ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS 

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Joining me now is the Lib Dem MP, Minister of State for Justice of course as well, Simon Hughes, very good to see you.  Well let’s start with parties and their problems with not enough women and of course it’s acute within the Liberal Democrats isn’t it? 

SIMON HUGHES: We don’t have enough women, I absolutely endorse …

DM: You are the worst of the three big parties.

SIMON HUGHES: We are and I am pleased to say that in all of the seats where sitting Liberal Democrat MPs are standing down, men who are standing down, the majority of those have selected women so we have responded to the challenge, we absolutely understand it.  I’ve taken a view that Parliament will never do its job properly until there is a gender balance and Maria made the point, 52% of the country are women, we ought to have that and so the candidates in the seats, Liberal Democrat seats, many more of them at the next election will be women. 

DM: What about the fall out, what about the reshuffle coming up?  Of course parts of that Cabinet are Lib Dem territory, is there going to be a reshuffle at the same time or is that going to be put off until the autumn on the Lib Dem side and is it an opportunity to put more women into those senior positions?

SIMON HUGHES: The answer to the first question is I haven’t a clue!  In the end each of the two party leaders makes their own dispositions.  All the press is full of suggestions that it is a Tory reshuffle this week in the government, obviously Nick Clegg as deputy Prime Minister is entitled to reshuffle his team whenever he want to within the agreement between the two parties and he is absolutely mindful of making sure that we have more women in government and the fact that we have people like Jo Swinson back from maternity leave, [inaudible] in BIS is very welcome in the party …

DM: But he can’t talk to you that way, he can’t say well okay, we’ll sort it out after the election.  We’re talking about the talented Liberal Democrat MPs, they could be in the Cabinet couldn’t they or are they just not good enough?

SIMON HUGHES: Yes, yes, yes, I wasn’t dodging it at all, I was answering your first question, what about looking ahead and I was saying that for the first time we have selected a majority of women in the seats we currently hold which is excellent progress but before the election, yes, there is an opportunity and I am sure Nick is very mindful about that as he thinks about what to do with his team but I clearly …

DM: Okay, there’s a tip from you, put some women in the Cabinet from the Lib Dems.    

SIMON HUGHES: Well I am very keen and the party would be very keen and I think that would be a very popular move. 

DM: Okay, let me ask you about some of the big issues that are going around at the moment, this issue of the Data Retention Bill, what are the Lib Dems doing supporting this? 

SIMON HUGHES: The Liberal Democrats are the people who have absolutely made sure …

DM: The party of human rights, the party of civil liberties?  I know, you have told me many times so what are you doing supporting this bill?

SIMON HUGHES:  Because we have made sure that all that is happening by legislation this week is that we are replacing a law that the European Court of Justice found was invalid and with the threat of another legal action about the regulations in UK law, something that holds the position so we don’t …

DM: With something pretty similar.  I mean the European Court of Justice don’t like it. 

SIMON HUGHES: No, what they criticised was the way in which the directive was formulated.  We have made sure we don’t lose the data that people like the police and the security services – and I remember Damilola Taylor, an example I have given you before, Damilola Taylor a little boy who was killed in Southwark, his killers were found because of the collection of data about use of telephone calls.  We cannot afford to lose that sort of data.  It was at risk of going so what’s to be done?  We, the Liberal Democrats, have said okay we have to put in a holding piece of legislation, it is time limited, it will die in 2016.  We don’t just kill it off, every year from now on all the requests for data will be published, we’ll know who asked for them and we’ll know how many they asked for and how many were acceded to and turned down.  We are limiting the number of people who can ask for data, fourteen bodies are no longer able to ask for data at all, all the councils in the country, every council in Britain at the moment can ask for data and that’s been consolidated into only one place for request.  David Anderson, a really good guy, who is there making sure that our terrorism legislation is working, has been given additional powers, we have a new scrutiny committee – those are Lib Dem gains.  Very simply ….

DM: You’ve been saying this to yourself in the mirror haven’t you?  I am beginning to believe in fairies here, you’re telling me this is protecting civil liberties?  This is going in the other direction, this is hundreds of thousands, this is millions, billions of pieces of metadata held about people’s movements, website access, the conversations they have, it’s snooping. 

SIMON HUGHES: Hang on, don’t mislead people, no, don’t mislead people.  One, it is not about the content of that material, first.  Two, it is not the Snooper’s Charter that the Tories wanted and that the Tories would have had.  If there was a Tory majority government now or if there is a Tory majority government after the next election there will be what I call and what you have just called a Snooper’s Charter.  There will be the ability to have much more power, Theresa May said it the other day, she said she would have liked to have done this but she has been blocked. 

DM: So it is the Lib Dems again restraining the nasty Conservatives. 

SIMON HUGHES: Well you can’t have it both ways, you said we’re not looking after human rights, I’m saying to you we absolutely are.  The Tories would have liked to have gone further to have given the state further powers to look at data over people in general, we resist that.  We think you should only have your data tracked if you are a suspect and we don’t trust the Labour party not to give in more widely either so we’re the people who have defended civil liberties.

DM: What is the direction of travel?  Of course we all understand the position of a minor party within a coalition and the powers you have and what you can actually achieve, you’ve made that very clear …

SIMON HUGHES: Well you negotiate a deal and if you don’t agree there is no deal. 

DM: Absolutely but you will be very familiar with these words, “We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason.” 

SIMON HUGHES: Yes.

DM: Put in the coalition agreement at Nick Clegg’s insistence.  Well you’re not doing that are you?  It’s another promise broken. 

SIMON HUGHES: No, it’s not another promise broken.  We have made sure that the proposal to increase powers has been stopped.  We have made sure in this short Bill, and it is a very short Bill this week, we have clarified exactly the justification for when the data can be held, it was not as clear as it should have been so we have tightened the definition.  People can look at the legislation, it is very short.  We have made sure there cannot be retention of data without good reason, they can’t just pick on your data or my data because we are part of the people who live in London, it has to be for a very tightly focused purpose and starting now there will be a review of the whole of the law that governs these matters, there will be an interim report before the general election, there will be a full report that the next government has to consider.  We have made sure that we as a country have the debate about privacy and protection of people’s data and that’s out in the open so we don’t lose the civil liberties that I as a minister am here to protect. 

DM: I just wanted to ask you one last question.  You are in a good position given how long you have been in parliament, and I’m talking about the inquiry into historical child abuse cover ups by the Establishment and Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss chairing it at the moment.  First of all do you think she is the right person to be in charge of that inquiry?

SIMON HUGHES: I think she is highly competent and has the experience and the authority.  I can remember when I was at the Bar and she was well respected and I have seen her in Parliament and …

DM: But are you worried about the focus and the scope and whether it is actually, well properly focused I suppose? 

SIMON HUGHES: No, look, the whole debate was should there be a wider inquiry generally because of all the separate police inquiries.  The government has rightly decided in my view that one needs to get to the bottom of the whole endemic culture bluntly which pervaded many parts of the system and there are many people still coming forward who never said anything about abuse.  Lady Butler-Sloss has absolutely shown, not only in the Cleveland Inquiry, which she did impeccably and everybody said what a brilliant inquiry it was in the way it was handled, she has shown her credentials and that is shown in the House of Lords any day of the week.  You just see her independence, she will take on the government regularly if she has to and she will make sure, I hope, that as well as anybody she gets to the bottom of what was a scandal and needs to be put into the public domain.

DM: Okay, Simon Hughes, good to see you, thank you very much.