PLEASE NOTE "THE ANDREW MARR SHOW" MUST BE CREDITED IF ANY PART OF THIS TRANSCRIPT IS USED On Sunday 8th May Andrew Marr interviewed Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne MP ANDREW MARR: Now the Tories emerged pretty much unscathed - in fact in some ways enhanced after the voting on Thursday. But one person, above all, knows there's no room for complacency in politics and that is indeed the Chancellor, George Osborne - now a well-known humorist, I gather, who joins us now. Let me just start by asking about a not terribly humorous subject, which is the economy. After the last quarterly figures, if you look at sort of six months, the economy has been flat-lining pretty much, unemployment high, and a lot of people are saying it's inevitably, inevitably going to rise further this year. GEORGE OSBORNE: Well I mean the first thing I'd say is the economy is now growing. That's a good thing. And actually the most recent unemployment numbers showed a fall, which is also a good thing. But it is clearly out there in the world, and in Britain, a tough economic picture. And we saw the American growth figures, which are actually below Britain's, and in the next few weeks I'm afraid we're going to hear a lot about Greece and Portugal and the problems that they've got into with their debts and deficits. So you know it is of course a tough economic picture out there. I think people know that. They know that in their own lives. What the government's got to do is steer a course through that, have a credible plan to deal with those debts and deficits, and also - as we did at the Budget - set out the policies that are going to help the British economy grow. ANDREW MARR: You mentioned Greece just now. Can you guarantee that Britain will not be taking part in a bailout of Greece since we are not in the Eurozone and Greece, unlike Ireland, is not one of our major trading partners? GEORGE OSBORNE: Well we certainly don't want to be part of any bailout of Greece, a second bailout of Greece. And you know there are some very difficult questions that Greece has to address now because the whole assumption when the Eurozone put together a rescue package last year was that Greece could come back into the market next year and borrow. The market is quite sceptical about that happening, and I suspect a lot of my time over the next few weeks is going to be with other European finance ministers and others talking about how we try and help the Greeks get through this situation. ANDREW MARR: You didn't quite promise that we would not as a country be part of the bailout. GEORGE OSBORNE: Well at the moment the discussions are about another bailout, which is for Portugal, and there … ANDREW MARR: Are we taking part in that one? GEORGE OSBORNE: Well we are reluctant participants in that because we are a member of the European Union. There is a loan likely to come from the European Union. I didn't sign up to that approach. It was something signed up to my predecessor, Alistair Darling, but you know we have to live with that. The only time we've ever actually written a cheque from the British taxpayer to someone else … ANDREW MARR: Is Ireland. GEORGE OSBORNE: … has been over Ireland, and that was because of the close links with Ireland, and I can't see us ever writing a cheque directly from the British taxpayer to the Greeks or the Portuguese or indeed anyone else. Ireland was a special case. ANDREW MARR: Do you think it's inevitable now that Greece is going to default? GEORGE OSBORNE: Well I certainly don't think it's inevitable that Greece is going to default. I think it's inevitable that we are going to look at the Greek package and see what they can do to get through next year. But that might involve additional assistance from, for example, from the Eurozone. ANDREW MARR: Right. And do you think that the euro itself is now in trouble? GEORGE OSBORNE: No, I think there's a huge political commitment from the members of the euro to the euro. I think actually the one thing that has changed over the last year is that you don't really get those questions being asked about the future of the euro as a currency. I think there are still profound questions about how countries like Greece and Portugal … ANDREW MARR: (over) There have been suggestions that Greece could leave the euro and go back to the drachma. GEORGE OSBORNE: Well you know I've not heard those, I promise you, either in private or in public. ANDREW MARR: Okay, okay. GEORGE OSBORNE: But you know just can I put, make this observation. You know anyone who doubts why Britain is having to take these difficult decisions on public expenditure at the moment only has to look across the channel to see the mess that some countries have got into because they've not been able to convince the markets. ANDREW MARR: And yet here … GEORGE OSBORNE: And that is … You know the fact we can … (Marr tries to interject) … we're going to talk about local election results, electoral reform, maybe we're going to talk about the House of Lords. The fact that this interview is not dominated about Britain's sovereign debt crisis - even though we had a higher budget deficit than many of the countries we've just talked about - is I think a measure of the coalition government's success in having a credible economic policy. And the fact that the Labour Party is unable to come up with an alternative, I think suggests that this is the only show in town. ANDREW MARR: We have very, very low demand nonetheless in this economy. Public sector demand and private demand is way down. What would it take for you to ease off the brake and allow the cuts to happen slightly more slowly? Or is that so out of court that there's no circumstances in which you could imagine that happening? GEORGE OSBORNE: I think it would be a disaster to come off a credible deficit reduction plan that has won the confidence of the world, unlike these other countries we've just been talking about like Portugal and Greece. And it means that our interest rates, the actual interest rates you can borrow at as a homeowner or as a business are much, much lower than these other countries. We have German interest rates, but we have a Portuguese deficit. That's the situation. I inherited the deficit, but we managed to get those interest rates down - the real interest rates that people can get in the marketplace. ANDREW MARR: Why do you think it was that in the local elections you took all the key economic decisions and the Liberal Democrats have taken all the blame? GEORGE OSBORNE: Well Nick Clegg you know spoke for the performance of his own party. You know what I can say about the Conservatives, I think we fought a very good local election campaign. Local Conservative councils were rewarded actually for delivering things like … ANDREW MARR: (over) You're in clover, you're in clover. They're the whipping boys. They're getting all the blame for this and you're GEORGE OSBORNE: (over) Well, look, the Conservatives did have a good result. In fact not for thirty years has a governing party actually increased its vote share on the last General Election, and we got more votes than Labour. ANDREW MARR: Yeah. GEORGE OSBORNE: You would not believe it, listening to Ed Miliband, but actually they were defeated in the local elections, which is pretty staggering for an opposition. So we did well. I think that is partly a factor that we have done well in local government. People want to keep their council tax bills down at the present … ANDREW MARR: Yes. GEORGE OSBORNE: … and I think they look to their local Conservative council and they think that's the best insurance for letting that happen. ANDREW MARR: Chris Huhne had a real go at you in cabinet, we gather. The relationship is going to have to change now, isn't it, between yourselves and the Liberal Democrats even at cabinet level? GEORGE OSBORNE: Well I think a lot of … there's a lot of heat in an election campaign in any democracy. ANDREW MARR: Did you have a go back at him, by the way? GEORGE OSBORNE: I'm not going to go and repeat … ANDREW MARR: Oh go on! GEORGE OSBORNE: I'm not going to repeat what … I still happen to believe in the secrecy of what goes on in cabinet. But of course things are said and there's a lot of heat in an election campaign, but we've had the result and now we move on. And you know I'd say this about the government. The reasons that brought these two parties - the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats - together to work in the national interest is as strong today as it was a year ago. Britain needs strong and decisive government. This is a coalition government. It's not a merger or a marriage between two political parties. There's nothing wrong with both parties expressing their own individual identities, but also coming together to solve these big national problems we've inherited like the economy, like welfare reform, like education reform. ANDREW MARR: It goes on. GEORGE OSBORNE: And you know that's precisely what we're going to do. And let me just say this, Andrew. We're going to do it for the five years, the full five years. ANDREW MARR: No question of it coming apart before that? GEORGE OSBORNE: I'm absolutely clear this is a five year parliament. We are legislating at the moment for this. This is a five year coalition with a five year coalition agreement. And we are absolutely committed. whether it's Nick Clegg or myself or anyone else at the top of our political parties, to delivering on that. ANDREW MARR: Nick Clegg says that he is going to stop the health bill going through unless he gets the changes he wants. Are you up for those changes? Do you accept that that is a fair thing for him to ask? GEORGE OSBORNE: Well I want changes as well to the health bill. So does David Cameron. That's why … ANDREW MARR: Including less privatisation or less threat of privatisation, including giving GPs the right not to have to administer their budgets if they don't want to? GEORGE OSBORNE: Well we want to reassure people that we are not and never have wanted to privatise the NHS. We believe in the NHS as a public service free at the point of use. We want to reassure people about that. We want to make sure that the health service is able to do this in a timely way. So we are looking at all these things. But you know this was the decision that David Cameron took, that I took, that Nick Clegg took working together. So let's try and get this health bill … (Marr tries to interject) And to deliver evolutionary change absolutely. ANDREW MARR: Okay. GEORGE OSBORNE: So we want to carry health professionals with us, as well as the public, in reforming an institution which is very dear to everyone's hearts. ANDREW MARR: The No campaign took the Yes campaign to pieces over the AV issue. Liberal Democrats privately say that you were the man who was responsible for some of the savagery of the campaign and that you needed to be reined in. GEORGE OSBORNE: Well it's an independent campaign. The No campaign fought a brilliant campaign. It involved people like John Reid, David Blunkett … ANDREW MARR: It was pretty rough, wasn't it? GEORGE OSBORNE: Former Labour MP Joan Ryan played a brilliant role in the campaign. It was a cross-party campaign. And I would say this. You know I think the No campaign made a very convincing argument about the simplicity of our current system and, frankly, the Yes campaign were never able to get going a compelling argument about why you'd want to change. Nor were they ever really able to explain how the alternative vote would be any better. And that's why it was such a compelling result. I mean I think if the results had been closer, then you know there'd be a big discussion about campaign tactics and so on. But actually the fact that the result was so overwhelmingly … ANDREW MARR: (over) Does it mean by the way … GEORGE OSBORNE: (over) … in favour of the No campaign means that you know it's not an issue of how the campaign was fought. The argument was never one for electoral reform. And let's all move on and concentrate on issues like the economy and welfare reform and education that people really care about. ANDREW MARR: Very briefly, since people didn't care about this very much - Lords reform, do you think off the agenda in a word? GEORGE OSBORNE: No, the coalition agreement commits us to bring forward proposals for an elected or partially elected Lords. It's something I happen to believe in myself and I've always voted for as an MP and you will see the proposals in due course. ANDREW MARR: George Osborne, Chancellor, thank you very much indeed for joining us. INTERVIEW ENDS
| 
E-mail this to a friend 
Printable version 
Bookmark with:
What are these?