Speaker Martin's Statement and interventions by Hoey, Baker and Beith

• [May 11]: Michael Martin (Speaker): MEMBERS will be aware of the unauthorised disclosure of material relating to their allowances, which has appeared in the press on Friday and over the weekend. This has caused great public concern.

Leaving aside the legal aspect, to which I shall return in a moment, the House has to make serious change to the system of allowances. Right hon. and hon. Members will know that we have been working to new rules from 1 April. We also know that there will be further changes, with proper, independent audit assurance. But working to the rules and the rules alone is not what is expected of any hon. Member; it is important that the spirit of what is right must be brought in now. We are also setting up an operational assurance unit with independent oversight to secure the proper handling of claims. This will be operating very shortly.

To return to the legal aspect, the Clerk of the House immediately sought advice. He was advised that there was no real basis for seeking an injunction but that there was some basis for considering that a criminal offence or offences may have been committed. As right hon. and hon. Members will know from a communication that they received on Friday afternoon, he accordingly referred the matter to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police. I can understand hon. Members' concerns about the revealing of details of bank accounts, style of signature and verbal passwords and their concern that an individual who may have sold the data is also capable of selling this information further. That is why the police have been informed. I am also writing to the publisher of the newspaper, drawing this fact to their attention and reminding them of the serious security implications if personal data that might expose Members and others to risks to their safety were to be published. The letter will be copied to all national newspapers.

I turn to the matter of what action on publication, originally scheduled for July, should now be taken, I can tell the House that the House of Commons Commission will be meeting this evening to give this matter its immediate attention.

Several hon. Members: rose -

• Michael Martin (Speaker): Order. I will take some points of order, but I remind Members that I cannot reveal every piece of information, or every action that the Commission and Officers of the House will take.

• Kate Hoey (Vauxhall, Labour): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order to point out that many of us-I hope from all parts of the House-feel that bringing in the Metropolitan police, who have a huge job to do in London at the moment in dealing with all sorts of problems, to try to find out who has leaked something, when, as has been pointed out, the newspapers have handled the personal details very responsibly by blanking them out, is an awful waste of resources? Will the public not see this, whatever the intention, as a way of hiding-

• Michael Martin (Speaker): Let me answer the hon. Lady. I listen to her often when I turn on the television at midnight, and I hear her public utterances and pearls of wisdom on Sky News-it is easy to talk then. Let me put this to the hon. Lady and to every hon. Member in this House: is it the case than an employee of this House should be able to hand over any private data to any organisation of his or her choosing? The allegations-I emphasise that they are allegations-are that that information was handed over to a third party in order to find the highest bidder for private information. If I do not ask, or rather if the Clerk of the House does not ask, for the police to be brought in, we are saying that that employee should be left in situ with all the personal information of every hon. Member, including the hon. Lady's own information and that of her employees. Let me say that anyone who has looked at their own un-redacted information can see that the signatures of employees are exposed, that private ex-directory numbers are exposed and that passwords-telephone passwords-are exposed. I just say to the hon. Lady that it is easy to say to the press, "This should not happen," but it is a wee bit more difficult when you have to do more than just give quotes to the Express-or the press, rather-and do nothing else; some of us in this House have other responsibilities, other than just talking to the press.

• . . Norman Baker (Lewes, Liberal Democrat): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would you, as part of a clarification of your statement, indicate whether the House of Commons Commission will tonight be considering the early release of all information, which I believe to be in all Members' interests, as opposed to dragging this matter out until July? And will-

• Michael Martin (Speaker): Order. May I say to the hon. Gentleman that I did say that in the statement? Perhaps he was reading the statement. Another individual Member who is keen to say to the press whatever the press want to hear has said that the House of Commons Commission has done nothing. Just remember that it was less than a year ago-on 3 July-that the House of Commons Commission put a report before this House, in which some of the problems that we have got today were examined and rejected, so it is wrong for him to say that the House of Commons has done nothing, but I answered his point in my statement in any case.

• . . Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed, Liberal Democrat): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I clear up a different point that emerges from your statement? It has been suggested in some quarters that the use of an outside body to check the receipts and the auditing, which seems to me a desirable thing, would in some way exempt those from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. My assumption is that that is simply not the case. Have you been advised accordingly, and can you confirm that?

Beith Michael Martin (Speaker): There is no intention that any action that we take will, inadvertently or otherwise, allow the freedom of information to be restricted. I hope that is of help to the right hon. Gentleman.

• . . Simon Hughes (North Southwark & Bermondsey, Liberal Democrat): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not condone people going on to the streets, but I wish to place it on record that I know for a certain fact that the demonstration in the square was applied for lawfully and granted permission for at least the last four weeks, and it will be able to continue lawfully for some weeks to come. I hope that colleagues will understand that there are laws, passed by this House, governing these matters, and the applicants for the demonstration have complied with those laws.

• Michael Martin (Speaker): I know that I might be in a bit of a bad mood today, but let me say that when authorisation is given for 50 people to demonstrate, it means 50 people. It does not mean tents or food stalls, or texts being sent to supporters to tell them to bring little children along. That is not part of the authorisation of the demonstration. As a former trade union officer, I know that when somebody co-operates with the authorities to obtain permission for a demonstration, they comply with the rules that they lay down. No one can say that that happened in this case.

Let me add a further thing, because it relates to what Sir Nicholas has said. People, including me, who have had to drive around the square have been put into a dangerous situation-the roads have been blocked off, because police officers have had to put their vans in the filter lane. So when anyone tells me that permission was given, I say that it was given for a limited number of people, not a mob.

• . . Michael Martin (Speaker): Order. I think that we must move on. We have got something called the main business, and we had better get that dealt with.

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