................................................................................ ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 29.10.95
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon. Labour is now the party of law and order - or so the polls tell us. They're determined that we should all behave better. How far are they prepared to go to MAKE us? I'll be talking to the Shadow Home Secretary, Jack Straw, after the news read by Moira Stuart. NEWS HUMPHRYS: Simon Buckby reporting there. Well we'll deal with those questions Jack Straw, but first this personal responsibility, the notion of personal responsibility - is that central to your attack on..you're tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. JACK STRAW MP: Yes it is. I mean if you take crime, of course we accept and acknowledge and we're going to deal with the underlying causes of crime which include social depravation, in many areas like the Benwell (phon) estate in Newcastle. Long-term unemployment, under achievement at school, often drug culture, perhaps very bad parenting as well and we have programmes and I'll talk about these, to tackle those. But, you cannot get away from the fact that society won't operate unless people are made - and it has to be in a way made - to take responsibility for themselves. And indeed part of the purpose of these other programmes, afterall the purpose of a programme which Gordon Brown announced at the Party Conference, to provide opportunity and training and jobs for the long-term unemployed, is precisely to give those people, not only the right to work, but the responsibility which goes with it and if I have a criticism of the way that the Left pitched its agenda over the previous decades it is that in the end we appeared to be talking about rights but never about duties and responsibilities. Now the jurisprudence I learnt thirty years ago at university, rights and duties were the reverse and the obverse of the same thing but in too much of the philosophy that we've followed...we've tended to imply that rights are things that you sort of pull down from supermarkets and I have to say the Right-wing of politics has also implied that, these are consumer items, rather than functioning aspects of a proper society in the community. HUMPHRYS: And so you have to restore the sense of personal responsibility, it's a hell of a job, can you do it? STRAW: Yes it is a hell of a job and I'm very conscious as are the rest of us that people don't like to see politicians preaching, lecturing, that if we come to deal with these very sensitive but very important issues of the family and parenting, the last thing people want is to be...for it to appear that a politician like me is just telling people what to do. On the other hand, politicians are in a very privileged position because they can, in a sense, command public debate and we also have a responsibility as I do representing a constituency like Blackburn, of drawing on our experience and say: well what is going wrong in an area like this, even though it's got a stronger sense of community than many other areas. What is it that we need to do. So, I think we have to talk about this and we have to draw conclusions and I'm not here to, as it were to spell out a manifesto. What I am saying is look, one of the things that's wrong with the way that society operates today is people's lack of responsibility to themselves and to others. We've got to change that if we are going to rebuild community life. HUMPHRYS: And you believe you can, you believe you can change it. STRAW: Yes, not over night but if you are saying, what kind of society is it that we want, where do we want to get to. It is a society, in my view the only basis on which a society can operate in which people's first sense is their obligations and duties to others because if they show those obligations and duties to others then they can enjoy life themselves much better. HUMPHRYS: Well in that case a lot of people are going to be a bit surprised by what Clare Short said this morning. She talked about, thinking about legalising cannabis, she's going to be portrayed as being soft on drugs. STRAW: Well Clare was asked, I didn't see the programme, but on the much earlier version of this, on Breakfast with Frost, as I understand it about an earlier day motion which she'd signed in 1984 where she had called for I think a review of the law on drugs and said it should...might be legalised. That was eleven years ago, when.... HUMPHRYS: ......this morning. STRAW: No I know there wasn't, there was far less of a drugs problem. The position of the party is very clear, we've obviously thought about this, we don't have closed minds on it but we've come to a very clear conclusion against the legalisation of cannabis. And one of the things that persuaded me for example, that we shouldn't even contemplate a Royal Commission, was the experience of some of my colleagues who went to the Netherlands to look at what was going on there. Now people said in the Netherlands they de-criminalised drugs, in many ways made it lawful to have cannabis and the anticipation was that this would then put a ring fence around cannabis compared to the more dangerous soft drugs and hard drugs. Well all the experience is it hasn't done that, it's made the Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam the centre of a very serious criminal trade in drugs. I think it's drawn a lot of young people down the road, first to alcohol and tobacco then to cannabis, then to these more dangerous soft drugs and then to hard drugs. And so in a sense it's showed us a future that doesn't work, so that's why we take the position that we do. HUMPHRYS: So Clare Short was wrong. STRAW: I don't agree with Clare, it's not the position of the party, she's a good friend of mine but it's not the view that the party has adopted. And let me say, certainly this year at Party Conference there were no propositions at all that I can recall calling for the legalisation of drugs and I don't think there were last year either. HUMPHRYS: She said you'd be cowards not to consider, not to look at this question again. STRAW: Well I always think about the issue. I mean it is a continuing issue, when I go around youth clubs people often say to me "Mr Straw why doesn't the Labour Party come out in favour of the legalisation of drugs" Of course it's something that I think about but I've come very firmly to the conclusion, as has the party, against the legalisation of cannabis because I think it would make matters worse rather than better. My colleague George Howarth who's one of my deputies, who's been dealing with this issue has given very extensive support to Tony Newton, the Leader of the Common's programme to tackle drugs. We want to see an All Party approach to this, it shouldn't be an issue of party politics and the position is as I've said it. HUMPHRYS: Have you ever tried it, ever smoked it? STRAW: No I haven't because when I was at university, interestingly enough, it was before it got going, it missed me. HUMPHRYS: So the status quo, that's what we're talking about, the status quo, absolutely no possibility of even re-opening the issue? STRAW: We're not contending to reopen the issue and I think I made the position clear John, about five times. HUMPHRYS: Right. Personal responsibility. Let's have a look at that. It has broken down, you believe, you want to restore it, you said so yourself, you believe you can restore it, parents are keen to this are they not. STRAW: Yes they are because what we know is that the young men, and it's principally young men and an increasing proportion of young women. Young men who form the bulk of the people who commit crimes, typically come from families which have not a proper structure to them, where the parenting is often chaotic. It's not, by the way, and this is where Anna Coote was quite wrong in her implications, it's not a matter of saying that these parents don't care about their children. All my experience, dealing with social issues over thirty years, I've actually never meet a parent who doesn't care about their child. I've met plently of parents however who are totally at sea about parenting and as a result of that, they are very inconsistent in their approach. And a lot of the parents who let their kids out on the streets until ten or eleven o'clock at night, even though they're aged only nine or ten, who are complicit in their truancy, who go down to the police station when their kids have obviously caused crimes and complain the police have acted unreasonably when it's their children who have been unreasonable. Those parents themselves are often in turn very hard on their kids and what happens is the kids are faced with inconsistencies. One moment soft, the other moment hard, they don't know where they are and what I'm concerned about and many of my colleagues are, is in a sense breaking this cycle of bad parenting. Now we won't break it by doing nothing about it. We have to have some intervention and that's the difference between my approach, Tony Blair's approach, David Blunkett's approach and certainly the approach of Anna Coote which in my view is essentially a handering approach to say we've got to deal with the underlying economic causes without recognising that even if we do deal with the underlying economic causes of crime, provide people with jobs and opportunities, we've got to do more as well to try and change the behaviour of parents. HUMPHRYS: Parenting classes then? STRAW: Yes. That's one other thing. Now, by the way, some of these are taking place. HUMPHRYS: But made compulsory. STRAW: In.. HUMPHRYS: In certain places, where the children are behaving in an especially irresponsible way. STRAW: Yes. One of the things we're looking at is a proposal for what are variously being called parental responsibility orders, or parental training orders. Now, this was something that the Home Affairs Select Committee looked at when they went to America in 1992 and 1993. In Virginia - the State of Virginia - there's quite a big programme for providing parental training orders, where the Court comes to the view that one of the reasons why the children are offending is because of bad parenting. And, we haven't reached a final view about this but we may very well come forward with plans for parental training orders. Now, again, to pick up the point we've raised of parental training order as a punishment there are already arrangements written into the law, by which the courts can fine parents after-on behalf of their children, can bind over parents. HUMPHRYS: Ah. That's slightly different though. If they do specific things that are wrong. STRAW: Well, it's- HUMPHRYS: But, we're talking here about parenting classes or parental responsibility orders - whatever you want to call them. What I'm trying to get out of you is whether if the parent flatly refuses to go along with that - even though it has been ordered - then, there ought to be sanctions. Should they, perhaps, be fined, for instance? STRAW: Well, that's something we're gonna have to look at. I'm very- HUMPHRYS: But, you'd consider that? STRAW: Well, we would consider it but I've got to be very careful about this. I mean, there's not a lot of point in forcing a parent to go to a parental training class if they're totally unwilling to do it. HUMPHRYS: But, equally, it would be meaningless if-if you said: well, we think this is a good idea but we won't do anything about it- STRAW: Well, of course, but it may be, it may be that if a parent refused to go to a parental training class that would be used as evidence by Social Services where they were weighing in the balance, whether the child should be taken into care because it's - I mean - These - we're talking about extreme cases. In my experience, an awful lot of these parents - they are young parents - they've often come from chaotic families themselves want, are desperate for advice. They want it but they can't get it. And, can I just make this point. I mean, what they're anxious to do is alongside formal arrangements - say, for parental responsibility or parental training orders - is to try and build up networks. So, that parents - particularly younger parents - can feel that they can take advice from other parents. And, one of the real curiousities about our culture, at the moment, is - as a colleague of mine - Malcolm Wicks - said: There is far more advice on what to do about your motor car available in the public print in the newspapers and libraries than there is to do with bringing up children. I want to see that changed. HUMPHRYS: Well, so you're supporting what Alun Michael - your Deputy - said in that film report we had there, which was that taking parents away from their children has to be the ultimate sanction, if the parents refuse to do the kinds of things you think they ought to do. STRAW: Well, it is the ultimate sanction, in any case. And, it has to be that if a parent, plainly, cannot care or supervise for their children, for whatever reason, then, they will have that child put into care. That is the ultimate sanction, at the moment. HUMPHRYS: ... specific reasons. STRAW: Well, specific reasons. And, we're not intending to change that. What I want to see, what Alun Michael wants to see - ...Halsey, Professor from Nuffield, wants to see is far fewer children going into care. We'd want to tackle the underlying causes of bad parenting. HUMPHRYS: And, the way you would tackle that is by insisting, enforcing this idea that parents go to - bad parents, whose children are straying - go to parental classes. STRAW: Well, John, you're latching - quite rightly as a forensic journalist - on to one very specific- HUMPHRYS: Terribly important. STRAW: Oh, it's very important-very specific proposal, which is for parental responsibility orders. HUMPHRYS: I do have others to recognise... point. STRAW: I just want to make this point. Those would arise where a child went-was taken to Court for delinquencies of some kind or other and the Court came to the view, which often they should do that one of the reasons behind the child's bad behaviour was inconsistent parents - parenting. OK. But, we just don't want to see the idea of parenting, as it were, being brought out of the closet, confined to a situation where the Court or Children's Panels order it. What I'm anxious to see is a far bigger debate on the issue of parenting. I mean, I've made the point about the extraordinary contrast between the amount of advice there is about how to mend your motorcar and how to drive and parenting. But, I, also, just make this point. If you look in today's Sunday newspapers, there is reams and reams of advice - from the highbrow to the lowbrow in papers - HUMPHRYS: Sure. STRAW: - about sexual relations but, virtually, none about what then can happen, which is how you relate to your children - about parenting. HUMPHRYS: And, you've got to have the advice, and all the rest of it. But, voluntary measures are one thing, compulsion is quite another and you-you're agreeing with me - as I understand it, anyway - that-that exhortation, of itself, ain't gonna do the job. STRAW: Well, what we have got to do is build up a culture, a framework, here in which, first of all, acknowledges and accepts that parenting is very important and it cannot just be learned on the job. In what other skill do we simply learn on the job? And, I say this very much as a parent, which I found a humbling experience and, I think, most parents do. Parents don't want politicians telling them what to do. I think, many parents and teachers would be grateful for there to be far more extensive public debate about how you bring up children, what are the problems? And, for sure, for a minority of cases, you back that with positive intervention of the Law. But, that has to be within a change of a climate, in which we say: yes, parenting is important. And, if we're going to change the way in which some chaotic families operate - and those which are on the margins of chaos, then, we've got to be far more explicit about what needs to be done, in terms of parenting. HUMPHRYS: And, firm. STRAW: And firm - yes, of course! HUMPHRYS: Now, let's look at another aspect of parenting, then - sort of: kids who don't go to school, kids who play truant all the time. In Newcastle, as we saw in that film, they've reintroduced the idea of taking parents to Court, which is disappearing. I know that the laws exist, the regulations exist all over the place but it tends not to happen, at the moment, by and large. In Newcastle, they're saying: we're gonna damn well do it. Are they right to do that? And, should that be- STRAW: Yes, they are. And, Tony Blair in a speech, which I think he made in April, made exactly that point. Not drawing on the experience of Newcastle. In this case, drawing on the experience of Labour Lewisham. We have to get across to parents that they have duties themselves. Now, in my experience, too, if we get this across, it, actually, gives the parents far more authority when they are dealing with their kids. It is a challenge having teenage kids. All of us who have teenage kids, or have had teenage kids, know this. They can be very argumentative. It's just one of those things. But - and it's bad enough, as... Halsey, was saying for those of us who are fortunate to share the responsibility of being a parent with a spouse. I was brought up by a single mother, who had- brought up five of us. I think that what she did was quite astonishing and, quite often, I think: Good God, how would I have managed in her situation? But, I don't see the use of the Law as punitive. I see it, ultimately, as supportive of assisting parents in ensuring in a sense that they do their duty by their children, and by the community. HUMPHRYS: But, if they're not, then, again, we're back to the question of sanctions, aren't we? Because, again, exhortation is meaningless without some kind of enforcement. STRAW: Yes. HUMPHRYS: Should, perhaps, fines be increased. I mean, I think, at the moment, I think, it's fifty pounds, which is pretty derisory for parents who allow children to roam (phon). STRAW: We need to look at the sanctions available. I think, the experience of boroughs like Lewisham and Newcastle is that where they take the parents to Court, on the whole, they, then, ensure compliance with the Law. It's about a process of being taken to Court that is the thing that really brings the parents up sharp, because going to Court is not a particularly pleasant thing to happen. HUMPHRYS: But, some people couldn't care less, could they? STRAW: Some. A minority. HUMPHRYS: A minority. STRAW: But, of course, I mean-of course, there have to be sanctions. You have to say: Look here. Schooling is compulsory. We made a decision in this country - in 1870 - a hundred and twenty-five years ago - that we would not just leave to parents whether their children could go to school. And, if it is compulsory, then, you can't shy away from things. And, again, my argument would be: people like Anna Coote, is that they will, in the end, but they are unwilling to acknowledge that there have to be means of ensuring a better compliance with what the community wants and that the greatest disservice you can do to any child - any child, whatever background - is to deny them an education. And, if they're not in school, they cannot have an education. HUMPHRYS: And once you've got them to school you've got to keep them there. What about this idea of sort of ID cards that they have to carry if they - I don't know ask to go to the dentist or something - and they're out on the street and a policeman sees them, ought the policeman be able to say "Where's your card" or whatever you call it - "your pass out"? STRAW: I've talked to the police and they don't by the way have any powers at the moment. HUMPHRYS: No at the moment they don't. STRAW: It's not a question of just having more powers. They don't have any powers. HUMPHRYS: Would you give them powers? STRAW: It's something I want to talk to the police and local authorities and teachers' organisations about very carefully. HUMPHRYS: In Newcastle they think it's a very good idea. STRAW: Yes, the Police Superintendent's Association told me informally, that they are concerned about the current situation, but they are also concerned about being given explicit powers. I'm not sure that simply giving them as it were "big brother" powers is the answer. HUMPHRYS: But you'll look at it? STRAW: It's something we're going to look at. We've got to be very careful about it. On the issue of ID cards I think it's a matter for schools. I certainly - I'm just trying to think - five or six weeks ago I went to a small town in Norfolk called Dereham, where they'vehad a lot of problems from hooliganism, or what appears to be hooliganism on the streets. With the help of the local village constable - town constable - they got a youth club established for these young people and also started to provide them voluntarily with ID cards and that was now working. Now that's avery different issue by the way from providing national ID cards, but it has a role. HUMPHRYS: Okay. Well let's assume them that they're at school, they're staying at school. It then becomes a question of what they do at school. You want to instill this sense of responsibility, individual responsibility. What about including in the national curriculum some sort of moral instruction. What do you think about that? STRAW: Well, it's there at the moment. HUMPHRYS: Well, it's not in the curriculum. I mean it can be if they choose it to be, but it's not... STRAW: It is there. It's there in terms of religious instruction. HUMPHRYS: But that's different. Religious instruction and moral instruction..... STRAW: Hang on, it should not be different - I mean what on earth is the point of ... HUMPHRYS: The difference is between teaching children the difference between right and wrong. You can teach them about sixty kinds of different religion and that's one thing. You can teach them the difference between right and wrong, but that is a kind of moral instruction. Let's deal with that if we may, this question of teaching children the difference between right and wrong. STRAW: We may need to differ about this John, but I see no purpose at all in religious education and worship unless it is teaching the difference between right and wrong. HUMPHRYS: Okay, so let's accept that as the definition. STRAW: We have no plans whatever to change what was in the 1988 Education Act. I see a whole purpose ... HUMPHRYS: But it's not in the national curriculum that. STRAW: Religious education is a formal part of the national curriculum. HUMPHRYS: Only for those schools that choose it - the sort of twenty per cent choice they've got isn't there - that's... STRAW: No, I mean in practice, there is - I can go into very long and boring detail into the arrangements. I'm afraid to say I'm one of the few world experts on this, but for the overwhelming majority of schools they have to teach mainly Christian religious education and all schools have to provide some education, and look, what teachers are doing, I mean I want to defend teachers here, because I think we dump too much on .... HUMPHRYS: I'm not attacking teachers so you don't need to defend them. STRAW: If you go in - I'm very familiar with secondary schools as well as primary schools - I've been into hundreds literally. If you sit in a classroom, if you watch the playground, go through a concourse, what are the teachers doing as they say to the kids, "Don't do that, do do that". They're teaching them the difference between right and wrong and that has to be part of the whole culture of a school. A school has failed if it hasn't done that and it shouldn't be, as it were, an add-on to the curriculum. The schools that are successful academically are the schools which are orderly, of that there is no doubt at all, the two are related, and the schools which are orderly are those which sensibly instill a difference in children between right and wrong and get the kids to understand their responsibilities to other people. HUMPHRYS: And what I'm asking you is whether you would want to enforce this - again you see I keep coming back to the question of enforcement rather than merely advisement or whatever because that's key to it isn't it in the long run? And what I'm asking you is whether you would say to schools in future, whether a Labour Government would say to the schools: you must teach this - I don't know, whatever you want to call it, but a sense of right and wrong. That must be incorporated in some lessons, it has to be, we insist on that. STRAW: Well I'm sorry, I am not going to say to teachers, "In this particular lesson you've got to teach the difference between right and wrong". What I do say is that schools are failing if in every lesson, in every assembly, in the way in which kids behave in the playground, they're not being taught the difference between right and wrong, that is not the underpinning ethic of the school, but I would just say this, that I think there's a strong case for introducing into parental and social.....into personal and social education which is a part of the curriculum in most schools, an element of parenting education, so that is there. Interesting, that if you look at the Youth Offenders Institutes where a lot of these young criminals on Benwell (phon.) estate and all the other estates around end up, eighty-five per cent often of the young lads in these Youth Offenders Institutes are parents. They've come from chaotic homes themselves, they're now in the best of these institutes getting parental education in those institutes, but it would have been far better if they'd had it before. HUMPHRYS: Right. Let's go back to parents now then, because we've dealt with children at school, let's look at the parents at home. Tony Blair, we heard him again in that film, talks about the desirability of two parent families. You clearly feel that yourself, you've talked about your own experiences. The question is how you encourage that. What's happened in the last fifteen years or so is that the tax burden for single parents has increased less than it has for two parents - it's badly expressed but you know what I mean. Would you try to reverse that, would you try to turn that round, to encourage the two parent family? STRAW: Any minister or shadow minister who is not either Chancellor of Shadow Chancellor has to say that tax matters are matters for their... HUMPHRYS: I fully understand that. You've already said this is absolutely crucial for the individual..... STRAW: Of course it's crucial, and I'm quite sure that Gordon Brown in framing his budgets will take account of the social effects of his taxation policies as well as the economic effects. I'll just say this, I won't believe by the way, that the reason why we've had an increasing number of fractured families is because of the tax situation. It may at the margin make a difference, but I don't believe that's so. It's all sorts of other reasons contribute to families breaking down, and I just want to say this about two parent families as opposed to single parent families. I think like many other people that it's better if you can bring children up in two parent families, but I take my hat off to the hundreds of thousands of people who have to bring their children up in single parent families. They should not be the object of scorn by us, but of sympathy and support. HUMPHRYS: You've been quite strong this morning in how you've explained you would tackle this question of individual responsibility. You talk about going to the courts and all sorts of other things, quite authoritarian. You're going to have a job getting that through your...to get that message through to your parliamentary colleagues aren't you? STRAW: I don't believe that. HUMPHRYS: You can see the results of the polls we carried out there. STRAW: I'm more sceptical about polls, even the polls which show that we're thirty per cent ahead of the Tories. HUMPHRYS: This is a different sort of poll. We're not asking people how they're going to vote. We're asking a very small...a hundred MPs what they feel about individual issues, and they made it very clear what they think. STRAW: I don't believe I'm in difficulty on this issue or other issues, and let me say why. About six months ago I published proposals which are in a document called "the Quiet Life" for dealing with criminal anti-social neighbours. Now these are tough proposals, they take a fresh approach to the issue of anti-social behaviour, they give the police and local authorities a power to go to court to get problem solving orders. They have been criticised by the Government, who thinks there is no need for this and by some civil liberty groups but overwhelmingly there is support amongst my parliamentary colleagues and amongst the Party as a whole and I firmly believe that there will be support for these proposals too. HUMPHRYS: So it isn't just talk, tough on the causes of crime, you are prepared to be tough? STRAW: We're prepared to be tough on the causes of crime and tough on crime and bad behaviour too because what we want to see is a change in the culture here where once again there are vibrant communities and the only way you can get vibrant, operative communities in this country or any country, is where people take responsibility for each other. HUMPHRYS: Jack Straw, thank you very much. STRAW: Thank you. ...oooOooo....