Michael Dugher MP: Unanswered questions on Coulson

Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Dugher says there are questions from the Coulson case regarding the vetting process for Government Advisers. Nobody can say that David Cameron was not warned about Andy Coulson. He was warned, over and over again, long before the guilty verdict. And his performance at Prime Minister’s Questions, where he showed arrogance and complacency rather than contrition and humility, only further demonstrated that he is still in complete denial. Not only was David Cameron warned about Coulson and phone hacking, his staff were too. But the choice to ignore the warnings, to do nothing and to bring a criminal not just into the Conservative Party machine, but into the heart of government, was David Cameron's responsibility. This gross, wilful negligence must never be allowed to happen again. It appears that the Tories' 'vetting process' consisted of asking Andy Coulson whether he was a criminal, hearing him say that he wasn't, smiling politely and then leaving it at that. George Osborne told the Leveson Inquiry that he asked Coulson about phone hacking "in a general sense, as you might do in a social encounter". As subsequent events have proved beyond reasonable doubt, this wasn't good enough. Before and during Coulson's time in Downing Street, as the evidence mounted that Coulson at the very least had serious questions to answer, David Cameron repeatedly chose to look the other way. In 2009, The Guardian published evidence of phone hacking and the Prime Minister did nothing. When the Deputy Prime Minister warned him of the danger of bringing Coulson into No10, again, he chose to ignore the warnings. And when the New York Times – in a major exposé in September 2010 – wrote that Coulson “actively encouraged” phone hacking – he still did nothing. The pattern he established was so entrenched that when warnings were relayed to David Cameron's chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, he chose not to pass them on. As one aide was quoted as saying: “David Cameron never likes being given bad news”. It's hard not to be reminded of the recent line from Dominic Cummings, Michael Gove's former Special Adviser, that Llewellyn is a "classic third-rate suck-up-kick-down sycophant presiding over a shambolic court". Well, it’s Cameron’s court. It’s Cameron’s shambles. It’s Cameron who took Andy Coulson into the heart of government. David Cameron didn't just fail to ask the questions. At crucial points, he chose to look away. Shockingly, when Andy Coulson was given his job as the Government's Director of Communications, he was not given the high-level security clearance, known as Developed Vetting (DV) to which holders of that post are normally subjected to. The process is highly rigorous and takes around six months. It is inconceivable that Coulson could have gone through it without being asked about his role in phone hacking. He was not entered into the process until November 2010, six months after he took the job. Two months after the process started, he resigned. Of Coulson's six predecessors or their equivalents since 1996, three had DV clearance when taking the post, two had it within three months and one had it just over seven months after starting the job. Coulson's successor, Craig Oliver (who is now desperately trying to persuade news organisations not to refer to Coulson as the Government's Director of Communications) and his deputy, Gabby Bertin, both underwent DV. The decision to let Andy Coulson avoid this process looks, on the face of it, strange. The suspicion is that Andy Coulson was not entered into the process for fear of what would come to light. The Prime Minister could have insisted – he chose not to. At PMQs, the Prime Minister squirmed out of answering the question of whether former Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, or any other civil servants, had advised him against employing Andy Coulson. But he chose to push the question of why Coulson was not vetted onto Sir Gus and the civil service. It's an evasion unbecoming of a man who says he takes complete responsibility for everything that happens in his office, but the kind of behaviour we're getting used to. Labour believes there is a case for looking again at how the decision to vet those working at the highest level of government and inside Number 10 is taken. There is a need for greater clarity as to who is vetted and how the decision is taken. Shouldn’t there be, for instance, a standard procedure for senior advisers upon appointment? But, ultimately, it wasn’t the job of the vetting procedure to decide whether to employ Andy Coulson at the centre of the Number 10 machine. It was the Prime Minister’s. David Cameron’s last, desperate defence is that, despite everything, Andy Coulson did his job well. After the phone hacking verdict, he can’t make that claim about himself. The person who definitely wasn’t doing his job properly is David Cameron.