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ON THE RECORD
STEPHEN DORRELL INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 25.5.97
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Kim Catcheside reporting on the
challenge facing the new leader of the Conservative Party.
And one of those who thinks he can rise
to that challenge is Stephen Dorrell. He's not exactly one of the favourites,
but win or lose, he's going to be an important influence on the way the Party
develops.
So Mr Dorrell, perhaps you can have a
look back briefly, you've had three weeks now, to reflect on what went wrong.
As a result of that reflection, what policies would you change?
STEPHEN DORRELL: Well I think the most important thing
the Conservative Party has to do and is not to throw over policies after three
weeks reflection following a General Election. It is to ensure that the Party
leadership, the Party in Parliament is reconnected with its supporters in the
country. We don't need in the first month of a new Parliament, a whole set of
detailed policy commitments for an election which is still up to five years
away.
What we need to do is to re-assert the
values that bring together the members of the Conservative Party, both in the
country and in Parliament and we need to ensure that the Party in Parliament
expresses a set of values and an approach to politics which reflects the
approach in the constituencies and most important, of course, among the
Conservative voters, the people whose support we lost on the first of May '97.
HUMPHRYS: I take that point, but you said
immediately after the election, that it wasn't the voters who got it wrong, it
was you in the Party, who got it wrong. So you must have given some
consideration therefore to what policies you got wrong and clearly you know, in
your own head, what those are. And let's just see if we can pinpoint some of
the areas. Let's look at the National Health Service. What went wrong there
do you believe?
DORRELL: I think that you can look across the
whole range of policy fields and certainly health and education are two of them
and find that in those areas the Conservative Party, in the General Election,
didn't carry conviction as a Party that shared the same objectives for those
services as the people whose support we were seeking and we didn't on the
doorstep, appear to sufficient number of voters, as people who wanted to see
the continued development, as David Willetts was saying, of tax funded health,
tax funded education. Now that is a commitment that the vast majority of
people in this country regard as a basic commitment in a modern state and it's
something that the Conservative Party has to be clear, unambiguous and
articulate about. That we are committed to high quality health and education
services. But the difference between us and in particular our Labour opponents
is that we are committed to the development of those services on the basis of
need but we are also committed to giving the user of those services a bigger
voice in the type of service and the way in which the service is delivered to
the service user than Labour has shown itself repeatedly to be.
Labour say, for example, in the Health
Service: we can't have different GPs offering a different type of service
because...where each of them thinks that it's in the best interest of their
patients. They want to eliminate GP fundholding which allows greater variety.
They also want to eliminate variety of schools. What I think we need to do in
the Tory Party is to carry conviction as a Party that wants to see those
services develop but wants also to give the parent and the patient a bigger
voice in the type of service that they actually experience.
HUMPHRYS: But as you say that wasn't the message
that you got across. That wasn't what the people believed. Now was that
because the message was wrong or because you did want, as Peter Luff suggested
in that film, as far as the voters were concerned, to turn the NHS into - I
think his expression was a 'commerical bazaar'.
DORRELL: Well it's certainly true that too often
our ambition to manage those services better got lost in 'manager speak',
managerial jargon, the jargon of the business school and that's the vast
majority of people are turned off by the jargon of the business school.
HUMPHRYS: But it was more to do than just jargon
wasn't it. It had more to do with real things than just presentation didn't
it?
DORRELL: Well the jargon got in the way of an
understanding of what it was we were seeking to do, which is to ensure a bigger
voice for a parent in choosing what type of school their child goes to.
HUMPHRYS: I was looking at the NHS.
DORRELL: Exactly the same argument applies in the
NHS. The patient choosing between a range of different General Practices which
one they thought most effectively met their particular needs. I don't think
it's true that the only way you can deliver high quality health, or high
quality education is by imposing a single uniform solution. Indeed I think
it's by allowing individual GPs, individual schools the opportunity to develop
their own ideas and to develop different approaches, that it how you deliver
the commitment to high quality service that I want to see. But that's an
argument that I accept entirely we didn't get over and it's because..that's
where I think the..we expressed it too much as manager speak and what we need
to do, is to carry conviction as people who are introducing these changes in
order to deliver the better health and education service that we want.
HUMPHRYS: So you are saying it was just a matter
of presentation. Then it would have been alright if you had, I don't know, if
you'd have had a Mandelson?
DORRELL: No, I certainly don't think it's true
that it was just a matter of presentation. I think that we need to use the
period in opposition to think through how the ambition to deliver high quality
responsive public services can be better...can be better ensured. And that's
something we need to use the next five years. I'm not going to respond to your
invitation to say after three weeks of that five years - I've got a new vision.
That seems to me would be absurd.
HUMPHRYS: No, no, all I'm suggesting to you is
that...
DORRELL: We must recognise that we didn't carry
conviction on those issues three weeks ago and that ensuring that we do carry
conviction on them in the years ahead is certainly one of our key priorities.
HUMPHRYS: But of course I don't expect you to give
me a nineteen point plan for the recovery of the Health Service at this precise
moment. But you seem to be acknowledging if I understand you correctly, that
the commerical zeal if you like, went a little too far.
DORRELL: I am certainly acknowledging that we
didn't succeed in convincing the voter that our ambition for the future of the
Health Service...
HUMPHRYS: But that's not quite the same thing, is
it?
DORRELL: Well, it goes to a similar issue. If we
want people...
HUMPHRYS: Well, not quite, because I am not sure,
you see, whether you are saying "the voters took the wrong message from what we
were trying to do," or "we may have been trying to do it in slightly the wrong
way." In other words, "we should have..." You talked a great deal about
sub-contracting out services and all the rest of it. Now, people may have
taken from that that you wanted to sell off the NHS. Okay, I know you didn't
want to sell off the NHS, but nonetheless...
DORRELL: I wish you had said that during the
General Election.
HUMPHRYS: Well I don't think I ever quite accused
you of wanting to sell off the NHS and neither did anybody - well...
DORRELL: Others did. But I accept that you
didn't.
HUMPHRYS: But this is what I am trying to get at -
is whether you believe on the basis of the message people took that perhaps you
should in future be a little less enthusiastic about the commercialisation of
some of the services.
DORRELL: Yeah. We certainly don't want to
deliver a commercial vision for public services. I agree with that. We need
to show how we as Conservatives are going to deliver a service in health and
education that matches the highest quality standards that we can aspire to and
which can see those standards continue to improve. That's a commitment that is
actually there in the Conservative Party but which we didn't succeed in
convincing people of. And we also do need to listen - listen directly to our
own supporters in the country, to the voters who we lost in May of '97, to
ensure that we understand precisely where the balance lies in terms of their
objectives for the commitment to high quality but also the commitment to
choice. You see, one of the things that I think the Conservative Party should
clearly stand for is the sense that we should live in a society of individuals,
responsible individuals, independent people. And I think that there is a
powerful message there for the Conservative Party which we need to tap into to
express the ambition of the individual citizen to be responsible for as much as
possible of the key decisions that affect their lives.
HUMPHRYS: But even so, or, and - perhaps I should
say there - Gerald Howarth's point in that film about it's important that
people understand we want to deliver a better service not cut costs.
DORRELL: Yes, I agree with that. You see, one of
the problems I think that we ran into - particularly during the last Parliament
- was that we want to cut the tax burden for all sorts of very straightforward
and good reasons, in my view. And people then said "oh well, because you want
to cut the tax burden you must therefore also be unwilling to see growth in
health and education spending."
HUMPHRYS: And that's why you are bringing in all
this commercialism.
DORRELL: Exactly. In point of fact we had seen a
huge increase in health spending, not as a matter of accident but as a matter
of choice, but because we put the stress on cutting the size of the public
sector - which is a correct stress - we were ... it was assumed from that that
we wanted to cut the level of health and education spending. What we didn't
succeed in persuading people of was that those two ... the objective of
improved health and education and the objective of a declining total size of
public sector are compatible and they are compatible by insisting on proper
prioritisation within public expenditure.
HUMPHRYS: All right but how do you square though
as far as the public is ... how do you persuade people that that is, that those
two things are compatible?
DORRELL: Well, the answer is by explaining to
people the principle of prioritisation and making clear to people what our
priorities are.
HUMPHRYS: But you tried that.
DORRELL: Well, but at the end of the day there is
no other way of answering the question that you asked me, which is that I am in
favour of seeing a continued downward trend in the tax burden. I am also in
favour of continued improvement in tax funded health and education. The only
way of reconciling those two things is by prioritising the twenty five per cent
plus of national income we spend on public expenditure that isn't health and
education.
HUMPHRYS: The trouble is I can hear people
thinking to themselves even as you said the first part of that: "Ah, well,
there he goes again. I mean, doesn't really want to spend the money on the
health service, wants to ... that's a big, big priority, cut the costs."
Terribly difficult issue, isn't it?
DORRELL: Let me tell you why I am in favour of
seeing the continued decline in the tax burden. You see, if you look at the
world in which we live, we face an increasing number of competitors who do not
impose the same burdens on their economy as we do and our commitment to have a
flexible market-led economy has to underwrite all of this. It's no good
sitting here talking about health and education and at the same time accepting
a tax burden or a tax structure on the economy which undermines our capacity to
pay for the health and education we want to see. So our commitment to reduce
the damage that is done still to some parts of the wealth creation process by,
for example, our capital taxation structure, that commitment is something that
should be another element of the Conservative programme. And of course every
politician faces the need to address a number of different priorities and you
start off with priorities that don't all work in the same direction and you do
have to find a way of reconciling them. That is what politics is about.
HUMPHRYS: The trouble is for most people the
question is very simple, isn't it. Cut taxes or improve services. That's what
your average person would say.
DORRELL: There is a certain simplicity but it is
a misleading simplicity because if you leave taxes too high with the result
that the economy under-performs, you don't have the money to pay for the public
services that you are committed to.
HUMPHRYS: All right. Let's move onto another area
then where you may or may not have got it wrong - see what you think about it -
privatisation. Was your zeal misplaced there, I mean what people heard you
wanting to do during the campaign was privatise the Underground, the Post
Office, the Railways, of course, which you were in the process of doing. Too
zealous? too, er, whatever the adjective is for zeal?
DORRELL: Zealous, I think is the word you are
looking for.
HUMPHREYS: Zealous. Of course it is.
HUMPHRYS: No, I think the answer to that is no. I
think the process of privatisation, of shifting economic activity out of the
political sector, the state sector and into the market sector where it's the
customer that chooses, that's a success story I believe of the eighteen years
of Conservative rule, and I don't believe it's a process that has come
completely to an end....
HUMPHRYS: But Gerald Howarth said it became kind
of a macho thing didn't he, I mean ...
DORRELL: No, I don't actually think that's true.
You see in the railways I think we're already seeing improvements through
having more commercial management of the railways. Commercial management means
that the management is targeting its efforts on better services for customers.
HUMPHRYS: Or bigger profits.
DORRELL: Well ....
HUMPHRYS: But arguably they can be the same thing
I know, but ...
DORRELL: You can't generate a profit out of any
business unless you satisfy the customer.
HUMPHRYS: Well, you can if they've no choice but
to use your service.
DORRELL: But anybody knows that there is a choice
for a traveller whether to use the railway, and what's actually happening is
that as the services are being improved the prospect is being created of
bringing people back to the railways in competition with buses and cars and
other forms of transport.
HUMPHRYS: But what may have worried Gerald Howarth
is when people like you said, and I quote from - and this is going back to
nineteen-ninety-two - we're no longer simply looking for obvious candidates for
privatisation. The conventional question was what shall we sell, now we should
ask: what must we keep. Well, that makes people think: this is just ideology.
DORRELL: No, it's actually motivated by exactly
the thing we were discussing a few moments ago, which is the commitment to
focus state activity on the thing which is unavoidably, in my view in a modern
world, something that we need to engage the taxpayer in and that is health,
education services. I don't believe that there is any reason why the political
sector, the state sector, should manage the railway system, and the track
record of having got telecommunications out of the state sector, having got gas
and electricity out of the state sector, all of those have shown that once
they're responsible unambiguously to their customers without having political
interference, actually what we've got is better quality services in those
areas.
HUMPHRYS: Whatever you do from now on, clearly
you've got to have party discipline. William Hague, one of your competitors
here thinks the answer - at least this is part of the answer - is you've got to
stop and use this expression "continually shifting fudge", implicit criticism
of Mr Major. Do you agree with him that that has been a problem, and that the
way to deal with it is discipline?
DORRELL: Well, I certainly agree that what we
need is a more disciplined - stronger process of discipline within the
Conservative Party. I've made it clear that if I'm elected there will be a
process of party reform. It's not something that we need to take very long
over because the electorate aren't interested in our internal rules and our
election processes and so forth. If we're going to get voters back to the
Conservative Party we've got to get this essential housekeeping over quickly.
That's why I've said there must be proper party discipline, there must be a
reform of our Central Office structure, there must also in my view, be a reform
of the election of the leader, but it has to be complete by next March happily.
HUMPHRYS: Was he right about continually sifting
fudge?
DORRELL: Well, I've made it clear, I think
history will be very kind to John Major's government. It was a government that
...
HUMPHRYS: They both can't be right can they?
DORRELL: .. it faced ..... I think history will
be kind to John Major's government. If you look at John Major's record....
HUMPHRYS: So he was wrong then - Mr Hague was
wrong?
DORRELL: Look at John Major's record as Prime
Minister. The extent to which we delivered an economic - a set of economic
circumstances to Mr Blair when he took office, which is simply better than that
that's been inherited by any incoming British Government in recent years.
That, I believe is a tribute - is a record that will stand very well when
people look at John Major's record as Prime Minister.
HUMPHRYS: Well, let's look at what you mean by
discipline then. The area that has caused you the biggest problem obviously
has been a Single European Currency. Now we have five of the six candidates
this time around don't we saying : no Single Currency in the first term of
whatever the new Labour Government...Conservative Government might be. Whoever
stands out against that policy should therefore what - assuming that is the
policy that is adopted - should have the whip removed from him. Is that right?
DORRELL: I think that the position on the Single
Currency is very straightforward.
HUMPHRYS: Right. So we haven't got time to go
into it in great detail. Let's be clear what ....
DORRELL: But it's actually quite an important -
it's important to understand what we're talking about. The Conservative Party
has agreed you cannot have a Single Currency that isn't based on convergence,
that is to say the same economic circumstances here as in the rest of the
proposed Single Currency zone. Nobody that I know of believes that this
country has convergent economic circumstances with the continent of Europe.
HUMPHRYS Okay, so that is the policy.
DORRELL: Our policy is that we should not seek to
introduce a Single Currency in these circumstances, and that should remain ...
HUMPHRYS: And if anybody says: I don't go along
with that policy, he or she should have the whip removed?
DORRELL: Well, it depends precisely on the
circumstances, but if Mr Blair ....
HUMPHRYS: But you have a policy,...
DORRELL But if Mr Blair supposed...
HUMPHRYS: .. If he says: that isn't the policy
that I want, I have my own policy, should the whip be removed from that person?
Nothing to do with Mr Blair.
DORRELL: Well, it is, because we're an opposition
party and we're not going to be proposing policy positions to the House of
Commons.
HUMPHRYS: You're fudging Mr Dorrell.
DORRELL: I'm not fudging, I'm saying to you, if
Mr Blair proposes a Single Currency in this parliament I do not believe it
could be against the background of convergence. I therefore think the
Conservative Party should oppose it, and I also think the Conservative Party
should apply the normal processes of party discipline to sustain that position.
HUMPHRYS: And if anybody therefore supporters the
other position and abstains, you would say they must lose the whip would you?
DORRELL: I wouldn't necessarily say that in all
circumstances.
HUMPHRYS: Well I thought you wanted discipline.
DORRELL: I wouldn't say that in all circumstances
because if - the logic of that position is that every time a member of
parliament rebels against the party point of view you withdraw the whip - that
is absurd. It's always been true that members of parliament have had the
capacity to express different points of view.
HUMPHRYS: And you've become and indisciplined
rabble as a result of it.
DORRELL: If a party gets to the point where every
time a single Member of Parliament disagrees with the party line on any issue
we withdraw the whip, then we really are in very serious trouble.
HUMPHRYS: But no change, and therefore some might
say no chance.
DORRELL: What I'm in favour of is strong
discipline, certainly the capacity of course to withdraw the whip when people
systematically undermine the party, but not for every vote against the Party
Whip, that would be absurd.
HUMPHRYS: Stephen Dorrell, thank you very much
indeed.
DORRELL: Thank you.
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