Downing Street Says

Asked if there was any response to Joanna Lumley s claims at the Select Committee meeting, the Prime Minister s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that Joanna Lumley s campaign was taken seriously. The letter she had sent in had been acknowledged and Joanna Lumley had met the Home Secretary following the start of this correspondence.

What would normally happen when there were campaigns such as this was that once a policy decision had been announced, we would normally write back to people. We had received the letters and the points she had made were taken seriously. This was reflected by the fact that she had had a meeting with the Home Secretary after her first letter.

Asked whether the Prime Minister was aware that Joanna Lumley had written to him, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had been aware of it. Asked if she had written three letters and only one had been replied to, the PMS said that the key thing was that we received the letters and we responded to the letters by offering Joanna Lumley a meeting with the Home Secretary, a senior Cabinet Minister who was in the lead in dealing with this campaign and the meeting subsequently happened.

Asked if the PMS thought it was unfair of Joanna Lumley to present the position as she had done, the PMS replied that it was not for him to comment on how she presented her case. The PMS added that following the start of this correspondence there was a meeting with the Home Secretary. Put that the Government did not routinely respond to every letter received, the PMS said that if it was part of a campaign and a policy was under review such as this case, once the policy decision had been taken, we would then normally write back to those who had written in as part of that campaign. We would not routinely offer meetings with the Home Secretary and we did do in this case.

Put that Joanna Lumley had indicated that she still would like a meeting with the Prime Minister to discuss the issue, the PMS said that we would consider all requests for meetings but we would need to look specifically at what she had said and wait for a specific request.

Asked whether the PMS could shed any light on Joanna Lumley s claim that she had received a letter of support from a member of the Royal Family, the PMS said that it wasn t for him to comment on the views of the Royal Family, whatever they may be. Asked whether the Prime Minister had been informed of any interest from the Royal Family, the PMS said we would not normally comment as a matter of course on any issues relating to the views of the Royal Family.

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» Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Gurkhas

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