Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Guantanamo Bay, Hutton Report, Higher Education Bill and Global Warming.
Guantanamo Bay
In answer to questions about reports today regarding the British Guantanamo Bay detainees, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that he had nothing to add to what the Prime Minister had told the House on Wednesday when he had said that he hoped we would be in a position shortly to tell Parliament how the issue relating to the British detainees would be handled. He said he appreciated the fact that we had been saying broadly the same thing for some weeks. That was not an indication that nothing had been happening in the intervening period. This issue was obviously complex and discussions had been taking place between the UK and US as to how it could be resolved. As the Prime Minister had set out many times, most recently during President Bush’s visit to the UK, that could happen in one of two ways: either the British detainees would be tried by a Military Commission in the US or they would be brought back here. Asked what would happen to them once they were brought back, the PMOS said that our response from the outset to ‘what if…’ scenarios was that we would wait until a decision had been taken. No announcement was being made today because we were not in a position to make one. As ever, such a matter would be the responsibility of the prosecuting authorities. Asked if the Government had the ‘political will’ to manage the detainees should they return to the UK, as Ambassador Prosper had said, the PMOS said that the Government had the will to resolve this issue to its satisfaction.
Asked why the story had only been given to the Times, Guardian, Telegraph and Independent, the PMOS said that as he understood it, a briefing had been given to the papers by US Ambassador Prosper. Asked if it had been facilitated by the Department for Constitutional Affairs or any other Department, the PMOS said not as far as he was aware. He pointed out that the US had an Embassy in the UK and were perfectly capable of arranging their own media briefings. Yesterday’s briefing was not an event that we had organised and he had not given any thought to its genesis.
Asked if the nine British detainees at Guantanamo Bay were all in different categories, the PMOS said that he had nothing further to say about this issue.
Hutton Report
Asked again if the Prime Minister would lead the debate in the Commons on the Hutton Report once it had been published, the PMOS said that he had nothing further to add to what he had said about this matter yesterday. No decision had been taken at this stage. Asked if he had any quarrel with the representation of his comments yesterday in some of today’s papers, the PMOS said that he had never had any responsibility for how the media decided to report or interpret anything he might or might not have said to them. His responsibility was solely to brief on behalf of the Prime Minister and the Government, which was what he had done. Questioned as to whether those journalists who had decided not to report the issue were ‘being even dozier than usual’, the PMOS said he had no judgement whatsoever to make about that remark. He had said yesterday that no decision had been taken and that nothing had been ruled in or out. That remained the position.
Higher Education Bill
Asked why the Prime Minister had not been on the front bench for the Education Secretary’s Statement on the Higher Education Bill yesterday, the PMOS said that he wouldn’t read any significance into that. As he had pointed out yesterday, it was not usual practice to make a Statement when a Bill was published. However, in the light of Parliamentary interest in this particular issue, it had been felt appropriate to make a Statement to MPs yesterday. No doubt when we reached Second Reading there would be a different cast list on the front bench. Put to him that if the Prime Minister had had en existing engagement yesterday which he had been unable to postpone, then the Business Statement should have been made after the Higher Education Statement so as to allow the Prime Minister to attend, the PMOS said that he wasn’t aware of the reason why the Statements had been made in that particular order. He didn’t think it was of any relevance.
Questioned as to why, as reported in today’s Telegraph, the Prime Minister’s name was missing from the front of the Bill, the PMOS said that he wouldn’t read anything significant into that either. The Prime Minister’s commitment to this particular piece of legislation was well known and had been demonstrated many, many times in the past, not least during his sixty-minute December press conference in which the issue had dominated the proceedings. Pressed further, the PMOS admitted that he hadn’t checked the precise parliamentary reason as to why the Prime Minister’s name was not on the front of the Bill as he didn’t think it was important in any way. There was clearly nothing significant in it whatsoever. Asked if it indicated that the Education Secretary was being lined up as the ‘fall guy’ if things went wrong or whether that was ‘preposterous’, the PMOS said that we didn’t tend to communicate in those sorts of terms. The Government and the Cabinet were united behind the policy because everyone believed that it was right since it would widen access, bring more money to universities that needed it and provide support for students, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, at the same time as abolishing up-front fees. Asked repeatedly if the Prime Minister had deliberately not put his name to the Higher Education Bill or had not been asked to do so given the fact that he had signed the Foundation Hospitals Bill, and even the Horserace Betting Bill and Human Tissue Bill, the PMOS repeated that he attached absolutely no significance whatsoever to the absence of the Prime Minister’s name in this case. Challenged that it was a significant signal, the PMOS said that it wasn’t. Given what the Prime Minister had said repeatedly about this subject, particularly in his December Press Conference, no one could be in any doubt about his commitment to this piece of legislation. He was sure that the explanation - if indeed there was one - for the absence of the Prime Minister’s name was incredibly prosaic and banal. Put to him that the December Press Conference was a relatively long time ago, the PMOS said he thought that journalists were really ‘pushing the envelope’ if they were interpreting both the omission of the Prime Minister’s name and his absence from the Commons as being significant. The Prime Minister, the Cabinet and the Government remained fully behind this piece of legislation. That could not have been made any clearer - and what was more, the journalists themselves knew it.
Asked if the Prime Minister would regard the defeat of the Bill as a resignation issue, the PMOS said that we were working to get the legislation through Parliament. Pressed as to whether the Prime Minister would resign if the Bill failed, the PMOS said that journalists could ask him what was clearly a hypothetical question again if the Bill fell. We were working to ensure that it became law. Asked if it was fair to interpret his answer as no decision having been taken or whether journalists could now write that Downing Street was refusing to rule out the Prime Minister’s resignation, the PMOS said that interpretation was a matter for the journalists, not him. All he would say was that the Government brought forward legislation with a view to getting it on the statute book. The Higher Education Bill was no different. The Bill had been published yesterday. MPs would now have the time to examine the detail of it, which would no doubt lead to vibrant and vigorous discussion over the coming weeks before Second Reading.
Global Warming
Asked if the Prime Minister agreed that global warming was a greater threat to the world than terrorism, the PMOS said that we had never ranked these two particular issues. Sir David King, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, was an independent voice and had set out his view. It went without saying that both issues were important, which was why we were addressing them, but in different ways.
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