Lord Speaker's Corner: Lord Blunkett
26 October 2023
Hear from former Home Secretary David Blunkett - Lord Blunkett - in the latest episode of Lord Speaker's Corner.
In this episode
'We anticipated there might be a second attack, particularly on the City of London.'
In this episode, Lord Blunkett discusses a range of topics including the government's immediate response to the tragic events of 9/11, clashing with the Lords over measures introduced post the attacks and how his opinion of the second chamber has subsequently changed.
'There were times, particularly when I was at the Home Office, when the House of Lords asked us to think again and we actually did. And the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act, which was the aftermath of 11 September, was a much better piece of legislation - much more balanced, much more effective - than it would've been had we not listened to the House of Lords with the expertise that existed there.'
Lord Blunkett is one of two members of the Lords who use guide dogs, and he explains how important they have been to him. He also talks about his 36-year career in Parliament, his time as Education Secretary and what he thinks is the reason he has got to where he is today - 'sheer pigheadedness', having rejected advice to aim for work in 'piano tuning or telephony or secretarial.'
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Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Lord Blunkett, David, welcome to this Lord Speaker's Corner. I'm delighted that you were able to make it. You've been in politics for 50 years and you've held a number of the most important jobs in the country, both at local level when you were leader of Sheffield City Council, but also at national level in the Cabinet in education and home affairs and others. That's a long span. Where did you feel more satisfied? What job?
Lord Blunkett:
Well, firstly, thank you for inviting me. I'm very pleased to participate. It's a difficult question because at each level you feel that you've made a contribution and you're very pleased and proud of it, or on very rare occasions you're in despair that you got it wrong. I think I'd put it this way, there were three occasions when I knew that I was really proud of being there. Firstly, as leader of Sheffield, we introduced together with the local authorities around the area, a transport policy, which was adopted eventually by what was the Greater London Council, and was a phenomenal success. The second would be at education. I was so, so pleased to have had four years to actually be able to implement policies from the introduction of Sure Start, which I did with the late Tessa Jowell, I was at education, she was a junior minister in health, and we combined it so that it was a joint program.
We introduced the first ever nursery program across the country, which gave all four-year-olds and then eventually three-year-olds a nursery education place. And we transformed - at least we started the transformation - of primary education. So 400,000 youngsters were reaching the appropriate level at the age of 11 by the time I left. Now, those are privileges that you really only get the chance to do once in life. Home Office was very different. The attack on the World Trade Center and beyond on the 11th of September 2001 totally dislocated what I actually wanted to do. I got back to it eventually, but it was a seminal period and the major challenge then was obviously to secure the wellbeing of our country. And although I found it really difficult, I would certainly not have swapped it because you really, as a politician, you always anchor to be at the centre of things.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
And education, obviously it was satisfying and I've read that in a number of interviews that you've had. But I was in the whips’ office at the time, David, and I remember getting messages on the wire that David Blunkett was not happy with the amendments which were not backed in the House of Lords. Now, nobody said he wanted to abolish the House of Lords, but you're now in here. Give us your views on both chambers.
Lord Blunkett:
Well, I'm very fortunate that I never said anything that would make me a hypocrite about the House of Lords. In fact, I ended up in my latter period as an MP in defending the Lords and particularly against what I thought would've been a quite dangerous constitutional change. But in those days, like every other politician who's cutting their teeth in senior office, I didn't like the challenges. And at education, I used to get quite bumptious about what was being thrown back. We had the most enormous majority you will recall in the House of Commons, pretty well unprecedented. And that meant actually that the House of Lords was even more important, which I didn't fully acknowledge at the time, but I certainly do now in terms of the checks and balances that we provide in our constitution. And although it's unwritten, it is absolutely fundamental because simply rollercoastering over everybody is what a former Lord Chancellor once called elective dictatorship.
And we've got to avoid that so that minority voices are heard, people are able to think again. And there were times, particularly when I was at the home office where the House of Lords asked us to think again and we actually did. And the bill that came out of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act, which was the aftermath of the 11th of September, was a much better piece of legislation, much more balanced, much more effective than it would've been had we not listened to the House of Lords with the expertise that existed there. So gradually, John, I was won over to the idea that plurality and having the chance to think again and being challenged is a good thing, not a bad thing. And you have to build your confidence to be able to do that. I always say that people who don't like challenge are often the ones who are least certain about where they're going and what they're doing and find that opposition quite difficult to handle. And the more mature you get and the more confident you are, the better you are at being able to deal with that.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
And Keir Starmer has asked you to do a substantial report on skills, which I believe you're talking at an education conference later in the week and you focus on technical and vocational education and want that streamlined. You and I have known the distinction between technical and vocational where when we were at school, we had the academic stream and then the others went to technical. But Lord Baker in the House of Lords has been advocating the importance of that. And you're doing that in your report here. Give us your views on that.
Lord Blunkett:
Well, Keir Starmer said, would I produce a report on learning and skills? And I think he thought I'd produce about 20 pages, and I ended up-
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
137?
Lord Blunkett:
Well, 137 pages and 25 recommendations - working with others. I produced the final report, but others were instrumental in giving advice and support. And what I tried to lay out was that if we're going to get this right for the future, we have to take on the challenge of artificial intelligence or robotics. We need to look to a world, what I'm describing at the university's conference I'm speaking at, as the Leonardo da Vinci moment where you place emphasis on both the technical and vocational on the one hand and the cultural and academic on the other. And, of course, back at the end of the 15th, beginning of the 16th century, that example was an exemplar, I think for us now. And what I'd like us to do is to see a vocational element in the academic, the scholarship elements of higher education and an academic opportunity for those who are taking vocational and technical education courses so that people can develop.
We take for granted that medicine is both academic and vocational. Engineering is both academic and vocational. What we don't see is that in construction, in healthcare, in the challenges of net zero, we're going to have to mix the vocational and the academic because people are going to have to think entirely differently about how the world of work is operating, how they're delivering services. They're going to be operating robots, they're going to be writing programs, they're going to have to be digitally competent as well as literate and numerate. And we've got to revise the curriculum in the way we deal with post-16 to take on the challenge of the mid 21st century rather than 19th century.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Absolutely. Home affairs, you were only a few months in post until 9/11 struck, as you mentioned. Could you describe to us, first of all, how did you feel at the centre of that global storm and how did you devise the UK response to the terrorist threat? Some people would say, looking at your progress that you're a bit of a hard-liner on terrorism. So give us a view.
Lord Blunkett:
Well, I'd been in office three months. We'd already started what I'd set out as a positive agenda for our second term in office. And then the attack struck. I was actually speaking at a conference in Warwick University about police reform of all things. And I was on the train coming back and received a message firstly by my son actually who saw what was happening through a window of a shop - in those days televisions were sold in that way. And then the security staff saying, 'Downing Street want to talk to you.' And the message was very clear, 'can you get straight back? We're going to hold a meeting.' They call it COBRA, but of course it's committee room, briefing room A, it's Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. And we gathered in the late afternoon, early evening. And my job was domestic security, so I had to do two things.
One was to reassure the public that we'd got a grip, that we knew what we were doing and that people could stay calm. And then secondly, to work with MI5, our domestic security service, and the relevant parts of the police service to ensure that we'd taken every step just in case. And we anticipated there might be a second attack, particularly on the City of London. And we were quite surprised that there wasn't, because the logic of what they'd done in New York was that they'd hit Europe as well. So in that Cabinet meeting, firstly I was very reassured as I didn't need to be, that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in their respective roles had already decided that we would exude calmness and that we'd reassure people so that they would go to work or to leisure, because if the economy had ground to a standstill, then Al-Qaeda would've got their way. And then to work with partners in Europe and of course directly with America on what steps we might take.
And the first thing I had to do was to get out there and reassure people that we were on it and we knew what we were doing. Secondly, to get immediate steps in place. And thirdly, then this legislation, the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act. And the difficulty there was this balance between maintaining civil liberties and human rights because if they were deteriorated badly, then again Al-Qaeda would've won because our democracy would've undermined itself. But secondly, to ensure that we got the legislative measures on things from the Treasury like anti-money laundering, because quite a lot of money was clearly going into funding terrorism. On the policing and security side, that they had the powers to be able to intercept with proper oversight what was the emerging technologies of the internet and the beginnings of the explosion in mobile and social media. It was just at the very starting point. And to be, in other words, to be as savvy as the people we were dealing with in terms of those new means of communication, new means of sending messages, new means of organisation.
And that was quite difficult. And yes, I was tough because the one thing that overrides everything else as you and I know from being in government is the security of the nation. If the government aren't on top of that, then people will lose faith in democracy and that would be an absolute disaster.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
You mentioned in a number of articles that today's politicians can learn what we got wrong as well as what we got right. I feel like that for my own part as well. But if we go back to the 9/11, the terror threat, the Proceeds of Crime Bill of 2003 came in and from the vantage point of being chair of the Treasury Committee, I don't think that worked very well at the end of the day-
Lord Blunkett:
No.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
... David. And if I could combine that with say the other issues, identity cards and others, some would say that identity cards, you got frustrated with that and it wasn't implemented, but given the present environment... For example, I came down on the plane on Monday and the attendant said I couldn't go on the plane if I didn't have identification. So I pulled out the House of Lords-
Lord Blunkett:
I hope it worked.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
... it did work in this occasion, but we're in a society where there's an awful lot of surveillance now. Could you maybe look at that 2003 act and what I think maybe you got wrong, but also the ID cards?
Lord Blunkett:
Yeah, I think the implementation of the Proceeds of Crime Act went very badly wrong and was frustrating for all of us. It was partly because this was real cutting-edge legislation. This was about being able to confiscate the resources, the assets of those who had no legitimate means of describing where they'd got that wealth and those assets from. And we're still struggling with that today, by the way, in terms of the international profile of money laundering and what we're asking the banks and other institutions to do to try and help police a situation. We got it wrong because other than Republic of Ireland, no one had actually experimented with this before and the police were quite reluctant to use it, and I don't think they were trained properly to do so anyway. We set up an agency that became a bureaucracy rather than a tool for speedy and effective implementation.
And I think we didn't make it clear enough to everyone involved just what this was all about. And it was about where you knew criminals or those who were associated with raising funds for terrorism, but you didn't have the normal legal requirements to be able to prove that they were obtained by criminal means. So using the powers that we gave and they've been updated since, to actually be able to intervene and demand from those individuals proof of where the resources came from was an entirely different approach. And I don't think we were smart enough in understanding how difficult that was going to be and here we are today. So yes, when you're introducing something new, you sometimes have to take a step back and think again. And identity cards would be a good example because we had overwhelming support from 2004 onwards when I started to introduce this, which gradually eroded to the point where the coalition government did away with them.
But actually if I had my time again, I'd have simply used the passport system coupled with driving licenses, which are now, of course, not paper anymore because over 80% of our population, adult population have a passport - that's the highest density in the world - 43 million people, not me, of course, but 43 million people have a driving license. We could really do that in a way that is highly convenient, doesn't ask for information that's not all readily available for passports and driving licenses. And we could take out all the difficulty that people face. Most young people now are entirely used to giving out their information. In fact, Twitter, which is now called X, are actually seeking permission to be able to use that information themselves. Others download information that people put on their smartphones and their interaction with each other without that permission.
And I'd like it to be codified so that we knew what we were doing. In that way we can stop the organised criminals capturing people in modern slavery, which they will do as people don't claim asylum because they're barred from claiming asylum if they get into this country and they disappear into the ether. And then how do they access public services? How do they access legitimate jobs and how do we protect ourselves from the exploitation that goes with the undercutting of jobs and services in the sub economy? These are big issues for the future and I think we're going to have to come back to them.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
And you think the House of Lords is in a good position with the experience here?
Lord Blunkett:
Well, here's the rub. The House of Lords are much more enthusiastic every time this issue comes up on the floor of the House of Lords. There's great enthusiasm for examining this, and it's partly that the capacity of the House of Lords to look at the big picture, to look at issues down the line, to actually hear expertise in the chamber and in select committees to be able to spend time examining those issues is far more possible than it is in the House of Commons. You and I have been in both. We know that in the House of Commons on a day-to-day basis, you're dealing with immediate issues, whether it's governments trying to get their legislation through and understandably timetabling them. So there are guillotines, the lack of capacity for committees to be able to deal with that legislative scrutiny in the way that we can in this House. Sometimes we overdo it.
The amount of time we spent on the Levelling-up Bill, for instance, is an example where I've never experienced anything quite like it going into the early hours on committee, never mind report stage, but it does actually hold the government to account because ministers in the Lords who have a really difficult time having to answer technical questions, deep questions that have not been dealt with as the legislation went through the Commons. And this means that they have to go back to the department, seek answers, accept when things are clearly not right and people don't see do they, that it's not just whether we win votes in the Lords and send amendments back to the Commons and have them overturned. It's very often that the government quite rightly hear what's been said on the floor of the House. Think again, civil servants come back with an alternative, and the government themselves then move amendments that they've not had the space, time or the capacity to move in the House of Commons. So we're doing a job behind the scenes, which you are really well aware of, that half the population have never heard of.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Exactly.
Lord Blunkett:
They just don't know that that's what we're doing.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
If I remember correctly, the Constitution Unit stated that over 55% of the amendments that were successfully moved in the House of Commons had their origin in the House of Lords. And they did it by that civilised engagement, by the government listening, by them coming back. So from my point of view as Lord Speaker, it's a bit erroneous to say that the House of Lords is just about voting the government down on amendments. It's a much more consensual approach. Would you agree?
Lord Blunkett:
Oh, completely. Many of the really big issues that are debated and amended are totally cross party. And if you think that for instance, the official opposition, Labour Party, have less peers, fewer peers I should say, than the crossbenches and the Conservatives have vastly marked more peers than any other party. You get the picture that it has to be by consensus to have carried these amendments at all. Labour and Lib Dem together can't carry amendments in the House of Lords. So I think people need to understand the consensuality that you've described is a positive, not a negative. We haven't taken the party politics out of the House of Lords, but we're using the experience both political and in all kinds of areas from science and education to the environment and climate change right across the board, we're using that experience to actually say, we might not be against what you're trying to do, but you're doing it in the wrong way and it's not going to work. And I would say that by the way, but I would, wouldn't I? About the Illegal Migration Bill.
We know what the government are trying to do, we know what the issues are, but we're trying to say, and we were trying to say until the bill became an act, there are other ways of doing this and this isn't going to work. So from a constitutional point of view, having a second chamber that isn't bedevilled by simply having party whips being able to force people through the lobbies is vital. It's why, by the way, I'm not in favour of a directly elected second chamber, not just because I'm against gridlock and what happens in the United States whose constitution is now completely out of date, but because actually if you put people in on a purely party basis, they will act on a purely party basis irrespective of the other arguments about claiming that the legitimacy and consent which election gives them. And if it was on a proportionate, which it would have to be in terms of regions and nations, a proportional basis, probably would start to claim they had greater consent and legitimacy than the House of Commons. And I don't think any of us should go down that road.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Yeah. Well, if I remember correctly, the House of Representatives in America was established before the Senate, but some people would say it's the Senate, it's the most influential and most powerful body there.
Lord Blunkett:
Yeah, absolutely. And the most stable, House of Representative's a two-year term, which-
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Exactly.
Lord Blunkett:
... most of which is taken up fundraising and campaigning. And the Senate are in on a phased basis. So you have continuity. And we do provide in a bizarre way, I wouldn't argue for a minute that this institution of ours is not an anachronism, but it works and it could work a lot better if we had the kind of minor reforms, which again, across the House people are agreeable to if only the government would give the nod, and I'm talking about any incoming government as well, we could reform ourselves very well and make this House more effective. I think more legitimate in the sense that people would understand what we were doing better and the profile and the reputation of the House would be better. And then we can have the arguments down the line. If people don't agree with what you and I believe that's fine, but let's have the arguments on a basis of understanding and of information and of real fact rather than just a knee-jerk reaction that nothing is truly democratic unless it mirrors the House of Commons.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Yeah. In a couple of weeks I'm giving a lecture at the Royal Society of Arts. So I'll send you a copy, David, and we'll have a good coffee somewhere and have a chat about it-
Lord Blunkett:
That'd be a very nice John!
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Now, I don't want to beat you about the head in terms of failures, but I've got to bring up the IPP - indeterminate sentences.
Lord Blunkett:
Yeah.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Now, you have been very explicit that you got it wrong. It's been abolished since 2012, but there are still over 3,000 people still in prison. Now, I don't want to seek your views on it at the moment. I'm interested in terms of the machinery of government and the principles being put into practice. How did that happen, David?
Lord Blunkett:
This for those viewing, listening is about indeterminate sentences, which did exist before 2003, but not on the basis of a clear pathway for people to be able to demonstrate that they were in the jargon 'safe'. And the arguments were about the nature of risk and whether people who were clearly at risk to the community should simply be allowed out on what are called determinant sentences, namely you get the sentence you serve it and no matter what situation you're in, you're let out. And we came up with the idea which arose from a detailed report called the Halliday Report, which I inherited from my predecessor, Jack Straw, that we should look at the idea of giving judges an alternative, which would be an imprisonment for public protection, where the prisoner would receive therapies and courses, they would then present to the parole board that they were no longer a risk and they would be allowed out.
It went really, really badly wrong. It went wrong for a number of reasons. Firstly, ironically, we didn't have sufficient debate around it either in the Commons or the Lords because this was an enormous piece of legislation, the Criminal Justice and Sentencing Act 2003. On every other area, I'm very proud of it. It was a seminal piece of legislation. On this we needed more time. And I think pre-legislative scrutiny would've helped enormously. We've started to have it but not enough. And the House of Lords could do pre-legislative scrutiny through committees, and I think in a very effective way that would've highlighted some of the dangers. Dangers like judges thinking that because this was part of a new act, they automatically had to implement it and use it. Secondly, what was the role of the sentencing council, which was chaired by the Lord Chief Justice, in terms of giving guidance and the kind of training needed to make this work? And thirdly, where we serious about putting the resources in to make it work?
And on all those counts, we fell down, no question about it. And I've spent many years now, as you know, because we have debates and questions all the time on this issue in the Lords, which is entirely right. It is the kind of issue where things have gone wrong, that the Lords, again, can play a part in the way that the Commons can't. We're like terriers. There's a group of us who are determined to try and bring about improvement and change. And I think as we speak, because we've had so many justice secretaries, I can't even count how many since 2010, we think that the current Justice Secretary is listening and we have been on the verge of getting improvement and then the Secretary of State gets moved. So here we are in the Lords constantly raising it, making ministers go back to their colleagues and raise the issues that we've raised and the debates we are having and demonstrating a consensus across parties, which gives the governing party cover, political cover in taking difficult decisions where the opposition won't immediately exploit them.
And that's a unique position to be in for a government in a controversial area. So here we are, 11 years on, verging on 12 years on since the act was overturned, and we've still got the best part of 3000 people still subject to that legislation, just under half of them still in prison. And it's just not worked. So sometimes you have to put your hands up and say, we had the best intentions, the process didn't work, we got it wrong, and we need processes that can speedily put something right.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
So the machinery of governing, that's a big issue here for you.
Lord Blunkett:
Absolutely right. And that's why looking at how our parliament works is fundamental to updating our democracy and retaining confidence in our democracy. And whilst I believe in participative democracy and the way citizens are enabled at local and national level to be able to participate, I think getting the processes of our Parliament right is fundamental to updating our constitution and making it work for a new era. And something as simple as pre-legislative scrutiny is really fundamental. You might not want to pre-legislative scrutiny the whole of an act. The Online Safety Bill, massive piece of legislation, the Levelling-up Bill, almost a leviathan piece of legislation where the content gets lost in the whole. But you might want to pick out as we should have done with IPP, the specific issues that may be tricky in terms of the intention and the delivery or the controversy around how that infringes other parts of the criminal justice system in this case. So we could pick pieces out and joint committees, we have some joint committees, we have-
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Human rights.
Lord Blunkett:
... human rights joint committee. We had it on the legislative scrutiny of, dare I mention it, the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Don't remind me.
Lord Blunkett:
Where very, very good things were raised. I was on that scrutiny committee. Sadly things have gone astray since, but it's entirely not down to the Lord Speaker. It has to be said where actually the House of Lords in many ways, in my view, I use the term deliberately, are more progressive, more forward-thinking. And at that point, Lord Speaker-
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
David, I've got to-
Lord Blunkett:
The bell's gone for a vote.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
... I've got to interrupt and you've got to go and do your business. And this is a good illustration at 12 noon that not only do we start early, but we ensure that we've got the legislation tested. So after you've tested that legislation, you're welcome back, David.
Lord Blunkett:
Well, I'm very grateful to you and I'm in favour of earlier starts on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. So here we are on a Wednesday in civilised time, casting votes and I better get the dog harnessed and get off to go through the lobbies and put my card against the touch screen as quickly as possible.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Good. And it's Barley who's the-
Lord Blunkett:
Barley, the dog, he's ready and willing to do it.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Great. Okay, we'll see you soon, David.
Lord Blunkett:
Thank you very much, John.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Thank you all for-
Lord Blunkett:
If only Barley had a vote, we'd be well away.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
But we'll see you soon. We'll come back.
Lord Blunkett:
Thank you very much indeed.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Thank you.
Lord Blunkett:
Thank you.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Good. David, you've had the toughest of beginnings. At an early age you lost your father to an industrial accident, you left school early with little qualifications. What in your character, given how disability was treated 50, 60 years ago, what in your character enabled you to overcome these obstacles?
Lord Blunkett:
I think the honest answer is pig-headedness. Pig-headedness has stood me in good stead in terms of overcoming those early challenges, deciding that I was going to use education as the ladder, the escalator out of poverty and disadvantage and-
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Yeah, but imagine the environment which you were brought up, the societal environment would not think that you would go ahead with education and get to university.
Lord Blunkett:
No, the offer that was made to me at the time was piano tuning or telephony or secretarial. Now I took the secretarial course immediately post-16, because I had it in my head that if I could communicate well and I could use braille shorthand, it would come in handy. But I had no desire whatsoever to end up doing that as a job, although I did for two years and they gave me day release from work and I took a business studies qualification and in the evening I went and did A levels. So the system worked in the sense that people enabled me to use my tenacity and my, I think you describe it as driven desire to succeed, but I couldn't have done it without other people. So it's a two-way street.
You've got to put the effort in, but other people and society have got to be around you, giving you those opportunities. That's my set of values in philosophy, in terms of how we should proceed. And I was fortunate because I had those opportunities and although obviously there were ups and downs, I got to university by the age of 22, by which time I was already looking to what I might do in politics.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
You were a councillor at 22, weren't you?
Lord Blunkett:
Yes. At the end of my first year at university, the opportunity came up in the ward in which I lived with my mum and someone left who was going to be the candidate and they went to South Wales for their job and they said, we'll give you a go, which was incredible really because I was the youngest by at least 25 years on the council at the time. It's all changed since, but it was like that then, and I couldn't see and I was untried and they took a risk and that was the beginning. So other people, again, having confidence and being willing to give me a chance and I think that's what we're about, isn't it? Our drive for equality is about giving people the chance, the machinery and the mechanisms, the processes, the backing to make that chance viable and then supporting them through it.
And the corollary of that is they get off their bum and they do something themselves. In my case, it doesn't always work, but in my case it worked, and it inculcated in me a real belief that education was the fundamental driver and it has done ever since. And as you had gathered from what I'm saying and what I've done, I'm still heavily involved in that today.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
In fact, our paths accord in that I left school early and went to night school and it was the teachers in night school that gave me the support and enthusiasm for going forward. So other people are very important to your progress.
Lord Blunkett:
One teacher came down to the technical college, which wasn't outside the school, the school I was at post 16, came down one night a week in his own time so that I could get O level physics before I started to do the A levels. And I knew I needed a science and I don't think they'd have been too happy with me doing chemistry, because I think that probably would have blown the place up.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
By the way, I was a chemistry teacher. Don't worry-
Lord Blunkett:
Well, there we are, you see? So you'd know that a blind child mixing various concoctions together, it was probably not a good idea. I didn't fancy the entrails of small animals, so I didn't do biology.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Biology.
Lord Blunkett:
Physics was horrendous. How I passed it, I do not know. Well, I think it was probably a combination of a very good memory for things I just had to repeat and the capacity, the beginnings of the capacity as a politician, John, to be able to write the answers so ambiguously knowing that the examiner knew the answer and presuming that they'd give me the benefit of the doubt.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Okay, your determination from being young up to now, it wasn't with the endpoint ambition of ending up in the houses of privilege, which some people would say so demolish that aspect.
Lord Blunkett:
Never ever thought of the House of Lords. Never crossed my mind. My mum would've been really chuffed if she'd been alive. She was worried when I became leader of Sheffield because of the bricks and everything that, metaphorically were being thrown at me at the time and the rough and tumble of politics, she'd have been very proud, but I never had the first idea about the House of Lords and I think in my early years, yeah, I think I probably would've wanted not to have an elected House of Lords, I probably would've wanted to abolish it.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Yeah. But take on that point about this being a House of privilege, David, what's your experience?
Lord Blunkett:
I don't think it is. I think it was when clearly it was a wholly hereditary House. Since 1958 gradually that has been removed down to the 92, two of them are ceremonial, let's call it 90 who remain. And the changes that have taken place, it still has an ethos of the past and you either adapt to it and try gradually like a tortoise to move it along in the House. I think on the restoration and renewal, I use the analogy of the hare and the tortoise, and I'm afraid we have to deal with the House of Lords as being the tortoise. So you get your hair shot if you think you're going to win by rushing ahead. We all adapt a little to that, but in doing so, we also push it along. So I think even in the eight years I've been in currently, the House of Lords has changed and it changes for the better I think in terms of gradualism. So anybody coming in to think they're going to throw the place open, everybody's going to bow down and listen to them. Got another think coming.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Good. The percentage of people in the House of Lords with a disability is greater than the House of Commons. You're a shining example of that, someone with a disability that's come in, but you've been very clear that you do not want to be seen as a voice for the disabled. Why is that?
Lord Blunkett:
I think the issues of disability and equality are ones for us all. And whilst this was true when I first became a cabinet minister, because I had overall responsibility for disability issues, whilst I will do everything to support and enable others to have their voice heard and to bring about change, I think the moment I say that I'm the spokesperson is the moment that I become the spokesperson. And that takes away the very raison d'etre of enabling others to have that voice and not for me to become typecast. If I had then all the other things that I've been able to do would've had to take second place. So as Secretary of State for education and employment, I introduced the Disability Rights Commission, which was then incorporated in the EHCR in 2010.
We updated the Disability Discrimination Act. We introduced measures in terms of special schools and the education needed for those who had additional needs. So I was able to do things, but I did them with and through other people, and I think the message for all of us, and it is true of any campaigning program, is if you narrow it down to those who have a particular requirement or a particular interest being the only ones who are seen as the spokespeople or can be heard on that issue, you've lost the plot.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Yeah, very good. Trust in politics. Pretty low at the moment. 10 years ago you published a book, Defence of Politics Revisited. You're still involved in Sheffield University and other voluntary groups on that. What do we need to do to increase the public faith, or is a distrust in politics just something we have to live with? The politicians are never going to be the most popular, but can something positive be done?
Lord Blunkett:
Well, self-evidently, the first and most fundamental thing is how we in formal upfront politics behave, how we conduct ourselves. We've had lots of debates in here about this because again, led by a member of the House of Lords, the committees making recommendations on improvements to the way in which we deal with ourselves in the Commons and the Lords is critical. Secondly to information and education fundamental, very difficult because, of course, quite rightly, those in the fourth estate who hold us to account in the media and social media, the old media and the new media, are highly sceptical and that will always be the case and we've got to be able to deal with that. But thirdly, I think we've got to have a much more focused input at school and college level. I introduced the first national curriculum on citizenship and democracy back in 2001, which was implemented in 2002, and it has worked in part, there are many schools, about a third of secondary schools teaching this really well.
A lot is down to the head teacher and we need a focused approach to say, let's give teachers the best possible material and let us make the syllabus on this easier, but let us ensure that all schools understand the critical importance that they're growing an active citizen, they're growing an adult who will play a part in society. And if those adults don't know how democracy works or doesn't work, where power lies and how to influence it, then they're at a major disadvantage. And the haves already know. So it's a bit like the Donald Rumsfeld, who used to be the Defence Secretary of the States who talked about the known unknowns. Those who know are in the know and they keep their hands on the levers of power, and those who don't find themselves excluded and often are the most sceptical about our formal democratic processes.
So good education at school and college level could make a contribution, but in the end, every one of us, in every speech we make in our behaviour in the House and outside in the political arena, we've got a part to play winning people back to believing that what we're doing is not only worthwhile, but it's an absolute imperative to stopping something very, very much worse.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Good. And you've mentioned the subjects of civic engagement and a communitarian approach in your speeches and your comments, what could Parliament both Lords and Commons do as an institution to further engage civic society? Because the more engagement there is, the more understanding there is, and therefore the tolerance levels work.
Lord Blunkett:
Yeah, our education service and outreach are very good and have improved enormously over the last decade or so in terms of Parliament, lots of young people coming in, lots of outreach in terms of online and support that you've given in terms of MPs and peers going into schools and colleges. But much more than that with our own officials actually being prepared to go and give talks and lectures. And I think there's a lot more we could do in terms of modern means of communication, the putting together of programs. We don't have the resource, of course, John, in the Lords to do the things we'd immediately want to do. But even a contribution like this podcast, like the initiative you've taken is a small contribution and small contributions, acorns create oak trees. And if we can put those together and we can get across what I've just said and link it so that schools and colleges and the work they're doing linked to the outreach and the education service here, then so much the better.
And I think that what we could also do is to ensure that Parliament is, and there have been changes here, more accessible than it's ever been, so that when we're serving on select committees, which I now do, we actually think all the time, how can we get these messages across and with a very small communications team to try and make that happen? Great reports produced in this place, which don't get a hearing because nobody knows about them. We had a select committee, which I served on under a Conservative peer Robin Hodgson on citizenship and civic engagement. And what we've tried to do in the five years since we produced the report was to keep harrowing everybody to keep coming back to it, including you in terms of-
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Absolutely. You've come to see me a few times-
Lord Blunkett:
I have indeed and the Liaison Committee that we have and trying to get ministers to come back and answer, and other agencies like the Office for Standards in Education to get across some of those messages. If we had a committee combined of all groups in the House, total unanimity of purpose, willingness to follow that through, that's a symbol of how this House works at its best.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Yeah, exactly. You have an acute sense of contemporary society, but there's always a bit of you that's looking forward. Let's say after the next election, if the opportunity, given the circumstances, was offered to you to participate in a government of your liking, what would you do? Would you say, 'no, I'm too old. I'm just going to sit back?'
Lord Blunkett:
No, I wouldn't say I was too old because you're as old as you feel. But what I would say is that I had my opportunity, I had those wonderful eight years in cabinet at a particular moment in time when my talent and energy levels and experience were needed. But what I would like to do is to say to an incoming cabinet and ministers, 'if there's anything you want to talk about that I've had experience of, not just in government but more widely, and you'd like a cup of tea, and knowing that you may take absolutely no notice, then please let's do it' because we lose that experience at our peril. And that means I wouldn't be interfering, I wouldn't be second guessing, I wouldn't be trying to repeat my career if you like in politics, but I would like to try and carry forward the experiences and the knowledge that I've gained over those years.
And that wouldn't be saying, let's go backwards. That would be saying with all the pitfalls, all the elephant traps, all the possibilities of the future, let's draw on the past but not live in it. Let's look to the future by actually understanding history. And by God, I wouldn't be sitting here today if Adolf Hitler had understood history, because he'd have never gone into the Soviet Union at the particular time of year and in the way he did. And it's a thought.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Yeah, I've always put a stress on closer engagement with the House of Commons and Mr. Speaker and I work very well in that area, and I want to get it across that we look at Parliament rather than just the House of Lords and the House of Commons on that. But members of the House of Commons I've spoken to. I've always felt that there was a positive element to them, and I would like to do more to engage both Houses. What ideas have you got?
Lord Blunkett:
I think as part of the induction of Members of Parliament in the Commons, because obviously if we're alive, we'll still be here, after a general election, should include an element of that induction in terms of the workings of the two houses together. There's very poor induction anyway. A lot of it is about where your office is, how you connect with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the proceedings of the House, get that completely, but a small element about how we work together, what the role of the Lords is would not come amiss, and it would help you and the Speaker of the Commons to be able to emphasise that this is a Parliament. There are two houses, but this is our parliament and it is unique because we don't have an executive outside the Parliament, executive is within the Parliament, so we don't have a presidency. We're not an assembly in that sense, as with the French or with the House of Representatives in the States. We are special and we're special in anachronistic ways, as I've described, but we're also a useful template.
And if we could improve what we're doing substantially, I think we could enhance the standing and understanding of our democracy.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
The late Martin Luther King said that his advice was to young people and others, 'when you wake up in the morning, ask what you can do for others, when you go to bed at night, ask what you've done.' What's your advice to young people for the future, David?
Lord Blunkett:
Believe that in even the smallest way, you can make the world a better place. And if it's a better place for you, it's a better place for others around you. So don't take no for an answer, participate when you can, get a life, because quite often young people get involved in politics and it burns them out and it destroys their relationships. And it nearly happened to me. Get a life, get a future, but please stay engaged because if you don't engage with decision-making, if you don't vote, somebody else is voting for you. Somebody else is making the decisions for you. And in the end, why grumble if you've disengaged?
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Okay, we were brought up in the tales of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Now that I've got you here, we've got David Blunkett and the Seven Dogs, whether it's Ruby, Teddy, Offer, Lucy, Sadie, Cosby, and now Barley.
Lord Blunkett:
[Laughs] Yeah.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
How important have these been to you in your life?
Lord Blunkett:
Absolutely crucial. I got my first dog as I went to university, and they've been a source of mobility clearly, but also dignity and independence because in the five months when one of my dogs died, Cosby died and I was waiting for a replacement dog. Very lucky, because this was way couple of years before COVID and things were working well.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
2018, wasn't it?
Lord Blunkett:
Yeah, 2018. And things were working well in terms of replacement dogs. But in those months, I found out a great deal about myself, about the relationship with others, about obstacles in this place that I'd never come across before. It was a life-changing experience in those months, and I was so very pleased and so privileged to have got a replacement dog at a time that made it possible for me to have retained my confidence because that's really important in terms of mobility, just getting about, my physical wellbeing so that I could take on a dog, because it's a big challenge. Dogs walk at their pace. Although I actually have a two-gear dog, because I can slow him down and speed him up with a little word, but actually the dog walks as the dog wants to walk. That's keeping me fit. Lose your fitness, lose your confidence, and you're in real difficulty.
Now, some people really happy with using a white cane. No problem with that. We have two guide dog owners in this House. We have Chris Holmes, who's a Conservative peer and myself. And I have to say that although Chris Holmes and I get on very well, our dogs don't, when they passed each other just after a vote, there's been a bit of growling and a little bit of knocking about. And I have to be very careful because my dog's bigger than his, so I don't want any accusations of bullying, otherwise I'd be in front of the committee.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
So you've got a consensual approach in the House of Lords, but the dogs with-
Lord Blunkett:
Dogs have taken a different altogether.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Exactly. They've got a really aggressive political stance to each other. [Laughter]
Lord Blunkett:
Yeah, you can manage to train a dog in many things, but you can't necessarily in their political outlook.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
David, we came into the House of Commons at the same time, 1987, and since that first day, I've had a huge admiration for you regarding your political acumen and your commitment to society as a result. So for me today, it's a real pleasure and an opportunity and privilege to have you along, along with Barley. So, thank you very much.
Lord Blunkett:
That's very, very kind of you, Lord Speaker. John, you've been my friend. I reciprocate entirely, and I'm so glad that you're doing such an excellent job as Lord Speaker.
Lord McFall of Alcluith:
Thank you, David. Now, back to voting. [Laughter]
