UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be
published as HC 192-i
House of COMMONS
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE
LIAISON COMMITTEE
THE PRIME MINISTER
Thursday 13 December 2007
RT HON GORDON BROWN MP
Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 -
120
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Liaison Committee
on Thursday 13 December 2007
Members present
Mr Alan Williams, in the Chair
Mr James Arbuthnot
Mr Kevin Barron
Mr Alan Beith
Sir Stuart Bell
Malcolm Bruce
Michael Connarty
Sir Patrick Cormack
Mr Andrew Dismore
Mr Frank Doran
Mrs Gwyneth Dunwoody
Dr Hywel Francis
Mike Gapes
Mr Michael Jack
Mr Edward Leigh
Peter Luff
Rosemary McKenna
Andrew Miller
Mr Mohammad Sarwar
Mr Barry Sheerman
Dr Phyllis Starkey
Keith Vaz
Mr John Whittingdale
Dr Tony Wright
Sir George Young
________________
Witness: Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP, Prime Minister,
gave evidence.
Chairman: May I welcome you very sincerely to your
first appearance at the Liaison Committee; I hope it will be the first of
many. This hearing will have four
themes: first, the future of public services; second, constitutional reform;
third, migration and community cohesion; and, finally, foreign policy
priorities and delivery. As usual, the
Prime Minister has been notified of the themes a couple of weeks ago, but he
was not notified of the questions, nor has he asked to be notified of the
questions. As we have four themes and
we are tight on time, we will go straight into the first theme, public
services.
Q1 Mr Sheerman: Prime Minister, good morning. The Labour Government for ten years has been
known for its belief in public investment, with a lot of money going into the
public sector, but also with the mantra that that must be accompanied by public
sector reform with the private sector playing quite a role in that. Is there going to be anything different
under your stewardship?
Mr Brown: First of all, it is a great pleasure to be
before the Committee and I think you can see the priority I attach to attending
this Committee! Let us go straight to
the issue that you raise of public sector reform. I think you will see it intensify and I think you will see it
wider and deeper in future years than it has been in the last few years. Why do I say that? Our first job after 1997 was to create higher minimum standards
and that is why of course there were many targets to make sure that either the
Health Service or the schools or any of the welfare agencies performed
well. In the last few years, we have
concentrated on a diversity of supply, so we have been opening up supply by
competition, by contestability and delivering to people more choice as a result
of that, and that will intensify. If I
give you an example, in the Health Service, primary care will be opened up over
the next few years in the way that, through independent treatment centres and
independent diagnostic facilities, we have opened up the acute sector. Equally, in the health sector and the social
care sector, we will be opening up personal social budgets for people in a way
that will probably help 1.5 million people over a period of time. In education, there is a wider diversity of
providers, more academies, and I think you will find that the target for
academies that was set a few years ago of 200 will be surpassed, 230, we will
go beyond 400 in the timescale that we have set, and of course we have got far
tougher procedures in the last few months for dealing with failing schools as
well as failing hospitals. The next stage
is to combine the diversity of supply with a greater attention to the diversity
of demand, in other words, services that meet the personal needs of the
individual citizen, so you will be talking not just about public services, but
about personal services, not just about a universal service that seems to be
uniform, but a service that is tailored to people's needs. That is why, when you look around at
education, you will see, for example, that we will have one-to-one tuition
developed for all those who need it, gifted pupils at one end of the spectrum,
people falling behind at the other.
That is why I mentioned social care budgets in order for the elderly and
for people who are disabled to be able to direct their own care, with finance
provided through the social services, but with the choice in their hands about
how it is spent. Increasingly, you will
see all the different services, welfare services, housing services, social
services, health and education services, tailored to people's needs in such a way
that people are not only seeing the service organised around their needs, but
they are able to dictate how that service develops in the future, so to some
extent they will see themselves as co-owners of the service themselves.
Q2 Mr Sheerman: So, Prime Minister, it is the same ship, it
is the same course, a different captain.
Is there anything more unique about the Brown vision?
Mr Brown: I think you will find over the next few years
that, where we personalise services, we will be focusing also on the one-to-one
relationship between a tutor, a coach, a mentor, a teacher, a nurse, a
practitioner and the relationship that they have with the individual. If you take all the big social problems that
we face, long-term unemployed not being able to get back to work, people leaving care and lacking the direction that
is sometimes necessary for them to succeed after they leave as children in
care, people who have tried to break from drug dependency, elderly people who
feel isolated and on their own, what usually makes the biggest difference to
their lives is a one-to-one relationship with someone who can help them. Sometimes, when you talk about bureaucratic,
uniform services, it does not capture what the individual who is trying to
escape from poverty, from unemployment, from a drug dependency or from crime
needs. They need one-to-one help, they
need someone who is there to be of assistance to them and it is more than a
public service can normally provide and that is why we want to support the
voluntary sector in being able to do this.
That is why we set up what is called the Council for Social Action which
met this week and its first investigation is into how we can expand one-to-one
support for people. That is why I think
volunteering is going to become more important in this country because people
who are willing to give of their time with an expertise that they can develop
to support an individual, that is more likely to make a difference to whether
that individual can get a job or get a skill or break from a dependency than
perhaps anything else. You will see
public services develop as personal services, you will see them organised
around people's needs, you will see individuals increasingly able to direct
these services and spend the money themselves and make the choices that they
want, but you will also see, I think, the development of far more one-to-one
support for people who need it and that will be an increasing ability to draw
on the great strengths of the voluntary sector in Britain, whose role, I think,
has often been undervalued in the past, so that, by volunteering but also by
the professionalism of some of the voluntary organisations, we can help people
who have got particular needs that sometimes in the last ten years the system
has not been as good at picking up as it should be and will be in the future.
Mr Sheerman: Thank you, Prime Minister. We would now like to drill down on the
course and the vision.
Q3 Mr Barron: Good morning, Prime Minister. Could I develop a bit further this issue of
diversity and choice in healthcare, and you say you are looking at extending
the independent sector in primary care.
What do you say to some of the charges which have been made by the
independent sector about the recent decision-making in secondary care and ISTCs,
that is, the cutback in the second wave of ISTCs? Perhaps I can just quote from the Managing Director of Carillion
Health, which saw one of its schemes pulled, who warned that "this might
undermine the confidence of the private sector". If the private sector think that actually they are always
diminishing in secondary care, how is that going to give us confidence to see
it expanded elsewhere in healthcare systems?
Mr Brown: The role of the private sector in the areas
that you are suggesting is expanding, will continue to expand and will be a lot
bigger in the next few years than it is now.
If you take independent treatment centres, I think we will move to the
first million patients who have had their operations or their diagnoses done
through independent treatment or independent diagnostic centres by April next
year, so we move very quickly to give a million people the chance to use these
independent centres. If you look ahead,
in terms of elective operations, it has been one per cent a few years ago and
it will be about five per cent by the end of next year, so it is moving up very
quickly. The issue about independent
treatment centres for the future of course has been how much local control
there should be as opposed to national control. The original independent treatment centres were decided
nationally. Should local organisations
in the Health Service be able to make their own decisions about that, and that
is where the basis of the argument lies?
Perhaps I can just say that we have set up a new forum to encourage more
private sector operators to come into the healthcare centre. Ara Darzi, the Minister, is holding a
meeting in the next few days with people to discuss this. We have been asking in people from the
private sector to review what we can do to give them a better chance to compete
for contracts which we want them to do.
We are carrying out, as John Hutton announced over the last few days, a
review into the total role that the private sector plays in the Health Service. We believe from the recent evidence
available that it is about £22 billion of expenditure that goes through the
private sector. Now, that is a very
considerable amount of expenditure and, if you think pharmaceuticals is a £9
billion industry in Britain, the private sector's involvement in the Health
Service is £22 billion, so that is a huge amount of money, so the private
sector plays an increasing role and will play a bigger role. The question really is: how much of it is by
local decision-making, which I think most people would want to see, rather than
by national decision-making? Perhaps I
could just emphasise that the extension of it to the GP sector and to the
social care sector is going to be particularly important in the years to come,
so the independent sector increases its role, will continue to increase its
role and, in a wider and broader range of areas, will have a bigger role in the
years to come.
Q4 Mr Barron: Could I just ask you about that because Alan
Johnson told the Health Committee a couple of weeks ago that the third wave of
ISTCs would be procured locally. I have
to say, my experience is that, if the first wave had had to be procured locally
and had not been driven from the Department of Health, it would not have
happened. I think most of us around
here would say that the National Health Service was hostile to the introduction
of the independent treatment centres or certainly those in my area that spoke
to me, as an MP. Do you think that the
culture has changed inside the National Health Service and that they will be
able to happily engage with the independent sector if there is no direction
from the centre?
Mr Brown: I think the financial disciplines that local
organisations have now got to meet mean that they will be seeking value for
money at all times. Now, of course in
any organisation you are dealing with all the vested interests and part of the
reason that the independent treatment centres were started at a national level
was to break down the old vested interests, but now that local organisations
can see the benefit in value for money from building up their capacity through
the private and independent sectors, then I believe that they will take up
these opportunities. The test at the
end of the day is not private versus public, it is value for money, and it is
not dogmatic to support one against the other.
It is value for money you are trying to achieve all the time and where a
project, such as the one in the Midlands, was only five per cent used, then
that was a waste of taxpayers' money.
Where, however, in another area of the country it is more than 100 per
cent used based on previous projections, that is achieving, as I understand it,
far greater value for money than was expected, so value for money will be the
test. I think increasingly locally the
financial disciplines will lead people in that direction and, let us remember,
at a local level you can see lots of providers coming in to offer GP care, you
will see lots of additional providers coming in to offer also social care more
generally, so the independent treatment centres will go side by side with
it. I think Neil Dixon of the King's
Fund said a few weeks ago that the issue for independent treatment centres,
which you have raised, is now that the capacity in the Health Service is being
built up, then the independent sector will have to continue to prove that it is
genuinely value for money, but that is a good thing because that is competition
effectively working on behalf of the patient.
Mr Sheerman: Prime Minister, we now move on to efficiency
savings and Michael Jack.
Q5 Mr Jack: Prime Minister, since you took over your
office, what have you done from your standpoint in Number 10 to ensure that
departments are actually delivering the real value of their Gershon savings?
Mr Brown: Well, the whole Public Spending Round, which
concluded in October with the announcements by the Chancellor, was effectively
about greater efficiency and greater value for money, so you have a situation
where departments are being asked to make three per cent efficiency savings,
where their budgets are costed on the basis that they do make these savings
and, side by side with that, we are having regular reviews, including the work
of the Delivery Unit on each of the individual departments, and I have these
exercises almost every week looking at what individual departments are doing to
achieve the efficiencies that are both promised and necessary if we are to get
proper value for money.
Q6 Mr Jack: By how much are departments actually out from
achieving the targets that have already been set? How bad is the situation in terms of their not doing what they
said they would do to Gershon?
Mr Brown: I think the Gershon Report and his
recommendations have been more or less achieved.
Q7 Mr Jack: Well, that is not what the National Audit
Office say. In their report to the
Public Accounts Committee, they indicate that £3.1 billion worth of supposed
savings are substantially incorrect and, with a further £6.7 billion worth of
savings, they indicate that there are measurement issues and uncertainties. That is nearly £10 billion of a saving
programme that you cannot account for.
Mr Brown: Hold on!
The £6.7 billion, what they are actually talking about is how these
savings are measured because some of them are savings in working time, some of
them are the better use productively of time, so, when you say £6.7 billion,
you cannot write off these savings.
What they are saying is that there is a debate about what has actually
in practice been achieved and £6.3 billion or £6.5 billion -----
Q8 Mr Jack: There might be a debate, but how is that
going to be resolved because, if you cannot account for the savings and they
are an integral part of the budgets of departments, you are going to find that
you actually have not in real terms got the money. If you question £6.7 billion, £3.1 billion, the NAO say very
clearly, are substantially incorrect.
That is an awful lot of money not to be able to account for.
Mr Brown: Yes, but I think what you are actually
talking about is the Gershon set of proposals that I think involved, was it,
£20 or £30 billion over a period of time.
You are talking about a procedure by which these are achievable. Look at the Health Service, look at what has
been achieved in terms of waiting times and look at what has been achieved in
terms of the waiting lists, look at the increased number of operations that
have been done, look at the introduction of some of the new technology and how
more patients are being treated; there are millions more patients benefiting
from what has happened. Equally, in schools,
in colleges and in universities, there are more students now than there were in
1997.
Q9 Mr Jack: But the NAO has quite definitely, Prime
Minister, agreed with you that there have been some improvements, but there is
still an awful lot of money unaccounted for, so, in conclusion, if you cannot
make these improvements and you are, for example, £3 billion short, what are
you going to do?
Mr Brown: Well, I do not accept these figures.
Q10 Mr Jack: So you disagree with the NAO? You put a lot of store by it when you were
Chancellor.
Mr Brown: What I am saying is, if you look at what the
NAO and other bodies are saying, you then set your Spending Round for the next
few years on the basis of the information that you have, and each department
has been asked to get, in most cases, three per cent annual efficiency
savings. Now, that is a big target for
a department, that they have got to get three per cent, and of course, if they
do not get these savings, then it will become very clear in what is happening
to the service. Now, I just tell you to
look at the services themselves, and the merit of what has happened over the
last few years is that the value for money achieved in the Health Service is hugely greater and the
value for money achieved in education is greater, but we are never complacent
and that is why the Spending Round set very strenuous targets both in terms of
cutting back central bureaucracies, cutting back the number of civil servants
overall, so overall, I think it is, 80,000 civil servants have had to go as a
result of the changes that we have made, and I think you will see over the next
few years the benefit in increased efficiency savings, but also in a better
service.
Mr Sheerman: Prime Minister, you are rattling through, and
now I would like to call on Andrew Miller to talk about problems with IT
programmes.
Q11 Andrew Miller: Prime Minister, in the Modernising Government White Paper, there was a commitment to
publish an IT strategy for government that would focus on the needs of citizens
and business. Do you think that has
been a success and, if not, what are you going to do to improve it?
Mr Brown: We have got a long way to go. I think all private and public organisations
are coming to terms with both the security issues relating to the use of IT and
the proper organisation of data, and I know you personally are an expert on IT
issues, I think every organisation knows that it has got a long way to go. We are only now aware of the explosive power
of information if properly co-ordinated to make
a difference, but we have got to get the better systems in place.
Q12 Andrew Miller: But seven out of ten projects, according to
the Chief Information Officer at the Department for Work and Pensions in May,
have failed. The well-known contractor,
the IT Contractor's Portal, raises very serious questions about the roll-out of
ID cards because of contract management and even today we have had a statement
on the BBC that victim surcharges are not going to be collected because of the
failure of Libra. This is a fundamental
weakness in the system. Is it that the
Government has failed to abide by its own advice in the McCartney Review?
Mr Brown: I think the first thing that we are
recognising, as the events of recent months have shown, is that care and
security in the use of information is incredibly important, and I know you are
not specifically asking about that, you are asking about how we organise our
systems, but let us remember, when the Chancellor reports next week on the
Pointer Review, that we are dealing with issues about the care and security of
data and information, and these are very important issues. Secondly, I think every organisation, and I
am talking about every country in the world, is recognising that so much more
has to be done to make for the efficient use particularly of computerisation
and IT in the future, so I do not think we are alone in having to learn the
lessons from present experience about how things can be done better in the
future.
Mr Sheerman: We will move straight on to look at another
aspect of the public sector.
Q13 Mr Leigh: Good morning, Prime Minister, and thank you
for thinking that the affairs of this Select Committee are more important than
the mass ranks of EU Heads of Government; we are very grateful.
Mr Brown: I have got the advantage of being able to do
both! You, I gather, will not wish to
join me there!
Q14 Mr Leigh: Obviously this proclaims your view of the
importance of Parliament. I wonder if
you could help me because on Monday we have got a PAC hearing into the HMRC
loss and we have got the acting Chairman coming along. We know about the email of 13 March that was
sent from HMRC to the National Audit Office and that was the email which said
that it was too expensive to strip out all the data, so they put all the names
and addresses, bank details and all the rest of it into the post. Now, we know that was copied to an
assistant secretary and I understand, and this is new information, that that
was actually written by a senior executive officer. I am not asking for the clerk who put the stuff in an envelope,
but so far the acting Chairman has refused to bring these people. Will you instruct him to bring these people
on Monday so that we can have a proper hearing and actually find out what
happened?
Mr Brown: I will obviously look at what you say on
this, but I think the position is this: that, as far as this data is concerned
and the relationships between the National Audit Office and HMRC, that is
precisely what the Pointer Review is looking at. Because I was expecting that you may ask these questions about
these emails to which you attach, and have attached over the last few weeks,
such importance, having got these emails here, I think it is important to
recognise that there is a lot of information in them. The Pointer Review is looking at it and the Pointer Review will
report and then we can make a judgment on these issues.
Q15 Mr Leigh: Precisely.
I am not going to ask you about the actual substance of this because the
Pointer Review, we hope, will be published maybe tomorrow or Monday
morning. I was just asking you, and you
said you would look at, I am grateful, about the principle of instructing the
acting Chairman to bring these officials.
This is very important because my dream, if you like, is that these select
committees should have as powerful a role as congressional select committees in
an advise and consent role. Previously
in scandals, the Civil Service has hidden behind the Osmotherly Rules and they
have said they can bring who they like and then we have found in the Hutton
Inquiry that all sorts of information which is available to High Court judges
is not available to select committees.
Now, you have said that you want to have a new start, you want select committees
to be more important, so can you at least look at this so that we can have
proper select committee inquiries and get to grips with all the information and
all the players in any particular event?
Mr Brown: Can I just say about March, however, that the
issue that arose on child benefit data was essentially an issue about what
happened in October. In March, there
was a transfer of data and there was no data lost at that stage or mislaid or
which went missing in the post and, as I understand it, the data was then
returned to HMRC.
Q16 Mr Leigh: Well, you are now getting into the
detail. I can debate this with you, but
you said you do not want to discuss these details before the Pointer Report. The fact is that that request was made in
that way in March and, because HMRC refused to change their minds because of
their contract with EDS, they did not want to waste money and all the rest of
it, this whole process carried on until October, but we do not want to get into
the detail. Perhaps I can just ask you
one general question. I have had several
emails from HMR staff, for instance, saying, "I am shortly to retire from 35
years with the Inland Revenue. I am
glad this horrendous error has occurred because something may at last be done
about this disaster area known as HMRC: the disregard for providing a service
for taxpayers; the inability to contact HMRC easily by telephone; the tax
credits fiasco..." Now, what this is
saying to me, and what the acting Head admitted in his evidence to the Treasury
Sub-Committee, is that there appear to be systemic failures. Do you believe that this is a useful event
to try and clean up HMRC and make it the best department in Whitehall, which it
was before the reforms that frankly you brought in?
Mr Brown: Well, the reforms were recommended after a
long investigation by Gus O'Donnell who is now the Cabinet Secretary. One of the reasons for the reforms was, if I
may say so, that business complained that it had to deal with the Customs &
Excise authority on the one hand and then, with the same type of information it
had to provide, it had to deal with the Inland Revenue. The idea was in this particular instance
that there would be one service for business through HMRC and not two agencies
that people had to deal with. If I may
say so, this reform was supported by business, small and large, because it was
a major breakthrough in preventing them having to deal with two agencies. As far as the individual instance of child
benefit was concerned, the specifics of the transfer of Customs & Excise
and Inland Revenue did not affect the Child Benefit Office that is concerned in
the particular issue of the investigation at the moment, so I think one needs
to separate, if you like, the individual instance of rules not being followed
and whether of course there is a case for better procedures. The general amalgamation of HMRC from
Customs & Excise and the Inland Revenue, I think, has very considerable
benefits, particularly for business, because it becomes, therefore, a one-stop
shop for them dealing with -----
Q17 Mr Leigh: I am not asking about the overall thing, it
is just that we want to use this event to improve. There have been seven security breaches since April 2005, so this
is a useful occasion to try and improve this for everybody, is it not?
Mr Brown: I think you are putting some words into the
mouth of the acting Head of HMRC. He
said that the Pointer Review would have to decide these issues and undoubtedly
we should wait until the Pointer Review comes out. My whole point of mentioning March is that the incident which is
the issue was something that happened in October and that has been the cause of
the difficulties that have been revealed and hopefully, because there does not
seem to have been any criminal activity as a result of it, nobody has lost any
money and people's bank account details appear to be protected.
Mr Sheerman: The Chairman has been very generous with the
time, but Edward is on Lisbon time already!
Sir George?
Q18 Sir George Young: Prime Minister, can we wind back to the
answer you gave to Barry Sheerman at the beginning of this session and try and
tease out the role of consumer choice and the delivery of public services. One of your ministers has described consumer
choice as a 'fetish', another one, Ed Miliband, has called for an end to the
obsession with choice, and I read your speech at the University of Woolwich
about education, a long speech, where there was no mention of parental choice
at all. Was this just an oversight?
Mr Brown: I think if you read that speech closely, what
I was actually saying was that we looked at educational opportunity as being
absolutely crucial for the future of every child, but we had not sufficiently
taken on board the need for high aspiration on the part of the child and
parental involvement in education. I
think you will find in that speech that I was talking about the important role
of both parents and the aspirations of the children. Now, on this general question of choice, Sir George, I would just
mention the social care budgets ----
Q19 Sir George Young: I want to come on to that, but can I just pin
you down a bit on education. Your
predecessor wrote a foreword to the Education White Paper and he praised the
school choice programme of Sweden and Florida where parents can use the money
earmarked for their children's education in independent schools. Would you endorse that approach?
Mr Brown: The issue about the independent sector, I
have not supported the state-assisted places scheme and actually Tony Blair was
the Prime Minister who abolished it, so, if you are suggesting we are going to
bring back the state-assisted places scheme, we are not, but far more people
are benefiting from the academy programme than ever benefited from the
state-assisted places scheme. There are
more children, as a result, getting an education through the development of
academies and the freedoms that they have in poorer areas than was possible
under the other schemes. If you look at
what we are actually doing, and this is why I think we should turn our
attention to the specifics of academies, specialist schools and trusts, what we
are trying to root out is failing schools.
What parents hate most of all is where there is a school that they do
not want to send their child to, but they have got no choice, but to have to
send their child there, so let us root out failing schools. In that speech that you mentioned, I set the
objective in the next five years of rooting out all the failing schools in our
country. Now, that is an ambitious
objective which I hope you support, but that is a means by which we give
parents more control over the quality of the education ----
Q20 Sir George Young: Can I then pick up the point at which I
interrupted you. You were going to go
on to talk about the social care budgets where in the beginning you said this
enfranchised people, you gave them the money, they could decide how to spend it
and indeed they could add to it. If you
accept the logic of that in personal social care, why do you not accept it in
education?
Mr Brown: The way that we have funded education over
the last few years is to increase the diversity of choice available to parents
by having academy schools, specialist schools and trust schools. In fact, in academies we are now inviting
independent schools in this category, as well as colleges and universities, to
play their part in the development of academies. I think that is the best way forward and I do not propose that we
return to the state-assisted places scheme.
I do not know if you wish to return to it or not.
Q21 Sir George Young: No, I was just pressing you on the logic of
enfranchising people by giving them budgets in one part of the public sector,
but denying the same freedom and liberty in another sector.
Mr Brown: You are essentially talking about, in the
social care sector, adults who have got a chance to choose a range of provision
that is suitable to them.
Q22 Sir George Young: Why can parents not do that with their own
children?
Mr Brown: In the state sector, we are providing a range
of choice, including of course the first parent-created school in Hackney that
has actually been set up in the last few months, so the range of choice is
available in the state sector. The
question you were asking is: should we have a return to the state-assisted
places scheme?
Q23 Sir George Young: That was not my question.
Mr Brown: Well, that is the logic of your position,
that parents are given money. That is
the logic of your position, that you return to the state-assisted places
scheme, and I think that did not achieve the results that were intended for
it. I think our academies programme,
our specialist schools programme, our trust programme and the action that we
are now taking perhaps more ruthlessly than before to deal with failing schools
is the best way forward.
Q24 Sir George Young: Can I just press you finally on this. We saw your predecessor here for about 20
hours, a lot of it on public sector ----
Mr Brown: I certainly would not get to Lisbon in those
circumstances!
Q25 Sir George Young: ---- a lot on public sector reform, and we
heard about the scars on his back, how he always wished he had gone further and
faster with reform, the forces of conservatism. Do you have the same impatience as he displayed to us to drive
this agenda forward or are you slightly more cautious?
Mr Brown: No, we are just going further and faster now
and I have just described how we move in increasing the diversity of supply
through greater competition and contestability, extending right across the
board in the Health Service moving obviously into social care, in education as
well, and I think you will see announcements in the future about how we can do
exactly the same in welfare, so I am describing how that can happen. I am also saying, if you take health,
education and social service, let us root out failure. The culture of the second best is not
acceptable to me. It is a culture of
excellence that we have got to achieve and, therefore, we have got to root out
failing schools, we have got to deal, as we will, with failing hospitals and
failing trusts and, in every area of the public services where there is failure
or where there is a toleration of second best, my motto will be, "Failure no
more. Second best no more. Tolerating failure no more".
Q26 Mr Sheerman: Prime Minister, to have a successful public
sector, we have to have a successful economy.
Even with the announcement of the tackling by the international banks of
this problem of lack of liquidity, are you sure that the measures that your
Government is taking at the moment fully compensate for the problems that we
have had and that you are going to steer us away from recession?
Mr Brown: I think I have circulated to the Committee
this morning the statement I am going to make when I get to the Lisbon Summit
about measures that we can take collectively to deal with the turbulence that
now exists in the global economy. I
think the step forward that was made yesterday by the agreement of the central
banks in America, Europe and the UK, including the Bank of Canada and the Bank
of Switzerland, to inject what was the equivalent of $100 billion into the
world economy is an important step forward.
I do believe that the lessons of this summer have shown that you need a
better early warning system in the global economy and you need greater
co-operation between the international authorities to head off difficulties
and, given that this was financial turbulence that started in the United States
of America but which has affected some of the smallest organisations in
Germany, France, European countries, as well as in Britain, there is a case for
looking very seriously at how we can co-ordinate our activities better, so I do
believe that it is a wake-up call for the global economy. I do believe that the existing institutions
are not good enough and I am going to make it my business to try and reform
these institutions to make them better able to deal with the sorts of problems
that we have got, for example, reforms that are needed in the credit rating
agencies. There is greater transparency
needed in the banking and financial institution sector, but also greater
co-ordination of the different institutions across frontiers to make possible a
better co-ordinated response to the difficulties that arise in the world
economy.
Q27 Mr Sheerman: So, Prime Minister, the quintessential
Brown stamp is going to be what - determination, ruthlessness, or is it
personalisation?
Mr Brown: In the public services the issue is how
services can not simply be public, but personal and how you can organise them
around people's needs and tailor them to people's needs, but also ensure that
the individual can direct the development of that service in the future. I think you will see in every area of the
public services that that will happen, but rooting out failure is going to be a
very important part of the next period of time because we are not going to
tolerate second best.
Mr Sheerman: Thank you, Prime Minister.
Chairman: I have Kevin Barron's apologies
incidentally. He was not walking out
because he was dissatisfied with your answers, but he is chairing his own
Committee, so he had to leave. We now
move on to a subject which you claim very much for yourself, constitutional
reform.
Q28 Dr Wright: Prime Minister, we wanted to ask you some
questions about the Governance of Britain
proposals that you have brought forward.
Before I do that, could I just ask you to say one more thing about
something that you spoke about in Prime Minister's Questions yesterday because,
as you know, the Parliamentary Ombudsman some time ago made a report, saying
essentially that justice has to be done to all those people who lost their
occupational pensions through no fault of their own. Yesterday, you seemed to say that, as a result of the Young
Review, the sources had been found, I thought you said, to bring them up to the
Pension Protection Fund level. Is that
exactly the case now?
Mr Brown: I think you will find the Secretary for Work
and Pensions will make a statement very soon on this. The Young Review was intended to see whether within these schemes
there was sufficient money so that the guarantee of the £8 billion that we have
made as a government over the next 30 or 40 years could be matched by
additional money from the schemes. We
now believe it will be possible to pay the 90 per cent that obviously people
have rightly wanted and the Young Report will be published very soon with the
recommendations about how that is done, so I think you can be reasonably
confident that the demand that 90 per cent protection be given, as is the case
in the specific of 90 per cent of the Pension Protection Board, can be met, but
of course there are other issues which will be dealt with when the Young Report
is published.
Q29 Dr Wright: Thank you for that and I am sure we shall
look at it again in the next few days.
Could I then return to the broader constitutional prospectus that you
have laid out and which you have very much made your own mission. When you produced the document back in July,
you said that you wanted, and I quote the document, your foreword to it, "to
begin the journey towards a new constitutional settlement". I notice this morning in relation to Europe
that you said Europe should not waste its time worrying about these
constitutional questions about itself, it should concentrate on the things that
matter to people. If that applies to
Europe, why does it not apply here as well?
Mr Brown: Well, I think in Europe, everybody who looks
at what has been happening in Europe over recent years knows that they have
spent an enormous amount of time, and we had to as well, looking at the
building of the institutions for a Europe of 27 and, whereas other people say
that that has been a waste of time, it was necessary to improve the
institutional framework within which the European Union develops. That, in a sense, became the major item in
Europe at the expense of the economy, security, the environment and all the big
issues that we know we have to deal with.
In Britain, I think the opposite is true partly because our Constitution
has been, in the traditional sense of the word, unwritten and, partly because a
lot of what we think about Britain and Britishness has been implicit rather
than explicit, we have not spent the time in our country looking at how modern
relationships between the Executive, the Legislature, the judiciary and the
people can actually further both a strong sense of cohesion in our country, a
sense of national purpose and national unity, and actually make for better
governance. I think whereas in Europe
there has been an over-emphasis on institutions, and understandably of course
when you have had to grow to a Europe of 27, in Britain we have not actually
done what I think is of great benefit, looking at how we can actually make our
constitutional arrangements far better to deal with the undoubted demands of
people for better forms of government in the future.
Q30 Dr Wright: Countries usually have a new constitutional
settlement as a result of some seismic moment in their affairs. Now, unless I have missed it, I do not think
we have had such a seismic moment. We
have had an intense period of constitutional reform and I can hear people
saying, "Look, we've had all that constitutional reform. Surely the task now is to let it bed down
and to sort out some of the loose ends that come from it and, above all, to
concentrate upon sound administration".
Is that not what people really want?
Mr Brown: Can I put the issue the other way? If you look at every problem that a modern
economy and society like ours faces, whether it is the environment, whether it
is terrorism, whether it is community cohesion or whether it is skills or
facing the global economy, one of the lessons that I have learnt is that you
cannot have top-down government anymore, you cannot make decisions and assume
that people will simply follow them.
Most of the decisions you are having to make can only be successful if
people themselves are part of the process.
If you take climate change, you cannot solve the problem of climate
change without the personal and social responsibility of individuals, so you
cannot have a sort of top-down government dictating climate change targets
without at the same time having a debate about the personal and social
responsibility of people and people have, therefore, got to be involved in that
debate. It is true of community
cohesion. You are not going to have
community cohesion in Britain unless people themselves are involved in the
building of their communities. You will
not solve our problems in relation to global competition unless the people
themselves recognise that they have to change the way they behave, particularly
in acquiring skills for the future, so every issue that we face demands a
greater involvement by the public themselves in meeting these challenges and
you must, therefore, have a constitution that allows people to play their part,
sometimes in an unstructured way, but sometimes in a far better structured way,
such as some of the reforms that we are proposing now.
Q31 Dr Wright: I am not sure if that quite amounts to a case
for a new constitutional settlement ----
Mr Brown: It is surely telling you that it does.
Dr Wright: ---- let alone for some of these things like
a written constitution, but I think Alan Beith wants to come in on that.
Q32 Mr Beith: Prime Minister, you have talked about
involving the citizens, but you have produced a document, a fascinating
document, with all sorts of things from war powers to ecclesiastical
appointments, but some of the key things seem to have been off limits. A written constitution itself, which you
mention, is not floated in here at all.
The electoral system, which clearly affects the balance of power in
society, is not considered at all, despite a Manifesto commitment, and a shift
in the balance of power between central and local government is not mentioned
at all. Did you at an early stage say
that certain of these things were off limits when the paper was being drafted?
Mr Brown: I do not accept that. I think on the three issues that you raise,
we have said not only important things, but are actually doing important
things. On the question of the
Constitution itself, what I actually said in my statement was that we should
discuss a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities and we should discuss whether
there is sufficient support to move to the next stage of a discussion which
would include a written Constitution.
Q33 Mr Beith: Those are different points.
Mr Brown: On the electoral system, if I may say so,
there is a report being prepared, as promised, and will be published soon on
the electoral system, so that ----
Q34 Mr Beith: We have been waiting two years for that!
Mr Brown: Yes, I am saying it is going to be published
soon. Then, on central and local
government, you may have seen yesterday that a new concordat was signed between
the Government and local authorities, including local authorities of all
political colours, so the debate about local government and its role in a
future constitutional settlement is very much part of the discussions, so I
would not say that anything is off limits from these discussions. I think a lot of this is waiting also to
hear what the people of different groups in society have got to say about how
they see this process moving forward themselves, and part of Jack Straw's
review is to consult around the country with groups of people about what are
the best next steps forward, so this is a debate which again has got to be not
just led by the Government, but has got to involve large numbers of people in
different communities of the country.
Q35 Mr Beith: When
people in the communities in Northumberland voted as to what system of local
government they wanted, one authority or two, they voted for two and the
Government gave them one, so we start from a rather cynical standpoint. Just looking at local government, surely,
unless you give local government a viable tax base and the ability to make
decisions which central government will not like and, therefore, will not be
delivering central government's priorities, you will not have changed the
balance of power, will you?
Mr Brown: Well, as you know, we have had a review that
has published its results on the future of local government finance and there
is a great deal of discussion going on about how the changes recommended in
that might be implemented, so the debate about local government finance is not
one that is being ignored at all. There
has been a report, we are looking at what we can do and there is a number of
suggestions that have been made. This
is a perennial problem, as you know: what is the right balance between central
and local government for the future and can the balance be struck in a way that
is satisfactory for local communities if it excludes the tax base that is
available for local taxation? I think
what we are seeing actually at the moment is local people wanting to exercise
more control, but not necessarily in the ways that we have traditionally
expected. People want the authorities
that they have in their areas, like the police and the different social
services authorities, to be answerable to them and that is why the right of
recall, that is why the right to complain and that is why the right to hold
some of these authorities to account are regarded as very important. Therefore, I think there is a debate going
on, but it is not necessarily a debate only about the future of local
government, but it is also about the future of local communities and how people
can make authorities more answerable to local communities, and I think that is
a debate which will also continue in the future.
Q36 Mr Beith: Do I detect from that that you actually want
to bypass local government, that you see local government as not the best
way?
Mr Brown: No.
Q37 Mr Beith: That carries the danger that central
government sets targets and then simply uses these other mechanisms as some
means of trying to ensure that the targets it has set are delivered.
Mr Brown: No, I do not want to bypass local government,
but I recognise, however, that communities are organised in different ways in
trying to make authorities answerable to them and some of the big advances in
recent years have been holding some of the authorities to account not through
local government, but through other mechanisms that are available at a local
level. The great story of the
development of local government in Britain is one that we should be very proud
of and the municipal initiative and enterprise that was shown in the 19th
and 20th centuries by local authorities is something that was very
important to the development of our society.
The concordat that we are trying to strike with local government is to
enhance the power of local authorities in future and of course to make them
accountable more effectively to their citizens for what they do.
Q38 Dr Wright: Could we just move this on slightly and turn
to this Britishness stuff which I am having a bit of trouble with because it
says that "the Government is going to work with the public to develop the
British statement of values which will set out the ideals and principles that
bind us together as a nation". Now,
that is not a modest undertaking. Now,
I do not understand what such a statement might contain that could not be made
in any decent western European society.
Indeed, in the document it talks about the principles of liberty,
democracy, tolerance, free speech, pluralism, fair play and civic duty. Well, almost any Western society would
recite those, so what would be distinctive about ours? There are bits of distinctiveness of course,
and I can think of binge-drinking, I think of family breakdown, I think of a
growing incivility, but presumably those are not British values that we want to
articulate, are they?
Mr Brown: I think you are making a case for this
discussion actually happening rather than not happening. We had some experience a few years ago in
writing a book together when we looked at all these different issues and there
is something uniquely British about the relationship between liberty, civic
duty or social responsibility and fairness.
I think Britain was the pioneer of liberty for the modern world, and I
think in later years America took it upon itself to claim that it was the
leading country in promoting liberty, but our view of liberty is different from
the American view of liberty. Our view
of liberty is not the 'leave me alone' liberty that you characterise with some
of the American Constitution. Our view
of liberty is liberty in the context of social responsibility and, in the 19th
Century, the idea of civic duty that emerged in response to the industrial
revolution is something that also Britain can claim some credit for pioneering,
so it is the distinctive relationship between liberty, civic duty and, in the
20th Century, the ideas of fairness that, in my view, characterise
what it is for people to think of themselves as British, and that is why we
find it easy to accommodate both the liberty of the individual citizen and
having a National Health Service that is free to people at the point of
need. You rightly say that different
countries have different ideas about what the boundaries are between acceptable
and unacceptable behaviour, and you mentioned binge-drinking, but guns is a
very good example. Guns are tolerated
in America, but guns are anathema to people here if it is just citizens going
around carrying guns without a particular use that they have for them that can
be justified for their occupation or for some other purpose, and bullying was
not an issue that people thought important in Britain in the 1970s or 1980s in
the way that people think of it as something that has got to be eradicated now. British values, I think, can be set
down. You can have a debate about what
it is to be British, and what is the importance of it? The importance of a debate like that is that
it brings people together and it allows people to test what it is that holds
them together and gives them purpose as a nation. We are a multinational country which cannot base our identity
purely on ethnicity or simply on the existence of institutions. At the end of the day, what holds us
together are the values that we can agree we hold in common and I think it is
possible for us to discuss and debate these and then, out of that discussion
and debate, we get a stronger sense of national unity, so that is why I am
proposing that we have this debate.
Dr Wright: Andrew wants to explore this in relation to a
British Bill of Rights.
Q39 Mr Dismore: Just expanding on that answer, Prime
Minister, and you also talked earlier on about the need to create a sense of
cohesion, purpose and national unity, do you see a Bill of Rights playing a
role in that and, if so, why is it apparently the case that the things that
actually matter to people are going to be excluded from that? You have just mentioned the Health Service,
for example, and 88 per cent of people felt that the right to hospital treatment
within a reasonable time should be in the Bill of Rights. Why will those things, the issues that
actually people think they have rights about, which they do not, social and
economic rights, why will they be excluded from the Bill of Rights? Surely with the right draft of
proportionality, making sure we have got the resources to express it in an
aspirational way, that can be achieved?
Albie Sachs said to me that a country without social and economic rights
in its Constitution is a country without aspiration. Would you agree with that?
Mr Brown: This has been the
debate about modern constitutions round the world as to how far these
constitutions can accommodate people's desire not simply for political rights
to be enshrined in constitutions but social and economic rights. The issue actually comes down to not being
against social and economic rights being accorded importance in constitutions
but whether they are justiciable, whether people actually go to court or take
actions in law on the basis of these rights being set down. That is part of the debate that I think you
will see ushered in in January as to whether social and economic rights should
be included in this statement but I think the issue becomes not so much whether
you think they are important but whether you agree that you should take
judicial action on the basis of trying to enforce these rights. That is where a lot of constitutions have
had a great deal of problems in recent years.
Q40 Mr Dismore:
So the suggestion that seems to come out of The Governance of Britain
and other documents that social and economic rights are effectively off-limits
in this debate is wrong?
Mr Brown: I do not think they
can ever be off-limits in a debate and I think when people look at what does
hold Britain together, some of the social changes that happened in the 20th
century are seen by people to be of such importance that they accord them the
status of rights in the way they talk about them, as you have rightly said
about the National Health Service. The
question however is whether, if you are setting down in legislation rights, are
you setting them down so that people can take legal action on the basis of
enforcing them or not?
Q41 Mr Dismore:
Ultimately, you can have checks and balances, as we see in other constitutions. Can I come back to the point you were also
making about Britishness? Rights are
universal. What particular rights are
British and will they only be applied to British citizens as opposed to
everybody who is resident within the UK?
What is so special about certain rights that other people should be
excluded from them?
Mr Brown: If I put it this way,
I think the rights and responsibilities of citizenship will be distinct in
different countries. I used the example
of being able to carry a gun as being a right that people would think important
in America but not think so important in Britain. I think there is another set of rights in all sorts of different
areas where some countries accord them importance and a country like ours may
not think that they are as important as other rights, like the right to health
care. I think there are rights and
responsibilities that go with citizenship and, because responsibilities go with
citizenship, then becoming a citizen is an important act because people are getting
rights but in return for that they have to accept responsibilities. So if someone comes to our country, I think
it is right to say also that if they are applying for citizenship of our
country, or even the right to be a permanent resident, they also have to accept
responsibilities. That is why, for
example, I have said that you should be able to speak the English language, you
should be able to understand and be able to explain and talk about British
cultural traditions. I think there are
other responsibilities that perhaps we can consider for the future that people
who apply to become citizens of our country should be expected to assume and
discharge. I think that is a very
important part of the debate about a modern world where you have massive global
mobility. It is a completely changed
world in the sense that a population the equivalent of Brazil is moving round
the world seeking new countries every year, and we have to insist that people
who come to this country accept responsibilities as well as ask for rights
either of residence or citizenship.
Q42 Mr Dismore:
For people who are within our jurisdiction human rights are universal. Will there be rights that they are not
entitled to? Effectively, do you have
to speak English to access your human rights under this?
Mr Brown: If you wish to apply
for citizenship or permanent residence in this country - and there is a debate
about what the distinction between these two is, of course - you should be
expected to and have the responsibility to learn our language.
Q43 Mr Dismore:
Will visitors to the UK not have the same rights?
Mr Brown: No, visitors to the
United Kingdom are people who come as tourists, not planning to stay here and
not therefore demanding the same sort of rights as other people who are permanent
residents can. Students of course are
in the same position because they are coming for a short period of time and
then leaving.
Q44 Mr Doran:
Prime Minister, the Green Paper acknowledges the position of the devolved
administrations and in some areas it is quite clear, for example, a Bill of
Rights or new powers for local authorities, that in the case particularly of
Scotland there would need to be legislation, so there would need to be
agreement between the Westminster Parliament and the Scottish Parliament on
some laws. Can you say a little bit
more about the process that you envisage in that debate and, in particular, if
we look at the situation at the moment, there is no guarantee that agreement
could be reached. I may be wrong about
that. Could you say a little about how
your goal of a shared national purpose for all the people of the UK would look
if we could not reach agreement with the Scottish Executive and people in some
parts of the UK had different rights from people in other parts of the UK?
Mr Brown: This is a United
Kingdom constitution and the powers that are devolved are powers that are
actually devolved by Parliament to the Scottish Parliament and there are areas
where it is the right of the Westminster Parliament to legislate and it is not
within the power of the Scottish Parliament to legislate. I think sometimes people have forgotten that
this is devolution. It is not a form of
federalism; it is a form of devolution.
If you look at the relationships between Scotland and the rest of the
United Kingdom, we should not forget the shared identity. When the Act of Union was signed only three
per cent of Scots had relatives in England.
Today 50 per cent of Scots have relatives in England so the bonds of
family relationships that hold the United Kingdom together are a lot stronger
than they were in the past. The bonds
of economic interest that hold the United Kingdom together are far stronger as
well. There is hardly a business in
Scotland or in Wales that does not have trade or relies upon a market that is
broader than Scotland and Wales, if it is in the big industry category. The financial services industry: most of its
services in Scotland are to the rest of the United Kingdom. The bonds that hold us together are actually
growing stronger over the years and I think that has to be increasingly
recognised in this debate about the future of the United Kingdom.
Q45 Mr Doran:
Do I take it from that that what you are saying is that, for the purposes of
the Green Paper, Westminster will legislate?
Mr Brown: Where the powers have
not been devolved to the Scottish Parliament or to the Welsh Assembly or indeed
to the Northern Ireland Assembly, these are powers that Westminster continues
to hold and acts in a way that is consistent with that. So the future of the issues that I am
dealing with - there may be some but most of them are entirely within the
province of the UK Parliament and have not been devolved.
Q46 Mr Doran:
Can I be even more parochial? The
constitutional debate in Scotland is not about the Green Paper; it is about the
SNP idea, for example, of independence, which you have rejected, and, on the
other hand, the debate about increasing powers to the Scottish Parliament. Has the Government got a position in this
debate? At the moment nobody seems to
be arguing for the status quo.
Mr Brown: The debate about the
Welsh Assembly is happening, the debate about the Northern Ireland Executive
and police and judicial powers is happening.
There will inevitably be a debate, whether it is about the Scottish
Parliament or about the other devolved parliaments about what future powers and
responsibilities they have. I do say to
people that on all the evidence two-thirds of the population of Scotland wish
to remain part of the United Kingdom.
There is no evidence of any great increased support for
independence. I have just mentioned the
fact that in an increasingly inter-dependent world the bonds of belonging have
actually strengthened over recent years, and whatever the day-to-day politics
and the day-to-day calculations of politicians are, I think you will find that
people see in the United Kingdom and in the British identity that they have a
great deal of strength over the years to come.
I think when the debate happens about independence rather than just
about people's verdict on one particular administration, two-thirds of Scottish
people, in the same way as large numbers of Welsh people, do not want
independence, they do not want separation and they feel the Union is of benefit
to them.
Q47 Mr Doran:
The poll seemed to say that Scottish people want more powers for the Scottish
Parliament. Does the Government have a
position on that?
Mr Brown: It depends what you
are actually talking about. This will
be a debate that will continue to happen.
It always has been a debate about whether in devolution of Wales,
Scotland or Northern Ireland you should tidy up in different ways, but the
central question that has to be addressed is whether people want to be part of
the United Kingdom. Two-thirds of the
population want to be part of the United Kingdom and there are very good
reasons why people in Wales and Scotland want to be part of Great Britain.
Dr Wright: You have not
mentioned England. The man from the
Borders here wants a word about that.
Q48 Mr Beith:
Do you recognise that there is an English question? After all, support for independence for Scotland, although
limited in Scotland, appears to be rising in England.
Mr Brown: That is not the result
of the latest poll, if I may say so.
Q49 Mr Beith:
Is it worrying you though? Does the
English question worry you?
Mr Brown: If I may say so, the Sunday
Telegraph - and I do not usually quote newspapers individually - had a poll
on Sunday saying that the support in England for being part of a Union that
included Scotland and Wales was very high indeed. Contrary to what you have said, I think within the whole of the
United Kingdom there is a recognition of the importance of being part of the
United Kingdom. Why is that the
case? Because we have common interests,
we have shared values, we have shared institutions, we have shared economic
interests, and we have a form of shared citizenship.
Q50 Mr Beith:
So there is no problem for England in a devolution system in which England
remains a very highly centralised country and sees powers exercised in Scotland
and Wales which are exercised wholly centrally in England?
Mr Brown: The sentiments of
every part of the United Kingdom, and particularly in this case the English
people, always have to be recognised but I am suggesting to you that the most
recent evidence is that people want to be part of the wider Britain, indeed,
the wider United Kingdom, and people see their future as best guaranteed being
part of that. Of course, in a single
island, if you are talking about Scotland, Wales and England, when you come to
environmental issues or when you come to issues related to terrorism, as we saw
in the summer, the advantages of us working together are even clearer in future
years than they were in the past. We
have to tackle climate change together.
There is no Scotland-only or Wales-only or England-only solution to
climate change.
Q51 Mr Beith:
But there is Scotland-only free personal care for the elderly, there are
Scotland-only provisions on a wide range of issues which my constituents and
those of other English Members here say, "We don't have this in England. Our taxes are paying for it in
Scotland. Some of the reasons we don't
have it in England rest with having a Prime Minister who actually comes from
Scotland and does not give to us in England what his constituents in Scotland
have." What is your answer to those
people?
Mr Brown: You, as you know, are
a member of a party that is a supporter of very extensive devolution and not
against it. I would make two points to
you. First of all, all parties have
supported not only devolution in recent years but also the Barnett formula,
which is the distribution of funding between the different constituent parts of
the United Kingdom. The second thing is
within these budgets, if more money is spent on, for example, personal care,
then less money is spent on something else.
If, as happened yesterday, there was a police award in Scotland, it is
at the cost of employing more police officers and that was recognised by the
fact that the plan to employ 1,000 police officers was dropped and only 500
police officers were employed.
Q52 Mr Beith:
There is a cost to police morale in England as well.
Mr Brown: You can come back to
that later, because the whole issue of police pay, if I may say so, goes back
to the question that Barry Sheerman asked at the beginning about the state of
the economy. If you believe, as I do,
that inflation has always been a problem for the British economy that can only
be dealt with by taking decisive action whenever inflation threatens to return,
then the action that we took earlier this year, when inflation started to rise
as a result of oil prices, and then as a result of utility price rises, and
inflation moved beyond its target of two per cent to threatening to go above three
per cent, then it was right to take decisive action to deal with the
inflationary pressures in the economy.
That is why, while I would love to pay the police more, as I said
yesterday in the House of Commons, and while I accept that all the different public
sector groups have a case to be made, and some have particular cases that they
are right to put forward, it was in the interests and still is in the interests
of the national economy that we tackle inflation and do not allow a return to
the stop-go problems of the past. No
policeman would thank me if their pay rise was wiped out by rising inflation
that we could not control and we ended up in a situation of facing global
financial turbulence where we could not cut interest rates because, as was true
in the early 1990s and the early 1980s, inflation was out of control. The reason for the public sector pay policy
is not to save money in particular areas, although that is an argument that you
can have at any particular point in time.
It is to bear down on inflation in our national economy so that we do
not have the problems that we cannot react to global financial conditions by
cutting interest rates at a time because inflation is rising.
Dr Wright: If I may say so, the
Committee may want to come back to that later on. We have a couple of final questions in our section.
Q53 Sir Patrick Cormack:
Prime Minister, as you well know, there are a variety of opinions in all
parties, particularly in yours and mine, about the ultimate shape and
composition of a second chamber. You
have made it plain that that really is for the next Parliament and I do not
want to press you on that today but I think most people would agree that there
are certain tidying-up things that need doing in the other place at the
moment. There is the absurdity of the
by-elections. There is the question of
statutory appointments. There is the
question of the size of the House of Lords.
Lord Steel of Aikwood, with all-party support in the other place, has
introduced a modest Bill that would address these three issues and, by signing
up to that Bill, one is not in any sense cutting across ultimate ambitions,
whether you want to see ultimately a wholly elected, a partly elected or an
appointed second chamber is a matter for the future but this is a matter for
the present. Is it a measure that will
have your personal support?
Mr Brown: I think Jack Straw
said that we will look at this.
Obviously, there is an issue about legislative time and obviously there
is an issue about amendments to any legislation that would come forward that
people may wish at that stage to put forward and therefore the difficulties of
getting that legislation through. I do
not think the three proposals that you are putting forward are so contentious
but I do say that people are looking for a House of Lords that achieves two
things. One is that it is accountable
and secondly, that the House of Commons remains the body that is regarded by
the people as the more important part of the legislature. Nothing should affect the position of the
House of Commons by changes that take place in the House of Lords. That is the way I see it.
Q54 Sir Patrick Cormack:
But you will look carefully at these three proposals?
Mr Brown: I think Jack Straw
said that we will. I do suggest to you
that we look at the Bills before Parliament this year but there is an issue
about legislative time and whether, given that you were producing a Bill that
was a constitutional reform Bill related to the House of Lords, people might
not wish, because of the controversy surrounding the House of Lords, to bring a
large number of amendments to it, which you, as an expert in the constitution,
will understand.
Q55 Dr Wright:
Just one final question. There are some
excellent proposals in this Governance of Britain paper which many of us
have been arguing for for a long time, not least, from our Committee's
perspective, the proposal to legislate on the civil service. There are good things but, inevitably, I
will ask you right at the end about omissions.
There is one thing in particular which I had hoped to see there because
when I was elected in 1992 our manifesto had a ringing commitment to fixed-term
parliaments. It said, "Although an
early election will sometimes be necessary, we will introduce as a general rule
a fixed parliamentary term." Is it just
an omission that it is not in there or have we changed our position on this?
Mr Brown: I do not think that
was in the 2005 manifesto. I think the
one change we recommended in The Governance of Britain was that to hold an
election generally Parliament should legislate to see whether we should go to
the House of Commons before we actually make that decision. Fixed-term parliaments have not been in our
manifesto since we lost that election in 1992.
The public did not endorse that particular proposal. I am not sure that was the reason why we
lost!
Dr Wright: It was worth a try!
Chairman: We go straight to John
Whittingdale and the third section, on migration and community cohesion.
Q56 Mr Whittingdale:
Prime Minister, you will be aware that in recent years there has been growing
public concern about the level of immigration into this country and the impact
that that is having on community cohesion and on the demand for public
services. Obviously, we need to handle
this issue carefully but, at the same time, we cannot ignore that public
concern. Can I put it to you first, in
the last four or five years the level of net migration into the UK has been
approaching 200,000 people a year. Do
you think that that figure is too high?
Mr Brown: I think that the rules
we apply to immigration are really what matters and I think you will find that,
as a result of what has happened and what seems right for the future, we are
introducing probably the biggest changes in policy to immigration for 30 or 40
years, and that is to introduce a points system for people coming into the
country in the future. That would mean
that highly skilled workers, of course, would continue to come into the
country, subject to the needs of the economy to have them but it would mean, as
Jacqui Smith said only a few days ago, that people without skills would be
unlikely, outside the European Union, to be able to come into the country. It is a recognition that more and more people
are travelling round the world looking for the country of choice. We as a country have a responsibility to set
the rules by which we wish to offer people the chance to come to our country,
and that is why the big change is the points system, which will be backed up by
far tougher measures to deal with people coming into the country illegally,
including - although it is contentious - ID cards for foreign nationals coming
into our country. These are the changes
that we propose to make.
Q57 Mr Whittingdale:
Do I take it from that answer, the fact that you feel it is necessary to take
these actions, that you do think that the levels we have had in the last few
years are unsustainable?
Mr Brown: No, I am not going to
say that. What I am going to say is
that we now know that there are far more people in the rest of the world
looking to come to different countries, either to offer their skills or because
they find that a more convenient or acceptable place to stay. It is incumbent upon us, with 200 million people
a year looking for different countries of residence, to set the rules that we,
Britain, wish to apply for the future and, therefore, the rules that we wish to
apply for the future include a points system that is going to be far tougher
than what has happened in the past and include far bigger and stronger controls
to deal with the problem of people coming unlawfully into our country and I
believe the ID card for foreign nationals is one form of protection that I
would have hoped there could be all-party support for.
Q58 Mr Whittingdale:
So the points system that you are introducing is intended to reduce the net
level of immigration?
Mr Brown: The points system we
are introducing is to give us a choice as to who we wish to accept into the
country in the circumstances of people coming here to work. If you take the City of London, 200,000
people are working in the City of London who have come from other countries of
the world, many from America, Europe, and many also from Asia, some from Africa
and other parts of the world. That has
been a benefit to the City of London.
There is nobody I meet who says that the City of London has failed to
benefit from large numbers of people coming from different countries with
particular skills. In general, the
growth rate of the economy has been higher as a result of people that we have
attracted to our country who have wanted to work here but we are dealing with a
new situation where larger numbers of people are wanting to have, if you like,
a citizenship of choice. We as a
government and as a country must therefore set the rules that we think are
appropriate for us in the future, bearing in mind our responsibilities as a
member of the European Union, bearing in mind our responsibilities under a
whole series of arrangements we have made in the past about spouses and about
children but bearing in mind also that we have a right to be able to say that
there are skills that are suitable to our economy that we want to attract and
there may be skills that we no longer think are as important as we thought they
were previously.
Q59 Mr Whittingdale:
All of us would recognise that we will benefit from immigration of skilled
workers but a lot of the concern actually revolves around relatively unskilled
people coming to this country. The
Government Actuary's Department has recently produced projections which suggest
that the overall figure for the population is likely to increase to around 70
million in the next 25 years and could reach 90 million in the next 50
years. Do you have a view of what is
the maximum size of population that this country can accommodate?
Mr Brown: These figures cannot
be on the basis of the policy changes that are being made and I have said they
are the biggest policy changes that have been made for many years. These are projections without taking into account
the policy changes. Some people are
saying that there should be a total cap on migration into our country but then
they have to accept when they say that that they are not proposing a cap on
people coming from the European Union, they are not proposing a cap on people
coming as dependants, they are not proposing a cap on students, for example,
who come to the country. The cap would,
of course, as a result of being a blanket cap in relation to those people they
can exclude, exclude skilled workers. I
do not think that is the right decision.
We need some of these skills but, obviously, we do not need some of the
unskilled workers who may wish to come to our country but under the points
system will have the right to say that is not what we need at the moment, that
is not what the future of our country requires and that is why the points
system is going to be brought into operation.
I think it has worked quite well in Australia. It is similar to some of the things that other countries do and
it is a major change for us to introduce it.
So any projections do not take into account the changes that we are
actually making.
Q60 Mr Whittingdale:
In actual fact, Frank Field I think this week did suggest that we should
re-approach the European Union with a view to asking whether there could be a
cap on the migration of workers from the former Eastern European
countries. Can I finally just put it to
you, you must be concerned about the rising level of support for extremist
parties like the BNP in traditional working class areas, like Barking and
Dagenham. Do you see that as a
reflection of a failure of immigration policy?
Mr Brown: The first thing I
should say to you is that there is a limit on Romanian and Bulgarian people
coming into this country. When I meet people
from these countries they say that of course, the decision that we made in
relation to Romania and Bulgaria has had quite a big effect. So a decision was made there. I think parties like the BNP have to be
opposed head on for what are racialist views that are completely unacceptable
in a democratic society and I do not think there is anything that justifies the
racialist views that they put forward.
Mr Whittingdale: Can we explore
one or two of the specific consequences, particularly employment to begin
with? Can I turn to Keith Vaz.
Q61 Keith Vaz:
Prime Minister, good morning. You
coined the phrase on 6 June last year "British jobs for British workers" yet
statistics show that 80 per cent of the new jobs created since 1997 have gone
to people who may have been born abroad.
On reflection, do you think that statement was a little unwise?
Mr Brown: No, because if you
look at the employment structure of Britain, yesterday we were able to announce
that there are now 29 million more people in the workforce, the highest number
of people working in the British economy at any stage in our history. So we have created over the last ten years
very large number of jobs, nearly 3 million jobs. Two million of these jobs are held by people who were born
outside the country. If you go to
Australia, it is 25 per cent of people; if you go to Canada, it is 20 per cent
of people; if you go to America, it is 15 per cent of people. In Britain the figure, as I am showing you,
is far lower, and indeed considerably lower than Australia, Canada and
America. When I talk about British
workers getting the jobs that are available in Britain, I am pointing to a
situation where we have 600,000 vacancies in the British economy today, we have
people who are inactive, who are on the unemployment register or inactive in
one way or another. We have 200
employers prepared to help them come off the inactive register into work as a
result of a decision we made over the last few months. I want those people who are on the inactive
register to be encouraged to take those jobs that are available in the British
economy, and I think it should be a matter of support right across the parties
that where you have people who are out of work and inactive, we should be doing
everything in our power to encourage them to get the jobs that are available in
Britain. There will be increasing jobs
in available in the years to come as a result of the success of our economic
policy. Do not forget that about 5
million to 6 million jobs change hands every year and we are continually
looking for people from the unemployment register and inactive register to take
these jobs and it is my responsibility, I think, and the responsibility of the
Government, to make sure we do everything in our power so that these British
people are available for the jobs that are on offer.
Q62 Keith Vaz:
At the same time, we should be talking about the benefits of migration because
migration has really helped the British economy, has it not?
Mr Brown: As I said a few
minutes ago, the growth rate of the British economy is higher because of the
benefit we get from the skills. It is
however important to recognise that we still have people who are inactive and
not in work, we have young people leaving school who we want to get jobs that
are available, and our duty to these young people and to people who are
inactive is to make sure we do everything in our power to give them either the
skills or the encouragement or the training so that they can get the jobs that
are available. I think we would be
failing in our duties if we did not do that.
Q63 Keith Vaz:
Prime Minister, you very generously in October made some new proposals
concerning Iraqi interpreters. The
figures released show that half of those who have applied have been turned down
and that there is also no right of appeal for some of them. Are you satisfied with the process and the
timetable that has been adopted?
Mr Brown: The figures that I
have seen reported are not the accurate figures. There have been a large number of people who have applied. There will be many of them who will be
accepted. Where there is evidence of
intimidation, which was the issue in the newspaper report yesterday, that can
be proven as deterring people from completing the work that they started, that
will be taken into account. I do not
think people should fear that people who have done their best working for
Britain in the way that they did will be...
It will be taken into account if there is evidence of intimidation that
prevented them from finishing their work.
Mr Whittingdale: Prime Minister,
can we now look at the local impact of significant population growth.
Q64 Dr Starkey:
Primer Minister, the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, when they reported
on community cohesion in England, pointed out that, although it is generally
good, there are areas in the country, particularly those experiencing very
rapid change and high rates of migration, where the funding is not properly
reflecting need and there are cohesion problems. As Chancellor, you gave much greater stability to the funding for
local authorities, the police, the NHS, by giving funding on three-year funding
cycles. Do you accept that the downside
of that is that funding cannot now rapidly react to change?
Mr Brown: Most people want the
three-year settlements, as you know.
They want the long-term commitment to finance that will enable them to
plan ahead. There are really two issues
here, not just the long-term funding but of course the availability of
up-to-date information, either from the census or from other studies, that
would enable people to make a reliable judgement of what the particular needs
of an area are. I think you will find
that there is far more cross-government working on this issue to try and find a
way forward. I think you have probably
noticed that we announced that there was going to be more money provided for
schools in particular areas. We are, of
course, looking at what the Local Government Association said in relation to
general funding to deal with some of the areas where there is very intense or
where there have been suggestions of intense population pressures.
Q65 Dr Starkey:
If we can deal with those two points separately, the first one about refining
the data and making them more accurate, obviously that would be a good idea but,
even if it is accurate now, if there is rapid change, on a three-year funding
cycle there will be a huge difference developing over the three years. That is the first issue. The second issue is in relation to the extra
funding. The DCLG has announced £50
million of funding for community cohesion over three years but the LTA has
assessed it is £250 million a year for a migration contingency fund. Can you address those two issues?
Mr Brown: There are always going
to be arguments. I would be surprised
if the Local Government Association did not have a higher bid for most things
that were eventually agreed. There is a
recognition of the pressures in the announcement made by Hazel Blears. There is also a recognition in the
announcements of the exceptional circumstances grants in relation to
education. I do think we have to look
at some of the figures and statistics that are in the public arena with a
considerable degree of caution. Many of
the statistics that we have, as people who have looked at these round the table
will know, are in cases based on relatively low samples, relatively small
numbers of people being either interviewed or assessed. The reliable evidence we have, of course, is
every ten years from the census and I think we have to be quite careful in
making judgements on the basis of very small percentage samples. But, of course, there is a recognition of
the pressures in what Hazel Blears has said and in what the Schools Minister
has announced.
Q66 Dr Starkey:
People who live in communities that are experiencing rapid inward migration are
very well aware that there are pressures on services. Do you not think it would be sensible to be spending the money
upfront to diffuse the competition for scarce public resources, not waiting for
community conflict to arise, which will inevitably cost more?
Mr Brown: We are putting the
money upfront. There is an issue about
what one group's assessment is of the need for money and the others. That is always the case when you are
bargaining about what money is needed for particular functions but there is a
recognition of this issue in the announcements that have been made and we
understand that in some areas things are changing faster than in others. That will be part of a continuing
debate. Of course you are absolutely
right to support community cohesion and we will do everything that we can. I do not think you can say the problem has
not been recognised. I think the amount
of money is of course something that will always be part of the debate but more
money has been provided.
Q67 Dr Starkey:
Can I turn to another issue related to cohesion, which takes us back to the
discussion earlier about Britishness and a sense of identity and
belonging. Obviously, it is difficult
for people to feel that they belong to our society, people born here or people
who have migrated here a while ago, if they feel they are being treated
unequally or discriminated against. The
Equalities Review in 2007 identified a number of very persistent inequalities
in employment for various black and minority ethnic groups in this
country. I will just cite one: the
employment rate amongst the Somali community is 12 per cent compared with 62
per cent for all new migrants. When you
are talking about British jobs for British workers, what are you going to do to
make sure that the new jobs actually reduce that gap in employment between
black and minority ethnic populations and the majority population?
Mr Brown: You are absolutely
right. That is why there is a need for
a new deal. That is why we need to
support people who have found it particularly difficult to get employment
opportunities, sometimes because they do not have the skills, sometimes because
in some of the areas in which they live there are not the jobs that have been
available in the past. I do say that
round the country this is a dynamic economy that has large numbers of
vacancies, so the issue is not, as it was ten or 20 years ago, the lack of
jobs. The issue is mainly the lack of
skills for jobs, and that will increasingly be the focus of our welfare policy
as well as our education policy, to give people the skills that they need for
the jobs that are available for the future.
I think you will find that, in helping ethnic minorities get employment
opportunities, there is a major emphasis now being put by the new deal on
particular projects in areas where there has persistently been these high
levels of unemployment to get them into work.
Q68 Dr Starkey:
Are you confident that that will be sufficiently different from what we have done
before to actually close the ethnic employment gap before 2015?
Mr Brown: Yes, because it is
back to how we started this discussion about the role of public services. The old idea was a labour exchange. If people were out of work and there were jobs
available, you made the information available to people to get these jobs. We now know that we need to give people a
better personal service, to coach, mentor, encourage, help people get the jobs
that are available. Some people have
fallen through the net by accident, some people have criminal convictions, some
people have other problems that need to be solved. We need to give people that personal help, often one-to-one help,
that enables them to feel confident and therefore to get the skills that are
necessary to get the jobs. If you look
at Britain at the moment, the one thing that is absolutely clear is that there
are 6 million unskilled jobs in our economy, most of which will not be needed
ten years from now. Therefore people
who are even in unskilled work at the moment will have to find new skills so we
have to encourage people who are inactive and people who are in unskilled
employment to get the skills that are available for the future. Education and training policy is going to be
so important for that because we cannot compete simply on low pay with the
Chinese, the Indian or the Asian economies.
We can only compete on the basis of the skills that people have and that
is why this new deal, that helps people get the skills that are necessary, particularly
in communities where there has been a history of high unemployment, is
absolutely crucial to our future.
Mr Whittingdale: Prime Minister,
as you know, there are different perspectives on this issue from the different
parts of the UK.
Q69 Dr Francis:
Prime Minister, I want to ask you about some myths and misconceptions
surrounding migrant workers. The Welsh
Affairs Committee has had an inquiry into globalisation and one of the major
themes of that inquiry has thrown up that the biggest challenge for community
cohesion, certainly in Wales and I am sure it applies across the United
Kingdom, in our society is to explain, to explore and to explode some of the
myths surrounding migrant workers, for example, the extent to which migrant
workers allegedly access social housing.
What new and practical strategies does the Government intend to pursue
in order to address such misconceptions and in order to foster greater social
integration?
Mr Brown: I think the points
system will emphasise the importance of people who come to the country actually
being in work. I think everybody knows
that the vast majority of people who have come from Eastern Europe are actually
in jobs, working, making a contribution to the British economy and paying taxes
to the British economy. I think the
evidence is that more people who come to this country are actually in
employment than perhaps is true in other countries.
Q70 Dr Francis:
In Wales the Welsh Assembly government has actually funded a friendship
association, a Welsh-Polish Association in Llanelli. What is surprising is that that appears not to have happened
anywhere else in Wales and I do not think it is happening in other parts of the
country. One of the features of that
association is a celebration of the contribution of Polish people to Welsh life
in a contemporary sense but also historically - academics, doctors, scientists,
artists have all made a major contribution to Welsh and British society. Do you think we could actually do a little
bit more celebrating and a little less criticising and complaining?
Mr Brown: I think one of the
other features of British life that has developed in recent years is the number
of inter-faith groups in different communities around the country. That is not exactly the same as your
friendship association but it is people who have either come to this country or
who are in this country who have different faiths from the established
religions getting together to discuss what they have in common rather than what
divides them. I think it is fascinating
to see that there are several hundred inter-faith groups being formed in
different communities of the United Kingdom, even in areas where there has not
been a history of large immigration people realising that is a very important
part, even with small numbers of integrating people into the community. We have said we will publish a paper about
how we can encourage these inter-faith groups to develop in other areas of the
country where they do not exist at the moment.
That is one way in which we can recognise that, despite differences in
denomination in faiths, there are shared values that bind people together.
Q71 Rosemary McKenna:
Good morning, Prime Minister. One of
the issues that Dr Francis did not address was that perhaps a more responsible
media would help dispel some of the myths and misconceptions that there are
about immigrants. In Scotland in
particular we welcome immigration and in fact we have always been a country of
immigrants and our economy has always grown with that, but there is a serious
concern just now because the working population is declining, which will have
adverse macro-economic consequences.
Can you tell me what the Government proposes to do to improve the
situation with dispersal to those areas of the UK, particularly Scotland, where
we need immigration?
Mr Brown: As you know, there
have been so many reports over previous decades about the dispersal of jobs by
the civil service and government agencies out of London. You had big reports in the Sixties and in
the Seventies. We had the Lyons Report
recently and the issue is not whether you make these recommendations, because
they have always been made in these reports in the past. The issue is actually whether you deliver on
these recommendations. I think you will
find that the Lyons recommendations about dispersal are being honoured in
practice and that there is a large number of jobs that are being moved out of
London and the South East into the regions, into Scotland, Wales, and of course
Northern Ireland. That is an important
part of stimulating an economy which is balanced throughout the whole of the
United Kingdom. The other thing I would
just emphasise is that, while there are concerns about population in different
parts of the country, the number of vacancies for jobs that are available are
high in all parts of the country.
Twenty years ago you would have found that vacancies were high in the
South East. They are high in Scotland,
in Wales, in the North East, in the North West and there are jobs available for
people who want them. One of our
challenges is actually to encourage people to take the jobs that are available
by giving them the skills that can get them these jobs.
Q72 Rosemary McKenna:
Will the Government use the points systems to assist in dispersal of immigrants
coming in rather than the concentration that there is just now in London and
the South East, to get people out into the other regions and nations of the UK?
Mr Brown: I think the key thing
is making a lot of the opportunities that are available in the different parts
of the country exciting so that people see the opportunities for jobs outside
London and the South East as good opportunities. If you look at the North West, it is attempting to develop a
science base. If you look at Scotland,
there are the financial services and health care industries. If you look at Wales, there is the aerospace
industry and all sorts of other things developing new technology. It is the attractiveness of the industries
and the services that are developing in these parts of the country that will
make people want to work there and create opportunities that people want to
take up. So it is a combination of more
indigenous investment, more inward investment in private sector industries and
civil service dispersal that will make a difference.
Mr Whittingdale: Prime Minister,
I know Keith Vaz wants to come back to the issue of police pay, which we
touched on earlier.
Q73 Keith Vaz:
Prime Minister, did the Home Secretary consult you before she decided not to
implement the award from the tribunal in full on 1 September?
Mr Brown: Of course. It is a government decision. You have got to look back to what has
happened during the course of this year.
Nobody wanted to say either to the nurses or to the teachers or to the
doctors or to prison officers that public sector pay awards had to be staged,
but it was the right thing to do for the national economy as a whole.
Q74 Keith Vaz:
What is the point of going to arbitration if you do not honour the arbitration
award?
Mr Brown: The decision about the
police pay award is finally a decision in the hands of the Home Secretary. As you know, we are moving from a system
where police pay was related to private sector pay to one where we have this
arbitration system and to one where there is a discussion about having a police
pay review body but the decision at the end of the day was a decision the Home
Secretary had to make in the national interest.
Q75 Keith Vaz:
We understand that.
Mr Brown: I do suggest to you
that people should look at the bigger picture here about the future of the
British economy. Does anybody fail to
remember the stop-go problems that we had in the Seventies, the Eighties and
Nineties, when people were not prepared to take the difficult but long-term
decisions to keep inflation under control?
While you want to focus today, Keith, on a single pay award, you have to
look at the national picture as a whole.
We had inflation that was rising and in danger of getting out of
control. We had to take action and the
action included having a tough public sector pay round. Nobody wanted to do this. Everybody would like to pay our police, whom
we admire and believe do a brilliant job, at the rate that was awarded by the
system itself but you have to take into account the national interest, and the
national interest is that we bear down on inflation.
Q76 Keith Vaz:
Is it worth the kind of headlines we have seen today? The Government needs the support of the police in implementing
local policies, in the struggle against terrorism. Is it worth all this hassle, with motions of no confidence being
passed on a Home Secretary who everyone regards as having done a very, very
good job indeed, over a three-month staged pay award?
Mr Brown: Just to be clear,
nobody wants to say to the police "You cannot get a higher salary" but nobody
wants inflation to return to the British economy and to have pay awards wiped
out simply by rising inflation and therefore of no value to people.
Q77 Keith Vaz:
Why not make this clear before you go to arbitration? Why do it afterwards?
Mr Brown: It was absolutely
clear, right from the beginning of the year, that we had made a decision to
stage public sector pay awards. That
was known when the announcements were made earlier this year. It happens that the police pay award was the
last of all the pay awards in the public sector at a national level during the
course of the year. I repeat, I would
like to pay the police more, just as I would like also, by the way, to pay the
nurses and to pay those people who commit themselves daily to public service
more, but you have to take a broader view of the national interest. It is easy for people looking at one
particular instance to say "This costs X" or "This costs Y." We have to look at the economy and the state
of our preparedness to deal with the global events as a whole. There is absolutely no doubt that
politicians in the Seventies and the Eighties and the early Nineties were
prepared to make short-term political decisions for political gain and lost
sight of the long-term interests in tackling inflation in the British
economy. The only reason why interest
rates were able to come down a few days ago was because inflation was under
control in the British economy, and the only reason inflation is under the
control in the British economy is because we have been prepared to take
difficult but long-term decisions that are necessary in the national interest.
Q78 Keith Vaz:
We appreciate that, Prime Minister.
Finally from me, have you met representatives of the Police Federation
or ACPO on this issue? If you have not,
would you be prepared to meet them to discuss their concerns?
Mr Brown: I have met
representatives of ACPO recently on other issues.
Q79 Keith Vaz:
On this issue.
Mr Brown: The point I would
suggest to you is that the award is now being paid at 2.5 per cent from 1
December, so the award, while postponed in its full implementation from
1 September, is now being paid from 1 December. So the 2.5 per cent is now being paid from 1 December. Of course I will meet people to talk about
these issues but I think this Committee, which has always taken a wider
appreciation of what the national interest is in this matter, will understand
that this is part of an anti-inflation policy which is essential to make sure
that we are properly equipped to deal with the problems that every country is
facing in the global economy.
Q80 Mr Whittingdale:
On that, it has always been the case that the police were regarded as being in
a special category, not just because they have to put their lives at risk but
also because they have given up the right to strike. You will be aware that many of them are now saying that if they
are no longer regarded as a special case by the Government, why should they
behave differently to other public sector workers; why should they not now
consider taking some forms of industrial protest within the law?
Mr Brown: You are wrong to
suggest that everything that is happening in relation to police pay is as it
always has been except for this decision.
We are moving from a system of police pay which was related to one index
to discussions about how it can be related to a different system. So a lot is being discussed about changes in
the police pay system and I think these discussions should go ahead and people
should draw the conclusion. I also note
that there are many people in the police who do not want to break the decision
that has been both a decision of the police and a decision of governments that
there is a no strike agreement.
Q81 Mr Whittingdale:
But what is the point of going on having discussions if you have made it
absolutely clear that you are not prepared to make any movement on the question
of pay?
Mr Brown: The discussions that
are taking place are not simply about 1 December's pay rise. They are about the long-term system for
setting police pay for the future. Let
me just repeat: I value the police.
The fact that we have more police in this country than ever before is a
recognition of the important job that they do in building community cohesion as
well as protecting law and order. I
would like to pay the police more. That
is what I think the Government would wish to do under circumstances in which we
did not have to counteract what is a major economic issue that had to be dealt
with. I am sorry if people from other
parties do not recognise that it was the failure in the past to deal with
economic problems when they started to arise that caused us to have a stop-go
economy for so many years and caused us to move from boom to bust and into
recessions on so many different occasions.
I think people should bear in mind that for the last ten years we have
had consistent, stable growth in this economy and I am determined that that is
the pattern for the next period as well.
Chairman: We come to the final
section, foreign policy priorities and delivery.
Q82 Malcolm Bruce:
Prime Minister, this Government is active in foreign policy issues all over the
world, perhaps more active than it has been for a considerable amount of
time. Initially can I turn attention to
Afghanistan? You made a statement
yesterday in the House which had a great deal of detail and I think which was
generally welcomed. Do you accept in
the context of Afghanistan that there is a real problem with border security,
both specifically from Iran and from Pakistan?
When my Committee was in Afghanistan at the end of October we were
constantly being told by the Afghan authorities that the difficulty of dealing
with the Taliban was that they retreated across an unpoliced border into
Pakistan. We then met the Pakistan Ambassador,
who said actually, terrorism in Pakistan was increasingly being sourced by
cross-border activity from Afghanistan.
Can you say what talks the Government is having about how to deal with
security in the federally administered tribal areas on that border, which,
after all, has never been internationally recognised?
Mr Brown: This is exactly the
discussions I had with President Karzai on Monday, that there can be no
long-term solution to the security of Afghanistan if it does not involve
regional co-operation. First, of
course, Iran has got to play a more positive role, and I said that in the
statement yesterday. Second, as you
rightly detect, the relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan has to be a
stronger one where they are co-operating together to deal with the terrorist
problems that they face. There has been
considerable success in Afghanistan in dealing with the Taliban but equally, of
course, there are problems relating to Al Qaeda which have to be dealt with and
ought to be dealt with by stronger regional co-operation. What I saw my role as on Monday was to urge
President Karzai to build stronger relationships, as he is trying to do, with
President Musharraf and others in Pakistan who also have an interest in dealing
with these problems.
Q83 Malcolm Bruce:
In those areas, that is the centre of the poppy production and the opium and
heroin trade. Again, we were told that
eradication of poppy can only come about with greater security. In reality, the UK has a responsibility in
Helmand, which has become the world's greatest centre of poppy production. The reason for that apparently is that the
opium dealers will buy the poppy direct from the farm gate, which makes it a
much more attractive crop than any other where you have to get it to market and
with no security you cannot do it. In
that context, you said yesterday there will be no deals with the Taliban but
there is a lot of discussion about how you separate the Taliban and actually
get the tribal leaders on side across that disputed border area. Can you tell us how you think that can
happen in ways that will actually enhance security and not actually drive the
poppy farmers more into the hands of the Taliban?
Mr Brown: This is the big issue,
as you rightly suggest. There has been
some success in some provinces which are classified as poppy-free. There has been limited success in Helmand,
which, as I understand it, has about half the world's production and therefore
is the major source of the problems that we have to deal with for the future. I said yesterday that eradication of course
on the ground - and there has been a huge debate about aerial spraying, and our
view is that there should be eradication on the ground - has to be matched by
better judicial systems, it has to be matched by a determination to talk to and
involve the tribal chiefs, but it has also, of course, got to be matched by
alternative sources of economic activity that can be attractive to people who
otherwise would see their only source of livelihood in drugs. Therefore the counter-narcotics programme
has to involve all these things. It has
to be a combined set of measures. To
make that work you require a stronger national government. That is the importance that I attach to
building up the capacity to govern both nationally and, of course, locally as
well.
Q84 Malcolm Bruce:
Just finally on that point, do you agree that sometimes talk about the Taliban
is not entirely clear or helpful? We
were asked in Afghanistan if we understood what the definition of "Taliban" was
and they said "unemployed young man".
In other words, the Taliban is a great catch-all for a whole variety of
different issues. Do you accept that it
is really important to understand that there is a real Taliban which clearly
want to overthrow and re-establish an Islamist society? There are many disaffected people that need
to be won back, and both our military and civil strategy has to ensure that we
separate the real Taliban from those disaffected people.
Mr Brown: I hope I emphasised
yesterday that the Taliban leadership has to be eradicated and that is why the
Musa Qala attacks are important, because the Taliban were routed from that area
but, you are absolutely right, there is a large number of people who can easily
come under the influence of extremist elements if there are no alternative
sources of economic activity and if there are no alternative messages, either
through the tribal chiefs or through others, that are being put to the
people. President Karzai says that over
the last few months about 5,000 former fighters have come over from what would
be called the Taliban into supporting the democratic structures that have been
created in Afghanistan and, of course, where you can break the Taliban, divide
and rule, where you can defeat those people by isolating the leadership from
others who may come under their influence, you are going to be able to make a
difference for the future, and that is part of the strategy of reconciliation
that the President is pursuing.
Chairman: Before we leave
Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mohammad Sarwar would like to ask a question.
Q85 Mr Sarwar:
Prime Minister, may we agree that the best way to defeat terrorism and
extremism is to promote democratic governments in the world, particularly in
the Islamic countries? As you know,
there are going to be elections in Pakistan on eight January. I think it is encouraging that President
Musharraf has taken off his uniform and he has set the political prisoners
free, but still there is a state of emergency, the constitution is suspended,
one of the most popular TV channels, Geo, is still off the air. Would you encourage or use your Government's
influence on President Musharraf to say that the emergency must be lifted, the
constitution must be restored and the media must be free to ensure free and
fair elections in Pakistan?
Mr Brown: I think it is
important for Pakistan and for people who are elected in these important
elections that these elections are seen to be fair, and therefore it is
important that they happen with a free media, and it is important that they
happen without a state of emergency. To
President Musharraf's credit, he has kept his word that he will remove the
uniform, he has released large numbers of political prisoners, and he says that
he wishes to end the state of emergency as soon as possible but you are
absolutely right: if the elections are to be seen to be fair and can bind the
country together in a serious way, then other steps will have to be taken
before these elections actually happen.
Malcolm
Bruce: I am going to ask
James Arbuthnot to talk about the relationship between the Government and our
Armed Forces.
Q86 Mr Arbuthnot: Prime Minister, your visit
to the troops in Afghanistan was, I think, much appreciated and welcomed, as
was your recent visit to Iraq, but I do not think you visited the troops
deployed abroad when you were Chancellor of the Exchequer very frequently. I wonder whether you think there would be
any merit in having a regular programme of visits by Treasury ministers to see
the troops deployed abroad?
Mr Brown: I
think you are being very unfair. I did
visit the troops when I was Chancellor and, of course, I have had a long-term
interest in defence issues because my own constituency was included, and that
is next-door to the naval base in Rosyth Dockyard, and I have a tremendous
affection for what the Armed Forces do and continue to do and wish to give them
all the support possible; so I think the assumption of your question is
wrong. Of course, every senior minister
will wish to give what support he or she can to the Armed Forces.
Q87 Mr Arbuthnot: How about a regular
programme of visits?
Mr Brown: Are
you talking about the Treasury or are you talking about myself?
Q88 Mr Arbuthnot: The Treasury
Minister. I think the Defence Minister
visits troops very regularly.
Mr Brown: Of
course we want to see that happen, but I do not think you should assume that
there has not been contact in the past in a way that has been beneficial to
both the Treasury and to the Armed Forces.
Q89 Mr Arbuthnot: Once again, something else
that has been welcomed is the fact that the pay for the Armed Forces went up by
three per cent, and for some of the junior ranks it went up by nine per cent,
but it was not funded. Given that the Ministry
of Defence's budget went up by, I think, one and a half per cent, do you accept
that that leaves the Ministry of Defence with some really difficult decisions
to grapple with?
Mr Brown: I do
not accept the presumption of your question either. I think you are basing this on misleading information. The Ministry of Defence has had a budget
that has risen every year. The
recommendation to accept the pay review body award in full was theirs. The money that was provided to the Ministry
of Defence also has an addition for every operation that the Ministry of
Defence and our Armed Forces are involved in, so over these last few years, in
addition to the 30, 31 billion or so budget of the Ministry of Defence,
six billion has gone in monies that have been paid by the Treasury for
operations that they are conducting in Iraq and Afghanistan. What has actually happened over these last
few years is that urgent operational requirements have been met from the
reserve, additional money has been paid for the work that has been done in Iraq
and Afghanistan and that is on top of a rising budget for the Ministry of
Defence that now makes our defence budget the second biggest in the world. Where ten years ago it was only the fifth
biggest in the world after France, after Russia and after China, it is now second
only to America. Of course, that is
right because of the work that we have to do, but I do not think the assumption
of your question is right at all.
Q90 Mr Arbuthnot: I am just telling you what
the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Defence told us last week, that the
pay rise was not funded. He may have
been wrong.
Mr Brown: I have to say to you that that is based on a
misconception about how pay deals are done.
If there is a public sector pay award and the department wishes to
propose that it pays it in full, then that will come from its own resources,
for which allocation has been made in the three-year settlements. It is not usual for any public sector pay
award to come from the reserve - that has not been the practice, and that
would, of course, be a very inflationary way of doing things.
Q91 Mr Arbuthnot: My final question is about the Defence Export
Services Organisation. Did you discuss
the change in the status of the Defence Export Services Organisation with Lord
Drayson before you did it, and do you accept that the general view of the
defence industry is that the change was a quite serious mistake?
Mr Brown: I
think you will find that the change now announced in detail by John Hutton only
two days ago is something that the defence industry and the defence
establishment can be happy with, because the defence security organisation that
has been built within the UK TI will draw on the expertise of the Ministry of
Defence but have all the advantages that the UK TI has in resources that allows
it to work in 100 countries in the world.
I think you can see from the statement that was made by Mike Turner, the
Chief Executive of BAE, that some of the things that people were concerned
about have actually been dealt with in the detailed work that has gone into
building the new organisation, but the argument for doing this is very clear,
that those people who award the licenses should be separated from those people
who promote the exports, otherwise there is a potential conflict of interest,
and that is what has underlain the change that has been brought about. I repeat that the Cabinet ministers who were
involved in this were consulted.
Malcolm Bruce: Thank you.
Prime Minister, on foreign affairs issues Iran is virtually in the
headlines every day. I am going to ask
Mike Gapes to address some questions on that.
Q92 Mike Gapes: Prime Minister, last month
the United States National Intelligence Council estimates judged with high
confidence that Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme from the end of 2003
until mid 2007 and with moderate to high confidence that it is at the minimum
keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. Do we agree with that assessment?
Mr Brown: I
think the issue that we are most concerned about in relation to what you say is
the enrichment of uranium. If Iran is
enriching uranium or seeking to do so in a context where it has no real
programme for civil nuclear power, then there is a question mark over their
motive, and over hiding the information from the international community for
years, and over the purpose of what the enrichment of uranium could in a very
short period of time lead to; so the United Nations Security Council motions
are related to the enrichment of uranium and the threat that that potentially
poses, because you can move from enriching uranium quickly to the production of
nuclear weapons.
Q93 Mike Gapes: You have referred to the
United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Those two existing sanctions, resolutions 1737 and 1747, have led to an
Iranian reaction whereby they have accelerated the production of enriched
uranium, and the IAEA Board's report from Mr ElBaradei three weeks ago
says they now have up to 3,000 centrifuges operating and it also says that they
are being less co-operative with the inspections of the IAEA. How do you interpret that?
Mr Brown: I
interpret them in breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and,
therefore, that the world is right to insist, by sanctions, that Iran comes
back into line. There are a number of
offers on the table to Iran, important offers.
One is that uranium enrichment could take place and be on offer for
people wanting to develop civil nuclear power, there is a proposal for a
uranium bank and there is a proposal that uranium enrichment takes place in another
country but is made available to Iran and other countries in the region. There are many proposals on the table that
would allow Iran to meet any ambition it has for civil nuclear power while at
the same time joining the international community, and really the offer to Iran
is: "Abide by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and we will offer you
cultural, economic and political co-operation for the future, but break the
Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and we have no alternative but to pursue
sanctions."
Q94 Mike Gapes: But the sanctions that
already exist - and our Foreign Affairs Committee were in Iran a few weeks
ago - are very limited. They are
clearly and visibly not having any major impact on the Iranian economy in
society and there has been opposition within the Security Council for
strengthening sanctions; so is there any real prospect that there will be a
change of regime behaviour by the Iranian Government even if there is a
stronger sanctions regime?
Mr Brown: I
appreciate that you have been in the region very recently, but the evidence
that we have is that sanctions are having an effect. We are prepared to intensify sanctions, including in the oil and
gas industry, and intensifying the financial sanctions in relation to
Iran. I think there is wider support in
the international community for doing so than you are suggesting by the
statement you made at the end of the words that you uttered a few seconds ago,
and I think we can persuade other countries to join us to intensify the
sanctions. Remember, the issue is if
the world has a Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and if by agreement people
stand by that treaty, then for countries that break that treaty and fail to
disclose that they are breaking that treaty, we have a right to take the action
that is necessary to try to bring them back into line, and sanctions have been
the chosen course.
Q95 Mike Gapes: I understand that, but is
it not true that the big problem with Iran is actually that this is a
revolutionary regime that yearns for international legitimacy, and the big
thing they want is for the United States to accept their existence and because
the US and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since 1979 and because Iran
is seeking to feel that somehow it is existing and accepted in the world, that
there is an alternative approach which might have more effect to strengthen the
more moderate and pragmatic voices in the society, which is a very dynamic,
young, pluralistic society with a theocratic cap on the top and that somehow,
by the rhetoric and by the sanctions, we may only be strengthening Mr
Ahmadinejad and the hardliners and those who take the more conservative
approach rather than the prospect of engagement, as the EU did, which coincided
with the period of the halt to the programme?
Mr Brown: I
think you make a powerful case that there are divisions within Iran and that
there will be people who are not happy about the position that Iran has been
taking in secretly developing a uranium enrichment programme. I think that sanctions will bring to
the surface some of these divisions that are actually there already within the
Iranian regime, but I do also say to you, if you want to rejoin the
international community and to have the status that a country that has the
traditions and history of Iran should have, then the best way of going about it
is not to break the international community's Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty
and to do so in a secret way over many
years, and the best way for Iran to come back to the international community in
the way you suggest and to build up support round the world and to have the
cultural, economic and political context that I want to see is for Iran to come
into line with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and suspend the original
programme or find a way by which uranium enrichment can take place to promote a
civil nuclear programme but perhaps enrichment taking place outside the country
rather than inside it.
Q96 Mike Gapes: Prime Minister, would it
not be helpful if the US was to intensify its dialogue with Iran with a view to
developing diplomatic relations at some point, because at the moment there is
almost no contact between the United States and Iran?
Mr Brown: I
think the world community wishes to see Iran brought back, as you rightly say,
into the international community in a way where there is cultural, political
and economic contact that is to the benefit of the world and to the people of
Iran, but I think you have got to start by dealing with the problem that we
have, and the problem that we have is, in breach of all its international
obligations, Iran has been developing a uranium enrichment programme which is
not, it seems, for the purposes of civil nuclear power, and until we can get a
solution to that particular problem, then it is likely that the rest of the
world community will want to impose sanctions.
Q97 Malcolm Bruce: Just on that, Prime
Minister, the main democratic opposition to the Iranian regime is the People's
Mujahideen organisation of Iran, which has been proscribed in this
country. The proscribed organisation's
appeals committee have said that they are not involved in terrorism and that
the refusal of the Home Secretary to de-proscribe them was flawed, perverse and
must be set aside. Why does the
Government not accept that?
Mr Brown: I
have looked at that issue that you raise.
It is certainly, however, the case that the organisation that you
describe has been, in the past, involved in terrorist activity, and I do not
think there is any doubt about the evidence that that has been the case. Therefore, to proscribe an organisation that
has been involved in terrorist activity seems the right thing to do by the
decisions of this Government to be consistent with other decisions that we
make.
Q98 Malcolm Bruce: We have accepted sometimes
that terrorist organisations can change their ways?
Mr Brown: But I
do not think we have that evidence.
Malcolm Bruce: Another item that is very much in the news at
the moment and is likely to be watched closely over Christmas is developments
in Kosovo. Can I ask Mike Gapes to deal
with that?
Q99 Mike Gapes: Prime Minister, you are
going to Lisbon, where there will no doubt be a discussion with other EU
leaders about how to deal with the fact that the UN deadline of December 10
expired, that there was no agreement between the troika, that the incoming
Prime Minister of Kosovo, Mr Tachi, intends to have a unilateral declaration of
independence. There are divisions in
the European Union. Are you expecting a
united statement out of Lisbon?
Mr Brown: Yes,
and I think we have already seen that the foreign ministers have made advances
in that area. I think the way forward
is supervised independence. I do think
that the Kosovans are to be applauded for not reacting in a way that would make
it impossible or difficult for us to get the agreements for the future, and I
hope that Serbia will come to an understanding that its wish to be part of the
European community of nations means that it should accommodate what is the
legitimate desire of the Kosovan people; so a supervised form of independence
is how we see the next stage.
Q100 Mike Gapes: Are you confident that a
supervised independence in line with the Ahtisaari plan is legally watertight,
even though UN Security Council Resolution 12/44 is still in existence, which
says that Kosovo is part of Serbia?
Mr Brown: As
you know, there is a proposal for a further UN resolution, and I think that
ought to resolve the issue, and I hope that all countries can support
that. Obviously, the European Union has
got a responsibility to help. There are
troops on the ground, of course, at the moment with the responsibility to help
in that area, but I do think that we can move forward. There is more agreement than your original
question suggested.
Q101 Mike Gapes: You are implying that we
are going to get another Security Council resolution. I thought Russia had made it absolutely clear that it would veto
any attempt at a resolution which legitimised the independence of Kosovo.
Mr Brown: If
that were to happen, of course, we would have a European Union mission and we
would have a European EDSP mission in relation to Kosovo.
Q102 Mike Gapes: If there is this European
mission, what will we do? What will we
and what will the rest of the European Union do, and the UN forces who are
still in Kosovo? What will we do if the
Serbs in the north of Mitrovica decide to break away to clear their own UDI
from Kosovo at the River Ibar or if blockades are put up in other part of
Kosovo?
Mr Brown: I
think that is hypothetical actually. I
think a Kosovo settlement is actually in Serbia's interest, and I hope we can
reach a situation where they are persuaded that that is the case. I would not want to jump in stages and
speculate about what might happen if certain things that you speculate about do
in fact eventually result. I think the
important thing is that Serbia has got an interest in a peaceful resolution of
this issue as well.
Q103 Mike Gapes: What inducements, carrots,
encouragements can we give to Serbia to try and persuade the Serbian Government
and, more importantly, the Serbian people (and the democracy in Serbia is very
fragile at this moment) that their future destiny lies with accepting, however
reluctantly, an independent Kosovo and an aspiration to join Europe?
Mr Brown: I
think you know that it is the last part of what you are saying that is very
much in Serbia's thoughts, that it wishes a better relationship with the
European Union, it wishes to see itself as part of Europe, and, of course, it
would not make it easy for people to see it that way if we could not get a
settlement over the Kosovan issues.
Q104 Mike Gapes: Is there some tangible
thing that the European Union today, tomorrow, can offer to Serbia to try to
sugar this pill that they regard in a very bitter way?
Mr Brown: I
think you are pointing in the direction of Serbia recognising that if its
future lies, as we believe it does, with a better relationship with the
European Union over a longer period of time, then it is not in its interests
that the Kosovan problem is left as one that cannot be sorted out. Whether you are talking about something
specific or not, I think the long-term interests of Serbia really depend on it
recognising that that relationship with Europe is put at risk if we cannot find
a solution to the Kosovan issues.
Malcolm Bruce: Thank you, Prime Minister. I guess as we speak your plane is warming up
to fly you to Lisbon. You will not be
surprised, therefore, that Michael Connarty would like to ask you some
questions about the European Treaty that you are about to sign.
Q105 Michael Connarty: I might state that if you
look back at the Maastricht Treaty, Prime Minister, you will find that it was
signed by a very junior member of the Foreign Office, not signed by the Prime
Minister at all. I notice, by the way,
that you fell back on your Fife dynasty by referring to what seemed like the
Proclaimers' paraphrase on education:
"No more, no more, no more"?
Mr Brown: That
is right.
Q106 Michael Connarty: But another good Scots
phrase is that truth is a chiel that winna ding, and that is the basis on which
we approach the Reform Treaty; so we obviously disagree about its final effect
but I am certain you have read and considered the impact of certainly the
drafts that we have, because we have not yet seen the final copy of the 294
amendments of the amended treaty, or the Reform Treaty on the EU, which you
intend to sign at the forthcoming European Council. Are you aware that that impact will be positive or negative for
the UK? Do you accept that increasing
use of qualified majority voting in many, many additional areas, plus the use
of co-decision-making, we are told by the European Parliament, in 95 per cent
of EU policy-making in the future will fundamentally alter the way that the EU
will function and it will also alter the UK's relationship to that policy
process?
Mr Brown: Qualified
majority voting has been a feature of every treaty. The 1986 Single European Act contained very large changes by
introducing qualified majority voting in particular areas. That was extended in all the different
treaties - Nice, Amsterdam and so on - and so there is nothing new in qualified
majority voting, the question is whether the changes in qualified majority
voting are in Britain's interest or whether they are not in Britain's interest;
and I think you could make an argument going through the changes in qualified
majority voting that some of them are actually minor and procedural and the
other ones are in Britain's interest and, if they are not, then you have
usually got an opt-in or an opt-out to decide whether we wish to be part of it.
Q107 Michael Connarty: I will come to the
question of opt-in and opt-out, but they are actually two different things,
because there are a number of passerelle clauses in this Reform Treaty that
will again and again bring up the question of transfer from unanimity to what
they call the community method of qualified majority voting, and the opt-in and
opt-out is not exactly the same thing.
Mr Brown: But
that has got to be agreed by unanimity.
Q108 Michael Connarty: Correct, but many do not,
many are automatic, but there are new areas, with passerelle clauses, for
example, in common foreign security policy, that may or may not be used in the
future. Turning to the question of opt-in,
Article 10 to Protocol 10, which is a new added protocol article, and the new
Article 4A, which cover, as the Foreign Secretary told us, 70 to 80 areas where
the UK has already opted in but will then have to decide whether they stay in
should it go to the community method, which means final jurisdiction by the
European Court of Justice and infraction ability on the part of the Commission,
the UK will have control over these decisions to opt-in when they are
transferred to that method, but do you accept that when we use the opt-in it will
transfer final jurisdiction to the Commission and to the European Court of
Justice and, if so, will the process that will be put in place in the UK law
allow the solemn UK parliament the right to have a view on whether we do in
fact opt in or opt out? Underlying that
is the question that, if we are not going to have a referendum, will we be
given a multi-clause bill that is amendable that will be put before Parliament
before this treaty is finally ratified or will we get a one clause, in or out,
which we are supposed to talk about for 20 days?
Mr Brown: You
are right to say that there are issues where, where we have opted-in in the
past, we have got the right now to opt out because of the change in the status
of justice and home affairs from being a matter for, if you like, national
governments to being a matter for the community of the Union as a whole. We as a government will be able to make that
decision as to whether we opt out or not and whether, if having the right to
opt out, we decide to take it up in particular instances, and there is a whole
series of procedures that will have to be adopted. That will be the subject of a debate in Parliament when we go
through the Bill. Obviously the Bill is
not yet published, but when the Bill is published I think it will be clear that
there is more scope for Parliament to debate some of these issues than there
has been in the past. The problem,
however, if I may say so, on the opt-in, if we decide we wish to opt in on areas,
is that you will only have three months to make that decision under the rules
that have been set out; so it will have to be a matter for the Government to
make that decision on the basis of what we know to be in the best interests of
the country, but the general debate we will have in the House of Commons when
the Bill comes before it.
Q109 Michael Connarty: Can I press you on the
point about will it be a multi-clause bill with clauses that are amendable but
will cover these points of principle?
At the moment you are saying that your opinion is that this is a matter
for the Government and that the Parliament will just have to basically lump it
or like it.
Mr Brown: On
the passerelles, if I may say so, which you mentioned---
Q110 Michael Connarty: Can we stick to the
principle we are talking about, about whether these opt-ins are implemented by
the Government or will have parliamentary scrutiny? Will it be in the Bill?
Mr Brown: There
will be scrutiny, of course, but in a situation where you have only got three
months to make a decision, it will have to be the Government that actually
makes that decision but if you are bound by this three-month window, I think it
is going to be very difficult. On the
other hand, all these issues that you raise are going to be discussed during
the passage of the Bill, and if Parliament chooses to do things differently
from what is recommended, that will be a matter for Parliament, but I think all
these issues will be before the House when we discuss the Bill.
Q111 Michael Connarty: Will amendments be allowed
on the Bill?
Mr Brown: I do
not quite know what you mean.
Q112 Michael Connarty: There are a series of
clauses. We went through the Maastricht
process. Will it be similar?
Mr Brown: There
is going to be a very considerable period of time set down for these debates to
take place, and I am sure that those people who are ingenious in the matter of
amendments will find ways of amending or suggesting amendments to the Bill, but
I cannot announce the details of the Bill here, the Bill will be published
very soon. Can I add for the
passerelles, however - you did raise the question of the passerelles and
this is a very important issue - you can only decide by unanimity, of
course, to move in a passerelle to a different position from where you have
been, but I do believe that is a matter that has got to come before the House
of Commons.
Q113 Malcolm Bruce: Thank you.
One final area, Prime Minister, is the Middle East peace process. Whilst it was welcome that the American
administration proposed to try and kick it back to life in Annapolis, does the
Prime Minister accept that what was agreed in Annapolis (a) was not very
substantive and (b) was not very inclusive in terms of the parties who were
involved?
Mr Brown: What
was agreed in Annapolis was that Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas will
have regular meetings to work through a framework document that was agreed in
Annapolis, and what now follows is the Donors Conference in which Tony Blair,
rightly, has had a very big involvement, and there is a large group of countries
now willing to contribute to the development of the Palestinian economy and to
rebuilding the social fabric. I thought
that after that we could have an Abyssinian investment conference as well so
that not just money be provided in terms of aid but we can attract people,
including Israeli business leaders, to invest in the West Bank and in
Gaza. As you know, President Bush is
going to visit Israel and the Middle East in the next month or so. So, side by side with the political process
moving forward to resolve some of the issues, where there are regular meetings
agreed at Annapolis. There will be also
what I think is an important effort to provide encouragement to the
Palestinians in particular that we will support the economic and social
development of the territories so that we can relieve a lot of the unemployment
and poverty that is a major source of retention.
Q114 Malcolm Bruce: Can I say to you, Prime
Minister, that was exactly what was not addressed at Annapolis. The issues of settlements, the future of
Jerusalem, refugees, borders and water were unmentioned. Can you not acknowledge that the credibility
of a commitment to a two-stage solution is simply not acceptable in
circumstances where there is no serious discussion for withdrawal of settlements,
the road blocks and restrictions on movements, and, indeed, settlements are
still continuing to be built?
Mr Brown: You
have got two issues there: what was said about settlements and what was said
about the current, if you like, security problems that prevent things moving
forward as things stand between Israel and the Palestinian areas, and I think
there was progress actually in these areas, although not as much as you or I
would like to see. I think the framework
document, however, is about dealing with the long-term issues. You rightly say that they did not reach
conclusions or have big discussions on the detail of what happens to Jerusalem
or what happens to the future of refugees, but that is very much part of the
discussion that is started by the framework document that is agreed, and I
would imagine over the next period of time, as the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr
Olmert and Mr Abbas, representing the Palestinians, have the discussions,
all these issues are on the table; and what you had at Annapolis was not a
final document listing all the things
that had to be included, but what you had was a framework agreement where they
agreed that they would look at the issues, particularly the issues that you say
are the most controversial ones and have got to be dealt with.
Q115 Malcolm Bruce: The other issue - the
final point - that was not addressed is Gaza.
In fact the agreement was between Prime Minister Olmert and President
Abbas. Conspicuous, of course, and in
no way party to it is Hamas, who runs Gaza.
Can you, Prime Minister, give us any indication of what progress can be
made firstly to alleviate the suffering and the crisis that exists in Gaza and
to recognise that, whether we like it or not, Hamas was elected - I do not
forgive any of their actions or what they stand for - and that to ignore
them and not engage with any section of Hamas is simply not going to be a way
to achieve real peace which has a united Palestine negotiating with a United
Israel and an international community that can actually produce a solution that
will genuinely see the creation of two viable states?
Mr Brown: I am
not going to announce a change in our policy relating to Hamas. What I can, however, say is that we set
aside $500 million for specific aid for the Palestinian areas, subject to
reaching an agreement about security.
So we are prepared to provide substantial sums of money to help the
Palestinian people; we have actually made the sums of money that we can provide
immediately known and DFID has made announcements to that effect. We believe we could encourage other
countries to do exactly the same, and substantial funds could be made available
for the Palestinians, and that, I think, will be a matter for discussion at the
Donors Conference and, then, as I say, I do not want just to provide aid for
the Palestinian people, I want to help provide an economic framework by which
the economy of that area can develop and get new investment and infrastructure
for the future, and that would also be the next stage if we could solve some of
the security problems. That is what I
think the challenge is over the next few weeks and months.
Q116 Malcolm Bruce: I agree with you, Prime
Minister. I just hope we can see those
things being talked about rather than left outside the room.
Mr Brown: Thank
you very much.
Chairman: I have had two requests to put individual
questions. Rosemary McKenna.
Q117 Rosemary McKenna: Thank you very much,
Chairman. I suppose we can call this
our version of the topical question!
Prime Minister, I would suspect that most of us round this table have at
some time in our political career visited a British Council facility across the
world, and so it was with great dismay yesterday we read or heard of Russia's
decision to expel the British Council from Russia. The Foreign Secretary has today given a written ministerial
statement saying that we are urging the Russian authorities to reconsider; at
the same time we are working closely with the British Council to ensure the
welfare of their staff - absolutely crucial. Could you speculate what hope there is for us being able to
achieve this, because the British Council is a force for good throughout the
world? What actions can we take if the
Russians do not respond to our request?
Mr Brown: This
is totally unacceptable action that has been taken or is being mooted by the
Russian Government. The British Council
does a tremendous job, both in Russia and in every part of the world. The British Council deserves to be supported
in its activities. I think the Foreign
Secretary has said that there are only two other countries in which this
treatment has been meted out against British Council staff, and that is Iran
and Burma. I think it is very important
to recognise that the British Council is doing valuable work in Russia that is
actually recognised to be so by the Russian people; so we wish this action to
be desisted from immediately. We are
making our views known to the Russian government on that part. We want good relationships with Russia and
with the administration there, but that must be dependent upon the Russians
dealing with the problems as they arise, and one of them is that they should
not be either putting at risk the welfare of the British Council staff or
removing the facilities that it offers to the people of Russia.
Q118 Sir Patrick Cormack: Prime Minister, in many of
your statements and speeches over the years, you have made it very clear,
explicitly or implicitly, that you believe in job satisfaction. You now occupy a job which you have aspired
to for many years. This morning it has
been quite clear to me that you are taking the job seriously and acting very
diligently, but are you enjoying it?
Mr Brown: I was
saying to someone a few days ago, I was reading the newspapers more but
enjoying them less, repeating what President Kennedy had said in the
1960s. I think the excitement of the
job is that every day there is a new challenge to deal with. When I started in the summer months and we
had the terrorist incident and then we had the floods, someone said to me in
the Cabinet Office, "At least there is not foot and mouth", and then suddenly
there was foot and mouth, and then they said, "At least there is not avian
flu", and then there was avian flu. So
we have had a series of challenges to deal with and we will continue to deal
with them, and I think that is really what the business of government is
about. Enjoyment: I am not sure that
you could ever say that in some of the circumstances we have found ourselves in
the last few weeks it has been enjoyable, but it is certainly a challenge.
Q119 Chairman: May I thank you, Prime Minister. At our very first session of the Liaison
Committee with your predecessors, as I left this room, two ex-friends -
journalists - approached me and said, "But there was no blood on the carpet",
and I said to them, "But that is not necessarily what parliamentary
accountability is about. We can have
scrutiny; it does not have to be frenetic."
I hope you have found it perhaps valuable as an exchange, also to
understand our worries and our concerns as we have come to understand your
position. We thank you for your first
attendance. As I said at the
beginning, we look forward to many more.
I hope I will not be here for many more because I retire at the next
election, so go on as long as you can.
Mr Brown: Thank
you, Chairman. Maybe I should end on a
non-partisan note by wishing you all a happy Christmas.
Q120 Chairman: Thank you very much. Enjoy your visit to Lisbon.
Mr Brown: Thank
you.
