ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: As you’ve just been hearing, Britain’s got a new newspaper, it is the Sun on Sunday, Rupert Murdoch’s new paper promises readers trust and decency following the phone hacking scandal which forced the News of the World to shut. Well tomorrow the Leveson inquiry into press ethics enters a new phase as it begins to look at relations between the police and the press. In a moment I’ll be speak to Labour’s Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman, who is also Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport of course and to Lord Hunt, Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission but just to let you know who’s watching the discussion and tweeting today, they are Vincent Moss, Sunday Mirror’s political editor, the Spectator’s Pete Hoskin and Allister Heath, editor of City AM. They all provide their reactions via Twitter and you can read on the side panels and you can follow on our website which is skynew.com/politics and you can also join in if you like using the hashtag #murnaghan. Well as I say, Harriet Harman is with me, a very good morning to you. Reflection first of all on the Sun on Sunday, are you please to see a new Sunday newspaper even though it’s from the Murdoch stable?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well we’ve got a great tradition of newspapers and obviously people can make their choice as to whether to buy it or not and we’ll see it evolve but I think as they acknowledged themselves, it has come out from under the cloud of having to close down News of the World because they were engaged in illegal activity of phone hacking and failing to abide by the Press Complaints Code. So we’ve got a great tradition of newspapers, that’s really important to sustain that but obviously part of that is not only fearlessly reporting but also staying within the criminal law and the code of the Press Complaints Commission.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: And that is addressed within its inaugural editorial promising trust and decency, are you saying they’ll have to prove that over the course of time?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well of course they not only have to say it, and it’s welcome that they’ve said it, that they’ve acknowledged it but they have to stick with it and of course we’re looking ahead to the results of the Leveson Inquiry where all the newspaper editors have said that they need an independent Press Complaints Commission, not one at the moment which is run by the newspapers themselves, and that it needs to cover all newspapers. At the moment it is just voluntary whether or not you join it and so I think that we want to see the newspaper editors come forward with their proposals so that we can be absolutely sure there is a proper complaints system which is independent which we don’t have at the moment.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Okay, I want to ask a bit more about that a little bit later on but I just want to move on at this point to the interview we had on an hour ago with the Chancellor, George Osborne, the Budget of course as you know coming up in three and a bit weeks, talking about – which you presumably must welcome – tax cuts, this discussion of tax cuts for the lower paid, moving the threshold up, taking lots of people out of the tax net altogether.

HARRIET HARMAN: Well I think if he does that, that would help stimulate the economy and one of the things that I didn’t see reflected in his interview with you earlier this morning is a recognition of what’s actually happening in the economy. It’s not growing and unemployment is rising and that’s why the deficit is going up rather than down, so we want to see the government producing a budget for jobs and growth which will actually stimulate the economy. We think the best tax measure for doing that would be a cut in VAT which really helps put money …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Which would short term increase the deficit because that would blow a hole in the government’s finances.

HARRIET HARMAN: Well not if it stimulates, as we expect it to do …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: But that’s further down the line, this is short term …

HARRIET HARMAN: No, because if you look at what happened when we cut VAT before, it gave a stimulus to growth, it put more money in people’s pockets, businesses employed more people and that’s why when we left office unemployment was coming down and growth was going up. Now what they did is they put up VAT and then the economy sort of chilled back so that’s the problem, they’re still on Plan A. If you think in April people are going to be worse off because of the cuts they have already planned for cuts in tax credits which are going to hit low working low income families, so I think that they really do need to step forward and stimulate the economy. It’s not growing and if you can’t grow the economy then you can’t reduce the deficit.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: So when the Chancellor says that whatever he’s going to do and that plan is much discussed about moving more quickly on the tax threshold, whatever he does that he will not borrow more to do it, you’re saying that’s wrong, you should allow the deficit to increase ever so slightly so that we can stimulate growth?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well he is borrowing more you see than he planned, a great deal more unfortunately, because he’s had to borrow more to pay for unemployment benefit and to compensate for the fact that money’s not coming to the Treasury from businesses because businesses are not growing and making profits but I think more than that, I think they need to support those specific sectors of the economy which have got potential for jobs and potential for growth and that’s why this week we’re focusing on the creative industries. If you think of the BAFTAs, the BRITs, London Fashion Week, this is something we’re really good at, we’re known for all around the world and they should be working to support exports, to support finance to the creative industries, to protect …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: But how? I mean the Prime Minister I remember a couple of weeks ago was banging on about the film industry saying just that very thing, how many people it can employ and how much money it can earn for the UK.

HARRIET HARMAN: Yes, but he’s got to do a bit more than bang on about it, he’s got to make sure that instead of it just being the responsibility of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, it’s got to be right at the heart of the Treasury and business. People say how are we going to pay our way in the future, we are going to pay our way in the future and we’re going to have jobs in the future by what young people want to work in, what we’re good at, what the rest of the world recognises we lead on – film, music, television, fashion – so actually they need to not only get the overall framework for the economy right but they have also got to support those sectors which are growth sectors for the future which is why we are focusing this week on that.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: And move it out of the department you shadow. It’s interesting hearing you saying that because I mean you get quite a side swipe in the Telegraph today from a former colleague of yours, a former Cabinet colleague of yours, Charles Clarke, a former Home Secretary, talking about the Labour vision and the Labour leadership, saying that the Labour leadership is not setting out that vision, is not even getting remotely close to showing that leadership. How do you feel about, it must be said, another broadside from Charles Clarke?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well I think what we’re saying is we recognise that there is a real squeeze on people’s living standards and it was Labour that was saying we’ve got to address that squeezed middle. It’s us that have put forward that economic argument that we must have a budget, we must have an economic policy for jobs and growth and also have challenged kind of irresponsibility, whether it’s the Murdoch media thinking that it can just break the criminal law, whether it’s energy companies thinking that they can rip off older people, an argument for a more responsible capitalism.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: You say it’s a coherent argument, this is what Charles Clarke is saying, there’s still not that understanding of the past, that you borrowed way too much. There’s not an understanding of that, borrowed and spent too much, not a clear narrative then about what you do now and what the government is doing wrong.

HARRIET HARMAN: Well I think the deficit rose because of the global financial crisis which meant that we had to ensure that we supported businesses and protected people from becoming unemployed. What’s happening now, and I’ve just come back from the north where I was yesterday, young unemployment, long term youth unemployment has gone up over 12 months 143% so they are cutting all the public sector jobs making services worse and the idea that the private sector is ready to grow in its place and provide these jobs, it’s not happening and I think it is a very, very worrying time. I mean the Chancellor could actually recognise this in his budget next month. Let’s see whether he does that, that’s what he should do.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Can I just ask you about another story in the papers today, the Equalities Act, which I know you are very proud of, which you got through while you were in government. A committee of MPs is saying it is actually now discriminating against religion, discriminating against Christians, putting them below other groupings in terms of the operation of the act, how do you answer that?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well what the act says is that you shouldn’t be discriminated against, there’s no place for prejudice on the basis of your ethnicity, on the basis of whether you are a man or a woman, on the basis of your sexual orientation or your religion and it sets that framework and it says that we’re a better country, we’re a more decent society …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: They are saying that religion is at the bottom of that pile.

HARRIET HARMAN: Well there isn’t a hierarchy. If you are person who is a victim of Islamophobia, that is a big issue for you. If you are a gay person who is discriminated against on the basis of your sexual orientation, that’s an issue for you. There isn’t, there shouldn’t be and there isn’t a hierarchy of different sorts of discrimination and within different religions, no there’s not a hierarchy either. It’s about what happens to each individual and their right of redress so I think people do moan and whinge a bit about the Equalities Act but what sort of society do we want to live in? We want to live in one where everybody feels they’ve got fairness and equality.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Okay and lastly, just to turn back as I said to the issue of the Press Complaints Commission and what kind of future shape we might have for press regulation, Leveson starting again on Monday and I’ve got Lord Hunt of the Press Complaints Commission coming up next, your recipe is then one which still envisages self-regulation?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well I think really we don’t want a situation … we want a free press, we don’t really want politicians or government intervening in the press but what we have to be sure is that individuals have got redress if the press break the law or invade an ordinary person’s privacy and break the Press Complaints Code. At the moment there is no enforcement of the Press Complaints Code and the criminal law hasn’t been enforced either so I don’t want to see whole scale regulation of the press or political or governmental interference, what I want to see is the editors coming forward and saying this is how we can actually make sure it is not just a by your leave whether or not the editors obey the law and obey the Press Complaints Code but that we have an enforceable situation that applies to all editors.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: But that might require legislation then.

HARRIET HARMAN: Well it’s down to them to say what they want. I don’t want to put that forward, they’ve agreed it should be independent, it should be enforceable. I’m saying to them, okay, you come forward and tell us what you would propose to make that happen but we’ve got to move from warm words to it actually working in practice but the ball’s in their court.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: And right away, right here on the show. Thank you very much indeed there, Harriet Harman, setting up my interview with Lord Hunt. Harriet Harman there, Deputy Leader of the Labour party.