Calum Miller on growth, Burnham & closer EU defence ties

0:04Hello and welcome to this special Sunday edition of Coffeehouse Shots. I'm James Heale and today I'm at the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton and I'm delighted to be joined by Calum Miller who is the MP for Bicester and the party's foreign affairs spokesman. Calum, this is your third conference as an MP. What's the feel of it so far? Well, thanks very much for having me, James. I feel that this is a really optimistic, forward-looking conference. We're, of course, aware of the challenges that many people across the country are facing. But I think with a number of big policy announcements here and off the back of real success in local elections, we are meeting as an upbeat party, looking forward to continuing to represent people locally and taking our arguments to the country.

0:41What does Andy Burnham mean for your party's fortunes? The first thing, genuinely, I think we all hope is that Burnham will represent better leadership for the country than we had on to Keir Starmer. We had two years where the country drifted and where many of the most urgent questions were not addressed. So genuinely, I think we all hope that he will provide better leadership. As you well know, there are some topics on which he has reached out inviting hand, whether that's social care, potentially proportional representation, Europe and some others. And we're very serious that we are happy to engage and have those conversations.

1:13delighted that the agenda that the Liberal Democrats have been setting out as some of the key issues facing the country are now being adopted and turned to by the government. And if he gives us the opportunity to work with him and shape those, we will take that opportunity. And I think beyond that, luckily, certainly in my area, I'm not yet seeing any banks or return for Labour. So I think there's a question then about what this means for the electoral maths across the country, which, you know, we'll come to in due course. Of course, the Tories will be hoping that, say, to give it a sort of caricature, the Burnham agenda of maybe squeezing some of the more affluent seats, which a lot of new lived-in MPs represent, will mean that those seats maybe flip back to the Tories next time.

1:49How do you kind of get that line between wanting the Prime Minister to do well, but also standing up for the interests of your constituents? Well, I think you've captured it for me. I mean, I think in the end, we just stand up in the interests of our constituents. You know, we are trying very hard as new MPs, I still consider myself that two years in, to do everything we can to fight for the interests of our constituents. And hopefully, they will recognize that hard work and be willing to give us another shot come the next general election. And so in that sense, at this stage, without any idea when the next general election will be, I'm certainly not fixating on polls or, you know, frankly, the positioning of other parties, which, you know, have moved quite wildly in the last six months, even.

2:25I'm just focusing on, you know, building that relationship with my electorate and doing everything I can to represent their interests. One of my new colleagues, Ros Savage, wrote an article over the weekend, and she was talking about the need for the Lib Dems maybe to do better in terms of standing up and sort of trying to cut through in the political debate. What did you make of Ros's article? Yeah, I read Ros's article. I thought her article was a much more measured and thoughtful piece than the headlines that it attacked, obviously. It was, you know, it was a serious piece of work. I think Ros was articulating something we would all recognise, which is that, you know, we are a party that's full of ideas about how to make the country better.

3:01And there is opportunity for us to put those ideas across and confidence is part of that. Every conference is a chance to focus on the things that we think are most important to the country. So for us, this conference, we're talking about cost of living, we're talking about maternity crisis, we're talking about the water companies and how that's affecting bill payers. So cutting through with those messages is something we're all eager and keen to do. And my view is that two years in, colleagues like Roz, a number of other MPs are finding ways to get their voice out there and all of those people are putting the case across as to why Liberal Democrat policies and the right ones is a positive thing.

3:36I don't think there's any need to close down the voices within the party and there's no instinct to do that. It's a chance for us to get our strong policies across. Do you think there's a bit of a sort of mid-term blues with Sered, which is that the party could be doing a bit more to cut through? I mean, presumably your colleagues are saying some similar sentiments in private. I haven't heard much in private. I mean, my view would be that, you know, we're in a very challenging environment. It's multi-party politics. those who look back on previous poll ratings of the party and say well why are we not that level I mean a very obvious answer is that we were competing within the other two other parties at that point and they were competing with four others so that's part of the context and you know I continue I've had two by-elections just to keep me busy since the May local elections in my constituency and and you know police say we managed to win them both improve our vote share and if you look across the results since the general election the Democrats have been consistently winning in those by-elections.

4:29So I don't think we're obsessing about poll ratings, which in my view at this point, when we have no idea where the general election will be, are not actually that indicative of endpoints. We're interested, as I said, in representing our constituents and when we get the opportunity to fight elections, to fight them as strongly as we can. And I'm pleased to say we seem to be doing quite well and gaining the trust of the electorate. It's quite struck by the big conference announcement trailed in the Sunday paper today, which we're talking about, which is a 10p fuel cut. And is this perhaps a sign that maybe the the state has gotten too big or that there's a need perhaps to redress it and kind of move back to a kind of less high tax regime.

5:01I think our critique of the Stalmer government was they didn't have a plan on growth. And you know, our position on Europe, our strong belief that we are cutting off our noses to spite ourselves by not deepening that relationship with the European Union is a core part of our proposition as to how we can restore growth to the UK economy. With that growth comes the opportunity to fund public services. At the same time, we know households up and down the country are struggling with the cost of living. And the fuel price increase, which are direct consequence of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu's ill-considered conflict with Iran, is really hurting people.

5:32And so this measure should be seen in that light. It's a way to say to people, we understand the challenges you're facing. This is a measure we believe should be taken to reduce fuel prices. This also extends to reduction in railfares, bus reduction, and a reduction in the cost of charging EV cars. So it's a real way of saying transport's a big part of every household's budget and we think that there are steps we could be taking to alleviate that burden just a little bit. I wonder if you think it's a bit of a step change because obviously Ed has spent the last couple of years talking about more state capacity, talking about social care, the need to kind of have a state that delivers in lots of different areas and now it seems a bit more kind of, I don't know how you want to put it, a sense of pocketbook issues, a sense of perhaps being sort of tax cuts a bit more maybe popular measure.

6:15Do you think maybe there's an acknowledgement perhaps that Lib Dems haven't acknowledged where the country is on some of these issues? I honestly don't see it like that. I mean, you know, if you think about our position on social care, I wouldn't think of it through the lens of us being in favour of a bigger state. And I can speak with feeling about this as someone whose, you know, parent has recently had to start receiving social care. I think many people who have to navigate the social care system in England understand it's deeply iniquitous. It cobbles those who happen to have degenerative diseases or diseases like dementia and so on in a way that those who have more physical ailments are treated on the NHS.

6:50So I don't see our position on social care as being about growing the state. It's about addressing a fundamental issue of inequality in how people live in older age. So that's sort of one side of it. You're right up to point. I think, you know, every political party should be listening to the conversations it's having on the doorstep and the feedback it's receiving from electors up and down the country. And they are very clearly saying to us, and I'm sure to other political parties, we are struggling with the cost of living. It is a real burden on us and as a party we've identified that there is an opportunity to do more to help people on this basis and and I think that's the opportunity we're taking.

7:24If that corrects a misapprehension that we're a party that you know only thinks about how to grow the state and not by what the burden that is for the taxpayer then that's a good corrective because that's never been our position and if the consequence of these announcements is to address that balance then that's to be welcome. You're obviously the foreign affairs spokesman for the party and I think you've spoken a lot about the relationship with America and Europe, the two big things. How else, given with Dowsey and Andy Burnham repositioning the Labour Party's position, how else are the Lib Dems going to carve out a distinct niche on foreign policy?

7:52Well, I think our position on Europe still remains a more ambitious one than the government's. We saw Andy Burnham flip-flop over that prior to Maker Field, at Maker Field, since Maker Field. So I genuinely don't know where Labour's position is today. I think he has retreated back to Keir Starmer's red lines, and those are very unambitious red lines that continue to do real damage to the UK economy, which is why our position is a much stronger one in terms of pursuing growth for the UK. So that will clearly be a distinctive position for us going forward. In a wider sense, you know, the defence relationship with other party partners is really key as well.

8:26We think that the European relationship is not just economic, but it has to be defence as well. And the two need to go hand in hand. And the previous administration failed to negotiate the UK's participation in this SAFE programme, which would have allowed us to co-procure defence material with other European allies. We strongly want to see us back in there. And that's because the UK has an amazing opportunity to lead in Europe on defence. And in a way, our hesitancy on the wider European relationship is preventing us from taking that step, which would be hugely material to our security. And when it comes to Lib Dem conference events, obviously you're infamous for expanding for industry.

9:01I think it's now the highest it's been for 10 years. I mean, what are your plans for the next couple of days or so? Well, I'm speaking on a number of different panels. naturally people want me to talk a bit about what's going on internationally I'm also taking part in some discussions about some of our you know more targeting and where we stand as a party I had a great time last night at the Lib Dem Disco which is a famous feature of our Lib Dem conference and you know it's it's a good opportunity to come together and have a chance to talk to colleagues. Were you singing dancing? I was I was doing a set actually.

9:31What was the set? That was brilliant. What was it? We had, what did we have? We had a bit of pitbull, we had some black eyed peas, a bit of erasure for the old timers and some Charlie XCX as well. And finally, I think Ed Davie, his line seemed to be this conference that the party wants to flip the table over. Andy Burnham has been talking about some more breathing space for voters. I mean, is there a Callum Miller soundbite we can expect in your conference speech? Well, I actually, I presented a paper on international security yesterday, where the thrust of it was very much about seizing the opportunity to define our relationship with international allies and the need for courageous liberalism.

10:08Courageous liberalism. Good to flip the table over. Thank you very much, Kevin, for joining us on Coffeehouse Shots. Thanks, Chris.

10:29Thank you.