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ON THE RECORD
JOHN PRESCOTT INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 3.5.98
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: But first, where does the Labour Party
go from here? The government has enjoyed the most extraordinary anniversary -
the commentators have been competing with each other to find the most
flattering superlatives - but where now? Can it continue? Of course there are
lots of very difficult decisions ahead. The government says it is prepared to
face the hard choices. But is it? The Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott is in
our Hull studio.
Good afternoon Mr Prescott.
JOHN PRESCOTT: Good afternoon.
HUMPHRYS: You're doing very well, nobody could
argue about that. Your position is really quite extraordinary. But - you
haven't yet made many of the really big, hard, choices, have you?
PRESCOTT: Well I think we have. We've started to
make the reform in the Welfare System, it's going to be a difficult period for
us of course. We have to explain it within the principles of our own policies
and we'll begin to do that. We've begun to make the choices in resource
allocations by picking out the priorities for education, health - they're two
of them. Modernising government is controversial of course and the great
constitutional changes that we've been making for Scotland and Wales and
modernising local government. Now these aren't, not easy decisions and they're
ones that we've been making. We're doing what I think is getting the footings
in, you know, so that we can deal with government in the coming years.
HUMPHRYS: Getting the footings in, may be, but
building the buildings is going to be the real problem, isn't it. One that you
didn't mention there-
PRESCOTT: Well they fall down if the footings
aren't too good, John.
HUMPHRYS: Absolutely, you've got to decide what
those footings are, first of all though, that's the problem and my suggestion
to you is going to be that perhaps you haven't made those decisions yet. Let's
deal first of all with one that you didn't mention there and that's Europe. And
the Euro, the Single-
PRESCOTT: I think there were a couple I didn't
mention John, and I accept that Europe is certainly one of them.
HUMPHRYS: Fine. The problem here is that what you
could have done is you could have said: we are a massively popular government,
it appears that the people trust us, now we could have gone to them and said,
using that popularity, we could have gone and said: we believe in economic and
monetary union, we actually want to be a part of the Euro at same stage,
admittedly not just yet, but what we'll do now is give you, the people of
Britain, the chance to vote in a referendum at this stage. So that when the
time comes, we can say we got your mandate, we'll go into it. Instead, you've
ducked that choice.
PRESCOTT: I don't think we've ducked the choice. I
mean we've said clearly that there are many difficult decisions that are bound
to come about the membership of the economic and monetary union and we've spelt
out what we feel are the conditions for joining and at the moment they don't
fit those kind of convergence criticia and particulary the concern for
employment. But we have now gone through, as you've seen there in Brussels, a
decision for the establishment of that, but we've also made it clear that we
will make our own decision, a decision will be taken after this parliament and
it will be confirmed, not only by government and parliament, by the referendum.
Now, these are constitutional changes of
some fundamental concern and I think that is the right way to do it and it
seems that the public, generally at this stage, seem to endorse that.
HUMPHRYS: Well, whether it's the right way to do
it or not, is open to doubt.
PRESCOTT: But you're asking me what the decisions
are John, and I'm saying-
HUMPHRYS: No, no, what I was suggesting to you is
not that you take the decision now, there are prefectly good reasons for not
taking the decision now. Many people would say that. But because you believe
in principle, in going into EMU, because you believe that in principle, what
you could have done now is say: right let people vote in a referendum, we will
then have that in our back pockets, so that when the time comes, we can say: we
will do it. But you can't do that-
PRESCOTT: But that seems a most unusual way of
doing it because government would have to make a recommendation one way or
another. It can't say to the people: make your own mind up. We would have to
make a recommendation. They would want the sufficient information to
understand that it was going to be beneficial to Britain, it was in our
interests and not to be damaging. And it's not clear that that's the case at
the present stage-
HUMPHRYS: -but you've already said that you
accept-
PRESCOTT -it would be nonsense to be suggesting
that in fact, that we wouldn't go forward with the proper information which
isn't available at the present time.
HUMPHRYS: Well, no, because you've already said
that you want to go in in principle. Indeed Jacques Santer told me this week,
that as far as he is concerned, as far as Europe is concerned, it's not a
matter of if, it's a matter of when. But you have said quite clearly you won't
go in unless you have to pass certain tests, one of those is a referendum. Now,
you could go to the people and say, this is what this government believes in
principle, now you give us your support on that fundamental matter in
principle.
PRESCOTT: Well I think we're in disagreement about
this matter. I don't think the issue is one of principle in putting forward,
the one of principle is that the public should have the right to make the
decision. You will recall on the entry to the Common Market, I mean I was one
of those that was strongly against this at that time, and a Labour Government
came in saying that we would consult the people. First, by negotiating and
going around to see if we could get the terms better, after the previous
administration had taken us in, and then give them the chance on the referendum
which is what we did. But it was only after we got the information from Europe
and we were able to say: here's the case for it, the government recommends yes,
now they'll be a referendum.
Now, that's precisely how we did it
before. And I might say John, it brought the public around to having to make a
judgement and it didn't have the bitterness that was so shown in the arguments
about the For and Against the Common Market. And in that sense it's allowed a
proper decision to be made, I disagreed with it at the time, but we are a
matter-member of that community now and I think that's the way to do it. That's
the principle way to do it: proper information, democratic accountability and
in this case, allowing the people to make the decision by referendum.
HUMPHRYS: But one reason why, perhaps, you've not
gone into that referendum at this stage, with all the support that you've got,
is that you know that it would be terribly unpopular with the an awful lot of
people and my contention is that you are actually avoiding, at this stage,
those difficult choices, maybe because you are scared of what the Murdoch
newspapers would say for instance.
PRESCOTT: No, I don't think the Murdoch newspapers
come into it at all. There are some real difficulties about what is going to
happen about employment, what are we going-get convergence in our economy. Such
wide disparity at the present stage, whether it's on interest rates or
inflation. These are fundamental matters, but you are locking yourself into an
exchange rate in that sense. So to that extent, we are right to say, and we
argued this in the election John, we are only doing what we said we'd do in the
election.
HUMPHRYS: But one of the consequences of that, and
we can see it now, is the recession in manufacturing industry, brought about
largely as a result of a very high pound and that may well be even worse
tomorrow, who knows.
PRESCOTT: Don't let's talk ourselves into a
recession-
HUMPHRYS: -we're there.
PRESCOTT: -there are some difficulties on the
horizon. We can see the difficulties that we've had over a long period of time,
particularly in the consequences of the pound and the fluctuation and indeed
it's stop-go as Gordon Brown has always made very clear. Full endorsement of
government in this, that we want the long-term approach in this matter. We
don't want the boom and slumps. He was aiming for a reduction in the long-term
interest rates, which is the best for our manufacturing in the long run and
that's what he's doing at this present stage, doing it quite well I think. We
are already beginning to see some of the indications of it coming down. But it
is difficult. We are running for a long-term kind of approach to this. I think
Britain has been plagued for too long, certainly decades and even going back
previous-to the previous administration where boom-slump was a way that got
about in our economy and created, in the long run, real difficulties for us.
HUMPHRYS: But if you'd taken that hard choice, the
choice of going to the people, at this stage, you might have avoided that.
PRESCOTT: Well that's an interesting point John.
If the hard choice is to do it now, the assumption is that somehow you're
putting it off because you don't want to face the decision. I think hard
choices are about when the issue is absolutely clear and you have to make a
decision one way another. I think if you are making a decision before the
information is available, that's not a hard choice, it's a daft choice.
HUMPHRYS: Alright, let me take one of those things
that you did include in your list and that's the Welfare State. Now, here
again, you said you'd taken some hard choices there, I'm not quite sure what
they are. I mean what you did say, was that you would produce a Green Paper
setting out-a White Paper setting about all sorts of positions that the
government might, or might not take and you were going to tell us what the
principles were on which you stood and then there could be this great debate.
Well now, that was supposed to come out before Christmas, then they said the
Spring, well it finally did come out at the end of March. But what it was, was
a kind of series of platitudes really, it didn't tell us very much about what
anybody thought about very much at all. Now that was ducking hard choices
wasn't it?
PRESCOTT: I'm sure there were people like you
saying when the Welfare and the Beveridge Report, there might have been a
series of platitudes.
HUMPHRYS: Oh, not at all because there were very
clear principles in....
PRESCOTT: Well then you obviously haven't looked
at the front of the Welfare paper to see the same principles that are applied
in our case. What we are saying is that the fundamental change has taken place
from the Welfare State in the post-war period. That was a period when there was
a lot of full-employment - when it was full-employment and the Welfare System
was meeting the needs of two or three per cent who were unemployed and those
who weren't able to work. That has fundamentally changed over these last few
years. We now see millions of people forced to live in poverty on the Welfare
State in many cases, costing us a hundred billion pounds after the previous
administration's changes.
Now what we've got now is a situation
where many of them are children-are in increased poverty, people are forced to
live on the Welfare, cannot afford to take a job, or rates that are a lot lower
than what they get on their benefits because of the very low rates in the
market. And what we've said is that we should look at the Welfare State and
look at how we could get people off Welfare into work and that means making
some very pretty tough decisions and we laid down those principles how we see
it. Secure it starts, by the purpose of finding people work and we need to do
an awful lot more to do that, it's not simply about pumping more money into the
economy, it's dealing with the minimum wage problem, it's dealing with the jobs
that are available, it's dealing with tax and credit that Gordon Brown did in
this budget. Now that's a different approach to the Welfare, in the sense that
it's trying to make it more effective, more efficient and it's based on giving
people the opportunity of work which the market itself is not providing.
HUMPHRYS: But the biggest chunk of that hundred
billion that you talked about there is taken up with pensions. Now, we're no
wiser really what you want to do with pensions than we were before you produced
that White Paper. I mean, what we don't know - you've said that the basic
state pension-
PRESCOTT: Well we have said, John that wouldn't be
quite fair. I mean, we have said that the report will be ready by June -
right? And it's a controversial area as you well know, but it reafirms the
principle, and the record of the Labour Party and the Labour governments of the
past has been very clear. Our record on pensions is better than any other
government has been, and what we intend to do now is to start the process where
we re-establish the State Pension scheme. Gordon Brown's now actually lifted
the pension scheme for a couple to over a hundred pounds - that's one start.
He's done something about poverty in fuel, basically by giving them some more
money for the fuel problems and reducing the VAT on fuel, and beginning to make
other changes. The monies that we put in to health for example, assist elderly
people. These are ways by which we can give a more comprehensive approach to
the pension sheme. Now, you must wait for the review which has had something
like twenty thousand responses, and that second pension, a bit on top of the
basic pension which is at the heart of the pension review, will be given a
judgement in June.
HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but what-what we've all been
waiting for, I think, since you came to power, is some kind of lead, some kind
of indication as to where you're positioned here. I mean, yes, you say you've
done a lot for the pensioners - you've given them pensions, you've given them
bits and pieces here and there since you've been in, certainly. But the effect
as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, the effect of what your overall
approach is, is that the basic state pension will remain certainly, but it will
decrease in value, and what you're saying to us as a nation is we must have
second pensions. Well, now that's fine. We've got to fund them for ourselves,
and that's fine too, if we can afford it, but we've no idea what's going to
happen to those people who are not able to afford a second pension.
PRESCOTT: That's why you have a review,but you've
put your finger on a real point as you say John.
HUMPHRYS: It's a fundamental point-
PRESCOTT: -the real value of the pension - the
basic pension is increasingly falling, and it's going to cause real
difficulties. That's because we largely had - it was changed to connection to
inflation and not earnings. Now to those circumstances we have to look at how
the second payment pension will be financed. There are pensioners existing at
the present time who have to be dealt with separately from the long-term
challenge for pensions where there are more and more people living - reaching
an older age, and more people in that bracket which puts a tremendous demand
on welfare resources. Now, it is a very real problem, it's not an easy one,
and it's right for us to say, to enter in those discussions as we agreed some
time ago, and the publication of our review will be in June.
HUMPHRYS: But you've not given us a lead you see.
You've not given us a clear steer. There are other areas, I mean like Child
Benefit. Gordon Brown,it appears, wants to tax Child Benefit for the people
who are better off. Apparently Tony Blair doesn't, so it isn't going to happen
yetf. It may happen.
PRESCOTT: It's all probably and ifs. I mean the
great problem of getting into this, is you're telling me what Gordon Brown
says he wants, then you say..the Prime Minister-
HUMHRYS: -he made it quite clear.
PRESCOTT: The great thing is to rely on a proper
and studied report from government, and then we can have the public debate and
the decisions to be made by government.
HUMPHRYS: Delays again you see.
PRESCOTT: You have your finger particularly on a
very hard choice, there's no doubt about it. And many, many pensioners are
looking to a Labour Government to make the changes and to reflect the social
justice which is constantly at the heart of most of our priorities.
HUMPHRYS: But you see the impression has to be
that that was deferred, an awful lot of this has been deferred because you
ran into such flak when you tried to do things with the Single Parent Benefits,
that you thought, hello, we're going to be unpopular if we plough ahead with
this, so let's put it off.
PRESCOTT: Well, it's not put it off, perhaps it's
to recognise the difficulties associated. I mean Tony Blair's made it
absolutely clear, you can't solve the whole welfare problem and issues in a few
months. In fact it's even more than one period of government. First of all
you lay down-
HUMPHRYS: You've had a long time to think about it.
You've had eighteen years in opposition..
PRESCOTT: First of all you lay down the
principles, then you begin to find the priority of the resources and the
choices that is to be made in that, and that's what we've started to do, and I
think that's right and proper, and when you look at the Beveridge Report, it
took a number of years through the War to establish that report and to
determine its priorities. We're as involved in as much a fundamental change
and challenge as was involved in the Beveridge Report, and we have at the heart
of that social justice and principles which motivated Beveridge. We are now
having to put those traditional values which I've often said, in a modern
setting, and this applies to welfare as it applies to many other areas of
Government policy.
HUMPHRYS: Let's look at a problem that Beveridge
didn't have, and that was transport, and this is your own bailli here. Now,
you're obviously concerned about car use, you want us to use our cars less.
Now, this is a hard choice here isn't it, because it's going to be very
unpopular to say to people: you must - not you should - you must use your cars
less. Now, there's a report this morning that you're being overruled on this
because somebody in Downing Street, the policy unit at Downing Street are
saying John Prescott wants to do something unpopular. He wants to say to local
authorities you can slap big fat charges on people taking their cars into
cities.
PRESCOTT: I'm preparing the White Paper
and I have the responsibility for it. I can't answer for the reports in the
Observer particularly-
HUMPHRYS: But it's been postponed, that's the
trouble.
PRESCOTT: And then it reports - some report done
by Geoffrey Norris or somebody, one of the aides in Number Ten. That
doesn't make it Number Ten policy, and I can tell you, the one who's got the
respoonsibility for this matter, I want people to use their cars less. I
don't necessarily have to force them into that position, that happily happens
in Europe, and they do it because they've got a better public transport system.
They have a different set of priorities. Yes, there may be difficult choices. I
don't think they're as difficult as people think they are, but we do have to
make a fundamental change, not only for a better transport system to reduce the
congestion cost which is very considerable, but also to meet the environmental
objectives that I've been negotiating in the UN with the climate changes. We
have to make those changes, we have to reduce greenhouse gases. Now, when the
White Paper comes out, and I can't discuss the White Paper, and it's not-
HUMPHRYS: A delayed White Paper
PRESCOTT: -I have to face those hard choices.
If I have to change things around, those who are being changed in their view
detrimentally by that, will claim it's a foul and it's a difficult choice, but
you know a third of our people have no public transport or private transport
whatsoever, and we've got to make some changes. Not only for good transport,
but for the environment, because we've accepted legal targets now for the
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
HUMPHRYS: Is it going to be delayed even more then
because of this row as you say - because Mr Norris takes a different view, and
and because there is an argument going on over it?
PRESCOTT: No, no, it's in the first week or the
second week in June, that's what it was intended, it depended on the
parliamentary time, because you know there's the Whit break in between that
John. It's not delayed at all, it will be published at a time that we say-
HUMPHRYS: -so, Mr Norris's argument-
PRESCOTT: -watch this space and put your money on
me.
HUMPHRYS: Mr Norris is going to be overruled then
is he?
PRESCOTT: Who's Mr Norris? Mr Norris is an
official in the department, and sometimes I call them teeny-boppers. You know
what I mean. I'm the Secretary of State.
HUMPHRYS: No, I haven't heard them referred to
as teeny-boppers.
PRESCOTT: You put your money on me.
HUMPHRYS: Put the money on you. So we are going
to see something pretty tough happening there?
PRESCOTT: Well, Tony Blair's very strong about
environment, he's very strong about public transport policy, right. I've no
doubt about that. There are difficult choices because resources are involved,
some hard choices, but I have to convince the electorate of that and I intend
to do so, and I'm looking forward to it.
HUMPHRYS: The only problem with that is that Mr
Norris may be a teeny-bopper, but he works with Tony Blair doesn't he, and he's
the Prime Minister.
PRESCOTT: Well, watch this space.
HUMPHRYS: Alright. Fairness at Work, another
White Paper endlessly postponed, and that because the TUC was going to have a
conference on it this month. They had to postpone it because you simply can't
make up your mind what to do about Trade Union recognition. That was in your
manifesto. Trade Unions thought they knew what you wanted to do, CBI didn't
like, the bosses didn't like, it would have been unpopular so you put it off.
PRESCOTT: John - you are dealing with all these
speculation problems, and of course there's been a conference that has been
cancelled. Discussions are going on between all the parties as we said we'd do
in our White Paper. There will be a Fairness at Work White Paper, whether
you're in a Trade Union or not we'll be extending the rights of work for people
at the palce of work, and one of those things will be the right to belong to a
Trade Union. After all one of the first things we did was to reverse that
terrible injustice done to trade unionists by the removal of their rights at
GHCQ. The business of the social contract - social charter has allowed us now
to extend some of those rights, so wait for the White Paper - it's not so
wrong, we've only been in twelve months, we've got the agreements that are
coming along, and you will see a considerable advance when that White Paper is
produced.
HUMPHRYS: But Tony Blair himself said in the
House, that you were still discussing what the manifesto meant, so...
PRESCOTT: So what's terrible about that?
HUMPHRYS: Because ... I'll tell you.. it's not
terrible, but it's a bit odd isn't it that you write a manifesto and then it
takes you a very very long time after you've been in government to decide what
you meant when you wrote that manifesto. That's what I mean about hard choices
you see.
PRESCOTT: You clearly haven't read in detail the
Manifesto. What the Manifesto ...
HUMPHRYS: I assure you I read it many times. I
talked to you about it before.
PRESCOTT: Well, am I on?
HUMPHRYS: Yes.
PRESCOTT: The Manifesto made it clear there would
be a recognition of these rights, and what it said there would have to be
discussion between the various parties. Discussion is taking place, it's not
surprising it's controversial, you must wait the outcome of those results and
they'll be in the White Paper shortly.
HUMPHRYS: So what you're not saying here is....
PRESCOTT: It's called government....
HUMPHRYS: Alright, it's called government, but
government's about leadership, and it seems sometimes what you're actually
saying is: we're a populist government and where you follow we will lead,
that's what you seem to be saying.
PRESCOTT: What do you mean - leadership like
dictating or something. I don't care what you say, I want you to do what I
want.
HUMPHRYS: Leadership by focus group.
PRESCOTT: Pardon?
HUMPHRYS: What about leadership by focus group?
PRESCOTT: Well I don't think-I mean if you get an
idea of what people are thinking by focus groups - I've been critical fromtime
to time of these matters, there's no difficulty about getting an opinion, you
can take it into account as long as the politicians end up making their
decisions and they're accountable for it, and not completely steered by them.
That's always been my view - I'm not against taking an opinion. And I'll tell
you what, it's a very interesting point this, the volatility in the electorate
is a new feature of democratic politics I think in the next decade or so, and
people are much more volatile how they vote, whether it's young people, women,
men, it's no longer the one vote, voting Labour on working-class solidarity,
there have been considerable changes underway, and finding out what people want
and then identifying that in the election card that we did, the contract we
have with the people is the way we'll be judged, and when I hear all these
talks about third ways and big tents and all these kind of discussions and
people, intellectuals going on the television and saying: can't understand
what's happening here, here's a government still more popular twelve months
after it was elected. Perhaps it's because we've found out what the people
wanted and all the people, and then began to deliver those promies. Now that
might be a radical thought in politics, but that I think is what is happening
and on May the Seventh when we have the elections I hope the people will get
out and vote overwhelmingly for us.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, thanks very much indeed.
PRESCOTT: Don't forget to vote.
HUMPHRYS: Certainly not.
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