Privilege

Lord Soames of Fletching Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That the matter of hacking of honourable and right honourable Members’ mobile phones be referred to the Committee on Standards and Privileges.

The vast majority of those who had their phones hacked were not MPs, but of necessity this motion deals solely with the hacking of MPs’ phones. That is not because we are in any sense more important than anyone else—it is a scandal that the royal princes, footballers, actors and, in many cases, ordinary members of the public had their phone messages intercepted and interfered with. While I passionately believe in the freedom of the press, and agree that investigative journalism is an important and proud tradition in this country, illegal hacking, suborning police officers and obtaining information by illegal means do not enhance our democracy. In fact, they undermine it.

This motion is exclusively about this House because I contend that it is a contempt of Parliament and a severe breach of parliamentary privilege to intercept the mobile phone messages of elected Members, to tap their phones, to bug their conversations, to intercept their e-mails or to seek to do so.

There are those who would want to play this down. People have said to me, “After all, what’s the fuss about a few phone messages?” I ask hon. Members what the last phone message was that they had left on their answer phone. It might have been a soppy, sentimental message from their wife or partner, but it might have been something far more significant. It might have been a Minister ringing about a piece of legislation—in parliamentary language, a proceeding in Parliament. It might have been the Home Secretary or the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland ringing about a highly sensitive matter and leaving a message. Or it might have been a constituent ringing their elected Member of Parliament, leaving a message and asking them to return a call about something that was highly confidential to them.

The House has rightly been very angry in the past when it has been felt that the right of an MP to speak without let, hindrance or interception, which stems in essence from the Bill of Rights 1689, has been violated. It took action on several occasions in the 18th century, on many occasions in the 19th century and on more than 15 occasions in the 20th century. It is for that reason that we have a secure doctrine—the Wilson doctrine—that MPs will not be bugged by the security services, and I am sure that were there any information that MPs had been bugged by the security services, many hon. Members would be on their feet to condemn it.

The reason this reference is necessary now is simple. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which is admirably chaired by the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale)—he should probably be the right hon. Member for Maldon, and for all I know he might be the right hon. Member—produced an excellent report on the wider issue. Since then, however, there has been new information. First, several MPs, including myself, have contacted the Met and have discovered that we were the subjects of Glenn Mulcaire’s investigations. In the words of the Metropolitan police, we were persons of interest to Mr Mulcaire. I am sorry to say that in very few, if any, of those cases have the police pursued any lines of investigation.

[Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Gentleman on bringing this debate forward and on seeking to have the matter referred to the Standards and Privileges Committee. Is he aware that the Information Commissioner published a report, “What Price Privacy Now?”, in December 2006, in which he unveiled the solid evidence that illegal information had been supplied to 305 named journalists working for a variety of newspapers, and does he agree that, if the Press Complaints Commission had any gumption or mettle, and was capable of investigating this sort of issue, we would not need to refer this matter to the Select Committee? Indeed, the Information Commissioner said that

“the Press Complaints Commission (and its associated Code of Practice Committee of Editors) should take a much stronger line to tackle any involvement by the press in the illegal trade in personal information”.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman is right. If hon. Members have not had an opportunity to read the Information Commissioner’s report, I urge them to do so. It is quite astounding. It lists the number of transactions positively identified: the Daily Mail, 952; the Sunday People, 802; the Daily Mirror, 681; The Mail on Sunday, 266; the News of the World, 182; and so on. It is an absolutely devastating report, and my concern is that the PCC has done nothing, and hardly anyone else has done anything. It is time that the House took responsibility for what areas we can.

The House has rightly been angered about this issue. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee produced a report, but there is more information. I suspect that, so far, we have seen only the tip of the iceberg in relation to right hon. and hon. Members, and that the hacking extended not just to Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs but to a large number of Conservative Members. I urge every right hon. and hon. Member who has any suspicion that they might have been a person of interest to Mr Mulcaire, which probably includes the vast majority of us, to write to the Met asking whether they were included, because Assistant Commissioner Yates made it clear the other day, in evidence to another Select Committee, that he has not been notifying Members. We have to do the work ourselves.