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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Up to a third of Tory MPs could block Lords reform in a vote later this week. The Lib Dems say if that happens they might block boundary changes which the Tories badly want to push through before the next election, so can the coalition survive this crucial test. In a moment I’ll be speaking to the Conservative Minister for Constitutional Reform, Mark Harper and Liberal Democrat MP and Foreign Office Minister, Jeremy Browne. I’m joined now from Gloucestershire by the Conservative Minister for Constitution Reform, as I said, Mark Harper, and a very good morning to you, Mr Harper. Now you’re the minister who has accused some of your colleagues of playing silly games with all this, don’t they have legitimate constitutional concerns about this major reform, why are they silly?

MARK HARPER: Well I was talking about those who pretended we hadn’t made commitments to do this. I mean this was a Conservative proposal as well, this was in our manifesto, in fact it has been Conservative policy to have a mainly elected House of Laws, to elect those who make the laws, since 1999. I stood in the last three elections on that manifesto and the Coalition Agreement does no more than ask both the coalition parties to deliver what was in both of our manifestos and indeed what was in Labour’s manifesto as well and I think it’s a very good Conservative measure about strengthening parliament and having a check on the power of the executive and I think all Conservatives ought to be able to support it.

DM: And if they don’t they’re silly?

MH: No, what I was talking about are those who look at the Coalition Agreement and say that because it talked about bringing forward proposals, somehow that meant that all we committed to do was produce our reform proposals and then pop them in a drawer and do nothing with them and I was making the point that both coalition negotiating teams that signed the Coalition Agreement were very clear that what they were committing both coalition parties to do was to actually deliver on House of Lords reform, to deliver nothing more than was in both of our election manifestos and on which we went to the country. As I said, this is a proposition on which most members of the public, 70% of the public or so think it is perfectly sensible that you elect most of the lawmakers in the House of Lords, they don’t think there is anything exceptional about it and I think we should have a proper debate in parliament, proportional amount of time, we shouldn’t over focus on it but we should get on and enact this very sensible reform which the public supports.

DM: But if we look at what might happen in more detail it seems that your colleagues and indeed all parties who, as you’ve said, in the past all parties have in some form supported Lords reform, will vote for a second reading. It’s the amount of time that you dedicate in the House of Commons to discussing it that they’re concerned about.

MH: Well we’ve set out a very sensible amount of time. Colleagues should remember we published a draft Bill last year, it was scrutinised for nine months by a Joint Committee of MPs and peers so these aren’t proposals we’ve just dropped on people and we propose ten full days on the floor of the House of Commons. I mean in our proposals the House of Commons would still be talking about this measure in November and we need to make sure that we pass it on to the House of Lords so that they can debate it properly as well. That seems to me a perfectly reasonable amount of time and that is something that colleagues ought to be able to support when we vote on Tuesday.

DM: You’ve got to admit haven’t you though, it hasn’t been helpful, the Lib Dems, Nick Clegg’s strategy director, outgoing strategy director, dropping that bombshell last week that the Lib Dems would oppose boundary changes if your lot, if some of your lot ditched this?

MH: No, it wasn’t very helpful but the Deputy Prime Minister himself, Nick Clegg, said clearly the two things aren’t linked together. He made it quite clear when we gave evidence to the Joint Committee that that’s not the case. What both coalition parties are about is delivering the whole of the Coalition Agreement, that’s what we signed up to do and that’s what I think the government, both coalition parties, will get on doing over the remaining three years of the government as we run towards the next election.

DM: Ah, I wanted to ask you about that, you think there are remaining three years because some commentators and indeed politicians are saying that this could put intolerable stress on the coalition if some of the threats are carried out.

MH: Well I think the government remains focused. The government’s number one priority remains dealing with the deficit, dealing with the economic challenges facing the country, that’s what my constituents here in the Forest of Dean want to be focused on, that’s what the government is focused on. This is one other important matter but we shouldn’t get it out of proportion, the government came together to deal with an economic crisis, that crisis still remains, we see that when we look at the eurozone, both coalition parties – the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – remain focused on dealing with that very important problem for our constituents.

DM: Okay and you think minds will be focused? I mean are you confident you can win this vote on the timetabling, the programmed motions, do you think you can win that?

MH: Yes, I do. I hope that when colleagues consider two things, first of all these are, as I said, very Conservative proposals in our manifesto, something that Conservative colleagues should be able to support but also I think colleagues want to get the balance right. They want us to spend a proper amount of time debating this important issue and I think we’ve allowed for that in our programme motion but they also don’t want it to be the only thing we talk about when there are many other important issues, whether it is the economy, whether it’s the banking situation, whether it’s important foreign policy challenges in Syria, I think they want us to get the balance right and that’s what we’ve done I think in our programme motion and I think in the end that’s where most Conservative colleagues will come down on Tuesday.

DM: Okay, Mr Harper, thank you very much indeed, Mark Harper there. Well let’s put some of those issues straight away to the Lib Dem MP and Foreign Office Minister, he is of course Jeremy Browne, a very good morning to you Mr Browne. Let me put that to you straight away, it came from Mark Harper, it seems to be in step with most of what you’re saying but you do feel that that intervention in the middle of last week from the Lib Dems about boundary changes was unhelpful.

JEREMY BROWNE: Well I think Mark summed up the position very well and like him I’m a big supporter of the coalition, I think it’s doing some tough but necessary important things to get the country back on its feet again and our main priority as a government is to economy, of course it is, the deficit and sorting out our economic problems but the Coalition Agreement is what it says, it is an agreement between the two parties, neither of us won a majority at the general election, we’ve come together in the national interest in my view and we have to honour that agreement as a whole and that includes this package of proposals, which of course, as Mark was saying, is in the manifestos of both coalition parties.

DM: How dear is it to you and how much urgency does it require given the other huge fish there are to fry, particularly in terms of the economy? We hear Lib Dems making threats.

JB: Well I don’t think we are making threats. There is an agreement, it is a package of measures, they’re not weighted that one is more important than the others, there is a package of measures, there is a contract if you like between the two parties and we are honour bound, both of us, to put that agreement into effect. So if you take for example something like directly elected police commissioners, that was in the Conservative manifesto, it wasn’t in the Lib Dem manifesto, it went into the agreement, we agreed to put it in the agreement and we honoured that commitment.

DM: So this is another thing you’ve done for them so you say do this for us?

JB: All I’m saying is it’s not an a la carte menu, it’s not pick and mix. The two parties have an obligation to each other to agree to implement the agreement that we both signed up to, we both went into in good faith in 2010, so I don't think it’s trading off one policy for another, I don’t see it in those terms at all. There is an agreement to govern the country between 2010 and 2015 and this is part of the agreement.

DM: Do you see this then as a test of David Cameron’s leadership of his party that he must deliver these MPs on that vote?

JB: I don’t see it in that way either. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs between them have an obligation to deliver the Coalition Agreement that the two parties freely entered into after the last general election and that is an agreement where the number one priority is to address the severe economic problems that face the country but there are all kinds of other aspects to do with health and education and police reform and all those other areas and you can’t have a situation where everybody says well we’ll only vote for the bits that we like but we won’t vote for the bits we don’t like. It won’t work if that’s how everybody enters it so people have to see the agreement as a package of measures and I think that package, if implemented in full by 2015, will be good for the country and this is part of that package.

DM: Okay, but what’s your assessment of how annoyed – let me put it that way – your colleagues, your Lib Dem colleagues will be if Conservative MPs join with Labour and vote this out?

JB: Well I hope that won’t happen because I think the overwhelming majority of Conservative MPs are not only honourable people but I think they will see the importance for the government as a whole, and even for the country, of the coalition honouring its commitments to each other and to the country as a whole. People can …

DM: But if it does, what then?

JB: Well I think that’s hypothetical. The government hasn’t lost a vote on an issue of consequences since the government was formed a couple of years ago, I think all the MPs in both parties have an obligation to support the measures that are going to be put forward on Tuesday and of course they’ve been worked on by Nick Clegg, Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister, but you just heard from Mark Harper who is a Conservative MP, he has been working tirelessly on these measures, he said himself that these proposals were in broad terms in the last three Conservative manifestos so I think Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs, and actually Labour MPs, would be expected to vote for the proposal.

DM: Do you not think though that it was counterproductive for Richard Reeves, the outgoing strategy director I referred to, to Nick Clegg, to make those threats during the middle of the week? It has been said that this has enraged some of the Conservatives who have been saying you can’t make these kind of threats, we’re definitely going to vote against it now.

JB: Well I don’t see why anyone should be enraged and I don’t see them as threats. I see it as him making it clear that there is an agreement, there is an agreement in place, you can’t pick and mix, you can’t say I’ll have this bit or the other bit, both parties have an obligation to honour the agreement in full, that’s what we negotiated with the parties after the general election. People will remember those scenes in the week after the general election and we have a programme that will run to 2015, the government will govern for five years and this is part of that agreement. It’s not the most important thing, there are all kinds of important areas, particularly the economy, but it is an important thing because there is an important principle which is that everybody in this country has to abide by the law but the deal is that the people who make the law are chosen by you the people and that’s how a democracy works. So it’s an important principle, there’s a lot of people that feel strongly about House of Lords reform, it’s been debated in British politics for over a hundred years and we’re going to get on with it and British politicians are going to implement those reforms.

DM: This all seems a bit detached from reality here. Are you coming here to tell me that there are no strains within the coalition over this issue?

JB: Well there are disagreements. I have heard Conservative MPs, David Davies was on another TV channel this morning making his views clear about this issue but no, there are disagreements. There were disagreements between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown when Labour were in government and that was only a one party government so of course you get a bit of tension within parties as well as between parties but overall, you just heard Mark Harper, he’s a Conservative MP, I’m a Liberal Democrat MP, I don't think we sound like we’re in a different place. The government as a whole is …

DM: No, because you’re papering over the cracks, are you telling me there will be no repercussions from the Lib Dems if this is voted down by Conservative MPs?

JB: Well we have always taken the approach, the Liberal Democrats, and I think it is a very responsible and mature approach, that we signed up to an agreement. We didn’t win the election but we’re going to get some of our manifesto implemented, not all of it but …

DM: But then what do you say to the Conservatives, if you don’t keep that agreement we’ll be very cross?

JB: Conservative MPs need to remember that they didn’t win the general election either so it is a bit of give and take, no party has a mandate to implement their manifesto in full but of course ironically this was in the Conservative manifesto so we’re not even asking them to sign up to something that they don’t support. They support it anyway, it’s in the agreement and the government as a whole is implementing that agreement.

DM: Okay, Mr Browne, thank you very much indeed. Jeremy Browne there, Foreign Office Minister.