Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Lord Mayor’s Banquet Speech, Public Service Reform, 90 Days, Reshuffle, Welfare Reform.
Lord Mayor’s Banquet Speech
Asked if there was a final text of the speech yet, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that the Prime Minister was still working on it. However the general theme would be that he would start off with globalisation in general then move to dealing with it in terms of terror and climate change. But the bulk of the speech would be devoted to trade and how the Doha round was in many ways a test of our determination and ability to make globalisation work. The Prime Minister would be on his feet at 2045 to deliver his speech and it was best of people waited till then for the detail.
Asked if there was more than had been briefed already to the Guardian, the PMOS said that his sense was that there would be more in the speech but as he left the office it was still being finished. Asked if the Prime Minster would have anything to say on the European budget negotiations, the PMOS said that he did not think it would deal specifically with that. It would be very much through a World Trade Organisation (WTO) angle.
Public Service Reform
Asked if it was fair to say that the Prime Minister would be spending more time talking with the PLP, the PMOS said that as they would see later this week the Prime Minister was putting emphasis on explaining the reform programme that the Government was elected on. That would partly be to MPs but he would also be using public platforms as well. Asked if he would be putting the emphasis on not just on explaining but listening too and creating a dialogue, the PMOS said that without getting hung up on the pedantics a dialogue was about listening and explaining. The Government was elected on a manifesto of public sector reform. The Prime Minister had made it clear, both at the time of the election and in his party conference speech that he intended to carry through that manifesto commitment.
90 Days
Asked why a letter from the Home Office to probation officers was suggesting different advice from that given to ACPO about lobbying MPs, the PMOS said that they should talk to the Home Office about whether there was any specific rule there. He would refer journalists to what past practice had been, which was that ACPO was not a stranger to expressing it’s view to MPs. If people read the letter in the Times today from the former Chief Constable of Thames Valley it made that point very clearly. In terms of the 90 days the police had not been alone in expressing their support for 90 days as we had again heard from Lord Carlile yesterday.
ACPO had often communicated with MPs in many different ways. Put to him that on this occasion it had been the Home Secretary that had suggested it, the PMOS said it was ACPO who were the first to put the issue of 90 days into the public domain on 21 July following the meeting at Downing Street in the wake of 7/7. We were in no way complaining about that but it did underline where the public debate on this had started. It was commonplace, which as anyone who worked in the home affairs field knew, for ACPO to lobby parliament and individual MPs on subjects relating to the police. ACPO saw that as part of their remit.
Reshuffle
Asked if there would be a reshuffle tomorrow, the PMOS said that he had nothing to encourage that view. It would come when it came. Asked why the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s job was being left vacant for so long when it had the important responsibility for deregulation of business, the PMOS said that if journalists cast their eye back over the past ten days it was fair to say there had been no shortage of events and therefore it was fair that the Prime Minister took his time and did it right.
Welfare Reform
Asked what the time scale for the welfare reform green paper was and the education bill and whether the Education Secretary would be present when the Prime Minister met backbenchers this week, the PMOS said that in terms of meetings they would happen when they happened and we would not give a running commentary on every meeting the Prime Minister had with MPs. In terms of the welfare timetable it was only realistic that a new Secretary of State took a bit longer to come to conclusions and it was right that he was given time to do so. In terms of the education bill he was not aware of any change to the timetable of early next year.
delicious
digg
facebook
