DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well now, as European leaders prepare to meet in Brussels, the Prime Minister is said to have drawn up plans to curb immigration from with the European Union by imposing some kind of annual cap on National Insurance numbers.  Mr Cameron promised last week he’d have one last go at renegotiating Britain’s relationship before an in/out referendum in 2017 and the outgoing European Commission President has said this morning that any immigration cap is likely to clash with European rules and the free movement of people is, quote/unquote, ‘non-negotiable’.  Well the Prime Minister is under pressure of course from both UKIP and many within his own party to spell out which powers he will try to claw back for Britain so what’s happened to the Conservative Europhiles?  Well Lord Heseltine, the former Deputy Prime Minister, joins me now from Oxfordshire and a very good morning to you Lord Heseltine.  The broad question first of all, do you feel your party is once again over-obsessing about Europe?

LORD HESELTINE:  I don’t think it’s the Conservative party, I think all the indications are that this issue is widely of concern across the parties.  I think that if you look at all the polls you’ll see this is not a Conservative matter.

DM: Okay, not just a Conservative matter but you’re right, it’s being discussed by all the parties.  Do you think the Prime Minister, as he is promising to do, can do more to restrict migration from within the borders of the European Union?

LORD HESELTINE: I think that he’s got one big thing going for him, we’ve had a very long, very bitter recession and that has tested many assumptions and rules in many different parts of our society but it’s not just this country and if you look at what’s happening in France where you have Le Pen coming to very significant levels of support, like UKIP here.  In Germany you have the same debate, you have it in Holland, you have it in Sweden so the political leaders, they know that this is a matter of domestic concern not just in the UK but across many parts of Europe and it is in my view a product of the recession and it is a perfectly legitimate subject for political leaders to raise.  

DM: But isn’t it also for political leaders, and others, to say well look, there are some very, very positive aspects – I’m sure that’s your belief – about the free movement of peoples and labour within the European Union.  That’s part of the reason why it was set up and you will have heard the outgoing President of the European Commission saying today it is one of the fundamental principles of the European Union and it is non-negotiable.  

LORD HESELTINE:  Well he is the outgoing guy and it’s been negotiable ever since we’ve had new accession countries because there’s always been an anxiety that opening the door would produce a huge number of immigrants in a very short period of time and so there has been a phasing arrangement in place.  What David Cameron is talking about is not saying we are going to have a totally different shutter type approach, it’s that we’re simply going to say there’s a limit to the speed at which an economy and a host community can absorb the often extremely desirable and talented and skilled people that come through in this process.   

DM: So what do you think practically can be done?  We’re hearing this today about limiting the number of National Insurance numbers coming out, well I can see the European Union then coming back saying okay, that’s okay but it has to apply to all EU citizens so if they all run out by the time a bunch of 16 or 18 year olds from the UK apply for them, they don’t get them.

LORD HESELTINE:  Well of course these matters aren’t easy but if I am going to be frank with you the luxury of my position means that I don’t have to do the detailed work any more than you do as a commentator, this is for government.  They have to look at all of the options and look at the snags and get the answers right, that’s what they’re paid to do.  What you and I do is comment and the fundamental issue that you and I are concerned with is does it make sense to have a phased approach to the principle of free migration and I think the Prime Minister is perfectly right and I think that he will get resonance on the continent for this argument.  It’s very much to me like when he said we’re not going to have an increase in the European budget, it was preposterous that the European Commission wanted an increase in its budget at the time of the deep recession and David Cameron stamped his foot and said no and the politicians of Europe agreed with him, and quite rightly so.   I think there is a parallel with this particular issue.

DM: I wanted to relate this also to – we’ve discussed this before, Lord Heseltine, haven’t we, with your Local Enterprise Partnerships, the idea of regional devolution of powers, the Chancellor has been talking about that as well, hasn’t he, about northern powerhouses.  If you relate that to the European Union, about the flow of economic power to regions and so therefore shouldn’t political power follow?  We have given too much to the European Union and we need some of it back.  

LORD HESELTINE:  Well I think you are drawing all the wrong conclusions.  What the Chancellor was saying was that we need to reverse the centralism in this country which is far more extreme than anything to be found with our European colleagues.  My own view, I’ve said it many times, is that the Chancellor is one of the most strategic Chancellors that I know and have worked with.  The speeches that he has been making in Manchester about the science hub, about the transportation improvements and the work that Greg Clarke is doing with city deals across the whole of England is very exciting.  There’s a long way to go and I think the Scottish devolution has had a major input into the dynamics of that because I think English MPs are going to insist now, and rightly, that their basic economies, the big cities, the regional economies, are going to play a much more formative role in national policy and this government is pioneering that and it is right and it is actually, but coincidentally only, it mirrors the way the more successful economies across the world organise themselves.

DM: I wanted to get onto that, as you touched on there, the so-called English votes on English laws debate, do you think then some kind of regional assemblies or the structures are already there we just have to give them the economic power, which way should it go?

LORD HESELTINE:  Well I’m quite sure it is not going to go to regional assemblies or to regionalism, I think that concept has gone and this government has set up a quite different framework which is very local but much more local because it is based on what you could broadly call the local economies.  Now if you think about Manchester for example, you are not just thinking about the centre city of Manchester, you’re talking about the boroughs that make up Greater Manchester.  The same in Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, so the devolution goes to the local economy.  When you get outside the big conurbations, you obviously have London another great centre, but you’ve also got important places such as Nottingham or Derby who are not great conurbations but are very important economic units and it is back to that level that makes sense frankly.  There’s nothing new in this because when I started in politics in the 1960s there was a report by Judge Redcliffe Maude itemising this concept and really what the Local Enterprise Partnerships now are doing is reflecting what Redcliffe Maude suggested in the 1960s, and quite rightly so.

DM: Well good to talk to you again Lord Heseltine, thank you very much indeed.  Lord Heseltine, not just a commentator of course, much more than that.