Iain Duncan Smith
Main Page: Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative - Chingford and Woodford Green)Department Debates - View all Iain Duncan Smith's debates with the Leader of the House
(5 days, 18 hours ago)
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Lucy Powell
My understanding is that we offered to brief the Chair of the Defence Committee, but I will stand corrected if that is not the case. I hear what the hon. Member says, and I think that across Government, Ministers, civil servants and everybody else must take their responsibilities to Select Committees incredibly seriously. Select Committees are a very important part of accountability to this House. I know that the Secretary of State for Defence—someone I speak to regularly—takes his responsibilities to the House incredibly seriously, and I am sure he will look forward to coming before the Committee to be questioned and scrutinised at length about the SDR and many other matters.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
May I say to the right hon. Lady, whom I have known for a little while, that normally when a Speaker upbraids the Leader of the House, the first response of the Leader of the House is to grovel and apologise? That is standard, because she has to take it for the party that she represents in government. I simply suggest that I am a little surprised that she did not make peace in that way with Mr Speaker.
Notwithstanding that, I say gently to the Leader of the House that it is not just a case of not having brought the review to the House. We know now that journalists were given scrutiny of it. When I was leader of the Conservative party, I remember that Tony Blair, as Prime Minister, offered me advance sight of documents that were a bit delicate or needed security clearance. The Leader of the Opposition was given the opportunity to look at such documents so that they were fully informed of developments. Was such an opportunity offered to the Leader of the Opposition or the leader of the Liberal party?
Mr Speaker
I am sure that that is a good point of clarification on the way forward.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I have just seen the headline in The Telegraph that dropped at just after 10 o’clock this morning which says, “I’ve read the Defence Review”. This journalist must have been fully briefed and handed a copy of it, long before anybody else. Surely that is an abuse.