Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Spokesman on: PM, Minister Briefings, French PM, Basra, Foreign Prisoners, Pensions White Paper, Communities and Local Government and Geoff Hoon.
Prime Minister
Put that the Prime Minister had said today that he wanted to give his successor time to “bed in” and did this mean that he would now not serve a full third term, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said if people looked back at what the Prime Minister actually had said on the day that he announced that he would not be fighting a fourth election, he clearly indicated then that obviously, the hand over was a matter that would be have to be dealt with. The Prime Minister had said consistently now since the General Election that he wanted to hand over in an orderly way, and he was saying nothing different today.
Asked if the Prime Minister saw the Chancellor face to face over the weekend or today, the PMOS replied that as the Prime Minister had said, he had spoken to the Chancellor on a regular basis, and that he did not brief on meetings.
Minister briefings
Put that as the Ministers involved in the briefings this week would only have been in their jobs for a few days, were the briefings therefore what the Prime Minister thought instead, the PMOS said that in terms of setting out the priorities and how they were to be implemented, it was a work in progress. It would therefore be very much their take and the Prime Minister’s on what their priorities were.
French Prime Minister
Asked for more information about the Prime Minister’s dinner with Prime Minister de Villepin later this week, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that we had regular meetings with the French Prime Minister, and this was one of those.
Asked if beef would be served, the PMOS replied that beef had been served in the past.
Basra
Asked if the recent events in Basra could be seen as a message from Iran on the eve of the meeting in New York, the PMOS said that we saw it for what it was, which was a deeply regrettable incident which resulted in the deaths of five British personnel. The best place to go for an update for it was Des Browne’s statement.
Asked were there enough troops, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had dealt with this earlier today in his press conference. What was important was that we had seen progress in recent days in re-establishing normal relations with the political authorities in Basra. We had also been actively engaged in training and equipping Iraqi forces, and that was the process that mattered. Unfortunately, attacks like this did happen, but the important thing was that we worked with the Iraqi forces to built up their capacity, and that was what we were doing.
Asked about a possible statement about troops over the next few weeks, and was that likely to happen, the PMOS replied that what the Prime Minister was referring to was first of all the formation of the Iraqi Government, and secondly, how we kept pushing forward the process of Iraqiisation.
Foreign Prisoners
Put that the new Home Secretary had announced today that there could be “several hundred” more serious prisoners still in Britain, and was this the reason that Charles Clarke had to go, the PMOS said that in terms of the figures, there were certain strict criteria as to what came under the “serious offenders” category. We had identified 90 of those, and the rest of the 1023 figure had now taken it up to last week to 150. Secondly, in terms of an investigation why the figures had increased, the PMOS explained it was precisely because the Home Office was interrogating the figures in a more detailed way that in the past.
Asked again if that was the reason that Mr. Clarke had to go, the PMOS replied that the Prime Minister had set out the reasons last week, which were that we had hoped that this matter could be resolved without Charles Clarke having to go, but it became clear that unfortunately, that was not going to be the case. Therefore, the Prime Minister very reluctantly took the decision to move Mr. Clarke, but he had decided that he did not want another job.
Asked why did it take almost two weeks for the list of names and who had committed serious offences to be released, the PMOS replied that because of the practice that had been going back decades, it was quite a complicated process. Therefore, to do so in a detailed way did take time.
Asked how confident the Prime Minister was that the issue could be resolved rapidly, the PMOS replied that the fact that of the original 90, most of the more serious offenders, 75 were now under control, compared to 32 last week. That gave an indication of the seriousness and the speed with which the Home Office was addressing the issue, and therefore, we needed to recognise why the process was not yet completed. The PMOS said that the fact that we could now say 75% of the 1023 could expect to be deported, and a higher percentage of the more serious offenders gave an indication of the real progress that was being made.
Pensions White Paper
Asked if the Pensions White Paper was about implementing the Turner Report, the PMOS said that people had known that our approach to the Turner Report had been one of welcome, while investigating the detail. People should wait for the detail, but our general approach had been of welcome.
Communities and Local Government
Asked if Race Relations had been moved to Ruth Kelly’s department, the PMOS said that it made sense, because the title of her department was now Communities and Local Government. Communities involved relations between and within different elements of the community.
Asked if we were reducing the work load of the Home Office, the PMOS replied that the way to approach this was what made more sense in terms of the outcomes that the Government wanted to achieve. That was the only criteria by which these matters were judged.
Geoff Hoon
Asked if it was ever the case that Geoff Hoon’s job was ever a Secretary of State position, the PMOS said that it was not.
Asked if it was a false briefing from the Government, the PMOS said that we had very consistently adopted one line which was that it was the same as Douglas Alexander’s role, and it was a very important role. Geoff Hoon was a very good person to have in that role because of his background as a former MEP.
Asked if it was as a Minister and not as a Secretary of State, did he not have an automatic right to attend Cabinet, the PMOS replied that Geoff Hoon would attend Cabinet in the same way as Douglas Alexander did, and in the same way now that Ian McCartney would.
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