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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now the Prime Minister seemed to practically ignore the leader of the Welsh Conservatives when he spoke at the party’s conference last week.  Andrew RT Davies had announced he will voting to leave the EU and that follows warnings from the devolved leaders that the referendum is too close to May’s regional elections.  Well Andrew RT Davies joins me now from Cardiff and a very good morning to you, Mr Davies.   Ouch, that must have hurt, that snub from the Prime Minister, no handshake, no eye contact, just a pat on the shoulder and in he went, virtually ignored you.

ANDREW RT DAVIES: I appreciate you weren’t there, Dermot, but we did have a handshake, we did walk up and have photographs taken together for the campaign and the Prime Minister did include me in the speech and he focused on the Assembly election but there is a European referendum that’s going on, on June 23rd and obviously as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom he was addressing the UK picture as well as the Welsh picture and we set out our stall at our Welsh conference on what we’d be campaigning on up to May 5th which was protecting the health budget, excellence in education and security good quality jobs with higher take home pay here in Wales.  So the messages were strong, the messages were robust and we all ticked the boxes.

DM: Well how warm was the Prime Minister to you, we can see you have a farming background behind you there Mr Davies, we saw the Prime Minister went on a visit to a farm and you are the expert on the issue and he left you out.  

ANDREW RT DAVIES: Well that was a government visit and obviously I am not part of the government and it is the government’s position to promote one side of the European argument.  You are quite right, I am a farmer and for me farming is more than a photo opp, it is my life basically farming is.  I left school, I went into the family farm, my two sons and my daughters want to come into the family business and I certainly wouldn’t do anything that would jeopardise the existence of this farm or any other farms across the UK but what we’ve got now on May 5th is a really, really important Welsh general election, a chance every five years to cast Labour out and people have chosen not to do that for over 70 years here in Wales.  We have got record waiting lists in the NHS, we have falling educational standards and the economic picture isn’t brilliant by any stretch of the imagination so that is why we as Welsh Conservatives want to protect the health budget, deliver excellence in education and above all, get quality jobs with decent take home pay whatever part of Wales you live and secure real change here in Wales.  

DM: Okay, I listened to the Prime Minister’s speech to your conference and you say there the PM went on a photo shoot to a farm, by implication there saying he doesn’t really know much about it.  When he says it is a fact that farmers in Wales will be worse off if Britain leaves the EU you think he’s plain wrong, he doesn’t know anything about it?

ANDREW RT DAVIES: Not at all, the Prime Minister has been a strong support of agriculture across the whole of the United Kingdom but if you look at what people in Wales certainly want, what do they want from a Welsh government after May 5th is a government that will tackle bovine TB, tackle securing the payments that they received whether they be coming from Europe or whether they be coming from the UK government and making sure that public procurement and Welsh produce is at the forefront of people’s thinking.  What I am saying to you about …

DM: Sorry to interrupt Mr Davies, the Prime Minister said it wasn’t conjecture, it wasn’t looking at the balances of probabilities, it was a fact that farmers will be worse off if Britain leaves the EU.

ANDREW RT DAVIES: Well let me give you an example, if you take the beef market for example, we import into the United Kingdom about £430 million worth of beef into the UK beef market.  We export about £130 million, the bulk of the imports come from the Republic of Ireland.  We want to continue trading and ensuing that Welsh beef and UK beef is accepted across the whole of the world because it is a world renowned product but likewise other countries are going to want to trade with the UK because we are the fifth largest economy.   Many millions of jobs depend on obviously trading with the United Kingdom and when you come down to the Welsh equation, the Welsh side of this equation, it is vital that we have a government after May 5th, a Welsh Conservative government that actually stands up for Wales, stops the years of managed decline and starts real change.  If you wanted a protected NHS budget, if you want excellence in education and you want security in the economy, the only way you can do that is by putting in a Welsh Conservative government that will work with colleagues in Westminster to secure those opportunities.  There is an EU referendum, that’s on June 23rd, every man and woman will have a chance to vote in that.

DM: I wanted to ask you about that, so the PM’s wrong about farming in your view, is he wrong about holding the referendum when he is?  As we know, the leaders of the devolved parliaments and administrations have said they would rather this referendum is not held on June 23rd because it is overshadowing the campaigning that you’re talking about.  Your view on that?

ANDREW RT DAVIES: Well I think we’d all have liked a greater distance between the two elections but ultimately there will be six or seven weeks from the end of the assembly or devolved elections – because obviously there are elections going on in other parts of the United Kingdom – to the actual referendum on June 23rd and that will allow full opportunity for members of the public on both sides of the argument to engage in that debate but for everyone I speak to here in Wales, the priority is to engage in the assembly elections because if you care about the health service, if you care about education, if you care about the way your local authorities deliver services or indeed large parts of the economy, you only get the one chance every five years to vote and that’s May 5th that election is.  Once we get into the European referendum there will be six or seven weeks through May and into June where the points about Europe and whether we should be in or whether we should be out can be fully debated and engaged on.  

DM: Great talking to you Mr Davies, thank you very much and your happy cattle behind you there, Andrew RT Davies the leader of the Welsh Conservatives.