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

NIALL PATERSON: The Prime Minister was given a round of applause at the EU Council dinner earlier this week and returned to the UK triumphant after securing a deal to move on to the next phase of Brexit talks but in the process she has upset some leading Brexiteers unhappy that we’ve compromised too much and many issues remain unresolved, not least the Irish border. Joining me now to discuss all of that, the Immigration Minister Brandon Lewis, a very good morning.

BRANDON LEWIS: Good morning.

NP: Judging by what the Prime Minister has been writing for the papers this morning, she sees this week as a validation of her Brexit strategy. She is, in her words, proving the doubters wrong. In what possible way can that be true?

BRANDON LEWIS: Oh I think a couple of things. I think the Prime Minister has shown that she can get the deal for the United Kingdom. There were many people who, leading up to the agreement that was finally signed off by the Council on Friday, said that even that wasn’t going to happen, it wasn’t possible and she managed to do that and by being very focused on it, determined about it, we got a good deal for the EU citizens here in the UK, the right deal for British citizens, there is over a million British citizens living and working abroad in Europe, as well as getting a package which shows we can move on importantly to that next step, getting the trade negotiations started and the implementation period.

NP: You are absolutely right, there were plenty of people who doubted that we would get to this point, the question is at what cost? Have we moved on to Phase Two? Even in the agreements that have been reached, there have been a number of missteps. Take Phase One, last week on this programme and elsewhere we were told by the Brexit Secretary, the Northern Ireland Secretary that this was a framework, a memorandum of understanding. The EU and the Irish government threw their toys out of the pram and now we discover it’s to be legally binding.

BRANDON LEWIS: Well we said there will be a Withdrawal Bill that will go through Parliament, probably at the back end of 2019 and that’s also important because that’s partly what also gives that certainty to the EU citizens living here in the UK about the settled status we are going to grant them, that’s good for business, business has certainty that the staff and the people we’ve got here who contribute to our economy know that they can stay and businesses know that they can stay. So I think it is an important part of what we’re doing, as we’ve said from the very beginning these are about negotiations, negotiations mean that you have to look at these things as you go forward.

NP: But how do you reconcile the notion that what we’ve agreed on Phase One as regards to EU citizen’s rights, as regards to the Irish border and so on, how do you reconcile the idea that that is said to be legally binding upon us with the idea contained in the text that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed?

BRANDON LEWIS: Well you have actually got to judge us by what we said and what we actually do. For example, with citizen’s rights, not only are we going to be putting that into legislation, that withdrawal piece of legislation later in 2018, in the second half of 2018 we will start the process of giving settled status, we will have that as a voluntary scheme in the second half of 2018 before we’ve left, so very clearly indicating our determination to deliver and do the right thing. As we said from the very beginning, fulfil our moral duty as much as anything else.

NP: But it has been a complete fudge on the issue of the Northern Ireland/Ireland border hasn’t it?

BRANDON LEWIS: No, not at all, we said again from the very beginning we are going to make sure that we respect not just the Good Friday Agreement but the common travel area which goes beyond Ireland obviously but what we do in terms of the negotiations for the trade agreement is important and that comes in the next stage.

NP: You’ve made promises to the DUP, you’ve made promises to the Irish government, one side has to be disappointed by whatever solution you come up with.

BRANDON LEWIS: Well actually the reason I think that Theresa May is so perfect to be taking these negotiations is she’s shown she’s somebody who can bring everybody together. She has done that within the country, she’s delivering what we’re doing, she’s certainly done it within our party where we have people on both sides of that referendum and I think she can do that in the more wider negotiations, including in Northern Ireland, to get to agreements – it’s what negotiations are all about – that works for everybody.

NP: What you’ve got is a form of words that both the DUP and the Irish government can put up with and actually with regards the border there, I mean any solution potentially leaves you as Immigration Minister with something of a headache, with a porous border, with people able to travel, goods able to move freely across it, how do you keep any grip on immigration?

BRANDON LEWIS: Well we had said from the very beginning we want to make sure that there is a frictionless border there, we are not going to have a hard border in Northern Ireland, that is important but actually immigration and our work on immigration goes beyond the fact that we have a lot of intelligence, advanced information, we also have that compliant environment that we’re bringing forward and …

NP: So ordinary EU citizens who’d be free to travel to the Republic of Ireland, what would stop them from being free to travel to Northern Ireland?

BRANDON LEWIS: Well of course they would be able to travelling through, with a registration scheme, through that implementation period. What we are going to do in Phase Three, we’ll obviously follow when we publish our Immigration Bill and our White Paper pretty soon actually, it will be early next year, and we are waiting to see the feedback from the Migration Advisory Committee, that independent group of experts who are going to …

NP: You must have an idea of a solution though. You are talking very confidently about the fact that there won’t be a back door to enter into the United Kingdom so how do we plug that gap?

BRANDON LEWIS: Well two things, firstly as tempting as it is to go into detail before we publish the White Paper, I’m going to have to ask you to just be a bit patient just yet, Christmas isn’t quite upon us yet so there’s still time. But also, to be very clear, immigration controls go well beyond that so the work we are doing on the comply and [inaudible], the right to work, the right to rent, the work with bank accounts and driving licences, all that means that people who are coming here legally will be able to prosper and to contribute, people who are here illegally will find it harder to be able to go forward.

NP: Clearly immigration was the central issue of the EU referendum and the longer that we have discussions like this without any proper defined solution being described to people who voted to leave the European Union, you can understand why people are starting to get a little bit nervous. Do you still believe that that net migration target of tens of thousands is possible?

BRANDON LEWIS: I do think actually we can get net migration down to those sustainable levels and the reason I think that is actually evidence of what we saw in just the last roughly ten days ago, the latest set of net migration figures which showed the biggest fall we have seen on record, down by 106,000 and …

NP: But still well into six figures.

BRANDON LEWIS: But within that what’s important is the people coming here for confirmed jobs was up, the people coming here as entrepreneurs and investors, students, all of those were up and a record number of passenger visitors so it shows that we are delivering what business needs whilst getting control of our borders and that’s something I think you are absolutely right about, people want to see us get control of our borders.

NP: But there is going to be free movement for years after March 2019 won’t there? Free unfettered movement, Brexit for a lot of people will simply not mean Brexit.

BRANDON LEWIS: Well when we get to March 2019 that legal entity of freedom of movement as we know it will end. We will then move into this … people will still be able to move fluidly across from Europe but it will be a registration scheme, which is an important part of the changes to our future immigration system that will come in after the implementation period.

NP: But in essence hasn’t Philip Hammond yesterday in China not essentially said actually it’s status quo until the point at which we have that final deal struck? It’s not the point at which we come out of the European Union that things will change significantly is it?

BRANDON LEWIS: Well look, what we’ve been very clear about is we want to make sure there is no cliff edge, that business has access to the skills they need, that our economy can continue to flourish. A lot of this is very clear when I talk to people who felt very strongly about leaving the European Union, I represent an area that voted over 72%, is they want to know that that control is coming back. It is, we are going to do it in an orderly way, in a smooth way and that’s why that implementation period is so important.

NP: But March 2019 is for so many a totemic date, it is the point at which we are no longer part of the European Union, however after that point we don’t still have to adhere to their rules or operate under the jurisdiction of the ECJ, we’ve also got to accept any new rules that the EU imposes upon us. In what way is that Brexit?

BRANDON LEWIS: Well a couple of key points to that. Firstly obviously we will be out of those institutions, technically we won’t be a member of those …

NP: We won’t have any say, we will be a taker but we won’t have any influence on the process.

BRANDON LEWIS: We haven’t yet completed the negotiations around what that Phase Two implementation period will be so let’s not pre-empt that. So people pre-empted what would happen in the first round and the Prime Minister proved them wrong and delivered but also we have got to make sure we do what’s right for the British economy and within that we will do that in terms of, as I said, immigration will be different, there will be a registration scheme which is part of moving forward to our final Phase Three position which will we will go public with in our legislation next year.

NP: On what you’ve just said you think that people like Jacob Rees-Mogg who suggests that we will be a vassal state of the European Union, you think that he doesn’t have Britain’s economic interests at heart?

BRANDON LEWIS: No, actually I am staying something quite different, what I am saying is I think the Prime Minister and the work that we will be doing as a government will deliver to make sure that people, whether it is Jacob Rees-Mogg or anybody else on either side of the debate can see that we come up a deal that is good for the United Kingdom – and let’s be very clear, the way that Europe works, most of the rules that are coming in in the next couple of years are rules that have been developed now while we are part of that process and we are contributing to it.

NP: Just in terms of the EU Withdrawal Bill, does the defeat this week signal once and for all that you don’t have a working majority?

BRANDON LEWIS: Well we have got a very small majority in the House of Commons, that’s a mathematical fact, it is one of the things that came out of the general election. What it does also show is that actually we are making sure that we deliver. We are obviously at the very early stages of this Bill, we are delivering Brexit, we will be leaving the European Union, the vast majority of things when we were told that there would be lots and lots of votes lost like this, we have lost one vote but everything else has gone through and what we are doing is looking at the results of that vote to make sure we can go forward to do what we can to deliver a unified position actually where we can across parliament.

NP: How do you feel when you see colleagues of yours, perhaps even friends of yours, being described as traitors, it being suggested that they should face deselection because they voted against the Whip?

BRANDON LEWIS: Oh look, I wouldn’t describe any colleague in that way and I think some of the attacks that we see on MPs generally very much covered today I think are unwelcome and unnecessary in modern life, particularly in parliament with votes. I know, and I handled a Bill myself which has had people on it on a different side to me and rebels in our own party and they do that because they feel very strongly about something and that’s what parliament is about. Our job as a government is to work with that, listen to that as we have been listening all the way through, to look at how we can make sure we deliver something that works for everyone.

NP: What do you make though of papers like the Daily Mail and to a lesser extent the Telegraph, clearly identifying those who voted with their conscience – admittedly against the Whip – as traitors?

BRANDON LEWIS: Look, I think we have a free press in this country and different parts of the press can have different views about these things. For me personally, these are colleagues, they feel passionately about these things, they made a strong case about something, they managed to convince enough people in parliament to vote that way and we’ve got to make sure that we listen so that we respect that they have these strong views but ultimately it doesn’t change that core thing which is we will be leaving the European Union, we’ve all got to be very clear about that. The public did vote, we had a referendum, we have to respect that democratic decision.

NP: Still how is losing a vote on the EU Withdrawal Bill, how is that proving the doubters wrong, in the Prime Minister’s words?

BRANDON LEWIS: Well what the Prime Minister has done is deliver that first stage of the agreement, got us onto Stage Two, something many doubters felt wasn’t possible, she has delivered on that and actually even with the Bill that’s going through parliament at the moment, the core work in that to make sure that we leave the European Union, that we do it on the date that we set out in Article 50, all of that are things we have delivered on. Obviously the Bill is at its early stages, we have not even finished in the Commons let alone in the Lords yet.

NP: Minister, many thanks and a merry Christmas when it comes.

BRANDON LEWIS: To you to and to everybody watching.