14/05/2017 The Andrew Marr Show

If there's one thing that's dominated this

it's the battle for the votes of the patriotic working classes -

Labour promising fairer Robin Hood taxes and an ethical foreign policy,

the Tories attacking Jeremy Corbyn for being soft on defence

while offering those voters new council houses.

Time, this morning, to probe a little closer.

So, two radically different political personalities go head

to head - Emily Thornberry, the Shadow Foreign Secretary who's

attacked Theresa May for "fawning" over Donald Trump.

And Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary who's savaged

Jeremny Corbyn as feeble and dangerous for Britain.

But we're not limiting ourselves to London this morning.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's First Minister and leader of the SNP,

is here in the studio talking about why independence,

whatever the unionists say, is on the ballot in this election.

Our news review this morning features the BBC journalist who's

been following Nicola Sturgeon on the campaign trail -

Observer star commentator Andrew Rawnsley.

And from the Sun, pulling no punches, Jane Moore.

An international effort is under way to track down the criminals behind

the global cyber attack that wreaked havoc across the NHS on Friday.

Hospitals, GP surgeries and ambulance services

across England and Scotland were disrupted when their IT systems

But experts fear that hackers may seek to exploit the chaos.

The Conservatives say they'll join forces with councils and housing

associations to build thousands of new homes for rent -

However it's not clear how much money the Tories would invest -

and Labour have dismissed the announcement as spin.

Labour says that if it wins the general election it will impose

a so-called Robin Hood tax on financial transactions

They say the levy would raise ?26 billion

over the next parliament for public services.

The Conservatives said it was "madness" to target

Portugal has won the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time

The United Kingdom - represented by former

X Factor contestant Lucie Jones - got its best

result in six years after coming 15th.

The next news on BBC One is at one o'clock.

The NHS story over many of the papers with the Mail on Sunday

saying there were 66 alerts to the NHS but nothing was done before the

cyber attacks and the Sunday Telegraph has the same story. Chaos

hitting thousands of patients. The Sunday Times, Harry Styles is

apparently against Brexit. Why we need to know this, I don't know.

They splash on Theresa May's pledge on their council house revolution,

they said. Lots of those who voted remain targeting MPs. And a

millionaire Brexit donor targeting pro-remain MPs according to the

Observer newspaper. The Sunday express, Theresa May to smash Maggie

record, it says. Perhaps optimistically.

Unless you have been locked in a cupboard, you will know the NHS has

been the victim of a cyber attack, as have other organisations

worldwide. It is called Eternal Blue, it sounds like a paint colour.

Originally designed by DNS a in the States and possibly by our own

spooks working with them. -- NSA. Microsoft had issued a warning in

March. It is like all of us, you do not want to spend the money until

you are burgled and then you secure your house. Charles Arthur, a

technology writer, a good piece, taking the Mickey out of Amber Rudd,

saying she was on the radio, saying patients were inconvenienced but no

date had been accessed. He says unfortunately also the NHS staff

cannot access data. He says Amber Rudd can burble on but the 1 billion

put in is a fraction of the amount needed to upgrade the system. Should

we spend more money to protect institutions against attacks? In

this case it is much loved, the institution, the NHS but we have

seen private companies have been as vulnerable and their customers have

had as many problems. The difficulty for organisations is cybercrime by

its nature is nimble. Money may be part of it and a lot of it may be

keeping ahead of cybercriminals. This has been happening to private

companies and charities for years but they have not like to admit it

because it makes them look vulnerable. Which undermines public

confidence. Now we know it has opened to the NHS it has opened a

can of worms. In fairness to the trusts, if they said we will spend 5

billion on a computer everyone will say the NHS cut operations. It might

not take 5 billion. There is a hero in the story. Nobody knows his name.

His online handle is MalwareTech. Within eight a few hours, he says,

he was a way to to save the NHS computers and disable the malware.

He said it only took him a couple of hours so maybe it is not 5 billion

to upgrade. Teenagers. There is a ripple of expectation running

through the country. We will turn to the election coverage. You have

Craig Oliver. Interesting his byline is simple Craig Oliver, not Sir

Craig Oliver. The knighthood he got from his mate David Cameron. He said

it is all very well to say it is a shoo-in for Theresa May but if you

don't think the manifesto matters you could not be more wrong. He said

this week she will have to prove she is on the side of the people and

what she said is not just "Windy rhetoric". He says Theresa May is

the last one truly standing, will be master of all she surveys on June

the 9th, but her manifesto could be the route map between being seen as

a great Prime Minister, or it could be a bland document that put safety

first. Andrew, two stories happening about what is really going on in the

campaign and the Mail on Sunday has a poll by Michael Ashcroft which

suggests a fast Tory landslide. Former Tory Treasury. The paper poll

intensely when there is a campaign and we have the Mail on Sunday which

says it is a shock mega- poll that reveals true scale of Labour

collapse and putting the Prime Minister on track for a 172 seat

landslide. Campaigners would regard this story as unhelpful because one

of the worries in the conservative high command is giving the

impression it is all over and Theresa May is steam-rollering to

majority. Maybe it will encourage Labour supporters to turn up. If you

look at the polling, Labour above 30%, better than sometimes Ed

Miliband was doing. It is not clear Jeremy Corbyn on the campaign trail,

not doing any harm at all. The Sunday Mirror says he is closing the

gap. Even honest pollsters would probably say this candidly. Window

they overestimated the vote last time. Have they overcorrected and

underestimating the Labour vote? Have they not corrected enough,

which will be alarming for Labour which would show they are doing even

worse. We are not talking about the margin of error when you talk about

Labour closing the lead to 18%. Sarah Smith, you have a story on the

tablet. There are a Scottish election is going on and different

manifestos in Scotland and possibly one of the big stars of the campaign

is Ruth Davidson. She is hoping to lead a Tory revival into

Westminster. They only have one seat in Westminster and have a target of

reaching ten, 12 seats, which would be remarkable. The story here today

is she will announce a U-turn on prescription charges when they

launched the Scottish manifesto, which will be fascinating because

the UK Tory policy is to charge for prescriptions. It was an SNP policy

that in Scotland they are free and now the Conservatives are getting

behind the idea of free prescriptions, probably because they

are trying to eat into the Labour vote. The election in Scotland split

between nationalists supporting independence, probably voting SNP

and unionists on the other side and Tories hope to say, we are the party

of the union, if you do not want a referendum, vote for us. Bringing

voters with them on policies like this. Let's move away from the

election to the Rachel Nickell murder. It was 25 years ago,

astonishingly. Wimbledon Common. Her son, who was there at the time...

Interesting about trauma and toddlers. He was not quite three.

You wondered how much he remembers. He has written a

book. His father took him to France so he did not become a media

sensation. What I find interesting. He says I forgive my mother's

killer. He had a rough upbringing and childhood. He was a

schizophrenic. He has tried to commit suicide. I do not feel

resentment. It is remarkable. Some foreign politics. Trump sacking the

FBI boss and the extraordinary language he used. You are hereby

terminated, he said. Absolutely amazing. This has been compares to

Watergate as one of the great Washington scandal moments. An

astonishing story that talks about how Donald Trump sees it and the way

he can use his presidency and what is happening with the FBI and the

investigation into Russian hacking of the election and the story the

Sunday Times have is interesting saying the FBI chief James Comey who

was sacked is planning to strike back. Giving interviews and possible

testimony about why he was sacked. It was probably because of

congressional testimony he gave in the first place that Trump sacked

him. In the United States Congress get interested in doing

investigations. The process takes over and you get endless

investigations and people keep pulling at the threads until things

unravel. That is a large part of Watergate. It was a year between the

President sacking the special prosecutor and having to resign, in

Watergate. Meanwhile, Trump issues a menacing warning that Comey better

hope there are not tapes of conversations as if he has been

taping what is going on so he can use it against his enemies. That

does reek of Richard Nixon. What is interesting, you see Trump doing

what he wants, sacking the FBI director when he feels like it. It

is just the norm to do that, there is the constraint. Back to the story

in the Sun newspaper. In this campaign we will have figures that

might be dodgy from politicians and forecasters. For a lot of people

they feel their economy, in the weekly shopping basket, the sun on

Sunday headlines warning an unexpected price hike in the bagging

area. Reporting supermarkets raising prices of own brand products. This

might have something to do with the slide in the value of sterling since

Britain voted to leave the European Union. Or, supermarkets being

generally naughty. A warning that the price of foodstuffs is going up

quite a lot. Now, fizzy water. On the very few

occasions I drink something nonalcoholic, I go for fizzy water.

No, apparently fizzy water makes you fat. I cannot understand that. It's

a weird thing. It's because the carbonation makes you want to eat

more, it stimulates your appetite. Stick to the wine in future. Some

people are still enjoying breakfast so we will leave it there. Thank you

very much indeed. So we've been talking a lot

about Labour, and we're joined by the Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily

Thornberry. Good morning, in a few weeks' time

you could be Foreign Secretary, will you at that point tell Donald Trump

is not welcome here for a state visit? No, because he's been

invited. I think it was a mistake to invite him quite as quickly as he

was invited. Frankly Obama had to wait for years, I think it would

have been better to see him settle down. Jeremy Corbyn himself said he

was not welcome in Britain. Yes, I mean, it takes these things in

stages. I think we have to welcome the American president to Britain

and work with him. The difference I have is I would be prepared to stand

up to him, I would be prepared to say sorry Mr President, you are

wrong about that. You are doing the wrong thing. So you would have over

here and then give him a scolding, he may not want to come under those

circumstances. There we are. I also hear he doesn't want to share

transport with Prince Charles because he doesn't agree with him on

climate change. We cannot disinvite him once he's been invited because

that would be to the detriment of our country. Use at Labour would not

turn a blind eye to human rights abuses in, for instance, China, what

does that mean? We should not be afraid to raise these issues,

despite the fact we may be going for a trade deal with a particular

country but we have to be clear about the things we disagree on the

country with. I am very worried that when I see Theresa May going to the

Gulf states for example and desperately after trade deals and so

on, she doesn't raise the issue of Yemen, she doesn't raise the fact

Saudi Arabia has been bombing weddings and funerals. Is your

ethical foreign policy sufficiently ethical that if you raise these

issues and you get given a dusty response or hostile response, and

you actually stop trade deals happening, he would go as far as to

endanger the involvement of the Chinese for instance? I'm not saying

we are going to boycott China for heaven 's sake but there is a

middleweight, through the sort of fawning, frankly, which I think we

have seen Theresa May indulging in in relation to Donald Trump and the

way we would approach things. Let me turn to Trident because you don't

like the Trump Administration and yet we rely on the administration

for close cooperation to make our Trident submarines work in terms of

targeting and so forth. Do you withdraw that corporation? The most

important part of our defence is Nato and that's partnership we have

with America and the rest of our Nato allies and we are committed to

that and we should be. We have been committed to Nato for a number of

years, and we need to work collectively with Nato. So Nato is a

crucial part of our negotiations? Yes. I ask because Jeremy Corbyn

recently spoke directly about Nato. We, in the radical end, the left and

the unions of the Labour Party have got to be realistic Nato is a major

problem and a major difficulty and we have to campaign against Nato's

power, influence and global reach because it is a danger to world

peace and a danger to world security. Severities, will you

campaign against Nato's world power? I think that is a quote from six

years ago. Jeremy has been on a journey, to coin a phrase, and there

have been a number of discussions and it is quite clear that the

predominance of opinion, and you know, within the Labour Party, we

are committed to Nato. The reality is we have been relying on our

partnership in Nato, the way we have been buying things and committing

things, if we were to pull out of Nato forces would be... For example,

how would we get our forces off Salisbury Plain at the moment

without the assistance of Nato? We don't have enough frigates to move

them on to the continent of Europe if necessary if the Russians came

rolling over the hill. Have you made these points to Jeremy Corbyn? Yes,

I have. So you put him back in his box? Because he repeated those

statements during the judicial campaign. I am telling you that the

Labour Party's position is a clear one, and I am Shadow Foreign

Secretary. This is someone who will be Prime Minister if you win the

election, and he is saying Labour should campaign against Nato. If you

heard what he said at Chatham House he did not say this. He is clear we

have a commitment to Nato and that is that. So you can unsay these kind

of things? You can change your mind. Will a Labour government in Britain

engage with military operations without the support of the UN ever?

We don't think it is right for there to be interventions in other

countries without it being done on a multi-natural basis. We do not think

it is right for Theresa May to give unconditional support to Donald

Trump in bombing Syria. We don't think he should be encouraged to

think it is right for him to behave unilaterally. We think it undermines

the security of the world and the best way for the international

community to proceed is by way of agreement. It means the UN Security

Council? Yes. So is it right to give countries like China and Russia veto

over any possibility of us using military action ever? It is

difficult. On Kosovo for example the Russians were vetoing the use of

military force in relation to Kosovo but there was international

agreement that there should be action there with the exception of

the Russians, and there was developed out of the doctrine of

responsibility to protect so it was legal at that point of the an

intervention. Robin Cook led the charge on that and he voted for

that. He was developing a responsibility to protect doctrine.

And Jeremy Corbyn spoke against that, who was right? I think Robin

was right. Looking forward, do you think the Labour government would

send the task force against the Falklands if there was a crisis

there? Yes. Again, Jeremy Corbyn has said he would like to negotiate with

the Argentina government over the future of the Falklands and I wonder

if you would like to be part of that negotiations? If British citizens

are being attacked, we defend them but we don't want to get into a

position like the Conservatives, who seem to be so gung ho, we will on

this and do that, no, you have to look at the alternatives first. In

the end there is no settlement of international disputes without there

being international agreement. Its question of how you get there

fastest. Do you think there was an available compromise over the

Falklands to be done? Acting so long as the people of the Falklands

wished to remain British, they will remain British. There needs to be a

future in terms of talking to neighbours of the Falklands and I

think it is to the economic advantage of both that they are able

to work more closely than they are at the moment but certainly not

under the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. Again, "It seems

to be ridiculous in the 21st century we get into conflict with the

Falkland Islands... Lets bring about some sensible dialogue" Jeremy

Corbyn says, so he's saying let's talk about the future of the

Falkland Islands. I am quoting Jeremy Corbyn at you again and

again. I don't see why I should disagree with that. You say this is

what he says, and in fact he's saying something, I don't agree with

you. Let's talk about the Robin Hood tax. Sadiq Khan, who is in charge of

London, has called this madness and said if you continue with this

countries will leave the UK and it's a really dangerous policy. Again, I

don't think that is an exact quote. Madness is exact. At the moment we

have a tax which applies when you buy stocks and shares, and at the

moment some people who are called market-makers, if they buy these

shares they don't pay the tax, I don't really understand why that is.

Then the other thing is that we also think we should extend the tax to

different types of instruments but such as derivatives because it is a

kind of betting on the stock market and it will help stabilise the stock

market. Many other countries want to do it. -- many other countries do

it. Hillary Clinton wanted to do it if she was elected. Do you agree it

should be done in coordination with other countries to avoid hedge fund

managers moving to Paris or Dublin or wherever they want to move to?

The House of Lords committee looked at any changes of behaviour and they

said they didn't think it would be as drastic as some of the doomsayers

say it will. In the end it is a question, I think, of tidying this

tax up. It doesn't seem to be right that you can bet on a company's

debts and not have to pay tax whereas if you want to invest in a

company you have to pay tax. What you say to colleagues like Ben

Bradshaw who are going round telling voters vote for me, that doesn't

mean Labour government. There is a choice. We will either get a

Conservative government or Labour government and that is the choice

people have coming up in front of them. Our vision for Britain is an

entirely different one to the Tories' and people need to accept

that. You don't believe it is defeatist? We have another three

weeks to go, everything is to play for. You can see the way in which on

a day-to-day basis we are attracting more support. The things we came out

with in the manifesto are enormously popular. We are giving the public

answers to their problems. People need to look at what choice they

have, not Theresa May's hair, not whether Jeremy Corbyn should shave,

it's about which politicians can offer you what, what are the

different futures Britain has and the Labour one is much more positive

and in line with what the people want. It is also play Fox and I

don't want to be defeatist. As to whether Jeremy Corbyn should shave,

we can discuss that later because you will be joining us later on.

Chaos and bluster all over the place.

But, enough of that, it's time to go over to the weather

The skyline behind me looks a little chaotic, and we will see some

turbulence skies today with the showers, which are already turning

thundery out west. This is the rain many in the east of work too, giving

much-needed rain to the gardens, it is clearing out now and it's a

lovely start of the day for many parts of the country. Much brighter

skies across the east of Scotland, it will linger over the north of

Scotland, but there will be a handful of heavy showers over the

Grampian region, simile so with Northern Ireland, but equally

lengthy spells of dry weather with strong sunshine in between. There

will also be a scattering of showers across England and Wales, and the

coast looks set to get the best of the sunshine. It will feel warm away

from the showers which feel quite blustery at times. It will be chilly

initially in eastern areas. More chaos as we head towards Monday

morning, wind and rain to boot, and it is May. Some heavy rain across

south-west Scotland, north-west England and Wales. Even rain further

south and east. The consolation is it is mild so it is warm weather but

the unsettled weather is due to search through midweek.

Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary,

has been used by the Prime Minister as her faithful attack dog so far

He is not, I think it's fair to say, a massive fan of Jeremy Corbyn,

but, of course, he has lots of questions to answer about

the state of Britain's Armed Forces under the Conservatives.

Welcome. In 2015 the Conservatives made a solemn promise about the size

of the Armed Forces, can you remind of the promise. We said we would

build the army up to eight 2000 by 20 20. What is the size of the Armed

Forces? It is just over 79,000. You have not kept the promise? We have

not got there yet. We said we would build up forces, including reserves

to just over 30,000. The quote was, we will maintain the size of the

regular armed services and not reduce the army to below 82000 and

the current figure is 79,000, so you have broken that promise. We said we

would do it over the parliament and we are spending a lot of money. You

have reduce the Army. Increasing the size of the Army up to 2020, there

are three years to go. We have recruitment campaigns, increasing

the size of the Navy, the size of the Royal Air Force and we are

determined to improve the offer we make to service men and women to

attract the best of each generation to join. At the moment recruitment

is going badly and you are not getting enough into the army, you

were met to get 9500 in this year and it is 6000, you are going

backwards. I do not accept that. We are getting people to join up. We

have several years before we reach our target but we are spending more

on the Armed Forces. The budget goes up every year and we are giving them

the equipment they need. The figures, the target was 9580 to join

last year and the figure you achieved was 6900. That is why top

brass are worried about you and the army under you. We cannot force

people to join, we do not have conscription, the Army has to

compete with other sectors. So it was a silly promise? It was a

promise over the parliament and we are only two years into the

parliament and we are spending money on recruiting and giving the Armed

Forces equipment they need. You have seen aircraft carriers being new

frigates on the way, we are buying new aircraft, and investing in

equipment they need. You said you will increase defence spending by

nope .5% above inflation. How much does that cost? That costs roughly

over the five years of the new parliament added to the two years of

the last parliament giving the forces roughly ?1 billion more than

if we had simply met the 2% target. The money comes from the growing

economy and it was a commitment we made, choice to spend more on the

health service and defence and we have reduce spending in other areas.

So this is an underfunded commitment, you are going die in

Abbott? It is funded. The money has to come from somewhere. Borrowing,

taxes? Borrowing is slowly going to be reduced but it comes from a

growing economy is the real answer, because we are running the economy

efficiently and because the economy is growing, more people in work,

more revenue coming in, and we can make choices, not wild spending and

borrowing promises like labour but to spend more on the NHS and

defence. That is the extra 1 billion. According to the Defence

Select Committee and Times newspaper there is a black hole in your

equipment budget of between 7.5 and ?10 million. We are planning the

biggest equipment programme in generations. New aircraft carriers,

frigates, maritime patrol aircraft, planes to go wander frigates,. -- to

go on the frigates. That is a 10-year programme. Part of the cost

has to come from efficiency savings, getting rid for example of land,

barracks, buildings we do not need, being more efficient in the way we

work. 7.3 billion over the 10-year period, over the five-year period,

I'm sorry, of efficiency savings on top of savings already made which

means if you have airfields you do not need you shut them down. You

release them to housing. We have 60 airfields, we do not need 60. You

have to be more efficient as a large organisation and look at ways of

working. It is absolutely right to invest in that programme we have to

reinvest efficiency savings we make. The big change is we keep all the

efficiency savings. The Treasury does not take them back. You have

not persuaded your top brass who wrote a letter to the Prime Minister

recently. It says that your statements about the defence budget

have been disingenuous quoting irrelevant financial statistics and

they say, the government host of spending 2% of GDP on defence,

widely criticised as a deception and the Armed Forces are having to seek

damaging savings at a time when combat operations is increasing. The

2% is not our figure, it is the Nato figure. The Secretary General of

Nato was in London this week seeing myself on the Prime Minister and he

confirmed publicly according to the Nato definitions, we are meeting 2%,

almost 2.2%. It is other countries that are not spending up to the 2%

and he confirmed our spending is defined according to Nato

guidelines. These are former chiefs of defence staff. Have you ever met

somebody covered in brass, a former defence chief who does not want more

spending. They are passionate about defence and so am I and I am proud

the budget is increasing this year. It was 35 billion last year and 36

billion this year and will go up to 40 billion and we will invest the

biggest equipment programme the Armed Forces have seen in

generations and to do that we have to be more efficient about the way

we work. What this government has not invested in his defences against

cyber attack. You did not give the NHS the proper money to stop this

cyber attack with terrible results. In the security review over a year

and a few months ago we identified cyber threats is one of the three

principal threats and set aside ?1.9 billion to protect us better against

cyber and a chunk of that went to the NHS. You didn't pay for upgrades

in 2015. We are spending around ?50 million on the NHS cyber systems to

improve security and have encouraged NHS trusts to reduce exposure to the

weakest systems, Windows XP. Less than 5% of the trusts use that

system. There is money available to strengthen these systems. You did

not pay for them to strengthen that system at the crucial moment in

2015. It was an old system we did not want them to use. We warned them

and we warned them again in the spring. We all have to work about

this, the NHS wasn't particularly targeted. The same attacks were

applied to Nissan and other areas of the economy and around the world. We

are spending money on strengthening the cyber defence of hospital

systems. Is it the case the nuclear, Trident submarines are using Windows

XP? We never comment on different systems for reasons of security

submarines use. Vanguard submarines, I can absolutely assure you are safe

and operate in isolation went out on patrol. I have complete confidence

in the nuclear deterrent. There is no possibility of a malware attack

against the military? I can assure you the nuclear deterrent is

protected. You used a strange phrase when you said in certain

circumstances you thought we would use first strike in nuclear weapons.

Can you explain them? The key to the nuclear deterrent is to leave

uncertainty in the mind of any potential adversary, if he is

looking at a country to attack, as to what response he can expect, to

leave ambiguity in the mind of your enemy and that is why we never rule

out whether we would apply first strike or not. You can imagine using

nuclear weapons before anybody else? Will use them every day. Not like I

am talking about. We use them as a deterrent. The job of the nuclear

weapons is to deter and has done that successfully over 50 years

since we have had the submarine fleet. You have been critical of

labour on the nuclear issue and defence. They might say that the

problem with your side is wanting to talk first bomb later but you always

want to bomb first and talk later. Is there a single war since the

Second World War you haven't been in favour of? When we voted on the Iraq

War, we were under the impression given by... I voted for it, like a

lot of MPs, because we were told there were weapons of mass

destruction and it turned out their work. Do you regret voting? I regret

on how it was embarked. I regret voting for it on the basis there

were weapons of mass destruction. We were dealing with a dictator who

invaded other countries and were part of an international coalition.

The problem with Labour's approaches they are now saying they would never

commit. Emily Thornberry suggested they might negotiate over the

Falklands, which is shocking. You were in favour of using force in

Libya. The foreign Select Committee report on what happened in Libya

after the war you were keen on, it resulted in, it says, economic

collapse, intertribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises,

human rights violations and the spread of the daffy regime weapons

and the growth of eyesore. In short it was a total disaster and you

voted for it. The reason was to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe

where an entire city was potentially going to be wiped out. You are

right, when you intervene, we need to learn the lessons of these

conflicts, there needs to be a proper plan for stabilisation, I

have been working with others in the coalition. That we stabilise these

areas and bring in security after the war is over to ensure the Sunni

have a proper stake in the running of their country. You have launched

a new council housing policy and there are two small gaps in the

policy. How many houses, how much money? The money is coming from the

1.4 billion earmarked for capital expenditure from the Autumn

Statement. It is not new money. It is not new money but the amount of

money for each council will depend on deals struck with Manchester,

Birmingham, to get more social housing built in these areas of a

high enough quality tenants will be able to buy. It is an attractive

policy that will give people an alternative to waiting and waiting

to get into a council house or flat. You and Emily Thornberry are coming

back in a little while. Now, coming up later this morning,

Andrew Neil will be talking to the Shadow Business Secretary,

Rebecca Long Bailey about Labour's plan for a "Robin Hood tax"

and he'll be joined by That's the Sunday Politics

at 11 here on BBC One. Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's First

Minister and the leader of the Scottish nationalists, made

it absolutely clear at the beginning of the campaign what she thought

it was all about - independence, she said

was at the heart of this election. And she's with me

here in the studio. In an independent Scotland, will

children be better able to be done by then they are now? Regardless of

whether or not in a future Scotland becomes independent, in Scotland now

we are focusing on improving standards in education. If we look

at the system we have expanded early years education and have a new

curriculum that has been praised by the OECD, we have record numbers of

young people leaving school with higher passes, advanced higher

passes and going into further education, training or employment.

We have identified an issue with literacy and new Morrissey and are

determined to accelerate progress in closing the attainment gap. On

literacy your record is terrible. Your own government figures show you

have among 13 and 14-year-olds, less than half performing well in reading

and writing and that has gone down in just a few years under the SNP. I

have been open it is not good enough but to put it into context, we have

a survey that measures pupils in the second year of secondary school

against standards expected to achieve in the third year of

secondary school. We have other information that shows by the time

young people are in third year, more than 80% reach the required level.

We have a new curriculum in place, which has been praised by the OECD

which have made recommendations on how to improve teaching. We have a

national improvement framework and attainment challenge and fund

putting in extra resources. Frameworks and challenges, do you

know what is going on in Scottish schools? We have had advice the new

curriculum for excellence, it is about educating young people to be

good citizens, not to just absorb facts and figures. To encourage

young people not just to absorb facts and figures but to analyse

that and make sense of the world they live in, it is the right thing

to do. We have advice we need to have more of a focus in that

curriculum on literacy and numeracy, which we are doing and have

introduced new benchmarks. Benchmarks and all the rest of it,

but under the SNP things have got worse and dramatically so. I would

challenge that in terms of general performance in education. Literacy,

there is no question... I am not denying that in terms of literacy

and numerous sea and I am telling you what we are doing to address

that -- new Morrissey. We have increase the budget by ?120 million,

money going to head teachers giving them the ability to invest in

measures they think will improve. You are 700 teachers short at the

moment. Teaching recruitment is a challenge

in many countries which is why we are looking at different ways to

bring different kinds of people into teaching. We are trying to encourage

retired teachers to come back into teaching. If you pay them more, that

might help. We have negotiations with the union about pay, that is

one of the issues we have always got to keep in mind. But we also need to

be frank about the challenges in education, some of them are not

unique to Scotland but we have to recognise the fundamentals of

Scottish education in many respects are very strong. We now have record

numbers of young people coming out of our schools with high and

advanced higher passes and going to positive destinations so I'm focused

on improving these areas we need to improve but also making sure we

don't do a disservice to teachers and pupils across the country by

saying everything about Scottish education is bad because

emphatically is not. Let's return to what you said about the independence

blueprint in 2013, use of Scottish pupils outperform the OECD average

in reading and science, latest results show we have halted a period

of relative international decline since 2000. What has happened since

then? I'm not going to sit here and tonight that, we have the Pisa

study, we also have one that was published last week, a sample survey

that looks at small numbers of pupils. One of the things we have

done is introduced the national improvement framework... You didn't

challenge the rankings when they were going well for you, you cannot

challenge them now they are going badly for you. I didn't challenge

them. I know how important a good education was for me, I want young

people to get the best education, the vast majority do but there are

areas we need to do better. Scotland used to be one of the best educated

countries in the world, and you have all the powers to change this, and

yet things are going backwards. On literacy and numerous aches have a

challenge but in many other areas, that is not true. I think you are

trying to conduct this interview on the basis I'm being defensive, I am

not being defensive, I readily accept the areas we need to do

better and that's why we have put such effort into the initiatives and

reforms that we are taking forward. The point I was going to make

earlier and didn't get the chance to finish is that we are reducing more

transparency so that I can be held more to account. Instead of sample

surveys, we have information on every pupil in Scotland at the

required levels, broken down school by school so there will be no hiding

place for any politician. And you said not so long ago you want to be

judged by this and your neck would be on the line. You are looking a

little Mary Queen of Scots. I don't wish to be Mary Queen of Scots. I

said I wanted this to be the defining priority of how ever many

years I am the Scottish First Minister. We are talking about

literacy and numerous it, the other big challenge we have is to close

the attainment gap between the richest and poorest young people. We

don't measure it in the same way, we have had a discussion about

university entrance before, I'm not sitting here making those

comparisons, I want Scotland to be its best on its own terms. Is it a

scandal if nurses have to use food banks because of their low pay? Yes.

That is happening in Scotland, and again you have the power as the

Scottish Parliament to set public sector pay. Could raise taxes and

pay them properly, why don't you? Let me set out what happens with

nurses' Perry, the independent review body makes recommendations.

The Scottish Government has always accepted those recommendations,

unlike the Westminster government. We have had a period of pay

restraint... They have lost 14% real value and you could correct this. We

will work with the pay review body to make sure nurses get the pay they

deserve. The Royal College of Nursing is now talking about strike

action. We work through the pay review body, we have agreed with the

unions we will jointly commissioned some research but there another

important point. Because of the commitment we gave that nurses would

always get their entitlement to progression, and newly qualified

nurse in Scotland is paid ?300 more than a newly qualified nurse in

England. We have also protected the nurse bursary and we are not asking

students to pay tuition fees so it is tough for nurses but we have done

far more than any other government in the UK to protect the pay of

nurses. You have said independence is at the heart of this choice and

talked about material changes. You watch the way public opinion is

going in Scotland. If the Conservatives move ahead and you

fall back on this election, is that not material change? Let's wait and

see who wins the election. For me, this is a question of at the end of

the Brexit process, does Scotland get a choice about our future? The

position of the Tories and Labour UK wide is that no matter how badly the

Brexit negotiations go, people should have to like it or lump it. I

believe people in Scotland should have a choice about our own future

but there is a more immediate priority... After we have left or

before we have left? At the end of the process when the terms of Brexit

are clear. In this election there is a more immediate priority and

opportunity for Scotland and it's about making sure our voice is heard

in the Brexit negotiations. It is an important point because there was a

lot of concern even among some people who voted to leave that we

are headed down the road of a very extreme Brexit. Proposals would have

protected our place in the single market, the Prime Minister dismissed

them out of hand. Because they were impractical... She didn't look at

them seriously, so this gives a chance. My message on Brexit is

whether you voted to leave or remain, if you vote SNP you are

strengthening my hand to make sure Scotland's voice is heard in these

negotiations and our economy. A lot of us voters voted to leave the EU,

you have always said in the past Scotland must be a full member of

the EU after independence and it has been suggested by some people that

you may move on that. Our position always has been that we want

Scotland to be a full member of the European Union... Including the

euro? We don't want to go into the euro, no country can be forced to do

that Sweden is an example of that. The majority in Scotland voted to

remain, some voted leave, so we try to see if there was compromise

ground and put forward proposals to leave the EU as part of the UK but

protect our single market position. Would an independent Scottish

membership of Efta the unacceptable compromise?

We have to set out the process for regaining or retaining, depending

where we are in the Brexit process, EU membership. It may be that we

have a phased approach to that... Efta first, EU later kind of thing?

We have to state that at the time because there are many uncertainties

around the process but in this election, if we want to have a

chance of protecting our place in the single market, then vote SNP to

strengthen our hand. You got the line out in the end there. Thanks

for joining us. Now a look at what's coming up

straight after this programme. At ten o'clock we will be debating

life's to inevitability is, tax and death. We ask, do we have a right

not to be offended? And is easier to face death if you in God?

So Michael Fallon and Emily Thornberry are back with me. Emily

Thornberry, there has been a lot of attacks on your party's patria to

some over the last few weeks and there is another story in the papers

today about Jeremy Corbyn and the IRA. What is your message to

working-class voters who look at this stuff and say, I just don't

like it? There were negotiations going on behind the scenes and

people speaking openly. This is something which has been known for

30 years and it has been dragged up at this particular time because of

the general election. Not surprising. I understand that, and

if you judge people by who it is you spend time with, the question is do

you have to be -- do your underwear you work on the 27th of May 2007?

You were celebrating the real action of President Assad -- re-election.

I'm not going to judge you on that and I don't think people should

judge Jeremy by trying to talk to people who might be open to a

settlement in Northern Ireland. There was a little bit of a

difference. I was a Parliamentary all-party visit to Syria in 2007,

MPs have gone every year to Syria during the better times. I remember

a fact-finding visit to Syria that happened every year with MPs going

out there... Did you meet Assad while you were there? Shake his

hand? Did you celebrate his re-election? It was ten years ago,

we had a different relationship with him then. There is a huge difference

to speaking to foreign leaders, and I speak to them all the time, and

Jeremy Corbyn's open support for the IRA. You cannot go around making

this stuff up. There is an election on and people need to make decisions

on the basis of the truth. You have said I want to negotiate the future

of the Falklands, that is... It is untrue! 20 minutes ago you implied

sitting there... You cannot make this up as you go along. People need

to make decisions based on facts and information, proper information, and

it is not right for you to go around slinging dead cats the way you do.

People need to concentrate because there is a serious choice to be

made. Your excuse is Jeremy Corbyn is on some kind of journey, well

that is too great a risk for this country. In relation to Nato there

has been a change and we are clear. Can I ask you both about the word

being used again and again - landslide. Tom Watson said if things

don't change the Conservatives are on course for a Thatcher style

landslide, why do you think he said that? I suppose he may have been

distracted by the polls, but they have not been terribly reliable

until now and we have another three weeks. We will be out there putting

out the message and the truth about what Labour stand for. Michael

Fallon, are you heading for landslide do you think? It is far

too early to start predicting the result of this election. We are

going for a stronger majority... You nearly said strong and stable! Thank

you, that is all we have time for this Sunday.

We'll be back the same time next week, when our guests

will include Ukip's leader, Paul Nuttall.