Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary) Debate
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Barry Sheerman
Main Page: Barry Sheerman (Labour (Co-op) - Huddersfield)Department Debates - View all Barry Sheerman's debates with the Cabinet Office
Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)
Barry Sheerman Excerpts(12 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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The Prime Minister
That is exactly what the right hon. Gentleman said. Let me just remind him. He said:
“I think…it’s right that the Leveson Inquiry takes its course.”
That is what he said—just a week ago. The trouble is that he was bounced by the deputy leader of the Labour party, who thought that this issue would get a good headline, 23 minutes after the evidence had come out, and because he has no judgment he backed it.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Can I push the Prime Minister on something that really concerns me: the role of the special adviser? Any of us who knows about the role of the special adviser knows that they are not one of many officials, but people who work intimately and closely with their Minister. I do not believe for one moment that the Prime Minister does not know that that special adviser must have known everything that was going on, and have told his Minister on an hour-by-hour and a day-by-day basis.
The Prime Minister
All that information is going to be provided to the Leveson inquiry. My right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary has been very clear about the role he played and the role his special adviser played. The special adviser has been very clear about the role he played and the fact that he went way beyond anything that he was authorised to do, but the difference between the process we are about to go through and a normal Cabinet Secretary or independent adviser process, is that people are going to be answering questions under oath—questioned by a barrister, in a court. That is pretty powerful.