ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, is under attack this morning in most of the papers let’s take a look at that and the other stories in the Sunday papers with our reviewers. I am joined now by the Conservative MP Therese Coffey, Labour MP Diane Abbott and former head of Ofcom, Stewart Purvis.  A very good morning to you all.  Who’s going to kick me off with Maria Miller then?  Let’s start with you Therese, what have you got there?

THERESE COFFEY: I understand this is Diane’s story but …

DM: Well Diane, you kick us off, we’re all going to discuss it anyway, so what do you think?

DIANE ABBOTT: I was in the Chamber for her apology.

DM: Blink and you missed it.

DIANE ABBOTT: Yes, she didn’t do herself any favours, she would have been better advised to have done an apology which sounded more genuine.  The problem with this story is I think there are some people in my party who think oh, it’s a bad story for the Tories.  Actually it’s a bad story for everybody, it revives the whole expenses scandal, it brings MPs into disrepute, it’s a damaging story for parliament.

DM: Bad for all MPs. 

DIANE ABBOTT: It’s bad for all MPs, that’s my view and it’s very sad because you want to be able to put the expenses scandal behind us and the Maria Miller stuff goes back to before 2010, but this all revives it. 

DM: Therese Coffey, should she go, has she done enough?

THERESE COFFEY: I was also in the Chamber and the central allegation made against her about was she fraudulently subsidising her parents, that allegation was thrown out and that was the main issue that she was being investigated on mainly.

DM: But the point is, it’s MPs looking after themselves again isn’t it?

DIANE ABBOTT: One of the things that concerned me about it is that she kept obstructing the House of Commons investigators and we shouldn’t be doing that. An allegation has been made, you should cooperate and I think one of the things that disturbed people was of course the central allegations were disproved but the way she behaved.  It’s not fitting for a Cabinet Minister.

DM: Just to hear from Therese Coffey, you cut her off there, so she apologised, she said right, some of the charges weren’t proven against her but should she stay?  Is the Prime Minister right to have full confidence in her?

THERESE COFFEY: Yes, she is, she’s handled two tricky pieces of legislation for the Prime Minister in the last twelve months, same sex marriage and the Press Charter, he clearly has confidence that she did that well and is a capable minister and he wants to keep her on board. 

DM: What about her special advisor, mentioning her supervision of the Press Charter, when discussing the investigation into her expenses by Telegraph journalists? 

THERESE COFFEY: Well there are claims and counter-claims  going on. 

DM: There’s a tape.

DIANE ABBOTT: There’s a tape.

THERESE COFFEY: Indeed, I’ve heard the tape, I don't know if anyone else here has but the point is, you’re right it refers to Leveson but it also refers to the fact that reporters had been door stepping her elderly parents and they felt that was unacceptable behaviour, what was going on in Leveson but also the PCC Code. 

DM: Stewart Purvis, come in on this, perhaps with your Ofcom experience.  The public as we’re seeing in this story we’re discussing here, they think Maria Miller should go and as we’ve been hearing from MPs themselves, the public really are sick to death about these expenses stories about MPs.  Don’t they need an independent regulator that says right, you, pay your money back or you’re out?

STEWART PURVIS: It goes to the heart of what is independent regulation which of course has bedevilled the whole Leveson process and now is bedevilling this process and in the Sunday Times for instance we’ve got the current chair of the commission that looks after this saying MPs can’t be trusted with expenses or that’s the impression that’s given.  I think there is a structural flaw at the heart of all this and it goes curiously enough to a comparison with press regulation.  We’ve now got IPSO and we’ve got IPSA, okay, IPSA is an Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, okay and IPSO is an Independent Press Standards Organisation.  Now I’m slightly sceptical how independent the press regulator is of the press but I have to say on what we have today before us, IPSO the press regulator is more independent, or the system is more independent, than the parliamentary standards authority and let me just explain why that is.  It goes to your point Diane of the apparent obstruction by Maria Miller of the process.  What actually happened, it has been said she was legalistic, she was more than legalistic, she did not hand over information which the Commissioner asked for. Then we had this curious process at the end which is in a joint statement, ‘After the commissioner had concluded her inquiry the committee was able to secure further information from Mrs Miller on which to base its conclusions.’  Well that’s a pretty funny way to run it, you ask an independent commissioner to investigate, the MP won’t hand over the information and then after they’ve finished, oh by the way, when I reach my colleagues on the MPs I’m going to produce new information.

THERESE COFFEY: That’s not the case Stewart. 

[All talking at the same time]

THERESE COFFEY: There was a disagreement and Maria Miller said I think I have over-claimed, going back in detail, by five thousand something and the commissioner said we think you should pay mortgage interest on what was the original purchase price, not the mortgage interest ….  That’s where the clarification was wanted by the MPs to resolve the dispute between the two. 

DIANE ABBOTT: Just to say, and Therese is doing a plucky job defending her colleagues but to get back to this morning’s newspapers, the political question is it’s all the Tory papers you know that are going after Maria Miller and the political question is, can she withstand a sustained campaign from the Tory press? 

DM: But there are parallels with press regulation. 

STEWART PURVIS: Who makes the final call?  I personally think it’s totally legitimate that MPs should decide who should be expelled from the House say, that’s for them to decide but I think the process up to the decision about the sanction should be sit in an independent regulator and you shouldn’t have, oh a little bit of extra information has become available to MPs. 

DM: We must move to other stories but Stewart, the last point on this with your journalists hat on, you’ve seen so many of these beleaguered ministers in your career …

STEWART PURVIS: Yes, I saw one of them talking on here not so long ago, David Mellor.

DM: Well he mentioned it, he said at least he was consensual sex that he got involved but that’s another story.  Do you think she’ll last, the way these drip, drip allegations are going?

STEWART PURVIS: Well my view is she wouldn’t have been the minister in that department for much longer anyway because frankly she does not command the respect of the media industry, I don't know about culture and sport.  So her time was limited and whether she lasts until reshuffle or not, we’re only talking about a few months I would guess. 

DM: It’s like the old Alistair Campbell adage about being on the front page for too long.

STEWART PURVIS: Quite often you do need a new leg to the story and we’ve got some new legs this morning but will there be enough legs to get to what some in the press want, they want her out.   

DM: And whether you are on the front page or not quite a lot depends on other stories turning up and this might be one, Therese, take us on to this, ‘Chinese pick up signal from MH370.  Are we any closer to getting any answers about this mystery?

THERESE COFFEY: Well the signal they can’t say specifically is from MH370 but I think it’s just a good story about the hope and the pursuit of trying to understand what happened in this tragic incident and yet forces from around the world are working together to try and find out what has happened. I think the relatives can be assured by this because it’s that quest to understand what happened.  I could use the parallel with the Hillsborough inquest they’ve started, that has been going on for 25 years, wanting to find out the truth and I think it’s a great story about hope and wanting to get to the bottom of it. 

DM: Let’s hope it doesn’t take 25 years to sort this one out and more of course with Hillsborough.  Diane, Scotland yes vote now neck and neck, this is intriguing isn’t it, on the front page of the Times?

DIANE ABBOTT: I think it’s intriguing and Westminster isn’t paying enough attention to what’s happening in Scotland.  My SNP friends say there are a very large number who are undecided and they believe that the undecided will vote for them and that’s what appears to be happening.  The frightening thing is, no party has a Plan B if the unionists lose the referendum.  For the Tories it will be a historic disaster, Cameron is the man who loses Scotland but for us, we have 41 Scottish MPs, we face the prospect of never winning a General Election again and no one has a Plan B, no one is paying attention.

DM: What do you think about that idea that was floated, that if Scotland does vote for independence, come the 2015 election, there shouldn’t be any MPs from Scotland for that interim period and that does affect Labour as you say.

DIANE ABBOTT: It does affect us.  It wouldn’t be legal but it would be bizarre that you would have the 2015 election, all these Scots MPs elected when in fact Scotland is now an independent country. 

DM: Do you think Alistair Darling is the man to lead the No Campaign? 

DIANE ABBOTT: Yes, he is a safe pair of hands.

DM: That’s the problem though isn’t it? 

DIANE ABBOTT: I think in the end the vote might be quite an emotional vote and whether, yes, whether we’ve really calculated or not I don't know.

DM: Other big stories around and Stewart, watchdog unleashes Farage on television debates.  They are a major party according to Ofcom, UKIP. 

STEWART PURVIS: Well they are for the European elections and that’s triggered a whole debate about are there any rules for these Prime Ministerial debates and my view, and I told the House of Lord inquiry this, there are no rules.  Actually it is not like the Cup Final, this is not a national event which we’ve had for thirty, forty years, it happened once.  Technically it may never happen again and people have looked to Ofcom and the BBC Trust to say tell us what the rules are.  Ofcom are saying this is a TV show, the broadcasters will make their decisions about who they have on these programmes and frankly, probably in the case of Ofcom and the BBC Trust, they may make a judgement afterwards but they’re not going to say that Farage should or shouldn’t take part but that of course puts the onus absolutely back on the broadcasters, it puts it back on negotiations with the parties which I understand are going pretty slowly.  The Conservative party are particularly slow to want to come forward and I’ve always thought the more it stays the same as last time, the less option it gives for people to opt out.  The more you try and change the rules and the more you try and invite other people in, it gives the people who you want in the chance to get out.

DIANE ABBOTT: No big party is going to want Farage on that platform because I don’t agree with almost anything he says but he is a very effective communicator. 

DM: Personally would you like to see him there, do you think he deserves a place there?    

DIANE ABBOTT: I wouldn’t want to comment but I do believe in these political debates and anything that engages the public with politics is a good thing.

THERESE COFFEY: I think Farage has got no chance of being a Prime Minister or a Deputy Prime Minister, it’s a bit of a joke.  Of course he will want to get on that debate to be the disruptive, the anti-politics politician and for that reason also I’d say let’s concentrate on who is going to be Prime Minister.

DM: Even if it gets people talking, as Diane says, it gets people discussing the real issues that matter to them. 

THERESE COFFEY: I’m not sure that he does to be honest, I think he stirs things up about things like immigration and fuels the anti-politics that we’re all crooks. 

DIANE ABBOTT: I’m opposed to …

THERESE COFFEY: Unlike UKIP MEPs who are being sent to jail for benefit fraud. 

DIANE ABBOTT: I’m opposed to almost everything that Farage says but his views on Europe actually reflect a significant proportion of the British public and we have to engage with that. 

THERESE COFFEY: Well let’s hope that Labour and Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords don’t block the next Referendum Bill. 

DM: Stewart Purvis, do you think he’ll make it?  Aren’t the broadcasters pretty agnostic, they just want to see the debates take place and two, three or four, they don’t really care?  

STEWART PURVIS: I think in terms of TV they would probably want him there, in terms of creating a situation where people like Cameron might walk out, they don’t want it, simple as that.

DM: And what about Miliband, he doesn’t want it either does he?

DIANE ABBOTT: No, I don’t believe he does.  

DM: Well he said he doesn’t.

DIANE ABBOTT: Then you know as much as I do.  

DM: Okay, well listen, we’ll wrap it up there.  Thank you very much indeed for that debate, it’s been very good to see you, thank you for taking us through the papers.