Downing Street Says » Ruth Kelly

Asked if it was correct that there would be no reshuffle till after Ruth Kelly’s statement, the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that he did not give a running commentary on reshuffles. But as it was they could see it was already a busy week.

Asked what communications Ruth Kelly had with the Prime Minister in recent days, the PMOS said that as always he would not go into detailing conversations. It was however, only natural on a subject of such public concern that the department and No10 were in regular contact. Asked if the Prime Minister was still satisfied that Ruth Kelly was the right person for the job, the PMOS said the position remained unchanged on what he had said last week. Put to the PMOS that Ruth Kelly was being diverted from concentrating on the white paper, the PMOS said that part of the Education Secretary’s job was to deal with matters like this and reassure the public in the best possible way that the Government was taking all the action that it could to make sure that the issue was dealt with properly. Therefore it was not a distraction; it was part of the job.

The white paper was also an important part of the job and she would get on with that as well. It was however right and proper that the Secretary of State for Education took the time to deal with this matter and come back to Parliament with a comprehensive report, which she would do on Thursday. Asked in that case if this was normal business, the PMOS said no. It was however part of, for any department, the Secretary of States job to reassure the public when issues of concern arose. Therefore this was what Ruth Kelly was doing in a calm and methodical way.

Asked about the Guardian splash’s serious allegation about further chaos in the system, the PMOS said that the Guardian had asserted that it was a leaked document. We held up our hands up! We had leaked it. The document was sent to stakeholders as part of the process of taking forward the Bichard proposals. These were all measures, which we addressed in Bichard. So it was in fact not a leaked document. It did not reveal anything that had not been addressed. Therefore, frankly, the Guardian article had something of a credibility problem.

Put to him that the point was that it had not been addressed, the PMOS said it had been addressed and a commitment had been given to introduce legislation in the Queen’s Speech. We had now given a commitment that we would bring forward that legislation to implement Bichard by the end of February. Asked when the letter to stakeholders had been sent, the PMOS said that it had been part of the process of bringing forward legislation but directed the journalist to the department for the precise detail.
Asked when the bill was coming and when it would be put to a vote, the PMOS said the bill would be published, contrary to what the Daily Telegraph had asserted, in February and there was an expectation that it would go to a vote sometime early to mid March as was planned all along.

Asked whether the department was aware of any case where somebody had re-offended now that it had been working on the review for a week, the PMOS said he would not give a running commentary on the review’s progress. It was best to wait till the Secretary of State reported on it to parliament. The reason why she had taken time to carry out the review was because this was a process that had grown on a piecemeal basis and therefore what you needed to do was have a comprehensive review of that process as a whole. That took time, even if it meant taking the heat for a short period, but it was best to get it right. Asked if the review was still looking back over several decades, the PMOS said that where there were areas of concern it would look at those.

The Secretary of State would explain all that the review had done on Thursday. Asked if Ruth Kelly was still meeting regularly with backbench MPs on the white paper as she had been prior to the sex offenders’ issue, the PMOS said that it was inevitable that whenever you were faced with an issue like this that you focused on it. We would come back to the white paper whenever it was appropriate to do so. First and foremost the public expected any Secretary of State, of any colour, to focus attention on an issue such as this as was right and proper.

Asked to explain the logic of removing Ministers from the decision making process when officials had got it wrong before, the PMOS said that we accepted that it was a legitimate question to ask who was the right person to make this decision. He would not pre-empt the review but he was happy to acknowledge it was a legitimate question.

1 Comment »

"Asked if the Prime Minister was still satisfied that Ruth Kelly was the right person for the job, the PMOS said the position remained unchanged on what he had said last week."

Poor Ruth! One could almost feel sorry for anyone who has the Bliar’s "backing"…

Not, or course, that she deserves anything less than immediate sacking followed by an extended period of unemployment due to her all-round total incompetence, however; I’m sure if that was me that’s exactly what would happen. But, as we know by now, if she does get the boot she’ll be back in a job in a few weeks.
Comment by PapaLazzzaru — 17 Jan 2006 on 5:12 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.

» Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Ruth Kelly

1 Comment »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries