Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications Debate
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Alec Shelbrooke
Main Page: Alec Shelbrooke (Conservative - Wetherby and Easingwold)Department Debates - View all Alec Shelbrooke's debates with the Cabinet Office
Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications
Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts(3 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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Julia Lopez
I wish to assure the hon. Member that we maintain the Wilson doctrine and that we wish to ensure that there is no covert surveillance within a Minister’s office. That is extremely important. Some of the questions that people have rightly raised with me this afternoon will want to be answered through the investigation that is under way in the Department of Health, and I am sorry that I cannot provide greater detail on that at the moment.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be aware, as everyone in this House is, how livid Mr Speaker and many people here were at the leaking of the second lockdown and how Mr Speaker asked for a full investigation into the incident. What has emerged over the weekend has blown all that up. The leaking could have involved a whole number of people who were never even considered as part of that investigation, which, as Mr Speaker has informed us on Privy Council terms, is still ongoing. Will my hon. Friend the Minister liaise with her Department and with the Cabinet Secretary to ensure that any information of who had access to that video footage and covert surveillance of that office is fed into the investigation that Mr Speaker has asked for to find out how things were being leaked to the press before this House knew about them?
Julia Lopez
I thank my right hon. Friend for those very important questions to which we all want answers. I hope that they will be answered as part of this investigation.