Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons
Monday 5th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Watson]

I will make some progress.

In his statement to the House last week, the Secretary of State said that Sir Brian

“agrees that the inquiry should not proceed under the current terms of reference but believes that it should continue in an amended form.”—[Official Report, 1 March 2018; Vol. 636, c. 966.]

I do not know about you, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] Oh, Mr Deputy Speaker.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

With a name like Lindsay, who knows? [Laughter.]

[Tom Watson]

I am not rising to that. I do not know about you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I got the distinct impression from the Secretary of State’s presentation that Brian Leveson supported his proposals. That was something of an understatement. In fact, Sir Brian says that he disagrees “fundamentally” with the Government’s position, stating:

“I have no doubt that there is still a legitimate expectation on behalf of the public and, in particular, the alleged victims of phone hacking and other unlawful conduct, that there will be a full public examination of the circumstances that allowed that behaviour to develop and clear reassurances that nothing of the same scale could occur again: that is what they were promised”.

Sir Brian is clear that this breaks a promise to the victims, and it does so by using a very clever sleight of hand. The Secretary of State told the House that 12% of direct respondents to the consultation were in favour of continuing the inquiry, with 66% against. How did the Government get to that landslide verdict? Scandalously, they disregarded the 200,000 people who signed an online petition in favour of continuing the inquiry, but they included thousands of pro forma newspaper coupons that various papers encouraged their readers to send in. Sir Brian said to the Government:

“I would not personally count the responses in the way in which you have.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. If we work on a 10-minute limit, but without me imposing it, everybody will get equal time.