Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: 90 Days, China, Working Peers, EU Budget and MMR
90 Days
Asked if the Government was going to stick with the 90 days time limit for holding suspected terrorists, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that the position was as the Prime Minister had set out yesterday. We believed that the case the police had made for 90 days was compelling. The police had set out yesterday why they believed that case was right. They had made it clear that they were not involved in some bartering process but that 90 days was their professional assessment. We believed that anything less therefore would be second best for the security of the country. That was why we believed 90 days was the right answer. Ultimately though it will be for Parliament to decide.
Put to him that Charles Clarke had given the very clear impression that they might propose less then 90 days and asked what had changed the Home Secretary’s mind, the PMOS said that in terms of the Home Secretary, he had always said that he believed 90 days to be the right answer. We had to take it through Parliament. As a result of yesterday people had begun to address the issue and to assess the case based on the arguments of the police and not anything else. He thought that that had led people to believe that there was a growing acceptance of the case for 90 days. That said, this was a matter which had been and would continue to be very keenly debated. The Government took absolutely nothing for granted and we would continue to make the arguments from now until the vote because we believed that was the right thing to do.
Put to him that a lot of back bench MPs were saying that even if this measure squeezed through the Commons it would be a real battle in the Lords to get it passed so why not compromise in the elected chamber, the PMOS said that we did not believe that would be in the security interests of the country. If the professional advice of the police was that because of the complexity they now faced and because of the new nature of terrorism they now face, 90 days was the right answer, the logical consequence of that was that anything less than 90 days did put the security of the country in jeopardy. Asked how he responded to MPs that the Government was leading MPs up the garden path on this issue, the PMOS said that it was necessary to go back to basics on this. He reminded journalists that it was the police who had put the case to the Government, not the other way around. He stressed that this had been a police initiative not a Government initiative. He didn’t think that anyone had ever heard him make a case for anything other than 90 days. Once the Prime Minister became convinced that the police case was compelling, we had made the case for 90 days. At the same time the Prime Minister went back to the police and security services last week and told them that that if the Government were to make this case we needed to know that they absolutely believed that 90 days was necessary. As he had said after Cabinet last Thursday the answer was unequivocal. Therefore the argument we had made had been based on the assessment of the police and nothing else. As Andy Hayman had said yesterday, it was their professional analysis and their professional opinion.
Asked if 90 days had at any stage been up for negotiation, the PMOS said that as he had been saying for the past week, we had said to people that if there was some alternative to 90 days that met the requirements of the police, then they should put the argument on that basis. Nobody had done that. What people had said was that they didn’t find the 90 days acceptable, but they didn’t then say how they would meet the needs of the police.
Asked about comments by John Denham who had said that there didn’t appear to be sufficient documentary evidence behind the proposal, the PMOS pointed out that Andy Hayman had published the police argument on the 5th October. We had given it to journalists again yesterday at the Prime Minister’s press conference. If you looked at even some of the arguments that had been put forward in that document, arguments which had also been put forward elsewhere, it was a fact that in the relatively few cases we were talking about, if you had to download hard disks, if you had to deal with masses of evidence, if you had to deal with the problems of multiple languages and dialects and so on, it did take extra time. Therefore that was why the police had come to their professional assessment. It was for others to say if they didn’t find that case convincing, but they had to address that analysis rather than just simply dismiss it. Put to him that ordinarily bills came with hundreds of pages of research and analysis behind them whereas this very important legislation arrived with little more than a memo, the PMOS said that some people might be dismissive of the experience of the Chief of the Metropolitan police anti-terrorist unit, he was not. That was his professional judgement, that was the professional judgment of ACPO, that was the professional judgment of Chief Constable of Greater Manchester. People with real experience in the field. It was also the judgment of Lord Carlile. That struck him as a level of expertise which was pretty compelling. In terms of case as it had been put, that was the way it was.
Asked what the Government thought about 60 days, the PMOS said that as Andy Hayman had said yesterday, the police believed that 90 days was what was necessary. Therefore anything less than that didn’t meet the requirements of the police. As they Prime Minister said yesterday, Parliament would decide what Parliament decides but we should not kid ourselves, anything less than 90 days was going to be second best for the security of the country.
Asked what had changed since last week when it was believed that a sunset clause was against the national interest, the PMOS said that he wasn’t sure that anyone had been talking about a sunset clause last week. Put to him that he had, the PMOS said no. The BBC had asserted last night that he had spoken about sunset clauses but this had been in a briefing he had given last March on the topic of control orders, not about this legislation. He fully appreciated why people were confused. Put to him by the BBC that his point had been that a sunset clause would be seen by terrorists as a sign of weakness and would throw a pall of uncertainty over the future of the legislation, the PMOS asked the representative of the BBC to confirm the date of those comments. In response to the answer of 7 March, the PMOS asked if the BBC had said in their bulletin last night that he had said that in the last few days. In response to confirmation, the PMOS then put it to the journalist from the BBC that that report had been wrong. To clarify the position on sunset clauses PMOS said that in terms of control orders, they came in as a result of the judgement by the House of Lords. The concern was that control orders would be perceived as weaker than what they were replacing. Therefore the judgment had been that a sunset clause, which wouldn’t just allow people to review not just one aspect of the legislation but the central plank of it, would send the wrong signal. In terms of 90 days, the overall interpretation would be that if parliament agreed 90 days we were sending a very strong signal. However we also recognised that people had concerns about the operation. Therefore a review after a year would be seen as a sensible review of how it operated in practice. Not as a signal of weakness. That was the difference. He would have been happy to explain that difference without having gone over the BBC news item last night but unfortunately it was not easy to do so without having to clarify the confusion over whether he had said it this week which he hadn’t.
Asked how this was different from the internment act, the PMOS said that it was time limited and we had said that we were now prepared for there to be a high court judicial oversight. We had said that this would be targeted and only a very few people would be affected. Therefore in that way it was different from previous security measures, particularly interment. It was perfectly right that Parliament could have a look at how those safeguards were working and review that. If that gave re-assurance to people then that was something worth doing.
Asked if there was concerned that this wouldn’t be compatible with the Human Rights Act, the PMOS said that all legislation had to be compatible with the Human Rights Act. That went on the front of the bill.
Asked if Downing Street had spoken to Janet Anderson before she had tabled her 60 days amendment, the PMOS said that he didn’t get into private parliamentary discussions and that shouldn’t be taken one way or the other.
Asked why 80 days wouldn’t be acceptable, the PMOS said that the police had come up with a professional assessment. People could play numbers games with this or you could address the assessment, which said 90 days with 7 day judicial oversight. People shouldn’t forget that.
Asked about the effects of detaining someone for weeks and possibly months and then releasing them without compensation would have a detrimental affect on people, the PMOS said that the position was that every 7 days a high court judge would look at the case, consider whether it was reasonable for the police to continue to hold the person and continue to assess the case. That was a safeguard which was there. Asked what question the judges were supposed to be asking of a case, the PMOS said that it was to make the assessment as to whether it was reasonable, on the basis of the investigation, to continue to hold someone.
Asked if the Prime Minister would be meeting anyone today on this issue, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister would have discussions with whoever he whoever he would have discussions with, but people could take it that this was pretty high on his agenda.
China
Asked if the Prime Minister would be raising human rights issues with the President of China when he met him this week, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had said in his Press Conference with Premier Wen in Beijing in September, human rights and democracy were always an element in our discussions with China. That was an accepted part of the relationship. China would always raise concerns with us. We would raise our concerns with them. Generally our experience was that it was best to deal with these matters in private rather than public grandstanding. It was an element of the relationship. Of course there were other elements as well, development, climate change and trade for instance.
Put to him that he seemed to be differentiating between the issues of trade and human rights, but given that the Chinese economy was based on the lack of human rights for Chinese workers, then the issues weren’t seperable, the PMOS said people had to ask themselves the basic question: was it more likely that human rights would be respected in an economy that was growing or one that was in decline.
Working Peers
Asked about the list of working peers and the controversy that some of them seemed to be Labour donors, the PMOS said we should wait for the list to come out.
EU Budget
Asked if given there seemed to be little movement this week by the French or the UK on the EU budget, the PMOS said that whenever this conversation came up before we had the presidency he had always declined to give a running commentary. That was the same for when we did have the Presidency. It was only early November and we still had over a month to go. Asked if given this lack of movement the informal discussions had been a waste of time, the PMOS said that as we had made very clear, the discussions this week were about setting out a framework for discussions, not about trying to reach a deal.
MMR
Asked about the story in the Daily Express about whether Leo Blair had had the MMR vaccination, the PMOS said that the Express was told at 1600 yesterday afternoon that the story was not true in any respect. The Prime Minister had set out his position and that hadn’t changed. The doctor had made it clear that this was a rumour, and no more. The Prime Minister’s family was entitled to their privacy.
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