§ Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington)On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will have noted the leading story in The Observer yesterday alleging that seven Members of this House had signed an early-day motion attacking The Observer for publishing fabricated stories on British arms deals at the behest of the newspaper's proprietor.
As custodian Of the Order Paper, Mr. Speaker, will you confirm that that leader in The Observer is a falsification and that it grossly misrepresents the proceedings of Parliament? Will you confirm that early-day motion 801, which I tabled, accuses The Observer of falsely claiming that an inquiry into bribes for Tornado had been set up by the National Audit Office? It also accuses The Observer of inventing a sequence of events leading to that so-called inquiry. It also accuses The Observer of deliberately misleading its readers by suggesting that a Privy Councillor had submitted evidence to the National Audit Office backing the newspaper's allegations. That is a blatant untruth. An anonymous letter was received by the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and was passed on to the National Audit Office. That anonymous letter made no substantiated allegations and included no evidence.
Will you confirm, Mr. Speaker, that, contrary to what the leading article says about the failure of any signatory to consult the Public Accounts Committee or the National Audit Office, several of the signatories consulted the Chairman of the Committee and the National Audit Office during a deliberative session of the Committee on Wednesday 22 April? On that occasion we were told that an inquiry had already been set up, going back as far as Sir Gordon Downey's time as Comptroller and Auditor General and before The Observer had made the allegations. That inquiry was completely unaffected by the allegations in The Observer.
I stand by early-day motion 801. It is the truth, and The Observer persists in telling lies.
§ Mr. SpeakerI am not privy to what goes on in the Public Accounts Committee, but I confirm that early-day motion 801 was in order or it would not have been on the Order Paper.