ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well, the dividing lines between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have been redrawn this morning. The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, has distanced himself from parts of Michael Gove’s free schools policy, a key part of the government’s education reforms of course. He’s insisting that all teachers should be qualified and that the National Curriculum should be taught in every school. Well when I spoke to Nick Clegg a very short time ago, I started by asking him if the differences in education policy showed signs of a split in the coalition.

NICK CLEGG: Well it’s not some great coalition crisis, as it’s described, it’s just a perfectly sincere difference of opinion about the following – as we move to giving schools more autonomy, and I’m a greater supporter of academies and free schools, I always have been but as we move towards a world in which more and more schools in our schools system have greater freedom to decide things for themselves, do we at the same time ask them to respect certain basic quality standards so that parents, mothers and fathers up and down the country regardless of where their son or daughter go to school, can be reassured that their children are going to be taught by qualified teachers, are going to be taught the National Curriculum just like any other school and can expect the quality standards for food for instance, which the Department for Education has recently endorsed. In a sense there are three positions here: the Labour party would want to strangle the school autonomy, they’ve always been against that, they’ve always wanted to micro-manage in the classroom; the Conservatives really don’t want any basic or minimum amount of basic standards to apply to schools who have these new freedoms and I in a sense if you like believe that what we need to do is something which is a sensible balance which is yes, give schools more freedom and autonomy but also give parents the reassurance that their children, regardless of what their school is call, whether it’s a free school or an academy or another school, are taught by qualified teachers to the same standards as any other school in the rest of the country.

DM: Okay, so too much autonomy coming from Michael Gove and letting people into the classroom who might not be qualified but your own Minister of State, David Laws, Lib Dem, stood up in the House of Commons and defended free schools trenchantly last week.

NICK CLEGG: Well I am a supporter of free schools, there’s nothing inconsistent between being a supporter of free schools – in fact one of the first speeches I gave when I became leader of the Liberal Democrats many years ago, was about giving parents more choice about how you set up schools in local communities, where there are shortages and so on. That’s not the issue, I am a supporter of free schools and academies, we’ve worked very well across the coalition to give more diversity, innovation and choice in the school system. What we are actually talking about now is what kind of standards of for instance the qualifications that teachers have in a classroom across the school system and it seems to me, and I don't think this is a particularly revolutionary thing to suggest, that most parents are entitled to expect and I think most parents do expect that their children will be taught by qualified teachers regardless of what the name of the school is.

DM: Well let me ask you about that. Again this is a direct quotation from David Laws saying there are plenty of teachers who may not have formal qualifications but who still do a superb job, they don’t have formal qualifications but do a superb job. Is Mr Laws wrong?

NICK CLEGG: Well David Laws is right that that is the policy of the Department for Education and he is right stating that that is the present approach but as David knows, my party, the Liberal Democrats and my speech is about the future of education, what do we do and what adjustments do we need to make as we move, as I say, into this new world where thankfully head teachers and teachers will have far more freedom in the classroom, in their schools, to teach in the way that they want, what basic standards do we provide so that parents are reassured that their sons and daughters will be taught to the right kind of standards across the school system. The Liberal Democrat view is yes, let’s retain innovation, freedom, autonomy for schools but let’s also give parents the reassurance that some of the basic building blocks of an education – that a teacher is properly qualified, that the National Curriculum is taught in all schools, that is the body of knowledge that is supposed to be imparted to all children, is indeed taught to all children.

DM: All right but what do you have to do with these superb teachers doing a superb job in David Laws’ view who don’t have qualifications? What do you do with them?

NICK CLEGG: What we want to see, what I want to see, and this will be very much part of the Liberal Democrat approach to education going forward is to say yes, let’s retain something that we’ve always believed in which is more freedom, innovation in the way in which schools are run but let’s make sure that all teachers who teach in classrooms in Britain have the qualifications necessary to be good teachers. It’s as simple as that. I think most head teachers, I certainly think most parents, would expect the teachers who teach their children are teachers who have proper qualifications.

DM: Have you rather sprung this on the Department for Education, probably David Laws as well and indeed on Number Ten? Is this agreed?

NICK CLEGG: No, the contract if you like which exists between the Department for Education and free schools and academies where they specify that schools in those cases, in those categories, do not need to have qualified teachers in them, is of course something for the Department of Education. I don’t peer over the shoulder of Michael Gove and nor does David Cameron, that is a decision which the Department for Education is free to take but equally, the Department and Michael Gove knows that I’ve always believed that whilst I am a great advocate of greater school freedom and innovation, I am also a great advocate of good standards upon which all parents in our country can rely upon.

DM: What do you say to those who will read into this more broadly the Lib Dems positioning themselves more to the left, perhaps to make yourself more palatable to the Labour party and they also throw into the mix the sacking of Jeremy Browne, more to the right in your party, an Orange book and the sacking of Jeremy Browne from the Home Office, you are making yourself more palatable to the Labour party.

NICK CLEGG: It’s complete and utter nonsense. This is hardly a state secret that I believe this and that my party believes it, we debated it openly and advocated and adopted it as the Liberal Democrat approach to things in the spring of this year. This is not something new, this is something I have made clear publicly and privately for a very long time which is yes, I believe in a push towards giving greater autonomy to schools, academies, free schools and so on. I also believe in giving parents, if you like, a guarantee, a reassurance that their children will be taught to some good high standards which apply across the whole school system. I don't think we should be dogmatic about preventing schools, whatever they’re called, whatever labels are attached to them, to nonetheless having qualified teachers in the classroom.

DM: Okay, we’ll move on in a minute as I want to talk about another issue about tax and the threshold but you have expressed these reservations and these concerns already with Mr Cameron and with Mr Gove?

NICK CLEGG: Of course, this is something … Look, the coalition works, we agree on a lot on education, whether it is the pupil premium which a Liberal Democrat idea of putting more money into the school system to help those children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, whether it’s the push to giving schools more autonomy and freedom but of course there are tensions and pinch points, we’re not identical parties. No one should be surprised at that, it is not a political crisis when some of those differences are articulated in public and it is already a long-standing fact that the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives think differently about the reassurance that we need to give to parents that their sons and their daughters, regardless of what school they’re in, will be taught by qualified teachers, will be taught the National Curriculum and will be provided with food set at standards which the Department for Education itself has endorsed for our school system. That is the difference here, it is an open grown up difference, it’s not a crisis but it is one where I think it is right that I explain what my point of view is and the point of view of my party is.

DM: Okay, let’s talk more about Liberal Democrat ideas and this is of course the £10,000 tax threshold that anyone earning up to that amount doesn’t pay tax at all. The Conservatives seem to be saying okay, well you might have thought about it but it is, as George Osborne put in his conference speech, it’s delivered by a Conservative Chancellor.

NICK CLEGG: Yes, look, I suppose it is flattering that they are so keen to claim a policy as their own which has always been of course a Liberal Democrat policy. The Conservatives have had a range of tax policy priorities, tax cuts for millionaires, tax cuts on the upper rate from 50p downwards, now the married tax break – they’ve had a shifting array of tax priorities. We have always had one very consistent one for year after year after year after year which is to lift the point at which you start paying income tax. It will be £10,000 as of next April and I have to say to you, what’s slightly comic about it, I’ve sat in numerous meetings with George Osborne and other Conservatives where they’ve told me very clearly that they refer to it as ‘your policy, Nick, your tax policy of £10,000 and you’re going to have to make some concessions if you want us to agree to your priority’. So I think we should basically be consistent about this both privately and publicly, that this has always been regarded both inside government and of course certainly in the way in which the coalition formed, as a Liberal Democrat tax priority for very good reason, because it helps over 20 million basic rate tax payers who will be £700 better off as of next April.

DM: But what about the fact that they now seem to be claiming the credit for it all? Does it make you rethink your support? You mentioned there the tax cut for millionaires, you supported that, it was a quid pro quo as you put there to me now but now the Conservatives are claiming this Lib Dem idea. We heard it again at Prime Minister’s Questions last week, didn’t we, when a question was put to the Prime Minister about this tax threshold and he seemed to be nodding along and more or less the implication was that they’d brought it in.

NICK CLEGG: Well look, they can try if they like. I don't think it is at all credible because it was our policy, not theirs, before the election, I insisted it went into the Coalition Agreement, they didn’t. David Cameron actually told me at the Leaders’ Debates that it was an unaffordable policy, it’s been affordable because we’ve insisted upon it and as I said, they’ve had a range of different tax priorities often, not always but often aimed at people well above the average incomes, the tax cut for the top rate of income tax from 50p to 45p for instance, were explicitly presented if you like as something the Liberal Democrats needed to agree to if we wanted to make progress on our fairer tax approach of raising the point at which people start paying income tax. So look, this is politics, people want to claim credit for things which are popular but I don't think anyone has any illusions that this is a policy that is finally making its way from the Liberal Democrat manifesto into the pockets of millions of basic rate tax payers for one reason only, which is that Liberal Democrats are in this coalition government.

DM: While we’re talking about people on low incomes, what do you make of the statement that was reported today or the article written today by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, about energy companies and talking about these huge rises we’ve seen having a severe impact on people who are not earning very much and that the companies have to justify themselves. Do you agree with that?

NICK CLEGG: Well clearly the companies need to justify the bill increases that they are now announcing and that’s one of the reasons why Ed Davey has written to the companies and said look, you’ve got to be more transparent about the sums if you like which lie behind these eye-wateringly high price hikes. It cannot be right that people who are really struggling, many, many people are still struggling to pay their weekly, their monthly bills, where electricity and gas bills for this winter are a looming worry, it cannot be right that those bills are increased for those households in our country and yet it’s all rather opaque about what exactly drives these price increases because some of the companies aren’t really open enough yet and transparent enough yet about their own balance sheet if you like. I think we do need not only more competition so people can switch to lower tariffs where that’s possible, we’re legislating as you know to put people automatically onto the lowest available tariff but also greater transparency in the way in which these companies account for themselves, not just to their shareholders but to the public.

DM: Presumably one of these companies is able to explain themselves very directly to the Prime Minister. I’m asking about what your views are about Sir Roger Carr, the Chairman of British Gas, apparently he’s a regular high level advisor to the Prime Minister about business and economic issues. Do you think that’s right?

NICK CLEGG: Well I think it’s perfectly right that the Prime Minister, myself and others, that we listen to a range of voices in business, even from sectors which may be in the eye of a storm of controversy, whether it’s the financial services industry, banking or the energy companies, we have to be aware of what’s going on in the economy in order to make sure that we continue on the road to full financial recovery. So I don’t think we should just slam the door in the face of people who work in these companies but what we can demand, which is exactly what Ed Davey has demanded by writing to these companies, is greater transparency in the way in which they run their own affairs so that there can be a clearer understanding and, from their point of view, justification for these very, very high hikes in the bills that they are going to be charging people for their energy and gas.

DM: My question was really about perception. Yes, we understand of course that people at your level and the Prime Minister’s level need to get a range of advice but given how political contentious energy bills are and given what British Gas has done within the last week, do you think it’s a good idea to be seen to be getting advice from the Chairman of British Gas, that he has access to Number Ten through this route?

NICK CLEGG: As I say, I don't think there’s any … I think one can be pretty forceful in conversation with the Chairmen and Chief Executives of companies where we feel that they’re not justifying clearly enough their price hikes. We can do that face to face and we can do that in conversation with them, as indeed, and that is precisely what happens. I’m not sure if I follow your logic that we should somehow then have a relationship of silence with these companies. That is precisely as I say why we have challenged these companies, why Ed Davey has challenged these companies to come clean about how their business model works and why they are demanding these price hikes of so many consumers in our country.

DM: Deputy Prime Minister, thank you very much indeed, Nick Clegg there.

NICK CLEGG: Thank you.