Number 10 Lobby briefing on North Korea, public sector pay cap and Brexit
3 min read
Here is a summary of this morning's briefing to Lobby journalists by a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister.
NORTH KOREA
On the Prime Minister's response to the latest North Korean missile test, the spokeswoman said: "Our focus is on working with partners to increase pressure on North Korea and find a diplomatic solution to the crisis."
Asked whether the UK will be pushing for more sanctions against the regime at the next meeting of the United Nations security council, she said: "There are other areas that could be considered for sanction. I won't pre-empt the discussions that they'll have, the Prime Minister has said we want to increase the pace of implementation of existing sanctions and look at other measures. There are lots of additional restrictions we could look at on a range of imports; things like restrictions on North Korean workers overseas and so on, we expect all that to be discussed. We've condemned the test in the strongest possible terms, we're calling for tougher action and to have North Korea stop this dangerous and destabilising activity."
The spokeswoman added: "China has leverage over North Korea and we should be encouraging them to exercise that leverage to ensure North Korea stop their illegal acts."
PUBLIC SECTOR PAY
On reports that the Prime Minister is preparing to lift the cap on public sector pay rises, the spokeswoman said: "There's a process ongoing on public sector pay. The process is that the Treasury writes to the public sector pay bodies in the autumn to set out their remit, departments submit evidence and those bodies make their recommendations. That's when we confirm settlements for workforces. I'm not going to comment on speculation that might or might not happen at the end of that. The Prime Minister has said on a number of occasions that we know that many people in the public and private sector feel that they're just about managing and we recognise the sacrifice that they are making, but there's a process in place and I can't pre-empt that process."
BREXIT
The spokeswoman said the UK wanted to "intensify" the Brexit negotiations with the EU. She said: "Nothing has been formally agreed, but that is something that we can discuss. Typically in negotiations as time goes on you'll see the pace pick up, but certainly we wouldn't rule that out. Nothing's been agreed yet. The deadline is there and it's right. I don't recognise at all this idea that we would look to extend it. Britian voted to leave, we triggered Article 50 and we'll be leaving the European Union in 2019.
"We've said that we'd like to get on to talking about our future relationship. We'd like to do that now. As soon as we can we want to discuss both (withdrawal and future relationship) at the same time. There are further talks at the end of this month, at the end of which we'll discuss where we are."
