---

Points of Order

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Reigate (Crispin Blunt) and the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) for their points of order.

With respect to what the right hon. Gentleman said, I am intimately conscious that I cannot and should not intervene or overly pronounce on the way in which Select Committees of the House conduct their affairs.

From my own experience as a member of several Select Committees before being elected to the Chair, I can say that it was certainly my normal and satisfied expectation that before draft reports were produced, there would be a period of considerable discussion by the Committee not only about chapter headings, but, more substantively, about the direction of travel that colleagues could anticipate, even in the first draft. In other words, the process would be Member-led, rather than Chair-decreed, still less official-determined. I therefore understand the sense of angst that the right hon. Gentleman has conveyed in a very reasonable, balanced way. I think colleagues would do well to consider what he has said.

More widely, I would say—if colleagues want to come back on this, they will—that the Committees on Arms Export Controls carry out extremely valuable work. To do so, they rely on the co-operation and consensus of the Chairs and members of four Select Committees. I very much hope that this co-operation can be maintained so that the House can benefit from their important work.

The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee focused very much on the matter of the leak and what might flow from that. Let me just say that it is for the Committees concerned to investigate the cause of the apparent leak to decide whether it constitutes a substantial interference with their work—a matter on which Members not on the Committees may also have a view—and to inform the Liaison Committee, seeking its views in the process. Thereafter, it would be sensible for them to decide—indeed, it will inevitably be decided—whether to make a special report that would stand referred to the Committee of Privileges.

The hon. Gentleman asked me about the use of private investigators. I can only say that I do not know whether that would be effective in this instance, although it is perfectly conceivable that it might be. Probably the best approach for me to take is to say: let the Liaison Committee, which is an established and respected Committee within the House, make a judgment. It is perfectly legitimate for colleagues to make representations to the Liaison Committee about what they think should happen. Rather than for the Speaker to say what the Liaison Committee should do, the Liaison Committee should consider the matter carefully, taking note of these points of order in deciding how to proceed.

This is a very serious matter, indeed. If the Committees of this House are to work effectively, we cannot have a situation in which individual members of a Committee leak information, in advance, to advance a particular point of view or to retard the progress of another. That is wholly against the spirit of the operation of the Select Committees of this House. I thank colleagues for what they have said, and for the spirit in which they have said it.