2 June 2008
Speaking at a Downing Street press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda today, Gordon Brown said he and his counterpart had identified rising commodity prices as “a global problem that now require co-ordinated international action”.
Read the transcript
Prime Minister:
I am delighted to welcome Prime Minister Fukuda to Downing Street for the first time, and his wife Kiyoko, who has been able to join him. This is the first of a number of meetings I will be having with world leaders in the run-up to the European Summit and the G8.
The United Kingdom and Japan have a very strong partnership that is based on shared values and international interests, and this year we are celebrating the 150th year of the UK-Japanese diplomatic relationship. Our relationship is underpinned by the joint statement signed last year which commits both our countries to working together to meet the challenges of international security, climate change, international development and science and technology. And in addition to discussing these themes, our discussions today focussed on addressing the current challenges of global economic turbulence, oil and commodity price inflation and preparing to address these, alongside food prices, at the G8 Summit.
Prime Minister Fukuda and I are agreed that rising oil and commodity prices are a global problem that now require coordinated international action. And together I believe that we can secure a renewed dialogue between oil producers and consumers. I look forward to discussing these proposals with President Barroso when I meet him later this week.
Likewise we agreed it will be important for G8 members to press oil producing nations to do all they can to increase domestic oil production and investment to improve future supply. We agreed on the need for the genuine diversification of our energy supply to move us away from dependence on carbon fuels, including through investment in nuclear power, and we talked about measures to improve energy efficiency and therefore to cut demand.
I also strongly welcome the Prime Minister’s choice of climate change, development and non-proliferation as the additional key themes for the G8 Summit when we travel to Japan. We have already agreed that the global economy merits special attention. We will address global financial instability at the summit and on climate change we have agreed on the urgency of international action, the need to reduce global emissions, and the G8 summit is a great opportunity for all its members to show that the developed world is willing to cut its emissions and to lead the transition to a low carbon economy.
We are also agreed that we must meet the Millennium Development Goals and we agree on the need for urgent action by governments as well as other organisations, and that the G8 will show global leadership in advance of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal event in September, and we will specifically focus on education and health at the G8 summit.
We have an opportunity today to look at how the G8 Summit can advance all these issues and we have also had an opportunity to continue to strengthen our partnership as two nations working together for common goals.
Thank you Prime Minister Fukuda.
Mr Fukuda:
Well I have had the pleasure of conversing with Prime Minister Brown over the phone on two occasions and it is a great pleasure to meet him in person and exchange views with him.
Now Japan and the UK are celebrating the 150th anniversary since the establishment of diplomatic ties, and these bilateral ties are growing even deeper and closer.
Today I had a very meaningful exchange of views with him, especially on cooperation towards the run-up of the Hokkaido Toyako Summit of the G8, and with one month to go to the July G8 Summit meeting it was the most opportune timing to have this sort of discussion.
Now I and Prime Minister Brown agreed that it is important to send out from the G8 summit in July a strong message regarding the various challenges that the world faces, which are mutually interlinked, so it is the world economy, environment and climate change, the development of Africa and the rising food prices, as well as on to political issues, including non-proliferation.
The world economy, we agreed that the world economy remains in a difficult situation because of the rising crude and commodity prices, as well as the turmoils in the international financial market.
At the G8 Summit, the Hokkaido Toyako Summit, we agree that it is important that the G8 leaders get down to the end of discussions of these issues and come out with a direction on which we should pursue the resolution of these issues and come up with concrete ideas for resolution.
And on the climate issue, we saw eye to eye that the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit, as well as the major economies meeting, need to come out with a pro-active message.
On the development and Africa, an area where Japan and the UK are cooperating personally, I explained to the Prime Minister that the outcome of the [indistinct] a meeting that took place last week, that is the fourth [indistinct] international conference on African development, Prime Minister Brown has been addressing the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals very actively and has taken the initiative to organise the September MDG Review Conference. I told Prime Minister Brown that at the G8 I would like the G8 Summit to come out with a strong message on the development agenda, such as the achievement of other Millennium Development Goals on health, and water, and education, and to tie these outcomes into the September MDG conference.
Now I explained to Prime Minister Brown about the announcement I made the other day that Japan would double its ODA for Africa by 2012 and we agreed that it will be important for the G8 Summit to discussing boosting Africa’s growth and to further step up our support for Africa.
I look forward to continuing the cooperation with Prime Minister towards a successful G8 Summit meeting.
Thank you.
Question:
Prime Minister you have very clearly nailed your policy to the mast in support of the extension to 42 days for the time in which terrorist suspects can be held without charge. Where is the evidence for the need for that? And do you accept that in so strongly defining your position you are also in effect defining this issue as the success of your leadership?
Prime Minister:
Well the evidence is that our security services are pursuing and having to identify around 2,000 terrorists at the moment, they are dealing with about 30 potential plots and they are dealing with about 200 networks. And the last case that came before the courts involved the police in having to examine 400 separate computers, 8,000 discs and 25,000 exhibits. And therefore the complexity and the sophistication of investigations that now have to be conducted by the police, compared and contrasted with what was happening 10 years ago, make it inevitable that the police will need more time to conduct their investigations and that is why we are putting forward a proposal that up to 42 days pre-charge detention should be possible.
But we are also putting in place protections for civil liberties that have not been in existence until now. So the order, before it went to Parliament, would have to be approved by the Director of Public Prosecutions, by the police, as well as by the Home Secretary. Parliament would have to vote - and that is the second time - on this before it could ever be implemented in full. At the same time we are giving powers to the independent reviewer to examine every single case that comes forward in detail. And therefore the protections that we are putting in place for civil liberties are commensurate with what we are saying is rightly necessary in the interests of national security.
I have tried to build consensus around our proposals, but I am determined that we stick to our principle, and that is that up to 42 days detention is and will be necessary in the future, but Parliament will make the final decision on the individual incident itself. And when we put forward all our proposals people will see very clearly that the civil liberties of individuals are taken fully into account, protection is made against the arbitrary treatment of individuals while we are making it possible, as the police and the independent reviewer have told us, that we can go up to 42 days.
Question:
What about the [indistinct]
Prime Minister:
I think it is pretty clear that I believe that this is necessary. I have said right from the time that I became Prime Minister that this was necessary. I have tried to build a consensus around the proposals, I have looked at the civil liberties issues and we have made, and are making proposals, about how we can protect people against arbitrary treatment, but I believe this is right in the interests of the national security of the country. And anybody looking - as I have to do - at the number of incidents, at the number of prospective plots, at the number of potential terrorists that have to be pursued, and equally at the sophistication and the complexity of the investigations that we have got to carry out, I repeat, when the IRA was mounting terrorist plots 10 - 15 years ago, you had to deal with one or two people with one or two exhibits, now you are dealing, as I said in the last case, with 400 computers that have got to be examined, 8,000 discs, 25,000 exhibits, multiple passports, multiple identities, multiple mobile telephone numbers and emailing facilities, crossing every continent of the world. Nobody can deny that the sophistication and complexity of investigations now demand that the police have the time that is necessary to conduct a full investigation and that is why we are making this proposal as a precautionary measure for the future. We want our country to be prepared for what might happen and I believe that the protections that we put in place for civil liberties are the right ones for the country.
Question:
On the rising food prices, a question for both Prime Ministers. Now I believe it was a letter that Prime Minister Brown sent to you Prime Minister Fukuda that you decide to take up the food price issue at the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit. Now various factors are involved in this complex matter, climate change, biofuel and speculative money etc, and I wonder what sort of outcome you expect from the upcoming G8 summit? And Prime Minister Fukuda, do you have any intention to send out this outcome in the form of a special communiqué?
Mr Fukuda:
Well I received a letter from Prime Minister Brown in April and what he wrote in that letter was that the rising food prices was an urgent international issue, and that meets very much my own perception of the problem as well. And so I decided to take up this issue at the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit in July and I sent out a letter calling for cooperation by the United Nations and others in order to address this issue. This is a multi-faceted issue that calls for a multi-faceted response and considerations. Now the FAO high level meeting will take place, starting tomorrow, and we would like to build on the outcome of that meeting and engage in the summit at the G8 on the various complex factors behind the rising food prices, and come out with a forceful message on medium to long term measures, such as increasing food production and agriculture productivity, especially in developing countries.
You asked in what form we would like to send out this outcome. We are considering that. In any way we would like to come up with a form that would give impact worthy of the importance of the issue.
Prime Minister:
I am grateful to the Prime Minister for putting this on the agenda for the G8. Food stocks are at their lowest for 30 years, we are facing food riots in many countries as a result of the high price of food, we are facing rising costs for families in every country of buying basic items - bread, milk, eggs - and of course we have had difficulties with some of the harvests in the last few years.
I think it is vital that tomorrow when people meet in Rome that we agree we will do more to increase agricultural production in productivity in some of the poorest countries of the world, I believe we need to expand the aid and help that we give for agricultural production, I believe also that we need to look at biofuels and whether we have made the right decisions over time about the production of biofuels at the expense of food. And I believe that by the time we reach the G8 summit we will be able to come together with a coordinated plan to both increase food production in the world and to get food prices, which are very high for ordinary consumers, down.
Question:
Prime Minister can you confirm that next week’s vote on 42 days will not be a vote of confidence in you or the Government and therefore there will be no consequences for you or the Government in defeat, even though of course you would like to win? And can I ask the Japanese Prime Minister, on food prices, do you think the agenda that you have set out on food prices means that Japan will have to reconsider its concerns, its opposition to genetically modified food?
Prime Minister:
We are putting our proposals to the House of Commons in the normal way, as I have said in the House of Commons itself. We believe these are the right proposals for the country. I would like the other parties to reconsider their opposition to this. I believe that we put in place what everybody has wanted to see - safeguards for the civil liberties of the individual against arbitrary treatment - but I also believe that all the evidence, and the evidence I have just given about the number of plots, about the sophistication and complexity of cases, points to the need, as the independent reviewer, Lord Carlile, has said, and as the police have said to us as well, and as the Government are now convinced of the need to have that provision in place that we are prepared to go to up to 42 days if necessary, but that would only happen with Parliamentary approval, beyond the legislation, a particular order put to Parliament by the Home Secretary at the appropriate time.
Question:
You are not treating this as a motion of confidence. In previous votes it has been made clear that [indistinct]have been treated as a motion of confidence, and if you don’t say that I assume we can assume, this is not, just like Tony Blair, you can be defeated on this issue and you would go on?
Prime Minister:
I have made it absolutely clear we are putting it to Parliament in the normal way, and that means just as we have put proposals previously, we are putting them on 42 days to the House of Commons. I happen to believe that the case we have got is stronger than when we have previously discussed this issue, for two reasons: one is we have looked at what people have said about the number of days and we now say up to 42 days; and secondly, we have put in place what are very considerable protections for the civil liberties of the individual. You see the argument in this all along was that if you are going to ask for increased days, what is the protection for the individual against arbitrary treatment? And what we have managed to do over the last few months is look at what protections can be put in place. So the Home Secretary cannot come to Parliament without the support of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the police, the Home Secretary has got to get the approval of Parliament, she has got to come to Parliament and present her case about the incident itself, and then the independent reviewer will examine whether there has been indeed proper treatment or arbitrary treatment in the conduct of the case. And at the same time every 7 days the person who is subject to this would have to come before the court and a judge would have to approve the continuation of the case. So at every instance we have put in place protections for civil liberties, greater than there have ever been, and against arbitrary treatment, but at the same time I have given you the facts that show to me that the sophistication and complexity of investigations that have to be conducted across continents, sometimes with people whose identity you do not know at the point of their arrest because they have many multiple identities, the sophistication and complexity makes it necessary that we have in place that power. And I don’t want us to have to come in the light of a multiple terrorist incident and ask for these additional powers, I want us to be prepared, and that is why the up to 42 days detention pre-charge is what we are putting in the legislation.
Mr Fukuda:
On genetically modified food, I think that was your question with regard to GM food, but even among Japanese experts and also amongst people in Japan, we are right in the midst of discussions and debate and nothing has come out by way of conclusion, but that is the current situation.
Question:
I would like to ask a question of both of you. At the African Development Conference Prime Minister Fukuda you announced various measures to support Africa, as you indeed mentioned. And also Prime Minister Brown, before taking office you have also been very active in addressing the debt relief for Africa. Now on the other hand African countries seem to have high expectations with regard to the further promotion of trade and investment, and Africa I believe will be taken up as one of the major agenda items at the G8 Summit at the G8 Hokkaido Summit. I wonder what sort of forceful message you intend to come out with?
Prime Minister:
I am very grateful to Prime Minister Fukuda for putting this on the agenda in such a strong way, and I welcome the decision by Japan, which I praise, to double their aid to Africa, which has been announced in recent times. 100 million people face famine as a result of what is happening because of the food crisis. We need to act both on education, health and trade, to make sure that Africa has got the chance of moving forward. We are proposing that by 2015 every child in Africa has the chance of schooling, we are also proposing that we have a massive increase in the number of health workers so that we can prevent infant mortality and maternal mortality where there are millions of avoidable deaths every year, not because the technology, or medicine or science is not there, but because it is not available on the ground through health workers to individuals.
And in the next few days I think the world should also understand that it is possible for us to sign a world trade deal, that these talks are continuing at the moment and we are doing everything in our power to make sure that the Doha round, which was after all a development round on trade, can be completed as soon as possible. So there are three things that we can do: first of all to complete the resources for health, and I welcome the Japanese announcement; increase the resources that are available so that every child can go to school; and then get a trade deal that will open up the opportunities for new investment in Africa in both infrastructure and in education to enable African countries to benefit from the rising opportunities for trade round the world.
Mr Fukuda:
At the time of the [indistinct] International Conference on African Development that was held in [indistinct] last week, I announced that Japan should double its ODA for Africa and also provide a maximum $4 billion in yen loan as [indistinct] for Japanese private sector development in Africa. I also engaged in one on one meetings with 40 African leaders and was able to hear their voices directly regarding various development-related issues in Africa. At the G8 Summit in July we would like to build on this outcome of the [indistinct] and our experiences then and come out with the strong message that the G8 as a whole will further step up our support for Africa.
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