Union priorities for the new government

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And so I don't think it's malice from Star or anything like that, not all. I don't think that would be it. I think it is this ridiculous situation with a defence investment plan is a byproduct of the overall ridiculous situation we're in, which is that KS armor is still head. You don't need to rush this. Nobody else is asking for this to actually get done within the next two weeks. I mean, we do have such a thing as the wheels of government. We have a whole civil service, we have a whole array of men and women who can actually fill in the missing gaps. You know, that is the point of the sort of the back office of government, if you like. It's not all down to one man. Sure, I'm not defending Starmmer in all of this. I think Starmer is the author of all of this. This It's a year overdue. If you haven't got the detail now, when are you going to get the detail Even the limited plan that he has announced has completely unraveveled because he hasn't found the money to pay for it. It is five billion pounds short. We all know that he is leaving this mess to his successor. so can he confirm that the member for Makerfield has agreed to fund the shortfall Pres, what they did was to cut defence spending. When they came into power, defence spending was two point five percent. What did they do? They cut it to two point three percent a cut. On welfare, what did they do? They put it up byU eighty eight billion. we will take no lectures from them about either welfare or defence That was Kir Stara in the Cons after the unveiling of the Defense invvestment plan We know they want to buy drones, we know they want to buy warships. But in the middle of this is an unexploded bomb of five billion pounds unfunded pledges. Which got us wondering? Is Kir Starmer screwing Andy Burnham before he's even started Welcome to the news agents . The news agents It's John. It's Maitlis. It's Louis and after What was supposed to be the centerpiece of Kir Stammer's legacy in these dwindling dying days of his government, which was announced the defeence investment plan Yesterday, the details have emerged today. which confirm the suspicion of some that there was in fact less to this than met the eye Kistarm, in fact, has been described by the Times as leaving a series of unexploded bombs Andy Burham, presumably unexploded, not paid for bombs for Andy Burndham, because the defense spending plans that he unveiled yesterday Quite a significant portion of it is basically unfunded I. e, the Prime Minister has announced a target and destination, but at least to some extent, not actually articulated or provided details as to how they will get there. This is basically a four point seven billion pound funding gap, which is nearly a third of the fifteen billion increase in defence spending which star up planned yesterday. And if you go through the details of it, When I say details, it's pretty scan. you go through the documents that have been put out by the government in the last twenty four hours. you just have line by line with things like efficiency savings X billion pounds or changes to procurement X billion pounds. And on it these line by line items, which on one level are specific, but are also utterly vague And this also gets to what to me, leaving this detail aside was the central problem what should have been a really big political moment yesday, because it's defense investment plan, which is supposed to safeguard how we're going to protect ourselves as a country for the next ten years etceter, etceta. Much awaited Big political problem was that you have a prime minister whose authority is all but spent, who is going to be out of office in a couple of weeks. When he was asked, is the incoming prime Minister Andy Burnham signed up to the detail of this and signed up to the ambitions of it and signed up to the spending of it? All Kir Starmer was able to say is that he had been briefed and rather elliptically said, I think any Labour Prime Minister would want to adhere to this plan. So we can take it from that that the answer is Burnham is aware of it, but he's not signed up to it, which is obviously a pretty big problem given's going to be Pime Minister in three weeks We should also say H happppy birday, shouldn't we Thank you Well, I was hoping it might have come a little bit earlier than that But than just in the. you were speaking. Yeah, well, you introduc yourself, Mate Lis. I was hoping you' say Mate, and you had have to be f. Ha a birdayactly bday. You did give me a very nice apricot cake, so what kind? An hracot cake. Well, we look forward let's get this recording done quickly so we can go and eat cake Kis Armt was asked all about the Deence investment planl when he unveiled it and this was from Beth Rigby of Sky News. From the beginning of your premiership, you have prioritized Britain's role on the world stage, but your defence plan is a year late. It costs you your defence secretary and has no timetable for meeting the new NATO commitment By getting it across the line, you have made a start to your legacy on defense Do you acknowledge that it will be your successor who will need to secure it? And has Andy Burnham given you assurances that he will increase defence funding in the next spending review? Thank you very much. Well, thank you very much, Beth. Let me just put it in this way I think a test of any prime minister whether they leave the country in a better state than they found it And if you look at our country That is undoubtedly a case on the economy ndoubtedly the case on public services, in particularly the NHS but also undoubtedly the case on defence and security and international leadership We are in a much better state now than we were when we took over two years ago. And that isn't just measured in the amount of money we're putting into defense, the record investment that went in as a result of the announcement I made last year. The addition to that today but also the fact that other countries now look to the United Kingdom as a leader on defense and security. We' the first to be consulted We are the country that others want to work with. And I'm proud of that. We do leave the country in a better state As for the future, I have no doubt that all labour governments will remain that number one commitment to our defence and security. Labour governments have always done that and always will do that, and I amm absolutely certain. I think you have in that question and that answer All the reasons why Kirstama in a few weeks time is no longer going to be Prime Minister. and why Andy Burnham is going to have to pick up some pretty ly broken jagged pieces as a result of what Kir Starmer is leaving behind. because there you've had Kirarmer working on this for a year. But without the authority, it seems, to get different departmental heads cabinet ministers around the table to agree to sacrifices in their budgets to pay for this And you've got now Andy Burnham thinking Well thanks a lot, mate. This is a bloody nightmare. Yeah, Ugly broken jagged pieces and promises because the one thing that Rachel Reeves's Chancellor and Kirstar promised was that They wouldn't start cutting from those capital budgets across Whitehall. And what do we now learn that of the fifteen billion pounds that will be this additional money for defence, four billion of it will come from capital budgets, whether it's the one point one billion from selling government assets or nearly three billion that will come from extra cuts to road and energy projects. other words All these projects that are underway that are actually going ahead full steam that are controlled by various departments are starting to be slashed now, money taken away from stuff that is actually already accounted for, that stuff is already going ahead, that tenders have been made, that you know holes in the ground have been sort of built is now going to stop in order to fund this extra money for defense, which is just a massive headache for every single government department that's going to be affected by this. I think it's even worse than that. mean if you look at, I mean, that's bad enough in terms of This whole thingream screams to me, is Dog ate my homework st I mean really It's that thread b there to be honest. for Kir Starmer who has done lots of great things on defense, to be fair, he has raised overall spending. he got there much more quickly than Rashiuna did. He's done great things on foreign policy. But honestly, if this is his job application to be the new Secretary genereneral of NATO, I'm afraid he's not going to get passast the interU stage, right? Because I mean, you know, you look at the efficienies eleven billion pounds worth of efficiencies is going to fund this, right? whichich includes mean as various analysts have said, this is Vague at best. The first bit of efficiency is one billion through a new defence operating model which will provide a unified enterprise to translate political direction into strategy, planning and delivery. It's not a word salad, it's a word buffet. It's also an indication that there will be reforms to Cango to save money three billion pounds, something that government after government suggests that they would like to do. Four billion will come from improvements to acquisition and breaking down operational barriers Again, high you get full be. every we do that? Exactly. Stop myself. And so don't take it from me. I mean Me Hilli, who's a labor MP, but she's the chair of the Public accounts Committee, has said that these plans are hugely optimistic And that's before we even get to one of the most contentious decisions, which is they've delayed plans for a nine billion pound upgrade of military housing which the Labour goovernment had promised to veterans, which is in a know shambolic and barely habitable state. And as you say Amily as well, the seven billion of cuts to Capital budgets in different departments which have not been identified yet, which will take a long time and might never happen. And of course, we all know It's not going to be Kst Armmer's problem as you say, John and Tany Burnhams. Yeah. And you just imagine that you've got the NATO summit about to take place in Istanbul You've probably got diplomats in London, U. S diplomats in London, writing back telegrams to the Defense seecretary, Pete Egseth and the Pident and the Secretary of state about what is Britain's new commitment and does it all add up? And I think you know, they would be very well justified in writing telegrams saying, well, intentions good actual measures taken What is there? And I think that this is really bad if you are trying to promote and project that you know Kir Starmak is serious about these objectives you of what defense spending is going to be. And if you look at what would need to be spent in future in the coming years to meet these much higher targets. Oh my God, where are you going to find the money for that? Because it ain't going to be efficiencies, a money found down the back of a sofa. Well helpfully, Rachel Reeves has just been adding insult to injury by writing a piece in the telegraph warning Andy Burnham not to start borrowing more to fund the defence project that they're leaving him. So she has said Defence invvestment plan, we know we will add fifteen billion, and it's only been made possible because of her strict fiscal rules and that it would harm Britain's national security if you started borrowing more I mean, There is this sort of ready brereck aura, isn't there around Rachel Reeves, where the one thing that she has consistently done and said is I've stuck within the fiscal rules, I've stuck within the fisc rules, Don't borrow more I' stuck within the fisc rules The fact that nothing else really got done on her watch except for the stick within the fiscal rules seems to be aling her seems to be escaping her because we are left with a man who's now being essentially lectured to by the outgoing Chancellor feels like, I mean, who knows, but it feels like she is essentially being sacked along with the Prime Mister. I mean, I know there is this question of whether she keeps her job. I feel that is vanishingly small. And she's now lecturing the incoming Prime Minister about how important it is to stick to the fiscal rules to deal with the black hole. I mean look I mean to go back to the question you started episode with. I mean, is Starmer actually trying to kind of screwburn them over in some way with this. I don't think it's that in a sense that I'm sure that, you know, Starmer has not malice. No No, it's not malice. I think that this is, I think what we've got here frankly, a product of this ridiculous situation that we're in at the moment, which is that we've basically got a nearly dead government. having to pretend that it's not nearly dead And a prrime mininister who is making decisions about things who frankly has no authority to do it. I mean, we had that argument the other day with that discussion about like, you know the decor of our constitution. I think that's the word you use decor. I think one of the reasons why I think we don't tend to have these interregnums, I think it's for precisely this reason, which is that right bloody is best. Yeah. in the sense that Stahmer wanted to get this off, you know, it was part of his legacy. I understand that. they've been working on it and so on. But the truth is if Starmer wasn't resigning It may well not have been published at this moment, precisely because all of the details are not finalised. You know, the I's aren't dotted, the T's aren't crossed. And he said to our colleague, Natasha Clark, AlbC's political editor I think like a week ago, this would be fully costed fully costed And it's not And because frankly, he wants to have a legacy, and we've had a bit of a record now to be honest of prrime mininisters in the fag end, that kind of like they actuallyual not just a fag, but the sort of ash bit of the fag end of their premierships, rushing out these decisions, trying to cobble together a legacy. You know Theereresa May did it with the net zero legislation, which might have been good or might have been bad Boris Johnson didil the things in his last days as Prime Minister. and the machine wants to give it to them because it wants to give them something to say as they to your point, if they're heading off to NATO to do their last summit and they're thinking that maybe their future career lies in defence. Exactly. But really, that shouldn't be how political decisions are made And so I don't think it's malice from Stalmer, anything like that, not all. I don't think that would be it. I think it is this ridiculous situation with the Defense investment plan is a byproduct of the overall ridiculous situation we're in, which is that Kir Stalmer is still there. There's no need for him to still be there. He has set out a timetable is the Labour Party's timetable for nominations. We all know there's not going to be one. We all know that Andy Burnham is going to be the next Prime Mister. I know that Burnham wants a bit of time to prepare. but frankly, you know, you don't always get exactly what you want in these situations and the The absurdity of this defence investment plan and the whole shambles around it is simply a byproduct of the fact that we've got a prime Minister who has no political authority left. and even if he wanted to get all the details ready, he can't because he's working on. I'm not sure I agree with all of that. I think that it does make sense that there is a bit of an interregnant because Andy Burnham has only just come back to the House of Commons You know, there's an awful lot of briefing documents that if you think that if you're running into a general election And you are the leader of one of the parties that is competing for government You'll have had weeks and weeks of civil servant briefings about this is where the state of things are in the treasury or in borrowing or whatever the happens to be, so that you are up to speed when you do move in the night after a general election Andy Burnham Has won a by election ten days ago, or whatever it is nearly two weeks ago? wanted to be P prime Minister for about twenty years? Sure. But has he been kept briefed by cabinet secretaries about what is going point In other words, you don't need to rush this. Nobody else is asking for this to actually get done within the next two weeks. I mean, we do have such a thing as the wheels of government. We have a whole civil service, we have a whole array of men and women who can actually fill in the missing gaps. You know, that is the point of the sort of the back office of government, if you like. It's not all down to one man. It's not all down Yeah, sure. I'm not defend Starmer in all of this. I think Starmer is the author of all of this. This is It's a year overdue. If you haven't got the detail now, when are you going to get the detail When are you going to get this sorted out so that the defeense investment plan has got very eye dotted and every te cross because it's a year over due already for the home It's not so much the dog's eaten my homework. I haven't done my bloody homework. And that is what's happened here. I think that's what it means. Yeah, I know. Just a breakdown. Yeah. All his is years, John's like, Th these dogs eat homework. It's incredible. My dog never does that. What has the government been doing on all of this? that it's taken so long It was never going to happen because he hasn't got the capability to deliver on this Burnham look, I think in this situation it's a bit like, I mean, You know, it's a bit like when you have in America, when you have an outgoing presidential administration, and you only have like one president time. But when when there's a president elected, which is kind of this weird situation we've almost kind of moved into, you know, they do work together. they you know, and there is an awareness that you have that sort of gradual transition of power. Prime Mister promised an ordderly transition of This doesn't feel very orderly in the sense that I think if he really wanted to do this, in reality, he would have needed to at least get Broad brush sign off from Burnham And that's clear that he doesn't have it. It's clearly doesn't have it to bring him into the conversation. because that was what it sounded as if he was going to do originally. Would it be possible For this to have been written by two prime mininisters an outgoing one and an incoming one. I mean, do we call him terin Well technically hasn't been lated, so I even just signing off at least on a broad rush stroke of it, I mean, what's clear is that he's been briefed about it And for starter to turn around and go Well, I'm sure, I think it's Again, I it's not malice, but I think it's pretty And think it's ideal, Starmag going, any Labour Prime minister would want to sign up to this. What a ridiculous thing to say? No, they wouldn't. L you can't just say that anyy Labour Prime minister would want to sign up to the particars of this plan because there are political choices involved in the plan. He might not think that it's a very good plan. He might not think, as we've been saying, that the details are there so far. choose something that you think the Labour Party is broadly on side. mean, he's just announced literally ten days ago. The social media ban for under sixteenens. I mean, Does that just disappear now? Or could that have been his legacy? Could he brought Burnham onto that and say, right, this is the next few steps. These are what we're going to do to firm up something that you believe in that I believe in that the party can get behind? I It's interesting that this whole idea that we now have a Prime Minister elect, which is not part of our way of doing things at all. If you look at America George W. Bush wanted to tie Obama into some of the measures that he was taking After the financial crash, and Obama is saying, no, mate, this is on your watch. I take over on january twentieth. this is yours. And other presidents have done the same where you know there's been a great camity, you know, the financial crash of nineteen twenty eight as well, where you know the incoming president is saying, sorry, mate, this is on you. you know I'm not part of this And so, you know, Bernham probably hasn't been I just don't think you'd have got two prime ministers to sign it off in that. But we do have and we don't even we We've got a form for this in our own country, right or a protocol for this in our own country, which is that you know during an election period or once Parliament has been dissolved, or once you have a sort looking at a change in Prime minister or government, typically big new announcements are not made. Yeah we have a pur. We have a pura. Exactly. And I would have thought I am a bit surprised to be honest Given that and that is basically the situation that we're in that Starmer has pressed ahead with this anyway. I think he would justify the Cabinet Scretary Antono Romeo said, don't do it. L can you stay away from big announcements? I mean, presumably this fits into the bill of things that were already half done. Yeah. And I think But I think if we're honest, the reason why Starmer has pressed ahead of it is because he's legacy shopping. and he wants to leave office to be able, and we've seen him do it a few times now with a list of things that he thinks he's achieved, I think he's right. he's leaving the country in a better state than he found it. But I think this is a bit of a reckless move actually for the sake of prrime Misterial vanity in the in the fifty ninth minute of the eleventh hour In a moment, we'll be talking to the General Secretary of the TUC on this changeover of power Horseshoe Online Casino has a special offer for you, New Jersey. New users can get five hundred bonus spins in their first month on games like Huff and lots of puff and more. It's simple and rewarding to play your casino favorites. Download and play today. Must be twenty one plus and physically present in New Jersey. mininimum wagering within five days required to unlock bonuses. Full terms and wagering requirements at horseshoe onnlinecasino dot com slash promos If you were someone you know is a gambling problem, call one eight hundred gambler Well a moment ago we were talking about that lovely gift that Kir Stammer has bequeathed Andy Burnham, a five billion pound black hole in defence spending that needs to be made up to enact the defefence investment plan, which we don't know and knew about in detail beforehand or not But it sort of sets a framework for what is going to be coming up now. with Andy Burnham and the sort of problems that he's going to face as he comes to his first budget and all the rest of it and the financial decisions he's going to have to make. Let's talk about that with Paul Novak, who is the Genal Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, who joins us in the studio. Welcome Tas, thank you very much indeed You'd like to think it was a really fraternal handover of power of one smiling at the other. And actually it's pretty unpleasant, isn't it? that Kar Stammer going, Okaykay Andy, you've got my job, but Now you've got this nightmare. I think any transfer of power is difficult isn't it, particularly when you're talking about a prrime minister. And I suppose Kir Stmer's counterpoint to that would be, I've left you twenty two billion pounds worth of headroom in the economy. But you know an incoming Prime Minister is going to face a lots of difficult choices choices going into that first budget in the autumn as well. But I mean think about the Dfense investment plan, in particular, it's been long overweighted and probably long overdue. I was up in a defense manufacture in the Northeast a couple of months ago. They were really worried about the fact that the plan hadn't been produced. What does that mean for jobs, for investment decisions. businessusiness of government can't just stop ground to a halt because there's a transition of power. I suspect Any incoming Prime Minister is going to be picking up lots of stones and finding things under them that will be difficult. That's the nature of the job But do you think that Andy Burnham has kind of got all this in hand given the fact that it's all happened so bloody quickly? Well, there's a difference isn' that? becausecause there's a difference between thinking himself into the job and actually being the Pime mininister. He will be getting briefings from civil servants. and I think his team will be across a lot of these these issues, but there's a difference between waiting to be Prim Minister and actually walking through the doors of number ten And so these are the big challenges I say that Andy or new Prime Mister is going to face and that's the nature of government. We should explain that the TUC is essentially the umbrella organisation, you're the Federation Unions, Are you sensing trade unions are pulling in the same direction with not just Andy Berham, but with the choices that he is likely to make. We've been reading different things about, for example, his decision of Chancellor. Looks like it could be Ed Milliban. we don't know that, nothing in stone. And all the stuff coming out, the sort of mood music is that half the Unions love that idea and half the Unions hate it. Well listen, there's lot of criminal art crrinology, canan I even say the word? there's going to be lots of word in the English language to say say in Russia see We've got forty seven unions. They represent five and a half million workers. They're coming at different issues for representing different groups of members. You've got eleven labour affiliated unions. They'll agree on lots of things, but there'll be nuances and differences I think the one thing that they're all agreed on is that two years into a labour government, and despite lot of the good things that have happened under this Labour government for a lot of trade union members and a lot of people out there just generally They feel like change, which is the one word on the front cover of that manifesto in july twenty twenty four, hasn't been delivered. And our members fundamentally want to see change. We've got far too many people who think that the economy and in fact politics doesn't work for them. And I think you could be talking to Unionions representing people in oil and gas. or in EVs or unions represented people in care homes or supermarkets. there's a sense of frustration out there that was reflected in those loocal election results in May and the results in Wales and Scotland. You talked about a lot of the eleven of the Unions being labour affiliated. Do you sense now Or did you sense up to this point that you were losing a lot of members towards reform? Well that's a fact of life, I mean, our members are effectively a broad cross section of the British public and we know that Hundreds of thousands of them probably voted for reform in that last set of elections. That's not a surprise to me, as I say, I think there's a lot of people out there who feel disillusioned with mainstream Pitics I've been very clear, our job is not to tell members somehow they voted the wrong way patronise them or think that they're thick or racist or reactionary because they voted for reform. I think we've got responsibility to point out the difference between reform and reality and the rhetoric, you know so Nigel Farraage claiming to be on the side of working people at the same time voting against the Employment Rights Act, threatening to get rid of the Equality Act. you know, there's a real mismatch between Bonhomy character that Farage likes to present and the reality of their policies on the ground. But that's a job that we've got to constantly talk to our members about both You said the word on the Labour manifesto In July two years ago was changed and you felt your members felt it hadn't been delivered. So is it a good thing that Starm' going? Well personally, I mean it's an incredibly difficult thing for Kia Starmer. I think our unions, our labour unions in particular were clear that they didn't think that K could lead them into the next election. And I think that reflected that regardless of the good stuff the goovernment hass done, the Employment Rights Act would be near the top of my list, but bringing our railways back into public ownership, record investments in the NHS, lifting two child benefit cap, a proper industrial strategy we could go on and on. O just as you going on members. As you go on, Paul, would you include in that, for example Rises to the minimum wage? Absolutely, abbsolutely. ye. Even if it means that more young people are struggling to get into the job market now. Well actually the low paid commommission has being very clear, Emily, there's no link between increases in the minimum wage for young people in youth unemployment. I think Al Milban did a Now his interim report is very clear there are long term structural issues in the UK labour market and to try and pin it on just Inreases in the youth minimum wage. There's no evidence for that You don't have to read reports on that. You just talked to any business who says I can't afford to get in the young people now because otherwise it's unbalanced. all the other jobs ahead of it. You know somebody waiting tables or cleaning glasses changes what you have to pay for. your chef changes what you have to pay for your manager. in hospitality, it's completely screwed. There's lots of cost pressures on employers. but I say there's no evidence yet that it's the minimum wage that is causing any increase in employment or hiring decisions. and in fact I mean, onene of the beauties of the minimum wage for the last twenty five years plus is that we've had the l pay commission. which represents unions, employers, independent experts. and their job is to make sure it takes the minimum wage don't have imp adverse impact on employment. Okay, one other Net zero. goodood thing Well, of course, I mean, anybody who sat through the swelter in heat last weekend You know, that weort knows that climate change is real, knows that we have to address it Our unions, I think absolutely understand the need to get a net zero There are very, very real issues for unions representing people in energy intensive industries in oil and gas where frankly what they can't afford is for their members just have warm words about just transition frrankly we've been through too many badly managed industrial transitions in the past where workers are left on the scrappy. So as we make that transition, workers need to know absolutely about things like job security, income security. Has Ed Binibab been too ideological in this I don't think it's a case of being too ideological. I think Ed's done some really good stuff. If you think about renewab T the big unions have come out and said we do not want him to be the next chancellor of the exchange. Well if you think about, for example, the investment in renewables, the commitment to next generation of new nuclear, I think you'd absolutely have the support of our unions. our unions in oil and gas, uniting in the JM Bay, I think are absolutely reflecting the concerns of the members in the North Sea about well, let's chose the plan. and show us the funding And at the moment, for example, in supply chains in the North Sea, there's a big gap there. So as I say, I mean I grew in Merseyside in the eighties. I saw what happens when you get industrial transition wrong And I don't think that workers in the North Sea, workers in Aberdeen should be just on a wing and a prayer. Don't worry it's going to be okay. So B challes to Andy Burnham et on with it, get drilling. No, I don't think it's a case of just drill baby drill. I mean, I think it's got to be evidence specifically if you think about Rosebank and Jackdor, I mean, I'd be evidence based. I think there's there's an arguments around energy security in particular In the medium to long term, we know the North Sea it's a mature oilfield. It's going to decline over time How you support people through that transition is really important. but also think about how you support people in the clean energy industry as well. talkalk about renewables. newew nuclear EVs, there's like four hundred thousand jobs coming down the line between now and twenty thirty in the green economy. We've got to make sure that they're good quality unionised jobs that people have confidence in but you know it's not either or. I mean, we represent members who are building EV's. For them the transition is also important. We've got members in steel that know the future of steel in this country is going to be green steel. So because you' pulled in so many different directions, Paul, is it possible for you to say This is priority number one. I mean, have you come in today to say When Andy Burnham takes the reins in two weeks time, this is priority number But certainly in terms of the big picture, abbsolutely, I think you ask himself, what sort of country do we want to live in And for me, he has to show in that first one hundred days with every decision he takes that he's on the side of working class people or families and communities. We've said he should start with a social tariff on energy bills I mean, we just add the cap lifted. That's going to put an extra two hundred and twenty pounds on people's bills this coming year. That's I mean, if you if you take those bill increases over the last five years, that's two and a half thousand pound extra and energy bills. That's not sustainable. So We're saying that he should support low middle income families. How do you do that by raising the bank's s Jge. That fully funds a social tariff helps millions of people who are going to be hard hit by those energy bill increases and we already know One in three people are worried about ten and the heating on. It helps drive down inflation and it sends a very clear message about who side you're on And if he was coming in and saying I need your help completely rewiring the country. We've talked about a circuit break, we've talked about a need for change, we've talked about an absolute end with what went before. The way I can do that is with another penny on the pound or two p on the pound intax, that's going to give me the space to do something properly dramatic on defence on the right investment on making this country work. What would you say to that? I'd say that would be very hard for our members who haveve been hit in the midst of that cost of living crisis to swallow And certainly they won't swallow it unless they've been they've seen very clearly that you've asked those with the broader shoulders to pay a fair share first So I talked about the bank surcharge. We had a record year bonuses in the city of London last year, twenty four billion pounds handed out in bonuses. Our big four retail banks are making a billion pounds a week between them Saina famamilies, one of five of whom say to us they're skipping meals to make ends meet By the way, pay more tax, but we'll leave that untouched. I don't think would go down at all There's been lots of speculation around capital gains tax and income tax I think it's crazy that the person who cleans an office quite often pays a higher effective tax rate than the the city brokw sits in the office and so I think if he's looking at tax, he's got to start with asking those with the broader shoulders to pay a fair share f. And what do you say about all these people that are leaving the country because they you know, they're being overtaxed? But they not John Arley? There's no evidence that there's been a millionaire exodus they genuinely there hasn't been. and every time you take on a vested interest, peopleeople will scream blue mur that it's good. I mean It's a different example, but we saw it with the Employment Right Act just recently. we saw it with the minimum wage twenty five. There is less investment. I mean there's definitely fewer people who are willing to invest in here. But there's a whole range of reasons why investment is stalled in this country, including some of the external shocks that we've had I genuinely don't think there has been a flight. of the millionaires. but I would say to people, We talk a lot about cost of living prices. Everybody in this country has lived through a cost of living crisis. and people have done really well over the last a few years. and I said when we've got seventy percent of kids who live in poverty in this country with at least one parent who goes out to work don't think it's unreasonable to ask those who've done relatively well to pay a little bit more. Pul Nvat, Thankk you very much for being with us. Thank you Cheers