If we don't change, we die.

On Sunday, 21 September 2003, Breakfast with Frost featured an interview with the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, MP.

Please note "BBC Breakfast with Frost" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

Labour needed to "renew its relationship with the electorate".

DAVID FROST: And excitement on its way right now as we welcome David Blunkett. Good morning David.

DAVID BLUNKETT: Good morning David.

DAVID FROST: And what is the name of your companion?

DAVID BLUNKETT: That is Sadie, who is going to make sure you ask me all the nicest questions.

DAVID FROST: Right. Of all your great achievements, which was the most glorious? That's the sort of question that Sadie is looking for.

DAVID BLUNKETT: Absolutely! Can you give me ten minutes to think about it.

DAVID FROST: What, what did you come to - you were really the first person who blew the whistle that things were going wrong in Brent East. How did you work that out and what do you think you should do about it to get back to the way the results were at the last election?

DAVID BLUNKETT: Well one of my colleagues, thinking he was disparaging me on Monday, said well he would say that because he's got the experience of Sheffield - and I have.

And the experience of Sheffield was that the Liberal Democrats got into office in the town hall when the Labour Party looked to the people as though it was no longer listening and it was out of touch. We won it back because once they were in office they showed how incompetent they were. I have learnt from that and I think that we've got a learning government.

We've got to appreciate that one of the difficulties of government, and it is, is that you become the establishment, you start to speak like the establishment, the vocabulary that Charles Kennedy was talking about, you start to look like the establishment and if you're not careful you start to, to think like the establishment.

So we, we've got to get back in touch much more readily at the grass roots. We've also got to recognise that government means honestly that you get bogged down. You're trying to make a difference, you're trying to change the administration and change services and that means you don't have the time for listening and campaigning that you used to have.

And thirdly, I think the honest truth is that there's been so much noise going on around us - of course the war, of course the Hutton inquiry, other things - it's very difficult for people to relate to the kind of messages that we really wanted to get across.

DAVID FROST: And how do you rebuild trust? Everyone says you've got this terrible problem, number ten as well as in the party, to rebuild trust - then we'll come on to your bailiwick - but how do you rebuild trust?

DAVID BLUNKETT: It's - I think it's a very big challenge. I think it's about being patently honest, saying things as they really are; about bringing people in to the big decisions, because my view is that we'll never win the third term we need if we're not showing the kind of leadership and spark that Tony Blair is wanting us to take forward. In other words, we can't go into a bunker and retrench.

We've got to come out, we've got to show people we know where we're going, what our values are about, and that the things we're doing actually relate to people's lives, so that we're on their side.

DAVID FROST: And that you're prepared to change? Not just listen but change?

DAVID BLUNKETT: Oh I think if we don't change we die. I mean one of the great lessons of Tony being elected nine years ago was that he said look we've taken some steps forward, we've made some changes, Neil Kinnock, John Smith have taken tremendous strides, we're renewing ourselves now, we know we've got to, we discussed this on Thursday - it's no secret - at Cabinet, we need to renew our connection with the electorate so they know what we stand for, where we're going, above all that we, we are looking to a new Britain.

If we're going to have a third term it's about modernising, preparing Britain, helping people with rapid change, dealing with the global economy but rooting it in the neighbourhood.

And one of the ironies about Charles talking about litter on the streets is that they all want us to do something about what's happening on the street but at the same time they want us not to intervene at local level.

They want us to be hands off and hands on and we've got to try and square that circle.

DAVID FROST: Coming on David to your own bailiwick, those figures that came out, again a couple of weeks ago, about asylum and that only 18 or 19 per cent of those who apply unsuccessfully for asylum, only less than 20% are deported, approximately 80% stay in the UK. That's a horrendous figure.

DAVID BLUNKETT: Yes it is. I mean my, my main task, and that of Bev Hughes as the immigration minister, has been to stop clandestine entry into the country in the first place - moving the border and security controls to France, which is a unique experience in, in modern times, therefore actually having the restrictions that stop people actually touching the soil and therefore claiming asylum; secondly, when people are here, to move them through much more quickly, and we are being very successful on those two fronts.

We've halved the number of people coming in and claiming asylum, we've doubled the speed with which we get people through but you're entirely right, we're not getting people our fast enough, we have all sorts of restrictions in terms of appeal after appeal using judicial review, nevertheless we can do better.

We've got 18, approximately 18,000 out in the last 12 months, we've got it up to over 1500 a month now, which is a hell of a lot better, it's well over double what we inherited, but nevertheless it won't do because it's about building trust and confidence and if people don't have that then whatever they see, whatever they hear, they believe there's still an avalanche.

DAVID FROST: But do you think speeding up that process on asylum is going to need more legislation?

DAVID BLUNKETT: Yes I do. Firstly to speed up and streamline the appeals process - we are entirely in favour of having an appeal, we are entirely on board with those who say we need to improve the initial decision-making process so that people know that if they do appeal the appeal is likely to fail, but we don't want appeal after appeal after appeal, where they use judicial review as a method of blocking us being able to carry out what is public policy.

So we've got to do something about that. We've also got to do something about the way in which there's a massive amount of our money going into the pockets of lawyers - not all are scams but quite a lot of it involves people doing things that anyone with a bit of nous could have helped those asylum seekers to do.

DAVID FROST: So something like one appeal and then they're out, rather than endless appeals?

DAVID BLUNKETT: Yes, and obviously you always have a situation in terms of where there is a massive change of circumstances during the, the course of the appeal going through.

DAVID FROST: And in terms of the figures now, what do you think? I mean what's your, as of today before these things happen and so on, what's your best estimate of how many unofficial, unregistered people are in, are in the UK who don't have the legal right to be here? Is that figure - in six figures isn't it?

DAVID BLUNKETT: Well I haven't got a clue is the answer - I suppose that's a lovely headline that my advisors will be horrified with but I haven't and nor had any other government.

And the reason we haven't is because of course we don't have a rigorous and enforceable identification system linked to a register of all those who are in the country, and that is of course what we're debating in Cabinet at the moment, should we have a register of all those in the country and should we have an identification system that relates to it.

DAVID FROST: Well that's - so it could be anything from 100,000 to a million. You just don't know.

DAVID BLUNKETT: No I - I think -

DAVID FROST: There's no way you could no.

DAVID BLUNKETT: I think in terms of those who are bumping up against services, those who we know are actually around us, we know it's not a million - people pick figures out of the air depending on which side they're on, because I'm trying to break this idea that there are two alternatives: open door, anybody come or shut down on migration, nobody allowed in the country, let's have a fortress Britain. Neither of those are acceptable.

We need good, strong, secure borders; we need a system that people trust and have confidence in; and then we need to open up with work permits the right of people to come here, to work here legally, to earn their living, to contribute back in, to keep the economy, particularly in London and the south east, going and to help us with growth.

And the Americans have benefited from that enormously, as you know.

DAVID FROST: And also, in terms of what you were just saying about people's identities and checking people out, that leads us straight into the subject which I think you're still as passionate about as ever, although there's apparently disagreement between pros and cons in the Cabinet, and that's ID cards. How close are you to achieving your dream on ID cards?

DAVID BLUNKETT: Well it's not one of the greatest passions I ever came into politics to achieve. I mean the home secretary has all the sort of issues where I have to help to lay the foundation on which other progressive policies can flourish.

In other words I have to secure people's trust in crime in the neighbourhood, I have to get people's trust in terms of security and counterterrorism, I have to get people's trust on asylum and immigration, and one of the trusts that we need is that we know who's here, we know who they are, we can track them, that people don't work if they're not entitled to work, they don't draw on services which are free in this country, including health, unless they're entitled to, and that when we find people we can identify quickly that they're not entitled and get them out.

Now all of that, in my view, is dependent firstly on improving the whole system of what's called biometrics - like the iris of your eye, which is very, very difficult if not impossible to forge. Secondly, that when you've got it, you do so with an eye to civil liberties.

Thirdly, you build on what's already there and passports, 44 million passports, 38 million driving licences, we can build on that and we can ensure that everyone has a verifiable card - they wouldn't have to carry it in the street but they'd have to produce it when required.

DAVID FROST: Not carried in the street. And first of all, would it be straight away, in your planning, mandatory and compulsory for everyone to have one? Or does it start off being voluntary and then become mandatory?

DAVID BLUNKETT: Well I don't think it would be voluntary in the sense that you don't have to have one if you don't want one for any purpose. But we are debating.

And let's be honest, part of, if people want us to be honest, saying that there are genuine scepticisms that we need to work through those in terms of the technology, the funding and all the rest of it, saying that honestly isn't a down in politics, it's actually a plus.

So, yes, there are really vigorous debates going on about how compulsory is compulsory but my own view is that the minimum must be that you can't actually work or draw on services, register for services, unless you actually have that card. Not because the card matters, but you're verifying that you are who you say you are. And stealing someone's identity is much worse than being properly identified.

DAVID FROST: Right, and you'd like to see that in next year's Queen's Speech, basically.

DAVID BLUNKETT: Well I'm debating that with Cabinet colleagues at the moment and I can see if one or two of them have tuned in this morning they'll be grimacing if I give you a straight answer to a straight question.

But I'm going to give you one, which is, it's my hope that we will do that; we're debating the Queen's Speech at the moment, let's see if we can get that through.

DAVID FROST: That's very clear. Tell me, about the new Director of Public Prosecutions, Ken Macdonald, what, what part, what role did you play in his appointment?

Obviously, the obvious reason is that he has attacked your plans for abolishing jury trials for complex fraud cases and the fixed tariff of sentences and so on - it seems an odd choice to have someone as your DPP who disagrees with you on a lot of basic points?

DAVID BLUNKETT: Well, firstly, I didn't appoint him because we have separation of powers -

DAVID FROST: Right.

DAVID BLUNKETT: - any more than I appoint judges. My view is that he was entitled, when he was representing the Criminal Bar Association, to speak on their behalf and to speak their policies, and their policies are the ones you just enunciated.

He's now the Director of Public Prosecution and he must speak not for the bar council, or the bar, Criminal Bar Association, but for the people.

And Peter Goldsmith, the Attorney General, and I are very clear, as is the Prime Minister, that we now need a public prosecution service that is about representing the interests of the public, that gets close into the community.

When I took the whole ministerial team to Merseyside a couple of weeks ago, with the board members of the Home Office, we went there partly to listen, partly to talk, partly to say look we're going to have a new system of justice with community justice centres in the community, with prosecutors talking with and representing local people and judges going out and listening and having to account to local people for their decisions. That will be a wholly new way of doing things.

DAVID FROST: And what about the subject of cannabis, David? I mean there was a quote here today in the Sunday paper, the demand side is now legal but the supply side is illegal. Well the demand side isn't exactly legal -

DAVID BLUNKETT: No it isn't.

DAVID FROST: - but nevertheless there is an it's okay to have cannabis but it's illegal for the person who gives it to you. ...

DAVID BLUNKETT: It's not - it's not okay and the papers who say, the journalists who say we've sent out mixed messages have a cheek, because it's their mixed message - if you put cannabis is legal when it's illegal, if you say that you can carry it when you can't, then you're misleading young people and the Frank campaign that we've now got running - very successful, 600,000 hits on the website - is actually getting the right message across which is this: cannabis is not a drug that people should be taking, but unlike Class A drugs it doesn't immediately kill you, whereas heroin, crack, crack cocaine and ecstasy do; they're dangerous for the individual, they destroy families, they undermine community and we want the police to concentrate, as they are now doing, the whole of their effort on getting to grips with that. And I think that isn't a mixed message, I think it's a very clear one.

DAVID FROST: And okay, well we've got to take a break there for the news headlines and then we'll come back to David.

[NEWS]

DAVID FROST: And we're talking with, continuing to talk, with David Blunkett - always a pleasure - and top up fees is a controversial subject, right? DAVID BLUNKETT: Yeah, I think we'll agree ...

DAVID FROST: ... the way we used to talk about grammar schools.

DAVID BLUNKETT: Yes we did, every week we talked about ...

DAVID FROST: ... I talked about grammar schools, you pointed that out, but the top up fees, you had one view when you were education secretary, which was agin them, what do you feel now?

DAVID BLUNKETT: Well I said that we wouldn't introduce top up fees in this parliament and we aren't and we won't, so legislation is about the future, from 2006. We're blessed, of course, with our official opposition, who have put forward the idea that we cut student numbers by 100,000, we reduce the funding to what they call lesser universities and we up it to the more prestigious ones.

Now we're all in favour of investing in better research, in improvement in quality teaching, but whose kids would it be that actually didn't get in when those cuts were made? That is the issue that's being raised by Charles Clark and Alan Johnson who are dealing with this issue.

And I suppose David, this is the real crunch issue and I had to face it in '97 when I introduced the fees themselves, someone is going to have to pay if we want high quality, high availability, higher education. And someone is going to have to answer the question, is it only those who traditionally got in who should be allowed in in the future?

And I think the answer to both is, we want an expanded system but we want high quality as well and that's why we have to pay for it.

DAVID FROST: But in terms of the listening government which we've been hearing about in the last couple of days, if you listen to your backbenchers you wouldn't do it. I mean they're very agin it, aren't they?

DAVID BLUNKETT: Yeah, I think there's a, there is a real issue in terms of not being hypocrites about how you listen to people but you don't always have to agree.

I said to a lot of young people, who went on the march in February, don't misunderstand that we haven't actually heard that there's a million of you on the street and you don't want war in Iraq but leadership understanding what the future looks like involves balancing that listening with the kind of forward looking vision and leadership that says you won't thank us if in a few years time people say there's no money to do this, why didn't you anticipate that, why weren't you ahead of the game - which is what I'm trying to do with my own bailiwick in the Home Office, always be one step ahead.

People abuse you when you're doing it and thank you a few years later and say oh you didn't do it, you didn't do enough - and that's what I had with crime, that's what I've had with asylum, that's what I get with criminal justice.

DAVID FROST: And so no change on that? I mean you're not going to climb down over top up fees.

DAVID BLUNKETT: Oh I think there will be adjustments, I think people will have listened in terms of making sure that the, that the big fears of people losing out, of disadvantaged families being hit, all of those things need to be taken account of.

That is just damned good common sense. And it's also good politics. And we need common sense and we need good politics.

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