Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point about the Leveson inquiry is that its report will clearly be a major political, media and regulatory event. He is effectively reporting not only to all in the Government, but to everyone in Parliament, in politics and in public life who care about this issue. I do think—I do hope—that all parties will be able to engage in this, because we have an opportunity to deal with issues of press regulation and relations between politicians and the media that have not been right in our country but that, frankly, we will only get right if we work on a cross-party basis.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

As the only defence that the Secretary of State has is based on the fiction that the only way Ministers communicate with their special advisers is by e-mail, why has the Prime Minister forgotten the lesson of the David Mellor scandal, which is that a resignation delayed is a disgrace multiplied?

[The Prime Minister]

If the hon. Gentleman is really concerned, as I am, about making sure that all the information about this is properly looked into, what is preferable: a civil service-run process where you can look at papers and ask questions, or a judge-led inquiry with Ministers answering questions under oath where all the documents have to be revealed and the whole thing is pursued properly by a team of barristers who are expert at finding out the facts? This is why I do not really understand where the Opposition are coming from. If they want full factual disclosure before making a judgment about whether any ministerial codes were broken, this must be the most robust process.