Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Budget Cabinet, Euro, Iraq and Wicks Committee Report.
Budget Cabinet
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) took the opportunity to advise journalists that there would be a Budget Cabinet tomorrow morning at 9.30am prior to the Chancellor’s Budget Statement at 12.30pm.
Euro
Questioned about the latest batch of speculative reports relating to the Euro, the PMOS said that the Government’s position on the Euro had not changed. We would announce the results of the assessment by June 2003. Both the Prime Minister and Chancellor had agreed without dispute that there was no question of making an announcement on Budget Day at the height of the Iraq conflict. He said he thought there would be more than enough to write about tomorrow without the Euro as well. Asked if he was implying that the announcement could have been made tomorrow had we not been in the middle of the military conflict in Iraq, the PMOS said that it wouldn’t be tomorrow, so print journalists did not need to worry about having to add an extra ten pages to their editions. Asked if the assessment had already started, the PMOS said that we were not giving a running a commentary on the process. That said, we were on track to announce the results by June.
Iraq
Asked if there was any news regarding the fate of Saddam Hussein, the PMOS said that he had nothing to add to what President Bush had said in his joint press conference with the Prime Minister in Northern Ireland this morning. We didn’t know what had happened to him. What we did know, however, was that his regime was on its way out. Asked if Downing Street was thinking of hiring Saddam’s Information Minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, the PMOS agreed that Mr al-Sahhaf had made himself into a bit of a ’star’ in recent days by denying things that were self-evidently true.
Asked if the Government was confident that it would be possible to get the UN to pass a Resolution which would give it only a ‘vital’ role in the reconstruction of Iraq, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had underlined today, it should be possible to navigate a successful outcome if there was a shared vision about what should happen in Iraq, i.e. the establishment of a constitutional Government run by, and for, the Iraqi people themselves - which he believed there was. Obviously no one wanted a repeat of the events which had characterised the run-up to the second Resolution-that-wasn’t. But with good will, common sense and the focus very firmly on that shared vision, it should be possible to achieve.
Asked for a reaction to the UN Under-Secretary General’s point today that firms involved in the oil trade would need to be sure that the proper legal title was applied if an Interim Authority was set up without a UN mandate, the PMOS said it was possible that legal issues might arise in such a scenario, but he wasn’t a legal expert. He reminded journalists that the importance of the UN and UN Resolutions had been underlined at the Azores Summit, at Camp David and in Northern Ireland today. President Bush could not have made the position any clearer than he had this morning.
In answer to further questions, the PMOS took the opportunity to inform journalists that the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, was hoping to visit the UK later this week. As things stood, he was expected to meet the Prime Minister on Friday, although the details had yet to be finalised.
Wicks Committee Report
Asked for a response to the publication today of the Wicks Committee report on ‘Defining the Boundaries within the Executive: Ministers, Special Advisers and the Civil Service’, the PMOS said that it was obviously a serious piece of work and we would, of course, consider its recommendations carefully and respond accordingly. That said, on some of the recommendations, it was important not to overlook what was already happening in practice. For example, the Ministerial Code had been strengthened and a number of steps had been taken to clarify the role of Special Advisers, such as through the publication of the Model Contract.
Questioned about the recommendations relating to the Prime Minister’s Director of Communications and Strategy, Alastair Campbell, the PMOS said he did not think it was realistic to expect Mr Campbell to carry out his job effectively if he was not allowed to direct different parts of the Government machine. Of course that did not mean he had line management responsibility for different representatives of the Government Information Service, for example. The point was that in dealing with a cross-departmental issue like Iraq, the need for co-ordination was absolutely essential - which meant that Mr Campbell’s directorial role and the necessity of issuing instructions were clearly important to the overall cohesion of the Government. It would be difficult to be the Director of Communications and Strategy for the Prime Minister if he was unable to issue directions.
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