Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Foreign Prisoners, DPM, Honours
Foreign Prisoners
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) confirmed to journalists, as advised last Friday, that the Home Secretary would report back to the House of Commons on further progress in tracking down foreign prisoners that should have been considered for deportation. The Home Secretary would make a statement to that effect tomorrow. Put that it had previously been suggested that it would be on Friday, the PMOS said that was not the case. Asked if it was tomorrow so the Prime Minister could avoid difficult questions about it, the PMOS said that was categorically not the case.
The Home Secretary had on Friday made it clear that he would return to the House with a further report as soon as he was in a position to do so. As was the right and proper thing to do. Asked if it was Downing Street who had thought the end of the week was too far away, the PMOS said that there was always a desire on the one hand to get the facts right and on the other a desire to update the House as soon as possible. Tomorrow was the happy meeting place where those desires aligned.
Asked what the correct version was of whether or not Charles Clarke had offered to resign, the PMOS referred journalists to the press briefing note from last week where he had rightly stated that the Home Secretary had, in a meeting about another matter, had a brief conversation with the Prime Minister in the margins in which they had discussed resignation. The Prime Minister had agreed that the Home Secretary was the right person to carry this work forward not least because he had initiated it.
Asked if the Prime Minister’s view would change if there were any more offenders identified, the PMOS said that the key word was “if” and, as they all knew he did not answer hypotheticals. Asked if there was any response to Civitas report suggesting that if they were not caught they would go on to commit 700 crimes, the PMOS said no.
Deputy Prime Minister
Put that it was known that the Prime Minister was meeting the Deputy Prime Minister and had he spoken to the Home Secretary today too, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister spoke to his Cabinet colleagues on a regular basis but it was not our habit to brief on such conversations. In order to avoid any misunderstanding people should for this Bank Holiday week treat today, Tuesday, as if it were a Monday and Monday was the day the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister regularly met. Asked why the Deputy Prime Minister was keeping a low profile, the PMOS said it was for the ODPM to speak on behalf of the Deputy Prime Minister, but his understanding was that the Deputy Prime Minister was fulfilling the same engagements that he had always intended to fulfil today.
Asked whether Sir John Bourn had been asked to look into John Prescott, the PMOS said, for the third time, the answer was no. Asked why not, the PMOS said referred journalists to what was said at the time of Sir John’s appointment for the circumstances in which Sir John Bourn would look into things. Asked whether it fell under his remit, the PMOS said he would not get into discussing allegations. He would simply refer them to what he had said at the time of Sir John Bourn’s appointment.
Honours
Asked if the police under the 1925 Honours Act had interviewed any member of Downing Street, the PMOS said that he had already explained that he was refusing to give any running commentary on the police investigation just as he would in regard to any other police investigation. That did not mean one thing or the other just that he was not providing any sort of commentary.
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