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Mr. Gummer : I very much understand what my hon. Friend has said, not least because I, like him, have a fishing constituency with a proportionately large number of fishermen who are longshoremen and have precisely those problems, although the species are different. I do not believe that we can take measures under the proposals specifically to address my hon. Friend's concerns, but I am looking at ways in which the present system bears upon the smaller fishermen, particularly in relation to shellfish, where there are real worries. May I correct an answer I gave earlier to the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing)-- [Interruption.] There is no need to worry--I shall state absolutely clearly that it would be more accurate to answer
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the question about the effect of decommissioning to say that we think that 10 per cent. of effort will be removed by the decommissioning as it stands.Mr. Charles Kennedy (Ross, Cromarty and Skye) : Does the Minister recognise that for all of us, from all quarters, who have been pressing long and hard for the Government to concede the principle of decommissioning, the Government's concession--their deathbed conversion--is welcome? But the industry's suspicions are likely to be aroused by the uncharacteristic reluctance of this Minister, of all Ministers, to come to the House to tell us of his departmental activities?
Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify the statement issued by the Secretary of State for Scotland yesterday, when he spoke of the £25 million that was to be put into decommissioning? Is the entire decommissioning scheme to be Government funded, or will it involve an anticipated contribution from the industry? Will he take this opportunity to respond to the anxiety felt on both coastlines in the north of Scotland--that of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) and mine--over the repossessions currently taking place? Will he influence the respective chairmen of the clearing banks involved to urge them not to proceed with that policy?
In his announcement, the Minister placed emphasis on the other measures-- tie-up days, transferrable licences and so on. When he quite properly speaks of the need for continuing constructive discussions with the industry, will he bear in mind the particular problems that such measures pose for smaller fishing communities? Will he consider the lack of support that those measures have generated within some sectors of the fishing industry?
Mr. Gummer : I acknowledge that, in contradistinction to others, the hon. Gentleman has always made a major point about conservation and has always accepted that it had to be part of any scheme that we proposed. It is perhaps unfair of him to suggest that we had to concede the principle, as I accepted it 18 months ago, but on the condition that there was a substantial contribution by the industry. The Government's contribution is £25 million, most of which will be paid by the British taxpayer. The industry's contribution is a serious one and there will be a heavier weight attached to it due to conservation reasons and tie-up days.
In future we shall provide fish producer organisations with the ability to discover in what spheres they may seek to rationalise their own local problems at their expense. That will not be enforced, but will take the form of voluntary action if they are prepared to do so. The whole industry will be affected by the more general conservation measures that will arise partly due to the extension of the licensing of boats of 10 m and below.
That is the industry contribution and it is the one with which I hoped that it would come forward. All the elements of that contribution have been suggested by those within the industry who are concerned about it. I think that it strikes the right balance. In the past, the hon. Member has suggested that he was not unwilling to see such a balance achieved. The £25 million is the Government contribution and there is no question of taxing or raising money from the industry to contribute to that.
I very much agree with what the hon. Member said about smaller communities. Unless we do something
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significant about conservation, it is those communities which will be most obviously affected. The hon. Gentleman will know from his part of the United Kingdom how much antagonism between communities has arisen because of the shortage of fish. It has not been a pretty sight to see the way in which different parts of Scotland, let alone Scotland and England, and different parts of England have argued among themselves because of the extremely limited amount of fish available. I hope that the proposed scheme will help those communities in the long run. I shall consider carefully the way in which the burdens of that scheme fall upon individual small communities. I have such communities in my constituency and I understand their concerns.The tie-up is difficult, but it is better to have a tie-up under the current proposals than under the unsatisfactory proposals that were previously forced upon us by the Commission--even after we had changed them to an extent. The much more flexible proposals were British initiated and they were hard-fought for by the Parliamentary Secretary and myself. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that they are a great improvement.
I shall talk to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland about specific examples of repossessions. If the hon. Gentleman or any of his hon. Friends wish to inform me of particular cases I would be happy to take them up individually.
Mr. James Arbuthnot (Wanstead and Woodford) : Does my right hon. Friend agree that this issue is a matter of balance? The answer my right hon. Friend has given strikes the right balance between the short-term interests of the fishermen and the long-term issue of conservation. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Scottish National party should recognise that unless we preserve the fish stocks, there will not be any fishermen in the future?
Mr. Gummer : I agree with my hon. Friend. I am sad that this is not a matter of universal agreement in the House. The written answer that I gave yesterday seemed to me to be so obviously a balanced one that it could not cause any kind of controversy. The fact that the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) seeks to make it controversial shows that, once again, conservation that costs something--all effective conservation does-- is not something that the Scottish National party is ever prepared to support.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : The Minister has placed you, Mr. Speaker in an invidious position today, whereby you felt that you had to grant a private notice question because this is the first opportunity to ask questions following the statement published this morning in Hansard. I believe that the statement made at the Dispatch Box today is designed to snooker my hon. Friends with responsibilities for fisheries who are unable to be here today because they are busily involved in constituency engagements. What the right hon. Gentleman has done is a breach of parliamentary faith and that is wrong.
What will be the position of the small boats of less than 10 m that will be decommissioned? Will they be destroyed? Will they be burnt, broken up or put to alternative use? Is it possible that some of those boats could be used as part
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of Britain's aid programme and sent to overseas countries where they could be put to good use in underprivileged fishing communities?I give the statement a cautious welcome. I should like to know how it will precisely impact on communities such as my own of Maryport in my constituency. To find the answer I shall have to make contact with some of my fishing colleagues, such as Mr. Madine and Mr. Harold Musgrove, who is a Maryport resident. They will quickly inform me of the value of this particular statement. Therefore, although I give a cautious welcome to the statement, I reserve some judgment on it.
Mr. Gummer : I thank the hon. Gentleman for his cautious welcome, and I should be happy to talk to him about the specific problems of Maryport--an area which faces difficult economic problems in any case. Obviously I hope that my statement will make a contribution, at least in the medium term, to the resources and abilities of his constituents to fish.
I suspect that the hon. Gentleman's fishermen will tell him that the announcement is good as far as it goes, but that they wish that the burden of conservation did not have to be borne by them. That is one of our problems. We are asking today's fishermen to take on a considerable burden, because of the over-fishing of the past, to provide for real fishing in the future. I recognise that fishermen find that extremely difficult, and it is for that reason that I believe that the significant sum of taxpayers' money should be part of the deal. I hope that the hon. Gentleman's fishermen will find that satisfactory.
I do not believe that I put you, Mr. Speaker, in any difficult position, but, if I had done so, I would have been the first to apologise. I do not believe that to be the case, because the private notice question technique is a standard part of the House's methods of communication. The hon. Gentleman was able to put his question and I was able to answer it. I, too, had constituency engagements today, but if others had wished to be here, I am sure that they could have been present.
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) : Is there not another reason why this statement has been made this morning in answer to a private notice question? It is because the right hon. Gentleman has been locked in mortal combat with the Scottish Office, and other sections of the Tory party, for the past three years.
There is another way of looking at this statement. It is not all sunshine, because the right hon. Gentleman has really said that we shall have fewer fishermen and fewer boats getting fish and that the price of fish will go up. We are a maritime nation, an island in the Common Market, but ever since we went into that tinpot Common Market, our fishermen have been told that they cannot catch as much fish as they did before, because it must be surrendered to the other 11 EC countries. A number of hon. Members have complimented the Minister today. What for? He is being complimented for sacking people, stopping them working and throwing them on the dole. What a carry-on.
Mr. Gummer : The House will have noticed the hon. Member's eloquent support for Labour party policy on the EEC--
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Mr. Skinner : I am not surrendering to the Germans.
Mr. Gummer : The hon. Gentleman appears to be fighting battles long over.
Mr. Skinner : I will win in the end.
Mr. Gummer : He does so with scant connection with the facts. The problem is not our Community partners, but the fish. I know that the hon. Gentleman's constituency is far removed from the sea--
Mr. Skinner : We have to buy fish.
Mr. Gummer : The reason that there is a shortage of fish is not the European Community but the fact that we have over-fished in the past. We have the largest amount of European fish and it is our over-fishing, as well as that of others, that has caused the problem.
It would be wrong to suggest that we can blame this problem on others. We have fished too much and we must hold back on our fishing. We will do so to give our next generation the opportunity to fish in what is the largest sector of EC fisheries. Thank goodness we have a common fisheries policy, because that is the only effective safeguard for the conservation of our fish stocks.
The hon. Gentleman is fighting long-lost battles, and the sadness about it is that he misleads the House by suggesting that an alternative policy would reap any better results.
Ms. Marjorie Mowlam (Redcar) : Will the Minister accept that his statement this morning that he will talk to Labour Members or to the Secretary of State for Scotland will not help the immediate repossessions that we are seeing now and that will come about later in the year in the fishing industry? It is not just a problem for Scotland--it exists in Redcar and up the north-east coast, in the constituencies of many of my hon. Friends. Will he make a commitment to talk to the clearing banks about the difficulty, because next year, as he and I know, will be too late for many of those fisheries people?
Mr. Gummer : In case others are not aware of this, I should make it clear that, although the specific cases which no doubt the hon. Lady would like to bring to my attention, although she has not done so so far--I do not believe that I have had a letter from her asking for support on this--
Ms. Mowlam : It is not up to the Minister ; the clearing banks make the decisions.
Mr. Gummer : If the hon. Lady has a particular case that she wants me to take up, I have always shown myself extremely willing to talk to Members of Parliament about individual cases. The hon. Lady has not so far contacted me, but if she were willing to do so, I could take it up with the clearing bank concerned.
In general, the fishing industry's returns have kept up with inflation, because, although the numbers of fish that have been taken are smaller, as the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has told us, the price of fish has also risen. Therefore, it is untrue to say that the fishing industry overall is enduring general repossessions. There may be individual cases, and in those cases I am happy to do whatever I can to help. If the hon. Lady has such a case
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--it will of course be in England, as her constituency is in England and will therefore be my responsibility--I should be happy to take it up at the moment that she gives me the details.Mrs. Ann Taylor (Dewsbury) : To pick up a point made by the Minister, my hon. Friends who normally speak on the fishing industry are in their constituencies. My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) is 300 miles away, and my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) is 200 miles away. They are absent not only because of the assurances given by the Leader of the House yesterday but because of the assurances given late yesterday by the private offices of Ministers that a statement on this matter would not be made in the near future. I hope that the Minister will take this opportunity to apologise for that information, which came directly from his Department.
Is the Minister aware that the Labour party generally welcomes the decommissioning scheme that he has announced? He should not be surprised at that, because Labour colleagues both north and south of the border have been pressing for this action for many years. We recognise that a balance has to be struck between guaranteeing the livelihood of those involved in fishing today and conserving stock for the fishing communities of tomorrow- -the whole principle of sustainable development that I wish was introduced in other Departments.
Does the Minister think that the £25 million that he has announced-- there seems to be some confusion about the amount of reduction in capacity that that will bring--is adequate to deal with the problem? How does he react to the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations, which believes the sum to be inadequate? Does the Minister agree that had this scheme been introduced two years ago, as the Labour party demanded, there would have been greater stability in the fishing industry today and we could have avoided the need for the other and more draconian restrictions that the Minister also announced today? Is it not a fact that this is a cynical deathbed conversion, which has more to do with the date of the election than with the Minister's concern with the fishing industry?
Mr. Gummer : This scheme could not have been introduced two years ago, because the arrangements under which the European Community operated would not have given us the opportunities to take the conservation measures that we now have.-- [Interruption.] The hon. Lady has asked a question and I will answer it politely. She will then no doubt be able to intervene if she thinks that I have not answered it adequately.
In the past 18 months, we have spent a great deal of time working in the European Community to get the system that makes possible what I announced yesterday. That is why it could not have been done or announced before. In any case, the reason for the announcement at this time has to do with the agreement that we have to enter with the European Community about our multi -annual guidance programme targets.
We now know that our fleet will overshoot those targets and we have to negotiate with the Commission on the basis of what target we should have, how we will keep our fleet within those targets and the effort within those targets over the period 1992-96. The hon. Lady does not normally
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speak on this subject, so she will understand if I say this directly--this is the timing that is inevitable given the European Community's timing.As to the hon. Lady's colleagues, I have made no further announcement today that was not clearly put in the answer to the written question that I gave last night. I am answering this private notice question today-- [Interruption.] The hon. Lady wants an answer and can no doubt return on the matter if she wishes to. Her synthetic anger will be seen by all. There is a private notice question today and I am answering it. Every hon. Member who is present has seen that I have given no further information than that which was already in the hands of the House in the perfectly sensible, public answer to a written question which I made yesterday.
The hon. Lady said that the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations thinks that this amount of money is inadequate. I suspect that, whatever figure had been placed on this, those who are the recipients would have liked more. I believe that this is the right balance and I should like to thank her for her willingness to say that, if there is to be a decommissioning scheme, it must be part of a package. However, the difference is that that is a balance which we have achieved, which she has supported but which, up to now, her hon. Friends have not pressed for. Like so many others, they are keen on emphasising the scheme that puts money into people's pockets without accepting the other half, which is very tough, which the fishermen recognise and with which I concern myself because it is hard for them.
Mr. Spearing : On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Your name has been mentioned in relation to embarrassment ; I would not know whether that is so and I would not ask. However, is it not clear from the exchanges that we have just had that certain hon. Members, including those on the Opposition Front Bench, have been embarrassed today by the turn of events? You will have just heard my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) ask for an apology from the Minister. You will know that, yesterday, when he was asked whether a statement was imminent, the Leader of the House--no doubt in good faith, because I know him--said :
"I am not yet in a position to say when conclusions will be reached."--[ Official Report, 27 February 1992 ; Vol. 204, c. 1118.] You will know, Mr. Speaker, that at that very moment an envelope must have been on the way to give the hon. Gentleman who had asked the written question his answer. Therefore, is it not a fact that there has been a breach of order or of courtesy and that some apology is required? The Minister has not yet given it. Can we ask whether the apology is due from the Leader of the House--I do not think that it is, knowing his general conduct--or from the Minister of Fisheries--I think that it might be--whose conduct we have just witnessed?
Mr. Speaker : This is a private Members' day, and there are other motions on the Order Paper. I was not embarrassed by this matter. I consider private notice questions on their merits, and that is the basis on which I granted the private notice question today.
Mr. Gummer : Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It would not be in my nature to be curmudgeonly.
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If any hon. Member feels that he could have been better served by me or my Ministry, I am sorry that he does feel so. I shall try to ensure that he does not feel so in future.Mr. Speaker : After that handsome apology, I do not think that there is anything more to be said.
Mr. Campbell-Savours : I wonder whether you might comment, Mr. Speaker, on what happened yesterday. The Leader of the House gave--
Mr. Speaker : Order. I have already said that I cannot comment. It is not for me to comment on these matters. As I have said, this is a private Members' motions day. The hon. Member knows--he has often been in this position himself--that it would be unfair to take up time with points of order that I cannot answer.
Mr. Campbell-Savours : At the same time that the Leader of the House was telling the House that there would be no answer, a letter was winging its way to an hon. Member including a parliamentary answer that was entirely at variance with an undertaking being given by the Leader of the House. Surely that shows that there was some congestion in Whitehall.
In your ruling, Mr. Speaker, you said that you consider whether a private notice question is important enough to be granted. There is an additional factor that you are required to take into account, and that is whether it is the first opportunity to raise the matter. Will you confirm, Mr. Speaker, that this is the first opportunity to raise the matter and that only on this day would you be prepared to grant the private notice question? If an hon. Member such as myself had come to you on Monday, you would have said, "The first opportunity was last Friday." Is it not clear, therefore, that there was very little that you could do other than allow the private notice question today, given that the answer was given yesterday and published in Hansard this morning? Is not that the reality?
Mr. Speaker : Of course that is true. The hon. Member correctly states the criteria against which I judge applications for private notice questions.
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Members' Interests
Question again proposed.
11.41 am
Mr. John Browne : As I was saying Mr. Speaker, I was told that, if I did agree to stand down at the next general election, I would not be punished in any way. In fact, sympathetic and even laudatory speeches would be made about me from the Government Front Bench and from Government Back Bench supporters. The House would pass a take-note motion, and there would be no punishment. I would then be assured of an easy time here with regard to late nights, pairing and so on, until the next election. I would be positively considered for any Committees or overseas visits for which I applied. On the other hand, if I did not submit, I could rest assured that the House would pass a hostile motion involving severe punishment.
That offer was entirely unconstitutional, in that it denied the rights of my constituents to vote either for or against their sitting Member at the next general election. When I asked, "What about my constituents?", I was told by the party chairman, "Do not worry about your constituents." But I do worry about my constituents and their rights, over those of party officials, to hire and fire hon. Members of the House.
This is a fundamental pillar of democracy. Surely we want hon. Members to be answerable to their constituents, and thereby to serve the interests of their constituents rather than those of party officials. We do not wish Members of the House to be answerable to, and thereby to become the private delegates of, a few party officials. Is that not what our British democracy is all about? Surely that should be a matter of concern to all right hon. and hon. Members of the House.
Worse still, what happened was one of the gravest possible abuses of judicial power. Pressure was put upon me by some of the most powerful people in the land--namely, the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East who is not only a Queen's Counsel of the High Court of England, but was then Leader of the House, in charge of the business of the House, and, as Foreign Secretary, had been in charge of MI6 ; the right hon. Member for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker), who, as Home Secretary, is in charge of MI5 ; and the right hon. Member for Mid-Sussex, who was in charge of the Government Whips Office. With such great power wielded with impunity against the flow of justice, what man or women in our land can consider himself or herself safe from an individual purge for political reasons? Under such circumstances, when the Government call for silence, it is indeed the silence of the lambs. Does that not worry you, Mr. Deputy Speaker?
That illicit pressure was placed on me at a series of well-recorded meetings held in the Chief Whip's Office and the offices of the Leader of the House and of the party chairman. Interestingly, some of those meetings are not even recorded in the official diaries of the Ministers concerned. One meeting was so secret that I was met outside the door of the building not by the Minister's secretary but by the Chief Whip himself, who ushered me in to see the Minister in a back room, without my name being registered as a visitor.
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Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?Mr. Browne : No, I have already given way a lot, and I have been given the vibes to get a move on.
Mr. Campbell-Savours : Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Browne : No, I shall not--not for the moment, anyway. That series of meetings confirmed my worst thoughts.
Mr. Campbell-Savours : Why will the hon. Gentleman not give way?
Mr. Browne : It was apparent to me--
Mr. Campbell-Savours : Why will the hon. Gentleman not give way? He has made a series of allegations--
Mr. Browne : It was apparent to me that the Labour party--
Mr. Campbell-Savours : On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The wider general public, and those who read Hansard, will know that, over the past hour and a half, the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Browne) has made a series of outrageous allegations about me. Do you not think it right in the circumstances, Mr. Deputy Speaker--is it not the custom of the House-- that, when such allegations have been made, the Member on his feet who is making them should give way at least once, so that a single question can be asked?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean) : That is a matter for the hon. Member who is speaking.
Mr. Browne : The hon. Member for Workington was not present when I said those things--
Mr. Campbell-Savours : I have been in the Chamber ever since we started.
Mr. Browne : I shall refer to the hon. Gentleman again, and I shall gladly give way at that time, but I shall not give way to him at the moment.
Mr. Campbell-Savours : Will the hon. Gentleman give way on this issue?
Mr. Browne : No. I am talking about the Government Whips Office. I have had the vibes to get a move on, and so far I have given way to every demand that I do so. I must get on.
The series of meetings to which I referred confirmed my worst thoughts. It was apparent to me that the Labour party was out for the blood of a Conservative Member on the issue of Members' interests. That was mentioned in Mr. Merrick Denton-Thompson's letter, referred to on page 147 of the Committee report, which I have already read out, and which said that people were after my blood.
It is interesting that that letter was discarded out of hand by the Committee on the word of another journalist. As the hon. Member for Bolsover has said, the question is : why my blood? I shall attempt to answer that key question by referring to some outside factors that were allowed to influence the course of justice.
In 1988-89, the flavour of the season in the media was the subject of Members' interests. That was magnified by consistent pressure brought by some socialist Members. Allegations were made by socialist Members and by the
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media against a number of Conservative Ministers, former Ministers and senior Back Benchers. It was an unpleasant and threatening pressure on the Conservative party.In 1989, the Labour party--especially Members seated below the Gangway-- began to interrupt Prime Minister's Questions with persistent choruses of, "Sleaze party," and, "Party of sleaze." Again, that gave cause for considerable concern, which was apparent in the way in which it was received by the then Prime Minister.
At that time, I was involved with the Protection of Privacy Bill, and in an acrimonious divorce, about which there have been many misconceptions. Despite such provocation, I have never spoken ill of my former wife, nor sought to put publicly my side of that great human tragedy. However, I shall now list some undisputed facts. In 1983 my former wife--now Mrs. Elizabeth Jowitt--left me for my one-time lawyer, Mr. Ernest Jowitt, with whom she had previously committed adultery, and whom she has since married. She sued me for divorce and it was agreed that the divorce should take place on the grounds of my adultery. There may have been reasons, even understandable reasons, with a wife committing adultery, but there can be no excuse for it--and, indeed, I felt much shame.
In the subsequent High Court action concerning financial settlement, Mr. Justice Wood reached some important judgments, most notably those of 6 February 1986 and 25 November 1986. These judgments were subsequently confirmed before the Court of Appeal on 23 November 1988. All of them were public and, indeed, all but the main initial hearings were in public. Despite that, certain sections of the media chose to present a totally different picture of the truth. According to the Court of Appeal, page 9, columns G and H and page 10, column A :
"there has been a great deal of publicity in the past over this case. There has, it appears, been misleading impressions of the types of applications and the purpose of the applications made by this husband, the suggestion, I believe, that he was a man hoping to live off a rich wife. The facts are very different."
In the media, the breakdown of the marriage was blamed upon my adultery. However, in his judgment of 6 February 1986, Mr. Justice Wood points to the fact that my ex-wife had two prior adulterous relationships--page five, paragraph H, and page six, paragraphs A and F. The media have never made mention of this to my knowledge. Mr. Justice Wood also said that he was quite satisfied that the tactics of my ex-wife were to pressurise and to try to break me financially--page seven, paragraph F. In describing my ex- wife's character, Mr. Justice Wood said on page 11, paragraph F : "I judge Mrs. Browne to be highly intelligent and to be manipulative. Where her own interests are concerned she is unscrupulous even to the extent of total lack of frankness." He went on, on page 13 paragraph D in referring to my ex-wife, to say :
"Unless her evidence is corroborated from independent and reliable sources, it remains suspect and indeed unacceptable."
Finally, on page 8, paragraphs D and F, Mr. Justice Wood refers to my wife's theft of documents from me. It is most interesting to note that no mention was made of the public hearing in which I have pleaded consistently through my counsel not to have my wife sent to prison. Also ignored was the very significant statement made by Mr. Justice Wood in open court which was well attended by journalists on 25 November 1986, when he said :
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"It is right that I should make it perfectly clear that Mr. Browne, throughout these proceedings, from beginning to end, has behaved entirely properly, and indeed, I know in correspondence from Mr. Jowitt he earned the comment that he has behaved as a gentleman. With that comment I would agree."This statement was published by only one small newspaper. Despite those published findings of a High Court judge who had heard the case presented to him by barristers over some two weeks, a totally distorted picture was accepted and disseminated to the public. It was a sensational story, I agree, but it was largely false and it was repeated, repeated and repeated. No one appeared willing to correct it.
The evidence : in essence, the story blamed the breakdown of the marriage upon my adultery. This was false, as I have said. Secondly, I was accused of trying to put my wife in gaol. That was false. It was a very newsworthy story, I admit, with a parade before the court on a day when there was not even a court hearing. Some of my lawyers felt that she should go to prison, but I did not. I have never thought so, and in fact I fought successfully in public court to prevent it. That is very different from the story that has been put about.
Thirdly, I was accused of applying for maintenance. Again, that was false. I applied for a division of assets of a marriage which was long and to which I had contributed very heavily and rightly so. Fourthly, the size of the settlement was considered wrong. I cannot comment on a judge's decision, but, as he said, he noted the deliberate run-up of legal expenses amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds. He saw an attempt at financial destruction of a spouse. He also saw assets of the marriage stashed away in an overseas trust and the sole beneficiary of that trust of almost £1 million claiming rights to legal aid. This false mass publicity had understandably a most detrimental effect on my standing in my constituency and upon my standing among colleagues in this House. It provided food for my political enemies.
In 1988, I introduced the Protection of Privacy Bill. I understand that, at the outset, it had the tacit support of the majority of the Cabinet. Subsequently, the Government moved to kill it under the guidance of the then Minister, the right hon. Member for Mid-Sussex, who, ironically, was later to operate the payroll and informal Whips against me on 7 March 1990.
Apparently, the Government did so largely due to the enormous pressure brought against the Bill by the media. I personally was subjected to very serious and consistent media criticism and character assassination. Allegations were made that I had introduced a Bill to smother charges of my incorrect registration of a Member's interest. Prima facie, this was false. A reading of the Bill will show quite clearly that business, political and all non-family private matters were specifically excluded from protection under the Bill.
I mention this background only because of the quite unprecedented insults and critical coverage given to me by certain sections of the mass media. I submit that it must have been a material fact in the minds of both members of the Select Committee and of the House in reaching their judgment. However, no attempt whatsoever was made by
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