Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I know that the hon. Lady has not just constituency experience of this but managed a citizens advice bureau, and so has huge experience of people with debt problems. Citizens Advice is probably the finest organisation in our country for helping people with debt. I will certainly consider her suggestion to consider whether the sector can be better regulated, what we can do to support citizens advice bureaux at this difficult time, and the issue of credit unions and how we can lead to their expansion.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

Q15. The whole House will share the outrage that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) expressed this week about the publication of private medical information relating to his son. He also said that when he was Prime Minister he tried to set up a judicial inquiry into phone hacking. Will my right hon. Friend tell me what detailed preparatory work he inherited?

[The Prime Minister]

I have every sympathy with my predecessor, particularly over the blagging of his details by a newspaper, if that is what happened. In public life we are all subject to huge amounts of extra scrutiny, and that is fair, but it is not fair when laws are broken. We have all suffered from this, and the fact is that we have all been too silent about it. That is part of the problem. Your bins are gone through by some media organisation, but you hold back from dealing with it because you want good relations with the media. We need some honesty about this issue on a cross-party basis so that we can take on this problem.

I have to say that I did not inherit any work on a public inquiry, but I am determined that the one we will set up, with the support of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, will get the job done.