Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Cabinet Office
Kieran Mullan
Main Page: Kieran Mullan (Conservative - Bexhill and Battle)Department Debates - View all Kieran Mullan's debates with the Cabinet Office
Official Secrets Act Case: Witness Statements
Kieran Mullan Excerpts(1 day, 18 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate 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
Chris Ward
I will refer back to what I have said already: it is not the place of Ministers, under this or previous Governments, to be vetting or interfering in evidence on that matter.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
The battle with China is not just an economic one; it is also a battle of ideas about how the state should operate, and the fact that this case has collapsed is making a complete mockery of our arguments about how the state should operate compared with how China does things. I suggest to the Minister that, along with the Prime Minister, he is in danger of inadvertently misleading the House. He has been asked a number of times about the content of the statement in relation to the Conservative party position at the time, and he has insisted that the statements made only reflected the position of the Conservative Government at the time. Will the Minister explain, then, why the exact wording in the Labour party manifesto in relation to China and its role, ended up in that statement?
Chris Ward
The wording in that statement was put in there to provide wider context of the situation, but as I have said many times, and I will keep saying it, that wording is provided independently by the DNSA without any involvement from Ministers or political advisers.