................................................................................ ON THE RECORD RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 24.10.93
................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Good afternoon and welcome to On The Record. Is too much Government bad for us? And if it is, HOW much is too much? During the Conservative Party conference last month the Chief Secretary, Michael Portillo, argued that it was time to shrink the scope of the State. Time for us, as individuals, to take on more responsibility for our families' health, the care of our elderly relatives, our children's education, the welfare of our neighbours and much else besides. Time for us to stop relying on nanny in short. In today's programme, I'll be asking Michael Portillo to explain exactly what he means. Remember the European elections of 1989? The results, for the government, were disastrous. That anti-European campaign, based on leaden jokes about a diet of Brussels, ended up with the Tories losing a quarter of their seats. Well, the elections are happeninbg again next June. We report on why history might repeat itself. But first Michael Portillo and his desire to shrink the scope of the state. Easier said than done - as John Rentoul has discovered. ****** HUMPHRYS: So, a difficult task for you, Michael Portillo, and we'll get into the difficulties, in a moment. But, let's begin - if I may - by asking you what it is you want to do and why. And, let me go back to that speech you made- MICHAEL PORTILLO: Yeah. HUMPHRYS: -which you, obviously, feel a lot of people thought was a very important speech - a few bits from it. If people believe it is someone else's duty to care for their neighbours, they become less neighbourly. Now, who is the someone else - in that sentence? PORTILLO: That is the State. What I've been pointing out is that the State has been growing very fast all the way through the Twentieth Century and even in the last few years from 1960, where the State spent about thirty per cent of our national income to, today, where it spends forty-five per cent. And, during that period, the State has been taking on more and more roles. And, what I'm afraid of, in all of that, is not only the burden that that imposes upon Taxpayers but, also, what it does to our sense of personal responsibility. So, in that sentence, what I meant was that the normal ties in our society are ties of family and of community. And, normally, we've thought, first of all, that it's families and communities that help people in the first stages of distress. What I'm worried about is that, as the State has grown bigger, people think that it's no longer the job of a family or a community to look after their elderly relatives, to teach their children right or wrong and they transfer the responsibility to the State. HUMPHRYS: Let's stay with this particular thought about neighbours, for the while. In the old days - maybe, it still happens in some places, but in the old days - everybody looked at their elderly neighbours' doorstep, in the morning and if the milk hadn't been collected by midday, they'd get a bit worried about it. They'd do something about it, perhaps. PORTILLO: Yes. HUMPHRYS: Now, that seems not to happen. PORTILLO: Yes. HUMPHRYS: Other people they think are responsible for it. Who are those other people specifically and what do you want to do about those other people? Do you want to get rid of social workers? PORTILLO: No. People always begin by asking me about what I want to do about the State. What- I think, the first question is to say: can we begin to change attitudes in society 'cos, I think, the State - very often - follows public opinion in what it does and, then, if the State changes its rules and regulations, it reinforces public opinion. That magnifies the effects. So, I think, the first question is to ask people in society: are they happy about a situation in which they become less neighbourly? HUMPHRYS: Well, they've allowed it to develop. So, therefore, presumably, they are happy. PORTILLO: I don't think they are. I think - if you talk to people - they are very concerned about the breakdown of old, traditional values but, in a way, they turn to the Government and say: well, you've sanctioned this. You've said, in a way, that this is alright, that this is an accurate order of things because you have provided that as soon as somebody falls into a situation of distress, the State will step in with its social workers and take care of people. Now, I believe the State should, indeed, be there to provide a very full safety net, in order to help people. HUMPHRYS: But, in this case this- this- PORTILLO: But, I think, there is an intermediate stage at which families and communities are the first bastion, the first refuge- HUMPHRYS: But-but- PORTILLO: -and we mustn't undermine that. HUMPHRYS: But, do you undermine it by providing the social worker at that intermediate stage and, therefore, do you buttress what you want to happen by removing that social worker. PORTILLO: Well, I think, the first thing I'd do is open up this subject to discussion. HUMPHRYS: Which you've done. PORTILLO: Which I've done. HUMPHRYS: And, now, I'm trying to nail you on a few details. PORTILLO: Indeed. I understand that. But, I think, the first thing that happens is that there is a response from the public and the public say: yes, indeed, we're concerned about those people who, perhaps, are abusing the State system and getting out of responsibilities which we think should be theirs. For example, if somebody who is actually perfectly well off tells you that what they've done is they've arranged affairs with their elderly parents in such a way that the elderly parent now has no resources. They've given away all their money which means that they can now pass into a residential care home and be looked after by Social Security. I think, at the moment, most people would say nothing about that because all stigma from such an action has been removed. But, I think, people might say: well, that's curious. Why did you think it was the taxpayer who had the responsibility for looking after your elderly parent. Why didn't you think that it was your responsibility, in the first instance? HUMPHRYS: Alright. Well, let me- let me take- you mentioned the elderly relative. Let's take another one of those sentences from that speech. If people believe it is the State's job to look after elderly relatives, then, family ties and duties are undermined. The fact is - as you say, as you acknowledge - millions do believe that it is the State's job and, are you sitting there, now, and saying that all you're going to do is tell people: no, no, it isn't actually the State's job. It is your job. And, by preaching to them, you will convert them. PORTILLO: No, I think, what I want is people themselves to raise a question mark about this or to raise a protest and say what is this thing that people are calling the State? This thing that people call the State is nothing other than taxpayers' money. It is money that I earned, that I passed to the State in taxation, which is the taxation that the State is now using to help us all. Now, of course, any of us is happy to help people who are in distress, who have absolutely no means of support. I think, we all, in this country, believe in a safety net. And, I think, what we're much less happy about is helping people who are not in that condition who would have natural allies to turn to - their family, for example - but that some connivance has been arranged in order that they can pass that burden to the State. But, the State is just a euphemism for saying that other people should pay their share. HUMPHRYS: And, you're going to correct all this merely by talking about it, getting people to talk about it? PORTILLO: Well, I think, we're going to start there. Rupert Darwall, one of the people that was interviewed in the little film, a moment ago, said that it was pointless Ministers talking about things unless they could change them. I take a fundamentally different view. I believe that Ministers can only change things when you have developed a debate in society and you have brought out of people's opinions the fact that they believe that something has gone wrong, that they believe that their society's heading in the direction that they don't like and they wish to see it brought back. So, Ministers influence the debate because, in so doing, it is possible for them to take policy actions, in the longer term, that they couldn't otherwise take. HUMPHRYS: Well, let me give you another example. Let's try and be a little bit more specific about it. There is a family with a Granny, who's in a bad way. PORTILLO: Yes. HUMPHRYS: And, the family isn't terribly keen to have her living there because the children don't like this rather batty old lady around the place and they want the State to look after her because they can't actually manage or don't care to look after her themselves. Now, you're not going to change their view by sitting on this programme, or any other programme and saying: really, you ought to look after Granny. You're going to change it by saying: we won't look after Granny, aren't you? PORTILLO: No, I don't think I do agree with you. I think, people are affected by what others in society think, by what are prevailing opinions. And, they are, also, affected, of course, by economic stimuli. In other words, by what grants are available. HUMPHRYS: Precisely. Precisely. PORTILLO: But, they're affected by both. Now, I'm not one of those who believes that all of the growth in Social Security, all of the growth in our social problems is due to the existance of certain grants and benefits. I think, they have an effect but they have a reinforced- HUMPHRYS: A large effect. PORTILLO: - well, I think, they have a reinforcing effect. I mean, I don't believe that all the single parents we have in this society, today, are created by having a benefits system which has certain advantages for single parents. But, I think, none-the-less, that the fact that those benefits insist and give certain advantages reinforces a development in society and, if you like, legitimises that state of affairs. So, the Government has to be concerned both to provide a safety net of benefits but, also, it has to be concerned about what signal to society its own actions are giving. HUMPHRYS: But, we've been getting that signal very powerfully from Mrs Thatcher and others in the Tory government for the past fourteen years. It hasn't changed. Indeed, it's got worse, by your own admission. So, let's look at that other measure, that means of getting people to change their behaviour. So, if you're not- if you accept that exhortation hasn't worked thus far and, you do, then, what is the next step? It is to remove the sort of system that you've talked about, isn't it? PORTILLO: Well, I sense that there is a bit of a change going on in society, at the moment. And, I only think that this is partly produced by the things that politicians have been saying. I think, in a way, politicians have been picking up some of the vibrations that they felt in society. During the Nineteen-Eighties, I think, that Mrs Thatcher attempted to hold out against a current or fashionable opinion. She made a series of speeches that were about telling people that they not only had rights as individuals but they also had responsibilities as individuals. But, the tide of fashion and opinion in the Nineteen-Eighties was flowing pretty strongly and she wasn't sufficient to resist it. But, I think, now, in the Nineteen-Nineties, with so many of our institutions under attack; the monarchy, Parliament, Government, the Church, all of that; people feel a bit lost and they're worried about the decay of some of their values. They're worried about something which I've called 'political correctness' which is, if you like, sweeping away all value judgments from society, saying that 'anything goes'. People can behave just as exactly as they like. There's no stigma to anything that they do, all sorts of moral codes are equally valid. I think, people are a bit fed up with that. I think most British people don't think that that's the way that things should be and what politicians can change depends, in a Democracy, upon what people will put up with and it depends upon how you prepare the ground. And, so, I think, it is an important thing to begin this debate and I haven't been alone in that, after all, because, I think, John Major's Blackpool Conference speech, was broadly along the same lines as the sort of things that I've been saying. HUMPHRYS: Alright. Let me take another example from your speech. PORTILLO: Yeah. HUMPHRYS: As people share/show and get greater respect, they will, increasingly, want to make responsible choices- PORTILLO: Yes. HUMPHRYS: -about their families' health care and provision for their old age. Now, what is irresponsible about relying upon the NHS for which, after all, we pay? PORTILLO: I don't thing there's anything irresponsible about that but, I think, we have a problem which will emerge during the next years and into the Twenty-First century. The Government's already taking forty-five per cent of our money and spending it on our behalf. I think, the demand for health care is infinite. People's earnings are going to be rising into the Twenty-First century and, so, the conundrum that we have is how can we enable people to have all the health care that they would like, to enjoy the standards they would like of health care and, yet, commit ourselves also to restraining the size of the State because I really believe that if it gets any bigger you impose such a burden on the wealth-creating sector of this country, that it's going to crush it and that wealth creation will cease to exist. HUMPHRYS: So, the answer to that? PORTILLO: Now, that is a real conundrum. Well, I think, it is to get away from dogmatic distinctions between private and public within the Health Service. What, I think, people in this country want is the certainty that if they become ill, the Government will make sure that they're able to have all the health care that they want. But, when people go into hospitals today, they, also - some of them - want extra things. I mean, they want to be very comfortable in hospital, they want to be able to choose the meals that they want. HUMPHRYS: So, that's all you're talking about, is it? PORTILLO: Well. HUMPHRYS: A better choice of meals, a bottle of wine, or something? PORTILLO: Well, I think there will be enormous demand for people to have more comfort of their own and if the Government tries providing all of that then the Government is going to pile up the cost upon the public and that is going to be unsustainable so we have to begin to address those problems. HUMPHRYS: But what has that to do with responsible choices about health care? That's detail isn't it? Those are the fripperies, the choice of meals, the kind of hospital you go to, whether you have a private room or a single room. PORTILLO: My full sentence was responsible choice about health care and about provision for their old age. Now, you think about how in the Twenty First Century we are going to be able to support the very large numbers of extra people who are going to be elderly at a standard of living that they have become used to. HUMPHRYS: Can we come on to that in just a second. PORTILLO: Well, but I do want to make this point, because their earnings will have become so much greater. Now my worry is that if the State pretends that it can do everything, if it pretends it can do everything in health, everything in education, everything in pensions, then the result is going to be that people will be extremely disappointed by what the State can actually provide to them. HUMPHRYS: Right, so what are you saying the State cannot do in future? PORTILLO: I'm saying that as people become richer, as their earnings rise above inflation - which I believe is going to go on happening into the Twenty First Century, we should make sure that the balance between what the State does for people and what people do for themselves, changes - that people should be increasingly willing to undertake that which they can do for themselves. And that way the State will be well able to do the thing that it should be doing which is making sure that those who have no other means of support - nothing else to turn to, can be properly provided for. HUMPHRYS: Right. So some examples then of those things which we ought to be doing for ourselves that at the moment the State is doing. PORTILLO: Well, I think increasingly pensions, for example. I think that as we move into the Twenty First Century people will not want to rely only on the basic State pension and they will probably want to make sure that during all their working lives they are making provision from the earnings that they have into personal pensions or inter-occupational pensions. As that increasingly happens there will be no connection between old age and poverty. We shall be able to abolish that connection which is an abhorrent thing and something on which I am pleased to say we have made considerable progress. HUMPHRYS: But you are not suggesting that the State pension disappear? PORTILLO: No. I'm not. HUMPHRYS: At any stage? PORTILLO: Well, at any stage ... HUMPHRYS: ... Or fundamentally change its nature so that the better off don't get it, it doesn't become a total universal benefit. PORTILLO: I think the best way I can answer you, because this is what I really feel, is that if people have built up entitlements, if they have been contributing for a long period of time, we should in no way disappoint those entitlements. What people have accrued, what they've built up, the expectations they have, you cannot for a moment sweep those aside. So I am talking about a long-term process. But I don't know why ... HUMPHRYS: And at the end of that long-term, what happens? PORTILLO: At the end of that long-term process people may well have continued to contribute to the State for a basic pension. They may even have continued to contribute to the State for a pension that's related to their earnings. But increasingly, people from the earliest age setting out in work will have been conscious of the fact that at the end of their working lives they are going to need resources and they should be saving for that from the earliest time that they go into work. HUMPHRYS: So you could envisage a kind of partnership between the State and private insurance companies, so that you would be saying to my son or your son: "Off you go, get your private pension; don't bother the State in forty years because the State won't be there to provide it in forty years". PORTILLO: Yes, it's not a question of 'not bothering the State,' it is recognising early enough that if we all rely upon the State it is going to disappoint our expectations; and none of us want to have our expectations disappointed, but if we're not told early on in life about what the prospects are for the next century then we are not going to make the responsible choices that I think we ought to be making. And as we make those responsible choices, actually we will feel better about ourselves because we will have more sense that we are controlling our own destinies, that we are taking the long view and not relying on someone else to do it. HUMPHRYS: So you are saying that the State actually won't be there, necessarily; that we cannot rely upon the State being there. PORTILLO: I don't think the State can be there to do everything. If it attempts to do everything it will do a lot of things badly. And one of the things that in the Twenty First Century you can't rely on the State to do, I think, is to sustain the standard of living that you have achieved - which I think by then will be very high - into your retirement, because there will be thirteen or fourteen million pensioners, they will many of them have had high earnings at the end of their working lives and there will only be the same number as today of working people. Now we've plenty of time to sort that problem out. HUMPHRYS: But you've got to start it at some stage. PORTILLO: Exactly. That's my whole point. And unless we start talking about it now we're not going to take the right decisions and that's why some of the people on your film I think have misunderstood. There is a point in politicians talking about more than one Parliament. Indeed, one of the things we are generally blamed for is that we don't see beyond the end of our noses, that we're only interested in the next general election. I'm saying we are actually interested in more than that. We are interested in taking stock of what our society has become and taking stock of where we are being led to. HUMPHRYS: But you say "we've started talking about it"; you've actually started doing things about it as well, have you not? I'm thinking about this statement, this agreement between the Association of British Insurance Companies this week. They've drawn up a document, advised by two senior Tories, which concludes there are major opportunities for partnership with the Government over the next two or three years. Now we're not talking about the next century, we're talking about the next couple of years. PORTILLO: Well, that has been an input to our debate, but I think that is moving a little bit faster in that field than the Government is moving. But I will describe a rate of progress to you, which is that during the 1980s we introduced the State earnings related pension scheme - actually that was a Labour scheme - and we enabled people to contract out of that additional pension into personal pensions and occupational pensions. So the seed of that particular idea has been sown and there's nothing very frightening about it, indeed, I think there's something rather reassuring about people in Government thinking into the long-term. HUMPHRYS: But that's already happened. None of the things you've said in this interview so far suggest that you are thinking terribly radically, or at least that what you're saying is: "In the long run things will be different," but you are not saying: "We are beginning this process now by doing x, y and z." PORTILLO: Well, I think that the way in which our society has developed, the way in which we have moved from thirty per cent of our national income spent by the Government to forty five per cent, the way in which family ties and community ties have been broken down, is a process that has taken at least thirty years, and if you're turning a tide of opinion and fashion ... HUMPHRYS: 'If' you are turning a tide ... PORTILLO: 'If' you are turning an opinion...a tide of opinion and fashion, I think it takes rather a long time. You see, people hold it against you if you talk about things that are going to take a while to do. I don't see why that should be any argument against you. You are making sure that at a pace that society can develop, society does develop towards reassessing what it's values have become and reassessing what the State is doing for people and what people are doing for themselves. HUMPHRYS: But ought you not now, apart from making splendid sounding speeches talking about the value of good neighbourliness and we must all look after our grannies and that kind of thing - with which everybody would agree, it's motherhood and apple pie, basically, isn't it? - ought you not to be ... PORTILLO: I'm not sure about that. I think there's a huge section of the intelligensia and opinion formers or people pedling political correctness, who don't believe a word of any ... I mean I'm glad you agree, but there are lots of people who don't. HUMPHRYS: Well, it's common sense - is it not, that most of us would agree that we all ought to be good neighbours and we ought to look after our grannies? I mean everybody would accept that as a matter of basic principle. Even the politically correct would accept that. PORTILLO: I'm not so sure. I think it's been badly eroded. HUMPHRYS: But what we want from people like you, is it not, is a clear description of the kind of ways in which we ought to be changing. And I don't think you are giving us that, do you see? PORTILLO: Well, my worry is that you as a journalist might like that because you might be able to trip us up that we were getting ahead of public opinion. HUMPHRYS: Me as a voter. PORTILLO: No, I think you ... well, I hope that what the voters think is this. That at last a party is speaking up for what we believe in and what we believe in is that some of these values have been eroded, they've been replaced with nothing better than social irresponsibility. HUMPHRYS: But you talk about being ahead of public opinion and yet, you say: "The statesman governs according to his principles and presents his achievements to the electorate - he does not compromise his beliefs in the hope of tacking into a favourable electoral win". In other words, you don't wait for public opinion to tell you what you ought to be doing, you tell the public what you think ought to happen, because that's what you are there for. PORTILLO: Well, I think the process is two-way. I think sometimes public opinion is ahead of politicians and I say, somewhat shamefacedly, that I think that's happened recently. I think public opinion has got ahead of politicians. Now I think politicians are taking up some of those themes and I think that we wish to guide the debate, but I don't think ... HUMPHRYS: Guide it? Well, give me a few specific examples then because I've failed to get any out of you. PORTILLO: I don't agree that you've failed to get any out of me. I have described to you the way in which I think we are going to be changing the balance between the individual and State provision and I think already the changing climate of opinion is making it possible for us to introduce changes in policy that wouldn't otherwise be possible. I mean, this is slightly at a tangent, but Michael Howard's speech on law and order is an example of the sort of movement, changes in the law, that are made possible because of a change in British opinion - a change which is partly self-generating and partly guided by politicians. HUMPHRYS: All right. An opportunity for you in about twenty seconds to give me a specific 'yes' or 'no' to this one proposal that was leaked this week - if that's what it was. New home owners should take out private insurance to cover them in case they lose their jobs or get sick and then their mortgage repayments are paid. Not by the State, which it may be at the moment, but by private insurance. Is that happening? And do you approve of it PORTILLO: I don't believe that the State should be in the business of offering individuals insurance... HUMPHRYS: So the answer is 'yes'. PORTILLO: ... that they could get in the outside world, and I think that that is one of the areas where we are going to have to move. HUMPHRYS: Michael Portillo, thank you very much indeed. PORTILLO: Thanks very much. ...oooOooo...