Political Fix special: Live at the FT Weekend Festival

This is an audio transcript of the Political Fix podcast episode: ‘Political Fix special: Live at the FT Weekend Festival’

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Lucy Fisher
Hello, Political Fix listeners. It’s Lucy Fisher, the FT’s Whitehall editor here. On Saturday just past, we staged a live version of the podcast at the FTWeekend Festival. For those of you who couldn’t make it in person, we recorded it. So sit back, here goes.

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(Audience clapping) Well, hello and welcome. I’m Lucy Fisher, the Whitehall editor at the Financial Times and the host of the politics podcast, Political Fix. Delighted to be here with you today hosting this special live edition, we’ve got a brilliant panel lined up. Michael Gove is, of course, our special guest today. The secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities. I think I just mixed up the order there, didn’t I?

Michael Gove
Nope, nope. Perfect.

Lucy Fisher
It’s all right? And Michael, I make this is your sixth job in Cabinet, having served as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, environment secretary, justice secretary, chief whip and education secretary. The MP for Surrey Heath for 18 years, Michael has been, I think it’s fair to say, a key survivor across multiple administrations and a huge proponent and architect of reform. So we’ll get a chance to talk about some of that shortly. We’re also joined by Stephen Bush, associate editor and columnist at the Financial Times. In addition to his weekly column, Stephen is the writer of the award-winning newsletter Inside Politics, which charts politics and policy in the UK. I’d encourage anyone who doesn’t already, to sign up to that. And finally, Miranda Green is the FT’s deputy opinion editor and also a columnist. Miranda’s previously been a UK and world news editor at the newspaper, as well as a political and education correspondent. And in a former life, on the other side of the divide . . . 

Miranda Green
Yes.

Lucy Fisher
 . . . Miranda was press secretary to Paddy Ashdown when he was leader of the Liberal Democrats. So welcome to all three of you and thanks for joining. And just an early word, I will come to the audience for questions. So get your thinking caps on as you’re listening. So regular listeners of Political Fix will know we tend to start each episode with a quick look back at the week that was. Today, given it’s back to school next week, MPs like Michael are back to the Commons after their summer recess. I thought I’d ask you all just for a brief observation about what, if anything, has changed the political dial over the summer. So, Stephen, let’s start with you on that front.

Stephen Bush
Well, I think the big theme this summer was effectively the kind of dress rehearsal for an election campaign. We saw the government day with these themed weeks with Rishi Sunak doing his LBC phone-ins. And as you’ll know, having had to write it up on the FT website this week, that has led to this change at the top of Downing Street with a couple of new people coming in. So I think this kind of dress rehearsal/soft reboot of the Conservative party is probably the biggest political sto . . . the biggest political development over the summer.

Lucy Fisher
Miranda, what’s caught your eye?

Miranda Green
Well, actually, mine’s more of a policy moment, which I found a little shocking. And I’m wondering if Michael secretly did, too. As former pioneering education secretary, which was the current education secretary, Gillian Keegan, telling people on A-level results day that it didn’t necessarily matter all that much, what they got, and which I thought was a bit shocking for an aspirational party, for a country that needs to up its education and skills levels to compete.

Lucy Fisher
And Michael, it’s the first summer in a while we haven’t had a leadership contest.

Michael Gove
Yes.

Lucy Fisher
Brexit hub (laughter) or a lockdown. How do you think it’s gone?

Michael Gove
Well, that’s the striking thing that in domestic political terms, it’s been the quietest summer since 2015. So from 2016 onwards, every summer has either had, as you say, a new prime minister coming in or a leadership contest or a Covid crisis or another domestic political convulsion. And so I thought Stephen’s absolutely right. There was an element of limbering up. There was a sense of both parties, you know, a bit like boxers sizing each other up, wondering where the vulnerability was and where to punch. But actually, the biggest news was international. And I think that the biggest stories were what happened to Yevgeny Prigozhin and the ruling series of coups in West Africa. And of course, the FT readers are as interested in international news as they are in domestic. But it’s a cliché, but a powerful one, that what happens abroad has a ramification here, even more so. And when we are locked in a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, then those changes have an impact on us, not least because to take it one step front, one of the other big international stories of the summer was the fact that it’s been one of the hottest ever. And climate change, of course, is in the forefront of all our minds. And what’s happening in West Africa, of course, is partly influenced by climate change and partly determined how we deal with climate change, because so many of the minerals that are required for an energy transition are in those countries which are now part of a sort of furious contestation between Russia and China on the one hand and the West on the other.

Lucy Fisher
And Michael, let’s cast forward now we’re about to head into the autumn term of parliament. We’ve got a busy schedule, politics coming up with conference season, the Autumn Statement, the King’s Speech. At the moment, the Conservatives lag Labour by an average of 18 points in the polls. Can Rishi Sunak still win the next election?

Michael Gove
Oh, yes, I’ve . . . (laughter) I’m an eternal optimist, but the Conservative party, indeed other parties have been further behind. Now, again, in 2019, we recorded a performance in the European elections of, I think 8 per cent. And then at the end of the year, the Conservatives went on to win the general election with an 80-seat majority. That quite a lot happened in 2019 (laughter) between the European elections and the general election. But if the last seven turbulent years have taught us anything, they’ve taught us that you cannot automatically predict or extrapolate from current trends and say that you can predict the future. The second thing is, and again it’s just a sort of standard point, in the period up to elections, the government has always compared against an ideal government — the government of your dreams. Then at the election, it is a choice. And I’m not going sort of at this stage, I meant later, indulging sort of Labour bashing and all the rest of it. But the degree of scrutiny that a government faces is significantly greater than that which an opposition faces. And at a general election, the degree of strict need to which Keir Starmer and his team will be subjected will I think, mean that people will be presented with a clear choice. I could run through the reasons why I think they will vote conservative, but you’ll be hearing a lot of me saying that over the course of the next 11 months anyway.

Lucy Fisher
Great. And just a word from you, Michael, on what Rishi Sunak’s priority . . . 

Michael Gove
Yes.

Lucy Fisher
 . . . should be to try and close the gap in the polls before Christmas.

Michael Gove
Well, I think there are several. The first is continued progress in the fight against inflation. And again, when the prime minister spelt out five priorities at the beginning of this year, there were two things some people thought, oh, they’re easy, they’re obvious. I think the last months have demonstrated far from it. They are actually quite stretching goals. But the second thing is, these are the urgent and pressing items that people need to see the prime minister and the whole of government having gripped before we can then go on to say, right, if we are to be re-elected, then these are the other changes that we made and you will see at the party conference and beyond a great degree of detail about what the forward program would look like. But at the moment people want to see on inflation, on the NHS, on illegal migration and on the economy overall, the changes that the prime minister has set us all to work on. And again, in the fight against inflation, obviously it’s not solely the government that is responsible for setting policy.

The Bank of England has its role to play. There are other international factors, but given the government gets the blame when things go wrong, I think it is absolutely right for the prime minister to be able to reflect on the fact that we all see progress there. Just one other thing. Just yesterday, I think it was, revised statistics showed that the UK, having been assumed to be near the bottom of the pack in G7 nations in economic recovery post-Covid was actually in the top three doing better than Germany. Now that is not a cause for either complacency or champagne corks popping, but it is certainly, I think, the case that economic stewardship is central to the next election. And it is an area where I think the prime minister has both a strong record on a number of powerful cards to play.

Lucy Fisher
Well, since you’ve mentioned the Office for National Statistics revising up the size of the economy. I wondered whether you felt a sense of vindication in light of your famous, perhaps infamous (Michael laughs) comments in 2019 that people had had enough of experts from three-letter acronym organisations that consistently got it wrong?

Michael Gove
Yes, this is a huge topic. In the same way as James Cameron never actually said crisis, what crisis? (Lucy laughs) I didn’t actually say that, but we’ve had enough of experts, full stop. You are, Lucy absolutely right. Whether I went on to qualify it by saying from organisations with acronyms that have got things wrong in the past. What I was really having a go at was economic forecasting, and economic forecasting was of course invented in order to make astrology seem respectable. But, the point remains that a number of people thought that I was dissing expertise overall. And so I suspect whatever else I’m remembered for, I’ll probably be remembered for that quote. But thank you for allowing me in front of this educated audience to enter a nuance and correction.

Lucy Fisher
Stephen, tell us a bit about the challenges facing Keir Starmer and Labour in the coming months.

Stephen Bush
Well, I think the big challenge is that we’ve seen the Labour party is now putting forward a pointable candidate for prime minister, which when you think about some of the candidates, the prime minister they’ve had in the last 13 years being appointable, is quite a big step forward for the Labour party and they are able to benefit from. When I think back to being on this stage a year ago, before the Liz Truss premiership, right? Then there was a period in time when the Labour party could not be the beneficiary of voter anger with the Conservative party because it had become sufficiently scary a proposition that even when things went as badly wrong for the Conservatives as they did in 2017, they won for want of anything better.

But there isn’t yet, I think that magnetic sense of attraction or affection for the Labour party, which would allow their opinion poll lead to survive a OK, yes, it would be quite unexpected given the headwinds the government faces. But if there were a sudden improvement in the economic prospects of the UK, not a revision off of what, you know, I mean ultimately all the revision really means is like, well you felt miserable last year, but actually don’t worry, some Germans felt even more miserable than you. (Laughter) That normally does cheer British people up (laughter).

But I think, you know, if you think about not only the fact that Tony Blair won in 1997, but he did so when the, when actually the record of the major government was actually something to shout about. Is the Labour party yet in a position where if the Conservatives can point to real improvement, they would be carried through? I don’t think so.

Lucy Fisher
Miranda, I can see you want to chip in?

Miranda Green
No, I mean, I just think it’s so interesting, this ONS upgrade of the GDP figures, because I actually, you know to Steven’s point, I think it makes a huge difference to the Labour project as well if the economic backdrop starts to look healthier. Because Labour is not gonna have such a miserabilist message, potentially. It may not actually change the state of the public finances, what GDP looks like, but it’s a more optimistic backdrop. It becomes a little bit harder potentially for Rachel Reeves even this afternoon on another platform here at the festival to stick to her extremely miserly prescriptions for public spending.

And that’s a challenge for Labour, but also an opportunity for them to have a more optimistic programme for change. I mean fundamentally — I don’t know if Michael would agree — I get his very on-message optimism about the possibility of the Conservatives winning again. But if we think this is actually a change election after 13 years of conservative and conservative-led rule, then how Labour envisions that change is the most interesting question for the next few months.

Lucy Fisher
And Miranda, sticking with you. Tell us a bit about the Lib Dems. Are they still struggling for a raison d'être?

Miranda Green
Lucy, I thought you’d never ask (Miranda laughs). So I think that actually the Lib Dems have a sort of function and it is a bit functional at the moment. Some very unkind commentator said about the Liberal Democrat role in the coalition, of which Michael was a key part, that it was a bit like rinse aid when you put the dishwasher on — you weren’t quite sure what it did, but it just made everything sort of subtly but importantly better. And I think in this election to come, the Liberal Democrats will have a sort of electoral rinse-aid function, which is that they’ve got to win in the places that Labour can’t if there’s actually going to be a change of government. And that’s why they have a slightly dull campaign at the moment, I think, because they’re playing it really safe, even more safely than Keir Starmer is playing it.

Lucy Fisher
And Michael, in Surrey you have a healthy 18,000-vote majority, but there are boundary changes and you are firmly in the sights of the Lib Dems in the middle of the blue wall that they’re trying to win over from the Conservatives. Do you feel under pressure?

Michael Gove
No, I don’t. I mean, my Lib Dem opponent is a charming, delightful, thoughtful person who it’s always a pleasure to meet. He’s a very distinguished academic. I think it would be a grave loss to academia (laughter) if he were to be taken away. And again, given the point that Miranda made earlier about wanting students to be aspirational, I hope he continues to inspire many, many more students of geography (laughter) for a long time to come.

No, I don’t. But I think there is there is a factor, or one of which we are aware, which is that the electoral geography of the UK has changed and is changing. And there is a phenomenon whereby people, particularly post-pandemic, who were living in London and who have — we have to recognise that London has moved away from the Conservatives for a variety of reasons — that some of that demographic has moved into the home counties. So it was interesting at the last general election, I think, that St Albans went Liberal Democrat. Many of the seats that the Liberal Democrats are targeting are less the sort of rural Methodist nonconformist seats of the past and more that sort of suburban commutery belt.

I’m confident that we’ll be able to convince people to vote Conservative in my constituency and other constituencies in Surrey. But it would be foolish to say that it isn’t more of a challenge now. Now, again, I stress the fact that politics can change things immutable within London. I actually think there may be, because of a variety of decisions that the mayor has made, an opportunity for the conservatives. Say nothing is forever. But it is certainly the case that over the last few years what we’ve seen in the areas around London is just that demographic change. That means that it’s more of a challenge for us to convince people to carry on voting Conservative. Whereas once in the past it might have been a default assumption that they would.

Lucy Fisher
Michael, let’s stick with you for a bit. In your role as secretary of state for housing, levelling up and communities, you obviously cover a vast portfolio. And I know in housing in particular, you’re going to be talking about at 1pm on the House and Home stage. So I won’t dwell too heavily on that. But this week you have been in the headlines for ripping out EU rules, protecting against pollution of British rivers and waterways in order to boost housebuilding. It’s a request that’s been made by developers. As a former environment secretary, that’s a decision that must have made you wince a little bit.

Michael Gove
Well, it wasn’t easy. You’re certainly right. And it’s not an ideal situation. We have a set of rules called the nutrient neutrality rules, which are designed to achieve a very, very worthwhile and indeed important goal, which is to prevent nutrients — nutrients aren’t great, and in this case they’re actually harmful nitrates and phosphates — going into our rivers. If they go into our rivers, they create algal bloom. That means that marine wildlife — river and wildlife — finds it much more difficult and our rivers are polluted. The principal causes of this runoff, the principal causes of these nitrates and phosphates, these nutrients, are two. One, the ineffective treatment of wastewater by water companies — sewage, essentially. And then the second is the runoff from farms, agricultural runoff. The contribution that new homes make is very small, but the way in which the rules have been applied have put a complete moratorium, effective moratorium on all new housing. So we felt that, and it’s not the what’s the word, an ideal option but it is a necessary one. But in order to unblock the housing we need, we needed to make sure that the nutrient neutrality rules were suspended. And we know, of course, that in suspending them, there is an additional nutrient load, a small one, very small one compared to the other factors. But because it’s an additional load, we’re putting in extra money, £280mn, in order to mitigate that. And that money will go to, among other things, creating the enhanced environment elsewhere, new wetlands and so on, which can ensure that we continue the progress that we’ve made in improving our rivers. And I know that the final subclause might excite or raise some hackles from people here who will have looked at the very powerful publicity that’s been put forward, suggesting that our rivers are in a deteriorating state. The objective evidence suggests that while there’s still a lot to do to improve our rivers, that our rivers are improving in health over time, that doesn’t mean that we should again sit back and applaud the progress that’s been made. We need to go further in that. But it seems to me that in the balance here, when we’ve got a complete block on housing development, that we needed to take action.

The other thing that I would say is that new houses are built to the highest environmental standards. They’re built with sustainable drainage systems. So again, the impact is less, much less than it would otherwise be. And ultimately, it’s not the homes that create the pollution — it’s us. Now, the sewage load is a dreadful thing to discuss at this point in the morning as a consequence of our activities. So wherever we are, we are producing it. The most important thing is to make sure that we have the investment, particularly in wastewater treatment in order to deal with it.

Lucy Fisher
Well, moving from pollution to carbon emissions, which again we’re also responsible for.

Michael Gove
Yes.

Lucy Fisher
The green agenda is shaping up to become a battleground in a Tory civil war, isn’t it? Between environmental campaigners who want Rishi Sunak to go further and faster to reach net zero and net zero sceptics. Do you think Sunak is right to soften some of his green pledges?

Michael Gove
Well, I wouldn’t say that the green pledges are being softened, but I think that there is a recognition, particularly at the moment, that if we’re going to take people with us on this journey, then we need to make sure that we’re not creating, at any point, disproportionate penalties or punitive measures that lead people either to suffer economically or to feel that the sacrifice is not worth it. So there is a balance to be struck. I think everyone here recognises that we need to make a series of changes to every aspect of our way of life, from how we travel to how we produce the steel that we need to — and that steel is critical to the renewable sector — to how we heat our homes. We have to make those changes. It is inescapable. Manmade global warming and climate change is an established scientific fact. There could be an argument over the weight of different factors, but that’s a fact. But at the same time, we’ve seen situations most prominently recently in the Netherlands, where placing a burden in that case, particularly actually on farmers and housebuilders, has created a populist backlash against any measures to improve the environment. So I think a proportionate approach is the right one to take. And we do have some quite significant ambitions. The ambition to get rid of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 is a modest one.

Lucy Fisher
Michael, is that ironclad? I mean, there’s been a lot of mood music that that might be one of the pledges that’s rolled back . . . 

Michael Gove
No.

Lucy Fisher
 . . . Or Aston Martin exemption that allows smaller car manufacturers to deviate from?

Michael Gove
No, I think the absolutely critical thing that we need to do is to recognise that there are what my friend Matt Hancock called big, hairy, audacious goals that you need in order to drive environmental improvement. Absolutely. But it is also the case that you do need to be conscious as you’re developing those goals and you’re driving progress towards them, that there will be, in a practical feedback loop, ways of recognising where there are exceptions and exemptions and it would be disproportionate push. So a case in point, we do need to make every home more energy efficient. Making every home more energy efficient will be moving away from gas boilers and moving away from a reliance on hydrocarbons towards ground source heat pumps and other methods of heating our homes, which don’t rely on hydrocarbons. But there will be some properties — isolated rural properties, very old properties — where it will be expensive to make that change. And having a deadline that everyone has to meet when there are always exceptions, creates potential injustices. These potential injustices become iconic for those people who want to stop progress overall. So one of the things about government is you will always find that there will be, even as you drive towards a particular target, cases where you want to refine it.

Tell you my final point. I’m a big believer in the importance of transparent data, open competition, league tables. But when I was in the coalition government, we changed league tables and my friend David Laws, who with whom Miranda has worked, helped us to make the league tables more sensitive. Now, to some it would have seemed like a dilution. In fact, it was a way of making sure that those metrics better reflected the background of students and their prior attainment. So it is natural that people want to look at what the government is doing and fear backsliding. My argument is, if you look at the overall direction, yes, there is the occasional course correction, but the overall direction is clear. Final thing that I would say is, if there were any intention to roll back on making sure that we make progress on the environment, then the prime minster would not have appointed Claire Coutinho to that role. Those people who know Claire know that one of the animating passions that she has is the environment. And so her choice I think is a clear, earnest of intent to continue to move in that direction, but to do so thoughtfully.

Lucy Fisher
Interesting. Miranda, I know you wanted to ask Michael about education. This feels a good moment.

Miranda Green
Well, I did, Michael, just because we’ve got you here this morning, because you and I used to talk when you were even shadow opposition . . . 

Michael Gove
Yeah.

Miranda Green
Spokesman on education and then as the pioneering education secretary. And I know that you are a great fan of social mobility . . . 

Michael Gove
Yes.

Miranda Green
 . . . achieved through rigorous academic education. So I would like to know your views on the kind of mood music around universities.

Michael Gove
Yes.

Miranda Green
And around this backlash at the top of the Tory party and the rank and file of MPs, it seems to me, against the idea of more people going to university because I think I, like you, have a certain nervousness that we might be attacking one of our most successful globally excellent sectors. And in the words of so many Tory ministers over the years, talking down the UK.

Michael Gove
Yes. And I didn’t come back earlier when you mentioned what Gillian had said on the A-level results.

Miranda Green
I do know she was trying to be kind, by the way. (Overlapping talk)

Michael Gove
Well, the thing is, it was it was my son’s A-level results day. And I think she was directly speaking to my son. (Laughter) She was trying to reassure him. But more broadly, again, without wanting to tend to Lib Demi, balance is required. So the first thing to say is we should . . . It is not wrong to want more people to go to university. And while I think it was entirely legitimate to critique Tony Blair’s arbitrary 50 per cent target, it is undoubtedly the case still that there are young people in all schools capable of going to university who are not yet receiving the quality of education in order to ensure they can make that choice. So there is still latent untapped talent there. That is undoubtedly the case, and we shouldn’t be trying to arbitrarily limit the number of people going to university.

And if you look at other countries — Australia, Singapore and so on — they’re continuing to see the number of people going to university increase. Within that, there is an argument about the types of course that people pursue and the cost to them and the cost to the country of those courses. And one of the things that we’ve seen over the course of the last few years in schools is a move towards more students doing science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects in schools. And I think that that reflects a recognition that those skills and that knowledge both has a greater value in the marketplace, but also provides you with a greater range of options. But I think that the way in which we offer university courses in those subjects relative to some other subjects hasn’t yet quite caught up. Sensitive area. But it’s certainly the case if you look at somewhere like Singapore — not that Singapore is perfect in every way — a significantly higher proportion of people in higher education are studying physical sciences, mathematical subjects and so on. And I think that creating a greater degree of incentival support for that direction of travel is a worthwhile thing.

But the other thing is, there is a sense that, and I don’t think it attaches to any minister in the DFE, but you sometimes hear it from others that we are, what’s the word? Undervaluing the other routes than courses. And I think that there is an issue here which goes simply beyond education policy, and it’s an issue that David Goodhart and others have brought up as well. While we do want to encourage social mobility, while we do want to encourage the maximum number of people to acquire the greatest possible qualifications and make the maximum number of choices, what we mustn’t do is default towards a degree of condescension towards people who wish to pursue other paths. And we also need to make sure, in particular, the qualifications in those other polls are more rigorous. And more rigorous does not mean more academic. One of the critical things about vocational and technical qualifications in many European countries is that they require the demonstration of skill and mastery, not the passing of a paper in the theory of a particular activity. And I believe that the reorientation of our vocational qualifications, introduction T-levels is bringing us in that direction. But there’s more to do.

Miranda Green
Huge dropout rates in T-levels. The new . . . 

Michael Gove
Well, yes, And again, I don’t know the reasons why. And I think I know that people are reflecting on what it is that’s been successful and what it is that’s been challenging about it.

Miranda Green
So just one follow up, Lucy, if I may. Does that mean — I’m trying to interpret your excellent answer, Michael — does that mean that like Charles Clarke, your predecessor as education secretary, you still see a place for some medieval historians, even if they only remain decorative in the university scene as we scoot towards a science/tech future.

Michael Gove
Yes, I once gave a speech — but it’s always a terrible thing when politicians talk about speeches they gave in the past — but I once gave a speech in favour of French lesbian poetry and pointed out that . . . 

Miranda Green
That’s very FT.

Michael Gove
Pointed out that this small but important part of the world literary canon was worthy of study. And the point that I was trying to make was we as a country are devoting public money to education. We have to think strategically about that. But part of it is recognising that you can’t have a civilised country without liberal arts. And of course individuals will want to pursue that passion. But it is certainly the case that if we look, for example, at the historic — and it is historic — both achievements in science but also investment in science, I’m convinced that more people studying science, more people studying medicine would be a good thing.

Lucy Fisher
Well, on the subject of young people, talk about education, Michael. Student debt is obviously a big area of complaint in your portfolio. Housing is a major issue for young people trying to get on the ladder. Do you think the government is doing enough for young people and what more should you be doing?

Michael Gove
No, I don’t think we are yet. And again, it goes to the question about nutrient neutrality and additional housing earlier. Increasing the supply of housing is the only thing that we need to do in order to improve affordability. But you can’t improve affordability unless you increase supply. So that’s part of it. But more broadly, I do worry that in a number of areas that the structure of our society means that the concentrated influence of those who have can sometimes act as a block on the aspirations and opportunities of those who aspire. And again, on the whole question of student debt, I would never want to dissuade anyone from going to university.

But again, part of the question has to be is every course of sufficient value to someone, not just economically, but in terms of enriching their lives, that it that it should cost as it does. These are big questions. Some of them stray far outside my portfolio, but it is a particular concern to me and I think that we have a responsibility to ask ourselves some of these questions. Taking two steps back, one of the bigger changes over the last however many years has been not that income inequality has worsened — it’s not great, but it hasn’t worsened — it’s wealth inequality that has worsened. So those who already have assets have seen them accumulate in value. And I’m not an economist. Quantitative easing is one of the factors, but there are other factors as well. I don’t want to come over all Thomas Piketty, but nevertheless, if you were thinking about opportunity in society, you’ve got to look at all of those factors. I do not have a perfect answer, but I think it would be wrong for me to say that it isn’t a worry — it absolutely is.

Lucy Fisher
What can a government, a Conservative government, do to address some of those, as you put it, structural problems across . . . 

Michael Gove
Well, I think that the particular thing is thinking — and this is way outside my comfort zone and way above my pay grade — but it is thinking about how we tax. And, you know, one of the questions in my mind is how do we make sure that we reward opportunity, aspiration, work and creativity and then find a way of extracting what we need for public services from those who are operating in a rentier fashion? Not easy, as generations of politicians have discovered. But I think that’s the question we have to ask, honestly.

Lucy Fisher
And you don’t have any proposals up your sleeve?

Michael Gove
None that I can share here beyond — I can’t send you the email that I sent to the Chancellor yesterday, so no. (People gasp)

Miranda Green
Stephen.

Stephen Bush
Give us a hint?

Michael Gove
No, no, no, no. (People laugh) No, I’ve already said too much.

Stephen Bush
So under nutrient neutrality. You set out the argument for, you know, the risk of doing it, the risk of not doing. Isn’t there a direct analogue with the green belt? Why take the political damage of doing nutrient neutrality — well, it turns out I can’t say it out loud — while continuing to sort of leave the much bigger issue of the green belt on the table?

Michael Gove
Well, there are two things. The first thing is that the change on nutrient neutrality is unsignificant, but it is focused and time-limited. So it’s not the case that we’re saying we’re abandoning the whole habitats directive, that we don’t believe that there is a problem in our rivers — quite the opposite. Similarly with the green belt, the green belt provides protection against urban sprawl, which is particularly important in a country like Britain, particularly important in England, because one of the problems that we have overall — and it’s an economic and environmental problem — is that our cities are less dense than most other European cities. That means that within our cities there is a longer travel-to-work time. Within our cities, there’s less of the agglomeration effect. The beneficial economic effect of people being close at hand and co-operating. It means that instead of building up — not dramatically up in the way that you might see in Paris or in Delft or elsewhere — we tend to build out. And green belts help to constrain that effectively. So they have a clear benefit in encouraging densification and in reducing the loss of habitat. However, there are areas where if a strong case is made and the local people accept it, then we can see green belt swaps or development on the green belt. And there is an open question as well about one particular area which the FT has covered in depth, which is the thinking that we’ve been giving to Cambridge. And Cambridge is an exceptional city for reasons that everyone knows. It will require an exceptional approach in order to allow it to expand. I wouldn’t want to say that what will happen there will set a precedent elsewhere in the same way as what we’re doing on nutrient neutrality wouldn’t set a precedent in other environmental areas. But there are occasions and locations where a general rule sometimes needs to be tweaked in order to achieve a beneficial outcome.

Lucy Fisher
Well, I’m going to turn now to the audience for the questions, so please raise your hand. Great. The lady here. Sorry. To please, please keep it brief and please make it a question.

Lady from the audience
Thank you. You mentioned that you wanted to take people with you. I’m wondering about the message that we’re getting from the government. There was . . . Yesterday, there was something about climate policy shouldn’t cost too much. Some, yes, some days ago, seemed, sorry, Sunak seemed to be on the side of motorists. Now, looking around, especially reading the FT, there seems to be a lot going on in business, amongst people. And the feeling is that the politicians are sort of the last ones to be poking around in the amber of the fossil economy. So don’t you think that’s really the politicians that should be taken along by business and the people rather than politicians taking people along?

Michael Gove
I think that it’s a feedback loop. So sometimes you need political leadership and some of the flags that have been planted in the ground, and which have moved actually. So first of all, we said we were going to ban petrol, new petrol and diesel cars after 2040, then 2035, then 2030. And those have been moves taken by politicians sometimes in the, not in the teeth of opposition, but with a degree of scepticism being exercised by people in the automotive sector. At other times, you’re right, citizen demands have pushed politicians in a particular direction. But one of the other things I was going to say is in Germany, one of the problems there — political problems (inaudible) Germany — is that the speed with which the move towards changing domestic heating has gone has become a flashpoint issue. And one of the reasons why the AfD have done better than other parties is that they become the party of all those disgruntled with the pace and cost of environmental measures. So I wouldn’t want to see a party like the AfD having 20 per cent or more of public support in the UK. And so I don’t want to sort of conjure up a phantom or a demon, but I do think that there is a — as in all politics, there is a matter of conversation, of persuasion.

And then the other thing, which is a fair point, is that often the cost of transition bears more heavily on poorer people within the UK. So even as the cost of climate change is borne disproportionately by poor people across the globe, the cost of transition can sometimes be felt more by people here. So we do need to think about balancing all these requirements. And if we’re looking at things in Iran, that’s not to say that we are not immune from criticism in some areas, but I think that the way that things are sometimes depicted as though any change which might be the creation of an exemption or the temporary slowing in acceleration is somehow a, what’s the word, a betrayal or a sort of surrender to a Trumpian big oil worldview. I think that that’s a mistake.

Lucy Fisher
The gentleman here.

Gentleman from the audience
This is a question. What do the politicians have that avoids them falling into traps of commitments made whilst making policy, in particular from chief executives who portray themselves as lobbying for their industry whilst it would actually be in their personal interest? There was an old saying it was cheaper to mine coal on Wall Street than it was to mine it out of the ground. Our now-chief executive is finding it easier to mine profits and their personal bonuses in Westminster of the Treasury than grinding it out by investing in the country, reinvesting in the country, training in the country, doing IT protection in the country.

Lucy Fisher
I’m gonna take another couple of questions just so we get a few in. We’ll take one over here. The lady over there. And then the man behind him with his hand up.

Lady from the audience 2
Hi there. Thank you, Michael, for joining us this morning. I’m Charlotte Thorogood. My question is around leasehold reform. I know that there has been a lot of work being done by the government over the last few years on leasehold reform, and we’re planning to have hopefully some more information on what that is in the upcoming King’s Speech. I wondered if you could share a bit more information around that and also commit that leaseholders today will also not be left behind, that the legislation that is planning to come in won’t just impact the future or new leaseholders, that the existing leaseholders will also be included. Thank you.

Gentleman from the audience 2
Hi, Michael. You mentioned you would like to have more young people studying medicine and becoming doctors. That seems like a terrible example in circumstances where it’s the government that sets the number of medical school places. Those medical schools waitlists are vastly oversubscribed. And they bake in a deficit of doctors every single year. So isn’t it for the government to do something about that, as opposed to encouraging young people to do more biology or chemistry?

Lucy Fisher
Michael, you’ve got just a couple of minutes, so dash in. Quite tricky subject.

Michael Gove
So I’m, on the first point, I understand your point. I think the thing is, in sophisticated democracies, it is the case that overall people demand regulation and intervention entirely understandably. The more regulation intervention you have, the more sophisticated company can work that regulation or work those rules to its favour in order to favour incumbents. So there is always a balance between putting in place a regulatory framework that effectively protects citizens and also at the same time being clear that you are not unwittingly helping people to create either barriers to entry for competition or ways of using those rules in order to extract additional value. And there’s constant vigilance there.

On the point about leasehold reform, yes, we’ve explicitly said that we’re going to stop new leasehold flats and houses. But the bigger issue, of course, is the many, many people who are leaseholders now. And we propose — you’re right, and anything can change — but we are currently proposing to have in the King’s Speech a reform that will make it easier for leaseholders to acquire effective, full outright ownership of their property, ending merit value in negotiations, reducing ground rents to peppercorn basis, dealing with service charges and so on. I’m sure their position will be improved as we put it through.

On the final point, I was talking in broad terms because I think that we have both a responsibility, which we have done, to get more people studying science subjects, and a responsibility to look at the financing of universities overall in order to make sure that we have more people studying science and medicine as well. So I agree with you that we do need to think hard and the NHS workforce strategy that Steve Barclay unveiled earlier this year doesn’t just envisage but creates a pathway to increase the number of people who are studying medicine and nursing.

Lucy Fisher
Very briskly run through. Thank you. We’ve got time just for political stock picks, something we do at the end of each episode of Political Fix, where I ask who you’re buying or selling this week. Miranda?

Miranda Green
Well, I’m actually gonna do somebody behind the scenes, because Sue Gray is about to start, I believe, this week as Keir Starmer’s new chief of staff. Clearly, her appointment to that role was pretty controversial, as Michael will confirm, having worked at the heart of government. But she’s a very hard hitter. And if Labour, if the Labour party is going to get into shape to win this election, it needs some people like that at the top. So we’ll all be watching for the stories of the changes she’s gonna make behind the scenes to the leader of the opposition’s office and operation, I think.

Lucy Fisher
Stephen?

Stephen Bush
I’m also gonna pick a behind-the-scenes person: Nerissa Chesterfield, who is the new director of communications in Downing Street, who actually had the role of pretending to be Liz Truss during the debate prep during that first leadership election last year.

Lucy Fisher
It’s a tough gig.

Stephen Bush
It was a tough gig, yeah. And when you . . . To do that job of comms director, you have to have a close relationship with the principal. She does. And so I think in terms of this shaking each other up we’ve seen the two parties do, she’ll be a big part of how the Conservative party responds to the events of this summer.

Lucy Fisher
Michael, who you buying or selling?

Michael Gove
Buy Claire Coutinho. Sell shares in all polling firms.

Lucy Fisher
(Laughter) Well, that’s all we’ve got time for today. If you liked what you heard and you don’t already subscribe, I’d urge you to look up Political Fix wherever you get your podcasts. But if you please, join me in saying a big thanks to Michael, Stephen and Miranda. (Applause)

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