SKY NEWS – MURNAGHAN – 10.00 – 25.09.11 – INTERVIEW WITH JUSTINE GREENING

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Joining me now is the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Justine Greening from Rotherham, a very good morning to you Ms Greening.  The message loud and clear from the former Chancellor there is that leadership was shown by Britain to get Britain and the world through the banking crisis of 2008/09 is sadly lacking now from your government.

JUSTINE GREENING:

I don't think that’s true at all.  I think George Osborne has been playing a leading role in the G20 summit that has just happened in Washington, he has been one of the key political leaders, he has been urging the Eurozone for weeks and weeks now to get a grip on the situation and I think we’ve had some positive steps taken this weekend towards the Eurozone being able to do that, in terms of both recapitalising the banks in Europe that are under stress but also putting in place a bail-out fund that is big enough to give confidence to the markets.  Of course before that, we as a government have taken steps to tackle the debt crisis.  This is a debt crisis that is happening across the world but we had a particularly acute one here in the UK that was handed over by the last government, we’ve taken steps to put in place our deficit reduction plan and it is one of the reasons why, although we have seen a debt crisis raging across the Eurozone and of course also in the United States, Britain has been out of the firing line and it is our plans to get our economy back on track that have delivered that for the British public.  Of course the upside for the British public as a result of that, has been our interest rates have a much better chance of staying low for longer.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

It is that issue of out of the firing line, you say that but some people say it is on the side lines, telling other countries to sort their mess out.  There are loads of people in your party who are watching the Eurozone crisis and going, we told you so.

JUSTINE GREENING:

Well of course we never wanted to go into the euro as a party, in fact on of the things the Chancellor had to do when he went into the Treasury last year was disband the euro preparation unit which was still busy working away.  You’re right we’ve been on the fringe of this, absolutely, we’re not in the euro and we’ve had a plan in place to tackle our own deficit, which is the fact that Labour ran a country where we were spending more on public services than we were ever making in taxes, that’s …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

But just on the Eurozone, the vast majority of our exports go there?

JUSTINE GREENING:

… if you look at Standard and Poor they took a negative rating to stable … sorry?

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

On the Eurozone, the EU of which we are a full member, the vast majority of our exports go there and the recovery is meant to be growth led.

JUSTINE GREENING:

And you are absolutely right, it is one of the reasons why we have been so clear cut with the Eurozone, that it is vital that they now have a plan in place to tackle the instability that we’ve seen in the Eurozone and the euro over recent weeks and months.  You are absolutely right, but also the other point I would make is let’s not forget that at the moment our country exports more to Ireland than we do to Brazil, Russia, India and China put together.  There is a huge export market out there for us and that’s one of the reasons why you are seeing the Chancellor and the Prime Minister increasingly getting on a plane and going out to help British business do business.  It’s why you’re seeing William Hague making sure our embassies overseas are far more business focused and it is why we’re doing lots of things here in the UK to make sure we are more competitive. In fact we slipped out of the top ten most competitive nations as judged by the World Economic Forum, now we’re finally back in it.  We can’t change things overnight but what we can put in place are the key ingredients for success.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Okay,  I’ve just got to put to you one last point, Alistair Darling’s other point that there is a lesson in the Greek crisis for us in that if overdo the austerity you get into this downward spiral and you can’t stimulate growth.

JUSTINE GREENING:

I think the lesson in the Greek crisis is actually that if the markets don’t believe you have a plan to tackle your debts and your deficit, they will keep charging you more for lending you money.   We have a plan in place and that’s why the markets are still lending us money at the lowest rates we’ve seen in years.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:

Okay, Justine Greening, thank you very much indeed for joining us here on Murnaghan.