Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: President of Tanzania, Future of Europe Convention, Euro, Unemployment Stats, Iraq and Homeland Security.
President of Tanzania
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised journalists that the Prime Minister would be meeting the President of Tanzania, Benjamin Mkapa, in Downing Street this afternoon. Baroness Amos, the newly appointed Secretary of State at DfID, would host the first half of the meeting. The Prime Minister would join her and the President for the second. They would use the occasion to take stock of progress on the NEPAD initiative in advance of the G8, and would also cover issues relating to trade and development areas raised at Doha.
Future of Europe Convention
The PMOS said that the European Council at Thessaloniki in June would mark the conclusion of Future of Europe Convention. This would be followed by the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) which would settle the issues which had been raised. This was clearly an important matter. He drew journalists’ attention to today’s Daily Mail, which had printed fifteen answers to the twenty questions they had put to us about this issue. He distributed copies of the full answers we had given to the questions they had sent in order to help inform general understanding of the debate. He encouraged journalists to keep them as they were a useful reference document for the future.
Asked to confirm reports that Jack Straw was taking over responsibility for the Convention from Peter Hain, the PMOS said that the factual basis of the story in the Times was entirely accurate. The Convention was due to come to an end at the European Council next month. The roles which Peter Hain, Gisela Stuart, David Heathcoat-Amory and others had been playing would cease. After a short period of time, the IGC would start. As a result, the FCO would be the lead Department. The PMOS added that the Prime Minister believed that Mr Hain had conducted the complex discussions with some distinction.
Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with Mr Hain that the Convention as essentially a ‘tidying up exercise’, the PMOS said that this would be a constitutional treaty which would be signed and ratified by sovereign governments. However, using the word ‘constitutional’ did not create a European State or even imply a huge change in the nature of the EU. It could be argued that the EU effectively had a constitution already that was currently made up of the four separate European treaties. A large part of the work of the European Convention and the forthcoming IGC was to consolidate those four treaties and rewrite and reorder them into a single text. Asked if he was saying that the Convention was indeed a ‘tidying up exercise’, the PMOS said that there were also other issues that arose from EU enlargement in which member states would number twenty five rather than fifteen. As a result we needed to make the necessary institutional arrangements to ensure that an EU with a membership of twenty five was able to operate effectively.
Euro
Asked if the Euro or the Olympics would be discussed at Cabinet tomorrow, the PMOS said that he hadn’t seen the final Cabinet agenda for tomorrow’s meeting. Put to him that the agenda should have been finalised by now, the PMOS said that the final agenda would be agreed overnight and would go to Cabinet in the morning. That was the way the system worked. There was nothing unusual about it. Referring to the numerous stories and reports flying around about the single currency at the moment, he said he thought that people needed to calm down and exercise a little patience about this matter. Asked to confirm that the announcement on the five tests would be made in June, the PMOS said that he was unable to do so. Journalists knew the timeframe within which we were operating.
Questioned as to whether the Euro would be discussed at one of the weekly Cabinet meetings rather than at a specially convened session, the PMOS said that the position remained as he had set out on Monday. Intensive discussions between the Prime Minister and Chancellor were continuing. Before anyone asked, they were perfectly good and perfectly constructive. As we had acknowledged from the outset, this was one of the most important decisions - particularly in economic terms - which any Government could take. At the appropriate time, and before a final decision was taken, Cabinet would discuss the matter. He was unable to be more explicit because a date had not been agreed at this stage. Pressed further about the timescale for an announcement, the PMOS said he thought it would be a bit unusual to confirm a date before one had even been agreed. Asked again about a Special Cabinet, the PMOS said that if necessary it could happen, but people should not interpret his answer one way or the other.
Asked why the discussions were so intensive if the five economic tests were supposed to yield a simple ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ result, the PMOS said that the discussions were about the issue of the Euro. He added that he couldn’t see the point of continuing to dance around the subject. Everything would become clear in the fullness of time. There wasn’t too much longer to wait.
Unemployment Stats
The PMOS drew journalists’ attention to the latest unemployment statistics which had been published today. They showed a very good jobs picture. There were 283,000 more people in work than there had been a year ago, with 47,000 more in the last three months. There were now 27.86 million people in work - just under 75% of the working age population. That was one of the highest figures on record. We also had the lowest unemployment rate in the G7.
Iraq
The PMOS said that the Prime Minister had been shocked by yesterday’s reports of the mass graves which had been discovered in Iraq, south of Baghdad. The true face of Saddam’s evil regime was slowly being revealed. We could all see the grief and pain of the people who had been affected by his tyranny. Obviously we could only imagine the horrors they had experienced over the last twenty-five years. There were clearly big challenges which lay ahead for the Coalition and the Iraqi people. No one was pretending otherwise. Scenes like yesterday reinforced - if any reinforcement was needed - our resolve to ensure that the future of the Iraqi people was brighter than their dark past under Saddam.
Asked to explain the Foreign Secretary’s comment this morning that there might not be any ‘literal finds’ of WMD, when both Geoff Hoon and John Reid had underlined that they would be found, the PMOS said that the situation remained as set out countless times in the past. The Attorney General had explained the legal basis for the conflict which related to the UN Resolutions on WMD that Saddam had flouted consistently. We knew that he and his regime had possessed WMD and a lot of work was currently going on to establish their whereabouts or what had happened to them. Pressed as to whether the Prime Minister continued to believe that WMD would be found, the PMOS said we were confident that, within time, the evidence would come to light. As Jack Straw had said today, Saddam had had ample opportunity to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the international community and the UN that he had destroyed his WMD programmes, which every intelligence agency worth its salt had acknowledged he had had. He had chosen not to do so. There was a significant amount of work that was continuing in this area. The Prime Minister remained as confident today about finding the weapons as he had been when had last spoken about this matter, which had been when he had met President Putin in Moscow. Nothing had changed.
Asked if we thought that it could take years to find Saddam’s WMD, the PMOS said he did not think it would be helpful to put a timeframe on these things - indeed it would be foolish to do so. John Reid’s analogy regarding arms dumps in Northern Ireland had been very good. The Prime Minister had always acknowledged that we would be able to make good progress once we were able to question those Iraqis who had been involved in the weapons programmes. That was precisely why Resolution 1441 had underlined the importance of Saddam allowing Iraqi scientists to be interviewed freely so that we would be able to unlock some of his secrets. For obvious reasons, he had not allowed that to happen. Asked why the Coalition wasn’t interviewing the scientists now that Saddam had gone, the PMOS said that people should not under-estimate the considerable amount of work going on in this regard. Asked if he was saying that interviews were taking place, the PMOS said that he was not party to all the different discussions which were going on. However, it was clear that we were now focussing in on this issue in a way we had not been able to do in the past. Questioned further about the existence of WMD, the PMOS suggested that people should ask themselves why, if Saddam had such a clean bill of health, had he not made strenuous efforts to convince UNMOVIC that this was the case, given the show of force encamped on his doorstep and the clear understanding of what would happen if he did not comply.
Homeland Security
Asked if the Prime Minister agreed that a dedicated Cabinet Minister should be appointed to co-ordinate anti-terrorism measures in the UK, and if not why he still hadn’t filled the vacant Minister of State post at the Home Office, the PMOS pointed out that the Home Secretary had Cabinet level status and was in charge of the Home Office. Moreover, the Prime Minister was ultimately responsible for intelligence matters and other decisions relating to security. The suggestion that the he did not consider this issue seriously as part of his own personal agenda, let alone the Government’s agenda, was completely wrong. The terrorism threat in the UK remained real and serious. The public should continue to be alert but not alarmed. We were maintaining a high state of readiness as the actions we had taken in previous months showed. Where it was considered appropriate to make a particular decision which required a particular course of action, the Government would not hesitate to do so. However, these were fine judgements which had to take into account the need not to do the terrorists’ job for them by disrupting normal life and closing down parts of our infrastructure. The Prime Minister had articulated this view very clearly in his Mansion House speech last year. Put to him that the fact that Heathrow was short of three hundred security officers was not a ‘fine judgement’, the PMOS said that we had record numbers of police in this country. If security had to be raised - or even lowered - then clearly that would be done, as the actions we had taken over the past few months had shown.
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