Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, not least for attending the BIPA, which I know is valued on both sides of the Irish sea. I hope that we will have the opportunity for that debate. He might want to look to have it when we consider the Energy Bill. The Government attach considerable importance to this matter and have invested more than £17 million in testing and academic facilities for marine energy in the south-west, and are encouraging the region to become the first UK marine energy park. I am sure he will want to illustrate that contribution to our future energy requirements and security during our debate on the Energy Bill.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Last week, the quiet rituals of Friday afternoon in west Cardiff were shattered by a series of hit-and-run incidents that left a young mother dead, her three children motherless and many more injured and traumatised by the events. Will the Leader of the House find a slot where I can put on the record my thanks to the emergency services—the police, the fire service, the ambulance service and the NHS—whose swift and well-co-ordinated actions undoubtedly saved many lives?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that the House will join me in expressing our sincere condolences to the family and friends of the young lady who died and in extending our best wishes to those who were injured. We were all shocked by what happened. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to express appreciation for the emergency services. We in this House should do so every time we have the opportunity, because these terrible, shocking moments illustrate how much we depend on their prompt and effective action.

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

We do need to have the debate about GCSE marking that was requested. Why will not the Government and Ofqual listen to Mike Whiting, the Conservative cabinet member in Kent county council who said that regrading should take place? Do we not need an urgent debate in the House in Government time?

[Mr Lansley]

I will not repeat what I have said other than to say that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education is absolutely right to say that there was no political interference. Ofqual is an independent regulator, and we should respect its independence and its determination to maintain standards.

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I will raise the hon. Gentleman’s concern with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and ask him to write to the hon. Gentleman, rather than wait until we return after the recess.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

May I wish the Leader of the House a pleasant summer recess and ask that, when we return, we have a debate about privatisation? Recent events have convinced me that, sometimes, private concerns can do a more effective job than Government concerns, not least because more Conservative Back Benchers voted against the House of Lords Reform Bill’s Second Reading on Tuesday than voted in favour. May we have a debate about privatising the Government Whips Office—in the interests of public efficiency?

[Sir George Young]

I think the Government Whips Office is already privatised: it is run by people who have a commitment to enterprise, individuality, private sector growth and the rest. Rather than looking just at Back Benchers, it would be fairer if the hon. Gentleman looked at the votes of the Conservative party as a whole, where he would see that a majority voted for the Bill’s Second Reading.

Sittings of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

The hon. Gentleman says that it was Utopia, and indeed there were Members at that time who boasted about how infrequently they visited their constituencies. A few could recall the days when a brass band and the stationmaster greeted such an arrival.

I was determined to try to make a change. That is why, in 2001, I joined the Modernisation Committee chaired by Robin Cook which introduced the reforms that shape the parliamentary timetables of today. However, 10 years have passed since then. Everything has changed, and I believe that the House must change too.

Our constituents present us with a paradox. They despise us as a class, but individually and locally they value us. They are ever demanding—through e-mails, campaigns, packed surgeries, and constant invitations for us to support local events—and Parliament itself proceeds at a faster pace than ever under the glare of an all-pervasive media. As the Procedure Committee observed,

“This is an extraordinarily demanding role.”

The Committee found MPs working an average of 70 hours a week while the House was sitting, taking few holidays, and often remaining in touch even then and even when away with their families. For many Members, this life is very different from the one they led before entering the House.

Most telling was the Hansard Society survey that found that the effect of becoming an MP on personal and family life was universally negative. That is not a complaint. We are all volunteers and most of us fought very hard to get here, but the question is this: is that a reasonable state of affairs or could we improve how we work? Would it not make better sense, as the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) said, for the House to sit earlier in the mornings, functioning more like the other institutions of our national life? Might we not make better decisions if we started earlier and finished earlier? Constituents are always amazed that we begin to vote at 10 pm on two nights of the week.

Personally, I would be more radical than the options on the Order Paper, but I think that the 11.30 am start and 7 pm finish on a Tuesday is where the greatest consensus for change lies.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that talking about an 11.30 am start or, as a journalist did on Twitter this morning, a 2.30 pm start demeans the work of Members? I do not know of any Member who starts their working day at 11.30 am or 2.30 pm.

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

I have already said that we work 70 hours a week. Those were the findings of an independent committee and of the Procedure Committee survey, so we clearly are working all sorts of hours. I think my hon. Friend knows that I am talking about the formal sittings of the Chamber.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

I have looked at the figures. The coalition Government have been very bad about doing that, but the Labour Government were not. We were much more disciplined. I think that the hon. Gentleman should complain to those in charge, not to me.

In the survey of more than 500 MPs that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and I conducted over a year ago, the most frequent demands from Members were for more control over time, more predictable voting times and debates, and Friday to be recognised as a constituency day for everyone. A few recorded their difficulties in getting home on Thursdays, and I very much welcome the Procedure Committee’s motion to start and finish one hour earlier on Thursdays.

[Kevin Brennan]

On the matter of the moment of interruption on Mondays and Tuesdays, is it not the case that we are talking about 68 days in the year when Members are required to be here until 10 pm? The proposals being put forward would take away 34 days of the year when we might be required to be here on Mondays and Tuesdays—and we are not always required to be—because we meet for only 34 weeks of the year. Why is being here for 68 days until 10 pm—possibly—such a terrible thing?

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

I can only tell my hon. Friend that although this might not be something that people want to acknowledge in this public place, the vast majority of MPs say that they are perpetually tired, that they are stressed and that they find the late hours a particular problem. That is what people say when they are speaking in private. I acknowledge that having an earlier start and an earlier finish would make many of us feel better, think better and probably be healthier.

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important to drive up the standards of nursing, and I believe that there has been a move to make nursing more of a graduate profession. I cannot promise an early debate on this subject, but again it might be a suitable subject for a debate on the Adjournment or in Westminster Hall. We are committed to driving up the standard of nursing training, so that nurses can provide an even higher quality service to patients.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on endangered species, having read this week the very sad news of the death of Lonesome George, the last giant tortoise of his kind on the Galapagos islands? Does the Leader of the House see any parallel between the plight of Lonesome George and that of the endangered Chancellor, with his tendency to hide in his shell at the first sign of trouble?

[Sir George Young]

A moment ago, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was at my side. I am sure he will return—and he will certainly get support from me for his forthcoming statement. I should just say to the hon. Gentleman, however, that things are not going too well for his party. I see that Tony Blair took control of the Evening Standard yesterday, and when asked whether he wanted to become Prime Minister, he said, “Yes, sure.” I am not sure whether that is the vote of confidence in the current leadership that Labour was hoping for, or whether the reserves are lining up on the touchline.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Robertson]

I was heartily relieved that my hon. Friend identified the sport at the end of his question, before I had what is known as a Caborn moment. The simple answer to his question is that I am well aware of the ambitions of squash, and indeed of lacrosse, netball and a number of other worthy sports. [Interruption.] That list could go on for ever. The decision is for the IOC, but I will do everything I can to promote those British sports in which, as my hon. Friend correctly says, we would have a good chance of winning a medal.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The Minister is aware that rugby sevens will be a new sport in the 2016 Olympics. Given the tensions about Team GB in football, are he and the UK Government discussing with devolved Ministers how to get over the thorny issue of having a UK rugby sevens team?

[Hugh Robertson]

To be honest, football is a bit of a one-off in that respect; there is absolutely no problem with GB teams in the other 25 sports. Rugby is in the process of assembling the necessary GB structures to support a team, in just the same way as golf is. I hope nobody stands in front of the ability of UK athletes to compete in an Olympic games for political reasons.

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand the concerns of those who have lost a child in the tragic circumstances that my hon. Friend has described. I will certainly pursue with the Department of Health whether a certificate can be issued in such circumstances. I will ask the Secretary of State to respond to my hon. Friend as sympathetically as he can.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The Queen’s Dragoon Guards, the Welsh cavalry, are in Westminster today lobbying about the future of their regiment because of the concern that the Government will cut it. May we have a debate on the future of the Welsh regiments, with particular reference to the undermining of support for the Union that any further weakening of them would engender?

[Sir George Young]

I was at Defence questions on Monday, where the future of the regiments was raised. Speaking from memory, I believe that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that work was still under way on the appropriate configuration. There is a Westminster Hall debate on Armed Forces day next Tuesday, which may be an opportunity for the hon. Gentleman to raise the matter when a Defence Minister will be responding.

Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ian Lucas]

I am surprised that the hon. Lady, who is familiar with this matter, supports the fact that there was such huge contact between a special adviser appointed by the Secretary of State and the proponent of the bid. That was not appropriate and did not lead to the perception that the process was fair and impartial.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Is it not telling that the Secretary of State chose to involve a political appointment—a special adviser, who carries out a solely political function—in a quasi-judicial decision? I did a similar job in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which involved judging on competition policy. It is unthinkable that a political adviser would be called in unless there were political motives.

[Ian Lucas]

I, too, was a Minister in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and I have no recollection or knowledge of a special adviser behaving in that way. I suggest that the special adviser was appointed because the Secretary of State had an agenda to take forward the bid and ensure it went through. The right hon. Gentleman’s conduct after he was given the quasi-judicial role—when the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills had it taken away from him—was designed to present himself as acting fairly, but everyone knows that his agenda was to get the bid through. It is in his texts and actions. All has been revealed.

The Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport is not seen as independent and did not act impartially in the process. He will not be trusted in future to act impartially in any decisions he makes. He therefore should not be in office. He has no credibility. If he goes away from the Chamber and thinks about what has happened in the past hour, he will recognise that. If he has any dignity, when he looks at himself in his shaving mirror he will accept that he should not be in post.

As the Leader of the Opposition said today, it is not the Secretary of State who is on trial, but the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has undermined the independent adviser on ministerial interests by his conduct. We heard a classic example of that today. Purely for partisan political purposes, the Prime Minister wrote to Sir Alex Allan, and received a response the same day— [Interruption.] It was orchestrated—no doubt there was communication between the independent adviser’s office and the Prime Minister’s office.

The Prime Minister said from the Dispatch Box that the letter exonerated the Secretary of State, which is not true. The letter says that an investigation would take the matter no further so far as the facts were concerned, but that is not the job of the independent adviser. His job is to make a judgment based on the facts presented to him, which, the letter goes on to say, he is willing to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Whittingdale]

I am not in a position to know that but it is a question that the right hon. Gentleman can perfectly fairly put to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary. I want at the end of my speech to say what might happen next, if there are still some questions.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On that matter, would it be in order for the Secretary of State to intervene and clarify the issue that has just been raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham)?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is not a point of order. It is up to the Secretary of State to do that if he wishes and John Whittingdale has the floor.

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[Chris Bryant]

I am afraid that the issue is the way in which the back channel was organised through the Secretary of State’s special adviser, Adam Smith, of whom the right hon. Gentleman has said there has never been a closer working relationship between a Minister and a special adviser—and we are meant to believe that the information this person was providing to Sky was not material—and the process whereby all the e-mails that were provided made it absolutely clear what was in the Secretary of State’s mind and how he was trying to secure that outcome.

That brings me to the central charges: first, that the Secretary of State deliberately misled Parliament. He told Parliament in March 2011 that he had published

“all the documents relating to all the meetings—all the consultation documents, all the submissions we received, all the exchanges between my Department and News Corporation.”—[Official Report, 3 March 2011; Vol. 524, c. 526.]

That was a very, very emphatic statement, which clearly had not been verified, because then, on 7 September, he tried to backtrack a bit—or cover his tracks. In a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), the Secretary of State said:

“A search for correspondence from officials, press officers and special advisers to and from all the individuals listed would incur disproportionate cost to collect.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2011; Vol. 532, c. 616.]

He did not choose to correct the previous statement. He chose not to reveal that he had texted James Murdoch himself and had sent a memo to the Prime Minister. Far from exonerating the Secretary of State, the answer he provided on 7 September proves beyond doubt that he deliberately failed to tell the whole truth to this House. It was only the legal powers vested in Leveson that forced the truth out into the open.

[Kevin Brennan]

On that point, is it not a further requirement of the ministerial code that the Secretary of State should be as open as possible with Parliament? His conduct in this matter, and in the instance that my hon. Friend has mentioned, is clearly an example of his not being as open as possible with Parliament.

[Chris Bryant]

This House has regularly excoriated Ministers when they have resorted too swiftly to the argument that it is too expensive to provide the full information, but to be honest, I cannot see how it could have been too expensive to have found the memo that the Secretary of State wrote to the Prime Minister—or, for that matter, the text messages that the Secretary of State sent to the people concerned.

There are some other facts to be dealt with. The deliberate nature of the misinformation is also evidenced by the Secretary of State’s response, following his statement in April this year, to questions from two Back Benchers—both doubtless inspired directly by the Whips, as was the question posed earlier by the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns). When one Back Bencher—helped, I am sure—asked him how many conversations he had had, meaning how many with News International and News Corporation, the Secretary of State said, quite categorically and emphatically, “zero”. When another Back Bencher—a Conservative Member; this did not come out of the blue—asked whether the Secretary of State recognised the conversations attributed to him by Fred Michel, he said:

“I do not. Throughout the bid process, when I got responsibility for it, the contact that I had with Fred Michel was only at official meetings that were minuted with other people present. The fact is that there is a whole pile of e-mails—54 in total—in which he talks about having contact with me, but that simply did not happen.”—[Official Report, 25 April 2012; Vol. 961, c. 543.]

Neither response was unpremeditated; they were deliberately placed on the record. Both are deliberate obfuscations and lies.

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[Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin). I think that his last remarks should be heard by the Secretary of State, who, at the very least, must conclude that there was a gross dereliction of duty in his failure to supervise and properly manage his special adviser on an issue that was not a minor matter for his Department but an £8 billion takeover at the centre of the media dominating our country. It is inconceivable that the Secretary of State was able, as he claims, to allow his special adviser to operate in such a way without ever knowing what was going on. That alone should be cause for him to consider his position.

Secondly, let us deal with this idea, compounded by the Prime Minister today, that Sir Alex Allan’s letter in any way vindicates the Prime Minister’s decision not to send this matter to the independent adviser. The question is not the facts, but the judgment that should be made on the facts. That can be done only by Sir Alex Allan. The case of Baroness Warsi has been referred to him, and the Prime Minister did not suggest today that there were any unknown facts in her case; he wanted the independent adviser’s view on her conduct. That is all Labour Members are asking for in this case—and not a single argument has been given for resisting it.

Many of the facts are known, but I want to concentrate on the part that briefly involved me personally in the saga. As shadow Business Secretary, I was preparing—until the previous Business Secretary was caught declaring war on Murdoch—to shadow this procedure. When the decision was taken to refer it to the Culture Secretary, I wrote to Sir Gus O’Donnell on 22 December, referring to public statements made by the Secretary of State and asking whether, in the light of those statements, Sir Gus was satisfied that the Secretary of State could rule with impartiality on this matter.

As is now well known, Sir Gus replied to me on 22 December, stating, having taken advice:

“I am satisfied that those statements do not amount to a pre-judgement of the case in question”.

That seems pretty clear, and that was the judgment made at the time. The judgment has been relied upon by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State on countless occasions since to justify the Secretary of State’s being asked to exercise that role. It is now clear, is it not, that Sir Gus O’Donnell did not have available to him or his lawyers all the evidence that he might have considered about the suitability or the impartiality of the Secretary of State? Not only that, as the Culture Secretary and the Prime Minister, who relied on Sir Gus’s advice, actively, knowingly and deliberately kept the Cabinet Secretary in the dark about what had been going on between them in respect of matters that were at the very least entirely relevant to whether this Secretary of State was a suitable person to conduct this process.

[Kevin Brennan]

While my right hon. Friend was making this accusation, the Culture Secretary was shaking his head. He now has an opportunity to refute the allegation by intervening. Would my right hon. Friend welcome such an intervention?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

Although I wish that I could say that this has been a good debate, and despite some good contributions to it, it has not been. At business questions, I am asked by Members on both sides of the House for serious debates about matters of interest to our constituents. I contrast that with the miserable, opportunistic debate that we have had today. This has been a wasted opportunity, when we could have been debating issues of real interest to our constituents, such as Syria or the eurozone. Instead, we have been diverted on to this matter.

Let me deal with some of the contributions. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) made no distinction at all between the actions of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State before he assumed responsibility for the bid and those that he took afterwards. That was seized on by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who said that it would have been astonishing if the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport had had no views on the issue before he took responsibility for it, but that he subsequently made it absolutely clear that he was acting properly and in accordance with the law in dealing with that responsibility.

My hon. Friend also made the interesting point that it was the last Labour Government who changed and expanded the role of special advisers—a matter that has now been referred to Alex Allan. Along with other hon. Members, my hon. Friend referred to the Public Administration Committee report, to which the Government will respond in due course.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir George Young]

I will make just a little more progress.

The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) made an uncharacteristically partisan speech. He focused on the performance of this Government, but conveniently overlooked all the failures of ministerial performance in the previous one. There was a gap in the account that he related to the House.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster) made it absolutely clear that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State handled the bid by the book, to use his words, and had at several points taken decisions against the interests of News International. He said that one or two issues remained, although as my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) said, they were not defined. My right hon. Friend the Member for Bath implied that the failure to consult was behind the Liberal Democrats’ decision as much as anything else.

[Sir George Young]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made a statement to the House shortly afterwards and was cross-examined on that specific issue for a substantial time. He explained exactly what his responsibilities were and the action that he had taken.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the Leader of the House give way?

[Sir George Young]

No, I will make a little more progress.

I very much regret the intervention that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) made about my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Despite Mr Speaker’s ruling, I believe that it did nothing to enhance Parliament’s reputation. I very much hope that at some point the hon. Gentleman will consider withdrawing what he said.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) referred to the thoughtful report that his Committee had just produced—before the recent controversy, as he pointed out. He rehearsed the argument for the role of the adviser on ministerial interests being self-starting rather than his having to wait for a referral. The Government will of course respond to that report in due course. He also touched on broader issues to do with the civil service and special advisers.

The best speech from the Labour Benches, if I may say so, came from the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham), but he missed the point by not distinguishing between what my right hon. Friend did before and after he assumed responsibility. He produced no evidence at all of my right hon. Friend’s decisions being in any way contaminated by what had happened before he assumed responsibility.

Business of the House

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir George Young]

I understand my hon. Friend’s strong views. I do not know whether he will be able to raise the issue of animal cruelty at greater length during the debate on the Adjournment later today, when my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House will be in a position to respond. If he cannot do that, I will raise the issue again with the Home Secretary. There is an outstanding commitment in respect of circus animals, which the Government will want to honour in due course, and that legislation may provide an opportunity for the House to deal with other issues involving animal cruelty.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On a day on which we have discovered that the double-dip recession is worse than it was expected to be, may I ask whether we can have a debate on the two great challenges with which the Prime Minister has been wrestling over the last 12 months, so that we can learn which of them he found more daunting—Angry Birds or Fruit Ninjas?

[Mr Speaker]

I see that the Leader of the House is struggling to identify a governmental responsibility, and I must say that I share his struggle. I think that we will move on.

Privilege

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

The taking of the oath is not irrelevant, because if someone gives evidence under oath that turns out to be untrue—these powers of a parliamentary Select Committee exist for a reason—they can subsequently be charged with a criminal offence under the Perjury Act 1911.

[Dr Coffey]

The hon. Gentleman is perhaps more experienced in parliamentary practice than I am, but I am not of the opinion—this has not been presented to our Committee, as far as I am aware—that that would have made any difference in terms of criminal proceedings.

[Dr Coffey]

I am not a lawyer; I stand here as a parliamentarian who passes law. In response to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) and the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), my understanding is that any information given as evidence during parliamentary sittings cannot necessarily be used in a court of law. That is part of the basis of parliamentary privilege.

[Kevin Brennan]

rose—

[Dr Coffey]

I do not wish to give way further, because I know that other hon. Members want to speak on this topic, as the hon. Gentleman may want to do.

We are the Parliament of the people and we should not be lied to—end of story.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I, too, pay warm tribute to the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), because this task has been particularly difficult, not least because it has followed on from previous inquiries, not only while he has been Chairman, but carried out when my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) chaired the Committee.

This is a debate about privilege, and I always think that the word “privilege” is an unfortunate one to use in relation to Parliament, as I am sure would most voters. The truth is that we have not yet seen all the evidence. It is important to note that, precisely for the reasons that the hon. Gentleman has adduced that nobody has wanted to trample on the toes of a criminal investigation, we are so far—this is true of Leveson as well—seeing only the tip of a very large iceberg. The issues that have been presented to us in the report refer to just three people, but more than 40 have been arrested and there may be further arrests yet.

When the whole story has come out, as I hope it will eventually, I think this instance will prove to have been one of the most flagrant examples of contempt of Parliament in Parliament’s history. It was not just one person at one time or one organisation for a brief period of time; a series of people systematically and repeatedly lied so as to protect themselves, to protect their commercial interests and to try to make sure that they did not end up going to prison. They did that knowing fully that they were telling lies to Parliament, and I believe that that is a fundamental contempt. If we look through the history of Parliament, it is difficult to find a moment when there was such a concatenation of deliberate abuses—contempt of Parliament. That is why we need to take this moment very seriously.

There was covert surveillance of Members of Parliament, deliberately to intimidate them in going about their duties. That applied particularly to members of the Committee. As we know, the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) had his phone hacked, as quite possibly did some four score others. Indeed, News International managed to turn the Metropolitan police into a partially owned subsidiary, whereby members of staff from one organisation were going to work for another and then coming back. [Interruption.] I note that some of my hon. Friends suggest that the subsidiary was not partially owned.

The important thing for us to decide is what we do about this. I think that everybody is agreed that something egregious and terrible has happened. The question is what we do now. The Government have published a White Paper on parliamentary privilege, and it seemed to me that the Leader of the House was trying to suggest to the Committee on Standards and Privileges that it should be very wary of using penal powers or recommending that penal powers should be used. The Scottish Parliament, however, has precise powers under section 25—I think—of the Scotland Act 1998: where people refuse to give evidence to a Committee of the Parliament or to the Parliament or where they lie to Parliament, they are liable to imprisonment for up to three months. That provision is not written into statute for us, but we should certainly consider it.

Perjury before a court attracts a maximum sentence of up to seven years’ imprisonment, and even perjury by making a false declaration in a statutory declaration is liable to a sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment. The factors considered when sentencing would be whether the lie was said just once, whether it was inadvertent or deliberate, the impact that the lie caused, whether there was more than one lie, and on how many occasions the lie was perpetuated.

[Kevin Brennan]

Further to my earlier intervention, does my hon. Friend remember the point of order I raised on this matter on 14 July 2011, when Mr Deputy Speaker confirmed that under the Parliamentary Witnesses Oaths Act 1871 and the Perjury Act 1911, Select Committees can require witnesses to give evidence under oath and make them subject to criminal charges of perjury if they are subsequently proved to have lied?

[Chris Bryant]

I do remember that point of order, which is why when my hon. Friend intervened on the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), I knew what he was going to ask her. It is a point that he rightly makes and has made repeatedly.

We are congratulating ourselves today on the Select Committee process bringing us to this point, but if the Select Committee process had worked better, we might have reached this point three years ago. The Select Committee might have been able to require Rebekah Brooks to give evidence in 2009 and it might have been taking evidence under oath from the very beginning. Then we would not have to decide what we should do about these people, as the courts would be doing so. If we were to apply all those elements of how to decide a sentence for perjury before a court to this case, I would have thought one of the lengthier sentences would be handed down. The same is true for contempt of court, which carries a sentence of up to two years’ imprisonment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

I, too, will attempt to be brief. Far from being critical of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, I praise it for the work that it has undertaken on this matter over many years, dating back, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) said at the beginning of his remarks, to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) asked way back in 2003 of the then Rebekah Wade about the payment of police officers, a practice that he and I were strongly convinced—shall I put it that way?—was not uncommon but was taking place at the time.

May I pick up on the matter, and slightly disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda, regarding the Committee on Standards and Privileges? I support the motion before us, but it is unfortunate that we have to talk about referring the issue to the Committee on Standards and Privileges and about the possibility of Parliament imprisoning individuals because they have lied to a Select Committee. That is the essence of the point that I have made for some time, and to which the hon. Member for Corby (Louise Mensch) referred, about the need for evidence to be taken under oath by Select Committees.

The hon. Lady started by saying that taking evidence under oath would be a bad idea because, in effect, lawyers would make witnesses clam up, and she is absolutely right that, at the moment, a Select Committee chooses whether to do so, but, as in the case that she cited from the United States, it is common practice for committees of Congress to take evidence under oath, and that is exactly why Roger Clemens can be held accountable on a charge of contempt of Congress.

I do not mind whether the criminal charge that results from such practice is contempt of Parliament, because there is no question but that News Corporation and News International, in their attitude to our Select Committees, showed over many years utter contempt for the proceedings of Parliament. They did so because they thought that those Committees had no power, no authority and no teeth—exactly because they were not taking evidence under oath.

[Louise Mensch]

The situation is not quite as simple as a simple perjury charge, which would apply on any occasion that one gave evidence under oath. The case in the United States refers specifically to contempt of Congress, which in respect of Parliament is the offence that we should create. As a corollary, does the hon. Gentleman not agree that there must be grave disquiet when a non-judicial body, such as Parliament, agrees to imprison a person? Does he agree also that the offence should be prosecuted by a prosecutor and decided by the courts in the normal way—after it has been committed against Parliament?

[Kevin Brennan]

I am not quite sure how the hon. Lady disagrees with me, to be perfectly honest. As I pointed out earlier, there is an Act of Parliament in place, the Parliamentary Witnesses Oaths Act 1871, which means that oaths can be taken before Select Committees, and any false evidence given under those oaths would be subject to prosecution under the Perjury Act 1911. If she would prefer to substitute a criminal offence of contempt of Parliament for that, I would be perfectly happy, but my point is that I feel uneasy that the only option available to us, because in the case before us an oath was not taken, is referral to the Committee on Standards and Privileges and the possibility of Parliament having to consider using that rarely used power of imprisonment.

[Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me?

[Kevin Brennan]

I will, because the hon. Gentleman is the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee, but I will not take any further interventions.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I regret the fact that I have been in the Chamber for only part of the debate, but I heard the opening remarks. I feel it is appropriate for me to inform the House that the Liaison Committee has charged me with working with colleagues to investigate the whole question—it is very germane to this debate—of how Select Committee powers should be exercised.

Listening to these exchanges, I hear many matters that we have discussed and considered carefully, and I hope that the Chairman of the Standards and Privileges Committee will have regard to the findings that I hope we will produce in short order, which should provide not only some guidance on how the Committee should conduct its investigation into the matter, but some guidance to the House on what the consequences of contempt should be and, in future, on whether we will need to avail ourselves of the courts or of our own procedures. I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for emphasising that we are a House with a penal jurisdiction. That was a very important thing to put on the record.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Public Administration Committee for that intervention. He knows that I was a member of the Committee for many years, briefly under his chairmanship and in previous years under the chairmanship of Tony Wright, when we also considered a number of these issues.

I have appeared, as the hon. Gentleman may and others will, both as a member of a Committee and as a witness, giving evidence to a Committee, and I have never understood why an oath, although it is implicit for a Member of Parliament, is not administered while giving evidence to a parliamentary Committee. I shall say nothing further, other than that I support the motion before the House.