Public Confidence in the Media and Police Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Cabinet Office
Alan Johnson
Main Page: Alan Johnson (Labour - Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)Department Debates - View all Alan Johnson's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Prime Minister
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. I think when we read the exchange of e-mails and see what Edward Llewellyn said, we see that it was cleared in advance by Jeremy Heywood and it was absolutely right. We do not live in a country, thank God, where the Prime Minister starts ordering who should be arrested and who should not be.
Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
The Home Secretary made a statement on Monday of more than 1,000 words, but the two words “Neil” and “Wallis” were not mentioned. She, like me, was unaware of his appointment, but we were not in a situation where Neil Wallis’s best buddy was working for us. The Prime Minister was. Did he know that Neil Wallis was giving advice to the Metropolitan police?
The Prime Minister
No, I did not know that, and as I have said in relation to the work he did for Andy Coulson, I was unaware of that. I think this is an important point, because one of the issues is, frankly, the transparency and information that there was about Neil Wallis and the Metropolitan police. The one thing everyone has to say about No. 10 Downing street is that there was no hiding the fact that we had employed Andy Coulson.