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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now as we begin this election year, it’s a good time for the political parties to take stock so what of the Liberal Democrats?  Since coalition has proved so disastrous for their support base, would they consider going back into government again?  Well I’m joined now by the Liberal Democrat MP and Justice Minister, Simon Hughes and a very good morning and happy new year to you, Mr Hughes.  

SIMON HUGHES: Happy new year to you, Dermot.   

DM: Now you are noted, and I’m prefacing this because I want a straight answer on this, for your frankness and honesty.  You must be viewing as a Liberal Democrat the general election this new year with a degree of trepidation.

SIMON HUGHES: No trepidation.  We took the difficult decision to go into government, we stood up to the plate because the country was in a dire economic situation, we did it in the national interest.  It was the right decision to make and we have made sure that in five years we will have delivered a stronger economy which we wanted, the evidence is 1.8 million more jobs, 2 million more apprentices, best growth rates in Europe and a fairer society, which would not have been delivered if the Tories had run the country on their own.  So the record of ours in coalition is absolutely one that we will defend to the country and I think when people are confronted with the choice of having the Tory party running the country on their own or the cuts being on the back of public spending and therefore public services or the Labour party, who intend to borrow more having left us in the terrible mess they did, I think people will realise that we are the guarantors of the balanced resolution of our economic difficulties which we have achieved in this parliament and are needed to achieve in the next.

DM: So you have encapsulated, so you want to go back into coalition again if you can and you don’t mind if it is with the Labour party or the Conservatives?

SIMON HUGHES: Well the public will decide how many seats each party obtain, we don’t prejudge that and that will be decided but we will work, as we did this time, with any other coalition partner because the national interest has to come first, that’s our duty.  We have done it well, we have proved we can do it, we have proved coalition can work, it was the best solution for the last five years, the Labour party lost the election, there were not the numbers to do a deal with Labour.  We did a business arrangement for five years with the Tories but we are absolutely clear that if the Tories were to win a majority on their own then they would cut more than is acceptable.  We have shown an alternative, we have shown that we can pay off the deficit by 2018, we have shown that we can continue to protect public services and we’ve shown where the money comes from both to pay off the debt and …

DM: Sorry, I raised an eyebrow there because you say you have shown an alternative but Danny Alexander in the Treasury at the right hand of George Osborne has signed up to that same deficit reduction strategy.  Okay, the methodology may be a little bit different but you are going to get rid of the deficit, like the Conservatives, by that year.   

SIMON HUGHES: But the big difference, the huge different for your viewers to understand is that the difference between us and the Tories is that the Tories want to cut public spending.  

DM: And you’d put up taxes.   

SIMON HUGHES: We believe you have to have a balanced resolution as we’ve done in this parliament and we will put up taxes, we will make sure that those with the broadest shoulders pay more.  We haven’t just talked about it, we’ve also said how we’ll do that.

DM: You won’t put up the very highest rate of tax, you’ve cut it.   

SIMON HUGHES: No, we’ve said we’ll put up mansion tax for people with the very most expensive properties in additional …

DM: But what about tax cuts for millionaires?  

SIMON HUGHES: … in additional bands and that will help pay off the deficit and we’ve said that we will increase Capital Gains Tax and that will be the other major tax change which we’ll achieve and what will that do?  Lift more people out of tax.  Now the Tory party haven’t explained where the cuts will come but the don’t have a policy for raising more taxes.  

DM: So doesn’t that make you a more natural fit with Labour?

SIMON HUGHES: No, the Labour party … listen, you’ll remember the interviews we had before the last election, the Labour party left the economy, there was no money left said the Chief Secretary – there wasn’t, we were in crisis.  Now we will work with whoever the public elects to have sufficient numbers of votes and seats but our policy is clear, our guarantee to the public is clear, that we will have a fair and balanced approach to the economy, we will pay off the deficit by 2018 because you can’t go on having an imbalanced economy but we will do so in a balanced way.  We will raise taxes from those who can afford to pay and we will make sure we don’t have all the burden falling on spending cuts as the Tories would.

DM: Of course, as you survey the battlefield after the general election, however many MPs you’ve got, you’ve got to take cognisance I suppose of who else those big parties might be doing deals with, have you not?  I am referring of course to UKIP, we had Nigel Farage sitting in that chair an hour ago and he’ll do a deal he says with anyone to get what he wants, which is a referendum which you don’t want or you certainly don’t want to leave the European Union.  If he is doing some sort of deal with the Labour party or the Conservatives, could you possibly help prop up that party?

SIMON HUGHES: I can’t speculate what the public are going to do, I don’t know what the election result will be any more than you do.  

DM: Could you co-operate with UKIP, with UKIP MPs?  Lib Dem and UKIP MPs voting together?

SIMON HUGHES: I’m very clear, we have a draft manifesto that is published already, we have set out where we would raise our money from, where there would be tax changes, where people would be taken out of tax, we’ve set that out, it’s in the public domain, that’s our agenda.  We have in this parliament delivered three-quarters of our manifesto from the last election so we’d go into any negotiation and it looks highly likely there will be no overall majority, we will go into any negotiation we would hope as the third party in British politics, with whoever was the largest party in parliament and we would do it to deliver a fairer society and a stronger economy and we’ve shown we can do it.  If you look at our record we have protected this country from the cuts that would have been under the Tories because we’ve had a balanced approach and from the reckless approach to the economy that Labour manifested when they were last in power.  

DM: I mentioned dealing with UKIP and some of your voters might have gone there.  As you admitted, you are not the party of the protest vote anymore now, you’re in power, you can’t be.

SIMON HUGHES: Of course, of course but in this last parliament we had one by-election, you well remember, in Eastleigh, where the challenger was UKIP and we held on to our seat, Labour almost lost the seat where they were chased by UKIP.  They ought to worry more about UKIP than speculating they are going to be taking seats off us and the Tories have already lost two seats to UKIP so UKIP is a much bigger problem to the other parties than to us.

DM: Mr Hughes, I know we are running out of time but you have got something interesting to say, haven’t you, about the Freedom of Information Act which of course Mr Blair on its tenth anniversary said was his biggest mistake, you want to extend it.

SIMON HUGHES: We want to both as a Liberal Democrat and as a coalition government we are extending it before this parliament ends in a crucial area that I think the public will regard as very important, namely to Network Rail, given the events recently I think people would like to know a bit more about what goes on there but I as a Liberal Democrat want it to be extended for example to the water companies because they are effectively monopolies, they are private sector but they are effectively monopolies; I would want to extend it to Housing Associations.

DM: What about all quoted companies?

SIMON HUGHES: Well no, it is very clearly intended to be principally for the public sector or for bodies that are effectively public sector substitutes like monopolies but the thing I will hope to do before this parliament ends is also to make sure that we have a new code of practice for those private sector contractors so whether you are doing a job for your local council as a company or for government you have the same standards as the Freedom of Information Act applies to public sector.  It’s really important, a transparent government, because that means government is much more accountable and that’s a good Liberal Democrat principle and a good reason for having more of us in the next parliament.  

DM: Well okay, we’ll see if it pays you dividends on the doorstep Mr Hughes, very good to see you, thank you very much indeed.