ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: So then judges will now get the power to veto surveillance requests from the Intelligence Services as the government appears to have backtracked a bit over some of the more controversial elements of the so-called Snooper’s Charter.   The Investigatory Powers Bill, to give it its full name, is expected to be unveiled on Wednesday after it was blocked by the Liberal Democrats way back in 2012 during the coalition years.  I am joined now by the Shadow Home Secretary who was a Labour leadership contender, Andy Burnham, he’s in Leigh and a very good morning to you Mr Burnham.  So have you talked to your leader about whether this is now something Labour can support.  

ANDY BURNHAM: Well of course we haven’t yet seen the detail, Dermot, the government will only publish the Bill on Wednesday but there is a broad acceptance that a new law is now needed.  The online world has created blind spots where the authorities can’t see anymore and this isn’t just about counter-terrorism, it’s about child sexual exploitation, fraud – there is a need for a new legal framework so that they can do their job, the police and the security services, and keep us safe but of course that has to be balanced by legitimate concerns about liberty and privacy and my job is to make sure the government get that balance right and so what I can do at this stage is make sure the debate is calm and measured and that’s what I’m going to do.  I’m not going to play politics with this issue, we need to get a legal framework that is ready for the digital age and I will be working hard to hold the government to account but crucially to get that balance right.

DM: And fair enough, you want to see the Bill itself but I phrase that question by saying if you talk to the leader about it, because of the fluid nature of policy making at the moment within the party, are you and Jeremy Corbyn – because it is so important as you point out – are you going to be singing from the same hymn sheet on this?

ANDY BURNHAM: Well of course I’ve spoken to Jeremy about it and the approach that I’m outlining to you today is the approach that I outlined to him which is that Labour should accept the need for a new law, we will wait to see what that law is.  We should approach this in a constructive way because it is in the country’s interests that we have a modern law to give the police and the security services the powers that they need but Labour should insist on strong safeguards to protect people’s privacy and their liberties.  You began by saying, Dermot, that the government had agreed that judges would have oversight – that isn’t what the Home Secretary is saying this morning, she is yet to make clear whether it will be a politician or a judge who signs off these requests.  I am saying quite clearly that we should accept the recommendations of the Anderson Report, the government’s independent reviewer of counter terrorism legislation, and we should ensure that judges have the final say on the most intrusive warrants.  

DM: How are relations between you and Mr Corbyn at the moment?  Of course there was some pretty heavy pounding between you and all the contenders during the leadership campaign and he has just got this relatively new Head of Policy hasn’t he, Andrew Fisher, who tweeted about you and your colleagues who were on Ed Miliband’s front bench, that you were the most abject collection of complete – and I can’t say the other word but it is something to do with ordure.  Do you think some of his appointments are going a bit far?

ANDY BURNHAM: Relations are good, to answer your question.  I got on well with Jeremy on a personal level all through the leadership contest and you will recall I said I was the candidate who would work with him and that is exactly what I am doing.  I made a commitment to the Labour party to work hard for unity and that is what I’m doing and I hope that leadership is followed by the rest of the party.  The job now is not to carry on arguing internally, the job now is to hold an arrogant government to account and I think the Labour party has done that very successfully, Dermot, over tax credits.  We should go from there and carry on.  The public don’t want to see Labour arguing internally and putting our own issues above their issues, they want to see a strong effective opposition and that’s what I would say to all of my colleagues, the time has come to do that, to turn outwards and to take on the government.  

DM: What are you going to do about tax credits?  We’ve seen Scottish Labour now making it very clear that anything that is cut will be restored, is that going to be the policy of the national, the UK wide Labour party?  Is that something you would like to see?

ANDY BURNHAM: I was very clear that I didn’t want to see cuts to tax credits, this is working people being hit and actually let’s remember, Dermot, before the election the government said it wasn’t going to cut them so I don’t believe they’ve got a mandate to do what they have been trying to do.  We’ll see what they bring forward later this month but Labour should be very strong in supporting working people.  Why should we be having a tax cut for millionaires, an inheritance tax cut, when people are losing their tax credits?  Of course we shouldn’t have that and that’s why I am pretty proud actually of the case Labour has made to defend working people, to defend families who are struggling to make ends meet and that is exactly where our focus should be going forward.  

DM: No doubt you will be keeping an eye, not so very far away from where you are now, the Oldham by-election is coming up and we believe, we know that the issue of migration, of immigration is going to loom pretty large during the course of that campaign.  Your immigration policy, Labour’s immigration policy, you’ve got Jeremy Corbyn not mentioning it at all in his speech to the Labour party conference but he said that mass migration is not necessarily a problem.  Do you have any differences with him on that?

ANDY BURNHAM: Immigration policy is my responsibility and I did mention it in my conference speech and I laid out a very detailed approach where I said we need to reframe the debate about immigration.  In areas like mine there is a concern that issues around the undercutting of wages have basically been ignored by Westminster and because of that you could argue that EU migration has widened inequality, it’s held wages down in some of the poorer parts of the country but has fuelled growth in the big cities and I’m saying we need changes to the European rules to deal with that so I’m saying let’s have protection for the wages of the skilled workforce, let’s not allow their wages to be undercut by EU migration and I’ll be going to Brussels quite soon to argue for that because I strongly believe, strongly believe that Britain’s place is within Europe and to remain there.  But if we are to carry that argument Europe needs to work for everybody, it needs to be a social Europe, a people’s Europe.  

DM: So you can’t agree with this statement then from Jeremy Corbyn, ‘I don’t think immigration as such has been anything but a plus to our economic development.’

ANDY BURNHAM: Overall it is a plus isn’t it to our society.   People are far more likely to be treated by an immigrant in the NHS than to stand in a queue behind one.  There is so much misinformation put out there about immigration, overall migrants make a net contribution to our economy so these facts need to be remembered when conducting this debate but issues do arise on the undercutting of wages as I’ve just said but also pressure on public services.  Rapid EU migration can place pressure on primary schools and GP services and that is the other point I will be putting to Europe.  Places that suffer the biggest changes or experience the biggest changes should get more help to relieve pressure on their public services so let’s have some practical changes to make free movement work better for everybody but once we get those changes, Dermot, we should make the strongest possible case to secure Britain’s place in Europe.  

DM: Shadow Home Secretary, thank you very much indeed, Andy Burnham there.