It's not about stigmatising anybody

On Sunday 07 December, Andrew Marr interviewed Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell MP

Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

The Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell defends his welfare reforms.

ANDREW MARR: Three organisations - the British Chambers of Commerce, CBI, the Standard Chartered Bank - have now all predicted that unemployment will reach 3 million, and yet there's already around two and a half million people on incapacity benefit, so that's a huge bill.

How many, even in these hard times, could work if they really tried?

That is the question being asked by the Work and Pensions Secretary, James Purnell. He's with me now. Welcome.

JAMES PURNELL: Good morning, Andrew.

ANDREW MARR: You've got some new measures to get people on incapacity benefit into work. Two and a half million people roundabout on incapacity benefit. How many of those do you think could work?

JAMES PURNELL: Well we can't know. What we do know is that we want to give people the support to get back into work, but also the expectation that they take it up. And that's essentially because we've learnt the mistakes of the 80s and the 90s when people were shuffled onto incapacity benefit as a way of keeping the figures down and then they were trapped there.

You know they were left there without the support to get back into work. We've brought in programmes now which help people improve their health, develop their skills. It works. It gets people back into work and that's...

ANDREW MARR: And yet the numbers, the numbers on IB keep rising, don't they, so what are you going to do to stop that?

JAMES PURNELL: Well no, actually they're falling and they're now lower than when we came in. They're also in stark contrast to the Tory years when they tripled from 700,000 to you know over 2 million.

So we know that the support works; we want to get more people to take it up. And that is all part of building a welfare state which is based on something for something where everybody gets the support that they need, but they're also expected to take it up.

ANDREW MARR: But there are still over 2 million, well over 2 million the figure now, so what's going to change for somebody who is on incapacity benefit and who isn't either very, very badly disabled or with a very young child? What will change?

JAMES PURNELL: Well we've abolished effectively incapacity benefit. We've replaced it with a new benefit, which has a tighter gateway so that you know we focus it on the people who are really genuinely sick and disabled. We're also going to retest everybody who's on IB at the moment between now and 2010 and 2013, and they'll then be expected to come in and develop a plan to improve their health and get back into work. Not to take specific jobs because that's what the unemployment regime is for, but to give people the support to improve their health and then also to prepare for work.

ANDREW MARR: A lot of people have said that this is all very well, but that it's not nearly tough enough to make a big change and that you should be time limiting these kind of benefits or indeed obliging people to do unpaid community work if they haven't got any other kind of job.

JAMES PURNELL: Well I believe in what is effective. And in America where they tried time limiting, first of all it wasn't effective; and, secondly, it punished the most vulnerable in our society. It increased child poverty because some people just dropped out of the system and they weren't getting either work or benefits. So I don't think that is the right approach.

I do believe in a system which has you know very clear responsibilities and that people should be expected to take up a reasonable job offer; and that if they don't, they're either sanctioned and lose their benefits or people are expected to do full-time work in return for their benefits.

ANDREW MARR: So people will be expected to go out and do community work if they can't find any other kind of work?

JAMES PURNELL: That's right - after two years, we want to look at you know how that would work, see if it's effective. But actually throughout the system, we want to introduce an activity principle where people are required to do something because we know it's the right thing for them.

So for people who are unemployed for more than a year, we're going to ask them to do four weeks full-time work. And that's not about stigmatising anybody. It's about helping people develop you know the skills about turning up on time, being reliable, being a good team worker, being presentable, and that's all about supporting people to get back into work.

ANDREW MARR: Today the Conservative Leader, David Cameron, has written an article with a big picture of Karen Matthews on it saying you know there is a real problem here - multi-generational unemployment, people on benefit through several generations. Without getting into the sort of party political knockabout, he has got a point, hasn't he?

JAMES PURNELL: Well I think we need to be very careful to separate out two issues here. One is giving people support and expecting responsibility to get back into work or prepare for work. The second is what Karen Matthews did. And I think it lets people off the hook and it lets people like her off the hook if you say that somehow it's the responsibility of the welfare state.

It was her responsibility and hers only, and I think it's slightly insulting to the millions of people who are claiming benefits and looking to get back into work, who are you know caring for people, to say...

ANDREW MARR: But come on, there is a problem.

JAMES PURNELL: No, no, I think it is in danger of being insulting to them to say that you know they're at risk of turning into the next Karen Matthews, which is what the headline says. So I think there is a danger in what David Cameron is saying. I do think that we need to help people get back into work.

And actually it's also worth saying over the last ten years the situation has improved. We've got 300,000 more lone parents in work, over a million, six hundred thousand children being lifted out of poverty, so we are tackling the causes of deprivation in our society.

ANDREW MARR: But there are, you know there are areas in the country where you know 30, 40% of people are on incapacity benefit, where very few people are working at all, where that is being passed down generation to generation. Now whether or not you agree that we've got a broken society, those are broken societies aren't they?

JAMES PURNELL: No, I think we have failing families and I think we have to intervene to help them and, where you have really entrenched problems of the kinds you're talking about, have you know a tough love approach. And that's what we're doing with our family intervention projects, which go in and you know work with families, look at the whole needs of the family, but also have some very tough expectations on people to start to you know address the problems that they have.

So you know there's always been a sort of group of people - you know we think it's about 2% - who have got really entrenched generational problems, often dating back to unemployment started in the 80s and 90s. No one's worked in the family since. You have to intervene with those families in depth and that's what we're doing. But I think Britain is a great society.

You know I love modern Britain. I love its freedom, its openness, how vibrant it is. That's why people like coming to work here, because you know I think we've forgotten how much our country's changed and stopped being so hidebound and class bound. People really think that they can pursue their dream here. We want to make sure that actually that is a reality - that you can both dream that but also achieve it - and that's our goal.

ANDREW MARR: What you can't love very much is British unemployment at the moment. I mean your blood must have run cold when you saw the last American figures - half a million people certainly, more unemployed. You've got three respected big organisations saying three, three and a half million unemployed by the time this recession is over. What are your own estimates of that because you must have your own figures?

JAMES PURNELL: We never predict unemployment levels...

ANDREW MARR: But are those roughly speaking right?

JAMES PURNELL: Governments never do that. But we, you know we have unemployment which is just under a million at the moment. And everybody who loses their job, it's an absolute tragedy and a terrible worry for them, and that's why the Government has just announced an extra billion pounds to help keep people in touch with the labour market and make sure you know we can get them into the half a million vacancies which exist in the economy at the moment. So you know we want to help people fairly through the downturn. You know we would say that's really...

ANDREW MARR: (over) But I mean are you saying that those figures are too scary, that they're wildly out?

JAMES PURNELL: I'm saying we don't predict unemployment because that's something that governments have never done. But I think the right thing to do is to help people. I think that that combined with the pre-Budget Report, which put billions into the economy, interest rates...

ANDREW MARR: But these sort of figures would blow your own strategy and blow the pre-Budget Report and the lot.

JAMES PURNELL: ...Interest rates coming down is the right thing to do. I think that's in real contrast to the Tories who think basically nothing can be done; we just have to put up with the downturn. We in contrast say if we can make it as shallow and short as possible, that reduces the human cost but also the financial cost and helps us to build for the future.

ANDREW MARR: So there's no part of you looking at all the information coming in, all the evidence coming in from the street, from the real world, thinking this is getting really appalling, really bad and we have to rethink the number of people on benefit, we have to rethink our numbers, our financial strategy entirely?

JAMES PURNELL: No, of course I worry for people and I want to you know make sure they get back into work...

ANDREW MARR: (over) But what about the whole situation of individual people?

JAMES PURNELL: Let me answer your point, Andrew. No, I worry for people and the worries they face at the moment. And again that's exactly why we've announced what we said on people's houses, so that they can you know delay their interest payments. It's precisely to address that.

But the fundamental point is it would be exactly the wrong thing to do to start to row back on welfare reform because that would be repeating the mistakes of the 80s and 90s and taking support away from people. Actually if it's harder for people to get work, then we need to give them more help, not less, and make sure that they stay in touch with the labour market. Otherwise we will you know have people out of work for a very long time and that will scar communities exactly as it did before.

ANDREW MARR: Are you concerned about the number of people still coming in as migrants into this society looking for jobs, given the shortage of jobs we now have?

JAMES PURNELL: I believe in a competitive and flexible labour market and the European Union gives us that. And that is...

ANDREW MARR: I don't understand that answer. When it comes to people from outside the EU.

JAMES PURNELL: Well if you had let me finish my answer...

ANDREW MARR: Okay.

JAMES PURNELL: ...I'd have gone onto that. And that has been a good thing for Britain and the European Union has made us you know wealthier as a country and is also a great achievement, which I think has brought... You know the fact that we've brought in Eastern European countries like that has been one of the great historical achievements.

We do want to make sure that for people outside the EU, we have a points system which means we have people who can come and contribute to our economy - that is the reasonable way of going forward - and that we combine that with welfare support, which will make sure that people can get back into work.

ANDREW MARR: As an MP, are you satisfied with the way the Speaker and the Commons authorities generally have handled the Damian Green affair?

JAMES PURNELL: Well as an MP, I of course have confidence in the Speaker. But I have a really strong view about this, which is as a minister I should be pretty careful about not having a view because this is all about the rights of Parliament and Parliament is independent from the Executive, and if you start getting into a situation where ministers are the people who are kind of responsible for the Speaker's position, that would be completely against every tradition we have in our Parliament...

ANDREW MARR: (over) But you are also an MP. So I'm asking you as an MP, do you think it's been handled well?

JAMES PURNELL: I've given you my answer, which is...

ANDREW MARR: Well you...

JAMES PURNELL: It's a very important point, Andrew. You know if you start getting to the point where the Speaker is dependent on ministers' favour, that would be to... that would be to undermine the very principles that people...

ANDREW MARR: (over) You can't answer as a minister...

JAMES PURNELL: ...which are people are so worried about.

ANDREW MARR: ... So can you answer as an MP?

JAMES PURNELL: I have given you my answer, which I have confidence in the Speaker...

ANDREW MARR: You do.

JAMES PURNELL: ...but I think it would be... You know you understand the point I'm making, which is constitutionally Parliament is responsible for this and if ministers start getting involved, that undermines the whole concerns people have been having in this whole affair, which is about the rights of Parliament.

ANDREW MARR: But from outside, people are thinking in a commonsense way - a police raid you know without a warrant inside the House of Commons, never mind to Damian Green's home, this can't possibly be right - and all they're hearing from ministers at the moment is a kind of, "I'm not comment on that".

JAMES PURNELL: Oppositions are there to oppose and they have the right to oppose and they should be able to do that. But you know Dominic Grieve talked about Jacqui Smith hiding behind operational independence. She's defending the operational independence of the police. That is a fundamental principle. If we start getting into a society where ministers can order the police about, that is moving towards...

ANDREW MARR: But what about a society...

JAMES PURNELL: ...but that is moving towards an infringement of civil liberties and a society which isn't as free as it should be. So it's not hiding behind something. It's defending a principle which is fundamental to our freedoms.

ANDREW MARR: But what about a society when opposition MPs who receive information from moles in Whitehall get visited by the police? That's not the kind of society you want either, is it?

JAMES PURNELL: But there are principles in operation here, which are very important. Oppositions should and must oppose the Government. That is their job. No one is above the law. The independence of the police operationally is absolutely vital. And I think you know rather than having a running commentary on it, we should let the police investigation complete. And then of course the Speaker said that he wants this whole matter to be looked into by a senior group of MP's. That's the right way of doing it and that's the way of supporting our freedoms.

ANDREW MARR: Alright James Purnell, thank you very much indeed for now.

JAMES PURNELL: Thank you.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

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