THORNBURY and Yate MP Steve Webb has welcomed the decision to uphold a complaint about the secret recording of phone calls from journalists posing as constituents.
Mr Webb was among a group of senior Liberal Democrat MPs targeted by The Daily Telegraph last year in its investigation of a split among the coalition government and claims MPs privately held concerns over policies they had backed publicly.
Pensions minister Mr Webb was recorded by a journalist, who claimed to live in Yate Rocks, saying he had privately written to the Chancellor to complain about the details of the child benefit cut.
But a complaint about the practice of taping private conversations has been upheld by the Press Complaints Commission.
The PC accepted there was public interest in the unity of the coalition government but felt the newspaper had reached 'the wrong decision' in deciding to pursue subterfuge. It said the Telegraph had gone on a ‘fishing expedition’ to prove the allegations.
Mr Webb said he hadn’t lost any sleep over the incident but was pleased the principle of confidence between an MP and their constituent had been supported.
"I would like to think I would have said the same thing if there was tape-recorder sat on my desk," he told the Gazette. "If my constituents have concerns I write to ministers on their behalf. I was exposed for working for my constituents.
"I haven’t lost sleep over it but I think this ruling helps to give everybody confidence that they can see their MP in confidence and not worry about it."
He added: "We don’t want to be unnecessarily wary of our constituents, we have to trust people, so in that sense it is good that the PCC called this incident a ‘fishing expedition’.
"The reason for the complaint was the principle that a member of the public can come to see their MP and both parties need to be confident it is in private."
Mr Webb said he did recall the conversation in December 2010 and said it had seemed ‘quite plausible’.
The Telegraph said it was acting on information from a number of reliable sources who did not want to go on the record and that it was serving the public interest. The newspaper has published the PCC's adjudication in full.
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