Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Davos, Home Office, EU constitution, House of Lords and Police Investigation
Davos
Asked about the World Economic Forum, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) asked journalists to take a step back, and think to where we were at the start of our G8 Presidency in the run up to Gleneagles. Whenever we said that Africa, climate change and trade were going to be the three main themes of our G8 Presidency, it was seen as being slightly quixotic, those were not the issues which were at the top of the agenda at that stage. Our G8 Presidency and EU Presidency helped put them there at the top, and the fact was that if you now looked at Davos today the three same issues were at the top of the agenda.
If you looked at Chancellor Merkel’s speech at Davos where she made it clear that those three issues were at the core of her, and Germany’s, EU Presidency and G8 Presidency, you could see how the international agenda had moved on. The Prime Minister’s speech tomorrow would reflect that, but would also reflect the questions about how you maintained the momentum on those issues, because we still had to push them to a successful conclusion. We had to get a successful outcome to the Doha round, movement to stabilisation on climate change by the G8 Summit, and within the EU in terms of trading emissions, and also on Africa, where we had to see people deliver on the promises that were made at Gleneagles. The speech would partly reflect that, but it would also reflect on the broader issues of how you pursued an agenda on issues which did not neatly fit into the international institutional framework. However, they did bring together coalitions of countries, international bodies, public and private sector, and would look at how you pushed that forward.
In terms of the Prime Minister’s engagements in Davos, they also reflected those three issues. He would first of all meet President Lula of Brazil. The meeting would focus on trade, because Brazil was a key part of the international negotiations in trade, and also climate change. The Prime Minister would then move into a trade session with trade Ministers, which the Chancellor would also attend, as well as President Mbeki of South Africa, and President Lula of Brazil. That would again be about pushing forward the Doha round. He would then meet Bono, Bill Gates and African leaders at a roundtable discussion on Africa, then he would attend a reception on Africa with Bill Gates and Bono. Tomorrow the Prime Minister would have a bilateral with the Prime Minister of Ukraine, possibly a short session with Senator McCain and attend a climate change session. Then he would give the last speech at the conference which would address the global issues as the PMOS had already described. The time of the speech would be 1500 Davos time, which was 1400 UK time.
Asked if the PMOS would expand more on the contents of the speech, the PMOS said the broad themes of the speech would reflect how we have got the issues of climate change, trade and Africa to the forefront of the international agenda, but then how do you pursue issues like the Middle East, and keep the momentum going whenever they do not fit neatly into the international institutional framework. They did bring together coalitions of countries, of public sector and private sector bodies, business, all of whom had a role in Africa, trade, and climate change. Events like Davos brought them together, but how did you then project out of that, and keep momentum going.
Asked if there needed to be a symbolic start to the Doha round, the PMOS said he thought people were assuming that this was running into the sand, that was not right. The Prime Minister had talked about this with President Bush before Christmas in Washington, he had talked about it with Chancellor Merkel, today he would talk about it with President Lula and trade ministers at Davos. There was now a renewed momentum, there was now a realisation that a deal was there if people had the will to make a deal. There was the realisation that a deal could be achieved that would make a huge difference to the world. You could not talk about Africa without talking about trade, you can not talk about how you maintain world prosperity without talking about trade, and there was a realisation that people were prepared to move on all sides, if all sides were prepared to move.
Asked where were there roadblocks to making things succeed at the moment, the PMOS said you had to make the thought a reality, you had to actually get people to make the hard decisions. In trade, people had indicated flexibility, but you had to turn that indication into reality in terms of the various sectors. The PMOS was not going to get into the details of discussions, but what was important was for people follow through, and that did mean people making hard decisions. In terms of Africa people signed up to increasing aid at Gleneagles, and in terms of climate change, we had to follow that through. We had to follow through Chancellor Merkel’s comments on the role of India and China, and their responsibility, but we also had a responsibility to follow through on things such as the Gleneagles dialogue and the transfer of technology and so on. Again it was turning the thought into practical reality, that was hard work, but it was necessary work.
Asked if the Prime Minister would discuss the role of the UN and EU to keep the momentum going, the PMOS said the Prime Minister’s views on the need for UN reform were well known. It was fair to say he also believed that you could not wait for institutional reform before driving these sorts of issues through, given what you had to do in terms of building momentum on these kinds of issues. It was about trying to find ways of making progress at the same time as keeping the momentum going for UN reform. If you waited for UN reform, past experiences suggested you could be waiting for quite some time, therefore you had to drive things through.
Home Office
Asked if the Prime Minister thought it was right for judges to interpret letters regarding sentencing from the Home Secretary and the Lord Chancellor, the PMOS said the Lord Chief Justice had said the note put out by the Home Office to the judiciary was simply a reminder. Each judge sat in their own court made their own decisions about sentences.
Asked if the Prime Minister had full confidence in the Home Secretary, the PMOS said yes, the Prime Minister had full confidence in the Home Secretary.
EU constitution
Asked what the view was on EU Ministers meeting to discuss the constitution in Madrid, the PMOS said EU Ministers met in all sorts of different ways at all sorts of different times, but our views on the constitution had been stated many times.
House of Lords
Put that there were reports this morning that a Cabinet sub-committee had agreed proposal for a fifty -fifty split between elected and appointed Lords, and that MPs would be given a free vote on it, the PMOS said he did not comment on Cabinet sub-committees. In terms of Lords reform, if there were any announcements to be made they would be made at the right time.
Police Investigation
Asked if there was any secret e-mail system in the Prime Minister’s Office, the PMOS said, as we had said last night, there was no secret e-mail system, there was full cooperation with the police, there was no e-mail as described on ITV news last night, and as we had said, the police had not asked us about any of these matters. Asked why the PMOS was now commenting on this investigation, the PMOS said this was so wrong it would have been totally misleading not to comment.
Asked if there had been any arrests of people in Downing Street, the PMOS said no. Asked if there were a separate e-mail address such as some using the letter X and some not, the PMOS said no. Asked if people had ‘Hotmail’ accounts at Downing Street, the PMOS said because of security access to such e-mails accounts was not allowed. The police had had full access to everything they wanted. The fallacy was that in someway Downing Street had not cooperated with the police, that was not true.
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