Letter to the Clerk of the Committee from
Roger Gale MP
I would be grateful if you would be kind enough
to offer the following submission to the Chairman and Members
of the Committee investigating the matters of privilege arising
from the Police intrusion into the Parliamentary Estate last spring.
I have always regarded that Members of Parliament's
parliamentary constituency casework should be considered as sacrosanct
and afforded the same privileges of confidentiality as those afforded
to doctors' notes and to lawyers' files. That being so I would
believe that it would be entirely improper to permit police to
enter the Parliamentary Estate without a full and court approved
search warrant and without the approval of the Speaker and Serjeant
at Arms collectively and seveally who would need to be satisfied
that a suspected offence was so grave as to warrant such intrusion.
While writing—and this may be outside
the remit of the Committee—I recall that when Jonathan Aitken
was made bankrupt the Guardian Newspaper Group endeavoured to
have his constituency papers sold as part of the realisation of
assets. At that time I was able to intervene to prevent this from
happening, again in order to protect confidential constituency
casework, but it became apparent that there is in fact no provision
or privilege that covers private casework. I believe that the
House of Commons should take a significant step to afford protection,
not to Members of Parliament, but to the private details and circumstances
of individual constituents—again in the way that doctor's
patients and solicitor's clients are protected.
I hope that this may be helpful
16 October 2009
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