Prime Minister’s Adviser on Ministers’ Interests

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Commons Chamber

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

Paragraph 1.5 of the

“Ministerial Code” states:

“Ministers are personally responsible for deciding how to act and conduct themselves in the light of the Code and for justifying their actions and conduct to Parliament and the public. However, Ministers only remain in office for so long as they retain the confidence of the Prime Minister. He is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected”.

The passing of this motion would change that. Rather than decisions being made by Ministers and the Prime Minister, an independent adviser would, at his own instigation, pass judgments on Ministers. The Prime Minister is Prime Minister because he commands a majority in the House, and under our constitution it is the Prime Minister who appoints Ministers who are accountable to him and to the House, but passing the motion would change that.

What worries me is that a huge constitutional weight would be placed on the “Ministerial Code” for which it is entirely ill-suited. This document has not been approved by the House; it has not even been approved by the Cabinet. John Major’s Cabinet agreed to publish it, but there was a strong view that it should not be published because it would lead to inappropriate weight being placed on it. At best it is a prime ministerial document, but in reality it was only under Attlee that that was the case.

According to what I believe is the only history of the development of the “Ministerial Code”, by a lady called Amy Baker,

“Attlee had tailored the document very much to his own style and the needs of his own Labour administration—and succeeding Prime Ministers may have followed suit, had the Cabinet Office not intervened.”

However, the original Cabinet Secretary, Hankey,

“had drafted the very first guidelines in order to establish some continuity of procedure which would enable the Cabinet Office to organise business without being disrupted too much on a change of government.”

We know what has happened as the code has developed. Winston Churchill took no interest in it and Eden refused to issue a code, but it was used by Macmillan. Home and then Wilson took over in 1963 and 1964, and the Cabinet Secretary claimed that the document bore the great imprimatur of various Prime Ministers when that was in fact not the case. What had happened in 1963 and 1964 was used to push through paragraph 4.7, which puts junior Ministers under the thumb of the permanent secretary and says that they cannot tell the permanent secretary what to do even if the Secretary of State is happy for them to do so. According to Amy Baker’s book, at the time that

“may have seemed quite convenient”

to the drafters of what was then “Questions of Procedure for Ministers” ,

“who knew that their amendments would now be ‘automatically’ approved by the new Prime Minister”.

Similar circumstances arose when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979 and the rules governing the roles of parliamentary private secretaries changed. According to the book,

“amongst those directives which senior officials selected for incorporation into QPM, were instructions prohibiting dissent in the Commons from parliamentary private secretaries.”

Again, we see a system whereby the House is denuded of its rights and civil servants decide what happens to the “Ministerial Code”.

According to a former Cabinet Secretary,

“This process meant that on a change of government, senior officials in the Cabinet Office had a wider discretion to initiate amendments, as the incoming Prime Minister would be unaware of recent issues and would generally approve the draft handed to them on appointment.”

That is how we arrived at the reference to an overarching duty to obey international law. There is no basis for it in this Parliament or in our courts, but if the motion is passed, the position will become even worse. Not only will the code be a constitutional document, but a retired civil servant will decide how it applies to each individual Minister, and I think that that is wrong.

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[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I rise to speak briefly in support of the comments of the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin), the Chair of the Select Committee. He put the case very well. We do not need to use extreme language, as the proposal is common sense, particularly given recent events. We want an investigator who has the capacity to conduct proper investigations and offer advice. The constitutional relationship between the Prime Minister and this House would not be changed by that. He could accept or reject the advice, but at least investigations could be made independently, without having to ask the permission of the Prime Minister first. That would be a significant change.

[Mark Reckless]

Regardless of the formal situation, does the hon. Gentleman accept that the political reality will be that if this independent investigator decides to conduct an investigation off his own bat and then gives a withering condemnation of the Minister concerned, it would be very difficult for the Prime Minister to keep that Minister in office, and de facto control would pass to the adviser?

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I trust that the investigator would make a withering condemnation only if that were justified. The recent events surrounding the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) and his amanuensis, Adam Werritty, deserved to be thoroughly investigated, but in my view they were not properly investigated.

Such a situation would not arise in future. I hope the Chairman of the Select Committee will not mind my mentioning that we will undertake a report on special advisers. I hope we will recommend putting their relationship with Ministers on a better footing in future, so that situations such as the Adam Werritty case do not arise again.

This proposal is timely. Recently, Prime Ministers have operated in an extremely powerful, individualistic way, and in a secretive way. They have often not trusted full Cabinets to discuss important matters. We are now moving towards a situation where the Prime Minister will be a little more open and accountable, without damaging our constitution in any way—in fact, this proposal will improve it.

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[Mr Hurd]

I have not seen Sir Christopher Kelly’s evidence on that, but there is no shortage of opportunities to hold the Prime Minister to account on anything.

Providing advice to the Prime Minister on allegations about a breach of the ministerial code is one aspect of the independent adviser’s role. I also wish to explain the other important aspect of the role, as it has been ignored in the debate: the adviser provides an independent check and source of advice to Ministers on the handling of their private interests in order to avoid any conflict between those interests and their ministerial responsibilities, as set out in section 7 of the ministerial code. This is very much behind-the-scenes work; it is about sorting out issues before they arise. However, it does result in the publication by the Cabinet Office of the list of Ministers’ interests, which puts into the public domain a list of all the relevant interests of all Ministers and enables external scrutiny of possible conflicts of interest. Obviously, this is an ongoing process as issues arise, not a one-off. It is important to put on record that second dimension to the independent adviser’s work.

Some questions were raised about particular cases this afternoon, although I think that the hon. Member for Harrow West struck the wrong tone, not for the first time, by seizing the opportunity to try to make a political attack on the Prime Minister. Rather than rehearse some arguments about why one particular case was referred or otherwise, I simply say that in each case—those of the former Secretary of State for Defence, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), my right hon. Friend the Culture Secretary and Baroness Warsi—there were no shortages of opportunities for the House or for the media to hold the Prime Minister to account for the decisions he took.

[Mark Reckless]

Did not the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) go beyond that by suggesting that the code, rather than being a prime ministerial document for Ministers, actually applies to the Prime Minister, too, and that the independent investigator should investigate whether the Prime Minister has breached it? If that were the case, should we not all just pack up, go home and let the independent advisers decide everything?

Civil Service Reform

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point—that the system does not always reward those who innovate. We make the point in the paper that no one’s career ever seems to suffer if they continue to preside over an inefficient status quo, but if people try something new that does not work, they can feel very exposed. We need to be as rigorous in examining, testing and challenging the status quo as we are with innovation and change. We need to be supportive of those who try new things. Not everything new that gets tried will work, but the best organisations learn at least as much from things that are tried and do not work as they do from things that are tried and do.

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

The Prime Minister recently stated in Malaysia that “Yes Minister” remains true to life. The Minister has said today: “There should only exceptionally be more than eight layers between the top and the front line…That will help to speed up decisions and empower those at more junior levels.” Could we not be a little more ambitious?

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman credits me with having a system—a grand plan—but I do not, as yet. My amendment relates to specific issues that I will deal with soon, Ms Clark, because I know that you will want me to move on. He is right to observe that there will be Members of this House who are on the register in two separate places, as indeed I was for a while. I stay in hotels in this fine city when I am up here now, so that no longer arises. Some of the people who have written to me feel that the short amount of time they spend in Cornwall entitles them to be on the register because they happen to own the property, and I have pointed out that I probably spend more time in hotels in Westminster than they do in Cornwall, and that I should perhaps be petitioning to get on the register on that basis as it is not a property qualification.

How do we check that someone who is on the register in two places is not voting in the same election on the same day in two locations or, as that would be pretty hard to do if they are some miles apart, postal voting in one location in the run-up to the election and voting in person in the other? First, one would have to find out the other location at which the person is registered. Subsequent to the election, one would have to get hold of a copy of the marked-up register for both locations in order to check, and then one might be able to put a case together that the person had voted in two elections. I am sure that, as the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) suggested, people will say that this is a very rare occurrence, but that does not matter—the problem is that there is no way for anybody to check and challenge it. Whether it involves one vote, 10 votes or a few hundred votes across the country, it could still have an effect in some locations. I would venture to say that in some parts of the country where second homes are clustered, it will have more of an effect than in other areas, and it might therefore have an effect on an election result.

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

The hon. Gentleman says that it is difficult to determine where this happens. I had a case in my constituency in which a couple of constituents were registered at two places. I had them registered as Labour party supporters on the basis of my own canvass. We checked the marked-up register and noted that they had voted in both places. We took the issue to the police but it was not followed up. There was no prosecution and not even an official caution—apparently just a word was had and that was it. What could we do?

[Dan Rogerson]

What action happens when the police and the courts get hold of this is a secondary point, but a fair one. The hon. Gentleman is talking about people who were registered at two locations in his constituency, and presumably he looked for them in another location because he had suspected that that might be the case. However, when the second property is at the other end of the country it is on a completely different electoral roll, and there is no way that one would know which Mr Tom Smith one was looking for unless, at the point of registration, they were asked to declare the other properties at which they were seeking to be on the electoral roll. That is what my amendment would do. Electoral officers would be able to check that, and members of the public who wished to challenge whether someone had done this at another election would also have a basis on which to check. Both electoral registers are public documents; my amendment would merely tally the two up.

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[Mr Harper]

As my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) said, amendment 1 is largely a probing amendment. It concerns an important issue, and as I said to him when we exchanged words on the subject previously, it is of course right that people who are eligible to vote in more than one location because they genuinely reside there should be able to exercise their rights. We do not have any plans to change what elections someone can vote in once they are registered to vote. If they are on the register legitimately, they will be able to vote in those elections.

In the amendment, my hon. Friend probes whether registration officers should be able to ask people whether they are registered to vote elsewhere. I can confirm that the draft secondary legislation that I have published today, which is available in the Library, contains a provision to be made under the powers in clause 2 requiring that an application form for registration must ask for other addresses at which the applicant is resident. That will mean that registration officers can then perform checks to ensure that the applicant is genuinely resident there. It is not about owning property there; it is about being resident there. If they are, they should be able to be registered to vote there in accordance with the law and not otherwise.

We will need to design the paper forms carefully so that we do not make them too complicated and user-unfriendly, and the Electoral Commission will do so. I feel sure that my hon. Friend will be reassured if he examines the draft secondary legislation in the Library. Given that he said amendment 1 was a probing amendment, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw it.

[Mark Reckless]

The Minister may have reassured my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), but the issue that I raised was what happens when someone votes twice. The Minister suggested that ACPO took that seriously, but why does ACPO decide how seriously electoral fraud should be taken, and what can we do to see that there is proper enforcement when illegal behaviour has clearly taken place?

[Mr Harper]

I listened to my hon. Friend very carefully. I obviously do not know the circumstances of the case that he mentioned, but I can give an example of why the police may not have pursued the case beyond simply giving advice. The constituent in question may have voted more than once inadvertently, not understanding the rules. I do not know what the circumstances were, but that is entirely possible. For example, after the last election I received several letters from colleagues writing on behalf of constituents who were not British nationals or Commonwealth citizens, so were not legitimately able to participate in our general election but who had been erroneously registered as such. They had found that the electoral registration officer had been a bit more diligent and had suddenly told them that they could not vote in our general elections. They were writing because they were outraged, and one did not like to put it to them that they had actually been breaking the law for the past few years in casting a vote. If those cases were raised with the police, they might consider that the law had been broken, but they might also consider that the appropriate mechanism would be to explain matters to the person rather than pursue them.

If my hon. Friend has in mind a specific case, I suggest that he speak to the Crown Prosecution Service and ask why it did not pursue the case. There are two tests of course, one being an evidential one and the other whether a prosecution is in the public interest. I suggest that in this specific case it may be worth his doing that. If he does not get anywhere with the police or the CPS, I would be obliged if he would get back to me and I would be happy to take it up for him.

Amendment 4 would require details of the information that we would require to be put in the Bill. That would not be helpful for two reasons. First, the draft legislation that I published earlier today sets out the requirements and the information that individuals will need to provide. It is worth saying that although regulations are made by Ministers, all the regulations under this Bill are affirmative and will have to be debated and voted for by both Houses of Parliament. It is not a power only for Ministers—there is parliamentary control over it. We will ask for that information as set out in the draft legislation.

Secondly, as well as being unnecessary, the amendment would be unhelpful. Putting the details on the face of the legislation would make it difficult to change if it became preferable to use different evidence in the future. Although we expect the national insurance number and date of birth to be the standard information for the vast majority of the population, we have said that if there are people—it will be only a small number—who do not have an NI number, it should be possible for them to provide alternative evidence so that they may register to vote. Given that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) wants to be assured that no eligible elector would be disfranchised, putting the specific details in the Bill and not allowing any exceptions would be unhelpful.

Informal European Council

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

One of the points about Germany is that it did not spend the last decade making its economy unbalanced with a massive boom and a massive bust. The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise the IMF forecasts, however, because they are very instructive about what is happening in Europe this year. They are actually forecasting higher growth for Britain than for almost any other country in the European Union, but they have made very chilling forecasts for countries such as Spain and Italy, for which they are forecasting quite a steep decline.

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

Will the Prime Minister explain what it is that he has vetoed?

European Council

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady asks a very important question, so let me try and answer it. I absolutely believe it is right to have public petitions in the way that we now do, and that it is right to give time to Back-Bench motions—this Government have brought that reform about. However, the issue of Europe is not a side issue, but an important one, and it is important that political parties and Governments make their views on it known. I do not accept the idea that somehow we can have a vote on something as important as this on a Thursday and hope that it will go unnoticed. I believe in the importance of Parliament, but I cannot believe in a sovereign Parliament on the one hand and on the other say that some of its votes and decisions do not matter. I simply do not think that that is consistent.

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

The Prime Minister tells The Daily Telegraph today that we should use any treaty change to shore up the euro to get powers over employment and social policy back, yet on 25 March, he agreed to precisely such a treaty change, but did not ask for anything in return.

[The Prime Minister]

I have to take issue with my hon. Friend. The very limited treaty change that is about to be debated in, and hopefully passed by, the House of Commons, gets us out of the bail-out mechanism that the previous Government got us into. I thought, and I still think as Prime Minister, that that was the single most important price that we could exact for that treaty change—that was the biggest concern of the British public. The point I made yesterday and that I will make again today is that I believe that huge changes will take place in the EU and the eurozone. That will give us opportunities to maximise the national interest, which is what we should be talking about and debating in the Conservative party, the coalition and the House of Commons as a whole. We will not further that by having a referendum that includes an in/out option. As I have said, that would be like walking away from a burning house. We should deal with that first, then talk about the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Frankly, too many. And it is no good for the Labour party to complain about every single reduction to public spending when it left us with the biggest budget deficit in Europe.

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

The Prime Minister has listened to Liberal Democrat colleagues by delaying police elections until November next year. Will he now listen to Conservative colleagues and take the opportunity to hold a referendum on Europe?

[The Prime Minister]

That is an ingenious way of putting the question. As I explained yesterday, I want us to be influential in Europe about the things that matter to our national interest—promoting the single market, pushing forward for growth and making sure that we get lower energy prices. Those are the things that we will be fighting for, but I do not see the case for an in/out referendum on Europe. We are in Europe and we have got to make it work for us.

Public Disorder

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. I think that people in London will understand our saying that, over four years, police forces have to make cash reductions to the budget and live within those means. People in London have seen over the past three days what can be done when numbers are surged and police are brought out from behind their desks and on to the streets—from 3,000 to 16,000 in just two days.

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

The Prime Minister speaks for the public on sentencing, but the guidelines are set by a quango. Will my right hon. Friend look again at the Sentencing Guidelines Council and consider transferring its powers either to Parliament or to the locally elected police and crime commissioners?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes some interesting suggestions. I have always felt that the Sentencing Guidelines Council should be properly scrutinised by Parliament. We are considering the right way for Parliament to express its views on the contents of that very important set of documents.

Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

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

The Home Affairs Committee commenced its report on a cross-party basis 10 months ago. That report shows that the relations between the police and the media, particularly News International, are too close. Indeed, there were so many lunches and dinners that I am surprised that senior police officers had time for anything else. Despite that, I do not incline to the view that there is high-level corruption or conspiracy at the top of the police. Given the evidence that I have seen, as far as the police are concerned, I think that this is more about cock-up and perhaps incompetence in some places, although Lord Leveson might find otherwise. I take that view because of the evidence that our Committee saw on the role of the Crown Prosecution Service and the way in which it clearly let down the police.

I asked John Yates yesterday whether he thought that blame had been fairly ascribed between the police and the CPS, and he said that he most certainly did not. He felt that he had been bumping his head against the proverbial brick wall in trying to get people to understand the role of the CPS. It might be more interesting for the media to look at the relationship between the media and the police, but it is the relationship between the police and the CPS that gets us to the heart of this matter.

We must ask why those 11,000 pages of Mulcaire’s documents were not looked at and why the police did not do anything about them, but we must also ask why the CPS did nothing. Even yesterday, Kier Starmer was not quite clear as to whether the CPS had seen them all; he said that it had seen only the ones up to August 2006. We have now heard from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), however, that, on 8 August, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General were notified of the existence of what was described as a

“vast array of offending behaviour”

and the material to back that up. What happened? They do not seem to have done anything about it.

The current DPP looked at this issue in July 2009. He was new to the job. He went through all the materials and tried to find out what happened at the time. He concluded that nothing happened because of the law:

“To prove the criminal offence of interception the prosecution must prove that the actual message was intercepted prior to it being accessed by the intended recipient.”

It was on that basis that the CPS constrained the police investigation.

Whether the noble Lords Goldsmith and Macdonald were asleep on the bridge, just gave incompetent legal advice, or in some way prevented this police investigation are very serious questions. I am delighted that the Prime Minister has revised the terms of reference of his Lord Leveson inquiry, and that it will look at the role of the prosecuting authorities and why the CPS gave this, in my view, extraordinary and clearly wrong advice that it had to be proved that the message was intercepted before it was listened to.

Section 2(7) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 is clear on this issue. Parliament made our intentions clear. We said that a communication remains in transmission while a system is

“storing it in a manner that enables the intended recipient to collect it or otherwise have access to it.”

So there is no basis for the CPS saying that the police had to prove that the message was intercepted before it was listened to. However, it seems that that is what stopped the investigation back in 2006. The noble Lords Macdonald and Goldsmith have to answer for themselves on that: why did they give that advice, which is clearly wrong in the light of section 2(7)?

Keir Starmer of the CPS is acting loyally, and as far as I can see acted properly in trying to look into this matter in July 2009. He has now recanted from the evidence that I just quoted, which he gave to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. He is saying at best, “Well, perhaps it is uncertain. Perhaps there could be a prosecution.” However, even that would have hugely constrained the police, because it made matters much more difficult for them. The advice of the CPS was much clearer at the time: it said that prosecution was not possible on that basis.

That is the problem we are left with, and I want to know why the CPS did that. The CPS needs to be more accountable, and I look forward to seeing stage 2 of these elected commissioners—and not just for the police. As with police, the royal commission in 1981 said that the CPS should be put under elected control and oversight.

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[Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Lab)]

The gravity of the issues we are debating cannot be overstated. They raise fundamental questions about our society and our democracy. A story-at-all-costs, no-limits culture at one newspaper and almost certainly beyond started as a means of getting private information about public figures and culminated in the tragedy and horror of Milly Dowler’s phone being hacked, with yet more unspeakable suffering for her family. If nothing else, we owe it to them to make sure that that can never happen again. We have seen failures of corporate governance on a scale that continues to beggar belief and an initial police investigation that failed to meet even the most basic standards of professionalism. With the honourable exceptions of my hon. Friends the Members for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the former Deputy Prime Minister, politicians have, frankly, been too timid in the pursuit of the truth.

Over the past two and a half weeks, Britain’s newspaper with the largest circulation has been shut down, the BSkyB deal has been abandoned, senior journalists and executives from News International have been arrested and yesterday two Select Committees of this House held evidence sessions that humbled the most powerful media proprietor in the world and forensically examined the issues surrounding the resignation over the weekend of two of the most senior officers at the Metropolitan police. I pay tribute to the Chairs of those Select Committees, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who enjoy respect on both sides of the House for the independence and integrity with which they fulfil their responsibilities.

As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said at the beginning of the debate, we welcome the appointment of Judge Leveson and support the terms of reference for his inquiry. The priority for us all has to be to rebuild public confidence and trust in the newspaper industry, police and politicians—three key pillars that determine the nature of our democracy and the character of our country. That will happen only if we learn the big lessons from this scandal. Those guilty of criminal conduct must be brought to justice, a new independent regulatory system must be created for the newspaper industry and new rules on media ownership are needed to ensure that no single private media company can have excessive market and democratic power.

On newspaper regulation, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) is right to highlight that a choice between self-regulation and state regulation is a false choice. We need a system with greater independence, more investigative powers and serious redress, including compensation. A new media framework will have to respond to the challenges of a digital age, which is revolutionising consumer choice and challenging existing business models. As the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) said, public interest must include not simply plurality but also market power. In future, the application of a fit and proper person test should be as much about corporate governance as about criminal conduct.

On lessons for the police, we welcome the announcement of the measures in the Home Secretary’s statement on Monday that we had recommended, but we think she should have gone further. She needs to call for immediate openness and transparency across the Met in respect of all dealings between senior officers and members of the press, including those at News International. The urgency of that was reinforced by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) today. We also need her to review her decision to go forward with elected police and crime commissioners. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) stated, the Mayor of London provides ample evidence of the risk that they pose to independent policing. We need total transparency about the relationship between senior media figures and the police and the same must apply to the relationship between the media and politicians. Only then will people believe that we are acting in the public interest at all times without fear or favour.

The Prime Minister, whom I am pleased to see in his place, has become embroiled in a tangled web entirely of his own making and still appears to be unable to give straight answers to reasonable questions. I wrote to him on 1 March asking a series of questions about his involvement in the BSkyB acquisition, but I am still to receive a satisfactory response. Yesterday, I should have received answers to parliamentary questions on the same issues, but I am still waiting for them. We now know that my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East had a similar experience with the Prime Minister. Is it his policy not to reply to letters that ask him difficult questions? Or perhaps that is the responsibility of his chief of staff.

As regards Andy Coulson, the Prime Minister has said all along that he received no additional information about serious allegations against Mr Coulson, yet today he acknowledged being aware of the article in The New York Times that revealed significant new information. We are also aware that the Deputy Prime Minister raised serious concerns about Mr Coulson directly with the Prime Minister. In the interests of transparency, surely the nature of the Deputy Prime Minister’s concern should now be made public.

The Prime Minister’s introduction to his new ministerial code, which was launched amid great fanfare after the election, promising a more transparent Government, stated:

“We must be…Transparent about what we do and how we do it. Determined to act in the national interest, above improper influence. Mindful of our duty.”

The first section of the code states:

“Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and the public, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest”.

If the code is to be worth the paper it is written on, the Prime Minister must lead by example.

I also have questions for the Culture Secretary. When the BSkyB bid was referred to Ofcom by the Business Secretary, why was it referred only on public interest grounds and not on broadcasting standards grounds? Why did he not accept Ofcom’s recommendation to refer the bid to the Competition Commission for an independent inquiry? When I called for that to happen, the Secretary of State said it would not be appropriate time and time again, yet last week when he found himself in a corner of his own making, he was quick to get the bid off his desk and into the Competition Commission as quickly as possible.

[Mark Reckless]

Does the hon. Gentleman not have anything to say about the evidence we heard from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) about Lord Goldsmith being given a vast array of evidence of criminal behaviour and should questions not be asked about that?

[Mr Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is fully aware that the original police investigation was flawed. We now know that we were lied to by executives of News International in the Select Committees of this House. The Press Complaints Commission has accepted that it was lied to by representatives of News International and it is therefore completely disingenuous to hold the previous Government responsible for a failure to act on phone hacking.

Phone Hacking

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will be happy to go along to the inquiry and answer any questions it wants to put to me about any contacts I have had with any media organisation at any time, as long as I still have the memory of when it happened. I am very happy to do that.

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

Is the Prime Minister aware that the Home Affairs Committee hearing yesterday was not a one-off but the conclusion of a nine-month inquiry, pursued throughout on a cross-party basis? That raised serious concerns about the role not just of the police but of the Crown Prosecution Service in curtailing the original investigation.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Clearly, one thing that the second part of the inquiry will consider, as well as the first police investigation, what went wrong and why it was insufficient, is the review of that investigation and why it did not result in further action. Those are difficult questions and it is right that an inquiry should consider them.

European Council

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

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

May I congratulate the Prime Minister on his very significant success in largely keeping Britain out of this Greek bail-out, despite what the previous Chancellor agreed? Could he tell the House what has changed given that he was able to keep us out of this Greek bail-out when that did not prove possible with regard to Portugal?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that what changed was that because we were not involved in the first Greek bail-out, we were able to make the argument that we should not be involved in subsequent bail-outs—particularly because, as we are not members of the eurozone, we were not involved in the design of the new package. None the less, we were at risk, because there were countries that wanted to push the EFSM and its use for Greece, but we ran a very strong diplomatic campaign, using every lever at our disposal to persuade our good friends and allies in Europe that it would not be fair for Britain to pay, and we achieved that. It was not an insignificant achievement, because it took quite a lot of negotiating heft to get it done.