Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Police Powers and Northern Ireland.
Police Powers
Asked what new powers could be given to the police to tackle anti-social behaviour, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that the new powers would be detailed in the Respect legislation but we needed to leave discussions to go on within Government in terms of where we were going, without going into the detail. We would leave that to the legislation. Put to him that the powers seemed to have been applied to a very wide range of offences, the PMOS said no. As the Prime Minister had said this morning in his monthly press conference, it was appropriate in certain circumstances. Even in those circumstances, as with fixed penalty notices now, people could challenge them and could take up the issue in court. It was interesting that in the bulk of fixed penalty notices people had not done so. What was required was a balance between on the one hand the need for justice to have been seen to have been done in terms of the police visibly acting to stop low level thuggery. On the other hand we needed to secure people’s rights. Fixed penalty notices and so on did do that. Put to him that it gave the impression that we had given up on the concept of innocent until proven guilty, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had said in the past, of course you needed to make the criminal justice system fit the purpose and that was part of what was behind the large scale reforms that Lord Falconer was taking through the criminal justice system. Equally, you had to recognise that there was a balance between the ‘hassle factor’ of taking someone through a long lengthy process rather than dealing with it at the point. For everybody concerned it was better to deal with it at the point. If that meant that people paid a penalty for low-level activity which was deeply disturbing for the victims of that activity and it stopped, then that was clearly the correct way to go. The police had said that not only did they believe that fixed penalty notices were very important but furthermore actually did stop yobbish behaviour. Put to him that the Prime Minister seemed to move seamlessly from major crimes to yobbish behaviour, the PMOS said no. The Prime Minister had said in the past, including at the Labour Party conference, that of course it was right and proper that people’s rights under the law were protected. Equally we had to face the reality in certain cases it was more effective, more efficient and dealt with the problem immediately rather than allowing it to drag on.
Put to him that there was a difference in body language between the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister in terms of finding a consensus on anti-terror legislation, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister was saying that we should remember the reason why we had gone down this road. Following 7/7 the police had said to us that they believed that these kinds of powers were necessary, particularly the 3 month detention period. These reasons had been set out in Andy Hayman’s paper published last week. The Prime Minister was simply saying that those who objected to this legislation should provide an alternative argument to how else the problems we faced could be solved. If people believed that this wasn’t needed, or that the police were wrong then they should argue against it rather than rejecting it out of hand. Asked if he was saying therefore that no opposition parties had provided an argument objecting to this legislation, the PMOS said that he would not get into talking about the opposition but what the Prime Minister had clearly said this morning was that he had not heard an argument which he believed invalidated the argument in that paper. For instance one of the arguments put forward for the new powers, as the Prime Minister had said earlier, was that in ‘normal’ organised crime operations you might let the criminals sometimes run through their operation, gathering evidence as you went along and then decide when you had enough evidence to detain them, before putting the evidence to them. In terms of suicide bombers you had to intervene at a much earlier stage, before you could gather evidence, because if you left it the chances were that they would carry out their attack. You could not take the risk of them carrying out the attack before intervening. Therefore you needed more time to gather other evidence, such as from telephone and computer records.
Asked if the 3 month limit was fixed, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had said this morning, he had to listen to the police. He believed that the police had set out a case which so far no one had answered. Put to him that the Home Secretary had seemed to indicate that the 3 months wasn’t fixed and was up for negotiation in order to find a consensus, the PMOS said that of course we wanted a consensus, but we did not want a false consensus around something which did not address the very real need that the police had identified. The two were not in conflict. If, god forbid, something happened because we did not introduce the extra powers, then where would the public point the finger? They wouldn’t say "well done for reaching a consensus" they would want to know why the action the police asked us to take hadn’t been taken.
Asked why the Prime Minister was saying that he hadn’t heard any arguments against the measures when the Attorney General was known to be against them, the PMOS said that he didn’t comment on what the Attorney General says. He would say however that people came at this issue from different angles. In terms of the bottom line argument that had to be addressed this was contained in Andy Hayman’s paper. You had to have a very good reason, because of the very special nature of this kind of terrorism to say that these kinds of powers were not necessary. If you said they were not, then how did you deal with the problem? What you couldn’t argue with was that there was a very real problem, as detailed in Andy Hayman’s paper.
Northern Ireland
Asked what progress had been made today in light of the Prime Minister’s meeting with the Taoiseach, the PMOS said that we had had the decommissioning report, which as the Prime Minister had said, we believed was genuinely significant. We would have in a few weeks the report from the Independent Monitoring Commission, which we hoped would show that IRA activity had stopped. There was a second report due in January. We recognised that because of events last year people were sceptical. We believed that facts were changing and therefore gradually confidence would grow to allow a deal on devolution to take place. At the same time we had to keep emphasizing that loyalist paramilitary activity had to stop too.
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