Phone Hacking

John Hemming Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

If Ofcom’s role is entirely independent of Government, I do not think I am the person who should provide it with my opinion on the matter, or the notion of independence is going to be rather lost.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

rose—

[The Attorney-General]

I really wish to bring my remarks to an end.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Attorney-General]

I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is very well advised and will note the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. In order to be equal in my approach, I now give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming).

[John Hemming]

In the interests of preventing this from happening again, I should like to know whether the Attorney-General shares my concern that the editors code contains no demand for people to know the basis on which information that has been bought has been obtained or to ensure that it has not been obtained through criminal acts.

[The Attorney-General]

The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point that can no doubt be looked at by editors and by the Press Complaints Commission.

I wish to conclude simply by saying that these allegations are very grave. In my role as Attorney-General, I have the rather curious title of “guardian of the public interest”, and I have absolutely no doubt that the public interest will be served only if these matters are fully inquired into and if those who have committed or are alleged to have committed criminal offences and are seen to have a prima facie case against them are brought to justice. That will require some forbearance on the part of the House in its desire to see a conclusion to this matter and I ask the House to bear that in mind. With that, I simply reiterate my thanks to the hon. Member for Rhondda for the manner in which he presented the debate.