27 February 2007
Tony Blair answered questions about Iraq, citizenship, the missile defence system, inheritance tax and lone parents during his monthly press conference.
Parts of this transcript may have been edited
Opening statement
Prime Minister:
Good afternoon everyone. First of all, I am just going to say one or two words and then we are going to give a very short - you will be delighted to know - a very short slide presentation and then I want to say some more things.
I think the argument that we are talking about today is one absolutely at the heart of the political and public debate and rightly so. My opening point is this. I do not believe that there is some general social breakdown, I do not believe that however important the debate is about two parents versus one, that is at the heart of this debate. The untold story of the government in many ways has been one of huge success in lifting the incomes of the bottom 20-40% of families in our society and supporting those families. But the real issue is a small number of families and people left behind for whom general policy has not been helping. And for those people, as I will go on to suggest, we need increasingly specialised, targeted intervention at a very early stage.
Now this is at the heart of the debate and that is why I am going to take you through some of these slides very quickly - right, the first one is up there - which show that in respect of the income levels of the bottom 20% and 40% actually their income levels have risen in percentage terms more than the income levels of the top 20%. And then this second slide, this is a slide about the general support that has been given to families, increases in Child Benefit and so on. Then the third slide which I think shows the difference between 1979 to 1997, and 1997 to 2007 and the interesting thing about this is that actually whereas between 1979 and 1997 the incomes of the top 20% rose considerably more in percentage terms than the bottom 20%, that has been changed between 1997 and 2007. And then the next slide which is about dealing with persistent exclusion. Actually what this shows is that there is a group of people who are excluded from society, but that is not the same as all the people who are poor. In other words there are families that are living in poverty that actually are managing to be helped out of poverty, are beginning to do better, but that is not the same thing as those families with multiple problems who often have for example parents that may be an addict, the parent may be in prison, the child in custody. This is a smaller group of people that in a sense general policy is not assisting and then I think the final slide is about the quotes from the various Foundations and so on which indicate, contrary to some of the stuff that has been there most recently, actually there has been an immense amount done for the families at the poorer end.
Now the reason this is very important is that I think you will see reflected in the results of the Policy Review the government is conducting precisely this issue and I think this is part of a far bigger social change that is going on in society today. At the time of Beveridge when people talked about the welfare state and helping people that were poor, they were talking about the majority of families in the country. They were talking in other words about often the bottom 50%. Even in Harold Wilson’s time, when he was Prime Minister, round about 7% of school-leavers went to University, the figure today is round about 40%. Actually, as I say, if you look at what has happened between 1979 and 1997 the top 20% did far better than the bottom 20%. In actual fact now, even if you take the bottom 40%, their incomes have risen in percentage terms more than the top 20%. The reasons for this are you have got a strong economy, you have 2.5 million more jobs, the tax credits and additional child benefit has played a huge role in lifting many families out of poverty, the inter-city regeneration schemes. The interesting thing I saw when I was in Moss Side last week and the previous week at one of the Glasgow inner city estates, both estates I visited some years before is that in general terms there has been an enormous amount of regeneration in those areas and a great deal of improvement.
If you take the Sure Start programmes or the Children’s Centres or the New Deal or for example additional maternity pay and additional maternity leave, the point is this: actually in all of these policies they have had a real impact in lifting many, many people out of poverty and, as I say, one of the untold stories of this government is actually that there are some 2.5 million fewer people in relative poverty, 7 million fewer in absolute poverty, that families with children in the bottom 20% are almost £3,500 a year better off than in 1997.
So the point that I am making is this: when people talk about generalised social breakdown, or indeed we have this debate about two parents versus one parent, or marriage, important though those debates are incidentally, in actual fact in terms of support for families, we have done an immense amount over the last few years, but truthfully we have not managed in the same way to get to the hardest to reach families, and these are small groups of families and individuals that are severely dysfunctional, have multiple problems, have been left behind by the generality of policy and we now have to try to deal with and the point that I make about this is that we are about to embark really on a series of things that are going fairly radically to shift government policy and this is why it is important that we have a debate about it because it is important we get the right answer to it. My view is that we need to recognise that some of these young people, when they are very young you can already tell they are going badly off the rails, sometimes at the age of 6 or 7 for example. We need programmes that intervene with them and their families at a very young stage. For example the family intervention programmes we are now rolling out across 50 cities across the UK are going to be very important in this. There are the Nurse-Family Partnerships which also allow us to intervene with these families at a very early stage again being piloted across the country at the moment. There are cities like Nottingham for example that have come to us with a proposal where they would take a city-wide view of social exclusion and how they deal with it and they would like to get a real handle on, for example, how they use the benefits system in order to incentivise families to get into a more structured and more disciplined environment and come out of the problems they have got.
There is for example many interesting things being done by the voluntary sector for the groups of people on the skills side who are hardest to reach. For example, there is a group of people retired from the Army who have recently done an extraordinary project and who want to do more, which help people who have a multiplicity of problems in order to get to the workplace and for whom the normal run of programmes and the New Deal just will not do anything. And of course if we are talking about these groups of families we are talking very much about the theme of rights and responsibilities. In other words we are not going to be able to tackle this unless we recognise these kids, their families need to be intervened with at a very early stage and put within a structured and disciplined environment where there is a carrot and stick approach so that we are trying to help but we are also imposing obligations on them.
Now that is my view about what is going on in British society today and I think this is an immensely important debate. What I think is important, however, is that we start from the correct analysis of the facts and I think the problem that we have got at the moment is that we are misdiagnosing the true state of British society which is one of immense improvement for many of the poorest families but with a group of them hard to reach, left behind, that the generality of government of policy is not lifting at the moment in the way that we want to see and what follows from that diagnosis is obviously a different set of policy prescriptions. Anyway I thought we should have that debate.
Right, that is all I need to say by way of opening.
Question and answer session
Question:
Prime Minister do you agree with the proposition that single parents who have chosen to have children without forming a stable relationship are wrong and either way, would it not be right to promote marriage?
Prime Minister:
You see I think that of course marriage is a good thing. It is obviously better, that kids are brought up in stable relationships, but we also know that there are lone parents who do an absolutely heroic job raising their children. Now that is a debate, and it is an important debate. However, my point is this: if you look at how we have supported families with children over the past few years, all those families, married and single-parent families have benefited from policies like Sure Start and tax credits and so on. If that is our worry, that is one type of debate that we can have. But if our worry is those families that are dysfunctional, their children out of control, that are often in circumstances where they are causing real problems, not just for themselves but for the broader community, in my view the debate is not about marriage versus lone parents. The debate is about how you target measures specifically on those families, some of whom will be lone parents, but some of whom will be couples and that is the issue. The issue is whether you have got this generalised social breakdown, which I dispute, or whether in actual fact what you have is a specific problem, with specific families that have been left behind by the general system.
Question:
It was you that said in your first interview as Labour Leader "single parents who have chosen to have children without forming a stable relationship are wrong". I am interested that you do not want to say it again.
Prime Minister:
I am perfectly happy to repeat all of that again, but it is not the issue that generated this debate. This debate is being generated, of course it is the case that it is better to have kids in a stable relationship. I have just said that to you and of course marriage is a good thing, but if our concern is those groups of kids or their families who are shut out of society’s mainstream, who are causing problems for themselves and for their families, my point is yes by all means have that debate but recognise that the problems of these families go far, far deeper and unless we are prepared to take I think quite tough measures with support at a very early stage then we are not going to deal with this problem. And so I am not in the least disputing it, because I know today Alan Johnson said this, or David Cameron may have said that. I think that is a perfectly reasonable, sensible debate to have, although I think when you analyse the speeches of people, I think you will find the differences between them are a lot less than they appear. But if our worry is on the back of the horrific events of the past few weeks in terms of guns and gangs or the problems that we have in certain parts of society where you get these families, as I say, in a severely dysfunctional state or children that are completely off the rails, my view is that the debate needs to be conducted in very specific terms to get the right answer to that.
Question:
When you wake up in the morning Prime Minister, do you feel optimistic about Iraq, and if so, precisely why. What makes you feel optimistic?
And secondly, a lot of people feel that given everything that has happened there, they are surprised to say the least that they do not feel that you have ever expressed much of a sense of responsibility for what has gone wrong or many regrets. Do you feel responsibility? Do you feel regret on occasions?
Prime Minister:
Look, the situation in Iraq is difficult, for all the reasons we know. No, I do not regret getting rid of Saddam Hussein. I think it was the right thing to do. Do I feel a sense of responsibility, of course. But what I am not prepared to take responsibility for are the deaths of innocent people who have been killed by terrorists and been killed by people who want to subvert the will of the majority of people in Iraq who want a peaceful, non-sectarian state and the moment we start saying that it is our fault that the terrorists are killing people, we give into their argument and we most certainly should not do that.
Question:
With respect to you, no-one is saying that. What people are saying is if somebody invaded this country, sacked large numbers of the police, the civil service the army and all the rest of it and there was chaos, people went into that vacuum, that whoever invaded would bear some responsibility for that and that is what some people say they would like to see you accept.
Prime Minister:
Of course I accept responsibility for sorting the situation out. That is why we are there but that is not the same as saying, as I think to be frank what people do want, which is to kind of say well these terrorists may be doing it, but it is really your fault that they are doing it. That I am afraid I am not prepared to do. And, incidentally, just be very careful about this. The idea that you could have left Saddam’s old police in charge I think is somewhat far-fetched.
Question:
Prime Minister, is it your intention to resign as an MP around about the same time as you give up being Prime Minister or do you intend to serve a full term for Sedgefield at least? (Party Political Content)
Prime Minister:
Well, first of all it is a privilege to represent people in Sedgefield and I have taken absolutely no decisions about my future at all, so any stories you read to the contrary are wrong. (Party Political Content)
Question:
Going back to inequality, I wonder does it depress you Prime Minister that after 13 years of being Labour Leader, the Labour Party does not seem, as Peter Mandelson said, entirely relaxed about people becoming super rich but instead seems to be closer to the view of Peter Hain who would welcome curbs on City bonuses. Does that depress you?
Prime Minister:
Not unless I have a very low depression threshold. No it is an argument that people have but my view of this has always been very clear. You see, if you take the people at the very top end of the earnings scale in Britain and elsewhere today, it is just the way it is, and it is a global market. You know it is like if you said to the top footballers right, you cannot earn any more than half a million pounds a year they will all go off and play for, you know, La Liga. So in the end I don’t think that is what motivates me. What motivates me, and why I think we can actually be very proud of what we have done as a government, is lifting the incomes of the broad mass of families. And that is why the actual story on relative poverty is that we have dramatically improved the life chances of millions of families, and we should get up and say that. That is more important to me than worrying about whether some people become super rich, because the truth of the matter is in today’s global market you take the money off them and they go and live somewhere else, and how does that benefit anyone?
Question:
Prime Minister, just going back to your answer to an earlier question, you say marriage is a good thing. If so, why therefore should the state do nothing to promote it? And secondly, are you saying that the whole debate about marriage and the nature of that relationship and single parents has no impact on that small excluded sector that you are concentrating on this morning?
Prime Minister:
Well that is a very good question. First of all the question is what does the state do and it is interesting that the Conservative Party having suggested tax breaks for marriage then quickly resiled and said they had no commitment to doing that. And the question always is about that, which is why these things were phased out a long time ago as to whether that is the best way of promoting and supporting marriage. But I am not saying that the argument doesn’t touch at all those hardest to reach families but what I am saying is, when you look at the multiplicity of problems that they have got, the notion that a general policy that supports, whether it is marriage or families or boosts the income of people, that that policy is going to help those very severely dysfunctional families, kids that are off the rails. I just do not think that is correct and it is not going to do it. What you need to do is to recognise that they are a special case. We give tremendous support for the family. The tax credits are a huge support for the family. Child benefit has been doubled. You have got maternity pay, maternity leave, Sure Start. A massive amount of support for families and that is a good and an excellent thing, but I would have to say, whether it is that or any other policy to do with tax breaks or whatever, if we look at the state that some of these families are in, do we really think that that is what is going to make the difference for those families, and my answer to that is no. Those families are families who are fortunately a small number, but their problems are so intense and so profound and they are so shut out from the normal way of living in our society that unless you are prepared to intervene at a very early stage with those families, with support and some sense of obligation, and put some structure around them you are not going to deal with it any more than frankly investment in education which is great and will help a lot of children to perform better than before and is helping them, any more than that investment in education is going to help those children that are so severely disruptive that they are getting excluded from school. Do you see what I mean? And this is at the heart of this debate, because if you end up saying there is a general problem then you can talk about tax breaks for marriage, you can talk about extra money on tax credits, you can talk about extra Child Benefit. All of those would help all families. My point is, if your actual worry is those families down at the bottom part who are, as I say, completely shut out from society’s mainstream, we are kidding ourselves if we think those policies are going to help those families. They may help other families and be good for them, and that is one debate but it is not, I think, the real public concern. The real public concern is a concern about communities and neighbourhoods who are subject to severely disruptional behaviour from a small number. That is what I think.
Question:
Can I ask you about the idea that the Chancellor is floating today, do you think it is a good idea for people who are wanting to become citizens, maybe they should do voluntary work, maybe be compelled to do voluntary work, it is not quite clear at the moment what he is talking about there, and do you think that maybe he is right as well thinking that citizenship might be provisional in the early years?
Prime Minister:
Well I think these are all good and interesting ideas about the concept of how we give people a real sense of what being British and what being a British citizen is about. If you will forgive me I won’t go into it too much here, I want to concentrate on what I am doing today, but I think it is obviously a very important debate to have, and again is exactly around the types of issues that people are talking about.
Question:
Is it weird that the ideas are coming from the Chancellor though, because he is not actually the Home Secretary and he seems to be laying out detailed proposals?
Prime Minister:
I don’t know, we don’t all operate in silos and I think it is perfectly reasonable for him to set out.
Question:
Is it the thing that might turn round the polls for him, do you think he will get a bounce?
Prime Minister:
You know the thing that in the end will make the difference is having a strong forward agenda for the country and getting to the point where people make a choice. That is always what happens in politics (Party Political Content) And the most important thing for us is to take the right decisions for the country moving forward and then the polls will look after themselves. But people aren’t daft, in the end they will vote for the party that has the right policies for the future. And the most important thing, because we have never been in a third term before, we have got nothing to compare it with, is to hold your nerve, do the right thing and trust the people to make the right decision.
Question:
Prime Minister just following on from that, you have always said you would do right by the Labour Party, and the latest polls show that (inaudible) seems to be doing the opposite. Do you accept at all that you are making it harder for your successor to turn things round?
Prime Minister:
I mean I have to say that in the end, as I said just a moment or two ago, the most important thing is to take the right decisions for the country and there will be ample, ample time for my successor to do whatever they think is right, and I think it really would be bizarre to get into a position of sort of worrying about mid-term polls frankly.
Question:
Prime Minister, why do you think it is so important to site installations for the US missile defence system in Britain, and is this something that has been discussed within Cabinet and won the approval of Cabinet, or just something that you have discussed with President Bush?
Prime Minister:
Well there is a discussion of course that is at a very early stage at the moment, although it is a discussion that has involved the key Ministers of course, but it is essentially going to be about whether we want to be part of this programme or not, and I think the best thing is for us to have the discussion and the negotiation and then when we reach a conclusion, to have the debate about it.
Question:
On the family, when you have got one Minister saying there is a risk that single parents are victimised, another saying that more of them need to get back to work, that is a mixed message is it not? And when you talk about a debate is a debate becoming a shorthand for an issue over which Cabinet discipline is breaking down?
Prime Minister:
Well l don’t think there is a difference between those two things. I mean we have hugely increased the numbers of lone parents going back into the workplace, and that is a very good thing incidentally, although we have still got a way to go because actually our figures are below some of the other European countries. But you know I think that this debate, and I have watched and indeed participated in it over the years, but it can get people bolted into what appear to be utterly opposing positions and when you analyse them they are not really. I mean those people who want to say it is important we support marriage, I think the majority of them wouldn’t try to stigmatise lone parents, and those people who support lone parents wouldn’t want to say that marriage isn’t important. I think the question is though what do we do, as I was saying earlier, about those people at the very, very bottom end for whom that general policy doesn’t touch. And in relation to lone parents, yes it is important I think that we encourage lone parents where they can to get back into the workplace because again all the evidence is that shows that is good for them and good for their children, and I don’t think that is inconsistent with saying it is important we support lone parent families. And of course again the fact is we have, I mean those figures there, I won’t be overly naïve about how much they will get used, but those figures I have given you at the beginning about the rise in incomes of the bottom 20 - 40%, those are the complete answer to reports like the UNICEF report that is actually based on out-dated figures, as to what has been going on in Britain. It is simply not true to say that inequality and poverty has been getting worse.
Question:
… even with your own statistics, your own percentages, that in real cash terms, even with those figures, that means that the wealth gap has actually grown?
Prime Minister:
Well this is an interesting point, because I was asking precisely about that point this morning when I was going through these figures. If you take the relative inequality measurement that is usually done, which is a measurement to do with the median income, then no in fact we have narrowed that relative inequality significantly between that bottom 20% and that top 20%, or between the bottom 40% and the top 40%. Where you are right of course is that for those people at the very, very top, their percentage increase in cash terms is more than in cash terms the percentage increase at the bottom, but if you measure it according to the median, no that gap has narrowed significantly.
Question:
Do we have those figures?
Prime Minister:
I can get those figures for you, yes. They gave me a lecture on what is called the gini co-efficient which apparently is what the experts use to describe relative inequality, but don’t ask me to describe it to you since I found it hard to follow after the first few sentences. But essentially, you see I think the other thing that is interesting about this whole debate about poverty and inequality is that a common sense way is to measure the poorest people, the broad mass of the poorest people, let’s say the bottom 20%, with those at the top 20%. What often I think happens is people measure the very, very, very top, you know those less than fewer than 2% of people who are say earning over £100,000 or even smaller numbers of people who may earn over £1 million or whatever, and those people at the very, very bottom. But actually that doesn’t tell you much, except that in today’s world … people earn a lot, and as I say the real issue is what you do about those people down at the bottom who the interesting thing is, as one of those slides shows you, they have not, the rising tide has not lifted their ship, and that is what I am saying. And so I am saying that if you want to get this argument right about society, focus on what is actually happening rather than what I think are rather glib headlines about inequality and poverty that don’t really describe adequately what is going on in our country today.
Question:
Prime Minister, you talked earlier about the carrots and sticks that you need to tackle the dysfunctional families, we know a lot about the carrots, the support, the early years intervention etc, but we don’t know much about the stick so far. Are you suggesting cuts in welfare, the benefits system are maybe a route to go down, and are there any particular routes that you are keen on there, because child benefit, apparently that was floated previously and the Cabinet didn’t necessarily agree with it? A corollary to this is John Hutton is very keen on promoting in the next few weeks welfare reforms which boost couples with children, compared to lone parents, he believes at the moment couples with children are kind of penalised by the system whereas lone parents get lots of benefits. Are you looking at that as well as a serious option?
Prime Minister:
Well I think it is obviously important that you don’t penalise couples, and that is why it is sensible for him to say that. But yes we are looking, I mean the direction of policy, if this debate is right, if I am right in what I am saying, the direction of policy will be for example, you know in the Respect Action Plan you have these family intervention programmes that are modelled on the Dundee family project and that will essentially be tying people’s rights to get a tenancy for social housing to certain types of behaviour. And if I am right in what I am saying, you will be wanting to go further in terms of making it clear that if for example people are getting a large amount of benefit from the state, and they have got you know a severe multiplicity of problems and they are not doing anything about it, and those problems are causing trouble for broader society, that you are prepared to say to them, look this is a something-for-something bargain. Now I believe that is the way that we need to develop policy, and so what I am really saying to you is look you have got one set of policy that is about the tax credits, the Sure Start, the boost to family incomes, child Benefit, the maternity leave, the maternity pay, all of this which is excellent help for families, and then what you have got is down at that very bottom end the people that we need to deal with in a quite different way, where we are giving them support and help, but giving them also a sense of obligation in respect of that help and support.
Question:
Prime Minister, are you frustrated with the response from NATO members about more troops have to go and if they don’t want to send troops, at least that they send helicopters and equipment and that? And a second question following the polls, you have been in office for 10 years, isn’t it actually time to reward again couples with children if the mother chooses to stay at home and look after the children, rather than demeaning her by actually recognising, state recognising her job as a mother bringing up children?
Prime Minister:
Well of course part of the help that we provide through the tax credit system, and of course through additional child benefit, although that applies obviously to everybody, but then also things like for example extending maternity pay and maternity leave, is precisely in order to recognise the fact that some women will choose to stay at home. And so I think there is a mythology that we have done nothing to help people in that situation. We have. But I don’t think that is the issue with the particular types of family that I am talking about, that is the point that I am making. In respect of the first point, well we are constantly pressing our NATO partners to do more. To be fair, some of them are. Denmark is doing more, Germany is offering more support, air support particularly, but it is important we continue to do that.
Question:
I guess another coalition of the willing question. I guess I am just wondering, you talk about Denmark and Australia as if their token forces would actually make a difference to what Britain is able to do. If Australia at the end of the year started to talk about pulling its 500 troops out of the south of Iraq, would that make it more difficult to pull British troops out of Iraq more quickly? And I guess the same question applies to Afghanistan because there is talk in Australia of sending 1,000 troops from Australia to Afghanistan, would that relieve the pressure on British soldiers there?
Prime Minister:
First of all I don’t want to get into your internal politics.
Question:
Do small countries actually make a difference when it comes to you deciding your numbers?
Prime Minister:
There is no doubt, well of course all the help is immensely welcome and makes a difference to the overall capability of the mission. But I can tell you Australian troops have done a fantastic job in Iraq and in Afghanistan and you know you can be very, very proud of them indeed. And of course we enormously welcome what they are doing. I mean in the end everything is geared to the point at which we are able, bit by bit, for the Iraqis, or indeed in time for the Afghans, to take over their own security. And that is why there is sometimes a misunderstanding about what we announced last week. I mean we announced last week what we announced because our own force commanders, the Iraqis locally, the Iraqis in the national government were saying, move to a support role where we will still have 5,500 troops incidentally, and let us get after the minority of extremists and militants that are causing the trouble, because it is better that we, the Iraqis, are fronting that. And we can do that, whereas up in Baghdad of course it is a completely different situation.
Question:
But would you be surprised to get hundreds from Australia in Afghanistan if you are not getting those sort of numbers from NATO?
Prime Minister:
Well I would put it like this, we are immensely welcome for whatever contribution comes.
Question:
Prime Minister, I hear what you are saying about mid-term polls, but your colleagues in Scotland face a serious election in around 9 weeks. Is it that they have been making the wrong decisions, or will the polls sort themselves out?
Prime Minister:
Well I think you are already finding actually people once they get round to making the choice in Scotland will realise that Scotland has made immense progress over the last 10 years, over the last 8 years, immense progress, 200,000 more jobs with huge investment in schools, and in the National Health Service, crime is down. Scotland is doing really well, and it is doing well in part because Scotland is part of the United Kingdom and England benefits from Scotland’s membership of the UK and Scotland from being part of the UK, and that is why it is a fundamental choice in Scotland. And you can either have what I think are huge positive benefits out of the Union or you can have all the negative and destructive consequences of separation, which is why I think we are on very strong ground there. And I think what is interesting, and I found this when I was in Scotland a couple of weeks back, is that whenever the debate turns to policy we are on strong territory. Now when that happens in politics you should feel a surge of confidence actually.
Question:
Just to follow on from that, are you saying you are confident that you are winning the argument against the SNP, and in Scotland do you think that you personally are an electoral asset to your party’s campaign?
Prime Minister:
Well I answer all those questions when I am up there, and the answer is some people like you, some people don’t like you, and that is just the way it is after 10 years in the job. But what I do think however is are we winning the argument, there is no doubt we are winning the argument, we have now got to go and win the election. I mean I thought what was interesting was whether it was on the economy, the benefits of the Union, the cost of separation, or whether it was on education policy, or health policy, or law and order policy, there is no doubt that Labour is winning the argument, it has got the best policies, but the whole point about a campaign is you have then got to go out and persuade people that they should vote with those policies to continue them. But I think you would be pretty hard put to look back over these last as I say 8 years or 10 years and say Scotland isn’t a more prosperous and indeed a fairer society than it was back then.
Question:
Prime Minister a question about the e-petitions on the Downing Street website. The biggest petition at the moment, with something like 100,000 supporters, is calling for the abolition of inheritance tax. Given the amount of anger and anguish that this issue is causing, compared to a relatively small amount of government tax revenue that it raises, isn’t it time to look again at what has effectively become a tax on family savings?
Prime Minister:
When you say small?
Question:
Well it is less than 1%, so it is …
Prime Minister:
… billion I think.
Question:
It is £3.6 billion this year, rising to about 4 next year.
Prime Minister:
The trouble is it is not a tiny amount of money, that £3.6 billion, and so you know that is the problem really isn’t it. And actually the Chancellor has raised the thresholds by more than the rate of inflation and I am sure he will look to see what more we can do, but if you got rid of it altogether you would have to find the £3.6 billion from somewhere.
Question:
Given the comments in recent days by the Iranian President and comments today by the Iranian Foreign Minister who both indicated they have no intention of backing down on their nuclear programme, what evidence have you that the current regime of sanctions and any future sanctions will change that? Would you consider talks with Tehran without them suspending uranium enrichment? And what other measures can Britain take and will they include any military options, as has been suggested?
Prime Minister
Well I don’t think I have got anything to add to what I have said a thousand times on military options. People want a political and diplomatic solution to this. But yes the comments from Iran are very worrying, of course they are, because yet again they are indicating they want to defy the international community. And I think we have got therefore to consider what more measures we take, which we are now doing with our partners, and I think the meeting yesterday went pretty well. And I think you know Iran is making a big miscalculation. And this issue to do with talking to them, as I keep saying to people we are perfectly happy to talk to them, it is not a problem with talking to them, the question is what is the conversation about, given that they are saying they are not going to suspend enrichment, they are still supporting extremism in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Palestine, and they are not showing any signs that they are prepared to stop doing that. So sometimes it is portrayed in terms of you know you are just not willing to go and talk to them, as if it was a sort of act of petulance, it is what are we going to talk about? The Americans have offered for the first time in 27 years to go and talk to the Iranians, provided they do what the international community has demanded as a first step, which is suspend enrichment. So what is the problem that they have other than that they are not going to suspend enrichment - that is the problem.
Question:
Now that you have got student numbers increasing as a result of increasing top-up fees, is that the beginning of the journey, or the end?
Prime Minister:
… the Guardian?
Question:
Yes. Do you think it is time to do what you wanted to do in the first place and really free up the market and our universities to charge what they want?
Prime Minister:
Well there will be decisions taken about this in the time to come, but the important thing undoubtedly is to take advantage of the fact that we have got a far better system of university finance that can allow our universities to remain in the forefront of university provision. I think what we have now got to do is to look very carefully, and I had a meeting on this yesterday which was actually fascinating in respect of skills, and vocational education, and adult skills. I think we have got to start applying the same type of public service reform to that area as well, and that I think will form part of the outcome of this policy review. And you know I think that for us and the university system, I think that the worries about tuition fees turned out to be misplaced, that is fine, but we need to recognise this is a global market now in higher education, that not just the Americans, but the Chinese and the Indians intend to have a whole stream of first-class, world-class universities, and we have got to keep up to the mark the whole time, which is the reason for doing the endowment business as well.
Question
One in 40 in deep social exclusion, why are a disproportionate number of those millions living in the north east - your own region - it is not much a return for 10 years of a Labour government? And secondly, I was in Sedgefield about 10 days ago talking to John Burton about your future as an MP and he said to me: "If I could find out to let him know". So despite what you said, we are no further advanced on that, and could you perhaps highlight any local issues you might want to take up as a backbench Member of Parliament?
Prime Minister:
Well I am sure there will be a myriad of them, although one thing I am very clear about is that I only have to look at my own constituency to see the difference a Labour government has made. I have areas in my constituency that used to have 30 - 40% male unemployment. They don’t have that today. You know we have got a new community hospital, we have got 3, 4 new general hospitals on the outskirts of the constituency serving it, we have got virtually every school I know in the constituency refurbished, or rebuilt, or with new facilities. And you know it is true that there are too many people in social exclusion in the north-east, but this is precisely my point, yes that is true, but what is also true about the north-east is there has been a dramatic rise in family income for the broad mass of families in constituencies like mine. And you will remember a few years ago in a village like Fishburn where today the house prices are something people wouldn’t even have dreamt of 20 - 30 years ago, and that is a measure of how a Labour government has changed life for people, so I think we can be proud of that.
Question:
You noted that there were moderately successful talks yesterday, hosted by your government, regarding Iran, there are other discussions now that seem to be … [inaudible]. Does that please you, is that the way to go as opposed to the military option? And if I might just add, an unrelated follow-up question, is there anything to the report - I must ask this - that I saw last night in the newspaper that you might be considering a New York temporary residence after No 10?
Prime Minister:
I am afraid I hadn’t come across that one, but the answer is no, although it is a great city. You know don’t read anything into that, it is a great city, so is London, so is Paris, there are many around the world.
In respect of the situation in North Korea and Iran, look the only thing that will work is for the international community to be tough and clear and unified, and the tougher, and clearer and more unified we are, the better the result we will get and the less the whole issue of military action arises. So you know what we have got to realise in this situation is that for all of us in the international community, the tougher we are in insisting that Iran comply and indeed be prepared to take tough measures on sanctions and diplomatic action if they don’t, then the more likely we are to get the result we want. Any sign of weakness is absolutely fatal. And what has happened in the past few months, in part I think as a result of the actions and decisions by the US administration, is that a tough message has yielded results, and we should learn from that lesson I think.
Question:
Reports today say that almost 2 million people have downloaded a letter in protest of unfair bank charges. What pressure can you as Prime Minister put on these banks to stop them charging customers like this?
Prime Minister:
Well there are systems in place now where these things can be investigated by the right regulatory watchdog and that is the way it should happen, so that rather than me trying to do it as Prime Minister, you actually have some objective way of looking at it.
Question:
… although the OFT is looking into it?
Prime Minister:
Yes, but that is the important thing, to let the OFT do its work, because the Office of Fair Trading was set up precisely to deal with these issues and they are the best people to deal with it. And I think that this is better frankly than getting into a political debate that will end up without the necessary regulatory system kicking into place so that people can work out what is happening, and the more I think that there is transparency in exposing what is happening, then the easier it is for people to make up their minds about who is charging them what.
Question:
Lone parents produced the first very major revolt in the House of Commons after coming into power. Do you think the Parliamentary Labour Party has changed its view about cuts in benefits for lone parents, that you will be able to get this through, these radical proposals you are talking about, or is it going to be a manifesto issue?
Prime Minister:
Well you see I think that people will accept, and this is based in many cases on the experience I have had talking to Labour Members of Parliament, visiting constituencies. You know I mentioned Nottingham a short time ago where the MP, Graham Alan, has put forward, we can do it but it is a very interesting and very radical proposal as to how this is dealt with within his city, and you see I think, I have learnt this from being 10 years in power and I think it changed my thinking about it, and I think that is true with some of my MPs as well, which is to say, and this comes back to the basic point I am making, and not to labour it or just repeat myself, it isn’t about lone parents in general. Most lone parents in fact don’t choose to be lone parents, let’s be very clear about that, and sometimes when there is a lone parent in difficulty they are often bringing up kids in quite heroic circumstances, and actually if you want to be looking at who is to blame for that situation you might look at the man rather than the woman who is bringing up their kids in those challenging circumstances. But the issue that I am looking at is not the majority of people, and that is the point that I am making, and what I am trying to do today is to say to people look we have got to look at this whole social issue in a different perspective, that it is not about a general problem, because actually if you look at the support given to families, lone parents, married couples, there has been a massive amount of support and a massive amount of change and improvement, but the rising tide has not lifted all ships, that is the point. And whereas I think for years, and years, and years social reformers both on the left and the right, whether they were on the right saying it can be dealt with by tax breaks, on the left saying you could deal with it by benefit payments, actually for these families, these severely socially excluded families who are right out of society’s mainstream, neither of those types of policy is going to work, you are going to need to go to their specific circumstances, often with drink and drug addiction, you know the parent is in prison, you have maybe got a teenage mum being brought up in very, very difficult circumstances and so on, you have got to go there and look at their specific problem and deal with it. If you don’t do that you are not going to deal with the problem, and then what you end up with is the kind of debate I think we have had for the last couple of weeks, which is you know fine but it doesn’t really get to that problem at all, I don’t think.
Question:
Prime Minister a new crisis is unfolding in Iraq. According to the United Nations figures there are 1million Iraqi refugees inside Iraq, plus 2 million living in neighbouring countries such as Jordan and Syria, as well as thousands of Arab refugees who are stuck in Iraq and cannot go back to their country because of fear of reprisal. Who is responsible for that, who is to blame, and what are you going to do about it with Mr Bush?
Prime Minister:
Well the only solution is to improve the security there, and that is what we are trying to do by the measures that we are taking. Because it is not that those people don’t want to live in a peaceful and stable Iraq, they do, and they should have the right to do so. And therefore we have got to continue to make sure that we don’t end up in a situation where, as I said the other day, people in Iraq are faced with either a brutal dictator or a terrorist running their country.
Question:
Prime Minister, a number of Labour’s Deputy leadership candidates, along with the TUC and the GMB have expressed concern about casino capitalists and asset strippers in private equity firms. Do you share those concerns and should the government do anything to stop the activities of these companies?
Prime Minister:
Look Britain is the number one place in the world for private equity and I think the private equity market is a market that brings a lot of benefit to our economy. Now it is important that everyone behaves responsibly, but you know you have just got to be very careful of these issues, otherwise you end up in circumstances where concerns about maybe a minority of specific issues in specific circumstances end up tarring a whole sector, and I don’t think that would be fair at all. And some of those who are private equity people or venture capitalists, they have performed an important function in our economy, so I think we need to be careful of that.
Question
I wonder if you have been briefed by EADS on the Airbus restructuring and whether you feel this will mean job cuts in Britain?
Prime Minister:
We are obviously following it very closely and we believe that the work that is being done by the Airbus workforce is fantastic, they are highly skilled people, they are doing a great job. Insofar as there are problems, actually they are not with our workforce and what they are producing. But we track it and watch it carefully.
Question:
Prime Minister, the Sun has run a campaign to try and get Premiership clubs to lessen its ticket prices and we feel that these clubs are exploiting, it has become a rich man’s game and lower income families just really can’t afford to go to games. Would you urge these Premiership bosses, despite the fact that some of them still (inaudible) their grounds, a lot do not, would you urge them to lower their prices?
Prime Minister:
Well I think anyone who watches the Premiership, in the end it is their decision to take, but anybody who watches the Premiership can notice over the past year or couple of years there are rows of empty seats, and it is something I don’t recall seeing in the same way 4 or 5 years back. And so I think there are very sensible market-based reasons for people to make sure that the ticket prices aren’t beyond the reach of the ordinary fan, because after all it is the ordinary fan that really builds the club. So you know it is a decision for them, but I think the logic of it is pretty clear.
Question:
Recently the UK launched a recruitment drive to get more anti-whaling countries on to the international Whaling Commission. How likely do you think it is that the Anti-Whaling countries will regain their majority on the Commission, and if they don’t, what action can the anti-whaling lobby take, and could this potentially affect the UK’s relationship with Japan?
Prime Minister:
Well I think rather than give you a long and not necessarily very detailed answer on the exact state of the Commission, I will get someone to brief you on it. But our position on this is well known over a number of years and it hasn’t affected our relationship with Japan, I understand the different perspectives the countries come from, but obviously we have got a very strong position that we will maintain.
Question:
The UK Ambassador a few days ago in Russia said that the investigation of the death of ex-spy Litvinenko would be over within weeks. However there is even no official conclusion of the cause of his death. When can we expect at least first results of the investigation?
Prime Minister:
Well I can’t say because we have got a clear separation here. So you will just have to wait and see what they see about it, but it is important that whoever is responsible for his death is brought to justice.
Question:
The government has asked Ofcom to look at BSkyB’s stake in ITV, could I ask you Prime Minister, is the government worried about Rupert Murdoch having too much influence on the British media?
Prime Minister:
Well I think that is a matter for the Secretary of State, who has made his decision and I think his decision, I think I am right in saying, actually fits within the statutory framework, so there may be all sorts of legal things and I don’t really want to go there at all. For that reason he has got to do whatever he thinks is right, but he acts within, as I understand it, a statutory duty to decide whether to refer or not to refer, and so he takes that decision and I don’t think it would be right for me to comment on it.
Question:
Prime Minister, the instability in the Horn of Africa seems to be linked to the global war on terror. What is the British policy on the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes?
Prime Minister:
Our policy is to do two things: to support the concept of an African Union peacekeeping force because Africa needs the strength and military force to intervene in situations where there is instability and chaos; and secondly to support policies for development and growth in Africa where Britain has been leading the way. And we have trebled our aid to Africa over the past few years, and the truth is the extremists who are trying to occupy a place in Somalia’s politics have nothing more to offer there than they have to offer anyone else, and what is important in my view is that we try to stabilise the situation, as we are trying to do, and then get the right type of international effort to put the country back on its feet.
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