Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Robert Halfon MP

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SKY NEWS, SOPHY RIDGE ON SUNDAY

SOPHY RIDGE: We’re now joined in the studio by Robert Halfon who is the Conservative Chair of the Education Select Committee, someone with plenty of ideas about how the Conservative party needs to rebrand itself. Thanks for being with us. What really struck me about going to Cambridge is the people who said I don’t really like Corbyn, I’m not a Labour voter, I support the Conservatives but actually they need to do a bit more of what Labour is doing when it comes to things like rail nationalisation or sharing wealth more equally, do you think they’re right?

ROBERT HALFON: Well I think the chap at the market spoke exactly, I think we need to be honest and recognise that some of the things that Labour are doing are speaking to the anxieties of the British people, a general sense of unfairness, the fact that many millions of our countrymen and women have struggled with the difficult economic situation so we need to be honest about that and we need to present a moral message about Conservatism. We need to show that we’re on the side of those who are struggling the most, we need to show that we are on the side of workers, we need to be seen as the social justice party and it can’t just be about Brexit, it can’t just be about economics.

SR: Do you think at the moment the Conservative party has a bit of an image problem? You represent Harlow don’t you, a kind of blue collar Conservative seat, formerly a Labour seat, how do people in Harlow view the Conservative party?

ROBERT HALFON: Well they voted for me but I think we do have a serious image problem, I think that people don’t understand what our values are, they just think we are about one thing – austerity or Brexit. They think that the Conservative party doesn’t speak for people who have real difficulties in their day to day lives and I think we can turn that around and the Prime Minister to be fair did go back to being the Prime Minister of 2016 in her conference speech a couple of weeks ago, talking about the cost of living, fuel duty freeze, more council housing but we need to do a lot more.

SR: So what do you want to see? We’ve got the budget, that’s an opportunity isn’t it, what would you like to see in it?

ROBERT HALFON: Well we need to have a worker’s budget, it’s got to focus on the cost of living. We should carry on cutting tax for low earners, we’ve got to sort the Universal Credit out, it needs to be a skills budget so we should do a lot more, we should guarantee every single young person in our country an apprenticeship who wants one. We need to be the cost of living party, cutting the cost of living party, so it should be a cutting the cost of living budget. We have to do something about extortionate train fares and utility bills. The government has done some good things that I’ve recognised but there is a lot more that we need to do and above all we need to present a narrative, not just have a series of clothes pegs without a washing line.

SR: It all sounds expensive, do you think we need to borrow a bit more?

ROBERT HALFON: It may be that we need to borrow more in terms of capital funding to build our infrastructure, new hospitals, our roads but actually I think we can manage the existing budget better. So for example people in my constituency of Harlow can’t understand why we are still giving £14 billion in overseas aid when my Harlow Stroke Association or Harlow Stroke Group I should say, doesn’t have enough money and has to get rid of a co-ordinator. So we should cut that budget and use that to help the lower paid.

SR: If you say the Conservative party has an image problem, then that’s not really helping the nasty party image is it?

ROBERT HALFON: Well we would still give money but I’m saying let’s say if we cut it from £14 billion, £13-14 billion to £6-7 billion, it’s not that I’m saying give it to the rich but I’m saying we should use that money to help those most in need and I think the public would understand that especially at times when there isn’t a lot of money going round. We say for example business taxes, we say that more money comes into the Exchequer by cutting business taxes and it went up by 21% between 2016/2017, why don’t we set up a calculus redistribution fund and give that money back to the lower paid or spend it on poorer communities?

SR: We were talking a little bit earlier about Labour and you were saying not to underestimate the threat of Labour, if there was an election tomorrow do you think that Jeremy Corbyn would win?

ROBERT HALFON: Well who knows what would happen? I think there’s …

SR: What’s your sense?

ROBERT HALFON: I think they are in a very powerful position. The latest poll says it’s roughly level pegging or we are a few points ahead, in 2017 we were 20 points ahead and look what happened, so we need to get our message right, we need to present our …

SR: So do you think they could win an election?

ROBERT HALFON: I think that they’re in a good position, yes, if I’m honest but I think we could be in a good position too if we can get our message out, if we can present ourselves as the party of the ladder opportunity, if we’re seen on the side of workers, if we are seen as the party for social justice, for skills, for genuinely affordable housing, then I think there’s all to play for.

SR: Now things have got pretty bad haven’t they, as one of your own MPs was saying, that he wouldn’t vote Conservative if he wasn’t in Westminster. I’m talking of course about that extraordinary intervention from Johnny Mercer. He also said that if he wasn’t an MP he wouldn’t stand to be one now for the Conservative party, is that how you feel?

ROBERT HALFON: No, I mean I understand where a lot of these MPs are coming from and Johnny Mercer is a good person, what I want to happen is for the Prime Minister to get back to being the Prime Minister she was in 2016, when she stood on the steps of Downing Street and said that her main priority would be to address burning social injustices and captured the mood of the country and I don’t think a change of leader would particularly help, especially in the middle of Brexit. I think she deserves support in that, whether we have agreements or disagreements about the approach but I do think she has to be the Prime Minister of 2016.

SR: Some of the comments in the newspapers today are pretty shocking to be honest, some of the language. Johnny Mercer is not necessarily one of them but some anonymous quotes about her in the papers, the Sunday Times says she is in the killing zone, the Mail on Sunday that she should bring her noose to the 1922 Committee meeting. I mean this really sounds like she has lost control of the party.

ROBERT HALFON: Well I’d say to those people who have given those quotes, this is not the way to change things. This just confirms what many in the public thinks of us, that we’re potentially all our for ourselves and not on the side of working people. What we need to do is be fighting for policies and fighting for Conservative values as I’ve been talking about, about social justice, about skills, about housing.

SR: But look at Johnny Mercer for example saying that Theresa May has to go because he can’t continue to support an administration that cannot function. I mean you are making a very pointed critique of where the party are, surely that is linked in with the leadership.

ROBERT HALFON: But who is this magic king or queen over the water who is suddenly going to solve all the Conservative party problems? It doesn’t matter if it is Theresa May or Mother Theresa, unless we get our values right, unless we are seen by the public that we are on their side, unless we sort out the Brexit thing and actually unify as a party, it doesn’t matter who’s leader, there is no one that I can see who has got some magic solution that is going to solve everything.

SR: But isn’t that quite depressing? You look at the Conservative benches and you can’t pick out someone and think actually if that person was leader then I could really rally behind them, they would really speak to my constituents?

ROBERT HALFON: Well I’m not saying there aren’t, there ae many talented people and there are some great people who may be leader of the Conservative party. I suspect that the next leadership contest will be like out of a Ben Hur movie, it will be a cast of thousands running for the position of leader or Prime Minister but what I think we need to do first is get our values right and I think what would solve the problem is that Theresa May – and she signalled a little bit of this at conference but it can’t just be a speech, it has got to be something really serious, to be the Prime Minister she said she was going to be on the steps of Downing Street in 2016. It’s only when we lost that, when it was just a kind of confusion, the fog of Brexit, that we started to go down in the opinion polls and when we lost our way with our, as I call it, the Alan B’stard Manifesto of 2017, that the public moved away from the Conservatives.

SR: I mean one person that is often talked up as a potential caretaker leader is David Davis, how do you feel about that?

ROBERT HALFON: Well again it is all speculation. David Davis is very talented, he comes from a working background that many people would relate to but so do others and so, but I go back to my main point, there is no in my view a magic king or queen over the water ready to jump in and everything, every problem that the country has will automatically be solved. Let’s get our values right, let’s get our messaging right, let’s present ourselves and our party as the party of opportunity for millions of working people in our country and then let’s see what all these leadership candidates, when the Prime Minister decides to go, see what’s their platform.

SR: Should she decide to go after March?

ROBERT HALFON: Well it may be that she decides to go after she’s got Brexit through, I think that’s going to be a matter for her, but I think …

SR: Would it be a good idea, do you think, to hand over to a new generation?

ROBERT HALFON: Well there’s no point in saying let’s have a new generation until I know what these people are going to stand for? I don't know what whoever is going to stand for, I don't know what their platforms are, I don't know what they are going to do for the country, I don't know what they are going to do for the Conservative party so I think it’s not the right way to approach it. Let’s sort out our values, our mission.

SR: Well talking about values and mission, you are Chair of the Education Select Committee, what would you like to see when it comes to education and social mobility because for many people this is the key to values?

ROBERT HALFON: Yes, well I mentioned earlier I think we should guarantee, not just say we are going to have more apprenticeships which we’re doing but actually we can’t match the Corbyn promise on tuition fees, that would cost billions and billions of pounds of taxpayers money and it wouldn’t be fair to people who are not students who would end up paying for this. What we can do is say to every single young person we’ll guarantee you an apprenticeship if you want one so you get the skills, you earn while you learn, there’s no debt, you climb up that ladder of opportunity, you get job security and prosperity at the top of the ladder. That is the sort of thing we should be offering our young people. We should be addressing social injustices so for example we have 40 children excluded every day in our schools…

SR: Is there a risk though that by trying to outdo Corbyn you are never going to win at that game? You need to try something that is uniquely Conservative.

ROBERT HALFON: But it’s not outdoing Corbyn. Corbyn cleverly, I don't think he has the right solutions to this but they are recognising the anxieties of working people across the country. We need to show that we need to recognise those anxieties and come up with Conservative solutions. I mentioned one to you about using extra monies raised from business taxes to come in to spend on poorer communities, there are many things that Conservatives could do but we have to show working people that we are on their side.

SR: If you don’t could you lose constituencies like Harlow at some point?

ROBERT HALFON: If we don’t get this right and be the social justice party, be the party for workers, be the party ladder of opportunity, then yes we’ll face in my view a potential huge defeat in the coming election.

SR: Is it existential for the party?

ROBERT HALFON: I think there are a number of existential questions facing our party, our lack of membership, our problem with message, our problem with policies, the divisions over Brexit and I’m being very honest about that to you, so that’s why we have got to get these things right and that’s why I am arguing in the way that I am that be the Prime Minister you were in 2016, it can’t just be about brilliant speeches at party conference, it has got to be about translating this into action.

SR: Okay, Robert Halfon, thank you very much.