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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE:
03.06.01
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon and welcome
to On The Record and - with only four days to go - the last of our live
election debates. Our studio audience will be putting questions to John
Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister; Michael Ancram, the Chairman of the
Conservative Party and Alan Beith, the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats
and that's after the news read by Nicholas Witchell.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: Thank you Nick. Welcome back.
Well, by this time on Friday it'll be all over and we shall have a new
government. So this is the last of our election debates and our audience
here in the studio will be asking questions on a range of issues - from
the way the health service and our schools should be run to whether our
taxes will have to go up. Answering those questions:the Deputy Prime Minister,
John Prescott; the Chairman of the Conservative Party, Michael Ancram;
and the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Alan Beith. Let me just
remind them that this is a DEBATE and NOT an invitation to make long set-piece
speeches. So if their answers are much more than a minute long at a time
then I may have to cut them off, painful though that will be.
Right, let us now
get on with it. Our first question comes from Douglas Band, who is a software
engineer. Mr Band, your question.
DOUGLAS BAND: Hello, every government has
raised taxes at some point during its term. Under what circumstances would
each of the parties consider putting up taxes in the future.
HUMPHRYS: Alan Beith?
ALAN BEITH: Under the circumstances that
we've set out, namely the crisis in our education, the crisis in our hospitals
which we think requires extra taxation and that's why we've said we're
prepared to put a penny on income tax in order to fund improvement in the
schools, why we've said in advance of the election that we're prepared
to raise the rate of tax of income over a hundred thousand a year, to fifty
p from forty p in order to fund pensions and health improvements and we're
quite clear about that. We also think that the state should give to the
citizen an annual clear statement of what the taxes are going to be, what
they're going to be spent on, what the impact on individuals will be, a
citizen's tax contract with the state year by year and that we need to
be much more open and much clearer about our taxation system.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott?
JOHN PRESCOTT: Well I think we just point
to our record, I think the important thing about tax and spend is that
if you're able to achieve what you wish to spend in public services and
we've been able to do that by getting the balance better than what we inherited.
The economy now is stronger, so instead of paying people to be on the
dole, we've actually got them back at work. We've saved something like
seven billion on interest rates that were being paid for the government
debt services we inherited and we are able to put those into the public
services and at the same time, we cut the basic tax rate. We cut the VAT
on the fuel, so in those circumstances we brought about the lowest tax
rate ever for a long, long time to ten p, so in those circumstances we've
done that. Now we believe on the statement of our economy on the three
year expenditure, the balance between tax and expenditures, we can carry
out the investment in our front-line services, of course, we're at difference
with the Opposition and particularly the Tories who want a twenty billion
cut in that. So we do think you can get a balance as we've done in the
last four years, we can do in the next four.
HUMPHRYS: Michael Ancram?
MICHAEL ANCRAM: Well first of all we are coming
from a background, not of reducing taxes but of forty-five new stealth
taxes which between them have raised the equivalent of ten p on income
tax. So for John to say they've brought taxes down, I think people themselves
know what's happened.
PRESCOTT: But it wasn't income
tax was it Michael?
ANCRAM: It was tax, it's money
out of people's pockets and if I may say that indirect and stealth taxes
actually hits those who are least able to afford it harder than actually
income tax would have done. And what we are actually seeing here is a
situation where tax has gone up. We want to see tax come down. We are
not going to go overboard, we are saying that we have found eight billion
pounds of changes that can be made in the spending plans that Gordon Brown's
put forward and we are going to make sure that we use that to give money
back to the people who it's been taken off. We are going to take six p
off a litre of petrol, we're going to take a hund....we're going to take
a million pensioners out of tax, we're going to take a tax on income from
savings we're going to get rid of, and are going to make sure that people
actually see better public services for the money that they're paying in
taxes. We're going to bring taxes down, Labour's going to put them up.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, you've
set out quite clearly, Gordon Brown has set out quite clearly, your spending
plans for the next three years, so that is clear and that's guaranteed.
Can you guarantee that during those three years, taxes will not go up?
We know what you're going to spend it on, what about raising that money.
Can you guarantee that taxes will not go up during those three years...
PRESCOTT: Well there's one important
enquiry..requirement in that is to keep the stability in the economy and
everything we've done so far is in fact to achieve that, we've done that
and we expect that to continue in the next three years...
HUMPHRYS: ...but if it doesn't
then taxes might have to go up?
PRESCOTT: ...well a lot of things
if it doesn't, but at the moment we've balanced our expenditures as we
are required to do, we've taken it to the three years and you rightly said,
given that balance, we show where the money's come, where it's going to
invest and the tax intake has been greater largely because we've got an
economy with more people back at work. So on balance Gordon Brown has
made it clear, this can balance out and he has a surplus available in those
circumstances many people are saying, why don't you spend the surplus?
So we have got that balance. Now going beyond the...beyond those three
years, we have to wait for that assessment...
HUMPHRYS: ...well I was just going
up to that at the moment.
PRESCOTT: Pardon?
HUMPHRYS: I was just going up to
the three years at the moment. What you are saying is that you cannot
guarantee, because the economy may change, of course, the world economy
may change, heaven knows what might happen?
PRESCOTT: I think it was Mr Hague
who said in his Times interview, he actually said that nobody can guarantee
there wouldn't be a tax increase and what we're saying is we've put the
balance of the tax and expenditure where we will spend the money, where
the income will come from, parties in Opposition don't have to do that
but governments do and we've now got it up to those three years. Now taking
it beyond that we have to make an assessment of the economy at that time,
that's the only intelligent and proper way to make a statement.
HUMPHRYS: Michael Ancram, you can't
guarantee it either then, because that wasn't a guarantee.
ANCRAM: We're not proposing to
increase taxes so we don't...
HUMPHRYS: ..but you can't guarantee
that you won't.
ANCRAM: Well, what we've said is
that you can't absolutely guarantee because there might be occasions like
war or something where you can't make a complete guarantee but we've made
it clear that we intend to bring taxes down. But what you see is interesting
what John said is what we know Gordon Brown is doing, he's increasing his
public spending at a faster rate than the growth of the economy. He can
do that at the moment because he tells us he's got a surplus, and that's
what John's just said. At the end of the three years that surplus has
gone, and it's then that we want to know, is he going to cut the services
that he's actually put more money into, or is he going to raise taxes in
another way. The government have told us firmly they are not going to
raise income tax at either over the period of this next parliament if they
were to win the election, that they are not going to tax child benefit,
that they are not going to change VAT. There are only two taxes that they
can therefore raise the money out of. We've been challenging them to rule
them out. The first is lifting or abolishing the ceiling on National Insurance
Contributions, which could put the rate of taxation effectively for high
earners over thirty-thousand pounds, up to fifty per cent, or by putting
another tax on fuel and we are challenging the government to say before
Thursday which of those they would use in order to keep their public service
increases going, and we've had no answer and the British people must know
that this government is intending to put up one or other of those taxes
over the next five years were they to win the election.
HUMPHRYS: ...well let's not, go
on Alan Beith...
BEITH: ...the only thing the Conservatives
are guaranteeing, or trying to guarantee, is that they will cut taxes whatever
else is happening, however bad the Health Service is, however bad the education
system is, however much investment is needed, their priority honestly stated
is to cut taxes by amount varying from the eight billion sometimes to twenty
billion other times.
ANCRAM: ...by eight billion, the
only figure we've produced and we've produced it and we've made sure that
everybody has the whole details of it. We've found eight billion pounds
and a very large increase in public expenditure which Gordon Brown has
identified...
BEITH: ...you haven't found it,
most of it is dubious saving..
ANCRAM: ..we've found eight billion...
BEITH: ...just assume for the moment
you hadn't found it, what would have then do about education and health?
ANCRAM: ...let me just remind you
where it's coming from. A hund..., two point five billion on welfare reform
to get rid of fraud, one billion pounds...
BEITH: ...every government tries
to get rid of fraud...
ANCRAM; ...one billion pounds off
the DTI...
HUMPHRYS: ...you did actually say
that of course the last time around didn't you that you were going to cut
fraud, you said that, every government does...
ANCRAM: ...yes but what we've seen,
what we've seen over the last four years is the amount of fraud actually
going up and we believe that that can be cut. But what we're saying, and
we've set it out very carefully...
HUMPHRYS: ...we all going to be
good in future are we, or what?
ANCRAM: ...we can find eight billion
pounds of changes and savings which we can give back to people in the ways
that I've ...
BEITH: ...but that's what you're
guaranteeing, you're not guaranteeing the services, you're guaranteeing
that however bad it gets, you won't ask the taxpayer to pay for better
services...
ANCRAM: ...we made clear where
it would come from. It doesn't affect health, it doesn't affect schools,
it doesn't affect law and order, we made clear that the public services
will be protected but we can reduce taxes and people have seen their taxes
going up, they have a right to expect...
HUMPHRYS: ...John Prescott?
PRESCOTT: Michael, when you say
that you are going to save money, one of them is in my department, two
hundred and fifty million from regional assemblies, that's a cut from our
expenditure. We don't have them, we don't spend money...
HUMPHRYS: ..how can you cut spending
you haven't got, is what he is saying...
PRESCOTT: ...but wait a minute
John. The important point here and this is what's happening in this election
since Mrs Thatcher came in and talked about her legacy has to be protected,
millions unemployed, record homelessness, all that, when you start with
the tax cut, which they are talking about here and you then move to higher
inflation, higher interest from little bit of a boost in the boom and then
you get businesses beginning to fail and then you get people pushed out
of their houses because of negative equity, then you get unemployment and
you have to cut the public services to pay for the unemployment. That
is boom and bust, we had eighteen years of it and we don't want any more
and that's what they're proposing.
HUMPHRYS: But you John Prescott,
you would, your government if you have one would face exactly the same
sort of problem in the sense that because we have been told by the Institute
of Fiscal Studies that your sums don't add up beyond the next three years,
so after that, well let me just finish the question if I may, after that,
you will face a choice, between having to cut services, to cut public spending,
or to increase taxes, that's the reality isn't it? Which would you prefer
to do?
PRESCOTT: Well you're three years
ahead of us. At least the fiscal people admit that what we've actually
said in the three years is what we will do. Secondly, we did give tax cuts
in the last four years, I've just mentioned them. But we've still got
the stronger economy, the lowest inflation for thirty years, the lowest
interest rate for thirty
years, a million more people back at work. It's the difference in the
balance between the economy in public tax and spend.
ANCRAM: But John...
HUMPHRYS: Final very quick thought
Michael, I want to move on to another question.
ANCRAM: ...can't get away with
this idea that tax has been brought down. Forty-five stealth tax increase,
the most obvious one has been the tax on fuel. We've seen, we've seen
us move from being the lowest priced fuel in Europe to being the highest...
HUMPHRYS: ..well, we will let...
ANCRAM: ...we want to give some
of that back and I think the motorists deserve it.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, we'll let people
be the judge of that for themselves. Thank you. John Prescott.
Our next question comes
from a teacher, Sian Edwards, Miss Edwards, your question?
SIAN EDWARDS: Do the politicians think
that we have bog standard comprehensive schools and do they think that
allowing more and more schools to select some of their pupils is the best
way to improve standards.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott.
PRESCOTT: Well, no, I don't think
it is bog standard comprehensive schools, what we want is more excellence...
HUMPHRYS: It's what Alastair Campbell
said of course, the Prime Minister's Press Secretary.
PRESCOTT: Well, yes, you can give
me all sorts of quotes, you asked me the question, I'm John Prescott and
I'm going to give you my answer, right.
HUMPHRYS: Just reminding people
where the quote came from - that's all.
PRESCOTT: And no I don't believe
that, I believe we can improve, we've shown with the primary schools now,
the five, six, seven. We have improved it by bringing in more teachers,
giving more schools, reducing class sizes and improving performance. So
the secondary education is very important. I don't believe that we want
to extend and we don't intend to any 11 plus but we do want to give more
choices and more choices means you must invest in more teachers, the ten
thousand teachers we've committed ourselves to and also at the same time,
improving our schools, something like eight billion now in our proposals
to improve the schools themselves and to widen the choice so there is the
specialist schools, there are the beacon schools and yes the religious
schools as well to give more choice to people in the education and a major
reform in secondary school education. We will do to secondary school education
and improvements what we have already done to the primary schools and that's
what we intend to do.
HUMPHRYS: Alan Beith:
BEITH: Well we think it needs fifty
per cent more teachers than the government are proposing in order to make
a real impact in secondary schools, where class sizes have actually risen
and the pupil teacher ratio has worsened through the years that Labour
have been in power and that's a bitterly disappointing situation. They
put some focus on the first years in the primary school but that left the
secondary schools in a very difficult situation indeed and that's why we
say you need more tax revenue in order to achieve that. Selection doesn't
answer the problem at all. Selection isn't choice for those who haven't
been selected, it's the route to a school which is then regarded by the
system as not needing to provide the same high standards. We need high
standard secondary schools for everyone and that requires resources and
we have committed ourselves to those resources and you won't do it either
by saying to those schools 'oh don't worry you'll get all the money that
the Education Authority would normally get because then of course they've
got to pay for the school buses. They've got to pay for the additional
support that schools require, they've got to pay for the facilities that
an education authority provides. That's just moving money into a different
column.
HUMPHRYS: Michael Ancram.
ANCRAM: At the moment we are seeing
a situation which is very unlike that described by John Prescott. Certainly
in my area the idea that they've got primary school classes down below
thirty is something which is regarded with total disbelief. I saw a teacher
the other day who said where does this come from, I'm teaching a class
of thirty-five children at the moment.
HUMPHRYS: Well it's an average
of course.
ANCRAM: But we're also actually
seeing teacher morale lower than it's been for years. We've seen regulation
after regulation imposed on teachers, a hundred and forty new regulations
this year, one a week since the beginning of the year and teachers are
leaving the profession. There aren't enough teachers, it's the biggest
shortage of teachers I think certainly in my political lifetime. What we
are saying is the only way you resolve this is first of all you take the
burden of regulation away from schools. Secondly you give decision making
to schools themselves because they know best the decisions that are going
to benefit them and thirdly, you get rid of a lot of the educational bureaucracy
and you put the money that is being paid for that directly into the schools
and if you do that, we can get about five hundred and forty pounds per
child each year into the schools for the schools themselves to decide how
to spend it. If they want to get more teachers they can do so, if they
want to buy more books or computers they can do so. We believe in making
sure that schools are enabled and empowered to take decisions themselves.
HUMPHRYS: And there would be more
selection under the Tories?
ANCRAM: There could be more selection
under that system, that is up to the schools and there's certain schools
I've talked to say no, we wouldn't want to go down that route, others say
yes we would. The important thing is...
HUMPHRYS: ..but you wouldn't mind
if an awful lot did, you'd be very happy with that.
ANCRAM: The decision at the end
of the day should be for the schools and the parents to choose within the
school system and what is actually at the moment tying people down in schools
is the regulations that are imposed day by day and week by week by the
government, not just on head-teachers but on ordinary teachers as well.
We have got to free them up so that they can get back to teaching.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, you talk
about widening choice, Alan Beith made the point that selection isn't choice.
Now your aim, the government's aim is to get nearly half of all schools
as specialist schools of one sort or another, able to select so we would
end up, would we not, with a sort of...
PRESCOTT: ...able to offer choices
for people to go to, to which schools they would like to, at the moment
we do some of that.
HUMPHRYS: But you can't have that
for everybody. What we would end up with is we would end up, would we
not, with a two-tier system with some schools being able to choose and
cream off the best of the pupils and having more money to do it. So we
would have, in effect, a return to the system that you were educated under
and so was I for that matter, where we had secondary modern schools, we'd
have a two-tier system wouldn't we.
PRESCOTT: I'm very much against
secondary modern schools and the whole 11 plus system..
HUMPHRYS: But that would be the
effect wouldn't it.
PRESCOTT: It won't be that at all.
Let me say on the specialist schools, they have doubled actually in the
amount in the last few years we've been in and that hasn't caused the second
tier. Secondly it's about lifting all the education standards up for all
the schools, that's why we've got eleven thousand more teachers actually
in the teaching profession in our schools now, than when we came in in
1997. It is about finding resources, it is about teaching and it is about
changing the ethos in schools so there's a greater choice for people. You
and I can talk about the time when only five or six per cent went on to
the grammar schools, right, from a secondary modern. That was terrible,
it was so wasteful, but there's no reason why specialist schools and indeed
the new type of schools that we are talking about shouldn't offer a greater
choice. It shouldn't be just solely on the academic stream. Yes we have
to beat that but there are other balances in education that perhaps we
might feel that some students and pupils would prefer. So it is giving
more choice to people, whilst at the same time lifting up the whole quality
of education in our secondary schools. We have to do that, we've proved
it with primary, we'll do that. Now Alan talked about money, I have just
one quick point on that, his elastic penny, you know that Liberal penny
that gets shoved around from everything. They had one penny, they'd said
they'd spend on more on health and education, we spent more than a penny
on tax in the last government, never mind the one coming...
HUMPHRYS: Alright, Alan Beith you...
PRESCOTT: ....it's so elastic his
penny, he throws it.... everywhere.
HUMPHRYS: Well maybe it keeps coming
back!
PRESCOTT: You get enough money.
HUMPHRYS: Let's deal with this
question of selection. I mean your party is a opposed to it, why don't
you therefore say we'll scrap special schools, we'll scrap grammar schools,
if you really believe in that as a matter of principle.
BEITH: We believe the decision
can be taken locally, it's right that it should be taken locally.
HUMPHRYS: But why if you believe
in something, do you not say this is our policy for the country.
BEITH: That is a general issue
for Liberals right throughout the system, we argue that people should be
able to make choices locally but where those choices are made we advocate
our own policy. We are not centralisers, we don't believe that every decision
has to be taken by government at the centre. That's a fatal mistake and..
HUMPHRYS: It could also be political
cowardice couldn't it because you know it will cost you votes to do that.
BEITH: No, on the contrary, what
it actually means is you as a government can't necessarily force your will
on every community. But as a party we advocate a system which is not selective.
There's no reason why schools shouldn't have special qualities and that
in the natural course of events some schools excel in sport, some schools
excel in music but all the time that should be a spur to other schools
to attain the standard that that prized school has achieved in that particular
area. Not a system which allows you to fund at a lower level or have lower
expectations for the schools that vast numbers of children go to.
HUMPHRYS: Let's move on to the
question of health, something else many people are concerned about, perhaps
the biggest issue in this campaign if the opinion polls are to be believed
and that question comes from Merlene Stewart, who is a housewife. Miss
Stewart.
MERLENE STEWART: I've been waiting over six months
for an operation and a few weeks ago I was admitted into hospital but unfortunately
my operation was cancelled. Now labour is planning to use the private
sector more in the NHS. Do the parties think that people like me will
be treated more quickly?
HUMPHRYS: Do you Michael Ancram?
ANCRAM: What we're proposing is
that you should get the treatment when you actually require the treatment,
particularly if your illness is a serious one and if the National Health
Service is not able to provide that at the particular time you need that
treatment, we believe that the National Health Service should contract
the private service...private health service to provide it for you, and
that seems the be the best way of making sure that the patients' needs
come first. But the one thing we really do want to do because it might
answer a lot of questions that exist in the health service at the moment,
is get rid of the waiting list targets because they are distorting clinical
priorities. The number of people who have come to me from hospitals and
said, 'what we've been asked to do over the last four years is deal with
all the small operations first, the easy ones, the quick ones, because
that brings the waiting list targets down. And the people who have suffered
are those who are seriously ill whose operations have been put off.' We
think this is very dangerous, it's politically motivated, we want to give
decision making back to doctors as to when patients should be treated and
not have it decided by politicians.
HUMPHRYS: Alan Beith?
BEITH: If there is spare capacity
in the private sector or elsewhere in the National Health Service then
I think the system should offer you the option of getting the operation
more quickly by that route but that's not a long-term answer. It's the
National Health Service that trains the doctors that are working in the
private sector, it's the National Health Service on which most people depend.
It's actually, for the first time in twenty years, actually seen a fall
in the number of people it has treated over the last six months of last
year and that really is an appalling indictment. There are not enough
resources, not enough doctors who were trained under the last government,
the present government has been too slow to meet that challenge and put
in the investments in training of doctors and nurses. We need to increase
those numbers and your kind of problem and that which a lot of people are
facing at the moment of delayed operations, long waiting times, won't be
resolved until there are more doctors trained, more nurses trained, more
ancillary staff trained as well.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott:
PRESCOTT: I don't know where Alan
gets his figures from. I mean anybody working in the health service.....
(both speaking at once) I'm touring around a lot in these hospitals and
the one thing that's really struck home to me this time is hospitals serving
the same size of population in the last ten years have almost seen a doubling
of demand, in fact in the last year we increased operations by five hundred
thousand. But don't let's get into the figure argument about this, there's
a very fundamental point to make here: If you want a health service based
upon treatment based upon your need and not your ability to pay you're
going to have to put more of your resources of GDP into it. That is the
reality. People live longer, we are dealing with more and more of those
problems and so we are lifting that proportion of GDP and by the year 2004
we'll be near to the European average - that's what everybody's complained
about and that's the kind of resource application.
Secondly you've
got to put more nurses and doctors and yes we have put about seventeen
thousand nurses already, we're already committed to another twenty thousand
nurses and when you go on talking to them in hospital they want more nurses
to do it. Now the real point is that the lady was addressing herself to
- Is it the principle of treatment based upon need and not your ability
to pay which is the one the Labour government established after the War,
right, and what Beverage recommended, what we established.... If you're
to do that you've got to put more resources and more personnel: Ten thousand
more doctors, twenty thousand nurses, this is the increase in the staff.
But there's another important point: If you can find specialisation and
use private money in some circumstances, for example if you mortgage your
house, you can mortgage the building of a hospital, pay for it over a period
of time, it returns to you - that's one way private money is being used
in. Alan has talked to how if you put all these people who've got spare
facilities at a time when you might get a 'flu crisis, why can't we use
those surplus beds? It doesn't cost the patient any more money, the National
Health Service contracts for it and there are some specialisations going
on like cataract operations for example where you just go there and do
that. Now what Michael is beginning to offer, of course, the Patient Guarantee,
which is made clear by Mr Fox, is that you can have some operations done
under the insurance like cataracts and hip operations. Well frankly if
you move over to an insurance-based system, you'll eliminate an awful lot
of people who can't pay the premium.
HUMPHRYS: Right. Michael Ancram,
let me just follow up on this private insurance policy. Let me read you
something Oliver Letwin, one of your senior people has said.
PRESCOTT: Have you found him?
HUMPHRYS: He did reappear it has
to be said. "There is an absolute duty to go private", he said, "an absolute
duty if you're lucky enough to have enough money. And the reason for doing
that is to relieve the public service. So if you have enough money to
go private you should do so in order to relieve the pressure on the public
services" Now that's a quote from Mr Letwin. Do you agree with that?
ANCRAM: Well we're saying there's
nothing compulsory about it if people want to......
HUMPHRYS: Yeah but do you agree
with that quote?
ANCRAM: If he's suggesting it's
compulsory, which I don't think he is.....
HUMPHRYS: No... no, he said "an
absolute duty". Do you agree with that quote?
ANCRAM: It is not our position
that people should be required to take up private insurance if they've
got a certain amount of money. Quite obviously we're going to encourage
them......
HUMPHRYS: Is there a duty upon
them to do so?
ANCRAM: Oh we're going to encourage
them to because obviously it does help if a certain amount of the strain
is taken off the Health Service by people who can afford to take up private
insurance.....
PRESCOTT: We have ways of making
you do it......
ANCRAM: Let's just break through
the rhetoric into the reality. What we are seeing in the health service
now is waiting lists for the waiting lists still going up. We've had somebody
in my constituency the other day who was admitted to hospital and spent
two days on a trolley before he actually got a bed in the hospital. We
heard the other day of somebody who had actually died on a trolley. The
other day, not surprisingly, Alan Milburn wouldn't go and face the nurses
at their conference although Liam Fox who's a doctor went down and talked
to them about how he's going to resolve the problems in the health service
by giving decision making back to doctors and to nurses where those decisions
should be. That's the reality of the situation and no amount of figures
and rhetoric is actually going to remove that.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, are you
happy with parts of the NHS being run for profit? You've made the point
very clearly that the service will be free at the point of delivery but
I'm talking now about how the service is run so would you be happy with
the notion that an entire hospital, who's staff of course, doctors and
nurses, would still be paid for by the NHS but the hospital being run by
private sector management. You'd be happy with that?
PRESCOTT: No. First of all the
hospital would be owned by the public sector itself so really it's mortgaging
the building and borrowing from the private sector.....
HUMPHRYS: .... But I'm talking
about managing the hospital.
PRESCOTT: No, but I want to do
that. If you're saying should we have facilities made more efficient and
use the best of public or private practices I'm quite happy with that.
I've got the argument on the underground and other areas......
HUMPHRYS: Well you shouldn't be
talking about the underground anyway......
PRESCOTT: I'll be talking about
that later......
HUMPHRYS: I'm talking about, let
us say, a team of people from BUPA running an NHS hospital. You would
be happy with that?
PRESCOTT: Well there's a team from
BUPA running a BUPA hospital and we'd be prepared to contract the beds....
HUMPHRYS: No... no that's a different
issue.... A different issue
PRESCOTT ... making that point.
You can contract the beds from them. The Nation Health Service is a public
health service run by the trusts, free at the point of use which is the
essential principle....
HUMPHRYS: ...run by the trust?
Yes but I'm asking you about it being run by BUPA - that's the point I'm
putting to you.
PRESCOTT: Well I don't think that's
the proposition being put at all. We want a public health service. We
will contract for some facilities that are provided whether it's actually
on the specialist facilities, whether it's on - they will not be involved
with the clinical.....
HUMPHRYS: Ah well......
PRESCOTT: We have made that absolutely
clear. But I have no problem if you want to get more resources and have
more efficiency in the health service... this is what we're calling about
reform. Yes, get the services, make the principle clear - free at the point
of use, and reform the services to get more from it.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, but you see what
Alan Milburn, your Health Secretary says is, 'I'm not going to rule out
using private sector for some bizarre ideological reasons, we will use
private sector management where appropriate'. So.....
PRESCOTT: But that wasn't the argument
when we went to BUPA.....
HUMPHRYS: But I'm still not clear,
perhaps the audience is but I'm still not clear as to whether you're saying
- 'Yes, I would be happy for private sector management to run an NHS hospital.'
PRESCOTT: No. I don't think that's
what we're saying at all but we are quite prepared......
HUMPHRYS: So you wouldn't be happy?
PRESCOTT The business about the
ideology is, we had it when we went to BUPA to take their spare beds when
we had the 'flu epidemic right? We said, 'Right, we'll take those beds
they're empty there. Why shouldn't use them? Are we going to say "No,
those are just for private sector" so we tell the people to queue and wait
until we can deal with you?' That would be sheer nonsense. It's not the
best use of our resources. That's what they mean when they said don't
be ideological about it. But what we do say, and it's quite important
- twenty thousand new nurses are needed right? If you cut back the money
that Michael's talking about - you can't. The question I'd like to put
to him - why is it he can commit himself to a tax cut and yet his health
spokesman says 'we can't commit ourselves to an increase in......'
HUMPHRYS: Well I won't let him
answer that (Both speaking at once) I want Alan Beith to pick up the point
about the King's Fund that you made earlier. Are you happy about what
Mr Prescott said?
BEITH: No, and you need more nurses
and more doctors which again is why we've sought extra tax revenue precisely
to increase the number of nurses beyond the figure the government has given.
The number that they're working on will not achieve it and if with what
they've done so far we've actually had a fall in the number of patients
the NHS has treated over a whole six month period, for the first time in
twenty years.....
PRESCOTT: It's just untrue.......
BEITH: It's really.....
HUMPHRYS: Well that's what the
Kings Fund says on a Panorama programme that's being broadcast tonight
Mr Prescott.
BEITH: The King's Fund is a reputable
organisation, wholly independent of parties which studies how the health
service is functioning and neither the private sector nor private health
insurance will provide the resources to train and put into NHS hospitals
the nurses and doctors that we need. Indeed the tax relief for private
health insurance will largely go to the people who have already made the
choice to take out private health insurance.
HUMPHRYS: Let me just deal very
quickly John Prescott then give you a word Michael Ancram with this question
of what the King's Fund has said. I mean you accepted they're an independent
organisation, entirely independent of all political parties and they are
saying in a programme on BBC tonight on Panorama that there has been a
fall, as Alan Beith said, the first time in twenty years in the number
of in-patients being treated. First time in twenty years,
PRESCOTT: Well, I have got to say
that's not my information and quite frankly I'd like to look very closely
at the figures used. You say it's a Panorama programme - I don't know,
but we have seen how the patients.... We've reduced those lists by a hundred
and fifty thousand. We didn't say that was the case - we said a hundred
thousand. It was the Bureau of Statistics. Now if you get some exchanges
about these, we have to look at the finer points of it. I can't give an
answer because I haven't seen the evidence. But all our evidence is clear
and every hospital in this country is treating more people than they've
ever treated before,
HUMPHRYS: Okay. Michael Ancram.
There are still problems, you say very large problems indeed. One of
the ways of doing that you also say is to encourage people who can afford
it to use the private sector - how would you encourage them to do that?
Tax incentives?
ANCRAM: Well no. We want to encourage
people who are selling health insurance to have more attractive packages
which people are going to be more likely to take up.
HUMPHRYS: But if they're private
you can't make them do that. How would you encourage us to take up those
packages?
ANCRAM: They can be persuaded that
they would have a better market to sell their insurance in if they make
it a more attractive package and that's what Liam Fox has been talking
to them about.
PRESCOTT: That's what they did
with pensions before and we were left with a crisis after that.
ANCRAM: Going back to Alan Beith's
point, Alan Beith quite rightly points out the figures that have been shown
by the King's Fund this morning but also we had figures last Friday which
showed that fifty-six per cent of GP's are now prepared to sign a letter
offering to resign from the National Health Service because they are so
fed up with the way the National Health Service is being run. John can't
get away with suggesting that the last four years have somehow been a renaissance
for the National Health Service. It's got worse. Even their own spokesman
in the House of Lords a year and a half ago said it was deteriorating.
We want to see decision making given back to doctors and nurses and hospitals
and the money to follow those decisions because that's the way you'll get
the health service back.
HUMPHRYS: Without putting any more
money in than them and without telling us quite clearly how you're going
to get more people to use private health insurance.
ANCRAM: Take politics out of the
health service and let the health service get on with running........
PRESCOTT: (all speaking at once)
Twenty thousand nurses. We've said this election, and we can have a choice,
we will put twenty thousand extra nurses, we've already done it on the
seventeen thousand, ten thousand doctors, that's a choice we give to the
electorate. Will you commit yourself to the same?
ANCRAM: Look, the one thing we've
learned from.....
PRESCOTT: Will you commit yourself
to the same?
HUMPHRYS: He's asking you whether
you'll commit yourself?
ANCRAM: We're not going to start
making figures promises. You've made them over the last four years and
you've broken them.
PRESCOTT: And we've delivered on
it.
ANCRAM: I'm very glad I'm on John's
right side rather than the left side......(talking together)......
HUMPHRYS: I'll leave it as an open
question who the audience was applauding then and I'll take another question
from Dave Gattey who is a quantity surveyor. Mr Gattey.
DAVE GATTEY: Good afternoon. Our roads
are more congested than ever before and public transport is just not improving
fast enough. Is any party going to do anything to reduce the number of
cars on the roads?
HUMPHRYS: Mr. Prescott, you've
been responsible for the policy for the last four years?
PRESCOTT: Well, let's take comparisons,
because the point's being made that there is greater congestion on the
roads than there were before. There's no doubt there's congestion and it
grows and the point has always been, you cannot build your way out of it,
you have to offer attractive alternatives which are public transport.
But the first point on congestion. If you compare the same in our growth
in the economy which the Tories had, where an eight per cent growth in
congestion, it's now down to two per cent growth, still growing, but not
growing at the same rate. We see then people are transferring to the rail
and the bus service so after years of decline, the rail service is now
taking nearly eighteen per cent more people on the trains, more trains
and investment now coming along, the buses for the first time for decades,
after five, four-hundred-million-pound investment, we now have an increase
of people using buses. And if you look at the light-railway systems in
places like Manchester, people are using their cars less and using public
transport more.
At the end of the
day the key is to get the investment. Now the hundred-and-eighty-billion
pounds for the ten years, the largest amount of money ever put into transport
investment, the real problem with transport, and I am old enough to remember
it, every transport spokesman has always shouted at, like Marples you
must go, used to be the, I think the print on the table, Barbara Castle,
you don't drive a car so how do you know about transport. But what we
avoided was not the long-term investment, we did short-term issues. Now
we've got massive long-term investment in all the public transport, it's
certainly going to take it's time coming through which is a very good reason,
we've got the integration beginning to develop, we've got the resources
for it, people do want to use public transport if it's reliable, effective
and safe. And all those things we are seeking to achieve now.
HUMPHRYS: Alan Beith?
BEITH: Can anyone be satisfied
with what's happened on public transport when Railtrack is a shambles,
the privatisation carried out by the previous government has left our rail
service in a really seriously deteriorating condition and the government
has not addressed the Railtrack shambles. They haven't created a public
structure which can be responsible for the safety and the tracks on our
railways and that has been a monumental mistake of theirs. They have not
set targets for road traffic reduction which are binding on the authorities
that set them. In fact John said, I will have failed if there are not
fewer journeys by car, he said, well there aren't fewer journeys by car,
and he has not put the level of investment that has been, that would be
required. Indeed, the investment he's now talking about, getting on for
a-third of that is actually private sector investment that he's assuming
will take place, and a significant part of it is just the basic subsidy
to the railways, which has been going on for years, rather than new investment,
we've got to have, you cannot start putting things like congestion charges,
which have a potential value, until people have a real effective public
transport alternative, and no observer coming to this country from abroad,
say from many countries in Europe could look at our public transport system
and say, my goodness, isn't this good, isn't this an alternative, it is
a disaster, and it's a disaster that the present government has not given
sufficient priority to.
HUMPHRYS: Michael Ancram, are you
going to reduce the number of car journeys?
ANCRAM: We believe that car owners
have a right to drive their cars and we are going to protect that right,
we are not going to penalise car users off the road. If you come from
an area like I represent, which is a rural area, the car isn't a luxury,
it's a necessity, and the idea that you are going to penalise people, often
people who are the least well off for using cars, is really unthinkable.
What is fascinating is that over the last four years, we've seen attempts
to penalise motorists off the road, we've seen petrol tax going up and
up and up.
BEITH: .....escalate it.....
ANCRAM: ...when you get to the
top of an escalator, you get off it. Gordon Brown discovered this was
an easy way of raising taxes, not for roads, not for motorists, but for
all sorts of other things, he went on doing it, but the point I am making
is than even......(interruption).....even, and that was happening, six
per cent increase in the usage of cars over the last four years. It's
not going down, it's actually going up and you have to address that, you
have to have a proper national roads programme which John Prescott abolished
when he first came into his present office, he's now talking about doing
it some time over the next ten years. He talks about investment, he actually
mentioned one or two schemes, I was thinking about the schemes that have
begun to work now under this government, things like the Jubilee Line Extension,
the Docklands Light Railway, the Heathrow Express, electrification of the
East Coast Main Line, all these things weren't started by John Prescott,
they were all started under our government. The only thing he's managed
to do is to create a bus lane on the way from Heathrow into London which
nobody uses.
HUMPHRYS: So you now...
PRESCOTT: ...rescue the Channel
Tunnel Rail Link that collapsed under your government...
HUMPHRYS: ...you've now accepted
have you Michael Ancram, you've now accepted that you can build your way
out of traffic congestion, because George Young, your former Transport
Minister said that's precisely what you could not do.
ANCRAM: You have to have to a balanced
programme, the fact that our National Roads Programme was discontinued
has meant that roads are not only not being improved, they're actually
getting worse at the moment, that's something which has to be addressed.
Secondly, it's all very well talking about investment in our rail service
and I listen to what Alan Beith says about Railtrack, but if you want people
to put money into Railtrack, and to invest in the railways or into any
of the franchise companies, you don't do it by talking them down, you do
it by talking them up, and you know, John himself said, that there's been
an increase in rail traffic usage over the last four years. We saw freight
going up, we saw passenger services...passenger users going up, these were
the railways moving in the right direction after years and years of decline.
That's what we want to see encouraged.
BEITH: There are speed limits on
practically every main line in the country, which are reducing the, increasing
the journey times by rail by significant amounts, and they're results from
the Railtrack structure which your government created. When you privatised
the railway system, you did not put safety into proper assistance and you
led to...
ANCRAM: ...so the magic one p is
going to pay for this investment as well is it?
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott?
ALL SPEAKING TOGETHER
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, hang on
a moment.
PRESCOTT: ...your own spokesman
said that the privatisation of Railtrack was a terrible mistake, and now
you're trying to defend it.
HUMPHRYS: John, both of these,
are talked about, your promise, back in 1997, that you would have failed,
your comment that you would have failed if in five years time there were
not fewer journeys by car. Now your own transport plan, your ten-year
transport plan predicts that car use is going to increase by seventeen
per cent by 2010.
PRESCOTT: ...no it says it will
increase by that unless you get the investment in the public sector.
HUMPHRYS: But that is what is expected
to happen. Now when do you think it is going to be possible, given that
prediction, for us to be using our cars less.
PRESCOTT: Well first of all if
you're in Manchester there is less car journeys because they use the light
railway system.
HUMPHRYS: Keep to nationwide as
you know because we can make figures do all sorts of things.
PRESCOTT: I know, but wait a minute.
The reason why I didn't support the Bill that Alan's talking about on
the reduction of traffic and putting that on to the authorities, because
I didn't think you could get that achieved. The growth in traffic was
continuing. It would be absolutely stupid for me to say to local authorities,
here is an example. That showed that I knew it was going to increase.
My first priority was to get it into the investment in public transport.
And everybody's agreed, whether we like it or not, and given that it's
public and private, it's the biggest amount of money that is actually going
into transport. Now if you look at the many of the areas where we've got
light railway systems, and the increase of people on rail, by the way they're
from cars into rail, that's basically what's been happening, yes there
are car journeys, but the growth is still increasing, I've reduced a certain
amount from eight per cent as it was, down to two per cent, getting some
success there, but it does take time and unless you get the money into
the public transport to do the track, to get the new trains that are coming
along, then you've got great difficulty in anybody believing it's a good
railway system.
HUMPHRYS: Let me, Alan Beith, no
let me take another question.
BEITH: ...billion more than you
need in the way you deal with the Tube. That's a very expensive way of
running London's Tube...
HUMPHRYS: Let me take, and no we're
not going to into the Tube, we're not going to get into the Tube, we are
going to talk about the environment, we have a question from Denise Lansley
who is a housewife.
Denise Lansley?
DENISE LANSLEY; Hello. I'm here. All
the main political parties have dealt with the environment in a half-hearted
way. The issue has barely featured in this election, so when are politicians
going to start giving environmental problems a much bigger priority.
HUMPHRYS: Mm. Michael Ancram?
ANCRAM: Well we actually yesterday
launched our manifesto for the Environment so I hope that you all get a
chance to read it because what we are saying, first of all, and I think
John and I probably the first time today will agree on this, we are both
disappointed that the American President is not fulfilling the Kyoto criteria
and we want to see those fulfilled. But where we will disagree, is that
we think we now need to have special measures to protect the green environment
in our country. We are seeing at the moment vast numbers of houses being
built on green land and we believe that this is not only bad for those
local areas but it's actually bad for the environment as well. So we actually
want to see those decisions taken locally and not by national government
as to where houses should go, because otherwise we are going to see vast
tracts of our green land literally covered with houses. The other thing
which I think is important is in the past we have always talked about green
belt. We are now also talking about blue belt. Because we actually need
to protect our wetlands and our waterways and our rivers and so we're putting
forward proposals in order to make sure that that part of the environment
can be protected as well, so I hope you will get the opportunity to read
our manifesto, I think you will see that we have a very strong programme
on the environment.
HUMPHRYS: You must be a bit embarrassed
that Friends of the Earth have marked you out of fifty as they have the
other parties, and you get six-point-five out of fifty for your environment
policies.
ANCRAM: A number of occasions that
we and Friends of the Earth have not necessarily seen eye-to-eye, but what
I go by...
PRESCOTT: ...and you can put us
in that as well.
ANCRAM: ...yes, what I go by is
what I believe people need in order to maintain our green environment and
as I say, our blue environment and we have a very strong policy to do that.
HUMPHRYS: Alan Beith?
BEITH: Our manifesto is set out
on the basis that every page contains environmental commitments in each
policy area. And there's significance in that, because if you are really
going to do something about the environment, every government policy has
to be audited on its environmental implications and we've just been talking
about transport, where air pollution causes twenty-four-thousand deaths
a year. The environment is not just about green field building sites,
important though that is, in terms of protecting our countryside from being
concreted over, but so many of the environmental issues are issues about
the extent of our carbon emissions, in electricity generation, the extent
of our carbon emissions from transport, policies like this which go right
through government and unless we get a different approach to the environment
throughout government then we will not meet our Rio targets, we will not
make the environmental improvements which are necessary to hand on the
planet in anything like the condition we received it.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, you get
less than half out of fifty...
BEITH: ...you didn't quote our
mark by the way John, what was our mark?
HUMPHRYS: Oh alright then, I'll
tell you, your mark was thirty
-seven point five. Your mark John... but you knew that didn't you?
PRESCOTT: No chance of delivering
it, but leaving that aside, you'll promise anything if you're a Liberal,
God blimey.
ANCRAM: Another one for the magic
one p.
HUMPHRYS: Twenty-three was your
mark John Prescott, justify that.
PRESCOTT: Well let me say what
I've done. Friends of Earth aren't necessarily friends of me I'm bound
to say, but if you look at what we've done which we ask the electorate
to judge us on. First of all we were seen as the dirty man in Europe and
that was the charge we inherited. Our beaches are cleaner, the water's
cleaner, we've saved much more of it, the actual air is cleaner, all these
things have improved in the last four years. I won't go into the statistics
of it, but I can if you want.
HUMPHRYS: No.
PRESCOTT: Secondly, we took the
chance on climate change and we played a major part in the international
negotiations. Like Michael, I am sorry that the Americans have chosen
to challenge that concept of Kyoto, but what isn't in doubt, is Britain
played a major part in bringing that about and we were that near to completing
it, that's unfortunate, but it's the nature of getting agreement with a
hundred and eighty countries and we also, it's not right to say we won't
achieve our Kyoto targets, I mean if you look at the European assessment
of all countries, Britain and Germany are the two ones that have got programmes
that can achieve those targets and will achieve them on the programmes
that are put forward. Part of that is the public transport, getting people
to use their cars less and public transport more, part of it of course
is the climate change levy, which has been controversial but is a major
change of making efficient and less damage to the climate. The third point
on greenbelt, we now have thirty-thousand more hectares of land in the
greenbelt than when we came in in 1997, we've got two national parks and
we have the government audit, which actually, Michael er, Alan, sorry Alan,
Alan refers to, was the one I brought in, it was a commitment, so that
we could have parliament check us in a powerful way as to whether we're
carrying it out, in an audit and therefore to that extent I think we have
a very good record in fact, internationally and nationally.
ANCRAM: Can I ask John a very short
question.
HUMPHRYS: Very short.
ANCRAM: It's something I've been
fascinated with for ...
HUMPHRYS: As long as we get a very
short answer as well.
ANCRAM: Did John really say he
had a policy for the greenbelt and he'd build on it?
HUMPHRYS: Ah now, come on, that
was a joke, that was a joke. We'll leave...
PRESCOTT: ...I know, but the Tories,
as they've shown in this election, will not discuss the substance and the
answer to that is thirty-thousand more back in hectares are on the greenbelt
side.
HUMPHRYS: But you've used that
joke before haven't you. I could, you can always tell. A question from
Andrew Kirkpatrick who is an IT analyst.
ANDREW KIRKPATRICK: Hi, I want Britain to keep
the pound. Do the politicians agree that if Labour wins the next election
they will call a referendum to go into the Single Currency within the next
year?
HUMPHRYS: Michael Ancram?
ANCRAM: Well that's certainly my
fear because we've already begun to see the signs that they are... that
if they were to win the election they've been planning to do this for a
long time. That's why we say, that this election is the chance to make
sure that doesn't happen. We've seen over the last two years what's known
as either the change over plan or the hand over plan being put into place
by this government which is spending a lot of money on doing this and the
only reason for doing that is to prepare this country to scrap the pound
and to go into the euro. And we do know that they are intending, if they
got into power, to have a referendum which would not be fought on an even
basis, that they have already put into legislation the means to ensure
that the yes campaign would have more money than the no campaign and every
indication is that they would treat this as they did the referendums at
the beginning of the last parliament when they used all the resources of
government to make sure that they bounced people into decisions. We believe
that this election is the last chance of having a fair vote on keeping
the pound and we hope people will take that chance.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott.
PRESCOTT: Well Mr Hague has gone
around saying we've got three days to save the pound, it's now switched
to the referendum. Good, welcome on board, we are saying well trust the
people but we have laid down certain conditions and under those conditions
about the jobs, the economy, the convergence of our economies, we will
make a judgement about that. When we make a judgement, we will then recommend
to Parliament, Parliament will have a decision about it and then we will
go to the people in a referendum. Now..
ANCRAM: What will the question
be?
PRESCOTT: Well I'll come to that
in a second. But in the Common Market if you remember, they took us in
without any discussion about it. We gave the people a chance in a referendum and
they chose to stay in Europe and that's what we've observed. So we have
a record of trust in the people in these decisions. Secondly, as to the
referendum and the cost and resources involved, a commissioner has already
made clear the man who is in charge of the referendum that the question
will be fair and broad and reflect the proper question to be put to the
people. Now he's the man independently put to it. Now on the third point
about the money: What we've said is that there will be equal amounts to
go to the NO and the YES. Wait a minute Michael. Keep with it. Three
to go. First one is yes and no. The second stream is that we'll distribute
some of the money on the basis of the proportion of the votes you get.
You get money for the opposition finance based on that same principle,
you haven't found any problem with that before, you're just now connecting
to the referendum. It's the traditional way we've done it. And the third
point, people like Paul Sykes who want to give millions into this, who
are very wealthy to do it, will have a limit placed on how much money they
can put in. I think that's a fair reflection. People get the decision.
The question is determined by the commissioner and the resources are decided....
HUMPHRYS: Well can I just pick
up on a matter of fact there. It's not determined by the Commissioner.
He will have a view as to whether it's a fair question. (all speaking
at once)
BEITH: Or whether it's intelligible.....
HUMPHRYS: Intelligible - yes.
PRESCOTT: To be fair, whatever
the situation is, if we were to put a question and the Commissioner say,
'That's not a fair question' or 'an intelligible question' as you're saying,
we would be in great difficulties wouldn't we? Clearly you'd need agreement
with the Commissioner but you know they don't want referendum. They want
to make the decision for you. We're putting it to you. And I don't know
what their position is now. You've got Mrs Thatcher says 'Never, never',
you've got Mr Hague saying, 'Only one parliament' - what is the position?
Seven days? Seven months? Referendum? Trust the people.
HUMPHRYS: Alan Beith
BEITH: Actually, the Liberal Democrats
are the only people who will guarantee you a referendum. The Conservatives
will not give you a referendum at all because they have decided that in
the next parliament the issue can't be considered, after that who knows?
The Labour Party are saying, 'if we decide that the time is right to go
in, especially if Gordon Brown decides it's alright to go in - then we'll
have a referendum'. We say - 'There will be a referendum in this next
parliament.' But what an extraordinary lack of confidence in the British
people that William Hague has now resorted to saying, after having given
up on the idea that he can make this election a referendum on Europe,
is now having to say, 'You can't trust the people they'll be fooled by
the government. They won't know'. If opinions are as strong as the opponents
of the Euro say they are, the British people won't have any problem. What
we have to do, those of us who believe that if we can get the right exchange
rate and the right economic conditions that it's good for jobs in this
country, we actually have to persuade the British people of our case and
that's quite a daunting task. I believe that we can do it but it's down
to the British people at the end of the day. They will decide on our proposals
and that's the right way to do it.
HUMPHRYS: Let me go to Michael
Ancram on that because there was an allegation made against you there which
many people say is perfectly fair. You have, your party has made a bit
of a porridge about this one way or the other haven't you. Have we still
got X number of days left to save the pound? Are you going to re-set the
clock at some point? What is all this about?
ANCRAM: What we have said and I
reiterate it today is that this election is the last chance of having a
fair vote on whether.........
HUMPHRYS: Your leader said it was
the last chance to save the pound....
ANCRAM: No. The last chance on
having a fair vote to keep the pound because we do believe, and I have
some experience, I was the person who fought on the NO side in the Welsh
referendum on devolution which the Neal Committee itself specifically criticised
because it was unbalanced and I watched the power of the government being
able to use all the information services, all the facilities available
to it to try and make sure that there was an imbalance in the way that
the proposition was put to people. I know that referendums can be skewed.
What we are saying here is that we have a very clear position: If you
vote for us and if we are the government on Friday then we will not scrap
the pound. We've made that quite clear.
HUMPHRYS: For five years.....
ANCRAM: Like everything else we
do in terms of an election for the parliament and that's.......
PRESCOTT: Can I just come in on
a quick point. He rightly said, 'if the economic conditions are right',
and that's our position. But did I hear him to say that we'd still have
a referendum anyway and guarantee it even whether you thought the conditions
were right or wrong? (Both speaking at once).
BEITH: We've got to give the British
people the opportunity to decide.......we can't let this issue drift on.
Investment in Britain is effected by what our future is and a lot of investment
depends actually on our being in the euro. Those are long-term decisions.
We can't wait for five years, as the Conservatives propose, and I don't
think that's what Tony Blair wants to do, I think he wants a referendum.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott let me
follow up this thought about the referendum because as you've told us many
many times it's down to these five economic tests that have been set by
Gordon Brown. Now who decides when you start making the assessment as
to whether those five economic tests have been met? Is that just Gordon
Brown?
PRESCOTT: No. The Prime Minister's
made absolutely clear, and we assume the Prime Minister is in charge of
his Cabinet. The Treasury make a recommendation, because it's largely
on economic matters.......
HUMPHRYS: No, no, so I'm being
quite clear about this. I'm not talking about the tests themselves as to
whether they have been met. That is a Treasury assessment but when - no,
no, the question is and it's a very important one I think. When will the
assessment of those tests begin and who will make the decision as to when
they begin because it could be, couldn't it, just Gordon Brown. Who else,
afterall?
PRESCOTT: It's Cabinet government.
In fact what the Treasury has to do in fact, they've set the tests, they
would have agreed them in the Cabinet and then we make an assessment and
they come along and give us their advice. I am sure there are others in
Cabinet who are directly effected with the European Government in relations
and will have some influence as well but at the end of the day it will
be a Cabinet decision, a Cabinet decision then clearly goes to Parliament,
Parliament decides whether they accept whatever the government is saying
about these matters, if we are going on to accept these conditions, and
then the people decide it in a referendum. That's good, democratic government.
HUMPHRYS: So, right. So the Cabinet
will say to Gordon Brown, once you get back into power, if you get back
into power, right Gordon, you start that assessment now?
PRESCOTT: No, the assessment is
constantly made by governments in these matters.
HUMPHRYS: That's not what he says
you see because he says we are not going to give you a running commentary...
PRESCOTT: Well in fact, what we
say, if you look at the whole range of them, in fact they don't fit that
convergence criteria that we've set at the moment so there's hardly any
point in having a decision, it's clear for you to see. As we...
HUMPHRYS: Is it, that's not what
the OECD says is it?
PRESCOTT: ...it will be obviously
a Prime Minister actively involved and all Cabinet ministers will be involved
in the decision. It will be a collective decision of government, of course
it has to be.
BEITH: But there should be a sixth
test, which is whether the Exchange Rate is one in which we can safely
enter and to create those circumstances, you really have to plan ahead.
You can't do it on the basis of you wake up and do it one morning.
HUMPHRYS: Right, very very...time
for one more very quick question from Pam Binnie who is a classroom assistant.
Miss Binnie.
PAM BINNIE: Hi, does the way that parties
have used personal attacks against each other, encouraged people to vote
or put them off?
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott.
PRESCOTT: I think it depends on
what that personal thing is. For example, when we had the Tony Blair with
the eyes and that, I thought too much fuss was made.
HUMPHRYS: The demon eyes.
PRESCOTT: The demon eyes.
HUMPHRYS: They were withdrawn by
John Major.
PRESCOTT: And now we've got Mrs
Thatcher's hair on Mr Hague's head or something. I think people like to
laugh a bit, it's something to look at and to laugh about it but it must
have an important political message and the political message basically
is, Mrs Thatcher is here controlling and Mr Hague is controlled by her.
HUMPHRYS: Michael Ancram.
ANCRAM: That's interesting from
the party whose leader said this election is going to be about issues and
not about personalities and yet we have seen all their advertising directed
at personalities and I think that says something about the campaign....
PRESCOTT: ....but why did you have
Tony Blair as a pregnant man?
ANCRAM: ...the campaign that they've
fought. You...
PRESCOTT: ...you know you are hypocrites....
ANCRAM: You were the ones who told
us at the beginning it was all going to be...you were the ones who told
us this was going to be about the issues and at the end, of necessity,
we're talking about personalities because the whole of this campaign has
been directed from the Labour Party against William Hague and Michael Portillo.
I think that says something for the dearth of their arguments on anything
else.
BEITH: Well here they go and the
one clear message...
PRESCOTT: ...the good old Liberals....
BEITH: ..the one clear message
that we've had throughout the election is that people like the fact that
Charles Kennedy has been straight about taxes, straight about spending
and has kept out of the personality...
HUMPHRYS: Oh, he does his fair
share of it...he said Tory asylum policy has the instincts of Alf Garnet
combined with the electoral appeal of Michael Foot - that was a bit of
a personal attack on...
BEITH: That was actually about
the policy..it was the policy.
HUMPHRYS: And not the man behind
it.
PRESCOTT: This programme has discussed
policy and congratulations to that, we have to answer to that and there's
only been one small question about the personalities but much of the attention
tends to come on that but that doesn't mean we haven't been discussing
the issue. It's only the Tories who have been avoiding them.
HUMPHRYS: Michael Ancram, you've
got ten seconds left.
ANCRAM: We've put forward our programme
based on the issues right from the start of this election campaign. We
will continue doing that until polling day, we believe that people know
they haven't had their promises delivered by the government and we're looking
forward on polling day to seeing the result we're looking for.
HUMPHRYS: Michael Ancram, John
Prescott, Alan Beith, thank you all very much indeed.
And that's it for this
week. I can't tell you who will be on the programme next week, it depends
of course on who is in the government and that's something for you to decide.
Don't forgot about our website if you are on the internet. Until next Sunday,
good afternoon.
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