Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Post Offices, Police inquiry, Control Orders, Baker Report and Military Wards
Post Offices
Asked if the petition brought into Downing Street recently was the largest ever received, having 4 million names on it, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman said that what was important was the number of people who were using post offices. What people should remember was that we had made an unprecedented investment in the post office network of more than £2 billion, including £750 million for the rural network. We recognised that some offices would never be commercially viable, but they played an important social role, but we had to ensure that the network was sustainable.
Asked if the Prime Minister was happy that he was effectively subsidising rural living, the PMOS replied that we recognised that in terms of the communities, they did play an important part. Equally, we had to look at how many people were actually using the post offices.
Police inquiry
Asked by the Daily Mail if there had bee any contact from Scotland Yard about cash for peerages, the PMOS said: no.
Asked by the BBC (who had arrived late) if the Prime Minister had been visited by the police, the PMOS said that surprise, surprise, the Daily Mail had already asked the question, and where the Daily Mail asked, the BBC did tend to follow these days!
Control Orders
Asked if there was any new thinking on control orders, the PMOS said that this was not where we wanted to be, and we had had to introduce control orders because of the court judgement. The Court of Appeal had forced us to weaken the obligations that the Secretary of State could impose, and we were at the moment currently appealing to the House of Lords to overturn the Court of Appeal’s judgement. Therefore, we would see what would happen on that. What people should not be under doubt about, however, was that we wanted strong powers from the beginning. It was a combination of Parliament, and the courts that prevented us from gaining those powers.
Put that that did not stop the control orders being operated effectively, the PMOS said what the courts had done was to place restrictions on how we could use the control orders, and how restricted they could be. Therefore, if restrictions were imposed on how restrictive control orders could be, it did have follow-through consequences.
Put that it sounded like the courts were being blamed, the PMOS said that he could not get involved in an individual case because of the anonymity rule. However, in terms of the overall powers, they were not as restrictive as we wanted them to be because of the court judgement. That was a simple fact.
Asked if the on-the-run people were criminals now, the PMOS said that the anonymity rule was imposed by the court, and therefore could only be lifted by the court. The police could, if they believed it was for a compelling operational reason, ask the Home Secretary to seek to overturn the anonymity order. We had received no such request at present.
Asked if we would be happy if the on-the-run people were caught, they would be prosecuted for a criminal offence of disobeying a control order, the PMOS replied that it was not for him to speculate about what would happen in that sort of situation. That would be a matter for the proper authorities to make the right judgement at the right time.
Baker Report
Asked if the Prime Minister and President Bush had spoken recently about James Baker, the PMOS said that they had not.
Put by the BBC that it would be fair to speculate the idea of Iran and Syria playing any part in the future of Iraq would be an anathema to the Government, the PMOS said that as with so much else that surrounded the Baker Report, which was not yet published, there was a lot of misinterpretation of where the Government was. We had not said that we were staying in Iraq for ever, but rather, that we would stay there until the Iraq security forces were, in the judgment of the Iraqi Government, capable of taking over. We had not said that we did not believe than Iran and Syria should have a role in world affairs, but we had said that they had a choice. As long as they continued to support terrorism, and the kind of activity that we had seen both in Iraq and elsewhere, then there was a problem. What the Prime Minister had said explicitly before was that they faced a choice. The PMOS reminded people that this was the Prime Minister who went to Syria to meet President Bashar al-Assad.
The BBC journalist said that he recalled that it was a great meeting. The PMOS replied that he recalled that it was a great press conference…The journalist said that he got the message!
Military Wards
Put that the MOD appeared mystified yesterday with regards to the Prime Minister’s comments about army wards, the PMOS said that he was surprised by that, as Des Browne had already announced it beforehand.
Put that that was only one military ward, the PMSO said that we were talking about a relatively few number of patients. If people checked the number of military patients, it was somewhere in the region of 14.
Asked about another announcement regarding wards, the PMOS replied that what the Prime Minister said was that there would be military wards, but within an NHS hospital. The PMOS said that the basic argument was still the same: military and medical personnel had to have the ability to constantly hone their skills. It was the same basic argument about why we needed to change the nature of community hospitals, as it was about making sure that specialists were able to constantly exercise their speciality. At the press conference yesterday, Sir Liam Donaldson illustrated that point very well, i.e. someone could not be a specialist if they were only exercising that specialty on very rare occasions.
Asked again about the number of wards, the PMOS said that he would leave it to the MOD to talk about the number of wards. However, in terms of the overall number of patients, it was relatively small. That was the whole point.
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