Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on:
Africa Breakfast
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised journalists that the Prime Minister had hosted a breakfast this morning to discuss Africa. A number of NGOs had attended, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Christian Aid, as well as academics and businessmen. The Chancellor, Clare Short and Baroness Amos had also been present.
The Prime Minister had wanted to hear the views of those attending ahead of next month’s G8 in Canada. All had agreed that the NEPAD partnership offered an important way forward and had welcomed the leading role the UK was playing in seeking to deliver the initiative.
Responding to concerns that the G8 should not be a one-off, the Prime Minister had stressed the need for a long term commitment, supported by a process, to help Africa solve its problems. We hoped NEPAD would encompass issues such as conflict resolution, trade liberalisation, investment in education, good governance, more debt relief and development aid. The business leaders who had been present this morning had also recognised the importance of new investment in the developing world.
Golden Jubilee
The PMOS told journalists that in advance of the Golden Jubilee weekend, the Cabinet would be sending a message of congratulations to the Queen.
India/Pakistan
The PMOS said that, as we had briefed last night, President Bush had had a twenty minute telephone conversation with the Prime Minister about India and Pakistan. He had called from Air Force One. Both the Prime Minister and President had agreed that it was important to secure a de-escalation of tension as soon as possible and that it should be followed by dialogue between both sides. They had agreed that they and other international partners should remain fully engaged with both sides.
The Prime Minister believed this was a desperately serious situation. Obviously it was incumbent on the international community to do all it could to urge restraint and to try to push the two sides together, which was why Jack Straw would be visiting the region next week. He underlined, however, the importance of co-ordinated international activity. The NATO meeting in Rome next week, which would witness the NATO-Russia signing ceremony, would be an opportunity for people to discuss the situation and co-ordinate their responses.
The Foreign Secretary had also said that the situation was very grave and potentially more serious than the Middle East at this stage. He had gone through some of the reasons for yesterday’s announcement that we were withdrawing a number of our staff from our Missions in Pakistan.
He had briefed colleagues on the background to the current situation in Kashmir, pointing to the escalating terrorist violence, the attacks which had been ongoing across the Line of Control and the attack on the Indian Parliament. He said that he had spoken to Colin Powell twice in the last twenty-four hours. He had also talked to the Indian and Pakistani Foreign Ministers.
Clearly, it was necessary to get a dialogue going and for measures to be taken on both sides to help build confidence. However, no one was under any illusion that we were facing anything other than an extremely difficult situation and that there weren’t any instant solutions to it.
Asylum/Sangatte
The PMOS said that the Home Secretary had said that there was no truth that we had even started negotiations with the French over Sangatte, as both we and the French Government had said yesterday. Obviously the French Assembly elections, due to be held on 16 June, would have to conclude before direct meetings and discussions could happen. Meetings with the new French Interior Minister would then take place in London and Paris in June and July to try to achieve a long term resolution to the issue.
The PMOS said that the Prime Minister had reiterated the importance of dealing with the asylum issue, rather than exploiting it. As events in Europe in recent months had shown, this was something which had the ability to inflame. Looking at Europe-wide statistics, it was clear that there had been an increase in asylum applications across the board, which was why the measures which would be brought forward by the Spanish Presidency in Seville were so important.
He said that the Government could not, and would not, ignore the problem, pointing out that if it wasn’t dealt with, it could have a serious effect on community relations. The flip-side to that, however, was the importance of managed migration and the benefits that could bring to the UK in terms of addressing skills shortages. He had taken the opportunity to go through the history of the ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’ between the UK and France which, he explained, had existed between 1995 and 1997.
However, that had been overridden by the Dublin Convention which had come into effect in September 1997 after being signed by the previous Administration in 1990. There had been a clause in the Agreement that negated it from that point. Nevertheless, we were still keen to discuss the issue with the French.
Asked how we would reconcile David Blunkett’s insistence that negotiations about Sangatte had not yet started with Jack Straw’s comment that active discussions were taking place, the PMOS said that this story had emerged in ‘Le Croix’, a French publication. It had then been picked up by a newswire. In writing as fact something that hadn’t even been discussed, it appeared that journalists were getting a bit too far ahead of themselves. He said we should start with the facts.
Mr Blunkett had had twenty-minute telephone conversation last Friday with his French opposite number, Nicolas Sarkozy, who was the current French Interior Minister. It had been a good conversation which had focussed on the importance of closing Sangatte and dealing with the conditions in France which had led to the problems in the first instance, such as the tolerance of illegal immigrants and the routes which people traffickers were exploiting through the country to get people up to Northern France and Calais. That was where we were at the moment. No deal had been reached. Nor had there had been any discussion about what to do with the refugees at Sangatte. The French Assembly elections would take place in June.
As Mr Blunkett had said, we would discuss the issue with the new French Government after that. However, at this stage, we did not yet know what the new Administration might look like.
Asked whether there were any plans for the Home Secretary to have a face-to-face meeting with his French counterpart before 16 June, the PMOS said not as far as he was aware. The meetings to which Mr Blunkett had referred at today’s Cabinet were ones to be arranged with the Interior Minister post-elections. They would take place in the latter part of June in London, and in Paris in July.
Asked if he was implying that the British Government believed there was no point in beginning negotiations with the interim Administration in France, the PMOS said that we welcomed the focus on the asylum issue in France. In our view, however, it was better to wait for the elections to take place and then sit down and discuss the issue with the new Administration. We hoped that the new Government would accept the fact that it was intolerable that there should be hundreds of illegal immigrants hanging around in Northern France trying to get into the UK.
Clearly, it was in both our interests to address the issue. That said, it was obviously not simply a question of closing Sangatte – welcome and important though that would be. It was also a question of addressing some of the root causes and conditions that had led to it being established in the first instance.
Asked if we would be willing, in principle, to accept the occupants of Sangatte were it to close, the PMOS said he had no intention of conducting discussions in public which hadn’t even commenced with a Government that did not yet exist. Pressed to answer the question, the PMOS said that we would sit down with the new French Administration and discuss how we could deal with an issue which was of concern not only to the UK and France, but to the whole of the EU and beyond.
Asked whether the relocation of Sangatte’s occupants would be subject to negotiation, the PMOS repeated that he had no intention of circumscribing discussions which had yet to take place. Put to him that the question of relocation was clearly something which had to be addressed, the PMOS said that clearly there was an issue relating to how the UK and France addressed a common problem. We welcomed the focus the French were putting on the issue. It was also worth remembering that Mr Blunkett had been pushing this bilaterally since taking over as Home Secretary last year. It was good it appeared to be being taken seriously.
However, we did not believe it would be helpful to indicate at this stage whether we were ruling anything in or out. Questioned as to whether we had any ‘red lines’ on the issue – as we did in relation to the military base in Gibraltar for example, the PMOS pointed out that the red lines regarding the military base reflected where were in the negotiations concerning Gibraltar. Negotiations and discussions about Sangatte had not yet even started.
In answer to further questions about Sangatte and its possible closure, the PMOS said that everyone would acknowledge it would be better if the camp was not there. We also recognised that it was not a question of closing it down and then Sangatte II opening up a couple of miles further down the coast. We had to sit down with the French and work out a co-ordinated approach to the problem which could resolve some of the root causes, of which Sangatte was a symptom.
Asked whether the French definitely wanted to close Sangatte or whether any closure would be conditional on other issues, the PMOS said that conversations with the current French Interior Minister had focussed on the importance of closing Sangatte. However, the Assembly elections had yet to take place. We did not know who would take office, and nor did we know what their views might be. All he would say was that events in Europe in recent weeks had certainly resulted in a mental gear change, which we hoped would translate into a practical gear change to deal with this problem.
Asylum and immigration issues would be addressed at Seville given, as the Prime Minister had pointed out, we had not made as much progress post-Tampere as we should have done. Everyone was beginning to recognise that the whole issue of migration and asylum was one which we had to address to ensure that it was not exploited and did not lead to damaging community tensions.
Asked to comment on the status of today’s Guardian story regarding a leaked memo written by a member of the Policy Directorate, Olivia McLeod, the PMOS said that he was not going to break the habit of a lifetime and comment in detail on a leaked document. That said, he would set it in context. The document was a one of a number of papers produced for a meeting last week, attended by the Prime Minister and other Ministers, to discuss asylum. It did not represent policy. It was more of a discussion paper which looked at different ideas and options on what could or could not be done and what was and was not appropriate to deal with the issue of asylum. Some of the proposals might be taken up. Others would not.
Moreover, as the document itself explained, some of the ideas which had been put forward were unworkable for the reasons given. The paper was an illustration of some of the thinking which was going on within Government. Looking at the individual ingredients of it, however, it was clear that not all the proposals would become Government policy.
Put to him that using ships in the Mediterranean to intercept asylum seekers could not be done on a unilateral basis and would require EU co-operation, the PMOS said that he had said as much as he wanted to say about the paper. It would not be helpful to go through the individual ideas contained in it and comment on them. All he would say was that it was an illustration of the seriousness with which the Government – from the Prime Minister down – was addressing the issue.
We recognised that whilst we had made big changes in the first term and legislation was currently going through Parliament, we had to continue to look at what other ideas were out there and how we could take things forward. Any proposals we had would be put forward in the usual way. Asked who Olivia McLeod was, the PMOS said there was no reason for her to become a media figure. She was a member of the Policy Directorate who worked on home affairs issues. He confirmed that she was a Civil Servant.
Asked whether the document indicated a new push on asylum by the Government and if the Prime Minister had now taken control of the issue, or how we would characterise it, the PMOS said he would characterise it as the Prime Minister, together with senior Ministers, addressing a very real problem which was affecting the UK, the EU and other countries more widely.
Put to him that we now appeared to be looking at ways to deal with asylum on a cross-government basis in contrast to the way we had tackled the subject previously, the PMOS said that the premise of the question over-simplify how things had worked in Government before. Put to him that the possible use of the RAF to despatch failed asylum seekers would seem to indicate that the Government was operating across-government policies, the PMOS pointed out that in dealing with asylum, there were other issues, such as health and education, which had always been part of the policy continuum.
Asked whether Clare Short had raised concerns about tying development aid to asylum, the PMOS said that the issue of aid had not come up this morning. Put to him that DfID had appeared to indicate last night that it would be illegal to tie development aid to asylum, the PMOS said that the International Development Act made clear that aid had had to have poverty reduction as its primary purpose. That said, it was clear there was a link between aid and asylum. Countries which did not abide by their obligations would obviously be a cause for concern.
Asked if the Prime Minister believed that there was a real problem with the level of illegal immigration or if he was reacting to a perceived problem, the PMOS said the Prime Minister believed that people understood why it was important to grant asylum to those in genuine need.
Equally, he understood people’s frustration towards those who played the system and who effectively came here as economic migrants. We were a tolerant country and people understood the importance and benefits of managed migration in terms of increasing our skills base. Immigrants had made a huge contribution to our national life. Of course, no one could ignore the fact that globalisation and the speed and distances which people could travel for example had had an effect on migration.
However, the asylum rules had to have integrity. That meant looking at the issue from one end to the other. We had to consider how to stop people entering the EU, how the EU as a whole could tackle the issue, how to tackle it at source and what to do when people ended up here. If people felt that the asylum system was not working, it reflected badly on those in genuine need and could be exploited.
Hinduja/Passports
Asked for a reaction to the Parliamentary Ombudsman’s allegation that the Government was involved in some kind of cover-up over the Hinduja passports affair, the PMOS said he would disagree totally with the premise of the question. The Ombudsman had accepted that there was no record of the telephone conversation between the two Ministers concerned and that there were no details which could be disclosed under the Code of Practice on access to Government information. In terms of record keeping and how the contact with the Ombudsman had been handled, he would point out that the Cabinet Office had apologised for the delay in dealing with the initial request.
Beef
Asked for a reaction to the French Government’s announcement today that it would not lift its embargo on British beef, the PMOS said that this was simply a restatement of French Government policy. In our view, it was misguided and wrong. British beef was amongst the safest anywhere in the world as a result of the measures we had put in place post-BSE. France was in breach of European law in refusing to import it.
We recognised that French Assembly elections would soon be taking place and we would continue to raise the issue with whichever Government was in power. In the medium term, we were continuing to press the European Commission to impose fines on France as they were clearly in breach of their obligations.
ut to him that the real problem with the French ban was that it prevented the export of British beef to other EU countries since lorries would have to pass through France in order to reach the markets in Germany and Italy for example, the PMOS agreed that could be an issue. Although he was not an expert on the transit arrangements of British beef, however, he believed it was possible to export our beef by plane if necessary.
Glaxosmithkline
Asked why the Prime Minister was opening GlaxoSmithKline’s new building today, the PMOS pointed out that this was an important company. The Prime Minister was showing his support for scientific endeavour on the day he was delivering his important speech on science.
Asked if the company had donated money to the Labour Party, the PMOS said he had absolutely no idea. They were, however, one of the biggest companies in the UK.
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