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


Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers 400-419)

DR MALCOLM JACK, MS JACQY SHARPE, MR MICHAEL CARPENTER AND MS VERONICA DALY

9 NOVEMBER 2009

  Q400  Ann Coffey: Why was that privileged? It is a matter of public record.

  Ms Sharpe: The Member giving the speech or asking the question has the protection of privilege. So the fact that the question was answered, there would be no objection from the House to actually saying it had happened and the date but anyone seeking to question or use the material against a person would be a matter under Article 9.

  Q401  Ann Coffey: May I just get this right. We are protected by privilege in the House.

  Ms Sharpe: Yes.

  Q402  Ann Coffey: So I can basically say what I like and nobody can sue me and that is privilege as a Member. You would regard Hansard, which writes that up, as privileged information deriving from my status as an individual MP.

  Ms Sharpe: Depending on the use that was made of it. The fact that you had made a speech—

  Q403  Ann Coffey: And it was public.

  Ms Sharpe: — would be accepted, but if someone was then trying to look behind it to claim, for example, that you had malice in your speech, then that would be privileged.

  Q404  Chairman: Or to infer from the contents of the speech that you had been engaged in a criminal offence.

  Ms Sharpe: Yes, that is right.

  Q405  Chairman: For example, accepting material from a civil servant who should not give it to you.

  Dr Jack: Yes.

  Ms Sharpe: Yes; absolutely. We also then thought about any material which might be preparatory to a speech. In fact we were aware of only one item which we thought might have attracted privilege in that sense and, coming back from the sift, I then checked to see whether there had been a question or a debate on that subject around the time and there had been nothing, so I assumed it was just background briefing not associated with parliamentary proceedings, which is why we did not take that up.

  Q406  Chairman: How many documents did you decide fell under the general heading of privilege?

  Ms Sharpe: In the paper sift it was 20.

  Q407  Chairman: And in the electronic sift?

  Ms Sharpe: In the electronic sift there were only two documents. One had four copies of something and one was another document.

  Q408  Ann Coffey: Can I be absolutely clear about what you mean by privileged? What you are talking about is information which is held in a preparatory form, possibly to give a speech or ask a question, in which informing that draft may have been the result of information that had been given to the Member from outside.

  Ms Sharpe: Most of the documents we looked at had actually been used in the Chamber and therefore it was pretty certain that on precedent that would be regarded as something which was privileged. Of course ours was advice and not a definitive decision. For anything else, then it was whether it was so closely related to the proceedings that it could be regarded as privilege if, for example, you had a draft of a speech and the date when the Member was going to make it and it was obvious that the speech had subsequently been made in the Chamber, then that would probably have come into that criterion. We had virtually none of those; it was mostly personal correspondence, telephone bills or, for the blackberries, communications from the whips.

  Q409  Ann Coffey: So that is not privileged information.

  Ms Sharpe: No, not initially. Obviously if a Member felt they needed to argue that it was, then it would be for them to pursue that.

  Q410  Chairman: Putting it colloquially, privileged information is the information that a Member of Parliament may have which is related to his or her participation in the proceedings of the House.

  Dr Jack: Yes.

  Ms Sharpe: Absolutely.

  Q411  Chairman: That involves a speech which is made in the House, but it can, if the association is close enough, involve the preparation of a draft from which the speech is ultimately made.

  Dr Jack: Yes.

  Ms Sharpe: Yes, that was much more clearly put.

  Q412  Chairman: The purpose is to provide immunity from either criminal or civil proceedings against anything you say in the House or that might be used to prepare what you say in the House. Proceedings now involve questions, the proceedings of this Committee and what is said in the Chamber.

  Ms Sharpe: Yes.

  Q413  Ann Coffey: So you were not interested in the correspondence that the Member may have had with his informant per se, you were only interested in what went in to his preparatory speech and notes that might be the basis of a speech in the House. If there had been an email exchange between Damian Green and the person who worked in the Private Office or any Private Office, that would not be considered privileged information.

  Ms Sharpe: Yes, that would certainly be the initial view.

  Q414  Chairman: When you were conducting all three of these sifts, did you have any regard to constituents' correspondence?

  Ms Sharpe: There was some constituents' correspondence. We certainly would have been aware if there had been any possibility of that being mentioned in an adjournment debate, if there was some connection, for example it said "I intend to raise this on the adjournment" or something like that. We would have considered whether that was something which was privileged but there was nothing that we were aware of that came into that category and normal constituency correspondence is not covered by parliamentary privilege.

  Q415  Ann Coffey: If I had two constituents' letters and in reply to those constituents' letters in one of them I simply give a straight reply and in the other one I say "I am about to raise this in the Chamber for you", the latter becomes privileged information and the former not.

  Ms Sharpe: It would certainly be considered as to whether that was so close that it would. It is very much an individual decision.

  Q416  Ann Coffey: It is in relationship to what you do with the constituent's correspondence or likely to do in the Chamber that is the criterion that is applied.

  Ms Sharpe: Yes.

  Q417  Chairman: Or "I will ask a question of the minister" which is a more frequent response to a constituent.

  Ms Sharpe: Yes.

  Dr Jack: Right.

  Q418  Mr Henderson: Or someone says in a letter "Will you vote for X?" and I say "No, I will not" or "Yes, I will". Is that covered?

  Dr Jack: Yes.

  Q419  Chairman: Early day motions?

  Dr Jack: Yes; certainly. That could relate directly to proceedings.



 
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