Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary) Debate
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Louise Mensch
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Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)
Louise Mensch Excerpts(12 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text 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.
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The Prime Minister
What I have always said is that I have not had any inappropriate conversation about this issue—and, indeed, I have not. But clearly it is very important, in the context of this inquiry, to recall everything possible, and what I recall is that, because of the frankly rather embarrassing situation that we were in, whereby a Minister had said that he was trying to “destroy” a media company, it was perfectly appropriate for me to say that that was not correct or appropriate and that these things would be dealt with properly in future. That is a thoroughly responsible and sensible thing to say.
Louise Mensch (Corby) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend share my mystification as to how the Leader of the Opposition can deduce that there has been a breach of the ministerial code without seeing the texts and e-mails that passed between the Culture Secretary and Adam Smith, which are to come out in the Leveson inquiry?
The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend absolutely puts her finger on it. The fact is that the Leader of the Opposition does not want to wait for the evidence and does not want to wait for the information; he saw a passing bandwagon and jumped on board it. That is what happened.