Transcript of Ed Balls interview

On Sunday 21st November Andrew Marr interviewed Shadow Home Secretary Ed Balls.

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

ANDREW MARR:

Now then, a succession of Labour Home Secretaries over the past decade enraged civil libertarians bringing in ever more CCTV cameras, control orders, longer and longer periods of detention without trial - all measures, we were told, essential to keep Britain safe. But Labour has a new Home Affairs Spokesman, Ed Balls, and it seems there may be a change of heart. Shadow Home Secretary, good morning. Thank you for coming in.

ED BALLS:

Good morning, Andrew. Good to be here.

ANDREW MARR:

Now in the week just past, you also won a parliamentarian award for your hounding of a later guest, Michael Gove, over schools policy. Just before we turn to the Home Affairs brief, he says that what he is doing is very much continuing the agenda of Andrew Adonis and Tony Blair. Do you think that's right?

ED BALLS:

Well I won the award for exposing him cancelling the school building programme that Tony Blair put in place. The academies Tony Blair and Gordon Brown introduced were targeted on the most disadvantaged young people. He's doing the opposite. But the other thing is look, the school sport revolution of the last decade was brilliant - a quiet revolution which actually saw rising standards in maths in our sports colleges as well as more competitive sports than ever - and Michael Gove is now scrapping that, and that's causing great discord in the cabinet. So the thing head teachers are saying to me round the country is he is ripping up in a reckless way many of the good things Labour did. It's not a continuity at all.

ANDREW MARR:

Well we'll talk about that with him shortly. Let's turn to your new brief, and let's start with a wide range of anti-terror measures - most controversially the 28 day detention, which was originally 42 days, was the proposal, then 28 days. Now the Home Secretary, Theresa May, says she would like something like half of that, maybe 14 days as the maximum period. What's your attitude?

ED BALLS:

I've said to Theresa that if we can get a consensus on counter-terrorism, we should, and we need to see all the evidence before we reach conclusions. The report's not yet been done. But I think there is an emerging view that we're striking a balance between on the one hand making sure we protect our country from terror threats, but also protecting fundamental freedoms; and if we're ever going to have pre-charge detention, it should be at the minimum amount which is necessary. People thought 28 days might be needed. In fact in the last three years, it's not gone beyond 14 days. So I've said today that if we can get it down to 14 days and if the police and security experts say that is consistent with the terror threat, then obviously we should do that. One thing to say though, Andrew, in the overt plot, the airline plot, there were some charges for people over 14 days. The last thing you want to do is have to come back and have new emergency legislation. There's one suggestion that after 14 days, we might bail people until 28 days, so you can let them out but have restrictions on their movement. That's something which we should look at, but definitely I think there is a need for a change.

ANDREW MARR:

You talked about the balance. Do you think Labour got the balance slightly wrong when you were in government?

ED BALLS:

Yes. Look, it was really hard - these massive terror threats, we had the plots. I think successive home secretaries did a brilliant job to make sure that we acted and got the resources in and updated our legislation. But in retrospect, I think everybody would say 90 days was a step too far for pre-charge detention. All the leadership candidates - David Miliband, Ed Miliband, myself - we all said that during the leadership election.

ANDREW MARR:

And control orders?

ED BALLS:

Well I think control orders is a tougher one because, look, if you were starting from a blank sheet of paper, you would never want to have any kind of unlimited detention. On the other hand, what was clear back in 2005 is there were people who were a real threat but couldn't be charged. And what did you do? And I understand why those decisions were made. I think the jury's still out on this one. If the security services and the police can persuade the Home Secretary there's alternatives to control orders - it could be travel restrictions, it could be more surveillance - then we should support that. Consensus is the right thing. I think on that one, the jury's still out. We don't yet know whether an alternative to control orders can work.

ANDREW MARR:

And does your rethinking extend a little bit to CCTV cameras, the vast … I think more than anywhere outside China we had during the New Labour years, these CCTV cameras and things like the compulsory ID cards. It was a pretty heavy agenda.

ED BALLS:

Well, look, the review's got to look at the regulation of CCTV. But I have to say in my constituency people say to me they want more CCTV - at the train station, in the streets at night, around the shops - because they want to feel safe. And there have been lots of convictions which have come about because of CCTV or the DNA database. There's a balance to be struck. But I think if you swing always to the liberal view and don't take into account the fact the public want us to catch criminals as well, you get that balance wrong, and I think some of the stuff in the coalition manifesto about wanting to scrap the DNA database or to get rid of the use of CCTV, I think that needs to be rethought. I think that's a step way too far.

ANDREW MARR:

And what about ID cards? Dead now?

ED BALLS:

I think ID cards have gone. We defeated the government in the Lords last week. The people who've bought them will be compensated. They will still be there for foreign people coming into the country without a British passport to work. But, look, that decision's been made and I think we move on.

ANDREW MARR:

You move on. What about policing because the government's made a very strong case in some people's eyes for there being simply too much bureaucracy and back end policing and far too many officers pushing paper around and filling in forms and so on, and argues therefore that you can make the kind of cuts which the economy … economics may mean are necessary and still have proper policing on the frontline?

ED BALLS:

I don't think they've made that case at all, and I think the more people see the reality of what is happening. We had the news from Manchester last week, 1500 police officers to go. It's estimated 20,000 by the Police Federation across the country. A survey I'm publishing today shows that pretty much every police force except Surrey has now stopped recruiting police officers at all this year. This is very risky. And the figure that Theresa May always uses to say that only 11% of officers are actually on the frontline, that excludes 50% of officers who are in the traffic department or in CID or organised crime or domestic violence - all things which are vital, but aren't on the streets. And it also excludes people who are off shift because obviously at midnight there'll be some people working and some people not. This is completely bogus - to smear the police by saying this is about bureaucracy. It's all about trying to cover up for a fundamental fact that in the spending review Liam Fox - there were leaked letters, he fought for defence, he got the military chiefs in. They got an 8% cut. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, didn't do any of that. A 20% cut in police force numbers, the biggest cut for decades and decades, I think is hugely risky and very dangerous for crime and our society.

ANDREW MARR:

Let's turn to the Labour Party itself because I've looked through the papers. Almost every paper has an article by somebody saying that the party seems to have lost its way, that there's a lack of strategy, no-one quite understands what the big picture is for the Labour Party at the moment.

ED BALLS:

The one thing that Ed Miliband has said really clearly in the last few weeks as a new Labour Leader is we've got to get beyond those past divisions - Blair and Brown - and focus on the future.

ANDREW MARR:

It's less the divisions I'm asking about, but what the big picture is. What is the Labour Party's strategy? There seems to be none.

ED BALLS:

Look, councillors, nurses, police officers, they are crying out - as Labour Party members are, and I think the public, for somebody to take on this reckless coalition like a wrecking ball smashing up our policing, our NHS …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) Well that's pretty much admitting what I've said. They're crying out for somebody to take it on and they feel the Labour Party isn't doing that very effectively at the moment.

ED BALLS:

Well I'm doing it today on policing and that's very important. John Healey's doing it on the NHS as well, Alan Johnson on the economy. Look, we're the Opposition.

ANDREW MARR:

What about Ed Miliband? He's your leader.

ED BALLS:

Ed Miliband's been on paternity leave, and I think that's a really good thing. One of the great changes in the last ten, fifteen years under the Labour government was things like paternity leave becoming an accepted part of life. He's going to be back and he's going to be fighting hard. He's at the National Policy Forum on Saturday.

ANDREW MARR:

He's got a big job there, hasn't he? He's got to kind of make a big statement of where his leadership is going.

ED BALLS:

Look … And I think he will and he'll have been working on that for the last couple of weeks. But people want … Look, the papers are full - as you know - of all of this sort of you know twitching of the old corpses of the past. Who cares?

ANDREW MARR:

Actually …

ED BALLS:

Let's move on. Let's look to the future.

ANDREW MARR:

Speaking of twitching …

ED BALLS:

This is the most reckless coalition ever and we've got to oppose it hard.

ANDREW MARR:

Okay. I just wanted to know though, speaking of twitching of old corpses and so on (Balls laughs), you were shoulder to shoulder with Gordon Brown in the last Labour government. When you read now in full detail, and people are actually putting it on the record, the plotting that was going on in the last stages of that government - including allegedly by the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Gordon Brown's right-hand woman Harriet Harman - what do you think about that?

ED BALLS:

Well, look, Ed Miliband and I were both shoulder to shoulder with the Prime Minister.

ANDREW MARR:

Harriet Harman?

ED BALLS:

And throughout that whole period, Labour Party members and MPs and the public were saying try and win the General Election. That's what I was trying to do.

ANDREW MARR:

So what do you make of all of this stuff? What do you make of it?

ED BALLS:

Well, look, I've not read these books yet and so I don't know what was going on.

ANDREW MARR:

You don't need to read the books. What about the newspaper coverage?

ED BALLS:

I was at home on New Year's Eve with friends who weren't in the cabinet …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) No geese being cooked?

ED BALLS:

For some reason, I don't get invited to these dinners. I don't know why.

ANDREW MARR:

Yuh. So you weren't shocked or surprised by what you've read?

ED BALLS:

(sighs) There have always been these rumours. Fundamentally the Labour Party, the MPs, the party and actually the country said, we don't want a change of Prime Minister. We want a Labour Party which is going to stand up against an opposition party, which was going to propose in the election campaign a VAT rise and spending cuts. And that should have been our priority. That was my priority. I think it was actually the priority of the vast majority of Labour Party members. I hope cabinet members too.

ANDREW MARR:

A lot of people wanted to see you as Shadow Chancellor. I'm sure you wanted to see you as Shadow Chancellor. Are you reconciled to not being Shadow Chancellor?

ED BALLS:

The economy, as you know, is something I've been involved in for the last twenty years - the decision not to join the euro, to make the bank independent, all things which were fundamental to what I've been about. It is the biggest issue for our country in the next few years which will define politics.

ANDREW MARR:

(over) That's a no. That is a no, Ed Balls.

ED BALLS:

But, but …

ANDREW MARR:

You'd like to be Shadow Chancellor.

ED BALLS:

But the Shadow Home Secretary job is massively important.

ANDREW MARR:

Yuh.

ED BALLS:

And, look, to be politicising our policing with elective commissioners while cutting police numbers in this way - Alan Johnson's doing a great job exposing the reckless, dangerous and immediate cuts in spending and I'm showing the reality of that for policing and the safety of our communities.

ANDREW MARR:

Alright …

ED BALLS:

So I'm very happy with where we are.

ANDREW MARR:

… come back later on. But for now, Ed Balls, thank you very much indeed.

INTERVIEW ENDS

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