Leveson Inquiry

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are countless examples in those e-mails of things that simply did not happen—of meetings that were alleged to have taken place not just with me, but with members of my Department, but that simply did not happen. It is very important that we hear all the evidence so that we can get to the bottom of what is truth and what is fiction.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Every councillor in the land knows what “quasi-judicial” means. They know that it means that if they are on the planning committee, they cannot tip the wink to anybody on one side or the other, and that they have to be cleaner than clean, whiter than white. The Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have both asserted for the last two years that they had no inappropriate conversations with that woman, Rebekah Brooks, and that every single one of their meetings has been published. May I just give this one final chance to the Prime Minister to come clean on all the meetings, because I think he might find things are going to get very difficult for him later on today?

[Mr Hunt]

Let me say this: the Prime Minister had no inappropriate conversations, because he was not responsible for this decision.