Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Spokesman on: Football, Capital Gains Tax, British Business Council, President Karzai/Afghanistan, Scottish Elections, School Balances, PMQs and Renewables
Football
Asked what the PM had said in the clip re his meeting with Sepp Blatter, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said that he had had a very constructive meeting; we were hopeful that the FIFA Committee would allow European countries to bid for the 2018 World Cup. He also said, as he had said before, that if the Football Association were to put forward a bid for the 2018 World Cup, he would like to see the tournament come back to England.
Asked why European countries were not able to bid for the World Cup, the PMS said that the question was whether or not European countries were allowed to bid for the 2018 World Cup given the rotation system that applied; that was a decision which FIFA had not made yet, but if they were to open it up to European countries and the FA decided to bid then that would be something that the Prime Minister would very much support.
Asked if we were losing the argument with FIFA that European countries should be able to bid, the PMS said that we should wait and see; the Prime Minister was hopeful that the FIFA Committee would allow European countries to make a bid for the 2018 World Cup but that was a decision they had to make on their timescale.
Asked when the FA would make a decision, the PMS said that it was a matter for them but that they hoped to clear up the situation relatively soon.
Capital Gains Tax
Put that Digby Jones had said that the business community thought the CGT changes were a terrible thing and that he would raise these concerns with Chancellor, the PMS said that he had not seen the comments and would not want to say anything about comments he had not seen. He added that the Chancellor had had a meeting on Monday with the business community where they raised their concerns.
British Business Council
Asked if the Prime Minister had anything specific to say to the Business Council or if it was a purely listening event, the PMS said it was the first meeting of the Council and there would be a discussion about some of the longer-term policy areas that would effect the future economic competitiveness of Britain.
President Karzai/Afghanistan
Asked what the message to President Karzai would be tomorrow, the PMS said that, in relation to Afghanistan, we had always made clear our long-term commitments and there was no more to say in advance of tomorrow’s meeting; there would be media afterwards.
Put that security would be uppermost on the agenda, it was asked whether we would send three thousand extra troops, which NATO said were needed, the PMS repeated what he had said earlier in the week; troop numbers were kept constantly under review but there were no current plans to send extra troops.
Put that the UN had estimated that an extra battle group was needed and that we had said we would not send another battle group, the PMS said that what we had said was that we kept these issues constantly under review but we had no current plans to send extra troops. If that were to change then obviously we would make an announcement.
Scottish Elections
Asked if it was the case that the Government had accepted and apologised for mistakes that were made but was rejecting the charge made by the Gould report that mistakes were made for partisan purposes, the PMS said that the Gould report did not say that. If you looked at what the Gould report said in terms of that interpretation, what he said was that ‘what was characteristic of 2007 was a notable level of party self-interest evident in Ministerial decision making, especially in regards to the timing and method of counting and design of ballot papers’. What Gould went on to say when he was explaining what that meant later in the report, was that ‘it had become increasingly clear that too much political debate was associated with the design of the Scottish parliamentary and local government ballot papers. Regarding the parliamentary Scottish ballot papers, months of partisan political discussion and debate wasted valuable time which otherwise could have been used to establish a ballot paper which voters could easily understand’. That was a position that the Government accepted but what Gould was saying was that there was too much time spent on partisan political discussion rather than issues that directly effected voters.
Put that the Government was claiming that Gould’s definition of the word partisan was discussions within and between political parties, the PMS replied that that was correct.
Put that the report said ‘partisan self-interest evident in Ministerial material making’, the PMS said that Gould went on to explain what that meant; too much of the political debate was associated with the design of the Scottish parliamentary and local government ballot papers. He was not singling out any individual or institution; he was saying that, almost without exception, the voter was ‘treated as an afterthought’, by virtually all the other stakeholders.
Put that ‘Ministerial decision making’ meant Ministers, the PMS replied that in the process of taking those decisions too much time was devoted to discussions which were of a partisan and political nature.
Put that Ministers were at fault, the PMS said that the Government was accepting that there were issues that Ministers had to deal with and we were accepting the call of the recommendations in the report. Douglas Alexander had made his statement about this earlier today. We were clear that Gould was not singling out any individual; he was making a more general comment.
Put that there were only two Ministers at the Scottish Office, the PMS said that Gould had said yesterday, ‘there was no intention to assign blame to individuals or institutions’. There were repeated efforts yesterday to try to get him to blame specific individuals and he did not do that.
Asked for Gould’s definition of the word partisan, the PMS referred to page 48 of his report, Problem no. 1, which said, "too much political debate was associated over the design of the Scottish parliamentary and local government ballot papers’.
Asked if the Prime Minister was aware that Douglas Alexander was going to make a statement during PMQs, the PMS said the Prime Minister had spoken to Douglas Alexander about these issues, as expected.
Asked if the Prime Minister had full confidence in Douglas Alexander, the PMS replied yes.
Asked if Douglas Alexander had offered to resign, the PMS replied no.
School Balances
Put that, from the Prime Minister’s answers at PMQs, he was sympathetic to head teachers re the retrospective nature of the proposals which were aired earlier this year, the PMS said that, as the Prime Minister had said at PMQs, we would listen to the issues raised in the consultation. The consultation was ongoing and did not finish until Friday; we could then expect quite a swift response from DCMS from that consultation. Jim Knight said yesterday, in Parliament, when asked about the claw-back of balances, ‘we are consulting on that, and no decision has been made to do it. The consultation closes this Friday, and I will look to quickly make decisions and announcements, certainly in respect of some aspects. People have raised concerns particularly about the retrospective nature of some of the proposals that we consulted on, and I would like to provide some certainty on that as quickly as I possibly can’. Therefore Jim Knight had acknowledged some of the issues that had been raised in relation to the retrospective nature of some aspects of this proposal, but the consultation was still ongoing until Friday and we could expect an announcement from DCSF. The Prime Minister had made it clear that we would listen to the issues raised in consultation but also it was right that money which was allocated to schools was spent on schools, and we did not want to see ongoing accumulation of balances; we wanted to see the money allocated to schools and spent on schools.
PMQs
Had there been any contact between Downing St and the Speaker’s office after PMQs, the PMS said there had not been as far as he was aware.
Asked what the Prime Minister thought of the loutish behaviour of his PPS, the PMS said it was best if the PPS addressed that issue.
Renewables
Put that if there was no national commitment to reach the 20 per cent renewables target by 2020 it was asked why David Miliband had said last year that there would be 20 per cent target re electricity renewable supply by 2020, the PMS said that there were two separate points; one was that there was an overall EU target for renewables, which was about 20 per cent target for all power generation, essentially carbon emission; then there was a different 20 per cent target, which the UK had set, which only related to electricity generation. Therefore, the EU target was not just electricity, it covered all carbon emissions more generally, so it was a different 20 per cent to the 20 per cent David Miliband had talked about which was just electricity generation.
Asked if the target would be more like 10/15 per cent, the PMS said that we should wait and see; there were discussions going on within the European Union as to how that 20 per cent overall target was allocated between the member states.
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