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ANY QUESTIONS?
TX: 16/06/06 2000-2045
PRESENTER: Jonathan Dimbleby
PANELLISTS: Vera Baird
William Hague
Lord Steel
Mark Tully
FROM: Archbishop of York's CE Junior School, North Yorks
DIMBLEBY
Welcome to North Yorkshire where we are in the village of Bishopthorpe just to the south of York, close to the racecourse and despite expanding in the last few decades is still surrounded by farmland. We're the guests of the parish council and the Archbishop of York's Church of England Junior School.
On our panel: the former leader of the Liberal Party and later the first presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament Lord Steel.
The former leader of the Conservative Party and now Shadow Foreign Secretary who it is said knew the name of every MP and constituency in the land when he was nine years old. Is that true William Hague?
HAGUE No I don't think so, I certainly can't remember them now.
DIMBLEBY Vera Baird's a lawyer by training who entered the Commons in 2001. She's a beneficiary of last month's reshuffle, being appointed to the Department of Constitutional Affairs as the minister responsible for social exclusion issues and legal aid, becoming the third person to hold that job in eight weeks.
Sir Mark Tully is renowned as one of the BBC's most distinguished reporters and commentators. He was born in Calcutta and went on to become the BBC correspondent in Delhi in which role for over 20 years he illuminated every major twist and turn in the complex story of the Indian sub-continent. Today he still lives and works in Delhi interpreting the affairs of that great country as a writer and broadcaster to millions of people who hang on his every word. And he's familiar to early listeners on Sundays to Radio 4 to his enchanting Something Understood programmes. He's the fourth member of our panel. [CLAPPING]
Our first question please.
PIERCE
David Pierce. Am I the only person who understands the word life in life imprisonment should mean forever?
DIMBLEBY Vera Baird.
BAIRD The current sentence that's very disputatious is I think what this is about. What's wrong with that sentence is that the public have been allowed to think that this individual we released after five years or which is the case at present, that he can ask to be released after five years. Let me say, first of all, after a lifetime in the legal profession that that is untrue and it will not happen. We oughtn't, although everyone has, to be talking about this individual case but if we consider another person who's done the things that were in the newspaper, because we don't know that deal of detail, this such an individual would not be released for - my bet - 15 or 20 and even then not until the parole board's satisfied he's no longer a risk. He has after all done it twice. What troubled me about the way that sentence was set was that it was done in a very formulaic way. What the judge has to do is to say I'm giving this man an indeterminate sentence 'cos he's dangerous, if he weren't indeterminate what would it be and we started with 18 years. He then discounted a full one third of it for a plea of guilty. Now at this stage I'd have given him 24 and I would not have discounted a third, I'd discounted about four, I've been thinking where I would have lied on this. And then he halved what he was left with, so he's come down from 18 to 12 and he's halved it to six and the five is because the guy had served one year already on remand. That's where it comes from. What ...
DIMBLEBY Sorry - if the judge said and you've just pointed it out, he's only going to be released when there's no risk of him re-offending, i.e. he is in there for a very long time, why did the Home Secretary say that it was unduly lenient?
BAIRD I think it's that element of five years isn't it that screams out to anybody who's not a lawyer, who's not used to the internal workings of it that that's a short sentence.
DIMBLEBY Do you mean listening to the Sun and the Mail and getting excited as they are.
BAIRD Let me say what I think is wrong with that sentence and then at least you know that's position's clear. The way he halved the sentence from 12 to six is wrong. What we've been criticised for by the Tories for after the last few days is because in the 2003 Criminal Justice Act we allowed anybody with a sentence over four years to have automatic parole at half of that sentence and that's why the judge has halved because he has to pretend he's given him a determinate sentence. Now that's not correct because all we said was that you halve a sentence over four years if the person isn't dangerous and this man is dangerous. If it's a dangerous individual on a determinate sentence he doesn't have any right to parole, he can only ask for it in due course. Now it seems to me that the judge has just got this formula wrong. So I'm critical of the judge for three reasons: one starting to low, one deducting too much from - for the guilty plea and three getting the formula wrong. But look the man appeared - because I've read his judgement - to do it thinking he had to do it this way. So I can't exclude the very real possibility actually the formula's too severe. But let me just say again, this man is not going anywhere for a very long time but the numbers in the sentence should make the public confident of that.
DIMBLEBY William Hague.
HAGUE Well I think it's very dangerous of ministers to attack judges, partly because judicial independence is very important in this country and in any democratic country but also it is the ministers of this Parliament that make the rules about these things. You know Vera there complaining that the judge did this but it was because of the Criminal Justice Act that was passed in 2003 that judges are able to do this and often feel that they are required to make these changes. In answer to the original question: well yes sentences should be - should actually be in reality something much close to what they are said to be because otherwise the public cannot have confidence [CLAPPING] ...
DIMBLEBY William Hague wasn't it under the Conservative government that the decision was made that if there was a serious crime they would automatically be released, the guilty person, after serving two thirds of that crime, isn't that exactly what ...
HAGUE That was two thirds which was then changed to half by the Criminal Justice Act of 2003. So ...
DIMBLEBY So - the point I'm making is from the point of view of the question here it's as deep as the Labour government in that sense.
HAGUE Well it depends whether [CLAPPING] who's responsible for that first of all depends whether you think two thirds is the same as half which of course is a rather different thing and second it's now quite a long time ago, we're not any longer in the position where we can blame people for - where we can say to today's current politician you're responsible for what people did when you were still at school. And we've all - we've all moved on from that now. Do we need - do we all, of whatever party of politicians, need to look at this system and say in the future if the public are to have confidence in our justice system they must be able to expect some honesty in sentencing and what people serve will bear some close relation to what they were actually sentenced to well then yes we do need to make that change, under whatever government in the future.
DIMBLEBY [CLAPPING] Lord Steel.
STEEL I'm not making a flippant point but like the World Cup this is a peculiarly English problem. It's - it's an English piece of legislation which has gone wrong. And one of the bits that's wrong is the assumption that somebody gets 50% off if they plead guilty. Well I can quite see the rationale behind that, which was to encourage people not to waste the time of the courts. But in cases where there is such obvious guilty there is no advantage to the prosecution in having someone plead guilty because they're quite plainly guilty. It seems to me that that's another flaw in the legislation. And people are getting off too easily. And the motivation behind it, all the time, with respect under both governments, is that there is a real problem of prison overcrowding and governments want to try and release the pressure on prisons. But I think they're doing it the wrong way and I think the right way is to make sure that those who are guilty of serious crime against individuals are kept in prison for the proper time and those who shouldn't be in prison should be let out on community service charges with tagging when they're not a danger to the public. And if we adopted that policy then we could reduce the prison population and make sure that those who should be behind bars are there for the proper length of time. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBY Mark, I'll come to you in a moment, but just on that one point, if I pick up the minister, it's been pointed out by the journalist Dominic Lawson today that the compendium of sentencing guidelines says - to pick up the point Lord Steel made - in view of the dangerous overcrowding of prisons where a sentence of imprisonment is necessary it should be as short as possible consistent with public protection etc. So there is a drive, is there not, from government - the government's hardly been a party political issue - to limit the amount of time that people spend in prison and so there's pressure on the judiciary not to sentence for as long as they may feel the public believe or they themselves believe ought to be the appropriate conviction.
BAIRD Actually that's about when somebody's just over the threshold into prison, keep it as short as you possibly can because the clang of the prison gate is what has the impact. Nobody is trying to make space in prison by releasing people like this guy, not at all, they are two quite different things.
DIMBLEBY Mark Tully.
TULLY Well I'd like to just make two points. I think I'd like to go back to the question itself - life means life. I think in some senses you know, although this crime was heinous and this man is very dangerous, what you're really saying is almost that you should reintroduce the death sentence if you say that. And I think that in a humane society everyone, even the most criminal person, should have the right to repent, to change and if he does that too, after an appropriate time, be released back into life. I would also that I rather agree with William on the point about criticising the judges. You know all democracies depend very much on a balance of different parts of the democracy, like Parliament, like the civil service, like the judiciary, having their independence and being able to make up their minds and being the people really who decide in a sense what is right and what is wrong. And I think politicians criticising judges threaten one of the great bastions really of all our freedom, which is the judicial system.
DIMBLEBY [CLAPPING] Minister, a quick response to that, given that it's not only you but the Home Secretary and other ministers and indeed the Attorney General who's pretty upset by what the Home Secretary has said, himself issued a list or from his department came a list of those allegedly too lenient judges. Answer that charge from both William Hague and Mark Tully.
BAIRD The publication of those unduly lenient sentencing cases was his response to a Freedom of Information Act request, it wasn't done at the will of anybody in government.
DIMBLEBY The general point that you, as minister, are inappropriately criticising ...
BAIRD No I don't think so. It's perfectly realistic to say when I think a formula has been misapplied. I have said very readily that I can't rule out that the formula itself has misled the judge, I think I ended my quite long statement of how he'd come to the sentence he'd come to by saying he clearly did it thinking he had to and if it's the formula that's wrong then the formula needs to be changed.
DIMBLEBY William Hague.
HAGUE I think it puts the Attorney General in a very difficult position, reviewing these sentences, when other ministers are criticises the sentences. There's the Attorney General, a member of the government, meant to take these decisions in a quasi judicial capacity and we have the Home Secretary and now we have Vera Baird tonight saying this sentence is wrong. Well your political colleague, the Attorney General, is now really put on the spot with things like that. It's part of the way the Home Secretary's been blundering around in the last couple of weeks doing things like presenting the Cabinet with an anti-crime campaign that was to tell the public to stop moaning, can you believe, when there's been a huge increase in crime. And part of that blundering about has been prejudicing - in a sense prejudicing the decision of the Attorney General.
DIMBLEBY I'm going to leave that there. You may have thoughts about, Any Answers if so is for you, after the Saturday edition of Any Questions. The number to ring is 08700 100 444 and the e-mail address any.answers@bbc.co.uk. Our next please.
???
??? Should Parliament reassess the 24 week timeframe with regards to abortion?
DIMBLEBY William Hague.
HAGUE Yes it should reassess it. Person ...- this is one of those things that is definitely not a party political issue, we always have voted in Parliament in line with our own individual conscience on abortion. Personally I have always voted or the last time we had a major series of votes on this, which was back, I think, in 1990, I've always voted for a much lower limit anyway than the current limit. But I think as time has passed and science has moved on and the ability to keep babies alive has moved on then the case, I think, for all people, whatever point of principle they started out with on abortion, I think the wider case for a re-examination of this has grown. I think there is a growing understanding of that across - as I say - politicians of all political parties. And so it is time it was looked at again. And as Jonathan will be about to tell, it would be very interesting to hear what one of the authors of the original act has to say about that - David Steel.
DIMBLEBY You take the words almost from my mouth.
HAGUE I'm sorry about that.
STEEL He's doing you out of a job Jonathan.
DIMBLEBY Yes, well they always do. The - you were controversially absolutely keen on liberalising the law from the perspective of those who want it liberalise and according to the life lobby doing exactly the opposite.
STEEL I think whatever one's view on the subject of abortion everybody is agreed - in the medical profession especially but also in the public at large - that if abortion has to happen it should happen as early as possible. And therefore the law should reflect that. In 1967 when we were legislating, as William has rightly said, on a free vote basis in both Houses of Parliament to change the law on abortion the time limit was set at 28 weeks because that was the time limit already in the Infant Life Preservation Act, it was assumed that interfering with the foetus beyond the 28th week of pregnancy was the equivalent of murder and so the 28 week limit came in to the Abortion Act. Some years later with the advance of medical techniques Parliament did look at again and we agreed and it was pretty well unanimous that the time limit should come down to 24 weeks. And now there is some pressure to reduce the time limit even further because there have been some cases - very, very few incidentally but there have been some - of 22, 23 year old foetuses surviving...
DIMBLEBY Week old - week old - 23 week old ...
STEEL Twenty three week - twenty three week foetuses surviving. And because of that there is pressure for Parliament to look at it again. I would personally be in favour of one of the select committees of the House reviewing it and taking evidence because some of the medical bodies are actually against lowering the limit. The numbers we're talking about are actually very, very small. But I would be in favour of a select committee examining it because I think it's important that the law should be in tune with public opinion and I think the public has been worried that some of these later abortions are really rather undesirable.
DIMBLEBY With your close study of it do you have a feeling yourself about where it should be?
STEEL Well since it - since it was first raised I've been obviously at meetings with a number of medical people and I've been convinced in fact that we should keep the 24 week limit because there are exceptional cases where it is necessary sometimes to carry out an abortion late on in pregnancy. But they're very, very few cases and I think that the government does have power to issue regulations under the act and we should look at that, again a select committee could look at that, and say that the normal time limit should be reduced but you could have exceptions.
DIMBLEBY Mark Tully.
TULLY Well I suppose in part this depends on whether you approve of abortion or not and I think abortion is always a sad thing when it happens. I also think that the easier you make things then the more these things occur. I think we've seen with divorce that one of the results of the relaxing of the divorce laws has been more and more divorces. Now you can argue whether that's a good thing or whether that's a bad thing. So I think that in one way I would be in favour of bringing the time back in because I think this would make more people think about having abortions or think whether they should have abortions. I also think that of course it is very important that we do consider the scientific evidence of this as to what actually we are doing when we abort a child, when we reach the stage when really that is - that child is beyond any doubt a living being - a living ...
DIMBLEBY Do you have a feeling yourself, because it is highly contentious territory, and you follow the advice of scientists or listen - do you have a sense yourself of when that child is - I mean to use that rather sort of mild term in its own sense ...
TULLY I don't Jonathan, I think this is something which has to be left to science very much. I think if people like us or indeed religious leaders or anyone who is an amateur starts actually speculating about that question it's very dangerous indeed.
DIMBLEBY Vera Baird.
BAIRD I think that if there are going to be abortions they do have to be as early as ever it's possible to do. I think it's not something that people do lightly at all and I think it's capable of being quite injurious to the person who has that - has that surgery done. There are very, very few, as David Steel said, which are late abortions, they're often either extremely young and vulnerable girls who have not worked out what's happening or have been quite unable to tell anybody when they do discover or late discoveries of particular kinds of disease or just late discoveries, when somebody hasn't had the kind of pregnancy that you think of as the typical one. And so I am quite concerned about what we do with such people if we force them to have children in that situation. But I do know that science has moved on since the Bill Kane law, I do equally know that the BMA is against any change. So it seems to me that probably because it is an issue that gets raised a lot these days, it is, as David said, time that there was an inquiry into it, taking as broad a range of evidence as possible, making that as public as possible, and getting a real sense of what the right way forward is.
STEEL Can I just add one factual thing quickly? It's quite interesting that since the 1967 legislation here in Britain almost all our European neighbours have changed their legislation and they've done it on a very different basis. Most of them have a law that allows a woman's right to an abortion at request up to about the 13th week of pregnancy and thereafter it's much more difficult. And it may be again if we had an inquiry, and I think we should, that's one of the things that a select committee would look at - the experience of other countries as to how that's worked out.
DIMBLEBY Thank you. [CLAPPING] Our next question please.
WILLIAMS
Gordon Williams and my question is what are your top tips for dads?
DIMBLEBY This is in the context which not everyone on the panel may be totally familiar with of a father's direct dad pack, partly financed by the Department of Education which gave advice to fathers. On playing with your child they advised make a picnic, all you need is a few pieces of bread, fillings, fruit and drinks, let your child help make and wrap up the sandwiches. On good health, when bathing a baby dip your elbow into the water to test that it is not too hot. Never shake a baby or child it can cause lasting brain damage. Go to the playground because it's great for exploring, swinging and meeting people. And on the question of sex: don't have an affair. And so on. What's your top tip Mark Tully?
TULLY Well it seems to me that if you're going to go to the playground to meet people you may well end up having an affair, so I don't think those two bits of advice quite join up. Well as a father of four who's not been - I wouldn't think any of my children would say I was a wonderful father, I think if the advice given to me was perhaps rather more substantial than what Jonathan has read out I would have been rather happy to have had some advice.
DIMBLEBY [CLAPPING] Good way of spending, I think, the contribution from the department of £50,000 giving dads advice? Vera Baird?
BAIRD Well why not. Dads want to get more involved with their kids now, there's no doubt of that and lots and lots of middle class people spend lots and lots of money buying books about parenting so why shouldn't we have one there on offer. I think we do want - we want to encourage dads don't we and my top ten tips? Well they would be yeah, play with the child, take as much notice of the child as possible and love him to bits. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBY Lord Steel.
STEEL Well I don't think I was a particularly good parent because I was an absentee parent, during the week I was in London and my children grew up almost without me noticing it. But I'm now at the grandparent stage and I actually rather enjoy that and I think I'm quite a good grandparent. And the great thing about grandchildren, the great difference between them and children, was that they go away.
DIMBLEBY William Hague.
HAGUE Quite hard to disagree with anything that's been said I must say but - and of course it's tempting to say the advice would be don't read pointless publications and yet it's not of course - to be serious - it's not a pointless publication, I think Vera Baird makes a fair point about that and people have been asking the state, the system, for advice. Now that tells us something quite important about our society, that they are looking, in some cases, for that advice and I suppose it points to the decline of the extended family in our society which many of us might regard as a sad thing and a bad thing but it is a feature of modern life and the need for the state - the apparent need to come up with such a booklet is evidence of that and therefore I think probably the most important advice in it should be to do what David Steel has just been talking about, if the problem is the extended family has declined don't forget all the granddads and uncles and aunts who should all be playing their part and let's hope they do so. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBY Anymore...
STEEL And Mark Tully can tell us that in India they do just that don't they.
TULLY Well yes we do still in India have very large extended families and I think it's a rather a good thing. But I'm not sure ...
DIMBLEBY Are there many dads - are there many ...
TULLY Well Jonathan I'm not sure whether my children or grandchildren really want me to go and live with them, I have to say that.
DIMBLEBY Any top tippers who want to illuminate us - 08700 100 444 is the Any Answers telephone number and the e-mail address any.answers@bbc.co.uk. Could we please go to our next?
DAVIS
Julian Davis. The Conservatives promised to pull out of the European People's Party. Where do they end up - in the wilderness?
DIMBLEBY Lord Steel.
STEEL Well they're going to end up with a lot of nuts. The European - they really are, there's a bunch of quite eccentric and really rather right wing and sometimes rather unpleasant people knocking around the European Parliament. And I think that the Conservative Party's got itself in a real mess. It started under William Hague and it's got worse under David Cameron. Well we've got to have some controversy on this programme. And there's no much wrong with the European People's Party apart from the fact that it's Conservative but it's - it's a perfectly respectable and sensible body of people in the European Parliament and I think the Conservative Party - and I make a prediction - I think they're going to have to go back on this one because really being either in the wilderness or with the nuts isn't a very attractive proposition, they'd be better just to swallow their pride and stay where they are.
DIMBLEBY Vera Baird. [CLAPPING]
BAIRD One of the Tories - an MEP - has described them as, I think, right wing nutters that they were expecting to have to hob nob with if they did come out of what you know is a comfortable home for the likes of Angela Merkel and Sarcosi, you know right of centre but mainstream right wingish parties. They of course would weaken themselves hugely, the Tories, if they did this because business, our interests, require that they remain part of an influential group that can have some clout. And if they haven't clout and they're on the fringes with the nutters then they are not going to be properly representing the people they should properly represent. And perish thought if they ever came into government again, that would mean that we were out on the margins with the nutters with the government as well. So my guess is that and funnily enough Michael Portillo said this, this morning too, it's very rare that I agree with him. He thinks that Cameron's going to have to go back on this, well it's the only policy he's come up with so far, seems a pity to hold on to it for such a short time. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBY Mark.
TULLY Well I think it would be a pity for one reason because I do believe in Europe and I do believe in Britain in Europe and I think this would be seen as the Tory Party once again going into some sort of anti-European fervour again and I think that was bad for the Conservative Party and bad for Britain and I think they should stay where they are in this context.
DIMBLEBY You've got the poisoned chalice William Hague.
HAGUE Yes and this is all directed at me. It's - three to one here so let's take them on. Europe cannot go on in the direction that it is going and somebody has got to stand up and say so. And it's going in the wrong direction as a continent, it is becoming the fastest shrinking part of the world economy, we have mass unemployment in France and Germany at a time in the world economy when you don't have to have mass unemployment, a monumental failure of public policy in those countries and there have been attempts with the European Constitution to centralise Europe even more, manifestly rejected by the voters of France and the Netherlands. And all the European leaders can do in response to that at that summit this weekend is to say we need a longer period of reflection in a total abdication of any leadership or any sense of taking Europe in a new direction.
DIMBLEBY And can you now - can you now with respect answer the question?
HAGUE But this is the reason, this is not about - the comments of our critics, that we've just been hearing, are about the tactical manoeuvres of political parties in Europe. What we need actually ...
DIMBLEBY What we're interested in actually is the tactical manoeuvre that you are - you are charged to deliver, namely departure from the European People's Party.
HAGUE But this is the reason behind it.
DIMBLEBY Where do you end up once you've departed. Let's ask - given that you gave your analysis as the reason that Europe's going nowhere fast, given that, are you going to achieve the departure of your party from the European People's Party within the next few months, weeks, years, are you going to delay it indefinitely, when it going to happen?
HAGUE Well David Cameron has said we will be leaving it and Vera or others have said we will be going back on that, those who think David Cameron goes back on things he's said don't know David Cameron. We will be leaving the European People's Party group. Of course what we want to do is to form a new group that stands for a more decentralising flexible, open, modern Europe than the one that is being built at the moment. And that is the great challenge and the great opportunity. In that sense we've made - we've added an ambition, we've added a hurdle that makes it more difficult for us but that is what we want to do and I think it's the right thing ...
DIMBLEBY If you can't do that - just to get it absolutely clear - if you can't put together a new coalition you pull out in any case and go it along just with the Conservative MEPs who are prepared to go with you rather than say we're going to rebel? In the end that's what you would do?
HAGUE Well ultimately we would do that but of course we want to form a new group and there are many parties that do want to form a new grouping in the European Parliament, although they all have their own difficulties of timing and so on.
DIMBLEBY How long has he given you - how long has David Cameron given you?
HAGUE Well we don't have that sort of relationship, we work on these things together...
DIMBLEBY So how long have you given yourself?
HAGUE And there is no difference between us whatsoever on it and next month I will be saying where we have got to and what we're going to do.
STEEL The CBI have criticised you, a serious public body has criticised you on the perfectly sensible grounds that if you go out into the wilderness or associate with the nutters and assuming you hope to come into government you're actually depriving the Conservative future government, if there is one, of participation in the mainstream of Conservative thought with the ...
HAGUE This is such nonsense.
STEEL Well you're saying nonsense to the CBI are you, this is the new Tory policy?
HAGUE Well if they think that I'm very happy to say nonsense to them, very happy to say that if necessary although I think they have a greater mix of views, having talked to business leaders than you might be representing them as having. But the idea your influence in Europe comes from the alignments of parties in the European Parliament is a monumental mistake. It comes from the ideas that you have, from what your country stands for, the policies that you pursue in your own country ...
STEEL If you want to be associated with people like Angela Merkel who are in power in Germany this is where influence lies.
HAGUE Tony Blair gets on with Angela Merkel but he's not in the EPP ...
DIMBLEBY Everyone has used the word the nutters - everyone of your colleagues on the panel has used the word nutters to describe some of those who you might join, do you agree that there are some nutters amongst those swirling around groups that you may be invited to join - no nutters?
HAGUE Of course not, no, there may be nutters in the European Parliament, there are nutters in every parliament, as we all know to our cost. [CLAPPING] I think we would on all on this panel have to admit that. But look we are not going to be aligning the Conservative Party with any extremist parties or anybody who falls into those categories. The parties we've been talking to are generally governing parties or potentially governing parties in their countries and so this is not a fair description.
STEEL But none of the others have shown any inclination to leave the EPP, I mean you're on your own on that one.
HAGUE Well we will see won't we over time, but let us see - if we can put together a group that stands for a flexible modern decentralising Europe that gives some hope for the future of Europe then we will have achieved something, rather than complacently going along with the old consensus that has totally failed.
DIMBLEBY Vera Baird. [CLAPPING]
BAIRD Well search me about where they're going to find any allies, if they're going out of this grouping. William's made a speech quite recently saying that he wants to drive change in Europe, that we have to do that not from the margins but in a main player, that we have to do it from the mainstream. He said in categoric terms, when he was leader, that if he left the EPP he would not be in the mainstream and when he had the chance to lead them he didn't go. I think he might agree with us underneath all that you know.
DIMBLEBY Mark, Mark Tully.
TULLY I'd just like to say two things. Firstly, I think that William's catalogue of all that is wrong with Europe, okay yeah but we can also have a catalogue with all which is right about Europe and there's an awful lot which is right about Europe. [CLAPPING] And secondly, I come back to what I said originally. It seems to me that his idea is you go and you smash something up and that's the way to deal with it, whereas in fact the way to deal with it is to work within it and improve it by working within it and that's what we should be doing in Europe. And I fear that if this goes on then again Britain will give the impression that really it doesn't want to have anything to do with Europe, it would much rather not be there at all.
DIMBLEBY Can I just [CLAPPING] rather than rehearse that again, can I just be absolutely clear with you, you will, come what may, withdraw from the European People's Party in due course and in July you will tell us how you're doing in relation to trying to form another group is that right?
HAGUE Exactly, I'm sorry I'm not read on this even on Any Questions to make all those announcements but it would have been fun.
DIMBLEBY We'll go to our next question.
BISHOP
What is the panel's view of the deployment of British troops in Afghanistan? Would the money not be better spent buying the poppy crop and establishing alternative sources of income for the farmers? [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBY Mark Tully.
TULLY Well you know I remember when the Soviet Union went into Afghanistan and we were all writing stories saying that the Afghans had never been beaten but in our heart of hearts we believed - and I went into Afghanistan quite often - we couldn't quite believe this, we couldn't quite believe that the Afghans would defeat the Soviet army. Now I'm not going to say that the Afghans again are going to defeat the British and the American and the other forces who are there, it's a slightly different situation now, but I do think that we have grossly underestimated the difficulty of dealing with Afghanistan. And in the end, as with almost anywhere else, a military solution cannot be the answer. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBY Vera Baird.
STEEL The history ...
DIMBLEBY Sorry I was going to go to Vera Baird, longing to hear what you have to say but I'm going to bring in Vera Baird first.
BAIRD It's a very, very difficult situation in Afghanistan. There is a lot of fragmentation, there is a resurgence of the Taleban or a resurgence of warlords. There are very hard groups to try to control, to try and engage in government. And our experience, our troops' experience as peacemakers and peace brokers is very extensive and if any troops can do it we can do it. The poppy group - that's a very interesting point but it's unfortunately not a very practical one. The Taleban who would say there was little heroin coming out when the Taleban were there actually they brought it all up didn't they to let the price rise and then released it on to the market again. It is incredibly intractable. If you could just go out into the market and buy all the heroin up you would be absolutely right but it's a much more complex problem than that and we just have to wish our lads real good luck because they will do a fabulous job.
STEEL I have to admit Afghanistan is a country I've never been to but the history of Afghanistan tells you that what Mark says is true, that a military solution has never in the history of that country proved sustainable. And I think with respect to the questioner he's putting a false antithesis - he's asking should we spend the money instead of on the army, should we spend it on getting the farmers to grow other crops - I think the truth is you need both, you need the security which the military helps to provide and you certainly need to get people away from growing poppies for drugs and back on to the traditional crop in Afghanistan, which used to be, of all things, apricots. And if we could set up that together with all the production and the canning and all the rest of it we might be able to provide alternative employment and get rid of the immense grip that the drug barons have on the people of Afghanistan.
DIMBLEBY
Shadow Foreign Secretary.
HAGUE It's not as simple as buying up the poppy crop, if you did that on a large scale you'd probably find that another poppy crop had been grown in any case, just over the hill. And so it doesn't necessarily the problem. I think that my colleague Liam Fox put this very well when he said that there would be two great failures here in Afghanistan, one would be a failure to act at all and the other would be to act and fail. So we do have to make sure that Afghanistan does not fall back into the hands of the Taleban and become a base for international terrorist activity again, it's obviously in all our interests, in our vital interests that that happens. Despite therefore the wretched history, the very difficult history which Malcolm David quite rightly referred to, we've little choice but to be there in some form and we've little choice to try and tackle the drugs problem at some stage, whether that can be done at exactly the same time successfully I don't know but 87% of the world's heroin is coming out of Afghanistan. And so there's little choice but to try to tackle those things.
DIMBLEBY If you are Foreign Secretary and the evidence before you is that what is happening on the ground is that the peasants who are very poor are turning against the allied troops because they see them a. destroying those crops and b. engaging in battles with the Taleban or Taleban supporters which get them sucked into that conflict, what do you then do, do you say right we just go on and on and on if necessary increase the military presence there?
HAGUE No I, although I think you have to form a sound view of what military presence, what degree of international assistance you need at the beginning to make sure that you do succeed. And it's quite hard for us in the opposition on this because we can only ask questions of the government and the military about whether they've got what they need, we are regularly assured that they have, we will continue to ask questions about it. But it does - your question Jonathan underlines the importance of building up the capability of the Afghan government itself, that is the central essential priority. There will be a limit to how long foreign troops can hold this together in Afghanistan and it is absolutely essential that the capability of the Afghan government itself is built up as rapidly as possible.
DIMBLEBY Mark Tully.
TULLY Yeah I just want to say something very briefly after what William has said. You know Afghanistan was held together by the king before the coup against him in a very, very loose manner. One of the things which worries me is this talk about strong central government and all the rest of it. I think actually that Afghanistan will only become peaceful - and it'll be not the sort of peace necessarily that we would approve of entirely in this country - but when they go back more to a much looser form of government and I think there is a danger that we're going to try and impose the sort of government that we like on a society which is used to a very, very loose form of central government. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBY And we'll go to our next question please.
SUTTON
Kim Sutton. Do you think granting an amnesty to illegal immigrants is a sensible and humane measure or not?
DIMBLEBY The minister, Mr Byrne, has indicated that this is an option that has to be considered. Minister.
BAIRD I don't think he would be doing his duty as a minister if he didn't explore that as a possibility. I don't doubt that in some ways it would be humane, I don't doubt that in other ways it would be an open encouragement to further unlawful immigration. It needs a good deal of very considered thought but I am personally very glad that he's asked the question.
DIMBLEBY David Steel.
STEEL I think probably on balance an amnesty is a good idea if it's linked to the intended introduction of identity cards and provided that the amnesty didn't apply to those who've been guilty of offences, I think that that - the public wouldn't like that. But I think those who've been here working away, technically illegally, because they haven't got the right papers I think probably there is a case. At any rate the minister has raised it as a good issue and I think it's one that we ought to look at sympathetically.
DIMBLEBY What about the minister's point that it could encourage further unlawful immigration?
STEEL Well if it's a one off I don't see why it would and given that Europe as a whole is now introducing much stricter controls over immigration I don't think that that is really a major factor now.
DIMBLEBY William Hague.
HAGUE I think it's a bit of a mistake for ministers to speculate about it in public. If you are going to have an amnesty then you need to announce it and say that's it, we've just had it and the date was such and such a date and so on. But to speculate about an amnesty in the current parlous state of our border controls and the current hapless state of the government when it comes to working out anything to do with how many illegal immigrants there are in the country, how many convicted criminals there are who have been set free when they should have been deported and so on, I think speculating about it in those circumstances is a mistake.
DIMBLEBY So if you're talking to your colleagues in the House, as he was, and you're asked a direct question are you going to consider this, do you lie and say no?
HAGUE Well I think he should have said if we had an amnesty to announce we would announce it and that would have been a straight answer to the question and it would have kept his options open and it wouldn't have caused a lot of speculation. So there is a more intelligent way to do these things and it's a pity he hadn't worked it out. [CLAPPING]
STEEL William you haven't said whether you think it's worth speculating on or not - I mean ...
HAGUE I think I have answered that.
STEEL No, no but you haven't said whether you think it's a good idea.
HAGUE ... it's not a thing to speculate about. I'm not in favour of it at the moment but I'm not saying I'm against them forever - against amnesties forever. But I think the question was about the minister speculating about it and that is a mistake.
BAIRD I don't think though that was a deliberate public speculation and it would be disingenuous to suggest that this has been something that he's tossed out onto the airwaves in the hope of ...
HAGUE No, no I'm not saying that.
DIMBLEBY He was asked about it by his peers - by his peers - by members of parliament in the select committee.
BAIRD Yeah he was asked quite directly and quite clearly and the only alternative he would have had to saying yes it's a reasonable thing to look at would have been exactly as Jonathan's just put it to you to lie about it and that's not a realistic thing to say.
HAGUE But I suggested an answer which didn't involve lying about it.
BAIRD Our borders - our borders much securer these days...
DIMBLEBY Just being economical with the truth.
BAIRD ... than you're pretending they are.
DIMBLEBY Sir Mark Tully.
TULLY I don't - I think I side with William on this one - I don't think there's any need for him to speculate in public, he could have perfectly well have said that we may consider the matter, we may not, or something like that. He could have sat on the fence. I think politicians ...
DIMBLEBY And then people like you - Mark - then people like you as journalists and others would say he failed to rule out the prospect of.
TULLY No, this is Jonathan - Jonathan I'm glad you've brought it up because my second point was this. I think part of the trouble with all this is that I suspect he may be speculating so that he can see what the press reaction is and that is part of something which I think is very wrong in this country, and I say this as a journalist. I do feel that we the press have much too much power because the politicians listen to us too much. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBY And just have time for one more please.
WOODINGS
David Woodings. What do the members of the panel consider to be their finest attribute and could they give evidence for it please?
DIMBLEBY
You'll be unhappy to know you've only got a very limited amount of time to answer this. David Steel.
STEEL
Finest attribute? Oh my undoubted modesty. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBY
And you were asked for the evidence, is that because you've got plenty to be modest about?
STEEL
Oh nice programme, obvious.
DIMBLEBY
Sir Mark Tully.
TULLY
Well I'm not quite sure that I can answer this one very well. What do the members of the panel consider to be their first attribute?
DIMBLEBY
Finest.
TULLY
Finest attribute. Well you know I'm actually writing a book, funnily enough, on a subject about humility and when I told a friend of mine this, she said, well you will be totally counter cultural. And I do believe that in this modern culture we are far too often encouraged to try and demonstrate in public what we think are our finest qualities and forget what we don't have.
DIMBLEBY
Vera Baird.
BAIRD
My - it's lucky for me - my finest quality is that I really like other people. [CLAPPING]
DIMBLEBY
William Hague.
HAGUE
My finest attribute, I share with this audience, I live in Yorkshire. [CLAPPING AND CHEERING]
DIMBLEBY
Next ...
STEEL
It's called sucking up.
DIMBLEBY
Next - next week we are going to be in Essex with Harriet Harmon, who's the minister for justice; Sir Jonathan Porritt, founder director of the Forum for the Future and also government's chief advisor on the environment; Iqbal Sacranie who was head of the Muslim Council in Britain and the Conservative MP and former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind. Join us there. From here in the Archbishop of York's Church of England Junior School goodbye.
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