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ON THE RECORD
NORMAN FOWLER INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION: BBC ONE DATE: 28.2.99
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: But first, the report into the murder
of
Stephen Lawrence. It was, by common consent, one of the most important this country
has seen for many years. But its introduction has been little short of disastrous.
First it was leaked. Then there was the abortive attempt by the Home Secretary
to stop the newspapers publishing those leaks. Then it was discovered, too late,
that the names and addresses of people who had given information secretly to the
police were published for all to see in the appendix to the report. And Jack Straw,
the Home Secretary, has left it to his deputy to pick up the pieces. He is out of
the country on holiday.
I spoke to the Shadow Home Secretary,
Sir Norman Fowler, earlier this morning. I began by asking him whether Mr Straw had
been right to leave the country at this time.
SIR NORMAN FOWLER: Well I think taking the holiday,
taking..going overseas at this particular point, I think is questionable. I mean
there's the point about the statement to the House but we've moved on from that.
I mean it's the Friday afternoon, it's the Saturday morning, it's the Saturday
afternoon, it's the Sunday. It seems to me that what he should have been doing as
Home Secretary was to be giving reassurance and checking that for example, the witnesses
have not been put at danger and that if they have that everything is being done to
help that situation. He needed to take responsibility.
I think the other thing he should
have been doing is to get personal assurances from those people, that very tight
band of people who'd seen the report in advance, that they had no part in its leaking,
because, if you remember what the affair with the appendixes indicates, is that
only a very small number of people saw the report. The police hadn't even seen the
report because once they did see it, they were able to point out immediately what
was wrong and withdraw the appendixes. So, yes he should be here I'm afraid.
HUMPHRYS: And should have been there in the
House on Friday. But didn't you agree that he should not be there on Friday, that
you should send your deputies, you and he.
FOWLER: Well I hear what the spin doctors,
Labour spin doctors are saying on that, rather desperately. What actually happened
was that Jack Straw rang me, just as I was about to go on Question Time..
HUMPHRYS: On what day was this - when was
this?
FOWLER: This was on Thursday evening about
7 - 7.30pm I would think. Just before I was about to go onto Question Time. And,
he didn't ring me about the fact that he was going to go on - he was going to go
away - what he rang me to say was that we had raised a point of order earlier in
the House ...earlier in the day on the appendix and on the appendixes and he was
making sure that I had seen a letter that he had written to the Speaker in which
basically he said he took no responsibility for it. I said to that: well, look I
think that a statement needs to be made to the House of Commons and it was at that
point that he said, well he couldn't make the statement and in effect Paul Boateng
would do it in his place.
HUMPHRYS: That's his deputy minister.
FOWLER: That's the deputy minister and if
that was going to be the case, I mean by the custom of these things in the House
of Commons as you know, John Greenway, my number two responded to that. But, I think
we have moved on from that, frankly.
HUMPHRYS: Just before we leave that point,
did you not raise any objection to that, didn't you not say: you should be there,
you are the Home Secretary, this is a hugely important matter.
FOWLER: What I was desperately trying to
do is to get the statement. You see we'd raised a point of order earlier in the day.
I mean we found out, I mean Roger Gale found out first and I helped him with the
point of order that we raised during the day and what we wanted to do was to get
a statement. Now, Jack, the Speaker said that she would enquire from the Home Office
and we were waiting basically for the Home Office to state what they were about.
I was much more concerned about getting the statement frankly than I was about which
minister should make it. I think it was more important that the Home Office made
the statement on the floor of the House.
HUMPHRYS: So do you not share the view of
Peter Lilley then, who said this morning I think it was, it's extraordinary that
he, the Home Secretary himself was not in the Commons but sent Paul Boateng not so
much to carry the can as to blame everybody but the government. Do you not share
Mr Lilley's concern on this.
FOWLER: I think what Peter says is..expresses
the view of a lot of people but I mean I..what I said as far as that statement was
concerned, I mean I wasn't asked my permission. I mean it's a bit odd for the Home
Secretary to ask my permission..
HUMPHRYS: You could have insisted.
FOWLER: I couldn't actually..
HUMPHRYS: You could have made a fuss.
FOWLER: I can't even insist on a statement.
I mean the only thing I can do is actually go up in the House of Commons and ask
for a statement which is exactly what we were seeking to do. So I can't actually
insist upon anything. But what I can do is press for a statement and that is what
I sought to do.
HUMPHRYS: And you could..just make a point
on that. You could yourself have gone to the House, couldn't you and said that: the
Home Secretary you ought to be here, you could have made a great fuss about it. Show
him your displeasure.
FOWLER: Yes we could and..but..and maybe
that may have been open to us. But, as you know the normal thing on a Friday morning
in particular, when, as you can see from the photographs and the television of that
day, there were not many members there, that when the number two Paul Boateng makes
a statement of that sort, it is responded to by the number two. Now that may be right,
or may be wrong, but I don't really think frankly John, that the government can ride
off on this. I mean what is wrong is that the Home Secretary has not taken responsibility,
and it's not that he just wasn't there on Friday morning, he hasn't been there since.
He's been in the South of France. Look, I'm here in Birmingham, I'm here in my constituency.
I'm going in a moment to my twenty-fifth anniversary of my election party. I mean
I am here.
HUMPHRYS: But my point is you weren't there
on Friday morning and if you had been there..
FOWLER: But he has not been here, not just
for Friday morning. It's not Friday morning which is as important, in a sense, as
what he has been doing since. There's been error after error as far as this handling
of this report is concerned. Fundamentally important report, handled woefully. And
what it seems to me - he should have been about is seeking to ensure that the leak
of this information which kind of came from the report itself, that that was not
putting witnesses at risk and that everything was being done which was possible to
protect those witnesses. That, it seems to me, is the point. What he also should
be doing is to look at the leak itself, and what also he should be doing, it seems
to me, is to be doing what I'm doing and that is to actually to talk about the report
as well.
I mean the report is fundamentally
important and I believe, that you know, we should have a debate on it. It doesn't
actually end with the publication of that. So I do say, I do say, I think that on..in
this respect that the Home Secretary is wrong, he should not actually be in the South
of France, or wherever he is and should not have been over there for the whole of
this weekend. I think that is wrong.
HUMPHRYS: Should there have been an apology
from the Home Secretary, from the government, for the fact that the names and addresses
of those witnesses were included in the report.
FOWLER: Yes. No question or doubt about it
whatsoever. Of course there should have been, I mean this pathetic excuse that there's
nothing, that they had no responsibility for it, that was the first little statement
that was issued by the Home Secretary. I think is entirely false and it's entirely
false because they had the report for nine days before it was published, they went
through it, it is ridiculous to say that if they saw something which would put people
in peril they could not go back to the inquiry team and say, hey, this isn't part
of the proposals, this isn't part of the recommendations, this is an appendix to
the actual report itself, do you think this should be published. That's of course
what they should have done and they failed to do that and it was a very serious error.
HUMPHRYS: So what should the consequence
of that be. Should Jack Straw now offer his resignation?
FOWLER: Well, I think, I'm not one of those
who kind of goes round saying for ministers you know, you must resign, you must resign.
I think that we're getting very near to the point where Jack should be considering
his position, and I say that because I think that this has been one error after another
the most..perhaps the most fundamental error was actually seeking an injunction,
last weekend. I think that was a fundamental mistake. I think it was quite wrong
to do it. I think that we have now had that multiplied by the publication of the
names of witnesses. But what the connection between the two is this, it means that
the report itself was shown and seen by very, very few people indeed, it wasn't even
shown to the police in advance, and so it should be possible for the Home Secretary
to find out, and I think he should ask for personal assurances from those people
who saw that report and they should give assurances that they had no part in its
leaking. It is ridiculous that the police were excluded from seeing the report but
in fact people obviously, I think obviously by definition, not the police, obviously
somewhere round in the government area did see the report and leaked that report.
That is what I think is fundamental and what I announced yesterday, because again
they messed up the announcement of this one, I announced yesterday on their behalf
that they were setting up a full leak inquiry, there was an independent investigator
being appointed and the rest. And the reason that wasn't announced on Friday was
that they failed to actually get the question in time to the House of Commons, so
I rang up to actually find out about it, but it is one error after another. It has
been a woeful story and you ask me the straight question, I think Jack Straw should
be considering his position.
HUMPHRYS: And what about the position of
Sir Paul Condon the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. You did suggest even before
the report was published which may seem a bit odd now, that he shouldn't have gone,
what about now that you've seen the report now that everything else has happened,
all various kinds of things have been going on, various incompetences, the defacing
of the memorial to Stephen Lawrence, and so on and so on, what's his position now?
FOWLER: Well, I think that if you read the
report, and I think that the defacing of the Stephen Lawrence memorial was an appalling
act and I have utter contempt for those people who did it, and I think that clearly
we could have taken better action in defending it. But going to the report itself
I think that if you read the reports, and I know you have, I think that there is
some criticism of the Commissioner, but I don't think that that criticism is fundamental,
and I saw nothing in that report which indicated that he should resign. I think that
you've got to remember this, if he did resign, then I think that the impact upon
the morale of the Metropolitan Police would be very great indeed. Now I happen to
take the view that it is not the case that the Metropolitan Police is a racist force,
that isn't the case, that's not even the case that's being put, they're not, every
policeman and policewoman is not a racist.
HUMPHRYS: Incompetence apart from anything
else.
FOWLER: What we've got to do is to seek to
rebuild public trust, we've got to seek to create public trust where it clearly doesn't
exist at the moment, and to do that I think that the whole police force needs to
put their mind to it and I think over the next twelve months I think to be led by
Paul Condon is the best way of doing that, sorry...
HUMPHRYS: Wouldn't it look a little odd to
many people if the Home Secretary were indeed forced to resign over the way the report's
been handled and his taking a holiday and all the rest of it, while the Metropolitan
Police Commissioner who has been responsible for the last six years for the mess
that the force now finds itself in and whether it is institutionally racist or whether
it's just so incompetent that it cannot deal with the problems in the force under
Sir Paul's leadership that he should stay, the man who's presided over this mess.
FOWLER: Well, I think they are two different
cases, and I don't - as you go back to the report itself I think that there is nothing
in the report which indicates that he should resign or indeed that that is the intention
of Sir William Macpherson that he should do so. It is a matter of judgement.
In my view the right judgement is that the Metropolitan Police should be now led,
and led into a position where they recover and where they go back really to the inception
of the Metropolitan Police Service - police force, back in the - right at the foundation
of the police, which is to establish trust, to win that trust. That is what they
should be about.
HUMPHRYS: Isn't there the question ....
FOWLER: I think what you've got to ask yourself
is whether that would be easier or more difficult if the Commissioner had gone. And
I think frankly it would be much easier with the Commissioner there and with his
known feeling and devotion and dedication to that issue rather than if he'd gone.
And I think that the handling by the Home Secretary of this report, which everyone
I think says is lamentable is a different issue.
HUMPHRYS: Even though Sir Paul may well have
lost - appears to have lost the confidence of the very communities that he now has
to reassure.
FOWLER: Well, yes, I think that you need
to go back. I mean, I was part of a select committee on race relations back in the
nineteen-seventies. It was by no means clear that they had the confidence of the
community then, that is not new. I don't defend the fact that the police haven't
got more confidence, but it's not something which is unique about the period of office
of Paul Condon. It is something which has taken place over a number of years. We
haven't had for example, enough policemen recruited from ethnic minorities. We must
do more about that. And I think it is - it would be unfair to land all that on the
Commissioner's plate when actually he's tried to do a great deal about it.
And can I put this other point John,
and that is this, that although it is true that the police do not have the confidence
of the public in some areas and particularly, obviously with the ethnic minorities,
when you look at the general position the trust for the police is very great. You
only have to look at the opinion polls to see that the esteem for the police in this
country is very great. Most people in this country want more police, they don't
want less police, and that rather indicates the way in which they're held, and the
respect which they are held. That is not a - that's not an excuse for doing nothing,
that's not an option, but it is saying: look, the police have won the confidence
of the public in a whole range of areas, in a whole range of people. They should
be able to win that confidence more generally than they have at the moment, that
is what we should be putting our mind to.
HUMPHRYS: It might be better might it not,
that the Met should be run not by a police officer, but by a civilian, army officer,
whatever it happens to be. It's happened in the past and it's apparently been suggested
a couple of times by serious people, at serious committees in the past week or so
that it should happen again. What's your view on that?
FOWLER: I think that would be disastrous.
I think we would be turning the clock back fifty years. You're quite right, it
has been done in the past, but we've moved away from that, and we've moved on from
that. The police in this country is a professional service. As it happens, and
as you know I've looked at the police in Europe and I've looked at the police in
the United States, it is probably better regarded in this country than it is anywhere,
certainly anywhere in Europe, and probably in the world. Now, the reason for that,
or one of the reasons for that is that it is a professional service and it is run
by professional policemen. The idea that we should go back to a situation where
it is run by an army officer or a lawyer or something of that sort, I think is unthinkable.
We just could not do that, and if you really wanted to set out a scenario which
demolished the morale of the police service and made all the goals that we all want
more difficult to find, I can't think of a better way of doing that.
HUMPHRYS: That was Sir Norman Fowler talking
to me a bit earlier this morning.
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