Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary) Debate
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Julian Brazier
Main Page: Julian Brazier (Conservative - Canterbury)Department Debates - View all Julian Brazier's debates with the Cabinet Office
Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)
Julian Brazier Excerpts(12 years, 8 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 Prime Minister
Let me answer all those questions. First of all, it is up to Lord Justice Leveson whom he calls to his inquiry. He has full access; he can call any civil servant, any politician—anyone he wants. That is the first point. The second point is this: in this House, our Select Committee, excellently chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), is able to call, whenever it likes, whatever civil servants it likes and to ask those questions. On the issue about the way the Department ran the quasi-judicial process, yes that is why the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, has written to all Departments to make sure that rigorous processes are followed in all quasi-judicial cases.
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that a company that automatically sacked the director because one of his subordinates had got something wrong would never achieve anything worth while?
The Prime Minister
I have to say, on the argument made by the Labour party, that if its Ministers had resigned every time one of their special advisers had got something wrong, we would have had a new Government virtually every week.