Murnaghan Interview with Owen Paterson, MP, former Environment Secretary, 13.03.16

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, the Justice Secretary Michael Gove is under continuing pressure over claims he was the source of reported comments suggesting the Queen backs a Brexit, a British exit from the European Union.  During a campaign visit yesterday he refused to deny being involved, meanwhile Palace courtiers have reportedly stepped in to stop Her Majesty being used as a political football.  I’m joined now by the eurosceptic former Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson, a very good morning to you.  Whether or not Mr Gove was the source, it’s a bit naughty isn’t it, divulging private conversations with Her Majesty?

OWEN PATERSON: Oh yes, you should not divulge anything from those conversations but on this one I am in agreement with Sir Jeremy Heywood actually, he said that the Palace has denied it and Michael Gove has denied it and Nick Clegg has denied it – so there are a lot denials.  

DM: Okay but would you be surprised, whatever the sources were and whether she has commented or not, that Her Majesty would be in favour of the sovereign regaining more sovereignty, as you would put it, for her nation?  

OWEN PATERSON: She is above it all and it would be quite wrong to speculate what she thinks.  

DM: Okay, you’re blocking that one there, playing that one with a very straight bat.  Let me get on to this issue of the Awkward Squad, this book by David Laws, the former Cabinet Minister, former MP of course during the coalition years, saying that the Prime Minister has only called this referendum to keep you lot happy on his back and front benches?

OWEN PATERSON: Well I have no record of being involved in the discussions which led to this but personally I am absolutely delighted that at last the British people are going to get a referendum and if you’d been in Oswestry yesterday and you’d seen the reaction to us being on the streets on the day that there was an Oswestry European Food Fair, there’s an awful lot of people out there who are absolutely delighted they are going to have their say and they are completely determined to come out and vote for leave.  There was a really strong overwhelming feeling.

DM: But was there an appetite – it is about the genesis of holding a referendum in the first place, do you think you lot forced one by representing the feelings of the British people?

OWEN PATERSON: I think all credit to the Prime Minister for listening and recognising there are a lot of people out there who do want to leave and he has given us the chance so let’s get away from all these shenanigans of the tittle-tattle of what happened inside the Tory party – and by the way there is a story about me in the paper this morning which is completely wrong, it is almost the reverse of what happened – and let’s get on and deal with the issue of the referendum.  

DM: What’s the allegation?  If you want to put the record straight?   

OWEN PATERSON: Well yes, I will actually.  There is a very good scheme called the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme which is wrongly described for a start in the Laws piece, which brought in a very targeted number, 20,250 Romanians and Bulgarians, before they were opened up to unlimited access and it worked really well.  They came to targeted spots, proper accommodation, good catering but they went back at the end of the season and I was very keen to keep it on.  We looked at all sorts of options of how we could substitute them once there was open season from the 1st January 2014, right, so the story was wrong.  There might be other stories that are wrong in that long, long piece.

DM: But the fact is, did you let hundreds and thousands of Romanians and others in before they had access to the UK after they joined the EU?  

OWEN PATERSON: But the story was that I wanted to get rid of this scheme and I was a big supporter of this particular scheme so all I can say is one technical detail where I know exactly what happened, so the book was wrong.

DM: Okay you put that right but while we’re on that issue, it still is government policy isn’t it, to allow Turkey at some point into the European Union?  Do you think that policy, irrespective of the referendum, should be changed?  

OWEN PATERSON: No, I think the Turkish issue is massive and it did come up on the streets yesterday.  Letting in 77 million people who have a long 750 mile border with two sadly incredibly unstable, it’s hard to call them states, Syria and Iraq, because of the instability along the border, I think is obviously something of real concern to many people.  We are very interested in what these election results do to Angela Merkel today …  

DM: The local elections in Germany.  

OWEN PATERSON: There are three key elections.  She has made the most appalling mess of it, there was a report in the Sud Deutsche Zeitung about ten days ago that Germany before this Turkish arrangement was going to take in 3.6 million migrants, that’s an enormous number of people and in Germany …

DM: So you think the migration issue is going to play very big in our own referendum.  

OWEN PATERSON: I think it will be huge, yes.  

DM: If that deal with Turkey over refugees comes into force and the Turks get visa free access to the European Union from this June to Schengen areas of the European Union, not the UK, do you that would be a factor, that could be a factor in the vote itself?

OWEN PATERSON:  Oh undoubtedly, I have no doubt at all.  This is the lurking huge iceberg under the surface, there is real concern about it, that there is this enormous amount of people, there is this tragedy happening in the Middle East and very large number of people coming west and because of what Merkel did, opening the doors to Germany, sadly I think there will be very more this spring and what happens when the Aegean calms down in April and May will be very difficult and will influence what happens in the referendum.  

DM: While we are talking about migration, other stories in the papers today, there are some reports that officials, civil servants, are looking at plans to block the release of migration figures in the run up to the vote itself.

OWEN PATERSON: We’ve had a battle on all this stuff right from the beginning.  I mean there was a really disgraceful move to lift purdah which when we were in opposition we wanted the Labour government to go longer on purdah, we won that battle.  There was then a battle on the question and we had this crazy issue, was it ten days ago, with the Jeremy Heywood letter blocking civil servants from releasing information to ministers who were in favour of Brexit.  This will be yet another step and we will take it up in the Commons and Bernard Jenkins’ committee has been very good on this and we will take it up.  There has to be a fair, open dissemination of information.  If the government is seen to be cheating the process will not be seen to be legitimate and we cannot have that.  This is the biggest decision facing this country for generations, we’ve had existential battles, we’ve had Hitler and Napoleon but this is really deciding the nature of this country and who runs it for decades ahead and we’ve got to have the British people fully equipped with all the information.  Going back to my time yesterday at the food fair, quite a lot of people did come up and said we want more facts, we’d like to know and if they feel that the facts are being held back, I think there is a real danger that the process will not be seen to be legitimate. So the government has got to be open with this information and if it takes a civil servant three days to answer a written PQ, that I think is time well worth spent.

DM: A quick question on the budget, it is said that the referendum is guiding the Chancellor’s hand, some of his judgements in the budget, the issue of raising the threshold for paying the 40p rate of income tax, it’s in the Conservative manifesto, should in your view the Chancellor do something about that?

OWEN PATERSON: Yes, the Chancellor has still got a lot of work to do.  We came to power inheriting a position where we were borrowing £300,000 a minute under Gordon Brown, we got it down but if you look at the latest OBR figures, borrowing is about …

DM: Of course Mr Paterson, this costs money and doesn’t raise money as you understand.  

OWEN PATERSON: That’s the position I’m painting so this is a job half done. We’ve got a long way to go still and we cannot take our foot off the accelerator but anything we can do to reduce tax in certain areas in my opinion grows the size of the cake and we have to keep rewarding hard working people, rewarding businesses so the more we can at every opportunity reduce tax ...

DM: But the time is not right for that?   

OWEN PATERSON: If you reduce tax you grow the cake and you get more revenue.   

DM: Quick question, so is now the time – the other side of the coin – to put a couple of pence on a litre of petrol?  

OWEN PATERSON: Well coming from a rural area like mine where two-thirds of the people drive to work in a car, it’s been a huge help to people to see petrol come down.  We’ve done incredibly well as a government not continuing the escalator, it’s got us a lot of points and I would very much hope that we leave petrol alone.  

DM: Mr Paterson, good to see you, thank you very much indeed for coming in.  Owen Paterson there.