Downing Street Says

Asked if the Prime Minister backed a referendum on Scottish independence, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) replied that the Prime Minister answered that question at PMQs today. As he said there was the Calman Review underway looking at how we can strengthen devolution and we needed to review progress in light of that.

Asked if Wendy Alexander was correct that Gordon Brown had endorsed her call for a referendum, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister set out his position at PMQs earlier today.

Asked why the Prime Minister did not believe that Wendy Alexander had given her support for a referendum, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister was asked a very specific question at PMQs, and he gave a very specific answer to it. The question put to him was that Labour’s leader in Scotland said there should be a referendum now on Scottish independence. The Prime Minister said that this was not what Wendy Alexander said, and she made that clear in her Newsnight interview last night.

Asked if the key word was "now", the PMS replied that the Prime Minister was asked a very specific question, and gave a very specific answer.

Asked if the Prime Minister therefore agreed that there should be a referendum sometime before the SNP say there should be a referendum, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister’s position, as set out in PMQs, was that we did have the Calman Review underway which was looking at how we could strengthen the devolution settlement, and we would review progress in light of that.

Put that the review did not cover the issue of independence and a referendum, the PMS replied that the review was looking at the related issue of how we can strengthen devolution within the Union. So we would review progress on this matter in the light of the findings of the Calman Review.

Asked if the Prime Minister thought there should be a referendum or not, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister answered this question at PMQs today.

Put that the Prime Minister had not ruled out the possibility of a referendum, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister was asked this question earlier today, and he gave his answer.

Asked if the Prime Minister and Wendy Alexander had been speaking this afternoon, the PMS replied that it was not for him to comment on conversations between the Prime Minister as Leader of the Labour Party, and the Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland. This was a question for his political colleague.

Put that Kenneth Calman had felt the need to put out a statement this afternoon reassuring members of the Commission that there was still a job to do, and asked did this not seem strange if nothing had changed, the PMS replied that this was not particularly strange, the Prime Minister gave his support explicitly for the Calman Review today at PMQs.

Asked why the Prime Minister was answering a question about independence with an answer about devolution, the PMS replied that he thought issues around how we strengthen the devolution settlement within the Union was a relevant question in the context of this debate, and that was why it was important that we reviewed progress.

Asked if the Prime Minister had reviewed what he had said to the House about the SNP’s manifesto pledge, the PMS replied that this was a question for his political colleague.

Asked if the Prime Minister had full confidence in Wendy Alexander, the PMS replied that this was also a question for his political colleague, as Wendy Alexander did not hold a position in Government.

Asked on an issue as important as the future of the United Kingdom, was the country not entitled to a simple yes or no answer to whether the Prime Minister wanted a referendum, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister had answered the question in his own way.

Asked what the difficulty was with a simple yes or no answer, to whether the Prime Minister favoured a referendum as his answer could not be understood by any member of the public, the PMS replied that he thought it could be understood by members of the public. The Prime Minister was asked this question, there was a debate taking place in Scotland at the moment between the various political parties, and that was a very live debate. Separately there was a review taking place by Kenneth Calman looking at this, so the Prime Minister thought it was right that we should wait for the Calman Review and review progress in light of that.

Asked if that would include reviewing whether a referendum was a good idea, and in other words he was not ruling it out, the PMS replied that this was the question the Prime Minister had answered.

Asked if the Prime Minister would like the Calman Review to take a view on whether there should be a referendum, the PMS replied that the terms of reference for the Calman Review had been set out very clearly, and there were no proposals to change that.

Asked if it would be right to say that the Prime Minister did not have a view on this issue, the PMS replied that it was right to say that we should review progress on this in light of the Calman review, which is what he said at PMQs.

Put that this sounded like dithering, the PMS replied that this was not the case at all. There was a debate taking place, there was a review taking place of devolution, so of course it was right that we took into account both the debate and this review on devolution.

Asked if it was accurate to say that the Prime Minister had a view but did not feel it was necessarily a good idea for him to say what that view was until the Calman Commission’s Review had reported, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister had answered the question in the way that he wanted to answer the question at PMQs.

Asked for clarity if the Prime Minister believed that there should not be any question about a referendum until after the Calman Review, the PMS replied that he could do nothing more than refer Lobby to the Prime Minister’s words at PMQs, which set it out fairly clearly.

Asked if the Prime Minister thought he had handled this issue well, the PMS replied that he was not going to answer loaded questions.

Asked where the review went from here, and if the Calman process would be reviewed halfway through, or would they wait until the end, the PMS replied that all of this was set out when the terms of reference for the Calman Review were published on the 25th March. The Commission was expected to produce an interim report by the end of the year, and the review would report both to the UK Government and the Scottish Parliament.

Put that the Prime Minister had said on Friday that he was ready to listen, learn, and show leadership, and asked if that this was an example, the PMS replied that again he would put this in the category of leading questions.

Asked if any decision on independence would be a Westminster matter, and was the Westminster Government satisfied that the Scottish Parliament could stage its own referendum, the PMS replied that the constitutional and legal position on that was that this was a reserve power for the UK Government.

Asked if the UK Government had a view as to whether or not the Scottish Parliament could choose to hold the vote and run a referendum, the PMS replied that this would not be legally binding.

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» Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Scotland

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