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Speaker's Committee on the Search of Offices on the Parliamentary Estate

I am pleased to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) and I promise to be even briefer than he was. I rise to support the motion tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) for two reasons. I do not think that the initial stages of the debate went as well as they should have done. We hope that our constituents have some interest in what we do in this place, but they would have found it impossible to understand the first three quarters of an hour of our deliberations. It was wholly proper for the Government to put a time limit on the debate and we should have accepted it and got on with the debate. A consensus is emerging from the debate and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House is listening to it. If she responds to it, we may all come out of the debate with real credit. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) pointed out, one of the problems is that many of our constituents, and at least some of us, are confused about what our privileges are and why we have them. It would be not only useful for them to be set out again but, as the shadow Leader of the House said, it might be good to see whether we should move to a statutory basis for those privileges. Their purpose is not to boost us and our egos but—we hope—to allow us to carry out our duties in a way that furthers the interests of our constituents. My second point is that the motion tabled by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife manages to divide the two issues that concern the Government. The first issue, with which I think my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House agrees, is that we need to take note of what our privileges are, why we have them and how we should protect them. Running alongside that, however, is the question of whether there was something different about the leak to the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green), and I hope I shall not cross the line in what I am about to say. I draw a distinction from my experience. I was not a Member of Parliament at the time but an outsider, so I should have been treated differently—as I was. The previous Labour Government had a commitment to introduce child benefit. They decided to rat on the commitment, and papers were leaked to me showing that members of the Cabinet were not being totally truthful to one another. The Government threatened all sorts of things, through the Official Secrets Act and so on, but were far too sensible to go down that route. The Bill was not only introduced but became an Act. In addition, the Government spent huge resources on child benefit and, in the general election, said that it was one of their greatest achievements, so sometimes leaks can have a very good effect on Governments. At some stage, the House needs to look at the circumstances of the leak relating to the hon. Member for Ashford, which I read about in the papers. My really good Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) says that he would love everything to be put on rice paper. I must say that if I got a whole series of leaks from someone whom, it is alleged, I had employed, and with whom I had contact, I as a Member of Parliament might question what was going on, particularly if I thought that that person might wish to further their career in the Opposition party. I beg Opposition Members to consider that point; it is not the usual suspects who are expressing concern about the issue. I do not usually regard myself as one of the usual suspects, and I am concerned about the matter. I make that point because I imagine that many outsiders following the debate will be concerned about the issue. It will not go away; it can come up in different circumstances. I think that it should be pursued. I make the following plea to my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House: the shadow Leader of the House has said that she is withdrawing the Opposition's official amendment, so there is a chance for the House to come together on the amendment of the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife. If we did that, we might just scoop some credit from our constituents for this affair.