Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Alun Michael Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point I am trying to make is this. I had no responsibility for the BSkyB takeover. I specifically asked to be taken out of any of the decision making and any of the information because I did not want to put myself in any sort of compromising position. I was very clear about that. So much so that I did not even know when many of the key announcements were being made. That is why Rebekah Brooks was quite able to say, at the House of Commons yesterday, that there was not a single conversation that could not have taken place in front of the Select Committee. I know that many people were hoping for some great allegation yesterday that could add to their fevered conspiracy theories. I am just disappointed for them that they did not get one.

[Alun Michael (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

As Police Minister, my experience of briefings from the police was that they did not give one any operational information, but they did tell one things that one needed to know. Senior police officers in the Metropolitan police would understand that perfectly. That is exactly what they were offering the Prime Minister. As a Minister, I would have been livid if officials had been keeping information from me. Did the Prime Minister want to be kept in the dark or is he angry with his chief of staff?

[The Prime Minister]

I set this out in great detail in the statement. Of course I have very regular meetings with senior leaders in the Metropolitan Police Service and am briefed particularly about terrorist operations for which the Prime Minister and Cobra have a particular responsibility. But the key issue about my chief of staff’s e-mail is that since reading it, Paul Stephenson, John Yates, the Cabinet Secretary and the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee have all said that that was the right judgment. Yates specifically says that the offer was quite rightly rejected.