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ON THE RECORD
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 1.10.95
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JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon, here in Brighton the
Labour Party is about to hold its Annual Conference. I'll be talking to John
Prescott, Deputy Leader and conscience of the Left. He's been loyal to the
modernising Mr Blair so far ... but how much more can he take. That's after
the News read by MOIRA STUART.
NEWS
HUMPHRYS: Well John Prescott, can you keep up with
change?
JOHN PRESCOTT MP: I've been involved in it all my life.
HUMPHRYS: We're going to discuss that.
Tony Blair wants the modernising process
to go further. You have expressed some doubts about it in the past so let's
have a look at what he wants to do as far as new Labour is concerned. The
relationships with the trade unions; Mr Blair wants to reduce their power and
influence beyond what has already been agreed. Can you go along with that?
JOHN PRESCOTT MP: Well what we've agreed about that is the
change in the voting system at conference, of one member one vote,that was
quite a revolutionary change. I've always supported that idea. Earlier days
in my unions I used to argue that, for example, in my Seamen's Union you got a
vote for every five years when I first entered the Seamen's Union, I wanted one
member one vote. I've always been identified with change and that came before
Tony Blair, I mean, it was done during John Smith.
HUMPHRYS: But he wants to go further now, he talks
about a dynamic, which implies 'let's go on with it'.
PRESCOTT: Yes, but the change continues, we're in
a dynamic situation. I mean the proportion of votes that unions have at
conference was ninety per cent, it's now with a proposal before conference down
to fifty per cent. Here again I had a difference, I always thought this
relationship of the vote should be tied to how many members that trade unions
have paying political levy, but I was in a minority, funnily enough Tony agreed
with me on that. But we've always been in the process of change...
HUMPHRYS: So if it goes below fifty per cent,
you'd be happy?
PRESCOTT: ...say, I think it should be tied to
percentage, if the trade unions don't have members who are paying political
levy and it begins to fall and we're not convincing them of joining members,
though they are in the last year in ever increasing numbers, then I think the
voting should be related to the members, so it's a logical extension.
HUMPHRYS: So it could go down to thirty per cent,
twenty per cent, ten per cent?
PRESCOTT: It could go down to as many as those
have paying political levy paying members, but of course that is not the
view that has accepted by the majority...
HUMPHRYS: Yet.
PRESCOTT: ..well it certainly hasn't. I mean they
have been put to the conference now that it is fifty per cent. I'm only giving
you an idea about the price of change that I'm involved in, the arguments
I've given for it and I think arguing the case for change in a dynamic
situation.
HUMPHRYS: With more ordinary members of the Labour
Party that percentage of the trade union vote at conference is going to fall,
you're satisfied that that should be the case?
PRESCOTT: No, I'm saying that they've got a
conference of fifty per cent, that's the majority, I support the majority view
but I was giving you an indication of how I argued within those committees,
which I often get painted as a kind of traditionalist against change. I do
want to relate change to its democratic accountability and I give you one of
those indications.
HUMPHRYS: Indeed, indeed, but if you carried that
forward as you've suggested, logically you would, as the membership of the
Labour Party increases, you would be happy to see that trade union vote at
the conference cut further, not withstanding what.....
PRESCOTT: No, no, you're not understanding John.
The membership of the party is not only the membership of the party, it's the
people who pay political levy as well.
HUMPHRYS: I do understand that.
PRESCOTT: And that's how the conference system
works.
HUMPHRYS: I do understand that.
PRESCOTT: So membership can be going up alongside
the membership of political paying levy members.
HUMPHRYS: Absolutely, but the membership could be
going up without the increase in the political levy of paying members of the
trade union.
PRESCOTT: No, both are going up together.
HUMPHRYS: But what I am suggesting to you is that
if you carry on with your admirable work in increasing the ordinary membership
of the Party, then we could see a further reduction in the trade union
conference.
PRESCOTT: No John.
HUMPHRYS: I mean that's entirely conceivable.
PRESCOTT: No it isn't. I mean it is if you take
your terms but we're actually increasing members of the political levy paying
members. We've had a considerable increase there as well, so we can see them
both going up. I want to see that, there are millions of people who pay
political levy in trade unions at the present stage who actually do that
because they want to support the Labour Party. They have a ballot every ten
years and agree to it, more unions now actually pay political levy than before
the Tories made their change, shareholders don't but we'll leave that on that
side.
HUMPHRYS: I take that point but what I'm saying
is, IF those things get out of kilter, that's to say if your drive continues,
your membership drive continues to be as successful as it has been hitherto,
then we're going to see perhaps a further reduction in.....
PRESCOTT: And the rules at the conference will
probably accept is the fifty per cent today and that will stay as it is.
HUMPHRYS: Absolutely but if it were proposed that
that be cut further, for whatever reason, because the membership of the
union...of the party increases, you would be happy to see that?
PRESCOTT: Well you're indicating a change, I'd
like the formula I've just put to you,it can go up or down whatever it is, but
that has been rejected by the majority so clearly at the moment those debates
will continue. We don't finish everything here, we're in a dynamic situation,
both the trade unions who've made a number of these proposals themselves, they
didn't come from the politicians saying you must change, many of these ideas
actually came from the trade unions themselves...
HUMPHRYS: So the debate will continue then, that's
the point, the debate will continue not withstanding the fact that Rodney
Bickerstaffe we heard him say there effectively no more change, we made this
party what it is.
PRESCOTT: Well I think there's an awful lot to be
said for that argument but Rodney would be the last one to suggest that you
don't have continuing debate about a dynamic situation. The Labour Party has
shown that it can deal with change in a mature way, I think we've shown that
over Clause Four, we've shown it about the process of change and now what Tony
is moving on is to the new Britain concept; how do our policies actually...and
are relevant to the electorate because at the end of the day if we don't win
the trust of the electorate all this is academic.
HUMPHRYS: Of course it is so let's move on to New
Britain then. Tony Blair talked about welfare last week and he suggested that
you now think about moving away from some universal benefits, Child Benefit was
what he had in mind, towards more targetting.
PRESCOTT: He didn't actually say that.
HUMPHRYS: Well he said those earning large sums of
money, and I quote that he said that most people would agree that those earning
large sums of money don't need to have Child Benefit.
PRESCOTT: He questioned the point made by the
BORI Commission, which John Smith set up to look at the real reforms that are
needed in our welfare system, which have been put under crisis because of the
mass unemployment that we have at the moment which create real public financing
problems in a welfare area. The BORI Commission said on the Family Allowance
one that what we need to be doing is looking at the possibility and raising the
question: do you really need to be paying it to people who perhaps don't need
it. That raised the question of universality which is a very important point
for us to take on board. Tony was raising that question. Now the real issue
is what policy will we adopt in regard to this principle, could you in fact use
a tax system that takes that extra benefit off at the top end.
HUMPHRYS: Yes but he was doing a little more than
just raising the question wasn't he. He was raising the..proposing the
question, he was raising this whole issue now, now you have said in the past
'to reject universal benefits concedes the Tory argument'. Are you now backing
off that?
PRESCOTT: But that argument hasn't been conceded
at all. All indeed that Tony has done is to raise one of the questions in
regard to Family Allowance, the whole issue comes again in pensions..
HUMPHRYS: He's raised the questions precisely.
PRESCOTT: Yes it's an important question raised
for us by BORI. We've had the BORI Commission raise these questions. Tony
posed the question that was posed by BORI, what we've got to do is to look at
the challenge of that.
HUMPHRYS: But he went much further than that. Let
me repeat what he said "Those earning large sums of money don't need to have
Child Benefit". Now, that is questioning the whole basis universality.
PRESCOTT: No. We went on also to say that perhaps
if those at the top uphold this view and BORI pointed that out perhaps... you
could use the taxation system to remove that. What the real question is with
universality is that everybody receives it, so, right.....
HUMPHRYS: Don't need is the expression.
PRESCOTT: Well, if you get to a situation in all
these benefits areas that begin to go to just to Means Testing then an awful
lot of people are actually eliminated from the system that desperately need it
and everybody has looked at this, including the Government before, particularly
in regard to Child Benefit, have decided that the disadvantage of eliminating
an awful lot of people who desperately need that money wasn't a price that you
wanted to pay, to move away from universality.
The question been raised again, but you
can settle it in different ways, without questioning the principle of
universality.
HUMPHRYS: But that is precisely what he did. He
questioned the principle, didn't he? Don't need to have Child Benefit,
therefore they shouldn't have it. That is questioning the fundamental
principle and you are clearly on that...saying we shouldn't question that.
PRESCOTT: What we're saying is that you can still
put it to these people...tax payments. Of course you can do that, you can
still keep the principle in tact but then you remove it as some income received
by those people that don't need it. After all income tax is about that, making
a judgement about what the taxation demands are on the people depending on
their levels of income.
HUMPHRYS: So you will fight for the principle of
universality come what may?
PRESCOTT: Well the debate has now started in the
Party, we have a BORI Commission, John Smith saw the need to deal with this
problem, it was a Labour Party that brought in the Welfare State in the most
radical form in 1945, fifty years ago. But in the 1990s and facing the next
century, the problems are entirely different...
HUMPHRYS: And you've made up your mind?
PRESCOTT: Our welface system now means that
people...you've got poverty traps, unemployment trap, people who don't get the
real benefit in difficult circumstances and it puts them into a trap and we
have to deal with that problem, not attack the single mothers in the way the
Tories are doing, look at the general principle of how we approach welfare and
the BORI Commission has given us their principles and recommendations and we
are now in the process of debating that.
HUMPHRYS: And you've now made up your mind and as
far as you are concerned universality is a sacred principle that must not be
breached.
PRESCOTT: I think that's a very important
principle, I think it's one that can govern in our welfare system but the
debate has started John. I mean in debates you have views, I've given you an
example in regard to the proportion of votes in trade unions. My view
nevertheless is not necessarily the one that will be carried. I will argue my
case but I will listen to the arguments and sometimes they have to change. On
Clause Four...
HUMPHRYS: Alright so you might go along with it.
PRESCOTT: On Clause Four I had real doubts that we
should go along this road for what it might do to the Labour Party; I was
wrong. It actually..the Labour Party dealt with it in a most mature way...
HUMPHRYS: And you may decide at the end of this
debate that you were wrong about universality then.
PRESCOTT: It may well be in the debates, in these
arguments, we listen to the debate because the whole principles involved in
welfare have to face a new century. I still am convinced about the argument of
universality.
HUMPHRYS: Right, let's look at another aspect of
new Britain then - taxtion. Mr Blair is obviously desperate to reassure Middle
England, if I can use that expression, that they are not going to pay any more
tax. Every penny, Mr Prescott, every penny that you do not raise in tax is a
penny that you do not have to spend on schools, or hospitals, or whatever. Now
that's what Socialism is all about, isn't it. It's about redistributing
wealth.
PRESCOTT: Did I tell you that Socialism is also
the language of priority, that you could use existing expenditures more
effective than we do at the moment.
HUMPHRYS: ...accept that.
PRESCOTT: And that would draw the distinction and
different between ourselves and the Tories, can I give you but two examples if
you like, since they're pretty topical today. One is the matter of the
education one and assistance to bring classes down to thirty size. It's
estimated that would cost something in the range of about sixty million
pounds. Something like twice as much as that is given in financial assistance
to people to go to public schools...private schools. Now we can say we reject
that principle and we do and we would use those resources, in the given
expenditure, to achieve something that is much more important to us to lift up
the standards of education by reducing the class sizes for those in public
schools. Now we actually think that's an important principle, that's within
the given public expenditure.
HUMPHRYS: Right, you're going to give me another
one.
PRESCOTT: And the second one I think, could be the
railways. I mean if you are talking about the railway system, bringing it back
into public ownership and public accountability, we had that system, that's
something that we want and we're fighting to keep a publicly owned railways. If
they were stupid enough and I don't think they'll be able to achieve it, to
achieve a kind of privatisation of some parts of it - they certainly won't be
able to do all. We then have to say how do we secure the public ownership and
public accountability. I have argued for public and private finances in
different ways, particularly in railways for a number of years and indeed I've
produced this report 'Financing Public Industries and Services' which is the
one that Tony Blair asked me to look at in December, which we've now put
together and are discussing the implications of that. You can do it in
different ways without necessarily having to depend on the taxpayer's money.
And the last point, Gordon Brown has
announced it hasn't he, everyone is agreeing there's a windfall tax that comes
from these private utilities.....billions of pounds are involved. He said he
would use that to put people back to work, so they're paying tax instead of
dependent on welfare. Now that's all....given public expenditure priorities
the government has at the moment.
HUMPHRYS: Let's pick up the rail one then.
As I understand it what you are saying is that you will bring the railways back
into public ownership as soon as possible.
PRESCOTT: Our position...publicly owned publicly
accountable railway and you're now using the words and the resolution that is
going to conference and I think it will be endorsed and indeed as soon as
possible is how you actually work out that.
HUMPHRYS: Does that mean, does as soon as possible
mean as soon as possible within the legislated time-table, or when resources
allow.
PRESCOTT: Well the first argument about the public
ownership is the one about do you want to totally buy it back if they
privatised it all ... billions of compensation. That's one of our difficulties
in the priorities of expenditure about gas and electricity. Would we make them
more accountable in another way. So in the railways it's dependent upon what
the government is able to do. Perhaps they'd only be able to franchise the
East Coast Line, perhaps they couldn't do anything about Railtrack, what we are
proposing to do, and I've got all these options spelt out here for us to look
at. Now I'm not going to spell out publicly what all those options are.
HUMPHRYS: Hang on, I'm not asking you to do that.
What I'm saying to you and it's absolutely fundamental to this, absolutely
fundamental, is are you saying that we will do those things, one or all of
those things that you've got in that document as soon as possible, does that
mean when you've got the money that you can do it with, or does it mean, within
the first year or the first term of a Labour Government, when the legislative
time-table allows, this is a crucially important distinction (phon).
PRESCOTT: Of course it is. And it depends what
they'd done. I mean if you're asking me what you'd take back and they hadn't
actually privatised...
HUMPHRYS: Why does it matter what they'd done?
PRESCOTT: I'll tell you why it does, if it's the
total amount, some people might say it's three or four billion, if they've
only done one line or Railtrack, then it's a less amount. The point I'm trying
to make is there are different forms of finances in which you can do it. We
can say we wouldn't spend a billion pounds continuing to privatise the railways
by asking the City for advice. We would use that for investment. We would
actually use leasing ideas which I've actually used on trains (wait a minute)
so that we get the York factory that has been closed down, the most modern
railway factory that we've got, being closed down. Not because we don't need
the trains on Network South East, something like one thousand over twenty-five
years old, it's because we're not prepared to find new ways of financing within
the public sector to put people back to work.
HUMPHRYS: Okay, so in other words, if they'd done
a lot, if the government has managed to do a lot, you won't undo a lot. You'll
only undo bits and pieces here and there. In other words not much of a
commitment is there.
PRESCOTT: No we're not like the Liberals saying
they'd only take Railtrack, it's no good just having a good Railtrack and
say we own that, it's the services that run on it that's important. And in that
same resolution it talks about the integrated framework of railways and we will
look at the system that we inherit but make no doubts about it, publicly owned,
publicly accountable railway system is what we intend to have...
HUMPHRYS: Depending on the costs, depending on the
costs because if they'd done a huge amount, you're not prepared to spend
billions..I mean we could be talking about billions and billions and billions
here, you're not prepared to sit here this morning and commit the Labour Party
to spending those billions as a matter of priority.
PRESCOTT: I can't sit here and commit the Labour
Party to billions of pounds, we have ways of making those decisions and the
taxation policy at the appropriate time. What I've done is actually to spell
out the options about how the Party wants a publicly owned publicly accountable
railway. I have to do that within the context of actual expenditure, we're not
going to confiscate, even the Liberals say you have to do that. So what we're
saying is, it will depend what they're doing. You know let me give you a
proposition, if they took one of these railway lines and franchised it, say for
a fifty or a hundred years which in fact one of the bidders was asking about
twelve months ago, can you imagine the amount of compensation that might be
involved in that. You perhaps could come the other way, if we have to pay two
billion pounds in public service subsidy, which is twice as much as under the
publicly owned one to meet these privatised concerns, we're entitled to say
that money is for public use. We are not here just simply to fund the profits
from these matters.
HUMPHRYS: Right, so what you're...what you're
telling me is that you can only do that which is doable in terms of the
finances available to you, which is a perfectly reasonable position to take,
but the point is it supports the Blair view doesn't it, the new Britain view
that no more money is going to be spent unless it is available, now I wonder
how that squares with what you have said which is; I would go further, that is
go further than Tony Blair has talked about in terms of spending, as a
Socialist, as a Socialist you've said, I would say tax is also about
redistribution, now that's something else.....
PRESCOTT: I don't think we disagree on that, I'm
just wondering where the quotes were different from myself and Tony on public
expenditure, in reality....
HUMPHRYS: Well I've just given you one, I mean, I
don't I don't hear Tony Blair using that kind of language, I would go further
as a Sociailist, I would say tax is also about redistribution, I don't hear....
PRESCOTT: Where did I say that, I don't disagree
with it but I just think...
HUMPHRYS: Well you said it last....
PRESCOTT: Okay, I don't doubt that, taxation is
a matter of progressive or regressive and what we've seen all over these years
is a very regressive taxation system but it's put the greatest burden,
particularly on those low and middle incomes, we've made that point. Now I
don't think there's anything inconsistent with there of having a progressive
approach to taxation, except that what we've got is a heavy burden of taxation
on....
HUMPHRYS: So you share his view that taxes should
be cut?
PRESCOTT: Pardon?
HUMPHRYS: Do you share his view that taxes should
be cut if at all possible?
PRESCOTT: I think what Tony's actually said about
that, he wants to reduce the burden of taxation, and when that decision comes
to be taken whenever the government produces its budget we'll have to make
judgements about that. That's quite proper, that's what the Chancellor says,
that's what we've always said.
HUMPHRYS: But that may be his priority. It's a
bit unlikely that it used to be yours isn't it? I mean from a man who says you
know, "I'm a Socialist".
PRESCOTT: I don't quite understand, we have the
highest level of taxes imposed on our people for an awful long time, there's no
doubt about that. Most of the money that's raised in tax is wasted on keeping
people on the dole. I think really when you look at the public finances in this
country and the borrowing of this government they don't borrow to invest, they
borrow to fund the failures of their policies, which is something like the high
cost of particularly unemployment. Now, I think it was Keynes who said many
years ago that you look after employment and the social budget will look after
itself, and that's the nature of the problem that we've got. How do we begin
to use our public expenditure more effectively, to invest which is important
as Gordon Brown's constantly talking about the long-term nature of our economy,
and then if you've got more people in work contributing to the public finances
we won't be so obsessed about this argument of taxation.
HUMPHRYS: So the reason that I couch these
questions in the terms that I do is that your old comrades were delighted when
you got to be Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. They saw you as the sort of
standard bearer for Socialism. They're getting pretty disappointed aren't
they, that you're not putting up much of a fight.
PRESCOTT: Well you've got to remember that I - I
don't accept that, I think most people would see that I certainly put
considerable fights, but they voted me...
HUMPHRYS: .... lots of things you've been saying
and each time you've said, "Oh I go along with Tony on that because..."
PRESCOTT: Well, they expect me to work with Tony
Blair in leadership. That's what they voted for. There's a million people who
voted actually for Tony and I to be leader and deputy leader, far different
than three-hundred-and-twenty Mps...
HUMPHRYS: .... vote for your.....
PRESCOTT: No, I don't actually. Anybody who looks
to me and said ........ just look at how it's worked in the last twelve
months. We worked together on Clause Four and redefined in the most
fundamental way the principles of Clause Four which endorsed the.....
HUMPHRYS: ...but I mean the trouble is that....
PRESCOTT: Wait a minute, this is important to see
just exactly what works on that. We then actually worked out on the business
of the railway finance and public accountability right, and now looking at
regional policy, how do we get people back to the regions.
HUMPHRYS: I don't dispute that you work with him
very closely, but it does seem rather as if you're not getting much of a reward
for that, doesn't it. I mean we see that you don't get some of the memos that
you ought to get, you're excluded from - there's - can I just put this point
to you, we don't have very much time left.
PRESCOTT: ... to win the next election.... the
Labour Party.
HUMPHRYS: Okay, well now, if you win the next
election and Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister, we've now got a rule change
going through this conference which says you wouldn't automatically become the
next Prime Minister. If something terrible happened to Tony Blair, it says "a
member".
PRESCOTT: You're quite wrong against that John.
You're usually right upon your facts, you've got this one wrong.
HUMPHRYS: Well, there was a rule change this
morning.
PRESCOTT: No, no, it's not - you're quite wrong,
quite wrong. That was passed in 1993 before I became Deputy Leader and before
Tony, and it was how did you deal with the constitutional - let me answer the
problem because you've made the point - how do you deal with the appointment of
prime minister. Our Party elects leader and deputy leader, and you know
constitutionally the Queen appoints prime minister and appoints government, and
that rule was dealing with that. There's nothing to be read in that
whatsoever, it's not even a change this year, it's the same rule that we had in
1993.
HUMPHRYS: Are you going to be Deputy Prime
Minister?
PRESCOTT: I'm going to be working in the job that
Tony Blair gives me in the next Labour government, giving the importance of
getting people back to work, that's what they want in this country, and that's
what I'll be giving all my efforts to, and I'm delighted to do that, and I'll
be giving him full support with the support of the Party.
HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, thank you very much.
PRESCOTT: Thank you very much.
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