On Sunday 11 April Andrew Marr interviewed Leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, Lord Pearson. Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.  Leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, Lord Pearson |
ANDREW MARR: And so to the second of the smaller parties: UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party. You'll have seen their purple posters around. Their Leader is in the House of Lords, Lord Pearson, and he joins me now. LORD PEARSON: Good morning. ANDREW MARR: Thank you for coming in, Lord Pearson. We understand your policy on withdrawal from the EU, and we'll talk about that in a moment, but can I ask about some of the other policies that have come through so far in the mini manifesto. Just if I may, first of all on the size of the cutback that you want to see in the state. You're talking about much more drastic cuts in state spending and welfare spending than the other parties. LORD PEARSON: Yes, I mean I'm afraid the level of cuts that's being discussed by the three failed old parties simply is not realistic when you look at our financial predicament, which is a deficit of 160 billion and a debt in 2013 of 1.3 trillion. I mean these are huge figures. And, therefore, UKIP is best known of course for its policy of leaving the European Union, and we say that I mean the elephant in the room about this whole economic debate is the cost of our EU membership, which has been put by the Taxpayers' Alliance at up to £120 billion a year. And just the cash that we hand to Brussels every year. If you take the government's figures for 2008, the net cash that we sent - not the gross cash but the net hard cash we sent to Brussels was £6.6 billion. Now that's all very well, but … ANDREW MARR: (over) But you say yourself … LORD PEARSON: Just let me … That is £18 million a day, and £18 million pays for 600 nurses for a year. So we've got to put these squandered squillions, which I find difficult, into that sort of context. ANDREW MARR: Your own figures and your own party however say that you've got to go a lot further than simply as it were taking that saving … LORD PEARSON: Yuh. ANDREW MARR: … and you're proposing about a third out of a lot of government spending plans, and above all in the welfare budget. And I wonder how you would take that kind of money out of the welfare budget? Would you simply limit the amount of time unemployment benefit could be paid for? Would you have some dramatic new way of dealing with people on disability? How would you do that? LORD PEARSON: Well, first of all, you've got to make the savings … ANDREW MARR: Yes. LORD PEARSON: … across the board before you start looking at cutting the waste which lies behind the frontline. We're not proposing to cut any frontline services. But we do say that only by looking at the colossal cost of the EU and for instance the Institute of Directors and the Taxpayers' Alliance - I mean not wild, eurosceptic, calculating people - they have found an extra 50 billion. Which you can't call it cuts; it's simply removing waste. So you've got your hundred … ANDREW MARR: (over) But you're going a lot further. Your party suggests much, much deeper cuts in that and also a flat rate of tax, I think - a flat 31% rate of tax for everybody? LORD PEARSON: Above £11,500 a year, yuh. ANDREW MARR: So that takes a lot of people out of tax and so on, but overall it's expensive. You want to spend more money on the armed services and you want to spend as much money on schools and hospitals. I come back to the question: where are you going to remove the big lumps of spending to allow you to do that? LORD PEARSON: Well by leaving the European Union … ANDREW MARR: (over) But your own figures say that's not enough. LORD PEARSON: And by following the IOD and Taxpayers' Alliance how to save 50 billion. And then by cutting waste. There is no doubt about it, that the frontline services in this country … If you take the military, apparently for every two soldiers there's a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Defence. That can't be right. And if you look at the National Health Service, it's perfectly obvious that it's weighed down by administrative costs to the detriment of the frontline. ANDREW MARR: I'm disappointed to hear you talking about you know waste savings and reductions because it seemed to me that your manifesto was much bolder … LORD PEARSON: Well we're … ANDREW MARR: … the mini manifesto saying you're taking a third out of welfare. LORD PEARSON: Well we don't want to alter the frontline of welfare, and we believe that were we to have something like the flat tax system, were we to be set free from the crippling over regulation of the European Union and everything, the economy would respond. It always has responded. Economies do respond to that sort of thing. And so we've got to get the politicians and the weight of regulation and complete … I don't use the word 'cut'. We simply want to get rid of the massive waste. ANDREW MARR: Alright. What about immigration? You want a complete freeze on immigration for five years? LORD PEARSON: For permanent settlement. ANDREW MARR: For permanent settlement. LORD PEARSON: For permanent settlement. ANDREW MARR: But how does that work if there's somebody whose skills the country thinks it wants or there's perhaps somebody who's been in a particularly difficult refugee situation? LORD PEARSON: Well I mean obviously asylum we're not touching, genuine asylum. Of course we support that. ANDREW MARR: Right. LORD PEARSON: Britain must maintain its reputation, absolutely. Otherwise why shouldn't we be like the United States of America or Canada, Australia, New Zealand? If we want people to come in to do jobs here and to contribute to the economy, then they should come in on a visa, on a permit. Also families, we're not thinking of axing families. We're not thinking of sending anyone away. Our freeze is on permanent settlement for five years because … ANDREW MARR: And you make the point obviously you can't do that unless you leave the European Union. LORD PEARSON: No, you can't. ANDREW MARR: Right. Can I just ask you … LORD PEARSON: (over) I believe the European Union ties straight into immigration and straight into the economy. ANDREW MARR: Can I just ask you about a story that was in one of the papers today in the Observer about one of the people who funds you, or has funded you in the past - this chap Henry Angest. He's Swiss born and he's now putting a lot of money behind the Conservatives. Now you know this chap. What's he like? LORD PEARSON: Well he's … ANDREW MARR: (over) Not in terms of this, but his political views. LORD PEARSON: He's Swiss. And he's a personal friend of mine … ANDREW MARR: Yuh. LORD PEARSON: … so I must declare an interest there. He runs a very successful organisation in the city. And he is eurosceptic. There's no doubt about it. And he has funded in the past my think tank, my Global Britain think tank - most of the activity of which goes on monitoring the BBC, you'll be pleased to hear, particularly the Today programme. And I think it is the Global Britain research which forced the BBC into its only, first ever independent inquiry into the balance of its coverage on the European Union, and the independent inquiry found unequivocally that the BBC … ANDREW MARR: Okay. LORD PEARSON: … was very biased in favour of the BBC. So Henry has … ANDREW MARR: I'm now scared about being watched myself. LORD PEARSON: Yes, you … Well no, you're being monitored. (laughs) ANDREW MARR: I'm being monitored. Well I'll take that … I'll be very cautious in that case. LORD PEARSON: I wouldn't worry. We don't mind your programme. ANDREW MARR: But just on this guy because he's put a lot of money into your interests and you know your part of the spectrum, and he's putting money into the Conservative part of the spectrum. Does that mean that you know he thinks perhaps you think that once the election's over, the Conservatives will turn out to be a great deal more eurosceptic than they're saying in public? LORD PEARSON: Well I think Henry is someone who would like the Conservative Party to be more eurosceptic and he's someone who is I think … and there are many of my friends who are working from within the Conservative Party to achieve that. And I think all of them and most of the Conservative grassroots and us, we're very disappointed that David Cameron did not deliver the referendum on our membership of the European Union which he promised. ANDREW MARR: Do you think it's short-term tactics though perhaps rather than belief? LORD PEARSON: What short …? ANDREW MARR: That in fact David Cameron, the Conservative Party are a bit more eurosceptic than they're letting on? LORD PEARSON: Well I fear the leadership isn't. ANDREW MARR: Right. LORD PEARSON: And that is very serious because if Cameron were to get a working majority and be in power for five years, having refused a referendum on in or out of the European Union and the colossal costs attached and all the rest of it, then after five more years of integration into the corrupt octopus in Brussels, we will no longer just be enmeshed in its tentacles, as we are now, but we'll be in its bowels. Everything will have gone - the City of London supervision, justice and home affairs and so on. I mean it's very serious. ANDREW MARR: And if you get your first MP, which who knows at this election, could you imagine working with the Conservatives in any way if they win? LORD PEARSON: Well we'll work with the right sort of Conservatives - yes, I hope so. What we want to achieve out of this election is to make it clear that none of the failed old parties can form a government unless they give us a referendum on the European Union. And more than that, the prize for us - obviously a hung parliament would probably deliver some form of proportional representation. And we want binding referendums, national and local … ANDREW MARR: Indeed. LORD PEARSON: … on the Swiss model, on the Swiss model. ANDREW MARR: Indeed, okay. Lord Pearson, thank you very much indeed for joining us. INTERVIEW ENDS
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