§ Mr. ThorpeWith your leave, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I seek to make a personal statement.
In the exchanges on the point of order raised yesterday by the right hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), of which I had received no prior notice, I used a phrase in my spontaneous reply, by which I may inadvertently have misled the House. I correctly informed the House that a journalist, a member of the Lobby, had, on instructions from his paper, made inquiries of a member of my staff to ask whether I had received a letter containing statements about certain councillors on Teesside formerly associated with Mr. Poulson, which the newspaper already knew from independent sources had been sent to me. I correctly told the House that the receipt of the letter was subsequently confirmed to the journalist in question. Towards the end of my remarks I said:
Neither I nor my staff have at any stage disclosed an anonymous letter."—[Official Report, 13th July, 1972; Vol. 840, c. 1856.]This is not fully accurate. I now know that a member of my staff was asked by the journalist whether he might inspect the letter. Having first made it that, therefore, on my return from West clear that the letter was anonymous, and Africa I would be unlikely to take action upon it, he agreed to let the journalist see it, thus enabling him to compare its contents with the information already in the possession of the newspaper.2046 Whilst, therefore, I wish to make it clear that the information published in the Press did not originate, from my office, nor did my office seek to effect its publication, I regret that my suggestion yesterday that no member of the Press had actually seen the letter was incorrect, and for that I apologise to the House.