Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: NGO Meeting, Assets Recovery Agency, Asylum/Sangatte, Iraq and Adoption.
NGO Meeting
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised journalists that the Prime Minister had met a group of eleven NGOs this morning to discuss Africa and progress post-Kananaskis. Clare Short and Baroness Amos had also attended the meeting.
Assets Recovery Agency
The PMOS said that the Prime Minister had had a photocall this morning with Jane Earl, the new Director of the Assets Recovery Agency. This was the first dedicated agency which would seek to retrieve criminal assets. Our aim was to double the quantity of criminal assets recovered by 2004.
Asylum/Sangatte
Questioned about the detail of today’s announcement on Sangatte, the PMOS said that Sangatte had closed its doors to new entrants ten days earlier than expected. It had not ceased to operate as yet. We hoped that the complete closure of the centre would take place next April, as planned. Asked why the proposal to close Sangatte to new entrants had been brought forward, the PMOS said that the new co-operation between us and the new French Government had resulted in real tangible change. Not only were we seeing movement on Sangatte, but it was clear that French immigration officers were also doing more to stop people getting to the UK through illegal means. The huge increase in security around the Channel Tunnel and at Frethun had had a major impact on the number of illegal immigrants arriving in the UK - the number had fallen to four during October. That had only been possible because the French Government had recognised that we were committed to taking the issue seriously. The National Immigration and Asylum Bill was a clear demonstration of this and it was precisely why we were placing so much weight on it.
Asked how we would react if the Asylum Bill failed to get through Parliament, the PMOS said he did not think it would be helpful to speculate about what might or might not happen. It was, however, important to recognise that the progress we had made with the French Government had only been possible because they understood that we were serious about tackling the problem of asylum. As a result, they too were serious about it. The two were directly related.
Iraq
Asked for an update on discussions to agree a new UN Security Council Resolution on Iraq, the PMOS said that discussions were continuing at the UN. As the Prime Minister had said yesterday, we were at or near the point of decision. Obviously we wanted the process to be concluded as soon as possible. Asked whether an announcement could be made this evening, the PMOS said he had no intention of getting into a discussion about timescales. That said, we hoped a decision would be reached shortly.
Adoption
Asked if there was time for the Government to play ‘ping pong’ with the Adoption Bill if the Lords decided to throw out the amendment, the PMOS said that the issue here was very simple. Either we increased the pool of people who were prepared to adopt, or we didn’t. In our view, it was better to get children out of care homes, and the only way to do that was to increase the number of people who were prepared to adopt them. We remained determined to do that. It was up to the opponents of the amendment to explain how they would achieve such a goal were the amendment to be dropped. Asked repeatedly what would happen if we ran out of parliamentary time, the PMOS said that we would continue to do everything we could to get the Bill through. We would take things one day at a time. Put to him that we would be able to get the Bill through by dropping the amendment, the PMOS said that in doing so we would not be able to achieve our aim of increasing the number of people who could adopt children. Challenged that the unmarried couples amendment hadn’t been included in the Bill in the first place, the PMOS said that the amendment was central to our aim to put the interests of the child first and we would continue to do all we could to get the Bill through.
Asked on what evidence we were basing our belief that allowing unmarried couples to adopt would increase the pool of potential adopters, the PMOS pointed to research which showed that allowing unmarried couples to adopt would increase significantly the number of children who were adopted. It was that simple. Pressed as to why we had included this in the Bill in the first place, the PMOS said it showed that we always listened carefully to what Parliament had to say. If it came up with good ideas then we would take them on board.
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