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PRESS BRIEFING: 3.45PM TUESDAY 1 JULY 2003
MARGARET HODGE
Asked whether Margaret Hodge should step down as Minister for Children the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that we had made the position very clear in the past 24 hours. Margaret Hodge herself had spoken about events 12 years ago and that given what she had said about the lessons learnt, she was a minister who was equipped to do this job. Asked if the Prime Minister had had a conversation with Margaret Hodge, prior to her appointment about the child abuse controversy under her leadership of Islington council the PMOS said that the Prime Minister was fully aware of her background when he made the decision to appoint her. The PMOS said he wasn’t aware of any conversation in particular between them. Asked why the Prime Minister had chosen her in particular, when they were plenty of other candidates with less controversial backgrounds the PMOS said that because of her success as a minister, particularly in the Sure Start scheme it was believed that she was the right person to do this job. Margaret Hodge said herself on the Today Programme yesterday morning, she felt she had learnt the very bitter lessons from that period and that would equip her to deal with these kinds of issues as a minister. Asked if Margaret Hodge had offered to stand down the PMOS said she hadn’t. Asked if the Prime Minister was comfortable with her appointment given her past the PMOS said that she had explained and set out openly and honestly that mistakes were made and that she had set out how she learnt from those mistakes. That was not in anyway to underestimate the seriousness of the issues which arose at that time. Equally whenever people admit that mistakes were made, admit responsibility and admit that they are still learning from those mistakes, they should be given due credit for that.
TRANSPORT
Asked to justify the government’s record on Transport the PMOS said that we could see improvements in the way the Strategic Rail Authority was identifying the real nature of the underlying problems in transport and is coming up with a strategy for dealing with that. Nobody pretended that there was a quick fix solution to those problems and indeed perhaps it was the idea that there was a quick fix solution in the past which was partly responsible for where we were today. There had to be a period of sustained investment. There had to be a very clear scientific view of the actual state of the industry and of the track and of how to address those shortcomings over a prolonged period. That was not a reassuring way of saying that there would be solutions tomorrow but it was a realistic way to approach the problem. Asked if the Government was admitting past mistakes with regard to transport the PMOS said that as in other area’s in the public service there had been a history - as Alistair Darling said yesterday - of a lack of investment in the railways which went back to the 1960’s. Therefore you couldn’t pretend that you could come up with an overnight solution to these problems. What you had to do was set out a strategy which deals with the issues on a long term basis and that was what we were doing.
HUNTING BILL
Asked if the Hunting Bill was still a Government Bill, the PMOS said yes of course it was. Equally, as he had outlined this morning, there was a process to be gone through where as a consequence of last night’s vote it had to be re-committied, had to come back to the floor of the House and then go to the House of Lords. Those who felt very strongly about the issue wanted to jump all the hurdles now but we had to go through the parliamentary process. However tiresome that might be for some people that remained the case. Asked why there was such a long time between the Speaker announcing the order of amendments and the Government announcing it would withdraw it’s amendment the PMOS said that the Government had to study the implications of these things. The important thing was not how long it took us to decide to withdraw the amendment but the fact that we had withdrawn the amendment so that MPs could have a free vote as was indeed promised. On further questioning about the process of ordering amendments the PMOS said he wasn’t an expert on these things, but again the important thing was that the Government had decided to withdraw it’s amendment so that MPs could have a free vote. MPs had had a free vote as promised and they had voted the way they had. We had now taken the Bill back into committee off the floor of the House, we would then bring back to the House and then send it to the Lords. Put to him that his response was simply inviting people to say that the Government was losing it’s nerve on this the PMOS said he was not inviting people do to any such thing, he was inviting people to follow Parliamentary process. Asked whether the Prime Minister was backing away from his commitment to insure the Bill went through the House the PMOS said we were in the middle of the parliamentary procedure and we should wait for the outcome. What was important was that we were following parliamentary procedure correctly. Asked if the amended Bill was regarded by the Government with the same degree of ownership as the previous Bill the PMOS said it still remained a Government Bill and the Government respected the wishes of the Commons. Asked if the Prime Minister would vote for the new Bill the PMOS repeated that we should get to the point of the vote and see what comes out of committee, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves.
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