07/02/2016 The Andrew Marr Show

This week sees another major strike by England's doctors.

"NHS in crisis" is one the oldest cliches in British politics -

Jeremy Hunt was brought in to smooth ruffled feathers in the Health

Service, so why is he now at the centre of this bitter dispute?

Also, as campaigners for Britain to leave the EU fall out,

we hear from Ukip's only MP, Douglas Carswell.

And with very different views on Europe, the Lib Dem leader,

It's not just the junior doctors who are lining up

against Jeremy Hunt - the chef Jamie Oliver has a big

He tells me what he'll do if the Government's new obesity

I think we'll have to just change our strategy,

get more Ninja, and I think we need to just try and get

them out of power as soon as possible.

Our ninja paper reviewers this morning are Gaby Hinsliff

of the Guardian and the Spectator's Isabel Hardman.

Plus music from California via Nashville, Tennessee -

A bit more mellifluous than the current politics.

But first, the news with Christian Fraser.

The United Nations has condemned North Korea for violating

its resolutions by firing a long-range rocket.

North Korean officials says it was putting a satellite

into orbit, but analysts believe the country is trying to develop

nuclear weapons capable of reaching the US mainland.

The United States, Japan and South Korea have requested

an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council later today.

A man has been pulled alive from the rubble of an apartment

block in southern Taiwan, more than 24 hours after

it collapsed in an earthquake.

Officials say 130 people are trapped

in the ruins of the building.

Turkey is being urged by the European Union to let in tens

of thousands of Syrian refugees trapped on its border at Kilis

It says the refugees are receiving food and shelter inside Syria,

so they don't need to enter the country.

Two million Syrians have already sought shelter in Turkey.

The Turkish government insists it's not closing its doors.

Here, ministers are to spend more than ?4 billion improving

the way technology is used in the NHS in England.

The aim is eventually to create a paperless service that would be

more convenient for patients, and would help doctors

Some members and supporters of the Conservative Party have

accused David Cameron of disrespecting the party's

grass roots after he told MPs to ignore their views on Europe.

They've set out their concerns in a letter to the Sunday Telegraph,

which the paper says was signed by activists from more than 40

I'll be back with the headlines just before ten o'clock.

Many thanks, Christian. And now from paperless to the papers, as usual.

Lots of Europe on the front pages. That story we've just been hearing

about on the Sunday Telegraph about a revolt against the Prime Minister.

The Sunday Times in a very different mood has got "Margaret Thatcher

would vote yes to EU". She is, of course, dead. This is Lord Tebbit

man who disagrees with that analysis. We are not going to talk

about the rugby today for obvious reasons. A very interesting story

about people in low income families who are going to have to pay more to

stay in social housing in the South in particular. That looks like being

a very big story just beginning to build. That's what the Observer is

splashing on. The Mail on Sunday has a disturbing story about the charity

Help For Heroes. And also Priti Patel, the latest cabinet minister

coming out against the EU. We are told she is going to try to meet the

Prime Minister to explain why possibly today. A lot to talk about

the top who is going to kick us off? I've got two stories on page two of

the Sun on Sunday which are about Europe, surprise, surprise. One is

about Michael Gove joining the out campaign or the incumbent.

Apparently he's genuinely torn and it is quoted as saying this is

haunting him more than usual. There was a story on the front of the

Times saying that Michael Gove is thought to be very, very torn. I

kind of read that as Michael Gove's last goodbye to his Brexit friends

before he lines up with the Prime Minister. Do you think I'm wrong? I

think a lot of cabinet ministers are thinking about their personal

loyalty to David Cameron. This is a problem for Tory MPs, particularly

Tory backbenchers who feel that David Cameron won them their seats

last May and they are very disappointed by the deal he's

brought back but in the final analysis, they are struggling with

whether they can bring themselves to go against him about Brexit. There

was a picture of David Cameron is the Godfather, which is not my

immediate image of the Prime Minister. David Cameron and George

Osborne are alleged by a lot of people in the Conservative Party to

be beaming a bit too heavily on some of their ministerial colleagues and

an backbenchers, dropping hints about their future careers and also

trying to drum up support for the renegotiation deal that Cameron

broke back last week. Karen hasn't got that many ministers supporting

that. -- Cameron. You've got a spreading the Mail on Sunday. The

Mail is very disappointed that Boris has proved insufficiently

Euro-sceptic. It's quite fun. It was Priti Patel I was more interested in

in this one. This is Boris in the House of Commons, sitting beside...

When he sat down having said his piece, "Aren't you a Euro-sceptic?"

He said, "I was never out". In that case, why were you flirting with out

and giving the impression that you may be out. To be honest, looking

back at Boris's history, he has never been an out person. He has

always been criticising the EU and wanting to reform the EU and

sounding off against the EU but he has never been an outer. This view

is very important because Michael Gove and Boris Johnson other two big

dory beasts we don't know which side they are going to come down on. --

Tory beasts. That leaves us with Priti Patel as the only vaguely

prominent minister at this stage who looks like she might take up the

cudgels, and particularly the only female outer. At the moment, the out

campaign is incredibly male. It is largely old men in suits. The

problem with that is that the biggest proportion of undecided

voters are female. We know that from the Scottish referendum. It was

women it came down to in the end. To have a female figurehead is

important. Priti Patel and Kate holy and another MP on the other side.

Another important figure, certainly not a female, is Nigel Farage in the

Sunday Telegraph. He has given an interview saying he has the voice to

persuade the -- that undecideds. This campaign gets a little bit more

funding and broadcast time as well. Farage is basically quite a divisive

figure and some of those in the vote leave camp, which is a Euro-sceptic

campaign, think he is too divisive. More labours than Tory. They do have

some Labour people on board but to make it more confusing, the few

Labour Eurosceptics are involved in the campaign are split over not just

whether to join vote leave but whether they have left it. There is

another campaign called leave.leave.org. It is very

confusing. He thinks he could be the guy to persuade the undecided

voters. This is important, about what kind of campaign it is going to

be. Is going to be about immigration or going to be positive, about the

economy? And Ukip is also split over which campaign to join, just to make

it even more confusing. So, Gaby, this really important story in the

Observer. This feels like the new bedroom tax. Its got that sense of

something that seemed a bit technical when government first

announced it but you sense it blowing up into a political battle.

You have this policy which is basically asking people who are in

council housing at the moment, who earn more than ?30,000 a year will

be expected to take their chances on the open market, to rent privately.

In the south-east because rents are now so high, 50% of those people

affected aren't going to be able to afford to rent on the private

market, so you have a situation where council housing becomes a

refuge for the desperate, and emergency safety net, and a lot of

other people are caught between two things. They are too wealthy to be

in social housing but not wealthy enough... This is about people like

policemen, firemen, NHS workers who are currently in council housing.

You're talking about people with a household income of ?30,000 a year.

That might be two people each earning 15,000. That's not a lot of

money to find alternative accommodation in the south-east. The

bill is the House of Lords this week so one feels it is going to develop.

I'm reasonably switched on and I had never heard of this policy before.

Visit new? It was announced in 2011 and there have been rows about it

ever since. But they don't seem to have got the design of this policy

quite right, given may have had so long. In 2011, the threshold was

being set at 60,000 people said, "Quite right, why should people on

that income be in council housing?" But now suddenly the threshold is

half that and in the intervening years, rents in London,

particularly, have spiralled way out of control. You do get the feeling

one of the big opponents of the bill is not the kind of person people can

easily dismiss as bleeding-heart predicts. There is Margaret Thatcher

from the grave saying she backs the Prime Minister. Very useful for the

Prime Minister. But let's move onto another big story in the Sunday

Times about stillborn babies. This is a big investigation. Lots of

papers have been picking up on this recently. The UK has got a really

terrible rate of stillbirths. It is behind Slovenia and Slovakia for the

number of babies that are stillborn and it's something that MPs are

getting really concerned about. They've set up an all-party group

involving MPs who have lost babies themselves. It is something that

ministers are getting more interested in but the Sunday Times

are doing a campaign, basically on the different measures that are

needed... Do we know why Britain has such a bad record? Is their

explanation? There are problems with monitoring of the babies with an

extra scam that some countries are. There was a campaign called count

the kicks which encourages mothers to keep an eye on their baby as they

go through into the later stages of pregnancy. It is a reminder, almost,

of the cot death campaign in the 1980s and 1990s where we had a

problem we didn't know how to deal with and yet there were simple

measures you could take that radically reduce it. And a withering

story for Judith O'Reilly, who was a colleague of many of us in the lobby

before she went up into the North. And another health story you've

picked above, the sugar tax. We're going to hear from Jamie Oliver

later on the sugar tax but this is a story from the Independent, which

interviewed the government's former obesity czar, who says she has

doubts about the strategy, not just about the sugar tax but why are we

focusing on that children? That adults are also a problem and adults

as parents dictate their children's diet and choices. It hasn't been

dropped but we don't know what is going to happen. I'm sure Jeremy

Hunt will fill a sin later but the thinking is that the sugar tax is

off the menu and there was much more focus on the content of sugar in

food and regulating that and cracking down on junk food

advertising. Most people who have kids know that tell you is almost

not the problem any more. Children consume a lot more media now online.

My son watches YouTube. He doesn't watch television nearly as much as I

used to as a kid and there is a real problem in that space about how you

control and regulate sugar advertising. We will hear more about

that later on. Another interesting story. Rising costs at a third of

Britain's curry houses, which are risk of closure. Yes, a curry

crisis! When I first heard about the current crisis, I thought it was a

call for me to eat more curry but it is not just a problem of a lack of

demand. There isn't a lack of demand for curry but it is a lack of

skilled chefs because of immigration rules. There are fewer chefs coming

in to make our curries, so it's not as if we're not eating enough.

Terrible story. Gaby? This is a story about Labour's ongoing civil

war about Trident, which has been ongoing almost as long as the

Tories' civil war over Europe. It suggests that if, as expected,

Jeremy Corbyn adopts a policy of opposition to Trident, dozens of

Labour MPs will go into the next election promising that they

personally will be pro-Trident, so you have a breakaway movement of MPs

saying they are not going to a country with a policy they regard as

completely toxic and unelectable. We are expecting the next few days

Jeremy Corbyn to set out Labour's policy on Trident. Not a great

surprise. I have been filing the newspapers very carefully on the

floor, which causes a problem because I want to talk about the

Scottish health story, which is there somewhere. You can describe

what it is while I search for it. It's in the Independent on Sunday.

It is not here. It is in that pile somewhere. They are trying to woo

English doctors over the border. The Scottish Government going online

with social media adverts saying, English doctors come to us, it's

nice over here. I wonder how much is about NHS delivery and how much is a

political game designed to goad the Tories in England. I suspect it's

quite a lot of the latter. In Scotland, they are not subject to

the same contract as the English doctors are fighting about. Thank

you both very much. We've covered a lot.

Now to the weather, and the Atlantic storms

So what's in store for today and the week ahead?

Over to Louise Lear in the weather studio.

There is some stormy weather so I thought I would start with some

sunshine, in Lowestoft a beautiful start of the morning here but things

are set to change. Enjoy the sunshine we have at the moment,

there is this massive cloud, here she is, Imogen will arrive through

the latter stages of today and tomorrow. Before all of that, not

bad across England and Wales. The rain gathering across Northern

Ireland and Scotland, and that will stay with winds in excess of 50 mph.

Top temperatures coolish in Scotland, one missed in the

south-east corner. Then we go through the night with wet and windy

weather, that clears away but unfortunately as we start off Monday

morning, that's when we are likely to see the worst of the weather.

Some pretty tedious travel conditions first thing Monday

morning, with gusts of wind up to 80 mph. The Met office has issued a

number weather warning, be prepared for destruction. All change though

into Scotland, drier and brighter with some sunshine here but still on

the chilly side. On it goes.

Ahead of the referendum, various groups vying to lead the out

campaign have been falling out with one another.

Well, yes, because the outcome will shape the kind

of Brexit campaign we see - will it all be about immigration,

One of those splashing around in these murky waters is Ukip's only

Welcome. You are Ukip's only MP but you don't get on terribly well with

Ukip's leader, why are you in Ukip at all? The ruling body has made it

clear that Ukip's position is to be supportive of all campaigns, we are

equidistant. We don't decide who gets designation but we are backing

both and we are more than happy, more than half of our councillors

are signed up to Leave.EU. The Ukip Parliamentary party is 100% on-board

with Vote Leave. This Saturday at a number of our MEPs worked out

supporting Vote Leave. For those people already confused, explain the

difference between Vote Leave and Leave.EU, which is the Arron Banks

and Nigel Farage supported one. You are going to get different

suggestions as to how we should fight the campaign. Let's be clear

about this, you're right about this, I think there is a difference of

strategy between the two campaigns. On the one hand Leave.EU seems to

want to put more of a focus on identity and questions of

immigration. I happen to believe and Vote Leave happens to believe we

want a more optimistic, upbeat message. If you look at the Pauline,

like it or not, people are really worried about immigration. If you

underplay that, you could lose the campaign. Immigration is incredibly

important, but it's also important that we say as part of taking back

control, we don't only want to take back control of our borders but also

our money. We have sent enough to Brussels to build a new hospital, so

we need to focus on immigration but we need a broad repertoire and we

need to appeal to the undecideds. Some pollen this week showed that

the Vote Leave side is ahead. We need to make sure we are talking

their language. So what is the problem with Leave.EU, the Arron

Banks based one? I'm not going to be critical of any other Eurosceptics,

we are all on the same side. I have enormous admiration for Nigel

Farage, it is thanks to him we are getting this referendum in the first

place. They have been very rude about you. Andrew, you know I am

never rude. In politics I don't make personal attacks. If other people do

that, you need to talk to them about it. We are all on the same side. We

need to make it clear to people that if you vote to stay in, you vote for

David Cameron's appalling deal, we cannot face challenges by remaining

part of the EU. The grass-roots organisation Grass Roots Go, again

supported by Arron Banks, has half a million people in contact, it is a

massive organisation. Isn't it true that their organisation will become

the designated one? It has widespread support generally. You

are inviting me to say something unkind about other Eurosceptics, I

won't do that. I wish Go well. We have a great ground game in Vote

Leave, we have delivered millions of leaflets. I won't be disrespectful

of the sceptics, these are good people. I think Vote Leave will get

designation, they are led by a good team who have done this before and

it is important we realise David Cameron's deal is pretty duff. The

two people running your side of the Brexit campaign have come under a

lot of criticism and been accused of being divisive and difficult and so

forth. You have presumably worked with both of them so what is your

view? I have known Dominic and Matthew for 20 years and what

impresses me is they have both done this before. They have both won

referendum campaign. At this stage before the AV referendum, the

against side was 2/1 behind. Arron Banks says they could not run a

sweet shop. I am never going to be personal. I think people are just

simply confused as to why the Brexit campaign is not a single

organisation. This could be your one chance to get Britain out of the EU.

If people are squabbling at this stage, it is disastrous. It is

tempting to say why don't you just merge, and if it is about

personality I think that would happen, but it is about strategy.

Yes, we want to work with and cooperate with Leave.EU but

fundamentally they want to concentrate on issues of

immigration. We want an argument based on the fact we would be better

off economically and more prosperous if we leave. Our food bills would be

lower, our tax bills would be lower. We need to take care of our spending

priorities. And you need to reach out to lots of people who are not

sure whether we should be in or out. Nigel Farage says he is the man to

do this, why is he wrong? Nigel is fantastic at reaching out to people

who are fed up with politics, we know that, and he has a vital role

to play in doing that. We also need other people. It is 7% of people

didn't vote Ukip at the last general election, I felt it particularly

strongly. We need to reach out to those people and that's why we need

a broad-based, optimistic, upbeat campaign. And to achieve that you

need some more big figures, presumably from the Cabinet. If I

gave you wish list, who would you really like to come out tomorrow and

say am with Vote Leave. I welcome anyone from David Cameron himself to

Boris Johnson and Arron Banks. We want them all and I welcome everyone

who joins the campaign to leave. People like Michael Gove, Boris

Johnson, those are the big prizes presumably. It would be wonderful to

have them on board but we need everyone, and ultimately in a

referendum, everyone from David Cameron to individuals in my

constituency all get the same vote. And do we presume we are talking

about June? I think it is very likely to be June. The machinery of

government is very much working on June the 23rd. You have a frantic

few weeks ahead. Thank you for coming in this morning.

You may have seen on Twitter that we were due to speak

to Arron Banks, founder of the Leave.

But for logistical reasons he's been unable to join us.

However, we do plan to have him on the show very soon.

Now, from seats at the Cabinet table to a rump of just eight MPs,

the Liberal Democrats have experienced a pretty devastating

But their new-ish party leader, Tim Farron, insists liberalism

He joins me from his constituency in South Cumbria.

Morning, Andrew. It is reported in today's papers the Liberal Democrats

are looking at having short lists for seeds of only ethnic minorities

or only gay people or only disabled people. Is that accurate? The

Liberal Democrat conference in March will be looking at a range of

possibilities and it's all about trying to make sure those people who

represent us in the various parliaments and assemblies around

the UK and in Europe reflect the diversity of the communities out

there. Let's be honest. You mentioned the number of MPs we have,

every single one of them is a white male and I think we should do this

in a liberal way, but I also think you cannot turn your back on the

fact we have not succeeded as a party at the top at least in

reflecting the diversity so it is good to look at those options. The

thing about the Liberal Democrats, we are very democratic and the

leader doesn't get to tell people what they do. I am very supportive

of and determined to get a more diverse representation in the party

but the members will make that decision. This is a new level of

positive discrimination, so I'm interested in your view. Under this

proposal, for instance, if you want to represent the Liberal Democrats

from South Manchester, you might have to be gay or transgender. Is

that really liberal? There's lots to learn at the moment from our friends

and comrades over the water in Canada, the Liberal party there.

They had a very similar problem twice over, they were hammered into

a poor position in an election a few years ago, and they rebuilt. They

also had an issue of diversity and frankly too many white blokes and

not enough of everything else so they had a quite inventive idea of

grouping constituencies together, where in four constituencies you

would have to make sure that at least one of them selected someone

from a black or ethnic minority background, women and so on. These

are things we are discussing in our conference in March. The reality is,

you were hinting earlier on, if you look at our candidates in the last

election we were probably as diverse as anyone else. The problem is

getting those people elected and that is the thing I need to focus

on. Is this idea of black and ethnic minority in itself not a bit

offensive? What about Chinese people, Korean people? If you want

diversity, don't you need to break it down much more? These are the

things we will be discussing. It is right we do so, and also right to

get the balance right because setting diktats is not the way of

doing these things. Let's give some credit, the Labour Party in the

mid-19 90s took some muscular action when it came to gender equality. And

it worked for them. They changed the nature of the House of Commons and

other parties have followed suit. I'm liberal but I think if there is

inequality you should sort it out. Would you like to trump them by

being the first party with a trans MP? It is not about trumping

anybody, it is about reflecting the society we live in. Maybe it is more

than 50% of people in the UK who are women, and the fact we have no women

is something I find frankly embarrassing, it's not right to it

is important to intervene and get things right. One of your other

great crusade as a party has always been the EU. What do you make of

David Cameron's negotiation? And supportive of their being a

renegotiation and I'm supportive of him getting something that he thinks

he can come back to the Tory party and the British public and sell.

Discussions without this morning with Douglas Carswell talking about

the various different branches of the leave campaign, they both kind

of ignore the main issue. I don't think most people making their mind

up in the referendum will make it up on the detail in David Cameron's

negotiation or the personnel involved in the campaigns. Is it in

Britain's interests, to be inside or outside the biggest market? In these

quite frightening times, is it better to seek the security of being

alongside your closest friends and neighbours, and when you're dealing

with enormous global challenges - the economy, refugee crisis, climate

change - are we better off doing it with others are on our own? The big

lofty issues are those on which most people will make their mind up and

not the fairly grainy detail of what David Cameron comes back from

Brussels with. You've been very critical of the Prime Minister in

terms of a number of refugees this country has taken so far. What is

the right number, in your view, roughly? It is a lot more than none.

Is it about a million, like Germany? Well, the figure I've given and

asked for repeatedly is that he takes 3000 orphaned refugees from

the camps within Europe. It's important to look at this into

microwaves. One, and most importantly, is on the humanitarian

side. Joseph Stalin once rather chillingly said that one death is a

tragedy and a million is a statistic. And I'm afraid that the

Prime Minister and other European leaders are potentially treating

them as statistics, in other words looking at the scale of the problem

and not looking at the humanitarian reality of people I met on the beach

at Lesbos, children I met in the camp at Calais, and these people are

not on the whole coming here as economic migrants. These people

fleeing from war and persecution. Europe in 2014 had 190,000 refugees.

That was a records of the Second World War. In 2015 it was a million

refugees who stop it could be 3 million this year and even that is

only a fifth of those who are fleeing from the conflict in and

around the Middle East. The scale of the problem is massive and our Prime

Minister is not taking action. Tim Farron, thank you very much indeed

for joining us this morning. I'm going to be talking

to the Health Secretary shortly but first I've been chatting

to Jamie Oliver about his He's campaigning to get

David Cameron to The proceeds of the levy

on sweets and sugary drinks, potentially ?1 billion a year,

would go into health But Jamie's concerned

that the Government seems to be When we started, it was

like a categorical, "No, we will not tax

sugary sweets and drinks". Everyone was trying to make me

look like a fruitcake. Honestly, the length

of national institutions around medicine and public

health that have come out, thankfully, and supported

me is so long. Anyone you would trust

your kids with is in I don't mind not getting the tax

if there's something better and something more symbolic,

because what we need My worry is, if we don't get the tax

and we don't get a robust strategy that feels like, oh,

new energy, new thought... OK, so the magic of

the television interview - I am now Jeremy Hunt and I say

to you, "The trouble is, Jeremy might be in support

of the sugary drinks tax because obviously the NHS

is at the sharp end of everything like type two diabetes

that is affected by sugar, but obesity costs more

globally than all conflict It doesn't have a narrative

that's like that. And what it does is just

slowly makes people ill, die young and be unproductive

and be pretty unhappy. This is a last-ditch appeal

from your point of view? This is the capacity,

regardless of politics, In a funny kind of way,

the stronger Cameron is on this He's got five years where we could

get good work done and entrench some new values that have a trajectory

for England and Britain that We're positioned,

actually, to be world It may well be that

David Cameron's watching this. What would be your

personal message to Er, well, Mr Cameron,

I know you're very Childhood obesity strategy

is around the corner. Please be brave and be bold and put

a strategy together, put the stuff in the

basket that's going to It is about you taking us

into the next decade and setting a precedent that we

can't go back on. If it's not a big bang but a whimper

at the end of all this, I will be really,

really, really upset. I don't know what I'll

do but I will have to The relationship

that I've built with many incredible NGOs over

the last handful of years... I think we'll have to do just

change our strategy, get more ninja, go a bit more

underground and a little bit less nice, and I think we need to try

and get them out of power as soon as possible because

child health has to be central to a healthy,

prosperous economy and it doesn't So, er, I don't think

it'll be pretty. The chef and campaigner,

Jamie Oliver. And I just happen to

have the Health Secretary, Hole good morning. Jeremy just said

he thinks you might be in favour of attacks on sugary drinks. Are you?

It is a bit terrifying not answer affirmatively if he's going to get

more ninja. Obviously it's Sunday morning and people are tucking into

their bacon and eggs and chocolate croissant or whatever and I don't

want to be too much of a killjoy but he is right - we have got to do

something about this. I've got a one-year-old daughter and on current

trends, by the time she reaches adult would the third of the

population will be clinically obese. One in ten will have type two

diabetes. It is a national emergency. So you have to do

something radical and big, which is why all these discussions about a

sugar tax are so important because that would be a big symbolic thing,

as big as the ban on smoking. It would have a big change on real

people's behaviour. I actually agree with what he said in the earlier

part of the interview. What is the argument against it if you are not

in favour of it? I am in favour of what he said. It has to be a game

changing moment. The issue here is, do what it takes to make sure that

children consume less sugar, because we have got this terrible problem.

We are the most obese nation in the EU and it's getting worse. But what

is it? We are going to be announcing in June calls. We are working out

the details stop David Cameron has said it isn't a sugar tax, it needs

to be is the equally robust, but he hasn't taken a sugar tax off the

table. We have got parents up and down the country who want to know

that they are going to be given the support they need to make sure their

children eat healthily. The other thing Jamie has been very sensible

about saying is partly it's what the food manufacturers do and that's why

you have a discussion about taxes on drinks was top it's also what the

retailers do, it's what schools do, it's what parents do, and that's why

we need a strategy that brings everyone together. If we do this, a

final point to make, in this country we have a very good record on public

health. Recently the number of teenagers smoking has fallen to

below 5%. If we make about minds, we can do this. Issue a sugar tax and

you'll be able to do it. That is one of the options but there are many

other options. Let's move to the junior doctors' struggle stop there

as a central poisonous misrepresentation which I think is

made this a particularly heated dispute, which is your assertion

that the 11,000 extra deaths at the weekend are connected with poor

staffing by junior doctors and hospitals. That drives them

absolutely insensate with anger and it's not true. Well, the truth is

that junior doctors are to say that, as we deal with the higher mortality

rates at weekends, it isn't just about junior doctors, it's about

being able to get diagnostic tests back at weekends, about cover. If

you look at eight studies in the last five years, they all say that

staffing levels at weekends are one of the issues that needs to be...

One of the issues but Sir Bruce Keogh, who did the report, said

would be rash and misleading to suggest that these deaths are

avoidable by changing staffing. He actually said it would be rash and

misleading to say that you could avoid every single one of those

deaths but he is also very clear that staffing levels matter. One of

the unfortunate misunderstandings... Junior doctors work incredibly hard.

They are some of the hardest working people, who do some of the most

weekends and nights, and we need to support them to do their job better.

I think when we deliver a seven-day NHS - and this, in the end, is about

making the NHS the safest, most high-quality system in the world.

The first thing I had to deal with as Health Secretary was the tragedy

of Mid Staffordshire and I've learned from that but when you have

the studies that say you got these problems, you can't dock them. You

have to deal with them. But you have connected those excess of deaths to

the whole question of rostering and junior doctors and that is what

people think is misleading, because it's a much more complicated

situation than that. Many of those deaths are caused by the fact that

many of the people who go into hospital at the weekends are already

more ill and more likely to die and Sir Bruce Keogh and many others have

said that you can't connect the number of deaths to rostering

questions and yet, you have. That's not true. If you look at the

studies, and we've had studies that came out by Fremantle last

September, we had the study that came out by a professor just before

Christmas, they all say, the Royal Oak on to say, that you have got to

look at staffing levels. We have three times less medical cover at

weekends. We are never going to have the same levels because they're

going to be lots of things - I think this is another misunderstanding -

that we don't do at weekends. Hip operations, the operations and so

on. But for urgent and emergency care... If I give you one example

which relates to senior doctors, the clinical standards - and this is all

about making sure we meet the clinical standards - say that if you

are admitted to hospital, you should be seen by a senior doctor within 14

hours. But currently only happens in one in eight of our hospitals. If we

want to promise every NHS patient, as I do, that they are going to get

the same high-quality care every day of the week, we have to look at

these issues. I definitely want to return to that but just to stay on

the central question of misrepresenting the position of

junior doctors, I can quote you two things you said. "There Are 11,000

excess deaths because we do not staff are hospital property at

weekends". And you've said that excessive overtime rates give

hospitals a disincentive to roster as many hospitals as they need at

weekends and that leads to 11,000 excess deaths. Sir Bruce Keogh, who

did the research, says it is not possible to ascertain the extent to

which of these deaths may be preventable. To assume they are

avoidable be rash and misleading. The editor of the British Medical

Journal accuses you of misrepresenting that report. She was

right. She was wrong. If you look at what Bruce Keogh said, he didn't say

that what I said was wrong but he said it was wrong to say that you

could avoid every single one of those deaths. But he also confirms

that staffing levels are one of the issues that need to be investigated,

amongst many other issues. In the end, it's intuitively a very

sensible thing to observe that if you don't have enough senior doctors

when people are admitted to hospitals at weekends, if you're not

able to check the most vulnerable patients twice a day, which is what

the clinical standards say, then your risk of a death that could be

avoided is higher. And I came into this job wanted to make sure that we

offer the highest standards of care for every single patient. I think

the sad thing about this is, we have this strike on Wednesday and what I

want to do is what every single doctor wants to do. They want to

give the highest standard of care to their patients and what we should be

doing is sitting round the table discussing how to do this, rather

than withdrawing care from patients, which can only harm them. You have

said again and again the phrase senior doctors. Why go in

head-to-head confrontation with junior doctors who are staffing

hospitals at the weekends and are not responsible... Can we agree that

they are not responsible for 11,000 deaths over the weekends? I think

there are a number of things... Could we agree on that? There are a

number of things. You are saying to me that we need to be very careful

without words. If you look at the studies, they all say there are a

number of factors that need to be investigated, including staffing.

But if you just look of this contract, and I think there been a

lot of misunderstandings, but look at the crucial issue of pay because

I think this is something that worries people. We are absolutely

clear that we don't want to cut junior doctors' pay. In fact, for

the majority of them it will go up. Just on pay, you said something but

I don't understand at all. You have said that this is revenue neutral.

It is not costing money at all. And you said that 75 the scent of junior

doctors are going to be paid better, have more money coming in, and the

rest won't be worse off. That is mathematically impossible. In the

short term, as we transition to the new contract, it will actually cost

us more, as we protect the payoff people. But when we moved to the new

contract, the total amount going into the junior doctors' pay packet

will be higher, not lower. So it is not revenue neutral? In the end, if

you are going to ask more doctors to work at weekends, you are going to

have to pay more. But in order to be able to afford that, in a way that

is affordable for the NHS, this is a very important point, we need to

reduce the premiums we pay at weekends, make up for it with an

increase in base pay, but even after these changes we are making, junior

doctors will get a higher premium for working weekends than the nurses

working in the same hospital, than the ambulance drivers who take you

to hospital and the porters and the cleaners. It is a good deal for

junior doctors but most importantly, it will make care safer for

patients, because what we need to do is make sure that our hospitals are

properly staffed at weekends. If it is such a good deal, why do

you have to do protect their pay for three years? We are giving more

rewards to people who work nights and frequent weekends. I want to

make sure in the transitions there are no losers. We will end up with a

contract that better for patients and also for doctors. If you are

junior doctor at the moment and you go to work at the weekend, in an A

Department, we have half as many consultants as on a weekday. I want

to make sure that whatever day of the week, they get the support they

need to give the best care to patients. This is obviously very

challenging, the BMA is a formidable union. You look at the battles Ken

Clarke had, health secretaries have these battles, but what history

judges in the end, have you done the right thing for patients? You have

used the phrase again and again junior doctors, but it has been made

clear that you need consultants back in the hospitals, and you need the

people doing the blood tests, the MRIs, so there will be the great

battle to get them working as well. They are vital part of it and we're

having negotiations with the BMA on those, they have been more

constructive and those negotiations are ongoing so I hope we will do

that. If you look at what the Royal cans, and for hospitals that have

successfully introduced seven day care, they say you need senior

decision-makers and that could be a junior doctor towards the end of

their training, but you need experienced doctors and that will be

consultants... You will get them in on the Saturdays and Sundays as

well? We have said we will remove the opt out that consultants

currently have that means they are able not to work at all at weekends.

The goal here, and this is important because I feel what is happening

with this junior doctors debate is that we have lost some of the big

picture, this is a year of opportunity in the NHS. In the

spending round last autumn this Government gave the NHS is the sixth

biggest increase in its budget ever. I will come to that... My point is

we have an opportunity to turn the NHS into one of the best in the

world and that is what I am determined to do. And yet somehow

you have outraged junior doctors on this. Rachel Clarke, a doctor in

Oxford, has said Mr Hunt has made me feel cheap, he implies we are the

problem. It is so grim on the front line now I sometimes work 15 hours

straight without even a second to eat. I have never felt so

despairing. Andy King, a registrar, said with so many patients to see I

am petrified, I am too exhausted to look after them. If we are stretched

even more I am sure patients will die. Another one, the profession is

at breaking point, I see doctors in tears because they are so despairing

about what the future holds. Jeremy Hunt has done this, he's driving

away a whole generation of doctors. That is what they feel. Yes, and it

is incredibly disappointing, the totally responsible way the BMA has

behaved in refusing to sit down and talk about how we can improve

patient care, and spreading misinformation. That seems to be

their personal experience of daily life, not what the BMA is doing.

Outside the contract we need to do a number of things to improve the

morale of junior doctors and there is a lot we can do in respect of the

training. One of the reasons for the anger is because they were told by

the BMA had their pay would be cut, it isn't, they were told they would

be asked to work longer hours, we are bringing down the amount of

hours they work, and if you were told by your union the Health

Secretary wants to do these things of course you would feel devalued.

The way to restore morale is to sit around the table, discussed what is

the right thing to do for doctors and patients, and also look at the

bigger picture, which is record resources going into the NHS. The

sixth biggest increase in one-year in the history of the NHS, more

doctors and nurses than ever. A commitment by the Government to make

the NHS highest quality, safest healthcare anywhere in the world.

There are always battles love the way, but history will ask, did the

Health Secretary, did the Government, do the right thing for

patients to make care safer and better? In the end, if they did, the

doctors will say it was the right thing for the NHS. The King 's fund

has said most of the money has already been spent, so you will need

more money. Are you really sure in your heart of hearts that your

language on this has been adroit? My language has always been extremely

careful but what I cannot control is that we have a free press and often

my words are distorted by the BMA, which is one of the most clever

trade unions in the book because they know the argument between

doctors and politicians, the public will side with the doctors. But in

the end, look at the big picture here. The big picture is that they

are still absolutely furious with you. 98% of these hard-working

people have voted to strike. It cannot be everyone else's fault

except yours, surely? No, I take responsibility for everything that

happens in the NHS, but I have also got to take responsibility for the

care of patients, and the key thing here is record resources going into

the NHS, record numbers of doctors... Record numbers of doctors

going to find a job elsewhere because 50% go off not to work in

the NHS because they are so horrified and demoralised before

they start. It is important not to make a snap judgment about doctors

in the heat of industrial relations. This is a moment for the NHS to pull

together, in the end doing the right thing for patients is the way we can

help the NHS go from strength to strength. Last question, have you

got more to give them when you see them next? The door is still open on

this issue, we are at loggerheads with the question of working at

weekends. The BMA have said they don't want to talk about that. I

have said rather than cancelling operations, come and talk. Riley is

making the NHS paperless so important? -- why? One of the things

doctors are so frustrated about is filling out paperwork, and we know

that proper investment in IT can save times for doctors and nurses

and they can spend more time with patients, and this is a much-needed

investment to allow that to happen. You came into smooth feathers and

calm things down, and people regard you now as toxic. Isn't this going

to be very damaging as someone who has been talked about as the future

leader of the Conservative Party? The person who founded the NHS, Nye

Bevan, was described by the BMA as the medical fuhrer. There were

posters of Ken Clarke put up around the country, but in the end when the

dust settles you have got to do the right thing for patients. Thank you

for talking to us this morning. Now over to Christian

for the news headlines. Ukip's only MP has said that,

to be successful in the forthcoming referendum, the campaign to leave

the EU must reach out to the 87% of people who didn't vote for his

party in the general election. Douglas Carswell said the campaign

must be optimistic and upbeat, and focus on those who've not yet

made up their minds. He said his party leader,

Nigel Farage, would have a vital Ahead of this week's

strike by junior doctors, the Health Secretary has warned that

'withdrawing care can Jeremy Hunt insisted the government

was offering doctors a 'good deal' under the proposed new contract,

which he said would make hospitals safer, by ensuring they're properly

staffed at weekends. The next news on BBC One

is at one o'clock. First, a look at what's coming up

immediately after this programme. We are live from Southampton

debating the morality of Britain's response to the refugee crisis, and

on shrew Tuesday next week you should Shriver your sins, but are

some unforgivable? See you at ten o'clock on BBC One.

Join me again at the same time next week.

For now, we leave you with Chris Isaak.

From his new album, 'First Comes The Night',

# Please don't call # We would only start again

# We won't change # So why should we pretend?

# It's an eye for an eye, now we're even

# We fell in love but we went too far.