On Sunday 4 July Andrew Marr interviewed Shadow Home Secretary Alan Johnson MP. Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.  Shadow Home Secretary Alan Johnson |
ANDREW MARR: For many years, my next guest was regularly tipped to be a future Leader of the Labour Party, even though he kept denying any ambitions in that direction - including on this programme. He's been Secretary of State for Health, for Education, even managed to survive a year in the Home Office. Now, as Shadow Home Secretary, Alan Johnson has been highly critical of last week's announcement the government's cutting police budgets and has accused the coalition of complacency with regard to the threat of terrorism. Alan Johnson joins me now. Good morning to you. ALAN JOHNSON: Good morning. ANDREW MARR: Let's start by looking at these Home Office issues that you've been talking about. Some people would say it's all very well for Labour politicians in opposition to complain, but these are cuts that have to happen because of the state of the economy and because of the state of public spending that the coalition government was handed. ALAN JOHNSON: Well people may say that, but that's wrong. We set out 70 billion pounds worth of savings to halve the deficit over a period of four years. What the Tories have done is added an extra 40 billion. Now I think … ANDREW MARR: (over) So you still think they're going too fast? ALAN JOHNSON: Oh absolutely, far too far. There's no need to do this - no need to take 77% of this from cuts in public services. We were going to take 50% from that because of the effects on our society. You've got a typical example now with policing. The police are facing a triple whammy: reduced numbers of police; diminished powers on issues like DNA, CCTV, etcetera; and structural upheaval while the government seeks to impose elected commissioners to sit alongside chief constables. It's a recipe for, it's a recipe for a very, very worse response to tackling crime and disorder. ANDREW MARR: Under Labour, under yourself, didn't the police bureaucracy simply grow too large? ALAN JOHNSON: No. ANDREW MARR: When the government says now there's room for cuts, there's room for shrinking, they're right? ALAN JOHNSON: Well they're right, there is. That's why in the white paper we published last November, you don't have to forage around to look at red books or treasury documents. We published a white paper that showed half a billion pounds worth of savings from the police. And it was drawn up with the police - cuts in overtime, joint commissioning - all the issues that the government are saying they will do. Well we've already given them the way to do that. No, the issue is they suggest all the time that actually if you cut a bit of bureaucracy and you cut some filing systems and some paper clips, that you'll meet these savings. And that isn't true. That … ANDREW MARR: (over) Teresa May is not saying that. She's saying directly to the police and police numbers … ALAN JOHNSON: (over) They're saying you'll have to do more for less … ANDREW MARR: Yuh. ALAN JOHNSON: … and she's saying the way to do that is you cut bureaucracy. Look, I mean this is a fallacy, that there's so much bureaucracy … There is bureaucracy there. We were tackling it and it needs to be tackled. But the idea that you can cut the budget in the Home Office by 25% - 33% according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, 40% we're seeing in this morning's story in the Sunday Telegraph - that you can do that to a budget of £10 billion, by the way, not £110 billion which is the Health Service budget, and you won't affect frontline policing is fantasyland. ANDREW MARR: And yet re-offending rates went up and the … ALAN JOHNSON: (over) No, they didn't. ANDREW MARR: … prison population hugely expanded under Labour. ALAN JOHNSON: Andrew, re-offending rates went down - 20% down for adults, 25% down … ANDREW MARR: (over) The Conservatives … As you know, there's a big argument about the numbers. ALAN JOHNSON: No, there isn't a big argument about the numbers. I'm sorry, the numbers are clear. Crime has gone down. Violent crime's gone down by 41%. We have the lowest murder rate for twenty years, the lowest murder rate in London since 1978. Domestic violence, fallen by 64%. A huge tribute to the police. But police community support officers, neighbourhood policing, all the work from probation officers that goes into rehabilitation (because rehabilitation is crucial to that) has led to a reduction in crime and a reduction in re-offending. ANDREW MARR: Prisons. When Ken Clarke left government, 44,000 people in prison or something like that. Now almost double that when he comes back. And he says there's too many in prison. Prison doesn't work. Just talk us through this. Is it the case now that we have the Labour party and the right of the Conservative party, the old right, coming together versus the coalition? In which case, I am dazed with confusion; the world is upside down. ALAN JOHNSON: Well let me try and help your confusion, Andrew. In 1993 when Ken Clarke was Home Secretary, crime had more than doubled since 1979, more than doubled. Those statistics I was talking about had gone completely the other way, on the same basis, from the British Crime Survey. The number of prison places had gone down. There was very little attempt at rehabilitation. There was very little attempt … Children in care, children in care for instance. Half a percent … ANDREW MARR: (over) You can hardly rehabilitate with the number of people cramming British prisons now. I mean that is the problem. ALAN JOHNSON: No, because we created more prison places - 26,000 more prison places - because serious offenders are in prison for longer. It's not a case of people … of those offenders for minor crimes who are being banged up. I mean the courts - the magistrates, the criminal justice system - tries very hard to ensure there's rehabilitation. We introduced the rehabilitation on … ANDREW MARR: (over) So you think this lot are being soft on crime? ALAN JOHNSON: No, this is a very confused argument we're getting from Ken Clarke. Ken Clarke, I mean it's actually a virtue of necessity. His budget's been cut. He can't afford the prison places that they were promising people at the General Election. I've just fought a General Election with my Tory opposite number saying we should send people to prison if they're carrying a knife. Whatever the circumstances - they're carrying a knife, they should go to jail. Do you remember the posters? 'Gordon Brown let out 200,000 prisoners' was the posters that Cameron and Lord Ashcroft were paying for. That was because people on long sentences, we were releasing two weeks early to create room in the prison service. Now they've done a complete … Now they're doing the complete opposite. They're suggesting that serious and persistent criminals shouldn't be in prison. Well they should, but we should also be spending a lot on rehabilitation, on dealing with children in care. It's crucial - half a percent of the child population, 24% of the children population. It takes money for foster carers, money into the system to stop these kids offending. The stuff on Sure Start, the issues we're doing around Education Maintenance Allowance is all aimed - as Tony Blair famously said - at tackling the causes of crime. Now the results are there - re-offending down, crime down, murder down, violent crime down - and what the Conservatives are doing is threatening to reverse that. ANDREW MARR: You as Home Secretary had an overview of the threat to this country from terrorists and indeed spies. I just wonder on the latter point, in particular, how surprised you are by this extraordinary story spreading all over the papers about Russian sleepers everywhere? ALAN JOHNSON: Entertained by it. I think, Andrew, I'm a bit … ANDREW MARR: Is it serious? ALAN JOHNSON: I'm a bit close to having been Home Secretary. Perhaps in a couple of years time. I will take all the classified information to the grave with me. So I don't want to get into that. ANDREW MARR: But you could tell us whether or not this is the kind of thing that you know people had been worried about before, or whether it comes out of a clear blue sky? ALAN JOHNSON: No, I'm saying nothing about this. ANDREW MARR: You're saying as little as David Cameron over there at the beginning of the programme. ALAN JOHNSON: Well I think because David … (laughs) Yeah, David Cameron was very vocal on this, I thought - more vocal than usual at the beginning of the programme. No, I think on these issues ex-home secretaries have to be very careful about what they say. In any case, there'll be a film out within about three weeks and I'm sure it will accurately reflect everything that's gone on this saga. ANDREW MARR: There are going to be cuts in counter-terrorism funding because of the economic situation facing the country. Does that make us more vulnerable? ALAN JOHNSON: (over Of course it does. ANDREW MARR: Are you worried that we are more threatened? ALAN JOHNSON: Of course it does and this is where we move from the kind of turgid argument about figures and billions of pounds and percentages into the reality. We move from the abstract about cuts to what our society will look like. And our argument about cutting the deficit - 70 billion would have been really tough. The Tories sticking on another 40 billion and cutting budgets so drastically and not treating police and crime as any kind of priority means you're going to hit counter-terrorism. There is no way round it, I'm afraid - absolutely no way round it. ANDREW MARR: Could I put to you a counter argument, which is that because of the fear of terrorism it's the case that almost no demands for extra money in funding are ever turned down? It is one of those budgets sort of always slightly out of control. You know they want more, they want more, they get everything that they want. And that, therefore, actually it sounds a difficult thing to do, but it's right to cut these budgets? ALAN JOHNSON: No. You can put that argument to me. It's not an accurate argument at all. We're going to … On Wednesday it's the fifth anniversary of 7/7. Since 9/11, 7/7, 21/7 - which was the thwarted attack - and a whole series, one a year at least of thwarted terrorist attacks, there has been a realisation that this is not just some people working in security services. 3,000 police now work in counter-terrorism. We have regional counter-terrorism units around the country. A police community support officer actually stopping and talking and listening to people is part of the drive against counter-terrorism. It's very labour intensive and there's a lot of technology involved as well, but it's crucial to the safety of this country. Can they make savings on that budget? Of course, you can make savings on any budget. It's a question of degree. When you come in and say we're going to make 25% cuts … I was preparing for a 10 to 15% cut in the Home Office budget and we were one of the protected departments under my government with health and education and international development. To actually say you can take another 40 billion or suggest that it's more of an attack on public services rather than an attempt to get the economy right … ANDREW MARR: We'll hear Philip Hammond on that shortly. But you sound passionate enough on all of this. What would you like to do after the Labour leadership election has been resolved? Do you want to stay in frontline politics? Do you want to be back on the opposition front bench? ALAN JOHNSON: I'm going to stay in politics. I'm Member of Parliament for Hull West and Hessle. I want to give my constituents more time. I'll breathe a sign of relief when this election campaign is over … ANDREW MARR: I'm sure. ALAN JOHNSON: … because it's going on too long. ANDREW MARR: But in terms of frontline position? Shadow cabinet position? Would you like to stay in the shadow cabinet? ALAN JOHNSON: I think I would. I've not exactly made up my mind yet. We're all in a position now - we've gone from government into opposition. We're all kind of looking around and thinking you know what do we do now. Once we get the leadership in place, I'll decide whether to run for shadow cabinet. But I want to help my party in whatever way I can, and I hope our position in opposition is as temporary and as short as it can be. ANDREW MARR: Alright. Alan Johnson, thank you very much indeed. INTERVIEW ENDS
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