................................................................................ ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 27.4.97
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon and welcome to the last of our ON THE RECORD debates - live before an audience who will ask the questions they want debated by the three Deputy Leaders: Michael Heseltine, John Prescott and Alan Beith. That's after the News read by Jennie Bond. NEWS HUMPHRYS: Well, we never did get that debate between the Party leaders on television during this campaign. A pity, no doubt, but today we do have the three Deputies - the first time during this campaign that they have done battle with each other live on television in a full-scale debate. And the three deputies are of course, Michael Heseltine, Deputy Prime Minister; John Prescott, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party and Alan Beith, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats. The audience will be putting the questions and I'll be following up to try to make sure that they get answered. And our first question is from Neil Bennett. Neil: NEIL BENNETT: Who would make the best Prime Minister, a man who has changed his mind on every major issue or a man who has shown himself to be a weak leader? HUMPHRYS: Michael Heseltine. MICHAEL HESELTINE: Well I assume both those descriptions apply to Tony Blair because the fact is that he has changed his mind on all the major issues of recent history. He was a member of CND, the one sided disarmers, he wanted to leave Europe, he was in favour of the high taxation policies and he wanted power for the trade unions. And then he found that these were electorally unpopular so he ditched the whole lot. But the danger is of course that no-one quite knows what he's saying because it's all soundbites, he doesn't answer questions and the very important point that you made John, that we wanted to put him face-to-face with the Prime Minister because everybody knows the Prime Minister is a master of his brief, very experienced, very tough, but Tony Blair ran away - ran away, ran away, ran away - because he has no answers to the questions. And I think that the clearest answer to your question, therefore, is that you can be sure with John Major, he did a brilliant job securing our interests in Europe for example, no Social Chapter to destory jobs, an opt-out over the Single Currency, now a referendum if the Conservatives decide to recommend one. That was because John Major said no, twice in Europe and meant it and stuck to it and won for Britain as a result. HUMPHRYS: John Prescott. JOHN PRESCOTT: Well probably Michael's right that the Prime Minister masters his brief, the trouble is that it's not the brief of his Party, bitterly divided. Two hundred of them are signing up for a different European policy to the one that he's putting forward in his brief. I think what you have to measure leaders against is whether they're able to deliver what they've promised. We can have an argument about those promises, ours are absolutely clear. We've identified them in that pledge card - jobs, health, education and all those that we've mentioned. Now, you need to have somebody who can lead a party and I think Mr Blair has shown that he can lead and has shown great courage. He's changed the Labour Party without a doubt and in the last couple of years we've seen considerable change, one that has enabled him to put to the electorate and say look: here is the Labour Party, gone through considerable changes, now wants the opportunity to do that in Government. And indeed, he's carried the whole Party and I know it's caused great concern to the Tories that they can't see splits in the Labour Party but we are united behind one leader and one policy and that's what you want from a leader in this country. As for whether they change their positions, I can recall Mr Major telling us he wanted us to take up (phon) the heart of Europe. I can recall Mr Major saying we don't want any tax in cuts and he's had twenty-two increases and Michael, there's more quotes about Michael, different from what he's standing for now. I don't condemn them for that. It's a policy of looking at the arguments at the times, making the judgements, putting forward the case and in that Tony Blair has put the case, it's a united party and it's a man who has got courage and vision and has laid out exactly what he wants to do in Britain. According to all the polls, and we're not complacent about it, he seems to be getting his message across. HUMPHRYS: Alan Beith, on the assumption that Paddy Ashdown is not going to be the next Prime Minister, which of those two would you prefer? ALAN BEITH: Why do you make that assumption? I think Paddy Ashdown has been the hero of this Election Campaign, positive in putting forward precisely what we would do, not spending the time attacking the others but saying we would invest in education, we would invest in health, we would put more police officers on the beat. Honest, saying some of these things will require increases in taxation, consistent in that what he's been saying is based on the ideas and beliefs we've been arguing over a long period. So you know where you are with Paddy Ashdown and with the Liberal Democrats. And you know that the more Liberal Democrats you get into Parliament and the more votes there are behind them, the more he will be able to influence events in the direction of things that people actually want. So I don't see why I should make a choice, a rather unattractive choice when I've got a much better choice. HUMPHRYS: Except that you have already made it haven't you, because you've ended equidistance, you're closer to the Labour Party than to the Tories. BEITH: It's not a matter of closeness. If John Major fails to secure a majority at this Election, as seems pretty likely, I think most people, including many Conservatives would want us to put him out of his misery and would want to let them clear the decks for the leadership battle for which many of them are quietly and some of them rather noisily preparing. That's not what we're interested in, we're interested in ensuring that we get the maximum number of votes and seats for things which we believe people care about. HUMPHRYS: Mr Heseltine, when Neil Bennett said 'weak leader' he may have had in mind the fact that Mr Major doesn't seem capable of controlling his own Party? HESELTINE: Well, I think, it's unrealistic to think that a man who's been Prime Minister now for six years, has delivered the best economic prospects for a generation, is masterminding the most exciting performance in the education system, building ever-larger resources for the Health Service and has a clear manifesto, which has been widely recognised as a radical manifesto. I mean, everyone will accept this that we were surprised when we produced our manifesto we came out with new ideas to build on our success, particularly, for example, for Neil's generation, how to ensure that he could look forward to a pension when he retires that is much larger than the present State Pension. Now, we're the only Party that has addressed this fundamental issue of an ageing population but everybody recognised that it was the Tories that were looking ahead with radical ideas in Social Security, in Pensions, the whole process of building a Europe which conforms to job-created objectives like we've got here, whereas the other Parties - well, particularly the Labour Party - where there whole strategy has been not to answer the questions and Tony Blair in an interview, I think, today, in one of the newspapers, said that he is of the centre-Left, the Left and nothing has been conceded that cannot be recovered is what he said - in other words, the deals are there, the deals with the Unions, the deals that actually will allow the Left to come back in power, if they get it and, then, go back to the ways that are traditional of the Left. And, Tony Blair, once he was in power, would have no capacity to control the forces behind him on his back benches. HUMPHRYS: John-John Prescott - he's actually referred - when he talks about people - on the Left, he's referring to you, isn't he? You're of the Left aren't you? PRESCOTT: I am a Democratic Socialist, that
believes in a concept of social justice, that believes in the New Labour objectives, those that identified here - about decentralising power, education for the many, not the few - a Health Service returning to one based upon your need and not your ability to pay - all those various, radical principles, that have always been identified with the Labour Party have been undermined after eighteen years. HUMPHRYS: But, why don't you say: Yes, I'm of the Left? PRESCOTT: I must say to Michael when he actually says about Mr Major, he's the only Prime Minister we know that actually resigned in order to get authority of his Party. He's had twenty-two Ministers resign from his Government and, indeed, he's launched himself about twenty-four times and here we are at the Election now with a bitterly divided Party. Now, whatever, you feel about the politics and whatever the differences are between the political Parties in this matter, it is essential that a Leader presenting himself at an Election looks to be presenting what the Party wants and presents a united Party. He doesn't do that in any way. There are at least two or three manifestos and he doesn't appear to represent either one of 'em. HESELTINE: But, you've got to face it that the Labour Party has changed its manifesto six times since this Election campaign began and that's a clear indication of just how superficial it all is. I mean, imagine the sell-out to the Scots: they were promised a great Parliament with tax-raising powers and all these things - a Tartan Tax. It suddenly became unpopular. The sound bite people said you've got to change your position. It becomes a Parish Council. That was just within a few days. PRESCOTT: That's totally untrue. HESELTINE: And, then, we've got a situation with privatisation. Now, they've discovered that in our economic strategy are the receipts from privatisation- PRESCOTT: Yes. HESELTINE: -of the national air trust transport system, for example. The Labour Party hate nationalisation - John hates nationalisation, we all know it - but nevertheless, they had to explain how- PRESCOTT: Hates nationalisation? HESELTINE: -they're gonna pay the bills. How they were going-how they were going to pay the bills, the gaps. Either they've got to put up your taxes, or they're going to find the money somewhere else. So, they started saying: oh, well, of course, we might be able to do it with privatisation or whatever it was, until letters suddenly started appearing that they'd written to trade unionists saying under no circumstance would we privatise. This was all within this Election Campaign. And, if I take the most obvious example: today, we reported that Gordon Brown, planning as he a Budget in a few weeks' time is going to - and, I quote the words - "hit the ground running on Friday morning, with specific instructions to Treasury officials for the Budget he wants". Why doesn't he produce those instructions now before the Election so that everybody knows there the Tax increases are coming? HUMPHRYS: Why not, Mr Prescott? PRESCOTT: Well, I just want to answer the points he's making about change. HUMPHRYS: Well, what about that last one, for instance? PRESCOTT: I know but he makes the point about changes in manifestos. HESELTINE: Look, come on, John, what about the Tax increases? I mean, where are they coming from? PRESCOTT: Look, if he makes charges: Tories
constantly make charges, they don't want anybody to rebutt them. I'm entitled actually to say- HESELTINE: But, John-John asked you the question - deal with the Tax increases.... I didn't ask you. PRESCOTT: Well, I will come to that but I'm going to deal with the rebuttal. HESELTINE: He asked you! OK. PRESCOTT: I'm going to deal with your rebuttal. It is quite untrue-It is quite untrue to say that we changed on devolution. We are committed to devolution and decentralisation of power. It's one of our radical alternatives and we are giving the people in Scotland the referendum to make a choice and to confirm what we are putting forward to them. And, for revenue-raising powers. HESELTINE: A Parish Council? PRESCOTT: Now, the only point made about parish-raising council was basically- Tony was making he point that Local Authorities have revenue raising powers. It was the press and people like yourself who distorted that but the commitment- HESELTINE: It's always the media, isn't it? It's always the media. PRESCOTT: -the commitment-the commitment has not changed - make no mistake about that as, indeed, our commitment for raising the resources from a Windfall Tax to get quarter of a million people back to work. We're committed to that - we think it's right and that's precisely what we'll do. Governments can make a difference to the level of Unemployment and that's what's committed in our programme and that's why we'll do that. HUMPHRYS: A final point though. Just before - I'll come to you in a second then, Alan Beith - but the last point that Michael Heseltine raised there, Mr Prescott. If Gordon Brown knows what he is going to tell the Treasury to do on Friday morning, why can't he tell us tomorrow morning? PRESCOTT: Well, the same answer you'd give to any Chancellor quite frankly, and I see the Prime Minister was asked on the Dimbleby programme exactly that point. They may know what they're going to do in their proposals, but no Chancellor's ever said till he's made those recommendations and comes forward with his budget. We have agreed, and Gordon Brown has said it. There will be a budget, we are proposing to reduce the Value Added Tax, that's one of our proposals. Yes, we are prepared to bring in legislation in tax for a Windfall Tax to get a quarter of a million people back and there is nothing our programme that hasn't been properly costed. If it hadn't have been, they'd have been onto us - no mistake about it. HUMPHRYS: Alright. Alan Beith. BEITH: Isn't it striking how each of these Parties spend so much time talking about the other. My advice to you is never believe what one Party says about another Party. Look at what the Party is actually proposing, make you own assessment of a) whether it's a good thing, b) whether they are genuinely committed to it and have worked out a sensible way of doing it, and then decide. But really I think most of the public has lost off in this constant rejoinder about each other's policies which has characterised what's going on. What we're trying to say is, here are specific things that we will do. I think the reason they do this is that they each have areas of weakness that they don't want people to talk about. One, the
Conservatives don't want to talk very much about Europe because they are divided about it....(INTERRUPTION). It's no use if all you do is get rid of one government and replace it with another which has not got good specific proposals that will make the difference to the Health Service, make the difference to the Education system. It's what the government's actually going to do, not whether you can get a different set of faces round the table. HUMPHRYS: Alright, let's go to.... HESELTINE: Alan, realistically, you know perfectly well, there's not going to be a Liberal government, so it is important that people should know the real choices...... BEITH: I don't think there is going to be a Conservative Government either by the look of it. (APPLAUSE AND LAUGHTER) HESELTINE: The real choice - the real choice which Liberals try always to avoid is between a Labour Government and a Conservative Government. BEITH: That's the choice you try and force upon people. HESELTINE: No, no, it is always the reality of what comes out, and you know it and the fact is therefore it is important that we should reveal that Labour will have a budget to put up taxes within weeks of an election if they win it, which they won't. BEITH: I don't think people always believe what you say about the Labour Party. They can make their own judgement about what's wrong with Labour, they don't need you to reinforce it.... HUMPHRYS: Alright, well, let's go to another question from the audience about a real policy, since we are going to be talking about real policies. Robert Rinder? ROBERT RINDER: Isn't it the case that whoever attends the European Summit in Amsterdam should say no, no, no? HUMPHRYS: Well - John Prescott? PRESCOTT: Well, we've made it absolutely clear that we see a positive role in Europe. We've laid down the conditions about the various summits and the Single Currency, and Tony Blair has spelt out as indeed has Robin Cook, that we wish to make a judgement at the appropriate time. In that sense there's no difference between us and the Tory Party, or as indeed I think the Liberal Party on this matter, and you have to see a role there in Europe. Now, views have changed on this over the period of time. I'm bound to say in the Common Market debate I opposed Britain going into the Common Market. The people then had a referendum right, and they spoke, and they said they wanted to see Britain playing a part, and we are therefore intent on playing a positive part in Europe, but we will not sacrifice the British interest. If you talk about the qualified majority, if you talk about the reduction of sovereignty, that came about from when the Tories took us into the Common Market, when they actually did the Fishing Agreement, when they did the Beef Ban issue. All those have been done by the Tory Party. They have reduced the sovereignty if you like, of Britain in the Community, but you have to make a judgement, and that's the judgement we make and we will protect Britain's interest within the Community, and that's right for us to say so. HUMPHRYS: And quite prepared to use the veto time and again in Amsterdam if needs be? PRESCOTT: Yes, of course, and Tony Blair's made that absolutely clear, if it's in British interests to do so. HUMPHRYS: What - the same as you in that case Mr Heseltine, same as your Party would do? HESELTINE: Well not at all, because the first point to realise is that the Labour Party, as John honourably has said, were against Europe, and much later than John mentioned. Tony Blair was against it in the nineteen-eighties. He wanted to leave Europe, but he's now completely changed his mind, and his attitude is best summed up in the words, "I will never be isolated in Europe". Now, there's only one way never to be isolated in a debate, and that's always to give in, and the serious danger, the really serious danger of Labour in Europe is that they will then use Europe to fulfill the deal they've done with the Trade Unions, to bring the European social model here. There are huge opportunities in Europe, and we're grasping them. Our trade with Europe is going up very significantly, we're getting forty per cent of all the inward investment that's coming into Europe, it's coming here,
creating jobs and technology, and the City of London of course is the prime financial centre of Europe. So we're winning for Britain in many ways in Europe, but the danger is that we introduce this social model which would increase the costs of employing people in this country and therefore destroy jobs, but that is the danger which this goverment has avoided because John Major said no. He was prepared to be isolated. And it's exactly the same when you come to the Single Currency. We cannot now know which is the right way to go and so we have made it absolutely clear that we will judge on the facts when the time is right, and if we decide to go ahead there'll be a referendum of the British people. HUMPHRYS: Over the same policies that Labour... HESELTINE: Yes, but they copied us because they didn't want to get isolated. We were the people - this is classic of the Labour Party - they wait to see what we're doing, if it's popular they leap in behind. And the other thing just to have in mind about this issue is that it is the Liberals who are the federal party. They are the ones who really are determined to push right into the sort of centre of the European super-state arguments. But Labour are half way down the road because in a serious number of issues, on environmental policy, industrial policy, social policy, they are going to give up Britain's veto, they're going to - that is what they're going to do. And let's not argue the merits of that for the minute, the Conservatives won't. Let's not argue the merits. Imagine if you were all going to negotiate for Britain in Amsterdam in a few weeks' time. Would you have said face up the cards, what you're prepared to give away before you got there. There's not another European leader fighting for their national self interest has said what they're prepared to give away - none of them - but Tony Blair said "Oh, yeah, fine"..... HUMPHRYS: He actually said this morning that he would veto anything he didn't like. And then he gave a whole list of things he'd veto. HESELTINE: And do you know why he said that because his focus groups have said that he's losing out on the European issue and therefore he's changed his policies. PRESCOTT: No, no, no. He decided over twelve months ago to veto these areas. HESELTINE: Twelve months ago he was talking about never being isolated in Europe. The fact is he's changed his mind because he's testing public opinion every day and whichever way the wind is blowing the smile is on the screens, you'll tell us what you want to hear, you'll hear it. That's the Labour campaign. HUMPHRYS: Alan Beith. Switch from the..switch from the card playing metaphor of Michael Heseltine, you've run up the white flag in Europe already haven't you. You've said yes we want a federal state. BEITH: On the contrary, what we've said is first of all it will be the British people who decide, not for us to say yes or no but for the British people. We voted for a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty which the Government denied to the British people and we would argue for a referendum on any major change in the constitutional relationship between Britain and Europe, not just the Single Currency but if other changes came out of an Inter Governmental Conference, we would argue in that referendum that Britain has a key role in Europe and if the settlement was right, in our view we would recommend to people that they accepted it. But it would be for the British people to decide. That was Mrs Thatcher who used to go around saying "no, no, no" but she signed up to the Single European Act. It was the Conservative Government that put through the Maastricht Treaty, and why, because they recognised that Britain had to retain its role in Europe for all the doubts and reservations that they had. Michael Heseltine would be there in the Cabinet pointing this out to her. I'm sure indeed he had many arguments with her on this very subject, Britain's role in Europe is a crucial one. But we are determined that it should be the British people who decide. I think the British people have not been brought into this debate and discussion sufficiently and all the arguments even have not been effectively brought out and won't be until we have the kind of referendum that we have voted for. Indeed, we actually got a motion through the House of Commons that there should be a referendum because the other parties abstained. Three Tories were bold enough to vote against it and the rest abstained and that actually passed. PRESCOTT: Can I just say about... HESELTINE: Of course the arguments would have all come out if Tony Blair been prepared to face John Major on television. PRESCOTT: Take Mr Major having authority to negotiate. He has no authority to negotiate for his own Party in this country, they're bitterly divided. Even his wait-and-see policy, agreed by Mr Heseltine, is not supported by half their candidates in the Election. HUMPHRYS: Your Party's divided... PRESCOTT: They've put it into their manifesto and can I just take a second point Michael talks about. He talks as if somehow the great British economic model is doing far better than Europe. Even if we leave alone the fiddled unemployment figures and everything else they've had, which their own advisors admit to, on prosperity we've fallen nine to fifteenth and we've fallen another few places. On growth we're thirteen out of the fifteen European nations, on investment we're right at the bottom, fifteen out of fifteen. On interest rates, eleven out of fifteen, unemployment down from nine to fifteen, what it is is that we're in the bottom half of the economic league, heading for relegation, not the boom he talks about because of the boom bust economy we've had in the last eighteen years. HESELTINE: This is the classic Labour view. They take this country.... PRESCOTT: Is this wrong, what I've just said to you. HESELTINE: Absolute rubbish as you know. The fact is, no, no, what this is about is running Britain down. The fact is that this country, and you all know this because you've come from all different parts of the country, you can see the huge weight of foreign investment coming into this country because it is the best place to invest. You can see the fact that we have now created a million more small businesses since 1979. You can see the fact that the housing market has now recovered, you can see the fact that we've got the highest proportion of our population at work and when the Labour Party and this is not the Tory Party now saying this, when the Labour Party this week, came out with this clap-trap and tried to suggest that Britain was somehow falling apart, the source that they quoted was actually a very prestigious international organisation and the deputy director immediately disowned what Labour was saying and said that for the first time in a century Britain is now punching its weight and holding its position in world terms. We are the fastest growing economy, major economy in Europe. Unemployment in Germany went up by five hundred thousand... PRESCOTT: Michael, Michael, Micheal.... HESELTINE: Hi John I'll be in touch later!... (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE FROM THE AUDIENCE) PRESCOTT: These figures are out of your competitive report. You've produced the competitive report. HESELTINE: These are selected by Peter Mendelson (sic) to brief you to come on here and trying to deceive the British people about the fact that the country is booming when everybody knows it's booming John - just have a look round. PRESCOTT: Is that right? BEITH: You wouldn't think this was the government that had presided over the desperately deep recession in which so many people were hit very hard indeed... HESELTINE: And every country like us in the world went through the same experience. Alan don't start this nonsense, this was an international recession, you know it. BEITH: What we must now do is try and make sure that doesn't happen again, by having a more consistent basis for running economic policy so that our interest rates are lower than the system we now have makes them, so that we invest in the future and so that we don't have the kind of uncertainty that surrounds our position in Europe under the government that we have now. A lot of people were hurt very hard in that recession, that must not happen again. HESELTINE: That's true, let's admit that they were. And show me a major economy where it didn't happen, and is still happening, if you look at youth unemployment in Italy, Spain, France, if you look at Germany where unemployment when up by half a million in the last month, it's come down every month for four years here. So yes it was difficult. PRESCOTT: They're not unemployment, they're benefits, they're not unemployment. Can you read it Michael, it says those receiving benefit, not those unemployed. HESELTINE: I shall tell you what John means by fiddling the figures. I will tell you...I will tell you... (APPLAUSE FROM THE AUDIENCE) PRESCOTT: Thirty times. HESELTINE: I will tell you. I will tell you what he means. He has looked at everybody who isn't at work and says they're all trying to get jobs. If you want to include all those people you have to include people who are looking after dependent relatives, you have to include all those single parents looking after their children and pretend they're actually trying to get back into the workforce, they're not. And it is a deliberate deception by the Labour Party. The facts are clear. We have the highest proportion of our population who want to work, at work, in this country of any major European economy and for the last four years the figures have got better and better and every time they get better the Labour Party try to pretend we've fiddled the figures. What that really means, I mean I've been in Government a long time, the fact is that... PRESCOTT: Certainly have. HESELTINE: If we were going to fiddle the figures we'd have to get the British Civil Service to do it for us, they would not do it, we have the greatest and most independent Civil Service in the world and they would contemptuously dismiss any suggestion that a Government could fiddle the figures. It's not the Government. HUMPHRYS: Alan Beith says you've tried to get the figure... HESELTINE: No, no we certainly did not try and they wouldn't have done it. It doens't matter whether we tried or not frankly they would not have done it. HUMPHRYS: Well, some might argue it does. HESELTINE: The fact is they would not have done it and no Minister with experience would even try to persuade them to do it. PRESCOTT: Michael, even the Professor of Statistics, dealing with the Central Office has said we can no longer believe in the honesty of these figures. The Midland Bank Review said it last week, one of your own advisers. But, let's just take The Guardian - just to show I'm an intellectual and read these papers. HESELTINE: You can take The Guardian as far as you like, as far as I'm concerned. That's about the least independent authority in the country. PRESCOTT: Michael, tell me, but your Government is presently.... HESELTINE: It's like asking Satan for advice on sin! PRESCOTT: Your Government is investigating actions in certain job centres in regard to job creation. They have said that they've found out that some of the Civil Servants have increased jobs, double accounting - those that go to a factory are recorded by the factory and the job centre. Dinner Ladies are recorded when they come back on it as extra jobs and I like the one about where crime's doubled, that people on Police Identity Parade, every day they go for Identity Parade are registered as a new job. You cannot believe the statistics of a Tory Government. HESELTINE: Well now, what he's saying. He's now
added to his attacks on the Civil Servants - assuming they were corrupt - to suggest that... PRESCOTT: You're investigating them. HESELTINE: To suggest that the police are now fixing the crime figures. John, frankly, you've been in Opposition for a long time and it's obvious why. HUMPHRYS: We're moving there to Public Services, there's a question on that from Val Osborne. VAL OSBORNE: Do you think it's more important to improve public services or to cut taxes? HUMPHRYS: Alright. Let me ask you, Alan Beith first - cut taxes or improve Public Services? Where should the money go? ALAN BEITH: We opposed the Government's one p reduction on Income Tax because we could see the urgency of the crisis in Education, which is vital to the future success - economic and general success - of the country. Schools are desperate for books and equipment. We need the nursery education for youngsters, we need to improve training. So, we're saying let's invest that kind of money now - that's why we've said that we now need to put up tax by a penny, in order to provide those resources. Our Health Service is in very serious trouble, indeed. You cannot make the difference - the sort of difference Tony Blair talked about, between the Health Service being ruined on the one hand and strengthened on the other - with the very tiny amount of money that Labour are talking about. So, we say: yes, we will have to place something on the price of a packet of cigarettes, we'd have to use that tax revenue to get more doctors and nurses in the wards. On the doorsteps we find that people want to see this happen, they're looking to us as Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament to make sure that it happens and it has been one of the most striking features of the campaign - that people agree with us on this. HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, you're not prepared to go even as far as the Liberal Democrats on this, are you? PRESCOTT: Well certainly more money can improve Public Services - as likewise, if you use the existory sources better we can get an improvement in the quality of those services. And, we've accepted the argument that we look at the analysis of what is happening to public finances in this country and Gordon Brown is to conduct an audit because the debt has doubled and the Borrowing Requirement is at something like twenty-three billion pounds. Therefore, we've had to say that we'll have to do it within the reality of the present Public Expenditure. But in doing that we make certain steps that we've committed again on our card about how you will improve it. We will improve the education of the youngsters in the five, six, seven - thirty year olds (sic) because we believe there is a correlation between the size of the class and the quality of the education. And, what we'll do there is we'll fund it by scrapping the Assisted Places Scheme - we'll continue for those that are in it. By transferrring that, we actually make the decision that we improve the quality of the education, not for the thirty odd thousand on Assisted Places Scheme but half a million children in the Public Education Scheme making a permanent step towards improving the quality of education. We've given the same for health and we've done the same thing for jobs. I could give the details, if you want. So, within that context, and against the practical reality of having to conduct an audit about the crisis in public finances brought about after eighteen years of the Tory Government we're right to do that, we can improve services within the present Public Expenditure commitments we've got. HUMPHRYS: They're right to do that, Alan Beith? BEITH: Well, it was John who said when they sold off the Ministry of Defence houses that this was a smash 'n grab operation by a Government of spivs and Labour has moved so dramatically on this that I think they have created anxieties in the minds of a lot of people who work in public services that somehow Labour is going to join the Tories in denigrating Public Service and assuming that you can sell off more or less anything - even the air-traffic control, which no other European country sells off its air-traffic control system, which is closely inter-linked with military air-traffic control. Privatisation, the sale of assets, can have some role as long as we make sure that we protect essential Public Services and see that they're adequately resourced. HUMPHRYS: Right. If we had- HESELTINE: Can I take the question? I want to take the question as asked because, I thought, it was absolutely at the heart of the matter. HUMPHRYS: Go on. HESELTINE: And the answer to your question is this: the object is to try and get an economy that is growing, delivering extra wealth year by year so that you've got money to spend, either by reducing taxes, or improving Public Services, or by division, both - that's the object of the exercise. And, so, there are sometimes cases for tax increases - some for tax reductions. If you take what we've had to do since the last Election - and this is one of the heart of the matter issues - we had this World recession - which we've all been discussing - and every Government had it of our sort and we, therefore, found ourselves with less income tax revenue because of the fewer employed, less profits in companies and therefore less tax but rising bills because we had to pay for the rising number of unemployment. And, we had to decide what to do and we did put up some taxes and I was - I'm proud of that because we were not prepared to cut education, or health, or the pension, or to undermine the Welfare System. So, we did put up taxes. The Labour Party make great play and say: well, that's twenty-two tax increases. What they never tell you? There've been twenty-five tax reductions since then. Because we took those difficult decisions, we've now got the fastest growing economy in Europe and, therefore, in the recent Budgets, you see taxes coming down - now seven million people who are only paying twenty p in the pound, the Standard Rate the other day came down to twenty-three in the pound. But, at the same time we put nearly two billion extra, two thousand million extra into the Health Service, we put nearly a thousand million - about eight hundred and sixty million - extra into education because the economy was growing. So, the instinct of the Conservatives is to keep the tax level under control because that means more money is left with the private sector and that tends to flow into wealth creation, investment, job creation. That gives you the growth. Then, you can enhance the Public Services. So, that's where we try to go but in the extremes of recession, we would always protect the most vulnerable in society. PRESCOTT: But, how can he say that when, in fact- HESELTINE: I just did say it, it's quite easy. PRESCOTT: Well okay then. Yes, it is quite easy but is it true is the question? Not about whether you can say it is. You say it often enough. HESELTINE: It is true. PRESCOTT: Well, let me...the most vulnerable. Why is it then you increased the fuel - VAT on fuel - which affected so many people, particularly pensioners? We reduced it down to eight per cent. We will reduce it down to five per cent. Now, you've got to make judgments about that. Your priority is to do something about Inheritance Tax and Capital Gains Tax. But, just to mention the point about improving public services. I mean, you can, for example, in the Post Office - there's a great deal of controversy made about this - whether in fact the Post Office can borrow money to become more profitable than it is. It's a very efficient and effective organisation. Now, I believe, they should be given the freedoms to borrow, instead of actually just relying on the taxpayer. And, I have... HUMPHRYS: Let's not talk about privatisation, for the moment because we're going to come on to that. PRESCOTT: And I have before me the note that was given actually to the - a note to the Prime Minister in the Cabinet about options for that and one of them was 'the Prescott Option' - I don't know how many voted for it. What it said here was that the Prescott Option should allow them to borrow privately and yet the response in it was: the Prescott Option would seriously undermine our whole approach to privatisation. What they meant it's not about improving services they just wanted to sell off the services instead of just allowing the Public Sector to borrow the money to become more effective. HUMPHRYS: Yeah, but what's behind- PRESCOTT: That's an ideological requirement of this Government. HESELTINE: John, can I just make a point? John has actually just made a very important statement: that he wants to set a nationalised industry free to borrow. HUMPHRYS: Can we talk about the privatisation and nationalisation... HESELTINE: That means he's blown an even bigger hole in their... PRESCOTT: I've been saying it for years. HESELTINE: I know you have, John but you're the only honest one on the Labour benches. The fact is... PRESCOTT: It actually is Labour Party policy. HUMPHRYS: John Prescott .... HESELTINE: That is increasing public expenditure even more than all ... HUMPHRYS Alright. We're going to talk about privatisation, I want to go back to what we were talking about, spending.. PRESCOTT: Public services..... HUMPHRYS: Exactly, exactly, spending or cutting taxes or public services. Now, is it not remarkable that a Labour Government that says: our absolute priority is education, education, education, the Health Service has been starved of funds for the last eighteen years, is not prepared to put another penny on taxes, the Liberal Democrats....to help education. He's not prepared to do more than tinker with a few bureaucrats in the Health Service, instead of being prepared to say as you have in the past: if it costs a bit more, if it means putting another few pence on tax, we believe these things are important, therefore we will do it. PRESCOTT: But John, in these debates you've been asking all of us, and particularly Labour spokesmen that particular point, and I will reiterate what we've said and which I've said before. Basically we will inherit a very difficult public financing situation. Most people are writing it and even talking about tax increases to deal with it. No-one's denying we will have a problem in these areas, but we will have a look at the audit. But let me come to your point. Again, if I can, since you've done the Health services - you mentioned the Health Service - something like the administration cost has doubled from eight per cent as it was, one the most efficient Health Services, now to something like twelve per cent - that's one-and-a -half billion. That's simply because they wanted an internal market in the Health Service so we're employing more accountants than the actual increase in nurses. So what we're saying is, wouldn't it be better to spend less on bureaucracy and more on actually getting more nurses to meet the needs of the patient rather than the needs of the market. Now that another good example. HUMPHRYS: That would cover one day's spending in the NHS - one day's spending. PRESCOTT: Of course it's one day's spending, and we've made a choice, and it's a fair choice. We have said, and the electorate can make a judgement about it, we are not prepared to do more than what we've said about taxation plans now, and we're not going to change the public expenditure pattern. Now, we've said that, we're sticking by that and the electorate will have to make a judgement about it. But you have to make tough decisions in opposition as well as government, and that is our position. Alan's made a different one. He's actually said that his party will increase the tax - fine, they can make that judgement. BEITH: In that case John you have to change the rhetoric. You can't talk about saving the Health Service from being ruined and tansformed it into something better if the difference is so marginal as we're talking about in what you've offered. And you're not shy of using figures about the economy. You've quoted a number of important figures about the things that are wrong about the economy, and you're well aware of what the broad position is, and therefore that it is both necessary and possible to raise some tax revenue for the Health Service. It's just politically difficult, and your party is judged that it might lose them some votes in some constituencies in the south of England. And if you're going to make it on that basis you are really ignoring the needs of people who are dependant on the Health Service right through the more deprived parts of the country. PRESCOTT: No, I will accept, if you say you've not been able to do everything that needs to be done to undo the damage the Tories have done in eighteen years. I have to accept that you'd probably need two periods of a Labour government. So I would argue that case to the electorate as I do, but I have no reason to say why... BEITH: More taxes later. PRESCOTT: ...why we can't start the improvement now, and that's why we say in here - we don't say a radical reform of the Health Service. We'll make the start in changing the priorities. We do think reducing the waiting list by a hundred thousand is something worth doing, and it's a better priority than paying accountants to meet the internal market by doing something to get the front line services to the patients. HUMPHRYS: Did you catch Alan Beith's question there - more taxes later then? PRESCOTT: No. I mean we've laid out our position very clearly and we're being attacked by it HESELTINE: More taxes later, you just said it. BEITH: There seemed to be a hint in what you were saying... PRESCOTT: No, I did not say that. Let's be absolutely clear, I did not say that, and it's been clear indeed. What we have to make clear to the electorate we will not do anymore than we have now said on our tax ... BEITH: That means the Tories' limit, the Tories' strait-jacket on the Health Service for what - two periods of Labour government. PRESCOTT: Well, I've tried to show you how you can begin to change the priorities in it. You may think it's marginal. John thinks it's marginal. I think by showing the change in those priorities we can begin to redirect some of the money to actually meeting the needs of the patients rather than the internal market of accountants. Now you can either agree or disagreee, but I assume you agree with it. What you say is you want it to be more radical. That's a judgement of how you .... the resources. If we can get people off the dole and back to work we'll begin to save billions of pounds of money that is wasted at the moment on keeping people idle, which Mr Heseltine said was necessary to increase the taxes because of the failures of his policy. HUMPHRYS: Michael Heseltine, quickly. HESELTINE: I don't think you could have read the story in the Mail on Sunday today, which shows that the national.... PRESCOTT: I never read the Mail on Sunday. HESELTINE: Well, I don't know what you do read except that little card, but the Mail on Sunday has blown a story that the National Institute are about to reveal that your plans for getting young people off the dole are not ging to work. But I just want to take this audience back into the real strategy of the Labour Party. PRESCOTT: It hasn't been published yet as I understand it. HESELTINE: That's quite right, but it's been leaked like everything else and your party welcomes leaks. As Michael Meacher said.... PRESCOTT: It's one of your advisors that's written it. HESELTINE: What the National Institute - the National Institute? PRESCOTT: One of your advisors. HESELTINE: Come off it John. What you've heard time and again, very interesting particularly perhaps to those of us in politics is John's reference to the national audit. Gordon Brown, if he were to become Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to audit the books. Now every company knows that when a new chairman comes in the first thing he does is to say: Oh, if only they'd told me. I'm going to have to take tough decisions, I didn't know I was going to have to do it. I would have told you if I'd known, but I've had a look at the books. And that's what Gordon Brown - that's the confidence trick that's been set up. John has said it time and time again, and you can see Gordon Brown. He'll rush into the Treasury, he'll say: these are the tax increase I want. And they'll say: that's not enough sir, if you want to achieve all the spending plans you've got. And he'll come out sweat pouring off his brow, and say: well, I'm sorry, I've checked the books, it's quite terrible and I've going to have to put up taxes. It wasn't my fault, it was the Tories. And John has come back to this time and time again in this programme. That's the set-up that is being fixed for this election. HUMPHRYS: Let us go to another member of our audience. Valerie Soames, who has a question about pensions. VALERIE SOAMES: I work for a company pensions and would like to know, is it right that old age pensioners should have to rely on private pension schemes? HUMPHRYS: Michael Heseltine, privatising pensions. HESELTINE: Well we're not going to privatise Pensions in the sense that you ask me the question and we would not do it. There were two issues here and one of them is perhaps the most scandalous thing I've ever seen in modern political campaigning. The Labour Party - and Tony Blair's full authority behind this - are frightening elderly people into believing that the State Pension is at risk under the Conservatives. Indeed, again a story I read in the papers this morning: a Labour spokesman was actually confronted by an elderly person in tears saying I gather that my pension may go and the Labour spokesman had the decency - I say this at once - to say:No, the Tories do not intend to in any way prejudice the Old Age Pension. The Times newspaper yesterday, said that Labour had lied. It's very tough language for The Times to use about a Labour Party programme. PRESCOTT: Tch! Times! HESELTINE: The fact is- Well, you may laugh but the fact is that this is a serious issue. They have lied quite cynically and deliberately and they planned to do it. The fact is that we are not going in any way to change the Old Age Pension. There will be an Old Age Pension, there will be an increase in the value of it in line with inflation as we have done ever since we've been in power. That is a guarantee firmly given. But what we have done - and this is why I said we had a radical programme - we've said: Look, increasingly a very large number of our people are now in occupational pension schemes, through companies or whatever it may be and they're funded and they get something like a half to two-thirds of their income; last year's income on retirement. And that leaves a gap between those who only have the State Pension. Now the taxpayer can't afford to increase the State Pension to match what's happening in the private sector - everyone knows that - overnight. But we've looked ahead to his generation and we've said that we will start - probably in about four years' time - we will start to create for everybody their own investment scheme which will be funded every year by contributions we based on their National Insurance scheme. So that when they retire, when he retires, sometime towards the middle of the next century, he will have accumulated a fund which will have been invested on his behalf, all through those forty years and it-our calculations - the Government's actuary, it's not a politician, the Government's actuary calculations - are that by the time he retires, this fund could have delivered him a Pension which would be worth about a hundred and seventy-five pounds a week compared with the present State Pension. But-But the guarantee is there that whatever the result of the investments that will be made on his behalf, the basic standard State Pension, inflation proof, will remain a guarantee right the way through. HUMPHRYS: Right. HESELTINE: So that's a radical attempt to deal with the problem of an ageing population and we're the only Party that's had the courage to say that. But don't forget for an instance, we're talking about something that will happen in forty years time. HUMPHRYS: Right. Alan Beith, you've not been accused of lying - your Party - on this. Do you accept that? BEITH: Each Party is telling only half the story. What the government are saying, is that they will guarantee that nobody will receive less than the State Pension as indexed according to prices, even in years to come. But, what we're arguing for, of course, is that the use of occupational and private pension schemes, should enable people to add to what they would get from the State Pension and that those who don't have that means of doing so - and there are many in current generations - should have a top up Pension, from State sources, which is linked, not just to prices, but to earnings. So that those who haven't had the opportunity to build up an occupation or private pension, in the meantime, do get an adequate living without being dependent on Income Support and benefits which are taken away with even the smallest amount of savings. But what Michael Heseltine said, is that there are-this is a matter affecting, forty, fifty years' time. There are people sitting around me now, who'll be drawing a Pension, I hope, in fifty, sixty, even seventy years' time. This is such an issue that we can't resolve it properly in the heat of an Election Campaign. We've really got to reach a set of proposals which all Parties in politics can stick by over a long period, because over sixty or seventy years there are going to be several different Governments in power and we've got to ensure that we have a scheme which brings together. The basic element of the State Pension is everybody's protection, not simply a guarantee but something still provided. And use occupational schemes and private pensions to give people a higher standard of living. HUMPHRYS: And therefore do you regard what the Tories are proposing as a reasonable basis on which to work? Not accepting, not buying the whole thing, hook line and sinker, but saying that's something we ought to think about? BEITH: I think it would have been a reasonable discussion document with - and I see some very serious problems about it, there are very high start up costs in it, and there are a number of categories of people who'll do rather badly out of it. If they floated it for discussion a year ago in an atmosphere outside an Election, we could have made useful progress but to try to sort this out in the heat of an Election results in precisely the sort of cat calling which we've seen. HUMPHRYS: But nonetheless you've heard the cat calling that there's been, based on what you've just said. Are you saying that Labour is lying when they say- BEITH: It is not true to say that under the Government proposals that the State Pension will not be guaranteed. On the other hand, under the Government proposals, the equivalent of a State Pension might be all you get. And if you have a scheme which keeps the State Pension but insists that there is something else, either a top-up scheme or what you can achieve by occupational pension schemes, you are guaranteed to get significantly more than the State Pension. That is not promised by the Conservatives. HUMPHRYS: So, Mr Prescott, you've been trying to frighten pensioners? PRESCOTT: No, I think what Alan says is probably right. It would be better if all the Parties got together, we'd deal with the very real problems concerning pensions. We have talked about a reform of the Welfare System and there's nothing wrong with that. HUMPHRYS: No, but you said what they're doing was abolishing the pensions? PRESCOTT: Wait, I'm going to come exactly to that, so I think there could have been a better discussion, but the Tories have launched it in the heat of an Election campaign. And I think to that extent, what we did with the SERPS, which was Earnings Related Pension, brought in by a Labour Government, we had all-Party agreement with it. We produced a document as a Government, we had a discussion about it and we all agreed. Unfortunately now, it's within this context of political debate. The accusation is that the Tories are moving to privatisation of the pensions. HUMPHRYS: Oh, it was a more serious accusation than that. The accuastion was that they were going to abolish the State Pension. That was Tony Blair's original accusation. PRESCOTT: Okay, the privatisation. First of all there's no doubt they want to privatise the pensions, they've said that in regard to younger people that they want to see a privatised scheme, and they won't even get the tax relief on that. Secondly, they said it could apply to some of the older groups into it. They'd have to see how much that cost. So privatisation is on the agenda, make no mistake about it. And we've said that that consitutes a threat to the basic Pension scheme privatisation. And if you have any doubt, just look at the record. What have they done since they've come into power. They were the first ones to break the earnings related for pensioners, when all Parties had agreed it. They broke that to save a lot of money, that's the first point. The second thing is they then said to pensioners, you must sell your homes if you want Community Care, right. They also increased VAT on the pensioners, VAT on fuel, so their actions have always constantly been moving against the pensioner and their benefits in this society in one form or another. And therefore, privatisation, which Mr Heseltine claims constantly is the way forward, is on the agenda, and we think and say that the basic Pension is threatened by the privatisation proposals of the Tory Government. Final point, Mr Heseltine says The Times. Well, The Times have come out for them, so I suppose we can accept that they are going to be put in that position, but what about the Institute of... HESELTINE: It's The Sunday Times that has come out and not The Times. PRESCOTT: What about the Institutional Fiscal Studies, right, the Institute. Now they attack the Labour Party, you've often used their criticism against us, so they're not a friend particularly of the Labour Party, they have come out this week and said: yes it is a privatised pension scheme that the Tories are moving towards. HESELTINE: Right, can I just..John has gone on and one, rambled round all sorts of things, he has not addressed the central issue. PRESCOTT: Well they're right. HESELTINE: He knows... PRESCOTT: Well they're right. HESELTINE: He knows his party is lying. It is lying because- PRESCOTT: Was I lying? HESELTINE: Yes, you were lying. PRESCOTT: What was it? What did I lie about? HESELTINE: You were lying about the fact that we were going to get rid of the State Pension schemes. PRESCOTT: All these things you've done... HESELTINE: No, no, John. The question that John put to you: Is the Tory Party going to get rid of the State Pension scheme and you gave the impression that it was. You know that's a lie. PRESCOTT: You said you wouldn't increase taxes. HESELTINE: You see, you're avoiding the issue. PRESCOTT: Well I mean I cannot believe, quite frankly- HESELTINE: You're avoiding the issue. Yeah, but here you go. PRESCOTT: But trust is important in this Election. HESELTINE: But, here you go. PRESCOTT: We cannot believe what you promised before the Election because you do different things after the Election. HESELTINE: And you changed your mind six times in the campaign. The fact is that you are lying - that's the point. You know we are not going to get rid of the State Pension scheme and we're going to continue to index it. You know that. PRESCOTT: You certainly won't now because it's being made an issue in the General Election. HESELTINE: We had never the slightest intention of doing it and you know it and Tony Blair started this campaign... PRESCOTT: You've got privatisation of pensions on your agenda. HESELTINE: ..Tony Blair started this campaign by saying Trust Me and he has now abused the trust of the most frail and elderly section of society by frightening them. PRESCOTT: After what you've done to pensioners. HESELTINE: The person that I respect, I respect that Labour canvasser who was not prepared to go on lying in the way that Tony Blair was lying. PRESCOTT: You've put more pensioners into poverty than any other Government in this history by forcing them onto Income Related or onto supplement in order to supplement their pensions, that's what your Government's done. HESELTINE: Abuse will not escape from the position you're in. You have lied and you've been found out. PRESCOTT: Now, we have made it clear. Privatised pensions is clearly on the agenda. BEITH: Neither of them will tell the whole truth. The Government is, actually, going to get rid of the State Pension but it is guaranteeing - and, this is all it is guaranteeing - that you will not fall below the level that the State Pension currently provides, uprated by prices and you will hope to get more than that. What we're saying is that shouldn't merely be something guaranteed out of the private scheme. That should remain and be topped up - either by occupation and private pensions or if you haven't had the opportunity to create those by a State scheme which is linked to earnings. HUMPHRYS: Right. Let's move onto another subject: Education. Maggie Bonfield is a Head Teacher. MAGGIE BONFIELD: Hello. Who should we trust in Education? A man who sends his child to a grant-maintained school but wants to abolish them? Or, a Party that still doesn't trust State schools enough to send their own children to them, even though they've been running them for eighteen years? HUMPHRYS: Alan Beith. BEITH: Well, it is striking that where these issues arise, and it's very difficult for people to make the personal decision about their own children but the decision to send children to other schools has been strikingly in areas where the schools locally are actually controlled by the Labour Party, the Education Authority is controlled by the Labour Party and there's a legacy of maladministration of education in some Labour-controlled authorities. But I think what is crucial is that the schools have the resources and schools in many parts of the country simply don't have the means to provide the books and equipment for children in those schools or their class sizes are too large. We've got to address that. I think, you shouldn't actually trust the politicians to run education at all. Make sure that they provide the means and then ensure that the professionals can get on with the job and they're not denigrated as constantly as teachers have been during the course of the life of this Government, which I think is very sad - the demoralisation of teaching. HUMPHRYS: Michael Heseltine, if the Tories have done such a good job with education over the past eighteen years, why do so many in the Cabinet send their children to private schools? HESELTINE: Well, it's a fundamental issue of choice. If you want to live in a society where people can choose - and, we do - there are all sorts of examples. Free to buy your own house, free to have your private pension, free to have a Health Service in the private sector, if you want, free to have a private education system. HUMPHRY: Free to make the decision that public schools - the fact that State schools aren't good enough for your own children? HESELTINE: Free to make these decisions - that is the issue and the fact of the matter is that if you want an alternative society, you remove choice. Now, we don't believe in that a) because it costs
more money because a lot more people have to be educated at the taxpayers' expense or served in any other way by the taxpayer and secondly, that quality comparisons actually are not there if you only have one system of Education. HUMPHRYS: Yeah. That's not the question, though is it? The question is: why if state schools - that's the question that our Head Teacher there was asking. HESELTINE: Yeah. HUMPHRYS: Why - if state schools have improved, as much as they have done, as much as you claim they have done over the past eighteen years - do so many members of your Government still feel it necessary to send their children to private schools? HESELTINE: Well, it's entirely for them. HUMPHRYS: Well, indeed but I'm asking you why? HESELTINE: Well, it's entirely for them to exercise the choice. They may think they get a different sort of education. HUMPHRYS: Well, they think they get a better education don't they. That's the point. HESELTINE: And, in many cases they do get an education - especially a range of education opportunities - which may not be available in the State system. But I want to come back to the fundamental issue. I don't think that the Education standards in this country are high enough and what I do believe is that this Government has put in place now the procedures to bring them higher and you can see them rising - you can. The exam results are showing. Just take the most exciting figure of all. When this Government was elected one in eight young people went on to Higher Education. Today it's one in three - that is a huge explosion of opportunities. But, the important thing is to recognise that we don't in Government run the schools. The Local Education run the schools and where Labour has been in power the longest, the standards are the lowest. The real scandal is Tony Blair taking his child from Islington - a Labour-controlled authority - to a school outside the Borough. If he really knew how to deal with education, if David Blunkett knew how to deal with education, they would have done it when David Blunkett ran Sheffield, or Tony Blair would have called the Labour Council in Islington and said: look, you're making a mess of it. It's so bad I'm going to move my child out but this is what you should do to put it right. We only help provide the money, we do not run the schools. HUMPHRYS: John, John Prescott? PRESCOTT: Look, if Cabinet Ministers want to buy privileged education so be it. I wouldn't do it myself, but that's their choice. My argument against them is in the State system they're trying to produce an Education system for the few at the expense of the many. That's what I find wrong about their principles. Secondly, grant-maintained schools are not to be abolished. They are financed by the State to over ninety-odd per cent, and that Tony blair will be the first Prime Minister to be sending his children to a State school. That's the reality, and it's never happened before, and I think that's right, showing how we want to improve the State Education system. Now when Michael talks about the quality of it, I'm bound to say we're forty-second in the world education of achievement, which is pretty bad. Secondly half of our eleven-year-olds - these are your own Inspectors,
Michael - failed to reach their expected standards in English, and we also find a million Primary schoolchildren in classes over thirty. Now, quite frankly that's bad. Now, what we're actually saying is, we want to improve the public educaton system. That's why Tony Blair says education, education, education and all his proposals as with the special conference we've got today, is how we improve the standards in the public education system. That's where we want to put the priorities of our resources. He's right to do that. BEITH?HESELTINE?: What resources? PRESCOTT: He sends his children to the public school, he sends his children to the state school, the first Prime Minister to do so, and all our proposals that I gave you with the Assisted Places Scheme is to put our priorities into helping the State Education children, not actually the minorities. And the other one is, grammar schools HESELTINE: But, John, what I-Your priorities-yeah,
grammar schools. You're going to abolish the grammar schools. PRESCOTT: Well, you should know because you abolished four hundred of them. Leaving that aside-. HESELTINE: You hate-You hate grammar schools. You know, you hate grammar schools. PRESCOTT: Well, wait a minute. I don't, I don't. HESELTINE: You want to get rid of them. PRESCOTT: There are a hundred-and-forty grammar schools. I failed my Eleven-Plus. I deeply resent the fact that twenty per cent of our children on the Eleven-Plus system which you're bringing back is going to go into special schools where for every one grammar school there'll be five secondary modern schools, which is a two-tier system in Education as you've got in Health. I actaully deplore that, and that's why Mr Blair is campaigning for a public education. HESELTINE: And, that's why you're going to get rid of the grammar schools isn't it? That's why you will get rid of the grammar schools. But, you hate-you hate the grammar schools. PRESCOTT: I do not! HESELTINE: You've just said how much you hated them. HUMPHRYS: Alan? Alan Beith? BEITH: In all of this argument the vast majority of schools that the vast majority of children go to will not see significant additional resources. The very small amount that can be clawed back from the Assisted Places Scheme won't make the difference in books, in equipment, in class sizes. You're going to have to put more resources than that in it, and that's why we say it's actually right to ask people to pay a bit more in tax for the purpose. PRESCOTT: Alan, that is an argument, and a proper political argument, but you wouldn't want to say that the money we got from the Assisted Places - because this has been independently costed - will pay for the reduction in the class sizes for half a million. Now you're not doubting that, it might not pay for the books. BEITH: I hope- Well, I hope that you're not going to take the Assisted Place away from someone who's currently on it. PRESCOTT No, and we've made it clear that's not so - you know that. BEITH: Well, in that case you can't act very quickly because the money that would come out of that would only come out slowly as those on the Assisted Places scheme work through (phon). PRESCOTT: Yes, it's a commitment over the five year period. BEITH: We want to spend some money now on the children who- PRESCOTT: You must read our cards. You'll see that. BEITH: It's a very small card and there's not very much money on it. PRESCOTT: But, there's all the values in the world in that card - Education, Health and Jobs. BEITH: And, there's not enough resources to make the difference now for the children who are in school now or starting school this September. HUMPHRYS: And even those you take out of the Assisted Places Scheme still have to be educated don't they? They have to go somewhere, they have to be paid for. PRESCOTT: Yes. You're talking about something like forty thousand children. I've got to say in the last year, or the last two years, the Education system has taken three hundred and eighty thousand new children. So that is not a major point to make though I know the Tories do it. HESELTINE: It is of course. It is an example of how they haven't costed their programmes, because they're saying: we won't have them, give them money on Assisted Places as though there's no cost. You'd have to of course educate them in the State system. PRESCOTT: Yes, there is a cost. And, we've done that. HESELTINE: But much the most important issue - it isn't just money. You can see the same amount of money per pupil being spent in different schools across the country, and you get quite different results. It's about the quality of teaching, it's about discipline and all of these things, and where Labour is in charge of Education that's where the standards are lowest, and the longer they've been there the worse it is. HUMPHRYS: Michael Heseltine. PRESCOTT: Michael, what I don't like about your position Michael. On the one hand. HESELTINE: You don't like it but it's accurate. PRESCOTT: I don't like it. You lectured us about Education and you don't send your children to our State schools. HUMPHRYS: On that - on that- The whistle's gone, the whistle's gone, John! John Prescott, Michael Heseltine, Alan Beith, we have run out of time I'm afraid. Gentlemen, thank you very much. PRESCOTT: Like a millionaire, he wants Minimum Wages! HUMPHRYS: That's the end! PRESCOTT: Double standard! Hypocrisy! HUMPHRYS: If you can hear me, that's it for this week. By next Sunday we shall have a new Prime Minister or not as the case may be, but we shall certainly be in a different political world. I can't tell who'll be on the programme. It all depends on how you vote on Thursday, but I promise you it's going to be interesting whatever happens. Until then, good afternoon. ...oooOOooo...