Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: ID Cards, Nuclear Fusion and Zimbabwe.
ID Cards
Put to him that the Prime Minister had said that we had to have ID cards in order to meet US requirements, yet the head of the Passports Service said that wasn’t the case because we were already going to do that, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that it was wrong to focus exclusively on the US. This issue wasn’t focussed exclusively on the US. As he had said yesterday afternoon, at various degrees we already had European countries going down the road of using biometrics. We had never pretended that in terms of identity cards that the legislation was purely necessary for passports. What we had said, and we had addressed this in relation to cost, was that in terms of ID cards, the vast bulk of the cost was taken up by the costs associated with passports, not with ID cards. The Prime Minister delineated yesterday how much of that cost would be born by the ID element alone. It was wrong to characterise this as purely in response the US, it was an international trend and it was a trend that was developing all the time. Asked which countries were demanding that we had biometric data, the PMOS said that, as we said yesterday afternoon, countries as diverse as Italy, Spain and Belgium, were amongst those, and there were others as well, who were going down the fingerprint road. Put to him that we wouldn’t have to show our passports in those countries, the PMOS said that was increasingly becoming the EU standard, that was the important thing. The international trend was going in that direction.
Asked about the claims that the passport office would have to do 4.5 million interviews a year. The PMOS said that the passport office had made it clear that this would not be a big bang. There would be a gradual roll out, starting from the end of next year, when 600,000 first time adult applicants would be interviewed. In terms of the passport agency, the organisation has come a long way from the well-documented difficulties in 1999. Last year it was one of four nominees (and the only UK organisation nominated) for the prestigious international Carl Bertelsmann award for public sector efficiency, and became the first organisation to win a fifth ‘Charter Mark’. This month UKPS has also taken the top place for the second year running in a customer satisfaction benchmarking exercise, this year beating public and private sectors organisations such as ASDA, Tesco, DVLA, Amazon, and eBay. UKPS processed a record 6 million passport applications in 2004, while delivering continued high levels of customer satisfaction. 99.9% of standard applications had been processed within 10 days. UKPS also beat other targets, with 95% of customers seen within 20 minutes of their appointment time (against a target of 92%) and customer satisfaction rate of 97% (against a target of 93%).
Asked what the prime motivation for biometric ID, the PMOS said that it was a combination of factors. People may find this confusing but reality often was. Whether it was identity fraud or because of the international trend in terms of passports, or because it made it easier deal with to issues such as benefit fraud, identity theft and so there was a combination of technical and identity issues which were pushing us in the same direction. We were not alone in this, if you took an international perspective; the trend was the same in other countries as well.
Nuclear Fusion
Asked of the Prime Minister was surprised this morning by the announcement in Moscow of a nuclear fusion reactor was going to built in Paris, the PMOS said he was not aware the Prime Minister had been surprised. Put to him that the Prime Minister had been ambivalent about nuclear power and therefore a large project like this had gone to France along with 10,000 jobs, the PMOS said that ambivalence was not the same considering matters on the facts. The Prime Minister believed there should be a rational discussion of these matters and that was what we would have.
Zimbabwe
Put to him that the expulsion of Zimbabwean’s to Zimbabwe had been called immoral by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the PMOS said that as we had said this morning, we obviously understood that there were concerns about individuals and the threat to them, which was precisely why in the 15 months to March this year, we granted asylum or discretionary leave at initial decision to 270 Zimbabweans. Equally however it was a fact that in the past people had applied, falsely claiming to be Zimbabweans. Therefore what we needed to do was assess each case on the individual merits, and we agreed that process with the MDC whenever we first applied it.
Asked if we would be reviewing our position in light of the recent outcry, the PMOS said that our policy hadn’t changed and it would not change. As we did with every other country, we based it on the merits of the individual case. There was no other country on which we had a blanket ban. Asked what the response to Rowan Williams was, the PMOS said that he was entitled to his view, but we had to deal with the facts. The facts were that where there were genuine concerns we had shown that we were prepared to grant asylum. Equally however the fact was that in the past people had abused the system and we were not going to send out the signal that people could do that and get away with it. Put to him that seemed like rough justice, the PMOS said it no it was not. It was careful consideration of the facts.
Asked if the Prime Minister was worried that this issue might overshadow the G8, the PMOS said that in terms of the G8, we had often made representations to African countries about Zimbabwe. We would continue to do so. However Zimbabwe was not Africa and it was only right that the experience of Zimbabwe should only be dealt with on its own merits. What that shouldn’t do was overshadow the genuine progress that had been made in those countries where there was real progress in terms of elections and in terms of governance and where there were real needs which could and should be met in a transparent and open way.
Asked if he was saying that if people came to this country, saying they were from Zimbabwe, the Government is saying that some of them might not be from Zimbabwe, and the Government didn’t want to send the message that anyone who came to the UK for asylum could claim to be from Zimbabwe as a way of getting asylum, the PMOS said we assessed each case on its individual merits. Asked why we were sending anybody back to Zimbabwe, the PMOS said the cases were made on an individual assessment made by the Home Office.
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