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John Prescott MP, Deputy Prime Minister

DAVID FROST: Elizabeth Winkfield there, and with us now and watching that with me, the deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, welcome John.

JOHN PRESCOTT: Thank you David.

DAVID FROST: What would be your message ...

JOHN PRESCOTT: Can I just say, she was 18 when I was born. At 83 years of age still politically battling on for, in this case, the council tax. I think she's involved in other matters as well.

Isn't it marvellous that somebody of 83 feels politically strong enough, and wanting to do something about a problem she's very much concerned about. And I think that's remarkable and encourage more and more people, sometimes they turn off earlier than 83 from the politics. Keep going, just like that lady shows us ...

DAVID FROST: You're going to keep going ...

JOHN PRESCOTT: So many congratulations to her.

DAVID FROST: You'll keep going till you're 83. No I agree, and to people like her with concerns like that about the council tax. What would be your message to them?

JOHN PRESCOTT: Well she's right to be concerned. Indeed we have been ourselves, you know I set up the review, the balance review of how much the government should be paying in local council tax contribution because it's made up of council tax by the local authorities and national.

And I set up this balance review to look at these issues with Nick Rainsford, about 18 months ago, and I said to our own party conference that, you know, we've come to the end of this kind of council tax way of paying things using the band in this present form. So what we need is a much more radical review about it, and that's where we are at present. I'm waiting for Nick's report to look at exactly what ...

DAVID FROST: So you think that it is possible that there will need to be a new form of council tax based perhaps partially on income as well as property?

JOHN PRESCOTT: I think all the problem has been that, you know, you can go back to the rates, you can go back to poll tax, you can go back to the council tax and I think Mrs. Winkfield felt herself that this goes back a long period of time and there's always been controversy. We switched on poll tax to each individual payment because people were saying a lot of people in a house, a lot of them weren't paying the rates.

Then we got into real difficulties about that. Now we have the council tax, it's largely property based, as you know. And as property prices have been going up many people like Mrs. Winkfield find themselves in a position where she is asset rich in her house but income poor, if that's the assessment.

Though I don't know whether she gets any assistance or is entitled to any assistance because there's about nearly one and a half million pensioners who just don't take that assistance. So what we've got to do is try and find a greater consensus. I'm pleased that the Tories and the Liberals are co-operating with our balance review through the local authorities. I think Mr. Howard has said he wants a review.

And the Liberals have said they want regional tax. There are various ideas about property and business rate changes which Nick is now looking at. You've got to find a greater consensus than we've got at the moment and poll tax certainly taught us that.

DAVID FROST: And obviously analysing a system, what would be the best system and the fact that there probably does need to be a good one is important and takes time. But for people who are, what should people like Elizabeth Winkfield do? I mean, because their problem is a cash flow problem tomorrow.

JOHN PRESCOTT: It is, and she was concerned about the 18%, plus I think, that she was mentioning in her interview that she got from the Devon Council. And we said to those councils, you know, last year was just far too high. They've had inflation increase money from ourselves that is far more than the inflation rate.

They've had 30 billion, 30% increase in real terms in the money they've got. So I had to say to council this year look, last year Wandsworth 50% an average of 12.9, that is not fair, and this year I'm saying very clearly to them, if you're not fair and you don't find yourselves down in the low end of the single figures then I will use my authority to cap you ...

DAVID FROST: You will use your ...

JOHN PRESCOTT: Make no mistake about it, I will be capping if they've offended against what is fair. Now in regard to Devon, what we've found is they've now collapsed down to 5%. That was nearly 18%. But that does raise another problem. If you look at the police and the fire, they have what we call precepts. They decide how much their charges are and put it onto the council tax.

Often it's decided by people who are not elected actually, because they're made up in a different way. It's called precepting. And if you look in Devon I think the police authority put a charge on, of 39%. So for every 10% from the police authority it adds 1% to the council tax. So in Devon Mrs. Winkfield's found she's got the worst of all worlds.

What has happened now is that we have put pressures on. The 5% area with the local authority, we have to wait and see perhaps what happens with the police and fire, but it's all come tumbling down. There's a bit of the limbo dancing going on and it's still going down. But make no mistake, if you don't get under that line I am going to cap.

DAVID FROST: That's clear. Tell me something about the story on the front pages of a lot of papers this morning, 1,000 new recruits for MI5. This obviously is a big step, takes it back to the level it was at the end of the war and so on. Is that really part of the war on terror, that's the main reason is it?

JOHN PRESCOTT: Absolutely, that is the main concern now frankly, I mean the cold war for example is a very good example. I think an awful lot of our spies might speak Russian but they're not so much for Arabic. And what we've got now is a re-changing, a readjusting to a whole different circumstance.

It's a person walking now with massive weapons of mass destruction into an underground, a chemical weapon or something. So you've really got to have greater use of intelligence than we've got at the moment. So we've not agreed 1,000 more people to assist MI5 to actually increase its kind of intelligence gathering and here there's 1,000 involved. Now I think that's absolutely right. What does worry me Mr. Howard's already announced that there's only two areas that will be free from their cuts, and one is health as well as education.

Does that mean if we start on this programme, and it does take a number of years and it's absolutely vital in the fight against terrorism, does that mean that they're now going to actually say that they can't afford those intelligence gatherers. Well I think they have to answer that but I think it's right for government to do it because it is facing a new threat of terrorism and this is right to improve our intelligence gathering.

DAVID FROST: And talking of the war on terror and so on, of course, we've got this situation where five of our nine detainees in Guantanamo Bay are due to come home. When they arrive home will they be detained, or allowed to go to their homes?

JOHN PRESCOTT: Well I think it's been made clear about that in Jack Straw's statement to the House. But really what we need to be doing there is for the police to go through their proper investigation and enquiry to establish whether there is a case for them to be tried under British jurisdiction.

And that's where we have to leave it until they come back to this country. That's what we've always said. They should have a proper fair trial. We have to investigate the evidence and that hasn't been done as yet.

DAVID FROST: Right, and would they be detained while that investigation was taking place, or would they be on bail?

JOHN PRESCOTT: I don't know, these matters are actually being discussed in the Home Office and no doubt a statement will be made at the appropriate time. After all, they're not here yet but they now will be coming under our jurisdiction.

DAVID FROST: What about this interesting idea of drug-testing in schools which the Prime Minister put forward?

JOHN PRESCOTT: Yes, I think everyone of us as Members of Parliament, and I'm sure general public, are increasingly aware that increasing use of drugs in schools and I know I've been concerned myself. And wondering how you actually deal with it. I think this is one proposal that's had some testing in the Unites States, which is useful to look at.

But I think in a number of areas we now have got to conduct in some form of random testing. I visited a housing trust area actually quite recently, I think it was in the Midlands area, where the tenants there had agreed that nobody could come into one of their tenancies unless they'd gone through drug testing first. I'd seen that in America as well, so some of it is happening. And in key areas of transport where you've got people driving or flying things, there is now a requirement to a certain extent, to be involved in random testing.

So I see more and more of that is coming about. I think what I would like about the idea if it worked out this way, and we have to work out all the details of it and as we talk it through, is the fact that other children will know when it might be exposed. Peer pressure might become an important part, but at the moment there's none of that and I think that is the increasing concern of the Prime Minister.

And hopefully now this might introduce another sanction in a way. And another kind of preventative measure that would stop people taking drugs if they thought they were going to be caught out.

DAVID FROST: And would you see it becoming something that's sort of random but regular sort of just normal housekeeping, or would it be confined do you think to the most troublesome areas?

JOHN PRESCOTT: I think the Prime Minister said in his article today that they'd want to work out the details for that and whether it was random, whether it was compulsory, in what schools you were doing it, these are the details that I think headmasters will receive notes about when we've cleared all the advice.

But as a general principle I think it's been received as something that would be helpful as counteracting the increasing use of drugs in school. Either done because they feel they have to do it or done because they don't think they'll be found out. This clearly would be a powerful check against that.

DAVID FROST: And Tony Blair says in the paper today that he's up, he's going to go for a third term. And that goes for you too?

JOHN PRESCOTT: Yeah, ring the bells. The Prime Minister's made clear his position. Can I also say to pensioners, one and a half million don't get the subsistence and help they can get, they can ring 0845 6060265 to see whether they're entitled to some help with their council tax payment.

DAVID FROST: Right, thank you very much for that. In the meantime should Elizabeth pay up or not?

JOHN PRESCOTT: Well I think that's a requirement of a civic society, you come to a decision whatever the formula then it becomes the law of the land and then you're asking me should you break the law. You wouldn't ask me to say that she should do that. Elizabeth, you have to face up to your responsibilities in that.

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