ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well G4S Security has failed in its duty to the Olympics. Fortunately though the British Army has stepped in but with the possibility that soldiers will have to sleep in school halls and perhaps empty offices. Is this really the way to treat men and women who have risked their lives in places like Afghanistan? Let’s say a very good morning to the Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, good morning to you Mr Hammond. Let me put that to you, you’ve been reading the headlines over the last few days with fiasco and farce and words like that looming large, presumably you don’t see it that way but twelve days to go, rushing troops back from leave and back from Afghanistan, it looks pretty much like that.

PHILIP HAMMOND: Well we’re not bringing any troops back from Afghanistan for this operation. There’s always been intended to be a significant armed forces contribution to the security operation round the Olympics, what’s happened over the last few days is that we have made a decision to bring some of what was being held as a contingency forward and definitively deploy it to support G4S, work alongside G4S, recognising that the company has now said that they think it unlikely that they can guarantee the full numbers of venue security guards that they were contracted to deliver.

DM: So you make it sound like there was a contingency plan in place should G4S not be able to deliver, why were you not monitoring what G4S was doing and its recruitment problems further down the line, further back?

PH: Well we were monitoring what G4S were doing. Look, the Olympics is an incredibly complex project and over the last couple of years since we’ve been in government we’ve been monitoring regularly all aspects of the project and delivering the volume of security guarding required at the site was always going to be a significant management challenge and it has had a lot of attention but it was only last week that G4S actually said that they are not …

DM: But with respect, I’m sorry to butt in but with respect it hasn’t had enough attention. I mean it is a fundamental part of the Olympics, making sure that they’re safe and secure and with twelve days to go the security is still not in place.

PH: Look, the security required to make the Olympics safe and secure will be in place. The army, the air force and the navy are working alongside G4S, the contractor and LOCOG, and we will ensure that the Games are secure. There was always going to be a very significant armed forces component, it will now be a bit larger than we originally envisioned it being.

DM: I mean people are wondering what is the scale of the security threat, is it still unchanged?

PH: Yes, there is no specific threat to the Games, the security level remains the same. This is not a response to any sense of an increased threat, it is simply recognising that G4S has had difficulties with the scheduling and mobilisation of its workforce and that it is better to err on the side of caution, deploy an additional three and a half thousand troops and then we can be sure that we will have sufficient manpower in place to do the venue guarding task whether or not G4S solve those problems or do not solve them over the next few days.

DM: What about the people who G4S have already recruited, who may have just got across the line so to speak, are you satisfied with their quality and indeed, in some cases, their linguistic abilities?

PH: Well I haven’t personally been involved in this area, G4S’s contract is with LOCOG but there are requirements as to the quality of the people that are being deployed and that will of course be monitored but my understanding from talking to my colleagues in the armed forces is that where the armed forces are deployed already alongside G4S guards, that arrangement is working well, they are working well together and they are delivering effectively the requirement for venue security guarding between the armed forces and G4S.

DM: But some of them aren’t able to speak English we hear.

PH: Well I haven’t heard that. You pick one or two things up in Sunday newspapers but my understanding is that the people that are being recruited and trained and accredited are able to speak English. Look, English is a very cosmopolitan society, we have large numbers, very large numbers of people who don’t speak English as a first language, we are quite used to dealing with that in London but I would expect that the people that are deployed will be able to speak perfectly adequate English for the task that they are charged with.

DM: And can we just get it definitively from the Secretary of State, what recompense there is going to be for these members of the armed forces who might have been giving up leave, who may be just about to be deployed, who may have had to give up holidays? Are they going to be compensated for that and what about, as Harriet Harman and others were suggesting, given a special payment for this? After all London bus drivers are getting money just for continuing to do their job.

PH: Yes, people in the armed forces are not London bus drivers, the armed forces is a contingent organisation, people who join it expect to be asked at short notice to do tasks that they have not necessarily envisaged doing. We will make sure and I have already given this commitment that nobody will be out of pocket as a result of having to change personal arrangements because of this additional deployment and we have also said that we will take advice from the senior leadership of the armed forces on how most appropriately to recognise the contribution that the armed forces are making but I don’t want to pre-empt that discussion. The armed forces has a very particular ethos of its own, there are ways that they do things and ways that they don’t and I think it is for the armed forces to come forward to ministers and say this is the way we think it would be appropriate to recognise the contribution that individual servicemen and women have made. In the meantime our task …

DM: Well you are getting close to that but it doesn’t necessarily have to – the suggestion is that it comes out of the Ministry of Defence or the armed forces budget, what about a contribution from G4S for the mess they’ve made and £500 a head?

PH: Well it won’t be coming out of the armed forces budget. The cost of this additional deployment will be met from the venue security budget and obviously there will be discussions between LOCOG and G4S about the commercial arrangements between those two organisations but look, the Home Secretary, the Culture Secretary, LOCOG, have all made it absolutely clear that they will work with us to ensure that members of the armed forces who are deployed on this operation are fairly treated and their contribution is properly recognised. My immediate focus is making sure that the accommodation that we’re going to provide for this additional three and a half thousand people is reasonable in the circumstances, meets their requirements, that they get good food, good recreational facilities, good Wi-Fi and broadband connectivity and all the other things that we know from deployed operations elsewhere, including Afghanistan, are really important to people in our armed forces so that they can enjoy the off-duty time that they do have.

DM: Okay and just a last question on wider political issues, coalition dynamics. We’ve heard and I’m sure you’ll have read this morning about the Prime Minister talking about profound areas of disagreements within the different elements within the coalition. Labour are pointing to that and saying that, amongst many reasons, is why you took your eye off the ball on issues like this, that you’re fighting like cats in a sack.

PH: Well I would not agree with that at all. The coalition is made up of two different political parties, we stand for different things, we have profoundly different views on some issues but we also have profoundly ed views on some of the most important issues facing our society today, on the need to deal effectively with the things that gave rise to the banking crisis, on the need to tackle the mountain of public sector debt that we have and the persistent deficit, these are the key issues, getting Britain growing again, getting the economy moving. On those issues you couldn’t get a cigarette paper between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, that’s why we came together in coalition at a moment when the country was facing a very great economic and fiscal crisis and that’s why the coalition will endure, because we have a clear sense of shared purpose.

DM: Okay but there are those profound areas of disagreement, as your leader has said, what about your predecessor in that role, Liam Fox, saying today that it’s more or less time to point out to the Lib Dems who’s boss, who’s top dog in this coalition.

PH: Well the coalition only works if both parties want it, both parties in it want it to work so we work together to deliver the agreed agenda. We’re both conscious of the fact that there are things that we would like to do as individual parties that we can’t push forward within the coalition because the other coalition member simply doesn’t agree with them, that’s the nature of coalition politics. You carve out the ground where you agree and you make progress on that and in huge areas outside the economy, on education reform, on the transformation of the health service, on the vitally important agenda of welfare reform, we are absolutely clear that we are making long term strategic reforms that will build a competitive and effective Britain for the future so that as we get out of this economic crisis, we have got the infrastructure there that will allow Britain to compete in the world and allow us to maintain our prosperity.

DM: Okay Mr Hammond, thank you very much indeed. The Secretary of State for Defence there.

PH: Thank you.