National Security (The Guardian)

Debate between Paul Farrelly and Julian Smith

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Julian Smith]

If my hon. Friend looks at the witness documents for the court case, he will see that charge may be likely, but I do not think it is appropriate to comment on that in this place.

The Guardian agreed to the Government’s request to destroy the data it held in its London office, but soon after it not only revealed the confidential discussions that took place with Her Majesty’s Government but advertised to the world that it had sent copies of the files, including information on GCHQ, to The New York Times in an article titled “Guardian partners with New York Times over Snowden GCHQ files.” In its various discussions with the Government during August, The Guardian did not reveal that it had made copies of the files and sent them overseas.

Today’s debate is not an argument to muzzle the press. As Oliver Robbins is at pains to point out in his witness statement, there has been significant sensitivity to the fact that The Guardian is a newspaper. Like the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Nick Boles), I am deeply uncomfortable that a left-of-centre axis is driving us toward press regulation. Newspapers should be free to report, and they should be punished under existing laws if they commit crimes.

The Guardian was right, having received the NSA files, to report on them in some way. If journalism—receiving and reporting on leaks—were all that The Guardian had done, Parliament and MI5 would not now be involved. Indeed, when the full tale of the damage done to British security is revealed, our Government might be criticised not for how much it interfered with a newspaper but for how much it trusted one.

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, circuitously, he is attacking not The Guardian’s journalism but the paper itself? By mentioning press regulation in the same breath, he is potentially in danger of being misinterpreted as joining the war of the Daily Mail and others against The Guardian, all because of its pursuit of phone hacking.

[Julian Smith]

I hope that by the end of my speech I will not be misinterpreted at all.

This debate is also not an argument against whistleblowing. Mr Snowden revealed NSA spying that may have been outwith the reach of Congress. It might be argued that that was whistleblowing, but as we know, he did not selectively take files on the matter; rather, he stole tens of thousands of files on legitimate and necessary spying, including by allies such as Britain.