Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Tessa Jowell, Northern Ireland, Iran, NHS and Peerages
Tessa Jowell
Asked whether Sir Gus O’Donnell was establishing facts on the questions about the pub company asked in Nigel Evans’ letter, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said, as they all knew, that Tessa Jowell had set out the position earlier in the week. He had no doubt that Sir Gus O’Donnell would want to reply to Nigel Evans, but how he did so was entirely a matter for him. The PMOS added that he was aware that Nigel Evans had written to Sir Philip Mawer, who had in turn contacted Tessa Jowell. Tessa Jowell had, through out, sought to be scrupulous in ensuring that everything she did was in keeping with the ministerial code and the views of the standards commissioner. As such she would reply to him and no doubt he would make his view known.
Asked to clarify, the PMOS said that in terms of communications he did not want to get in the middle of how or where. But it should come as no surprise that if an MP wrote to Sir Philip Mawer that the way he would establish the facts would be to get in touch with the person in question. Put that Sir Philip Mawer’s office had said they were merely seeking clarification, the PMOS said that they had their way of doing things, which was right and proper. We fully accepted and understood that and were perfectly relaxed. It was a statement of the obvious that there would be communications of some sort between Sir Philip Mawer’s office and Tessa Jowell’s office. How that was done was not for him to detail in any way as it was entirely a matter for Sir Philip Mawer’s office.
Put that Sir Philip Mawer’s office had said that they had only received a letter seeking clarification, the PMOS said that it was entirely up to Sir Philip Mawer how they handled the issue. Tessa Jowell, as she had maintained throughout, would do whatever was necessary to ensure that she met whatever questions the standards commissioner had. If they had to communicate they would. Tessa Jowell was perfectly relaxed about doing so.
Asked how Tessa Jowell could be described as scrupulous when she had failed to asked her husband question about their finances, the PMOS said that he would not get drawn too far into this as there were still conversation going on and replies pending. He did not want to pre-empt them. Tessa Jowell had stated explicitly that she believed that she should have been told about these matters and that had she been told she would have declared them. Asked whether he was suggesting that in addition to the mortgage that Tessa Jowell was saying that had she known about the shares that she should have declared them too, the PMOS answered that he was trying to be careful to keep a differentiation between the two. He was not going to pre-empt any outcome concerning Nigel Evans’ letters. In terms of the "gift" the position was as stated and this was what he had been referring to when he said she would have declared it.
Asked what the Prime Minister’s response was to Sir Alistair Graham’s latest call for a revision of how the ministerial code was adjudicated, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister’s view remained unchanged on this matter. This was that those who were accountable to parliament and ultimately the electorate were those who should decide whether ministers had abided by the code or not. The Prime Minister believed therefore that it was right and proper that he, as the person who was ultimately accountable to the electorate, should be the person who made those decisions. It was worth pointing out, as a matter of fact and without commenting on the substance, that even where there was an independent figure or panel as they have in relation to the London Mayor it was not without controversy. Therefore the idea that you could somehow avoid controversy by having independent figures would seem to be contradicted by recent experience.
Northern Ireland
Asked if there were any words from the meeting with the Taoiseach, the PMOS said that this was primarily a stocktaking exercise. The two Prime Ministers were clearer in their view of where we were going, but there was now further work to be done by officials. To sound a general warning at this stage, the PMOS said that it was a statement of where talks were that the nearer you got to putting together some proposals the less you could say about them. We would be in this position for a little while.
The PMOS added that the two Prime Ministers had taken note of today’s Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) report, which said that the IRA no longer posed a terrorist threat and that its leadership had instructed it members not to engage in public disorder. We believed that this was further confirmation of what we had said at the time of the last IMC report that the IRA and Sinn Fein were moving in the right direction and we believed that to be very encouraging.
Iran
Asked about Iran, the PMOS said that the E3 had issued a statement. The next step was the UN Security Council and as we had said all along we believed that this should be taken step by step. What Iran could not ignore was the size of the majority in favour of taking this issue to the next step. It was important that Iran understood that message. Iran tried to say the message was only coming from one country but it was not. It was coming from the world as a whole.
NHS
Asked who the Prime Minister thought was responsible for NHS finances the chief executive or ministers, the PMOS said that he had set out the position in regard to Sir Nigel Crisp yesterday and he did not retract a single word of that. In terms of the deficits, they quite simply were the result of greater transparency that had been introduced into the system. We could now see where the money was being spent and where there were surpluses and deficits.
The key to this, which people were not instantly drawn to, was that the vast majority of trusts were not in deficit. As the Prime Minister had said at PMQs today the percentage of the deficit was a very small percentage of the overall NHS budget. That did not mean that we said it was not a problem, we clearly had to address the issue. But neither did it mean that we did what we had in the past, when it had been possible for bodies in the NHS to go into deficit because they knew they would be bailed out by other parts of the NHS. This was partly, historically, why this had arisen. The transparency meant that this was no longer possible - a good thing, but we had to address the deficit issue and we were.
Peerages
Asked if the Prime Minister was still backing Chi Patel for a peerage, the PMOS said, as he had this morning, that he was not going to comment on questions about the peerage nominations process. Asked whether the leak had come from Downing Street, the PMOS asked whether there could be one good reason why it might be in Downing Street’s interests to leak such things? We had been absolutely scrupulous, so far as he was concerned, in not in any way commenting on this process and he was not going to now.
Put to him that it might have been leaked to stop the nomination, the PMOS suggested that that suggestion came under F in the dictionary either for fiction or fantasy - it was true for both!
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