Eric Pickles interview
ROBERT WATTS and PATRICK HENNESSY A TERRACOTTA bust of the 19th century Tory prime minister Benjamin Disraeli glowers over the burly shoulders of Eric Pickles as he sits at his desk, labouring away at reforming Britain’s planning system and dragging town halls into the 21st century.
“There’s a little Gladstone bust over there too … just to remind me who we are in coalition with,” says the Local Government Secretary, pointing to a bust of William Gladstone, the Liberal leader who sparred with Disraeli. Many Conservative supporters would say they do not need to be reminded of the Liberal Democrat element in this government.
David Cameron’s party may be riding high in the polls, but many grassroot supporters are increasingly concerned that the Prime Minister is leading a government more Lib Dem yellow that true blue Tory.
Last week Conservative association chairmen, party grandees, donors and young activists told The Sunday Telegraph they did not like the Coalition’s anti-business rhetoric. Subsidies for wind farms, planning reforms that threaten the green belt and the failure to cut red tape or taxes have also caused concern in Tory heartlands.
But today Mr Pickles, a former party chairman, insists the coalition is driving through a radical Conservative agenda and that Mr Cameron is a true “heir of Thatcher”.
And while he may have faint support for the Government’s health reforms, he has sharp words for local authorities planning to raise council tax.
THE CONSERVATIVE AGENDA
“I think when we came in, we took three big decisions,” Mr Pickles says. “One was to say that we’d be here for five years … to demonstrate that we’re serious. Secondly we said we’d tackle the deficit. Third, we said we’d be a radical government.”
He points to sweeping reforms of the welfare state and the academy schools programme as evidence of how ambitious the Government is. “If I could have a personal hero, it would be Michael Gove. He’s doing a fantastic job at getting the academies going.” In his own patch, he sees the move towards greater localism for council decisionmaking and more transparency over what local authorities spend as a truly radical Conservative agenda.
“Is the blood blue within my veins pulsing? Yes, it is. I feel proud of that. I just don’t see who could have achieved this level of radicalness … even Mrs Thatcher in full flight.”
He is more tight-lipped about the National Planning Policy Framework, which will boil 1,000 pages of planning law down to 52 pages, when it is published at the end of March – in the face of opposition from groups including the National Trust who object to its presumption in favour of development.
“I’m pretty confident that we will produce something at the end of the process which balances the need for economic growth and the need to protect our environment,” he says, suggesting that there may be some concessions.
Last weekend this newspaper disclosed that 101 of Mr Pickles’s fellow Conservative MPS had signed a letter to Mr Cameron calling for wind farm subsidies to be “dramatically” cut back.
Mr Pickles says he is taking their concerns seriously. “I think we’ve probably got that balance about right, though obviously we’ll listen very carefully to what colleagues have to say,” he says.
DAVID CAMERON
While some critics have started to doubt the Prime Minister’s Conservative credentials, Mr Pickles insists his leader is a passionate Tory, albeit one who wants to modernise his party.
The pair go back decades, first working together when Mr Cameron was in his twenties.
“I’ve known him since he was in the research department [at Conservative party headquarters] and he was a right little leader. I like to call him the Prime Minister, if I’m honest … I still haven’t lost the thrill of it.”
But is he definitely an heir of Baroness Thatcher? “Absolutely, I have no hesitation about that at all. His great gift has been understanding the importance of the health service in the nation’s psyche. I had the privilege of working close to him when I was chairman of the party.
“Never for one moment did I think he was anything other than a Conservative, and pretty much a centre-right Conservative.”
EUROPE
Mr Pickles is dismayed by the way the European Court of Human Rights has become an appeal court for terrorists and other criminals. “We currently have got the chairmanship of the Council of Europe, and we are doing our best to try and ensure that the court more accurately reflects what its original intentions were.
“It should not be a super appeal court. It should be there to deal with matters between member states.”
The court’s decision to block the extradition of Abu Qatada, the radical cleric, to his homeland of Jordan and thereby trigger his release appalls Mr Pickles. “This latest business, I mean, for goodness sake,” he says.
NHS REFORMS
The minister is less effusive about the NHS reforms limping through Parliament under the stewardship of Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary.
When asked whether now is the time for top-down NHS reform, Mr Pickles’s support sounds lukewarm: “In the last reforms, we did have quite a lot devolved to my local doctors, and it worked really well.
“I do think it is important that the health service should be a national service, but it’s got to be locally delivered.
“The person I trust most for my health, number one, is my GP. And I’ve always seen him or her as a kind of a gateway to any other services. And it’s his judgment, ultimately, or her judgment, that I would back.”
However, is this unpopular legislation actually necessary at all? “By and large, I think …Andrew was right to pause, but I think what we came up with is something that I can support.”
BINS
Although Mr Pickles has found £250million of grants for councils to help move back from fortnightly to weekly refuse collections, he stresses that the regularity of such collections should be up to local people, not central government.
“If the public are happy with a fortnightly system, and I can imagine in some rural areas that might be perfectly acceptable … It’s their decision.”
Weekly collections, he says, can be more unpleasant for poorer homeowners.
“If you live in a big detached house, and you’ve got a decent garden, you can have your rubbish miles away from your back door. But if you’re a terraced house and you’ve got your bins outside your house in the middle of August … that doesn’t seem to me to be showing respect to the public.”
Here is the paradox at the heart of his localism agenda. He may want to drive through localism, but at the same time ministers apparently cannot resist the desire to impose their will.
SLIMMING DOWN WHITEHALL
Mr Pickles speaks animatedly about slashing waste in his own department. When he took control he was asked if he would like to address civil servants at the QE2 conference centre in Westminster, at a cost of £30,000.
“Ministers used to disappear to Boisdale [a nearby Scottishthemed restaurant famed for its cigar terrace] for a working, thinking lunch. You can easily do that over a chip butty.”
The department’s headcount has been cut by 40 per cent and the number of officials ranked director-general halved from six to three. “The staff numbers have dropped so much we’re looking for tenants in this building. The seventh floor is free.”
COUNCIL TAX
He would like to see similar cost-cutting in England’s town halls — but 18 local authorities, including some run by Conservatives, have already said they will increase council tax by up to 3.5 per cent in April.
Mr Pickles has offered oneoff grants to offset the cost of a freeze, but authorities say the grants fail to reflect that a oneyear freeze will mean that revenues are lower in the future.
“Councils have no credible excuse for raising council tax,” Mr Pickles says.
He cites a report from the Local Government Association which suggests that councils could save 20 per cent of their £50billion procurement costs by shopping around.
“Many people have not received an increase in their salary last year. Local authorities can show these people they are on their side by freezing the council tax.”
He remains appalled by “absurd” salaries paid to town hall chief executives; research found that 220 council executives were paid more last year than the Prime Minister’s £142,500 basic salary.
On Mr Pickles’s watch the average council chief executive’s salary has fallen by 14 per cent.
“It became almost like this race for the England [football] manager. ‘I pay my chief executive £170,000!’ Well, we’ve got a £250,000 chief executive!’”
PERSONAL LIFE
Away from politics, Mr Pickles says he is “absolutely nuts” about bird-watching, opera and cinema.
He is an avid ipad user, although, unlike the Prime Minister, he does not play the game Angry Birds, instead preferring Plants vs Zombies, in which players throw plants at a horde of zombies intent on “eating their brains”.
“It’s my favourite - it reminds me of political life.”