Smith defends police over MP arrest

6:19pm Sunday 30th November 2008

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has defended the right of police to arrest a Tory MP over alleged Home Office leaks - suggesting the case was more serious than reported.

Officers had to be allowed to "follow the evidence where they need to" and it would be "Stalinist" for politicians to intervene, she told the BBC.

David Cameron has urged Gordon Brown to condemn the action against his immigration spokesman Damian Green, insisting he was simply doing his job of holding the Government to account.

But Ms Smith said the investigation was examining a "systematic series of leaks" of potentially sensitive material beyond the cases being claimed by critics.

"It is not an investigation into whether or not Opposition politicians used information they received to embarrass or hold to account the Government," she told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show. "That is a completely legitimate activity it has gone on; it should go on; it will go on. This started as an investigation of a systematic series of leaks from a department that deals with some of the most sensitive and confidential information in Government.

"There are four leaks that are in the public arena. The point is that this started as an investigation into a systematic series of leaks about which, of course, it was not clear what had been leaked and what may not have been leaked."

Repeating her insistence that she had not been aware a senior Tory was to be arrested until after it happened, she said: "What we appear to be being asked to do, by former home secretaries, by the Leader of the Opposition, is to intervene in a specific investigation being carried out by the police who I do believe, when they start an investigation, should, as they have said they need to, follow the evidence where they need to.

Replying to critics of the police action, she went on: "In my book Stalinism and a police state happens when ministers direct and interfere with specific investigations that the police are carrying out."

Ashford MP Mr Green was detained on Thursday and held and questioned for nine hours. His homes and offices, including in the House of Commons, were searched and his computer, phone and other communications equipment seized in the raids.

Scotland Yard said that Mr Green was held "on suspicion of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office and aiding and abetting, counselling or procuring misconduct in a public office".