................................................................................ ON THE RECORD HARRIET HARMAN INTERVIEW RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 31.10.93
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Yesterday, the Labour co-ordinating committee met for its annual get-together. Now, this is the body that has set itself the task of modernising the Labour Party. A difficult job at the best of times made more difficult now because there's a growing shortage of volunteers for the cause - they can't even raise enough members to fill their own executive. Earlier this morning I suggested to arch moderniser Harriet Harman that she and her reforming colleages had run to the buffers. HARRIET HARMAN MP: Absolutely not. I think there's a strong sense in the party that moving forward with our traditional values, that what we have to do is to apply those traditional values to a very changed world. Things are very different now from when the Labour Party was formed or even from when the Labour Party was last in Government, so that we keep our sense of values, they are what grounds us, but what makes us an effective Government in the future is the fact that we are moving forward with the times and the increase in representation of women is one of the things which is about moving us forward and moving with the times. HUMPHRYS: Talk about the increasing representation of women. There were meant to be more women in the Shadow Cabinet, but the elections for the Shadow Cabinet produced a disaster for women, didn't it? - A disaster for you? HARMAN: They were absolutely not a disaster for women. Obviously I would have preferred to stay on the Shadow Cabinet but we have three women in the Shadow Cabinet and we have a number of women in senior positions outside the Shadow Cabinet. HUMPHRYS: You were meant to have more. HARMAN: Well the trend though overall is absolutely clear - that the Labour Party is committed to increasing women's representation and is absolutely on that path with more Labour women MPs and increasing numbers of women in the Shadow Cabinet. It's only in the end of the 1980s, as recently as then, that we had no women in Labour's Shadow Cabinet. Now, everybody agrees that it would look quite wrong not to have women in the Shadow Cabinet. We've got a woman Deputy Leader, three women in the Shadow Cabinet and therefore we're definitely moving forward. HUMPHRYS: You say the Labour Party is agreed that there should be more women in the Shadow Cabinet, but which is this Labour Party then - the Parliamentary Labour Party certainly isn't - there was a conspiracy to keep women out. HARMAN: I don't think there was a conspiracy to... HUMPHRYS: Well Anne Clwyd does...lots of other people do. HARMAN: No, I think that we would have liked to have seen more women. I would have liked to have stayed on the Shadow Cabinet and I would have liked to have seen more women in the Shadow Cabinet but to say it's a disaster and some how we've moved away from the path we've set ourselves is simply not the case. HUMPHRYS: Let me substitute set-back for disaster then - how about that? HARMAN: Well I think it's a hiccup, nothing more, but I think the trend is clearly established and it's very much agreed, it's recognised in the Labour Party, that the world outside has changed. Women are now half the workforce, women are now half the college and university graduates, women's work now represents forty per cent of our GDP, so we have to increase women's representation to recognise the world has changed. HUMPHRYS: Why isn't that message getting across to the PLP then or to the gentlemen in the PLP? HARMAN: Well I think that message is getting across to the PLP. We've seen more women coming into the House of Commons, sitting on the Labour benches at the last General Election but there also is a sense that the progress, although it's being made needs to be speeded up because when you have profound social changes outside the House of Commons, with the change in women's role in society, a change in women's role in the labour force and a change in women's role in the family as well, you can't allow your Parliament to lag behind. HUMPHRYS: So bearing all that in mind then, you sent exactly the wrong signal didn't you with the elections to the Shadow Cabinet? HARMAN: Well I think that it is possible that as a result of the reporting of the Shadow Cabinet elections that the sense was,
out in the public, that somehow this was a setback for women and that Labour.. HUMPHRYS: It was wasn't it? HARMAN: No, because the point is that Labour has not changed its course which is recognising that at the heart of its policies we have to show that we know the world has changed and we've got a message to women which is that we know you are essential in your role in the family, but we know you're also essential in the economy and as breadwinners for your family and the way we do that is making sure that we have a Parliamentary Labour Party of men and women and that we're a party of men and women at all levels. And all Labour MPs would agree with that. HUMPHRYS: Would they? I mean it's one thing to have a course but if the crew on that particular ship mutinies, as they did during the last Shadow Cabinet elections, then you're in trouble aren't you?
Forgetting the women but just look at who else did well in those elections and who did less well: you had the modernisers doing less well - the Tony Blairs and the Gordon Browns - and you had the traditionalists or the perceived traditionalists if you prefer - the John Prescotts for instance and the Frank Dobsons - doing extremely well. HARMAN: Well I think it's not helpful to look at it with such stark vision divisions, I think everybody is clear... HUMPHRYS: Those are the realities. HARMAN: No they're not the realities because what we're saying is that we have to modernise the policies of the Labour Party but the policies are absolutely based in our traditional concerns. I mean let me give you an example: when Beveridge was talking about unemployment and the lifelong need for people to work, he was talking about a male workforce where it was a man supported by a non-working wife. Now we still have at the absolute heart of our concerns in the Labour Party people's need to work but we're now talking about a situation where women are sharing with their husbands the role of breadwinner and in many families the woman is the sole breadwinner and, therefore, our policies about employment and the economy recognise that the world has changed. Our principles are the same but the world to which we're applying it is very different and again on that, you see, there would be no distinction between the so-called traditionalists and the so-called modernisers. HUMPHRYS: Well then, what explains the rise and rise of the so-called traditionalists and the falling back of the so-called modernisers? HARMAN: Well I just think it's not helpful to look at it in those terms. You don't actually pick... HUMPHRYS: It may not be helpful but it is the reality isn't it? You can't close your eyes and say it isn't there, if I don't look it'll go away? HARMAN: No, it's not because it simply attaches labels to people and doesn't understand what's going on. HUMPHRYS: Oh but the real politics of it is that those labels are attached and you know that as well as I do. HARMAN: No, what we have to look at is not the labels which are attached to each individual but say do we have a good team of people in the Shadow Cabinet, do we have an excellent team of people in the parliamentary Labour Party, do we know where we've come from, and do we know where we're going, and we do. HUMPHRYS: Right, now let me ask you where you're going then as far the party's own constitution is concerned. We saw a development, a significant development, and I've no doubt you'd say at the Labour Party Conference down in Brighton, but not withstanding OMOV, the trade unions still have one-third of the votes in the selection of the Leader of the Party, seventy per cent say on policy matters at conference, there is still a trade union block vote - that isn't a modern party is it? HARMAN: Well it certainly is and we think that we've had an examination of our constitution, we've made a number of changes, but the task for Labour now is to press on with the issues of looking at our policies and making sure that our economic policy and our social policy actually meets the changes that are out there in the world. HUMPHRYS: So that's it then for the modernisation of the party's constitution - what happened at Brighton was the end of the process was it? What we've got now is what we're going to have in another ten
years' time. HARMAN: Well I think people think that a certain amount of time and attention has to be devoted to the party's constitution, and there are two things that arose out of the conference in Brighton. One member, one vote for the selection of Labour Members of Parliament, but also increasing the representation of women. Now people want to move on from that. They want.. HUMPHRYS: In what direction? HARMAN: Well they want us to move on to developing the policies which address the changed world. HUMPHRYS: Ah, so that's it for the policy though is it? The change to the constitution - that's it, all done? HARMAN: Well I think that people are settled on the changes that are being made and want to move on, and I don't... HUMPHRYS: If I may just clarify this. The answer to my question is: yes, that is it now, we have finished with the modernising of the party itself (let's forget about policies, just for one moment, we'll come back to that) that we have finished with the modernising of the party? HARMAN: I think that people don't want to see any more constitutional changes, but there are many more changes in the culture and the way the party operates at local, regional and national level which we will be addressing, but what we're not going to have is more constitutional changes, because people feel that we've made changes, we have moved the party forward, we're clear the direction we're going in and now the party at all levels wants to address itself not only to building our membership, but also showing how the policies that we've got meet the changed world outside. HUMPHRYS: So it's OK in a modern Labour Party for the trade unions to have what is effectively still a block vote? HARMAN: Well certainly people are satisfied with where we've got to and want to draw a line underneath it and move on from there and I think the prospect of going back to the constitutional issues, and they once again being a key focus, I don't think anybody in the Party or outside the Party sees the Labour Party wanting to devote itself to that at this time. HUMPHRYS: Alright, policies then, the economy. Gordon Brown is giving in, is he not, to pressure from the traditionalists when it comes to soaking the rich, soaking the middle class, he's now saying "maybe there will be a bit of soaking the rich, or soaking the middle class", whereas he wanted to say, and you wanted him to say "no, we're not going to do that, we've moved away from that". HARMAN: No, what we're saying is two things - firstly, that we're not in favour of taxation for taxation's sake...it's not a reflex action that the Labour Party somehow engages in but there are things that we need to raise revenue for - such as investment in the economy, like our social policies - and that the way we will raise revenue is that we will have a fair taxation system. That is very straightforward and agreed by the Party,
unlike the Conservatives who firstly, don't recognise there is any purpose in investment in the economy, public investment or investment in social policies, they don't agree with, and secondly, when they do have to raise money they raise it in the unfairest possible way, penalising most those who can lest afford it. HUMPHRYS: Let me just suggest to you that you're sending all the wrong signals on women, on party constitution, on economic matters, on policy matters - the modernisers have lost the impetus, they're sending the wrong signals, the party is sending the wrong signals. HARMAN: I think it's absolutely not the case to say we're sending the wrong signals, I think there's a recognition in the country that the economy has been mismanaged and the price that's being exacted by people is too high: high levels of unemployment, low levels of growth and social services undermined and people recognise that Labour is setting out a new way forward. ...oooOooo...