The Battle for Number Ten, 29.05.17, Interview with Theresa May

SKY NEWS – THE BATTLE FOR NUMBER TEN – 21.30 – 29.05.17

PART FOUR: INTERVIEW WITH THERESA MAY

JEREMY PAXMAN: Theresa May, when did you realise that you’d got the wrong answer to the biggest question of our times in politics?

THERESA MAY: Well I am tempted to ask you, Jeremy, what you think, do you mean you are talking about Brexit?

JP: Well of course.

THERESA MAY: Right, well there are lots of challenges in our politics at the moment, there are lots of challenges that the government face …

JP: What was it that convinced you that Brexit was so bad for Britain?

THERESA MAY: I set out my reasons for deciding that we should on balance stay within the European Union, I voted to remain, I campaigned to remain and…

JP: And when did you change your mind?

THERESA MAY: The British people were given the choice and the British people decided that they wanted the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.

JP: So you are now stuck with trying to deliver something you believe is bad for this country.

THERESA MAY: I am delivering what I believe the British people want their government to deliver and I think it’s not just an issue about Brexit itself but it is actually an issue to me about trust in politicians that if we …

JP: Hang on a second, you said in March last year that we will be more secure, more prosperous and more influential – virtually in those words – if we stayed in the European Union and now you want to take us out of it.

THERESA MAY: And I also said that the sky wouldn’t fall in if we left the European Union, we gave people the choice …

JP: So you changed your mind then, you changed your mind.

THERESA MAY: I’ll answer that, we gave people the choice Jeremy and the British people decided to leave the European Union and I think it’s important for them to see their politicians delivering on that choice and respecting the will of the people and …

JP: But have you changed your mind?

THERESA MAY: What I am now doing …

JP: Have you changed your mind?

THERESA MAY: I think there are huge opportunities …

JP: Have you changed your mind?

THERESA MAY: Jeremy, I know that you use this tactic and …

JP: I am just trying to get an answer, that’s all, you can say yes or no, I haven’t changed my mind, yes I have changed my mind.

THERESA MAY: I take the view that we can make a success of Brexit. I take the view that the British people want us to make that success.

JP: But you don’t believe in it.

THERESA MAY: Of course, Jeremy, as Prime Minister I’ve been out there already ensuring that the negotiations are going to start and I want to ensure there is a strong hand in those negotiations. I believe in making a success of Brexit for the whole of the United Kingdom.

JP: But you don’t really believe in it do you?

THERESA MAY: I believe in making a success of Brexit.

JP: Let me put it another way, how was it that people like Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, David Davies, Pritti Patel, even Andrea Leadsome, they all got it right and you got it wrong.

THERESA MAY: I voted … well there is no gainsaying the fact that I campaigned to remain and voted to remain but I also …

JP: Sure and you still think it’s a duff idea don’t you? You haven’t changed your mind.

THERESA MAY: No, the referendum drew a line under those debates, what the referendum did was took the view of the British people. Now I think it’s right that we do that now and I think, I genuinely think that if we get Brexit right – and this is really important for us – if we get Brexit right we can make a real success of the opportunities that open up for us but we can only do that if we grasp those opportunities and I believe …

JP: You still think it’s a bad idea.

THERESA MAY: No, I believe we’re doing the right thing in making a success of Brexit.

JP: Well of course you want to make a success of it. Can we look at something else that you’ve changed your mind on or perhaps not changed your mind on – social care? Now you had a manifesto commitment which said there would be a cap on the cost of social care and now your latest manifesto dropped that. For clarification the Health Secretary said there will be no cap and four days later you said there will be a cap.

THERESA MAY: What Jeremy Hunt was talking about and what we referred to in our manifesto was the specific proposal, this proposal that was put forward by Andrew Dilnot a few years ago when he was asked by government to look at the social care issue and if I can just explain why we rejected that Dilnot proposal, Jeremy, it was because for two reasons: first of all, because it was going to be paid for out of general taxation and secondly, because that Dilnot proposal protected wealthier pensioners but did nothing to protect pensioners on modest incomes. Now the proposals I put forward actually do that, they do help pensioners on modest incomes and crucially they ensure we have a long-term sustainable solution for social care.

JP: Okay you have said earlier that it’s very important that people can trust their politicians and their governments. Can I ask you, specifically and unambiguously, what will the cap be?

THERESA MAY: As I’ve just answered – and I am not going to give you a different answer from the one I’ve given Faisal. It’s not about not knowing, Jeremy, it’s about …

JP: But you don’t know do you?

THERESA MAY: It’s about thinking what the right approach is to get to that figure and what we want to do …

JP: But you don’t know.

THERESA MAY: What we want to do is to ask, is to consult, is to listen and then to determine what that cap will be.

JP: Have you even thought what the cost to the taxpayer will be?

THERESA MAY: I think that’s only fair to people that we actually go through that consultation and say to people and take people’s views as we determine that cap.

JP: Just on the philosophical level, you said you went into politics to help the just about managing. How is enabling rich people to pass on wealth to the next generation helping the just about managing?

THERESA MAY: What is helping is ensuring that we don’t have a long term solution for our social care …

JP: That wasn’t my question, my question was how will that help the just about managing?

THERESA MAY: And I’m answering your question, Jeremy.

JP: You’re not.

THERESA MAY: You have asked me about the just about managing and how they are being helped and what I am going to point out is if you have a social care system which relies on taxing those just about managing at higher levels, that’s not helping them. What we are doing is putting forward a proposal which means that people don’t have to sell their house in their lifetime to pay for care, it means that they can pass on savings to their children and it means there will be that cap but it’s there across the generations. There are older people today who worry that their children and grandchildren won’t have a better future.

JP: Can we look at something else on which you changed your mind? Only this March in the budget you proposed to increase National Insurance contributions from the self-employed. Within a week you’d backed down from that, do you accept that?

THERESA MAY: Yes, I accept that and we very clearly stated at the time …

JP: I am bound to say that if I was sitting in Brussels and I was looking at you as the person I had to negotiate I’d think she’s a blow-hard who collapses at the first sign of gunfire. Is that right?

THERESA MAY: I think Jeremy you’ll find that what the people in Brussels look at is the record I have of negotiating with them in Brussels and delivering for this country on a number of issues on justice and home affairs which people said we were never going to get and I got those negotiations.

JP: All right, can you remind us how many times you told us after you became Prime Minister that there would not be a general election until 2020? You did didn’t you? I got to a grand total of six times on which you or your spokesmen said there wouldn’t be one.

THERESA MAY: And I said there wouldn’t be a general election and after I became Prime Minister I felt that the most important thing for the country was the stability and the getting on with triggering Article 50 so that we made sure that we were delivering on that vote on Brexit. What became clear when we were going through that process is that other parties want to frustrate that process of those Brexit negotiations. We have the Liberal Democrats wanting a second referendum, we have …

JP: That’s all happened since March has it?

THERESA MAY: We have the … well actually it was in March that I triggered Article 50 by writing the letter to the European Council.

JP: But in March you told us we didn’t need to have a general election because it would destabilise the country until 2020.

THERESA MAY: And what became clear as we were looking through those negotiations, started those negotiations, started the process of triggering them, what became clear, increasingly clear, as is clear in this election campaign, is the desire of other parties to frustrate the will of the British people. That’s why I thought it was right to go out for an election.

JP: Prime Minister, are you somebody who takes responsibility for their mistakes?

THERESA MAY: I take responsibility for the decisions I make, Jeremy.

JP: Right, so you have been how many years in government now?

THERESA MAY: In government? I’ve been in government since 2010, so seven years in government.

JP: Seven years in government and you’ll recall the manifesto promises on immigration.

THERESA MAY: Indeed I do.

JP: And you repeated them in fact in this manifesto, said the same thing again because you failed, in your capacity – for six of those seven years you were Home Secretary weren’t you?

THERESA MAY: I was indeed.

JP: Immigration was your main task, to get it down to what you promised in the manifesto which was 100,000 or less non-EU immigrants per year net. You didn’t do that did you?

THERESA MAY: Net migration, no, we didn’t achieve that. What happened …

JP: Can you tell us what it is now?

THERESA MAY: Yes, it was 248,000 in the last set of figures.

JP: Non-EU migrants?

THERESA MAY: Sorry?

JP: Non-EU migrants?

THERESA MAY: Was about 170, 175,000.

JP: 175,000 according to the latest figures, yes.

THERESA MAY: What we saw in immigration figures was it started to go down and then they did go and now they are starting to come down again. What we will have when we leave the EU …

JP: That was your job.

THERESA MAY: Yes, Jeremy I’m not sitting here saying it wasn’t, I’m accepting that what we had to do was to ensure that we were rooting out abuse in the system but there is no single moment where you take one measure which changes the immigration figures. It is a constant work to ensure that you are dealing with immigration and ensuring there is no more abuse in the system. There is more work to be done. We will of course have another tool to do this when we leave the European Union because we’ll be able to introduce rules for people coming from within the European Union but this will be a constant work.

JP: Who will be able to come to this country under your new rules?

THERESA MAY: Well we are working at the moment on what those new rules should be in terms of …

JP: So you still don’t have any idea?

THERESA MAY: We have a set of rules for people outside the European Union, we will look at the requirements for … One of the things we do is ensure that it’s possible for people to be brought in where there are skills shortages, where there is a need for people to come to work.

JP: And what’s the damage going to be to the economy, have you worked that out?

THERESA MAY: I think one of the crucial things that we need to do in this country is ensure that actually we are enabling people here in the UK to be skilled up to do jobs. I think sometimes what we’ve seen is people being brought in from overseas because we haven’t done sufficient in this country and that’s why …

JP: Your friend George Osborne, or your friend until you sacked him, the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne says this policy is economically illiterate. He should know shouldn’t he?

THERESA MAY: It’s a policy which ensures that we are recognising the concerns that people in this country have about uncontrolled immigration. Controlling immigration is important, it’s important for a number of reasons but one of the reasons it’s important is because uncontrolled migration has an impact on wages at the lower end of the income scale. People feel an impact from that and that’s why I think it’s so important that we keep working at this and we keep the numbers down.

JP: It will be much easier once we’ve left the European Union won’t it?

THERESA MAY: We will be able to introduce rules for people coming from within the European Union once we’ve left, that’s been a piece of the work immigration and …

JP: How much money are you prepared to give Brussels in order to get a deal?

THERESA MAY: I don't think it’s going to be about paying over money to get a deal, what I think is important …

JP: Do you need to pay anything? David Davies said he’d walk away at a hundred thousand, a hundred billion sorry.

THERESA MAY: We have made clear, we have put it in the manifesto that we’ve…

JP: A hundred billion to leave the European Union?

THERESA MAY: That we will look for a fair settlement of our rights and obligations. There are a number of figures that are being quoted and being around, a number of them coming from …

JP: Have you got a figure in your head?

THERESA MAY: A number coming from the European Union itself. We will look at our rights and obligations …

JP: Have you got a figure in your head as to how much it’s worth paying to get out of this club?

THERESA MAY: It isn’t a question of what it’s worth paying to get out, it’s a question of what is going to be the right deal for us leaving the European Union which will stop us from paying huge sums of money into the EU every single year, which will enable that we will have control of our money and our borders and our laws.

JP: But you wouldn’t walk out as David Davies says he would if there was a request for a hundred billion?

THERESA MAY: We will be there to negotiate the right deal but what I have said is that no deal is better than a bad deal. We have to be prepared to walk out.

JP: So you are prepared to walk away from the European Union with no deal?

THERESA MAY: No deal is better than a bad deal.

JP: That wasn’t exactly my question, my question is are you prepared to walk away from …

THERESA MAY: By definition if we are prepared to say, if I’m prepared to say that no deal is better than a bad deal. I want to get a good deal from the European Union but what I don’t want is the sort of bad deal that some people are talking about. If you think about it, some people in Europe are talking about punishing us and that would be a bad deal for us. Some people here in the UK talk as if they are willing to do anything to sign up for a deal with European Union and that would be a bad deal for us as well, we need to negotiate and negotiate hard.

JP: So you are quite prepared to leave the European Union with no deal?

THERESA MAY: As I say, no deal would be better than a bad deal.

JP: You are prepared to leave the European Union with no deal?

THERESA MAY: I think you can take it Jeremy, no deal will be better than a bad deal.

JP: You’ve said that repeatedly.

THERESA MAY: I’m not prepared to sign up to a bad deal for the UK but I believe….

JP: So you are prepared to walk away?

THERESA MAY: I’m optimistic … You have to, in negotiations you have to recognise that you’re prepared, that you’re not in there to get a deal at any price. We’re in there to get the best deal for the United Kingdom and actually I’m optimistic about that because I think that in the European Union they will want to continue their relationship with us as well.

JP: You can be as optimistic as you like but you might have to walk away from it.

THERESA MAY: What I will be doing is, so we heard in the earlier session, what I’ll be doing is being a difficult woman and ensuring that we are negotiating hard.

JP: Theresa May thank you very much, thank you.