Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary) Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebatePaul Flynn
Main Page: Paul Flynn (Labour - Newport West)Department Debates - View all Paul Flynn's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberUrgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
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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.
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?
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.