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ON THE RECORD
CHRIS SMITH INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 4.5.97
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Terry Dignan reporting. So, plenty of
problems for the new Cabinet and that, of course - choosing the Cabinet -
is a huge problem in itself. Mr Blair has delighted one or two of his MPs with
jobs they might perhaps have not expected and dismayed others, either by
leaving them out of the Cabinet altogether or giving them jobs of lesser status
than they'd been occupying in the Shadow Cabinet. Chris Smith was Shadow
Health Secretary. But he's been put in charge of the Heritage Department
instead.
Are you diappointed at that Mr Smith?
CHRIS SMITH: I'm not disappointed at all, in fact I'm
absolutely delighted because the jobs of Health and Heritage I would say are of
equal importance. The Health Service is obviously something of very great
importance to the country. So I would argue is the whole cultural life of the
nation, the sporting life of the nation. There's a lot that can be done with a
new government, and it's also a very important economic department. The
industries that the Department of Heritage sponsors: tourism, sport, cultural
activities, media, broadcasting, form amongst them the fastest growing sections
of the British economy, and it's something that I think we need to put some
real push behind.
HUMPHRYS: Nobody would deny that it's an important
job, but for a Labour government, a Labour minister to regard the Heritage
Department as important - as important as the Health Department, the NHS -
that's stretching it a bit isn't it?
SMITH: They are both important.
HUMPHRYS: Yes of course they're both important,
but one is more important than the other surely.
SMITH: I think it's completely ridiculous to
put these things in some sort of pecking order. What is important is that
we've had a few days now of euphoria and we now get down to the serious
business of governing, and there are some very important decisions to be made,
not least of which relates to the spending of Lottery money for example, which
I am intent on getting stuck into, and doing a realy good job and giving a
real lift to the cultural life of this country.
HUMPHRYS: Well let's look at a reason why
perhaps Mr Blair decided that you weren't going to be the Health Secretary.
You are known to have a mind of your own, to be a fairly tough individual with
some pretty clear principles, and you wanted to spend a bit more money on the
Health Service than perhaps Mr Blair or indeed Mr Brown thought was
appropriate. Perhaps that was why you didn't get it?
SMITH: No. We had two very clear commitments
in the Election, and we will hold to them in government, the first of which was
that we would raise spending on the National Health Service year by year above
the rate of inflation. That's important because any sensible government has to
do that, but secondly that we were going to look at how that money was spent,
and make sure that it went on direct care for patients and not on the
bureaucracy, the accountants, the administrative expense that's come from the
development of the internal market by the Conservatives. Two very clear
commitments - we're going to hold to that and I wish my good friend and
colleague Frank Dobson every success in putting that into practice.
HUMPHRYS: But you knew didn't you that the hundred
million which is small change in NHS terms wasn't enough. I mean, a hundred
million - one day's spending in the NHS - you're not going to transform the NHS
with that - correct all those terrible things that you say the Tories did in
eighteen years.
SMITH: It wouldn't put everything right,
although getting rid of the iternal market would go a long way towards getting
things right. But that hundred million was going to be used to get a hundred
thousand people off waiting lists, and for those hundred thousand people that's
real help, it's real alleviation of distress and pain and difficulty that
people are in, and yes, it's a start, it's just a start, but it was going to be
a very important difference.
HUMPHRYS: As you say just a start, and the truth
is that if you'd been sitting in that chair this morning instead of the chair
you're in you would have been arguing for more money to be spent on the NHS
wouldn't you?
SMITH: Before I could possibly go to my cabinet
colleagues to argue for more money I would have to be able to demonstrate that
everything that was being spent at the moment was being spent wisely and well,
and when you have one-and-a-half billion pounds a year going on the
administration of the internal market you can't demonstrate that. You've got
to get rid of some of those processes of the internal market, get the costs of
bureaucracy down, put that into direct patient care, and then yes, you can look
at what else is needed, but you've got to do that first.
HUMPHRYS: But I'm putting this point to you
because you've actually got a bit of form haven't you really. I mean you were
moved out of Social Security because you disagreed with the Shadow Chancellor
then, Gordon Brown, over some of the things. There were things that you wanted
to do that he thought he couldn't do because too expensive, and things that he
did that you didn't like.
SMITH: No. I was moved out of Social Security
because I'd put together a whole series of very good policy documents which
will now be put into action. There was work to be done on refining our policy
on Health which I put in place and the whole way in which we're going to reform
the internal market, get quality instead of just quantity at the heart of what
the NHS is about, put some real power behind the public health agenda. All of
those sort of things, we were able to spell out and put in place over the past
year and now I mean to turn my attention to the important cultural industries
of this country and the future of the National Lottery.
HUMPHRYS: But there was a little local difficulty,
difference, wasn't there over the question of abolishing child benefit for the
better off sixteen to eighteen year-olds. You didn't like that idea did you,
it was quite clear?
SMITH: No. There were detailed discussions on
that issue between Shadow Cabinet colleagues and that discussion actually is
continuing. It's something that we've said we're going to review in
government, and I look forward to proposals coming forward from Harriet, from
Frank Field, from Gordon Brown in that direction.
HUMPHRYS: Let's look at the Lottery then. Now you
are committed - we'd learned this during the campaign - to spending Lottery
money on the National Health Service and on Education, on schools. So that
proves doesn't it, that you recognise more money must be spent and moreover
that you are scared to raise it out of taxes in the way Labour governments have
always done in the past because of what people will say?
SMITH: No, not at all, because the principle
that the core funding for health and education has to remain a responsibility
of the taxpayer and of the Exchequer....
HUMPHRYS: That's how you define core spending
isn't it?
SMITH: .. is very clear. What we were
proposing in the Election campaign, and what I will now want to frame as a bill
in the coming session of parliament is that we should take the midweek Lottery
which has put up the takings overall from the National Lottery by some twenty
per cent over the last few weeks, and what we were proposing was to take that
twenty per cent, so not doing down any of the existing recipients of Lottery
funds - take that extra money that's coming in as a result of the midweek
Lottery and direct that towards additional projects on education and health,
and the additional point is very important because these are things which would
not be appropriate from absolutely core Exchequer funding. They are as it
were, icing on the cake, things that I think appropriately can come from
Lottery money.
HUMPHRYS: Preventive care, preventive medicine, is
not a core project for the National Health Service? When you were a Shadow you
said how absolutely vital it was to spend money on preventive care for a
thousand very good reasons.
SMITH: And that remains absolutely the case.
It's one of the reasons for example why we're committed to banning tobacco
advertising, why we're committed to establishing an independent food
standards...
HUMPHRYS: But you're paying for these healthy
living centres as you put it out of Lottery money, not out of taxpayers' money.
SMITH: Those projects are right and proper from
the Exchequer. What we are proposing as one of the indicative projects that
can come from Lottery money are, as you say, healthy living centres in the high
street, in the shopping mall, where people can drop in, can get a bit of a
fitness test and check-up. Can get advice on diet and so on. This is not
something I would argue is absolutely central to the work of the NHS but it is
important and it's helpful and it's health related and it's something I believe
the people of this country actually support as some of the spending of the
proceeds of the Lottery.
HUMPHRYS: Important but not really not that much
more important than Covent Garden - the Royal Opera House?
SMITH: There have of course been some things
that money has gone on in the recent past from the Lottery and the most obvious
example is the Churchill Papers for example..
HUMPHRYS: Which about two dozen people have gone
to see and we've spent millions on it.
SMITH: Which we spent thirteen million pounds
on and which I think the great majority of people in this country have serious
questions about, I have serious questions about. So, one of the things I want
to look at is how the Lottery money is distributed and how we can make sure
that the people's Lottery money because it is people's money is going for the
people's priorities.
HUMPHRYS: So there might be more on that then. In
other words, if you felt - let's take the healthy living centres. We need more
healthy living centres, right, we accept that clearly, very important and the
money that you're going to get is going to provide quite enough of them. Let's
say there are half a dozen towns, a dozen towns, fifty towns that don't have
them and badly, badly want them. Will you then go back to the Lottery and say:
well we'd had a billion but we may - twenty per cent - but we may take a little
bit more than that.
SMITH: No, we're looking at a programme over a
number of years and we're looking at that extra money that's coming into the
Lottery as a result of the midweek Lottery...
HUMPHRYS: But only that midweek and not a penny
more than the midweek Lottery money?
SMITH: That is what we're looking at at the
moment. What I want to do is to make sure that the people of this country have
more of a say, more of a genuine say in how the Lottery funds that they are
contributing to, week by week, in buying their Lottery tickets, on how those
are spent.
HUMPHRYS: Right, and if they say to you. Let's
take for instance..you're spending IT..money...out of this money will go
spending on IT in schools - Information Technology, computers and the like. If
parents and headteachers say to you: we need more books as well as this IT,
are you going to say: sorry...the education budget is all gone so you can't
have it. Or would you say: well actually we'll take a little bit more out of
the Lottery. And if not, why not? You have breached the basic principle
haven't you, so why can you not go back to it?
SMITH: No, there is a one off exercise to be
done in education to make sure that teachers have the right training and
induction into the teaching and use of IT. It's something that has to be
done..
HUMPHRYS: But books matter as well.
SMITH: ...over a specific period of time and
that's why as a one off exercise we've said that it would be sensible to use
that extra Lottery money to do that.
HUMPHRYS: "But why?" I can hear parents saying
"but why? - we want books as well"
SMITH: Absolutely and that is something that
must be a priority within the overall education budget. And remember one of
the things that we've consistently said during the Election campaign is that as
we reduce the costs of unemployment in this country to the Exchequer, as we get
people back to work with our Welfare to Work proposals, we're going to spend
more on education and that will go on more teachers, on better classrooms, on
more books. Those are the things that are going to be important.
HUMPHRYS: So are there any other areas, in keeping
with this one off principle, are there any other areas you have identified that
might fit in with that?
SMITH: The other point we were making during
the Election campaign of course was our proposal for establishing a national
endowment for science and the arts.
HUMPHRYS: Right. Anything else?
SMITH: Which would be something to nurture
young talent coming through in a whole variety of different fields.
HUMPHRYS: Anything else on top of those two.
SMITH: And that..those...that..the healthy
living centres and the information technology training for teachers. Those are
the initial projects which we have in mind. Obviously there will be we hope,
more to come and we'll be listening very carefully to what people up and down
the country have to say to us.
HUMPHRYS: Ah right. So in other words if people
get on to you and say: we think you ought to spend some of it on this or that
or the other, it will be a bit like charities going to the other bit of the
Lottery and saying: we need your money for this. You'd listen to them?
SMITH: We are open to ideas, to proposals
coming forward from anyone around the country and indeed I hope to spend some
of the next few months getting out and meeting people and talking to people
about how they want their Lottery money to be spent.
HUMPHRYS: So they should write to you and say: we
need one of these thing'ummy - whatever it happens to be - and you might say..
SMITH: I will listen to all proposals.
HUMPHRYS: Right. Elgin marbles. There's a story
this morning that the Greek Government believes that you are going to give them
back - the Elgin marbles. Are you?
SMITH: We are not. The..for two reasons. One,
is they are an integral part of the British Museum Collections, they are
wonderfully displayed in the British Museum, millions of visitors come every
year to see them, not just from Britain but from everywhere around the world
and it would make no sense at all to split up the British Museum's Collection
in that way. But the second reason, is that if you start embarking on
questioning where particular works of art are located around the world, then
you get into all sorts of difficult areas of discussion and you're going to
have swops of works of art taking place throughout the entire world, disrupting
everything and it just doesn't make sense.
HUMPHRYS: The previous Labour Leader said we
should do it, so they were wrong?
SMITH: It's something we had a look at over the
course of the last five years. We decided it was not a feasible or a sensible
option and we won't do it.
HUMPHRYS: Chris Smith, thank you very much indeed.
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