Any quotes used must be attributed to Murnaghan, Sky News

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Well the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is saying in a newspaper interview today that it would be economic suicide for Britain to retreat to the margins of Europe. The Lib Dem leader warned Tory Eurosceptics that any change in the country’s relationship with the EU could leave the continent paralysed at the time when the focus should be on economic growth. Well in a moment I’ll be speaking to Cabinet Minister Jeremy Hunt about that and other issues but also watching the discussion are our Twitter experts today and they are Mark Littlewood, Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Liberal blogger Sunny Hundal and Allister Heath, editor of City AM, they provide their reactions via Twitter, you can read those on the side panels if you are watching in HD and you can also follow on our website, skynews.com/politics and of course join in using the hashtag #murnaghan. Well a very good morning to you Mr Hunt, let’s kick off with this issue of Europe. As we saw on Monday it is a very contentious issue to say the very least within your own party but you now seem like you are on a collision course with Nick Clegg.

JEREMY HUNT:
Not at all, I think what Nick Clegg was saying was very clear. If you read what he said in the Observer article what he said is that if there are any discussions about rebalancing power and that may happen because the Germans are keen to have some treaty changes, then we need to play our hand very shrewdly indeed in the national interest and that is something that both parts of the coalition completely supports.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Okay, you say that but there is also an issue of timing and it is an argument that you deployed, the leadership of the Conservative party deployed with the back benchers, that now is not the time to be discussing this, there is economic Armageddon potentially out there and now is not the time to be talking about this issue of repatriating powers or whatever it is. The central theme is fixing the economy and part of that is fixing the eurozone.

JEREMY HUNT:
Well I think if you talked to people watching this programme they would say that their number one concern is the economy. I think the Economist had a poll this week that said that 1% of people say that Europe is the most important …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
So you are agreeing with Nick Clegg?

JEREMY HUNT:
Well I think that … I am agreeing with Nick Clegg and what he said was that the economy is what is top of most people’s minds, I think 50% of people in that Economist poll said that the economy was their number one priority. However there is also a moment when there may be a discussion about rebalancing powers and we will act in the national interest. There are differences between the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition and the Conservative part, they want to rebalance a few powers, we’d like to rebalance a lot of powers but we will act together …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
And you would raise that at any treaty renegotiations? There are the Germans and the French, you’ve got Merkel and Sarkozy sitting round the table scratching their heads with all the best economic boffins Europe can muster, saying how do we save the economy and Britain pipes up, oh by the way, we want to look at the European working time directive. It’s not really going to work is it?

JEREMY HUNT:
Well our priority in the national interest is to get growth back into the economy so all the discussions that we have with other European countries about rebalancing powers will be things that help us to make the economy more competitive and protect British jobs and British businesses and I think the point we have to remember about this whole European debate is that it is not in our national interest for the euro to collapse and if we were to launch headlong into a debate now as to whether we remain in the EU or come out of it …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
But powers?

JEREMY HUNT:
But if we were to have that big debate, which is what the debate in the House of Commons on Monday was about, that would itself be something that made life more difficult for people trying to sort out the problem in the euro.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
So we get down to the issue of timing then because what is being talked about is closer fiscal and economic integration for the eurozone and therefore maybe some treaty changes which presumably would be the point at which Britain could talk about some of those powers being repatriated and that could happen quite soon then. Nick Clegg says it’s not the time for it.

JEREMY HUNT:
Well if the Germans succeed in putting treaty change on the agenda then as Nick Clegg said, we will play our hand very shrewdly but our priority and the priority of people watching this programme is the economy and jobs and so what we’ll look at is those areas of the EU operation, of European law that we think will make it more difficult for us to have a competitive economy and that has to be our priority and that is I think what the British people are saying, they’re worried about jobs.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
They certainly are and we had the Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, on an hour earlier laying into your government as you know, you’ve heard this argument before about the lack of a plan B, the idea that we are going to see these growth figures bumping along the bottom, we expect coming out on Tuesday for the third quarter of this year way, way below the forecasts that were made by the Chancellor at budget time, by the OBR. What are you going to do about it? What is the government doing? He says you are fiddling while the economy burns?

JEREMY HUNT:
Well the first point I’d make about that relates to our earlier discussion which is that the Ernst and Young Item Club downgraded the economic growth forecast for the UK almost entirely because of the problems in the eurozone, so it is in our national interest that what happens in the eurozone …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Ah but I know the come back on this having talked to Ed Balls, he says the problems started way before the troubles within Europe.

JEREMY HUNT:
Well he would say that but the truth is that’s why our growth forecasts have been downgraded, because the eurozone is 40% of our exports, it’s a very, very important market for the UK but I think what Ed Balls needs to answer very simply is the fact that the countries that didn’t embark on the course that we have done as a coalition in this country, sorting out the mess incidentally that his party left, countries like Greece have 41% youth unemployment, countries like Ireland and Italy are having to pass emergency budgets because they didn’t address the core of the problem.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Those are your answers but they are all saying what are you doing? We know about quantitative easing but that’s the Bank of England, who are independent, who are doing that. What is the government doing?

JEREMY HUNT:
Well we’ve done a huge amount already. We have for example introduced measures that will give us the most competitive corporate tax rates of the G7, that’s a big step forward, we are slashing through red tape and we’ve got a very big exercise on that. We are looking at …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
I hear this so often but what’s gone? What laws have changed, what bit of red tape has gone that is going to help business and help to spark an economic recovery?

JEREMY HUNT:
Well I’ll give you one, it is the extension of the period in which employers are able to terminate contracts from 12 months to 24 months without having to go through much longer procedures but these are things that are really designed to encourage employers to take on more workers because what we’re trying to do, as we discussed earlier, is everything possible, leave no stone unturned, to get the economy growing.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
We are also hearing that there are forty infrastructure projects that have been languishing on various department’s desks, they are going to be announced next week, can you tell us anything about that?

JEREMY HUNT:
I can’t tell you anything about an announcement that hasn’t yet been made but…

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
But it is certainly on the agenda, pulling forward big infrastructure works. We have heard a lot of discussion about it, we heard it at your conference, we need to hear something about that pretty soon then?

JEREMY HUNT:
Absolutely and my particular area of responsibility is super-fast broadband roll out and we’ve announced plans, we inherited a plan to get all of the country with a 2 meg connection, we’ve said that’s not fast enough, we want to have that and at least 90% of the country to have a 24 meg connection because we recognise the need that people have for broadband is increasing the whole time and we want the whole country to share in that but what we want to do is to make sure it is not just announcing a policy, which happened a lot under the last government, but actually we want to see shovels out on the roads, we want to see telegraph poles going up, fibre optic cable being strung into remote communities and that is a very important part.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
The implication in the article I read is that this has been buried, projects like the one you described there, the roll out of really fast broadband, have been languishing on departmental desks, the Prime Minister has been knocking heads together and saying I want action, you’ve been sitting on this too long.

JEREMY HUNT:
Well I’ve only been in office for a year and a half and in that period I think we have completely revolutionised the super-fast broadband roll out. I was talking to Cumbria Council just this week and they are on the point of signing a contract to completely revolutionise broadband provision in Cumbria so I think things are starting to happen but you’re right, because of the …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
We hear about joined up government so this is co-ordinated with many other departments, so we are going to hear about roads and whatever else along with that next week to cover up the bad growth figures?

JEREMY HUNT:
Absolutely not. Infrastructure has a role, Dermot, but I would say something else and this relates to what you were talking about with Ed Balls, confidence that the government is managing our national finances is very, very important and the problem in the eurozone is because people have not had confidence that those countries were getting to grip with their debt problem. Because people do have confidence that we have got to grips with those problems, we are in a situation where we have a deficit not too different to Greece but we are paying interest rates as good as Germany and that is really important and the solution to this problem has to be about giving people confidence that you are getting to grips with your problems.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
I want to talk to you about some of the issues which of course are on your desk and we’ve been discussing and hearing a lot about them in the last few weeks, there is this issue of internet pornography and what can be done in this country along with the service providers to prevent particularly young eyes – and it seems to be a particular problem with young teenage males getting their hands on this and getting people to opt in rather than opt out of those websites.

JEREMY HUNT:
Yes, I am very concerned about this. I mean nearly a million children, according to surveys that I’ve seen, have accessed adult material online including 12% of under 10s and this is very, very concerning to many, many parents who worry about this a lot. What we want to do is to make sure that parents know that there are parental controls that mean that if their children access the internet unsupervised they won’t be able to access …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
I mean this has been around so long, a lot of parents know about the controls but this issue is changing isn’t it from opting in rather than opting out, that’s the difference.

JEREMY HUNT:
A lot of parents do know about these controls but actually a lot of parents don’t and what we have agreed with the internet service providers is that they will set up a system where all internet users either when they activate their accounts or sign up to an ISP, make an active choice – yes, I want these controls or no I don’t and that way we can make sure that for the vast majority of parents who are worried about these things, they can switch on those controls and know that their children are protected.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Tell me about the health lottery, this relatively new lottery that is operated by the companies, mainly by Richard Desmond who owns the Express titles and Channel 5 amongst other things, there are concerns about the National Lottery aren’t there, about this draining money away from the good causes?

JEREMY HUNT:
Yes, I am concerned about that and we are looking into whether the heath lottery is complying with the spirit of the National Lottery Act which was to say that we are going to make the National Lottery a monopoly and we’re going to do that because we want to raise money for good causes particularly causes like grassroots sport which is very much in our minds in the run up to the Olympics next year and the health lottery appears as a single National Health lottery but in reality it has got round the law by saying it is lots of local lotteries that have come together, so we are looking at that and of course I welcome anything that raises money for good causes including health charities and indeed the National Lottery makes that provision because through the big lottery fund lots of money is able to support good health charities but it is all about additionality, it is about supporting things that wouldn’t otherwise be supported.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
It is interesting that point you make there about it being local lotteries getting round the existing law. I mean what’s the mechanism for looking at it, is it departmental, is it yours, I mean there is a Gambling Commission isn’t there?

JEREMY HUNT:
Yes, and I’ve asked the Gambling Commission to look and see whether what is happening with the health lottery is consistent with the National Lottery Act and they are doing that right now.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Finally Mr Hunt I want to ask you, we are both wearing poppies today, of course we are, this issue of the First World War centenary, the 100th anniversary is coming up of course in 1914, it seems the French and the Belgians and others are way further down the line than us in planning to commemorate that in terms of the millions of lives sacrificed in that conflict.

JEREMY HUNT:
Well let me say this, nothing is more important to this government than making sure that we properly recognise the role of people who fought for the freedoms that we now enjoy. It is incredibly important to all of us and we have this Remembrance Sunday once a year that’s a very important national …

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
But the French are building a £25 million museum we hear to honour those who fell on the battlefields of northern France, what are we doing?

JEREMY HUNT:
Well we are doing … we have actually got a lot of work that is actively underway in my department and we will announce that when the time is right but we are very, very serious about doing this properly because we recognise how important it is to our country that people have made the sacrifices they have.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
So what can you tell us about those plans then? There’s the French museum, the Belgians are pushing things along as well but it seems that we in Britain where so many families sacrificed so many people, it seems … here we are, we wear our poppies, we remember the fallen but the 100th anniversary, what physically are we doing?

JEREMY HUNT:
Well as I say, we are not ready to make that announcement yet, but let me say this, no country is better than us at commemorating these important occasions and I’m sure we’ll do our bit.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Okay, Jeremy Hunt, thank you very much indeed.