................................................................................ ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 21.1.96
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon, battle is properly joined now in the campaign for the next General Election. Can the Tories fight their way back into the race? I'll be asking the Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell after the news read by JENNIE BOND. NEWS HUMPHRYS: Stephen Dorrell, can you make it, do you think, until April '97? STEPHEN DORRELL MP: Well it's an uncertain world and I certainly don't propose to engage in prediction but I agree with what David Sumberg was saying in your film that it's actually important that we should attempt to get through to the end of this Parliament so that people can assess the record of this government on a full mandate. HUMPHRYS: It's not going to be easy though, is it? DORRELL: Well there are problems in life all the time. I don't accept that all the various uncertainties that your film enumerated are all necessarily bound to go wrong. It may indeed be that as we go through this year people will increasingly see that living standards are starting to rise, but the outlook for the British economy is one that stands very favourable comparison with anything that's available anywhere else in Europe. HUMPHRYS: And if you do survive until April '97, can you win? DORRELL: Of that I have no doubt whatever because I think the key to winning wasn't covered, if I may say so, in your film and that is to focus the electorate's mind on the fact that the election involves a choice and it's a choice with consequences for the future, an election is a future looking...is a forward looking activity. Of course people look at the record of a government and we shall be keen to demonstrate the full effect of our record but the most important thing in the next General Election will be the choice the electorate make about the kind of government and the kind of society that they think will address the issues that Britain faces in the next five years. HUMPHRYS: Well it's arguable whether people vote on the basis of what you think, they think you may be able to do in the next five years, what you have done in the last fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years. So let's look at some of the hurdles that may be in their minds and that you have to get over if you are going to go on to that victory. The Scott Report which is going to be coming out fairly soon, many people think that it is going to be terribly damaging to you. It might lead to ministerial resignations. Is the government absolutely committed to accepting the Scott Report - and implementing it? DORRELL: Well we set up the Scott Report because we think it's important that those issues are fully examined and that an independent report is produced. I'm not going to be drawn on precisely what we shall do with the report when it's published because that...I don't know what's in the report, we clearly need to examine what it says and then announce our conclusions on the basis of what it says. But it will be a public document, an independent examination of the issues which it was commissioned to examine. HUMPHRYS: So you're leaving open the option that you might not accept it in its entirety. DORRELL: Well a government cannot simply say that the responsibility for government is going to be vested in a High Court Judge. What we think was important was to examine the facts, make the facts public and then for the government to reach its decisions and justify them in public on the basis of those facts. HUMPHRYS: I don't know why you can't say yes we will accept it in its entirety. There was no hint from Mr Major when he announced the setting up of the enquiry that if you didn't like bits of it, you wouldn't accept it. Full and absolute disclosure was what he promised and that's no suggestion that you might say we'll cherry pick this bit or that bit and we won't have this bit, we won't have that bit. DORRELL: That's just what I said as well. Full and absolute disclosure but you asked me whether I .. whether we'd accept every single recommendation that might be included within it. Of course we can't say that until we know what those recommendations are. HUMPHRYS: Those recommendations will be based on what an independent judge has decided on the basis of a massive amount of evidence that he has taken. Now what was the point of setting up that enquiry in the first place, of entrusting it to an independent and greatly respected judge, as you acknowledge, if at the end of it, you sit there and say a week or two before the report is coming out, that we may not like, so therefore we won't do it. DORRELL: No, that isn't what I said. What I said... HUMPHRYS: I'm missing something then. DORRELL: What I said was this was an enquiry into the factual background. An open public enquiry, that will be published, there will be in the Prime Minister's phrase: "full disclosure". It's quite likely the report will also contain some recommendations. A recommendation is what the word implies, it is not a decision, it is a recommendation, it is for the government then to decide and of course to justify that decision in public, to the electorate, against the background of the full disclosure of the facts which the report contains. HUMPHRYS: Alright, well let's take it step by step then. You will accept its factual findings, I mean if Scott says 'X' got this wrong, 'Y' shouldn't have done this, we decided that so and so was a total shambles, there was a certain amount of misleading going on here or there or wherever it happens to be, yes okay we buy all that, I mean that's okay.. DORRELL: Facts are facts, the... HUMPHRYS: Pretty grey stuff some of this isn't it. You say facts are facts, I mean you may dispute some of his quote "facts" unquote. DORRELL: But the purpose of setting up the enquiry was to examine what happened, examine the facts and report on the facts and then to ensure that the lessons are learnt. The facts will be made public by the Scott Report, that was what it was set up to do, the government will then seek to learn the lessons of that experience. HUMPHRYS: Alright, so if Scott says Parliament was misled, would you have that? DORRELL: If Scott says as a matter of fact, Parliament was misled, then that is a fact that the independent report has found. HUMPHRYS: Well Scott couldn't as a matter of fact say Parliament was misled because that would be a matter..that would be his opinion wouldn't it. That would inevitably be the enquiry's opinion and you can't....that isn't a fact, you can say there were thirty-six Members of Parliament sitting in the Chamber on that day, that's a fact, Parliament was misled isn't a fact. If he says Parliament was misled would you accept that without any equivocation at this stage. DORRELL: I think..actually I disagree with you. I think that if a report says as a matter of fact that a minister knew something to be untrue and knowingly misled Parliament, that is a statement of fact and if that was a fact as found by the enquiry then I wouldn't seek to contradict it. HUMPHRYS: Right, therefore, having accepted, assuming that is what Scott says, and there's some reason to believe that may be in the report, a Minister would have to resign wouldn't he? DORRELL: Well, that's a matter between the Minister and the Prime Minister, but it's certainly- It's a very serious - it would be a very serious charge to make against a Minister, yes. HUMPHRYS: You say between the Minister and the Prime Minister. Might the rest of the Cabinet though not get involved in that decision? DORRELL: No, the Cabinet doesn't collectively discuss the position of individuals within a Government. HUMPHRYS: Generally speaking, that's true, but in this case there has been a suggestion hasn't there, that the Cabinet should as it were not quite literally but sit as some sort of jury? DORRELL: Well, I don't agree with that proposition. I know of no precedent. You say, generally speaking, it isn't true. I know of no example of a case where the Cabinet, or there has been collective discussion of the position within a Government of an individual. HUMPHRYS: You say you don't agree with that procedure, which isn't quite the same as saying that has not been suggested at any level? DORRELL: Well, I'm not aware of it having been suggested. More importantly, I'm not aware of it ever actually having been done in the past. I do think that the position of an individual Minister within a government is a matter between that Minister and the Prime Minister. HUMPHRYS: But you would accept that it would look pretty damaging for you, wouldn't it, if a Minister were found as a result of the Scott Inquiry to have misled Parliament, and then did not resign, now that would be damaging, wouldn't it? DORRELL: I accept certainly that there is a very strong discipline on all Ministers at all times to tell the truth to Parliament. HUMPHRYS: Not quite the answer to the question. DORRELL: There are precedents from both sides for Ministers having told Parliament less than the whole truth. The best example was Jim Callaghan as Chancellor who didn't give Parliament the whole truth on the question of the reserves in 1967. HUMPHRYS: So, what are you suggesting, that perhaps a Minister in this situation would not have to resign? DORRELL: No, I'm not. What I'm saying is that I'm not answering a question, a hypothetical question, over what should actually happen following the Scott Report until I've seen what's in the report. What I'm acknowledging is that a charge that a Minister had knowingly misled Parliament is a very serious charge. And, what I'm also asserting is that the decision whether a particular Minister remains within a government is one that should be between that Minister and the Prime Minister. HUMPHRYS: Just for the record Jim Callaghan did deny what you've just said he did, but anyway, let's not pursue that. The Labour Party - Robin Cook says that extracts from the Scott Report have been compiled and sent to various Cabinet Ministers, so that you can kind of get your retaliation in first as it were. Have you had one of those? DORRELL: No. HUMPHRYS: Do you know that they exist? DORRELL: I don't know that they exist, no. I'm not saying whether they do or not, I simply don't know. HUMPHYRS: David Trimble has said he expects effectively, he expects heads to roll. That's a bit worrying for you isn't it? You rely on the Ulster Unionists, after all to keep you in power. DORRELL: Well, to expect heads to roll is to prejudge the report and what it contains. I prefer to wait until the report is published and then reach my conclusions on the basis of the report. HUMPHRYS: Alright. Whatever happens with Scott you have other problems, we looked at some of them in that report. There is the underlying problem of growing divisiveness within the Party. And, it seems impossible these days for anybody to say anything without somebody else attacking them, and then being attacked in return. It goes on, doesn't it? DORRELL: Well, I think actually that the opportunity for the Tory Party is as I was saying some moments ago, to set out clearly the things that we think are important, will be important in the next Parliament. And, once we start to do that I have no doubt at all actually that the things that hold the Tory Party together that we have in common are overwhelmingly more important than the things that divide us. Because you see I think that if you look forward into the next Parliament there's one key issue that stares this country in the face, and that is the fact that the world in which we're living is changing very fast. If we're going to have rising living standards, better Public Services - the things we all want to see - then there's one question which is overwhelmingly more important than any other, and that is how we ensure the British economy is competitive and rises to that challenge of a changing world market place. That is an issue about which the whole Tory Party sees with one eye. And, it's a key fundamental. It's actually the defining difference between the Conservative Party and our Labour opponents. HUMPHRYS: Yeah. And of course you'd like to get behind that sort of policy. DORRELL: But the problem is that you can't because everybody's snapping at each other. I mean we have an MP defecting to the Liberal Democrats; she's attacked by a Cabinet Minister, he's attacked by somebody else. You have another Government Minister writing to The Times attacking a former Prime Minister and then being criticised for that. You have another former Minister attacking a Minister for allegedly orchestrating a plot against - it goes on and on and on. DORRELL: And the key thing, if we're to have a proper discussion of the central issues of British politics in the run-up to the next General Election, is to focus on the important issues, not these side-shows that I described and the encouraging thing, in terms of the democratic process, I think, is that that's exactly the ground on which Mr Blair has chosen to concentrate in the last few weeks as well, with his stakeholder idea. HUMPHRYS: We'll come to that in a minute if we may. But your colleagues know this. They've heard the Prime Minister, no less, say this over and over again. It seems to make no difference. What is this defining moment at which all of a sudden they're going to say: Right, we will unite as one and fight the common enemy and defend our record, and all the rest. What's going to happen? DORRELL: Political parties always have within them a range of opinion. HUMPHRYS: Yeah. And they'll keep them buttoned up as well if they want to survive. DORRELL: If there is to be a successful General Election campaign then there has to be discipline within the Party. There has to be something else as well, there has to be a key issue that everyone within the Party sees as being the overwhelmingly important issue that people come in behind, and I think that's what's changing now - actually as a result partly of Mr Blair's stakeholder speech, is an increasing recognition that the question of the competitive challenge to Britain's capacity to earn its living in the world, that's going to be an issue that divides the Parties, and is at the centre of the key issue the British people have to make between the two Parties at the next General Election. HUMPHRYS: Well, let me give you another key issue that is one heck of a lot more divisive than that, and that is Europe. And, the problem for you now is you've got this White Paper coming up to which you are committed. It's likely that is going to add to the divisions rather than heal them. DORRELL: No, I totally disagree with that, because I actually think the key thing is to see that European White Paper in the context of the competitive challenge of making the British economy competitive in the world, that I see as being the central issue. Once you recognise that we need to ensure we have in this country an economy that can respond to its - to competition from abroad, can create jobs for British people at home, can pay for improving living standards, improving Public Services, once that is seen as a key issue, then the European arguments actually become relatively easy to resolve as well. Because if that is an issue - if that is the central issue of British politics at this moment, it's also the central issue of European politics. It isn't only Britain that faces that challenge. Every country in Europe faces that challenge, and that is why if I may just enlarge the point, that is why in our European White Paper we're going to put at the top of our objectives the commitment to make the European economy, not just the British economy competitive, flexible, outward looking, able to take on these new competitive challenges. HUMPHRYS: And you're honestly telling me, with a straight face, that that big idea though it may be is going to unite people like Bill Cash, Peter Temple-Morris. People from the opposite wings of the Party who have dramatically different views on Europe. They could not be more different. They could be in different parties. DORRELL: But you see that's where you're wrong because.. HUMPHRYS: What? They're not different? DORRELL: Of course they have...of course, they have differences of emphasis, differences of view on important issues. HUMPHRYS: They are worlds apart. DORRELL: I'm not denying that but I don't believe either Peter Temple Morris or Bill Cash or, indeed, almost any other Conservative MP would disagree with the analysis I just offered. Firstly, that the most important issue is Britain's position in a competitive world and secondly, that within Europe exactly the same issue is the most important issue facing the European Community. And, it isn't only in this country that that is recognised. Increasingly, it is recognised around the rest of Europe as well. In Germany, in France, in Italy and Spain. Each of these countries is recognising that they're in danger of being rolled over by new competitors coming from the Far East, from Eastern Europe and that Europe, as a whole - western Europe - needs to address itself as a matter of urgency to how it responds to that challenge. HUMPHRYS: I don't dispute any of that, at all. But, the reality is - the political reality here at home is that people like Cash and Temple-Morris and all the others who share their different views are going to scrutinise that White Paper for what they want to be in it and they cannot possibly both find the same things that are going to satisfy them. DORRELL: But what you're describing is - I like to think of it as being the difference between the First World War where people sat in trenches and lobbed shells at each other from roughly the same point in France for four years and a more modern war of movement. And, what is the essential key to success in developing this argument - the Tory Party's argument - in the months ahead is to recognise that the nature of the argument has changed. Let us identify what is the key objective. We need to ensure that our economy and every other European economy as well because that's important to us as well as our own economy that they're all able to respond to the competitive challenge that I describe. HUMPHRYS: The argument may have changed for you but it hasn't changed for them. They are concerned about things like the Single European Currency. Now, Bill Cash wants that to be in the White Paper, even though it isn't going to be on the agenda of the IGC. And, if it isn't in that White Paper - you heard him say in that film - he's going to be very upset. He's going to make waves. DORRELL: There are very few things, I should have thought, that are better understood and better known than the position of the British Government on a Single Currency and that is not going to evolve. HUMPHRYS: So, that's not going to be in the White Paper, then, is it? DORRELL: I don't know whether it's going to be in the White Paper but I can tell you that it's not going to evolve. HUMPHRYS: But it might be? DORRELL: What I do know is that the White Paper is going to address the issues that are..that are going to come up to be negotiated within the IGC and the key thing is not just to look at them each in isolation as a laundry list with no context but to recognise that each of them - whether we are talking about the Common Agricultural Policy, the powers of the European Parliament, the dealing with fraud, making our overseas trade policy more flexible, dealing with restrictions in the Labour market. Whatever the issue, the key thing that every European country has in common is that our economies have to be made more flexible, more responsive- HUMPHRYS: Yeah - you've made that point. They made- DORRELL: ...better able to deal with competition from outside. HUMPHRYS: You've made that point very persuasively but from what you've said I take that there is no question of ruling out Britain's membership of the Single European Currency for the duration of the next Parliament, in the next manifesto. You said Britain's position is absolutely clear: it's not going to change. Did I get that right? DORRELL: You did get that right. The British Government's position on the Single Currency is that we have an option whether or not to join a Single Currency if one is successfully established on the Continent and we propose to retain that option. HUMPHRYS: Is there going to be a vote on the White Paper? DORRELL: I think, it's inconceivable that the Government would produce a White Paper which dated its policy on the IGC and that it wouldn't come to a vote in Parliament. HUMPHRYS: So, that's going to be a bit difficult for you isn't it? You don't have a great track record for winning - not recently anyway for winning votes on matters European. You could lose that one. DORRELL: I don't agree with that. I think, that a statement of the British Government's negotiating objectives in the IGC is something around which it should be possible for every Conservative- HUMPHRYS: Look what happened to the fisheries one - you lost that one. DORRELL: A set of negotiating objectives in the IGC, seen in the context of the kind of competitive challenge that I'm talking about because you..you say I've made the point. You're going to hear me make the point time and again between now and the Election. HUMPHRYS: You've make it twice in this interview. So don't do it again.... DORRELL: Well, I shall go on making it... HUMPHRYS: But not again in this interview. DORRELL: ...because there are no other issues that are more important to this country. And everyone of the separate questions that comes up at the IGC has to be seen in the context of that question. HUMPHRYS: Alright. DORRELL: And provided we keep our eyes focused on those economic objectives, I think, that it's actually relatively easy to see how you can set out an agenda for the IGC, which addresses that challenge and which brings the Conservative Party in behind. HUMPHRYS: You're confident that you're going to win that vote. You've just told me you have got to win it. Therefore, it's going to be a huge embarrassment for you if you lose it, isn't it? DORRELL: Well, I don't - I do not believe we shall lose it. I am quite certain that publishing the White Paper, setting out our objectives for the IGC will have the effect - both of increasing public understanding of what our objectives and what our priorities are - and of increasing the sense of focus within the Tory Party, both within our own Party and against the Opposition because what you will see in that White Paper is a clear statement of the Government's objectives within the European Union which I think will mark us out as being sharply different from those of our opponents. HUMPHRYS: Right. Well, let's look at your opponents. Let's look at Mr Blair. You've got a terrible problem with him because you don't seem to know quite how to attack him. You're attacking from different positions all the time and he escapes somewhere down the middle. DORRELL: Well, he's somebody who moves his position with remarkable rapidity. HUMPHRYS: But, it's you moving your position. One minute you call him a sort of closet Tory. The next thing, you say he's really a sort of Socialist. I mean you never seem to know what he is and you keep contradicting each other. It makes it terribly difficult for you to land any punches on him, doesn't it? DORRELL: Well, it makes it difficult for us to land punches on him when he keeps moving his position, of course. But, what I think has been important this year is that the adoption of this phrase 'the stakeholder' or the word 'the stakeholder' is actually starting to delineate very clearly what is the difference between the Tory approach to this competitive challenge, that I talk about, and Labour's approach. Because what the stakeholder idea means - as it's being written up - this is not a new idea with no history. What it means is the Government claiming the right to interfere in the relationship between business and its customers and business as its shareholders, representing some other unnamed body. And it is that which I think is the most dangerous threat to Britain's competitive ability in the next century, that is around at this moment. HUMPHRYS: The danger for you though is that the British public will see it rather differently. They will see a Conservative government that is absolutely wedded to capitalism.. in tooth and claw, competition this competition that. From Mr Blair they're hearing: yes, I'm a capitalist as well - no problem with that. I believe in competition but I want to temper that with a bit of humanity. I want to get people involved as well. Now, there's your problem, isn't it because that to them may be what stakeholding comes to mean. And, then, you have a problem dealing with that. DORRELL: I'm very strongly in favour of vigorous, free enterprise as the best way of giving a chance in life to the maximum possible and indeed to every member of the community. HUMPHRYS: So is Mr Blair. DORRELL: No, you see, he isn't. He isn't in favour of.. HUMPHRYS: He says he is. DORRELL: Well, he now says he's in favour of stakeholding, interfering in that vigorous free enterprise economy. The stakeholder idea means, for example, rewriting the way companies are run. His speech in Singapore made that very clear. What he means by that, I believe, and certainly the stakeholder literature is very clear about this, it means workers on board. It means getting trade unions actively involved and
increasing their voice in the way companies are run. It means, possibly, involving local authorities or representatives of local political bodies in the management of companies. Now, all of that is blunting the response this country can offer to the competitive challenge that I describe. That is why, I think, it is fundamentally against the interests of this country, as a community and the interests of every individual citizen within it. HUMPHRYS: Mr Blair will say that is absolute nonsense. What he is talking about is creating a climate and what they have said is there is going to be no new legislation, no new regulations on this and you totally mispresent his position. DORRELL: Well I've read his speech in Singapore .... HUMPHRYS: So have I, I didn't see anything about legislation there I must say. DORRELL: What he said is that we need to delineate a new relationship between companies and their shareholders, their suppliers, their employees. HUMPHRYS: Delineate a relationship, that doesn't mean introducing legislation, it means... DORRELL: Hang on a second, this man... HUMPHRYS: Creating a climate... DORRELL: This man, this man aspires to be Prime Minister of this Country. He is saying I, Tony Blair, think that ICI or that Granada, or any of these other companies need to delineate a new relationship. Either that is just words or it means that "I" as Prime Minister, would do something about it. Now I assume that if a senior politician starts saying, talking about things that he thinks ought to happen, then behind that view is an intention to do something about it. Otherwise, it's mere hot air. HUMPHRYS: Your problem might be that the public will actually want him to do something about it, because they've seen some of the excesses, as they may view it, some of the excesses of capitalism in the last few years, particularly with some of the privatised utilities. They may say: "well about time too" DORRELL: You say they may want him to do something about it. At least you are acknowledging now that it's clear from his speech.. HUMPHRYS: I haven't acknowledged anything. I'm just saying the public may want him to do the sorts of things you think he will do. DORRELL: If all the stakehold...if the stakeholder rhetoric means the Government is going to interfere in established relationships within the business sector, then I believe that will lead to British business being less able to create jobs, to create prosperity, to provide the economic base that allows us to all the things that we want to do in this country. HUMPHRYS: We shall see, and who will 'we' be, will Mr Major survive the elections, if there is anything, local elections....if they are anything like as disastrous as many people think they are going to be. DORRELL: I have no doubt whatever that Mr Major will lead the Conservative Party into the next General Election and that he will be the Prime Minister after that election. HUMPHRYS: Stephen Dorrell, thank you very much. DORRELL: Thank you. ...oooOOOooo...