Wilson Doctrine

Debate between Chris Bryant and Lady Hermon

Monday 19th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)]

Will the shadow Leader of the House clarify whether he includes in that list Members of the House who do not take their seats—the absentee Sinn Fein MPs from Northern Ireland? Does he expect the new legislative exemption to apply to them?

[Chris Bryant]

There is a legitimate debate to be had about how that should operate. I am not arguing that any MP should be above the law or that there should be a blanket ban on any interception ever of the communications of Members of Parliament. I am arguing that in a new era we need a rational approach that involves judicial oversight, rather than political oversight, of warrants to make sure that the country is defended, but with the rights of constituents who approach a Member of Parliament protected, too. It is perfectly easy to draw that distinction. If a Member of Parliament is engaged in criminality, they should face the full force of the law—they should not be able to evade it. I hope that that clarifies the matter for the hon. Lady.

I believe that parliamentarians had a legitimate expectation that the doctrine provided an absolute guarantee. It has been stated and restated, and iterated and reiterated in this House without qualification. I note that the Government’s lawyer argued at the tribunal that the original statement of the doctrine was ambiguous because it was

“a political statement in a political context”.

I do not suppose that all of us think a political statement is of necessity ambiguous, but I am not sure how much less ambiguous a statement Harold Wilson could have made. He expressly stated that he had considered the issue; he admitted that there were opposing views; he referred to a previous report from Privy Counsellors that had recommended a different course of action; and he said that he had changed the policy and that if he were to change it again, he would tell the House. He left himself remarkably little wriggle room, and each succeeding Prime Minister relied on exactly the same formulation.

There will be those who think that the Government should be able to intercept MPs’ communications at will, saying that if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear. However. I urge Conservative Members who think like that to consider two different courses of action that this country has taken in the past. In the first world war, the rule was that MPs’ correspondence could not be intercepted, even from the front. Thanks to that rule, the uncensored letters of Major Harold Cawley MP from Gallipoli to his father, who was a Member of the House of Lords, led to the Dardanelles commission that enabled the world to know the truth, which in turn led to many thousands of lives being saved. Without that provision, there would have been no means of our knowing the truth of what happened in Gallipoli.

By contrast, in the late 1930s, the Chamberlain Government tapped the phones of many of the Conservative MPs who were campaigning for an end to Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement, including Churchill and Eden’s friends and allies. Three of them died in the second world war and have their shields up on the wall. Fortunately, they were brave souls and refused to be intimidated by such practices in the 1930s.

The truth is that the security of this country has always been better served when the power of the Executive, especially the secret power of the Executive, is curbed and kept under check by Parliament. That requires openness and transparency from the Government. I am therefore asking the Home Secretary to do two simple things: first, to come back to the House with a proposal for putting a new doctrine with independent judicial approval into law; and secondly, to reveal whether, when and how often parliamentarians’ communications have been targeted and intercepted under warrant.