Leveson Inquiry

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and I will start talking this afternoon, in a positive spirit, to try to find a cross-party approach. I think the British people would lose patience with this place if we turned an important issue, which is being treated with the seriousness it deserves this afternoon, into a political football. I want to avoid that and find a solution together that not only answers the demands of the victims, but provides a solution for the country. After two and a half years in coalition, I am used to starting from different positions and finding a solution that suits the whole country in the end.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

Does the Deputy Prime Minister speak for the Government, and what are the implications of his statement today for the doctrine of Cabinet collective responsibility?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

In a coalition Government there can be no collective position that is not agreed collectively by all parts of that Government. I know people in Westminster get terribly hot under the collar about some of these doctrines, but people out there in the country find it perfectly normal that in a Government with two parties, there are issues on which those parties, because they are two parties, might not have the same view. We have to be relaxed and grown up about explaining that to the House and to the public and then, as has been set out, seek to resolve those issues in the national interest.