Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Reshuffle Questions, Foreign Prisoners and the Royal Air Force
Reshuffle Questions
Asked if there were no events happening on Wednesday because there was likely to be a Cabinet reshuffle, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) applauded the journalist for possibly setting a new record for the fastest reshuffle question at lobby. However as always he never commented on reshuffle questions. Asked if the Prime Minister still had full confidence in the Deputy Prime Minister, the PMOS said yes. Asked if the Prime Minister still had full confidence in the Home Secretary, the PMOS said yes.
Asked if it was true that the Home Secretary might not have offered to resign afterall, the PMOS said that, as he had outlined last week, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary had had a meeting on another matter. During that meeting they had had a brief discussion about the Home Secretary’s resignation and they agreed that the Home Secretary was the best person to sort the problem in the Home Office out, since he had already initiated action. Asked if the Deputy Prime Minister was at work today, the PMOS referred journalists to the ODPM. Asked if the Prime Minister had any plans to speak to the Deputy Prime Minister, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister kept in contact with all his Cabinet colleagues on a regular basis. He didn’t brief on individual conversations.
Asked to characterise the Prime Minister’s general mood and whether there was a danger that people might see him as not taking these issues seriously enough, the PMOS said that if you looked at the Prime Minister’s and the Government’s record on dealing with issues such as asylum or street crime or general law and order issues like the Respect agenda, it was clearly visible that the Prime Minister took these kinds of issues very very seriously and was determined to resolve them. It was entirely fair for the Prime Minister to point out that the reason the problem in the Home Office had come to light was precisely because of the reform agenda within the Home Office. It was the appointment of new personnel last January which uncovered the problem, and led to the NAO being able to get information for the first time in this area. The Prime Minister was committed to driving the process of reform which, in this area or for example in the Health area in terms of deficits, uncovered problems which then needed to be resolved. That was the price you paid for reform in the short term, but the medium and long term you got the benefit.
Put to him that he had ignored the issue of the Deputy Prime Minister and that had had an impact on the image of the Government, the PMOS said that that issue remained a private matter and it would be wrong of him to discuss it. Asked about the possibility of Sir John Bourn investigating a possible breach of the ministerial code, the PMOS repeated what he had said on Friday that reports about Sir John Bourn were to his knowledge inaccurate. In terms of calls for an inquiry that was not a matter for him to comment on. Asked to explain the process for John Bourn investigating ministers, the PMOS said that as he had said on Friday, we had covered these matters at the time of Sir John Bourn’s appointment.
Foreign Prisoners
Put to him that perhaps the Prime Minister should have been informed of the issue 3 weeks earlier, the PMOS said that, as the Home Office had explained, during that period they were putting together the full facts. It was entirely understandable that rather presenting a partial picture of what was going on they wanted to present a full picture. It was quite correct to take the time and get the facts together.
Asked if the Home Secretary had updated the Prime Minister on this issue in the last 24 hours, the PMOS said that the Home secretary and his officials had been working intensively on this over the weekend and work continued on that. The Home Secretary had offered on Friday to do a further report back this week.
Asked to respond to the claim that the Home Office hadn’t pursued some of the prisoners recommended for deportation because they were scared they might claim asylum and increase the asylum figures, the PMOS said no. The reason these problems arose was precisely for the reason we had already set out, that at the administrative level decisions had been taken which ministers were unaware of. The Government was determined to address the asylum issue and had done so Equally however we were determined, as indeed ministers had expected, that foreign prisoners recommended for deportation should have been dealt with properly. Action had been taken from within the Home Office to make sure of that.
The PMOS reminded journalists that the Home Secretary had been responsible for some 3000 prisoners being deported. Put to him that some of the staff who should have been dealing with these foreign prisoners had been diverted to processing asylum claims, the PMOS said that for details on staffing people should talk to the Home Office. We had put in an extra £2.7million as a result of a newly appointed official finding out what the problem was and as a result of that we were also doubling the capacity within the Home Office for dealing with this particular area. Asked why the capacity was still increasing at this stage, the PMOS said that you had to train staff in this particular area. People needed to have the necessary skills to deal with this issue. You don’t want people working in this area without the sufficient skills making these kinds of decisions because otherwise you ended up with the sorts of problems we had just seen.
Asked if this issue wasn’t evidence that the Home Office wasn’t too large and unwieldy, the PMOS said that first and foremost we should recognise that many of the criminal justice elements of the Home office had been transferred to the DCA. He also pointed out that in this particular case the requirement was for the prison service, the police, the probation service and the immigration service to work more closely together. Therefore you had to ask yourself whether it was more likely to help those agencies work together if you split those functions away from the Home Office. The answer to that seemed fairly obvious. Asked if there might not be a review of the actual procedures for deportation, the PMOS said that people should wait for the Home Secretary’s full report to the House on this issue.
Royal Air Force
Asked if the Prime Minister was concerned about reports that there weren’t adequate safety features on some RAF aircraft, the PMOS said that there had been a Board of Inquiry into the very sad loss of the Hercules which had made a number of recommendations. The MOD were implementing those recommendations.
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