Sophy Ridge on Sunday Interview with Tobias Ellwood MP Defence Minister

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

SOPHY RIDGE: When the EU granted a Brexit extension in April they pleaded with MPs, don’t waste this time. Well since then, cross-party talks have collapsed, there seems little realistic prospect of the Brexit deal passing and the Conservative party have now embarked on a potentially lengthy leadership contest. Well joining now is the Defence Minister, Tobias Ellwood, thank you very much for being on the programme this morning.

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: Good morning.

SR: Now I’m keen to get to the drama in the Conservative party in a few moments but I also want to start on an issue that I know you’ve been looking at closely, on mental health awareness week just how much of an issue is mental health for our armed forces?

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: This is such an important issue, I’m really pleased that we’re starting with this. Mental Health Awareness Week has just taken place last week, we don’t really speak enough about it and yet a third of the nation will be affected by it in one way or another and in the armed forces, well it’s a very macho atmosphere and there of course people are reluctant to speak about it and we’ve done our best to change the strategy to speak about mental health on parity with physical health. Being in the armed forces they are happy to say ‘I’ve got an injury’ but less willing to say there’s something wrong with my mind. Indeed when I served, very much so, you were laughed at or certainly told to keep it to yourself, which is the worst thing because then it incubates. So now we’re getting people to talk about it, we’re making them more resilient so that they’re aware of what happens when they move to theatres of operations. We have compression periods afterwards as well but from a peer perspective, getting people to spot it, letting people know that if they step forward and say ‘Can I sort myself out’, it won’t affect their career.

SR: Has the government done enough previously to try to support people in the armed forces in this way?

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: Well I think, as I said, there has been a huge change but it has been cultural, there has been this stigma attached to talking about the issue so the concern I have is less with Iraq and Afghan veterans but it’s actually to do with the Falklands War, where there is part of the armed forces unaware of what help is available and that’s so important to understand because we have excellent support now for those serving in the armed forces but we have also improved the support that’s available for our veterans as well but they need to know where to go to receive that help.

SR: I’m keen to talk to you about another military story in the newspapers this morning, the Sunday Telegraph is claiming that the Prime Minister blocked legislation that could have protected veterans from prosecution. I mean this is particularly relevant of course in relation to Northern Ireland. Johnny Mercer, your colleague, says this is a betrayal – is it?

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: We need to place it in perspective. I served in Northern Ireland, I’m very conscious that as we move into a reconciliation process that we’re able to get to the bottom of what’s been perhaps not the best process in looking back at some of those outstanding issues that needed to be closed down that were part of that Stormont process. Unfortunately it’s not been done in the best way, the Northern Ireland Secretary is aware of that, she’s organised a consultation to see how it can be improved but if you want to, as I think Number Ten has responded to this story, to say that you can’t give an amnesty just to armed forces personnel, you’d have to share that with terrorists as well and she was unwilling to do that. That’s international law, that’s what we have to abide by.

SR: So Johnny Mercer is wrong in this then do you think?

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: Well I don't know exactly what he said on that, I’ve spoken to him many times on that and I know he is absolutely passionate, as all of us are, to look after our armed forces and make it very, very clear that anybody who’s involved in any of these inquiries, they will receive MoD support, legal advice straight away. Can I just take the opportunity, because we don’t say it enough in this country, to say thank to anybody that has served or is serving. Maybe we’re a bit reserved in this country compared to the United States or somewhere like that but I think it’s something that the country is very, very proud of but perhaps we don’t share enough to say thank you to those who put the uniform on.

SR: Okay, now let’s move on to Brexit shall we. Have a little look at the latest poll for the European elections … it should appear in just a few moments.

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: You don’t have to show me, I’m fully aware, I know exactly how it’s …

SR: You know how difficult things are for the Conservative party there, the Greens have leapfrogged you in this poll for YouGov, I mean why are things going so wrong?

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: Well firstly it’s a vote that we weren’t expecting to have so many people won’t even participate in that. 2014 the vote took place for European elections, I think the turnout was about 32% so this is not a second referendum. It is an opportunity to express your anger, your frustration at this government. We promised to deliver Brexit and we’re still found wanting and that’s why you see these numbers here as well and that is actually understood. We also need to recognise that we need to get a deal, we need to actually move forward with this and that’s why the Prime Minister will come back in June, the first week of June, and present the Withdrawal Agreement Bill itself which is phase one, let’s make it clear. It’s how we depart, it’s the agreement of the divorce if you like.

SR: The difficulty is, I mean the easy bit that the government to rally around is that you want to see a deal, the difficulty is what happens if that deal, as expected, doesn’t pass Parliament? When I spoke to the Brexit Secretary – we’ll have a look at the interview a little later on in the programme – he said if the Withdrawal Agreement fails then preparations for no-deal need to be sped up a pace, as he put it, do you think that’s right?

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: He has to say that because that is the legal background in which we sit. We end up at the 31st October, if there’s nothing on the table and we don’t get further support from the EU, then that’s the legal default that we go to and it’s obviously correct that we actually have contingency preparations for that but I make it very clear that no-deal is not a destination, no-deal is not where you want to end up, it’s where you accidentally go if you don’t have a deal itself.

SR: Would you prefer to see no Brexit rather than no deal?

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: I don’t even want to entertain those questions, I think they’re unhelpful. We want to enter into …

SR: But those are questions that you have to entertain because this is going to be the fourth time that the deal is put to Parliament, the talks have collapse between Labour, I mean these are the difficult questions we have to ask aren’t they?

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: Well let’s see what happens next week because we’re looking back, we now know the Prime Minister will speak more about her devolved initiatives she’s putting forward and an opportunity in June but I stress again what no-deal actually means. No-deal is – and firstly I understand the frustration of Britain saying why is it you’ve not landed it, no-deal is clinical, it’s clean, let’s just do it, let’s get away, I’m frustrated with the EU but look at the detail, that’s what I invite people to do. A bit like a divorce, you can run out the building if you like and say I want to leave my other half, but actually there’s more to it than that – where’s the money going to go, who’s going to get the house, the cat, if you’ve got children you’ve got a responsibility and an ongoing relationship to discuss and that’s exactly what we have with the European Union as well. So defaulting to WTO terms, they’ve made a case for that too but that isn’t Premier League, if you want to do a football analogy, that’s likening us and your camera crew going outside onto the grass and using our football bags as the goalposts. It is the most basic of trade relationships and we are the fifth largest trading nation in the world. We can do better than that, that’s not where we want to be, it would be damaging to our economy because of what it would do to our trade particularly agriculture, aerospace and so forth, it would damage our security because we’d lose the threat picture across Europe and also reputationally. I was in Italy a few days ago for the anniversary, the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Monte Casino, and there of course people were asking about Brexit, saying why is there paralysis – not where do you want to go but why is it actually taking so long? Internationally to go to no-deal would damage our reputation as a country that is involved, that participates on the international stage, it really would be a retrograde step.

SR: Okay, now the leadership contest is in full swing, are you going to run?

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: Am I going to run?

SR: Straight question, straight answer?

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: I’ll give you a straight answer – I don’t have the rank and I don’t have the experience. I am not going to run and this isn’t a TV reality contest. Your introduction just prompts me to think how does it look to a nation when we have just spoken on the biggest issue, Brexit. Take Brexit, if this was Brexit or the decision of Brexit, and you removed it from the table, you actually have a nation where the economy is going well, better than Japan, better than Germany. From climate change, best in the G20, inflation targets under control, employment doing really well. All of that is brilliant, put Brexit back on the table and it all disappears. What we are doing to Britain, our reputation is actually being affected by Brexit. Look at the reports, not from here, but the results of the local elections.

SR: The leadership absolutely matters when it comes to Brexit because whoever is the next leader of the Conservative party is going to take the UK potentially in a very different direction once there’s Brexit so who would you like to see as the next leader?

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: Let’s have some loyalty, let’s have some commitment, let’s have some discipline in focusing on the one thing, the one thing we need to get across the line which is Brexit. The idea that we jump ahead and start toying around with who should be the leader and everybody talking about the Grand National, I mean I do urge my colleagues to think why are they putting their name forward? Is it to raise their own profile? And some colleagues are changing their views in order to woo our membership to raise their profile as well. This is getting things in the wrong order. Our focus must be to get Brexit across the line, get that out the way so that we can then have a bigger, wider debate as to how we should earn the respect of the nation, to be a one nation progressive party, centre right, fiscally responsible, able to take the nation forward and most importantly, engage with a younger generation which we’re failing to do.

SR: You sound quite frustrated.

TOBIAS ELLWOOD: I am frustrated, I really am, because this entire process … we are one of the oldest political parties in the world, our popularity ebbs and flows. It is important that we show that discipline, focuses our mind on what needs to be done and then have that important debate with our party but the debate at the moment is actually being focused the wrong way round. We are trying actually to impress our membership and then ask our membership what they want and then repeat those, rather than looking beyond our membership, beyond our base to what excites the nation, to say what is it that can allow the Conservative party to continue to be in office.

SR: Okay, thank you very much.