PLEASE NOTE "THE ANDREW MARR SHOW" MUST BE CREDITED IF ANY PART OF THIS TRANSCRIPT IS USED Andrew Marr interviewed John Whittingdale, Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. ANDREW MARR: First I'm joined by the Conservative MP, John Whittingdale, Chair of the Commons Committee on Culture, Media, and he's going to be quizzing the Murdochs - father and son - on Tuesday, as well of course as Rebekah Brooks. Now famously Ms Brooks never gives television interviews. But this is actually not quite true because she did once talk to my predecessor, David Frost, back in 2001. CLIP: REBEKAH BROOKS: I strongly believe we're on the side of the right. The public are behind us and we will continue to make sure that people understand the basis of Sarah's Law, which is controlled public access. It isn't a free-for-all. ANDREW MARR: That was of course Sarah's Law about identifying paedophiles. Now that Rebekah Brooks and the Murdochs have accepted John Whittingdale's invitation to come to Westminster and answer questions relating to the phone hacking scandal, what exactly can we expect on Tuesday? Will there be blood on the carpet in the Boothroyd room? Well I'm joined by Mr Whittingdale now. Thank you. They've accepted your invitation, but after quite a lot of pushing and tugging. And there were some extraordinary stories that you would have gone to the extent of actually having them arrested by an officer of the House of Commons, and I think they would have been banged up in part of the tower of Westminster. Is that actually true, or is that a sort of joke? JOHN WHITTINGDALE: I'm not sure anybody really knows because it hasn't been done for hundreds of years. Rebekah Brooks accepted … ANDREW MARR: Yes. JOHN WHITTINGDALE: … the invitation to come to the committee. James Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch both said that they were unavailable on that day, so the committee passed a formal motion to serve a summons on them. ANDREW MARR: Yes. JOHN WHITTINGDALE: Now had they refused to accept that, then I would have gone to the House of Commons and asked for a motion to be passed by the whole house requiring them to attend. Now that would have been pretty much unprecedented. If they'd then failed to abide by that, to be honest I don't think anybody knows what happens next. ANDREW MARR: But in theory at any rate, they would have been marched to the Commons and there's a little … there is a little room which acts as a sort of cell. JOHN WHITTINGDALE: I believe there is in the clock tower somewhere. ANDREW MARR: In the clock tower. An astonishing thought. Anyway they are coming. They're coming on Tuesday. And are they all going to sort of sit in front of you together, or do you know how you're going to proceed? JOHN WHITTINGDALE: I think that particularly now the situation has changed slightly, that Rebekah Brooks is no longer an employee of News Corp, I think we will probably want to talk to her separately from Rupert and James Murdoch. ANDREW MARR: Yeah. Now one of the things that you're going to have to be very careful about is not prejudging the judicial inquiry and so on. But presumably one of the great questions is about this very large number of emails which were being held by News International's lawyers, Harbottle and whatever they're called, for years without being acknowledged or analysed. Is that sort of at the heart of what you're going to be looking at? JOHN WHITTINGDALE: This is such a immensely complicated saga and there are a vast number of questions. That most certainly is one of them. Because we looked at all of this two years ago when we had an inquiry, which was when we were assured by all of our witnesses that nobody had any involvement, it was all down to one man. Now at that time we were told 2,500 emails had been gone through in great … with great care, and no evidence had ever emerged that there was any involvement outside of Clive Goodman. So yes we will certainly want to be asking, if that was the case, how come now suddenly all this is coming out. ANDREW MARR: What would make a good day for the committee in terms of you know the breakthrough answers that you'd like to get? JOHN WHITTINGDALE: Well I mean I think the sole purpose of the committee is to try and get closer to what actually happened and to uncover the truth. So I mean I would like and I hope there is a good chance that all three of the witnesses will come determined to try and do their best to help us. We obviously understand there's an ongoing police inquiry, but that shouldn't I think prevent us from learning a lot more about what went on, who knew it and who authorised it. ANDREW MARR: Do you think your committee was lied to in the past? JOHN WHITTINGDALE: Well we said at the time, in 2009, that we simply didn't believe what we had been told - that it was one person. We said we thought it inconceivable that just one person could have been involved. So, yes, I think we made it pretty clear then. What we didn't know was whether or not the witnesses who were appearing before us actually knew more than they were saying, but now hopefully that will become clearer. ANDREW MARR: Yes. JOHN WHITTINGDALE: James Murdoch himself has said the committee, or at least parliament, was mislead, so essentially he's told us we were. ANDREW MARR: Right. You've got a lot of advice, helpful advice no doubt in all of today's newspapers about what to ask and so on, but also about the tone of the committee because there is presumably a certain amount of danger, lots of big egos in the room, that there will be grandstanding and shouting and so on. What are you going to try to achieve as chairman? JOHN WHITTINGDALE: Well what I don't want, I don't want us to be a lynch mob. On the other hand, I don't want us to let them off without properly addressing the questions which we have. So I mean I hope, and I'm sure that my colleagues on the committee will take the same view, that we will be calm and we will ask factual detailed questions. ANDREW MARR: And you've got you know a few hours to do this. But if you don't get what you want, will you have them back again? JOHN WHITTINGDALE: Well obviously I mean it's far too soon to say that. I mean we have to bear in mind there is a judicial inquiry, and the judicial inquiry will obviously have more powers than a select committee, it will take much longer. So I mean I think the full picture will not emerge until that inquiry is complete. ANDREW MARR: Yes. Now you heard on the news there was comment about you being a close friend of Rebekah. You're on her Facebook page. I'm slightly shocked that you have a Facebook page, to be honest. JOHN WHITTINGDALE: I have 570 friends on Facebook. Whether or not Rebekah Brooks is still one of them, I rather doubt since I have summoned her to appear before me. ANDREW MARR: But you're not closely connected to her? JOHN WHITTINGDALE: I have been doing the culture, media and sport brief in one capacity or another for ten years. I've met almost every major figure in the media. You know I mean this story I think appeared in the Independent on Sunday. I've met Mr Alexander Lebedev. He's not a Facebook friend, but that's probably because he's not on Facebook, I suspect. ANDREW MARR: Yes, alright. Well you have a busy week next week, so good luck … JOHN WHITTINGDALE: Thank you very much. ANDREW MARR: … and thank you very much indeed for joining us. INTERVIEW ENDS
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