Security of Ministers’ Offices and Communications

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for his pointed and important question, and I hope that during the course of the investigation led by the Department that some of these answers will come through so that we can scrutinise them ourselves.

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab) [V]]

The Minister has astonished us all by saying that this was not a covert device, yet we have just heard from a former Health Minister that he did not know about it. The Minister is somehow asking us to believe that the now departed Secretary of State somehow knew about it, but clearly if he did he would not have behaved in the way he did right in front of it, so I think that she is stretching credibility. When I was a Minister, we were not allowed to use our own inboxes or our own private emails for Government business. We were told very, very bluntly at the beginning of our ministerial career that this would not be allowed. Why on earth is it different now?

[Julia Lopez]

I appreciate the hon. Lady’s question, but I am not asking her to believe anything. I am asking her to have patience while the Department conducts its own investigation into exactly what happened. On the use of emails, there are clear guidelines to which Ministers should adhere, but we have to accept that there was a situation in which we all had to move online, and we all have to account for the way in which we handled ourselves in that period.