On Sunday 28 June Andrew Marr interviewed Ed Balls MP, Schools Secretary
Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.
The Schools Secretary Ed Balls says government will have to be "defter and smarter".
ANDREW MARR:
Ed Balls MP
There were reports this week of a big u-turn on schools policy with the ditching of national strategies for England and Wales on primary school literacy and numeracy and a new report card system for schools.
But education, like so much else, depends partly on the money. This week, the Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King, talked about the "extraordinary" level of public borrowing.
The OECD said that next year Britain would have "the worst deficit in the industrialised world".
And one cabinet minister admitted his budget was "going down a bit".
So what's the real outlook for children, schools and families?
I'm joined now by the Secretary of State for all of those things, Ed Balls.
ED BALLS:
Good morning, Andrew.
ANDREW MARR:
Good morning and welcome. Do you agree with the Governor of the Bank of England?
ED BALLS:
Well the first thing to say is that there's no u-turn on schools. I'm sure we'll talk about that in a minute.
ANDREW MARR:
I'll come to schools in a moment.
ED BALLS:
Literacy and numeracy, we're going to drive that forward even harder, even harder.
ANDREW MARR:
We will come to schools in a minute.
ED BALLS:
But in terms …
ANDREW MARR:
Let me talk about Mervyn King.
ED BALLS:
Sure.
ANDREW MARR:
"An extraordinary level of public debt, which would require some pretty extraordinary things to be done", he said.
ED BALLS:
And it's a good job we went into this downturn with a lower level of national debt than America, France, Germany, Japan because we are better placed to deal with it. It's happened round the world. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, has done a great job in getting us through a really, really difficult time for Britain but for every other country, and our debt's going to go up …
ANDREW MARR:
Yes.
ED BALLS:
… and it's really important we get the debt down steadily in the coming years.
ANDREW MARR:
It's not just going to go up. It's going to double …
ED BALLS:
Yeah.
ANDREW MARR:
… and it's going to put us in a worse position on that measure than any of the other big, industrialised countries.
ED BALLS:
It's been an extraordinary period.
ANDREW MARR:
Mervyn King has talked about the extraordinary decisions that are going to need to be taken to get that back down again. What I'm asking is: is he right?
ED BALLS:
Well, look, the extraordinary decisions are being taken. The fact is we have a national insurance rise, some tough decisions on pensions, the top rate of tax going up. The problem is that the tough decisions on tax, which Alistair Darling has taken, have not been supported by David Cameron and actually by Vince Cable as well. So tough decisions are …
ANDREW MARR:
(over) Nor do they raise anything like enough money to start to close the gap.
ED BALLS:
Alistair Darling's made it very clear that he is going to get the debt on a downward path, and that's right. But, look, it has been an amazing period round the world …
ANDREW MARR:
So can we …
ED BALLS:
… and we're taking tough decisions. But in the end, it comes back to the economy - what happens to the economy this year and next - and I think people will look back on this period and say that Britain led the world in taking decisive action to get our growth up after the recession. The fact is the IMF have said …
ANDREW MARR:
We're not going to lead, we're not going to lead the world out of this recession, are we? The OECD's talking about a 4.3% shrinking of the British economy, which is the worst of any of those big countries, and that next year we are going to be stagnating while the other industrialised countries are lifting out of the recession. That is a poor place to be.
ED BALLS:
Well let's wait and see what happens. But I think people will look back and say actually what's happened is that the VAT cut, the decision to increase spending during the downturn, which was opposed by the Conservatives and actually by Vince Cable, will turn out to be the reason why Britain comes through this downturn stronger. If you look at what's happening in Germany or …
ANDREW MARR:
Can I …
ED BALLS:
If you let me answer the question. If you look at what's happening in Germany or in Japan - where those economies have been hit really, really badly by the fall in global trade around the world, their industrial production - actually in Britain consumer confidence is strengthening, consumers are starting to spend again. We've had a rise in unemployment, but not as bad as some people feared. Let's wait and see. But I think people will look back and say our decisions, Alistair Darling's decisions during this downturn will take us through this more strongly than other countries, and that's why we'll be in a better position to deal with debt, get the fiscal position strong - which we must - but also sustain our increases in investment in public services.
ANDREW MARR:
Well let's try and just sort out one simple thing. Do you accept, can you say that public capital expenditure is going to go down …
ED BALLS:
What's actually happened is …
ANDREW MARR:
… there'll be cuts in capital spending?
ED BALLS:
What actually happened was we brought forward spending from 2010-11 into 2009-10 - i.e. to right now …
ANDREW MARR:
(over) And so now it goes down?
ED BALLS:
Yeah, but …
ANDREW MARR:
Yes?
ED BALLS:
The reason is we brought the money forward. The reason was to give contracts to small businesses now, which again was opposed by the Conservatives nationally …
ANDREW MARR:
Well never mind the Conservatives. We can …
ED BALLS:
(over) Well I think it's important we talk about the Conservatives.
ANDREW MARR:
Yuh, but you're in office, you're in government …
ED BALLS:
Sure, sure, and we brought the money forward, which was the right thing to do.
ANDREW MARR:
(over) I'm asking you a very straightforward question. Do you accept that capital expenditure is going to be cut?
ED BALLS:
We will wait and see what happens to the economy.
ANDREW MARR:
No.
ED BALLS:
Well of course we'll wait and see what happens to the economy. You don't know what's going to happen to the economy. Neither do I. I think what will happen is the economy will be stronger, we will have lower debt interest, we'll have lower unemployment. That will release resources and then there will be big decisions to be made about the future. It's also the case that Alistair Darling said there are asset sales for the period after 2010-11. But the fact is we are increasing investment this year …
ANDREW MARR:
(over) Sorry, just on that …
ED BALLS:
… we're increasing investment next year. We're actually doing it earlier to get more contracts and jobs to small businesses …
ANDREW MARR:
(over) You're carrying on …
ED BALLS:
… opposed by the opposition.
ANDREW MARR:
… you're carrying on spending money that the country doesn't have because you don't think you're going to be in power afterwards. You're not even having a public expenditure, an open public expenditure review where the country can hear about where you're going to cut and where you're not going to cut.
ED BALLS:
I reject that absolutely entirely. We are doing the right thing to get us through a downturn, so that the growth will be stronger, we'll have fewer people unemployed, and we will be able to continue - as Alistair Darling said last week - our investments in frontline public services. That is the right thing to do …
ANDREW MARR:
(over) Is it true there is not …
ED BALLS:
… it's the honest thing to do.
ANDREW MARR:
Is it true there is not going to be a public spending review?
ED BALLS:
Well it's a matter for Alistair Darling to decide when he has his spending review. I'm working …
ANDREW MARR:
(over) You sit next to him and the Prime Minister. You're right at the centre of it. You must know.
ED BALLS:
I don't know. It's a matter for Alistair Darling. What I know is I've got my budgets for 09-10 and 10-11. And, look, there's going to be tough choices. We're going to have to be defter and smarter. I've already taken £655 million from 2010, the year after next, and given that to the Treasury, which enabled them to allow me to make a guarantee this September that every young person will be in school or college or get an apprenticeship.
ANDREW MARR:
You say tough choices, you say tough choices.
ED BALLS:
Well, but let me explain the tough choice. What I said was the under spend I would give back, I'll be tougher on some of our non-departmental public bodies, where I can squeeze some money I will.
ANDREW MARR:
Such as? I'm just asking where … some sense of where you will squeeze because we've heard nothing about squeezing.
ED BALLS:
In 2010-11, I am squeezing £650 million, which I'm then going to switch to spend on the September guarantee.
ANDREW MARR:
Out of where?
ED BALLS:
It will be a squeeze on some under spends, some of our departmental bodies. I've said to them you're going to have less money. I'm going to say that in 2010-11, the colleges will have to be more efficient in their per pupil funding. What that means is I can switch that not to tax cuts for millionaires, which is what the Conservatives want, but to funding this September guarantee. I'm therefore able to commit this September and next September 55,000 more places, a guarantee for every school and college leaver a college place or an apprenticeship. Michael Gove, my opposite number, will not match that commitment because he knows, unlike me, he is not going to switch from that efficiency into frontline spending. He's got to switch from that to paying for George Osborne's tax cuts. (Marr interjects) That is the fundamental choice in politics and it's really important I think on this kind of programme now - we're within a year of an election, we must set out the difference between the parties in values, in judgements and in priorities. We have very different priorities between Conservative and Labour on spending and tax and we should set that out.
ANDREW MARR:
Sure.
ED BALLS:
That is the honest thing to do.
ANDREW MARR:
But one of the things that people think is that when you talk about "the honest thing to do" is that it's a choice at the moment between parties and people who are saying, "Yes, we are in a terrible financial position in this country. We have to make some really painful choices", and the government, which is as it were pretending that there aren't really painful choices to be made.
ED BALLS:
But, Andrew, how can you look at a government which has made decisions on national insurance, the top rate of tax on pensions, and say we aren't willing to make …
ANDREW MARR:
(over) Well you know and I know that the money involved in that is nothing like enough to begin to close the gap.
ED BALLS:
But they were tough choices opposed by our political opponents, but they were the right thing to do.
ANDREW MARR:
(over) They're tough choices from the edge, they're tough choices from the edge.
ED BALLS:
Well, look, you may think …
ANDREW MARR:
I'm asking about the centre.
ED BALLS:
You may think that raising the top rate of tax is on the edge, but I think that was an important decision. You may think raising national insurance was on the edge. I thought that was a very important.
ANDREW MARR:
(over) I'm saying the amount of money is relatively small compared …
ED BALLS:
(over) It was billions of pounds.
ANDREW MARR:
… compared to what you need to do, but you won't talk about the really big decisions that have to be taken.
ED BALLS:
It was billions of pounds. And also we've set out tough plans for the future. What I've said to you is I am willing to cut in 2010-11 from some programmes to therefore spend more on our priorities. And that …
ANDREW MARR:
And when Hilary Benn says that his departmental budget is "going to go down a bit", is that the kind of message across to government departments?
ED BALLS:
Well, look, let's wait and see what happens after 2010-11 because we don't know what's going to happen. As I said on the economy and debt interest, I've said before that these are Alistair Darling's decisions, but I think if we are deft and we get the economy right, we can keep investing in schools and hospitals in our police at the frontline, keep the money going up. That's what I want to see. I think we can do that. But the difference between the parties is I … Andrew, it's important I say this. I want to do that because that's my priority. What the Conservatives say is whatever we spend, they are going to have to reverse the national insurance rise, they've got to get billions of pounds, and they want to spend billions of pounds on a tax cut for inheritance tax big estates, which would mean £200,000 to the richest 3,000 estates. David Cameron said, "On day one, I'm going to cut inheritance tax". That means on day two, George Osborne has got to slash the budgets for education, for police, for defence.
ANDREW MARR:
But if you …
ED BALLS:
That's a choice between the parties. That will be the election choice.
ANDREW MARR:
That's one of the choices between the parties.
ED BALLS:
Well it's a very, very big choice because that goes to two different things - one, your view of justice - what is fair; and, secondly, what is your role, your view of the role of the state? What should government do? We've been very clear that government must act to get us through the downturn and do it fairly. David Cameron and George Osborne say we shouldn't be acting and they want to do tax cuts, which to be honest I think are hugely unfair and will be paid for in police and hospitals and schools being cut if you had a Conservative government.
ANDREW MARR:
You talk eloquent…
ED BALLS:
That's the choice.
ANDREW MARR:
You talk eloquently about tax and spending. Would you like to have been Chancellor by now?
ED BALLS:
To be honest, I've been working for months and months on this white paper we're publishing next Tuesday. I think it will be seen to be a really radical, bold, good white paper. To be honest, I'm quite relieved to be able to get on publish my white paper next Tuesday.
ANDREW MARR:
Alright, well let's talk about this.
ED BALLS:
In the end it's for prime ministers to make these decisions, but, as I said before, I think Alistair Darling will be seen to have been one of the great Chancellors because of the decisions he's made - almost entirely decisions opposed by the Conservatives - and that will be seen very clearly in the coming months.
ANDREW MARR:
Alright. National strategies on literacy and numeracy going now, yes?
ED BALLS:
Well, look, we said in 1997 that there were too many schools who weren't teaching literacy and numeracy for that clear hour a day, getting standards up. For the last ten years, from the centre through national strategies, we have said to schools do the literacy and numeracy hour, get standards up. And the fact is it's worked and it's worked brilliantly. 100,000 more young people are getting to that standard.
ANDREW MARR:
So it's worked so well that you're going to stop doing it?
ED BALLS:
No. But actually, look, it's always important - and Liam Byrne was talking about this more generally yesterday about entitlement - it's important that we evolve. What we're going to do now - because that's worked, we're going to keep the accountability. The inspectors will go in and say to schools, "Are you delivering that literacy and numeracy hour?", as they always have done. We'll be publishing the results on maths and English results every year for primary schools. I'm going to keep those tests, but …
ANDREW MARR:
So what happens to the league tables in that case?
ED BALLS:
Hang on a second. Just to answer your question. What I'm saying is rather than one central contract for national strategies, instead I'm going to pass the money ring fenced to schools. They will be able to choose whether they go to Capita or to another local school or another provider. They can decide how to do the maths and literacy teaching …
ANDREW MARR:
So more freedom for schools in that area?
ED BALLS:
More freedom to them, more trust …
ANDREW MARR:
Is this not a bit of a deathbed conversion - centralism to localism?
ED BALLS:
Well more trusting of their professionalism, based upon the fact that I think we've won the argument. Everybody knows that literacy, numeracy hours work. Parents want it. Head teachers think it's hugely important. I'll give them some more freedom to work out how to do it, but with stronger accountability for the results. What I want to do is invest more, but actually expect more. Give more freedom, but be accountable for it.
ANDREW MARR:
And so how do parents looking at schools know, how are they able to choose which the best ones are?
ED BALLS:
What I'm not going to do is do what Michael Gove appeared to be saying on your programme. I think it was a bit of a pretence, to be honest. He appeared to say he was going to get rid of primary school SATs at the end of …
ANDREW MARR:
Yes, he did.
ED BALLS:
… of Key Stage 2 and that, therefore, that meant the end of league tables or the end of publishing those results. I'm very clear parents want those tests, I'm going to keep them, I'm going to publish the results. What he actually said was he's then going to make the children do the test at the beginning of Year 7 and attempt to piece the results back and still publish the results for primary schools but based upon secondary school teacher marking. This is a legal and administrative nightmare. It won't work. It will be worse for primary schools and mean less accountability for parents. I think that goes to a deeper point. I want to invest more and have more accountability. What Michael Gove wants to do is cut spending and then remove the accountability and the openness and the transparency for parents, which would be a huge backward step.
ANDREW MARR:
After all this time, are you really pleased, are you happy with Labour's record on education, particularly in primary schools, looking at the very large number of people who still leave their primary schools unable to read properly, unable to write properly, and unable to do mathematics? There's a quarter of people still leaving primary schools in that position. After all this time and all this public money, are you really happy with that result?
ED BALLS:
If I'm honest with you, I think there's been a transformation in primary and secondary schools. It has been brilliant what's been achieved in terms of rising results. We've got the best teachers we've ever had. Of course there's more to do. There's 100,000 more young people getting to Level 4 at age 11, but there's children with dyslexia or with other special needs who need extra help. What we can do, because of the success we've made, we can set out very clearly to pupils now - and we'll do this in the white paper and you'll understand why I won't pre-empt the detail - but we can set out very clear now entitlement to pupils and to parents your child will get a choice of curriculum routes which will work for them, whether their strengths are academic or practical. If they fall behind, they will be guaranteed one to one tuition and we will match a set of pupil guarantees, like that September guarantee I talked about, pupil guarantees matched by clear guarantees.
ANDREW MARR:
(over) Half …
ED BALLS:
… to parents about information and reporting, and a new school report card which will set out for the first time right across the piece what's happening in each school on outcomes, on behaviour, but also …
ANDREW MARR:
A lot, a lot … As you know, a lot of people say directly that that proposal further undermines academic achievement and academic testing.
ED BALLS:
But I think that is complete nonsense, to be honest. Sometimes in education - and I deal with this all the time - there's some commentators and some people who think that you can only ever have excellence in a few schools and, to be honest, they're always going to be in affluent areas or they're going to be private schools and actually the rest of the state school system is always going to be rubbish. It's complete nonsense!
ANDREW MARR:
(over) So you have a report card system of some kind, do you?
ED BALLS:
Well the report card, which we'll be trialling and then publishing for every parent, will set out clearly on one sheet of paper for parents what the results are for that school. So therefore that information, which is currently public, will still be there.
ANDREW MARR:
Okay.
ED BALLS:
Also whether children make progress. There'll be a survey of parental satisfaction - do parents like the school; truancy, behaviour, sports …
ANDREW MARR:
Fine.
ED BALLS:
… all the things parents care about very, very clearly. It is more accountability. In some ways it will be tougher for schools …
ANDREW MARR:
Yes.
ED BALLS:
… but it will also measure what they actually achieve as schools rather than only one aspect of their work, which is the average result for the average child.
ANDREW MARR:
Speaking of school teachers, Gordon Brown suggested he might go off and become a school teacher. Briefly, are you absolutely sure that he's going to take Labour into the next election?
ED BALLS:
I think he will, and I think he should.
ANDREW MARR:
Alright. Ed Balls, thank you for now very much indeed.
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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