Legal Advice: Prorogation

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Wednesday 25th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

In advocacy terms, that is what we used to call a “When did you stop beating your wife?” question. I do not accept the premise of the question. There is no question that the Supreme Court found in any way that any advice that had been given was consciously or knowingly misleading.

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that there is a judgment that is superior to that of any court’s? That is the judgment of the British people. It has once been given on the question of whether this country should remain a member of the European Union, but it has twice been prevented from being expressed in a vote of this House. Is it not now time that we allow them to give their judgment on this Parliament?

[The Attorney General]

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. The time has come. The fact is that this Parliament has no further point. There is no possibility of our governing while this Parliament continues to block everything we do.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2017 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I have been lobbied on this matter on a number of occasions. As the Member of Parliament who represents Alton Towers, I have, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman can imagine, been lobbied on it on a number of occasions. It is, of course, a matter for the Treasury, but we continue to have conversations.

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend welcome the appointment of Alex Mahon as the new chief executive of Channel 4, who I hope will bring a fresh approach? Will she confirm that it remains the Government’s view that the distinctiveness of Channel 4 will be enhanced by its being relocated outside London?

[Karen Bradley]

Yes I do and yes I can.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Thursday 16th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I join the hon. Gentleman in praising Blaenau Gwent. I also praise not only all the parts of Wales that are used as filming locations for some fantastic films and television programmes, but the studios in Cardiff where many great programmes, including “Doctor Who”, are filmed. I am aware of the views about Creative Europe, and we are looking at all the European funds and making decisions about the appropriate response from the United Kingdom to those funds after we leave the European Union.

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s recognition of the importance to the creative industries of their ability to license on an exclusively territorial basis. Will she ensure that that message gets across to the UK permanent representation in Brussels so that it argues that case as strongly as possible while we remain in the EU?

[Karen Bradley]

I can say categorically yes. My right hon. Friend’s point is one reason why people were concerned about our membership of the EU and one of the things that led to the vote on 23 June last year.

Phone Hacking

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

It is a matter that I am very happy to go away and check, but I think the hon. Gentleman might be mistaken. I think that in fact Ofcom could intervene at any stage if it were to conclude that somebody was not a fit and proper person to hold a broadcasting licence. As these matters can be complex and I would not wish in any way to mislead the House, I would be happy to go away and check that point and to write to the hon. Gentleman about it.

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

I can confirm that I spoke to the chief executive of Ofcom yesterday, who told me that Ofcom has the power to intervene at any stage if it determines that somebody is no longer a fit and proper person to own a media organisation.

[The Attorney-General]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and that confirms what I already thought. Of course, that will not prevent me from going away and triple-checking the matter before I write to the hon. Member for Rhondda about it.

I am conscious that I ought to make progress and I want to allow time for debate. Because of my rather limited ability to comment on many of the allegations made, I was going to remind the House of some of the history of this matter. The House will be aware that these problems originated in November 2005 when the Metropolitan police were contacted by the royal household with concerns that voicemails relating to members of the royal family had been intercepted—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

I rise to speak in the debate with considerable sadness. I am a passionate believer in the freedom of the press, but like other freedoms, that freedom must be exercised within the rule of law. Many of us here were appalled when we discovered, in the course of the expenses scandal, what a small number of Members of the House had done. They were rightly prosecuted and several have now gone to prison, but that scandal tainted all of us. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) referred to the fact that journalists throughout the country are equally appalled at the revelations that have come out about the activities of some members of their profession, and they too feel that they have been tainted by them.

The latest revelations mark a low point in the saga of phone hacking, but I fear they do not mark the end point. There are likely to be further revelations still to come. The matter was first looked at by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in early 2007, following the conviction of Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire. At that time I asked the chairman of News International, Les Hinton:

“You carried out a full, rigorous internal inquiry, and you are absolutely convinced that Clive Goodman was the only person who knew what was going on?”

Mr Hinton replied:

“Yes, we have and believe he was the only person, but that investigation, under the new editor, continues.”

The Committee produced a report which stated:

“We note the assurances of the Chairman of News International that Mr Goodman was acting wholly without authorisation and that Mr Coulson had no knowledge of what was going on.”

In July 2009 The Guardian reported that News International had paid Gordon Taylor and two others more than £1 million because their phones had been hacked, which led the Committee to believe that we might have been misled. We therefore decided to reopen our inquiry. Early in those inquiries The Guardian produced two pieces of evidence: one was the so-called “for Neville” e-mail, which contained the transcripts of 35 voicemail messages between Gordon Taylor and his legal adviser; the other was a contract between Glenn Mulcaire, under a false name, and Greg Miskiw, a senior executive at the News of the World. We felt strongly that both pieces of evidence suggested that Clive Goodman was not the rogue reporter that we had been told about.

The Committee took evidence from Tom Crone, the legal manager of News Group Newspapers, Colin Myler, the editor of the News of the World, Stuart Kuttner, the newspaper’s managing editor, and Andy Coulson, its former editor. We asked whether Rebekah Brooks would appear before us, but she said she had had no involvement with the News of the World when the phone hacking was taking place, which was the case, as she was editor of The Sun at the time. We asked Neville Thurlbeck to appear but were told that doing so would reveal what he looked like, and so compromise his position as an investigative reporter. We asked that Ross Hindley, the junior reporter who had transcribed the voicemail intercepts, should appear, but were told that he could not come because he was in Peru. We were told that there had been a thorough investigation by outside solicitors and that no evidence had been unearthed to suggest that phone hacking had been any more widespread.

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one important issue that a public inquiry will have to navigate is the fact that no one so far has been cross-examined in either a criminal or a civil court, as settlements have been reached in all the civil cases? Indeed, in the Gordon Taylor case the court ordered the files to be sealed, and Sienna Miller is the latest victim of phone hacking to settle. As a result, we have not yet got to the bottom of this.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman—indeed, I can call him my hon. Friend, as a fellow member of the Select Committee. I think that an inquiry should be able to investigate any documents that are relevant to this matter.

During the Committee’s inquiry I again spoke with Mr Crone, the legal manager, and asked:

“As far as you know, no information regarding those other individuals ever reached the News of the World?”

He replied:

“I have seen no evidence of that.”

Mr Coulson said in evidence that during his editorship he

“never condoned the use of ’phone hacking and nor do I have any recollection of incidences where ’phone hacking took place. My instructions to the staff were clear: we did not use subterfuge of any kind unless there was a clear public interest in doing so; they were to work within the PCC Code at all times.”

The Committee stated in its report:

“Evidence we have seen makes it inconceivable that no-one else at the News of the World, bar Clive Goodman, knew about the phone-hacking…The newspaper’s enquiries were far from ‘full’ or ‘rigorous’, as we—and the PCC—had been assured. Throughout our inquiry, too, we have been struck by the collective amnesia afflicting witnesses from the News of the World.”

Since that time there have been a stream of revelations, and it has become increasingly clear that phone hacking was widespread and involved a large number of people. Most of that evidence, certainly in the early stages, came from the material seized by the police from Glenn Mulcaire, which they were required to divulge only when the civil cases came to court and they were asked to do so by the solicitors acting on behalf of the people bringing civil cases. The key point is that almost every piece of evidence we are now learning about has been in the possession of the police since 2006. That raises very serious questions about why it was not pursued, and why we were told repeatedly that the evidence did not exist, and why the police assured us that there was no evidence to suggest that the investigation should go any further.

All phone hacking is wrong and illegal, but there is no question but that the revelations that the phone of Milly Dowler was hacked, if that was the case, represent a new low, as do the subsequent revelations about the victims of the 7 July bombings and their families, and other murdered children. The truth of these matters is still not wholly clear and there is an ongoing police investigation, which nothing must be allowed to impede. We need to know whether the allegations are true—and if they are, who commissioned those phone hacks and who else knew about it.

There is a swirl of rumour about who might or might not have had their phones hacked, and there are also rumours about other newspapers. I must say that I suspect that, just as Clive Goodman was not a rogue reporter, so the News of the World was not a rogue newspaper. We need to get to the full facts. There needs to be a full inquiry, and the police, the Press Complaints Commission and the press as a whole need to be held to account.

Injunctions

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Monday 23rd May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Attorney-General if he will make a statement on the granting and enforcement of privacy injunctions, particularly in light of the recent report chaired by the Master of the Rolls.

[The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to respond to my hon. Friend on an issue that I know is of considerable concern in this House as well as to the public and the media. The Government believe that freedom of speech is a cornerstone of our democracy, and that it is of the greatest importance that people should be able to discuss and debate issues as freely and openly as possible. This includes those occasions when freedom of speech is exercised provocatively, as it is supposed to be in a free country.

Plainly, however, there are also occasions when an individual is entitled to have their privacy protected. There is a balance to be struck and this is reflected in our existing legal framework. The Government recognise the importance of finding the correct balance between individual rights to privacy on the one hand and rights to freedom of expression and transparency of official information on the other. We also recognise that there are widely differing views on what that balance should be. It is in no one’s interest to rush to judgment on this.

The complexity of the issue and the lack of consensus are some of the reasons why the report of the Master of the Rolls’ committee on the procedural aspects of super-injunctions and anonymity injunctions published last Friday is to be welcomed, and why we will want to take on board its carefully thought through recommendations. It reaffirms that open justice is a fundamental constitutional principle, and that exceptions are permissible only to the extent that they are strictly necessary in the interests of justice. While such decisions will necessarily be made in each particular case, dependent on the facts of that case, it does offer a likelihood of some greater clarity.

The report indicates that when some degree of secrecy is necessary, the facts of the case and the reason for secrecy should be explained, as far as possible, in an openly available judgment. It also emphasises that super-injunctions—where the fact that there is an injunction, as well as the substantive issues, has to be kept secret—are now only being granted for very short periods where secrecy is necessary to ensure that the whole point of the order is not destroyed. We hope that its analysis and recommendations should help to allay concerns that super-injunctions were being granted far too readily and about their potential open-endedness.

Of course, a range of wider issues has been raised by the events of the past few months and especially the past weekend. We take seriously the need to ensure that we have the correct balance between privacy and freedom of expression. Today, the Prime Minister will write to my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) recommending that a Joint Committee be established to consider how current arrangements can be improved. Such a Committee will be able to use representation of both Houses and the considerable expertise that Select Committees have to examine whether the current arrangements are working and to consider whether we might make any changes that would make things work better.

In the meantime, it is right to emphasise that just as any change in the law is a matter for Parliament, the interpretation of the law is a responsibility placed on the judiciary. Legal mechanisms exist to review individual decisions that may be mistaken. If we believe in the rule of law, it is our duty as parliamentarians to uphold those principles.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I welcome the report from the committee of the Master of the Rolls, which contains a number of sensible recommendations, and also the Prime Minister’s decision to establish a Committee to examine all the issues surrounding the granting of injunctions and super-injunctions. Does my right hon. and learned Friend accept, however, that matters are developing very rapidly? Does he accept that the revelation on Friday of some of the details of the injunction granted to Sir Fred Goodwin raised important issues of public interest, and that that raises the question of why the injunction was granted in the first place? Does he agree that he would virtually have to live in an igloo not to know the identity of at least one premier league footballer who has obtained an injunction, and that the actions by thousands of people who posted details of it on Twitter are in danger of making the law look an ass?

In the report by the Master of the Rolls, doubt is cast once again on the right of the press to report the proceedings of Parliament. Does that not have worrying implications for the rights of Members of the House of Commons, and for parliamentary privilege?

More than a year ago, the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport called for the Parliamentary Papers Act 1840 to be replaced by a clear and comprehensive statute upholding the fundamental rights of the press to report what is said in this place. Will he ensure that that, too, is considered by the Prime Minister’s Committee as a matter of urgency?

[The Attorney-General]

Let me respond to my hon. Friend’s reference to individual cases by saying that he will not be surprised if I am not drawn into commenting on the matter. What I can say is that widespread public interest and, indeed, disquiet have been expressed about the events of the past few weeks and days, and that—as the report by the Master of the Rolls clearly showed—they raise the question of how a person’s privacy can be balanced against the requirement for the public to be properly informed, and also the question of how injunctions may be enforced. I would add, however, that the courts have power to punish those who breach injunctions, and those who decide flagrantly to do so should bear that in mind when they embark on such a course.

The question of parliamentary privilege is not a new issue. While it is fully recognised that we have complete privilege in this Chamber to say what we like—and the Lord Chief Justice reiterated that in the clearest and most unequivocal terms in his comments last Friday— the question of the extent to which communication between a constituent and a Member of Parliament is covered by parliamentary privilege remains uncertain. What is entirely clear is that—from the judiciary’s point of view as much as those of the Government and Parliament—that is an undesirable state of affairs, which is undoubtedly susceptible to both clarification and rectification if the will is there for that to be done.