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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 26.6.94
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. Tony Blair is, apparently, so far ahead in
his leadership race that it's all over bar the voting. But what are his policies? I'll be
talking to him - On the record after the news read by Moria Stuart.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: Hello again. In less than a month from
now the Labour Party will have a new leader: Tony Blair. That, at least, is
what everyone thinks will happen. So does that mean it will have a new
direction as well, new policies? Well, Mr. Blair's critics - and they do exist
- say we don't know because Mr. Blair isn't telling us, just mouthing
comfortable platitudes. I shall be inviting Mr. Blair to put a little more
flesh on the bones.
It's one of the oldest laws of
journalism: you build 'em up and you knock 'em down. Tony Blair will be
familiar with it. Only hours after the death of John Smith he was being hailed
throughout the land as the obvious successor. Now, many of those who rushed to
praise him seek to bury him as a man of no substance. Where's the beef? Where
are the policies? On Thursday he issued a campaign statement - five thousand
words of it - but it failed to silence some of the critics. So what do we know
of the man and his ideas. John Rentoul has been trying to find out.
*******
HUMPHRYS: So Tony Blair, can we view your
principles through the prism of ethical socialism and have a look at what they
mean in practice. Is one of the objectives of ethical socialism the
redistribution of wealth?
TONY BLAIR MP: Surely, we should have the
redistribution of power and opportunity and wealth in our society because we
have gross inequalities, and we have many people in our society who don't have
a stake in it, who don't have a chance in it, who can't settle down and succeed
like the rest of us, and we see in the tearing of the social fabric that
results from that inequality, the results all around us, the high levels of
unemployment, the high levels of crime, the high levels of social
disintegration.
HUMPHRYS: So, you obviously accept the principle,
you've made it very clear that progressive taxation means the more you earn the
more you pay, and part of the object of that is do we distribute wealth?
BLAIR: It is the case that we have a
progressive taxation system. What we have been saying is that we should have a
fairness agenda for the taxation system, and that is not just about tax rates,
but it encompasses many other things besides tax rates, and the point that I
would make to you is that for the vast majority of people that are poor, those
that have seen their incomes actually decline, their living standards decline
over the past few years, what they actually want the vast majority of them, is
not a few extra pounds on benefit, they want the chance to work, they want the
chance to get skills, they want the chance to have financial independence, and
so we should not play the Tory game of looking at this simply in terms of tax
rates, but we should broaden that agenda to encompass many other things as
well.
HUMPHRYS: I understand that, but does ethical
socialism mean that the progressive tax system that we already have is not
sufficiently progressive?
BLAIR: Well, it certainly isn't in some ways. I
mean let me give you an example. It is the case that you can have millionaires
in this country that don't pay any tax at all. It is the case that there are
various tax abuses and tax avoidances that are employed by people effectively
to avoid paying their fair share of tax to society, and I think the public's
absolutely outraged when it sees some of these things happening, the sort of
executive perks, the city scams that allow people to avoid paying their fair
share of tax and we should close those and we should make sure that that money
is used in a constructive and sensible way to help those that are in the pverty
trap, those that can't get out and work and do well, and settle down and do the
things that people wish to do.
HUMPHRYS: But in broader terms the whole system
should be more progressive rather than less, clearly.
BLAIR: Well, I've set out to you what the
fairness agenda is, and what I believe that it should be, but if what you want
me to do is to start specifying particular types of tax rate, then that I won't
do, but is it the aim and should it be the aim of any incoming Labour
government to reduce inequality and to ensure that we get a nation off benefit
and at work - answer, unequivocally yes. And what we have got to do over the
next two years or three years, because we may be that long away from a general
election, what we've got to do is to flesh out the policies that will allow us
to achieve that and to repair the social fabric to give people a chance at
society, and then we are going to be able to encourage the type of citizenship
we want to see.
HUMPHRYS: No, I'm certainly not asking you to set
out tax rates, because I know you won't do that. Even if I did, what I'm asking
you to suggest or to confirm, and I think this was what you were saying in your
earlier answer is that the present system is not sufficiently progressive.
BLAIR: The present system is unfair. The
present system denies opportunity to people. It allows those that are abusing
the tax system to get away with that abuse. I mean, let me give you another
example. If you look at the whole way that corporate taxation works, we are
conducting a review of that at the moment as a party. There are certain of
the utility companies that have been privatised paying their directors large
sums of money, paying large amounts of dividend out, but actually paying very
little tax at all. So, you know these are all the issues that we need to
encompass within this equation and I think it's very very important that we
understand that the Conservatives all the way through what they want to do is
to limit a discussion about tax and spending to a very very narrow range about
tax rates, are you going to put this tax rate up or that tax rate down.
HUMPHRYS: But you wouldn't suggest that's
unimportant would you?
BLAIR: It's no unimportant, but it is not the
only matter, and it may not even be the most important matter for two reasons.
First of all as I've been saying to you, there's a lot more that that agenda
encompasses in terms of providing people with opportunity and getting people
off benefit and into work, but secondly and I think this is absolutely critical
in relation to the whole tax and spending question, the two most significant
facts of the fifteen years of Conservative government in my view are these:
one, that at the end of that period we are paying a higher proportion of our
income in tax than we were under the last Labour governnment, and secondly that
we have a higher proportion of public expenditure as a proportion of income,
than under the last Labour government. Now why is that? Not because the
government have particularly wanted this to be the case, but because they've
run a low success economy and therefore have a high tax economy and it is
ordinary families that have borne the burden of that taxation increase, and
because the growth rates have been low, because we haven't had a strong
economic wealth-generating base in the economy that people have ended up paying
a larger amount of their income in tax. Now in order to change that situation
we've got to stop playing the Tory game of one p up or one p down, abstracting
income tax from the rest of the economy and we've got to reintegrate it with
the economic state of affairs and we've got to say that in the end you cannot
divorce tax and spending from the state of the economy, and a healthy,
prosperous economy with stable growth will lead to an economy where you can
spend money on the services you want and you can reduce the burden of taxation.
HUMPHRYS: But you think it is grossly unfair,
don't you, that those who have been earning the most are the only people who
have benefitted after fourteen years of Tory taxation policies.
BLAIR: Of course it is, and what we want to
make sure is that those that haven't benefitted get the same chance and the
same ability to get on. We will correct it by ensuring that those who don't
presently have opportunity in society do have that opportunity. And let me
just remind you of this John, because this is very important: the Conservatives
have also brought within the top rate tax bracket many many more millions of
people than previously paid top rate tax, I mean you can get a primary school
teacher even that is paying top rate tax, you can get a police officer that's
paying top rate tax. So, you know, these aren't the people..I mean we
shouldn't simply say top rate tax payers equal super rich.
HUMPHRYS: No no, indeed I was looking at the
people earning more than sixty four thousand pounds a year which is a figure
that you quote in your document, you say that you've attacked the Tories
because they're the only people who have actually benefitted. Now you would
correct that, you would stop that?
BLAIR: What I want to do is to make sure that
those that haven't benefitted get the chance to benefit, but what I'm saying is
that that can only be done within a strong economy and in a society where those
that are evading and avoiding paying their fair share at the moment do so. But
I am not getting into the business of specifying tax rates or even..I mean I
know you're not asking me that...
HUMPHRYS: No I'm not, I will if you'danswer it,
but you're not going to answer it so I won't ask you.
BLAIR: I won't answer it implicitly either. I
think that those decisions are decisions that have to be taken at the
appropriate time and what I'm trying to emphasise to you is that I think
this..the way the Tories want to play this which is putting everything within a
very narrow framework of tax rates, we have to refuse to play that game and
broaden the agenda.
HUMPHRYS: Yes, but you see it was you that chose
this sixty four thousand pound figure, that was the figure that leaps out at
one from your document and what you said..it was dreadful that people earning
more than that are better off. Now what I'm saying to you..
BLAIR: No no I didn't say that.
HUMPHRYS: But you drew attention to the fact that
they were the only people who were better off and you said that was wrong.
BLAIR: Exactly.
HUMPRYS: Right..
BLAIR: But that is precisely why we want to
make sure that it is not merely those that are earning over sixty four thousand
pounds a year that are the beneficiaries. You've got to widen opportunity for
everyone and you've also got to deal with the benefit traps, the poverty
traps..
HUMPHRYS: So everybody gets to pay less tax?
BLAIR: No, it's not a question of that at all
but it is a question of ensuring that you get people off benefit and into work
and if you do that the single biggest component driving the public expenditure
total at the moment is unemployment. If you don't get unemployment down then
you cannot get public spending down and therefore you're crowding out the
public expenditure you could use for other and better and more productive
purposes.
HUMPHRYS: I do understand that, but the fact
remains that you have used this figure as an example of how it has gone wrong
under fourteen years of Tory rule. Now what I'm asking you to do..you seem
very reluctant to go even this far - and I'm not asking you to give me tax
rates - is to say that was wrong, we will correct that. In other words, those
who are earning vast amounts of money will inevitably, out of simple fairness -
a word that you have used a number of times - find themselves paying a little
bit more.
BLAIR: Yes, what I'm doing to you is I'm
setting out the principles that will govern it but I'm not going to start
saying that any particular income group is going to pay more or going to pay
less.
HUMPHRYS: But that is a matter of principle.
BLAIR: No it isn't a matter of principle
because then what you've effectively done is, by implication at any rate, you
are spelling out your tax rates, and what I'm saying to you is that the reason
why I have used this figure of sixty four thousand pounds is precisely to
indicate that the Tory pledge in 1979, that they were going to cut taxes,
repeated in 1992 that they would cut taxes year on year - that is a pledge that
has been broken so that the average family, the ordinary family is actually
paying a higher proportion of their income in tax and it's only if you're
earning over sixty four thousand pounds a year that you're paying less. Now it
does not follow from that that your desire then is to start penalising people..
HUMPHRYS: No no, I didn't use the word penalise.
BLAIR: What does follow from that is that
you're attempting to extend opportunity for people and ensure that the average
family gets the same chances that other people get.
HUMPHRYS: But you said right at the beginning of
this interview in answer to my first question - your first word was "yes", it
is a principle of ethical socialism that there is an element of redistribution
of wealth. You have drawn attention to the fact that people earning huge sums
of money are now paying less in tax than they ought to be, at least I thought
that was what you were saying.
BLAIR: Yes.
HUMPHRYS: Well, if you believe that they are
paying less tax than they ought to be there is only one implication that can be
drawn from that and that is that they should be paying more tax.
BLAIR: Yes, but what I'm saying to you is that
that is not merely a matter of tax rates, that you have got to look at a whole
range of other issues and what the purpose...
HUMPHRYS: But one way or the other they will pay
more.
BLAIR: No but the purpose, the purpose of
ensuring that we have a taxation system that is fair is not simply about
specific tax rates, what I am saying to you is that what the Labour Party has
done over the past year, and I strongly support this, is widen that agenda and
start talking to people about other issues as well as simply tax rates. Let me
give you another example: some of the vested interests that are costing people
literally tens of pounds a week on their bill, the Common Agricultural Policy
which any real you know, European policy would be dealing with, the utility
companies that can bump up people's price with very little proper control or
regulation, these are the issues that we should be debating as well as simply
top rate tax.
HUMPHRYS: I quite agree, I quite agree, but what I
said to you, you would correct that imbalance your answer to that was "yes..
BLAIR: Yes that is my answer...
HUMPHRYS: Let me quite clear about, people earning
more than sixty four thousand pounds a year can - no no, you did say "yes" in
answer to that question - can expect to pay more.
BLAIR: ...but what I'm telling you John is that
that is not merely a matter of looking at their particular tax rates.
HUMPHRYS: Fine, I just wanted to establish that
there's no doubt that people earning vast amounts of money, or vast amounts of
money to some people, will expect to be a little bit less well off.
BLAIR: But what you're trying to do is you're
taking a specific income level and saying that every...
HUMPHRYS: You took that.....not me.
BLAIR: No, with respect what I did was to point
out a fact, namely that it is only those who earn over sixty four thousand
pounds a year that are better off after a decade in which the Conservatives
said they would reduce tax. I am not specifying any tax rate for those people,
I am merely saying that if you are going to have a fairer, more equitible
society then we should look at a whole range of issues which will achieve that.
That is not to specify a tax rate for them one way or another.
HUMPHRYS: Let's look at something else,
let's define your principles on nationalisation in terms of ethical socialism.
Is nationalisation compatible with ethical socialism?
BLAIR: Public ownership is, yes of course, I
mean I don't believe that the water industry should ever have been sold off, I
don't believe that, I believe that there are public services that should be in
public ownership. The National Health Service is an obvious example, so of
course public ownership has a place in ethical socialism, but the purpose, the
purpose of what I'm trying to do here is to define the character and identity
of the Labour Party.
I've a very very strong belief that what
has held Labour back over these past ten or fifteen years, has been a
confusion in the public mind as to what the Labour Party's really about. What
are we there for, what are out purposes, and there are two views of, if you
like, the strands of democratic socialism over a period of time. One has been
to say that Labour represents certain values, and I say that the origin of
socialism is indeed in that. The other has been to say that it represents
certain specific policies like nationalisation, or whatever.
Now I'm trying to get the Labour Party
back to what its true purposes are, that it believes effectively that you
require a strong and united society to back up individual effort. The Tories
believe you do what you do on your own, we believe there is a social dimension
to life, and that you require the existence of a strong society and community
to back up the efforts and enterprise of the individual, and that is what
notions of social justice, community, equality of opportunity stem from. And
if you look at the Labour Party in that way, you cease to ask the question is
it public versus private sector, and you ask instead the question, what is
necessary to achieve the values and objectives that we want, and therefore that
is not to say that there is not a place for public ownership, or a place for
industries in the public sector, far from it, but it is merely to say that the
test you apply is not one where you start from a preconception, that
everything that is public sector is good and private sector bad, in other
words, you don't reverse the Tory dogma, which is everything which is public
sector is bad and private sector good.
HUMPHRYS: But to achieve those values, those
objectives that you spell out there, it would be infinitely better if water
were in public ownership, and yet you said you wouldn't re-nationalise water
because you wouldn't expect the money to be there to buy back the shares.
BLAIR: Yes, I mean I'm just trying to be
practical about it. I'm saying that if you're sitting around a Cabinet table
and you know, if we inherit the type of economy that we think we're going to
inherit, and let's be clear about this, there's no point in us charging around
the country and saying the Tories are ruining the economy, and then thinking
with a flick of the fingers we can put everything right, if you're sitting
round that Cabinet table and you see the Health Service underfunded, or
education desperately requiring greater resources, or the police requiring
extra police in the fight against crime, I think it highly unlikely there will
be many people saying oh no let's use that money to repurchase the share
capital of the water industry.
That's not to say I don't agree that it
would be better if it were publicly owned, I do. That's why we strongly opposed
the sell of of the water industry, but I'm simply indicating as a matter of
practical politics, that I think that for the time being, at any rate, there
will be greater calls on our financial expenditure.
HUMPHRYS: So the reality is that wherever the
privatisation roundabout stops, when Labour, if Labour gets into power, that's
the point at which you'll get on it.
BLAIR: Well you have to see about that, I mean
there may be different sets of circumstances that apply in different
industries.
HUMPHRYS: What, so you might renationalise
water?
BLAIR: No, I mean I've said to you..
HUMPHRYS: You've said you don't expect the money
to be there?
BLAIR: Exactly, I mean that's not to say that I
wouldn't prefer it to be in public ownership, and it's one of the reasons why
I think we require a proper system of public control and regulation, is
precisely to make sure that you can achieve insofar as possible by control,
what you are unable to achieve by ownership.
HUMPHRYS: But this is not a principle then, this
is a matter of practicality, public ownership is not a defining principle?
BLAIR: I don't believe that the great
difference today is simply publice versus private sector. Now that's what I'm
saying and in a sense, let me just deal with this point head on, people say
well you know in the document why haven't you listed all the specific policies
and so forth. The policies that the Labour Party has are the policies that
we've set out. I mean this is not a leadership election that's taking place
straight after a general election, it's a leadership election that's two years
into a parliament. We have policies, we have policy commissions that have been
working, we have shadow cabinet members that have been developing those
policies.
My purpose in launching my personal
statement is to set out the future direction, the agenda, it is if you like, to
construct the ideological compass, to set out the destination, to put up the
policy signposts, but it's not to write a Labour Party Manifesto two or three
years before a general election. I think we've done that before, I think it's a
mistake and I think there's another thing too, we shouldn't get bounced by the
Tories or a bit of twittering in various parts of the media, to say, you know,
if you don't produce all your detailed policies then we can't take you
seriously. Rubbish, out there what the public actually want is a clear vision
of what Britain would look like and a clear set of ideas, and those are the
things that I want to set out now, the detailed policy work will come, but it
should come within that intellectual and political framework.
HUMPHRYS: But on your ideological compass the
needle points quite clearly in the direction of that John Smith quote:
"ownership today is largely irrelevant".
BLAIR: I totally agree with John, but
that's not to say it may not be relevant in specific circumstances. I mean I
believe it's highly relevant in the National Health Service but what he's
meaning when he says that is that it is not a preconception that you have, you
don't start out by saying everything that is in public ownership is good,
everything..
HUMPHRYS: ....not a defining principle,
BLAIR: Exactly.
HUMPHRYS: Okay. Does ethical socialism embrace
the principle that it's sometimes right to strike?
BLAIR: Of course. People should have the
entitlement to strike, I mean they do under the law now and it should be an
entitlement that people have, but it should be exercised because it is a
right and because I believe that where rights are exercised they should be
matched by responsibilities. It should be exercised in accordance with the
proper framework of the law.
HUMPHRYS: So in that case why have you not
supported the rail strike?
BLAIR: Because I don't believe it's sensible
for the politicians to get involved in this dispute. I think it's much more
sensible if you get the management and the unions sitting down together and
resolving the dispute, which I may say it appears they were about to do before
the government appeared to interject themselves with something that looks
rather like an old-style incomes policy.
HUMPHRYS: I'm not really asking you to get
involved. I'm merely asking you to say, inviting you to say they have a very
good cause and we support that cause.
BLAIR: No, but what I think it is important to
do is not to have the politicians take sides in the dispute, because I don't
think that helps...
HUMPHYRS: .......side of the railwaymen?
BLAIR: Because I don't think that helps the
resolution of the dispute. What I am on the side of, is getting the dispute
properly resolved and I believe that one of the main elements that has been
preventing the resolution of the dispute is the government involvement, and the
key thing is to take the politicians out of the situation and let the matter be
resolved sensibly. I mean after all, there was very nearly a deal that was
there on the table that took account of the productivity gains of the past few
years, and appeared to resemble something of a deal in respect of those gains.
Now suddenly that's removed, and it appears to have been removed because the
government have interfered with that process. I don't think it would help for
me to become the mirror image of the government.
HUMPHYRS: Because - precisely some would say -
precisely because the government got involved in they way it did, what the
railway workers now need, what the signalmen now need is for their friends in
the Labour movement, in the Labour Party to say, "We're with you".
BLAIR: I think what they actually want is for
the politicians to clear out of the situation altogether and let people sit
round the table and resolve it properly.
HUMPHRYS: Well, that's not what Peter Haines says,
a senior member of your party says. I mean he is absolutely clear, "We should
be proud", he said, "to be the strikers' friend".
BLAIR: Well, I don't know whether he said that
or he didn't say that, but in any event what I'm telling you is what the
position of the Labour Party is and it's entirely sensible, and I think that we
should be quite clear about this, that it is in the public interest for this
dispute to be resolved, and the best way of resolving it is that the trade
unions and the management sit down and resolve it, and if they need any outside
body then they can have ACAS to help them, but that's the way that it should
go, and I think the vast majority of the public would agree to that.
HUMPHRYS: Do you have a view as to whether they're
right or not?
BLAIR: I have a view that the dispute should be
settled.
HUMPHRYS: But you have a view as to whether the
railway workers are right to be on strike or not?
BLAIR: No, I think the most important thing is
that they settle the dispute, and I'm not going to get ...
HUMPHRYS: But the question is whether you have a
view.
BLAIR: I know. Well, what you're trying to do
is draw me into one side of the dispute or the other, I'm not doing that.
HUMPHRYS: I'm asking you if you have a view. I
mean at least you can - don't if you wish give me your view, but you could at
least tell me whether you have one couldn't you?
BLAIR: John, what I've said to you is that I'm
not going to get involved in taking one side or another. I think it was wrong
for the government to become involved. I think it is sensible that the dispute
be resolved by negotiation free from government, and if government are to
become involved, if in effect they are saying that there is a pay policy here
that we are going to implement in the public sector they should be up front
about it and spell out what they're doing, but at the present time they're not.
What is happening is that behind closed doors there is interference that isn't
helping the resolution of the dispute. And what the vast majority of people
who are using the trains and obviously feeling extremely sore about the
disruption, what they want is the dispute settled, and the best way to settle
it is for the unions and management to carry one where they left off.
HUMPHRYS: Let's turn to education, and that's at
the core of your message of your new thinking in some ways. Does ethical
socialism mean giving parents choice when it comes to the education of their
children?
BLAIR: Yes, I think it's important that people
have choice, and I think that it is important that the parents are involved as
far as possible in the type of school that is being run, and also in their
involvement with the teachers and in the involvement with the education of
their children, and I think any sensible parent wants to get involved. I know I
certainly do.
HUMPHRYS: And you can't get involved, you can't
make choices without information.
BLAIR: I think it's very very important that we
have information, and although we have strongly disagreed with the way the
government have assembled the sort of league table proposals that they've put
foreard nonetheless we have said that it's absolutely vital that parents get as
much information as possible. I certainly want that for my children, I want to
know exactly how they're performing at school, I want to have a proper
assessment of them, but the difference between ourselves and the government has
been not over the principles of these issues but the way that they're
implemented, and I think that for the vast majority of parents they want to
know that their kids are being brought up in a school where there's proper
discipline, where they're given homework and expected to do it, where the
teachers are highly motivated, where you're knowing how well your kid's doing,
and I think it is an absolute scandal that you still have a large number of
kids that are leaving primary school and they can't even read or write. Now
these are the things that we should be tackling, and I believe that if the
government were prepared to work a bit more in partnership with people, and try
and get out and actually find out what parents and governors and teachers are
thinking about these things and how they can improve the situation, then we
could ensure that those objectives that I think any half-way sensible person
shares are actually met.
HUMPHRYS: So, it's a principle of yours that
parents ought to be able to have enough information to compare one school with
another.
BLAIR: Yes, certainly, of course. But when
parents exercise choice, I mean I am...as is probably known from one or two of
the newspaper reports, I'm looking at my own kids' education at the moment..
HUMPHRYS: And comparing schools no doubt?
BLAIR: You certainly go into a school and you
want to see what type of school it is and you want as much information..
HUMPHRYS: And you want to know whether it's as
good as the one down the road or better than..
BLAIR: Of course, and you want to be able to
compare it with other schools. But the difference between ourselves and the
government has been over the notion of some sort of simplistic league table
that doesn't really give you an accurate picture of the school and its
performance, but that parents should have as much information as possible, that
parents should know how well their kids are doing, that the kids should be
properly assessed. Well of course that's right and what's more we should be
ensuring that those kids whose standards and performance aren't up to scratch
are getting help because one thing we know above anything else in our country
is why I put education right at the heart of what I'm about.
In a modern world - economically and
socially - education is the key and it is absolutely absurd of us to believe
that we can carry on as a country undervaluing the skills and talents of our
people, having a situation where in higher education vast numbers of people
never even reach there, where we have a divide between vocational and academic
that consigns vast numbers to the second class and where we have large numbers
of people when they leave school, never mind primary school, can't even read
and write. Now that situation is a scandal.
I don't say everything the government's
done is wrong, but I do say we need a far far greater determination on the part
of government to put education at the heart of the project of national renewal
and I believe that. Now I'm not sitting here and, you know, re-writing
education policy or saying that I can wave a magic wand and everything is fine
overnight. But I tell you the next Labour government, if I'm leading it,
education is THERE, right at the heart and the whole business of government
would be to make sure that we raise the skills and talent of people because
that raises their ambitions, it raises their horizons and it allows them to
make the most of their own lives.
HUMPHRYS: So you have no problem in principle with
league tables, in principle?
BLAIR: I have no problem at all with comparing
schools, I think that is entirely sensible and natural. Where I disagree and
where the parties disagree is with the nature of the government's rather
simplistic league tables. But I would say - both in relation to this and
testing - of course you've got to have proper appraisal systems, of course you
do.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so less simplistic national
league tables..more sophisticated national league tables...
BLAIR: This is precisely what we're discussing
as a party at the minute and I don't know what precise form that will take.
HUMPHRYS: But you're open on that.
BLAIR: I'm open on it and of course you've got
to be able to compare schools. I mean any sensible parent wants to do that,
but it should be on a basis that is neither unfair to the school, nor should it
be on a basis that actually gives parents the wrong type of information and the
parents should get the information that is accurate but they should have as
much information as possible. And I think that any parent recognises that the
more they know about how well their kid's doing the better they are going to
be able to have that relationship with the school and put things right if
things are going wrong.
HUMPHRYS: And in that same..following up that same
principle of choice, if a parent choses or parents chose opted out schools for
their children you'd have no problem with that either?
BLAIR: Well parents are going to chose whatever
is the best choice of school for their kids. I mean we have disagreed with the
government opting out schools but you can't say to parents they then can't
chose them, I mean that would be manifestly absurd and any more you could say
with a National Health Service trust that you shouldn't use it.
HUMPHRYS: So you'd leave them with that choice?
You wouldn't interfere with their choice?
BLAIR: The choice of school for parents is in
my view extremely important..
HUMPHRYS: No no, let's be clear...
BLAIR: If you were then asking me, what about
grant maintained schools and will that remain the same, what I believe you've
got to balance there are two competing interests: one is the interests of
parents and governors and indeed teachers of the school to have maximum power
over their own affairs. This notion of sort of devolving power down to the
school, I think that is a good notion. But the second thing however, is the
broader public interest because you can't simply say that whatever that school
does that they can do it irrespective of the wishes of those parents who are
going to come after them and the broader community.
Now the difference between ourselves and
the government is the government say that broader public interest is best
represented by the Secretary of State, we say it is best represented by the
local education authority. But the balance between the two is precisely what
we're looking at and you heard Malcolm Wicks say, and I think he's absolutely
right, that no-one actually wants to return to the same structure that there
was before, but what we are examining at the moment is what the nature of the
relationship should be between the education authority and schools.
HUMPHRYS: So you can assure parents whose children
are in grant maintained schools now, that you wouldn't take those back?
BLAIR: I can assure them that they will still
have a choice of school, but I believe it is right that the school also has a
relationship with the local education authority. Now, the nature of that
realtionship is precisely what we need to work out; the government say the
Secretary of State's the best person, we have said it should be the local
community. Now the nature of that relationship, that will be determined, but
parents of course must have a choice of school and I would like to see them be
given the fullest information, I would like them to see them know exactly how
well their kid's doing and I would to be able, both to demand and expect high
standards of performance throughout our educational system.
HUMPHRYS: A fairly quick thought if I may, on a
fairly complex subject, ethical socialism and greater European integration, do
they go together?
BLAIR: Well I don't know that you say that one
actually follows from the other, but I believe that the process of greater
European co-operation is important...
HUMPHRYS: Integration was the word I used.
BLAIR: Well, and integration follows as part of
co-operation, but it sometimes depends what you mean by the word integration.
However, let me just say this to you, because I think this is tremendously
important, I think it arises out of everything that's happened with Mr.
Dehaene. In my view the future of this country unquestionably lies with
Europe, but it is also the case that because of the changes particularly that
have happened in Eastern Europe, and the collapse of Communism, the unification
of Germany, that we live in a different set of economic and social
circumstances from the set that Europe faced a few years ago, anbd I think it
is desperately important that we demonstrate a constructive commitment to the
European project of greater co-operation at the same time however, as thinking
through its future progress in the light of those changes.
HUMPHRYS: Would you have vetoed Mr. Dehaene?
BLAIR: I mean I'm not sitting here with any
great brief for Mr. Dehaene, and I can't say what the state of the negotiations
were or what the range of options would have been available to a Labour
Government. One of the most bizarre things about this is Mr.Dehaene's a
Conservative. I mean I would have preferred another candidate, one who was a
European Social Democrat or a Democratic Socialist, but the key question for
Mr. Major is whether first of all, he is ever going to be able to get his way
on anything in Europe, or whether he hasn't isolated this country so seriously
that he's diminishing our influence, and secondly, is it truly the
qualifications of Mr. Dehaene for the job that has been driving the decision
for Mr. Major, or is it merely the Tory anti-European tail wagging the Tory
dog, now that's the question that we need to know the answer to.
HUMPHRYS: Tony Blair, thank you very much for
joining us.
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