Phone Tapping

Debate between Baroness May of Maidenhead and Adrian Sanders

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can quote from that interview, where Assistant Commissioner Yates said:

“There’s a misunderstanding here which suggests just because your name features in a private investigator’s files, you have been hacked.”

He went on to explain that that was not the case.

The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) also raised the issue in relation to Mr Coulson. As my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) has made clear, when the Culture, Media and Sport Committee investigated the matter, it concluded:

“We have seen no evidence that”

the then editor

“Andy Coulson, knew.”

That was the decision taken by the Select Committee of the House.

As the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle said, he looked at the issue last year. He looked at what had happened and the way it had been handled, and he said that he was reassured.

[Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)]

As a member of the Select Committee, I recall that we had evidence that hundreds of people who are the victims in the matter appeared on lists. They would like to know whether information was illegally gathered from them, and the Metropolitan police will not tell them. Secondly, they would like to know what information was illegally gathered and with whom that information was shared. Surely the only way of getting to the bottom of this is a proper judicial inquiry so that people are compelled to give evidence and they give that evidence on oath.

[Mrs May]

I say to my hon. Friend that the matter has been investigated by the Metropolitan police, who did so in very close co-operation with the Crown Prosecution Service and with leading counsel. The matter has also been looked at by the Select Committee of the House. The findings of that Select Committee are clear. The findings of the Metropolitan police at the time that they investigated the matter and then looked again at it last July are also clear. Two individuals were prosecuted as a result of that investigation. The Metropolitan police have made it clear that if fresh evidence is there, they will look at that fresh evidence.