Phone Hacking
John Hemming Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
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.
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.
Injunctions
John Hemming Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
The Attorney-General
Scotland enjoys and has always enjoyed a separate legal system. It follows that orders made by the courts of England and Wales, generally speaking, do not have application there, although there are at times some exceptions.
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)
With about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs on Twitter, it is obviously impracticable to imprison them all, and with reports that Giles Coren also faces imprisonment—
Mr Speaker
Order. Let me just say to the hon. Gentleman—although I know that he has already done it—that occasions such as this are for raising the issues of principle involved, not for seeking to flout orders for whatever purpose. If the hon. Gentleman wants to finish his question in an orderly way, he may do so.
John Hemming
The question is, what is the Government’s view on the enforceability of a law that clearly does not have public consent?
The Attorney-General
It is our duty as parliamentarians to uphold the rule of law.