Prime Minister’s Evidence (Leveson Inquiry)

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 13th November 2012 Westminster Hall

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, so far as I understand it, that is true, but I have no means to ask Tony Blair questions through Parliament—nor, for that matter, the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). Everyone should provide all the material that should be in the public domain. However, only one person is now the Prime Minister, who will make decisions about the future regulation of the press. I do not understand why Adam Smith had to provide all the information that led to his resignation, when the Prime Minister and his special advisers did not have to provide any such material. That suggests to me that there is one rule for those at the top, and another rule for others.

We also know for a fact—because Downing street said so this weekend to The Mail on Sunday—that a civil servant at Downing street and an unnamed lawyer reviewed all the material and decided not to hand it over to the Leveson inquiry. We do not know what criteria were used for deciding whether it should be handed over, or why they decided that nothing—not a single e-mail or text message—was relevant to the inquiry, whether it referred to the BBC or gave further evidence of a much more extensive relationship or of earlier knowledge of what went on at the News of the World than we have been aware of thus far. The only thing that we know is the name of the civil servant—Tristan Pedelty. We do not know the name of the lawyer, or, for that matter, whether the lawyer was paid for by the taxpayer or by the Prime Minister personally. Certainly, all the legal advice provided to former Prime Ministers would have been paid for by them personally.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman knows about the rules of debate. I have not stopped him so far. He has been perilously close to crossing the line in trying to impugn the personal conduct of the Prime Minister. He has just crossed the line in making an allegation, if I heard him correctly, that it might be that the Prime Minister personally paid for legal advice. If I have misheard that, I would welcome a correction. If I heard him correctly, I ask him to withdraw that remark.

[Chris Bryant]

Mr Hollobone, I do not understand why it would be impugning the Prime Minister to suggest that he had paid for legal advice. It is perfectly legitimate. Indeed, the Prime Minister’s office itself has said that it is perfectly legitimate for any Member to pay for their own legal advice. I cannot see why that would be impugning him. I am not intending to impugn him by suggesting that he may have paid for the legal advice. I think you are nodding.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. I welcome the clarification from the hon. Gentleman. I just remind him that, as far as “Erskine May” is concerned, expressions that are unparliamentary include those which impute “false or unavowed motives”. The hon. Gentleman will be aware of that. I just point it out, so that he does not cross the line.

[Chris Bryant]

I am very grateful, but I think that that chairing is slightly dubious, if you do not mind my saying so, Mr Hollobone, because I have made no imputation. I have not made any imputation at all about the Prime Minister. I have merely suggested that he might have paid for his own legal advice. I think that that is perfectly legitimate.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

Order. There is no dubious chairmanship in this Hall today, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting otherwise.

[Chris Bryant]

Thank you, Mr Hollobone.

We also know the Prime Minister’s interpretation of what is relevant, because he has already announced it to the Leveson inquiry. He said that he had looked for

“text messages…in relation to the BSkyB bid.”

He went on:

“In relation to my e-mails”—

meaning his e-mails—

“searches are still being carried out.”

That is from his written evidence to the Leveson inquiry. In both those cases, as I understand it, he understood that the only thing that he was looking for was material relevant to the BSkyB bid.

I think that most reasonable people in this country would conclude that any text or e-mail that showed an extensive relationship between the Prime Minister or a member of his staff and members of News International—for instance, around the time of the setting of the licence fee, if it related to the licence fee—was material that should be published and be in the public domain. Any reasonable person would expect that, at a time when decisions were being taken about the future regulation of Ofcom and a new communications Bill was being considered, any communications showing much closer access between the Prime Minister or his office and one set of people in the media market, such as News International—Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch—is material that should be in the public domain, so that the public could decide whether that is relevant.

Indeed, the Leveson inquiry is not explicitly into the BSkyB takeover bid at all. It is expressly, as the Prime Minister says in his written evidence, into

“the role of the media and its relationship with the public, police and politicians.”

I would therefore have thought that any texts and e-mails between the Prime Minister or his office and the people we are talking about at News International were material to that inquiry, and so should be handed over.

We also know that the relationship between the Prime Minister and Rebekah Brooks was certainly far more than neighbourly. Some people have suggested that, as they were neighbours, they were bound to know each other. In the Rhondda, “neighbours” means those living in the same street; Dean and Churchill, where the two families live, are six and a half miles apart, so that is a different understanding of neighbourliness. In the evidence, Mr Jay asked the Prime Minister:

“did you see her every weekend or most weekends in the period 2008, 2009?”

He replied, “Not every weekend.” “But most weekends?” was the next question, to which the Prime Minister replied:

“In 2008, 2009? I’d have to check. I might be able to go back and check, but I don’t think every weekend. I don’t think most weekends. But it would depend.”

My contention is that if extensive material held by No. 10 Downing street refers to conversations held during that time—2008 and 2009—or held otherwise by the Prime Minister reveals that his answer was not entirely complete when he was speaking to the Leveson inquiry, it is only right and proper that it should be published. In a sense, that is the sole point that I am trying to make.

There is lots that we do not know. The Government have trumpeted their transparency over the past two years. Yet, I note—I hope that the Minister will be able to correct this—that no Ministers’ list of meetings with outside bodies has been available since June this year. The June to September list is not available, but it should normally have been out by now. It is important that that is published before the Leveson inquiry reports. Most people would want to know whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Culture Secretary or other Cabinet Ministers, as well as the Prime Minister, are now having extensive conversations with all the editors and proprietors of newspapers in advance of the Leveson report, so that they can make a fair judgment about the bona fides of the Government’s intentions.

As I have already said to the hon. Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson), there are discrepancies in the list of meetings that the Prime Minister has thus far advanced. I am also somewhat doubtful about some of the lists of Ministers’ meetings. I merely note that a large number of Ministers only ever record eight meetings with external bodies in three months. Eight meetings in three months would seem to be something of a dereliction of duty. I would have thought it would be eight meetings a day. I have looked at the Minister’s list—it is a very, very thin list.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

On a point of order, Mr Hollobone. It is the convention of these half-hour debates that interventions are taken only by agreement of the person who has tabled the debate. I note that the Minister is choosing to give way to people who did not notify me before the debate that they would be seeking to intervene.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The hon. Gentleman, unusually for him, is muddling some of the parliamentary procedure here. In half-hour debates, if an additional speaker wants to speak they have to seek the permission of both the Member who has tabled the debate and the Minister who is replying. That rule does not apply, however, to interventions, and it is entirely at the discretion of the Member who is on his feet at the time—in this case, the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

On a point of order, Mr Hollobone. I beg your indulgence. Could you just clarify for me what the terms of this debate are? Are they meant to be the Prime Minister’s evidence to the Leveson inquiry or what we are hearing about at the moment, which has nothing to do with the inquiry or, indeed, with the Prime Minister’s evidence?

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

The title of the debate is the Prime Minister and the Leveson inquiry. I was listening to the Minister’s remarks and he was talking about the Leveson inquiry, and I have ruled that to be in order.

Information for Backbenchers on Statements

Debate between Philip Hollobone and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 20th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hollobone]

I am grateful for your ruling, Mr Speaker. Should there be any members of the Press Gallery up there this evening, they should be commended on turning up, although as you know, the reputations of lots of members of the Press Gallery precedes them, whether they are here or not.

If you will forgive me, Mr Speaker, I got stuck in 1947, with the resignation of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. However, to move on from that, the Library has produced some valuable intelligence on the issue of ministerial statements not being made correctly. I understand that in the 27 years since 1983, there have been 44 incidents on the Floor of the House when the Speaker or a Deputy Speaker has had to make a ruling about the pre-release of information. Indeed, I fully expect the total figure to be somewhat higher. We are therefore talking about a regular occurrence, and it is clearly difficult for any Government, of whatever colour, to get things right. That is why we now have an opportunity, with this new politics, to try to ensure that we have a protocol in place that everyone can understand and which it is far more difficult to fall foul of.

Even though the Backbench Business Committee is a new innovation, the issue of ministerial statements going wrong has been discussed on the Floor of the House and by Select Committees before. In February 2001, the Public Administration Committee conducted an inquiry into the ministerial code. Its findings make for interesting reading, so perhaps I could indulge the House for a moment by reading them:

“There is one respect in which the accountability requirements of Ministers in relation to Parliament have been weakened over the lifetime of the Ministerial Code. This concerns policy announcements to Parliament. The 1949 version of the Code provided that: ‘When Parliament is in session, important announcements of Government policy should be made, in the first instance, in Parliament.’ However, in…1997…the formulation has become: ‘When Parliament is in session, Ministers will want to bear in mind the desire of Parliament that the most important announcements of Government policy should be made, in the first instance, to Parliament.’ This represents a reduction in parliamentary accountability. We recommend that when the Ministerial Code is next revised the spirit of the original wording should be restored in respect of announcements of important Government policy.”

Basically, the Government of the day, having been ticked off, accepted that recommendation. However, my contention—and that of the Backbench Business Committee—is that despite being corrected by the Public Administration Committee in 2001, the procedure is still not clear enough to the Government of the day.

I have to say that I am extremely disappointed that the new coalition Government have got off to a bad start on the release of policy information to this House—I should also say that I would have said that whichever Government were now in power. The coalition Government got off to a bad start with the Queen’s Speech, which is an extremely poor place to get off to a bad start. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) raised the matter in the House on a point of order on 25 May, when he said to you, Mr Speaker:

“You rightly used to excoriate Labour Ministers if ever we made announcements before making them to this House, so will you make sure that that lot over there do not announce things to the press—as they have done, day in, day out over the past 10 days—without first bringing them before this House?”

You, Sir, then said:

“This gives me the opportunity to say at the start of this new Parliament that I shall continue to expect, as I said two days after first being elected Speaker last June, that ‘Ministers ought to make key statements to the House before they are made elsewhere’… If they do otherwise, I—and, I am sure, the House—will expect to hear explanations and apologies as necessary.”—[Official Report, 25 May 2010; Vol. 510, c. 53.]

You have been as good as your word, Mr Speaker. The Backbench Business Committee—and, I hope, the whole House tonight—will praise you for that, because you insisted that Ministers who have not complied come to the Chamber to apologise to the House. [Interruption.] Yes, and rightly so. Why? Because we are, rightly or wrongly, elected by our constituents to be their representatives in this national Parliament; and if a Minister is deliberately or inadvertently releasing information before telling the people’s representatives, they should be called to this House to apologise. To the credit of the Ministers involved, even though they made a mistake with the pre-release of information, they have had the good grace to come here and apologise—and I now make a partisan point—unlike Ministers in the last Government, who never did so.

It is wholly appropriate for the Opposition of the day to hold Ministers to account for the release of information. That is part of the job of Opposition. However, that is also the job of all Back Benchers, whatever party we represent, and it is no use Government Members not being prepared to criticise Government Ministers because we are supposed to be on the same side. We have to think wider than that if we are to fulfil our proper roles as Back Benchers. We must have the guts to stand up and say to Ministers on our own side, if necessary, that this is not right and not the way to treat the House of Commons of the UK. We should encourage Ministers to take a professional pride in releasing information only to this House in the first instance.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very sensible speech, and I look forward to his promotion to the Conservative Front Bench in the very near future. Is not the problem the fact that there is not really any sanction? The worst possible sanction is that Mr Speaker says, “You have got to come and make an apology”, at the end of which not much happens. Would it not be better if we had a proper system of sanctions so that Ministers could, if they broke this code, be referred to the Committee on Standards and Privileges?

[Mr Hollobone]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent contribution, and I hope the Procedure Committee will take it into account. I am sure he would want to put the point that he just raised to that Committee.