Phone Tapping

Andrew Miller Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

This matter was looked into. It was looked into last year by the hon. Gentleman’s right hon. Friend, the then Home Secretary. The then Government decided that no further action should be taken.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Has the right hon. Lady any knowledge of how many of the 91 PIN codes involved were default numbers and how many were people’s own selected numbers? If she does have that, the issue is much more serious than has been indicated thus far. Default PINs can be obtained from the manufacturer, but others take sophisticated technology to obtain and only a very large operation could achieve that.

[Mrs May]

I will make the point that I made earlier. We are faced with a situation in which a number of allegations have been made in The New York Times. The Metropolitan police have made it clear that if fresh evidence is brought forward they will investigate it. As far as the Government are concerned, I believe it is appropriate for us to await the outcome.