Downing Street Says » Faithworks Speech

» Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Faithworks Speech

Asked whether the Prime Minister was effectively blaming single mothers for inner city crime when he had said they were "piling up problems for the future", the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) said she had not seen the quote, but she was sure that the Prime Minister was not blaming any particular group for the problems within communities.

Put to her that the previous Government used to blame single mothers, and as Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister had condemned them for those views, did this therefore not seem hypocritical, the PMS said she was not going to comment on the previous Government or what the Prime Minister may have done or said when he was Leader of the Opposition.

Asked whether the Prime Minister had any new initiatives or ideas on how to reduce the scale of teenage pregnancies, the PMS said that the journalist should speak to the Department for Education and Skills about Government initiatives on sex education for teenagers. The Government had introduced various new initiatives to schools in order to educate pupils about safe sex and teenage pregnancies.

Asked if the Prime Minister would agree that restricting access to abortions would "fuel the problem" even further, the PMS said the Prime Minister had set out his views on abortion and she had nothing to add.

Asked if Downing Street officials had blocked any questions about abortion during the Q&A session after the speech, the PMS said she was not aware of that happening.

The PMS later said that the Prime Minister had been offering support and advice to young people rather than condemning them in his comments following his Faithworks speech.

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.