Downing Street Says

Asked if the Prime Minister had full confidence in his Security Minister to make his own statements and judgements, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) replied that yes he did.

Asked what happened then between Lord West going on the Today Programme when he said that he still needed to be fully convinced that we absolutely need more than 28 days, and a statement released by the Home Office later this morning where he said that we needed to legislate now so that we had the powers in place if we need them, the PMS replied that Lord West’s statement, the second one referred to, spoke for itself. Lord West also said on the Today Programme that one can build up a very good case and rationalise it. There might well be a case, particularly if there are multiple attacks at the same time, which would go beyond that i.e. 28 days, and Lord Carlile mentioned that.

Asked if Lord West decided himself to make the second statement, the PMS replied that Lord West thought it was necessary to make sure that his position was properly understood.

Asked to what extent the Prime Minister played a role in getting Lord West to change his mind, the PMS replied that he was not sure that Lord West had changed his mind. Lord West had made his position clear in his statement.

Put that Lord West did meet with the Prime Minister after his interview, the PMS replied that he was at the breakfast meeting this morning with the Prime Minister as the TV footage showed.

Asked if the Prime Minister discussed his comments, the PMS replied that he was not going to discuss discussions between the Prime Minister and other Ministers. Lord West had made his position quite clear.

Asked if it was our position that there was no contradiction between Lord West’s words at 08:20 and his words at 09:50, the PMS replied that his 09:50 statement made his position quite clear.

Asked therefore was it our position that Lord West’s earlier statement was a slip or that he changed his mind, the PMS replied that Lord West set out his views quite clearly in his second statement. On the Today Programme he did refer to that fact that there had been a number of cases that had gone right up to the 28 day limit. And he did say that one could build a very good reason and rational for extending the case beyond that.

Put that Lord West did not seem to think the case was fully established, the PMS replied that clearly extending beyond 28 days was a serious matter, and we needed to convince Parliament and the public of the case for that. That was why the Prime Minister was keen to ensure that should we extend the terror detention limit beyond 28 days that there would be tighter parliamentary and judicial oversight. That was included in the proposals that we set out on the summer.

Asked if it was fair to say that the Prime Minister still needed to be convinced that we absolutely needed an extension beyond 28 days, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister’s position was the Government’s position, that there was a case for extending beyond 28 days for the reasons set out in the document the Home Office published in July. But any extension beyond 28 days would have to be accompanied by stronger judicial and parliamentary oversight.

Asked if the Prime Minister had persuaded Lord West or presented him with new evidence, the PMS replied that Lord West made clear his position in his second statement.

Put that Lord West said in his statement that it would be "dreadful" if we could not change the laws, and asked if this was the Prime Minister’s position, the PMS replied that we had set out our position in July, and made clear at the time that there was a case for going beyond 28 days. There were good reasons for this, and they were set out in the Home Office document in July. But this was a consultative process and we wanted to find a consensual solution to this. Any extension beyond 28 days did need to be accompanied by stronger judicial and parliamentary oversight.

Asked if it we had not gone a bit further than this in recent weeks to the point that we were saying there would be an increase to between 28 and 56 days, and the only question was how big the increase would be, the PMS replied that the position had not changed. We had set out a number of options, and that the Government’s preferred option was extending beyond 28 days, as long as it was accompanied by the additional measure on parliamentary and judicial oversight as set out in the document.

Put that the way Lord West was treated was destined to destroy his credibility, the PMS replied that this was not the case at all. Lord West had made his position quite clear. He was a great expert on security, and his words spoke for themselves.

Asked if was our position that Lord West misspoke in his Today Programme interview, or that he failed to articulate what he wanted to articulate, the PMS replied that Lord West set out his position clearly in his second statement. And on his Today Programme interview, he made a number of points on why there was a case for moving beyond 28 days.

Asked that if he was happy with his Today interview, why was there the need to issue subsequent statements, the PMS replied that Lord West had issued a subsequent statement, and he had made his position quite clear.

Asked to deny that there was any attempt by No10 or the Prime Minister to persuade the Security Minister to issue another statement, the PMS replied that Lord West had made his position quite clear. He went out and made his statement, and his words spoke for themselves.

Asked if anyone had reminding him of what collective responsibility meant for a Minister, the PMS replied that there was no need to, Lord West had gone out and made his position perfectly clear.

Asked if when Ministers joined Government from outside bodies, did they receive any training or induction, the PMS replied that Lord West was a very experienced individual, former First Sea Lord, Former Chief of Defence Intelligence, and had a lot of experience in dealing with the media in his previous military capacity.

Asked if Lord West would be giving any more interviews today, the PMS replied that he was not aware of any plans.

Asked if the Prime Minister would be covering "hearts and minds" in his statement, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister would be covering that.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

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, November 14, 2007

Security

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries