On Sunday 20 December Andrew Marr interviewed Home Secretary Alan Johnson. Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used. ANDREW MARR: It's been a momentous year as well for Alan Johnson. One minute he's in charge of the Department of Health, and the next he's Home Secretary. Since June, when he replaced Jacqui Smith, he's been holding what is considered by many to be the cabinet's poisoned chalice, the most difficult job of all. The man who was once tipped for the very top jobs seems to have spent a lot of the time over the past year denying that he wants to be Labour Leader. 2009 was also the year that showed him to be above reproach when it came to his expenses, and you can't say that about many people. Welcome, Alan Johnson. ALAN JOHNSON: Thank you. ANDREW MARR: Let's start by talking … One of the stories that's dominating the papers today is the case of this man, Mr Hussain, who, with his brother, launched what was certainly a pretty violent attack, but on some bad guys who'd come into his house with knives and threatened his family, his children. A lot of people up and down the country feel very, very uncomfortable that that can result in a long, relatively long prison sentence of 30 months. ALAN JOHNSON: I think it's impossible not to feel uncomfortable about that. Instinctively, when you look at that case, you have sympathy for the householder. What we've done quite recently actually is strengthened the law to protect the householder, and there is an awful lot of discretion obviously for the judge to look at the circumstances. So, as in all these cases, it's a case of what's proportionate, and only the judge listening to all sides of this can make the decision. Now there was nothing in this case that constricted or restricted the judge to make the decision he did. He did that on the basis of all the evidence. And if you remember in America … ANDREW MARR: Just coming … This is somebody defending their own house and their own property from a violent attack and ends up for two year … more than two years in prison. ALAN JOHNSON: Yuh. ANDREW MARR: Something is wrong, is it not, with that? ALAN JOHNSON: Well, look, this law is always kept under review, but the point that the judge was making, I think, was that this was not proportionate. It's similar to that case in America a few years ago where you had someone who broke down in the middle of the night, ran out of petrol, walked to someone - it was an English couple actually - rang the doorbell and someone shot them through the … ANDREW MARR: Sure. ALAN JOHNSON: … through the glass of the front door. So you have to make sure there is a proportionate angle to this. And I think what the judge, listening to all the evidence … We can't second guess those decisions. What I'm absolutely clear about is he did have the discretion to come down in favour of the householder. ANDREW MARR: Maybe the discretion wasn't enough. You said this law is always under review. Are you going to look at it again? ALAN JOHNSON: Well this is Ministry of Justice, but I'm sure in government, given the amount of public concern about this, of course we would, and I think it's natural to ensure that you're absolutely clear that you are defending the householder. That must be our predominant concern. ANDREW MARR: Copenhagen (despite the best efforts of some of your colleagues) overall a failure. Do you in the Home Office look ahead at all? Is there any sort of planning about the likely migration effects of global warming because one of the things we keep hearing is that as things get worse in Africa and Asia and other areas of the world, the people of the world are going to be on the move? ALAN JOHNSON: Yes. ANDREW MARR: Is that something that the Home Office thinks about? ALAN JOHNSON: Yes. And the Health Department as well… There's a health dimension to this and there's an immigration and migration dimension to this. But I think you know getting 192 countries to come together, each country with a vote and each country with a veto, is enormously difficult. And you know I haven't looked at every detail of what emerged from Copenhagen, but I'm pretty sure that if the world's leaders … ANDREW MARR: (over) I don't think there are many details. I think that's the problem. ALAN JOHNSON: Well deforestation, I think they made some progress on that. The acidification of water, I think they made some progress on that. And I think you know this has to be viewed against people's expectations, and when you've got 192 countries, each with a vote and each with a veto, it's very difficult to get any kind of consensus at all. ANDREW MARR: During the Labour years, the population of the country's gone up by about 3 million or so, heavily down to immigration. Do you think as a party you've handled that well? ALAN JOHNSON: Well, no, I made the point that I don't think parties of all political persuasions handled this particularly well. If you look back to 95, there was a backlog of about 65,000 asylum cases and it took 22 months to even get to first decision. And the process - and we inherited that - actually got worse. ANDREW MARR: (over) But there is a huge step change since that. ALAN JOHNSON: (over) A huge step change since that. ANDREW MARR: (over) I mean the numbers are much, much bigger now. ALAN JOHNSON: But have come right down. They're less than a third than they were at the peak in 2002. So what we had was a process and a system that was creaking anyway, and then suddenly, because of what happened in Kosovo and Afghanistan and Iraq and Sri Lanka, you had migration on a level that we'd never seen before. Not just in this country. We're fifteenth in Europe in terms of the number of asylum seekers that come here … ANDREW MARR: (over) Well when you … ALAN JOHNSON: … per head a population. So getting that system right, putting it together has taken a long time. David Blunkett probably made the best contribution going over to France and closing Sangatte. I mean that was in 2004. But there's always a tale to these things. ANDREW MARR: But that obviously is asylum seekers. When it comes to overall immigration, it's a city the size of Bristol or something like that coming in a year … ALAN JOHNSON: Yuh. ANDREW MARR: … and people say the country is already overcrowded and they look forward to these projections of an extra 10 million people and say we can't afford that. ALAN JOHNSON: Well what I've said on this debate about immigration, we have to look at the reasonable expectations of the moderate majority which accepts that there's an economic case here and that migration and immigration has actually benefited this country, but they want to see it controlled. And so our points based system, which is a development over the last year, is controlling that. You can't come to this country … ANDREW MARR: Is it controlling it enough? I mean should you not look again at this idea of a cap because something like 83% or 84% of people asked want a cap, an annual cap on immigration, which you have refused? ALAN JOHNSON: But it depends what you mean by cap. When they…This Conservative Party policy to have a cap, and it makes it sound as if that's you know the end of immigration. What it is best described as is a predetermined quota - so you say that's how many will come in this year, and when you reach that you can't go beyond that. Now, first of all, you need to know what that's going to be. Secondly, you need to be able to explain what's going to happen if someone wants to come over on a spousal visa, someone wants to come over to study, if a company in this country … ANDREW MARR: But it's a kind of reassurance to people, isn't it - a cap? ALAN JOHNSON: It depends where the cap … ANDREW MARR: Okay. ALAN JOHNSON: It depends where the cap is. And also our system is flexible. We can determine this as we go through the years. So now if you're unskilled from outside the European Union, you can't come into this country. If you are skilled, the job has to be advertised in Job Centre Plus … ANDREW MARR: Okay. ALAN JOHNSON: … for four weeks before an employer can bring someone in from outside. So you've got a real grasp of who comes in and who doesn't. ANDREW MARR: You've been promoting ID cards as something that young people can use to show their age in pubs and so on recently. You know after all the things that were originally said about it - this was going to sort of you know quash terrorism and it was going to be terribly, terribly important, everyone was going to have one - it's been the most remarkable comedown or u-turn or whatever you like, hasn't it? ALAN JOHNSON: You say that. When you do your latest chapter of 'Making of Modern Britain', you will see actually what we said in our manifesto in 2005 when the Tories supported this - they walked through the lobby and voted for it a second reading - is this is about proving and protecting your identity. We said that in a manifesto to the British people. We said it would take about ten years, and it would line in with biometric passports. We've not done anything that is any different to what we promised the British people in the General Election. Other people have … ANDREW MARR: (over) You're not, you're not saying the kind of thing that David Blunkett was saying when he started all of this, are you? I mean it has changed enormously. ALAN JOHNSON: It's mine, by the way. It hasn't changed enormously, Andrew. I looked at this … ANDREW MARR: (over) It's not going to be compulsory, you know it's never going to be compulsory. ALAN JOHNSON: (over) It's not going to … It wasn't going to be compulsory without another decision of Parliament. I can't see this ever being compulsory you know however long in the future you look. ANDREW MARR: Are you going to be rolling it out soon then? ALAN JOHNSON: Well what we're saying now is in London we'll ask 16 to 24 year olds, of whom we've had a lot of interest - where is our ID card - because we're rolling it out in the North West in Manchester and Liverpool and the surrounding area. We're now going to make it available in London to youngsters between 16 and 24 once again to prove and protect your identity without carrying around your passport and without taking, as you sometimes do, a year's worth of bank statements to prove you're who you claim to be. ANDREW MARR: It has been the most horrendous year in politics generally, and it's been pretty horrendous for Labour government, above all. Looking ahead, there are only a few months before there has to be a General Election. Where do you think you're standing? ALAN JOHNSON: Well I think if you look at the polls, you know the polls change around. I think there's a view in the Conservative Party that you know it's a done deal - not from people like Eric, but there's a sense of entitlement there. That's wrong. I think many in the media have made up their minds. I don't think the public has. And I you know never underestimate the seriousness of the British electorate. As we get closer to the election, they'll be looking much more closely at the policies of the major parties. And I do believe that you know on policy - whether it's climate change, whether that's how we came through this recession and how we come out of it again or whether it's on issues of health and education - that we really will under that scrutiny … ANDREW MARR: (over) So it's not a done deal, it's not a done deal? ALAN JOHNSON: … have a much better, have a much better programme. ANDREW MARR: We'll be talking a little bit more later on. But for now, Alan Johnson, thank you very much indeed. INTERVIEW ENDS
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