Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Greg Clark MP Business Secretary

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

SOPHY RIDGE: Now if you feel as if the Brexit process is never ending, well next week we may edge a little bit closer to some kind of plan because on Friday the Prime Minister will host Cabinet colleagues at an away day at Chequers in an attempt to heal some of those divides over Brexit. The atmosphere could be a bit frosty though thanks to the latest bout of Cabinet cat fighting with Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt, Liz Truss and Gavin Williamson all facing criticism from some of their colleagues. One of the issues still to be resolved is the UK’s future customs relationship with the EU and one of the people tasked with finding a solution is the Business Secretary, Greg Clark, so I sat down with him when he visited Dover on a fact finding mission on Friday. Let’s have a little listen to what he had to say.

So you’ve been having meetings here in Dover with Eurotunnel, with the Port Authority, what have they been telling you?

GREG CLARK: What they are very clear about is that we need to have an agreement, we need to have a deal and that we will need to make sure that we avoid those frictions at the border that not only can put traders off but that actually can cause a lot of disruption right here on the ground.

SR: Disruption is an understatement isn’t it? I have to say I don’t like to think of myself as someone who panics easily but when I came to Dover a couple of weeks ago and spoke to the Port, I was left feeling worried frankly. They were saying just a couple of minutes delay could cause tailbacks of 17 miles. Are you worried as well?

GREG CLARK: Any small changes have big consequences and that’s why I think it’s important to listen to the detail of what they are suggesting is needed and make sure that we follow that advice.

SR: And what they are saying is that we need a deal, that seems pretty clear.

GREG CLARK: Yes, I think we do need a deal, it is very clearly in the interests of all parties because of course sitting here in Dover, the ferries are going over, not only are they just going to France but the goods are spreading out across the whole continent so every country in Europe has a big interest in the successful, highly successful and expanding operation continuing to prosper.

SR: So can you just take this idea that we could be leaving without a deal off the table because there is so much uncertainty, so much worry being caused about it. I mean it’s not going to happen is it, we’ll have a deal?

GREG CLARK: Well it’s a negotiation and in any negotiation a deal is concluded at the end of it, that’s the reality of it.

SR: So there will be a deal is what you’re saying?

GREG CLARK: I think there will be a deal, I think there’ll be a good deal but I can’t pretend that there is a deal now that is in our back pocket and we are just going through the motions, this is a serious negotiation and it needs to be done informed by the evidence.

SR: Do businesses need to plan for a no deal scenario?

GREG CLARK: Well I think any business that looks ahead and looks at a range of possibilities, so of course they’ll consider that just as the government is and in my Department, I took the first Preparation Bill for a no deal scenario through parliament and the Nuclear Safeguards Bill got its royal assent last week and that puts in place an arrangement in which we can continue to be able to safeguard our nuclear stocks even when we’re no longer part of the European arrangements. That’s there in anticipation but of course all of these aspects where sometimes businesses will prepare contingencies because that is prudent for them to do so and they might be advised to do so, my purpose and the government’s purpose is to make sure that they don’t have to exercise them.

SR: That’s your purpose, to make sure that they don’t have to implement these no-deal plans, could you see like an extension of Article 50 or something, just to give you a bit more time?

GREG CLARK: Well again I think we at all times need to be guided by the evidence on this, so speaking to the people that run this very successful port and the same at Eurotunnel, in order to make sure that we can continue the success and that we don’t have frictions, there are things that would need to be put in place – computer systems, for example; posts at the border even if they checked automatically number plates so going through automatic number plate recognition, so what we need to assess is how long it would reasonably take to put in practice and then it seems to me that any reasonable person would have to be guided by the facts and the evidence and I think you interviewed Liam Fox on your show last week and he said the same, that you need to be aware of the technical requirements and respect them.

SR: Although he said that in respect of a transition, he said he could countenance a longer transition but no extension to Article 50. So are you saying that if the businesses say they need a bit more time, Article 50 could be extended?

GREG CLARK: Article 50 has been triggered and we leave the European Union next year and that is absolutely clear. I think what Liam was saying and what I agree with is when it comes to putting in place the arrangements for our final, our permanent relationship, we have to be guided by the evidence, that’s only reasonable.

SR: So the transition could be extended is what you’re saying?

GREG CLARK: I think again you have to look at what is required. Business wants to get on with things of course, everyone wants to get on with things, the whole country is keen to see the steps taken to be in our agreed end state.

SR: Is the customs partnership still on the table?

GREG CLARK: Yes, we’ve got two groups that are looking at it, we’ve made a lot of progress with each of the groups, though we’re coming together …

SR: So that could still happen, the customs partnership?

GREG CLARK: The purpose of having the two groups was to look in detail at the practicality of both the customs partnership as it’s been terms and the maximum facilitation model and they are coming to a conclusion and the government will take a view on which is the most promising.

SR: What’s your view on which is the most promising?

GREG CLARK: I think it would be a bit disrespectful to my colleagues who have been working on this, we haven’t concluded our final report and then we need to report it to the rest of my colleagues so I think we’ll have those discussions.

SR: What’s your view on how helpful some of those recent interventions have been? I am thinking for example of Boris Johnson using a swear word when he talked about business, Jeremy Hunt saying it was inappropriate for Airbus to publicly air their concerns. Is that helpful?

GREG CLARK: I think the collective responsibility that we have is there for a reason and I think it’s important.

SR: Do you think that, you know, the Conservatives are supposed to be the party of business, Boris Johnson’s comments can’t be helpful to that image.

GREG CLARK: I have been very clear, I made a statement to the House of Commons on Monday in which I said I very strongly disagree with those statements. I think it is perfectly reasonable for businesses, just as anyone else in the country, to be able to set out their views and especially to provide evidence because if you’re working in a business at whatever level, you’ve got the experience of what it takes. I mean here we are in the Port of Dover, if you come and talk to the people that operate it, they can tell you in a way that if you’re a layman and you just come on holiday and you roll up and board the ferry, you don’t see the degree of automation and complexity that’s there so why would you not want access to that advice? But it’s not just for us or even mainly for us, I talk to businesses all the time.

SR: I’m interested in your relationship with business leaders because there was a rather, shall we say, scathing article in the Times where it was said that you were known as [inaudible] because you basically hadn’t got enough backbone when you are standing up for business interests, what do you say to that? It can’t have made comfortable reading.

GREG CLARK: One of the things that I do and I have been pleased to do is to go round the world and make the case for investing in Britain and if you take the automotive sector from Nissan to Toyota to BMW to Peugeot, every one of the big automotive investment decisions that has come up in the last couple of years in which we’ve been in contention has been resolved in our favour.

SR: If you look to what has been quoted in the Times, “A mutineer, that’s what they call this person, I’m sick and tired of his cowardice, he is supposed to be the one standing up for British business”, so are you saying that in those private conversations with the Prime Minister you are standing up for British business?

GREG CLARK: I’ve described what I think business wants which is for discipline, collective discipline and actually it doesn’t really approve when one person is speaking out of …

SR: But others around the Cabinet are aren’t they, that’s the issue, that people on the other side of the argument, perhaps the more the Brexiteer side of the argument, they are speaking out. They are writing columns and giving interviews where they are being incredibly outspoken so don’t you have a responsibility to do the same?

GREG CLARK: I think it’s important to respect the discipline of being part of a team, to take a professional approach to it, to make your case very vigorously and backed up by evidence and to do that tenaciously and I think if you look at some of the discussions that we’ve had, actually some of the commentary in the House in the last couple of weeks, I don't think there’s anyone that doubts that business, the importance of making sure that that view and the role that business has in employing millions of people in good jobs up and down the country is at the heart of our decision making.

SR: That point that you just make there actually is another crucial one isn’t it, the employment of millions of people, and one of the things that businesses will be concerned about post-Brexit is their ability to recruit the best of the best so do you think that free movement of people should be part of the renegotiations?

GREG CLARK: No, I think one of the things that’s clear from the result of the referendum is that free movement of people is something that was clearly part of the decision to leave the European Union and so that is absolutely clear but that is not to say we shouldn’t have the ability, as all successful economies do have, to be able to have people from other countries come and work here.

SR: Can you see EU citizens having better access to the jobs market than people from other countries?

GREG CLARK: I think it’s too early to say. We’re going to have an Immigration Bill and that will be the procedures …

SR: So it could be on the table then?

GREG CLARK: One of the things that the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have done is ask the Migration Advisory Council to give some advice on how we can make sure that we can access the skilled workers that we meet. We need to listen to their advice and bring forward proposals on that.

SR: Greg Clark there in Dover.