Interview with Michael Portillo




       
       
       
 
 
 
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                                 ON THE RECORD 
 
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1                                DATE: 24.10.93
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JOHN HUMPHRYS:                         Good afternoon and welcome to On The 
Record. Is too much Government bad for us? And if it is, HOW much is too much? 
During the Conservative Party conference last month the Chief Secretary, 
Michael Portillo, argued that it was time to shrink the scope of the State. 
Time for us, as individuals, to take on more responsibility for our families' 
health, the care of our elderly relatives, our children's education, the 
welfare of our neighbours and much else besides. Time for us to stop relying on 
nanny in short.  In today's programme, I'll be asking Michael Portillo to 
explain exactly what he means. 
 
                                       Remember the European elections of 1989? 
The results, for the government, were disastrous. That anti-European campaign, 
based on leaden jokes about a diet of Brussels, ended up with the Tories losing 
a quarter of their seats.  Well, the elections are happeninbg again next June. 
We report on why history might repeat itself. 
 
                                       But first Michael Portillo and his 
desire to shrink the scope of the state. Easier said than done -  as John 
Rentoul has discovered.   
 
******  
                                         
HUMPHRYS:                               So, a difficult task for you, Michael 
Portillo, and we'll get into the difficulties, in a moment.  But, let's begin - 
if I may - by asking you what it is you want to do and why.  And, let me go 
back to that speech you made-   
 
MICHAEL PORTILLO:                      Yeah. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              -which you, obviously, feel a lot of 
people thought was a very important speech - a few bits from it.  If people 
believe it is someone else's duty to care for their neighbours, they become 
less neighbourly.  Now, who is the someone else - in that sentence?
 
PORTILLO:                               That is the State.  What I've been 
pointing out is that the State has been growing very fast all the way through 
the Twentieth Century and even in the last few years from 1960, where the State 
spent about thirty per cent of our national income to, today, where it spends 
forty-five per cent.  And, during that period, the State has been taking on 
more and more roles.  And, what I'm afraid of, in all of that, is not only the 
burden that that imposes upon Taxpayers but, also, what it does to our sense of 
personal responsibility.   
 
                                       So, in that sentence, what I meant was 
that the normal ties in our society are ties of family and of community.  And, 
normally, we've thought, first of all, that it's families and communities that 
help people in the first stages of distress.  What I'm worried about is that, 
as the State has grown bigger, people think that it's no longer the job of a 
family or a community to look after their elderly relatives, to teach their 
children right or wrong and they transfer the responsibility to the State. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Let's stay with this particular thought 
about neighbours, for the while.  In the old days - maybe, it still happens in 
some places, but in the old days - everybody looked at their elderly 
neighbours' doorstep, in the morning and if the milk hadn't been collected by 
midday, they'd get a bit worried about it.  They'd do something about it, 
perhaps. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Now, that seems not to happen. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Other people they think are responsible 
for it.  Who are those other people specifically and what do you want to do 
about those other people?  Do you want to get rid of social workers? 
 
PORTILLO:                              No.  People always begin by asking me 
about what I want to do about the State.   What- I think, the first question is 
to say: can we begin to change attitudes in society 'cos, I think, the State - 
very often - follows public opinion in what it does and, then, if the State 
changes its rules and regulations, it reinforces public opinion.  That 
magnifies the effects.  So, I think, the first question is to ask people in 
society: are they happy about a situation in which they become less 
neighbourly? 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well, they've allowed it to develop.  
So, therefore, presumably, they are happy.   
 
PORTILLO:                              I don't think they are.  I think - if 
you talk to people - they are very concerned about the breakdown of old, 
traditional values but, in a way, they turn to the Government and say: well, 
you've sanctioned this.  You've said, in a way, that this is alright, that this 
is an accurate order of things because you have provided that as soon as 
somebody falls into a situation of distress, the State will step in with its 
social workers and take care of people.   
 
                                       Now, I believe the State should, indeed, 
be there to provide a very full safety net, in order to help people.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But, in this case this- this- 
 
PORTILLO:                              But, I think, there is an intermediate 
stage at which families and communities are the first bastion, the first 
refuge- 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But-but-  
 
PORTILLO:                              -and we mustn't undermine that.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But, do you undermine it by providing 
the social worker at that intermediate stage and, therefore, do you buttress 
what you want to happen by removing that social worker. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I think, the first thing I'd do is 
open up this subject to discussion. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Which you've done. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Which I've done. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And, now, I'm trying to nail you on a 
few details.   
 
PORTILLO:                              Indeed.  I understand that.  But, I 
think, the first thing that happens is that there is a response from the public 
and the public say: yes, indeed, we're concerned about those people who, 
perhaps, are abusing the State system and getting out of responsibilities which 
we think should be theirs.  For example, if somebody who is actually perfectly 
well off tells you that what they've done is they've arranged affairs with 
their elderly parents in such a way that the elderly parent now has no 
resources.  They've given away all their money which means that they can now 
pass into a residential care home and be looked after by Social Security.  I 
think, at the moment, most people would say nothing about that because all 
stigma from such an action has been removed.    But, I think, people might say: 
well, that's curious.  Why did you think it was the taxpayer who had the 
responsibility for looking after your elderly parent.  Why didn't you think 
that it was your responsibility, in the first instance? 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Alright.  Well, let me- let me take- you 
mentioned the elderly relative.  Let's take another one of those sentences from 
that speech.  If people believe it is the State's job to look after elderly 
relatives, then, family ties and duties are undermined.  The fact is - as you 
say, as you acknowledge - millions do believe that it is the State's job and, 
are you sitting there, now, and saying that all you're going to do is tell 
people: no, no, it isn't actually the State's job.  It is your job.  And, by 
preaching to them, you will convert them.   
 
PORTILLO:                              No, I think, what I want is people 
themselves to raise a question mark about this or to raise a protest and say 
what is this thing that people are calling the State?  This thing that people 
call the State is nothing other than taxpayers' money.  It is money that I 
earned, that I passed to the State in taxation, which is the taxation that the 
State is now using to help us all.  Now, of course, any of us is happy to help 
people who are in distress, who have absolutely no means of support.  I think, 
we all, in this country, believe in a safety net.  And, I think, what we're 
much less happy about is helping people who are not in that condition who would 
have natural allies to turn to - their family, for example - but that some 
connivance has been arranged in order that they can pass that burden to the 
State.  But, the State is just a euphemism for saying that other people should 
pay their share.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And, you're going to correct all this 
merely by talking about it, getting people to talk about it?  
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I think, we're going to start 
there.  Rupert Darwall, one of the people that was interviewed in the little 
film, a moment ago, said that it was pointless Ministers talking about things 
unless they could change them.  I take a fundamentally different view.  I 
believe that Ministers can only change things when you have developed a debate 
in society and you have brought out of people's opinions the fact that they 
believe that something has gone wrong, that they believe that their society's 
heading in the direction that they don't like and they wish to see it brought 
back.   
 
                                       So, Ministers influence the debate 
because, in so doing, it is possible for them to take policy actions, in the 
longer term, that they couldn't otherwise take.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well, let me give you another example.  
Let's try and be a little bit more specific about it.  There is a family with a 
Granny, who's in a bad way. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And, the family isn't terribly keen to 
have her living there because the children don't like this rather batty old 
lady around the place and they want the State to look after her because they 
can't actually manage or don't care to look after her themselves.  Now, you're 
not going to change their view by sitting on this programme, or any other 
programme and saying: really, you ought to look after Granny.  You're going to 
change it by saying: we won't look after Granny, aren't you? 
 
PORTILLO:                              No, I don't think I do agree with you.  
I think, people are affected by what others in society think, by what are 
prevailing opinions.  And, they are, also, affected, of course, by economic 
stimuli.  In other words, by what grants are available. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Precisely. Precisely. 
 
PORTILLO:                              But, they're affected by both.  Now, I'm 
not one of those who believes that all of the growth in Social Security, all of 
the growth in our social problems is due to the existance of certain grants and 
benefits.  I think, they have an effect but they have a reinforced-
 
HUMPHRYS:                              A large effect.              
 
PORTILLO:                              - well, I think, they have a reinforcing 
effect.  I mean, I don't believe that all the single parents we have in this 
society, today, are created by having a benefits system which has certain 
advantages for single parents.  But, I think, none-the-less, that the fact that 
those benefits insist and give certain advantages reinforces a development in 
society and, if you like, legitimises that state of affairs.  So, the 
Government has to be concerned both to provide a safety net of benefits but, 
also, it has to be concerned about what signal to society its own actions are 
giving.   
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But, we've been getting that signal very 
powerfully from Mrs Thatcher and others in the Tory government for the past 
fourteen years.  It hasn't changed.  Indeed, it's got worse, by your own 
admission.  So, let's look at that other measure, that means of getting people 
to change their behaviour.  So, if you're not- if you accept that exhortation 
hasn't worked thus far and, you do, then, what is the next step?  It is to 
remove the sort of system that you've talked about, isn't it? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I sense that there is a bit of a 
change going on in society, at the moment.  And, I only think that this is 
partly produced by the things that politicians have been saying.  I think, in a 
way, politicians have been picking up some of the vibrations that they felt in 
society.  During the Nineteen-Eighties, I think, that Mrs Thatcher attempted to 
hold out against a current or fashionable opinion.  She made a series of 
speeches that were about telling people that they not only had rights as 
individuals but they also had responsibilities as individuals.  But, the tide 
of fashion and opinion in the Nineteen-Eighties was flowing pretty strongly and 
she wasn't sufficient to resist it.  But, I think, now, in the     
Nineteen-Nineties, with so many of our institutions under attack; the monarchy, 
Parliament, Government, the Church, all of that; people feel a bit lost and 
they're worried about the decay of some of their values.   
 
                                       They're worried about something which 
I've called 'political correctness' which is, if you like, sweeping away all 
value judgments from society, saying that 'anything goes'.  People can behave 
just as exactly as they like.  There's no stigma to anything that they do, all 
sorts of moral codes are equally valid.  I think, people are a bit fed up with 
that.  I  think most British people don't think that that's the way that things 
should be and what politicians can change depends, in a Democracy, upon what 
people will put up with and it depends upon how you prepare the ground.  And, 
so, I think, it is an important thing to begin this debate and I haven't been 
alone in that, after all, because, I think, John Major's Blackpool Conference 
speech, was broadly along the same lines as the sort of things that I've been 
saying. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Alright.  Let me take another example 
from your speech. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yeah. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              As people share/show and get greater 
respect, they will, increasingly, want to make responsible choices- 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes.                                     
 
HUMPHRYS:                              -about their families' health care and 
provision for their old age.  Now, what is irresponsible about relying upon the 
NHS for which, after all, we pay?   
 
PORTILLO:                              I don't thing there's anything 
irresponsible about that but, I think, we have a problem which will emerge 
during the next years and into the Twenty-First century.  The Government's 
already taking forty-five per cent of our money and spending it on our behalf.  
I think, the demand for health care is infinite.  People's earnings are going 
to be rising into the Twenty-First century and, so, the conundrum that we have 
is how can we enable people to have all the health care that they would like, 
to enjoy the standards they would like of health care and, yet, commit 
ourselves also to restraining the size of the State because I really believe 
that if it gets any bigger you impose such a burden on the wealth-creating 
sector of this country, that it's going to crush it and that wealth creation 
will cease to exist. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So, the answer to that? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Now, that is a real conundrum.  Well, I 
think, it is to get away from dogmatic distinctions between private and public 
within the Health Service.   What, I think, people in this country want is the 
certainty that if they become ill, the Government will make sure that they're 
able to have all the health care that they want.  But, when people go into 
hospitals today, they, also - some of them - want extra things.  I mean, they 
want to be very comfortable in hospital, they want to be able to choose the 
meals that they want. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So, that's all you're talking about, is 
it?   
 
PORTILLO:                              Well.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              A better choice of meals, a bottle of 
wine, or something?  
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I think there will be enormous 
demand for people to have more comfort of their own and if the Government tries 
providing all of that then the Government is going to pile up the cost upon the 
public and that is going to be unsustainable so we have to begin to address 
those problems. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But what has that to do with responsible 
choices about health care?  That's detail isn't it?  Those are the fripperies, 
the choice of meals, the kind of hospital you go to, whether you have a private 
room or a single room. 
 
PORTILLO:                              My full sentence was responsible choice 
about health care and about provision for their old age.  Now, you think about 
how in the Twenty First Century we are going to be able to support the very 
large numbers of extra people who are going to be elderly at a standard of 
living that they have become used to. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Can we come on to that in just a second. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, but I do want to make this point,  
because their earnings will have become so much greater.  Now my worry is that 
if the State pretends that it can do everything, if it pretends it can do 
everything in health, everything in education, everything in pensions, then the 
result is going to be that people will be extremely disappointed by what the 
State can actually provide to them. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right, so what are you saying the State 
cannot do in future? 
 
PORTILLO:                              I'm saying that as people become richer, 
as their earnings rise above inflation - which I believe is going to go on 
happening into the Twenty First Century, we should make sure that the balance 
between what the State does for people and what people do for themselves, 
changes - that people should be increasingly willing to undertake that which 
they can do for themselves.  And that way the State will be well able to do the 
thing that it should be doing which is making sure that those who have no other 
means of support - nothing else to turn to, can be properly provided for. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Right.  So some examples then of those 
things which we ought to be doing for ourselves that at the moment the State is 
doing. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I think increasingly pensions, for 
example.  I think that as we move into the Twenty First Century people will not 
want to rely only on the basic State pension and they will probably want to 
make sure that during all their working lives they are making provision from 
the earnings that they have into personal pensions or inter-occupational 
pensions.  As that increasingly happens there will be no connection between old 
age and poverty.  We shall be able to abolish that connection which is an 
abhorrent thing and something on which I am pleased to say we have made 
considerable progress.  
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But you are not suggesting that the 
State pension disappear? 
 
PORTILLO:                              No.  I'm not. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              At any stage? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, at any stage ... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              ... Or fundamentally change its nature 
so that the better off don't get it, it doesn't become a total universal 
benefit. 
 
PORTILLO:                              I think the best way I can answer you, 
because this is what I really feel, is that if people have built up 
entitlements, if they have been contributing for a long period of time, we 
should in no way disappoint those entitlements.  What people have accrued, what 
they've built up, the expectations they have, you cannot for a moment sweep 
those aside.  So I am talking about a long-term process.  But I don't know why 
... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              And at the end of that long-term, what 
happens? 
 
PORTILLO:                              At the end of that long-term process 
people may well have continued to contribute to the State for a basic pension.  
They may even have continued to contribute to the State for a pension that's 
related to their earnings.  But increasingly, people from the earliest age 
setting out in work will have been conscious of the fact that at the end of 
their working lives they are going to need resources and they should be saving 
for that from the earliest time that they go into work. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So you could envisage a kind of 
partnership between the State and private insurance companies, so that you 
would be saying to my son or your son: "Off you go, get your private pension; 
don't bother the State in forty years because the State won't be there to 
provide it in forty years". 
 
PORTILLO:                              Yes, it's not a question of 'not 
bothering the State,' it is recognising early enough that if we all rely upon 
the State it is going to disappoint our expectations; and none of us want to 
have our expectations disappointed, but if we're not told early on in life 
about what the prospects are for the next century then we are not going to make 
the responsible choices that I think we ought to be making.  And as we make 
those responsible choices, actually we will feel better about ourselves because 
we will have more sense that we are controlling our own destinies, that we are 
taking the long view and not relying on someone else to do it. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So you are saying that the State 
actually won't be there, necessarily; that we cannot rely upon the State being 
there. 
 
PORTILLO:                              I don't think the State can be there to 
do everything.  If it attempts to do everything it will do a lot of things 
badly.  And one of the things that in the Twenty First Century you can't 
rely on the State to do, I think, is to sustain the standard of living that you 
have achieved - which I think by then will be very high - into your retirement, 
because there will be thirteen or fourteen million pensioners, they will many 
of them have had high earnings at the end of their working lives and there will 
only be the same number as today of working people.  Now we've plenty of time 
to sort that problem out. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But you've got to start it at some 
stage. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Exactly.  That's my whole point.  And 
unless we start talking about it now we're not going to take the right 
decisions and that's why some of the people on your film I think have 
misunderstood.  There is a point in politicians talking about more than one 
Parliament.  Indeed, one of the things we are generally blamed for is that we 
don't see beyond the end of our noses, that we're only interested in the next 
general election.  I'm saying we are actually interested in more than that.  We 
are interested in taking stock of what our society has become and taking stock 
of where we are being led to. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But you say "we've started talking about 
it"; you've actually started doing things about it as well, have you not?  I'm 
thinking about this statement, this agreement between the Association of 
British Insurance Companies this week.  They've drawn up a document, advised by 
two senior Tories, which concludes there are major opportunities for 
partnership with the Government over the next two or three years.  Now we're 
not talking about the next century, we're talking about the next couple of 
years. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, that has been an input to our 
debate, but I think that is moving a little bit faster in that field than the 
Government is moving.  But I will describe a rate of progress to you, which is 
that during the 1980s we introduced the State earnings related pension scheme - 
actually that was a Labour scheme - and we enabled people to contract out of 
that additional pension into personal pensions and occupational pensions.  So 
the seed of that particular idea has been sown and there's nothing very 
frightening about it, indeed, I think there's something rather reassuring 
about people in Government thinking into the long-term. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But that's already happened.  None of 
the things you've said in this interview so far suggest that you are thinking 
terribly radically, or at least that what you're saying is: "In the long run 
things will be different," but you are not saying: "We are beginning this 
process now by doing x, y and z." 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I think that the way in which our 
society has developed, the way in which we have moved from thirty per cent of 
our national income spent by the Government to forty five per cent, the way in 
which family ties and community ties have been broken down, is a process that 
has taken at least thirty years, and if you're turning a tide of opinion and 
fashion ... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              'If' you are turning a tide ... 
 
PORTILLO:                              'If' you are turning an opinion...a tide 
of opinion and fashion, I think it takes rather a long time.  You see, people 
hold it against you if you talk about things that are going to take a while to 
do.  I don't see why that should be any argument against you.  You are making 
sure that at a pace that society can develop, society does develop towards 
reassessing what it's values have become and reassessing what the State is 
doing for people and what people are doing for themselves. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But ought you not now, apart from making 
splendid sounding speeches talking about the value of good neighbourliness and 
we must all look after our grannies and that kind of thing - with which 
everybody would agree, it's motherhood and apple pie, basically, isn't it? - 
ought you not to be ... 
 
PORTILLO:                              I'm not sure about that.  I think 
there's a huge section of the intelligensia and opinion formers or people 
pedling political correctness, who don't believe a word of any ... I mean I'm 
glad you agree, but there are lots of people who don't. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Well, it's common sense - is it not, 
that most of us would agree that we all ought to be good neighbours and we 
ought to look after our grannies?  I mean everybody would accept that as a 
matter of basic principle.  Even the politically correct would accept that. 
 
PORTILLO:                              I'm not so sure.  I think it's been 
badly eroded. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But what we want from people like you, 
is it not, is a clear description of the kind of ways in which we ought to be 
changing.  And I don't think you are giving us that, do you see? 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, my worry is that you as a 
journalist might like that because you might be able to trip us up that we were 
getting ahead of public opinion. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Me as a voter. 
 
PORTILLO:                              No, I think you ... well, I hope that 
what the voters think is this.  That at last a party is speaking up for what we 
believe in and what we believe in is that some of these values have been 
eroded, they've been replaced with nothing better than social irresponsibility. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              But you talk about being ahead of public 
opinion and yet, you say: "The statesman governs according to his principles 
and presents his achievements to the electorate - he does not compromise his 
beliefs in the hope of tacking into a favourable electoral win".  In other 
words, you don't wait for public opinion to tell you what you ought to be 
doing, you tell the public what you think ought to happen, because that's what 
you are there for. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Well, I think the process is two-way.  I 
think sometimes public opinion is ahead of politicians and I say, somewhat 
shamefacedly, that I think that's happened recently.  I think public opinion 
has got ahead of politicians.  Now I think politicians are taking up some of 
those themes and I think that we wish to guide the debate, but I don't think 
... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Guide it?  Well, give me a few specific 
examples then because I've failed to get any out of you. 
 
PORTILLO:                              I don't agree that you've failed to get 
any out of me.  I have described to you the way in which I think we are going 
to be changing the balance between the individual and State provision and I 
think already the changing climate of opinion is making it possible for us to 
introduce changes in policy that wouldn't otherwise be possible.  I mean, this 
is slightly at a tangent, but Michael Howard's speech on law and order is an 
example of the sort of movement, changes in the law, that are made possible 
because of a change in British opinion - a change which is partly 
self-generating and partly guided by politicians. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              All right.  An opportunity for you in 
about twenty seconds to give me a specific 'yes' or 'no' to this one proposal 
that was leaked this week - if that's what it was.  New home owners should take 
out private insurance to cover them in case they lose their jobs or get sick 
and then their mortgage repayments are paid.  Not by the State, which it may be 
at the moment, but by private insurance.  Is that happening?  And do you 
approve of it 
 
PORTILLO:                              I don't believe that the State should be 
in the business of offering individuals insurance... 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              So the answer is 'yes'. 
 
PORTILLO:                              ... that they could get in the outside 
world, and I think that that is one of the areas where we are going to have to 
move. 
 
HUMPHRYS:                              Michael Portillo, thank you very much 
indeed. 
 
PORTILLO:                              Thanks very much. 
 
 
 
 
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