Afternoon press briefing from 1 April 2008
Briefing from the Prime Minister's Spokesman on: Cabinet, Tax, Cannabis, NATO, Public Sector Pay and Miscellaneous
Cabinet
Asked what was discussed at Cabinet and if the subject of the economy came up, the Prime Minister's Spokesman (PMS) said that economy came up in passing but that the main items which had been discussed were the situation in Zimbabwe and the situation in Iraq (ahead of the Des Browne's Statement this afternoon). There was also a more general discussion about the new PSA targets, which were coming into effect today, and a discussion on the Government's objectives for the coming financial year.
Asked what was said about Iraq, the PMS replied that the discussion reflected what Des Browne was saying in his Statement today; it was primarily an update from the Defence Secretary on the situation on the ground in Iraq, the events in Basra over the past few days and the implications on British troop numbers.
Asked about the discussion on the Government's objectives for the coming financial year and if there had been a presentation on a paper by Stephen Carter, the PMS replied that he would not get into details of what was said but added that the Prime Minister had led quite a wide-ranging discussion.
Asked if people had split up into groups, the PMS said no, they did not split up into groups.
Asked for the reaction at Cabinet regarding the announcement on troops, the PMS replied that it had not come as a great surprise to anybody given the uncertainty of the situation in southern Iraq at the moment.
Tax
Put that some members of the Labour Party felt that the abolition of the 10p rate of tax had a detrimental effect for those on a low income, the PMS explained that this was part of an overall tax simplification and reform package in last year's Budget that included significant increases, particularly in working tax credit, to help those people on low pay.
Asked if that meant that people on low pay would not be worse off as a result of the change brought in by the Prime Minister, the PMS replied that people on low pay were significantly better off as a result of the tax and benefit changes that the Government had made since 1997.
Put that at least 3 or 4 people in the Labour Party had said that it was a big mistake, the PMS replied that journalists would not expect him to comment on Party matters and reiterated that since 1997 people on lower earnings were significantly better off as a result of the Government's tax and benefit policy.
Asked about the effects of the 2007 Budget, the PMS repeated that since 1997 people were significantly better off; the 2007 Budget had been a major reform of the personal tax system, perhaps the most significant reform of personal tax for at least 10 years and included significant increases in tax credits, specifically to help those people on lower incomes.
Put that that meant people were better off, the PMS said that that question was going over old ground and that he was not sure what new fact the journalist was trying to establish or extract.
Put that people were now actually experiencing real effects rather than it just being something academic, the PMS replied that no one was trying to suggest that it was an academic thing at all; it was a very significant announcement made in a Budget last year. Since 1997 people on low incomes were significantly better off and there had been significant increases in tax credits to help people on low incomes in last year's Budget.
Asked if the Prime Minister was minded to look at tax again, the PMS replied that these were matters for the Chancellor and the Treasury.
Cannabis
Asked how the Prime Minister wanted to put across stronger signals regarding the use of cannabis, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister had spoken about that in some length this morning.
Asked if there would be stronger sentences, the PMS replied that it was best to stick to the Prime Minster's words this morning; he had been mainly talking about the subject in the context of upcoming decisions that needed to be taken on the classification of cannabis.
NATO
Asked if the Prime Minister had any important bilateral meetings tomorrow afternoon at the NATO Summit, the PMS said that we could update journalists on that once we were there; the Prime MInister had some bilateral meetings tomorrow ahead of the working dinner.
On NATO more generally there would be a dinner tomorrow evening and on Thursday there would be a meeting in the morning of the North Atlantic Council, which was a wider group including defence and foreign Ministers. That would be followed by a working lunch of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership and then the main discussion on Afghanistan would take place in the afternoon. On Friday there would be meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Summit and the NATO-Russia Council.
The two main issues for us were Afghanistan, where the Prime Minister had been saying he would like to see more burden sharing. As had been widely anticipated, clarification was expected from the French regarding their position. As we had been saying over the weekend, we had a particular proposal in relation to helicopters, which would be an Anglo-French initiative; this would be calling for the creation of a helicopter trust fund to which we hoped that some other members of NATO would contribute as well as us. The money in this trust fund would be used to refurbish helicopters from other member states in NATO in order to ensure that they were properly equipped to deal with the particular circumstances in Afghanistan. This was a good example of reforming NATO; making procedures more flexible in order to make better use of NATO military capacity in order to enhance capability on the ground.
Another issue which had been touched on yesterday was the issue of membership action plans for Ukraine and Georgia; our position in principal was that we supported the adoption of membership action plans for Ukraine and Georgia but we needed to discuss the modalities and exact timing with our NATO partners.
Asked if the UK supported whatever the next step was regarding the membership of Albania, Croatia and Macedonia, the PMS replied that that was correct and that the UK would support a formal invitation of membership to those countries.
Asked if it was hopeful that Greece would back the Macedonia bid, the PMS said that he was sure a solution could be found.
Asked if the role of the EU in regard to NATO would come up at the summit, the PMS replied that the general subject of the relationship between the EU and NATO would come up as part of the discussions about both NATO operations and NATO reform.
Public Sector Pay
Asked if the Prime Minister had been referring to next year's settlement when he commented about public sector pay this morning, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had been making a general point about the need for continued discipline on public sector pay.
Asked if the Prime Minister had been referring to 2009 as well as 2008, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had been making a general statement about the need for wage discipline in order to keep inflation down and was saying nothing else beyond that.
Miscellaneous
Asked if the Prime Minister had had any more contact with any leaders regarding Zimbabwe, the PMS said that there was nothing more to add; as the Prime Minister had said in his press conference this morning, he would be speaking to the Head of the African Union later on today. We were still awaiting the formal announcement of the election result from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
Asked if the Prime Minister had a message for teachers regarding the problem of teachers walking out, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had a huge amount of respect for the work that teachers did but it was important that we maintained discipline in public finances and that we continued to maintain a disciplined approach to inflation; that was what had enabled the Bank of England, unlike European Central Bank for example, to cut interest rates twice in recent months.
Asked who would be taking the place of the Prime Minister at Prime Minister's Questions tomorrow, the PMS replied that it would be Harriet Harman.
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