Business of the House

Denis MacShane Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

There will be a debate on the police grant next Wednesday. The hon. Gentleman will know that it is not the Government but the police authority that purchases police cars in his constituency. He will have an opportunity to raise the issue on Wednesday and I shall ensure that the Minister replying to the debate knows that the matter will be raised by the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I do not know whether you, Mr Speaker, or the Leader of the House have read the article in today’s The Guardian by Professor Roy Greenslade on the continuing refusal of the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, to give the names of the 15,000 victims of data mining and illegal data trawling carried out for newspapers by Mr Steve Whittamore. I raised this absolutely astonishing question last week. May we have a debate on it? Perhaps you are among those people, Mr Speaker, because in those days the media were always ganging up on you. We need a debate on the Information Commissioner’s denial to the British people. He has given those names to the media and the police, but not to the victims. It is outrageous.

[Sir George Young]

I have to repeat what I told the right hon. Gentleman last week: it would be quite wrong for the Government to overrule the Information Commissioner. There is a process of appeal if the right hon. Gentleman is dissatisfied with the commissioner’s decision, and that is the line he should follow rather than asking me about it week after week.