Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Football, Sentencing, Europe and Other Business
Football
Asked how much of the football match between England and Trinidad & Tobago the Prime Minister expected to see, the PMOS said that obviously first and foremost today the Prime Minister was fulfilling his obligations in representing the Government at the Queen’s 80th birthday celebrations. He would then go to Europe and because of the previous event would arrive slightly later for the meeting, however Margaret Beckett would be there for the whole of the meeting. In terms of the football, he would watch as much as he can.
Asked if he would miss the photo the PMOS said that it seemed likely that he would given that he was going to be late for the meeting. Asked if Margaret Beckett would have to miss the football, the PMOS said that he was sure that the Prime Minister and Margaret Beckett would devise some working arrangement. Put to him that this sent a message that the Prime Minister was happy for women to do all the work while the chaps put their feet up and watched the football, the PMOS said that, with the greatest of respect, rushing to Northolt and flying to a summit to discuss serious matters was hardly putting ones feet up. He was sure that journalists would be missing the match for that very reason. Asked if Margaret Beckett was a football fan, the PMOS said that if journalists spoke to the FCO he was sure they would have a detailed Q&A on this subject.
Sentencing
Asked if it was right to assume that the new sentencing legislation would be focussed on automatic parole and discounts for pleading guilty, the PMOS said that people were well aware of the various issues which had come up in one way or another to do with the Home Office and the Criminal Justice System over the last few weeks. John Reid was looking at aspects of those issues, as was Lord Falconer as part of his role. In each of these issues you had to ask whether what was needed was changes in administration, sending a message through the system, or new legislation. As the Prime Minister had prefigured yesterday, what we hoped to do was give an idea of approach and how we were going to move forward in these areas before the summer break. In terms of the detail it was better to wait for a comprehensive statement of the way forward, rather than do it piecemeal.
Put to him that if we were considering putting in place measures which would lead to people at one end of the Criminal Justice System serving longer sentences, then we might have to consider releasing people at the other end earlier in order to avoid a huge extra burden on the prison system, the PMOS said that what that account left out was that as a result of 2003 Act, 1000 people had already been given indeterminate sentences precisely because they had been judged by the parole board to a be a continuing threat to society. That had not been possible prior to the 2003 Act. Under the previous legislation, introduced in 1991 and 1997, people were automatically let out at the 2/3 point, irrespective of the view of the parole board. In terms of the broader point on prisons, the Prime Minister and others had made it clear that the key determinant of whether someone should be in prison or not will be whether they are judged to be a threat to society. If they needed to be in prison then they would be in prison, that was why we were building extra prison places.
Questioned about the review the PMOS said that people were well aware of the areas where there were problems. It was not surprising that a new Home Secretary was looking at transforming the working of the Home Office to meet the new challenges in this century as opposed to the last century Equally we needed to look at how to make the IND fit the purpose and how we matched the public’s common sense view of what was necessary in the sentencing area with the practice in the Courts. This all fitted into one of the Prime Minister’s recurring themes during his premiership.
Asked how he responded to suggestions that this was panic legislation, the PMOS said that firstly we shouldn’t pre-judge the contents of our statement of our approach. Secondly, the Prime Minister had been signalling for a long time that he believed that the Criminal Justice System was one part of the public administration that was least fit for purpose when this Government came to office in 1997. Furthermore that that could only be addressed by fundamental reform. Finally that was not something that we could achieve overnight but something that had to be done over the long haul. This was a subject which he had kept coming back to again and again, not because Government measures weren’t working but because those measures had to be built on to meet the fundamental need for reform and change. Next week this was a subject the Prime Minister would come back to in his speech. He would talk about how we progressed this further forward, how we learned the lessons in this country and elsewhere about balancing the system, so that it reflected the needs of victims and so on. The Government had done a lot. It had changed the law in the 2003 Act which had introduced a number of important measures, but we needed to keep pushing change through.
Asked whether we were saying that judges should have increased or decreased discretion over sentencing, the PMOS said that, as he had said earlier in the week, we valued an independent judiciary. There was concern however, as Lord Falconer had acknowledged, that some sentences did not match what was seen as the public common sense view of right and wrong. It was perfectly legitimate, as Lord Falconer had said this morning, for the Home Secretary to articulate that concern. It was wrong to sent this up as either/or, it was important that the Government as a whole, the Home Secretary, the Attorney General and the Lord Chancellor, from their distinct perspectives, each looked at this and see how we matched public expectations, public perspective with the outcomes of the judicial system. That was precisely why we moved in the 2003 Act to close the situation where someone was released at the 2/3 point, irrespective of the parole board’s assessment, to a situation where the parole board could insist that someone remained in prison. Questioned further, the PMOS said that John Reid had not criticised the judge in his letter to the Attorney General. He had said that this was a matter that should be considered. He equally respected that it was the Attorney General’s role to do make that consideration, not the Home Secretary.
Asked if the Government was looking at measures to deal specifically with convicted paedophiles, the PMOS said that first of all the reviews and reforms were broader than this particular issue. Equally however you obviously looked at experience, including recent experience to pose the question that you needed to address in future. He pointed out that the 2003 legislation included 66 offences in which judges must consider, not possibly, but must consider the possibility of indeterminate sentencing.
Asked to confirm that this wasn’t a question of the way judges passed sentence, but was about looking at a systematic failure the PMOS reminded journalists that he had said earlier in the week that we did value an independent judiciary. The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and obviously the Lord Chancellor and Attorney General all valued an independent judiciary. However, what we did have to do was make sure that there was no disconnect between the outcomes of the system, for whatever reason, and public sense of right and wrong. That did not have one easy solution, you could simply pull a lever and the system corrected itself. What you had to was make sure that the system as a whole operated in a way so that disconnect was reconnected.
Put to him that the Attorney General had said the system was too prescriptive, the PMOS said that in terms of the outcome of the review, we should wait for that to be published, before commenting on it. What we would say was that there were those who said you shouldn’t allow any discretion at all, and those who said we should allow total discretion. Clearly what we needed was a system which reflected the overall sense of right and wrong but also allowed sentences to be shaped to the need to punish an individual but also to assess whether that individual was a continuing threat to society. That was precisely what the 2003 Act did by allowing, for the first time, the parole board to say that individual was such a continuing threat that that person should not be allowed out of prison for the rest of their life. That had not been possible prior to 2003.
Asked about claims that none of the thousand foreign prisoners who had failed to be deported could be deported, the PMOS said that he had looked in vain for a source to this story. Put to him that didn’t mean it wasn’t true, the PMOS said that it was a fair indication of a claim’s accuracy if someone wasn’t prepared to stand by it.
Europe
Asked what would be discussed at the European Council meeting, the PMOS said that we were at a different cycle in Europe than we were when we held the presidency. During that time we had the budget negotiations to complete and also the fallout from the referendums on the EU constitution. What we had also managed to do through our Hampton Court summit, was place on the agenda issues such as energy, where we were with the Austrians was that we would be taking forward these issues at this council. It would be unrealistic to expect any conclusion but in terms of preparing the ground for an action plan to be published at next year’s spring council. After the French and Dutch referendum results we had said that there would be a year of reflection on the constitution and we expected that period to be extended and some sort of reference point for when those matters might be considered. Those were the main issues that would come up.
Other Business
Asked for more detail on the Written Ministerial Statement on Charles Taylor, the PMOS said that it was to do with arrangements for Charles Taylor’s imprisonment should he be found guilty in the Hague. Asked which prison he might be kept in, the PMOS said that people should wait for the outcome of the trial. For more detail people should speak to the FCO.
Asked for detail on the Prime Minister’s speech next week, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had been planning for some time to do a series of domestic speeches mirroring, in some way, his series of foreign speeches.
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