ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Let’s talk to Eric Pickles now who is with us in the studio, a very good morning to you Mr Pickles.

ERIC PICKLES: Good morning.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: It’s reputed that you are one of these three members of the Cabinet who has misgivings about this Health Bill.

ERIC PICKLES: It is not reputed. I’d like to know who is even vaguely suggesting that. I am very supportive of these measures, particularly as it enhances the role of local government and given one of the big problems we have is that move, as far as elderly people are concerned, this is something that is going to help that process, it’s going to help give a completely easier and better way in which local government and the health service can merge together to give a seamless service.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: But would you condemn then those of your colleagues that seem to have leaked their misgivings to the Conservative Home website?

ERIC PICKLES: I mean I sit on a Cabinet that’s united in wanting to see these reforms though, all the Cabinet voted for it, all the Cabinet have supported it.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: There must have been some robust discussions though, there really are some serious misgivings there.

ERIC PICKLES: We … this Bill is important to improve the Health Service and the point that Stephen was just making about this being a natural evolution from what Ken did all those years ago and from what Labour did, it’s a natural thing to give more power to patients, to get them much more involved in their treatment. It’s a natural thing to give more powers to GPs and other clinicians.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: But do you take that point that it has been watered down, it has been changed, it has been altered, a thousand amendments. It’s nothing like Andrew Lansley’s master plan.

ERIC PICKLES: I think it’s pretty much like Andrew’s plan. What he basically wanted to do was to bring clinicians, particularly GPs, much more involved in the commissioning of local services, he wanted to see removal of a layer of bureaucracy, saving the best part of £4.5 billion and he wanted to see a better regulation between private medicine and public medicine in the health service, which has always been a traditional part.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Do you see any of the work, and I put that point to Mr Dorrell, being undone? That the Conservative party took a conscious decision in opposition, realised that the NHS was seen by the public as a weak spot, a weak point for the Conservative party. Now there was Mr Cameron’s personal experience with the NHS, there was a pledge of no top-down reorganisation, there was a pledge to not cut spending within the NHS and that seemed to so-called detoxify the brand. Now it seems all that good work from the Conservative point of view is being undone.

ERIC PICKLES: We’ll get this Bill in, it will have chance to work, some of the people’s misgivings will be shown to be unfounded, that’s why I think it is important now to get this Bill in as quick as we can. A lot of the reorganisation has already taken place in anticipation largely because it’s naturally built on what’s been there before, so I think it’s got to be not so much about what we are going to do to the health service but to clearly demonstrate that the health service remains a free service to the British people, free at point, and not relating to charges.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: But do you accept that you probably have a communication problem then because so many people do not understand, again as I put to Mr Dorrell, so many people do not understand what this Bill means and hung around its neck is this charge coming from the opposition, and indeed from others, that it increases privatisation within the National Health Service?

ERIC PICKLES: Well that’s a nonsense really, given that the Labour party were responsible for paying private firms I think it’s something like £250,000 for operations that simply never happened. Private health has always been part of the health service, all our hospices come from voluntary organisations or from private companies, it has always been very heavily involved and frankly, Labour are guilty of a high degree of hypocrisy.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: So you see no way that this Bill will be dropped? I mean all the Colleges are against it bar the surgeons, 62% of the British public say they do not trust the Conservatives with the National Health Service because of this Bill, they think that you …

ERIC PICKLES: Listen, I think we owe it to the National Health Service to make the National Health Service stronger and this Bill, when it becomes an Act, will make the health service stronger because it places the future of the health service firmly in the hands of local doctors, local commissioners and local people.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: And you’d like to see your colleague Andrew Lansley remain in that post as Health Secretary to see these reforms through ….

ERIC PICKLES: Absolutely, of course.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: In spite of the fact that one of your coalition partners, the Lib Dem deputy leader Simon Hughes, has said today that he’d expect to see Andrew Lansley stand down in the latter part of the parliament?

ERIC PICKLES: Well I’m sorry that that’s Simon’s view but Andrew has taken this Bill through, Andrew is very committed to the health service, he was in my constituency only a couple of weeks ago and it was a real pleasure listening to him talk to local doctors, to local surgeons and to local nurses.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: I know in an interview this morning in the Sunday Telegraph, you’ve said that David Cameron is truly an heir to Margaret Thatcher.

ERIC PICKLES: Absolutely.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Others have said that this Health Bill could turn out to be the Poll Tax, now you were cutting your teeth in politics whilst Margaret Thatcher ploughed on regardless with the Poll Tax and look what happened to her.

ERIC PICKLES: I firmly believe that this will make the health service stronger and I believe that it’s beholding that we should ensure the health service, which is a national treasure, that we need to ensure for future generations that the health service remains our major very solid foundation and these reforms will achieve that.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Okay and moving on on that basis and the interview you gave this morning, talking about the Thatcherite legacy that Mr Cameron is carrying on with, there are a lot of people on the back benches particularly in your party who don’t believe that. You’ll be aware that there were those who for instance were saying last week wind farms, what are you doing with all this? Today they are talking about the married couples allowance that Mr Osborne was meant to be bringing in or thought to be bringing in this budget, that’s not going to happen, anti-business rhetoric – there’s a long list of things that the Conservative back benches, some of them are saying you are doing them because you are kowtowing to the Lib Dems.

ERIC PICKLES: Well there’s a long list of action that demonstrates we’re a radical government. Look what Michael Gove is doing with schools, ensuring that good quality schools are going to be available in every part of the country, not just in the wealthiest parts. Look at what Iain Duncan Smith is doing with welfare, making sure that it actually pays to be in work and, if I might say, look at my own modest input which is to give local authorities a high degree of independence and power and changing the way in which local authorities have been financed. I think all those things together are pretty radical.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Just on the local authorities, are you disappointed that 18 or more, some 10% of local authorities are thinking of putting up council tax just below that threshold you set which would trigger a referendum?

ERIC PICKLES: Well I find it rather extraordinary that the suggestion is that they need to increase the council tax but not enough to trigger a referendum so that their local population can decide whether or not so I think if you are going to defy the government, you shouldn’t do it in a quiet and gentle way, you should say look, I’ve got the public on my side, this is what my public says. But they have avoided doing that, in some cases by less than one percentage point.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Does that go for the Conservative councils that are doing this as well? Do you say as Conservative colleague to Conservative colleague, what are you doing contradicting me here

ERIC PICKLES: What I’m saying is now we have got over 200 authorities have taken the freeze, the overwhelming majority of those are Conservatives. I can see that I have got some Conservative leadership are determined to defy the government but I look to good Conservative councillors on those authorities to change the leaderships.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Okay, Mr Pickles, thank very much indeed. Eric Pickles there, Communities Secretary there.

ERIC PICKLES: Thank you.