Privilege

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words and grateful to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and to Mr Speaker for providing it. Perhaps not surprisingly, I entirely support the motion. I am on record from 2006 right up to the last election as speaking about the importance of this matter. I want to speak briefly today and to say to the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron) that, if the motion is passed, I would be happy to assist him and his Committee on Standards and Privileges further.

I am—I think—the only Member who has been asked to give evidence and has given it, as part of the evidence that secured the conviction of Mr Glenn Mulcaire. I was approached in 2006 and willingly agreed to do that. In reference to the comments of the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), I inquired who else had had their phone hacked and who else had been approached to give evidence. I was told that there were others, but that not everybody was willing to give evidence.

I have absolutely no doubt that some people were not willing to give evidence because they were afraid. They were afraid of going into the public domain to take on people working either directly or indirectly for one of our land’s major newspapers. I have been in this place and in public life long enough not to be afraid any more, and I have also been through the mill before, which means that I probably have nothing much more to be afraid about. For me, it was not a problem, but it clearly was for others. I hope that they—colleagues here and in the other place—will now again be invited to give evidence to the Standards and Privileges Committee, if it takes on the job and might now be willing to speak to that Committee, either in public or private, though they were not willing to go public in the courts at the time.

My second point is that we are not talking about an isolated person or people at an isolated time in respect of an isolated newspaper. To the best of my knowledge, I was a subject not just of that particular fishing expedition, but also of a different fishing expedition by a different newspaper owned by different people. Another linked activity—it was very common—was buying phone records illegally from phone companies so that activities could be traced and inquiries made. These are linked issues: there is a whole sea of illegal and undesirable activity going on here.

Another issue, to which the hon. Member for Rhondda rightly referred, goes even wider. We can defend and speak up for ourselves here because we have privilege. It is right that we use the processes of the House, but one reason why I support this matter being referred to the Committee on Standards and Privileges is so that the privileges of our families, our friends, our colleagues and our constituents can also be respected. The people living on the estate behind my house do not have the same access to the media as I do. When they leave a message or when a member of my family or a colleague leaves a message, they might not have the opportunity to go public about any difficulties, yet they are potentially equally affected and harmed. For them, it is equally insidious, dangerous and unacceptable. This is an issue for us in our representative capacity on behalf of our constituents as much as it is for us as MPs with parliamentary privileges.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

As a new MP, I hope not to have attracted the attention of Mr Mulcaire, but equally, as a new MP with a background in communications, I am very aware that the business of MPs and this House will depend increasingly on electronic means of communication throughout the country. The hon. Gentleman speaks of our representative role, which I strongly agree with, but we should also consider the future—both for the House and the country at large. By investigating what happened in the past, we not only look at the past, but safeguard the future for both.

[Simon Hughes]

The hon. Lady is quite right. In common with my right hon. and hon. Friends, I have seen great changes in the use of electronic media for communication during my time in Parliament. I hope that the hon. Lady’s expertise will be made available to the Standards and Privileges Committee if it requests it.

I want briefly to discuss two other issues. First, it is easy to misrepresent and thus tell untruths on the basis of misunderstood messages and information. To lighten the mood for a moment, I had a message on my phone the other day from a woman who sounded as if she was of a certain age and who said, “Darling, I really need to speak to you urgently. If we do not meet today, our marriage might be at an end.” I thought that that message was unlikely to be aimed at me! She clearly had not read the press enough! Not knowing who she was, I nevertheless phoned her back and said, “Madam, I do not know who you are and you might not know who I am, but I think that the message you left was not intended for me. You ought to think about who it was intended for before it is too late.” The serious point is that messages left were clearly misinterpreted to lead people to conclude that they were about one thing when they were not really about that at all. There is scope for terrible abuse if we do not rein in this activity completely.

Finally, this is without doubt a job for the Standards and Privileges Committee, but I hope that that will not mean that others who have a responsibility do not do their jobs, too. The Metropolitan Police Authority has a job—to hold the Metropolitan police to account.

[John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way.

[Simon Hughes]

I would rather not, as I want to be brief.

The Justice Committee might well want to ask Law Officers about whether the Crown Prosecution Service did its job properly. Of course there is a case for only specimen counts to be investigated and put forward in a court case, but I share the view of the hon. Member for Rhondda that people on the list as prospective targets should have been informed, even if their phones had not been hacked at the time.

We also have a wider responsibility, which I hope we can deal with more fully on another occasion. The power of the media—broadcast, televised and written—is an issue for this country. My right hon. and hon. Friends have been brave enough to set up a commission into the banks, but I hope they will also set up a commission into broadcasting and the media, because the Press Complaints Commission has not done a robust job. The public are not adequately protected from the press. I am someone who, like the hon. Member for Rhondda, will defend the freedom of the press to the end, but there is a big difference between the freedom of the press and abuse by the press. This is abuse and illegality. It has to end, and we must be robust about it.