Defence Responsibilities

Debate between Pat Glass and Liam Fox

Monday 10th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The permanent secretary makes it clear that at no time was Mr Werritty given access to confidential information or any security information to which he should not be given access; and that no documents or briefings were given. I am afraid that these accusations that national security was breached, which is probably the most serious accusation that could be thrown at any Government Minister, are utterly baseless. If anyone knows of a genuine case where they believe that to have happened, they have a duty to bring it to the Cabinet Secretary. If they do not do so, they should do what is appropriate and not say anything about it at all.

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has told us today that Mr Werritty was present with him on 18 separate occasions on overseas visits, but he has told us that some of those were family holidays. I think we could all accept that. I have done a quick mental calculation. Since May 2010 I have had two family holidays. Could the Secretary of State clarify for us how many of those occasions were family holidays and how many were official visits?

[Dr Fox]

There were a number of different categories, as I said. Some of them were overseas visits where I was there purely on a defence basis. Some were conferences, for example, where I may have been speaking and Mr Werritty might have been a delegate. Some were long weekends when my wife and I were abroad. Some were longer family holidays. One was a skiing holiday. We need to understand that Ministers have downtime on visits. In particular, when we have long overseas visits, we try to manage our political time, our party political time often, and our personal time. It is unreasonable to think that we should not have any private time at all.