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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE:
28.01.01
JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. We're
told that Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson are now at war over Mr Mandelson's
resignation. Does that give the Tories new hope? I'll be talking to Ann
Widdecombe. Has the government ditched its promise to get us out of our
cars and onto public transport? I'll be asking the Transport Minister.
And how can we pay the bills for our public services if politicians keep
promising to cut our taxes? That's after the news read by George Alagiah.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: Britain's roads are seizing
up... will they get much worse now the government's stopped promising
to reduce traffic?
GWYNETH DUNWOODY: "Anybody who suggests that somehow
or other by just letting everybody rely all the time on the combustion
engine is producing a recipe for total chaos in the final analysis."
HUMPHRYS: We're promised lower tax
bills. Very nice too... but what happens when the bills for all the public
services are presented?
JOHN HUMPHRYS: Tony Blair might have
hoped that the Mandelson resignation and all its ramifications would have
been fading away by this weekend. Quite the opposite. And if he wants to
find the reason he need talk only to his own Press Secretary Alastair Campbell.
Mr Campbell gave a briefing to journalists that's been interpreted as an
extraordinary attack on Peter Mandelson. Mr Mandelson himself has written
a piece for the Sunday Times in which he says he was "forced" from the
Cabinet and had never done anything wrong. The Conservatives must be hugging
themselves with glee. The Shadow Home Secretary is Ann Widdecombe.
Miss Widdecombe, Peter
Mandelson says he was forced from government, hadn't done anything to deserve
it - do you accept that?
ANN WIDDECOMBE MP: I just feel completely baffled
by the whole business. No senior minister, particularly that senior a minister,
has to resign because he had a memory lapse about an entirely innocuous
conversation. If that is what has happened, then we would all say, what
is this about, what is going on in government, what is Blair doing, what
is Alastair Campbell, who is afterall a Civil Servant, what is he doing.
What is going on? And that I think we need to know. But above all, from
my point of view, as Shadow Home Secretary, where my responsibilities in
all of this are concentrated, I want to know what happened after that telephone
conversation had taken place.
HUMPHRYS: The telephone conversation
with Mike O'Brien, the Home Office Minister.
WIDDECOMBE: Indeed, so when Mike O'Brien,
Home Office Minister, put down his telephone after that conversation with
Peter Mandelson, what happened next and was there any link between either
that conversation or the million pounds, or anything else and the final
very speeded up granting of citizenship. Now we are entitled to ask those
questions. I think we must all keep our heads, we can't get to a stage
where we paralyse representation and say you must never mention to anybody
anything at all. We can't get to that stage. But we do need to ask if
there is a serious link between the final decision and the speed at which
it took place and the dealings between the Hindujas and Mandelson.
HUMPHRYS: Do you accept at least
the possibility that he didn't do anything wrong?
WIDDECOMBE: Well he insists that he did
not. Now as I say, if he didn't, if this was really, a totally harmless
conversation, there is a way to establish that straightaway. The record
of that conversation, because a civil servant will have made a note, a
record of that conversation can be placed in the public domain. That can
be established right away.
HUMPHRYS: He says he's happy to
appear before the enquiry, indeed he wants to appear before the enquiry.
WIDDECOMBE: Mr Mandelson will probably
have no choice but to appear before the enquiry. But as I say, I think
most people will be feeling baffled today. Either he did something seriously
wrong or he did not. If he did something seriously wrong then clearly he
should have resigned but now we need all the facts out in the open. If
he did not do something seriously wrong, then what is going on in the Blair
government. I mean what exactly is taking place and why all these briefings.
HUMPHRYS: Well what the briefers,
including Mr Campbell, are saying is that he was sort of temporarily unfocused,
he lost it for the moment and you know these things happen, that's the
sort of implication isn't it.
WIDDECOMBE: Well the fact that you have
a temporary memory lapse. If every time a minister had a memory lapse he
had to resign there wouldn't be anybody on the government benches. I mean
that is clearly a nonsense but also I think this enquiry now needs to broaden
its terms. We've had a lot of allegations today about another minister,
in the papers.
HUMPHRYS: Keith Vaz.
WIDDECOMBE: I don't presume to take a view
as to the truth or otherwise of those allegations, I wouldn't dream of
doing so, I don't think we must now get wild about this. But what I do
know is that also has got to be cleared up and therefore we haven't had
so far published the terms of reference of this enquiry and I think whatever
happens they must be broadened to look at all the circumstances surrounding
the Hindujas and government. I think that is the only way we are going
to get the complete truth, which may vindicate the people concerned or
it may indict them but it has to be one or the other. We have to know what
the truth is.
HUMPHRYS: You say the Hindujas
and government. The fact is the Hindujas have met an awful lot of people,
including a party thrown by the Hindujas for your own leader, William Hague.
WIDDECOMBE: I don't have any problem with
people meeting others. I've been into prisons in this country and met some
pretty people rum people I can assure you.
HUMPHRYS: Well that's slightly
different...
WIDDECOMBE: ..well I don't have a problem
with meeting - I mean in public life you meet pretty well anybody who's
playing a major part, that happens. I never condemn anybody just for having
a meeting. But the question is what happens next and that is the question
in the Mandelson/O'Brien chain - what happened next? Now for example, one
extraordinary thing is that they appear to be claiming that they were just
talking to Mandelson about a change in policy and yet - that change in
policy hadn't been announced. It wasn't announced for another month. There
are extraordinary things like that that I think we do actually need to
know what was going on. And any government that has nothing to hide would
welcome us knowing what was going on.
HUMPHRYS: You say, quite rightly,
that politicians meet all sorts of people all the time. But, it is a fact
that rich and powerful people have an access to politicians, whether they
be leaders of the opposition or whether they be members of the Cabinet
that most of us don't have.
WIDDECOMBE: Well I think that we have to
be grown up about this. I mean it's quite obvious that where you've got
major players, very big captains of industry, people who are playing a
major part, it could even be in a charity, it could be anything at all,
but where you've got very major players, they are going to want to make
representations on behalf of their organisation or whatever it may be,
from time to time. That's...
HUMPHRYS: And they are going to
be listened to because they are rich.
WIDDECOMBE: Well no, not necessarily, that's
why I'm saying you mustn't paralyse representation, but what you must always
do and what we have always sought to do in British politics, whether it
be the Civil Service or politicians, we have always sought to keep a very
clear line between listening and acting with strings attached. I mean the
reason that the Prime Minister had so many questions to answer about the
Ecclestone affair, was not that there was an exemption for Formula One,
but that there was an exemption for Formula One following a large donation.
Now, those are the sorts of questions we have to address ourselves to.
We have to keep clear heads, this is not about the ability of people to
make representations on their or somebody else's behalf. This is about
corruption, it is about a favour in return for a particular decision. That's
got to be wrong.
HUMPHRYS: You mean it may be about
corruption, because...
WIDDECOMBE: ...the questions are about
that. The questions are about that...
HUMPHRYS: ...because...
WIDDECOMBE: ...no indeed, I mean I've been
very careful to say throughout that the enquiry might vindicate everybody
in sight - we don't know. But on the other hand, it may not. But the
question is about, was there a favour given in return for, in this case,
money? But, those are the sorts of questions we have to ask and they're
different.
HUMPHRYS: You say, yeah, of course,
rich and powerful people are going to want access to politicians for all
sorts of entirely obvious reasons, but would it not be sensible for politicians
of all stripes to say, look, let's insulate ourselves from these from these
suspicions. I mean, you in the Conservative Party for instance, if you've
got a thousand pounds plus, I realise, I read this morning in the newspapers,
you can join this thing called The Treasurer's Club, and you're guaranteed,
it seems, a meeting with a Shadow Minister, well a Shadow Cabinet Member.
Well, I mean, that isn't right, surely? It means if you haven't got a
thousand pounds, you can't meet the Shadow Cabinet Minister, well that's
no right is it?
WIDDECOMBE: ...well no, it doesn't follow
at all because...
HUMPHRYS: ...well, you probably
won't be able to...
WIDDECOMBE; ...a cat can look at a King
in this country and anybody can approach those Shadow Cabinet Ministers
and they do...
HUMPHRYS: A cat can look at a King,
he can't necessarily
sit down and have a meeting with a King.
WIDDECOMBE: ...ah well, no, again, that
is completely untrue. I mean, anybody can approach me, I can't see all...
HUMPHRYS: ...so why charge them
a thousand quid for the privilege then?
WIDDECOMBE: ...no, this is straight-forwardly
a fund-raising exercise, all parties have fund-raising exercises...
HUMPHRYS: ...doesn't it worry you
a bit though?
WIDDECOMBE: No. No, what would worry me,
it doesn't worry me that people who have made huge successes of things
and who are very influential players should meet Ministers from time to
time, because the fact is you cannot insulate yourself, or, you get accused
of not listening. No wonder politicians have got this policy wrong. They
wouldn't meet me, they don't listen. Now how often do we hear that. So
you've got to have a balance and the preservers of that balance are the
Civil Service. And if meetings are always transparent, are always done
in the proper fashion with a note being taken, that is a politician's protection
and it is the protection of standards in this country and that's what this
enquiry is about, were those standards breached? Let's keep clear heads,
that is what the question is.
HUMPHRYS: Ann Widdecombe, many
thanks.
HUMPHRYS: We'll be returning
to that subject before the end of the programme but first, transport.
The government once had a grand vision for transport in this country.
We would use our cars less and public transport would be so improved that
we would travel on the trains and buses instead. There would be fewer
traffic jams and less pollution from all those cars. What a wonderful
thought on these congested islands of ours. But it hasn't happened. Quite
the opposite indeed. I'll be talking to the Transport Minister, Lord MacDonald,
after this report from Paul Wilenius.
PAUL WILENIUS: Travelling around Britain
in Victorian times may have seemed slow. But now 100 years after Queen
Victoria's death, too often it seems little faster. Instead of having
a modern transport system fit for the twenty-first century, it appears
to be caught in a bygone era.
Four years ago Labour promised to drag transport out of the dark ages.
There was a grand vision to persuade motorists out of their cars and back
on to buses and trains. But now transport experts and Labour MPs fear
that great dream has been blown off course.
The seaside town of Hastings was once teeming with Victorian holidaymakers.
Now it has to put up with hordes of less welcome visitors, traffic. When
he came to power John Prescott pledged to tackle the jams, with congestion
charging, and work place parking taxes, while Gordon Brown increased fuel
prices and stopped spending on new road schemes. It seemed bad news for
drivers.
EDMUND KING: When they first came to power
there were some simplistic assumptions that all you need to do is improve
public transport and then the roads will get clearer, there'll be less
congestion. I think they've realised that that's really not the case;
that some ninety-four per cent of passenger journeys are dependent on the
car.
WILENIUS: The big problem for the
government is that in many areas, like here on the South Coast, the rail
system appears rundown. This small station in Hastings looks shabby and
dirty. But Labour urgently needs to make the rail system more attractive
to motorists, with private sector investment in new trains and stations.
Even before the Hatfield crash when passenger numbers were up, many local
people were staying away from the aging trains.
MICHAEL FOSTER MP: Well we're a historic town,
and indeed certainly our trains are. And we've got rolling stock that's
forty years old. I mean in fact people going on the trains are younger
than, than the rolling stock.
WILENIUS: John Prescott had hoped
that a Transport Bill would be rushed through early in the Parliament,
to excite passengers with his grand vision of a rail renaissance. But
like these trains in East Sussex, it was beset with delays.
Transport was not seen as a top priority, and combined with a cap on spending
for two years this starved Prescott of cash and legislation. This means
the new Strategic Rail Authority, which has the job of reviving the ailing
network, will only get under way with its full powers this week.
RICHARD BRANSON: Ninety per cent of all delays
are down to the track, the track has not been renewed, most of it for twenty-five,
thirty years, and it is, you know, largely worn out. Railtrack have got
this enormous programme of trying to fix the track.
SIR ALASTAIR MORTON: We have a Railtrack that has
been found to be less than fully fit for purpose, we have a delivery industry
the transport operators that carry the passengers and the freight, that
have been found to be hard pressed between the lack of capacity and performance
in the network and the demands of a growing market. We have a need for
funding that the sources of which in the future are not yet fully clarified.
So we've been given some rather hard lessons - we're like a puppy having
our nose rubbed in something.
WILENIUS: Question marks were raised
about Railtrack's performance by rail crashes at Southall and Ladbroke
Grove. But the chaos that followed the Hatfield crash has shaken passenger
confidence. Now On The Record has found out that the Health and Safety
Executive is investigating the use by Railtrack at Hatfield of specially
hardened track. Ministers confirmed that Railtrack has stopped fitting
this type of track while the inquiry goes on.
DALE CAMPBELL-SAVOURS: Rail Track purchased this hardened,
heat-treated rail, simply because they were going to save money in the
long term. They believed it would last longer, but of course it required
a higher element of maintenance, and it's there where they made the cuts,
and that's why of course we've had this problem at Hatfield.
From what I'm told from people in the industry, Rail Track have clearly
fitted the wrong kind of track. What they should have fitted was bog standard
rail which we produce in Workington, instead of this hardened heat-treated
rail.
WILENIUS: The lack of confidence
in the rail system is making it even less likely that drivers like Chris
Lee will get out of her car. And the government now seems to agree with
her, and is heeding the motorists' cry.
CHRIS LEE: You have to live with
a car because the buses, the trains are, well the trains are pretty awful
everywhere admittedly, but down here on the Hastings route they're particularly
bad.
WILENIUS: Before the election expected
in May, Ministers are backing down to the motorists and truckers. There
will further cuts in fuel duties and taxes on small cars, and congestion
charges and car parking taxes will be slow in coming into force.
KING: What's changed is
that the emphasis, the realism, has actually changed with Lord MacDonald,
and he said yes, we've got to improve public transport, but at the same
time we can't ignore the road system - most of our trucks go on the road
system; a majority of traffic, no matter what you do to the railways, will
still be on the road system.
WILENIUS: The train journey from
Hastings to London is no faster than it was in the age of steam. Now environmentalists
and senior Labour figures want Tony Blair to get his transport policy back
on track. The rail crisis could even affect the party in some marginal
seats, but above all they feel that radical action is vital to save his
fading transport dream.
The government is promising to pour lots more money into the transport
problem. One-hundred-and-eighty billion pounds is pledged for the ten-year
transport plan, with twenty-nine billion pounds of taxpayers money for
rail. But some experts say they won't get value for money unless the Strategic
Rail Authority stands up strongly for passengers.
STEPHEN JOSEPH: The Strategic Rail Authority
isn't being tough enough in terms of the standards it's actually demanding
from the train operators themselves. We've been arguing that there should
be firm minimum standards for running train services in this country, that
standards in relation to information, to security at stations, to accessibility,
to fares and ticketing structures to try and simplify those.
SIR ALASTAIR MORTON: I very much think that the
SRA is part of the industry. We're on the public sector side of the fence
but this is an industry that will go forward as a public/private partnership
within the industry. So the SRA should be seen as part of the industry,
not as a sub-department of the government machine or in any sense political.
WILENIUS: Getting worried passengers
back into deserted carriages is the immediate problem. But in the longer
term, Railtrack is still Labour's biggest headache. There's growing pressure
from Labour MPs for the government to consider taking more control, or
removing it from private ownership altogether.
GWYNETH DUNWOODY MP: Railtrack must know it's on a probationary
period, and how it performs in the next year or so will determine its future.
But it may be that in the future the electorate will say we would like
a non-profit making trust because we'd like to make sure that all the money
goes into the system.
WILENIUS: Yet this would be fiercely
opposed by private business and the rail authorities.
BRANSON: I think you know what
the rail industry needs now is actually a period of stability, it needs
a chance for us to get on and you know get our new trains in, to motivate
our staff, it needs Railtrack to get on and get that track sorted out.
MORTON: The idea of the government
stake -well I in my time, because I've been round a while, I've been on
the boards of nationalised industries, British Steel at one time for example,
and I haven't noticed that the government stake served any useful purpose
other than allowing the government to be blamed for absolutely everything.
MICHAEL FOSTER: If the government are prepared
to put in the money, which they are, then I think that may be that we need
a seat at the table as well, perhaps by shareholding, perhaps by government
directors, but certainly we need to have the public interest involved in
Railtrack decisions.
WILENIUS: There's anger over the
government's new car friendly policies. And protesters against the Northern
bypass around Hastings have the Deputy Prime Minister in their sights.
They're upset most of the eleven miles of the new road would ruin this
beautiful area. John Prescott has promised not build his way out of congestion,
but now Labour plans to spend fifty-four billion pounds on road building
in the next decade. So, can you tell me, what, what is this, what is this?
UNNAMED WOMAN: This is part of the High Weald,
which is an area of outstanding natural beauty, which is a national designation
to show the value of the landscape here and it's going to be completely
devastated by the new bypasses if they're built
WILENIUS: Ministers may give the
go ahead for one-hundred new road projects over the next ten years, provoking
fierce argument.
FOSTER: Both the by-pass, and indeed
the A21 improvements are key to the town's future. I mean it's said that
William only won the Battle of Hastings because Harold couldn't get down
the A21 in time. But, so the roads are just awful, as indeed is the rail
system. But that by-pass is key to our, our success.
DUNWOODY: Roads aren't the answer. Roads
never have been the answer. They are one part of a complicated system.
Anybody who suggests that somehow or other by just letting everybody rely
all the time on the combustion engine is producing a recipe for total chaos
in the final analysis.
WILENIUS: The anti-road protesters
gather support in the town centre for a petition to stop the by-pass around
Hastings. They want to force John Prescott to return to his grand vision,
reducing congestion by cutting traffic levels rather than building new
roads. But even as they deliver a symbolic piece of the threatened fields
to the local museum, it's clear his ten-year transport plan will do the
opposite.
ACTUALITY.
JOSEPH: I think a lot of people
would say we don't want seventeen per cent more traffic on the roads, we
want to be able to go outside our door without feeling we are about to
be run down. And particularly we don't want our kids to be out there with
so much extra traffic, but the government's decided that congestion is
the key problem, traffic isn't an issue and I think that's the real retreat
that we've seen.
WILENIUS: Labour promised a new
direction for transport. But in reality very little has changed. Traffic
levels are rising and rail still seems to be stuck in the past. And there
are fears money alone will not deliver improvements, either big enough
or fast enough, to tempt people back on to the trains and out of their
cars.
HUMPHRYS: Paul Wilenius reporting
there.
JOHN HUMPHRYS: Lord MacDonald, John Prescott
said that if he did not get fewer car journeys in this country within five
years, then he would have failed. It's going in the opposite direction,
so therefore you've failed. Right?
LORD MACDONALD: No, I don't accept that John, because
you can argue about the nuance of it but we were talking about reduction
and the rate of change and the number of cars on the road were going up
in past periods at eight per cent in the previous administration, four
per cent in the early nineteen-nineties.
Now, in the last couple
of years it has been reduced to a two per cent growth and in the year 2000,
last year, it was down to one per cent. So I reckon that's progress and
what we've said is, we're not concerned about the number of cars owned
per head because in European...
HUMPHRYS: ...no, not in ownership,
I accept that...
LORD MACDONALD: ...because people can own more
cars and use them less.
HUMPHRYS: ...but that's the whole
point...
LORD MACDONALD: ...and that's what we're trying
to do...
HUMPHRYS: ...and that is the whole
point and what he said and I don't think it is a matter of nuance, I've
spoken to him about it several times myself, he was asked about it in the
House by Tom Brake, who put the quote to him, the quote in which he said
"reducing the overall number of journeys made by car" and Mr Prescott said,
and I quote his answer from the House "I agree to commitment - judge my
performance in five years". There's absolutely no question about what
he meant, he said it so many times.
LORD MACDONALD: Well Mr Prescott said in his Transport
White Paper in July '98 we need to reduce the rate of road traffic...
HUMPHRYS: ...he might have said
that as well at some stage, but there is absolutely no question about what
he...
LORD MACDONALD: ...this is a White Paper we also
want to see an absolute reduction in traffic in those places and streets
where environmental damage is worse. Now, more importantly, let me come
round to the Commission for Integrated Transport which reports to John
Prescott...
HUMPHRYS: ..Yes, whose boss is
Willy Rickett and who says he never said it.
LORD MACDONALD: No, their boss is actually Professor
Begg.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but the civil servant
in charge of it is Willy Rickett.
LORD MACDONALD: Well, the Commission for Integrated
Transport says no country in the world has cut traffic in absolute terms
while its economy is growing. And what they advised was that it wasn't
about the overall rate of traffic, it was about congestion and pollution,
the bad things that come from traffic, not about necessarily reducing the
number of cars...
HUMPHRYS: ...so John Prescott was
being unrealistic when he made that promise.
LORD MACDONALD: I think he was being realistic
in saying that we want to reduce the rate of growth...
HUMPHRYS: He didn't say that. "I
will have failed if in five years there are not..." - listen "there are
not many more people using public transport and far fewer journeys by car.
It's a tall order, but I want you to hold me to it." He said that.
LORD MACDONALD: Well let's just...it came up also
in your report there previously. There are more people using public transport.
If you look at the railways, it's up seventeen per cent...
HUMPHRYS: ...well, I want to come
back to railways in a minute...
LORD MACDONALD: ...right, so that's gone up. The
decline in buses....and it went down after that privatisation which ended
up like in a wild west frontier on our roads as far as the buses were concerned
in the eighties, we've stopped the decline in the number of bus journeys,
we've got eighteen-hundred more services every day amongst rural buses
alone. We've got, what is it, I think, fourteen-hundred new rail services
every day, so we have increased the number of people travelling on public
transport and the rate of growth of traffic is down from eight per cent
in Tory times to one per cent last year...
HUMPHRYS: ...well, I'm going to
have to argue with that as well I'm afraid. Your ten year plan and this
is after spending a massive of money, your ten
year plan, predicts that traffic levels will rise by seventeen per cent
by the year 2010.
Now it has, over the last ten years, been rising at fifteen per cent,
so on that basis too, you will have failed on your own figures.
LORD MACDONALD: Not at all, what we were saying...
HUMPHRYS: ...well they're your
figures...
LORD MACDONALD: ...no...
HUMPHRYS: ...I didn't make them
up!
LORD MACDONALD: Our figures say that they will
go up and that we reckon...
HUMPHRYS: ...by seventeen per cent...
LORD MACDONALD: ...it's up one per cent, seventeen
per cent, but you...
HUMPHRYS: ...over ten years...
LORD MACDONALD: ...you don't relate the reduction
in congestion. What I said earlier, it's congestion and pollution that
count John...
HUMPHRYS: ...so what are all these
cars doing, when they...
are they not adding to congestion? They're trundling around the roads
and streets of our country...
LORD MACDONALD: I hope they're flowing around more
freely, because again, as you said in your report, we're going to spend
more in reducing the bottlenecks in the roads and widening motorways and
creating by-passes. But of the hundred-and-eighty billion in our ten-year
plan, two-thirds of that goes in public transport and of the
money going on the roads, thirty billion of it, half the money going on
the roads is going to improve local roads.
HUMPHRYS: I've heard some rewriting
of promises but this takes the biscuit! I mean, Jonathan Porritt, the
man that Tony Blair put in charge of the Sustainable Develop Commission,
he says, "we are not moving forward on transport policy," and I quote again,
"we're moving backwards". And he's absolutely right. You told us there
would be a reduction in car use. We are going to see, not just an increase
in car use of seventeen per cent, after all this money has been spent,
but we are actually going to see a bigger increase in car use than we have
been seeing.
LORD MACDONALD: Well, Jonathan Porritt with respect
to him is an outside advisor. I don't think he's up-to-speed in a lot
of the aspects of our transport policy...
HUMPHRYS: ...well he's been working
in this area for a lot longer than you have...
LORD MACDONALD: ...well he's been working with....
HUMPHRYS: ...I mean he's been doing
it for about thirty years...
LORD MACDONALD: ...but some of things that he's
said about our transport policy simply don't chime with our understanding
of them. Let me say, we've got one-hundred-and-eighty billion going into
Transport and we've made a lot of progress. If you take buses for instance,
we have eight-thousand new buses came on last year, we'll have forty-thousand
new buses in the time of this government, that'll be about half the bus
fleet has been renewed...
HUMPHRYS: But it doesn't deal with
this essential problem, that we are going to see more, rather than less,
car use. And you may rubbish old Jonathan Porritt who was appointed as
I said, by the Prime Minister himself, but he says, a hundred-and-eighty-billion
pounds, which is what you're going to be spending and you'll be proudly
spending all that money, one hell of a lot of money, for one very small
policy outcome.
LORD MACDONALD: And I think he's utterly wrong.
And let me say that what we are talking about at the end of that ten years
is a reduction in congestion across the country of five per cent...
HUMPHRYS: ...you've moved the goal
posts then...
LORD MACDONALD: ...no, a bigger reduction in congestion
in cities or towns where they want to introduce other measures to control
traffic. We've made monies available on a scale they've never seen before
for local transport plans and that includes eight-thousand plans for road
safety, just in the local transport plans alone announced in December,
it's about park-and-ride schemes across the country, it's about twenty-five
new tram lines, metro lines in the big cities of England, so there's an
enormous amount going in at local level, as well as the money going into
rail, and as I say, roads make up only one-third of it, but it's very important
that we try to get our roads flowing more freely.
HUMPHRYS: May I make the point
that one-third of a-hundred-and-eighty-billion pounds is a huge amount
of money isn't it? By anybody's standards, even when it's only poor old
taxpayers' money.
LORD MACDONALD: Absolutely.
HUMPHRYS: And what is actually
going on here is this. You led us to believe, John Prescott led us to
believe that you were going to be very tough on the motorist and as a result
of being tough, some carrots as well as sticks admittedly, but as a result
of both carrot and stick, we would see this reduction in car use. Absolutely
no question about that. That is no longer the ambition. What he said,
what John Prescott said was we cannot build our way out of this problem.
Again, he said that to me, personally, on this programme, sitting in the
exact seat that you're sitting in now, last July, we cannot build our way
out of this problem. That is exactly what you are going to do and even
having spent all of that money, even having spent all of that money, we
are still going to see big increases in car use. Extraordinary business.
LORD MACDONALD: Not at all. The Deputy Prime Minister
says, and I quote him, that we should focus on the targets and policies,
and the outcomes we want to achieve, the reduction in congestion and pollution
rather than a national plan ...
HUMPHRYS: And have you forgotten
the bit where he said the reduction in car journeys and car use?
LORD MACDONALD: Well what he said is that we will
reduce those where that's most necessary inside towns and .......
HUMPHRYS: But congestion...
LORD MACDONALD: Well it is congestion.
HUMPHRYS: Even congestion will
rise by ten per cent.
LORD MACDONALD: John, you said that a hundred-and-eighty
billion was a huge sum of money. It's far more than anybody expected at
the start of this year, and that's because the Chancellor, prudent though
he may be, has put the country in a position where we've got far more in
terms of investment in every mode of travel than would have been dreamed
a year ago.
HUMPHRYS: In spite of that we're
seeing more car use and more congestion - seventeen per cent more car use,
ten per cent more congestion. What is going on here?
LORD MACDONALD: I'll tell you what is going on.
If you put a million extra people in jobs as we have done then they have
to travel to their work. What you're getting is through the general prosperity
that we're generating you're getting an increase in the number of people
travelling on public transport, there's say seventeen per cent up on trains,
an increase of seven per cent a year in the number of people travelling
by air inside the United Kingdom, a decline ended in bus travel. We're
now seeing bus travel going up ten-twenty per cent in the hundred and thirty
cities and towns across England where they now have these quality partnerships
that we've put in place, so what you're seeing is money and better strategy
and better management I believe going into ...
HUMPHRYS: Well, what we're seeing,
of course what we're seeing is a new policy, because you've abandoned the
old strategy, the old ambitions, and we're seeing a new policy, and the
reason is, I'm sure you're right. The reason is that lots of people love
it because it means they can build roads, it means that industry is going
to be very happy about it, because of course industry likes seeing roads
built. A lot of people don't like seeing roads built.
LORD MACDONALD: No, you'll get better roads, but
you'll have them based on a much more environmentally sensitive system,
and we've now got five criteria in place to make sure that the environmental
damage is very constrained and only allowed where it's necessary, and we've
also got consultation systems in where English Heritage, English Nature,
the Countryside Agency, the Environment Agency all have to be consulted
under our new criteria for the environment.
HUMPHRYS: You've turned down one
scheme out of seventy-four.
LORD MACDONALD: They don't bring them forward now
if they're going to be damaging.
HUMPHRYS: Well, let's have a look
at the railways. You told us, you promised us that we would have better
public transport. You told me about buses at some length, so let's take
buses out of the equation for a moment and look at the railways, and the
fact is and I don't believe there is a single person watching this programme
who would argue with the statement that I am about to make possibly except
Richard Branson, and I doubt even he, the railways are in a considerably
worse mess than they were four years ago. Would you argue with that?
LORD MACDONALD: I put it in context. They are
in a crisis at the moment, and it's a crisis that we're trying to manage,
and I ...
HUMPHRYS: You acknowledge that
there is a crisis.
LORD MACDONALD: Oh, absolutely. There's been a
crisis since Hatfield and I meet twice a week with - chairing a group,
an action group for the whole industry to get them back on track, and we're
hoping that this weekend the promises that have been made about their
return to eighty-five per cent of normal services running will be fulfilled
by the train operating companies. And also I'm delighted to say that
the passengers have come back. For instance in the last month in the London
area, the London commuters it's actually up five per cent, five per cent
higher in the last month than it was in the same period last year, which
is quite extraordinary given the problems that we've had. So, yes we
hope that we will get the passengers back there, but we accept that there
is a big job to be done, but where we have improved things there's all
the activity that we've had in safety for instance. The number of derailments
and collisions is the lowest it's ever been on records, the number of signals
passed at danger, we've brought them down over the last year. We've been
very tough I think on safety. What we're dealing with is a crisis of under-investment
here. We really had decades of neglect on the rail, so where there's been
that neglect we have again to invest. Where there's been I think... stagnation
we've got to expand and most importantly where's there's been fragmentation
after the industry was literally broken into a hundred pieces by privatisation
we've got to bring coherence and leadership.. That's what the SRA the
Strategic Rail Authority is in place to do it.
HUMPHRYS: But what you said the
last time you where in this studio was that it would be back to normal
services, would be back to normal by the end of January, the beginning
of February. Well we are there and they're not.
LORD MACDONALD: Well, we're back to, as I say,
I am anticipating that they'll tell us that they're at least eighty-five
per cent back to normal by this weekend.and we're also looking at a return
of passengers. The number of passengers are much higher than people had
anticipated would return after the kind or crisis that we've had.
HUMPHRYS: It doesn't feel as if
we are back to normal does it. I mean if you're a passenger, I know a
lot of it is anecdotal of course, but you can't speak to anybody, well
I don't seem to be able to speak to anybody who doesn't say that it is
absolutely hell out there. You know, the journey that would have taken
two hours takes three- three-and-a-half hours, and so and so on and so
on and so on.
MACDONALD: Well, you have to remember that
one of the problems we're dealing with, and that's why we're investing
so much money is that before Hatfield, only about eighty-five per cent
of the trains ran on time. I had three train journeys last week, all three
of them were pretty much on time to ...
HUMPHRYS: ...perhaps they knew
you were on the train, ha, ha, did you tell them ahead of time?
MACDONALD: ...I didn't, no, it was Southampton,
Leeds and the Heathrow Express, so, I think anecdotally I also hear it's
getting, it's getting back to normal, but you've got to be careful with
that, because of the fifteen per cent of people who aren't at normal have
every right still to be angry, so we're going to press on and try and make
sure that the promise that it'll all be sorted by Easter, is kept.
HUMPHRYS: Gwyneth Dunwoody says
Railtrack is on probation. Do you accept that?
MACDONALD: Well I think that what we need
is more money coming from government and the private sector and Railtrack,
but also better management and we've ...
HUMPHRYS: ...more still? More
money than is included in the ten-year plan.
MACDONALD: No, the ten-year plan I think
has money there, unallocated monies as well, I think sixty-billion is what
we're predicating in the ten-year plan that we're going to, to rail but
about twenty-nine billion of that will come from the public sector, so
we want to see the private sector investing alongside us. The train operating
companies like Richard Branson's, as well Railtrack, and indeed City investors.
So it's a big programme of investment that's in prospect. Railtrack have
to prove that they can manage that. I think they would accept it that
management hasn't been what it might have been and it should get better.
HUMPHRYS: And if they can't prove
that they're capable of managing it, or as good as is needed, are you open
as to whether the government takes a bigger hand in it, whatever system
you use, whether it's some kind of trust, whether it's some kind of golden
share, whatever it is, are you open to that possibility? Gwyneth Dunwoody
again clearly thinks you should be.
MACDONALD: We're not looking at that possibility.
HUMPHRYS: Even if they make a pig's
ear of it. Even if Railtrack continue to make a pig's ear of it?
MACDONALD: I believe in concentrating on
the problem in hand, and that's about building confidence in this industry,
and co-operation, and better co-ordination, because it was fragmented by
privatisation, broken into literally a-hundred pieces. Now what we need
is better management from Railtrack. I'll try to encourage them in every
way that I can and encourage the relationships with other parts
of the, of the industry.
HUMPHRYS: But you don't I mean,
you're not waving a stick at them here are you? I mean, there is no particular
incentive for them, I mean, if they, if they do...
MACDONALD: ...John, there is indeed...
HUMPHRYS: ...you, you can't say,
'cos, you know, if you're ruling out something that a lot of your MPs think
you ought to rule in, and that is the possibility of getting more actively
involved, if you're ruling that out, they can say, ah well, the government
can huff and puff, but at the end of it all they're not going to do anything
are, they, we'll just carry on.
MACDONALD: We'll do more than, than, than
huff and puff.
HUMPHRYS: Well, what?
BOTH SPEAKING TOGETHER
MACDONALD: Well, it's our money going in
there, and it's er...
HUMPHRYS: ...some of it's taxpayers
money...
MACDONALD: Well, it's taxpayers money,
absolutely. And that's why we've got to be extremely careful we get value
for money. But what you have here is a five-billion pound company with
shareholders who if they have a management that aren't delivering for them,
and don't forget that Railtrack are down to lose six-hundred-million pounds,
their shareholders lose that money because of what happened at Hatfield,
then those shareholders will get rid of that management if it's not performing,
and that's the Board's job, they're there to represent the shareholders,
and indeed the stakeholders, like government and passengers, and if the
Board isn't performing, then that too will be shaken up, I'm sure, by the
shareholders.
HUMPHRYS: But John Prescott said
back in ninety-nine that they were on probation then, well if they were
on probation then, they're still on probation now, nothing has improved,
as we've acknowledged, things have got worse.
MACDONALD: Now I believe things have been
improving in recent weeks...
BOTH SPEAKING TOGETHER
HUMPHRYS: ...you said there's a
crisis...
MACDONALD: ...there's a crisis and we've
been managing that crisis and managing it I hope, pretty effectively.
I believe that the targets we set of eighty-five per cent return to normality
by the end of January will be, be met, the, the train operating companies
should be confirming that this weekend.
HUMPHRYS: But here you are, acknowledging
the possibility, as of course you must, looking at it's record, that things
may not get better under Railtrack. I mean, that has to be a possibility,
they may not be up to the job, it's as simple as that, but ruling out even
the possibility, in spite of the fact that it's urged upon you by many
of your back-benchers, by people like Gwyneth Dunwoody, considering the
possibility that you should actually take a bigger part in er Railtrack.
MACDONALD: Those MPs have just put through
a Transport Act which er, gives you a much tougher regulation from the
office of the rail regulator, it gives you a strategic rail authority and
also, I believe, it gives a sense of direction and leadership to the industry
that wasn't there before. Now those MPs put that through. With that Transport
Act in place it's important now that we make sure the money goes into the
railroad, we want to see a fifty per cent increase in the number of passengers
travelling the rail in our ten-year plan, and we want to see an eighty
per cent increase in freight. Now we've already had about five-hundred
new, new vehicles running in the rolling stock, but there are two-thousand
ordered. We want to see those brought on to the railways as quickly as
possible. There are two-and-a-half thousand stations, and most of them
have been refurbished, I've seen some spectacular changes, but also the
difficulties of investment in Leeds, for instance, a-hundred-and-sixty-five
million pound development that has overrun. But we are investing in change
and we will get a better railway because for forty years it's been in decline
and at last the money is going in.
HUMPHRYS: Let me in the last couple
of minutes turn to this other subject that's preoccupying every... well
all the newspapers at least this morning and that is the war between Tony
Blair and Peter Mandelson, as it's now being described. It was quite extraordinary
wasn't it that the Prime Minister's Press Secretary, Alastair Campbell,
should have made the sort of attack on a former minister that he made in
briefings yesterday. Did you not find that a bit strange?
LORD MACDONALD: No I think that Peter laid out
his position on Wednesday and that's a position that the Prime Minister
confirmed. Sir Anthony Hammond is going in to carry out an enquiry. That
enquiry should be in weeks rather than in months and obviously...
HUMPHRYS: No question about the
result before the election, absolutely no question about that?
LORD MACDONALD: Well it's my understanding and
I think it's been stated you know by the press briefings and so on is that
it will be in weeks rather than months and therefore I wait to hear what
Sir Anthony comes through with...
HUMPHRYS: But in the meantime we
have Alastair Campbell going to war on Peter Mandelson, saying the most
extraordinary things for a man who was Secretary of State for Northern
Ireland only a few days ago - unfocused and detached, problem with his
state of mind in recent weeks. Do you not find that a little odd.
LORD MACDONALD: No, I think that Alastair played
I think a very full tribute to Peter and his work in Northern Ireland.
But I think that what Alastair is saying was what the people in the country
will agree with is that there are much more important issues here.
HUMPHRYS: He said rather more than
that, do you not think, I mean would it help to clear this matter up if
the recording that was made of those briefings were to be released so that
we would know precisely what was said because we are having the usual old
thing now aren't we, saying stuff was taken out of context, inspite of
the fact that the journalists involved say they have shorthand notes and
all the rest of it. Should they perhaps..should we not have access to those
recordings so that we can clear it all up. What's your view on that?
LORD MACDONALD: I think Sir Anthony Hammond will
have access to them and he will report to us in good time. I think that
what we are looking at here...
HUMPHRYS: ..sorry, I'm talking
about Alastair Campbell's briefings now, not other things.
LORD MACDONALD: I think what Alastair Campbell
is saying is get back to the real issues - which is jobs, it's education,
it's about health..
HUMPHRYS: ..so why did he launch
that attack on Peter Mandelson in that case?
LORD MACDONALD: He was simply trying to say to
the press, get back to what's important because this is as the Prime Minister
phrased it a "feeding frenzy" by the press...
HUMPHRYS: But he was feeding it
himself, that's exactly what he was not doing, saying let's get back to
normal.
LORD MACDONALD: This is a froth of politics, not
the real issues that I think people in the country care about. So we want
to continue governing and worrying about transport. There are others worrying
about health, about education and this is, as I say, a mindless story in
the context of the big issues that affect us.
HUMPHRYS: Well Lord MacDonald,
thank you very much indeed.
LORD MACDONALD: Thank you John.
HUMPHRYS: There's been a sort of Dutch
auction going on between Labour and the Conservatives over how much tax
we should pay, except that they've been bidding each other down instead
of up. Only yesterday Gordon Brown told us we needed tax cuts in the Budget
in March. But he also said we must spend more on our public services.
That's pretty well what the Tories say as well. Very difficult to see
how those two things can be squared but as Iain Watson reports, it seems
both parties are getting increasingly boxed in by their tax-cutting promises.
IAIN WATSON: Just as a swallow signals
the arrival of summer, the political poster tells you there's an election
on its way. But for those who thought it might all be different this time,
disappointment awaits. At the next election, like 1997, tax and how much
it should be cut, will be a key issue. The Tories feel that tax cuts is
the strongest card, even though they've had to convince a more sceptical
electorate that these won't be at the expense of key public services.
Labour still feel vulnerable on tax. Many of their planned improvements
have yet to be delivered, so people are asking where their money is going.
Indeed, in the wake of the fuel protests, Labour may feel less confident
now than they did in 1997 on the tax issue. And with tax rates set to play
such a central part in the next General Election campaign, future governments
may find it more difficult than ever to convince people to stump up more
tax when it's needed
LORD PLANT: I think given that there is
this public resistance which we acknowledge, it's then very important that
we try to chip away at that, to show the inexorable link that there is
between taxation and higher levels of public service.
GILES RADICE: Obviously a Labour government
has to be very mindful of being criticised for sort of ...being automatically
increasing taxes because that's the traditional right wing attack on a
left of centre government
WATSON: The Nicholls family live
in South East London. Father Phil is about to take their daughter, Lily,
to school; his wife Kim is a childminder. They voted Labour in 1997, believing
that public services would get better. Some Labour backbenchers argue
that families like these would pay higher taxes to fund the improvements
they want to see
MARTIN SALTER: Certainly my experience
as a deputy leader of Reading Borough Council for many years and as a member
of parliament, is that people will tolerate levels of taxation and in some
cases quite high levels of taxation, if they feel that it's being spent
sensibly, being spent wisely, and being spent on services that matter to
them.
WATSON: The school run is almost
complete. But Labour still has some way to go to deliver the improvements
to public services promised in last summer's comprehensive spending review.
Phil Nicholls is happy with the education his daughter Lily receives at
the local primary school, but wants even more to be spent on the next generation.
He's wary about paying tax up front with so few benefits yet to be seen
on the ground
PHIL NICHOLLS: You know pour the money
in for the standards to get better. You know that's great. But when you
just think oh we're pouring the money in, millions and millions and nothing
is really improving, they haven't got a real strategy about it, I think
that's quite dangerous.
DAVID RUFFLEY: It is better for ordinary
families to keep more of the money that they earn to spend or to save,
as they choose, not as the state chooses and I think that is a lesson that
any Chancellor would be very stupid to ignore, particularly on the income
tax side of things. That is the most visible example of the state taking
your money.
WATSON: Labour can't afford to
give the impression that their natural instinct is to put taxes up, for
fear of handing over the initiative in the General Election to the Tories.
So just as in 1997 symbolic commitments not to increase direct tax rates
seem set to stay - even for the better off
RADICE; The Labour government has
committed itself to 40% high rate over the life time of the last parliament
and I think they're probably likely to do the same for the next parliament
and there is an argument for continuity in taxation. I mean what it said,
if you like to the middle classes of England that we are not going to be
a punitively tax raising party. That we're going to escape from the idea
of a Labour government that we're a tax and spend government.
WATSON: So boldness on taxation
won't be on the Labour menu for the next election. But far from looking
for continuity in tax, they are going for cuts. At a conference in London
yesterday, the Chancellor signalled more clearly than ever before that
there will be targeted tax cuts to help working families in his March budget.
And prominent Labour backbenchers are saying done in the right way, this
will help sustain the support of Labour's core vote, as well as providing
symbolic comfort to middle England, too
RADICE: I think that the government
is right to say there is room for targeted tax cuts. There is no doubt
that the low paid, the less well off groups in society, there are things
you can do, in the tax system, and the 10p rate could possibly be extended
so there are things that can be done
WATSON: It's a day of reckoning
for the Nicholls. They like to know exactly how much they've got to spend.
Similar calculations are going on in Downing Street - numbers 10 and 11
- to see how taxes can be cut without giving the impression they're trying
to buy votes. Modest tax cuts for the least well off is thought to be the
Chancellor's favoured option, while the Prime Minister is said to want
to see a wider range of people feeling the benefit of tax reductions.
ANDREW DILNOT: I don't think we necessarily
need to assume that a targeted tax cut is a tax cut that will only affect
a small group of people and that only that one small group might gain.
A targeted tax cut just means something that's targeted at a group that
you want to help, we've had targeted tax cuts aimed at motorists, at small
businesses, at families with children, at the low paid, all of those are
possibilities this time round.
MATTHEW TAYLOR: Labour are backing away from this
idea of general tax cuts and instead talking about targeted tax cuts.
Well what's a target, it appears to be families, it appears to be children,
it appears to be pensioners. It's just another way of describing an attempt
to address the Conservative agenda of the tax burden
WATSON: Kim Nicholls and her young
companions, Isobel and Joseph, are making one of their regular trips to
the local clinic. The Liberal Democrats say that, unlike the other main
parties, they'll support the Health Service by raising the top rate of
tax and give more to schools by putting a penny on the basic rate - if
needed. They say openness with the electorate works and Labour's caution
on tax and spending since 1997 will cost them support this time round.
TAYLOR: I think Labour are in real
difficulties, they're not delivering on public services and because they
won't talk about income tax for historic reasons, they've been forced to
use indirect taxes, which have actually hit the poorest hardest. And this
has disillusioned traditional Labour voters enormously who are either sitting
at home or turning to the Liberal Democrats
WATSON: Recent polls suggest that
Labour's core vote aren't exactly enthusiastic about turning out at the
next election, but support IS holding up in the key marginals which Labour
won in 1997. The party aren't too keen to give the Tories the tax issue
in those seats. So Labour, for reasons of political expediency, are boxed
in on income tax .But their favoured path after the 1997 General Election
- allowing less visible taxes to take the strain - has proved a rather
rockier road recently. Voters are now looking well beyond what Labour says
and does on income tax alone.
Last year's petrol protests
exacted concessions on fuel duty that the Chancellor would rather not have
made and he'll be keen not to make any similar commitments in the manifesto.
But his strategy of tapping more and more sources of revenue, other than
just income tax, is under pressure. People have become more aware than
ever of the taxes they're shelling out.
KIM HOWELLS: Your petrol is high and I
begrudge, one thing I begrudge is filling up the tank. I use the car Monday
to Friday, just doing the school run going to a few local toddler groups
and possibly between twenty and twenty five pounds a week. And that's not
really going anywhere as such.
DAVID RUFFLEY MP: These things are now very very
visible and there could well be and I think it's already started, a problem
with the Chancellor's reputation. But those are problems that are added
to when you look at how little room he's got now, for increasing tax almost
anywhere. The stealth taxes, the gaffe has been blown for Gordon, he can't
really do that again.
JOHN WHITING: I think the fuel duty protests
and all the analysis that was done about that time, which showed how much
of a gallon, litre of petrol went to the government in the form of taxation,
has really got home to a lot of people. It's also made them think well,
what about that bottle of whisky, what about the food that I buy, everything
else, how much am I paying in taxation.
WATSON: No-one likes paying tax,
but raising money from so-called 'sinful' products is often seen as fair
game. So taxing cigarettes and booze attracts less resistance than taxing
petrol. Cars are seen as essential, not luxury items, these days. But
with both alcohol and cigarette duty higher here than on the continent,
smuggling is rife. So the limit may have been reached in taxing our more
pleasurable pursuits.
MARTIN SALTER MP: There is a ceiling that is..
that will be reached, probably is reached already, in respect of that particular
aspect of indirect taxation, because obviously if it starts to fuel the
black economy, then the Treasury ends up cutting its nose to spite its
face.
WATSON: So Labour may have to find
another way out of the tax dilemma and become less dependent on traditional
sources of revenue. With relatively low rates of corporation tax, business
may seem like an easy hit - especially as companies don't get a vote at
election time. But politically, that could signal the end of the line
for the New Labour brand, and practically, could encourage multinationals
to move their investments elsewhere
WHITING: Living in a global economy
means that you have to have regard to the fact that your tax base - in
other words, the people, the businesses that you are trying to tax - might
suddenly start to disappear.
WATSON: Labour are tackling the
tax issue for maximum electoral advantage. But there are fears that they
are perhaps playing to the gallery of public opinion rather than trying
to change attitudes towards taxation. Certainly with a big budget surplus,
there's no immediate need to raise taxes in order to pay for better public
services. Indeed the Chancellor would claim he's banished boom and bust
for ever. but there are those within Labour's own ranks who say the next
election should be used to dispel the notion you can get something for
nothing. Otherwise they could get into trouble in a downturn and bequeath
future governments a very unwelcome legacy.
PLANT: There does come a point
when for the future, we've got to say, look, we want high quality health
care for all our citizens. We've got to invest in high quality education
if were going to be competitive in the world. There is the money to do
that now, but in different economic circumstances, never the less we should
have some kind of under pinning through the tax system, to ensure that
we're going to maintain that sort of quality of provision into the future.
DILNOT: At the moment we're going
to be getting better public services, higher public spending, by increasing
the amount of borrowing, the reason we can do that is at the moment we've
got such a large surplus so we can afford to increase public spending more
quickly than taxes, but you can't do that forever.
WATSON: Reassuring voters such
as Phil Nicholls, who backed Labour in 1997, is a high priority for the
government - especially after the events of the past week. Labour strategists
have no doubt had some sleepless nights and the idea that the government
might risk making the moral case for taxation at this election, has been
consigned to the realms of fantasy. In doing so, the option for future
governments to argue that better public services really do come at a price
could now be closed off.
HUMPHYRS: Iain Watson reporting
there. And that's it for this week. Don't forget our Web site. Until
the same time next week, Good Afternoon.
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