Morning press briefing from 11 July 2006
Press briefing from the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman on: Police Mergers, Algeria, Natwest Three, Energy and Other Business
Police Mergers
Asked if the mergers of some parts of the police force was still going ahead the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that John Reid would be making a speech tomorrow and he didn't want to pre-empt that. He had said last month however that consultation would continue and that would be the theme of his speech tomorrow. Asked if he was saying that the Home Secretary wasn't ruling the mergers out, the PMOS repeated that journalists should wait until tomorrow. Put to him that their news desks wouldn't wait, the PMOS said that sometimes it was the job of a political editor to tell the news desks that some times life was tough.
Put to him that it was even tougher when the Chief Constable of Lancashire had already held a press conference that morning and said that the mergers were off, the PMOS said that he was entitled to his view but people should wait and see what John Reid had to say tomorrow. Asked whose idea it was in the first place, the PMOS said that Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary had published a report which said that to achieve efficiencies you needed to have more cooperation between the police. That was what had started the ball rolling on this issue.
Algeria
Asked what agenda was for the Prime Minister's meeting with the Algerian President to day, the PMOS said that they would be talking about regional matters, Africa, cooperation on counter-terrorism matters. They would also talk about energy where by 2010 Algeria was forecast to provide 12% of our gas and be Europe's second largest source of gas after Russia and BP had an investment of $4billion there. Asked if we were any closer to an agreement for Algeria to take back suspected terrorists, the PMOS said that discussions on deportations with assurances were continuing and would continue beyond this visit. As with all discussions you weren't there until you were there but we were making progress.
Asked if the phrase "deportations with assurances" was a new way of saying memoranda of understanding, the PMOS said no. The reason for that turn of phrase in relation to Algeria was that the Algerian government had a charter for peace and reconciliation which allowed the Algerian Diaspora to return without fear of recrimination or maltreatment and so we didn't call it an MOU, that was diplomacy for you.
Natwest Three
Asked if there was any word on the Prime Minister's attempts to secure bail for the Natwest 3, the PMOS said that discussions continued. What was important was to separate out the burden of proof issue from the discussions over the treaty. He underlined that whilst the wording might not be precisely the same it was the legal opinion that what we now required of the United States in terms of evidence was the same as what we required of other countries and vice versa. The wording of our extradition arrangements with other countries might be different but we now believed that now all were on a par so that there was no difference in terms of the burden of proof asked for by the United States, compared for what we asked for from there or indeed what the US asked for and what other countries asked for.
Energy
Asked if there was any significance in the Prime Minister visiting a wind farm today and not a nuclear power station, the PMOS said that whilst the BBC might find it difficult to walk and chew gum at the same time, in terms of government energy policy you had to have a multiple approach. That multiple approach was about getting the right mix. Wishful thinking would not keep the lights on, you had to think hard about the reality of the energy gap. The reality was that if you did nothing the amount of energy that we got from nuclear would decline from 20% to 6%. At the moment despite the fact that with the exception of Denmark, we generated more offshore wind power than any other country in the world, it only contributed 1%. What people would see from the energy review was that there would be a big increase in renewable energy.
There would be a big increase in energy efficiency moves and that would deliver more electricity. That in itself would not be enough to make up the shortfall. Therefore you did need nuclear. Nuclear was by no means the only answer but neither was renewables the only answer, nor energy efficiency. You needed a mixed approach and therefore what we had to do was move beyond wishful thinking to the hard realities of a world in which energy has become more expensive, in which this country was moving from a state where it was self-sufficient in energy to potentially being 90% dependent on foreign imports and in which if we did nothing our carbon emissions would go up rather than down. We therefore needed to move to a situation in which we met our targets of climate change and addressed the issue of energy security. The way to do that was through a mix of renewables, energy efficiency and nuclear.
Asked what had changed since the Energy White Paper of 2003, the PMOS said that if you looked at the energy market between now and 2003, if you looked at the assessments of the change of the amount of energy that we would have to import, you could see the change. What had also changed was the amount of energy that could be generated from energy efficiency and renewables, but it was not enough to fill the gap. He thought that people would be the surprised by the depth and range of measures on renewables and energy efficiency but we could not indulge in wishful thinking. We had to deal with the reality and that reality was to make up the gap we needed nuclear installations. Furthermore if you looked at the expansion of India and China that meant that the worldwide demand for energy was growing faster than anybody could have predicted 3 years ago. There was a step change in worldwide demand for energy and that was what was driving costs and driving dependency on foreign imports.
Asked about what measures were being taken to improve energy efficiency within government, the PMOS said that there were arrange of measures such as energy efficient light bulbs, not having appliances on standby and so on. There were any number of helpful measures but again whilst there was a lot we were doing and would continue to do in that area, it was not in itself going to be enough.
Asked why it was any better being dependent on Uranium imports than gas imports, the PMOS said that in terms of precise detail people should read the review. Equally there was an issue of the variety of supply of energy. In terms of gas you would be dependent on a relatively small number of suppliers. Also in terms of emissions, which was the other side of the issue, gas gave off more carbon, therefore your carbon emissions went up. The issue was not just dependency on imports but also the impact on climate change. Asked how much of the change in supply would be born by the taxpayer, the PMOS said that the cost would not be born by taxpayers but by the private sector.
Asked how much in the energy review would actually be new, the PMOS said that he would leave journalists to judge how much was actually new, but he would say that the depth and range of proposals had expanded significantly. The amount of renewables and energy efficiency measures were growing all the time. People would see that we were pushing the envelope on all fronts. However we had to keep in mind that you couldn't say that energy efficiency and renewables on their own would be enough.
Other Business
Asked if the Prime Minister had been aware that Sir Gulam Noon had been lending money to the Labour party when he nominated him for a peerage, the PMOS said that he didn't get into processology or party matters.
Asked if Lord Levy was still the UK's Middle East envoy, the PMOS said yes. Asked for detail of what he actually did, the PMOS said that we didn't brief on Lord Levy's role because it was best done in private. Asked if he knew whether the police investigation would involve Lord Levy, the PMOS said that he wouldn't give a running commentary on that police investigation. Asked if the Prime Minister or Jonathan Powell would be happy to cooperate with that investigation if they were asked, the PMOS said that that was a hypothetical question.
Asked about the Prime Minister's resignation honours list and whether it would be vetted this time, the PMOS said that answering that would set all sorts of hares running so he hoped journalists would forgive him if he didn't comment.
