§ 10. Mr. MacShaneTo ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will list the occasions on which he has met Mr. Ian Greer to discuss the presentation of Government policy. [1308]
§ The Deputy Prime MinisterNone.
§ Mr. MacShaneIs the Deputy Prime Minister aware that, given the flippant way in which he has handled previous questions on the important issue of sleaze this afternoon, few people listening to our proceedings will find it hard to believe that he is not alone among Ministers who met Ian Greer in recent years to discuss funding for the Conservative party and other issues? Can the right hon. Gentleman help us out by taking up the offer that he made on Radio 4 this morning, when he said that there was no evidence available, by publishing his political office diaries and the notes of all his meetings over the past five years?
§ The Deputy Prime MinisterThat is a classic of the technique of the Labour party. I was asked a straight question and I have given the clearest possible answer. I have not met Ian Greer in the circumstances that have been put to me. To go further, I cannot remember meeting Ian Greer for several years. I am not going to say that I have never met him in my life, because I think that I have. However, the idea that I have had any sort of negotiations or dealings with Ian Greer ex officio is absurd. I have given the clearest possible explanation to the House.
I find it deplorable that, when a Minister gives such an assurance, it is immediately suggested that he should publish his diary. I find also—[Interruption.] In a democracy, there must be the basic assumption that, if Ministers give assurances at the Dispatch Box, they do so with integrity.
I take the House back only a few minutes when the same point was peddled by the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). If it were possible for special favours to be handed out to those who support the Tory party, that could be done only by civil servants. Ministers do not have the power to indicate preference over contracts. It is only civil servants who could have done that. Therefore, for the Labour party, through its spokesman, to go on and on suggesting that the practice is current is grossly to understate the civil service.
To make an identical point, if that were possible in central Government, it would be possible in local government, where Labour governs a large number of authorities, and it would be as preposterous for me to suggest that it is happening in local government as it is for the Labour party to suggest that it is happening in central Government.
§ Mr. Jacques ArnoldIs it not likely that the person who had very close discussions with Mr. Ian Greer about Government policy was also likely to be a member of the board of Mr. Greer's company—a person who apparently moonlighted as a Front-Bench spokesman for the Labour party in the House of Lords until it sacked her for apparently doing no wrong?
§ The Deputy Prime MinisterI am sure that the Labour party will wish to weigh very carefully whether it wants 12 to inject that sort of witch hunt into British public life. The fact is that it was quite clear that the noble Lady concerned—in the Leader of the Opposition's own words—"had done no wrong". Except, perhaps, one thing: she had become politically embarrassing to the Labour party.