Morning press briefing from 16 December 2009

Briefing by the Prime Minister’s spokesman on: Copenhagen, Nimrod statement, UK civilian stabilisation capacity, unemployment, Cadbury, AL Megrahi and British Airways

Copenhagen

The Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that the Prime Minister had arrived last night and had met Prime Minister Rudd and Prime Minister Rasmussen. They discussed the progress that had been made and tactics in the coming days. The Prime Minister also met Prime Minister Hasina of Bangladesh.

This morning, the Prime Minister met with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. In that meeting they both agreed that everyone across the world needed to step up to the plate and there was clearly lots more to do. They agreed that there needed to be progress on short and long-term finance and the Prime Minister had agreed that he would take that forward and speak to other leaders during the course of the day.

They also discussed Iran. The two both agreed to make their strong concerns very clear; the Prime Minister’s view was that it was provocative and he had very serious concerns. They also discussed Afghanistan and looked forward to the conference in London on the 28th January.

The Prime Minister would continue to have bilaterals with various leaders later today, particularly African countries and the island countries.

Asked if there was any reaction to the resignation of the Danish Minister who had been president of the conference, the PMS said that she did not know the full details of this yet and would come back to people.

Asked what the Prime Minister’s general outlook was for the summit, as it appeared to be in trouble, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister thought that it would be an uphill struggle. There were some challenging issues that had to be met and sorted out over the next 48 hours. However, the Prime Minister thought that there was goodwill out there also and that a deal could be done.

The Prime Minister, President Obama, President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel all agreed that they needed to reach a deal and the Prime Minister had also set out that he was looking forward to a legally binding agreement within six months of Copenhagen. The Prime Minister had stressed this morning the impact not tackling climate change would have, not only on people in developing countries such as Bangladesh or countries in Africa affected by famine, but also on the British economy and what a deal would mean for the people of the UK.

Asked whether the Prime Minister regarded the summit as the last best chance to tackle global warming, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had expressed that this was an immensely important conference, but also that the challenges were great when 192 countries were trying to reach an agreement. Ed Miliband had also set out the challenges that he had been faced with in his discussions.

The Prime Minister would be taking part in a mass phone call with campaigners later on today, which gave people the opportunity to ask him questions.

Asked if the Prime Minister planned to meet the First Minister while he was in Copenhagen, the PMS said she did not know.

Nimrod Statement

Asked for more detail on the Nimrod statement by Bob Ainsworth, the PMS said she would leave the detail for the statement. Bob Ainsworth had agreed to report back to the House when he first published his response on the 28th October.

UK Civilian Stabilisation Capacity

Asked about the initiative, the PMS said that there would be up to 200 people at any one time mobilised to any country where there was conflict and a need for immediate action to help the local population.

Asked if the civilians were volunteers, the PMS said that they would be made up of policemen, people from various councils, civil servants, people from the legal community, agricultural advisers, administrators, telecoms experts and ex-military personnel, so it was quite a varied range of people who could provide help.

Asked when the first deployment would be sent out, the PMS replied that there was already a pool of police officers who carried out a similar role, so this was expanding that function. It would be funded by £10million a year from the UK Stabilisation Fund.

Asked if this was specifically for Afghanistan, the PMS said it could be for any crisis. Asked if this was in response to criticism levelled at DfID in the Iraq Inquiry, that something similar did not happen in the aftermath of the invasion, the PMS said it was something that had been considered for some time. DfID provided personnel with different expertise to help in these sorts of situations. This was putting it on a much more formal footing and providing funding so that it could be deployed more quickly in different areas but particularly in Afghanistan.

Unemployment

Put that Yvette Cooper had said that she expected unemployment to go up next year and what reassurance could the Prime Minister give to people coming up to Christmas, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister’s view was that investment that had been made in schemes such as the Future Jobs Fund and providing advisors in Job Centre Plus centres was all geared up to get people back into work. Some of the incentives announced yesterday in the White Paper would help young people in particular back in to work as well as those who had been out of work for longer than six months.

Asked how worried people should be, the PMS said that the figures this morning were encouraging, but we would not be complacent; we needed to go for growth and we needed to get people in to work and that was exactly what the Prime Minister was doing. This was one of the key drivers behind the Chancellor’s Pre-Budget Report.

Asked if there was a sense that the recession was now over, the PMS said that the figures were encouraging but we wouldn’t be complacent. The Chancellor had said that he was hoping we would see growth in the economy towards the end of the year.

Cadbury

Put that a meeting was planned between Lord Mandelson and Labour MPs on the Cadbury/Kraft situation and did the Government have a view on whether RBS should be financing a hostile takeover of one of the UK’s most well known companies, the PMS referred people to the Department for Business.

AL Megrahi

Asked if there was any concern over the elusive nature of Mr Megrahi, the PMS said that that was a matter for the Scottish authorities who were monitoring his whereabouts and referred people to the comments they had made.

British Airways

Asked whether the Prime Minister would agree with Derek Simpson that the strike was “over the top”, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister’s view was that it was not good news if there was to be a potential strike over the Christmas period. The Prime Minister had spoken to Lord Adonis this morning about this issue and the hope was that both sides could reach an agreement and industrial action was avoided.

Asked if the Prime Minister would get involved at some stage, the PMS said that both Lord Adonis and the Prime Minister were monitoring the situation closely, but the Prime Minister had said that we would do everything we could to bring the two sides together.

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