset
more than a few in Westminster by calling his Executive the Scottish Government.
And the Scottish Parliament's already voted through an exemption from
higher education tuition fees and is now finalising a huge pay-rise for
its teachers. At Westminster, envious Labour MPs are beginning to grumble.
HINCHLIFFE: There is already a
good deal of concern among English MPs about the discrepancy between the
funding levels and the ability for example, in terms of delivering community
care packages between local authorities in England and local authorities
in Scotland. I've personally raised this matter with the Chancellor who
himself of course is a Scots MP, so he's a vested interest probably in
retaining the advantage that Scotland's got.
GROSSMAN: Henry McLeish though
is a long way from winning any trophies. There's now speculation that
he's about to back down under pressure from London. But that too would
be risky. He needs the Liberal Democrats on side to control Parliament
and many of them are now muttering darkly about breaking the coalition
if he doesn't implement the Sutherland Report in full. For some of his
own backbenchers the issue is now a matter of Scottish Labour's entire
credibility.
McALLION: Above all Henry McLeish
has to be seen to be independent of Tony Blair and of the Labour Cabinet
in Westminster and to be taking decisions because they make sense in the
Scottish context, not because they make sense in the UK context. So that's
a pressure that Henry's consistently under. Henry also has to take in
to consideration that we are one party and we want to see Labour win as
many Westminster seats as possible in Scotland. So we're not going to
do anything stupid and foolish to put at risk Labour victories here in
Scotland. But at the same time what would really put Labour victories
at risk in Scotland would be the perception that the Scottish Labour Party
was now run from London. If that perception started to gain ground in
Scotland, Labour in Scotland would be in very serious trouble indeed.
DR FOX: It was inevitable that
they way the government pursued their devolution agenda, was going to lead
to conflict between Edinburgh and London. We said all the way through,
this was a recipe for conflict. It was a recipe for the potential break
up of the United Kingdom and we're now seeing, when you've got the same
party in power, in both the Scottish Parliament and Westminster that this
tension is already arising, how much greater would that tension be if you
had different parties in power and what would the consequences be for the
country as a whole?
GROSSMAN: It's hard to see how
Labour can win. If Henry McLeish goes ahead with free long-term care now
it will be embarrassing for Tony Blair and Labour in the rest of the UK.
But if he doesn't, he'll risk humiliation and Labour could suffer at the
polls in Scotland. The Royal Commission was meant to remove elderly care
from the political melee, now devolution has put it right back in the fray.
HUMPHRYS: David Grossman reporting
there.
The peace process in Northern
Ireland has run into the buffers again. There's the very real chance that
the First Minister, David Trimble, may be forced by his own party to pull
the rug from under the Northern Ireland executive. It's happened once
already. If it happens again that could be the end of devolved government
in the Province with serious implications for the Good Friday Agreement.
I'll be talking to the Deputy First Minister Seamus Mallon after this
report from Iain Watson.
IAIN WATSON: Northern Ireland's
pro-agreement parties are in conflict - each has been fighting its corner
in intense negotiations. The military presence has been reduced across
the province, but that's not so obvious if you live in a border town such
as Crossmaglen in South Armagh. Sinn Fein are demanding a further scaling
down of the security forces; the usually moderate SDLP, won't yet give
its backing to the reform of the policing service and the Unionists want
to see a start made on decommissioning by the IRA. The government is keen
to break this deadlock within the next ten days. There's a very narrow
window of opportunity this month for any deal to be struck. That's because
pretty soon, minds will be focussed on fighting the forthcoming local
council elections here in Northern Ireland and the widely expected General
Election in the spring and the danger is if this opportunity isn't seized
then the whole peace process could unravel. David Trimble's Ulster Unionists
may feel they can no longer sit in government with Sinn Fein if there's
no further progress on decommissioning. And if the institutions of the
Good Friday Agreement are suspended, then it could be more difficult than
ever before to resurrect them. A rustic scene that could be straight out
of the home counties. But as this quiet country lane is in Northern Ireland,
Henry McElroy's worries aren't of a purely agricultural nature. He's one
of fifteen members of the South Armagh farmers and residents association.
This pressure group say they have no links to Sinn Fein but, like that
party, they want a very visible British military presence in the border
areas cut back, and the network of army watchtowers dismantled.
HENRY MCELROY: My message down here in
the border counties straight to Tony Blair is take charge of the peace
process and pull these obstacles here down -that's it.
WATSON: Hopes for peace have been
heightened by the continued IRA ceasefire but the army say they must remain
vigilant. Just a week ago, a one thousand pound bomb -twice the size of
the one which devastated Omagh - was found in rural South Armagh, planted
by dissident republicans. The security forces say while a threat remains,
at least some of the watchtowers must stay. Senior security sources have
confirmed that they are willing to reduce the British Army presence in
Northern Ireland still further - just so long as the IRA makes much more
progress towards decomissioning. But this wouldn't involve the actual handing
over of weapons. Instead, if the IRA would have to put them beyond use,
for example but concreting over their arms dumps, or pouring concrete over
the weapons themselves, then this would be interpreted as a substantial
reduction in the IRA threat. Then, in turn, the British military presence
could be scaled down. But all this is dependent on timing and trust -
both present here at Hillsborough last May when a detailed deal was struck.
First the IRA announced that they would contact General de Chastelain's
commission on decommissioning. Then the RUC announced the timetable for
the closure of some military bases. After that, the inspection of some
IRA arms dumps by two international observers took place. Then, in due
course, the British military bases actually began to close. It's this
sort of sequencing which the government think can form the basis of a
new deal. But Sinn Fein say the British government didn't fully keep to
their side of the bargain last time and that could cause problems now.
MITCHELL MCLAUGHLIN MLA: Tony Blair on behalf of the British
Government spelt out a certain set of actions which was responded to within
twenty-four hours by the IRA. Now quite clearly there was a degree of negotiation
and choreography in that and that set out if you like the sequence of events.
But what we got instead was resistance at very high level indeed within
the British Army and probably within the political establishment which
prevented demilitarisation as was described and intended presumably by
Tony Blair.
KEN MAGINNIS MP: I talked directly to the Prime
Minister, he said, 'I did not make any commitments on which I have reneged,
what Sinn Fein suggest is not true.' He has said it as bluntly as that
and I believe him. I just think that Sinn Fein need wriggle room and they
are taking more than they are entitled to.
WATSON: But a lot depends on interpretation.
The former patrol base at Clonnaty Bridge, just two miles from the Irish
Republic, was being dismantled by army engineers last week. But we understand
an indicative timetable for the removal of army watchtowers in the border
area, agreed to at Hillsborough last May, hasn't been fully adhered to.
And we've been told the reasons include not only the threat from dissident
Republicans, but also because the IRA's only contact with General de Chastelain's
decommisioning body since May has been one solitary telephone call. The
government are keen to point out that they have moved first on what they
call 'normalisation' and Sinn Fein call 'demilitarisation'. When the
IRA announced their first ceasefire in 1994 there were one hundred and
five army bases in the province. By the start of this year this had fallen
to sixty-three. But there's been less progress on the lookout posts or
watchtowers which line the border with the Irish Republic. Of the fifteen
which existed at the time of the first IRA ceasefire, thirteen are still
in place. The army say much more progress has been made in reducing troop
numbers in the province over the same period. There were seventeen thousand
troops in Northern Ireland but by the start of this year twelve thousand,
six hundred remain. Meanwhile, the IRA haven't handed over a single weapon.
SIR RONNIE FLANAGAN: If they move in tangible ways
whereby the overall threat is reduced, then we would welcome that, very
warmly, and we would move very quickly imaginatively and progressively
into make yet further steps along the road towards normalisation
WATSON: The IRA aren't quite as
open as the army over revealing the number of volunteers or weapons at
their disposal. But reliable estimates suggest they have in the region
of one thousand rifles, six hundred handguns, five hundred heavy machine
guns and two and a half tons of the highly explosive substance, Semtex.
These estimates exclude numerous rocket launchers and mortars and of course
the substantial arsenal of weapons now in the hands of dissident republicans.
FLANAGAN: If an organisation moved
publicly to demonstrate that it no longer felt a need for such a capability,
that it was reducing that capability, I have no doubt that that would be
interpreted as a reduction in the overall threat.
WATSON: There's been a spate of
sectarian attacks on Catholics recently - with anything from crude pipe
bombs to bricks being used as weapons. Individual members of the loyalist
paramilitary group, the UDA, are thought to be responsible, but there are
fears that the UDA itself may walk out of the peace process and that could
make it more difficult for the IRA to put their own weapons beyond use.
The RUC are well aware of the risks.
FLANAGAN: I have no doubt that
violence begets violence and we have seen that down through 30 years here.
We have seen a vicious cycle, where one act of violence brings about a
violent act of retaliation Undoubtedly the more these organisations degenerate
into acts of violence, the more we move back towards that risk of going
down a vicious downward spiral
WATSON: Loyalist paramilitaries
have less extensive arsenals than the IRA but still have the capacity to
pose a substantial threat. Estimates suggest they have 200 rifles, 300
machine guns, 900 handguns and an unknown amount of explosives at their
disposal. So, against this grim backdrop, Tony Blair is keen to keep the
pro-agreement parties together in government here at Stormont. But, sources
say, he doesn't want an 'elastoplast' arrangement which won't cure the
sort of underlying grievances which could contaminate a General Election
campaign. So, this week, he will continue to press for a comprehensive
deal on decommissioning, demilitarization and policing. The hope is the
deal will be just enough to keep the institutions here at Stormont functioning
through a difficult General Election period. But if all that's on offer
from the IRA is simply to resume contact with General de Chastelain's international
commission on decommissioning then problems will remain. The one thing
that will unite the Ulster Unionist party is to say that this kind of move
by the IRA just isn't enough.
MAGINNIS: We would discourage government
from using up its last cards before it sees something that is more than
a social visit to General de Chastelain, tea and chocolate biscuits is
not what we are talking about, we are talking about modalities that can
immediately begin to be put into effect to get rid of illegal weapons.
I am not, nor has the Ulster Unionist Party endeavored to say, it must
be done exactly like this, or exactly like that. Half of it is a physical
manifestation of intent, the other half, is a psychological change in IRA
attitude. It's a promise for the future. It's a sign of what will be.
WATSON: This woman hopes to become
her party's candidate to replace Ken Maginnis when he stands down at the
next election. But here in the border seat of Fermanagh and South Tyrone,
the Ulster Unionists fear a challenge from Ian Paisley's DUP. So Arlene
Foster wants her party to take a tougher line on Republicans by imposing
new sanctions on Sinn Fein unless the IRA begins to hand over their weapons,
ARLENE FOSTER: We can step up the pressure,
but if nothing has happened by March, for example, March was a date that
was mentioned because its our annual general meeting in March, then I think
we very firmly need to look at moving out of the executive.
MITCHELL: There may be no way back
for David Trimble but it is my view that both governments could actually
deliver on ninety, ninety-five per cent of the elements of the Good Friday
Agreement and that there is an argument in that, that the Unionists would
find it very much in their interest to be part of those political institutions
not outside them.
WATSON: As if all that wasn't trouble
enough, Policing reforms in Northern Ireland could founder on the demands
of the Nationalist SDLP. These include a new police badge, the closure
of an interrogation centre and independent inquiries into the murders of
three prominent nationalists. And Sinn Fein have objections too.
MITCHELL: We're all I think got
very conscious of Nationalist public opinion, who have quite clearly, you
know indisputably, have formed the view that this does not represent the
new beginning in policing You know they're not impressed by an argument
about fifty-fifty recruitment when you're talking about seventy recruits
a year. Thirty-five Catholics in a force of ten thousand former RUC officers.
WATSON: The government want both
Nationalists and Republicans to join a new cross community police board
by April this year. Sinn Fein are suspicious and are unlikely to do so
but the government hopes that at least they won't actively discourage
Catholics from becoming police officers and they've signaled privately
that they may even offer concessions on scaling down the army presence
in return. But they know if the SDLP don't go further and join the police
board itself, the reforms have little chance of success.
FLANAGAN: Policing to be fully
effective has to be all about partnership. Now we are engaged in a whole
range of partnerships right across communities, but if a very significant
party like the SDLP actively decided to stay outside those arrangements,
then it couldn't fully effectively work as it should.
MAGINNIS: Well, I think quite honestly
if you look objectively at the SDLP, they are pretty pathetic as far as
policing is concerned. Day and daily we hear them on demanding that the
police might do this better, might do this, might do the other thing, and
yet they are saying, but we won't support them. Their argument, their
case, doesn't stand up and I'll make a prediction; SDLP will be on board.
I know they are running scared of Sinn Fein, but they will be on board
because they know this society needs to be policed.
WATSON: Once the British government
has met with the Irish government this Tuesday even more pressure will
be piled on the Pro-Agreement parties to ensure the peace process isn't
the first victim of what will be a hard fought General Election campaign.
HUMPHRYS: Iain Watson reporting
there.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: Seamus Mallon, the process,
obviously, is dangerously stalled as we speak and it does seem that you,
as far as policing is concerned, you hold the key to getting it started
again. Do you accept that?
MALLON: Well I believe and I have
always believed our party has said it consistently, policing is key in
this whole equation. It's key not just because of its factor within the
community because of this central part of the Good Friday Agreement, it
derived from the Good Friday Agreement and because it is so key, because
it is so crucial, that is the reason why we must get all of the arrangements
right. Now would it were the position that after the legislation in Westminster
that everything had been dealt with. Unfortunately for tactical reasons
the government left some of those areas undecided in a way which I think
was very unsatisfactory and the implementation plan that will follow that
legislation and mirror it, that still has to be decided fully and it is
within that type of ambit that our party is trying to get the best type
of situation because we know and we know very clearly despite the pressure
and despite some of the propaganda there's only going to be one opportunity
of getting this very crucial element right and that is now.
HUMPHRYS: And it seems that you
have two sets of objections: If I can put them this way - principled and
practical. They will seem to many people not familiar perhaps with the
situation in Northern Ireland, they will seem very minor, looked at from
this perspective. I mean if you look at the principled objections - you
don't like the cap badge, the fact that there is no national symbol, nationalist
symbol on the cap badge. You don't like the title - Royal Ulster Constabulary
to be included in the title deeds of the police force. They will seem
to many people not to be worth risking this whole process for.
MALLON: But we're not doing that.
The reality is that those were matters that were recommended in the Pattern
report. Pattern was very and absolutely clear about those. He said exactly
what should be done. Now unfortunately those were pre-empted in terms
of the legislation by the way in which the legislation was drafted. And
you know you may say, and I would agree with you, that at the end of the
day, those aren't very important key strategic matters but if you're trying
to change the involvement in a highly political situation here with the
overtones that policing has, then those are the public manifestations for
young people who might be joining the police force, that is the public
manifestation of change that they will see. They will not go into the
detail of legislation, they will know what they see in relation to police
stations, in relation to symbols. And I put it to you this way and I put
it consistently to the British Government - there are matters of great
substance that have to be resolved.
These matters of
symbols are crucially important in their manifestation to people that there
is a change, that there is a new police service and it is a type of police
service that young people in the nationalist community can identify with.
Now that's what I'm asking people to realise. That is one element of
it and I believe if we could get a position where there is agreement about
the policing board, I believe that in effect we can possibly, possibly
have those matters resolved. But there are other substantive serious matters
deriving from the gaps in the legislation. Those must be dealt with too.
We want to get them done now and I'll tell you exactly why we want to
get them done now, because the worst thing that could possibly happen in
the type of fluid political situation we have is for this all to stall
or to hit the rocks in six months' time, eight months' time, five months'
time because there would be no way back, policing would be enormously damaged,
the political process would take a hit, a huge hit in relation to this
and we would not get the policing issue resolved. So what I again repeat
- let's get down, as we are doing with the British Government and with
the other parties, let's see how we can resolve these matters so that when,
if the SDLP can go onto that policing board, it does it for good, it does
it for real and does it in such a way that it can effect the change we
need.
HUMPHRYS: You say, 'does it for
good' but could you not join the board for a trial period, let's say three
months, and say, 'look, these are the things we want sorted out because
there are practical things as well as the principled things that talked
about there. If they are not sorted out during that time then we will
leave'. So you can test their will if you like and if you're satisfied
that everything is going to be fine. But you run great risks at this stage
by not joining the board at all don't you? That's the danger.
MALLON: But let me tell you the
danger of the course that you're possibly suggesting. It is this: That
will do exactly to the process of policing what the Ulster Unionist Party
has done to the political process. Pulling out, leaving it, threatening
to leave it, weakening it, that is not an option in my view, because that
would have an enormously damaging effect on the psychology of policing.
It would actually, in my view wreck the entire political process and it
would damage the collectivity that's needed within the yes parties to actually
sustain the Good Friday Agreement. Now it is a very easy option for the
SDLP, it's very attractive you know because, you'd get yourself out from
under the pressure and you have some kind of escape hatch. But I happen
to believe, and I take this matter so seriously, I believe there isn't
an escape hatch on this. I think policing is so central to any society,
that especially a society like ours that's divided, that in effect there
cannot be the luxury of escape hatches, one minute we're out, one minute
we're threatening to leave, one minute we leave, then how do we get back?
How do you get things back on the rails? And I think if there's one good
thing, and I hope there'll be many good things come out of the present
negotiations is the realisation by others, and I include the government's,
that that option is one actually which would be totally debilitating for
the political parties, certainly for the political process, and most definitely
for the prospects of good policing.
HUMPHRYS: But it sounds from what
you're saying as though there is the very real possibility that this Board,
the Police Board, will not be set up by April. Is that what you're suggesting?
MALLON: Well, that's a matter of
how we get the resolution within the next week, ten days.
HUMPHRYS: Well, what's your view.
I mean, do you believe it's going to happen, at this stage?
MALLON: It could happen. I want
it to happen quickly, because I know the steps that are involved here,
in terms of getting stability within the entire political process, I want
that to happen. We have put, I believe, very reasonable requests to the
Prime Minister and the Secretary of State, we are waiting for their response
to it, and when we get that response we know how seriously they are taking
the reality of our position. Let me put it this way again, the easiest
thing would have been for the SDLP is at any point, maybe two months, three
months ago, say, 'yeah sure, here are three people for the Policing Board,
but if things don't go well, we'll take them off, and we have that type
of option.' Now I don't believe that's an option. We want to do this
seriously, we want to do it well, and we want to do it for good, for that
reason, we must get it right.
HUMPHRYS: Seamus Mallon, thank
you very much indeed.
And that's it for
this week. I'll be talking to the Transport Minister, Lord MacDonald next
Sunday, for those of you on the Internet, don't forget about our web-site,
until the same time next week, good-afternoon.
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