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

NIALL PATERSON: Another week and guess what, another Cabinet resignation. First Sir Michael Fallon, then Priti Patel, could Boris Johnson be next? The Foreign Secretary has apparently joined forces with Michael Gove once again, this time penning a secret letter to the Prime Minister demanding a hard Brexit. One could be forgiven for thinking there is something of crisis at the heart of government. Fortunately the sixth round of Brexit talks were sure to deliver good news, right? Wrong. The list of things the two sides disagree upon if anything seems to be getting longer. This week Michel Barnier gave the UK a two week deadline to stump up more cash, a deadline the Brexit Secretary told me he doesn’t recognise so on today’s show David Davis gives us his assessment on progress or lack thereof in the Brexit talks. The Brexit Secretary, David Davis, was in Brussels this week for the sixth round of Brexit talks where once again the issue of money dominated. I met him for a chat after the talks concluded.

Behind the scenes with the man holding surely one of the most demanding jobs in government, David Davis – and of course the team that surrounds him – are responsible not just for extricating us from the European Union but fashioning our future relationship. Still, if the burden of responsibility weighs heavily on his broad shoulders, he gives precious little sign. David Davis, clearly you are a very busy man but this is the sixth round of talks, we’re still not certain we’re about to move on to negotiations about trade. Do you understand why some people are concerned about an apparent lack of progress?

DAVID DAVIS: Well I can see why people, just coming back to it from time to time, but actually there has been a huge amount of progress. I mean the Commission started off saying we want to do this this way and we thought about arguing about it but actually we decided look, there are things in this which we need answers on ourselves, citizen’s rights being the biggest one. That one, when we started, there was no knowledge on what was going to happen on citizen’s rights, now we’re pretty clear how it is going to turn out. All the three million people in Britain today, the million Brits in Europe, will have a protection of their current lifestyle really. That sort of thing alone, that alone, let alone the other three or four things we’re dealing with, is a big achievement.

NP: But one of the things it appears is a sticking point is money, it really is at the heart of all of this isn’t it? And it appears to me you have got two weeks to come up with some more, according to Michel Barnier.

DAVID DAVIS: [Laughs] Well in every negotiation each side tries to control the timetable. The real deadline on this of course is December, it is the December October council which I think is about 14th December, thereabout, but your readers, your viewers are all taxpayers I suspect one way or another and they would not want me to come along and just give away billions of pounds so we have been very, very careful and it is taking time and we will take our time to get to the right answer.

NP: But the simple fact is, until there is an agreement on the figure from both sides, we aren’t going to move towards those trade talks.

DAVID DAVIS: Well no, that isn’t the case. They have used this phrase, they invented this phrase ‘sufficient progress’, right? It is, as it were, in their control what that really is but one of the reasons they did it was because we said all right, we’ll do this sequence thing but don’t imagine you will have a number or a formula at the end of it. We will get towards that process but you won’t have a number or a formula before we move on to the next stage. They accepted that so it is not to be expected that suddenly they will come along and say here’s another five billion or whatever, you know.

NP: But to move on to phase two, it’s not within your gift is it? It’s within theirs.

DAVID DAVIS: Well it’s both of course but yes, the 27 will make their decision whether or not to move on, that’s right.

NP: Do you concede, in the same way that the Chancellor has done, that this uncertainty, businesses are looking for details about the transition period, businesses are looking for details as to the final deal but this uncertainty is having an effect on the economy.

DAVID DAVIS: Of course it does, of course it does. We have got a two year negotiation going on, you know. But the businesses we’re talking about, I was a director of a FTSE 100 business, actually two of them, and I know quite what it’s like. You don’t have absolute certainty in business and if you are a business you know when you start a negotiation you don’t know exactly how long it will last or indeed what the exact outcome will be. We know we are going and what we are doing in this exercise is trying to design this to give the maximum certainty and that’s one of the reasons that we’re saying one of the first things, indeed the first thing we’re going to set to resolve in phase two, as soon as it starts, is the implementation period or transition period. What that will do is give businesses two years to plan or thereabouts, when we get to the end, so they will be able to make a plan on the basis of certainty. So that’s designed specifically to give certainty.

NP: But isn’t it the case that actually, I mean you mentioned earlier you never know exactly how long the negotiating process will last but we do, don’t we? We have a date at which we will be coming out of the European Union, whether or not we have a deal is down to you and them.

DAVID DAVIS: Oh we know the end stop, we know when we’re aiming for which is the latter part of last year, autumn 2018, both sides want to hit that sort of target so we have a broad idea but in terms of what the outcome will be exactly, in any even remotely complex business negotiation – even when you buy a house, you don’t know when you start whether you’ll end up with the carpets and curtains, what the exact price will be, etc, etc. This is taking 40 years of law, 40 years of relationship and turning it into what we hope is an infinite period of friendship so that’s a complex thing to do, the most complex negotiation probably in history and so people would be unreasonable to expect absolute certainty from day one.

NP: Given all of that, why then won’t you countenance any set of circumstances in which Article 50 could be paused to increase the amount of time available for the negotiations?

DAVID DAVIS: Well you just said business is looking for certainty, they don’t want another uncertainty – extending the thing into the future. Also, in order to pause it, well not pause it, extend it by a year let alone pause it – I’m not sure you can pause it – but even to extend it by a year takes unanimity of all the other 27, what do you think the price of that would be? When you require unanimity from 27 countries, I can tell you it will be very expensive.

NP: I thought they weren’t trying to punish us, I thought they wanted us to have a good deal out of all of this.

DAVID DAVIS: Listen, in a European negotiation, in a European negotiation very often you find one country will hold it to get something it particularly wants. If you say to 27 country I’d like another year thank you, one of them will put a price on it, at least, if not 27 of them.

NP: If we do move on to phase two, and that is not yet certain, you’ve got around about ten months to work out, as you say, the most complicated trade deal in our nation’s history. The European Union doesn’t appear to think it can be done so why do you?

DAVID DAVIS: Well because it will be, well two overarching reasons. Number one, we are starting from the same place. Most trade deals, if we did a trade deal with America we’d be looking at the standards of the products we were selling to each other, all that sort of stuff. With the European Union they’re the same, we have exactly the same standards on the day we leave so you are actually controlling divergence rather than convergence so you’ve got an instant couple of years saved over that. The second thing is that what we’re looking for is actually very simple at one level and that is we want a no tariff, a tariff-free deal, which then allows us to have a very simple customs agreement. Those things make it simpler, make it easier to do quickly.

NP: Can we just talk for a second about the possibility of no deal? Of course you are not working towards that, you’re working towards a deal, but it remains a possibility and I’d submit perhaps more of a possibility than ever before. If a deal is not struck would that represent a personal failure?

DAVID DAVIS: Well two things. Firstly, I mean you’re right, it’s not what we’re aiming for. Secondly, I won’t accept that it’s more probable than it’s ever been before.

NP: The closer we get to the December meeting of the European Council, clearly it’s more …

DAVID DAVIS: You know, we could have this interview every three months for the next three years and there would be cycles in the time. People get more tense, less tense, that’s how negotiations advance, by pressure on each side but no, understand one of the parts of my job, a third to a half of my job in a way, is planning for every outcome and we have a huge planning operation for every outcome and we will be ready if that happens. It’s not what we want because the trade deal that we’re talking about is not just trade – trade, security, foreign affairs, defence – all those deals are much better than no deal.

NP: But let’s just examine what could happen in the event of a no deal. Brexit means Brexit, if no deal means no deal. The day after we come out of the European Union there could be knock on effects to our policing, you have to be a member European Union to be part of Europol, URATOM as well, there could be real significant consequences for our health service, aviation – let’s be clear about it, the day after we come out planes might not fly.

DAVID DAVIS: Well that’s what I’ve heard said but it’s not the case. Look, let’s just take one country, you’ve got 27 countries who have got an interest in this too, not just us. Let’s take Spain, what would happen if suddenly there was a disruption in flights between Britain and Spain? You have got a huge tourist industry dependent on it, you have got a huge property market dependent on it.

NP: I’m not talking about the rationale for it, just the simple legality of it all.

DAVID DAVIS: Well with great respect, the rationale is important, the incentive’s important. Look, we will be … if we are at this point of no deal we’ll know it’s coming for a while and we’ll take measures to make sure that what you’re describing doesn’t happen.

NP: But that’s on top of ten months’ negotiating the trade deal isn’t it?

DAVID DAVIS: Wait a minute, which is why I have talked about at various times a barebones deal or a minimalist deal. We don’t want that either frankly but don’t assume that we haven’t thought through the end contingencies of this and we have. There will not be a circumstance where aircraft won’t fly, there will not be a circumstance where we can’t exchange data with the European institutions, there will not be those sorts of failures that people are fearing. We will make sure it doesn’t happen.

NP: But what of the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland? Clearly there if there is no deal there are two options. One, there is a hard border; two, Northern Ireland remains in the Customs Union.

DAVID DAVIS: One of the things we have to understand is we are talking about unique solutions to Northern Ireland. We are looking for a unique solution in the event that we have a deal but even today I think Mr Varadkar, or within the last day or so Mr Varadkar has accepted that staying inside the Customs Union is not a real option. It wouldn’t be a real option for a large part of the community in Northern Ireland and that’s the first interest we have.

NP: So that means a hard border then?

DAVID DAVIS: No, it doesn’t, no it doesn’t, I think we’ll find other ways round that. Look, at the moment …

NP: Tell me what they are, tell me what they are.

DAVID DAVIS: Let me just say this to you, currently there are differences in excise rates and so on, north and south of the border. They exist there now, right, that’s the first thing to understand. The second thing, the most fundamental aspect of the border, free movement of people across that border, is not underpinned by the European Union, it’s underpinned by the Common Travel Area for us. That’s been there since 1923 and it will be there probably in 2123.

NP: We’ve learned today that the European Union is actively planning for a future, situation in which Theresa May is not Prime Minister, have you given any thought to that?

DAVID DAVIS: I would be very surprised if really – and I know it was in the papers but I would be very surprised if they really are planning that. Look, the Prime Minister will be here right through Brexit and until my retirement, as it were, till the end of Brexit and she will be my boss through that, I’m quite certain.

NP: But you can’t not concede the fact that there is a chaotic quality to government at the moment. You’ve lost two Secretaries of State, you’ve got the Foreign Secretary potentially adding years to the sentence of a British nation whose release they were trying to secure. Okay, on the topic of Mr Johnson, is he unsackable?

DAVID DAVIS: Why would you want to sack him? He is a good Foreign Secretary. Look, the thing to understand here, you’ve got a flurry at the moment of things happening in politics but this happens to all governments at some point or another.

NP: So what’s the [inaudible] …

DAVID DAVIS: No, not necessary. I suggest you have a look at Churchill’s government of the early 1940s before he went on to great success, won a war or other ones, I served in John Major’s government for a long while and we had flurries there to say the least and Tony Blair’s had flurries and actually David Cameron’s had flurries, so all of them have issues that come up and go, that’s the nature of politics. It’s one of the things that makes it exciting of course but it is the nature of politics. The trick, the trick in it all is to keep your eye on what you are supposed to achieve and my task, my job is – and I am immodest enough to think it is important and I am very focused on that and not on anything else.

NP: Another aspect that you have to deal with as a politician within politics is satire and you have been referred to by some as the Brexit Builder, what do you make of that?

DAVID DAVIS: Well all my colleagues – and I’ve never heard it actually but all my colleagues tell me I ought to listen, they tell me it’s very funny, tell me it’s very good and tell me that actually it’s quite kind, so there we are, that’s more than you can normally ask for.

NP: Indeed. David Davis, many thanks.

DAVID DAVIS: Thank you.

NP: And with that, almost time for us both to pack up and head for home, but not before another candid moment with one of politics great survivors.

Are you enjoying yourself?

DAVID DAVIS: Yes, yes. Look, there are bits of it which are irritating, bits which are great but it matters. You can say to yourself when you’ve worked from three till twelve throughout the night, actually it matters and when you say that, everything just gets light.

NP: Will the smile ever leave the Secretary of State’s face? It is certainly difficult to imagine. This is a politician clearly revelling in the task at hand but it’s a task that’s far from complete.