Privilege

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, too, pay warm tribute to the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), because this task has been particularly difficult, not least because it has followed on from previous inquiries, not only while he has been Chairman, but carried out when my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) chaired the Committee.

This is a debate about privilege, and I always think that the word “privilege” is an unfortunate one to use in relation to Parliament, as I am sure would most voters. The truth is that we have not yet seen all the evidence. It is important to note that, precisely for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman has adduced that nobody has wanted to trample on the toes of a criminal investigation, we are so far—this is true of Leveson as well—seeing only the tip of a very large iceberg. The issues that have been presented to us in the report refer to just three people, but more than 40 have been arrested and there may be further arrests yet.

When the whole story has come out, as I hope it will eventually, I think this instance will prove to have been one of the most flagrant examples of contempt of Parliament in Parliament’s history. It was not just one person at one time or one organisation for a brief period of time; a series of people systematically and repeatedly lied so as to protect themselves, to protect their commercial interests and to try to make sure that they did not end up going to prison. They did that knowing fully that they were telling lies to Parliament, and I believe that that is a fundamental contempt. If we look through the history of Parliament, it is difficult to find a moment when there was such a concatenation of deliberate abuses—contempt of Parliament. That is why we need to take this moment very seriously.

There was covert surveillance of Members of Parliament, deliberately to intimidate them in going about their duties. That applied particularly to members of the Committee. As we know, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) had his phone hacked, as quite possibly did some four score others. Indeed, News International managed to turn the Metropolitan police into a partially owned subsidiary, whereby members of staff from one organisation were going to work for another and then coming back. [Interruption.] I note that some of my hon. Friends suggest that the subsidiary was not partially owned.

The important thing for us to decide is what we do about this. I think that everybody is agreed that something egregious and terrible has happened. The question is what we do now. The Government have published a White Paper on parliamentary privilege, and it seemed to me that the Leader of the House was trying to suggest to the Committee on Standards and Privileges that it should be very wary of using penal powers or recommending that penal powers should be used. The Scottish Parliament, however, has precise powers under section 25—I think—of the Scotland Act 1998: where people refuse to give evidence to a Committee of the Parliament or to the Parliament or where they lie to Parliament, they are liable to imprisonment for up to three months. That provision is not written into statute for us, but we should certainly consider it.

Perjury before a court attracts a maximum sentence of up to seven years’ imprisonment, and even perjury by making a false declaration in a statutory declaration is liable to a sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment. The factors considered when sentencing would be whether the lie was said just once, whether it was inadvertent or deliberate, the impact that the lie caused, whether there was more than one lie, and on how many occasions the lie was perpetuated.

[Kevin Brennan]

Further to my earlier intervention, does my hon. Friend remember the point of order I raised on this matter on 14 July 2011, when Mr Deputy Speaker confirmed that under the Parliamentary Witnesses Oaths Act 1871 and the Perjury Act 1911, Select Committees can require witnesses to give evidence under oath and make them subject to criminal charges of perjury if they are subsequently proved to have lied?

[Chris Bryant]

I do remember that point of order, which is why when my hon. Friend intervened on the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), I knew what he was going to ask her. It is a point that he rightly makes and has made repeatedly.

We are congratulating ourselves today on the Select Committee process bringing us to this point, but if the Select Committee process had worked better, we might have reached this point three years ago. The Select Committee might have been able to require Rebekah Brooks to give evidence in 2009 and it might have been taking evidence under oath from the very beginning. Then we would not have to decide what we should do about these people, as the courts would be doing so. If we were to apply all those elements of how to decide a sentence for perjury before a court to this case, I would have thought one of the lengthier sentences would be handed down. The same is true for contempt of court, which carries a sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but does he accept that Select Committees do have the power of summons, which was in fact used during part of the current inquiry?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, but Committees have quite often been rather tentative about using those powers. I remember discussing this with the hon. Lady in the Library, and she was uncertain whether that power existed—and I kept on telling her, “Yes, it does exist. It can be used. All we have to do is make sure that the Clerk of the House uses the proper processes.” It is important to remember that we have these powers and that they need to be used more effectively. For instance, it seems extraordinary that no member of the Murdoch family had ever given evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee until the day on which Mr Rupert Murdoch and Mr James Murdoch were summoned last summer. I am sure that that was not because Committees did not want to interview the most important significant player in the British media landscape in this country.

As well as using such powers more effectively, we need to decide for ourselves that we have these powers. I know that there are those who say that we are not a High Court of Parliament anymore; that we are not a court. They say that we are not able to provide a fair tribunal, as the Human Rights Act or, for that matter, the European convention on human rights, might determine. So would it be possible for the House of Commons to make a determination in relation to any individual, for instance requiring that individual to be arrested and brought to the House? Some people think that the very idea of bringing someone to the Bar of the House is anachronistic.

We must have some powers to be able to do our job properly. We must be able to summon witnesses, and if they do not want to come here—as happened with the Maxwell brothers, and seemed at one point to be going to happen with the Murdochs—we must be able to send the Serjeant at Arms to summon and, if necessary, arrest them and bring them to Parliament. We need to be able to arrest. Most Members will not have been here on the occasion when the Chamber was invaded, but the Serjeant at Arms has to be able to arrest. It is quite a simple power.

[Mr Whittingdale]

rose—

[Mr Buckland]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I have a multiplicity of offers.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman takes an intervention from the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), may I gently remind him that the narrow matter under consideration today is the question of whether to refer it to the Standards and Privileges Committee—to which subject I know that he is addressing himself?

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Indeed, Mr Speaker. It has been customary in all the debates that have taken place historically on such motions to try to provide a little bit of advice for the Select Committee that will be dealing with the matter, so that it knows how to deal with it.

I shall give way first to the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), and then to the hon. Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland).

[Mr Whittingdale]

I shall bear your warnings in mind, Mr Speaker, but the hon. Gentleman is raising matters that I think Parliament needs to consider. In particular, the Select Committee did decide to dispatch the Serjeant at Arms to serve a summons on Mr James Murdoch and Mr Rupert Murdoch after they had initially said that they were not willing to attend the Committee at the time when we had asked them to attend. I have to say, however, that we did so with some trepidation, because we genuinely had no idea what would happen if they maintained their refusal to come. That too is something that Parliament needs to think about.

[Chris Bryant]

I absolutely agree, but I also think that we should no longer live in an era of trepidation in this House. I think that we should step more boldly.

[Mr Buckland]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman about being bold in regard to contempt of Parliament and how the House enforces its rules, but does he not share my sense of trepidation about involving the prosecuting authorities in dealing with any alleged lies that have been told to us? Does that not present a danger that the courts will be brought in to determine issues that are properly the province of this House and no other?

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman has taken me into much wider subject matter, but he too is trepidating—if that is the verb from “trepidation”—and I do not want to trepidate. I want to step boldly.

I believe that the House, and the Select Committee itself, should consider, in terms, first whether or not the three individuals mentioned, and perhaps, corporately, News International, should be summoned to the Bar of the House. I believe that that must still be an important power available to the House. Secondly, I think that the House and the Committee should consider whether or not the individuals should be fined, not least because considerable expense has been incurred by Parliament and by the prosecuting authorities through the process of lying to Parliament. Thirdly, I think that it must be right for us to consider whether or not to imprison. If this had happened in the Scottish Parliament, it would have led to imprisonment. If it had been a contempt of court, it would have led to imprisonment. If it had been perjury in court, it would have led to imprisonment.

It has been said that some of these people are not in this country. What can we possibly do about it? The last person who was arrested and imprisoned by Parliament, in 1880, Charles Grissell, also fled the country. He went off to France, to Boulogne. The Speaker sent the Serjeant at Arms’s messenger to Boulogne, and when Charles Grissell came back to the country he was arrested and sent off to Newgate until the end of the parliamentary Session.

I simply think that we were hoodwinked. Indeed, for a long period politicians were so nervous and frightened of what the press would say about us that we effectively put the hoodwinks on ourselves. Now the temptation will be for the Committee to shy away from using any of its penal powers, and I think it a shame that that seemed to be the direction in which the Leader of the House was pushing it. I think that would be a profound mistake, because, surely to God, it is time we asserted the freedom of Parliament—in fact, the rights of Parliament. We must do so not for our own sakes—it is irrelevant for our own sakes—but simply because if Parliament is lied to, we cannot do our job on behalf of our constituents, and if Parliament is lied to and there is impunity thereafter, people will lie again, and then the democratic process unfolds.