Police Searches on the Parliamentary Estate - Committee on the Issue of Privilege Contents


Letter to the Chair of the Committee from Mr Peter Mason, Parliamentary Security Co-ordinator

  Further to the evidence given by the Clerk of the House to your Committee on Wednesday 24 February about the time the media first reported Police activity relating to an MP on Thursday 27 November 2008, it might be helpful to set out my recollections, and those of my executive officer, Mr Mark Harvey.

  On 26 November, the terrorist attacks in Mumbai took place. The next day there was much media comment and analysis of this event, and its aftermath. I watched much of this on my office screen. I too recall, and so does Mark, the news about police activity relating to an MP being carried during the early afternoon of the 27th. What neither of us recalls is which media channel we were watching at the time.

  After the news item had appeared, I explained to Mark that the police had alerted me to such a possibility a couple of days earlier. I had received a clear assurance that the Serjeant at Arms was in discussion with the police about this, and had been for some time. I understood that the matter related to a security issue in the Home Office—a leak inquiry—and did not relate to the security of Parliament, but to the alleged activity in connection with that matter by an MP. I judged that this was a matter for the Serjeant and that she was correctly engaged with the police. Mark recalls this conversation clearly and that occurred during the early afternoon of the 27th.

Peter Mason

9 March 2010





 
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