:00:00. > :00:11.of her last known movements. Now on BBC News, it's time for
:00:12. > :00:17.HARDtalk. Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen
:00:18. > :00:20.Sackur. The Scottish people voted 'no' to independence, but they may
:00:21. > :00:23.just have changed British politics forever. More powers are to be
:00:24. > :00:30.handed to the Scottish parliament and now English MPs want their own
:00:31. > :00:32.form of self`determination. With alienation from the Westminster
:00:33. > :00:39.status quo fuelling calls for reform, is the UK in the throes of a
:00:40. > :00:48.dangerous identity crisis? My guest is former cabinet minister, Lord
:00:49. > :01:21.Heseltine. Lord Heseltine, welcome to
:01:22. > :01:24.HARDtalk. It has become the conventional wisdom that after all
:01:25. > :01:29.of the passion and heat of the Scottish independence referendum,
:01:30. > :01:35.the United Kingdom will have to change and will never be the same
:01:36. > :01:39.again. Do you believe that? I can't think of the period in history when
:01:40. > :01:49.it wasn't true. All of our history is one of evolution. We had a dozen
:01:50. > :01:55.kingdoms fighting each other. There have been huge historic evolution
:01:56. > :02:01.over the centuries `` has. I don't think the Scottish Referendum has
:02:02. > :02:06.actually done anything other than to accelerate changes that were well
:02:07. > :02:11.under way and long overdue from my vantage point. David Cameron invite
:02:12. > :02:17.to me to come to Liverpool with him several years ago before he was
:02:18. > :02:25.Prime Minister. He invited me to do two reports on devolution included
:02:26. > :02:31.in the manifesto was the proposition to have mayors in big cities and he
:02:32. > :02:38.agreed to the recommendations of my report which, a few weeks ago, saw
:02:39. > :02:45.?6 billion given back to local people to make decisions. And you
:02:46. > :02:48.have always been a champion of localism within British politics and
:02:49. > :02:55.we will talk about that but it is a question of scale. I am going to
:02:56. > :03:03.quote David Cameron, now he says, after this result, which seems to be
:03:04. > :03:08.leading to substantial default powers, he says they have heard the
:03:09. > :03:12.voice of Scotland and now muster the millions of voices of England the
:03:13. > :03:15.implication being that something profoundly new is going to happen to
:03:16. > :03:23.the political arrangements for England. It is and so it should.
:03:24. > :03:27.Basically, from the view I take, it is to return power to where it was
:03:28. > :03:34.when we created the great Britain that we understand. London did not
:03:35. > :03:41.create the United Kingdom. It was part of it but Manchester,
:03:42. > :03:50.Liverpool, Newcastle, Birmingham... You were vital parts of what we are
:03:51. > :03:54.`` they. Over 150 years, London sucked the political power away from
:03:55. > :04:03.them and concentrated on itself now two things are happening first, the
:04:04. > :04:08.government wants to return it and power is going up above the
:04:09. > :04:11.nationstates have huge issues are emerging which are not easily within
:04:12. > :04:18.the grip of a nationstate to deal with. I am thinking of the rules of
:04:19. > :04:30.global capitalism. And the European Union which is a source of power
:04:31. > :04:36.which your party am a ``, has huge suspicion of. Much more important is
:04:37. > :04:41.the fact that we have global warming, international crime and
:04:42. > :04:45.drug problems, the rules of capitalism which limit what any
:04:46. > :04:52.nationstates can do. The frustration of that, of democracy seeing power
:04:53. > :04:57.drifting away and the inability of their politicians to actually do
:04:58. > :05:01.much about it, it is part of the frustration born of years of the
:05:02. > :05:06.worst economic conditions of modern times. What you're saying is
:05:07. > :05:12.interesting because you are saying that the status quo cannot hold
:05:13. > :05:23.because Adomah in the big picture and on the close picture, it will
:05:24. > :05:28.not hold ``, . I want to focus on this question of how England enjoys
:05:29. > :05:33.self`determination at the same time as it is planning to devolve powers
:05:34. > :05:39.to Scotland. The Conservatives appear to believe that the best
:05:40. > :05:43.solution is English votes on English laws and the rearrangement of
:05:44. > :05:48.Parliament so that, perhaps for a certain number of days a week,
:05:49. > :05:52.English MPs get to vote on specifically English issues and
:05:53. > :05:59.Scottish MPs and presumably the Welsh and Northern Irish as well are
:06:00. > :06:02.locked out. Is that workable? I think it is workable and desirable
:06:03. > :06:11.but I don't like the word block out. `` locked out. They would have
:06:12. > :06:15.to recognise that a great number of the powers that affect Scotland are
:06:16. > :06:20.already determined in Scotland. There is more to do for Wales and
:06:21. > :06:25.Northern Ireland. They already have serious degrees of devolution. These
:06:26. > :06:29.issues are all understood and have been on the agenda and much
:06:30. > :06:34.discussed all of my political life. But they have never been settled and
:06:35. > :06:39.nobody has ever come up with a convincing solution to the obvious
:06:40. > :06:45.problems, one of which is that you are painting a picture of a bizarre
:06:46. > :06:49.2`for`1 Parliament that is part of the time a national and sovereign
:06:50. > :06:56.Parliament and other times is only for the English. But there would be
:06:57. > :06:58.no English government answerable to that English Parliament because the
:06:59. > :07:04.government would remain a UK government. It seems to be very
:07:05. > :07:09.problematic. I think the solutions are well established. I think a
:07:10. > :07:17.self`respecting civil servant could produce, in a month, a way to
:07:18. > :07:21.resolve these issues. It won't get any easier in 18 months or ten
:07:22. > :07:27.years. These issues have been around for some time. The problem is that
:07:28. > :07:34.with all the vested interest involved, it won't get any easier. A
:07:35. > :07:39.are not one the way. `` they are not going to go away. They have to
:07:40. > :07:45.choose an option and put it to Parliament. Let me ask you a simple
:07:46. > :07:49.question. I am assuming that you were an ardent supporter of the No
:07:50. > :07:57.vote in the Scottish Referendum. You wanted to keep the union?
:07:58. > :08:03.Passionately. What sense does it make that you are now asking for
:08:04. > :08:07.greater dividing lines within the union and sending a message to
:08:08. > :08:12.Scotland which is that, frankly, devolution, yes you can have it but
:08:13. > :08:17.we are going to have it as well and the dividing line is going to get
:08:18. > :08:22.ever deeper? You have missed the key point. What the referendum was about
:08:23. > :08:30.was saying goodbye to Scotland. Separation. And I have never
:08:31. > :08:34.believed in that. Alex Salmond said that it devolution came to Scotland
:08:35. > :08:38.and the English go their own way with self`determination, the
:08:39. > :08:43.Scottish people will look around and realise that though they did not
:08:44. > :08:49.vote for it, they had de facto independence anyway. Alex Salmond
:08:50. > :08:54.has not been terribly reliable in some of the forecasts he has made
:08:55. > :09:01.and mercifully so. He has now retired. I think we should put him
:09:02. > :09:06.on one side quite frankly. What we have now got is a clear promise to
:09:07. > :09:10.devolve powers to Scotland for those things that the Scottish can more
:09:11. > :09:18.effectively determine themselves. It is a very interesting question. Is
:09:19. > :09:24.that really devolution to Edinburgh or the components of Scotland? One
:09:25. > :09:31.of the things I've found when I went to Cardiff and Edinburgh and Belfast
:09:32. > :09:34.was that the argument for devolution was actually talking about
:09:35. > :09:41.devolution to the capital city is. A replica of the London model ``
:09:42. > :09:46.cities. I think we should be spreading power to the economic
:09:47. > :09:49.centres of the various components of the United Kingdom and that is the
:09:50. > :09:53.model I think the government is working on and rightly so. When you
:09:54. > :09:59.talk about an English Parliament in all but name, you acknowledge the
:10:00. > :10:05.growing powers of the Scottish Parliament and you say we have to
:10:06. > :10:11.work on Wales as well. Is this becoming a formal federation? No.
:10:12. > :10:19.One of the curiosities of our Constitution is that it is not
:10:20. > :10:27.written. That. To change. `` that will have to change. When we get
:10:28. > :10:33.onto the model of how we operate England, the Parliament of the
:10:34. > :10:42.United Kingdom has laid down all sorts of structures, counties,
:10:43. > :10:48.districts and so forth. It is that that Parliament has determined and I
:10:49. > :10:54.don't think that makes us federal. We will, I think, find ways of
:10:55. > :11:01.establishing motives that apply to the four components. The bottom line
:11:02. > :11:06.is that England, because it dominates in terms of demographics
:11:07. > :11:09.and resources, if it has its own English Parliament it will come to
:11:10. > :11:14.be seen as entirely dominant within the United Kingdom and that is not
:11:15. > :11:20.just my thought. Significant members of your own party say that an
:11:21. > :11:26.English Parliament within Westminster is a constitutional
:11:27. > :11:31.non`sequitur. They would need to correspond with the government which
:11:32. > :11:34.this wouldn't and federal structures would control huge amounts of the
:11:35. > :11:39.population and resources and that would be so unbalanced as to make
:11:40. > :11:47.any future union unstable. That is a judgement I don't personally share.
:11:48. > :11:55.I don't think it is more profound than the belief that London today
:11:56. > :11:59.dominates the English countries. The Southeast of England has a totally
:12:00. > :12:04.disproportionate economic impact on the whole of the United Kingdom but
:12:05. > :12:11.also of the English component. That has to change? You can't change
:12:12. > :12:18.that. You can try to engineer change. You can try but you will not
:12:19. > :12:27.end up in the world today without anything other than London in the
:12:28. > :12:32.Southeast. Looking at the facts of London's dominance today I'm a a
:12:33. > :12:42.recent report said that if you look at transport in `` infrastructure
:12:43. > :12:46.investment, they get 24 times as much as the entire North of
:12:47. > :12:54.England. That has to change as part of this new deal for the United
:12:55. > :12:57.Kingdom. Six weeks ago I stopped listening to the Chancellor
:12:58. > :13:06.outlining the most imaginative transport devolution processes that
:13:07. > :13:08.I can remember linking Hull with the Mersey and creating a massive
:13:09. > :13:13.complex that would join together the great cities of the North. That is
:13:14. > :13:19.an aspiration but what we know is happening is the high`speed rail
:13:20. > :13:28.link the Queen London and Birmingham `` between London and Birmingham.
:13:29. > :13:35.The crossrail is a London project. Something of the order of ?2 billion
:13:36. > :13:40.a year. HS2 is the same sort of money and it is not about Birmingham
:13:41. > :13:44.but about Manchester and Leeds and Liverpool and possibly onwards to
:13:45. > :13:51.Scotland. One thing we could agree on, the public relations for the
:13:52. > :13:56.project about the quarter of an hour saved was a disaster but it
:13:57. > :14:02.completely missed the point. It was never about London to Birmingham.
:14:03. > :14:07.I'm trying to get to grips with how far you see this new localism
:14:08. > :14:13.going. Would you give the big cities of the United Kingdom tax raising
:14:14. > :14:21.powers? Business and property taxes? They have already been given
:14:22. > :14:23.an element of tax powers. And elements but if you look at the
:14:24. > :14:27.percentage as opposed to the national government of the UK, it is
:14:28. > :14:33.a tiny proportion of what American cities get. Would you change that? I
:14:34. > :14:37.would not go for a default tax system for many reasons. You have to
:14:38. > :14:42.have equalisation and because we have rich and poor parts of the
:14:43. > :14:56.South being much richer than the North, it would... The South still
:14:57. > :15:01.dominates? Your localism is tokenism? It is not. It is about
:15:02. > :15:05.where power and initiative should lie. And returning to the cities the
:15:06. > :15:10.power they enjoyed in the 18th and 19th centuries. They still had a
:15:11. > :15:14.central government. What you have to think about is not absolute power.
:15:15. > :15:19.You have to think about partnership and the balance of power and the way
:15:20. > :15:23.you can bring this about, it is already happening, we're talking
:15:24. > :15:30.about combined authorities with big cities, city deals and ministers
:15:31. > :15:35.were already negotiating deals on an unprecedented local basis across the
:15:36. > :15:39.United Kingdom. All you have to think about if you want to see how
:15:40. > :15:45.to make this work is to say, what are the options for going further? I
:15:46. > :15:48.could tell you what many of them are but I could gather 20 people around
:15:49. > :15:52.this table and they would all tell you because we all know what the
:15:53. > :16:04.options are. They might come up with many different solutions.
:16:05. > :16:10.They would. And I am very aware that for 30 years you have been banging
:16:11. > :16:13.the drum for a new deal for the regions, and the cities and
:16:14. > :16:16.governments come and go, and they all talk about their commitment to
:16:17. > :16:20.it, but frankly not very much gets done. Even Mr Cameron, who appointed
:16:21. > :16:23.you to come up with a new set of proposals on getting growth going in
:16:24. > :16:26.the region, he spent something like ?15 billion on local enterprise
:16:27. > :16:35.initiatives, and in the end about ?2 billion came in. No, let me remind
:16:36. > :16:39.you. I looked at what was already happening, and I came up with a
:16:40. > :16:41.figure of about ?50 billion to ?60 billion over a five`year period,
:16:42. > :16:44.that was already being hypothecated by central government for local uses
:16:45. > :16:48.through local government. Already happening. But all of that was
:16:49. > :16:54.tightly controlled as to what they could do with the money they got.
:16:55. > :16:57.What I was saying was loosen the controls, give them much more
:16:58. > :17:02.ability to initiate because they know what the problems are on the
:17:03. > :17:05.ground. The government accepted the principle of what I was doing and
:17:06. > :17:16.produced something of the order of ?12 billion. ?6 billion was
:17:17. > :17:24.allocated months ago. It is a starting point. But it shows it can
:17:25. > :17:27.be done. And the thing which is particularly exciting is that now in
:17:28. > :17:29.England there are 32 of these local enterprise partnerships. Everyone
:17:30. > :17:33.has got a plan, which they designed and which the government has started
:17:34. > :17:36.to fund the plans. It is a beginning. Now if you want to go
:17:37. > :17:41.faster, and I do, give them more discretion over their money, augment
:17:42. > :17:44.their plans. The thing is, however, over the last decade, various cities
:17:45. > :17:47.and regions in the UK have been asked if they want elected mayors
:17:48. > :17:50.with some greater real powers, spending powers and political
:17:51. > :17:58.powers. They have also been asked in the north`east of England whether
:17:59. > :18:01.they wanted a new Regional Assembly. And by and large, the answer from
:18:02. > :18:04.the public has been a resounding no, mostly because it seems they
:18:05. > :18:07.distrust politicians so much that the idea of another layer of elected
:18:08. > :18:12.political authority in their lives simply turn them off. `` turns them
:18:13. > :18:16.off. Well, we can discuss what it is. The truth is, they are bored.
:18:17. > :18:19.They are not the least bit interested in this sort of arcane
:18:20. > :18:23.administrative change. Bored or absolutely disillusioned in politics
:18:24. > :18:28.in the UK? This is semantics. You try and take the mayoralty away from
:18:29. > :18:41.London, and see what happens. Once they've got it, they can understand
:18:42. > :18:44.it. We now have mayors, we have them in Liverpool, in Leicester, we have
:18:45. > :18:47.them in Bristol, and to my judgement, on the ground, it has
:18:48. > :18:50.been a great success. The reason why it didn't work, two reasons. One is
:18:51. > :18:55.no`one quite understood what the deal was. Secondly, all the local
:18:56. > :18:59.councillors were against it because they saw that they were losing
:19:00. > :19:01.power. So, the very low turnout was actually influenced massively by
:19:02. > :19:06.local councillors with scare tactics. I mean, I read the local
:19:07. > :19:11.newspapers. I know what they were saying.
:19:12. > :19:15.Let me introduce a political element to this.
:19:16. > :19:17.The Labour Party accuses the Conservatives right now,
:19:18. > :19:21.post`Scottish referendum, of pandering. Pandering to UKIP in its
:19:22. > :19:28.desperate desire to offer up this notion of English votes for English
:19:29. > :19:31.laws. It is indeed true, is it not, that the Conservative Party right
:19:32. > :19:41.now is very concerned about UKIP and a brand of English nationalism?
:19:42. > :19:45.The accusation from the Labour Party was based, I am afraid I have to say
:19:46. > :19:48.it, on the fact they have 40 Scottish Members of Parliament that
:19:49. > :19:51.they feel will not help to support a Labour majority in the House of
:19:52. > :19:56.Commons, and therefore deprive them of power. `` not be able to support.
:19:57. > :20:00.No point in discussing anything else. That is what it is about. Just
:20:01. > :20:05.like they won't let the Boundary Commission change... I can't imagine
:20:06. > :20:08.a more partisan answer on your part. What you're saying is that the
:20:09. > :20:11.future of the United Kingdom and constitutional settlement is going
:20:12. > :20:17.to turn into another Punch and Judy show. I have never known politics
:20:18. > :20:21.kept out of politics. It is a very curious thing about politics. It is
:20:22. > :20:24.just like the Boundary Commission. The Labour Party won't be against
:20:25. > :20:28.it, just look at what Mr Callaghan in the 1960s said was when he was
:20:29. > :20:30.Home Secretary. He had to put the Boundary Commission to Parliament,
:20:31. > :20:33.and then he voted, whipped the Labour Party to vote against his own
:20:34. > :20:39.proposals. They've got form, these guys. The Conservative Party
:20:40. > :20:43.arguably has some form as well when it comes to its fear of UKIP, and
:20:44. > :20:48.its response to UKIP. Look, UKIP is a phenomenon of immigration. Let's
:20:49. > :20:51.not beat about the bush. A phenomenon of immigration and the
:20:52. > :20:53.scepticism abroad, and in much of the country, about the European
:20:54. > :21:01.Union, which you alluded to earlier. No, if you look at all the polls,
:21:02. > :21:04.there are two things. First is the background which I mentioned of
:21:05. > :21:07.seven or eight years of real hard economic times, which has created a
:21:08. > :21:10.massive disenchantment. The nation's politicians have not been able to
:21:11. > :21:13.deliver miracles. There were no miracles to deliver, but the fact is
:21:14. > :21:20.it has created massive public disenchantment. Not just in this
:21:21. > :21:23.country, you have Le Pen in France, Salmond in Scotland, it is all the
:21:24. > :21:26.same sort of stuff of frustration. Are the Conservatives right to be
:21:27. > :21:31.concerned? Of course they are. Are they right in their response? If you
:21:32. > :21:34.look at the polls, you will see that Europe is about ninth in people's
:21:35. > :21:53.preoccupation. The issue which is right at the top is immigration. I
:21:54. > :21:56.lived through Enoch Powell and he was an incomparably bigger figure
:21:57. > :22:01.than Nigel Farage, but the arguments are much the same. Dealing with
:22:02. > :22:05.immigration, there is no doubt that has to be a top agenda item, but
:22:06. > :22:07.actually doing something about it is extremely difficult. Stand at any
:22:08. > :22:11.railway station or airport and look at the scale of the problem. If one
:22:12. > :22:14.boils down UKIP's message to its most simple, one could say it is
:22:15. > :22:19.about very tight controls on immigration. It is about getting out
:22:20. > :22:22.of the European Union, it is about different forms of interventionism,
:22:23. > :22:25.and protectionism actually, in the economy, and economic management.
:22:26. > :22:29.Now I come back to this basic point. Are you satisfied with the way David
:22:30. > :22:32.Cameron is responding to what Lord Ashcroft, a key Tory donor, says is
:22:33. > :22:39.a very real threat to any real chance of the Tories winning the
:22:40. > :22:50.next election? Well, Ashcroft has his views. I want to hear your views
:22:51. > :23:00.on how David Cameron is responding. Let's see where David is on all
:23:01. > :23:09.these matters. He is 20 points ahead of Miliband in the polls. On
:23:10. > :23:12.economic management, which is the determinant in a general election,
:23:13. > :23:15.the Tories are 20 points ahead. And overall they are six points behind,
:23:16. > :23:18.fairly consistently. There are various polls, but in the key ones
:23:19. > :23:22.that matter in the general election, the Tories are in a very strong
:23:23. > :23:31.position. And they have an economy which is improving from the mess
:23:32. > :23:35.that Labour left behind. I just come back to this point as we close, that
:23:36. > :23:37.you said around Europe one sees a trend toward these right`wing, one
:23:38. > :23:40.can loosely say nationalist parties. That could finish the Tories'
:23:41. > :23:44.chances of winning a majority at the next election, could it not? That
:23:45. > :23:47.same trend here in the UK? Well, I think that the nation actually will
:23:48. > :23:52.respond to Cameron's leadership. He will address the European issue, and
:23:53. > :23:54.it is a very difficult issue. But just like you saw in the Scottish
:23:55. > :24:10.situation, Britain's self`interest is to be a leader in Europe. The
:24:11. > :24:13.idea that we are going to pull up stumps and leave Germany as the
:24:14. > :24:16.dominant power in Europe without any balance, the idea that in the
:24:17. > :24:19.Scottish referendum we are going to allow the French to be the only
:24:20. > :24:21.nuclear power in Europe, these arguments will not actually produce
:24:22. > :24:25.an anti`European majority. We will have to end there. Lord Heseltine,
:24:26. > :24:49.thank you for being on HARDtalk. And you, thank you very much.
:24:50. > :24:54.It is an improving story for the end of the week. If you begin cloudy and
:24:55. > :24:55.damp, things will improve quite