Press Briefing: 11am Monday 3 November 2003

Briefing from the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman on: Regional Assemblies, Hunting and Iraq.

Regional Assemblies

Asked why the Prime Minister had not been more involved in the promotion of the new regional assembly proposals and whether this showed he was lukewarm toward the idea, the PMOS said no. It was Government policy and we had taken forward the necessary legislation. Today people could see John Prescott with his team in Durham setting out what this would mean to the people of the North East and the regions concerned. The Prime Minister clearly supported that. Asked why the Prime Minister had hardly spoken about this in public at all, the PMOS said if anyone had any concerns to that end, journalists were most welcome to ask the Prime Minister at his next press conference. He was sure they would get a positive answer.

Asked if the Prime Minister was concerned that the current problems with devolution in Scotland and Wales set a bad example for future devolution, the PMOS said no. The Prime Minister believed that there had been considerable successes and advantages with devolution in terms of giving people more say over how they were governed. That was only right and proper. What we were doing in this instance was offering people in three regions the opportunity of a referendum on regional government. Questioned further about the Holyrood inquiry, the PMOS said that there was an inquiry in Scotland going on at the moment and it was important to wait for it to report. Of course, as in all areas of public policy, everyone wanted to learn whatever lessons there were to be learnt, but we were not at that stage yet.

Hunting

Asked if he expected the Hunting Bill to be brought back in the next session of Parliament, the PMOS said the situation was essentially as he had set it out on Wednesday. Unfortunately, given the amount of time the Lords spent on this, the Bill was unable to get past the committee stage, let alone get to Report or even to ping-pong between the Houses. The Government had to reflect on that. It had to consider what to do next and how to take things forward. Those discussions hadn't concluded, so in due course we would set out how we planned to proceed. Questioned further, the PMOS said that the Government was obviously keen to get its business through. This had, after all, been a Government Bill. However, the political realities meant that hadn't been possible. We had to look hard at the outcome, reflect on that and consider the way forward. It wasn't particularly helpful to start getting into the business of setting out options. When we had something to say we would say it. Asked if the Bill could have been given more time, the PMOS pointed out that Lord Whitty had said week that this particular Bill had taken an unprecedented amount of time in the Lords. The Government had a number of Bills that it was determined to get through this session. For instance, the Criminal Justice Bill and the Bill on Foundation Hospitals. These were flagship bills, the centrepiece of the Government's legislative programme. Judgements had to be made in terms of the amount time that could be devoted to individual pieces of legislation within the Lords. That was the reality we faced and judgements had had to be made in terms of how much more time the Lords should spend on one particular piece of legislation. That was the judgement that had been reached. Asked about the Parliament Act, the PMOS said that journalists could look up for themselves how it worked. Put to him that Peter Hain had said yesterday that we would invoke the Parliament Act for the Bill, the PMOS said that what he thought Mr. Hain had said was that there was a constitutional principle that the Commons had primacy over the Lords when it came to legislation. In terms of this Bill, it hadn't been possible to get it through for reasons that were well known. Obviously we had to look carefully at that and work out the way forward.

Iraq

Asked about the developments in Iraq and possibly asking for help from other European nations, the PMOS said that there had been the Madrid donors' conference, and there were discussions with other countries about potential military contributions. It went without saying that obviously the Prime Minister totally condemned the attack yesterday and his thoughts were with the relatives and friends of those who died. This had obviously been a particularly grim seven days in terms of casualties inside Iraq, both for the coalition and for the Iraq people. However that shouldn't be allowed to mask the progress on the ground in large parts of the country. There was a particular security problem in Baghdad and in the triangle around Tikrit. But in the South, for example, normal life was returning. There was real progress there. What the remnants of the regime and the terrorist elements wanted to do was to test our resolve and try and turn the clock back. At times like this, we had to stay focussed on what was at stake, and the prize here - an Iraq for the Iraqi people, by the Iraqi people. Our resolve remained undiminished despite what had admittedly been a difficult week.

Asked whether the Prime Minister shared Donald Rumsfeld's view that the coalition was still effectively "at war", the PMOS said that major combat operations had ended earlier this year. He didn't think anyone had ever pretended at the time that would be it and there wouldn't still be military difficulties for the coalition. That continued to be the case. If you looked, however, at what the remnants of the old regime offered to the people of Iraq, it was simply more hatred and more bloodshed. The coalition offered the opportunity for the Iraqi people to take control of their own country and to enjoy greater prosperity and freedom than they had in the past. Questioned further about whether we could be described as being "at war", the PMOS said that there were clearly elements of the old regime and terrorist influences engaged in guerrilla activities against the coalition. As Sir Jeremy Greenstock had said yesterday, it was important to keep a sense of proportion. It was quite understandable why attention should focus on the events of yesterday. Equally, however, there was a lot of solid, steady progress which we would continue to build on. That didn't mean we were not alive to the difficulties and were complacent about the challenges. Of course we weren't. We were in Iraq to see this through and that is what we would do. The alternative was to go back to the dark days when a brutal dictatorship had murdered hundreds of thousands of its own people.

Asked about the progress towards catching Saddam Hussein, the PMOS said that obviously the hunt continued. This had never been just about one individual. There were clearly elements of the regime at large who were causing problems and difficulties for the coalition and energy would continue to be focussed on tracking them down as well. Put to him that capturing Saddam would send a strong signal to the Ba'athist elements, the PMOS said he did not disagree.