Press Office

Aired: Sunday, 2 November, 2003 10:00
Sky News' Sunday with Adam Boulton

Boulton: So this is the case of new Tory leader no more New Labour. Joining me now is Labour’s Leader in the House of Commons, Peter Hain. Welcome to you. It is none the less something you have to take account of, isn’t it, as a Labour campaigner? Whatever you say to disparage Michael Howard he looks a fairly serious operator, certainly compared to his two predecessors?

Hain: The Tories don’t have a leader any more who’s an embarrassment and in that sense it’s a different challenge for us. But I think it will encourage everybody to take politics much more seriously. To scrutinise what the Tories stand for. Because they will be seen as a more serious operation and that’s good for us. Because we have been in this kind of artificial situation where there hasn’t really been an opposition, except for the Liberal Democrats yapping at the Tories heels, and therefore we’ve been put in a position where people don’t take political debate seriously. Now I think they will and when they do I think they’ll see Michael Howard - not only saddled with past policies that have been disastrous -  when he was Employment Minister unemployment went up by a million. When he was responsible for the poll tax of course that was a disaster…..

Boulton: When he was Home Secretary crime went down 18%.

Hain: When he was Home Secretary he was responsible for presiding over a shambles on asylum, of human trafficking. So we picked up on …

Boulton: Yes but crime went down by 18%, you will accept that?

Hain: Crime had doubled under the Tory period. So you know I think that in all of these things, he’s got a past, which it’s going to be difficult for him to escape from. But more important - because I mean people are going to judge what happens in the future - all of the Tory policies now, are awarding the rich and the well off, instead of Labour policies which are being fair to everybody.

Boulton: What do you mean by that?

Hain: Say for example, their policy to take two billion pounds out of the National Health Service - by allowing people who already have money to get private treatment. Say you take a heart operation, you have to pay nine thousand pounds on top of the money that you will be allowed to take out of the health service, you have to find that nine thousand pounds to go private and you will take money out of the health service to do so. Now how many members, in people in my constituency, in South Wales, will be able to afford that? Virtually none.

Boulton:  But it’s exactly the same as what Labour MP’s do. Diane Abbott’s taking her child out of the state system - middle class black child - and sending him to private schools. So I mean what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander – isn’t if?

Hain: When you say Labour MP’s Adam ….

Boulton: Diane Abbott’s a Labour MP isn’t she?

Hain: She is indeed. And that’s a minority situation. Actually most us, like I did, send our children to the local comprehensive.

Boulton: But all I am saying is the principle stands that Tony Blair, for example, and Jeff Rooker before him, says - that when you talk about pensions - well you can’t rely on the state for this. You have to make some provisions for yourself and the state might or might not look at how they can help you. So all I’m saying is the Tories on health and education are on similar ground to New Labour, aren’t they?

Hain: Not at all. If you look at education, for example, their policies will cut the number of students going to university by one hundred thousand. That will deprive lots of students from poor family backgrounds and low incomes from the chance to get a university education. In health as I say ……

Boulton: You say that, but every opinion poll shows that your plans for top up fees will discourage precisely those children that you’re saying you want to send to university in the first place – poorer working class children.

Hain: Onthe contrary we’ve had …

Boulton: Are you denying that’s what the opinion polls say?

Hain: I’m saying what the facts are. Which, since we’ve had fees - the eleven hundred pound fees – the number of students going to university has been rising and the number coming from low-income backgrounds has remained roughly the same proportion.

Boulton: But we are talking about the plans for three thousand pound fees. And all I am saying is the research shows that would discourage the sort of children which Labour is going around saying it wants to get into university.

Hain: But when the facts are seen, rather than opinion polls, you will see that grants will come back. Most of those students will not pay the top up fee anyway. And so we’ll be in a much fairer situation. Where every school leaver who wants to go to university, to benefit the country as well, because we still have a low proportion compared with competitor countries in Europe and elsewhere, going to university. Every student who wants to go to university will get the chance to do so under Labour. Under the Tories a hundred thousand students will be robbed of that opportunity. So I think, whether it’s the health service - rewarding those who go private anyway - taking money out of the health service, therefore meaning fewer nurses, fewer doctors, fewer consultants. Or whether it’s in universities or whether it’s pensioners. The poorest pensioners could lose around thirty pounds a week under the Tory policies. So I think that’s very good territory for us to attack Michael Howard for.

Boulton : So what would your advice be for someone who wants to plan for their retirement? Rely on the state pension?

Hain: My advice would be go with the Labour government that’ll protect you if you are on lower incomes. And if you have had a chance to get a private pension, through work and in other opportunities, do so as well. 

Boulton: So you think people should be trying to live on a state pension if they can’t afford it?

Hain: I think people who are trapped, as many of my own constituencies are. Elderly citizens who don’t have a choice about going private, then they should have the benefit of Labour policies - that make sure that they’re not trapped in poverty. Instead of Tory polices which will wipe that support away.

Boulton: On the contrary, the Tories are going to restore the earnings ling. Which won’t let the pension ‘wither on the vine’ .

Hain: Will that do Adam? To people like you and I. We’ll get money we don’t need in retirement. Where as poor pensioners…

Boulton: They’ll get more if the basic pension is times the earnings link. Then precisely the people you’re talking about in your constituency will get more, won’t they?

Hain: But the Tories will finance that, because it’s very costly indeed, in fact it’s unsustainably costly, as their own spokesmen have said. In the longer term they’ll finance that by cutting the support we’re giving to low income pensioners. The pension credit will go. The minimum pension guarantee will go. And as I say the poorest pensioners will lose up to thrity pounds a week. Now how can that be a fair policy? I’m

very confident that under Michael Howard, advocating those policies, we will be able to expose them and show people that Labour stands for fairness. And Tories stand for not just unfairness, but an extreme right wing policy that Michael Howard has been associated with all his political life.

Boulton: Whose this Government backing in the post office strikes? The unions or the management?

Hain: We’re backing a settlement, because all disputes end in a settlement. I was a trade union official for 14 years, I know that in the end the only way you settle disputes is round the table. Which is good.

Boulton: Do you think these strikes are justified?

Hain: It’s good that they are actually negotiating, at last, properly at a senior level in the Royal mail with the trade union leaders to try and produce a settlement. And lets hope..

Boulton: But you wouldn’t actually criticise the strikers?

Hain: I think when you look at what’s happening in the post … you know your local postman I know my local postman, they’re not people who ….

Boulton: No I don’t actually.

Hain: Well they’re not people who just strike for the hell of it. But  ..

Boulton: So you support them?

Hain: No I don’t support them. I support a settlement. I support a settlement that management and unions get together and negotiate a settlement, that is the only way…..

Boulton: No but I mean you would make the case for them going on strike? That’s all I’m saying.

Hain: No I wouldn’t make the case for them going on strike at all because…..

Boulton: So you think they should go back to work?        

                                                                          

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Hain:  Because these are wild cat strikes, for a start. These are strikes not organised by the trade union leadership, in fact disavowed by the union leaders, who are trying to produce a settlement out of this. And I think management and unions should not waste any time in producing a settlement that that will be good for the post office because it’s facing big competitive pressures. And for post office workers to get a just settlement.

Boulton: Now lastly you’re on the question of hunting. We’ve seen the bill run into sand in the Lords this week. Is this Government going to reintroduce that bill, so that the Parliament act can be introduced to ban hunting or not?

Hain: Well you’re putting me as Leader of the Commons and in the position of saying what will be in the Queen’s speech and what won’t be in the Queen’s speech in a few weeks time. And you know I can’t do that. But what I do say is this; we have seen the most flagrant abuse of the House of Lord’s power, to destroy a bill. Massively voted for in the House of Commons, successively endorsed in our General election manifestos. And that is the real choice here - can we continue to allow the House of Lords to defy the will of the House of Commons and the will of the people who voted this Labour Government in with a mandate to ban cruelty to animals?

Boulton: Do you expect the Government to bring this back or not?

Hain: As I say I cannot anticipate what’s going to be in the Queen’s speech. And I’m not trying to duck the question, I’m simply saying I can’t do that. But I think we will have to find a way of ensuring that a ban on cruelty to animals, which was what the House of Commons voted for overwhelmingly and what the people supported in two successive General elections, in implemented. And the House of Lords can’t continue to stand in the way of that. Because other wise it’s an abuse of democracy.

Boulton: They didn’t actually support the ban on hunting, though did they? They supported a parliamentary debate on it, which is what the manifesto said.

Hain: No what it supported was a free vote on hunting. But it was quite clear that we were committed to an end to cruelty against animals and that’s been the Labour party’s position for a long time. But the real choice is, are we going to have a situation where The House of Lords gets away with a situation where....Labour has only 28% of the vote in the Lords and they can just ride rough shod over the House of Commons decisions. Now I don’t think any democrat would allow that to continue to happen.