COMMONS SPEAKER Michael Martin has won the backing of British prime minister Gordon Brown in the continuing row over the arrest of Tory immigration spokesman Damien Green and the circumstances surrounding the police raid on his Commons office.
“I’ve a great deal of confidence in the speaker,” Mr Brown said yesterday, after Commons leader Harriet Harman had declined to express similar confidence or otherwise “pronounce” on the speaker’s position.
However, Mr Martin – and key Commons official, serjeant at arms Jill Pay – remained in the firing line of critical MPs after Scotland Yard insisted police officers had properly advised Ms Pay that they had no power to enter the Palace of Westminster without the consent of the house authorities.
In a statement on Wednesday the speaker told MPs police had failed to tell Ms Pay she was not obliged to sign a consent form giving them access without a search warrant. But in a letter to home secretary Jacqui Smith yesterday, assistant commissioner Bob Quick insisted: “The officers explained the nature of the investigation and the purpose of the search and were satisfied that the serjeant at arms understood that police had no power to search in the absence of a warrant and therefore could only do so with her written consent or that of the speaker.”
Mr Quick added that, prior to giving her written consent, the serjeant indicated that she would seek legal advice. The assistant commissioner also said Ms Pay was initially briefed on the Wednesday evening, the day before Mr Green’s arrest and detention by anti-terrorist officers for nine hours. The Conservatives reacted furiously, meanwhile, to news that the promised inquiry into issues surrounding the police raid on Mr Green’s office “might not meet for months”.
MPs will debate a government motion next Monday establishing the committee of inquiry comprising up to seven senior MPs, as requested by Mr Martin. On Wednesday he announced a new protocol under which police in future may only search an MP’s office with a warrant.
However, Ms Harman said she did not think it wise “to set up a concurrent investigation” alongside the police inquiry, originally requested by the cabinet office, into leaks from the home office.
“In other words, it might not meet for months,” complained her Conservative shadow Theresa May, who asked if any other MPs’ e-mails and files might have been searched during the raid.