Media and Lobby Briefings

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

I cannot comment on whether there was a genuine misunderstanding or whether certain people chose to misunderstand the basis on which invitations had been issued.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, we are lucky in this House to have a Minister who has the trust of the House, but we are in a situation where trust and transparency are at grave peril for all manner of different reasons, and not just in this country. It behoves the Government at this time to act in as trustworthy and transparent a manner as possible. In the interests of transparency, can the Minister provide a list of those journalists who were invited? Can he tell us whether they were indeed technical and specialist journalists? I would have thought that, if one is doing a technical and specialist briefing, it is more important to get the generalists inside the circle to understand these complex matters. Does he have a list, or did No. 10 compile a list, of people who were not invited and for what reason?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I do not have a list of who was invited. I was merely given the bald statistics on numbers. If I can illuminate the noble Baroness on that matter, I will be happy to write to her.