Annex 4
Letter from Damian Green MP to the Speaker
of the House of Commons
I write in response to your letter to me of
4 February.
As you know I made a point of order about your ruling
on 5 February, which was cut off by the Deputy Speaker.
I enclose the legal advice commissioned by my
solicitors from Anthony Bradley, who will be known to you and
the Clerk. As you see, Mr Bradley concludes that the recent sequence
of events does not provide an authoritative and appropriate manner
of dealing with my request that the issue be referred to the Committee
of Standards and Privileges. He also, in paragraph 11, makes the
point I attempted to make on the floor of the House, namely that
the Assistant Counsel to the House of Commons wrote to my solicitors
on January 15th that "If there is any continuing dispute
over the status of the documents, following the Clerk's consideration
of them as described above, it will be a matter for the House
to determine at the request of Mr Green". That was precisely
the request I made, which was refused.
Given this opinion by the leading expert on
parliamentary privilege I ask you to reconsider your decision
not to refer the matter to the Committee on Standards and Privileges.
Regrettably, since we can all agree that this is something for
Parliament to resolve, if the matter reaches a court it will have
to be resolved there.
9 February 2009
| 
