................................................................................ ON THE RECORD JOHN REDWOOD INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 12.3.95 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: So, Mr Redwood, the Thatcherite revolution hasn't run its course. What we're seeing in Wales is that you are determined that it should keep moving forward? JOHN REDWOOD: I don't agree that I'm conducting an experiment or running a Thatcherite revolution a decade too late. What I'm doing is developing Conservative policies. We have a family of Conservative policies across the United Kingdom, policies that encourage more people to own their own homes, policies that provide better quality and standards in our Health Service, policies which mean more parents can choose the school they wish their child to go to, and policies which reinforce values and discipline and success in our schools. There are some variations around the different parts of the United Kingdom, but there is a strong family resemblance, and I'm proud to be carrying the Conservative banner in Wales at this crucial time, to strengthen all those things that many people in Wales want, more home ownership, better schooling, better public services generally. HUMPHRYS: So you're carrying th Conservative banner. You are, if you don't like the phrase "Thatcherite revolution", you are still evangelical about it? REDWOOD: I think there are things to be done, yes, no-one can rest content when there are still unemployed people, when there are still derelict sites to be cleared, when there are still schools producing results that are disappointing, when there aren't enough opportunites for some of the young children of the valleys and other parts of Wales where there is still deprivation. Of course I crusade to deal with that, and I think the objectives I have, a more prosperous Wales, a Wales with more choice and success, would go way across the political spectrum, way beyond by own party and would be shared as an aspiration by those in many other parties. HUMPHRYS: Right, so your crusade in Wales, the banner for your crusade in Wales ought to be carried right across Britain, that's what you're saying. REDWOOD: Well it is, I'm saying it's a common family of policies and sometimes England is a bit ahead, sometimes Scotland is a bit ahead, sometimes Wales is a bit ahead, but we're all working together, we have the same general ideas. My initiative for example with popular schools is one area where I am trying something in Wales which I think is specifically relevant to the Welsh problem. There are a number of schools where a lot of parents would like their children to go, and they can't get in, and so I'm saying, right let's make some capital money available, so that you can put on the extra classroom or expand the gym or the library or whatever might need doing if the school wishes, and this money goes to the school even though it's a local education authority school, because I think people going to LEA schools, people who wish their children to go there should have that access, that opportunity which is what they want. HUMPHRYS: And that's a good example of the sort of thing you're doing in Wales that isn't yet - I say yet, put the word in inverted commas if you like - isn't yet happening in England? REDWOOD: Yes, that's one of the things, but there are other ways in England in which choice is being strengthened in schools, and of course it's still open in England for local authorities to do the decent thing and to apply for the monies direct through the normal procedures in order to expand popular schools, and I hope they will do just that. I know in my own constituency in England as well as in my big Welsh constituency that there are parents who are frustrated because there is a good school down the road, their child can't go there, and if money can solve the problem let's solve it. HUMPHRYS: But you'd also know that there are those of your colleagues who would agree with the headmaster from whom we heard in that film, who said that the danger, and he stood to benefit from your policy, that he recognised that the danger was that the worst schools would grow worse still because all the emphasis, all the concentration, all the resources will be applied on to the best schools. REDWOOD: I think the children of Wales stand to benefit from the policies. I don't know whether the headmaster who has a school which is growing is a particular beneficiary. In a way he has a more difficult management task then, because he has a bigger school to run, and he has all the hassle of the capital investment. What I hope will happen is that the schools that aren't doing so well will get a grip on the situation. I said a lot about that, I've offered support in a variety of ways. Very often the schools that do worst get more money than the schools that do better. It's a question of how they spend it, and the aspirations they set out through the teachers for the pupils, and I'm desperately concerned that we don't allow sink schools to develop, that's why I and my colleagues in England and elsewhere in the UK have put in policies which allow us to intervene if a school is doing very badly. It is so important, children only get one chance and we must do something to make sure that is a good chance. HUMPHRYS: You recognise the danger of sink schools developing, but that's precisely the risk that you encourage is it not. If you say to one school: you're a popular school, you're a good school, we'll give you a lot more money, the other school down the road that is not a good school is inevitably going to suffer because yet more of the brightest and best of the children go to that better school because their parents are ambitious for them, quite rightly, the other school suffers inevitably. REDWOOD: Why should it be just the brightest
and the best that want to choose to go to the good school? HUMPHRYS: They will have the most ambitious parents. REDWOOD: I don't think that's necessarily true. I think a lot of parents will want their children to go to the best school, and it won't always be just the children with the most able, but let's go back to your basic point. You're quite right that we don't want schools to do badly, but surely the answer must lie in the schools, and if they begin to see that more parents are taking their children away, or saying, we don't want our children to go there in the first place, that I trust will make the governors sit down with the head teacher and say: Right, we've got to stop this, and the only way we can stop it is by raising our standards. And that's exactly what I want them to do, and that's what parents want them to do. HUMPHRYS: Well, yes of course it is, but how are they going to raise their standards if they see the resources going to the best schools, and you talk about parents, all parents wanting their children to go to the best school, well of course they do, but many of them don't have the choice. If you're a single mother for instance, you don't have a car, you don't have much money, and the best school happens to be five miles away, you can't get the child there, you're stuck with sending the child to what may be a sink school to use your expression. REDWOOD: I said we didn't want those to develop. I haven't identified any as being sink schools. HUMPHRYS: But there are some..... REDWOOD: There are some schools in Wales that don't do well enough, and I haven't been shy about identifying that problem and saying what we can do about it. There are a limited number of things I can do about it as Secretary of State for Education in Wales. There are a lot of things that the local education authority and the schools can do. The first point, to stop truancy. You often find that the schools with the worst records also have the biggest number of absentees, and the children have to go to school if they're going to benefit from the schooling. Secondly, get the school to set more ambitious targets for the pupils. They want to be challenged, they want work that is reasonably difficult and interesting, and then you begin to get results, that's what I'm trying to get them to understand and to get them to help me do it. They money you, I'm only talking about giving capital money, money to build buildings or to expand libraries, they won't get any more per pupil than the schools that you are condemning. HUMPHRYS: No, no, I'm not condemning anything. I'm not condemning anything. What I'm saying is that there is a danger that these schools will worsen because of this policy, and that's a danger...one that many people have, including the headmaster of a school that stood to benefit as I said. (sic). REDWOOD: Yes, well I think they're much more likely to improve because I don't think they'll want the children to divert to other schools, and I think they will start asking themselves the obvious questions - how does this other school do so much better, because there are very similar children going to that school. How do they spend the money so well so they get much better results? And I do detect in Wales a growing willingness to ask these difficult questions, and a growing realisation that a lot of the answers rest with the school and not higher up in the political system. HUMPHRYS: But you would like to see, what do you call it, the Popular Schools Initiative - you would like to see this develop across the country, and there is a real problem with that in England, because you can only get more money if there aren't any surplus places, and there are of course ruplus places. REDWOOD: Well, that's one of the differences
between parts of England and parts of Wales, but I think we have to look carefully at whether the surplus place is a major obstacle or not. In some cases it might be, in other cases if the teachers are no longer at the school because the number of pupils has reduced and you don't need the same number of teachers, the main cost of the surplus place, so-called, has already disappeared because mainly, the money is spent on teachers, and quite rightly so. HUMPHRYS: But what you're saying here in essence is, if it's right for Wales, given that caveat, if it's right for Wales it's right for Britain. REDWOOD: Well, I'm saying that Conservative policy is to expand choice, there are a number of ways of doing this. I've come up with one in Wales. If my English colleagues think it can be applied across the border, that's a matter for them, that's fine by me. They are doing
lots of things in England to strengthen choice as well, which I fully support and we're all going in the same direction. HUMPHRYS: Let's look at housing. The Thatcherite revolution began, or at least encompassed the sale of council homes, something that you hugely approve of, indeed you were in at the birth of that particular policy. You want to go further, and you are trying to go further in Wales, in promoting owner-occupation. Now, do you have a target. Mr Hughes I think in that film said ninety per cent owner-occupation was your ambition. Is that right? REDWOOD: Well, the immediate target is to try and match the aspirations of Welsh people. Eight out of ten would like to own their own home, and it's just a little bit over seven out of ten currently do, so there is quite a big gap, and I'm looking at ways in which we can help people realise their dream. They would prefer to own, many of them don't necessarily want to rent all their lives. It is actually cheaper to own the same house throughout your life which you've bought on a mortgage than it is to rent even a subsidised rental property, because of course you pay rent year after year, whereas after twenty or twenty-five years you've finished paying the mortgage and it's cheaper over your whole lifetime. It's also more flexible, it is actually easier to move usually if you own your own home, because there is a big market in homes, than it is if you live in a council house where it is extremely difficult to move somewhere else if you wish to get a job somewhere else, because it is very restrictive access to council housing in many parts of the United Kingdom, so I'm saying it's more flexible, it's what many people want, we must see if we can help them, because the issue now is how can they afford it, because the people who now want to own are finding it difficult very often because they're on low incomes or they have no accumulated capital, so we've thought up a number of schemes across the United Kingdom, and I'm promoting these very vigorously in Wales, cheaper housing by making sure that reasonably priced land is available for development, making sure that there are low cost home ownership schemes and making sure that something like the tenants incentive scheme for example can be used, so it's actual financial help for someone who wishes to move out of a rented house into a home of their own. HUMPHRYS: But one way you're doing it is stopping housing associations buying existing homes and therefore pushing up prices. Now a lot of people would say, many people again in your party, would say there's a danger here. It makes it more difficult for women like Gale Silva, her in the film, to get a better environment for her children. REDWOOD: Yes, well that I think is where your film was very misleading, uncharacteristically so perhaps, but what I am doing is making sure that the money that goes to the housing associations builds extra homes. If a housing association.... HUMPHRYS: Green field homes? REDWOOD: Well, they may be brown field sites. HUMPHRYS: Or brown field sites, but nonetheless new houses. REDWOOD: Some of them will be in the urban villages which were wrongly portrayed as some kind of peoned capitalism, whereas they're going to be mixed communities, including rented accommodation. HUMPHRYS:: Right, but they will not be allowed to buy an existing house in an existing street, and do it up. That's not going to be allowed any longer. REDWOOD: No, that's not my idea. I think it's much better that all of the money that I send the housing association as grant coupled with whatever they can raise themselves in the private sector, and they can raise increasing amounts in the private sector, should be spent on building additional homes. If they go and buy a home that's already been constructed and could be sold to one of the people who'd like to be a home owner, they're not adding anything, they are actually taking away from the stock of homes available for home ownership. I want them to add additional homes on top for rent, so I don't intend to disadvantage people who don't want to buy a home. There will still be a plentiful supply of housing association new property. HUMPHRYS: But you will in a sense be building - and this was the point the film was making - you will in a sense be building the ghettos of tomorrow because when they're buying existing homes in existing streets, you're mixing Housing Association families, people who are in difficult financial situation usually, invariably, in an existing community. What you are doing here with your green field or brown field sites is you're promoting a kind of ghetto. REDWOOD: No, I'm not. I'm not in favour of ghettos and no sensible person is. I think it's also a very dubious contention that all people who live in rented houses.. HUMPHRYS: No all, not all but.. REDWOOD: Create ghettos..I think it's a very offensive idea. HUMPHRYS: No, no, not a ghetto in the sense that you're taking it. I mean the fact is you're going to have the same kinds of people in a certain area. REDWOOD: Well it is still possible for the planning system to produce the kind of mixture that you are advocating for the purpose of this question. It is quite possible for them to say that: "yes we do want some more Housing Association homes for rent in our community as well as new homes for sale and we will mix them up" and if that's what people want to build and that's what people want to buy and rent it can be done. I won't be deciding that because this is a matter which will be decided locally in each community because I'm a strong believer that planning decisions should nearly always be taken close to people by their elected local authority. HUMPHRYS: So, you approve of this policy, clearly. Again something that could be spread across the rest of the country do you think? REDWOOD: Well urban villages are being constructed elsewhere. HUMPHRYS: No but your particular policy on, for instance, Housing Associations? REDWOOD: Well I think you'll find that most of the money in England is spent on building additional houses and I'm sure my English colleagues would agree that most of the money should be spent on building additional houses. We did spend quite a bit of money on buying existing homes at one particular point in the recession, when it was a deliberate policy, announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequor, to try and provide a floor in the housing market. Things have moved on, the housing market has found a floor and so we don't need the same intensity of purchasing that we did then. HUMPHRYS: And would you like to see your target of eighty or ninety per cent home ownership spread across the country, as a target for the government? REDWOOD: Well I think eighty per cent is a very good target. I've chosen that in Wales because the housing.. HUMPHRYS: You've chosen eighty, not ninety? REDWOOD: I've chosen eighty as the immediate target because... HUMPHRYS: Ninety is the desired target? REDWOOD: Can I try and answer the question. I've chosen eighty per cent because that is what the surveys in Wales say people would like to achieve. There are eight in ten people wishing to own their own homes and not all do, so that's the obvious target to chose, it's a democratic one already chosen by people's voting themselves in this opinion poll. England might want to do something similar and decide what is the right level for England, that's something you must ask my English colleagues. I think we can go higher in the next century. I think that more people will want to own then than currently wish to own but that's a matter of opinion and we'll find out nearer the time. HUMPHRYS: But would you like to see that become a Tory Party aspiration? REDWOOD: Home ownership is a Tory Party aspiration and a central one - and I think we can do more to promote it and that's exactly what I am doing in Wales. In my own English constituency we have a much higher proportion of home ownership already and it is very flexible, people can buy and sell. They haven't always liked the prices in the last two or three years of course because there has been a sharp reduction in the market in the recession, but they can buy and sell, they are freer to move than people living in council houses. HUMPHRYS: Another stage in your crusade, if that's the word you perfer to use, is reducing bureaucracy. You don't believe that's gone far enough yet? REDWOOD: No, I think we can do more and my colleagues agree with that. We've set new and tougher targets for many parts of the public services over the next two or three years. This was one of the themes of our public expenditure review when the cabinet sat round the table and settled that last autumn and I welcome that very much. In Wales, I'm trying to do my bit by trying to reduce the numbers of grey suits and expensive motor cars and some of the quangoes of Wales.. HUMPHRYS: By twenty-five per cent? REDWOOD: In some cases but not all, it depends on the nature of the body and the extent of the overhead. HUMPHRYS: Which implies there's an awful lot of people sitting on their backsides doesn't it? REDWOOD: Well there are a lot of people in offices. HUMPHRYS: Doing nothing. REDWOOD: No, they're not doing nothing but there are people who I think could be better employed doing other things. I'm not making people compulsorily redundant but I am setting targets to control the overheads and to get more real work done on the ground. That's the theme of both Virginia Bottomley and I in the Health Service, where we have put joint legislation to the House of Commons, saying we want to reduce the number of Health Authorities. I'm hoping to reduce the numbers in Wales from seventeen to five and I wish to see some office closures, I don't want ward and bed closures and that's how I'm going to balance it. HUMPHRYS: You said the last public spending round was generous, is this one way you want to see a tighter public spending round next time, by cutting bureaucracy, getting rid of civil service jobs, quango jobs. REDWOOD: Well I think we did go quite a long way in that direction. HUMPHRYS: But not far enough. REDWOOD: ...in that total settlement and you have to take these things gradually because you need to be realistic and there are jobs that need doing, you can't get rid of all the adminstration clearly, good adminstration is a very vital part of good government. So I'm quite happy with the targets for administration which we set, we must now make sure we deliver them and next year we might like to think about tightening them further, but that's for next year. HUMPHRYS: Right, so what you said, talking about education and housing and the bureaucracy, suggests that even though you didn't like the phrase "Thatcherite Revolution" right at the start of this discussion, you aren't satisfied that it has been completed, it has to be pushed forward, there are still barricades to storm? REDWOOD: Well it's not a Thatcherite Revolution, it is a set of common policies for the Conservative Party in the 1990s where we've placed a different agenda from that of the eighties. We've cracked a lot of the problems in the eighties, like trade unions and strikes and industrial disruption and general economic management problems. We now have a new generation of problems in the nineties, related to the public services, which I and my colleagues are very keen to make sure we sort it out. We want more choice, we want higher standards. So in that sense there is a continuing revolution, a continuing revolution within the public services, for higher standards and more choice. Which is a common Conservative aspiration. HUMPHRYS: Well you say a common Conservative aspiration, a continuing revolution. Douglas Hurd doesn't say that, he says we want to stop the permanent revolution, we don't want anymore of it. So you're clearly on the opposite side of the divide to Mr Hurd. REDWOOD: No, no, but that's not your view, because Douglas is taking very generally.. HUMPHRYS: Well I'm using his words. REDWOOD: I am a true Conservative like Douglas and I agree with him that you don't want change for its own sake and you don't want too many changes. There are a lot of things you should keep stable, institutions you should support, things you don't go round digging up. And I entirely agree with Douglas on that and I agree with Douglas over the European Community for example that we may need a period when less comes forward rather than more because we don't want continuous revolution all the time. HUMPHRYS: Well, but he was making a very clear point, he was distinguishing between consolidation and continuing revolution and you're arguing here, not for consolidation by and large, but for the contining revolution. There IS a difference between you - everybody who knows your views would say "but of course there's a difference between Mr Redwood and Mr Hurd" for instance. REDWOOD: Well I think Douglas Hurd would agree with me that we ought to promote home ownership. HUMPHRYS: Yes. REDWOOD: I think he would agree that we want higher standards in schools, I think he would agree that more choice for people over school is a very good idea. So I don't think there is as much disagreement as you're trying to imply. HUMPHRYS: Well, you see, what you want to do, one of the tenets of your belief is that you want to curb the state's excessive power. Now Mr Hurd thinks that after sixteen years of Conservative Government that has broadly been achieved? REDWOOD: Well I think each day you have to make sure that the state does not abuse its power, that it conducts itself well and uses its very real powers to do good where those powers need to be applied. But of course all Conservatives, and Douglas Hurd would agree with this as well, have to make sure each day that the powers of the state are not over-extended and are not being used unreasonably. That is a true Conservative position. HUMPHRYS: What I'm trying to suggest to you is that you are absolutely four-square with people like Mr Hurd, people on the other side of the ideological divide, both Conservatives admittedly, but different kinds of Conservatives and clearly from everything you've said here this morning and everything you're seen to be doing in Wales, you have a fight upon your hands. REDWOOD: No, I don't agree. I think I belong to a Conservative tradition which believes in raising standards of public services but believes that there should be good public services in several areas of our public life, believes in a strong market economy, which again is common ground because that's the way to create jobs and prosperity and believes that state power should always be subject to a democratic test because you don't want it to get out of hand. HUMPHRYS: John Redwood, thank you very much.