Press briefing from the Prime Ministers Official Spokesman on: Uganda, Pensions, Trade Barriers, Al Jazeera-Memo, Corruption, DWP Jobs, Death Penalty and EU Report on Israel
Uganda
Asked if the Prime Minister would raise the trial of Dr. Kiiza Besigye with the Ugandan President, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that Hilary Benn and Lord Triesman had already raised this issue with the Ugandans here in Malta this week. The EU, yesterday, issued a statement calling for due process to be followed and for it to be followed quickly. The Ugandan elections were next March. As it happened because of the alphabetical order in which the leaders sat, the Prime Minister would in fact sit next to President Museveni during the Commonwealth conference. As such he had no doubt that the Prime Minister would use that opportunity to reiterate the UK and EU’s view that due process must be followed.
Asked if it was appropriate that the next CHOGM meeting take place in Uganda, the PMOS said that clearly it was still two years down the line. We wanted to see that due process was followed now. Therefore what happened in two years time was a different matter. He had already indicated what the Government’s and the EU’s position was and what the Prime Minister himself would say about the seriousness with which we regarded current events.
Put to him that the big problem was that the decision on where the next CHOGM would be held had to be taken on a Sunday, the PMOS said that a decision did have to be taken now, but that you took that decision in the knowledge that the event itself did not take place for two years. What was important, frankly, was not speculating about where we would be in two years time but to concentrate on ensuring that due process was observed now. That was the point of the EU statement. It was equally important that due process was observed now and quickly because of the elections in March.
Pensions
Asked in regard to the leaked letter from the Chancellor to the Turner Commission whether he could deny that it had come from No10 and if it had what would the consequences be, the PMOS said that he could categorically deny, as far as his knowledge and those he had spoken to at No10, that we were not responsible for the leak. Our position on this was, and had been all week, that nothing was ruled in, nothing was ruled out.
We should wait for the Turner report to be published. As John Hutton had said that should be the start of a serious debate on pensions. Therefore leaking an element of the report was entirely against that process. We wanted this to be a debate, which debated the Turner report as a whole not elements of what was thought to be in it. Therefore leaking elements of the report was completely counter to what we wanted. It was better that we waiting for the report. It was a serious report. We believed it was a serious analysis and therefore it deserved serious treatment. Not one-sided leaking, which helped nobody.
Asked about the Times article suggesting Digby Jones had been encouraged to believe by the Government that once this pension debate got under way that the deal for public sector pensions at 60 would be back on the table, the PMOS said that he had nothing more to add about the public sector pension deal. The estimate was that it would save £13 billion between now and 2050. For a detailed response the best thing would be to speak to the DTI.
Asked whether the Chancellor was sabotaging the system if as he had said people should not debate elements of the report but debate the full report, the PMOS said that what the Chancellor had said was that any proposal had to be an affordable one. That was the Government position. The Prime Minister had said that yesterday. John Hutton had said it had to be fair and encourage people to save. It was important however to wait and see the report in full and then have a proper debate. That was a debate that could begin next week when it was published. In answer to a further question, the PMOS said what he thought would be helpful would be to wait until next week when we could have a proper debate.
Trade Barriers
Asked about Don McKinnon’s comments on the G8 and trade barriers, the PMOS said that he was not aware of Don McKinnon’s remarks. Anyone who had studied the outcome of Gleneagles would see nearly a £50 billion increase in aid. We had seen serious action being taken in helping improve the effectiveness with which aid was spent. We were seeing real pressure building up, and we were doing everything we could to increase that pressure towards a deal on trade. Even yesterday we saw for instance the EU agree a reform of the EU sugar sector which would not only save, when in came into operation, the EU$7 billion a year but it would also benefit 120 out of the 140 developing countries who were damaged by sugar subsidies.
Therefore there was a long list of things that we could point to showing progress. Did that mean that we were at the end of the road, absolutely not. What this G8 had seen was African Aid, as well as climate change, put on the agenda in a way that they had never been before. They would not come off the agenda. They were there for the foreseeable future. We did not claim sole ownership or responsibility for that, but we believed our G8 presidency had gone a long way to doing that.
Al Jazeera-Memo
Put to the Official Spokesman that a senior executive of Al Jazeera was looking to meet with the Prime Minister when he came to London next week, would the Prime Minister be willing to meet him and did he have a comment about Peter Kilfoyle’s Early Day Motion, the PMOS said he was not aware of the EDM. It was also, he suspected, the first that Downing Street had heard about the request from Al Jazeera. It was somewhat short notice. That said the Government was quite happy to talk to Al Jazeera just as they were quite happy to talk to other broadcasters. In terms of who talked to them that would depend on who was available and how much time was given to set up a meeting. Asked if the Government, in relation to the EDM, would be willing to disclose the memo if Parliament put pressure on it to do so, the PMOS said that people needed to take not of the fact that this was something that was sub-judice.
Corruption
Following President Obasanjo’s signal on corruption did we see developing nations taking it seriously, the PMOS said that it was clear that you saw through a process of peer review being carried out by the African Union or the moves made by the G8 you increasingly saw an emphasis on good governance and on transparency. In terms of progress he would not get into the job of marking countries out of 10. He did not think that was helpful. What was important was that people could see what the expectations of the rest of the world were and also the benefits for developing countries of having processes that were transparent. The momentum was there in terms of how it was followed through. It was a process which CHOGM was ideal for keeping the pressure on.
DWP Jobs
Asked how concerned was the Prime Minister that the job cuts at the DWP appeared to be exacerbating computer problems and stopping people’s benefit cheques and getting through to someone at the DWP, the PMOS said that he was not sure his take on the job cuts affecting the service was right. He should check with DWP on that point. His understanding was that there was a new computer system, which meant that people had had difficulty. However things were improving. Last week for instance nearly 90% of calls were answered with the vast majority of customers receiving follow up calls within 2 days. It sounded more like teething problems, which inevitably and unfortunately came with this sort of development.
Death Penalty
Asked if the prime Minister had any comment on the death penalty for Nguyen Tuong Van for drug trafficking in Singapore, the PMOS said that the British Government was against the death penalty. Equally however we recognised that sovereign countries were sovereign and that they might have different views on this. As such whilst we may disagree we also had to respect that sovereignty.
EU Report on Israel
Asked if there was any comment on the Guardian story on the FCO document criticising Israel, the PMOS said that his understanding was that this was a document that was drawn up as part of the EU process and therefore reflected not just British views but EU views. He would not comment in detail on a leaked document, but it reflected a collective heads of mission view in Jerusalem. It was still being discussed and as such it was not yet finalised.
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