Points of Order

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your guidance on a potential issue of contempt. Last Friday, the Clerk of the Home Affairs Committee was contacted by the Press Association to inform him that it was in possession of a recording of a private session of the Committee in which one of our reports was discussed. On Tuesday, we held a public session before going into private session and the live feed remained on, due to a technical problem in Committee Room 5. To its credit, the Press Association agreed not to publish or broadcast the Committee’s deliberations, but instead reported the fact that the feed had remained open. When such a matter occurs, is a news organisation able to broadcast a private session of a Committee, or is that regarded as a contempt? We assumed that it was a contempt, but, as I said, the PA did not broadcast what we said. It would be good to receive clarification on that matter and to hear whether there might be an investigation into the technical matters in Committee Room 5 to ensure that it does not happen again.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for giving me advance notice of it. I understand from the advance notification and from what he has just said that there was a technical problem with the recording of his Committee’s meeting last week. There is not really a procedural solution that I can offer him or the House, but I am advised that all necessary steps are being taken to avoid a recurrence. If no harm was done, I am sure that the Committee and its illustrious Chairman will be relieved. In essence, he asked me a hypothetical question—whether it would have been a contempt, and so on and so forth. I think that he is capable of working out such matters for himself. On this occasion, I hope that he will understand it if I adopt the approach of the late Lord Whitelaw, which was that on the whole, judging from experience, he preferred to cross a bridge only when he came to it.