ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: It’s time now to look through the business pages of the Sunday papers aided and abetted by the former executive chairman of Marks and Spencer, he is of course Sir Stuart Rose. Good to see you Sir Stuart and thanks very much for setting about this task. Let’s start straight away with, very apposite at the moment, Vince Cable the Business Secretary on the front page of the Sunday Times, a war on shady tax havens.

SIR STUART ROSE: I’d say another war on shady tax havens, I mean this is not a new story in effect but yes, can he get his hands on it? The answer is we all know there are those people who pay their taxes, those people who don’t pay their taxes and if everybody who should pay their taxes paid their taxes we wouldn’t have to invent new ones.

DM: Do you feel though it is political rhetoric? A lot of people who have been on this show this morning have said we’ve head all politicians talk for it seems like ages about getting at these tax havens, getting the money from the wealthy and getting them to pay a proper share of tax. Is it doable?

SR: Listen, there is a degree of political rhetoric, of course there is but at the end of the day there are two ways of looking at this. If the rules are such that you can arrange your tax affairs and pay minimal tax and you obey those rules, that’s fine. If actually you are abusing those rules, then there is a case to answer. I just say that everybody in the UK who lives here, enjoys the society that we have here, needs to look themselves in the mirror and say am I paying the appropriate amount of taxes and they should pay them.

DM: Do you think it comes down to the personal level, a kind of Warren Buffet issue where in America he was saying I don’t think actually I pay enough tax so I’ll send you some more?

SR: Well yes but I’m really talking about those people who are probably paying borderline below what they should pay but yes, some people did say, I said myself and got into trouble a little bit last year from a few friends of mine, saying look, I think it is probably appropriate for us to pay a higher rate of tax for a while and I said I was very happy to pay 50%. I had quite a number of phone calls from people saying, well you don’t really understand, why did you say such a stupid thing as that? Well in reality, while we’re going through tough times and we’ve just heard Tim Farron talking about that before the break, I think there’s a duty. We live here, this is a fine country and if we live here there is a price to live here.

DM: What about a mansion tax?

SR: You would say to me you have probably got a mansion, Stuart, therefore you’d want to avoid it. I’d just say if everybody who should pay the tax that they are currently due pays it, I don't think we need to invent a new tax but if that’s what we have to do to make sure that everybody in society benefits from the things we enjoy in this country then so be it.

DM: Does it feed into this … and we’re hearing it from a lot of business people and indeed on the other side of the Atlantic as well, there is still a growing anti-business sentiment. It’s not limited to the bankers any more, anybody who is successful and wealthy in business is keeping their heads down.

SR: I think the beating up businessmen has begun to go away a little bit. Just moving on to is the economy moving backwards or forwards, I think we are moving forwards very, very slowly and I think it is absolutely timely now that we bury the hatchet, we bury the past, we bury banker bashing, we move forward and recognise one thing Dermot, that if we don’t create wealth in this country – and it’s the private sector that does create wealth – we cannot build the roads, the schools, the universities and the infrastructure that we enjoy.

DM: Two things from that then, do you see some kind of green shoots, whatever they’re called, and do you believe the government can do much to foster it or should it just pull back and say right, business, you be the engine of growth?

SR: Well business has to be the engine of growth, government has to make it as easy as possible for business to grow. I think the best thing that the government can do at the moment is just to very, very gently keep beating the drum saying we’re through the worst, we’re through the worst. Cut through the red tape as they promised they would do a couple of years ago and are now saying they are going to do again, make sure there are no stupid obstacles in the way and celebrate the fact that post the Olympics, dare I say it, it’s four or five weeks ago now, there’s a slightly better feeling about, unemployment numbers have kept going down. There’s some doubt about the numbers coming from the ONS, I think actually the UK is growing a little bit, I just hope that as we turn through the end of this year and get into 2013 we can move forward.

DM: Okay, show us another story, this from the Express, road tax potentially to be scrapped. Again this is one that’s been talked about for quite a long time, do you think it will happen, do you think it could work?

SR: Well listen, roads are hugely important, as are railways, as part of the UK infrastructure and what this really says is this is an inefficient way of raising money, perhaps we should look at it a different way. Should we say to ourselves that those people who use the roads more pay more money? It seems to have some sense about it to me.

DM: Pay as you drive tolls is from Norman Baker, the transport minister. Another way forward is whacking up the price of petrol again, that penalises people who drive more.

SR: That is true, that is true but I think that the road usage one is an interesting idea and I just think what it really says is we’ve had old systems in place, we should be prepared to review systems and look at new ideas and new ways of raising revenue.

DM: Do you think because of that, because it kind of keys into this great infrastructure debate and whether or not that kick starts an economy but getting the private sector involved, for instance on new road building, if you were told you could build a bridge or a section of motorway, we have a few miles of them at the moment, you could then take ownership for however many years and charge tolls, that that would help?

SR: Yes, I think there is one up in the north-west somewhere, I forget where it is, it is somewhere near Manchester, there is such a scheme in place and I think we should encourage these things.

DM: Okay, another story Stuart, I like this one given what you used to do and presumably where you used to buy your socks, the lost socks story. We already had a look at that actually this morning in the general paper review, I just don’t know how they come up with that figure of £137 each man a year in lost socks.

SR: It is quite amusing, we need a bit of a laugh at the moment. At the end of the day I was quite surprised myself but what it really says is if you lose socks or wear odd socks, there is danger of losing your job or losing your girlfriend, I mean that’s terrible isn’t it?

DM: I’m just checking yours there.

SR: I thought you might! I’ve got two blue socks on, they both match this morning.

DM: Are you still shopping at M&S?

SR: Absolutely.

DM: I wanted to ask you that, I know you are very much in the situation of leaving the current management in charge but you must keep half an eye on what’s going on.

SR: Listen, you can’t be involved in a business over a forty year period, albeit with a break, without having some sort of residual interest, of course I do and I tis a national institution. It is a business that’s in tune with where the UK is and if it’s having good times, the country is usually having good times, if it’s having bad times the country is usually having bad times, the two things are quite in parallel so of course I keep a weather eye on it. I go to the stores every week because I buy goods there, I enjoy seeing it but I never comment on it and good luck to them.

DM: What are you doing there, just having a look or just genuinely there because you want to have a shop?

SR: No, I buy the stuff that I need, I buy my food there, I still think M&S produces fantastic food, I was involved with that product development for twenty years and I buy clothes there as I need and want them.

DM: And you still have another FTSE 100 job in your remit? We’ve oft discussed this, you must be in demand. I know you’ve got a portfolio of work at the moment, is that satisfying your leadership juices?

SR: You’re far too young Dermot, but when you get to my age you’ll find that what you thought was going to happen to you and what actually happens to you are quite different things. Interestingly enough a whole pile of new avenues have opened up to me, mostly in the private sector, where I keep my head down, I add a little bit of value I hope in small and medium sized businesses and the most important thing is you don’t want to work with people you don’t like, you don’t want to work in a business you either don’t like or don’t understand and you want to have some fun and I think I’m having a bit of fun.

DM: But you said there again you’re keeping your head down, that’s going back to the discussion we were having a bit earlier about the anti-business sentiment. Marks and Spencer couldn’t really be higher profile when it comes to retailing, you were never out of the papers for whatever it is, whether it was about Marks and Spencer or your personal life, does it feel a better life being away from that?

SR: No, necessarily when you run a company the size of that business you have to be prepared to be in the limelight and that goes with the job. At the moment I have a series of jobs that don’t put me in the limelight, I don’t regret not being in the limelight, similarly if something comes up at point in time in the future that requires me to put my head above the parapet, if I think it’s appropriate I’ll do so, I’m not scared of that.

DM: But I’ve asked you this before, this issue about the government and the government saying we want to be supportive of business first of all but we want to bring some of those practices, some of those see it, do it, finish it practices that you have in business that just don’t seem to be happening in government. This endless debate about infrastructure, we’re told 2025, 2030 we might get a new runway, we might get a new power station, it’s all so far down the pipeline, is there not an element of you that feels – because I know you’re interested in the political debate, that just feels frustrated?

SR: Yes, absolutely. You said see it, do it and finish it, they are quite good at seeing it, not very good at doing it and finishing it is a long way off. I do get frustrated, of course I do, because as the country has been through the most difficult time it has probably been through in the last fifty years, you do sometimes bang your head against the wall and say if we only said we are going to do one, two, three things whether it was a third runway at Heathrow, whether it was improving the road infrastructure, whether it was making a decision on nuclear power or not, it would give people a sense of direction and a sense of purpose and I think that’s what the country needs, number one, and number two, we all know that these big infrastructure projects take time and if you don’t make the decision now you are going to be a long time before you see the result. Now the brilliant alternative to that was, or the brilliant exception to that was what happened at the Olympics. We could not have delayed the start of the Olympics, they were starting on whatever it was, the 31^st July this year and therefore they had to be finished. Wasn’t it marvellous, had to make the decision. Once we’d got them we couldn’t say no, we don’t want them any more so we built it. We did it, we executed it and it was fantastic. Why can’t we do the same with other infrastructure projects?

DM: On that note we’ll end it. Stuart Rose, thank you very indeed.

SR: Pleasure.