Murnaghan 21.07.13 Interview with Caroline Flint MP, Shadow Energy Secretary

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: I’m joined now from Doncaster by the Shadow Energy Secretary, Caroline Flint, a very good morning to you Ms Flint and I know you were listening to some of that and you presumably would like to rebut some of those claims about your leader made by Michael Fallon there that he is out of touch and of course the central charge, he’s in the pocket of the unions.

CAROLINE FLINT: Well that’s quite interesting because consistently polls show that the public think that actually Ed Miliband is more in touch than David Cameron and actually is speaking up for issues of concern but when they think about David Cameron they are thinking about someone who is maybe spending too much time on the interests of just those at the top and David Cameron goes off for his holiday with some real problems on his back benches. We’ve seen more mood swings in the Tory party over the last few months than you’d expect from the average stroppy teenager and he has got problems where he caves in every single time to his back benches that are going to come back and haunt him.

DM: But they have posed this issue, haven’t they, of who’s got more of a spring in their step and the Conservatives have posed some very big questions for Labour haven’t they, about these huge issues – where do you stand on further benefit cuts, on welfare reform and the National Health Service. Well after all the scandals we’ve seen in the past few weeks the Conservatives are making ground and saying, well a lot of it was the previous Health Secretary’s fault.

CAROLINE FLINT: Well I think what we saw in the last week, particularly on the NHS, is the Conservative party and its leadership wilfully misuse a report from Sir Bruce Keogh. I understand looking at reports this morning that he’s indicated that he apportions no blame to the last Labour government in relation to the claim by the Tories that somehow we contributed to excess debt and I think it’s a great shame because all of us across the party divides should want the best from our NHS and in fact up and down the country our NHS does fantastic work every day but we should all want to bear down on where it doesn’t succeed. Creating as they did do this week a political dog fight over something that’s so important to so many families, I thought actually demeaned public office in this country.

DM: But you are in a bit of a pickle about the economic news, we’re talking about the GDP perhaps going to show some, well, fairly decent, given by recent standards, some fairly decent growth over the last quarter and clearly as Britain and as an individual you welcome that but as a politician who wants to win the next election you understand the centrality of the economy and how it may affect voters.

CAROLINE FLINT: Well in the Labour party and speaking for myself and here in Doncaster where I live and represent, every single extra job that is provided for people to get into work I welcome but the truth is we also have to look at some of the other underlying issues in our labour market. There is something like 1.5 million people who are doing part time work who would love to work full time. Only on Friday I was talking to people at my Job Centre about the increasing number of zero hours contracts that are affecting people both in the private and public sector and of course average wages are down around £1000 since 2010. Again reports today show that Japanese investors are saying if the UK leaves the European Union we could risk 100,000 jobs as a result of Japanese investment in our economy if we are no longer that gateway to the European market. So I’m not going begrudge anything in terms of seeing employment rise although it is still increasingly a problem in terms of the levels of unemployment but we also have to look at how sustainable it is and what those jobs mean in terms of people being able to cope with the cost of living and providing for their families which is still, I think, not in the right place and it’s why Ed Miliband has focused on these issues, the cost of living issues, the squeezed middle and about the choices he would make which would be different to David Cameron.

DM: But we want to know then, don’t we, do we still need that emergency stimulus package that has been recommended by Labour or isn’t Mr Osborne’s medicine working now and you’ve got to accept that Plan B isn’t needed?

CAROLINE FLINT: Well I’m afraid that George Osborne has had to admit that the plan hasn’t worked because we are borrowing far more now than they ever forecast based on their original plan and he has had to admit that even after 2015 we are going to still face some very hard decisions along the way and the truth is that their plan hasn’t worked. We have seen a slight increase in growth but nowhere near what they forecast based on their original plan and also what we’re seeing is not the stimulus, Michael Heseltine and others have talked about this, we’re not seeing the stimulus to get our country moving and within our regions, the economy moving as strongly as it should be. So it is fragile at the moment and I’m afraid this government isn’t doing enough to help here in Doncaster or elsewhere around the country.

DM: Okay, so what can we read into that? You talked about the hard decisions which of course are your hard decisions as well if you want to form a realistic manifesto, you have to tell the public don’t you – and again the Conservatives have already done, we know that austerity, we know that economic difficulties will continue now well beyond the next general election. Where do you stand on further deficit reduction and will you do it by spending cuts or taxes? Mr Osborne has said he wants to do it by more spending cuts and he wants to cut taxes.

CAROLINE FLINT: Well we’ve already said, Ed Balls and Ed Miliband have made significant speeches over the last few months about the fact that we are not going to be reversing decisions when we need to focus on the economy and getting the deficit down, that’s absolutely important but there are choices we can make about how we spend money and what we spend money on and it is important to recognise that there is scope within government to make different choices and that includes where you make a decision to spend money on infrastructure development, you get on and deliver it and the truth is this government chose not to kick start infrastructure support which could help to create jobs, help to get our economy moving again and they’ve delayed action by three years. Now these are the different choices that we would make in government, to use that pot of money that the public give us on their behalf to create jobs and growth and that’s what we would be doing. But you’re right, there are serious choices, it is why Ed Balls said just a few weeks ago that we would limit the winter fuel allowance to those most in need and not to the richest pensioners. That was a tough and decisive decision and as we move forward, we are less than two years to the general election, you can be assured we will be making it much clearer about what our policy will be but part of the difficulty, Dermot, is actually about the way in which this government has made choices which has meant that the expectations of where we would be today are very different from what they said in 2010 so we’ll be mindful of what we inherit. But the truth is, we go into this summer break with Labour ahead consistently in the polls. The last time this government were in the lead was in March 2012 and we are a united party focused on the future, focused on the many, focused on the issues that are of concern to the British public.

DM: Okay, Ms Flint, we’re out of time, thank you very much indeed for your time. Caroline Flint there, the Shadow Energy Secretary.

CAROLINE FLINT: Thank you.