ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: I’m joined now by the Conservative Party Chairman, Grant Shapps. A very good morning to you Mr Shapps. The Prime Minister has been saying on this issue of UKIP that in a way you have just lent any of your supporters that have gone over to them, how do you win them back?

GRANT SHAPPS: I think what we have to do is set up a programme for government in the next parliament which is very full and you can see some of our priorities already. We want to make sure that we are the party that always makes work pay in this country, that takes us back to a situation where if someone goes out and does an honest days work, they know at the end of it they are going to be better off than if they’re on other benefits or welfare. We want a society where more of the laws are of course made here, where the education policies mean that people can go to school and have a really good education with proper rigour in the classrooms again. So there are a whole series of things that we want to do and that’s what we’ll be setting out in our next manifesto.

DM: And you think that’s going to appeal to UKIP supporters?

GS: Well look, one thing that I know about UKIPs policies is that it’s not just Europe that will concern them and that’s why you have to have a very full range of policies in order to attract people. Look, actually, realistically UKIP don’t have any Members of Parliament and we’re going to set out our programme on the basis of what we’d like to do and …

DM: But that doesn’t matter, they’ve got MEPs and they’ve got a big poll rating, they’ve got millions of people who say they’ll vote for them. The real thing that would satisfy them is a commitment to an in/out referendum on Europe, we just heard it from Nigel Farage, before the next election. Do you think you are going to get anywhere close to offering them that?

GS: Well look, I’m afraid I just differ with Nigel Farage on this. We believe that we should be in Europe and not run by Europe. We do think that the balance of power or where the rules are being made is wrong at the moment, we think that’s a mainstream British view, that more of our control should be here and we think that we need to go out and have that conversation, that’s what we think needs to happen. The idea that we would be best served by, for example, not having major corporations for example from America or elsewhere come and settle in Britain and export to Europe because they’ve got access to that open market, I don’t see how that could help our jobs in this country for example. So this is a complex issue but it is one of only very many issues and look, we’re mid-parliament, people often during mid-parliament look to protest somewhere. In the past that’s been to the Liberal Democrats, they’re in government of course now but I think come the next election, another two, two and a half years’ time, people will be able to have a look at the full track record which will include having dealt with a large amount of the deficit, some of the really big issues that are facing this country, some of the really difficult decisions we’ve had to make in order to get this country back on track.

DM: Well let’s turn to one of them right now and of course concerning the party that is the real concern to you, of course the party that is leading by a street in the polls at the moment, it is of course the Labour party. I want to talk about this benefits vote taking place on Tuesday, the decision to cap benefits for the next three years at 1%, working age benefits and you say in the Conservative party that you’re not trying to demonise those on benefits yet the Chancellor has referred to them as people who have the curtains drawn as others go to work and we’ve seen Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, writing in the Sun today a story which has a photograph of presumably somebody on benefits at the top of this story – I’m sure you’re familiar with it Mr Shapps and you may well have been part of choosing this image – it’s a fat slob, in a vest, lying on a sofa with a half-eaten takeaway meal beside him. Is that how you view the unemployed and those on benefits?

GS: No. Look, I think this is just a simple matter of fairness. When people go out to work I think they have a right to know that they are better off than if they were living off welfare and benefits. Now I think we absolutely have a duty, a responsibility, to look after the most vulnerable people in society and we have to go out of our way to make sure that we do that, so this 1% cap on the rise in welfare will not apply to people with disabilities, won’t apply to carers for example but it will apply to the remainder and the purpose is simple, when you go out and you do a day’s work you should always know that you are better off than being on welfare and unfortunately during the Labour years – and actually frankly for several decades now – the system has been so complex, so difficult to understand, that as a constituency MP I spend hours with people trying to work out whether they’d be better off working an extra few hours a week or not. That’s mad, you should always know you can go out to work and be better off.

DM: I’m just interested in the imagery here, what proportion of people on benefits do you regard as unfortunate people who have suffered in this recession and the one before it, and what proportion do you believe are the fat slobs with the curtains drawn?

GS: No, I think the vast majority of people on benefits are stuck in a system which is perfectly unfair to them, in other words what happens is even if you want to, and I think most people absolutely want to in their heart of hearts get out there and work, the problem is the system rather cruelly means it is often very difficult to find a job that is going to pay you more than benefits will for not working, so I think it is the cruelness of the system that’s wrong and it’s a fairness issue because everyone who is working has to pay the taxes in order to pay the benefits.

DM: But given what you said there, are you going to complain to the Sun then for headlining this article with that picture which would obviously suggest to the reader that that’s the way that Iain Duncan Smith and indeed the Conservative party, regard those people on benefits? It’s the picture supporting the story.

GS: Well look, we’re not the picture editors – I haven’t seen the page there but we’re not the picture editors for the story. What I can tell you is that there are probably a very small number of people, I heard Ed Balls refer to them this week, the Labour guy, saying that actually there are some people who would simply prefer not to work, I’m sure that’s the case. I think the vast majority are not those people, I think the vast majority are people who are trapped in a system which is blatantly unfair, it stops them from working even though they want to.

DM: Okay, Mr Shapps, thank you very much indeed. Conservative Party Chairman, Grant Shapps, there.