On Sunday 5th December Andrew Marr interviewed Shadow Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used. ANDREW MARR: When Gordon Brown left and Labour had to choose a new Leader, there was a lot of speculation as to whether Ed Balls or his wife, Yvette Cooper, would go for the top job, whether they might run against each other. Well in the event Yvette Cooper stood aside. She ran for the shadow cabinet and topped the poll of more than fifty MPs. To the surprise of many, the new Labour Leader then made her Shadow Foreign Secretary, and she's with us for her first big television interview in that new job. Welcome. YVETTE COOPER: Good morning, Andrew. ANDREW MARR: Good morning. Let me start with what we've just been talking about - the Wikileaks issue. Do you believe that it has undermined the business of diplomacy around the world? It's clearly embarrassed the Americans, in particular, but has it done any more damage than that, do you think? YVETTE COOPER: Well I think it's probably made for good stories in the media, but probably for bad diplomacy because I think it does make it harder for people to have the conversations they need to. I mean the visit that I had to the Middle East recently where we met a series of senior Palestinian and Israeli politicians, leaders, diplomats, and you know many of them would say - with a twinkle in their eye - but would say at the beginning, "Well I hope there's not going to be any emails sent as a result of these meetings". So I think it does make people conscious of what they're saying and it would be I think a serious concern if it meant that diplomats didn't talk to each other, that leaders didn't talk to each other, or that they didn't send messages back home. You know diplomacy's very much the currency of peace. We need people to talk. ANDREW MARR: You talked about the Middle East and your visit there. Did you learn anything new, or did you change your mind in any way? YVETTE COOPER: Well I think what struck me was that I don't think there is enough urgency in the peace process at the moment. So there's been I think considerable progress on the Palestinian side in terms of state building, for example - simply the apparatus of government for a two state solution that we strongly believe in - but you've got to keep that momentum up, and I think unless there is a parallel political progress in the peace talks, the danger is that you will see that start to roll backwards. ANDREW MARR: Your former boss Tony Blair not doing enough then? YVETTE COOPER: Well he's doing a lot of work I think as part of you know getting the economy going, you know working to try and get exports out of Gaza, which was something that I pressed repeatedly in many of the meetings that I had. But you do need that political progress as well. So ultimately it's the personal stories that stick in your mind, so you know talking to Palestinian villagers who are about to lose their olive groves and the football pitch where the children used to play because the Israeli wall is going to cut them off, and that's still being built. You know or I talked to the you know the parents of a Jewish soldier who is still being kidnapped by Hamas and are waiting still for his release. So it's those personal stories that make it so difficult. ANDREW MARR: If there is one place in the world that is particularly dangerous right at the moment, it's Iran clearly. We've had story after story of Iranian nuclear scientists being killed and there must be suspicion that this is the Israelis behind it. And of course Wikileaks has revealed just how urgently the Saudis and others have been pressing the Americans to actually attack Iran. What's your reading of the situation? YVETTE COOPER: I think you're right, that it is obviously a serious security concern. I think the right approach, however, is to maintain the sanctions. They are starting to bite, to have an impact, and so we'll have the talks that the EU has been working to get established that Cathy Ashton has been leading around the Iranian nuclear programme. ANDREW MARR: Sanctions haven't stopped the Iranians working very hard and very fast to develop full nuclear capability. I mean people talk and talk and talk, but we're right at the edge now of them having something usable. YVETTE COOPER: Well they have brought the Iranians to the table. It has I think you know helped make a difference in terms of getting these talks started. I think this is the right approach to take. I think this is the responsible approach to take. You know the way to I think deal with the Iranian nuclear programme is through talks, it is through diplomacy. We are making some progress. ANDREW MARR: (over) Even if it's not … YVETTE COOPER: You're right it's difficult, but we are making some progress and I think you know you would think that's the responsible approach to take. ANDREW MARR: (over) I mean they're talking, but they're building their centrifuge as well. YVETTE COOPER: Well you know that's why the sanctions have been so important. And, as you'll know, Britain took a lead in actually being able to make sure that those sanctions were in place and to get international support on that issue. But we've got to keep the progress that we're making at the moment. That I think is the right approach right now. ANDREW MARR: Was it a surprise to become Shadow Foreign Secretary? YVETTE COOPER: Well it was one of several jobs that I'd said to Ed Miliband that I'd be very happy to do. And so it is certainly different to many of the things that I've done in the past, but it's a great opportunity for me. ANDREW MARR: Would you prefer to be Shadow Chancellor? YVETTE COOPER: No, well … ANDREW MARR: I mean you know that's your expertise, after all. YVETTE COOPER: It is, it's true that you know obviously I've a lot of background in economics. But the approach I've always taken is to actually see a lot of jobs as being about the economy. So when I was doing work and pensions, that was about employment, it was about the economy. I think now foreign affairs is very much about what happens in the economy if you look at what is happening to the European economy, if you look at what is happening to the global economy. And it's one of the biggest disagreements that I have with the government, with David Cameron's approach - is that they are just turning their backs on the international economic debate because they don't want to admit that there was a global financial crisis. You know they want to just blame it all on the Labour government and, therefore, they're not engaging in this big debate - how do you get the global economy growing? We don't stand any chance of increasing our exports if all of our major export markets are contracting, going through a fiscal economic contraction. ANDREW MARR: (over) You see you sound like Shadow Chancellor already. The man who is Shadow Chancellor is being tipped already in the papers to prepare himself to move against Ed Miliband. I mean you lived through the years of Gordon Brown's you know manoeuvrings against Tony Blair and then everybody else's manoeuvrings against Gordon Brown. And now we've got Ed Miliband, and within weeks people are manoeuvring against Ed Miliband. YVETTE COOPER: Yeah, I don't … ANDREW MARR: What's wrong with your party? YVETTE COOPER: … I don't think that's the case at all. I think you know there's been some mischief in the papers because Ed Miliband took paternity leave. I think he was exactly right to take paternity leave and you know should have done so and we should all support him in doing that. But I also think he's doing a very good job and has got a very supportive team around him. ANDREW MARR: There is a certain lack of morale on the Labour benches. You must know that? YVETTE COOPER: Well I think if you look at some of the things that actually Ed's been focusing on already - you know housing benefit, for example, the housing benefit reforms. As a result, they are now being delayed. The school sports, there's now been a rethink. I think right to focus on these issues. Tuition fees obviously, which is coming up this week. The area though that we all of us do have responsibility to keep talking about is the fact that the big strategy of the government - the cuts too far too fast, they're not putting jobs first, they're not talking about growing the economy - will end up costing us all more. We've all of us got to say that - Ed, Alan and the rest of us as well. ANDREW MARR: But you have as it were put all the chips on the notion that there might be a double dip recession, that things may go wrong. If we get the growth, if the government's right about this, then you and the Labour party don't have a leg to stand on. YVETTE COOPER: Oh I don't think this is about double dip recession. I think this is about the pace of growth that you need in order to increase jobs. ANDREW MARR: So it's no longer a threat, the double dip recession? YVETTE COOPER: Well there's always been a threat, but there's also I think a serious threat that growth will simply not be as fast as we need it to be to help create more jobs and also to help bring the deficit down. As a result of the measures they've introduced, unemployment will be hundreds of thousands higher. That will end up costing us more - we'll have to pay more in unemployment benefit, we'll have fewer people in work, fewer businesses growing, paying their taxes - so it's completely counterproductive. That's what we've seen in Ireland. Unless you get the economy growing, you can't bring the deficit down. ANDREW MARR: Tuition fees is obviously going to be the big story of the next few days politically. Do we yet have a Labour policy that's agreed by the senior members of the Labour party? YVETTE COOPER: Well the first thing is we disagree with cutting 80% from the university teaching budgets, so we disagree with the big increase in the tuition fees. I think it's deeply unfair. And certainly talking to the teenagers in my constituency, they're really worried about this and I do think a lot of them won't go to university or would look for cheaper universities as a result, so it is a big attack on social mobility. In terms of what our approach … ANDREW MARR: (over) So are you all rallied round a graduate tax? YVETTE COOPER: Well my view is, my view actually has for a long time been in favour of a graduate tax. I remember looking at this in 1998 when I was on the Education Select Committee, so I do think a graduate tax is the right approach. But we've got to look at that as part of the policy review, and that's what we've all agreed that we need to do. But either way, whether you have a graduate tax or you have the current system of fees and repayments, either way you don't need to cut this much money from university funding and, therefore, you don't need students to be paying back this much money. And it's the big increase and the burden on young people and their families that's so unfair and going to be so counterproductive for our long-term prospects. ANDREW MARR: Would you be out there marching with the students? YVETTE COOPER: Well I think they're actually doing a very good job marching themselves. I've certainly been meeting some of the student protestors. ANDREW MARR: And in general terms, do you understand where Ed Miliband is taking the Labour party? YVETTE COOPER: Yeah, I think what he's doing is to start out by saying look we need to reflect on what went wrong for Labour in the run-up to the last election. That's not a quick process, that's something we need to be thoughtful about. That's also why we need the policy reviews. We need to be thinking about what the challenge is for Labour in the next five, ten years. But at the same time, alongside doing that, we can't let the government off the hook right now, so that's why we've got to be challenging them - whether that's on tuition fees, whether that's on their overall economic approach. That's bad right now. ANDREW MARR: And finally - going back to your main hat, your foreign affairs hat - how do you react to this quite extraordinary story of the Russian researcher who's being marched out of the country and appears to have been pretty close to asking serious questions about defence and nuclear issues of the government via MP? YVETTE COOPER: Obviously I don't know anything about the individual case. Like you, I've just seen the headlines in the papers this morning, so I don't think it would be right for me to comment on you know the veracity of that individual case. I'm not sure. You know if the question is asking questions in parliament, well obviously there are always parliamentary questions asked. ANDREW MARR: (over) The question is are you conscious of the fact that foreign powers can and have and will use access to the government via parliament - go in via MPs? Are there proper checks? Do people think closely enough about the kind of people being given researchers' passes and researchers' salaries? YVETTE COOPER: Well we do need to make sure that there are. There are parliamentary checks, security checks and so on on anyone who applies for a House of Commons pass, anybody who's going to be working in the House of Commons. Of course it is important to make sure that those are strong enough and those are secure enough. And I'm sure that you know, depending on what happens with this individual case, if there do turn out to have been problems and breaches in security here, then obviously you know wider security in parliament would need to be looked at, but I'm sure the Speaker would take that very seriously. ANDREW MARR: Alright. For now, Yvette Cooper, thank you very much indeed for joining us. INTERVIEW ENDS
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