§ 31. Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch)If he will make a statement on the cost of the intervention in the Hamilton v. Al Fayed case in the Court of Appeal on behalf of the House of Commons. [80377]
§ The Solicitor-General (Mr. Ross Cranston)Treasury Counsel's fees and the costs of the Treasury Solicitors Department in that case came to a combined total of £13,451.
§ Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset)£13,000?
§ The Solicitor-GeneralThat did not involve any fee on my part.
§ Mr. ChopeWe are grateful to the Solicitor-General for not having charged an additional fee for his appearance. Does he accept the verdict in the Court of Appeal? What steps are being taken to recover the wasted costs from Mr. Al Fayed, at whose suggestion that intervention was made?
§ The Solicitor-GeneralWe entered as a neutral party. That was accepted in the Court of Appeal decision. We were not taking sides on behalf of Mr. Hamilton or on behalf of the defendant. We were putting the important arguments raised with us by the House authorities on the parliamentary privilege point. The Court of Appeal accepted the important point that we made about the courts respecting the procedures of the House. You, Madam Speaker, were intimately concerned in this matter. At the end of the day we did not appeal because we thought that the Court of Appeal had got it right. It did not accept all our arguments—in particular our argument about the exclusive jurisdiction of the House over the conduct of Members. On the whole we were satisfied with the way in which the Court of Appeal said that the trial judge had been wrong about querying the procedures of the House.