Carwyn Jones AM transcript

On Sunday 14 February Andrew Marr interviewed First Minister for Wales, Carwyn Jones AM.

Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

ANDREW MARR:

Now here's a question. If after this spring's General Election, Labour have lost power at Westminster, who will be that party's most senior figure? Answers on a postcard. Except that you don't need a postcard because he's joining me now. Carwyn Jones has recently been chosen and elected as Welsh Leader and First Minister in Wales, replacing Rhodri Morgan, who people describe as "The Father of the Nation". I don't know whether that makes you the Son of the Nation. I don't know. I should start, I suppose as a Scotland supporter, congratulating you on yesterday. That would be graceful, but you can stick it, I think. (laughs)

CARWYN JONES:

I wasn't going to mention it to you, Andrew, in fairness. I thought I'd be graceful and skip over it. But since you've mentioned it, it was a remarkable last five minutes.

ANDREW MARR:

Yeah.

CARWYN JONES:

I was there. I think my voice is still there.

ANDREW MARR:

You're hoarse. Now you've taken over as First Minister, and one of the big things on the agenda is a referendum for more powers for the Welsh Assembly. Why do you think that needs to happen?

CARWYN JONES:

Well I could talk about the constitutional situation in Wales, but can I explain it in this way? You hire three workers. With two of them, you give them a full set of tools. Call them Scotland and Northern Ireland. The other worker, you give that person an empty box and you say, "Each time you need a new tool, come to me, explain why you want that tool and then I'll decide whether I'll give you that tool." That's Wales. What we want is a full set …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) You have to go back to Westminster and ask for …?

CARWYN JONES:

What we want as it were is a full set of tools in the same way as Scotland and Northern Ireland, so we can do the job properly.

ANDREW MARR:

Now when the original referendum happened, it was only by a wafer thin majority that the Welsh Assembly was set up at all. I wonder is there more enthusiasm for more devolution now?

CARWYN JONES:

Well times have changed. If you look at the opinion polls that have taken place, the principle of devolution is very firmly embedded. Very few people comparatively want to go back to the days before devolution. But the real problem will be explaining to people what the referendum is about. It's about, as it were, the question do you believe that all the laws that only affect Wales should be made in Wales? Now if we can explain it simply to people, so they can have an understanding of what they have to vote on, then I think the referendum will be successful.

ANDREW MARR:

Hmm, but that's not really your biggest challenge, is it, because a referendum certainly can't happen until the autumn, by which time we'll have had a General Election. And looking at the opinion polls in Wales, your party is in deep trouble.

CARWYN JONES:

Well we've been here before and I think we'll certainly do a lot better than the polls suggest come the General Election. No question about that. Welsh opinion polling is fairly new. In the past, we've usually been tagged onto a wider UK poll and it's not always been very, very accurate. But I don't detect on the street any kind of very strong anti-Labour mood. I just don't detect it. So I think we'll actually do pretty well in Wales when the Election comes - May or June, whenever it comes.

ANDREW MARR:

And when the voter comes to you and says, "Yeah, but what has the Welsh Assembly really ever done for me?", you can give them some answers but they're pretty small-scale answers, aren't they?

CARWYN JONES:

Well I could say, "Do you pay for your prescriptions?" No, we know that. I could say, if somebody is over 60, "Do you pay to go on the bus?" The answer's no. But I'll give you two other examples as well that are important. You had Dame Joan on earlier on, and of course we have a Commissioner for Older People in Wales - something that was a first for Britain. And, secondly, we have in place a scheme called ProAct, which basically provides money to employers so they can train people on the job and they're subsidised to do it. It means that 8,500 people are in jobs in Wales at the moment because of a scheme that we actually brought in as a government in Wales.

ANDREW MARR:

And these are classic things that politicians as it were give to people. But if you look at the Welsh economy, which is under performing the British … You had a deeper recession, you've got more people unemployed. By almost every standard, Wales is in a tougher place than the rest of the UK. It would suggest that devolution hasn't exactly helped Wales become more entrepreneurial or more effective economically.

CARWYN JONES:

The figures aren't that bad. I mean if you look at gross domestic household income in Wales, we've done okay. I mean we know that the whole of Europe, the whole of the world has done badly over the past two years.

ANDREW MARR:

(over) Lower than the UK average though, isn't it?

CARWYN JONES:

Well our problem is - and I take that point - that our private sector is too small. We have to do more to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit that does exist in Wales, but it's …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) Perhaps it's so small because there's too many politicians and you know there's too many layers of government?

CARWYN JONES:

I think Northern Ireland probably is a worse example of that in terms of too many politicians. I don't think that's the point. I think what we need to do is to say to people government works in Wales, devolved government works in Wales. We need to make sure that people feel that business can work in Wales as well; and where people have got ideas - and they are there - they actually have the confidence to develop those ideas and they have the access to capital they need in order to do it. Now that's got to be the next stage for us.

ANDREW MARR:

You might be in the unfamiliar position of being a Welsh First Minister from the Labour Party working with a Conservative Government in Westminster. Is that going to work? Can that be done?

CARWYN JONES:

It needs good will. I mean from my point of view, I'll work with whoever's there. I mean from my point of view, I want to make sure there's a Labour Prime Minister there of course after the General Election. It's difficult for us to know what sort of view any other party would take of devolution. I mean I noticed earlier on you were talking about Michael Gove's plans for Britain's schools. Well it's England's schools, of course …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) England's schools.

CARWYN JONES:

… not Britain's schools. Well we'll have to wait and see what happens, but there's a General Election to fight first. Obviously I'll be fighting very hard for my party to make sure we win as many seats as possible and return a Labour government. You expect me to say that. What happens afterwards, well we'll have to wait and see.

ANDREW MARR:

Carwyn Jones, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

INTERVIEW ENDS

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