Downing Street Says » 2004

» Wednesday, September 8, 2004

Fox Hunting

Asked when an announcement would be made on fox hunting, the PMOS said he did not think that journalists would have much longer to wait. DEFRA would be answering a PQ on this issue a little later this afternoon. Asked which Minister was in the lead on this matter, the PMOS said that it was the responsibility of the Rural Affairs Minister, Alun Michael. That said, it was important for journalists to remember that the issue would be put to a free vote.

Briefing took place at 15:45 | Read whole briefing | Comments (4)

Reshuffle

Asked if the reshuffle would be taking place today, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that we would let people know as and when it happened. Asked if the Prime Minister had met the Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister today, the PMOS said that it wasn't our policy to brief on individual meetings. Questioned as to whether the Prime Minister had met the Chancellor and Deputy Prime Minister last night, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister met his ministerial colleagues on a regular basis, as you would expect. Asked if the Prime Minister had been in contact with Alan Milburn within the last day or so, the PMOS repeated that it wasn't our policy to brief on individual conversations.

Briefing took place at 11:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Pensions

Asked if Downing Street would recognise the suggestions of some city commentators that pensions policy provision had become 'a bit of a basket case' under this Government, the PMOS said it was clear that the Government had addressed both the immediate and longer term issues on pensions, which all Governments were having to deal with. For example, we had introduced the Pension Credit in October 2003. In addition, the Pensions Bill would include the Pension Protection Fund. We had also set up the Financial Assistance Scheme to help those who had already lost their pensions. In order to address the longer term issues, we had asked the Pensions Commission, under the leadership of Adair Turner, to undertake a review. This was due to report in the autumn.

Briefing took place at 11:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Fox Hunting

Asked if an announcement on fox hunting would be made today, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had told journalists in his press conference yesterday, Parliament would be the first to be informed about any announcement on fox hunting. Asked repeatedly if a Parliamentary Question (PQ) by Paddy Tipping MP asking whether the Secretary of State for DEFRA would make a statement on fox hunting would be answered today, the PMOS said that the usual Parliamentary procedures would apply, as you would expect. Asked what was so difficult about confirming whether the PQ would be answered today or not, the PMOS said that any Parliamentary Question which was tabled would obviously be answered in the normal way. It wasn't our practice to brief on every single one that came along. Asked to confirm suggestions that the PQ had been tabled solely to put pressure on DEFRA, the PMOS said that he wasn't aware of such reports. He repeated that the PQ would be answered in the normal way. Asked how long it would take, the PMOS said that we tried to answer PQs as quickly as possible. Put to him that it sometimes took Departments weeks to reply, the PMOS said he did not think that was normally the case.

Briefing took place at 11:00 | Read whole briefing | Comments (39)

» Tuesday, September 7, 2004

Reshuffle

Asked if the Prime Minister was getting on with his reshuffle, the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (PMOS) said that as the Prime Minister had told journalists in his press conference this morning, we would let people know once we were ready to do so. Asked if he was meeting and speaking to people today, the PMOS repeated that we would let people know about any reshuffle when we were ready to do so. Asked if the reshuffle would take place this week, the PMOS said yes. In answer to further questions, the PMOS said that he was not going to provide a running commentary on the issue. He had nothing further to add to what had already been said.

Briefing took place at 15:45 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Prime Minister Allawi

Asked if the Prime Minister had been indicating this morning that Prime Minister Allawi of Iraq would be visiting the UK in the near future, the PMOS pointed out that Prime Minister Allawi himself had said that he hoped to visit Britain at some point within the next few weeks. Final dates were still being worked out.

Briefing took place at 15:45 | Read whole briefing | Comments (8)

Gurkhas

Asked if he would agree that the Prime Minister had appeared sympathetic this morning to the plight of the former Gurkhas who were seeking British citizenship and whether he might help them achieve their objective in any way, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had simply been acknowledging that the matter was being reviewed. It would therefore be wrong to attempt to pre-judge the outcome of that process before it had concluded.

Briefing took place at 15:45 | Read whole briefing | Comment (1)

Northern Ireland

Asked about the possibility of trying another route should the talks on Northern Ireland at Leeds Castle next week fail, the PMOS said that as the Prime Minister had told journalists this morning, he did not think it would be helpful to start talking about Plan B when we were still trying to get Plan A to work. As he had made clear, we needed to be able to judge whether progress was going to be made or not. That meant asking whether we were going to see an end to paramilitarism, whether we were going to see decommissioning - and if so, whether the Unionists would agree to share power with the elected representatives of Nationalism and Republicanism. As he had underlined at Lancaster House in July, at some point we would need to come to a decision as to whether to keep travelling down the road we were currently going down, or whether we needed to do something different to take the process forward. Asked if the Prime Minister was considering the possibility of abandoning the Northern Ireland Assembly if the talks at Leeds Castle were not successful, the PMOS said that he did not think it would be helpful to get drawn into a discussion about specifics. No one should underestimate the importance of the talks next week. We believed that the parameters existed for a deal to be done. The key question was whether the will was there. If, at the end of the process, we concluded the answer was no, then obviously we would have to reflect on how to take the process forward. The Prime Minister was absolutely determined that the momentum we had seen until now should continue in some form because it had already had a positive impact in terms of bringing the conflict to an end in Northern Ireland. That being said, the talks at Leeds Castle had yet to take place. We hoped that a deal could be done there because we believed that such a thing was possible.

Briefing took place at 15:45 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

Religious Hatred

Asked to expand on the Prime Minister's comments this morning about legal issue relating to extremist clerics and religious hatred, the PMOS said that this was really a matter for the police. However, as we had made clear from the outset, we were keeping the process under review.

Briefing took place at 15:45 | Read whole briefing | Comments (0)

President Clinton

Asked if the Prime Minister had been in contact with the Clintons following President Clinton's heart surgery, the PMOS said that everyone was obviously aware of their close friendship, so it was therefore fair to assume that the Prime Minister had been in touch. However, he had no intention of briefing on the precise nature of that contact because it was a personal matter.

Briefing took place at 15:45 | Read whole briefing | Comment (1)

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.

The unofficial site which lets you comment on the UK Prime Minister's official briefings. About us...

» Wednesday, September 8, 2004

Fox Hunting

Reshuffle

Pensions

Fox Hunting

» Tuesday, September 7, 2004

Reshuffle

Prime Minister Allawi

Gurkhas

Northern Ireland

Religious Hatred

President Clinton

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries