................................................................................ ON THE RECORD INTERVIEW WITH JOHN PRESCOTT RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 12.06.94 ................................................................................ JOHN HUMPHRYS: Well John Prescott, you must be wishing you'd never said that about being out of that league when you were asked about the leadership? JOHN PRESCOTT MP: Well I think a number of potential candidates in other parties have said some things when they're avoiding elections, for example, Mrs. Thatcher said something similar. I said that at a time when John Smith was the leader and expected to continue and unfortunately hasn't and I think I was trying to end speculation. People would say are you going to run for leader, are you going to run for deputy leader, these come every year in the Labour Party. HUMPHRYS: There wasn't really any speculation was there, about whether John Smith would be challenged for the leadership by yourself. PRESCOTT: No, I used to be asked particularly on the deputy leadership, and I tried to say, look, I'm not in that league I don't want to know, leave it aside, and of course there wasn't another question after that. HUMPHRYS: But it wasn't the only time you'd said it was it, you'd said it a bit earlier, to the Observer, exactly the same..
almost the same words? PRESCOTT: It was exactly the same words, trying to do exactly the same thing, it's perhaps not an appropriate way of expressing it, but I think what I wanted to do was end speculation, because I was one of those who was constantly being pressed on the deputy leadership's....to run again. I used to say to many of my colleagues, look the party has made a decision about that, and each time press, if you gave a half answer to something then they say oh well he's really considering it, so just put it to bed and that's the way I did. Can I just say on your programme though ... HUMPHRYS: Can I just follow on on that, certainly
... PRESCOTT: I'm a bit niggled about the programme, I wouldn't have thought anybody going up to that rally yesterday would have come to that kind of conclusion. HUMPHRYS: Well, we can come to that in a moment perhaps, but let me just pursue this thought for a moment because it did raise doubts in many people's mind that you yourself, whether you yourself considered yourself to be a suitable candidate, because one of those quotes went on to say, "If all the likely candidates were run over by a bus I would do it to the best of my ability and probably make a good job of it". But you see, when people ... PRESCOTT: I believe that, by the way. HUMPHRYS: Well probably make a good job of it? It's hardly a ringing endorsement in yourself is it? PRESCOTT: Well I think I'd do a good job of it, as I wouldn't be standing, but I mean that's an example of it, I'd say probably and perhaps being a bit modest, working class people tend to be a bit like that, they're not self confident. HUMPHRYS: Not by any means. PRESCOTT: Well I think you can put it down to me if you look at my record, but if you asked me could I do that job, yes I could do that job and I could do it with confidence, I'd like the opportunity to do so otherwise I wouldn't be offering myself to the largest electorate electing a leader of a Labour Party. HUMPHRYS: Can we look at that election then, is it, as some people have said, a political beauty contest? PRESCOTT: No, I don't think so, I don't think I'd win would I if it was a political beauty contest? HUMPHRYS: You know what I mean by a beauty contest, I don't mean that literally in those terms, although some people might find you far more attractive than others, but what I mean by that is whether they are voting for the man or woman, or whether they're voting for the policies, that's the difference really, isn't it. PRESCOTT: Well I still think there are major issues about policy but remember for a democratic party our decisions are made at conference and we have policy commissions that are sitting constantly, we have one on the economic commission at the moment, and candidates can't suggest that they're going to have this policy subjected to the election, and if you will elect let me that will be the policy of the Labour Party. So I think all the candidates in this election would make it absolutely clear that the policy is determined by the party. A good example of that is in the last leadership election, I think between John Smith and Bryan Gould. There was an argument about the relationships with trade unions in which John Smith took a position, he had to argue for that in the conference, as you know, with some force at that particular time, but he didn't decide the policy on the hustings or in that election by him being elected, it was decided in the normal democratic way by the Party, and that's the way it should be, and every candidate will have to bear that in mind. HUMPHRYS: But that implies that the leader of the Labour Party is no more than a cypher, there to do what the conference tells him or her to do. That's clearly not the case is it? PRESCOTT: Well to go the other way about and say that if a leader makes a statement and that becomes the policy and the party just adopts it, that's almost the same as is the position in the Tory Party, I'm afraid we're a democratic party, we have a process of making...having discussions and taking those things to the conference. That is the proper democratic way to make decisions. HUMPHRYS: But what we're talking about here is an election, to use Roy Hattersley's words yesterday for instance, of a Prime Minister in waiting, a potential Prime Minister in waiting. Prime Ministers have to have policies don't they? PRESCOTT: Yes but even Prime Ministers in Governments of periods of Labour Governments. Still go through the process of debating policy with Conference. HUMPHRYS: Certainly. PRESCOTT: Though, of course, they take that as their broad guidance but Prime Ministers and governments have to live from day to day with major events taking place in which they have to make decisions. So, it wasn't unknown in Labour Governments that they had to strike out in certain areas where there wasn't a definitive Party policy. People understand that but there is a general agreement that what a Labour Government would pursue would be broadly in line with the principles of a policy that had been determined by its members. HUMPHRYS: Let's have a look then at some of your policies - positions. PRESCOTT: Could I just say? You said you're going to come back to that film. I mean, I said, at that rally, the company that's been filming here is "On The Record". We'll have to wait and see how they produce it. The tremendous response I got and I think you might have said: well, a traditionalist is bound to get support and warm support in a traditional area. That wasn't what came across in that programme. I'm sure most of the people who went to that rally will have been amazed at such an interpretation could have been put on it. I made my protest. I won't continue with it. HUMPHRYS: Alright but there were people at that rally... PRESCOTT: Oh, I have no doubt because you had them on film. HUMPHRYS: ...who were critical of you. PRESCOTT: But, I mean they didn't get one that thought, perhaps, I might be a useful candidate. I don't think that was the reaction there. I even predicted it at the rally and there's some history of these kind of programmes where there seems to be: almost that the Election's over, the media's decided it. Well, that's not so. I'll be glad, at least, that you and I are now coming to the issues that should decide. HUMPHRYS: But, I mean, clearly, just to deal with that point - lest people believe that we do decide on candidates. Manifestly, we don't. We report what people tell us. PRESCOTT: True. HUMPHRYS: We don't ...... PRESCOTT: Oh, there's no doubt about it. I can see that. I've watched it. But, in the main, I'm sure. They've got an awful lot of interviews yesterday from people who would have given an opposite point of view. And all I'm I'm saying, it might have been balanced. Even your poll gave me twenty-three per cent. So, perhaps, you could have given me one in four in the interviews. HUMPHRYS: No, we did better. We did one in two. We gave you fifty per cent. But, anyway... PRESCOTT: (Laughs). OK. HUMPHRYS: We could discuss that for hours. You've made your point. PRESCOTT: Policy. Employment. HUMPHRYS: You believe in full employment. All the candidates believe in full employment. We're told in some of the newspapers this morning that you had policy papers on employment which were withheld during the campaign. It's the document that you're going to release tomorrow. Is that true that they were withheld during the campaign? PRESCOTT: There was a document called jobs and social justice which came out of a recommendation from John Smith - an ideal that I developed in January as Employment Spokesman and in fact I've been on your programme talking about how we.....these things together. HUMPHRYS: I remember it well. PRESCOTT: And, I'd suggested to John that the way we should do it is to make clear our position is jobs and social justice and we should put those two things together and he thought that was a rather good idea and commissioned me to do a report with members from the teams in the Shadow Cabinet. So, there was Health and there was Economics and we, eventually, sat down and produced a report. That was to be sent as evidence to the Brussels Commission and there was evidence being prepared for the Flynn Commission on Social Policy. That was the Labour Party's evidence. The Government gave it. It was hoped that we would produce it during Euro Elections because it was very relevant. It was a major attack on the deregulated economy and social policy and so what we hoped would be done was a summary would be prepared. I'm afraid the summary wasn't prepared or the major document released during the election but it was sent to Europe. Now, I was rather resentful about that. HUMPHRYS: You were resentful about that? PRESCOTT: Yes, I was. HUMPHRYS: Why? PRESCOTT: Well, because, I thought, it was the kind of argument that would have answered what was coming later in the OECD Report. That we don't think the deregulated market has produced the jobs or produced social justice and that kind of model that the British Government has been hawking around the World - saying to people: why don't you do to your economies what we've done to the British economy? We had to tackle it fundamentally because the idea it wanted kind of the lowest wages, the kind of low pay, low skill kind of model that Britain is developing disastrously for us. HUMPHRYS: But, when you say you were resentful, the implication is that you weren't being allowed by others in the Party - presumably - to get your message across in the way that you would have liked to? PRESCOTT: Well, we're back to collective decision-making, aren't we? .....decisions that have to be made. I held my point of view. The summary wasn't produced and it meant that when we had the launch during the Election, dealing with the Social Chapter, we weren't able to give what I thought was a major piece of evidence against the Government's deregulated case. HUMPHRYS: So, your campaign or non-campaign, as it was at that time, because you weren't allowed to declare your Leadership ambitions during the Election Campaign was blunted, in a sense? PRESCOTT: No, no. It wasn't anything to do with Leadership campaign because it had been agreed while John Smith was alive. He was the one that actually agreed that we would launch it on the morning of the National Executive. Tragically, John died. So, we weren't able to do that in the framework. And, I was concerned that, in a way, that we weren't being courageous enough to take the arguments on. And, I think, to a certain extent, we, sometimes, avoid the difficult arguments and I think that's something that may come out more and more in this campaign. I'll give you an example of it. There's a tendency to look as if, you know: let us avoid the difficult questions. Put the easy kind of answers forward, find out what people feel easy with, use the warm language that people feel responsive to. I think, sometimes, we've got to be a bit more direct in the arguments and I think we have to put our case more effectively. And sometimes if we don't put it because we fear the reaction, people will think there's not much difference between the politics and the politicians. And I think my style's a little bit more direct and I'd like us to enter into a more direct debate. HUMPHRYS: When you say: we fear the argument, whom
do you have in mind? PRESCOTT: Whenever, I talk collectively of the Party, because when you ask me- HUMPHRYS: Tony Blair? PRESCOTT: -why does it do one thing or not other-no, we have groups that actually organise these things in a Party. No one person makes these decisions. HUMPHRYS: But Tony Blair's a part of the 'we', is he? PRESCOTT: Well, he's part of a Shadow Cabinet but in an Election, of course, we have special committees that run things and make judgments as the elections go. And they make the decision. HUMPHRYS: 'They' including Mr Blair. PRESCOTT: No. Mr Blair isn't there. You keep wanting to make the point..... HUMPHRYS: No, no. Well, I'm just trying to test the extent to which there is- PRESCOTT: No, but you're trying to pursue a matter that I don't wish to pursue in regard to personalities. Those are collective decisions. No one person makes a decision in the Labour Party. What I was trying to say is that I thought these were arguments that we could have deployed. It was agreed at that particular time and then changed. HUMPHRYS: I disagreed with a judgment. I'm entitled to do that and, of course, what happened then is that people begin to ask: why has the document not come out that's been sent to Brussels. And then the arguments are: why has it not been published here? PRESCOTT: I've given you some of the indications why. Let me make absolutely clear, John, because this is important. It wasn't produced by me John Prescott as my plan. It was a working group, set up from the different individuals in the Shadow Cabinet teams to produce a report to give evidence to the Flynn Commission in Brussels. I think, it was an excellent report. I'm delighted now and I think, judgment taken, it will be published after the Election. HUMPHRYS: Right. PRESCOTT: My disagreement is that we should have used it during the Election and the OECD Report coming out with a Government claim in it to be a vindication of their economic policies was the sort of thing, I fear, that could happen and this document could have challenged it. HUMPHRYS: Right. Let's look at some of those difficult questions that you've just mentioned, there. The question of full employment. Nothing difficult about that. Everybody wants full employment but are you saying that in a Prescott government everybody would have a job? PRESCOTT: I'm saying everybody's entitled to be able to make a contribution to society, with human dignity and to feel that their value is of some worth. At the moment, that doesn't happen to millions of people. HUMPHRYS: So, that's what full employment means for you. Everybody should have a job. PRESCOTT: Well, full employment does mean that people who want jobs should be able to be provided with work and to make a useful contribution in its different forms. Now, they faced that, after the War, of course, and they made a definition of two and a half per cent - the Beveridge Commission - and curiously enough, they were able to achieve that right through the Forties, right into Fifties, right into the Sixties. Now, that was achieved. Now, I don't say that the problems of the economy and the mass unemployment we're experiencing, and in other countries, now, is the same as that time. What is the same, I think, as I believe, is that the Government has a responsibility to secure full employment. John Smith reiterated that. The solutions to it are much more difficult but I think with courage and conviction that the Labour goverment showed, in that particular time, with a different set of policies, can begin to get more of our people back to work. HUMPHRYS: So your definition of full employment is two and a half per cent? PRESCOTT: The definition given in '44. I mean, that was, indeed.. HUMPHRYS: And, you'd stick with that? PRESCOTT: Well, no, because, at the time, if you look at that. Certainly, I'd have that as an aim but you would then, ask me how long it would take and even John Smith said: if you talk about... HUMPHRYS: Well, let's come to those follow up questions, first but let's be quite clear about this because you've said you're very anxious not to dodge the difficult questions. PRESCOTT: No, no and I'm not. HUMPHRYS: So, is two and a half per cent a sensible definition? PRESCOTT: Two and a half per cent of what, John? What is the level of unemployment or the scale of people available for work? HUMPHRYS: I think you ought to be answering these questions, not asking me. PRESCOTT: I know, but there is no intelligent debate about these matters, I want to re-introduce intelligent debate into it. Two and a half million is the level that's set by the government on claimants, there's something like about four to five million people available for work according to the ILO in Britain. Because we fiddle the figures we don't know, so if you ask me for two and a half per cent (wait a minute), two and a half per cent of two and half million is a different kind of definition to that of four or five million. Now I want to begin to start an intelligent debate but I'll give you this which is the most important point to say: I believe governments can get more people back to work, you simply got to reverse some of the things that the Tories have done. I believe we will have to set ourselves a target for that because I don't think the people in this country are going to be satisfied with rhetoric. Every politicians is going to say yes I'm moving towards full employment, I want to put full employment at the top of the political agenda in this country, I want to set a figure that people know that we can be measured against so that we can begin to establish our credibility of how we get people back to work. That will require us to look at the lay of the land, to look at the areas of policies, I can give you some ideas that you could do almost immediately, but at the same time we reduce the burden of finiancing unemployment and get people back to work so that they can pay tax and national insurance, that in fact as a housing programme is one of the classic ways you can do it. HUMPHRYS: Right. So let me be quite clear about what you're saying here because this is going to be an important issue during this debate and indeed for the future of the country - you want to set targets against which a Labour government would be measured in terms of creating new jobs and the level of unemployment? PRESCOTT: I say that's a definite possibility that you should do that. Let me give you..Bill Clinton has now said in his election curiously enough, we didn't hear much about it in this country at the time, that he set eight million jobs as his target for four years, he has eight million unemployment - registered unemployed - in the United States at the present time. He's already secured two million of that target, now that's quite a move forward and he's on target to get all the jobs he wants in four years. You can set targets, you can get more people back to work. The Tories actually in 1987 secured a million increase in jobs, they themselves but then the problem was the real trick was how do you sustain the growth in the economy to get a movement towards a real reduction of mass unemployment. HUMPHRYS: Right. So you're going to anticipate my next question, what kind of targets have you in mind? PRESCOTT: Well I think you have to build up from the bottom instead of setting targets, I mean for example... HUMPHRYS: I sorry, you just said you wanted to set targets. PRESCOTT: Well I'm just trying to tell you how you do it, I thought that you were asking me how you do it? HUMPHRYS: No no, I wasn't asking you how you do it, I was asking you WHAT target you have in mind. I mean are you saying within the first term of a Labour government we would be down to one million unemployed, for instance. Is that the kind of target you have in mind? PRESCOTT: I think you have to set a target for the first term of a Labour government, yes. I mean we already do it in many ways. If we talk about the housing programme where there's six billion in the local authorities, a quarter of a million building workers on the dole, they've got six billion pounds we could actually use to get them back to work to build housing; instead of attacking homelessness we might provide them with homes. If we were to do that we'd reduce the burden on the Exchequer by two and a half billion by taking these people off the dole. HUMPHRYS: So.. PRESCOTT: Now in that example (can I continue it's quite important) you can show where the jobs are coming and meeting the houses. Now there's no doubt in our society there's tremendous need, there's no problem about finding things to be done to get people put back to work. You're then faced with a question of how you finance that, how do you get the growth in the economy, how do you find resources which at the moment are used to keep people idle, we could use to use more effectively to get them back to work paying tax and national insurance. HUMPHRYS: So have you a figure for the first year of a Labour..a rough figure for the first year of a Labour government? PRESCOTT: No I wouldn't give you the rough figure because I'm in an economic commission where I need to argue the case and to put forward that. I've already started..I think when I was last on your programme when you asked me this John and I said to you look... HUMPHRYS: You said you were too new in the job then.. PRESCOTT: Yes, but I mean.. HUMPHRYS: You've been in it for seven months now, or more than that, nine months. PRESCOTT: Yep, yep, nine months, yes. I mean they've been in fifteen years and they've reduced the mass unemployment to the scale we've got. I said to you then and I intend to say it again: that it's my view that the Labour Party will have to do that, but in order to convince my party that they should do that I would have to show them a credible programme, I've shown you something on housing, I've talked to you on manufacturing ......I've talked to about the infrastructure investment that could come from new forms of financing which I've been developing in the Labour Party. Now those things can be brought together to show where the money comes from, how we actually train the people, how we provide the jobs and how we meet the needs. Now we're two years away, I've only been nine months into his jobs, I'd like to convince my party it needs a target, now I'm into an election I'd like to say I must establish that argument. HUMPHRYS: A clear difference there between you and Tony Blair on targets, he resolutely refuses to accept that there ought to be specific targets. PRESCOTT: Well I think that's fair if Tony makes that point, I mean that's the nature of debate. I'm saying this is a different way of doing it, let's have that debate and let the public see the kind of things that we have to do to achieve those targets because I'll tell you this John, if you want mass unemployment you had better recognise there's a fundamental change in attitude having to come in our society whether it's in business, whether it's in the trade unions, whether it's amongst the politicians. We do not debate the fundamental issues and changes that are necessary to secure full employment, we avoid them. For example, is there a trade off between inflation, growth and jobs? -that's a very controversial argument because then they say all the politicians want to go into more inflation to get growth. People eliminate the idea that growth can make a major contribution, the OECD doesn't give enough importance to it. I want to start a political debate, almost a crusade in this debate of how we put unemployment at the top of the political agenda, let the politicians be judged on how many people they get back to work instead of some of the other criteria they use as success
which I don't think is anywhere as important. And I'll tell you this: if you reduce unemployment you reduce crime, you reduce the breakup in our societies, you do something about the greatest moral issue in Britain today. HUMPHRYS: You are serious about social justice, that means therefore that there has to be a good deal of wealth redistribution doesn't it? PRESCOTT: I think there is very unfairly distributed wealth in this country, it's generally agreed and we've made the case and Gordon Brown was effectively deploying it when he said that the tax levels in this country are being particularly put onto the low earning people. HUMPHRYS: So you would increase the level of tax on the highest paid. PRESCOTT: I this is a good example here, yes I think there is a..certainly an argument for that. I mean if you look at..and indeed in our last policies we were suggesting some of those areas but if you look.. HUMPHRYS: Well I don't recall Gordon Brown at the moment and certainly not Tony Blair saying you ought to put up the rate of tax above forty per cent. PRESCOTT: Let us deal with what fair taxation means, right. When I hear people say fair taxation, does that mean a progressive taxation or a regressive one, that those at the lower end of the scheme are carrying the heaviest burden, right. Most of the people who've benefitted in our tax system have been the ones that have been the very well off indeed. Now they're not paying their fair share in it quite frankly, I don't think everything has to be financed from tax, I've given you some examples, the two and a half billion off the dole would reduce the thirty billion pounds it's costing us, people wasting away doing nothing. HUMPHRYS: But you know what people are going to say when they hear you say that, there he goes, soap the rich, that's what it's about. A Labour Government would soap the rich under John Prescott. PRESCOTT: Well I just say I want a fair taxation, I believe it's a progressive form of taxation and I think we need to debate that. What is quite clear about that John is that let us have this debate, let us connect it to providing work for people, let us connect it to social justice. HUMPHRYS: But you're quite clear that in terms of social justice..(if I may because we've little time left)..you're quite clear that to achieve the social justice that you're talking about there would have to be a higher top rate of tax. PRESCOTT: I believe in a fair distribution of tax, we have not got a fair distribution of tax in this country, let us start that debate. You know, the unemployed listening to us talking about whether you tax the rich or tax the poor, my God they're the ones who are wasting away on the dole, over a million of them, more than a year or two years. Why don't we put that at the top of the agenda. Why are you not asking politicians how I want to get more people back to work? HUMPHRYS: I will. I will do that but we've only got about a minute left. May I ask you quickly, if I may, about the minimum wage. Will you set a figure on it, or will you not? A straight direct question of the sort you've said you welcome. PRESCOTT: Well, it's a direct question on which we would bring in a statutory minimum wage. HUMPHRYS: But, how much? PRESCOTT: How it will apply and what the rate is now in our economic commission, set up. HUMPHRYS: But, you won't put a figure on it? PRESCOTT: I won't put a figure on it because I've no authority to do so. I...(inaudible)...would have to. Yes, there will have to be a figure placed on this matter but in the form in which it's placed to join the rest of the European countries that have a minimum wage. How is it all the other countries with a minimum wage do far better than.... HUMPHRYS: ....you have a formula PRESCOTT: I'll tell you the biggest.... HUMPHRYS: You'll have to make it quick. PRESCOTT: Yeah - the biggest model question. Out of Mr Hunt's Merseyside area a job being advertised- HUMPHRYS: This is David Hunt, Employment Secretary. PRESCOTT: Yes. One pound, fifty an hour as a labourer, man or woman. That's sixty pound a week. This person gets in a year what I earn in a month or what you earn in a week. That is totally unacceptable. HUMPHRYS: Forgive an impossible question in a couple of seconds. Could you work with Tony Blair, bearing in mind that you've got clearly different views? PRESCOTT: Oh, I've no doubt about it - Tony or Margaret. We can work. We've worked together before and we'll work together again and we've learned the lesson of unity. The people expect us to be united in our objectives. HUMPHRYS: John Prescott, thank you very much. ...oooOooo...