Annex 11
Letter from the Clerk of the House and
Chief Executive to the Shadow Leader of the House
Thank you for your e-mail of 30 March.
I am sure you will understand that I cannot share
confidential correspondence with other parties, anymore than I
can share confidential correspondence between myself and a Member
with anyone else.
Having said that, I can tell you that there
is in fact very little correspondence between myself and the parties
you cite. In December, soon after the seizure of Mr Green's papers,
I wrote to the Metropolitan Police warning them of privilege issues
that could arise in relation to the material they held. Later,
in February, as you doubtless know I wrote to both sets of lawyers,
giving them the results of the preliminary inspection of papers
to ascertain privileged documents which had been made by officers
of the House. Other correspondence has been from, or on behalf
of, the Speaker which as you know he has said he expects to be
kept confidential.
However it is important to address your worry
that Parliament might deliberately be choosing not to address
the matter of privilege. As I have said, the privilege issue was
raised early on and a preliminary sift of documents has taken
place to remove privileged material from consideration. It has
been made clear to parties by Mr Speaker that this is not conclusive
and that it is for the House ultimately to decide on its privileges.
It has also been made clear that the House is free, at any time,
to make resolutions further to that of 8 December 2008 regarding
this matter but that it has not done so up to this point.
The parties also know full well that should
the matter go to trial and there is any dispute about admissibility
of evidence, the House's interest will be represented by intervention
in the usual way by Mr Speaker, acting on advice of the House
authorities. As I have told you it is not unusual for privileged
material to reach the court and at that stage for its use to be
challenged by intervention.
I understand that your view and that of some
other Members is that the privilege issue should be considered
by the House before that stage, if it ever occurs. The problem
in that case would be that the House would be interfering with
a criminal investigation which it has never done in the past.
But it is open to the House to do that by Resolution if it wishes.
I have advised you of the routes by which that can be done.
Malcolm Jack
31 March 2009
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