Number 10 lobby briefing on Stephen Parkinson, Galileo, NHS funding and Australian cricket
2 min read
Here is a summary of this morning's briefing for lobby journalists by the Prime Minister's official spokesman.
STEPHEN PARKINSON
On whether or not the Prime Minister has confidence in her political secretary Stephen Parkinson, who has become embroiled in a row over the funding of the Leave campaign, the spokesman said: "Stephen is a political appointee, he's also employed by the Conservative Party, so if I could ask you to direct all detailed questions to my political colleagues. If you do, the answer they will give you is 'yes'."
GALILEO PROJECT
On reports that Britain may be excluded from the EU's Galileo satellite project after Brexit, the spokesman said: "Negotiations are ongoing but this is something that Greg Clark has discussed in public. He said 'the UK has a world-leading space sector that has contributed a significant amount of specialist expertise to the Galileo programme. The Government has been clear that we want a critical role in this important project, which will help strengthen European security to continue as we develop our deep and special partnership with the EU. This can only happen with complete UK involvement in all aspects of Galileo, including the key secure elements which the UK has unique specialisms in and have helped to design and implement'."
NHS FUNDING
On comments by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt that the public would accept a special tax to pay for the NHS, the spokesman said: "When it comes to matter of tax, they are discussed at fiscal events. We don't talk about them in advance. The Health Secretary was saying there's been a lot of speculation on this issue, but I don't discuss tax outside of fiscal events. We're providing more money to support the NHS and the five-year plan which it brought forward and put an extra £9bn into the NHS and social care budgets at the spring and autumn Budgets last year. We've always said that we keep spending on public services under constant review and continue to look at what further funding is necessary to support the NHS."
AUSTRALIAN CRICKET
On the Australia cricket team admitting ball-tampering during a Test match, the spokesman said: "The Prime Minister is clear that cheating has absolutely no place in cricket or indeed in any sport. The Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has said that cricket fans will be shocked and bitterly disappointed by the news and the Prime Minister agrees with that."
