Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Lord Watts Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I will take one last intervention, from the hon. Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts), then I am going to make some progress.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

Let us be absolutely clear about what the Secretary of State seems to be saying. He is saying that he did not know what went on with the actions of his special adviser. Is he trying to tell the House that he is so incompetent that he did not know what his special adviser was doing?

[Mr Hunt]

No, I am saying that we knew that he had a role as one of a number of official points of contact in the process, and we knew that he was in contact with News Corporation, but we did not know about the volume and tone of that correspondence.

If I may say so, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham was brave to call an Opposition day debate on the topic of accuracy, because in the past few weeks that has not been her strong point. Let us look at a few of the things that she has said, and we will see who has been the more accurate. First, on 25 April, she said that I was not judging the bid but backing it—quite a big claim, for which we would think she had some evidence. But she was wrong, because as she knows perfectly well, in every case I followed advice from one, and sometimes two, independent regulators. Were they biased as well? Of course not, and nor was I in following their advice.

The right hon. and learned Lady’s next claim was that I went against Ofcom’s advice by not referring the bid to the Competition Commission. Wrong again. As she should now know, if she has read the evidence that she brandished, my first decision was to refer to the bid to the Competition Commission, but I then had a legal obligation to send News Corp a letter saying that I was minded to refer it, and then to consider undertakings offered in lieu of a referral. Had I not done that, I would have been going against legal advice. Her party wrote the Enterprise Act 2002, so she must be the first politician to call on someone to resign for following the law that her party itself wrote into statute.

Then there was the claim that I used my special adviser as a secret back channel throughout the bid. Wrong yet again. As the right hon. and learned Lady knows perfectly well, my special adviser was one of many official points of contact, which my permanent secretary was aware of and content with. Then she wanted to claim that I somehow authorised my special adviser’s behaviour when it was inappropriate. Unfortunately for her, after I released texts and e-mails between me and him, the evidence showed that she was wrong. Finally, there was the very serious claim that I misled Parliament, which I have dealt with.

Why has virtually every claim that the right hon. and learned Lady made been proved wrong? Because she did not even read the evidence before making her judgment.