UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To
be published as HC 310 ii
House of COMMONS
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE
LIAISON COMMITTEE
THE PRIME
MINISTER
Tuesday 6 July 2004
RT HON TONY BLAIR MP
Evidence heard in Public Questions 144 - 288
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
|
1.
|
This is an uncorrected transcript of
evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been
placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have
been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
|
|
2.
|
Any public use of, or reference to, the
contents should make clear that neither witnesses nor Members have had the
opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved
formal record of these proceedings.
|
|
3.
|
Members who receive this for the purpose of correcting questions
addressed by them to witnesses are asked to send corrections to the Committee
Assistant.
|
|
4.
|
Prospective
witnesses may receive this in preparation for any
written or oral evidence they may in due course give to the Committee.
|
Oral Evidence
Taken before the Liaison Committee
on Tuesday 6 July 2004
Members present
Mr Alan Williams, in the Chair
Mr Peter Ainsworth
Donald Anderson
Mr A J Beith
Andrew Bennett
Derek Conway
Jean Corston
Mr John Denham
Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody
Dr Ian Gibson
Mr David Hinchliffe
Mr Robert Key
Sir Archy Kirkwood
Mr Edward Leigh
Mr David Lepper
Mr Martin O'Neill
Mr Peter Pike
Dame Marion Roe
Mr Barry Sheerman
Mr David Tredinnick
Mr Dennis Turner
Sir Nicholas Winterton
Tony Wright
Sir George Young
________________
Witness: Rt
Hon Tony Blair, a Member of the House, Prime Minister, examined
Q144 Chairman: Welcome again,
Prime Minister. I am glad you have made
yourself comfortable as usual. It is
rather stuffy in here, I am afraid, today.
As is normal, we notified you a few days ago of the three themes, but,
as I think everybody knows and understands, you are not told any of the
questions that are going to be asked today.
The last three meetings were inevitably dominated by international
affairs, and so you do not get bored, we thought this time we would start with
some domestic issues and move on to international affairs. The first two themes
today will be social cohesion and domestic policy delivery, introduced by
Andrew Bennett, because we have again sub‑divided into teams, then we
will follow with energy policy, led by Ian Gibson, and then we go to Iraq and
the Middle East, led by Alan Beith.
Before we do that, one quick question on update. You will remember at the start of the last
meeting I raised with you the chasm that existed in the quality and quantity of
information and, indeed, access to witnesses that had been provided to Hutton
as compared with that which my colleagues are accustomed to, and you agreed to
look at the nearly quarter of a century old rules. That was five months ago.
Can you tell me where we are on that review?
Mr Blair: Peter Haine will be in a
position to come to you with suggestions and proposals in September. I cannot be sure, obviously, what the
precise nature of those proposals will be at the moment. I think, going back and having a look at it
again, Alan, the areas where, if I can say this to you, I am most sympathetic
to change are areas where you have got departmental issues that cut across not
just one department but several departments, and there is something somewhat
limiting therefore about saying it is only the actual departmental ministers
that deal with the departmental select committee. It may be more difficult on the issues to do with advisers, but
we are continuing to discuss it and we will be in a position to come back to
you in September with some precise proposals that I hope, even if you do not
agree with all of them, you will find that there is some movement in that
direction.
Q145 Chairman: I am rather
surprised and pleased at the response, because only three weeks ago the Leader
of House, sitting where you are now, informed us that the minister who was
chairing the study group was not yet involved and it had no formal terms of reference. So whilst there seems to have been very
little progress for four and a half months, I am delighted at the momentum that
has suddenly built up quite spectacularly in the two weeks before your arrival
here. Can we ask you to come back next
week?
Mr Blair: Yes, I take the
implication, but it has actually been...
You raised this with me this time last year, and then did we not have an
exchange of correspondence in February, or was it in February you raised it
with me? In February you raised it with
me and then we had an exchange of correspondence. I think September, frankly, is long enough to come back to you
with some proposals, so we will do that.
Chairman: We look forward to receiving those. We are now going to the formal hearing and to Andrew Bennett.
Q146 Andrew Bennett: Prime
Minister, I think you take the issue of social cohesion and you know only too
well the problems that there are in Northern Ireland because of the lack of
social cohesion across the communities.
I think it was at the Lisbon Summit that you put forward social cohesion
as a very important issue for the whole of Europe, and I think in the last 12
months you and a lot of other ministers have been stressing how important
social cohesion is for economic and social well‑being. Is that still the Government's policy?
Mr Blair: Yes, absolutely.
Q147 Andrew Bennett: We have a
fair number of examples of where that is your broad policy, but in practice a
whole series of policies do not make that work?
Mr Blair: We can obviously have a
discussion about that, but I think that the thing that is most important for
us, obviously, is... Social cohesion is
made up of a number of different things: one is obviously to invest in some of
the more poor and disadvantaged communities, which we have been doing; other
parts of it are to do with building good community relations and making sure
that people from ethnic or religious backgrounds can work together.
Q148 Mr Pike: You obviously
know Burnley had disturbances as one of the three places in 2001 and Lord Clarke's
Report identified, as did the Commission for Racial Equality's Report which
took place the following year, that services for young people were particularly
needed and identified deprivation and disillusionment amongst young people as a
particular problem; and the CRE proposed that we should have a more publicly
funded youth service. Do you not think
this is absolutely crucial if we are to tackle these problems of
disillusionment and lack of cohesion and problems that occur?
Mr Blair: I agree certainly that
investment in new services is important.
I also think, however, the New Deal programmes for the unemployed are
important as well, since I think that if you have got large numbers of
disaffected young people who are unemployed that is a contributing factor to a
lack of social cohesion, and I think the education system has a part to play in
that as well.
Q149 Mr Pike: We are coming on
to education later, but we do have a lot of young people who hang round on
streets and start gangs between each other and different problems as a result
of there being a lack of places for young people to go without a bar?
Mr Blair: I think this is an
issue. It is why we invest in new
services and why we are looking, for example, at the concept of an extended
school so that the school can be a focal point for the community as well as
simply a place where people learn. I
think, on the other hand, we have also got to be very clear that, whereas there
are a whole range of reasons for the break down in social cohesion that may
occur from time to time, we cannot justify any acts of intimidation or violence
from young people or anyone else in respect of those things. So I think it is important that we work on
the causes of it, and I think those causes are reasonably clear to you and to
me, Peter, but I think it is important that we also make it clear that we do
not tolerate and cannot, in any shape or form, excuse behaviour that spills
over into violence.
Q150 Mr Pike: The boundaries
and rigid lines drawn on maps, do these not sometimes cause frictions? I had a case come to me yesterday where
somebody lives three doors over a boundary for a Sure Start, and obviously
people who are mischievous and want to cause division do use these lines. Can we get away from such rigid lines and
divisions where they do cause social cohesion?
Mr Blair: I think this is a very good
point. The problem obviously is that if
you have a programme like Sure Start and you have not got the resources to make
it universal, then you have got to limit its application in some way. Very often what happens with Sure Start, for
example, but also with other programmes, is that you will limit it by reference
to a particular local authority boundary.
I have the same situation in my own constituency with Sure Start schemes. I think that one possible way of looking at
this is that we have started a dialogue with some of the people in local
government to see how we could give them greater flexibility to decide locally
how it is that they would like to use or implement a scheme such as this. It may be difficult to do that, but I think
it is worth investigating because they will often be in a position to know
better how they can implement such a programme in a way that does not lead
people to say ‑ and I think this is the point you are making ‑
"So and so next door is getting a whole lot of help but we are not getting
it", and then they link that into maybe ethnic background and then it
becomes a cause of racial tension. This is something that we are looking at
with local government. There will be a
situation, though, in the end, where unless you have got the money to finance a
programme universally, you will be limiting it in some way.
Q151 Mr Pike: Certainly we need
more flexibility. May I move on to my
third point, which is empty houses? You
will probably know that the Halifax published their report in March to coincide
with Empty Homes weeks, and it shows a massive number of empty houses in
Liverpool and Manchester but it showed Burnley as having the highest
percentage, 7.7 per cent.
Obviously the housing and Pathfinder projects are absolutely crucial in
tackling this, and again there are cohesion problems arising from this. Do you think there is sufficient funding in
the early years and are we going to be guaranteed that this funding, which is
particularly a problem in many of our northern cities, there is the continuity? Does it not need a commitment of the
Government perhaps for ten, fifteen years if these problems are to be solved of
deprivation, and three out of the five areas with the most housing are also the
most deprived areas in the country?
Mr Blair: Yes, that is true. The
Pathfinder budget, and I can check this for you, but I think it is around £300
million. It is a substantial sum of
money. We are piloting this at the
moment in various projects, and I think we have got to do that because of the
substantial sums of money involved and see how well it works because the issue
is, obviously, if you have got a whole string of empty houses in a particular
area, why is that happening? Is this
something where you are best to demolish those houses, accept that there is a
reduction in the housing demand in that particular area, or are there other
particular reasons to do with the local community which could be altered by
other policies? I think it is important
we learn the lessons of this, and housing is a very important part of it, but
it is an expensive programme, the Pathfinder programme, and I think we need to
be sure that it is going to provide value for money; and that is the reason why
we are running it in your area and in others.
Can I make this other point to you?
I think that there is a lot that can be done too by getting the communities
to try and work together in a more cooperative way at a local level too. I know you have done this in your own
constituency, but sometimes there is an unnecessary tension that enters into
local relations, and obviously this is
what has happened in certain parts of the north‑west, particularly but
not limited to the north‑west, and those are areas where particularly
political parties like the BNP can come in and exploit those tension. I think
that one part of this ‑ you
can put in various sums of money, you can invest in new services or the
Pathfinder projects, but you have also got to work out how we get local
communities from different ethnic backgrounds to work together, to have proper
exchanges between their young people and indeed their faith communities at
well.
Q152 Mr Pike: You have to
tackle other issues as well as housing?
Mr Blair: There are a whole series of things that we have to tackle; that is
right.
Q153 Mr Denham: I wonder if I
can follow that point through. It is
good news that there have not been serious disturbances for three years now,
but since the northern riots we have had September 11th, we have had
international military action, we have had a sharp rise in public concern about
asylum, we have undoubtedly had the alienation of some Muslim young
people. Would you say that the
underlying social tensions that led to the riots are better or worse than they
were three years ago?
Mr Blair: I think it is difficult to judge unless area by area. I think in some respects they are
better, and, as you say, we have not had those disturbances, but I think that
the issue to do with terrorism, and we heard all the controversy over the stop
and search and so on, has put a new dimension of this into the equation which,
I think, is difficult. I know from my conversations with leaders of the Muslim
community that they feel very strongly that if someone who calls himself a Protestant
goes onto the street in Northern Ireland and murders a Catholic that that does
not reflect on the whole of the Protestant religion, whereas they feel that if
you get Muslim extremists or terrorists then somehow this can be taken as
stigmatising the entire community; and I think we need to be sensitive to that
and we need to give publicity to the fact that the vast majority of Muslim
leaders are immensely responsible people who exercise a very positive effect
within the local communities and for community harmony. I looked at the report that you did a year
ago now in respect of these issues, John, and I think we have made some
progress actually. There is certainly... For example, in relation to local government
and their services assessments, we do put issues to do with social cohesion and
community relations into that now, but it does depend enormously on the
willingness and good efforts of the people on the ground in each individual
community. So my assessment would be
that I think it probably in some ways is better that it was, but, on the other
hand, I think there is this new dimension that we need to watch.
Q154 Mr Denham: Can I ask
whether you feel that the Government has pursued this important issue with
sufficient focus over the last three years?
You mentioned stop and search and policing. In the first national policing plan, community cohesion,
which I think is the same as social cohesion, was given a very high priority
for the police services nationally. In the most recent national policing plan
it has very clearly been down‑graded as a priority and no doubt other
things like the fight against terrorism at one end or anti‑social
behaviour at the other have risen up the agenda. Are you certain, Prime Minister, that social cohesion has been
given a consistently high priority by central government to ensure that most
progress is made at local level?
Mr Blair: I would like to think that we have done everything that we
reasonably can. I think, in relation
to policing, it is not so much that it has been down‑graded but,
obviously, as you say, there are other issues that have achieved a particular
salience recently. I would say that the
police, for example, in London are more attuned to community cohesion issues
than I would certainly say from 10 years ago and even possibly from
five years ago. I think they are
more aware of the need, for example, to go out and recruit people from the
different parts of the ethnic community.
I think, some of the issues to do with behaviour inside the police force
and the way areas are policed have been adapted, and I think that one of the
things that is interesting is that in relation to some of these powers that the
police have been given the powers are a lot more extensive than they have been
for many, many years. On the other
hand, we have not actually had a very strong push back from the communities,
whereas I remember all the controversy there was in the 1980s over the stop and
search powers, when it became a real focal point of racial tension, and I think
that for a lot of these local communities they want pretty tough policing. They do want their community cohesion, but
they want some tough policing as well, and, provided they think the tougher
policing is fair on the basis to whom it is applied ‑ in other
words, it is applied whatever the colour of your skin or religion ‑
then they are up for some pretty hard stuff in dealing with drug-dealers and
dealing with people who cause dissent and difficulty within their communities.
Q155 Mr Denham: To end on this
point, Prime Minister, will you look at next year's national policing plan just
to make sure that social cohesion is given an appropriate priority?
Mr Blair: I am very happy to do that,
and what I will do is I will write to you, if I might, in respect of whether
there is any deliberate down‑playing of it in respect of this year. I suspect not, but I will check it out for
you.
Q156 Andrew Bennett: Do you
think social cohesion is something that all government departments think about
all the time? The ODPM and the Audit
Commission have been very firmly pushing choice‑based lettings in
housing. That can very easily lead to
housing segregation.
Mr Blair: I do not want departments
to focus on it all the time. The
question is do they focus on it to the exclusion of everything else? No, I think they will have various other
issues that they need to look at. I
think this is difficult, because I am sure, as indicated, we will go on and
talk about education a moment, but in relation to faith schools, for example,
you could perfectly easily make the case: is it in the interests of social
cohesion that you have faith schools at all?
I happen to think, in the end, this is a choice you cannot take away
from people and I would, therefore, say, if there is a social cohesion issue
that comes out or a community cohesion issue, you have to try and manage
that. So, do departments think about it
all the time? I know that they have it
there as a significant priority for them, but it can be, in certain instances,
that other policies can at one level appear to conflict with it.
Q157 Andrew Bennett: Yes. You have got this policy of wanting to
impose choice in education and in health, but there is a danger that that just
undermines social cohesion. If you are
a parent making a choice about a school, it is very difficult if you are trying
to predict what the school is going to deliver for the next six or seven years,
but it is much easier to look at the colour of the pupils there and make a
decision that your child might be more comfortable with children from the same
background. There is a lot of danger
that we have got schools suffering from White Flight now. Is there not a conflict between your desire
for choice and for social cohesion?
Mr Blair: I do not believe so: because I think that in the end the most
important thing is to try and lift the standards of the schools whatever the
ethnic background of the children in them.
The question is in the end, the hard question is: do you say that you have
some restrictions on faith schools, for example? I would say, no, to that because I do not think it is justifiable
that, say, there should be Catholic and Protestant faith‑based schools
but not Jewish or Muslim ones.
Q158 Andrew Bennett: But you
know the problem we have got in Northern Ireland as a result of segregated
education?
Mr Blair: Yes, but I think what I
would say is: is the problem in Northern Ireland the segregated education or is
the problem the nature of the division that has grown up between the two
communities? We have a situation in
London where, within a few miles of here, you will have a range of Church of
England and Catholic schools. I do not
think there is any great tension between the two. So I am not sure that the issue is the segregation by way of
education, I think the issue is more deep‑seated in respect of the way
that the communities interact with each other in Northern Ireland, for example,
where it was then linked with a whole set of political issues.
Q159 Sir Nicholas Winterton: Prime
Minister, for social cohesion to succeed do you believe that people should be
happy and secure in their own homes?
Mr Blair: Yes, I would certainly
agree with that, Nicholas.
Q160 Sir Nicholas Winterton: If
that is the case, Prime Minister, how is it that many people on the Upton and
Moss Estates in Macclesfield ‑ a delightful town ‑ are
having their lives made hell by the yob culture, anti‑social behaviour,
low‑level crime involving theft from cars, stealing of cars themselves,
burglary, by the activities by a limited number of people, often driven by
drugs? Would you believe that that is
possible in many parts of this country?
Mr Blair: Yes, I certainly accept
that these are real issues in communities up the down the country, which is one
reason why I think it is so important that we take forward and implement the
measures of anti‑social behaviour which give the police more powers than they
have ever had before, and, in particular, we single out and deal with the issue
of drugs and the relationship between drugs and crime.
Q161 Sir Nicholas Winterton: Would
you also accept that many of these people whose lives are being made hell can
no longer rely upon the police because the police say they have inadequate
manpower to respond to incidents on an estate such as the two that I have
mentioned, and they are forever telling me, making representation on behalf of
those that I represent, that they have inadequate resources to devote to going
to the various incidents that are reported.
What is the Government going to do about that and, further, my final
point, what are the courts going to do about dealing with these young people
who are apprehended, who are making people's lives hell, because so often they
appear to pat them on the back and say, "You have done wrong. Please do not do it again", but many of
these people are recidivists and go back and do it again because the punishment
is inadequate?
Mr Blair: First of all, I totally
sympathise with the problem that you are raising. As I say, it is a problem in communities up and down the
country. That is why a few years ago we
began the process of introducing legislation specifically designed to deal with
anti‑social behaviour and did so on that basis; but I think the point
about anti‑social behaviour is that a lot of the crime is low‑level
crime in the sense that if someone is convicted in a court then the likelihood
of them going to jail for a large period of time is pretty limited. The trouble is the combination of these
types of low‑level disorder make life hell for people: it is gangs of
youths hanging around street corners abusing pensioners on the way to the
shops; it is people putting bricks through the window; it is people writing
graffiti on the walls, or burnt‑out cars. The whole reason we began this anti‑social behaviour push
was because we could see, I could see, and so could every other Member of
Parliament, that this issue as much as the big crimes that attract the headlines
in the newspaper was what was worrying people.
Therefore we have introduced a whole range of new powers, and I think
one thing that is really important is that in the local area people sit down,
analyse what powers the police now have for fixed penalty fines on low‑level
disorder and behaviour, ability to fine parents of kids who are misbehaving in
this way, the ability to shut down houses that are being used for drug-dealing,
the ability to confiscate the assets of drug-dealers, the drug-dealers who
drive around in the big cars and with money
in their pocket. There are
powers for the police to deal with this now, and a lot of these have come in
recently. The police have got the power
now to apply for a very quick shutting of a pub or a club where there is
constant disorder, and I think what is happening in different parts of the country
is that the police are working out: "How do we use these new powers to the
most effect?", but that is one aspect.
Q162 Sir Nicholas Winterton: What
about the resources, Prime Minister?
Mr Blair: I was just coming on to
that. The second thing is that the police
themselves... It is a fact that we have
record numbers of police, but the fact is for the public you can give them
whatever statistics you like; if they do not see the copper out there on the
street they say, "So what". I
think we have got to approach this in a slightly different way, and that is why
I favour the expansion, as well as of the police, of community support officers
and street wardens. I think you need a
support team alongside the police in these areas. What has been very popular in certain parts of the country where
it has been tried is that you will have a police sergeant, say, a police
officer, and you will have two or three community support officers or street
wardens and between them they will patrol the area. That does not necessarily mean that you catch all the criminals,
but it is a big deterrent effect, it gives the public a lot of reassurance and,
armed with the new powers, which mean, for example, they can do on the spot
fines, that is very, very important.
The problem for a police officer, and I discovered this when I was
talking to police officers and saying to them, "If there is graffiti on
the wall and you know who has done it, why do you not take them to court and
get them fined?" They would say to
me, "Look, I have got to take them down to the police station. I have got to go through hours of
charging. I have then got to take them
to court. I have got to make sure they
turn up at court. I have then got to
get the witnesses there. I have got to
take the case to the Magistrate. It
takes nine months and by the time I get to the end of that, for hours and hours
of work, the person gets a fine."
That is the reason why we introduced the on the spot fines. There are thousands of those being used;
there are the anti‑social behaviour orders being used as well. All I am saying is I think there are areas
where the local authorities and the police have got together and really worked
out how they can use these new powers, and I am very willing - and this is
where we need feedback from the MPs, because actually this should be something
that any person, or any member of the public can agree with - I am very willing
to go back and legislate again on this anti‑social behaviour if there are
problems in the way the law is being used because it is a big, big issue for
people.
Q163 Dame Marion Rose: Prime
Minister, is it not the case that the Barker proposals will only serve to draw
people out of the inner cities into ever increasingly sprawling suburbs and
that this will be at the expense of the regeneration of our cities, the
redevelopment of derelict brown sites and the protection of the Green Belt?
Mr Blair: I do not believe that is
the case, Marion, because the Barker proposals, the proposal by Kate Barker in
housing, recognise the fact, and it is a fact, that there is an excess of
demand over supply for housing in the south of the country. This is just a fact, and the curious thing
about the debate we have in housing is that when I am talking to Peter I am
having debate about empty houses and when I am talking to you or a Member of
Parliament from down in the south their problem is completely different. The truth is that for many families in the
south of England it is difficult for them get on the housing ladder; many
parents find it very hard to see how their children can get on the housing
ladder. We have to expand the
supply. What we have tried to do, and
the idea behind not just what Kate Barker has said but the proposals John
Prescott has put forward, is to identify certain specific areas. There is no question of us concreting over
the south or diminishing the acres of Green Belt at all; and we have got a target
of 60 per cent or more for brown field sites that we are meeting, but
we are going to need to expand the number of houses in the south‑east. If we do not do that, then we just do not
have the supply of houses that we need.
Q164 Dame Marion Rose: But,
Prime Minister, how can you square the targets for house‑building in the
south‑east that is contained in the Sustainable Communities Plan, which,
of course, will serve to further draw economic activity away from the rest of
the country, with the Deputy Prime Minister's policy document to revitalise
other areas of England through the Northern Way?
Mr Blair: Because I think you have
two separate issues here. I represent a
constituency in the north‑east of England. That constituency has need of business opportunities, investment
and so on. The north‑east is
doing significantly better than it was a few years ago, but we have got certain
policies that help develop that region and deal with that region's
problem. The problems in the south are
different. I do not think we are going
to be... By expanding the number of
houses in these particular areas, very limited particular areas, particularly
in relation to the Thames Gateway where you have got vast tracts of derelict
land that we are trying to revitalise, I do not think you are going to take
jobs out of the inner city, but what you will do is provide economic
regeneration for areas that are, as I say, at the present time, even in the
south, derelict, and you will also provide additional housing supply for people
that desperately need it, and they do desperately need it. I think with the issue of housing ... Of course, every time you say you are going
to expand housing you get an outcry from people saying, "You are going to
concrete over the country or the Green Belt". All we are trying to do is to make sure that there is a
sufficient supply of reasonably priced housing that people can get their feet
on the home ownership ladder and bring up their family with some prospect of
owning an asset.
Q165 Dame Marion Rose: One
final point, if I may, Prime Minister.
Is it not the case that the planning for the provision of the necessary
infrastructure for this massive number of new houses in the south‑east is
actually woefully lacking? I am talking
about new hospitals, new roads, new schools.
Is there not a risk that these vast housing estates will have nothing to
actually bind the inhabitants together into a sustainable community?
Mr Blair: I can assure you, because I
Chair the committee on the Thames Gateway, that that is not case, that the
Health and Education Departments will be a vital part of this, so is the
transport infrastructure; indeed you cannot develop these estates... I think to call them vast estates is a
slight exaggeration, but it is impossible to develop without putting the basic
facilities and infrastructure in there; and that is why the very purpose of
having the Cabinet committee that I Chair is so that we make sure that we have
actually got the health, the education, the transport infrastructure, the
policing infrastructure that is necessary; and the reason why we have set up,
as it were, a body that brings together all the various aspects of government
in respect of the Thames Gateway is precisely for the reason that you give,
Marion, that we know there is no way that we can make this work unless we put
in the infrastructure as well, otherwise you just have communities that will
put pressure on existing services.
Chairman: A final question before we go on to the education aspect. David Lepper.
Q166 Mr Lepper: I am concerned
about housing in the south‑east and the south as well from a slightly
different perspective to the one that Marion has pursued, Prime Minister. I am not so concerned about drawing large
numbers of people into the south‑east as about providing affordable
housing for people, like my constituents, who already live there. My area of the south coast in Brighton and
Hove is an area of high housing prices, whether we are talking about buying or
whether we are talking about renting, low provision of social housing, high
provision, comparatively, of privately rented housing. What we do see are families, as you have
just suggested, not sure how their youngsters are going to be able to find
their way into the housing market to stay in the area in which they were
born. What we also see, I think,
because of that is problems of recruitment and retention for our public services,
particularly health and education. I
wonder whether some of the regional planning that we have talked about so far
really is the best way of looking at this issue. I am concerned at a very local level with providing in precise
travel to work areas the housing that is needed; and all the planning that has
been proposed for the south‑east in housing is not going to help my
constituents, I do not think.
Mr Blair: Let my try and deal with
one particular aspect, David, of what you are putting to me. Obviously there are always limits to the
development and the particular development.
The four areas that we have looked at, in particular, do not include
yours, but on the other hand, the key workers housing programme is a programme
that we have started in London, it is true, but we want to take into other
parts of the country where we are providing help for about 10,000 key workers
now, and that will be significantly increased over the next few years, and
helping precisely those people who we need to recruit in the areas where the
cost of housing is very high and yet the salary for a teacher or a nurse or a
police officer is not going to be sufficiently higher on any basis for them to
be able to live there. So we are trying
to do that as well. I think there are
certain issues that are the coming issues.
I think one is to do with pensions, which is a topic perhaps for another
day, but the other is to do with housing.
I think both of those will have a much higher prominence in the
political debate in the next few years than, as I believe, certain of the
issues like the Health Service get into a different place.
Q167 Mr Lepper: I think one of
the issues that the Barker Report raises is about the balance between building
for buying and building for renting and particularly social renting. Do you feel that we have got that balance
right at the moment? Which way do you
think that balance ought to swing in the future? Can you give us some suggestions about how we head in the right
direction?
Mr Blair: The two things that I would say to you is whether the balance is
right or not is pretty much a matter of random judgment, to be honest. I believe we have got the balance about
right, but I accept that people can make a different judgment. We are trying to make sure that we increase
social housing. We are investing a lot
in that as well as housing that people will buy. I think the other issue in relation to this is that we also need
to look very specifically in certain areas where it can be very difficult sometimes
to get the right planning permissions, where there is not enough ingenuity and
innovation in how we deal with developers in areas where sometimes they could
get easier development if they were prepared to make some commitment to social
housing. I think these development
issues are again coming up on the agenda.
Some of them are very, very difficult to deal with. I think we are getting the balance right,
but I do think that the implementation of the Barker Report is a very important
part of making sure that for housing in the south‑east the situation is
somewhat eased.
Q168 Mr Sheerman: Prime
Minister, a lot of governments that have been in power for seven years tackling
something as complex as the reform of public services tend to run out of
steam. Has your administration run out
of steam?
Mr Blair: No. There is a short answer for you. No, I do not think so. I think the recent health service plans
indicate very clearly that we have not.
Q169 Mr Sheerman: If you take
something like the reform of 14 to 19 education, there is a feeling around that
the Government is losing its enthusiasm for really shaking up for the 14 to 19
agenda and that they are getting concerned that the Tomlinson Report - because
it is going to introduce some very radical proposals for how we educate our
young people that the Government is getting nervous and backtracking. What do you say to that sort of thing?
Mr Blair: No, I think that would be
completely wrong, Barry, actually. On
the contrary, I think we are prepared to be very radical in relation to 14 to
19 year olds in particular to make sure...
I think this is one of the issues for us to address, that the vocational
stream is given the importance that the academic stream has always had. I held a reception in Downing Street last night
for people who provide education post sixteen, and what was interesting there
was the very clear view of people from the independent learning sector, from
further education colleges and from schools that increasingly young people are
looking for very high quality vocational skills training and that a lot of the
problems you get in schools are when you have got children aged 14 who may well
want to go down the vocational route who are forced into the academic straight‑jacket
and feel that they are not getting any benefit from that schooling at all. We are awaiting the final report from Mike
Tomlinson a little bit later in the year, but I think you will find our
response measures up to the scale of the problem. I would point out as well
that from 70,000 a few years ago we have now got 250,000 modern apprenticeships,
and we will be expanding that still further.
Q170 Mr Sheerman: But right at
the heart of everything you say these days and have said for a very long time
about the reform of public services, you have put choice and personalised
service right up front. I sometimes get
the feeling that you do not explain well enough the way that you see that as a
dynamic. Can you explain to us why you
see that as a dynamic for change and reform?
Mr Blair: I think that there are two
aspects to this. There is choice for
parents and pupils between schools, but there is also choice within whatever
institution you are in to pursue, for example, the vocational rather than the
academic route, and I think you need to get both of those things right. I do not think... Choice, in my view, applies in a different way in education and
health, but choice is meaningless unless the capacity is there, unless you are
providing, for example, the good schools.
If you have one good school in an area and everybody wants to get into
it and the other schools are mediocre or doing badly, there is not a great deal
of choice because some people will not be able to get into the school that they
want to get into. So you have got to
combine choice with expanding capacity and raising standards. It is why I do not believe that you can have
a free‑for‑all on schools.
I think you need freedom for schools but not a free‑for‑all:
because if you end up saying to schools, "Right, you get on with your own
business. Do whatever you want",
and those schools are not performing adequately, you are going to end up with a
situation where the parents that are the most assertive get their kids into the
best school and the other parents end up with their children getting a poor
education, and that is not fair.
Q171 Mr Sheerman: The choice is
quite complex for a lot of people.
There is an argument that choice favours those people who are well
informed, can make those judgments, sophisticated judgments that they are, and,
indeed, who have money. Is not choice
loading the dice towards the sort of professional middle classes?
Mr Blair: Let me say, first of all, my view very strongly is that choice
should not be dependent on money. I do
not believe that we should be giving subsidies to private schools or private
healthcare. That is a debate we can
have in another forum maybe with other people here, but that is not the choice
in my view. However, I do believe it is
very important, and I do not think this is simply a middle class preoccupation
at all, it is very important when parents come to decide their secondary
school, in particular, for their child that there are a range of good schools
for them to choose from. I think that
is not something limited to people of a certain income. I think that many working class parents feel
exactly the same: they want their children to do better. People are often very well aware of what are
the good schools and what are not the good schools.
Q172 Mr Sheerman: We only get
good schools and we only get good hospitals if people value the public service;
and you will remember, as I do, John Smith's commitment to turning what he
thought was a selfish society, worshipping getting rich quick and all that,
into serving the community, bringing back serving the community, doing public
service jobs as being high value. Do you think your administration has done
enough to lead on making public service a respected profession whether it be in
health or in education?
Mr Blair: I do not think it is just a
task for government, but I do think the Government has done a lot on this. If you look, for example, at education, if
you look at the rises in teachers' pay over the past seven years, they
have been significantly more than they were before, the expansion of the
numbers of teachers, the expansion of teacher training places. If you are the head teacher of an inner city
school in London today it is not impossible that you are on an almost or
actually at a six-figure salary. I
still think there is a lot more that we need to do. In my view the people who are the entrepreneurs in our public
services are every bit as much deserving of public esteem as the entrepreneurs
in the private sector. All I would say
to you is if you look at the programmes that we have introduced, whether it is
specialist schools or excellence in cities, they have made significant
differences to school results, and I think it is hard for any of us to go into
our local constituencies and visit local schools and not see the investment that
has gone in there. Seven years ago we
were pretty average on technology in the classroom. We must be one of the best in the world now for the amount of
computer technology, and so on, in the classroom.
Q173 Chairman: What about the
child who wants to do woodwork or home economics rather than textiles or even
an academic side of the subject?
Mr Blair: That is where I think the
point that Barry is making about Tomlinson and how you provide a really good
vocational stream is very important; but I think one of the other things that
helps in that is to get more involvement from local business and the business
community in schools as well. The
specialist schools often have a connection with their local business. Some of the children now in the specialist
schools that have a specialism in enterprise, for example, will go and spend
some time with local employers before the age of sixteen. I think that is all very helpful and I
think, as I say, one of our main tasks in the new next few years is to put the
same emphasis on raising vocational standards as we have on the academic
side. One of the weaknesses of the
British system over a long period of time is that the vocational side has not
been given the same prominence.
Q174 Tony Wright: Prime
Minister, choice seems to be the Government's big idea at the moment, indeed it
seems to be the opposition's big idea as well, and yet we had the Chairman of
the Audit Commission last week saying that he thought it was a useful
idea. What I want to ask you is: is it
a big idea, is it a little idea, or is it a sort of middle sized idea?
Mr Blair: The big idea is to raise
the standards of service and to do it on the basis of equality rather than on
the basis of ability to pay, and choice has a role to play in that. I know people can be very sniffy about
choice, but if you are waiting for a long time for an operation and you have
for the first time the ability to go anywhere you need where there is spare
capacity within the Health Service that is able to treat you, I think choice is
very important; and I also think it is very important not, as I say, that we
simply introduce choice and theory. The
choice is often there now in education.
You need to raise the standard of good schools, however, and raise the
number of good schools in order that people can exercise their choice better.
Q175 Tony Wright: What you
describe there is in a sense people's second choice. People's first choice is to have a decent service down the
road. What everyone is saying to me is
that we are putting all this money into public services, record levels of
investment in public services; we are now seeing some of the fruits of that
coming through, more rapidly in some areas than others, education, health. Why can we simply not stick with that so
that people have got some guarantee about getting a good quality service down
the road? Why now go off and chase
choice?
Mr Blair: We are not suddenly going
off and chasing it. If you take the
National Health Service, one of the reasons why you have got every single
waiting list indicator and waiting time indicator in a better place is the
development of the diagnostic and treatment centres in various different parts
of the country, particularly where there is high waiting, where people can go
to if they are not able to get into their local hospital. Of course, what everyone wants is the good
school and the good hospital on their doorstep. The question is, given that we live in an imperfect world and
they do not always have it, are they then just stuck with a failing or poor
service on their doorstep or can they exercise the choice to go elsewhere? The important thing about choice is, let me
make this clear, choice is only really a means to an end and the means to the
end is making sure that if someone does not get a decent service they can
choose to go elsewhere and if you do not give them that choice then, actually,
that is highly inequitable. The one
thing you can be sure of with the more assertive, wealthier, middle class
people is that they will make damn sure, one way or another, that they get to
the place they need to get to.
Q176 Tony Wright: Do you not think that people are just a
little bit jaundiced about choice? A
few years ago we had a rather good directory enquiries service. You just phoned up this number, 192, and
they would tell you the number that you wanted and everything was
straightforward, and then choice decreed that we had to have loads of different
numbers that none of us could remember.
We now have a report that has just been published which says less people
now use the service than did before and the price is just the same. Do you not think that people just want
quality and if that means a bit of planning, let us have a bit of planning?
Mr Blair: There is planning and where
it is necessary you have to plan. I do
not agree that choice is not still important for people, Tony. If you look at your local school and you
think the results are really not good enough, I do not think it is fair to say
to that parent, "I'm sorry, you've just got to wait until the school
miraculously becomes better or until someone intervenes and makes it
better." Insofar as possible you have
got to be able to say to the parent ‑ and this is where you need to open
up the school system, have greater diversity of supply, of different types of
schools and so on ‑ as far as possible, if that school is not to the
standard that you require there is another school that you can go to, and I
think the same is true with NHS care.
What interests me about both the education and the National Health
Service debate is that people say to me now, "What are you on about more change
for? You're always on about more
change. We've just been through one lot
of change and now suddenly you're coming up with another lot of change." I remember when we first introduced
specialist schools people told me it was going to end up with elitism. I remember when we first introduced all the
changes in the National Health Service people told us it would undermine the
nature of the Health Service. The improvements
we have seen in health and education have largely been as a result of the
policies on which the next ramp of policy actually builds.
Q177 Tony Wright: What I am simply putting to you is that
people want to be able to see in practical terms what some of this means. Let us take a town with just a couple of
secondary schools, one is at the posh end of town and is over‑subscribed
and the other one at the poor end of town people do not want to go to. You tell me which model of choice is going
to enable those people in the poor end of town to go to the school in the posh
end of town?
Mr Blair: The model of choice is, and
this is why I say choice without building the standards and capacity is a
chimera ---
Q178 Tony Wright: So what are we saying?
Mr Blair: What we are saying is, and
this is where I would disagree with the policy of other political parties, is
that I think it is extremely important that you do not say, "Well, that school
is failing. Tough! There's nothing you can do about it." You have got to intervene and ensure that
that school gets better, if necessary by changing the management at the school,
the head teacher at the school. That is
why the numbers of failing schools, for example, is down by more than a half
since we came to office.
Q179 Tony Wright: That is collective choice. That is us choosing to put in place a policy
that will produce that result, that is not individuals choosing.
Mr Blair: Exactly. I am not saying that choice alone is the
answer. I am saying, however, that
choice has a part to play along with building capacity. The reason why we are building up choice
within the National Health Service rather than simply giving it to people
immediately now is that if you do not build the capacity in the Health Service
then what you will do is you will just move the bulge of demand round the
system. If you actually expand capacity
then it makes perfect sense to give people choice.
Q180 Tony Wright: I do not know what building capacity
means. Does it mean that we are going
to make the popular school twice as big?
Mr Blair: I do think there is a case
for saying that good schools that are popular can expand, but I think that you
also have to intervene in the case of failure and make that school that is not
providing a good service improve it.
Q181 Tony Wright: Why do we not do what the Americans do with
their charter schools, which we were interested in at one time here, which
basically allows anybody to apply to any school and they have a lottery to
decide who gets in? That is a radical
choice model that people could understand, but that is not one that we are
embracing, is it?
Mr Blair: We are not embracing that
one, no. What we are embracing,
however, is the City Academy model which means that you take a school that has
failed, you are turning it round with outside sponsorship, with some government
investment, the school is run with its own distinctive ethos and purpose and
these schools that are now starting are immensely successful. I simply say to anybody who wants to see how
you actually can turn around failing schools that they should go and visit some
of the new academies that are starting up round the country. If you take the treatment of heart disease
and heart patients within the National Health Service for example, when we introduced
the choice for people that after a certain period of waiting you could choose
to go wherever you wanted it was fantastically successful and popular. It has helped build up capacity within the
system and as a result of it people are getting treated far faster. What I would say about this choice issue in
a sense is to demystify it. It is not
the be-all-and-end-all of the entire debate, but what it is is an important lever
in circumstances where otherwise your user of public services has no choice but
to use a bad service. The reason why I
think it is so important for our side of politics to take this up is that my
passionate belief is that public services should remain for all parts of the
community. Public services should not
be the services for those that cannot afford to go private. Once that happens ‑ and this is the
danger, for example, with parts of the education system in London, let us be
blunt about it ‑ then you lose the support for universal public
services. We are not going to have a free-for-all
but we are going to have greater freedom, greater independence and we are going
to do that against a background of wanting to say to parents, if the school
that is on your doorstep is not sufficiently good, we are not going to leave
you with the choice of either going privately or sticking with the school that
is not up to standard.
Q182 Chairman: Prime Minister, I listen but I do not
understand. I have got my public
accounts hat on at the moment.
Following on from what Tony has said, schools have finite capacity, they
can be expanded to a limited extent.
The idea of choice is fine, but the idea of the sort of absolute choice
you have adduced is just unattainable unless you have an enormous massive surplus
capacity and therefore wasted resources within the system. It is fine in theory but it will not work in
practice.
Mr Blair: I just do not agree with
that argument. I do not see what is
difficult to understand about it.
Q183 Chairman: I will tell you what is difficult to
understand. I have a school in my
constituency exactly as Tony described, where the people from Donald's patch
would try to get into that school, and I can understand why. One has had a situation where a grandfather
living within the catchment area adopted the granddaughter from Donald's side
so that the child would go to the school on my side. The school on my side already has all these portable classrooms,
there is nowhere else to put people. How
do you give choice in a situation like that?
Mr Blair: Surely that makes my point
for me, that what you have got to do is you have got to ask why are the other
schools in the area not of a standard ---
Q184 Chairman: You have not answered the question. Where are the children going?
Mr Blair: The very reason why you are
having to deal with this problem is that at the moment the good school is over‑subscribed
and as a result of that there are people who are not getting the choice of
school that they want. The answer to
that surely, Alan, is not to take away their right to choose but to expand the
capacity within the school system of good schools, which is the reason for the
changes and reforms we are making, and then give them the greater choice.
Q185 Tony Wright: My local authority and others are still
pursuing a pretty robust surplus places policy. Are you now announcing the end of the policy of removing surplus
places from the system?
Mr Blair: No, I am not saying
that. I am simply saying that you
cannot say that good schools are unable to expand simply because you have got
surplus places elsewhere when the surplus places elsewhere may be in a school
that is not up to standard. We have a
very simple choice on this if you like.
We either say that in no circumstances is that good school going to be
able to expand, even though it could expand and wants to, because there are
surplus places at a school that someone does not want to send their children
to. I am sorry, in the end that is not
acceptable. We have to make sure that
we are not simply allowing the good school to expand but we are also taking
measures to deal with the school that is not up to scratch. That is why I do not agree with the free‑for‑all. I think it is important to give parents a
range of different choices. When people
say that this is something that simply middle class parents want, I do not
agree with that. I think it is
something that all parents who have got aspirations for their children
want. Unless you could expand the
capacity this is a meaningless debate, I totally agree with you, but if you do
expand the capacity it is a very meaningful debate for parents.
Q186 Chairman: Let us take it in school terms. If you expand a good school by 30 places at
entrance, you have to expand it by 30 places all the way through the school
system to accommodate those extra children as they go through. That is a massive increase. It is not attainable particularly on
existing sites. In the meantime, even
if you have got what you want, what you are doing is only creating a return to
the secondary modern by having a two-tier school system within the same time.
Mr Blair: You are not doing anything
of the sort. The very hypothesis you
posit is that you have got your two tiers, ie you have got one school they all
want to get into and you have got another they do not want to go to. We really will have to debunk this idea that
we do not have different tiers of provision within our public services at the
moment. There is not a single one of us
round this table who is a parent that does not look at different schools to see
whether they are good or not. Therefore
the tiers that you have are tiers in relation to quality. In the example that you give, if your
successful school in your community thinks it is unattainable and it does not
want to expand, it does not have to, but that is not the issue. The issue is whether you say to them they
are not allowed to expand even though they could, which I think is an
unacceptable restriction to put on them, but that is not all I am suggesting. At the same time, if the school in your
constituency ‑ and I do not know the ins and outs of it so I do not want
to criticise it ‑ is not providing high enough standards, we have got to
ask why and then take remedial action.
I am not suggesting this thing called choice hangs out there on its own
as a sort of abstract because in the schools system at the moment in theory
there is choice. The problem is there
are not enough schools to choose from and therefore you have got to have both,
both the capacity and the choice. I say
to you in all honesty, I passionately disagree with this notion that at the
moment this is a system where there is a marvellous degree of equity and
everyone just goes to their next-door school because they think that is really
what they should do. It is not what
happens. As you know perfectly well,
people move homes, they do whatever they can do in order to get their kids into
the best school and I think that is natural.
People want the best for their kids and they are going to carry on doing
that and our job is to provide more good schools. We have put far more money into the most disadvantaged areas for
schooling. The Excellence in Cities
programme is raising the standard of schools in some of the poorest parts of
the country.
Q187 Mr Sheerman: Would you support an academy for Swansea?
Mr Blair: I think if you can get one,
get one. All I can tell you is that you
will find some of the most disadvantaged kids in schools that are new schools
and they are providing high quality education and I think all of these schools
are schools that had fewer than 20 per cent of the kids getting five good
GCSEs.
Q188 Mr Hinchliffe: I think I would be the first to acknowledge
that there have been some very significant improvements in the NHS in terms of
quality of care in particular and indeed increases in capacity. I was struck very strongly recently when the
NHS White Paper was launched at the exchange that took place in the Commons
between the two front benches which was almost exclusively around this narrow
area of choice as the key issue in health.
If you are still Prime Minister by 2020 and there is quite a good chance
you will be, half our children will be clinically obese on current trends. We are currently spending between £6.5 and
£7.5 billion economically on obesity and, frankly, choice is an irrelevance to
the real health issues. It is very nice
to talk about this consumerist approach to choosing hospitals but it really
does not address some of the pretty serious problems that we have. Do you not feel that the Government has a
role to play in shifting the focus of the debate on health towards a preventive
agenda rather than on to a hospital and curative agenda?
Mr Blair: I totally agree with the
last point, I think we do have a responsibility. I think you are right in a sense to say that this concept of
choice has become a surrogate for a debate about the consumers' role in public
services. My view of this again is
very, very simple, which is that for my father's generation post-War people got
the basic services that they never had before and that was a tremendous
innovation and step forward and a whole lot of social progress through the 1944
Education Act and the creation of the National Health Service and so on arose
from that. What we do in the private
sector part of our lives is we have gone beyond mass production, we have a
range of different choices and we operate far more as consumers. I think that in respect of public services
people demand and expect to have, particularly with the large sums of money
going in, a more personalised service, a service more responsive to them. That is why when we first said you should be
able to see a health professional within 24 hours and your GP within 48 I know
it caused problems for some GPs, but I used to say to my people, is that the
most we can offer? You should be able
to get access into the health care system pretty quickly and that is the reason
for walk‑in centres and NHS Direct and so on. I agree with you that sometimes the thing appears to revolve
around choice. I think it is more
fundamental than that. It is about how
you personalise public services for today's world. I think the choice argument is important in that. All I say is that the empirical evidence we
have within the Health Service is that when people are given the choice they
enjoy exercising it.
Q189 Mr Hinchliffe: We have a Public Health White Paper coming
out in the Autumn. Will that be a
radical White Paper in terms of putting public health at the centre of the
Government's agenda cross‑departmentally? One of the worries that I have on a range of policies is that we
can evaluate them financially, we can find the cost implications of them, but
we rarely ever seem to address the environmental consequences and the health
consequences. A good example is the
Congestion Charge policy in London. We
know the costs of implementing it, we know the cost benefits arising from it,
but we have not evaluated the positive health consequences, the fact that
people need to walk more and cross the street safely.
Mr Blair: The point you make about
public health and prevention is absolutely right. I hope the White Paper is radical in this area. It is difficult though because you will run
into this concept that you can see over the issue to do with smoking bans and
the issue to do with obesity and whether we discourage certain types of
advertising of particular foods to children and all the rest of it. I find it quite difficult to talk about the
issue of what is the Government's role in relation to obesity? In the end I cannot tell someone how to live
their life.
Q190 Mr Hinchliffe: The Government's role is to evaluate in any
area of policy the possible health consequences.
Mr Blair: Yes, that is true. I think what you can do is educate people as
to the lifetime changes they can make in order to give themselves a better and
more effective life. I think you reach
quite early on in these debates a crux which is the issue to do with - if I can
call it in crude political terms - the nanny state notion, to what extent is
the Government able to say this is what you must do? I think what the Government can do in relation to healthy living
is that it can explain to people what the facts are. It can do a lot more in schools, for example, to make sure that
people know what the consequences are of the lifestyle that they lead and it
may be in certain areas ‑ and the smoking issue is one of them ‑
that you can take action now that maybe a few years ago people would have said,
"What on earth do they think they're doing getting into that?" So this debate does move. I agree that the prevention aspect is
fantastically important, there is no doubt about that at all. If you look at health care costs going
forward, the biggest single item of cost will be people who have got chronic
diseases that they need to manage of one sort or another and sometimes these
are intimately linked to the lifestyle that they have led. This will be a very important debate. The policy conclusions out of it will be
quite difficult and the balance between educating people or trying to persuade
people and enforcement will be quite difficult.
Q191 Derek Conway: Sticking on this question of choice and, as
you say, it is a question of whether the consumers' role is the driving force
or whether it is the service provider.
I am dealing with a case at the moment where in the Queen Mary, Sidcup,
a surgeon said to a constituent, "I think it's in your best interests to have
your leg amputated." This was not a
nice choice. So he was taken to the
Roehampton Limb Centre and it was explained to him what the consequences would
be and he thought, "Yeah, I can live with that, that's okay," except once the
operation happened the Primary Care Trust insist he goes to a different limb
centre, where the limbs are completely different and the impact is going to be
completely different for him. A small
case, important to him, but the choice has gone from the surgeon giving the
patient an informed choice about the consequences of the operation and then
bureaucracy screwing the whole thing up.
How do you get your demand for consumer-driven choice through the system
without making it consumer led rather than service provider led, which is the
problem that exists in the Health Service today?
Mr Blair: I think that is a very good
point. I think you have to have, first
of all, the capacity that you require.
For example, if the Primary Care Trust was saying to him that he had to
go to a different limb centre, that is presumably because there were
difficulties with them ---
Q192 Derek Conway: It is because of the contracts they sign.
Mr Blair: Once you have a fixed tariff
within the system it will become easier for people then to move around the
system in a better way. Even when you
do that you will still have a key question which is how you build capacity in the
longer term. Whether we are talking
about the best surgeons or the best schools, there will always be a tension
because people will want to gravitate to where the best quality service is. I think public services have their own
distinct ethos, but I think they are the same as every other walk of life in
this sense in that if there was no contestability in any set of circumstances
there tends not to be much of an incentive on people, other than the ones who
are absolutely dedicated just for the sake of being dedicated, providing a
decent service and that is why I think this principle of contestability is
important. It will be easier with the
fixed tariff for your constituent to move within the system in the way that
they want. The reason why we are rolling
out choice and not simply introducing it immediately is because we recognise we
do have to expand the capacity of the system before the choice is meaningful.
Chairman: Prime Minister, we are now
going to move to the energy policy section.
Current recent events have focused attention on the short‑term
problems and possibly long‑term problems in relation to oil, but we need
to look at the question of the energy facilities and prospects across the whole
range of energy.
Q193 Dr Gibson: We will move you from AC to DC now, I think,
the energy debate. There is a lot of
interest in the country about the link between energy, electricity and solar
production and climate change. I think
they are linked in people's minds. All
we have been talking about so far does not come to anything unless the machines
run, the buses run and so on and we have fuels that do not destroy the
environment. So we really want to look
at the energy policy of the Government, whether it is really going to get us to
that world that many people make their speeches around. In fact, last night I see Dr Rowan Williams,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, in his first Green speech, adopted the approach
of the Eastern Orthodox Church "that destroying the environment was a sin, and
that Christians had a duty to protect it."
Your Chief Scientific Adviser, David King, goes on to describe climate
change in his terms as 'a weapon of mass destruction'. How would you relate to those two
statements?
Mr Blair: I do not think I had better
qualify on the religious status of climate change, but the single biggest long‑term
problem we face as a world is the issue of climate change. The evidence now is overwhelming. The Kyoto agreement, which we support and
whose targets we will implement, amounts effectively to a one per cent
reduction in emissions, whereas the evidence that we have is that there is a 60
per cent reduction in emissions required by 2050.
Q194 Dr Gibson: Let us look at some of those targets then in
detail. There are many people who think
we are not going to reach them with the policies we have now. Professor Trevor Davies, who operates a five‑star
department at the University of East Anglia and Norwich, it is a world class
organisation, they have the Tyndale Centre which the Government gave them there,
has said to me, "The generation of electricity from renewable sources" - in
this country - "is falling well short of Government targets and the gap between
those targets and energy actually generated is increasing. This will mean that the target for ten per
cent for 2010 will be missed.
Therefore, more proactive promotion, awareness-raising and innovation ...
is needed." Do you think he is talking
out of his head?
Mr Blair: No, I do not think he is
talking nonsense at all. We believe we
will meet the target for renewables, but it is challenging and I think that
there is a need, as we are doing, to step up investment in renewables. My own view of this, having looked at it
very carefully indeed and it is one of the issues that we will be raising in
the context of our G8 chairmanship next year, is that without a concerted push
on the science and technology we are not going to be able to meet, not merely
the Kyoto targets, I do not mean Britain as a country, I mean any of the
countries, or deal with this problem on anything like the scale that it needs
to be dealt with.
Q195 Dr Gibson: What role has the United States got in that
because, quite clearly, they do not agree with the global warming research that
has been done elsewhere in the world?
In fact, many people think they have taken positive steps to prevent
those targets being met across the world.
Do you agree with that?
Mr Blair: We have a disagreement with
the United States about this. I think
that the Kyoto Protocol is essential. I
think it is an essential first step. I
think we then need to build on it. One
of the parts of the debate we are pursuing with the United States is as to
whether there is at least certain areas in relation to science and technology
that we can agree we need major investment in for the future. If we are going to rely on fossil fuels for
our energy requirements in the future we are not going to be able to deal with
the climate change issues as well. I do
not think that is just an issue for America, incidentally, I think it is going
to be increasingly an issue for China and India and some of the emerging
economies that are going to be immensely strong as well. We have a disagreement, but it is not a
disagreement simply with the American administration, obviously there is a very
large part of Congress and the Senate that do not accept this thesis either.
Q196 Dr Gibson: How does the conversation go with the
President when you bring this subject up, is it friendly or do you pass by in
the night on the subject?
Mr Blair: It is perfectly friendly but
there is a disagreement.
Q197 Dr Gibson: Does he storm out of the room?
Mr Blair: No, he does not storm out of
the room. As he points out to me, this
is not merely a problem with the administration, it is a problem with Congress
and Senate as well. I think the Senate
voted 100 to nothing against the Kyoto Treaty when it first arose. Yes, of course, it is a dialogue we must
pursue, but as they point out, even if the administration agrees, you have then
got to get it through their Congress and so on. I do not think we should give up on the dialogue with the United
States. I think increasingly within the
United States the debate has shifted in the sense that there were statements
from some parts of the administration when they first came to office that
suggested they did not accept the science on climate change. I do not take them as saying that
anymore. I think they accept the
science. The question is what do you do
about it? That is in itself a
significant change that we need to build upon.
The fuel cell technology, tidal energy, what is the capability of the
full renewable package? This requires
an awful lot of investment in research and development as well as simply
building on what we know now.
Q198 Dr Gibson: Let me ask you what you think of the comment
by James Lovelock, the hypothesis man, who said that "opposition to nuclear is
based on an irrational fear fed by Hollywood‑style fiction." He thinks and there was a newspaper headline
recently saying this, "Only nuclear power can halt global warming". What do you think of that in terms of your
White Paper, which leaves the nuclear option absolutely open and unclear? People are saying we need nuclear
power. Do you agree with that?
Mr Blair: I think it is a question of
balancing the costs and making sure that the concerns that people have about
safety are dealt with. The reason why
we left it open is precisely because we recognise this is a debate that is not
over. I certainly do not favour closing
the door on that debate. We have not
committed ourselves to a new generation of nuclear power stations, but I do not
think you can close the door on that. I
think it is a debate that will continue.
Unless you deal with the costs and the concerns that the public have I
think it is very difficult to see the future for it.
Q199 Mr Key: Prime Minister, why do you think that the
United Kingdom is resistant to nuclear power generation?
Mr Blair: I think it is because people
believe there is a safety issue in respect of it. We all judge what our own constituents would feel. If any of us round the table suddenly went
along to our local constituents and said, "We're going to build a nuclear power
station in the constituency," how widely supportive do you think they would be?
Q200 Mr Key: That is not very bold leadership, is it?
Mr Blair: I agree, Robert. I will tell you what, I will do a deal with
you, Robert, we will put one in your constituency first and you can lead and I
will follow.
Q201 Mr Key: I still maintain that is a pretty weak approach
to this problem. After all, there are
over 430 nuclear reactors around the world in 31 countries and, as it happens,
five of those countries make up half the population of the world and over 50
years nuclear energy has proved to be the safest of all energy sources. So why are we not prepared to take the lead
here?
Mr Blair: There is a cost issue. You have to work out how you are going to
engage with the public on the basis of acceptability. The reason why in our White Paper we kept the door open deliberately
- and I think we were attacked at the time for keeping the door open ‑ is
because I think it is not sensible for us to say, "Because of the public
concern about this we are just shutting the door." Let us be clear, when you embark upon this you are going to have
to be clear both about the costs and that you can meet the concerns over public
safety.
Q202 Mr Key: I would maintain that on neither are you
giving a lead, Prime Minister. Look at
costs, your own figures from the DTI on generation costs in 2025 point out that
nuclear could be cheaper than offshore wind.
I believe that if you are going to use your G8 Presidency to champion
climate change you are going to be going into the conference chamber half‑naked
if you will not come off the fence.
Mr Blair: I think that is an
interesting thought. I agree with you
to this extent. I have fought long and
hard, both within my party and outside, to make sure that the nuclear option is
not closed off, but I think we have got to be realistic about this. If we are going to develop a new generation
of nuclear power stations, we are going to have to do a lot more work on
reassuring people both on the cost and on the safety grounds and we are going
to have to have a debate in which people understand the science and, in
particular, which I think is the real issue to do with nuclear power, the
difference between a nuclear power station and the development of nuclear
weapons, because I think what happens in scientific terms is that the two get
mixed up together. I am not pretending
to you that the Government has been majoring on this issue recently because we
have not been, but we have left the door open for that debate. I also think, frankly, the more it happens
in a cross‑party way the better because I think it is one of these issues
that obviously is highly potent in the political field. I agree with you to this extent, that you
cannot remove it from the agenda if you are serious about the issue of climate
change. There is no point in me sitting
here completely blind to the political reality. Unless we overcome these two hurdles our progress will be
limited.
Q203 Mr Key: Prime Minister, if you will come off the
fence, I will come off the fence half‑naked or not. Even in decommissioning our own nuclear power
stations, the UK skills base is aging, people are retiring and they are not
being replaced. Are you content with
the thought that we will be out‑sourcing our nuclear engineers and
workforce from India and China in a few years?
Mr Blair: No. The skills base, as you would rightly go on
to tell me, requires us also to make sure that we are developing the new
generation of nuclear reactors because that skills base requires updating in
respect of that. I think as well that
there is a serious case ‑ this may be one of the things we can do in the
course of our presidency of the G8 ‑ which is to try and put before
people the facts as we know them, not just about nuclear power, but about
renewables and about the research and development that is necessary and about
the impact of climate change so you get a more rational debate and I am very
happy to engage in that.
Q204 Mr Key: Should we be spending more research money on
nuclear fusion or the hydrogen economy?
Mr Blair: I think we are looking at
the moment on nuclear fusion as to how we put investment into that
research. I find that a very
interesting idea and I know that David King is keen that we look at that and
that we look at that with the United States as well. One thing I should say, to be fair to the US, is they put an
awful lot of money into research. One of the things that we could do at the G8
level is, insofar as that is possible, to share some of the benefits of this
research knowledge because all of these things - developing fuel cell
technology - require a massive lead advertisement and investment.
Q205 Dr Gibson: You might be able to resolve the problems in
the G8 between different nations about the siting of the new thermonuclear
reactor that they are going to put in Europe somewhere and they are all arguing
where it should be and it has been going on for some time and we desperately
need that in the G8 Bill now.
Mr Blair: This is the debate about
whether it is in Europe or Japan, is it?
Q206 Dr Gibson: Yes.
Mr Blair: I hope that we will resolve
that reasonably soon.
Q207 Mr O'Neill: Prime Minister, you seem to be confusing,
certainly me, about timescales. As far
as I can see, by about 2011 to 2012 we will have virtually no coal-fired
stations of any substance in the UK. We
will have diminished quite considerably our nuclear capacity because of
obsolescence and the end of life and various things like that. We will have become increasingly dependent
upon gas. I do not think there are many
bookies taking odds on renewables. We
might reach ten per cent by 2011 it and it does not matter if it slips a wee
bit, but I do not think there is a cat in hell's chance of us getting 20 per
cent by 2020. The point, therefore, is
that we are going to have a generating gap probably around 2013/2015 and we
cannot wait until we redevelop our own nuclear stations. The history of British nuclear power has
been ridiculous "Union Jack projects" where, in fact, there are probably going
to be ones from America or South Africa that we could usefully employ and there
are sites which will be freed up as a consequence of the closure of the
stations that I mentioned. There are
opportunities that do not have to be addressed and probably thankfully this
side of the General Election, but very shortly afterwards they will have to
be. Would you agree with that logic or
am I being a little too pointed in bringing up words like General Election?
Mr Blair: No. Irrespective of the General Election, I
think within the next few years there are some very difficult decisions that we
will have to take on this. Precisely
because of the points you make, Martin, that is why I think there has been a
deal struck recently in respect of Norway and imported gas. We believe we have sufficient energy
reserves that are available to us to deal with this. I agree, there is a question that does not arise for decision
today but will arise within the next few years, which is whether as your
existing nuclear power stations run down you try and replace that and replace it
with the latest technology which, as you say, round the world is developing in
a different way from the generation of nuclear power stations that we have
now. I am not in a position to make a
decision or give an indication on that, but I do not disagree with the
essential thrust that you are making.
There is a real issue for us about energy supply in the medium to long
term.
Q208 Mr O'Neill: At the moment who is looking at this on your
behalf in Government?
Mr Blair: We published the paper on
energy policy precisely because we needed to look at this and the Strategy Unit
within the Cabinet Office also looked very closely at what the future energy
needs were going to be and how we were likely to meet them. We are continuing to do that. Defra and the DTI are in the lead on it.
Q209 Dr Gibson: Is that not the problem, there are so many
departments with their fingers in the pie, you either need a Ministry of
Energy, which we have had before in this country, or a minister who champions
the whole link up and there does not appear to be anybody emerging?
Mr Blair: We realise we have got to be
in the position to take these decisions within the next few years. The nature of the decisions is such that it
will be at a fairly senior level that we need to get this sorted out.
Q210 Mr O'Neill: One of Europe's unsung achievements last year
was to have the chemical Directive offered by the EU radically removed and it
was perhaps one of the few occasions when there was big power unity between
Germany, France and the UK on an issue.
It highlights another aspect, which is the competing claims of Defra
whose desire is to meet Kyoto at all costs and in the quickest possible time
and then the DTI which has a responsibility to represent the interests of
industry. So we have got the Climate
Change Levy, we have got emissions trading, we have the large plant directive,
all of which are imposing sizable burdens on British industry and our capacity
to generate the wealth which will enable us to subsidise less economic forms of
electricity generation in the future.
Are you happy that there is the right balance or do you think that we
have undue creative tension between the two departments?
Mr Blair: I think in a way what you
and others have been questioning me on actually leads us to the conclusion that
there is no reason why the two should be in conflict. The starting point of Robert's question was really that climate
change is a serious issue, have we measured up to the scale of the
challenge? The whole issue to do with
nuclear power, with renewables and so on is how do we make sure that we have a
sufficiently secure energy supply that is compatible with the requirements of
the environment in dealing with climate change? Inevitably that is something where you have got to have the Government
working together. I do not honestly
think it is the problem. I think you
put your finger on the problem earlier, which is that these decisions are so
big about future energy links that it is going to be very hard to see how we
deal with this unless you are prepared to take a big and reasonably bold
decision. There is not a great problem
in the short term because we have got sufficient supplies of gas and so on that
we can buy in. I think longer term
there is. To be fair to the United
States, they raised some of these issues to do with nuclear power. Where they have shifted their ground
somewhat is that they used to be saying they did not accept this as a
problem. They are now saying we do
accept it as a problem, but if we accept it as a problem, why is nuclear power
ruled off the agenda? Why are we
unprepared to look at this solution and that solution? That is where they do have a point. The other thing is, for those countries that
are heavily dependent on carbon fuels, again there is technology that can be
developed there to make those cleaner and they are of huge importance but it
requires a massive research effort. I
think the interesting thing about climate change is that it is an issue that
every political leader really knows is a very big long‑term question.
There is no political leader for whom it is such a short-term problem that, as
it were, you can knock every obstacle out of the way in order to deal with
it. Talking about some of the security
threats that we face, as we will be doing later, and the need to co-operate at
an international level, this is par
excellence an issue that cannot be dealt with by any one country. Even if Britain meets all its Kyoto targets
(and I believe we will, but supposing we do) and other people do not meet them,
the actual impact on the world environment is pretty limited. So it is an issue where there is, I think, a
tremendous need for the beginnings of agreement at the international level as
to how you tackle this. The reason I
made it a priority for our G8 is not because I suddenly think the Americans,
whatever the famed British influence or not, are suddenly going to say "Right,
that's a very persuasive argument, we will go with Kyoto" - they will not - but
what I do hope to do is to get agreement on certain key principles that inform
this debate, and a way of working to move it forward in the future.
Q211 Dr Gibson: You must have been saying this all your
political life, really. You have seen
the problem - and you had an energy brief at one time, I think, in your career
- and people make these speeches and it sounds great, and wonderful, and
nothing much happens. Somebody has got
to take the bull by the horns at some point and go for it, and whatever devices
you have to use politically have to be used.
Is there not that all-consuming demand to get it done, for any
politician, to hide it because "I'll be out of office before it happens and
before the lights go out in London and before the water comes streaming down" -
all that kind of scenario?
Mr Blair: One of the things we have
done recently, and you may have been involved in this, is we got together a
group of people from different countries, all of whom are interested in this
climate change issue, and we also deliberately got in touch with some of the
states in the United States, because some of them are actually supportive of
what we are trying to do. I think the
beginnings of this is to get agreement on certain principles, to get agreement
on the science and then to get a way of working forward. The thing I have become more and more convinced
of, looking at this, is that unless one major part of this is a push on the
science and technology to do with renewable energy, to do with energy
efficiency and to do with issues to do, say, with nuclear power, we are not
going to resolve this. We are not going
to resolve it if you are going to end up saying to these major emerging
economies: "We want you to cut growth in some way". That just will not happen.
Q212 Dr Gibson: I think many of the scientists and
technologists think the science is there; there are so many renewable options
now, it is just making them work. There
are debates in the Chamber here about bio fuels incessantly which would bring
the agricultural industry in East Anglia up to the heights. They could do it but the tax incentives are
not being provided and so on. There are
wind farms all over the East Anglian coast - up they are going, wind
turbines. There are all sorts of things
going on, we just need to make it really work.
Biomass, everything - there are dozens of renewable sources.
Mr Blair: But there are also big
issues to do with how you make it cost effective. For example, if you take something like tidal power and tidal
energy, there is potentially a huge significance in that. I was up in the North East visiting a scientific
project looking at tidal energy the other day and they were explaining to me
that tidal energy, in theory, can meet all the energy demands of the entire
country, but then they were explaining to me that the scientific and technology
problem is not understanding what tidal power can do, it is understanding how
you can deliver it at anything like a realistic cost. That is where I think the research is very important, and the
same issues arise in relation to fuel cell technology.
Q213 Mr Ainsworth: Prime Minister, the impression I am left
with, after listening to those recent exchanges and your talk about big and
bold decisions needing to be made at some point in the future, is not so much
that you are keeping the nuclear option on a back burner but it is actually a
decision which, somewhere inside your own mind, has already been taken -
because I cannot think of what other big and bold decisions you might be going
to take in relation to energy. Do you
not think you are leaving it all a bit late if the time-frame that Ian Gibson
set out is correct (and I believe that is right)? As you pointed out to Robert Key, the idea of building new
nuclear power stations quickly and easily is hardly feasible. If you have actually decided to reinvest in
nuclear, why do you not just say so?
Mr Blair: We have not, Peter. We have not made that decision. We are not going to be in a position to make
that decision for the near future.
Q214 Mr Ainsworth: How long are you going to give renewables to
make up the gap?
Mr Blair: We have got our renewable
target, and although it is challenging we believe that we can meet it. We do not have to take the decision on
nuclear power at this present time. The
significance of what we did in the paper on energy is that we left the door
open. As I say, there were people who
wanted us to close it off. We have not,
but we are not in a position to take a decision yet. It is not that we cannot in the near term meet our energy
requirements - we can. As I say, the
deal that was struck recently with Norway is a perfect example of that. I think there is something like 20 per cent
of the gas needs met through that. We
can do that. I do not think that is the
issue, I think the issue is the interplay between the environmental question
and the energy requirements. That is
the difficult thing. It is not there
are insufficient reserves of gas in the world that we could have access to in
the near term; that is not the problem, the problem is how are we going to not
merely meet Kyoto but end up with a radical reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions.
Q215 Mr Ainsworth: Just on that point: you talk a good game,
Prime Minister, on these issues, and you do it internationally and make a lot
of good noises about it, but do you not feel slightly embarrassed when you make
the case for the need to tackle climate change when you look at the record of
your own government which has, since 1997, seen a 0.2 per cent decrease in CO2
emissions when we were achieving 1 per cent-a-year decreases during the
1990s? Why do you think the pace has
slowed so dramatically?
Mr Blair: Of course, the pace was very
dramatic because we were closing coal mines and coal-fired ----
Q216 Mr Ainsworth: Is that before you were interested in climate
change?
Mr Blair: No, I have been interested
in climate change as well; I am just explaining why the rate was very strong in
those times. Actually, we will meet our
Kyoto targets, so it is not that we talk a good game, we have done a good game,
and that is in periods of high economic growth. In the late-80s/early-90s we had a recession. We have had strong economic growth and we
are still managing to meet our Kyoto targets.
We introduced the Climate Change Levy, though it was not very popular,
let me say, with parts of business, but, nevertheless, we did it and that has
contributed to meeting our targets as well.
So I do not think we have just talked a good game.
Q217 Mr Ainsworth: I apologise, but we have our own target as
well, which is a 20 per cent reduction, as you know. We are currently standing at minus 7.5 per cent against the 1990
figure, which is the benchmark figure.
I just do not know how you are going to make up the extra 12.5 per cent
in the next six years of this decade when the current rate is .2 per cent since
1997.
Mr Blair: We believe we can do
it. I am not saying it is not
challenging because we are going beyond the Kyoto target.
Q218 Mr Ainsworth: How are you going to do it, Prime Minister?
Mr Blair: The only way of doing this
is to increase the renewables, and this is why we are putting what is a
substantial sum of investment into that, and to make sure that we are doing -
in terms of fuel efficiency and the Climate Change Levy - everything we
possibly can to meet it. We believe we
are on a trajectory to meet it. I agree
it is going to be very challenging to do it, but we are doing the most that we
can reasonably do at the present time in order to achieve it.
Q219 Mr Ainsworth: Just finally, is there not one further
complication here which is, to the extent that the door is open to nuclear,
that there is a significant disincentive to those who might consider investing
in the risky, high-tech business of renewables? If the door is open the nuclear industry might walk through it
with a huge taxpayers' subsidy at any moment, and blow you out of the water.
Mr Blair: I do not think that will
happen. I think both are necessary as
issues that we have to resolve. I do
not see it as an either/or, actually.
Q220 Mr Key: Both?
Mr Blair: I think we have already got
nuclear power now. What happens with
the future generation we have got to leave open, but for the near future we
will be meeting some of our requirements through nuclear power, obviously.
Q221 Mrs Dunwoody: Prime Minister, transport is responsible for
a quarter of our carbon emissions, so if we find difficulty with the big
problems perhaps we could target that.
Can you tell me, since cars are getting cleaner but there are many more
of them, why we still only have a voluntary agreement with the manufacturers? Could you also tell me, which is more
important: keeping the money for the Treasury that we get from the fuel tax or
moving towards alternative fuels?
Mr Blair: Well we obviously need the
fuel tax because otherwise we cannot pay the bills, but we are trying to
develop alternative fuels as well.
Q222 Mrs Dunwoody: Why is it that Japan, America, Canada and
Germany are all ahead of us in the fuel cell technology research, and we could
easily be encouraging local authorities to set up hydrogen highways in this
country; we could be using bus fleets, we could be using a number of different
plans to move forward the whole hydrogen technology thing, yet we are
suggesting "We can't really take too much account of that because it is for the
future." We could be doing that
now. Why are we not?
Mr Blair: We do a certain amount by
way of incentives that people are given, and that is why the Chancellor has
introduced a whole series of incentives over the past few years. I agree with you, you can always put more
money into hydrogen research, you can put more money into renewable energy -
you can put more money into everything - but there is a limit to the amount of
money we have got to spend, and if we start taking money off fuel duty that
means I have to cut it from somewhere else in the Budget.
Q223 Mrs Dunwoody: It does not matter how often we call them
"challenging targets", the reality is that we are not going to hit the 2010
target. What are we going to do about that?
Mr Blair: I do not accept that we will
not. I do agree that it is challenging
but I do not accept that we will not meet it.
However, in the end we have to decide where are we going to put our
money and our research. We have,
basically, focused on the renewable. It
is true other countries have focused on hydrogen; there was a massive investment
going on in the US in that, and of course the technology as it develops will be
a technology that, no doubt, everyone can use.
The simple answer is there is no limit to the amount of money we can
invest in this but there has to be a limit to the amount of money the
Government practically can put into it.
Q224 Mrs Dunwoody: This country now has a very important role in
car manufacturing and is supplying very high quality, niche products to
American markets. That work already
exists; we know it is happening. Why
are we not creating within this country the situation which means that we could
continue to benefit from that and actually lead rather than follow?
Mr Blair: What sort of things do you
----
Q225 Mrs Dunwoody: If you look at the work that is being done by
General Motors in America, if you look at work that is going on in Berkley,
large amounts of that work are based on what is happening in car manufacturing
in this country. Why are we not saying
to them, "We will give you a hydrogen highway, we will give you some way of
encouraging car manufacturing so we are ahead of that curve"?
Mr Blair: All these things can be
looked at, Gwyneth.
Q226 Mrs Dunwoody: Not just looking at it - we are already
contributing through transport. So we
have a choice, we can use taxation, we can use research, we can use
encouragement. What are we going to do
- sit back and say "These are difficult questions. We will do them in about ten years' time"?
Mr Blair: No, because, to be fair, as
I say, there have been all sorts of incentives given for cleaner fuels, and so
on, in the Budgets over the past seven years.
However, in the end, the hard question is this: how much money are you
prepared to commit to research, for example, in the hydrogen field? You can provide incentives for companies to
do it but, in the end, what they will want is - and a lot of the money that is
going into this type of research in the United States is - public money. We have put our research effort into other
areas, it is true, but you are not going to be able to do everything, I am
afraid, with limited resources.
Chairman: Thank you. Now we move to Iraq and to the Middle East,
to the war on terror, and to Alan Beith.
Q227 Mr Beith: Prime Minister, before turning to Iraq I
would like to clear up a point about Guantanamo. We now know from the Attorney General that you have personally
asked President Bush to repatriate the four remaining British detainees. When did you do that and by what process?
Mr Blair: We have been engaged in this
discussion with the US over a number of months and we formally requested the
return of the four that are remaining there a few weeks ago. There are still discussions now about what
will happen in respect of them. The
basic situation remains as it has always been: that if we do have them back
here we have to make sure that we can also guarantee our own security.
Q228 Mr Beith: You said "a few weeks ago". Was that in the form of a personal exchange
between you and the President?
Mr Blair: Yes, it was. I think that the issue is the same as it has
always been, and I made it clear - I think I said this in an interview a few
days ago - that Guantanamo Bay is an anomaly that, at some point, has got to be
brought to an end; there is no doubt about that at all. So far as the British detainees are
concerned, we have got the five back, the four we are still discussing, but we
need to be absolutely sure when we have them back here that we can cater
properly for our own security. There is
a reason why we got five back and we are still debating the four.
Q229 Mr Beith: What was the President's initial response to
the personal request you put to him?
Mr Blair: The American response has
been the same all the way through, that in the end if the trial requirements do
not meet our standards then they will come back but we also need to make sure
they are not going to be a threat either to people in this country or
elsewhere. That is the nature of the
discussion that is taking place.
Q230 Mr Beith: So is your argument that you, in your own
mind, have not been able to satisfy the President that you can meet that
requirement?
Mr Blair: It is not a question of not
being able to satisfy him. It is
difficult because I do not want to go into the details of each of these four
cases, but we got five back immediately when we decided that the trial system
in the United States did not correspond to the Attorney General's stipulations,
and the four we are in discussion with the United States about. I hope we can resolve it reasonably soon,
but I do not think the United States is being unreasonable in saying "We need
to make sure that there is proper security in place for these people".
Q231 Mr Beith: Can you not just give that assurance?
Mr Blair: We have to make sure that we
can actually do it, and that is not altogether easy.
Q232 Mr Beith: So it is a slightly different picture to the
one presented by the Defence Secretary who said: "We can certainly set out what
is the position of the British Government, but we would have to be realistic -
we are not always successful."
Mr Blair: The success arises in
relation to whether we can give sufficient undertakings that these people. I do not want to go into the detail of their
cases, but there is an issue about these particular people, in respect of the
United States, that is not just about their status as detainees, and I need to
be very clear in respect of our own country that we are not putting anyone at
risk.
Q233 Mr Beith: At the moment are you not clear?
Mr Blair: I am not yet satisfied that
we have the necessary machinery in place, but we are working on that.
Q234 Mr Beith: So your request is on hold?
Mr Blair: It is not on hold, there is
a discussion taking place about this.
The difficulty for us is this: we all know that we are faced with a
significant terrorist threat. Let us be
clear, all of these people (not going into individual cases at all) were picked
up in circumstances where we believe, at the very least, there are issues that
need to be resolved, let us say, in respect of those individuals. Certainly from what I have seen about those
individual cases, I would need to be very, very clear that there was in place
in this country a sufficient infrastructure and machinery to be able to protect
our own security.
Q235 Donald Anderson: On that: was the timing of your request to the
President "some few weeks ago" subsequent to the issuing of court proceedings
by lawyers on behalf of the four?
Mr Blair: The formal request, as it
were, was subsequent to those proceedings, but actually this discussion has
been going on for a significant period of time. The position of the US has, basically, been the same
throughout. It is not so much that we
are saying, "We want these people back", and the United States is saying, "We
are not having a discussion with you about that". That is not what is going on; what is going on is an attempt to
make sure that we can do this in a way that meets our own security
requirements. I know this is a very
difficult thing, and we feel somewhat hindered in our explanation to people
because it would be easy to read parts of the media in relation to these people
and say "What on earth have they done?"
I just have to be careful in terms of the security of this country as
well, and in respect of these individuals - not going into their individual
cases at all (it would be obviously wrong to do it) - this thing did not arise
out of some sort of random event.
Q236 Sir George Young: Prime Minister, can we try
to round off a discussion that we had a year ago when you appeared before the
Liaison Committee? You were pressed
quite hard by a number of us on weapons of mass destruction. On several occasions you referred to the
Iraq Survey Group, and you invited us to wait and see. We have waited but we have not seen. Do you now accept that the evidence may not
be there?
Mr Blair: The Iraq Survey Group will
do a final report, but, as I think I have said elsewhere, the two things we do
know are these: we know that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction but
we know we have not found them.
Q237 Sir George Young: We knew that a year ago, and
you invited us to wait and see the evidence.
You went on to say: "I am very confident they will find the
evidence." Sir Jeremy Greenstock, on
Sunday, said the evidence is just not
there. Do you agree with him?
Mr Blair: As I say, what I have to
accept is that I was very, very confident we would find them; I was very
confident, even when I spoke to you this time last year, that the Iraq Survey
Group would find them because all the intelligence and evidence we had was that
these weapons of mass destruction existed.
I have to accept that we have not found them and that we may not find
them. What I would say very strongly,
however, is that to go to the opposite extreme and say, therefore, no threat
existed from Saddam Hussein would be a mistake. We do not know what has happened to them; they could have been
removed, they could have been hidden, they could have been destroyed. At some point, I hope that we will find,
when the Iraq Survey Group make their final report, exactly what it is they
say. As you know, the Iraq Survey
Group, and what they have said already, indicates quite clearly that there have
been breaches of the United Nations' resolutions. They do not, in any shape or form, say he was not a threat but,
it is absolutely true, they have said that in their view the stockpiles of WMD
have not been found.
Q238 Sir George Young: If we may never find them,
in retrospect, perhaps, was it a mistake to put so much emphasis on weapons of
mass destruction and less emphasis on regime change?
Mr Blair: I think the important thing
is to go back to what the purpose of this action was. The purpose of the action was in order to enforce the United
Nations resolutions. That is why I say
it is very important not to go to the other extreme and say, "Because we have
not found actual stockpiles of WMD, therefore he was not a threat." It is absolutely clear from the evidence
that has already been found by the Iraq Survey Group that he had the strategic
capability, the intent and that he was in multiple breaches of the United
Nations' resolutions. There is no point
in me sitting here and saying "I am saying the same to you now as I said a year
ago" because the year has passed and we have not found the actual stockpiles of
weapons. I genuinely believe that those
stockpiles of weapons were there; I think that most people did, and that is why
the whole of the international community came together and passed the United
Nations resolution it did, but that is a very different thing from saying
Saddam was not a threat; the truth is he was a threat to his region and to the
wider world, and the world is a safer place without him.
Q239 Sir George Young: I think we fought the right
war but it sounds as if we fought it for the wrong reasons.
Mr Blair: No, I do not think that is
right either, because I think that that would be to suggest there was no issue
in relation to Saddam and WMD. What
Jeremy Greenstock said on Sunday is probably what most people speculate about,
because, as I say, we know he had the weapons - he used them against his own
people - but we have not found them. So
you have to accept that. The question
is what was the nature of this threat from Saddam? Maybe it is different in the sense that he retained strategic
capability and intent; he may have removed, hidden or even destroyed those
weapons - we do not know and we have to wait for the Iraq Survey Group to
complete its findings - but what I would not accept is that he was not a threat
and a threat in WMD terms.
Q240 Mr Leigh: If I could just follow on from what Sir
George was putting to you (I think we would all like to help you out on this),
your place in history is secure, you have freed this nation from a gangster
regime, and I think you have moved on quite considerably this morning, and I think
you have been very reasonable. You said
last year - it is in Hansard and George has mentioned it - "My view is that I
am very confident they will find the evidence that such programmes existed." What you have now said today, a year later,
is, "We may not find them." I think
what people are trying to say to you and what people want from you is some
acknowledgement that all that was said to them, and what you said to them,
about the reasons for going to war a year ago, which was basically that this
chap had weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to the region and to
us, was wrong. At some stage can you
not just find it in yourself to accept that we went to war for the wrong
reasons, and say "I'm sorry about this but I still defend the war, I can defend
the war, because we got rid of this gangster regime"?
Mr Blair: I think that is a very
reasonable way of putting the point to me, if I can say it, but let me just say
this to you: obviously, I do believe it is good that we have got rid of Saddam Hussein
and he was a tyrant and we can agree on that.
However, I do not actually believe that he was not a threat in respect
of weapons of mass destruction. All I
am saying is there is no point in me sitting here and saying, a year on and we
have not found these weapons, that I am going to say to you exactly the same as
I said a year ago. As I said recently,
I have to accept the fact that we have not found them. On the other hand, what we have found is
very clear evidence of strategic intent and capability and a desire to carry on
developing these weapons. Whether they
were hidden, or removed, or destroyed even, the plain fact is he was
undoubtedly in breach of United Nations resolutions. So even if it is a threat that is different in the sense that the
breaches of United Nations resolutions in respect of WMD are the breaches that
the Iraq Survey Group has outlined, or David Kaye outlined, a short time ago, I
still believe it was justified in those terms as well, although I agree,
obviously, for a lot of people they will say "Saddam Hussein is an evil
person. You got rid of an evil person,
that is fine". The basis upon which we
went to war was the basis of enforcing United Nations resolutions in respect of
WMD.
Q241 Mr Leigh: I think we cannot take that issue forward any
further. At some stage we just have to
draw a line underneath it, and we have to accept, quite frankly, that the whole
world knows that the weapons of mass destruction are not there. We will pass on because I do not think we
can pursue that any more. The major
impetus behind this war, also, was - and I think you were sold this line by the
President of the United States - that this was part of a war on terror, and
dealing with a war on terror is about a Middle East settlement. The President has had some extremely kind
things to say about you. He said, in
the White House, on 16 April 2004, "In all these efforts the American people
know that we have no more valuable friend than Prime Minister Tony Blair. As we like to say in Crawford, `He is a
stand-up sort of guy'". You yourself
have replicated that by saying "I would like to pay tribute to the President's
leadership in the Middle East". Has he
not let you down? What we want to ask
is where is your influence on this? The
fact is you put all your trust in President Bush; he has said "I will deliver a
Roadmap" but where is the progress? Has
he delivered his side of the bargain to you, given all the political capital
that you have expended on his behalf?
Mr Blair: First of all, I do not regard
it as having expanded political capital on his behalf; I happen to think that
the security threat we face today is the threat of a new form of global
terrorism combined with repressive unstable states that proliferate or engage
in chemical, biological and nuclear weapons development. That is what I think the security threat is.
Q242 Mr Leigh: We all accept that, but I am asking about the
Middle East settlement.
Mr Blair: I am going to come to the
Middle East settlement. The point is
when you put to me that somehow my desire is to expend my political capital so
that he calls me a "stand-up guy" - that is not what it is about for me. This is about the security of this country
and of the wider world, and I passionately believe that this is the security threat
we face. I simply say to you, even on
the WMD front, I do not believe without Iraq we would have got the progress on
Libya, on AQ Khan, on Iran or on North Korea.
So let us be quite clear, this is not an issue that is just to do with
the relationship between Britain and America.
I can assure you, if I did not believe that the security of this country
was enhanced by taking the action in Iraq I would not have done it,
irrespective of how many compliments the President gave me.
Q243 Mr Leigh: Was there a quid pro quo?
Mr Blair: The quid pro quo notion is somehow this idea that I did something we
did not really want to do, but actually we got a quid pro quo from it. All I
am saying to you is that is not the way it is.
However, on the Middle East and the Roadmap, this is the first time the
administration, any administration, has committed itself to a two-state
solution. The Roadmap was agreed and
agreed by everybody. It is true we have
not made the progress that we wish to make.
We have to go back and redouble our efforts on that again. That is why the Quartet is trying to work
out with the Palestinian Authority at the moment a security, an economic and a
political plan for the development of the Palestinian Authority in
circumstances where the Israelis disengage from Gaza and parts of the West
Bank. I am working as hard as I have
ever worked to try and get this process back on track again, but it does
require a security plan that does not simply give the Palestinians the ability
to function effectively but gives the Israelis some protection against
terrorism that kills their people. So
the suggestion that somehow the Americans simply shrug their shoulders and do
not care about this I do not think is right, but we need to have a viable
solution to take this forward. That is
my view.
Q244 Mr Leigh: Has he been entirely helpful to you? "On these occasions", you have said, "we
support the Americans" (I paraphrase) "not because they are powerful; we share
their values". All right, we share
their values, but do we, Prime Minister, share their decisions? Two days before your summit with President
Bush at Crawford, he cut this peace settlement off at the knees by accepting
Prime Minister Sharon's policy to actually not dismantle settlements in the
West Bank. That was not very helpful to
you, was it? Where was your influence
at that stage?
Mr Blair: First of all, he made it
clear, and I made it clear at the press conference, these are issues of final
status negotiation, but I think everyone recognises, for example, in respect of
the refugee thing, which is the thing that he was most criticised for, that you
are going to have to find some sort of accommodation there. It has got to be done in the final status
negotiations. The important point that
I was making at that time, and I return to it now, is that however much people
may criticise the motives of the Israeli Government, if you do get
disengagement from the Gaza, where a third of the Palestinians actually live,
and parts of the West Bank, then that is actually a step forward. If they dismantle the 7,000 settlers in the
Gaza that will be the first time that has happened ever, I think, since the
creation of the state of Israel. All I
am saying is that there is an opportunity now to take this forward as a result
of what we have done. We have got the
plans from the Quartet, which as you know is the United States, Russia, the
European Union and the United Nations, to try and develop the security plan,
and I hope come the autumn we can move this forward again. I agree, of course, it is a major part of the
conversation we have with the United States the entire time. It is extremely important. I want to emphasis to you again, my view of
the relationship between this country and the United States is not one in which,
as it were, we go along with them and what they want to do and every so often
they throw us a scrap. That is not my
view of it. That is the parody of the
view of the relationship ----
Q245 Mr Leigh: What have they thrown you? What has he delivered to you on Israel? We are all on the same side on this. We know that peace depends on Bush putting
pressure on Israel - you say that, I say that, we all say that - so what has he
delivered to you?
Mr Blair: There are two things that
this administration has actually come up with, but I do not say it is delivered
to me because it is actually what he believes.
One is: to commit himself to an independent, viable Palestinian
state. No other American President has
ever committed themselves to that.
Secondly, to ensure that the Roadmap, which actually was not supported
by people originally, is supported. I
am telling you that the problem at the moment in the Middle East, and we have
got to be absolutely blunt about this, is that until you get a proper security plan
on the Palestinian side that gives the Palestinians the ability (and the
international community to back them up in this) to say "We are employing 100
per cent efforts in stopping the terrorism" the Israelis will carry on making
efforts to try and prevent the terrorists getting through. I think, if you look at the relationship
between this country and America since September 11 - and, in particular,
whatever the difficulties, we know in the end the Iraqi action was taken
without the second UN resolution, but for example in the transfer of full
sovereignty to the Iraqi Government recently, which I think has put this thing
in a different place, I think it has given us the chance really to make
progress in Iraq now - all I can say to you is I do not think this country
should ever let itself be ashamed of its relationship with the United States of
America, or believe that Britain is America's poodle - all this stuff. Let the people say whatever they like about
it, in the end I believe it is an important relationship that delivers for us
because we share their values and because we share their view that the best
security we ultimately have is the spread of freedom, democracy and justice
throughout the world, and that is what we are trying to do. Actually, that is what we are trying to do
for the Palestinians as well.
Q246 Donald Anderson: Not ashamed, certainly the relationship is
very important, but President Bush made a specific pledge in Belfast last
year. He said he was willing to expend
the same amount of energy on the Middle East as you did on the Northern Ireland
peace process. That manifestly is not
happening.
Mr Blair: Donald, subsequent to that
he then saw the key parties and the key players and they then put together the
agreement for the Roadmap, as the Roadmap is the way forward. That was a fight and a struggle but people
accepted it in the end. As I say, it is
a major part of the discussion that we have with President Bush the entire
time. If the Quartet is able to agree
the security, economic and political plan for the Palestinians, and if the
Americans do ensure that the Israelis press ahead with their disengagement
plans - and that is what they say and I believe that they will do - there is
the chance for the international community to help the beginnings of that
viable Palestinian state.
Q247 Donald Anderson: Of course there is the chance, but you have
repeated a number of "ifs" and conditions.
Can you seriously say that the Bush administration has its feet on the
pedal now and is taking seriously and with great vigour the peace process in
the Middle East?
Mr Blair: All I can tell you is that,
for example, in our recent bilateral at the NATO summit, I would say that half
the time was spent on the Palestinian/Israeli issue. For the engagement to happen you must have partners willing to
make the engagement work, both on the Israeli and Palestinian side. That is what we are working very hard with
the United States to see. I do not know
whether I said this to you last time but my belief is that a very large point
of conflict that overshadows everything in the international community arises
out of this Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Q248 Donald Anderson: Do you accept that we in the UK are paying a
very high price in the Middle East because of our very close association with
American policy on this issue?
Mr Blair: I am not sure about
that. It depends who you talk to in the
Middle East, but I think to be seen as the closest ally of America is not much
of a disadvantage anywhere in the world, in my view, when you actually get down
to it. I think an awful lot will
depend, however, on whether we do indeed make progress on this issue. I accept that, and that is what I am working
for constantly.
Q249 Donald Anderson: We know that a Cabinet sub-committee was set
up last October specifically to look at UK/US relations. Was that because of concern by your
colleagues that we were, perhaps, becoming too closely linked?
Mr Blair: I think, on the contrary, it
was how do we make the best use of the closeness that there is? There is a whole series of things that we
take forward to the Americans about this.
This is an issue upon which everyone will have their different views. My belief is that Britain's role in the
world today has got two big parts to it: it is membership of the European Union
and it is alliance with the United States of America. I think we should keep both, build on both and work both to our
own advantage.
Q250 Donald Anderson: Are we, perhaps, harming our links with the
European Union by being seen too much as aligned with the US?
Mr Blair: There again I do not find
that when I am in Europe; I actually find there are many countries,
particularly the new countries which have just come into the European Union,
that welcome our relationship with America.
They support the relationship with America. OK, there are some countries (let us not go into details) who
take a different point of view, but I just want to say this to you about the
relationship with America: I am not daft about the politics of it, and I can
see - particularly within my own political family - it is a problem from time
to time, is it not, and there is no point in disputing that, but the reason why
I will not give up - on the contrary I will advocate it - is because I think it
is so important for this country. The
thing I find most bizarre, at the moment, is you have got a situation where -
say what you like about America - in Afghanistan and Iraq they are trying to
help countries that were completely corrupted, failed states to freedom and
democracy. What is wrong with that?
Q251 Donald Anderson: Can I just divert back to Ian Gibson's
point? I think you said to Ian that
climate change was a key part of our dialogue with the United States.
Mr Blair: It is, yes.
Q252 Donald Anderson: Why was Kyoto specifically excluded from the
remit of the Cabinet committee set up on UK/US relations?
Mr Blair: Because we already deal with
the issues to do with Kyoto. There is
an actual working relationship between Margaret Beckett and her opposite number
in the US, and what we are trying to do - and this is why we are doing this in
the context of the G8 Presidency - is take this forward and try and get the
Americans into a different position. I
am not pretending I have persuaded them on Kyoto because I have not.
Q253 Donald Anderson: Prime Minister, I would like to turn finally
to Iraq. We are in a transition phase,
it could go either way and it is vitally important that we win through. The elections are now, hopefully, not later
than January and then in November the following year. The UN has the specific responsibility for doing it. They will not go in without force
protection. Who is going to provide the
forces?
Mr Blair: That is under discussion
with the UN at the moment. I think we
will be able to resolve that. Frankly,
I think, the more difficult thing for the UN is how they move about around the
country.
Q254 Donald Anderson: They will need protection.
Mr Blair: Yes, they will need
protection.
Q255 Donald Anderson: Who is going to protect them?
Mr Blair: That is something we are
discussing with them.
Q256 Donald Anderson: That will mean more troops?
Mr Blair: I do not know that it will
mean more British troops but it will need troops ----
Q257 Donald Anderson: It could be argued that we give a
disproportionate weight - certainly the US provide 85 per cent of the troops,
we provide 10 per cent. Who else is
prepared to provide troops?
Mr Blair: There are about 30 countries
in Iraq ----
Q258 Donald Anderson: Indeed, in the 5 per cent.
Mr Blair: I think it is more than 5 per
cent actually.
Q259 Donald Anderson: Who else is prepared to provide troops?
Mr Blair: The countries that are
providing troops there at the moment, and there may be other countries that
come in, we simply do not know at the moment.
The most important thing for the UN is to get the highest quality
protection.
Q260 Donald Anderson: But the elections are not until late in
January. Who will provide those extra
troops in time?
Mr Blair: I do not know that you will
need extra foreign troops in Iraq. That
is an issue and we keep it open the whole time. The main thing is to build up the capability of the Iraqis
themselves, their Army, and their civil defence ----
Q261 Donald Anderson: That will not happen speedily enough in the
transition phase.
Mr Blair: You say that but you have
already got, in number, quite a large number of the Iraqis there. It is true that you do not have the quality
of training and equipment yet, but we are rectifying that. There is a specific American General working
alongside the Iraqi Government to try and ensure that happens.
Q262 Donald Anderson: That is all right, but are we prepared to
commit more troops ourselves?
Mr Blair: I cannot tell you more than
I have told the House of Commons, which is that we keep it under advice and
there have been no recent discussions about committing more troops. It depends what the Iraqi Government desires
and it depends what the security situation needs.
Q263 Donald Anderson: Do you think it is urgent?
Mr Blair: The urgency of the need,
Donald. There is no problem providing
security for the UN. The reason I am
not saying who it is is that I know there are discussions going on with the UN
as to who is best to provide that.
There are sufficient troops there to do that. The issue, really, is less to do with whether you bring in more
foreign troops but the speed with which you can equip and train the Iraqi
security forces. That is the
issue. What I hope by the end of this
month is that the Iraqi Government and the multinational force will publish a
joint plan for the Iraqi-isation (?) of security that tells us exactly what
Iraqi forces there are going to be in the coming period of time.
Q264 Mr Beith: Prime Minister, you have been quite open in
setting out the importance of our relationship with the United States, which
happens to be a view I share - in terms of a relationship with the United
States, not necessarily one with a particular administration, about which
subsequent administrations might take a different view. You came quite close to suggesting that it
really was not an issue about our relationship with the United States, so great
was your unanimity of view with the President about the common purpose, that we
were doing what we did because it was what we wanted to do.
Mr Blair: It is more like this: when
you are in a situation where since September 11 we have been closely involved
in military action, I am not saying there are not all sorts of discussions that
go on about the role of the United Nations - what the troops do and how, for
example, Afghanistan or Iraq is going to be properly policed - it is not that I
do not believe that you should be open about it, it is simply that I think many
of these issues are discussions where we may come at it from a slightly
different perspective or a different point of view and we can resolve those
better if we resolve them in a sensible way.
On the big picture, though, I have a very, very clear view of what is
necessary to do. My view is that it is
necessary to continue this push on terrorism and unstable, rogue states with
WMD; we should continue the push on that and it is absolutely vital and
important, but we should balance it up with the action on what I would call the
rest of the world's agenda. That is
where this whole issue to do with Israel and Palestine and poverty and
development, and so on, are extremely important. It is part of my job, if you like, to try and make sure that we
bridge as many of the international divisions as we can to get people to work
together on that agenda. That is why we
got the UN resolution that transferred full sovereignty to the Iraqis and why
we recently had the NATO Summit where people agreed an increase in the force
development in Afghanistan and, also, for the training of Iraqi forces. I regard my job, in a sense, as trying to make
sure - because I accept the basic position that we are trying to achieve in
terms of security and terrorism - we maximise support for the positions that we
have.
Q265 Mr Beith: You have put a lot of effort into this. Is not the situation this: that when the
crunch issue comes and we have looked at several - Guantanamo, some aspects of
the administration in Iraq, and
Israel/Palestine - the administration in Washington, backed by the
Conservatives, says "Nice to have you with us, Tony, great to have your troops,
but at the end of the day we call the shots, we make the rules"?
Mr Blair: That is not the nature of
the discussion. I know that is the
parody of it, and I am not saying there are not issues that we disagree
on. We will have a disagreement on Kyoto. If you take, for example, everything that
has happened post September 11, I will not be in a position of saying "All
these things are sort of quid pro quos
for the relationship we have", but I think if you look at the role of the
United Nations, both in respect of Afghanistan and Iraq (I am not saying
America would not have come to all these positions in any event), I think our
input has been reasonably important in respect of it. Also, in respect of the full transfer of sovereignty to the
Iraqis and the way that we have now gone for the option not of a dramatic
increase in foreign troops but building up the Iraqi security forces with the
political control in the hands of the Iraqis, which I think is extremely
important, I think we have played a constructive part in those decisions and
that has been important in giving Iraq the chance to make progress.
Q266 Mr Beith: You have made several references to 9/11 but
was there not a fundamental confusion in the minds of the American people,
fostered by the Administration, that the war in Iraq was an effective way of
responding to the devastation of 9/11 when there was, in fact, no link
established at all and it required a diversion of effort from the actual war
against terrorism which was being waged partly in Afghanistan and partly in
domestic security matters?
Mr Blair: I still regard this as all
part of the same struggle because I think the threat that we face is the
combination of these two things.
Q267 Mr Beith: Where is the combination? The word combining is one you used
earlier. Where is the combination
between 9/11 and the war on Iraq?
Mr Blair: I think the combination lies
in this area. In my view, the important
thing about 9/11 and the important thing about this new form of extreme
terrorism based on a perversion of the true faith of Islam is that it is
terrorism without limit. These people
killed 3,000 people but if they could have killed 30,000 they would, if they
could kill 300,000 they would. At the
same time what you have got is this network of unstable states, repressive
states, developing chemical, biological, nuclear weapons ---
Q268 Mr Beith: This is not a network. Iraq was sui
generic.
Mr Blair: Hang on. I think this is where one has got to look
ahead in relation to this. Of all the
things that have happened since Iraq, the one that has got the least publicity
but in a sense is every bit as important as anything else has been the network
of AQ Khan that has effectively been shut down. Now that was a network of people who were basically trading this
WMD technology right round the world.
Now, in my view, the reason why I think it was important that we took a
stand on the WMD issue, and the place, as it were, to take that stand was Iraq
because of the history of breaches of UN resolutions and the fact they used
WMD, the reason why I think it was important to do that is that if you carry on
with this proliferation of WMD with these highly repressive states developing
it - states like North Korea that literally have their people starving but are
spending billions of dollars trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability - at
some point you would have this new form of global terrorism and those states
with WMD coming together.
Q269 Mr Beith: Is it not easier for terrorists to acquire
WMD through routes from the powers which have them already rather than from
those powers which are still themselves struggling to get them?
Mr Blair: No, I think it is both that
matter. Look, there is a reason why you
have got al-Qaeda in Iraq now.
Q270 Mr Beith: As the intelligence warned and was reported,
once the regime collapsed al-Qaeda would be into Iraq and we would have a new
set of problems.
Mr Blair: We do but they are the
problems that, if you like, all arise out of the fact that they see a vital
part of their strategy ensuring that countries like Iraq and Afghanistan do not
become proper functioning democracies.
What they know is if you have these states that are unstable,
repressive, which are brutalising their people, that are trying to develop a
range of unconventional weapons, they know that if you have those states into
that arena - as they did in Afghanistan - they can use it as a training camp
with the other countries in the region.
They know that in that climate they prosper. They know, also, that if those countries become democratic and
prosperous countries, stable countries, they have not got a hope and what is
more they have not got a hope of persuading the rest of the Muslim world that
somehow America is repressing Muslims.
That is their case. Their case
is this is a war that is basically a war of civilisations; it is a war by the
West on the Muslim world. The biggest
rebuttal you can give to that is Iraq on its feet, Afghanistan on its feet as
functioning democracies.
Q271 Donald Anderson: But Iraq was not the arch proliferant, North
Korea was.
Mr Blair: The reason why I thought
that was the place to take, it had used them against its own people, it had
used them against another country in the region, and we had a history of some
12 years of United Nations' resolutions in respect of it.
Q272 Sir George Young: Can we look briefly at Africa? A few years ago you made a speech at a
Labour Party Conference saying we will not allow Rwanda to happen again but
when I look at my television at Sudan it seems it is happening again.
Mr Blair: The situation in Sudan is
certainly very serious. I spoke to Kofi
Annan about it again yesterday. He told
me that they have worked out a programme now with the Government of Sudan. He will set up what is called a high level monitoring
mechanism in order to make sure that the aid and the help that is necessary
comes into Sudan and in particular that the issues in relation to Dafour are
tackled. Now I agree it is a very
serious situation but we are working on it very hard.
Q273 Sir George Young: In that same speech you made some other
fairly heroic ambitions about putting evil to right. Have you had to tamper some of those ambitions in the light of
difficulties we have been talking about this morning?
Mr Blair: I think we are doing our
level best in Africa. In terms of our
own aid commitment - as you know we will have tripled our aid to Africa by this
time next year, or shortly after that - and what we are doing through, firstly,
the NEPAD concept, the partnership for African development, and, secondly, in
respect of the Africa Commission that will be the main part of our G8
presidency next year, we hope to set out an agenda for the future of Africa
with the support of African countries and also with the support of the G8. Now that would be a huge step forward. I think if you look at the role we played,
for example, in the Congo, in Sierra Leone and indeed, most recently, in Sudan,
when one of the first people there was Hilary Benn with not just aid money but
also an attempt to negotiate a settlement and then bring in the UN behind it,
my view of Africa remains exactly the same.
I think people would be hard put to point at any country around the
world that had made a greater commitment to Africa than the UK.
Q274 Mr Leigh: Could I draw a line on this question of
influence. Geoff Hoon said recently
"The Government is not always successful in influencing US policy", fair
enough. Can you tell us in which areas
you have been successful?
Mr Blair: I think I just went through
---
Q275 Mr Leigh: You mentioned the point about sovereignty,
and are you seriously saying that but for us there would have been some further
delay in handing over sovereignty?
Mr Blair: No, I am not saying
that. What I am saying is that the
partnership that we have with the United States allows us to manage these
issues in a way that I think is important.
Q276 Mr Leigh: Those are vague words, that is rhetoric which
you are very good at.
Mr Blair: It is not vague words.
Q277 Mr Leigh: What we want are specific areas.
Mr Blair: It is not vague words.
Q278 Mr Leigh: All right.
Give us examples.
Mr Blair: What has happened in both
Afghanistan and Iraq, in relation, for example, to the UN influence and role
there, has been immensely important. I
am not going to sit here and say to you that but for Britain being there the
Americans would have often done something completely different. All I am saying to you is that if you look
at what has happened in Iraq recently ---
Q279 Mr Leigh: Have you modified a heavy handed approach
with Iran and Iraq? Have you had
influence on that in Fallujah?
Mr Blair: I think we have had a very
great deal of influence in respect of all of this.
Q280 Mr Leigh: It would have been even more heavy handed in
Fallujah but for you, would it?
Mr Blair: I think we have had a very
great deal of influence, Edward, but I do not think it is very sensible when
you are talking about a partnership you have with a country to end up saying:
"Look, this is what they have given us here, and they have not given us this
there", that is not how I regard it.
Q281 Mr Leigh: You see, you always tell us this so we have
no idea.
Mr Blair: You do have an idea.
Q282 Mr Leigh: No, we do not know. Surely we - the country - have a right to know when we have gone
to war, when you have put yourself shoulder to shoulder with the Americans - as
the French did not do, the Germans did not do - what we are getting in
return. You say: "I am not prepared to
talk about this, these are private discussions".
Mr Blair: I am not saying I am not
prepared to talk about it. What I am
saying to you is what we get from the American relationship is more than a
trade off between little bits here, you get thrown something there, you do not
get something there, that is not my view of it. To put it in those terms to people I think is wrong, I think it
is counter-productive and I really would say this to you. You mentioned France and Germany, we have a
good relationship, believe it or not, with France and Germany but I am not
going to have the relationship with the United States of America subordinated
to the interests of any other country.
I believe it is in our interest to have this strong relationship with
the United States of America and if you really want to know I think most
countries around the world would give their eye teeth to have that
relationship. It is a shame that here
it is seen somehow as a sign of mockery that we have the closeness of that
relationship. Does that mean I am going
to say "I told him this then" and "I persuaded him that", that is pathetic to
do that. We have a strong relationship.
Q283 Mr Leigh: We do not think you persuaded him.
Mr Blair: You and I have to disagree
about that.
Q284 Chairman: Robert Key.
Mr Blair: Robert, what else do you
want me to do apart from nuclear power in Salisbury?
Q285 Mr Key: That is an easy one! Prime Minister, I know that you are very
proud of the achievements of HM forces.
I would like to ask you how you could even contemplate defence cuts
announced in the Public Spending Review next Monday but you would tell me that
I had better wait and see. So, instead,
could you share with us your thinking on why defence cuts could be justified in
2005 and whether any arguments have crossed your mind that there might be a
case for an increase in defence spending in view of Britain's commitments
around the world?
Mr Blair: First of all, without giving
anything away from the Spending Review next Monday, I would be extremely
surprised - let us say I doubt I will be - to find there are defence cuts. I do not think we will be cutting defence
spending at all.
Q286 Mr Key: That is very good news indeed. We can assume, therefore, that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer has not had his way on this occasion?
Mr Blair: No, you can assume that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer is equally and firmly resolved to making sure that
after many years of defence cuts - let me say delicately under a different
administration - it is now rising in real terms.
Q287 Mr Key: My constituents will be very pleased to hear
that Prime Minister.
Mr Blair: Good.
Mr Key: I await Monday.
Q288 Chairman: I think that is a suitable place for us to
finish. Thank you again, Prime
Minister. It has been a fascinating
exchange.
Mr Blair: It has.
Chairman: There has been a degree of
disagreement which I think is encouraging. I think we will cut down on your tea
and the amount of sugar and you will cut down in your replies. Can I say we will look forward to the
document you have promised us in September on the relationships between the
Select Committees and the Government. Thank you very much again.
