ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SKY NEWS, SUNDAY WITH NIALL PATERSON

NIALL PATERSON: An investigation has been launched into the Labour party’s handling of allegations of sexual harassment against Welsh Assembly member Carl Sargeant who is thought to have taken his own life earlier this week. First Minister, Carwyn Jones, has faced calls to step down after it emerged that Mr Sargeant was not told the details of the allegations against him. Joining us from Liverpool is the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Peter Dowd. Mr Dowd, many thanks for being with us. This week the Labour party lost one of its own, Carl Sargeant apparently took his own life having been suspended from the party pending investigation. Are you happy that across the Commons, not just within the Labour party but the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, whatever, are you happy that the parties are acting with sufficient regard for due process and natural justice?

PETER DOWD: Well it’s a terribly tragic situation that Carl Sargeant found himself in and the family found themselves in, in terms of what occurred, the alleged, the apparent suicide and I think it’s time to take stock in situations like this as to whether all the processes, the investigation processes in relation to allegations are correct and the processes where you are supporting people are correct.

NP: Clearly though there is a conversation to be had within the Labour party itself specifically. Two weeks’ ago Andrew Gwynne told me that he thought that the internal processes in the party for dealing with allegations of this type were robust enough, last week we heard from the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry, that they were not. What’s your view?

PETER DOWD: Well you know what, I was involved in a previous, in my previous profession in terms of investigating complaints and I’ve got to say complaints procedures are never as robust as they can be, they are always open to review, regular review, constant review. If an event happens, let’s review the processes, so I think it’s time in those circumstances to make sure we do review them. So in a way I don't think processes are ever as robust as they could be because something else will always come into the frame, something else which you didn’t expect will happen and that’s the time when you decide, given the seriousness of allegations that are made, you have to make sure that the procedures are as robust as possible and if that means review after review, well so be it but the key in these situations is to try to get to a culture where these allegations are not made because they don’t need to be made. It’s the culture that we have to change and you can have all the processes, robust or otherwise, in the world but we have got to change the culture.

NP: One Cabinet Minister who rarely seems far from the front pages these days is of course Boris Johnson. Jeremy Corbyn, your leader, has written an article calling for him to resign over comments he made about Nazanin Zaghari-Radcliffe. I mean what’s the rationale in calling for his resignation?

PETER DOWD: Well you know, last year I actually asked the Prime Minister a question about did she regret pencilling FO against Boris Johnson’s name, it should have been an instruction and not a job offer and I think she is regretting it. The bottom line is Boris Johnson time after time has shown he is not very sure-footed in many issues so we have a British citizen languishing in a prison abroad and could be languishing there for longer because the Foreign Secretary hasn’t got the detail right, hasn’t done his homework and that is not fair. That’s on top of just his general attitude to stuff, the stuff he talked about in Myanmar, he is just completely unsure-footed and he can’t continue as the Foreign Secretary given that lack of sure-footedness. It’s our reputation at stake but, more importantly, I don't care about his but I do care about our reputation but I care about people abroad who are potentially suffering because of his incompetence.

NP: But isn’t it all just a little bit rich for Mr Corbyn to make this intervention? Let’s leave aside the fact that in the article in which he calls for Boris Johnson’s head he doesn’t mention the Iranian regime once but he was happy to take tens of thousands of pounds from them, including a payment from Press TV six months after they lost their broadcasting licence after they aired a confession extracted through torture.

PETER DOWD: Well I the Iranian regime is a dreadful regime and we should be making sure that people who are affected by its intolerances are protected by this country and I think at the end of the day we have a Foreign Secretary who really has to step up to the mark and do his job, that’s the key thing at the moment and it’s not just about Iran, it’s about other parts of the world. You can remember his approach to Europe when he was almost attacking them and comparing the European Union to Nazi Germany, these are not the sort of things that a Foreign Secretary should be saying, it’s as simple as that and he has done it time after time after time and …

NP: Mr Down, apologies for interrupting but in the same way that Jeremy Corbyn didn’t mention the Iranian regime once in his article about Boris Johnson, after a question about Jeremy Corbyn’s potential hypocrisy, you don’t mention him once. He was happy to take tens of thousands of pounds from Iran, is it a bit rich for him now to be accusing Boris Johnson of [inaudible] the rule of Foreign Secretary when he was happy to take that money?

PETER DOWD: Look, two wrongs don’t make a right if you want to put it in those sorts of terms. At the end of the day it is not just Jeremy Corbyn effectively making these calls, other people – I’m making the call because at the end of the day the Foreign Secretary is not doing his job. He is the Foreign Secretary, I’m not the Foreign Secretary and Jeremy Corbyn is not the Foreign Secretary. He has got the responsibility to act on behalf of the United Kingdom government and, more importantly, UK citizens and he isn’t doing the job. It’s as simple as that.

NP: You of course as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury are the brains behind the Shadow Chancellor, his calculator as well. We have been talking this morning about the Brexit Bill, what figure does the Labour government in waiting stand ready to pay the European Union?

PETER DOWD: Well it’s John McDonnell, whilst you mentioned his name, who has asked for an independent assessment on it. Let’s have the figures. Nobody apparently knows what the figures are – the government doesn’t know what the figures are, they are being secretive about that, they are being secretive about these impact assessments. We actually just don’t know, the government are just quite simply batting away any question, any legitimate question whether it be as I say about figures relating to the Brexit Bill or about these impact assessments and persistently and consistently try to keep parliament in the dark about these matters. So what we need, key, is the total element, the total regime if you want of transparency and openness, that’s what gives people confidence in the process whether it’s the Brexit talks in general or whether it’s specific elements in relation to impact assessments or the cost of leaving.

NP: I am just slightly surprised, given that the Labour party continues the mantra that they are a government in waiting, ready to take over these negotiations if the current government falls, that you don’t have a figure to hand. But there is considerable pressure on the Chancellor in this coming budget to set money aside to prepare for a no deal Brexit, how much money would you like to see put aside for that purpose?

PETER DOWD: Well the government haven’t set the money aside because they actually don’t know because they haven’t been talking to the European Union about it, that’s the point. They just haven’t engaged with the European Union. The government don’t know what the figures are, the Opposition certain don’t know what the figures are because we can’t get anywhere near what the government are trying to do. They tell us when we ask for these figures, oh we can’t give them, it’s confidential, it will mess up negotiations. That’s the reality of the environment we’re operating in, so to pick a figure out of thin air when even the government don’t know apparently what the figure is, would be rather crass to do it.

NP: Coming to the House this week, of course the EU Withdrawal Bill. Let’s be absolutely clear on this, already people are talking about a great betrayal, all the amendments that have been laid down. I mean what is the Labour party’s strategy as the EU Withdrawal Bill hits the House?

PETER DOWD: Well the amendments that Labour will be talking about this week is that one, we will be laying down amendments to protect workers’ rights and environment rights for people. We’ll be talking about our continued discussions around the agencies like EURATOM which may be pretty boring for some people but is absolutely crucial in terms of our economic, our energy policy and the question about amendments in relation to transition. So there are three key elements this week that we want to lay on the table that we’ll be talking about in the House of Commons as part of that amendment process.

NP: Peter Dowd, many thanks for being with us.

PETER DOWD: Thank you.