On Sunday 23 May Andrew Marr interviewed Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.  Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister |
ANDREW MARR: Well it's proving difficult to avoid the marriage metaphors when we're talking about the new coalition government. Whirlwind romance or shotgun wedding? We had the tense pre-nup negotiations, the happy couple announcing their union to the world, and then the details of their contract. It all happened so fast that even the partners themselves are finding it difficult to adjust. CLIP: CAMERON SPEECH - It really does look and feel different. Indeed many of us are sitting next to people that we've never sat next to before. (laughter) ANDREW MARR: David Cameron, of course, referring to the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg who's with me now. Welcome. Can I start by asking, reflecting on the conversation we had during the election campaign where you made some remarks about the party with the largest number of seats and the biggest vote having a right to form the government - first dibs at any rate - and talking about Gordon Brown being "a squatter in Downing Street." Looking back, thinking about that, it does seem pretty clear that even then you were contemplating a coalition with the Conservatives. NICK CLEGG: Well I've tried to be quite open … ANDREW MARR: Yuh. NICK CLEGG: … for some time now about what my approach would be. Firstly that, yes, in the event (as occurred) that no party has an absolute majority, it's the party with the most seats and the most votes - which turned out to be the Conservatives - who got the sort of strongest right to seek to govern with others or on its own first. And, secondly, that we would in any talks pursue four big changes … ANDREW MARR: Yes, which you did. NICK CLEGG: … which were obviously in the tax system, in the school system, a new approach to the economy and a new approach to our sort of broken political system. ANDREW MARR: (over) But didn't it appear then that it was going to be David Cameron you were talking to? NICK CLEGG: No, I just … I just work from sort of first principles. ANDREW MARR: Right. NICK CLEGG: The first principle's a simple one, which is that the party which in a sense had more of the wind in its sails had a right to do that. And also that we would be pursuing those four areas - which is exactly what we did - and I'm delighted that in the coalition agreement we've got, there's huge progress in all of those four areas. ANDREW MARR: And had you had any conversation at all with David Cameron before the election? NICK CLEGG: No, none at all. ANDREW MARR: So it started afterwards. What about the Labour Party negotiations because Andrew Adonis and others who were involved in the Labour side clearly felt they were being used by your lot; that they were being played a bit; that you weren't really serious about going into any kind of agreement with the Labour Party, but were employing them to squeeze more out of the Tories? NICK CLEGG: Well I think that's all sour grapes. I mean, look, what happened I think we were perfectly open about. ANDREW MARR: It's a perfectly reasonable thing for you to do I mean as a negotiating tactic. NICK CLEGG: Well no, we played … we played things with a totally open hand. After a few days, because Gordon Brown had been quite clear that he also wanted to talk to us, we said well that would be the right thing to do. We were quite open about when we would do that and in what manner. But it became very, very obvious that you know Labour's heart was simply not in it. And you just need to listen to the leadership candidates now. They quite understandably from their point of view - I don't think it's an irrational approach that they're taking - feel that they need to go into opposition to try and decide what the Labour Party is about. ANDREW MARR: (over) And you got a sense of that quite quickly, did you? NICK CLEGG: Well I mean I was talking to Gordon Brown on one hand, and then you had David Blunkett and John Reid and all these people on the television screens literally at the same time saying, "We shouldn't touch the Liberal Democrats with a bargepole." I mean it was quite obvious that the Labour Party knew that it had lost the election and that it was internally divided about what to do next. And you can't negotiate with an internally divided party - particularly not with a party which of course wouldn't have carried the legitimacy of the election with it into government. ANDREW MARR: So why were you asking Gordon Brown to "hang on for longer" then in that famous telephone call now? NICK CLEGG: Well … Gosh, you know even my memory's now getting a blurred about all these very … these events. ANDREW MARR: (over) He was saying, "I've got to go to Down… Buckingham Palace now" and you were saying, "No, no." NICK CLEGG: Gordon Brown just very abruptly suddenly said, "I'm off, I'm off, I'm off" and I just thought, you know given that we didn't yet know, no-one knew precisely at that point whether a stable government could be put you know in place, I thought it was just … I thought it was … ANDREW MARR: (over) So you weren't quite there at that point … NICK CLEGG: (over) No, no, not at all. ANDREW MARR: … and you thought he was doing it abruptly? NICK CLEGG: You know I come from the perspective that if you're trying to do something very unusual, which is of course creating a coalition in a political culture such as ours which isn't used to coalition, this is very unusual. We were doing it in an extraordinarily compressed timetable. In most other countries where they negotiate coalitions, they take months to do it. We were doing it in a matter of hours and days when everyone was pretty tired after the election campaign. So suddenly to be told out of the blue the Prime Minister was going to you know march off to Downing Street and say, "I'm fed up with this. You know I'm going to throw the towel in and I'm going to you know march off into the distant horizon", I thought was not the right way of going about things. That's all. ANDREW MARR: Right. NICK CLEGG: And I still remain of the view that you know I think it's remarkable what we achieved - and we achieved it under great time pressure - but you know it would have best if everybody just kept a cool head throughout. ANDREW MARR: And looking ahead, you're going to lose some people off one wing of your party, and the question is whether it's going to be 5% or 10% or 30%, isn't it really? NICK CLEGG: Well, as it happens, I think more people have joined our party since the coalition government was announced than left, but that's not the point. Do I … Do I think that it's going to be difficult? Yes, of course, it's going to be very difficult. The papers are full today and we're going to make an announcement tomorrow on the first sort of wave of savings - 6 billion pounds worth of savings and cuts. These are difficult decisions. No-one I think - certainly myself included - went into politics to sort of deliver cuts, but we all know I think as a country that it is necessary. And it's going to be difficult and it's going to be painful and it's going to be controversial. All I would say is that we are committed to a five year term. The basis upon which to judge the success or not of this partnership, this coalition government, is of course to see whether after five years Britain is fairer, whether we have a sound economy, whether we have fairer taxes, whether we have an education system which helps every single child, whether we have a new kind of politics in which people can invest their trust again, and of course a new approach to the economy. ANDREW MARR: You rai… NICK CLEGG: And that will take time. It will take time. ANDREW MARR: You raised the cuts just now. Why were you wrong when you said that £6 billion of cuts this year was too much too early? NICK CLEGG: I don't think we anticipated then, I don't think anybody could have anticipated then quite how sharply the economic conditions in the euro zone would have deteriorated, and that the need to show that we were trying to get to grips with this suddenly became much greater. I think there was a much more beni… Well benign is probably pushing it a bit, but there was a much more … there was a less volatile economic environment. ANDREW MARR: So you were being a bit complacent during the campaign then about the economic situation? NICK CLEGG: I don't think anybody, I don't think anybody could have predicted … And I've spoken to the Governor of the Bank of England and he said no-one could have predicted that the situation in Greece would have had this knock-on effect, which has created immense anxiety on our European doorstep. A market, remember, the European Union market into which we export the vast majority of our services and goods. So we're intimately connected with what's going on in the euro zone and that's why we need to show - at a more accelerated timetable than I'd initially thought - that we're going to get grips with our … with this great black hole in our public finances. ANDREW MARR: And you're happy … NICK CLEGG: A black hole, incidentally, which is in many ways much worse than you know we could have anticipated now that we've been looking at the details of the kind of way … ANDREW MARR: (over) It really is? NICK CLEGG: Well I think - and this will come out in the coming days and weeks - what has become at least obvious to me and I think to George Osborne and David Laws and others who've been looking at the books is that the outgoing Labour government were just throwing around money like there's no tomorrow - probably knowing that they were going to lose the election. Making extraordinary commitments left, right and centre - many of which they knew they couldn't honour - particularly actually in areas which I always believed in. So, for instance, some of the announcements that the previous government has made towards social housing, affordable housing - something which I think is absolutely vital to fairness and social solidarity in this country - it turns out much of it is not funded at all. (Marr tries to interject) So not only are we going to have to deal with cuts. We're also going to have to actually deal with some of the pledges which the government made in the past, which they didn't even provide budgets for. ANDREW MARR: My only point is that this is what the Conservatives said during the election campaign and they were right and you were wrong, and now you're having to defend their policy. NICK CLEGG: Well I think … I think we are right as a coalition government. And in a sense you know this our government. This is a Liberal Democrat Conservative, a Conservative Liberal Democrat - whatever way you want to say it. It is a partnership government. We will take responsibility for all decisions as much as anybody else in the government, and we are advocating early cuts and savings because of the very, very deteriorating economic conditions elsewhere in Europe and the need to show an early instalment of the kind of decisions which need to be made. They're painful, they're difficult, but they need to be made to bring some sense back to the public finances. ANDREW MARR: And David Law's phrase "Age of Austerity" is one that you would acknowledge, is it? NICK CLEGG: Well we can use all sorts of different words. But what is absolutely clear is that the "Age of Plenty", which is what David was saying in that interview, the age of plenty where money could be sort of thrown around with complete sort of … in almost carelessness, which is what the outgoing Labour government has done for some time now, is over. Yes, it is over. You know in many ways I wish this government was coming into power at a time when … ANDREW MARR: Of course. NICK CLEGG: … when there was you know oceans of money which we could use and lots and lots of pledges we could make. We don't. We need to be realistic about that. That's one of the reasons why we are installing this fixed term parliament - because we understand that you know for some time there are going to be difficult decisions. They're going to be unpopular decisions. They are going to be controversial. We're going to have to hold our nerve. But if we can show over time that it was the right thing to do … Because if you don't bring sense to the public finances, you can't do all the good things we want to do … ANDREW MARR: Yuh, okay well let's … NICK CLEGG: … on education, on welfare, on health, on all the things that actually make a real difference to people's lives. ANDREW MARR: Let's talk about your particular responsibility … NICK CLEGG: Sure. ANDREW MARR: … for political reform and change - the great Repeal Bill. There seem to be two bills, which are going to come in before the House of Commons even before the summer recess in your area, and I just want to talk through them a little bit. Because you used this phrase about it being "the biggest changes since the 1832 Reform Act" and I was teasing you mildly because I thought about giving women the vote on and so on. Many people would have said that was … NICK CLEGG: (over) By the way, I've had lots of emails from people saying the 1832 Act was a damp squib and we should actually be aiming even higher. ANDREW MARR: Okay, alright. NICK CLEGG: So you know historians will argue endlessly what the comparisons are. ANDREW MARR: (over) Endlessly about this. Let's start with the House of Lords. At the time of the next election, will we be electing a second chamber? NICK CLEGG: That's certainly the intention, yes. ANDREW MARR: And when it's going … You say it's going to be by proportional representation. NICK CLEGG: Yuh. ANDREW MARR: Would that be STV, your version of proportional representation? NICK CLEGG: Haven't settled on that yet. What we've decided to do is set up a small group of people who will provide specific recommendations on some of those details by the end of this year, so we can really kickstart the whole process. But we have established some principles - that it will be a house which is elected by a proportional representation; it'll be wholly or largely elected. ANDREW MARR: So sort of 80% more or more elected? NICK CLEGG: Well those are the kind …I mean I don't want to make the best the enemy of the good. I'm not going to … I think that it should be a wholly elected house. I think any chamber that decides on the laws of the land should be wholly elected. But I'm not going to die in the trenches on that if that is a way of actually getting this going because the one thing I want to avoid is that this government ends up like every government over the last century that has talked about House of Lords reform and not delivered it. So we've got some princ… ANDREW MARR: (over) Exactly. 1910/1911, we're going to reform the House of Lords and make it elected … NICK CLEGG: (over) Indeed, indeed. ANDREW MARR: … and nothing has happened in a century. NICK CLEGG: Yeah, so … ANDREW MARR: And this time you're going to do it? NICK CLEGG: That's … Of course, that's the ambition, that's the ambition. And, as I say, it will take some time, there'll be lots of arguments. But what we're doing - and I think this is the right mix - we're being ambitious in saying we want to do it this time, not duck it. We have some basic principles that it'll be proportionally elected, it will be wholly elected or largely elected. But of course we want to be pragmatic about how we get from A to B and that's why we've talked for instance in the coalition agreement about grandfathering clauses and so on. I think that mixture of ambition and realism is the way to push through real political change. ANDREW MARR: And you're going to bring this in right away as legislation? NICK CLEGG: We have this group which will be looking at it, providing the specific proposals by the end of the year. And then of course we want to act on those as soon as we can. ANDREW MARR: Alright. What about … You mentioned the controversial 55% rule before the House of Commons can vote for a dissolution, which has caused a lot of dissent. I don't really understand this because it seems to me that if 51% of the House of Commons vote to repeal your 55% rule, they could do that immediately anyway. I don't see how you can possibly bind the House of Commons at any specific figure from doing anything. NICK CLEGG: Well let's be clear what we're trying to do here. Firstly we're introducing a fixed term parliament - another thing talked about for generations, which we're going to do. If you have a fixed term parliament, you clearly are taking away the right of the government of the day, the prime minister of the day to dissolve parliament at whim … ANDREW MARR: Sure. NICK CLEGG: … which has been the case until now. So you need a mechanism by which you bind the hands of the executive, of the prime minister, so that they can't just play games with the timing of the election, and that is what this dissolution rule does. Now there are other arrangements in other parliaments - for instance the Labour government … ANDREW MARR: (over) But how does it work because the House of Commons you know is supreme in these matters? NICK CLEGG: Well we're not in any way … Let me be clear. What we're introducing is a new power for parliament. At the moment the parliament doesn't enjoy that rule and we're not touching in any way the right of the House of Commons to vote in a vote of no confidence against the government of the day. That stays. What we're doing though is putting in new measures, so that how you dissolve parliament doesn't become a play thing for the prime minister, but becomes something for people in parliament where they have to meet a certain threshold. That is a perfectly normal way of doing things. In Scotland, the previous government, the Labour government actually legislated to introduce a much, much higher threshold of two thirds of people sitting in Holyrood. ANDREW MARR: Okay. NICK CLEGG: So you know it is a principle which enshrines a new power. It makes sure that the fixed term parliament arrangement is fixed, otherwise you will just have the instability of the past … ANDREW MARR: Okay. NICK CLEGG: …and it does it in a very transparent way. ANDREW MARR: Another big thing said to be a great victory for the Liberal Democrats in the negotiation is the referendum on the alternative vote, which we assume it'll be the alternative vote. NICK CLEGG: Yes, it would be. ANDREW MARR: How quickly can you introduce legislation for that and when will the referendum be? NICK CLEGG: Well we're actively looking at that right now and I hope you know very shortly to be able to announce what sort of timetable we're working towards. But if you look at the coalition agreement, we are basically doing two things at the same time. We are legislating to bring about a referendum on an alternative electoral system, an alternative vote system where people rank their candidates in order of preference. It basically means that no MP is in the House of Commons unless they've got more than 50% of the support of people in their local areas, which I think is a good principle. But we're coupling that to - in precise parallel if you like - with a plan to equalise the boundaries of constituency, so that you don't have these … Some constituencies have got many more thousands of people in them than other constituencies and we're trying to work out exactly how you make sure that those two things work in parallel. ANDREW MARR: (over) But there will be a referendum pretty quickly on this? NICK CLEGG: Well we're looking at how we can make sure that the boundary review is launched as quickly as possible, so that we can also hold the referendum you know at the right time. But I'm not going to … I mean this is a little bit … it gets a little bit technical. ANDREW MARR: (over) Because the Conservative … As you know, the Conservative Party is pretty much against the AV system, so you have to form in effect in the country a coalition with the Labour Party presumably to argue on this? NICK CLEGG: We've been very, very open - David Cameron and myself right from the beginning - that of course there are things where we are in a coalition government but we are leaders of different parties, we have different and distinct identities and there are things which we won't agree on, and one of them is electoral reform. No-one should be surprised that as a Liberal Democrat I passionately believe that our electoral system at the moment doesn't work and it can be made fairer, so that people's views are more prom… you know are better reflected in the House of Commons. That's of course what we'll campaign on. And yes I will be reaching out to people from other parties - not just the Conservative Party but the Labour Party as well - saying if you believe in a different kind of politics, when it comes to a referendum, let's all join together to try and argue the case for change. ANDREW MARR: How much trouble are you getting from Liberal Democrat supporters, voters and members who feel the one thing that they didn't expect or want was a Conservative government and you've delivered that? NICK CLEGG: I think … I think the honest truth is that I think at the beginning people reacted quite sort of sharply. I then invested a huge amount of time and effort. I'm very proud of the fact that I lead a party which is very open, very deliberative. You know we've had late night meetings, terminal late night meetings, very important ones where the parliamentary party, House of Lords, the heads of the leading committee … ANDREW MARR: (over) I'm thinking more of the people further down the tree. NICK CLEGG: Well and further down the tree we held a conference where everybody could come to, any member could come to in Birmingham last weekend where we debated openly for hours and had a vote at the end. And the vote speaks for itself. There was an overwhelming vote in favour. I think why is because people have been within the Liberal Democrats pleased with the fact that we've been very … I've been very open about how we've been going about conducting ourselves in the negotiations - very open about the kind of objectives which we've secured in the coalition agreement for fairer taxes, for a fairer start for all children, for a new approach to politics, for rebuilding the economy on sounder, more sustainable foundations. And crucially that whilst of course there are compromises we've made … We've had to give up some very cherished policies. The Conservatives have had to do as well. And also this is … ANDREW MARR: (over) And you've come to this compromise … Can I just ask … NICK CLEGG: (over) I think one thing that's actually pleasantly surprised people is that there are some areas where as a coalition government we agree - and there's a great sense of unity - particularly the approach to freedom, enshrining more privacy … ANDREW MARR: (over) Is there something called Liberal Conservatism? NICK CLEGG: Well there's something … there's certainly something called … ANDREW MARR: I mean is there the essence of something here which could lead to a longer term, more than five year arrangement? NICK CLEGG: There is an approach to the state and to power which I do think unites the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrat parties … ANDREW MARR: That sounds like yes. NICK CLEGG: Well but it doesn't mean there aren't major differences in other areas. But in this one important respect, I think there is a real glue, a real glue to this coalition government … ANDREW MARR: So you could stick together beyond one parliament? NICK CLEGG: Hang on, I'm not making this prediction. But can I just spell out what it is? And it is simply the view that trying to do everything from the centre - this top down centralising, slightly authoritarian approach of government from New Labour - hasn't worked, hasn't produced a fairer Britain, has encroached on people's civil liberties, hasn't reformed politics, hasn't delivered a balanced growing economy across the country. I think people do want something where power is more dispersed, more fairly dispersed across the country. ANDREW MARR: Okay. The big loser so far, it seems from the Queen's Speech and generally in terms of his own powers, is Vince Cable. Is he going to be the first person who jumps overboard, do you think? I mean he's not going to be in charge of banking reform as he hoped. His business department is going to take many of the first cuts and he hasn't got much legislation in the Queen's Speech. NICK CLEGG: Well I think that's a (laughs) it's a totally inaccurate characterisation. Vince is in charge of an immensely important department - the department which will be actually leading the argument on how as we come out of the rubble of the old economy … ANDREW MARR: (over) And he's happy to do this? NICK CLEGG: … the economy over reliant on the City of London, how we build a new economy on new foundations. As it happens, his department (as he will tell you) has I think the fourth largest budget of all Whitehall departments, so it's quite right they're having to shoulder some of the cuts. Because of course what we're doing in delivering all these cuts is making sure that they're fairly administered, they don't hit the vulnerable and they don't hit regions of the country … ANDREW MARR: Alright. NICK CLEGG: … which are otherwise too exposed to cuts. ANDREW MARR: For now - come back again - Nick Clegg, thank you very much indeed. INTERVIEW ENDS
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