Murnaghan Interview with Sajid Javid, Conservative, Secretary of State for Culture

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS


DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, Nicola Sturgeon has admitted she cannot give Ed Miliband a guarantee there would not be a second independence referendum in Scotland during the next parliament.  The Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls told me in the past hour that Labour will not make any deals with the SNP.  

ED BALLS: we have to find a way in which we govern the country but you also have got to have some principles within that and our principle is very clear.  The SNP exists, unlike the Liberal Democrats or to be fair UKIP, the SNP exist as a political party to break up the United Kingdom, that’s their raison d’etre, that’s what they’re for.

DM: And destroy the Labour party in Scotland.  

ED BALLS: Well I don't think they exist to do that, they exist to break up the United Kingdom.  I can say to you unambiguously we’re not going to start getting involved in coalitions or deals with a political party which wants to break up the United Kingdom.  

DM: Well let’s talk about coalitions and deals and other things with the Conservatives, they have already invoked the spirit of Margaret Thatcher once during this election campaign by promising to extend her famous right to buy scheme and they are at it again this morning with an echo of Thatcher’s 1980s mass privatisations.  The Conservatives are offering a huge sell-off of Lloyds banking shares at a cut price if they win the election. Labour has said it’s been promised before and it amounts to pre-election panic.  Well I am joined now by the Conservative Culture Secretary, Sajid Javid and a very good morning to you, Secretary of State.   Well we have had the Housing Associations sell off £8 billion or whatever it is for the National Health Service, £7 billion in tax cuts, now cheap shares – you’re panicking.  

SAJID JAVID: We’re not at all. What we have announced today about the shares is a continuation of something we have already started because the economy is a lot stronger, our banks are a lot stronger, is to sell the shares which the previous government seven years ago, they spent £20 billion of taxpayers money buying Lloyds Bank shares, it’s a reminder of the crisis that engulfed our country under Labour and now we’re putting that right.  I think it’s the right time to keep selling those shares, to take back some money for the taxpayer and to use it pay …

DM: You are spraying around, some people call them bribes but you are spraying around these offers with more and more frequency and still nothing really moves because, let me put it to you, the core strategy of the Conservative campaign before it all really kicked off was that a) people would assume that Ed Miliband was even more useless than they may have assumed he was and b) they have realised that the economy is doing pretty well, even the IMF, even the Germans say so but they’re not.  

SAJID JAVID: Our core strategy hasn’t changed and I think we saw that this week when we launched our manifesto.  If you look at a lot of the key policies, we’ve talked about whether it’s helping people with home ownership, with creating two more million jobs, two million more jobs, more tax cuts for working people, it’s an extension of what we’ve achieved over the last five years.

DM: So why didn’t you hold the line on that and stop these unfunded promises?  Don’t they make you look ridiculous?  You’re the party, as you tell us often, who fixed the economy, of fiscal rectitude and yet you are throwing around £25 billion in some estimates of unfunded promises, no one believes you anymore.

SAJID JAVID: Actually we’ve set out a very clear plan, we’ve said that you’ve got to keep tackling that deficit, that enormous deficit that was left by Labour and just remember this week, Ed Balls accepted that they left a note behind saying there’s no money left but he said it was as joke.  Well tell that to the thousands of people that lost their jobs, the thousands of people who lost their jobs and had their incomes cut, lost their economic security.  He might think it’s a joke, they don’t find it funny and that means we’ve got to keep tackling this deficit.  We have set out a plan about how we can actually reach a surplus but Labour wants to have a deficit forever.  

DM: They’ve been listening, they learnt the mantra from you over the five years that you can’t have things you can’t afford.  How can we have £8 billion more spent on the NHS when you haven’t told us where it comes from.  You have either got to put up taxes or cut from somewhere else.  

SAJID JAVID: If we keep the economy strong, that’s what we’ve seen over the last five years.  

DM: But only if there’s growth.  

SAJID JAVID: Of course we’ve got to have growth, if …

DM: So no growth, no £8 billion?  

SAJID JAVID: We said right along that you cannot have strong public services unless you have economic growth and what we’ve seen in Britain is a recovery, a dramatic recovery, as you said we’ve had the fastest growth in the G7 countries in the last …

DM: But it’s interesting that that promise, and that presumably goes for the tax cuts as well in terms of offering the thresholds on the 40p rate, that if the unexpected happens – you’re grown-ups, you’ve seen what happens in the world economy and how it can affect the United Kingdom, if the growth doesn’t come, those promises aren’t kept.

SAJID JAVID: No, I say look at our track record over the last five years.  We’ve had unexpected crises over the last five years too, we’ve had a commodity price crisis, we’ve had the eurozone crisis and yet despite all this, because we’ve got a plan, a clear plan, we stuck to it, we kept getting that deficit down, we keep helping business to make them more competitive, we’ve had a job boom in Britain and all of this can continue for the next five years because we’ve got a plan that’s working.  Even the IMF said this week, look at Britain compared to all these other countries, it’s got a plan that’s working.  Now when you’ve got that, why would you abandon it and risk going back to 2010?

DM: Well let me ask you about the maths, no doubt you are crunching the numbers like everybody else post May 7th and we’ve just been hearing from UKIP, their red line is of course they want a referendum, you’re a party that offers a referendum on membership of the European Union in 2017.  What kind of deal could you do with UKIP if you need their votes?

SAJID JAVID: Well we are not planning to do a deal with anyone.  We are looking at the maths, we need 23 seats to get a majority.  That’s a lot of seats to gain but we believe we can get our message across and that’s achievable.   We don’t take it for granted, we’ve got to keep working hard but Labour need 69 and also we now know that Labour are going to lose lots of seats in Scotland, everyone knows that, so if they lose 30 seats they are going to need a hundred and the only way they are going to form a government if they ever get the chance is with the SNP.

DM: But if you do need UKIP votes, on what basis would you deal with them?   We have just had Diane James there from their Home Affairs side saying we would deal on confidence and supply,  a deal of negotiation.  Is that ruled out from the Conservative side?

SAJID JAVID: Look, we’re not making plans to deal with anyone.  

DM: So it’s ruled out?  

SAJID JAVID: What we are working for is a majority, we are working really hard towards a majority and then we’ll see …

DM: But you don’t foresee deals with UKIP?

SAJID JAVID: We are not planning to do a deal with anyone, we don’t need to do a deal with anyone because we are working towards a majority.  

DM: I heard this all in 2010, you said you don’t need to do a deal with anyone but you did a coalition deal with the Lib Dems.  People want to know this time round, given the state of the polling, would you do if you had to a deal, a formal deal with UKIP?

SAJID JAVID: Look, we need 23 seats to get a majority, I don't think anyone is saying that is an impossibility.  What they are saying as you’ve just shown with your clip of Ed Balls earlier, you spoke to him earlier, they can only get into government by working with the SNP, that’s the only way they can do it and then you will have an alliance of a party that will bankrupt Britain, with a party that wants to break up Britain.  That’s the stark choice that’s facing our country, it’s either stick with David Cameron and a plan that’s working or Ed Miliband in an alliance with the SNP.   

DM: Okay, so you didn’t rule out a deal.  Let me talk to you about something I was talking about with Diane James from UKIP and it is the awful situation in the Mediterranean with thousands of people dying, desperate to get in to Europe and she said for some of the roots of it you have to look back to, I think you voted for the military actions in Libya which destabilised, okay a very horrible leader but it was a relatively stable country, Libya and look at it now.

SAJID JAVID: Yes, it is a dire situation and along with our European partners in terms of providing aid and help, that’s the right thing to do.  In terms of the action in Libya, that was absolutely the right thing to do.  Let’s remember what was going on then, you had Gaddafi’s troops heading out to massacre hundreds and thousands of his own citizens.  However difficult the situation Libya is in today, and it is challenging, it is difficult of course, just think what could have happened if Gaddafi would have got his way.  So I’m proud of the action that we took with our allies, it’s the right thing to do.

DM: What about the first bit of your answer there that Italy says, and other nations are taking people as well, a thousand people a day now arriving on its shores.  Could the UK help them out as European partner with those numbers?

SAJID JAVID: Well we have helped out with aid and that’s the right thing to do.  

DM: Could we take some of the people?

SAJID JAVID: Look, I don't think that’s what’s required, I don't think that’s what’s going to be a long term solution to this problem …

DM: Because that would only encourage them to come?   

SAJID JAVID: No, because I think the ultimate solution to something like this is to help create a more stable Libya, a more secure Libya.  We provide aid to Libya along with our partners, we provide military training for its government and help in other ways and that’s the only long term solution, I don’t think you can think there is any solution other than that.  

DM: Let me ask you about something right on your patch, the BBC licence fee.  There have been noises coming from the Conservatives that you might actually want to cut it if you are re-elected.  

SAJID JAVID: Actually we have set out what we are going to do with the licence fee at least for the next couple of years, so until the Charter Review begins, the current charter runs out or the new charter rather will start at the beginning of 2017, we are going to keep it frozen at £145.50 and that’s our commitment, as we have kept it frozen during the lifetime of the last parliament but when it comes to looking at what is the best way to fund the BBC, the long term solutions, it’s right when that charter review starts it looks at options that are out there and makes a decision that is based on evidence after talking to all stakeholders.  

DM: And at that time perhaps abolish the BBC Trust and get the BBC regulated by Ofcom?  

SAJID JAVID: I think that’s what some people have suggested, even the Select Committee, recently the DCMS Select Committee, they looked at this and that was a suggestion that came out from some of those people on the committee so I think there are lots of ideas like this.

DM: Is that an attractive idea for you?   

SAJID JAVID: I think actually the Trust itself has said that they failed with governance in the past and they have had some serious problems and challenges and I think it is right to look at what is the best way to govern the BBC but I am not going to make that policy on the hoof, it would be wrong, it has to be driven by the evidence.   

DM: And last question on the Leveson Inquiry, where we are with press regulation, it all seems to have got rather stuck so we have got some of the publishers and the newspapers setting up their own IPSO organisation to  regulate the press, it doesn’t have a royal charter, are you still committed to that kind of governance, that kind of oversight, a royal charter for the press regulator?

SAJID JAVID: What we set out to do, we’ve done which was to create a charter process but what we said always …

DM: But they haven’t signed up to it.  

SAJID JAVID: Well actually what’s happened is what the principles were that were set out by Lord Leverson which is you can set up a charter process but it must be independent regulation and it must be self-regulation and it is up to the body that the press creates, if they wanted to create one and clearly some of them have got together to create …

DM: Which they have.

SAJID JAVID: Well not all press members are currently a member but for the ones that have it’s up to them to decide whether they want to apply for a charter.  I think it would be wholly wrong for the government to try to force them to do that, that was never part of the plan because the key principle which even Lord Leveson absolutely correctly accepted is that it must be independent regulation and it must be self-regulation and you shouldn’t try to force any body to join the charter.

DM: Secretary of States, thank you very much indeed, Sajid Javid there.