ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well the leaders of the eight richest countries will meet this week in Northern Ireland for the G8 summit. Now the Prime Minister, David Cameron, will use the event to call for more action against President Assad of Syria and I spoke to the Prime Minister yesterday and I asked him what help he was willing to provide to the Syrian rebels. I also spoke to him about cuts to the UKs defence budget and his attempts to make large companies pay more tax. Well, to the Prime Minister and when I spoke to him yesterday I asked him what options he was looking at in Syria.

DAVID CAMERON: The option we all want is an international peace conference and an international agreement for a transitional government in Syria that the Syrian people can have confidence in and then elections and a new Syrian government. That’s what everybody wants. The disagreement is obviously how we get there. I’ll be seeing President Putin just as I did in Sochi in Russia and trying to work with him to say, look it’s in all our interests that this happens and we should all put pressure on both sides to make that happen.

DM: But part of this pressure is threatening to arm the rebels is it not? How far down that line have you gone with President Obama?

DC: Well in terms of what the UK has done, we’ve worked with European partners to lift the arms embargo. We have made no decision to arm the rebels and I recognise that would be a big and important decision and we said very clearly that we haven’t made that decision. But the point of lifting the arms embargo was really twofold, one was it felt to me as if there was almost a moral equivalence Europe was saying, between President Assad who you know, is now using chemical weapons to poison and kill his people, more equivalence between him and the Syrian opposition who we have actually after all recognised as legitimate spokespeople on behalf of the Syrian people. So it was right to lift the arms embargo off them for that case but I think also right to send a very clear message to Assad that he shouldn’t think he can just win this conflict in a military way, that he should feel pressure, that he should make sure that the regime is effectively at the negotiating table as well.

DM: But Prime Minister you seem to be saying that it’s more or less a negotiating tactic and something that you really wouldn’t want to do, arming the rebels. That is a last resort.

DC: No, I want to help the Syrian opposition to succeed and my argument is this: yes there are elements of the Syrian opposition that are deeply unsavoury, that are very dangerous, very extremist and I want nothing to do with them. I’d like them driven out of Syria, they’re linked to Al Qaeda. But there are elements of the Syrian opposition who want to see a free democratic pluralistic Syria that respects the rights of minorities including Christians and we should working with them. We are working with them and my point is this: that if we don’t work with those elements of the Syrian opposition then we can’t be surprised if the only elements of the Syrian opposition that are getting, that are actually making any progress in Syria are the ones that we don’t approve of. So what is Britain doing today, so people at home can understand, with Americans, French, with other allies in the Gulf? We’re training, we’re assisting, we’re giving non-lethal support, things like vehicles, to the genuine Syrian opposition and trying to help them because after all they are trying to defend their communities against appalling attacks including, let’s be clear, chemical weapon attacks and President Assad is now guilty of the most appalling crimes against his people. 90,000 people dead and some of them through the use of appalling chemical weapons. DM: But because of that if it does come to arming the rebels and President Obama says, we the Americans want to do it, we the British will go along with them. Would there be a vote? Is there a guarantee of a vote, a debate and a vote in Parliament about that?

DC: We’ve been very clear, I’ve been very clear. I would never want to stand in the way of Parliament having a say and so as William Hague the Foreign Secretary said, you know one way or another of course there would be the opportunity for Parliament to have a say. But we’re not there yet, we haven’t made that decision.

DM: Well the Americans are very close.

DC: Well that’s a decision for the Americans to take. As I say, I think where we can actually give the greatest assistance to the official proper Syrian opposition, is advice, is training and is technical support. That is where I actually think the British government working with allies like the Emiratis and the Jordanians that is where we can have the greatest influence play the greatest role.

DM: But just to be very clear on that issue Prime Minister. If it does come to giving armed help to the rebels, to the opposition forces in Syria, Parliament would get a say and ultimately a vote on that?

DC: Basically yes, we’ve said that. DM: That is copper bottomed and they would be in a position, then Parliament would be in a position to prevent it happening?

DC: As I said, we haven’t made a decision so the whole issue doesn’t really arise. But I supported having a vote on the Iraq war, as Prime Minister I made sure there was a vote on the action we took in Libya, I think Parliament should have a say about these things. I can’t really go further than that in expressing our views.

DM: What is the ultimate ambition? Is there a template? How would like to see Syria turn out. Have you got something like Libya or Afghanistan or Iraq in your mind because it isn’t going to be instantly a democratic liberal democracy is it?

DC: None of these transitions from brutal regimes to more open democracies, none of these transitions are easy. If you think back in history, there’s really been a case when things are easy but what we want to see in Syria is a government that has the backing and trust of all of its people. That is pluralistic. That supports minorities like Christians and indeed Alawites as well and one that’s at peace with its neighbours which is a world away from what we have today. You mentioned the case of Libya, look, I’m very proud of the fact that we helped the Libyan people get rid of a brutal dictator who was hell bent on murdering people in Benghazi. Is Libya today in a difficult position where they’ve got a lot of work to do to make sure they have control of their country and they don’t give succour to extremists? Of course that is absolutely the case and one of the things we’ll be doing at the G8, and the Libyan Prime Minister will be coming to the G8, is having conversation about what we can do to help a government that I do believe wants a democratic, successful, prosperous Libya but needs help in building the institutions of the state. We sometimes take for granted this in the west that you have a relatively honest police force, you have a standing army, you have the institutions of government so things can get done. Some of these countries that were run by dictators literally had no proper functioning institutions of the state.

DM: I’m sorry just to digress, a relatively honestly police force?

DC: We do, of course we do.

DM: But relatively?

DC: What I meant was I’m not saying everything in our country is perfect. Look, we’ve had cash for questions problems in our Parliament. We have problems following all the Leveson stuff about police who’ve done bad things, journalists who’ve done bad things and so on.

DM: We’ve had events at these gates outside Number 10.

DC: Of course but I don’t want to get into all of that but of course all I was trying to hint in that answer is we should never say we have some sort of absolutely perfect system. The point I was making is we can sometimes not understand just how broken the institutions are in some of these countries, but on Libya I think it still can be a success story. We want to invest in that success because I think they can be a great partner for us in the future.

DM: Can I ask you now, as we are talking about a potential military involvement in a foreign country, we don’t know what form or shape it will take of course, it all keys into doesn’t it what we heard from Sir Peter Wall, the Head of the Army, saying well look, our capabilities have been eroded by the Defence cuts. Are you confident that if we do take on further operations that the army will be able to carry them out?

DC: Well I’ve never asked our armed forces to do something that they weren’t capable of doing but I would take issue with the whole contention that somehow we have less capable armed forces. The whole point of our defence review was to make sure that the money we spend – and we have the fourth largest defence budget anywhere in the world – the whole point was to make sure that money actually buys the sort of modern defence equipment that you need and that’s why you need to invest in for instance cyber capabilities to stop cyber-attacks on your country, you need to have unarmed aerial vehicles, drones, which are so important in modern warfare. You’ve got to have modern fighter jets, modern transport plane and in this country we can be very proud of the equipment that we are going to give our forces. We’re going to have new aircraft carriers, brand new Hunter Killer submarines. Our army I think has got some of the best equipment it’s ever had so we’ve got immensely capable armed forces, immensely professional. We should never over stretch them, we should never ask them to do things they can’t do but they have immense capabilities.

DM: But we heard from the Chief Secretary there are spaces, there’s room for some more efficiencies aren’t there because they’ve got more horses than tanks?

DC: Look, one can be a bit simplistic if you’re not careful. One of the reasons they have fewer tanks is actually in the defence review we decided, I think rightly, that we had too many battle tanks defending Europe as it were from aggression which was rather a sort of Cold War stance but we didn’t have enough investment in modern transport planes, in drones, in cyber capabilities and the rest of it. So actually in the defence review we reduced the number of tanks and put money into other areas. So I don’t want to make simplistic arguments about this, basically we’ve got thoroughly modern defence forces. We need to keep that process of modernisation but there are efficiencies we can make in this spending review which will not cut further size the army, the air force or the navy but they will make sure that we’re efficient.

DM: I’ve got ask you about one of the other big issues at G8 of course and it’s a great chance isn’t it to get together and hopefully deal with one of the issues I know you’re very concerned about and it is if course, corporations the amount of tax they pay and how open they are about their corporate structures. Now you want to set up some kind of register don’t you which would I suspect be immensely complicated. Do you think you are going to make progress, and it has to be international progress, at the G8 on this?

DC: Yes we will. Why does this matter? Some people might think hold on, registers of company ownership what’s all that about? In very simple terms, one of the ways corrupt dictatorships take money off their people and smuggle it out of the country is putting it into opaque companies, nominee companies that could be based anywhere in the world. You’re never going to deal with that unless you actually know who owns every company and so we’re leading by example by having a register of beneficial ownership, who owns which company and every G8 country will be signing up an action plan on beneficial ownership. We’re making some real progress on that issue. It also helps to deal with bad practice by companies and so what we’re doing at the G8 which will make a real difference both to poorer countries and to richer countries is basically saying there needs to be more exchange of tax information so that companies get away with it and there needs to be more openness about who owns what so that we deal with some of these opaque structures. Those two steps taken together will lead to a fairer tax system where companies pay what they ought to and everyone benefits, both poor countries and rich countries too.

DM: But you’re a bit sceptical aren’t you about what kind of progress you can make in G8, you’ve mentioned the elephant’s graveyard of communiqués many of them pre-written in advance and not much emerges from them.

DC: No, no, the point I was making there is you can have these conferences and I’ve been now to, it’s my fourth G8, I’ve been to many G20s and more European Councils than is altogether healthy. What you can have is just endless communiqués that just go on forever and you wonder whatever really happens to them. What we will be doing in Northern Ireland is a very specific set of steps on ownership, on taxation, on transparency, on trade that will make a real difference. Is it the whole answer, have we completed the job? Absolutely not but we’ll take some big steps down the road which I think can really be welcoming.

DM: Just want to ask you one last question on the issue of these big corporations. We’ve much mentioned Google over the past few months about the amount of tax it pays and you may or may not make progress on that. What about the issue of pornography, internet pornography, some of it entirely legal of course but some of it absolutely disgusting and every right thinking person in the United Kingdom thinks there shouldn’t be any access to it. Can’t you legislate for these companies to say right it’s not going to appear on our internet provision?

DC: Well we need to do much more, there’s no doubt about it. There are two issues here, one is the issue of illegal pictures, including of children, put up on the internet and I’m not satisfied that internet companies do enough to help take them down. That’s why we’re having this round table in government with them to really put the heat on and say look, you’ve got extraordinary capabilities to help search the internet, help with those capabilities, help found the Internet Watch Foundation which they are now putting more money into. Work with the police, work with us so we can get these images off the internet and prosecute those who put them there. That’s issue number one and absolutely vital. The second thing is, as a parent I worry and I know many people watching this programme worry massively about what our children can get to see when they grab hold of our iPad or log on to the internet and there we need to make more progress of this issue of explaining to everybody that we want to have better filters that parents can switch on to stop access to certain sites and material and again the government has been on this for the last three years, I’ve got Reg Bailey from the Mother’s Union to convene a round table with me and say what action can we take? One of the things that’s now happening is a lot of public Wi-Fi in Starbucks and elsewhere, public Wi-Fi blocks access to certain sites so we are making progress but the world has changed so fundamentally with the internet that we’ve got some real threats there to our children and also from this appalling scourge of child pornography, we’ve to take a lot of action.

DM: Prime Minister, thank you very much indeed.

DC: Thank you.

DM: David Cameron talking to me yesterday.