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

SOPHY RIDGE: It’s illegal for women in Northern Ireland to get an abortion, even in the case of rape, incest or where the health of the mother is at risk so yesterday’s vote in Ireland has led to MPs across the political spectrum here in the UK to call for change in the law. So let’s see what the Shadow Health Secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, has to say. He joins us now live, hello to you, thanks for being with us.

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: Hello.

SR: The referendum in Ireland leaves Northern Ireland as a real outlier in the abortion debate, only Poland, Malta and Cyprus have stricter rules when it comes to abortion so if Labour were in power would you overrule politicians in Northern Ireland to decriminalise abortion?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: Well these things are always done on the basis of a free vote but I do agree with you, I don't think it’s sustainable that women in Northern Ireland should be denied this and be out of place from the island of Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. These things are usually a free vote and have to be done in consultation with the parties of Northern Ireland but I would think that women in Northern Ireland should have the same rights that women here in England have and women have in the rest of Ireland. I actually thought the women returning home to vote this week on the island of Ireland was moving, it was extraordinary and I pay tribute to them.

SR: So just to try and pin you down, if you were Health Secretary, if Labour won in government, would you hold a free vote on decriminalising abortion in Northern Ireland?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: Well these matters would have to be a free vote. I think from what I understand there may well be a vote in parliament coming up anyway. I think it’s important on matters like this that you tread sensitively and be aware of the realities of devolution and work with the parties in Northern Ireland but if a vote did come to the House of Commons, I would vote to allow women in Northern Ireland to have an abortion like they can here in England.

SR: As you said, there may be a vote coming up, Stella Creasy for example, the Labour MP, wants to have an amendment on the Domestic Abuse Bill to include abortion in Northern Ireland so will Labour support her in that amendment?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: It would have to be a free vote but I would imagine a substantial number of Labour MPs probably would support that amendment, I mean I certainly would, but I am also aware that with these matters it is important to work in consultation and collaboration with the parties of Northern Ireland. Obviously we don’t have an Executive sitting at the moment in Northern Ireland but we have to take into account what the political parties of Northern Ireland are saying on this but for what it’s worth, the position I would take would be to support abortion in Northern Ireland and vote the appropriate way if we are given that opportunity in the House of Commons.

SR: Now the focus on abortion in Ireland has also led some people to look at the laws that we have in the UK currently as well including England as well and at the moment it is still a criminal act, it is just that the 1967 Act just outlines exceptions to the offence so would you support actually updating that act and actually decriminalising abortion in the UK?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: Oh yes, a women in the circumstance should never feel criminalised or never feel that she is doing something wrong or something inappropriate, we need to support women when they’re making very difficult choices and we need to ensure that the health of those women, the NHS and the broader health services in the community, are fully supportive of those women and ensuring women can have their abortions in the healthiest and safest environment possible. So I am not against looking again at the issue that you’ve raised.

SR: You talk about supporting women and making it as safe as possible, in that case then obviously speed is of the essence when it comes to terminations, do you still think it is right that women have to get the approval of two doctors if they do want to have an abortion?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: I think with something like this I would take guidance from what clinicians are saying. If clinicians think that it is inappropriate and that that needs to be looked at again, then I would not stand against it but I do think that these matters should be clinician led and the key thing is always ensuring the safety and the wellbeing of the woman making what in many circumstances will be a very personally difficult decision. That is where I would come from on this, I would always support the women and I would always follow the medical advice, so if medics and clinicians are saying we need to move away from that, I’m not going to stand against it but these things need to be clinically led. We listen to the clinicians who are involved in this area of medicine and we take our lead from them.

SR: Okay, let’s move on now to the wider NHS reforms that you are pushing on today because you are calling on the Conservatives to actually apologise aren’t you, for the previous government’s NHS reforms. Let’s get real, they’re not going to are they, so is this just a PR stunt?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: Well I don't know because according to the newspapers we are now led to believe that Jeremy Hunt and Theresa May think that the reforms to the NHS, that big reorganisation that they imposed early on in the parliament, even though they supported it in Cabinet, has been a mess and it has led to …

SR: But they are not going to apologise though are they?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: Well they need to get rid of it because it’s led to fragmentation, it’s led to privatisation of many community health services and if you want to reform the NHS, if you want to integrate better, if you want to bring social care, community health, mental health services together to offer real person, whole person care, you’ve got to get rid of this fragmented internal market and move to a system of planning, of partnership and collaboration at a local level otherwise any more money going into the system will be wasted on an NHS at the moment which is structurally not working as well as it should be.

SR: It’s interesting that you talk there about money and money being wasted because there does seem to be a political consensus that more money does need to go into the NHS, so the question is of course how much money and who is it going to come from? The RFS this week said the NHS needs 4% more which is around £2000 for every household, do you agree with that assessment?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: Well we at the general election said the NHS and social care sector would get an extra £45 billion across a parliament had we been elected last year so we certainly agree that the NHS and the social care sector desperately needs more funding. We’ve had eight years of severe under-funding which has meant we’ve lost 16,000 beds, we don’t have enough staff, we don’t have enough doctors, GP numbers are going down, we’re short of 40,000 nurses and of course four million are on the waiting list and we’ve just had the worst winter ever in the NHS with nearly 600,000 people designated as trolley waits in corridors.

SR: But who is going to pay for it?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: We are prepared to put up taxation for the wealthiest in society, the question is, is this Tory going to increase tax to fund the NHS or are they going to increase borrowing …

SR: Well how much do you want to see tax go up then?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: Well we would increase taxation for the top 5%, the wealthiest in society, they would pay more tax under a Labour government, a little bit more tax in order to fund the quality of care we need in our NHS. The Tories are hinting that they want to do something but they’re not telling us what it is – is it taxation, is it extra borrowing or is it cutting other vital areas of the public sector like the defence budget or policing or the education budget? That’s the challenge for government in the coming weeks, to tell us where the money is going to come from.

SR: You see you always talk, Labour often talks about just putting up taxes for the small number of people at the top, the top 10%, the top 5% but actually this group already pays an awful lot of tax. If you look at the figures for example, the richest 1% pay over a quarter of all income tax, the top 10% pay 60%, do you not worry that this group of people is effectively just going to at some point pay their accountants to start moving their tax affairs around and this pot of money that you seem to be dipping into for all the reforms you want to do, is just going to run out?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: Well we want to ask those with the broadest shoulders to contribute a little bit more so we can have quality public services for all, to have a quality NHS for all. No pensioner should be waiting on a trolley in a corridor for hours and hours and hours, no pensioner should have to rely or have to see their social care provision cut back so that they literally cannot get out of the hospital when they have gone into the hospital because perhaps they’ve had a fall. We’ve got people waiting longer and longer and longer for knee replacements, for hip replacements, often waiting longer in pain and agony and we’ve had over 26,000 people waiting around two months for cancer treatment, one person waited over 500 days for cancer treatment – this can’t carry on. It’s shaming and I’m afraid if that means asking the wealthiest in society to pay a little bit extra in cash so that we can have a decent National Health Service for all, then that’s the right thing to do I’m afraid.

SR: Now before you go, I overheard you say this morning that you are going to be going to Labour Live which is this music event which apparently, reportedly has been struggling to sell enough tickets to break even. What are the acts you are most looking forward to seeing then?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: [Laughs] Well I did rather flippantly say I might be asked to do a turn.

SR: Are you going to be on the stage? What are you going to be doing, spinning a few decks?

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: Well I do a great Engelbert Humperdinck number, you’d love it Sophy! Who knows, we’ll see. I might do a bit of The Greatest Showman, my kids love that, I do a lot of singing of that in the kitchen with my seven year old and four year old, they love that, so who knows.

SR: I’m sure after that announcement the ticket sales are going to rocketing.

JONATHAN ASHWORTH: Through the roof, through the roof!

SR: Thank you very much for your time.