Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications)

Cheryl Gillan Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Grieve]

No, I will make a bit of progress.

What I have attempted to do, distilling the information that has been made available, is to identify people where I think the information may be available. I repeat what I said: I make no imputation whatsoever against individuals. We could have tried to be much broader, but had we been much broader, it might have looked a bit like a fishing expedition throughout Government. It seems only right to ask the questions where we have been directed —by the information that I and others have received—that the answers may be found, hence the list of individuals I have named. I say again that there is not a single imputation against any of them. What is necessary is to establish the information that they possess.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving way; we have been friends for his entire time in this House. Having been a Minister himself, is he not worried about the collateral damage that this Humble Address is creating? It is important that civil servants have space—a safe space—to speak truth to power, and I think that by his actions today, he is damaging the civil service’s ability to communicate and discuss matters freely with Ministers. Does he not see the damage that he is doing?

[Mr Grieve]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s point. That was a matter that exercised me very much before I decided to table this motion, but against that, we have to face up to another fact: those necessary protections for civil servants cannot and must not be used as a device to hoodwink this House and the public as to the way the Government conduct their business. The Government have a duty. They can sometimes have a duty not to say something, but they certainly do not have a right to mislead, and this is such a fundamental matter that I think we are right to pursue the issue. Of course, if it turns out that the information I was given was mistaken, well, in those circumstances, I shall be the happiest person of the lot, but I have to say that I think it is sufficiently serious in its nature and content that I would be failing in my duty as a Member of Parliament if we were not to seek to ascertain whether it was correct.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Grieve]

No, I want to finish.

For all those reasons, I believe that, while I am the first to recognise that any attempt at a motion of this kind will have a degree of bluntness that is unavoidable—

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way, on a serious point?

[Mr Grieve]

I give way to my right hon. Friend, whose points will always be serious.

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

I am very worried, because I have been looking at the special advisers code of conduct, and it says:

“Special advisers should not disclose official information which has been communicated in confidence in government or received in confidence from others.”

Does my right hon. and learned Friend not realise that his motion today sets all special advisers in conflict with the code that they have signed up to?

[Mr Grieve]

Not at all! Absolutely not at all! They are entitled, correctly, to say, “I have been asked by the House of Commons in a motion under a Humble Address to Her Majesty the Queen to provide that information”, and they should do so, if I may say so, with a public spirit and, indeed, a degree of pride—that is what I would do—because that request has been made of them.

Mr Speaker, I do not want to detain the House any further. As I said, I am the first to accept that this is a difficult matter, and I am the first to accept that finding a uniquely perfectly tailored instrument to meet the gravity of the situation that has arisen will always be difficult and might be open to some reasonable criticism. However, for all those things, I think the nature of what has happened, the immediacy of the crisis and the fact that we are proroguing require this motion, and I commend it to the House.