Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: PM Speech on Compensation Culture and Teenage Pregnancy.
PM Speech on Compensation Culture
Asked if this was the Prime Minister’s fiercest criticism of the European Union, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that he had said this before. We had already heard him say in the past that the EU, like the UK, had to do better impact assessments of regulations. It was one of the things that we had been pushing for some time within the EU. It was also one of the things that we would be taking forward during our Presidency. Reforming the way in which you regulate from the EU was part of the economic reform process. This did not call into question your overall support of the EU but it did say you should be more sensitive to the impact of regulation.
In response to the suggestion that we had never heard him criticise the Vitamins and Supplements Director before, the PMOS said that his understanding, without giving chapter and verse, was that he had indicated his view on that before. Asked whether this was before or after Carol Caplin had delivered her petition, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had his own view on this and had held that view before the petition was delivered. His view of that was an illustration of the overall point, as he had said, of course people needed to have information about that area but that information should not be at the expense of people being able to make choices. In the same way that other regulations, either here or in Europe, should not be totally counter productive to what you were trying to achieve.
Asked if there was an acknowledgement here that the Government had played a part in getting this wrong, and whether there was a tendency to rush plans, the PMOS said that in the spirit of the speech what we needed to do was recognise that we all had a responsibility for the problem just as we all had responsibility for the solution. That included the media, regulatory bodies, the Government and everybody. Equally though it was worth pointing out the PM’s reference to the judgement of the OECD that had said we were a lightly regulated country in comparison to other countries. It was something where the Prime Minister felt very strongly that you had to get the balance right. It was a common sense balance, between on the one hand safeguarding people, and on the other not letting the fear of the compensation culture drive the bureaucracy to the point where it was choking the very thing that it was meant to be safeguarding.
Asked if it was accurate to interrupt it as a warning to Whitehall against gold plating the PMOS said yes, he thought that was a fair way of putting it, though it was directed not just at Whitehall but at other regulatory bodies as well. He hoped people had recognised, that right at the start of the speech he went out of his way to say that what he was not suggesting was that we did away with all regulations or that we did away with the concern about safety, that was precisely what he was not doing. What he was doing was saying that you had to study the impact of regulations as a whole.
Teenage Pregnancy
Asked what the Government was doing about teenage pregnancy and whether the Prime Minister was dismayed at the high rates the PMOS said that Beverley Hughes had responded in a very intelligent way at lunchtime to questions about this. What she had said was that first of all we needed to recognise that the figures showed a slight increase and we should not get that out of proportion, though any increase was disturbing. Secondly the Government would not buck its responsibility through the education system in this area and thirdly the evidence suggested that the people who had the most influence on this were parents. This was because it was parents that teenagers felt most comfortable talking to about these issues. Therefore that was where the primary responsibility lied. This was not bucking the Governments responsibility but parents should respect their responsibility too.
Asked, in relation to the Prime Minister’s strong point about parents backing teachers at school, whether he would devote a specific speech or initiative in order to bring all these points together, the PMOS said that he thought it was right to highlight the Prime Minister’s thought pattern in this area. If you went back to the speech he made in Downing Street after the election he had said that Government had to accept responsibility for what it could do, but equally Government had to accept that there were limits to what it could do. Therefore that did place some responsibility on parents in particular. No doubt this was an area that he would return to again.
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