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

SOPHY RIDGE: Well Tuesday could be an absolutely pivotal day for the government when Parliament votes on a series of amendments. The Prime Minister could return to Brussels with her hand strengthened or she could find she has lost control of the Brexit process. Well joining us now is the Education Secretary, Damian Hinds, thank you very much for being on the programme this morning. This week I went to Wotton in Norfolk and the message that I got there from people very strongly was they want Brexit to happen even if it means no deal, they want to get on with it so can you reassure people in Wotton and elsewhere that we will be leaving the EU on March 29th?

DAMIAN HINDS: Yes, we will. I mean there is a very clear instruction that came from people in the referendum and of course subsequently we’ve had the vote in Parliament to trigger Article 50, we’ve had the date of the 29th March set out and it’s up to everybody in Parliament now to find the common ground to make sure we can move forward with a sensible balanced negotiated outcome and that’s what I’m totally focused on.

SR: Because the reason that we’re asking the question of course is the series of amendments that are coming up next week where MPs are effectively saying that if MPs can’t reach an agreement than rather than leaving without a deal, there should be an extension to Article 50. So if it does come down to that, which of those two options would you prefer?

DAMIAN HINDS: So prolonging these things doesn’t necessarily help you. Delaying the process doesn’t actually find a way through, it just kicks the can a bit further down the road. What we in Parliament need to do is do what we’re there for, which is to debate, to discuss and then to come together and work out what is the way through and we should be trying to avoid a no deal, that would be a bad outcome but we absolutely can’t have a second referendum or undoing the Brexit process. We need to have, as I say, a sensible balanced negotiated exit. I am sure there is common ground to do that, we have to find it and we have to move forward with it.

SR: You say there is common ground.

DAMIAN HINDS: Yes.

SR: Theresa May lost that vote 230 not by 23.

DAMIAN HINDS: I’m not saying it’s a small task, clearly. We are engaged in a huge debate on this massive issue, the biggest single critical issue that has been around not just since I’ve been in politics but since I’ve been politically aware and one that doesn’t cut along party lines and that makes it harder but it is obviously incredibly important that we do it and, as I say, I think the common ground actually is there. If you look at what some of the different proposals are, the difference between them isn’t quite as great as sometimes it appears when you throw around the labels and the terminology so I think we can come to that.

SR: Just to be clear then, I know you want to get the deal done, of course you do, of course you want to find that common ground, but if you can’t it is a choice then, as the amendment by Yvette Cooper is trying to pinpoint, between leaving on 29th March with no deal or delaying, which would you prefer?

DAMIAN HINDS: That just doesn’t solve anything, that just says we’ll put it off a bit further. Now we’ve had …

SR: Are you prepared to leave with no deal?

DAMIAN HINDS: We’ve had a long time to debate this … No, I’d prefer us to get on with it and get the negotiated deal and there is no reason why we shouldn’t be able to do that and as I say, I think there is quite a lot of common ground and when you think about what people’s starting positions are, think about how they might come somewhat closer together, you do end up with whichever starting point you’ve come from, you do have sort of a pretty [inaudible] to the negotiated deal that the Prime Minister has so I want us to focus all our energies on moving forward towards that.

SR: It sounds as if the government will be moving towards trying to get some kind of compromise on the backstop agreement which would of course bring some Conservative MPs and the DUP back onside. One of the amendments is asking for that backstop to be time limited, is that something that the government would support?

DAMIAN HINDS: So the backstop is an integral part of the Withdrawal Agreement, I know you are going to have the Irish Minister on later and you will have an opportunity to talk about these things directly. The backstop exists as a cast iron guarantee to not return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and as I say it has been an integral part of the Withdrawal Agreement. There are legitimate concerns by some of my colleagues and the Democratic Unionist Party on aspects of the backstop and indeed it is helpful, it has already been helpful actually to have some further reassurances on that coming back from the European Union but it is also worth saying that there is no particular reason to believe the backstop is going to come into place, it is only an insurance policy.

SR: My question was about would you the government support the backstop being time limited?

DAMIAN HINDS: Well it’s not really a question of whether the government will support it or not, this isn’t something which is entirely in the gift of one side or other in the negotiations.

SR: Well quite, you would have to ask permission but is that something you would support as a government?

DAMIAN HINDS: It is an integral part of the Withdrawal Agreement and any negotiated exit involves a Withdrawal Agreement and any Withdrawal Agreement would involve a backstop so absolutely I would support there being additional reassurances if some were possible on the way the backstop would operate but we shouldn’t over focus just on that aspect because there are multiple reasons to believe the backstop would never come into place and even if it did, actually there are some advantages to the backstop as well as drawbacks but what we should be focusing on is the overall package, the overall future arrangements.

SR: Well talking about the overall package, because Jean Claude Juncker has made it clear this week that if the backstop is to be revisited, then part of that would be a permanent customs union. Could you see the government pivoting in that direction?

DAMIAN HINDS: Well my understanding is that that is not a correct depiction of any particular conversation that happened. When we talk about the customs union versus the Prime Minister’s negotiated deal, so the customs union as put forward by the Labour front bench, my question to them is what is it about the customs union that is so important to you which is not in the Prime Minister’s negotiated agreement? And I have yet to hear a good answer to that because …

SR: But if you can get a deal that works cross party, why don’t you offer a customs union that can have a majority?

DAMIAN HINDS: Well it’s not in our gift to go offering things so way back at the start of these negotiations …

SR: But you are the government.

DAMIAN HINDS: They are negotiations with 27 other nations so at the start of this process we said there were two options on the table, there was the Norway style option or the Canada style option and actually what’s happened is the British government, the Prime Minister and some of our best diplomats have managed to negotiate something which is better than either of those, something which is bespoke to the UK, it gets the best of the customs union, we’d have good trade across borders, gets us out of the agriculture policy and the fisheries policy but also means we can strike our trade deals around the world, it leverages our strength in services, it ends free movement, it is a good deal, it’s a good balanced deal. It is not one of these off the shelf options but it is something bespoke, tailored for Britain and better than those options.

SR: If the government were to move towards no deal, could you support that and remain in government?

DAMIAN HINDS: I don’t envisage no deal becoming government policy because we are all totally focused on making sure we get out of the European Union, we do what we were told to do by the British people but we do it in a way which is good for their jobs. Look, I am focused on the here and now and I’m focused on getting a good negotiated exit done and as I say, I don’t envisage a scenario in which that question comes up, I don’t envisage a scenario in which no deal becomes government policy but it is important that it remains as a possibility because on the other hand there is still a possibility that some people will try to thwart Brexit altogether. I want them both of those sides, people to be moving a little bit towards each other so that we come to a good negotiated exit deal.

SR: Some of your colleagues have said that they are willing to step down if no deal does become effectively government policy.

DAMIAN HINDS: That’s something that only individuals can obviously answer for and as I say, I don’t envisage that becoming government policy, we want to avoid a no deal, no deal would not be a good outcome but it doesn’t have to be the outcome. If you say therefore take no deal off the table, you can’t just take a negative away, you have to replace it with something and the way to not have no deal – I know this sounds a bit over-simplistic sometimes and a bit of a play on words but the way to not have a no deal is to have a deal and that is what all of us in Parliament have to focus on this week.

SR: I just want to ask you about your brief while you’re here, someday I hope we can have a whole interview about education, that would be very refreshing, you’re trying to recruit teachers aren’t you because it could blow up into a recruitment crisis couldn’t it unless you get the best people in schools. One of the things you are offering is to try and tell parents very nicely to stop emailing their teachers so much, it is going to take a lot more than that isn’t it?

DAMIAN HINDS: Of course, a lot more than that. I mean to start at the beginning of what you said, yes, having outstanding people working in our schools is fundamental to education and we do have outstanding people working in our schools but we need to make sure there is more and more of them. We have got about 450,000 teachers in this country and that is about 10,000 up on 2010 but we have had a growing pupil population and we need to make sure that the profession remains a compelling attractive prospect and there are some things which are working against that like workload and that’s why I’m so focused on trying to bear down on workload. Part of that, and not the only part, is email and I think for all of us, in all of our different jobs, there has been a bit of an explosion in correspondence and communication through email. For teachers I think it can happen even more so. I am not saying to parents never email the school and never email teachers because that can be really important, it’s more a question of thinking about everything else the teacher has got on in terms of lesson planning and preparation and marking and so on and just have a bit of self-restraint when it comes to email.

SR: I am not an expert here but I can’t help thinking that if you want to recruit more teachers and better teachers, you have got to pay them more and actually there have been years of pay restraint for teachers and analysis has found that teachers are about £5000 a year worse off compared to 2010, I mean that’s a figure supported by the NUT. Were all those years of squeezing teachers’ pay a mistake?

DAMIAN HINDS: Pay is an important part of the attractiveness of the profession as it is of course to other walks of life and it is possible through career progression in teaching to build a good career and of course the teachers’ pension is a very strong pension and is a good part of that proposition as well. It is true that after the crash of 2008 there was pay restraint and it manifested in different ways actually right across society, not just in the public sector and the private sector as well. We have just had a larger pay increase for teachers ranging between 1.5% and 3.5% on the different pay scales and of course I do accept that pay remains an important part but workload is also very important and that’s why I am working to bear down on that and also to make sure that flexibility is available in work so when perhaps for family reasons or other reasons people want to be able to work part-time or job share, to make sure those options are available.

SR: Okay, we’re out of time, thank you very much.

DAMIAN HINDS: Thank you Sophy.