Press briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Sex Offenders/Education, Iran, Court Reform and Other Business
Sex Offenders/Education
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) announced that Ruth Kelly, would, with the Speaker’s permission, report back to Parliament on the issue of Sex Offenders on Thursday. Asked if the Government believed that Ruth Kelly had misled the House last Thursday by claiming that those on List 99 were automatically banned for life, when in fact the list came with caveats, the PMOS said that the Government did not believe she had misled the House.
Asked why these issues hadn’t been addressed in the change in regulations in 2000, the PMOS said that what Ruth Kelly was now doing was carrying out a thorough, root and branch review of this whole issue. The time to talk about the whole issue would be on Thursday and that Ruth Kelly would do. We all understood why people wanted this issue to be dealt with speedily and it was important that we re-assured the public that individual, difficult cases had been looked at and reviewed, and more importantly that the whole process of how decisions were made was also looked at. It was proper that that should be done so in a calm and methodical way and that was what we would aim to do by Thursday.
Asked if the Government had a clear policy as to whether people on the Sex Offenders’ Register should be allowed to work in schools or not, the PMOS said that borderline cases had always been there. There had always been cases where discretion had to be used and decisions had to be made. In terms of the general approach it was better to leave that until Thursday and address the broad question of what the approach to such cases should be, rather than give partial answers at this stage.
These were perfectly legitimate questions but it was equally legitimate for the Government to take a bit of heat at this stage and give a comprehensive answer on Thursday. Asked of borderline cases were still acceptable for the benefit of the doubt, the PMOS said that that was a matter that you judged case by case. You started from the baseline of whether you accepted that there were borderline cases. It had been the practice for decades that ministers have accepted that such cases existed. The question then became that if you did accept that, did you say there were no exceptions, or did you say that decisions could be made. You then had to ask who should take the decisions. These were all matters which would be carefully considered as part of the review.
Asked how long the review would take, the PMOS made it clear that Ruth Kelly aimed to report back to Parliament on Thursday and what she would say would be based on the review.
Put to him that Ruth Kelly had said in the statement last week that she would identify the location of individuals who had been considered, the PMOS said that what she had meant was that the review would be checking that in individual cases we knew for certain that there hadn’t been problems as a result of decisions taken in the past. He was not aware that at any point there was a suggestion that we would actually publish the whereabouts of individuals because that would cause obvious problems.
Asked if these decisions would also take place with regard to teachers in private schools, the PMOS said that part the Bichard proposals were about people, no matter whether it be a family employing a private tutor, or the head of a school should be able to access the records to find out whether the person they were employing had a conviction. So implementing Bichard actually covered private as well as state sector schooling. Asked if these decisions covered other employees in schools besides teachers, the PMOS said that, as he understood it, Bichard covered that territory as well. Asked to clarify if parents hiring a piano teacher, for instance, would have the right to look at that teacher’s record, the PMOS said that his understanding was that anyone employing a teacher should be able to check as long as they had the permission of the individual teacher.
Asked why the Government couldn’t appoint an independent individual to make such decisions, the PMOS said that in all of these things there would always be a tension between wanting to have a thorough process and wanting speedy answers. The problem was that if you went to an outside figure for a decision inevitably the process would take longer The need therefore was to have a process which was thorough, which was carried out within the department but actually produced the answers both in the individual cases and in the process point which the public were looking for.
Asked if, when he spoke about going back decades he was talking about looking back at policy over previous administrations or to any teacher now who may have a caution and been in this grey area over the last 30 years or so, the PMOS said that the way he would put it was that it would look at cases which were likely to cause concern.
Asked if the Government, whilst accepting this was a very serious issue, thought that things had gotten a bit out of hand in terms of the treatment of this issue by the media, the PMOS said that it was a serious issue and, quite rightly, people took it very seriously and the Government recognised that this sort of story raised serious concerns amongst parents about who was teaching their children. We had to address those concerns in a serious way. However of course this should be addressed in a calm and methodical way as well. We should not let people’s fears dictate the need to approach this subject in a realistic way. That was why we had said that we would go back and look at the process over the decades. We had done that because of the accepted fact that difficult cases did arise and the practice had been for ministers to make the final call on those difficult cases. It was legitimate to ask if that was appropriate. However if it was someone else or some other group of people, how were they held accountable?
These were rationale, legitimate questions which arose out of this fear. There was also the need to re-assure the public. Asked if we expected to find that actually things were much worse 30 years ago, the PMOS said that it was a fact of life that our understanding of these issues and our sensitivity towards them was much greater today then perhaps it was in the past, and rightly so. Put to him that if parents wanted re-assurance now they wouldn’t be particularly interested in what happened 30 years ago, the PMOS said that people did not start joining the teaching profession in 1997, therefore it would be a completely arbitrary cut-off point to start the process then. People had been joining the teaching profession for years and these decisions had been taken for years. Therefore you needed to check back.
Asked if people could be allowed to start teaching before their CRB check had come back, the PMOS said that his understanding was that schools had an obligation to complete their checks before employing someone.
Asked if the Prime Minister retained full confidence in Ruth Kelly, the PMOS said that the situation hadn’t changed since last week. The Prime Minister had full confidence in Ruth Kelly.
Asked what the Government’s view was on teacher’s relationships with pupils given that Chris Woodhead had criticised the Government for its judgment on this particular case despite Chris Woodhead himself marrying one of his pupils, the PMOS said that he would decline the kind invitation to step into that minefield.
Iran
Asked about the London meeting on Iran, the PMOS said that this meeting was a signal of the growing international concern at the behaviour of the Iranian Government and also at the words of the Iranian President. That was reflected in the statement of the E3 last week and also in the meeting between President Bush and Chancellor Merkel. Our hope was that the IAEA board would support a referral to the United Nations but we should see what happened. Asked about Iran’s threat to raise oil prices if they were referred to the Security Council, the PMOS said that as Angela Merkel had said in Washington, the international community would not be intimidated by Iran and therefore if that was Iran was trying to they were mistaken.
Asked about the proposed Iranian scientific conference on the Holocaust, the PMOS said that he didn’t think you needed a scientific conference to understand the Holocaust, you just needed to visit Belsen or any of the other similar sites.
Court Reform
Asked about proposals to remove the responsibility for dealing with people who pleaded guilty to an offence from the Courts, the PMOS said that this matter was being reviewed by the DCA. That review was being carried out in the spirit of updating our system to make sure it worked efficiently, effectively and fairly. No decision had been taken but again these were legitimate questions which were being asked. Asked if victims should be allowed to have their day in court, the PMOS stressed said that we were only talking about minor offences and therefore it was legitimate to ask whether theses things could be dealt with in a different way. Put to him that these minor offences weren’t so minor to the victims of such offences, the PMOS said that what people wanted was to see justice to be done, first of all, and secondly for justice to be done speedily and effectively. Let us wait for the outcome of the review.
Other business
Asked how John Hutton could start the debate on pensions if Lord Turner had already done so, the PMOS said that Lord Turner had provided the agenda that we now had to address. It was important that we all understood the questions that were being posed before we tried to formulate the precise answers and take those answers through Parliament. There was a need to understand the background to the issue. Asked if the fact we were starting a debate indicated that the Government didn’t actually know what it was going to do yet, the PMOS said that that was a very cynical view. Clearly we had been thinking about this issue, but we also thought that the country as a whole needed to think about this issue.
Asked if the Prime Minister had any words of advice for the Chancellor on the news that he would soon be a father of two, the PMOS said that congratulations would be the main word.
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