Ministerial Code (Culture Secretary)

Baroness Bray of Coln Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

No, I am afraid that that is not the precise nature of the conversation, but I am short for time now. I am quite happy to correspond with the Secretary of State, but I believe that he misled and that he deliberately did so on those occasions.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I am not going to give way further, because I have already given way on four occasions to the Secretary of State.

The proof that those claims were untrue is that there was un-minuted contact when the Secretary of State had control of the bid—twice on 20 January 2011, once on 21 January, three times on 3 March, three times on 13 March and once on 3 July. He could have corrected the record, but without Rupert Murdoch, we would never have known about it. That is the honest truth of this matter.

The Secretary of State has always protested that, once in charge of the bid, he operated impartially. Yet despite being directly advised on 10 November 2010 not to have any external discussions on the BSkyB media merger, he texted the Chancellor on the day that he acquired responsibility for the bid to say:

“Just been called by James M. His lawyers are meeting now and saying it calls into question legitimacy of whole process from beginning.”

It is absolutely clear that the Secretary of State had a conversation that he had been advised he should not have, precisely and in terms. He was colluding with News Corporation, and to deny it again today is yet another way of misleading the House.

It has often been said by the Prime Minister that all these issues have been dealt with by Leveson, but the Leveson inquiry, because of article IX of the Bill of Rights, has absolutely no power; indeed, it is legally barred from questioning or impeaching any proceeding in Parliament. That is why not a single question was posed about any of these matters to the Secretary of State and why there has to be a reference to the independent adviser.

I end with these few words:

“this is a shabby, shabby business”.

Not my words: the words of a full-time Murdoch employee and former Tory Member of Parliament, Matthew Parris.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Jenkin]

That would be a matter for the independent adviser, not the Prime Minister, to decide.

At the start of the present Parliament, the Committee resolved not to inquire into individual cases. Accordingly, we have made no judgment of any of the evidence on the conduct of the Secretary of State, which others in the House seem to have done. It is therefore not for me to say whether the Prime Minister should refer the Secretary of State to the independent adviser. It is highly unlikely that there are many right hon. or hon. Members who take a disinterested view of the evidence. Indeed, some of those named on the motion have already called for the Secretary of State’s resignation; they have already made up their minds. I put it to the House that this is effectively a vote of confidence in the Minister, rather than a decision of the House whether or not to refer.

That is precisely why it should be for the independent adviser himself to decide whether to investigate. That would take the decision out of the political arena and place it firmly in the hands of a person who is impartial in these matters. That is the basis of everything I have said on this matter. I have never made a judgment about the merits or otherwise of the case in question.

[Angie Bray]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Jenkin]

If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I will not.

Now that Sir Alex Allan himself has said that the Leveson inquiry’s probing and taking evidence under oath means that he does not believe that he could usefully add to the facts in this case, I personally wonder why the Opposition are persisting with the motion.

This does not absolve the Government from addressing many awkward questions. I have too many remarks for the time available, but they concern matters that the Government might not want to hear about, including the role and function of special advisers. I am happy to inform my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) that the Public Administration Committee had already embarked on an inquiry into this subject before the resignation of Adam Smith, which served only to intensify the debate about numbers of special advisers, about what they are really there for, about whether the new code of conduct for special advisers is effective, and about how special advisers should be held accountable for what they do, and to whom. Under the Blair Administration, the role of special advisers was changed. Happily, it has now changed back, but this has done something to change the terms of trade for special advisers in government, and Whitehall is still adapting to that change. Our inquiry is exploring that matter.

There are further questions to which we still need answers. Whom did Adam Smith really believe he was serving in his role as go-between? Was it his Secretary of State, who is nominally responsible for the conduct of special advisers under the ministerial code? Or was it “the government as a whole”? That is a phrase I use advisedly, because the code was changed under the new Government, and all special advisers now serve “the government as a whole”. Has that phrase subtly changed the accountability of SpAds so that they are now no longer clear about to whom they are ultimately accountable?

What is the role of the permanent secretary in the supervision of the conduct of a special adviser, who is, after all, still a civil servant? I would even go so far as to ask—perhaps controversially—whether the top of the civil service has lost some of the self-confidence and authority that in yesteryear might have seen a permanent secretary act more decisively in such a situation. I hope that we will never again see a special adviser fired from his job for doing what he believed to be the right thing, simply because he had been left in ignorance of the boundaries of conduct that he should have observed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Coffey]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct, and given what he has said, I hope that he will join us in the Lobby and oppose this shameful motion.

All sorts of claims have been thrown out about improper behaviour, but for the public outside, the reality is that News Corp still has only a 39% shareholding in BSkyB. If, as Opposition Members have suggested, there was collusion and an agenda, surely the process would have been completed some time ago. The reality is very different: the reality is that the Enterprise Act 2002 was followed properly, and representations were made in line with the law. Opposition Members may talk about perceptions, but the law must be followed. I am absolutely confident that by taking independent advice and, indeed, going further than he needed to, my right hon. Friend showed that he was setting aside his own view that this could be the right thing for our media. He set that view aside when he took on his responsibility, and nothing has been said today that suggests anything to the contrary.

[Angie Bray]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend has ever heard the expression “Don’t let the facts spoil a good story”, but I think that it is about as appropriate a phrase that there could possibly be to describe what is happening today. Does my hon. Friend agree that we are entering the deepest realms of conspiracy theory?

[Dr Coffey]

I agree with my hon. Friend. This has been an extraordinary time. While I understand the politics of the Opposition, I wish that they would focus on the real issues that are affecting the country today, such as the economy and foreign affairs in, for instance, Syria. The Leader of the Opposition made no reference to those matters earlier.

There might be rather more positive feeling in the Chamber if the last Government had acted in any way that suggested that the ministerial code was being followed. Let me clarify that. I am not criticising the last Prime Minister for not referring himself to the ministerial adviser or resigning on matters affecting his own advisers which led to their being sacked or having to resign, and I think that the Opposition should extend the same courtesy to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. He trusted his special adviser strongly and has the highest regard for him—I have no reason to doubt that—but, again, things did not go well. The gentleman resigned, and my right hon. Friend acted honourably in accepting the resignation and making it clear that that behaviour was not appropriate.

Although I have taken two interventions, I do not wish to extend my speech unnecessarily, because I know that many other Members wish to speak. I will be voting against the motion because of its naked political opportunism, and because no evidence has been presented suggesting that my right hon. Friend acted in any way against the law, or the spirit of the law. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and BSkyB is still independent of News Corp’s ownership. Many frustrations were experienced along the way, which led to some of the excessive lobbying that we have seen. I encourage every Member to reject the motion out of hand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I agree with the hon. Member for Bradford South (Mr Sutcliffe) that this is an important issue that should be debated, and the Opposition should have an opportunity to raise it on the Floor of the House, but we have heard nothing new today—nothing that has not been covered many times before. With respect, I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster) that I did not hear what the pertinent extra questions that the Secretary of State must answer were; I did not learn what outstanding issues have not yet been covered. We have gone around in circles on all the old issues. That is why it was right for Sir Alex Allan to say there was nothing more he could add because what more was there to say after the six hours of evidence at the Leveson inquiry and all the previous opportunities for questioning on the Floor of the House?

A lot has been made of the memo that the Secretary of State sent to the Prime Minister. It was sent at a time when the Secretary of State had no idea that he would be asked to be involved in this process. The memo rightly deals with media policy and a recommendation about that any decision not to allow the bid to go forward should be taken on grounds of media plurality and not as a result of lobbying from outside organisations which may be open to judicial review. That was a perfectly proper point of view, and perfectly reasonable advice of the sort that a Culture Secretary might give to a Prime Minister.

Earlier, I asked the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) to read out the sentence in which the Secretary of State says:

“It would be totally wrong for the Government to get involved in a competition issue which has to be decided at arm’s length.”

Could the Secretary of State have been any clearer about his views on the process and how it should be followed by members of the Government? We should see his final sentence—his request for a meeting—in the context of that remark. There may well be some broader issues about media policy that it would be perfectly appropriate for the Culture Secretary and the Business Secretary to discuss with the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister—issues that were not at all specific to the merger deal that was on the table. The significance of this memo has been blown out of all proportion.

Let us turn to the guidance that the Secretary of State received. I have not heard any Member question the method by which he sought outside independent advice during the course of his deliberations on this matter, or challenge whether he asked for more information than he needed or ask questions about publishing all the advice on the record so everyone could see it—something no Secretary of State had done before in a similar situation. No one has questioned that, so I challenge the notion that the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) touched on at the beginning of the debate: that this process was always flawed and the Secretary of State was always prejudiced in his view, because there is absolutely no evidence of that at all. There is no evidence that the Secretary of State did anything other than follow the independent advice and undertake his legal obligations as Secretary of State through the process. No Member today has challenged him on the substance of what he did.

Let us consider what the Leader of the Opposition said at the Leveson inquiry yesterday. He was asked what his view was on how this process may be changed for the future—about what we can learn from what has happened. He said he thought politicians should remain involved. When this matter was debated last summer, that was not the view of the shadow Secretary of State, who said politicians should be taken out of the process entirely. The Labour party now believe politicians should be involved in taking these decisions. Where the Secretary of State moves away from independent advice, that should be published, and it can be reviewed and appealed. Under the Leader of the Opposition’s view of how things should work in future, the result would have been exactly the same. Nothing would have been different, because the Secretary of State followed all the advice, so there would have been no need for a referral or appeal. There can be no proper questions about whether something wrong was done.

Opposition Members claim there was some massive conspiracy to favour News Corporation, but they have absolutely no evidence of that. It is a bit like someone complaining that an assailant has picked their pocket even though they remain in possession of the wallet they claim has been stolen. The Secretary of State did not abuse his power. He was not open to influence and external lobbying from News Corporation that in any way could have affected his judgment, because there is no evidence of any such action by him.

[Angie Bray]

Is that not the disgraceful thing about today’s debate? We have had no new evidence, but just a lot of smears and highly partisan accusations. Such behaviour is what demeans the reputation of the House of Commons.

[Damian Collins]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. I believe there are no grounds for further inquiries; we have covered all these points. This is still an important issue, however, and it is perfectly valid for the House to debate it. The Secretary of State has now had a chance to come to the House and set the record straight on many of the important outstanding questions, but some Opposition Members will never be satisfied. The genesis of this debate came a few weeks ago when the shadow Secretary of State called for the resignation of the Secretary of State without having read the evidence submitted to the Leveson inquiry. The call came only 23 minutes after a great volume of paper had been produced. I cannot presume that the shadow Secretary of State read all of that in the 23 minutes it took to make the decision. She has dug a hole and kept on digging, and not been able to produce any new evidence—nothing of significance at all.

Why are we even in this position, why are we even having this debate and why do we know so much about what the Secretary of State said? At Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said the only reason why the News Corporation bid could have come in was that the last Government changed the rules on allowing foreign companies to own UK broadcasters. We would all be fascinated to see the chain of e-mails, text messages and correspondence between Ministers in the last Government on that matter, but we will never do so. We only know about this issue because the Prime Minister decided there should be a full public inquiry and all the information has been made public. Ministers have been questioned on the record about it.

We also know from the Leveson inquiry the reasons why Tony Blair did not feel the last Government should have had an inquiry in 2006-07, after the Information Commissioner’s report looking at illegal use of information in news stories had been published and after concerns had been raised. He did not do it because he did not want the fight with the press. The last Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), ducked that issue as well, despite the revelations in The Guardian about phone hacking and despite the work of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in the last Parliament producing more concerns and more evidence. He did not dare take on the media and have this row.

This Government have done that. In the handling of the News Corporation-BSkyB merger, there can never have been a more transparent process in respect of understanding the thinking and working of a Secretary of State in making his decision. It is clear that the Secretary of State always followed independent advice, and no Member today has advanced any argument that questions that in any way.