ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Joining me now is a man who I am sure has been watching events very closely in Gateshead, he is the Shadow Health Secretary, Andy Burnham. Good morning to you Mr Burnham and I bet if it wasn’t so serious you’d be struggling to stifle a little laugh about what’s happened at the Lib Dems.

ANDY BURNHAM: Good morning. Well it’s a very significant decision that they’ve taken today and I’m sure they have spoken for many millions of people in the health service and the country that are desperately worried about what the government is doing. Essentially they haven’t given the Liberal Democrat peers and MPs permission to put this Bill through Parliament and they rejected what I thought was an extraordinarily tribal appeal from the party leader yesterday, so they’ve done the right thing. They’ve stood up for the NHS and I applaud them.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Okay and you’ve written to them, you’ve made these appeals before on this programme and on other forums as well, you’ve written to the Lib Dems again saying work with us, work with Labour, maybe there’s a last chance to see this Bill off.

ANDY BURNHAM: Yes, exactly, Dermot, that’s the appeal that I made to them in advance and I say it again today. I will work with anybody who wants to stop this Bill and protect the NHS from the damage that this Bill would bring upon it and we have a vote in Parliament next week on Tuesday and I will be talking to any Lib Dems who want to put this vote from this conference into effect. It also now brings this issue of the Risk Register very much into focus. You’ll know that a tribunal on Friday ruled that the government should release this Risk Register with immediate effect. I think these two issues now come together. Parliament has to know all the risks that the government is subjecting the NHS to before this Bill is approved and I just think that is the clear message that is coming out of Gateshead and the Liberal Democrat conference.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Okay, you moved on to the Risk Register, let’s just be clear with people what this is. This is an internal assessment of some of the things that might happen as a result of the Bill. They do say they will release it.

ANDY BURNHAM: Well the government hasn’t said that. The Tribunal rules that it should be released with immediate effect and I just don’t think it’s possible to ask MPs and peers to put through the biggest ever reorganisation to our NHS at a time of financial stress without being honest about the risks involved. We have seen from local Risk Registers in the NHS that there is a risk to cancer services, that there’s a risk to children’s safety – these are massive life and death issues and it is absolutely crucial that we know the full facts about this reorganisation before it goes through and the effect of the vote today is very clearly to me, the Lib Dems in Parliament do not have permission now to vote for this Bill and I want to work with any Lib Dem MPs and Peers who then will put this ruling into effect.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Are the Lib Dems beginning to look like to you a party you could go into coalition with after the next election if the results fall that way? Of course you were very scathing about them when they formed a coalition with the Conservatives in the first place but we’ve got their grassroots concerns about the NHS Bill and a lot of things they are talking about on the taxation front must appeal to you as being from the left.

ANDY BURNHAM: Well to be honest I have many concerns about what Lib Dems in parliament have done since the election and quite frankly I feel that they’ve stolen people’s votes. The people of this country did not vote for a top down privatisation of the National Health Service and I think what the message is coming through here is it’s the grassroots of the Liberal Democrat party are saying to their MPs and peers, you are not representing us and you are not listening to the country and you are going to cause great damage if you carry on in this way. The appeal I made about the NHS actually, Dermot, it’s not about a tribal party political appeal, genuinely the NHS is much more important than that. We’ve all got to put aside party differences and do what’s best for the NHS. It is probably in our narrow political interest for the government to carry on doing what they’re doing and carry on with the Bill but I don’t want them to do that, I want them to drop this Bill and protect the NHS. So yes, I think it’s right now that we build a coalition, a new coalition if you like, to protect the NHS and that’s what’s building. I will work with members of the Liberal Democrat party to achieve that.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: You say working with members of the Liberal Democrats but I just want to reflect on what happened at the conference there, could you say to any grassroots Lib Dem members who want to come over to Labour that they’d get a fairer hearing at your conferences with the union block vote and whatever else goes on there, because some activists we know were very upset that they didn’t get their original motion on the health service heard there.

ANDY BURNHAM: Yes, I was disappointed about that. I mean all parties have to look at internal democracy and there are always issues when the leadership tries to steer things and I think in Gateshead, I just was very disappointed about the way the Lib Dem leadership approached all this yesterday. They made it an issue about me versus Shirley Williams and to be honest it’s not at all about me. I’m leading Labour’s opposition but the Drop the Bill call has a broad base of support across the country - Royal Colleges who don’t give their support lightly to anything, hundreds of thousands of NHS workers, patient’s groups who are worried about this Bill and I just thought it was a very revealing thing that Mr Clegg decided to make it a very narrow tribal party issue, he misjudged that badly in my view and he’s had his answer today from his own party. They don’t like the way he’s handling this whole situation, they know that the country did not give the Lib Dems permission to vote for this privatisation of the NHS and they are now explicitly saying to him you have to change course, you do not have permission to put this Bill through Parliament, you must think again. Now I’m ready to work with anybody in the Lib Dem party to put that into effect and that’s what we’ll be doing in the next few days. But make no mistake, Dermot, this is a crisis for the Health Bill, we’ve fought this all the way, there have been many, many times on a Sunday morning when we’ve discussed these things. It’s come to the crunch, I think this Bill hasn’t built a consensus behind it, it’s a bad Bill from top to bottom and really now it should be dropped for the sake of the National Health Service.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Okay, Shadow Health Secretary, we got that message again. Thank you very much indeed, Andy Burnham there.

ANDY BURNHAM: You’re welcome.