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SOPHY RIDGE: Let’s crack straight on with our next interview with Shadow Education Secretary, Angela Rayner and you’ll be pleased to know we didn’t just talk about Brexit. Instead I started by asking about the government’s plans for the crisis in teaching recruitment.

ANGELA RAYNER: Successive Conservative Secretaries have increased the workload for teachers, cut the funding to our schools and have had six consecutive years of not meeting their teaching recruitment targets so we know there is a problem with our schools and it is a problem of their own making and I’m just pleased that they have started to listen but I do think it is a little rich to say that school leavers have been the problem in terms of flexible working when actually we have seen the numbers of teachers reduced and cuts to our schools which have left us with hardly any support staff and the means to which we can educate our children.

SR: At the same time though, the OECD says that the UK spending on primary and secondary education is some of the highest in the G7, that’s as a proportion of GDP, so the cuts can’t have been that bad can they?

ANGELA RAYNER: Well they have and actually we’ve been slipping as per GDP on that OECD, we are not actually putting as much into education as we used to and that’s really important because as you look at the Brexit situation and leaving the European Union, we have to start skilling up our own workforce and many businesses have been telling me that at the moment they need those education establishments to be giving our children the resources for the future and at the moment that’s not happening. Our schools are saying that standards they want to continue to give that good standard and many teachers and support staff work extremely hard for our young people but when you don’t have the money for books, when you are having to lay off staff and make them redundant and when teachers are having to leave because they can’t sustain their own work/life balance then we’ve got a real crisis happening in our education system.

SR: I want to talk about your own plans for education because what you said at party conference last September is that a child’s early years are those that made the greatest impact on a child’s life so why is it then that Labour is planning to spend twice as much money on scrapping tuition fees as it is on early years, Sure Start and child care?

ANGELA RAYNER: Well I am absolutely proud of our record in government and in early years. We created the Sure Start programme, in fact I was one of the people who actually benefited from that when I had my son at 16 and I think it’s really important that we do invest in early years and we have put additional funding into early years. The government has cut Sure Start, we have lost over 1200 Sure Start programmes from across the UK and that’s devastating and we’ve also seen that the 30 hours of free child care that the government promised has not been able to be delivered by the private providers because they are not funding it adequately. We have got to make sure that our early years is funded successfully because that’s really where you can make the biggest impact on social mobility and ensure that every child can do well.

SR: But that’s the point though, isn’t it? You talk passionately about it, I get it, you understand that early years is a time when you can really make a difference to the child’s life so what I am trying to understand is why Labour is spending just £5.3 billion on child care, early years and Sure Start and £11.2 billion on scrapping university tuition fees and maintenance grants when all the evidence suggests that if you want to tackle social mobility, you have got to target children younger than when they go to university, is it because if you were in charge you’d be doing things differently?

ANGELA RAYNER: Well we’ve made sure that the early years programme that we have, we’d make sure that every two to four year old would get the 30 hours of free child care regardless of their circumstances, which is different to the Conservatives because the children that need it the most will get that support. We did say that we’d scrap tuition fees and bring back maintenance grants and maintenance support and I think that’s fundamentally important because our national education service will be free at the point of need and will be there for every single person to use. I think that will transform Britain, I think it’s a really good thing, I think it speaks to our values. So the only way we can make sure that the early years is there to support people at the start of life but we will make sure that lifelong learning and education is free for all when they need it.

SR: Do you really think that scrapping university fees will transform Britain because according to the IFS it is the higher earning graduates who will benefit the most from that policy, lots of people see it as just a bung for middle class kids.

ANGELA RAYNER: Well it’s not. I think coming from a working class background myself, I had the opportunity to go to university for free if I wanted it. I think we all benefit from people who go to university and get good jobs and get a skilled workforce and we need that going into our economy in the future. I think that it’s an important barrier that we have and it does make an impact on young people if they are having to leave university with £57,000 of debt and of course it is those that need the maintenance support that come away from university with the biggest amount of debt and I think it’s really scary for our young people. I think it is the wrong thing for the government to do and the government will say most of that tuition fee is never paid off but if you are that young person having that debt saddled round your neck for all those years, I think that is really upsetting for them. I think it is a value that we can afford, I think it is the right thing to do and it is what Labour will do when we get into power.

SR: Now we have to talk about Brexit of course and this week MPs are going to be voting on a series of amendments, one of them could be the Yvette Cooper amendment which effectively seeks to rule out no deal by delaying Brexit if MPs can’t reach agreement so I’d really appreciate a clear answer on this because people are really worried about what’s happened with Brexit. Will Labour back that Yvette Cooper amendment?

ANGELA RAYNER: Labour will do whatever it takes to avoid a no deal Brexit so if that’s the only option that we have then it is something that we will seriously consider. I want Theresa May genuinely to listen to Parliament and to reach a consensus …

SR: So is that a yes or a no?

ANGELA RAYNER: I think I’m as clear as I possibly can be. What we’ve said is we have put our amendment down, let me be as clear as I possibly can be for the people that are listening to this programme – we have put our amendment down, we said we respected the result of the referendum. We want to find a deal, we want a customs union, we want protections for environment, consumer and employments, we’ve said that all along. Theresa May will not budge on her red lines, she is trying to bully us into a no deal scenario. We will do whatever it takes through Parliament to stop that no deal scenario from happening and if that means backing an amendment then we will do that.

SR: Okay, now the front benches own amendment puts the option of a second referendum on the table but recently your party chairman, Ian Lavery, has said that asking the voters to vote again on an issue they have already given an answer on until they come up with the right answer risks serious damage to the relationship between politicians at Westminster so I am interested in your own view on this, what do you think having a second referendum or Labour backing a second referendum will do to democracy?

ANGELA RAYNER: Well our conference motion was very clear and we said we wouldn’t rule that out but let me be clear. I think if we end up with a second referendum then us as politicians have failed the public, we have failed to be able to do our job. I will see that as a really difficult situation for us all to be in. I don't think that people want to see a delay in Article 50, I don't think that people want to see a second referendum, they want to see Parliamentarians working together to carry out what happened as a result of the referendum, to get the best possible deal we can for Britain moving forward and the only way we can do that next week is by Theresa May actually genuinely working across Parliament and looking at her red lines and seeing how she can build that consensus. I still think that can happen but Theresa May has to be willing to put her own views aside and to work with Parliament and for the last two and a half years unfortunately she has not been willing to do that. I hope she does now next week.

SR: How would you vote if there was another referendum and do you think that Leave would just win again?

ANGELA RAYNER: I would be really worried about a second referendum to be honest. I don’t think that people necessarily will expect the result that they get. I think if anything it will be very narrow and worst case scenario is it would be a very narrow remain and then what, are we going to have the best of three? I think it would be really difficult for the UK to be in that situation and like I say I respect the …

SR: How would you vote?

ANGELA RAYNER: I probably would vote Remain and the reason I’d vote Remain is I’ve seen over the last two and a half years all the analysis that we’ve got at the moment and we’re in the European Union, we get benefits as being part of the European Union and I believe that would bring about things for the UK. I believed that at the start of this process when I made my first vote and I still believe that to be the case but I also believe in democracy and people made the decision. Now I have heard people say they were lied to etc and I’ve pulled Damian Hinds up five times in terms of his dodgy stats and in every manifesto you only get half of it implemented normally so there is always mistruths as we’d say in Parliament and I understand people’s frustration but I really don’t see that the UK has moved significantly away from where they were originally on that original decision so I think Parliament has just got to get on with it now.

SR: Angela Rayner there.