On Sunday 28 March Andrew Marr interviewed Schools Secretary Ed Balls. Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used. ANDREW MARR: If one person knows the mind of Gordon Brown, apart of course from Gordon Brown, it's probably Ed Balls. They were political and economic soulmates through the long years together at the Treasury; and now, as Schools Secretary, Mr Balls continues to be one of the Prime Minister's closest and most influential allies and a key member of the inner strategy team. And I'm glad to say he's with me now. Good morning. ED BALLS: Good morning. ANDREW MARR: Let's pick up, if I may to start with, on this belief - and I think it's pretty widespread - that public spending cuts in real terms (outside a few departments like your own which have got greater protection) are going to have to be really dramatic, really drastic, and to some people quite shocking after the election, or taxes are going to have to go up even more than they have done. James Purnell, your former colleague, said a couple of days ago in an article, you know the days when Labour could keep spending up on defence and welfare and all those things and deal with child poverty and have moderate taxation, those days were over. And that surely is true? ED BALLS: Well it's not true in my area, as you said. ANDREW MARR: Not in your area, but generally. ED BALLS: School spending will rise. We'll keep police numbers up. We will not be cutting school spending, as Michael Gove will be, and we'll be protecting family budgets, tax credits, the Child Trust Fund, which we will not take away. But you're right, it's going to be tougher for the next few years. We're going to reduce the deficit, but in a steady way. We won't cut this year. We will have a balance between some tax rises and some spending restraint. But our tax rises, we will go ahead with. And I think we heard more questions from Michael Gove than answers a moment ago. And then, thirdly, some tough decisions in some areas, but police, NHS, schools, childcare, 16 to 19, we're going to have protection there, rising spending from a Labour government. I don't think it's fair to say to families that they should pay the price. ANDREW MARR: Sure. If that as it were is the sunny side of the street, let's talk about the shadowy side of the street. Where are those big … ED BALLS: (over) It wasn't all sunny. ANDREW MARR: … tough decisions going to be taken? Where are the tough decisions going to be taken? ED BALLS: Well, look, it wasn't all sunny. First of all, reducing the deficit by half over four years is going to be hard. But to reduce … ANDREW MARR: That's a headline. What I'm asking you is how? ED BALLS: Okay. But to reduce it this year, as the Conservatives propose, would mean rising unemployment. That would be the wrong thing to do. Secondly, to raise national insurance is not an easy thing to do; but if the Conservatives say they aren't going to do it, they've got to come clean and tell us how. Thirdly, to protect our frontline services, yes we're going to have to make cuts in other areas. And in my department, I've got half a billion pounds worth of cuts to find. But … ANDREW MARR: So I mean I know about your…That's a relatively tiny, small-scale bit of … ED BALLS: (over) These are big decisions. ANDREW MARR: What I'm a… Everyone says they're big decisions and difficult decisions, and then won't tell us what the decisions are - that's my frustration! ED BALLS: To be fair to us, Andrew … ANDREW MARR: What about welfare? ED BALLS: Look, I know you're always really frustrated by this issue. We've set out very clearly from Alistair and Gordon - in a budget, then in our pledges - how we will reduce the deficit. We've set out our tax rises, the spending cuts, the 11 billion last week, plus also the areas where we'll protect. From the Conservatives, we hear they're not going to do national insurance … ANDREW MARR: Alright. ED BALLS: … they aren't going to spend here, they aren't going to spend there, but they don't actually give us any answers. In the end, I conclude that the secret plan for the Conservatives is a big rise in VAT to pay for the national insurance cut they want. ANDREW MARR: Right. You've been allowed to talk about the secret plan for the Conservatives. Let's from now on stick to the Labour Party and what your proposals are. Let me ask you, given where you're going to protect, that means for instance that welfare has to be a prime target for some cuts. ED BALLS: Absolutely. ANDREW MARR: So where in welfare could you start to cut? ED BALLS: Absolutely, absolutely, and that's why we are succeeding. ANDREW MARR: So where could you cut in welfare? ED BALLS: Because what the budget showed is that under a Labour government, even after this recession, unemployment's coming down. There were actually savings from unemployment. That is a huge success. ANDREW MARR: Ah, but we're not talking just about the proceeds of growth. We're talking about going further than that. What I'm asking you is where further can you go? ED BALLS: We are not going to abolish tax credits for middle income families. ANDREW MARR: (over) Tell me what you are going to do, what you are going to do. ED BALLS: Unemployment's going to come down and that is releasing resources. I don't think we should be breaking the link … ANDREW MARR: (over) Incapacity benefit? ED BALLS: Well listen, of course … ANDREW MARR: It must be a huge target? ED BALLS: Of course we should. And Yvette Cooper, my wife, is working really hard to get unemployment down, to get incapacity benefit spending down. And she's succeeding because, unlike in the 1980s, unemployment's not rising through this recession. It's actually falling, which is a huge success. ANDREW MARR: Will you tell us … Will you not simply as a husband and wife team, but as a government, tell us in clear terms before the election where you are going to make these big savings that you keep talking about? ED BALLS: Sure. ANDREW MARR: The tough decisions you keep telling us you're taking, will you tell us what they're going to be? ED BALLS: Well, listen, in your interview just now, Michael Gove talked … ANDREW MARR: I don't want to talk about Michael Gove. ED BALLS: Andrew, Andrew … ANDREW MARR: I don't want to talk about the Conservatives. ED BALLS: … Andrew, Andrew … ANDREW MARR: I want to talk about you. ED BALLS: Andrew, Michael talked almost entirely about me and Labour. ANDREW MARR: He didn't actually. ED BALLS: I'm going to make the contrast. We have an election coming and I'm going to make the contrast and that's the right thing to do. We have said, first of all, we will raise national insurance, we will raise the top rate of tax. Those are difficult decisions, which the Conservatives want to reverse. How are they going to pay for that? They've said they want a married couples tax break, which actually is hugely unfair. They haven't said where they're going to pay for that. Then on spending … ANDREW MARR: Again it's all the Conservatives. I keep asking you. ED BALLS: No, no, it's a contrast, it's a contrast. Because I've said I'm going to cut half … ANDREW MARR: (over) Okay. Alright, we're not going to get anywhere with this, I can tell. ED BALLS: Andrew, listen, you have to let me answer the question … ANDREW MARR: Okay. ED BALLS: … but I want to answer the question in my way, in a fair way which sets out the choice. In my department, I'm going to cut money from BECTA, the IT specialists; from the teacher training agency; from marketing; from my own central administration costs five hundred million pounds of savings. But I will not cut schools budgets because that would mean fewer teachers and bigger class sizes. That wouldn't be fair. ANDREW MARR: Okay. ED BALLS: The question that you failed to ask Michael Gove - and I don't know why you didn't ask him this question - is he's got to find two billion more a year. He's going to take money away from existing schools, existing parents. ANDREW MARR: Well I'm sure he'll … ED BALLS: (over) And, look, it's only right that you should ask him the questions. ANDREW MARR: … I'm sure he'll be pleased to answer that in due course. ED BALLS: Well he didn't today, did he? ANDREW MARR: Well let me move onto another very, very lively question, which is the question of the Unite strike. ED BALLS: Yeah. ANDREW MARR: I mean it is still being said not only that the union are being pretty intransigent and tough on this, but also because you are taking money from them and because through Charlie Whelan you're connected to them, you can't be as forthright about this strike and as tough on this strike as you really should be. ED BALLS: That is complete and utter nonsense. I get funding from Unite into my constituency. I have the largest BNP membership in the country. I'm proud that Unite members voluntarily give money to help me fight fascism in my constituency. But on the national scene - look, nobody wants to go back to the 1970s where you had governments seemingly on the side of the striker. That's why it's right for us to say get both sides round the table, get them talking, get this resolved. But nobody also wants to go back to the 1980s where you had governments - like David Cameron's been doing - saying bring it on, we want to break the strike, cross the picket line. In those years in the 80s, we had violence, we had unrest and we had nine times more days lost from strikes than we've had under a Labour government. To go back to the 70s or the 80s would be … ANDREW MARR: (over) Would you say to Unite members, they should not strike? ED BALLS: Well, look, I just said we should get this strike resolved. I don't want Unite members striking. I want the management and the unions to get this round the table. But a government which says to people cross the picket lines, confrontation, the Thatcher 1980s approach which David Cameron is now assuming - that is to go back to bad old days of days lost in strikes. The 70s and the 80s were characterised by that kind of division. I think David Cameron is being hugely irresponsible in the way in which he's dealing with this. ANDREW MARR: So put it another way. Do you welcome the fact that British Airways is running about 75% of their flights this weekend? ED BALLS: Listen, any disruption to passengers and to businesses is really bad and, therefore, we want this strike resolved. ANDREW MARR: So you do? ED BALLS: But the easy thing for me to say is to say government should take one side or the other. As you know in industrial relations, that leads to more unrest and more conflict. We want to get this strike resolved, to get people flying again, get people back to work; but to go back to that sort of Thatcherite 80s approach to strikes, I think would lead to the kind of unrest which I hope we'd put behind us and the Conservative Party seems to want to bring back. ANDREW MARR: You're a straightforward Labour man. John Prescott has said that … ED BALLS: And very proud of it. ANDREW MARR: And John Prescott, another, said that he could never sit in a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. Given the way the polls are looking at the moment - and I know you would like to win overall and all the rest of it - could you sit alongside people like Vince Cable or Nick Clegg in a coalition cabinet? ED BALLS: Look, nobody wants to have coalitions and hung parliaments. ANDREW MARR: But, but … ED BALLS: That isn't the British way of doing things, and we don't tend to have them usually, and they can tend to lead to really fudged and muddled decision making. What I want to see is a Labour majority. That's what I'm campaigning hard for. But, look, if we come to that, what we'll need is people who are willing to get round the table and talk tough and say let's make the difficult decisions. And I don't think that's going to come from just being nice about everything. It actually means being clear about what you're trying to achieve. And as for John Prescott, I've got my pledge card just like John Prescott used to … used to have. ANDREW MARR: (laughs) We've got the pledge card coming out. For now, Ed Balls thank you very much indeed. ED BALLS: Thank you. INTERVIEW ENDS
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