My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. What strengthens his argument is the way in which the Secretary of State has sought to bring forward one argument after another, all of which have been knocked down.
When we were first told that Leveson 2 could not proceed, we were told that there had been a day, sometime in about 2010, when magically, all of a sudden, all the abuse that we had ever heard about before categorically, unequivocally and without doubt ceased. We were all quite surprised about that. We were even more surprised, therefore, when John Ford presented his evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 13 March. It is worth setting out what Mr Ford said, because not everyone luxuriates in membership of that Committee:
“I illegally accessed phone accounts, bank accounts, credit cards, and other personal data of public figures… My targets included politicians of all parties. In most cases, this was done without any legitimate public interest justification.”
Mr Ford goes on to reflect on whether the practice had magically ended, as the Secretary of State asserted, or whether it was ongoing. He was asked directly to
reflect on the Secretary of State’s assertion that it was all over—nothing more to see; time to walk on by. Mr Ford writes in his letter:
“I am sorry to inform you that Mr Hancock is totally wrong”.
Who can imagine such a thing? He goes on to say that
“having spent 15 years in the business, it is no surprise…that I still know people in the illegal data theft industry, and specifically,”—
this is the nub of the argument—
“that I know individuals who are still engaged in these activities on behalf of newspapers.”
The idea that magically this bad behaviour suddenly stopped and is not ongoing is argument one that has been knocked down.