Downing Street Says

Asked if the Prime Minister would continue to talk to his parliamentary colleagues today about the pre-charge detention vote, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said that the Prime Minister would be having meetings today on Government business and meetings relating to the vote this evening as well.

Asked what the Prime Minister had planned this evening, the PMS said that the Prime Minister would be voting on pre-charge detention this evening and throughout the day would be continuing to work on Government business in Downing Street.

Asked if any of the meetings the Prime Minister was having today would be with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the PMS said that he did not want to get into the specifics of exactly what meetings the Prime Minister was having today, however the Prime Minister was persuading his parliamentary colleagues of the Government’s case on pre-charge detention.

Asked about the stories of the sale of army land and concessions on retaining water charge revenues relating to the DUP and the pre-charge detention vote, the PMS said that Jacqui Smith had made the Government’s position on these matters very clear in her interviews at the weekend.

Asked why the Foreign Secretary’s trip had been cut short, the PMS said that that was a matter for the Whips and the Foreign Secretary, but that his (PMS’s) understanding of the situation was that the Foreign Secretary had been required for last night’s vote.

Asked how the Government thought the vote would go, the PMS said that it was very tight.

Asked if the Government was confident of winning, the PMS said that we were confident in the argument but that the vote was very tight.

Put that there was a suggestion that the Prime Minsiter had held personal talks with Bob Spink, the PMS said that he was not going to get into a discussion on who the Prime Minister, other Ministers or Whips were talking to.

Asked what sort of spirits the Prime Minister was in, the PMS said that the Prime Minsiter was in very robust spirits; he thought that he was on the right side of this argument and that we had taken a completely consistent position on this throughout. The Prime Minister was clear that this was the right thing to do and that the public supported the action that the Government proposed to take. Over time we had seen people move over to the position taken by the Government.

Asked if the Prime Minister would be talking to members of other parties, the PMS said that the Prime Minister was seeking to maximise support for the Government on this matter.

Put that the then Prime Minister had said something after the vote on 90 days and asked if the Prime Minister would say something after the vote today, the PMS said that the Prime Minister’s sole focus in relation to this matter was on winning the vote this evening.

Asked if there was an actual figure regarding the compensation for suspects who were held but not charged, the PMS said that we did not recognise some of the figures that had been mentioned by the media this morning; generally, the possibility of seeking redress for unlawful imprisonment was already possible through the civil courts. We were happy to look at proposals that were put to us, but there were already provisions in place to enable compensation for unlawful imprisonment.

Put that it was not a concession if it already existed, the PMS said that there was an amendment that had been tabled and that the Government was happy to look at it, as Tony McNulty had been saying this morning and as Jacqui Smith had said in a letter to Trevor Philips last week; this was something we continued to look at. However, there were already provisions in place to enable the possibility of seeking redress for unlawful imprisonment.

Put that if the law was that you could be detained for 42 days then it wouldn’t be unlawful, the PMS said that, as he understood the situation, there were already provisions in place to enable people to seek compensation who had been detained unlawfully. If the journalist wanted a technical answer to the definition of what unlawful meant in those particular circumstances, then it was best to speak to the Home Office; they were the best people to go to for details.

Asked if there would be any words from the Prime Minister in the House of Commons regarding the vote, the PMS said we should wait and see.

2 Comments »

I was given an unlawful sentence ,An I.P.P with a tariff of 4 years 275 days,,as i maintained my innocence i had no real prospect of ever being released,I have since found out H.M.P Wormwood scrubs sent a memo 5 days after sentence asking for clarification , this was july 08 i never knew this until i got all my records from the branston registary via the F.O.I act,,,,I won my appeal and at the subsequent retrial thanks to my leagal team getting hold of my bank and phone records from 2004 the jury returned a verdict of not guilty in 22 mins,,,,,,,,how do i go about gaining redress?
Comment by steve abraham — 23 Aug 2009 on 11:48 am | Link
Glad to hear you have had a positive outcome – well done.

Could you please sign a petition, details below, to assist with others who have IPPs and have gone well past their tariff dates.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Indeterminate/

It would be helpful if you could get others to sign too.

Best wishes and good luck
Comment by Fred — 15 Sep 2009 on 7:04 pm | Link

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Wednesday, June 11, 2008

42 Days

2 Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries