In Conversation Jacob Rees Mogg

[Music] you [Applause] thank you very much ladies and gentlemen I'm very grateful for that fantastic reception happens every time I walk into a lecture theatre tonight speaker in the latest of Arion conversation series is Jacob Riis morgue he's been the MP for North East Somerset since 2010 he's a member of the exiting the EU Committee of the House of Commons and head of the European research group he is also an Isis is at least in part why you're here currently the bookies favorite to be the next Conservative leader and and actually according to the conservative home survey which is out today you're also the members current favourite to be leader and that piece says by the way that they initially didn't used to put you on the surveys but they had to add your name because people kept writing your name in so they've ended up having to put your name on the poll they wrote my mother's very technologically sophisticated or is it busy now the format of this event is the same as all the other ones that we've run we will chat for sort of thirty to forty minutes you will grow increasingly frustrated at my inability to ask her pointed a question and that I resemble Jimmy young some of you will remember far more than Jeremy Paxman after that point we will throw it open to you and you can ask the pointed laser sharp question that you've been preparing for the last 30 or 40 minutes um so let me start first by telling you a drink and secondly without giving away any secrets and about other people we've invited to this series to speak you're the only one we've had to employ an overflow lecture theatre before and you're the only one where the event sold out within a couple of hours what is it about someone who's been an MP for seven years and never held ministerial office or even been on his own party's front bench that draws our crowd like that well I put it entirely down to your organization and you want to come in there you and that as the series has grown and more people want to come along it's very hard to see oneself as others see one however hot one tries and it's one of the great aims that one should have in life to try and understand what other people see positively and negatively about one's own attributes it was quite difficult to analyze and so the honest answers I didn't really know why people want to come I can only guess and my guess would be the hope that I might say something slightly controversial but perhaps perhaps most importantly that I'll say what I think and therefore if you ask me a question with a bit of luck I'll answer it without particularly thinking whether spin-doctors would think that was a good answer or not and I have a feeling that there is a desire in politics for less controlled answers more straightforward answers that people can then engage with and argue back about and I'm very flattered that there are protesters outside that's great because they want to engage in political debate and that's really important because I think my arguments are good arguments and if I can engage in debate I might be able to persuade people that conservatism is worth supporting okay well we'll just if we can hold you to that answering questions as we proceed for the next hour and a bit let's talk about the protest outside because you are simultaneously maybe the most popular speaker we've invited to come along in the series since we've been running over a year in a bit but you're also the only one that's attracted a protest so if I read you that the leaflet that was circulated from the social worker a student society you are apparently on the most reactionary wing of the Tory Party you're against abortion even in case of rape in a staunch opponent of gay marriage you're against the rights of EU nationals to stay you voted against north promote equality and human rights and you're a war monger who voted against investigations into the Iraq war it goes on it goes on quite a lot I'll paraphrase but it this is our campus it says and we shouldn't be inviting politicians who are against the welfare and freedom of our diverse student and staff body you're not welcome at Queen Mary as a pro-lgbt pro-choice an anti-racist campus and then there's a picture of you in a top hat do you recognize when you say that you you sometimes struggle to see people as others see you do you recognize yourself in that description well I'm trying didn't wear a top hat I didn't realize it was compulsory had I done so I'd obviously brought along some things they say is simply wrong that when you come to EU citizens I said during the referendum campaign that I thought we should say regardless of whether what point we left that anyone who was here legally should be welcomed and I actually think this is really important because to my mind people who have left our home and left that family moved hundreds of miles to a country where they don't speak the language to work hard and contribute to our society and did so lawfully under laws we had passed should be admired and respected not treated as if they're not welcomed so European Member State citizens have come to the UK we should admire and value and protect all their rights so on that it's simply wrong only inquiry into the Iraq war there was one vote in Parliament when I was there was the Chilkoot inquiry was already going on it's on they work for you calm and there were lots of votes when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were in charge which Labour routinely voted against I was all in favor of an inquiry into the Iraq war I'm not a war monger I've had grave doubts about what the government decided to do in Libya and in Syria and so I think it's just some of it's just mere abuse but do I believe in the sanctity of life do I believe that life begins at the point of conception yes very strongly I do believe that I think that is when a person is created and that if you believe life begins at that point then can you really say it's reasonable to take it I don't believe in capital punishment either for exactly the same reason I didn't think it's right for the state to take life um of all the things I want to talk to you about the one that I was absolutely determined I was not going to raise because it seemed to me it had been covered remorselessly in almost any interview I'd read with you over the last couple of years because the the nappy thing but but every - almost everybody I've said I'm doing this interview trigger they've said so it has clearly struck a chord with people and as I understand it your position is despite having six children you've never changed the map here and that's because in your view that's the nannies job and the nanny would be disgruntled with you were you to attempted to change a nappy because that's her job and you wouldn't do it very well is that is that a fair summary it's slightly more nuanced than that you must bear in mind the nanny we're talking about is my nanny who's worked for my family for 52 years and still pretty much thinks of me as one of the children she's looking after so nanny's views of these things are quite firmly held you'd be amazed by how many men I've spoken to have either said to me they've never changed any nappies either or lucky me I I do recognise that I'm in a fortunate position but it's absolutely true the nanny would not think it was a good idea for me to be changing nanny nappies she thinks it's her job and people do take a pride in their job and I think it's important not to interfere in other people's roles but does that mean your wife hasn't changed that the arms I don't know my wife's definitely changed loss of Mathies you'll see where I'm going with this why why is it okay for your wife I mean I understand the argument that says we employed the nanny there 92 the nappy but why is it okay for your wife to do it but not for you to do it I'm not for nannies too delighted that anybody are the nanny changed his nappies but it's simply the practicalities of life but bear in mind I'm not in a great deal of the time I'm coming and doing things like this it's not as if I'm at home 24 hours a day whereas my wife is a is a stay-at-home mother um you also said in one of these discussions about the nappy you said I've made no pretense to be a modern man at all ever a sentiment I understand but objectively you are a modern I mean we are actually almost identical ages I'm I'm a month older than you and I have to say I'm loving this because most of my life I feel very crusty and old and I'm I'm now I'm now in the role of a sort of metrosexual hipster but you aren't you aren't you we are modern men not we we you can't pretend to be a throwback to the 18th century we are of the age that we are in and I will confess my cover it was pretty much blown yesterday when I was at the decks you Select Committee and I looked down my suit and so it was absolutely covered in my two-year-olds breakfast but I've made the mistake of picking him out of his highchair and really Linehan nanny allowed me to do this and I got mission but nonetheless and all his breakfast had appeared on my suit say inevitably we are of the era that we are are and can't live in a in a different era I think what I'm really trying to get across by saying I didn't pretend to be a modern man is I didn't pretend to be anything other than what I am or Who I am that there isn't a facade that I'm putting forward and that if we were sitting at home and having this discussion my answers would be exactly the same it's not something that I bring out for when I when I come most college um maybe a few questions about brexit not least because you were in the news today on this subject at questions today you made the claim when asking the ministers that Charles Grant of the Center for European research had said that officials in the Treasury these your words have deliberately developed a model to show that all options other than staying in the customs union are bad and that officials attend to use the model to influence policy now Charles Grant of the Center for European research has flatly denied he made any such allegation and the audio of the meeting at which he's supposed to have said this has now been released and he clearly doesn't make that allegation so do you do you withdrawal the allegation that officials that the Treasury are deliberately developing a model to show that options other than the customs union know bad well it's quite interesting so he put out a tweet a few months before this meeting basically saying exactly the point I raised with the minister and I have retweeted that if people want to have a look at it it was picked up by Guido Fawkes that he had said that the Treasury was trying to soften the brexit policy and and so I had heard this rumor and therefore I asked the minister because it was out of meeting the minister was at the minister's memory of the meeting was that this had been said I wasn't there so I don't know and I never pretended to know but it's very much in line with what Charles Grant tweeted in in July so it is a worrying suspicion and I think on this whole issue the thing I'm really concerned about is that you get a week ago the CBI coming out saying it's really important we stand the customs union again that the Chancellor in Davos saying the CBI is an absolutely brilliant all the EU funded CV eyes we ought to call it is a wonderful organization and we should have as modest a brexit as possible in our main closely aligned and then a few days after that you have a leak of a Treasury designed economic model that says the only thing to do is stand the customs union you just wonder whether there isn't hat in that whether there isn't some orchestration rather than being an accidental constellation of the stars but there may be some orchestration in those elements and it may even be that Charles Grant's claim which he made in the tweet you referred to which is the Treasury wanted us to stay in the customs union and was putting pressure officials were putting pressure on that's one thing your claim was slightly different which was that they had deliberately developed a model in order to produce results that would end up arguing that case now that's a much more specific claim and that's the claim that Charles Grant says didn't make okay if he says he didn't make it he says he didn't make it but he made a very similar claim on Twitter but if you look at the facts of what the Treasury is doing they have produced something that models various scenarios for our trade that assumes we would apply the common external tariff to our trading partners once we've left the customs union with is absolutely bonkers no government in its right mind would put tariffs on higher tariffs than there already are on food clothing and footwear it would simply make the standard of living on people in this country worse for no benefit to this country why would any government do that so the underlying assumptions of what the Treasury is producing its forecasts based upon are designed to produce a bad outcome from the forecasts it's exactly what they did prior to the referendum said it is over peace so what Charles Grant said or didn't say at lunch doesn't really matter very much and I never claimed to have heard it what does matter is that he broadly indicated this in the tweet it fits in with the facts and it's why you can be so suspicious of these forecasts because they are designed to a particular end and the end is to show the only thing we should do learn for hold it stand the customs union which basically means not leaving the European Union I guess so it is your belief that even if Charles Grant didn't say this it is your belief that civil servants are deliberately producing evidence in order to do the outcome of these discs well I think the blame always has to lie with ministers actually and we knew very clearly before the break sit vote that the Treasury was being guided very strongly by the then Chancellor of the Exchequer and I think it's the chance of these checker who has to take responsibility for his department okay about a week ago you had I thought was a very interesting exchange with David Davis at the Select Committee hearing where you were pushing him on why the government didn't simply extend article 50 if not all of the negotiations can be achieved in time rather than going into some sort of transitional or implementation stage the government should simply push back article 50 now he had an argument for why he didn't want to do that but what I wasn't entirely clear about from the meeting was whether you were advocating your view or whether you were just trying to tease out the government's position is it your view that given where we currently are the government should be extending article 50 no I was merely posing the question and fortunately since that exchange the government's position has to some extent been clarified so that the Prime Minister is now saying we will leave the requirement for free movement of people and that's a very important part of having left the European Union and therefore people who come after the day we've left will not have the same rights as those before and that they are looking at a system and the Prime Minister said this a couple of days ago where we will not automatically accept new laws from the European Union so if we're not accepting new laws if we're out of the free movement of people and then the 30th of March is different from the 29th of March 2019 I was just posing the question if this wasn't happening which is what it seemed like when David Davis came before the committee then were they not going to look at the argument about simply extending it but it was never my preferred option my preferred option has always been that we should leave on the 29th of March and it should be an implementation period implementing the decision to leave run the transition period where you're transitioning from being a member to not being a member and before the last election you you called for a pact with between the Conservative Party you clip now before the last election for the last yeah now you could have imploded somewhat since then but there's still a sizable you vote out there still you keep members what would your message be today to keep members or you keep voters after the last couple of weeks that they and their leader have had Jamie I'm not sure I want to dwell on private grief but I would I would advise you keep waiters to join the Conservative Party and both the Conservative Party because the Conservative Party is heading towards delivering brexit it may not provide everything in the transition period but as long as the end state is clear that we are really leaving European Union that means the single market in the customs union as well then actually the Conservative Party is doing the main thing that you keep exists for what I think is really interesting is that you keep was so dependent on the charisma of Nigel Faraj and that without him as leader you keep has never been able to recapture the momentum he created also today in the comments as well as the question that you took part in there was a debate about introducing a form of maternity and paternity leave for MPS which at the moment doesn't exist now the details of this are still to be resolved and today's vote was only indicative but I just are you sympathetic to the general issue the idea that we need some form of maternity leave for parliamentarians yes I'm extremely sympathetic to the idea of maternity leave and as long as it's voluntary I have an objection to paternity leave why I say as long as it's voluntary I'd have been off for two years off the last servant if it had been compulsory and you'd had six months every time it was been a year every time I've been off for a year of four years out of seven and I wouldn't be much of an MP and I don't think you should set it in such a way as that mp's feel that they've either got be an MP or to have children but you really want to make the House of Commons a place where women feel welcome and fully able to the drop of an MP and therefore all the support that is suggested to provide an extra research somebody who can do at the administrative work of an MP I completely support the thing I have my doubt about is proxy voting because I think as soon as you allow an MP to a point of proxy why not then for an MP who's ill and can't come into the house comments for that reason what about a prime minister who's in China and can't come in and once you have a proxy for one reason then doesn't it make it sensible to have it for a lot of other reasons but actually that vote of an MP is a very personal thing that can't be divided from the individual how do we get around this thing because I mean I I might share some of these concerns I mean I seems to me we don't want to go down the route of the New Zealand Parliament where the whips cast votes on behalf of parliamentarians but there is a problem at the moment with particularly women who have in terms of leave they don't vote their voting record drops then they get pilloried in the newspaper for being the laziest MP in existence or whatever and I'm not sure how we get around that issue if we don't allow some form of proxy voting well I think we need to they work for you don't come is very useful websites very interesting website but it's not perfect in what it reports but it would be very easy for it to give a hundred percent attendance record to women who were on a maternity leave and it would just have a footnote or it would say and that's not a difficult thing to do it doesn't need legislation to do it they could do voluntarily they could say any MP who notifies us that we are that they are on maternity or paternity leave will be deemed to maintain their average voting record seems to me to be perfectly fair and the truth is that most votes in the House of Commons whether any individual MP turns up or not doesn't actually matter that the government will get its business there's a pairing system I've been on the deck CEO committee and for the first few months I was on it one Conservative MP was off on maternity leave and one Labour MP was off on maternity leave if therefore balanced out and this is often true out of the 650 MPs that the government won't be dependent on women on maternity leave turning up to vote then maybe the really exceptional cases and these are the occasions when the whips have people brought in by ambulance you know people are dying you you know particularly all the stuff around 1979 and then and what happened then and to make sure that the government could keep going under those circumstances if people who are on their deathbed are coming in on a very exceptional basis I don't think it's that unreasonable for women who've had babies to come in on the same basis and what about the more general idea that the composition of house of commons matters I mean are you sympathetic to the idea that we have a problem in terms of the type of people who are becoming MPs and that bluntly there are too many people like me and you in the House of Commons and the place would be better if it was more diverse I think the work of Baroness jenkin and women to win has been tremendously important because what it's done for the Conservative Party is persuade women of the highest caliber that what they want to do is be members of parliament and that's brought really really first-class people and I think that's so much more important than saying we must have a quota I think we want to do is persuade people that their ambition is to become a member of parliament and you want to do that from this wider variety of backgrounds as possible um all of us but this quietly but you don't want everybody in the House of Commons to be like me I'd be frightfully boring if they were like me and if everyone was like me I would've got a crowd to turnout would I because you've all been the same as every other MP you need variety you need diversity but you should do that because that's what people want to do and because the parties persuade good people from different backgrounds to throw their hat into the ring not because you legislate or the parties insist on quotas or particular shortlist and if you had to come up with a couple of characteristics that you're particularly concerned about what groups are you worried in particular that are absent either completely or disproportionately from the House of Commons at the moment the people who are probably the least represented of the poorest in society and and I think that you you you want to get people who have most people in the House of Commons are and once you get there of course you're paid but most people have a relatively comfortable history and I think we need to be able and as I understand you've done here get people who've come from very deprived backgrounds to come to house Commons to bring their experience in and that's probably the thing that is most absent what about in recently without going into individual details but there's been a quite a few cases of people whose pasts have been raped over and various things they've done in the past have come up and cause them problems to what extent does it matter what a politician did in their past or should we be more forgiving than we currently are about previous misdemeanors it's got to be contextualized and balanced that if King Herod applied for membership of the House of Commons you might think one altogether good idea if on the other hand somebody aged twenty kissed somebody under the mistletoe it's not the end of the world and I think people of my age who are relatively new to social media need to understand that people of a younger generation have put everything onto social media and do we really want to elect people who at the age of twelve decided that they wanted to be politicians and therefore have never put anything of any kind on social media that could come back to bite them I mean it'd be a pretty boring lot wouldn't it if that's that's what you had and so I think we need to have some proportionality really and that's in the eye of the voter does the voter mind and sometimes I think the voter is much more relaxed about these things than fellow politicians who endlessly in the search of a gaffe um let's talk a little bit about the Conservative Party and it's State last November you met with Steve banner now leaving aside Trump who strikes me as a unique phenomenon what lessons do you think the Conservative Party could learn from the broader political strategy that Bannon and the people around him espoused it's very interesting the Trump phenomenon as you say how has beti been so successful one of his successes is his ability to use social media his direct connection with tens of millions of Americans giving his views avoiding the traditional media and the second thing and this is one of the things that I'd had learned from meeting Steve Bannon is his determination to deliver on some of the high profile promises that he made and to make sure that they happened and that they happened in the first year and that therefore he was keeping the people who put him in on side so what do we learn from that as conservatives we should be good at using social media and better than we are but that also if we make promises in our manifesto that appeal to our baiters it's really really important we deliver on them because people take those promises seriously and we'll hold politicians to account on it and Labour Party currently has somewhere over 500,000 members the Liberal Democrat membership is currently the highest it's ever been Green Party membership is not quite as high as it was a couple years ago but still a damn slight higher than it was four or five years ago SNP membership as a proportion of the Scottish population is the highest of any political party in Europe because so the party is now down we think to about a hundred thousand maybe slightly more than a hundred thousand people and this try to me is a inherent problem for the party and lots of Evans of the last election of getting people out there knocking on doors matters what can you do to reverse that trend in conservative membership look to history because the Conservative Party was the first mass political movement the Primrose League is incredibly successful at the end of the 19th century gets up I think over a million members 19 turn and then the Walton reforms get the Conservative Party to over 2 million members so how did they do it well they did it on a grassroots basis what's interesting about their party actually is that it's been a grassroots movement it's come up from the country not being directed from the Labour Party headquarters and that's where Momentum's come from and what have they done they've harnessed social media Jeremy Corbyn has I know 1/2 million followers on Twitter the Prime Minister has four hundred thousand say they've been more successful at doing that they were more imaginative about social media in the last general election and I think that's how you connect more broadly with society rather than with the Conservatives relatively aging membership what else do you do you get out and talk to people that I think one of the things we haven't been doing they we were discussing for chemins and Rima came here and that's really important that politicians should be out and about meeting voters and the general election it was very controlled that the Prime Minister was kept in a bubble to keep her away from faces and whoever advised on that was making a mistake because it made the politicians remained but you have to get oomph to the local party so that people feel there's something on the ground worth doing why they want to get out in the round and deliver a leaflet but it needs to be more than that you need some invigoration some excitement some feeling that being a Tory Party member can change the world that you contribute to policy rather than just being expecting the expected tram the streets and so I think we need to create an excitement about it and energy about it I mean it talks to people more and what one of the few powers that conservative grassroots members still have are exercised in leadership elections so not although not at this stage but the first stage of any leadership election the consist part at the moment would be a vote of no confidence than promise to triggered by letters sent by MPs to Graham Brady the chair of the 22 have you signed a letter to Graham Brady no no no I have are there any conditions wouldn't do that not as long as mrs. May as the Prime Minister no I would not sign a letter calling for her to go that I I think the Conservative Party gets itself into an awful muddle with leadership elections that they create an enormous amount of bitterness and very rarely leads you better off leave you better off than you were before I think it took the Tory party 20 years from to recover from the decapitation of Margaret Thatcher and I think that you could argue it still has you could argue that it's not an unreasonable argument actually and 20 years was a relatively arbitrary cutoff and so I think that mrs. mayor said how clearly what she's aiming to achieve with brexit in her thanks to her speech Tory party manifesto slightly watered down by Florence but not impossibly say something that people like me could live with and it's worth supporting her to do that and recognizing some of the difficulties that would be faced by any leader with a very small majority that it's all very well saying that should be the smack of firm government but if the slack of firm government comes up with a parliamentary defeat it doesn't look strong it looks weak and the Prime Minister every day and the Chief Whip have to balance whether they can get something through the House of Commons and if they can't they're better off not proposing it so in the event that there is a vote of no-confidence you would support the Prime Minister in that I'm supporting the Prime Minister yes in the event that she did not either stood down or was defeated in such a right and there was a vacancy to return to what we were discussing right at the beginning when the Conservative home website discovered that you are the currently the the party members favourite your line on this as I understand it is there is no vacancy but you could follow General Sherman who famously said if drafted I will not run if nominated I will not accept and if elected I will not serve I mean you could rule out the possibility that under any circumstances would you run for the conservative leadership I think once again one can look at history no leads I was a general chairman it is nd indeed and tanks have been named after him but I'm a backbench Member of Parliament and in government no backbencher has ever gone on to be leader of the Conservative Party it has happened in opposition but in government the Conservative Party since Stanley Baldwin has always gone for somebody who has been Chancellor foreign secretary or Home Secretary and the reason for that is that used to be chosen as you know by the Magic Circle Bar T is now chosen by parliamentary colleagues and they always go for a senior cabinet ministers I think it's better around dealing with what I might say or not to deal with practicalities and the practicalities of the backbench MP it is very hard to see how I could be a candid of any seriousness it's not it's very easy to see how you could become a candidate you only because the rules now are different to the rules in 1963 or 1955 and so it would be very possible for you to become candidate you would really have to be in the last two of the parliamentary party and then go out to the grassroots and where you are currently the favourite so it's very flattering to be the favorite of the grassroots I'm genuinely that that I greatly appreciate the confidence that people are showing in me and I hope I can use that to advance the political ideas that I believe in but you have to be vated through by members of parliament conservative members upon to get to that last two who expect be waiting for a minister and that's where history's always been okay so you in which case were you not to be a minister I'm not obviously in a few years time you may be a minister but were you not to be a minister you wouldn't stand because there would be no point in you standing I can see no circumstances where a non Minister would be likely to be a serious candidate okay and what final couple of questions and then we will throw it open to the audience you did an interview the other day in which you never said you've never been to Ikea and how many of you thought I was regularly and I hear if you thought about this at all not missed a flat-pack McDonald's have you ever been to a McDonald's I have I actually quite enjoyed Weatherspoon's have you ever been in a whether I have been to other spoons yes so great you're a skeptic change so all going great your bear and Weatherspoon's Nando's never been to Nando's no Greg's yes yes art now if you want to get the best cream buns go to the Greg's in the high street in came from it's actually if you all know all my secrets this is my Friday treat when I've got a day in the constituency I go into Greg's and buy for my Adrian teas for myself cream buns I usually have a chocolate eclair or one of those very gooey choux buns I hear they're jolly good and the last of these little I've never been into little right I could have been I could have guessed that and and and the two the two questions I always ask to round up and then we all throw it open to the audience when you were growing up who was your political hero oh I mean when I was bid leader and this is the dark secret it was how Wilson but that was because he was our we lived in London in Smith Square and he was living in North North Street and having the Prime Minister's are living few doors away from me was really quite exciting but then I realized he wanted to take all our money away and I thought good idea and from then on my great political heroes unquestionably Margaret Thatcher the clarity of thought and a purpose that drive the energy she was a most exciting leader and the last question before we throw it over to doing it if you had a piece of advice to give to a young aspiring politician what would that advice be perseverance when I was applying for seats I lost count of the number of seats I applied for and by the time I was applying to North East Somerset central office conservative Senate Rogers absolutely desperate to stop me being selected and if you want to get on in politics you can but you have to keep going you have to throw your hat and drink again and again and again until people get bored of Thrain your hat back at you and that would be the advice I would give really strongly to all of you people I knew at university cleverer than me more political than me all those qualities that would have made them brilliant MPs but not perseverance and if you've got perseverance then you will get through into the hostile Commons okay well we're going to take questions from the floor we're going to take questions in groups of two and because there's an overflow room in a minute I'm about to check tweeted two questions and I will throw some of those in that may have come from the overflow room so if I'm looking down at my pad it's I'm not ignoring you so just one thing last week or whatever he was here two weeks ago Sam Jima had the crazy idea that he wanted to hear what you thought there was a new Turkish idea when he expressed it to me in order to get through as many questions as possible let's have one sentence that ends with a question mark please in each question and then we can rattle through as many quit and I'm sure Jacob Riis mode will be brief in replying as well so first one is this chap here with the sort of burgundy top and the black hair and I'll take this woman down here please yes you understand or no you can stay seated and then okay so over the last eight years now and we've seen a massive rise in poverty v of the UK population now live in poverty and child poverty gone up dramatically and do you agree that this is an absolute disgrace and do you agree that this has been caused by Conservative Party policies and what would you do to change the situation [Music] we'll get through more if we don't applaud the question yes please hi mr. Moghe resmoke its Brenda from Bristol I'd like to ask you what incentives the government are implementing to support SMEs in preparation for brexit I know the enterprise Ireland they have a scheme offering a five phase and llúria grant and I'd like to know whether the our government are likely to implement the same scheme on the issue of poverty it very much depends on what figures you're dealing with and whether you're dealing with relative poverty or absolute poverty absolute poverty has continued to decline in this country and interestingly inequality is at its lowest level since 1985 in this country and what the government has done with its welfare reforms to my mind has been really important and as its rolled out the Universal Credit is rolled out key because it will ensure that there is always an incentive to be employed rather than unemployed it takes away the poverty trap so under the Universal Credit 63% of benefits will be withdrawn for every pound earned and that sounds high and in my view it's too high and it should be an object of policy to reduce it but currently it's over 90 percent that is withdrawn which means that people who go into work find that they can be worse off than if they remain on benefits and the best way out of poverty is work and that's always been the case so the universal credit is the greatest answer to dealing with the poverty issue but it's a relative poverty issue in this country not an absolute poverty issue in terms of what is the government doing to help SMEs as far as I'm aware there are no specific grants in in relation to brexit what the government ought to be doing and you know it's easier for me as a backbench to say what governor ought to be doing it should be ensuring that we get the benefits of brexit and that is taking some of the regulations off the shoulders of SMEs it was rumored before the last budget that the transyl have wanted to lower the v80 threshold so that more companies would have had the bureaucracy of dealing with v80 is completely the wrong way around we won't be doing is raising the v80 thresholds to take the administrative burden off companies there's this whole proposal for digitization of tax so that companies small companies have to make quarterly returns there's absolutely bananas it will put people off going into business and it will make small businesses have higher costs because they will simply have to pay their accountants more to make the returns so what I would like to see us do is stop thinking of silly regulations that will make life SMEs worse and then once we've left the European Union and that relates to the vhe threshold which we can't put off until we've left the European Union look at ways of easing regulations on SME said then get on with the business of doing business which is what they want okay I'll take woman in the front row one of my former students always welcome back mystery smile just when he's asking acquit something about the motion that was passed last night on restoration and renewal do you feel like due to the fact that Parliament voted for a full D count albeit temporary do you feel that this could have a severe short-term and long-term effect on our well evolved parliamentary democracy is there a risk that it may never return back to normal and is Parliament particularly the House of Commons massively under estimating the impact this could have on our Parliament and how it functions hi in a hypothetical in a hypothetical situation where you become Prime Minister in 10-15 years time would you hold votes to change laws on same-sex marriage and abortion or do you think they've been decided already and you just leave them as they are on that subject because I said I'd take some questions from social media from people in the other overflow room someone has explicitly asked would you stand under a Conservative leader who was pro-choice pro-gay marriage and pro trans rights in order to stop Jeremy Corbyn getting into Downing Street okay all three of those questions the first question on restoration and renewal I was on the committee that looked at it and the reason I base against the motion yesterday was I think we need to start again on the basis of which we're doing it because we voted in favor and I agreed to this to full D count on the basis that a temporary chamber could be put up in Richmond House and the court shot outside Richmond house which would have been relatively cheap it turned out that the people who had given us thousands of pages of report these really expensive consultants got their measurements wrong by 16 feet and four inches and therefore they've got to knock down the whole of Richmond house and rebuild it other than the facade which is listed so it's even more expensive than just knocking the whole thing down I then discovered today that the same approach had been done with the Elizabethtown Elizabeth tower the prices doubled from 30 million to 60 million and they were going to put a lift in it but they've now discovered that the tower would have to be widened to do that because the height is so high that the coil that you need to wind the wires around that pull the lift up I mean I'm not an engineer so forgive me if this is the ABC of engineering approach they'd have to widen the tire to fit it in which they can't do so we get cost estimates that are completely wrong we get facts simple facts it is not difficult to measure the side of a court run and then we've decided to spend four billion pounds on the basis of wrong facts and I think that's a great mistake and the wrong way to treat public money the heart of your question there's a wonderful line of Winston Churchill's which I paraphrase he said we make our buildings and then our buildings make us part of our constitutional system is that charms that we started the House of Commons in st. Stephen's Chapel and therefore what opposite each other and that is why the debates are is they are that's why we've got a two-party system that is why we have an adversarial system if we'd remained in the chapter house in Westminster Abbey which is in a circle our political life would be very difficult so yes there is a worry that if we move out when we move to some strange auditorium we may find that we never move back and it has political consequences or on to questions on some of the broader moral issues the country has made up its mind on on these issues I have my views as a practicing Catholic and my strongest view is on the issue of life and that the point that life begins at conception and ends at natural death I'm also capital punishment as I said earlier but also to to euthanasia I don't think it is right for the state to take life and I think there are very practical reasons on the new Tunisia issuer's as well but the law is the settled opinion of the country I may wish it were not so but I'm not going to change that I have no ability to change that would I serve under a prime minister who took differ at a different view from me yes of course I would that amateurism a is does not hold these groups i I don't actually know in detail what her views ah but I am happy to support the leader of the Conservative Party because all these votes are free votes there are conscience nodes and the conscience of the country is not in the same place as my conscience but I believe in freedom of conscience and I believe in democracy and that therefore if that is the state of play that is something I accept and it is for the country at large to decide these issues and that's where they've been decided so no I'm not seeking to impose my conscience on the rest of society I understand that answer but were you in the hypothetical situation the questionnaire asked to be Prime Minister whilst you couldn't impose because other people have refused as well you would not exactly be in a weak position and you could at least guide and nudge to reopen some of these questions and presumably since these matters are so important to you it would be an abdication of response ability were you not to try to reopen debate on some of these questions I think you've got to be realistic about what you can do in politics I'm Margaret Thatcher was a strong believer in capital punishment and she tried as Prime Minister to nudge people back in favor of capital punishment and they would not be nudged and the House of Commons consistently voted against it under her leadership the Prime Minister's authority over the moral questions is very very limited and quite rightly we don't want to live in Iran and I don't see myself as being an Ayatollah and so I have my views I think they're very important and I don't I don't back away from them they misunderstand me I'm not saying that I think my views are wrong but they are not the law of the land that they are not going to be the law of the land and it is quite right that other people's conscience should determine equally with mine but mine is one conscience against many okay let's take some more from the floor I knew we'd have hands flying up we'll take the woman about four rows down yet with the burgundy top please take this right yeah there is please round yeah you yeah so please hi I'd like to ask you about where you stand on the indefinite detention of asylum seekers hundreds of which which are kept in detention centres 13 of them who are their survivors of rape of FGM of human trafficking and a lot of and there's been there's been people have been vocal about this issue from all different sides of the political spectrum so I was just wondering where you stand you've not been shy to put principles before party politics so I'd like to know where you stand okay [Applause] yes a journalist that I know said that if the Conservatives aren't able to fix the housing crisis and allow the young to be able to buy their own homes or flats then Jeremy Corbyn will be the next prime minister do you agree the question of holding people indefinitely is a really important one we have to have a functioning system that ensures that people who come to this country can come legally but we also have to have a system that recognizes that some people come as genuine refugees who have suffered serious abuse and to lock them up seems to me to be wrong but we've got to know which is which and do we get the balance right I think it's very unlikely that we do that the ability the success of the Home Office in deporting people who are here illegally is very low it's not a very well functioning system but I think we should we are a land of liberty and we believe in liberty for everybody and we believe in the rule of law for everybody and that means respecting the rights of all people who are in this country but we also have to have a system where people who have broken the rules can be safely deported it is not always easy to get the balance right and mistakes will be made but if there's somebody as you say who has been raped or who's been tortured or suffered from FGM then to be holding somebody in that situation in indefinite detention would be deeply troubling or on the question of housing this is the real challenge for the Conservative Party and one of the things I think most strongly as a conservative is that what we're there to do as a party is to deliver as much of what people want as is possible and take obstacles out of their way I think ladies and gentlemen you make better choices about how to lead your life than I can make for you I don't believe in the socialist approach that the collective is more important than the individual and I don't know if we'll believe that you should be nudged to lead your life in the way that I think is good for you we need opinion surveys and this goes back to the introduction of the Town and Country Planning Act in 1947 as to what people want 80% said they wish to live in houses with Gardens and it seems to me that is what the government ought be delivering not tower blocks not houses with no garden not incredible dense housing but housing with gardens and to do that as conservatives we have to challenge some of our supporters who have been saying we can't build on this space in that space in the next space you know the interesting thing is most of our supporters are now ahead of us as politicians I think the country at large recognizes that we need to build hundreds of thousands of houses and to do so we cannot protect every blade of grass in this country and we should assume that people want the quality of housing that we all want for ourselves and then that should be made as easy for people to get as possible but that means lots more building and we should really look to help people in their ambition to own their own houses because once people have a stake in society and you have a property-owning democracy you have a more vibrant and active democracy and yes you appeal to younger people um can I do a my you say that Sam upset everybody by wanting to no no no no you loved him but now you're upset you too who here wants to earn his or her own home at the end of by the time that thirty okay swoons from those over there right yeah okay almost all of you put your hands up for that now look what do I think is a politician what did I say I should try and take the obstacles out of your path to allow you to lead that lives you want to lead therefore we have a real challenge to build more houses because if none of you are able to achieve those ambitions why not have Jeremy Corbyn pinch everybody's money and give it Caracas okay right so can we have a microphone for the lady with the glasses about five or six rows back with a gray top and specs and then we'll have the chopper row in front the ginger hair chap as well yeah see there there is an advantage to it there is an advantage right yes please hi and see you and some of your colleagues use your Christian faith to justify your stance on certain issues and topics but when you look at the Gospels and what Jesus taught there was such an emphasis on looking after the most poor and the most vulnerable and marginalized in society yet when you look at your own voting record some of the arguments you make on rhetoric and that is some of your colleagues it seems like you ignore this fundamental aspects of the Christian faith so I was just wondering what that's about [Applause] I'll see mystery smoke you are on the conservative party it's using there is a place for classical liberalism in the conservative party I might ask them in reverse order because that is a very easy question to answer because I'm probably more of a classical liberal than you think certainly in terms of economic policy and I am NOT on the authoritarian wing of the conservative party in terms of law and order and I believe in our ancient liberties which I think of great importance the protection of child trial by jury the presumption of innocence rather than of guilt the protection from unreasonable searches by agents of the state the requirement I've been with very sympathetic to the pro Europeans on the issue of Henry the 8th clauses because I didn't think the executive should have power to tell us all what to do without any say-so of Parliament so I'm more of a classical liberal and I might want to admit to myself but it certainly didn't some of you may think it's a question of Christianity and the teaching of the Gospels and your basic question am i a Pharisee which I think is a very interesting point I believe that conservative solutions help the poorest in society most okay let me tell you let me tell you what I want from brexit I want us to take tariffs or food clothing and footwear food clothing and footwear make up 21% of the average family's budget but for the poorest in society that is a higher percentage inevitably the average tariff on clothing and footwear is about eleven and a half percent plus twenty percent v80 so you're talking about 13 and a half 14 percent tariffs on clothing and footwear on food the tariffs are so high that there's very little import from outside the European Union if you can make the 21 percent of people's expenditure and it's more as I say for the poorest in society 20% lower once you've taken off the tariffs and you've taken away the non-tariff barriers that is a dramatic improvement in the standard of living in the poorest in society and frankly it makes remarkably little difference to the richest in society who have a much lower expenditure on those essentials that's why I say conservatism helps the poorest in society go back to Margaret Thatcher and the sale of council thank you the sale the sale of council houses was transformative in allowing people to become part of a property-owning democracy to give them a real stake in society if it allowed people freedom over their own lives they weren't any longer told by the council what color they had to pay the paint their front door and it gave people a stake in their society it gave their children a stake in society and it helped get people out of poverty these things are really transformative and they are conservative and I have never thought that you make the poor richer by making the rich poorer it doesn't work it's been tried and it fails capitalism actually lifts everybody and if you don't believe me okay [Applause] if you don't believe me look at the transformation globally as China and India have become capitalist if you go back to 1980 over 50% of the world was living on under $1 a day this is now under 20% and it's almost entirely down to China and India and China and India have abandoned socialism and that has lifted the poorest in the world standard of living and those of us who capitalists should be really proud of that because that is a capitalist success I'm gonna I promised I'd read some out so I've read two more quick ones for you and then we'll take some more from the audience someone said since you said you would be honest in your answers do you honestly believe Theresa May will be Prime Minister by the 31st of March 2019 and and this one I think I know how you all answer this one did you enjoy Frankie Boyles description of you as quote a composite drawn from the nightmares of 18th century mill workers yes and I think most of the mill workers were 19th century round 18th century same I would have enjoyed it more if he'd been a little bit more historically accurate right okay okay we will take a cart this woman in the front row take this woman also in the third row with the black hair please yeah do you agree with the decision to remove grid girls from the f1 and things like this and please so you've been quite vocal in saying that you're critical of Treasury's analysis of in against brexit but I wonder how critical were you of the analysis that we being presented in favor of brexit leading up to the referendum for instance ones that were found to be not exactly accurate like the savings that could go to the NHS and everything okay so we got grid girls and Dambach yeah it's a really interesting question because I believe in a free society where people should be free to do what they want and that it's therefore I think not an area where the state should say yes or no but as you know I'm quite old-fashioned and I believe in treating ladies with respect and I don't think grid girls is treating ladies with respect I think it is viewing them it's objectifying them and frankly I've never felt comfortable with it we have in the hall one of the most distinguished commentates of our time and I'm quite glad that his newspaper no longer has a naked lady on page three because it's political commentary was always on page two and I always felt rather embarrassed reading page two when there was this picture on page three so I think it's all about treating people with respect which like I'm so strongly in favor of doing and therefore perhaps I'm just an old prude bit of stuffed shirt I'm quite happy that these things are fading out I don't think they add to society but I don't want to enforce my will in this area on other people I think it's it's for society to decide for the grid girls to decide for Formula one to decide anything matter for legislation on the bus big six wean a scarlet painted 19 horsepower diesel bus to create founders and Swan always worth waiting as an aside I went on safari on honeymoon and it's amazing my masted three weeks because I kept on singing the Flanders and Swann songs about the various animals really kept on seeing anyway leaving that to one side in any campaign people use figures that are available to them to promote their cause I did not as it happens like the three hundred and fifty million pound figure but it wasn't untrue it was a figure that you came to if you added up our gross contributions annually to the European Union and therefore it was over much less misleading type than the figure produced by the Treasury that I think said we would all lose four thousand eight hundred pounds 27 P and a farthing if if we waited to leave and the Bank of England who I thought were particularly disgraceful I kept on asking the government Bank of England why didn't he say before a general election the consequences of another party's policies never gave a view on that because it's not for the Bank of England an independent body to dip its hands in political controversy but the Bank of England as part of the project fear decided to post much its own reputation and that was a sadness because I'd Mar the Bank of England or did historically and many people did so I don't think the 350 million figure was as bad or as egregious as the figures that came out in the Treasury and I think the Treasury abused its official status and the money our money taxpayers money to campaign on one side rather than the other and I thought that was completely improper least a slogan on the side of the bus was paid for by volunteers by donors taxpayers money paying for that the junk that was coming out of the Treasury was paid for by you ladies and gentlemen on that subject and pick a game picking up a question that someone's tweeted um so Carney presumably you have no confidence in and should be replaced at your view I think I think you're on record I've said I've said that before I'll say as many times you like that's you I said again if you want alright Marni delenda s yes and you clearly also don't have much faith in the Chancellor so he should also go that's a matter for the Prime Minister okay why don't you use it nope let's say let's say it is a matter for the prime minister who would be your choice to replace the current Chancellor I I think in these things it is a matter for the Prime Minister that's the constitutional norm the Prime Minister has to form her Her Majesty's Government but on the advice of the Prime Minister I have confidence in the Prime Minister and therefore I think I shouldn't pick and choose this Minister and that Minister I I've made comments about the Chancellor I think he's become a semi-detached member of the cabinet I think he is freelancing and undermining the constitutional principle of collective responsibility but just because the Chancellor undermines the Constitution doesn't mean that I should too but he's not the only one is he I mean if we're if we're going to be kicking people out for undermining collective responsibility where you're about to have quite a clear out of the cabinet it seems to me not true I've followed that I think you follow it perfectly but we'll take more tape well we'll take two more questions so the chat with the sort of peroxide II thing on his head and similar up here again on the left yeah the chap of the the yes you sir yep yeah please hello um I think it's very interesting that you're prepared to joke about a lot of these issues when a lot of people right now are dying because of your party's policies there are a lot of people who are very poor and you say you care for the poor but I don't think you can do taxes help the poor what you're doing doesn't and I don't think even you are that stupid to think that you care for the poor and yes please hi when I graduate from a degree at Queen Mary I will have approximately sort of 50 grands worth of debts if I go on to do a master's which I plan to do it'll be even more than that I'm also aware that your son is nearly done with his degree at Oxford and I may be wrong but did he have to take a student loan and has a pant paid off if so do you think it's right that starting out in society before you even take a job that is inequality present okay okay thank you to come to the first question first I just think that's wrong in every sense that the welfare net in this country is a working one that it provides a basic level of support for everybody and that is quite right the taxation as a percentage GDP is at the highest level it's been since the early 1970s there's very little evidence that it would be possible to raise a high percent of GDP in taxation and that the top one percent of taxpayers at current rates are paying 27 percent of the total income tax take in 1979 when tax rates were at 83 percent placer an unearned income surcharge got up to 98 percent the top one percent taxpayers paid six percent of total income tax so lower rates a thriving economy provides more revenue for the government to provide the public services that people need and that is economically demonstrable across the world and I think this slightly hysterical talk about people are dying is belittling the argument it's just not true and to come [Music] thank you for the voice of reason to come to come to the gentleman and that there's some confusion though I haven't think all my children are extraordinary geniuses my eldest son is only 10 so I'm not sure how he's about to complete his degree at Oxford I think I think I think I think Pitt the Younger went to Cambridge at the age of eleven but that's very exceptional but I want to answer the serious underlying point I believe in choice and I believe that people who make choices should also have responsibility for those choices and if you have decided to come to University and may I say a great and successful University that you are at one of the leading universities in the country you have made that choice which will lead to you having higher earnings out of those earnings you will pay back the cost of your education if you don't pay for it it has to be paid for by somebody else and you may think it will be paid for by some mythical billionaire it won't be National Insurance Contributions start being paid by people earning about 120 pounds a week do you think they should pay for the choice that you're making v80 is paid by everybody so what you're really saying is that poorer people than you should pay for your education when you've made the choice and you will get the benefit I think you've made the choice and you should have the responsibility but there are great protections until you are earning 21 and a half thousand pounds you won't pay back and that's going to rise to twenty five thousand pounds so that if it turns out that the education on which you've taken out the loan doesn't make you that extra money then you don't have to pay back and the debt will be written off eventually so it will depend on your success whether you contribute or not and I think that's absolutely fair because therefore you are free to make the choice with a safety net that you won't have this impossible burden in the event that you're not economically successful that's successful but it means that you can take further choices in your life relatively free of that burden and I think that's really important and a safeguard but you know the best thing that the poorest decile in our society have seen a seventy-three percent increase in places at universities since loans were increased and do you know why that is it's because the cap on places was removed when it was all funded by the state the state retaliated by capping the total number of places but who were least likely to get the places that were limit were available with a limited pool those who had previously been let down by the education system or whose parents had been let down by the education system once the cap was removed ambitious people from the poorest section of society could suddenly go to university as a conservative I'm really proud of that I think it's the right policy in a good okay I'm very aware of the time and I should just say that as soon as we've done this next round of questions Jacob has to leave so what we're going to do let me make this day I'll take two more questions I've got one on the pad as well at the end of those questions we'd like you to stay seated please there will be drinks outside for those of you that want to stay and you can go and have a glass of God all for University wine through that door we will be leaving through that door and they won't I'm afraid to be time to do photos and all that sort of modern nonsense that some of you that seemed to like doing so I'll take the last two I'd take the woman here yeah when the white roll next top sort of black your hand your hand couldn't be any straighter if I had a rod through your arm yes okay thank you said you and would see yourself as kind of a classic classical liberal and people should be free to actors as they wish and so as only what your stance was on and the criminalization of decriminalization of drugs okay yes please you've referred a lot to history throughout your talk tonight and and you also mentioned that the voters need to feel like the Tory party can change the world I just wondered can the Tory Party change the world or are you a party that promotes stagnation or maybe even regression well okay as those are the last two questions before I answer them can I thank you very much for having me it's been really interesting to come thank you for all the questions I was told I would be put through the mill and I think the questions have lived up to the billing thank you but from my point of view that makes it much more interesting they really appreciate that and the opportunity to discuss these these issues and Phil thank you so much for inviting me but to come to the two questions the legalization of drugs I think the state should always be very careful about what it makes illegal but that in the case of drugs the onus of proof is on the side of those who want to liberalize what do I mean by that there has been increasing evidence particularly with cannabis that it has serious psychological effects on people and I think the people who are in favor of legalization need to show that those effects are not there I've always thought in politics you should have very clear principles but you have to have a dose of pragmatism as well and you don't want to take undue risks so to take another example gambling if we didn't have any gambling laws I would be very reluctant to introduce gambling laws if you want to set up a bookmakers if you want have a bet amongst yourselves why should the state interfere but we've got very strict gambling laws and the thing I've discovered as a constituency MP is that by and large they're quite successful and I've had people come to my constituency surgery whose lives have been ruined by gambling and is it wise of me however much I believe in Liberty to say that my ideological belief in Liberty should risk people absolutely destroying their lives because I'm a gambling easier and the same applies to drugs that ideologically I see very clearly the eye of the argument for legalization but then I know that it ruins people's lives so the onus of proof I think is on people who want to legalize to say this will not have risks this will be secure this will be safe it will not lead to more deaths or more crime or more lives being ruined and so without denying the ideology I think in day-to-day politics you have to have a layer of pragmatism on top of it conservative party is it the party of change well I think the role of the conservative party is to keep what doesn't need changing and to change what does and that's easier said than done but that I don't believe in perpetual revolution I don't believe in throwing over the tables for the fun of it but yes lots of things need changing and improving and the Conservative Party when it said its most successful is a real engine of change the brief I don't know how long I've got but Disraeli 74 1774 1874 sorry - 1881 transformative social legislation on housing on water on public health all about improving the condition of the tourist in society Harold Macmillan building 300,000 houses a year and Winston Churchill lifting all the post-war restrictions that still remained very much the socialists wanted to keep rationing going on forever because they thought it was best determined by the clever of people in Whitehall Douglas J Sydney in 1947 the truth is the man in Whitehall really does know best that is the antithesis of what I believe in serve tea parties it's best frees people up and helps the condition of the poorest in society Margaret Thatcher transformative in terms of freeing the economy from detailed regulation stopping the trade unions ruining people's lives by the closed shop by mass picketing by all the bullying that went with that and that's our challenge what should we be doing now that liberates the people and helps them lead the lives they want and encourages that change and I think it's housing I think it's taxation and I think it's lowering the price of food clothing and footwear once we've left the European Union and there are really important changes we can make based on our idea there's one simple idea ladies and gentlemen you know better how to lead your life than I know how to lead it for you and therefore you should be left to lead it for yourself and I should take obstacles out of your way rather than pretending that nanny knows best the only nanny who's knows best is my nanny in personal circumstances but that that was the sort of answer that will either have them clapping or you shaking your head and you indicate how you want I'm not this is not a question because we're going to wrap up now but someone you and on social media did say can you ask Jacob if he's so pro Wetherspoons has he used their app but he but he follows he says if so I'll be on table 50 at the half moon in half an hour [Applause] [Music] you

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Length: 80min 27sec (4827 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2018