Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Lord Watson of Wyre Forest Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. We have to keep the victims of the hacking scandal at the absolute heart of this. Those are the people who have suffered appallingly already and were made to suffer all over again. The key thing here is the extent and scale of the judicial inquiry. An inquiry such as this— into the media, into malpractice, into the police and, yes, into politicians too—has not been held for many, many years. It has been talked about and debated, but it is now going to get under way and I want it to get on with its work as rapidly as possible.

[Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)]

I must challenge the Prime Minister on the accuracy of one of his assertions. He said that nobody raised Andy Coulson’s conduct with him while he worked for the Prime Minister. I did, in a letter on 4 October last year, after new allegations that he had listened to tapes of intercepted voicemail messages came through. I said in the letter that this cast doubt on the accuracy of Mr Coulson’s statement. I am still waiting for a reply.

[The Prime Minister]

Let me pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, to what he has done and his role in this. The point I am making is simply this: the time that Andy Coulson spent at No. 10 Downing Street and the work that he did for the Government, no one has made a complaint against. That seems to me to be important, because I have said that I gave him a second chance after he had resigned from the News of the World because of what happened under his watch. No one has raised with me any of his conduct at No. 10 while he carried out that job.