COMPLAINT OF PRIVILEGE (Hansard, 22 October 1971)

§ Mr. Arthur Lewis

I wish to raise a somewhat similar matter of a possible prima facie breach of Privilege and contempt of Parliament. As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, I gave you notice as early as possible, which was last evening.

I want to put the indisputable facts before the House and then pass comment upon those facts and give some information. The facts are that, being disturbed—as are many people in this country—at what I thought then, and 1090 think now, were attempts on the part of the Attorney-General to interfere with the course of justice affecting the Oleg Lyalin drink and driving case, as soon as the matter was free from the sub judice rule I placed a whole series of Questions on the Order Paper for answer by the Attorney-General last Monday, 18th October. I shall not detail all those Questions. Reference to the Order Paper, page 13251, issued last weekend, will show when notices of Questions put in between 24th September and 15th October were given. If hon. Members look at HANSARD for last Monday, 18th October, cc. 47–8, they will find the whole series of Questions.

Last Friday, Mr. Simon Dring of the Daily Telegraph telephoned me and said that he had received a statement from Mr. Hetherington, the Legal Secretary to the Attorney-General, in effect giving complete answers to all my Questions which were due to come up on the following Monday. I said that I could not believe that to be true. But, during the discussion, he asked for my views on the case, which I gave him. I will not go into them, because they are not material.

Nevertheless, on the Saturday morning I saw in the Daily Telegraph on page 3 a four-column article, and, attributable to Mr. Hetherington, allegedly acting on behalf of the Attorney-General, were in effect, the answers to my Questions.

I raised this matter informally with the Table Office on Monday. As usual, the Table Office, always most helpful to hon. Members, pointed out that which you, Mr. Speaker, pointed out in the other breach of Privilege case. One of the officials said: "Until you have received your answers you cannot say whether these are the answers to the Questions because you do not know."

I then got the answers and saw exactly that they were the answers which had appeared in the Press on the Saturday. In other words, the Attorney-General and his Legal Secretary had pre-empted my chance of having the Questions answered. In fact they had done that which has never been done before. I agree that official-inspired leaks are sometimes given.

The Table Office said: "You are not sure whether the Attorney-General or Mr. Hetherington did this. It is only 1091 what the Press said." So I said: "It is all right. I have written to the Attorney-General." The Table Office said: "Then wait and see the reply that you get from the Attorney-General."

Last evening I got the reply from the Attorney-General. I will not quote it at length; I will quote, inter alia, the references which are applicable. The letter reads: Mr. Hetherington is the Legal Secretary and the Civil Service head of my Department. On Friday, 15th October, a representative of the Press informed him that you had made outside Parliament a public statement to the effect that I had 'twisted the law' by deciding to withdraw the prosecution against Mr. Lyalin. The Press representative asked Mr. Hetherington to comment on this allegation. As your allegation had been made outside Parliament I authorised Mr. T. C. Hetherington to answer the questions which the Press were putting to him. My reasons for deciding that the charges against Mr. Lyalin should be withdrawn were explained by me in my Written Answer to your Questions on Monday. As you have now put down further Questions to me on this topic I do not therefore propose to comment further in this letter. This is condemnatory of the Attorney-General himself, because he admits that he instructed his Legal Secretary to give answers to my Questions. The answers which appeared on the Saturday were confirmed by the answers in the House on the Monday.

Whether I did or did not make any statement to the Press in or out of the 1092 House, whether I said that he was or was not twisting the law, lying, or anything else, is not material. What a Member of Parliament says is completely privileged, but a Minister is not entitled to make statements in answer to Questions in this way outside the House. Indeed, the Attorney-General confirms this, because he says that he will not now attempt to answer by correspondence Questions which are on the Order Paper.

These Questions were on the Order Paper. The Attorney-General had long notice of them. I suggest that there is a definite admission on the part of the Attorney-General that this is not a question of leaks or of letting an official have certain information. If he had just dealt with the one point, whether I did or did not say that he was twisting the law, that might have been fair comment; but to give the whole of the answers, as he has in the Daily Telegraph, to Questions which were subsequently answered in the House is not.

I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to rule that this represents a prima facie case of breach of privilege. I have the full article from the newspaper and the letter, which I am willing to submit to you.