A cabinet minister has said he would not use parliamentary privilege to identify the BBC presenter at the centre of a scandal over alleged cash for explicit images, in an apparent move to discourage fellow MPs from taking that decision.
A prominent male BBC presenter was suspended at the weekend after allegations he spent £35,000 buying explicit images from a young person, who was allegedly 17 years old when they started talking online.
The work and pensions secretary, Mel Stride, also suggested that whether the young person involved was in “adulthood or childhood was material” to how the allegations should be responded to.
Asked on Sky News if he would use parliamentary privilege – in effect a form of legal immunity that grants MPs protection in the House of Commons – to name the presenter involved, as some of his colleagues have suggested they might, Stride said he would not.
“I can only speak for myself. I would personally certainly not be doing that,” he said. “That is a privilege that should be used very sparingly and with great thought.”
Asked the same question on LBC, Stride said: “I can only tell you what I would do, which is that I would not be naming anybody in the House of Commons.
“Parliamentary privilege is a very special and privileged thing and it should be used very, very sparingly. My own view is that, regarding the BBC situation, not enough is known yet by the outside world of absolutely what has been going on here.
“And until we know all the facts – and we won’t know I think until this whole matter is concluded – I think it would be wrong to prejudge things and jump to conclusions that people should be named or otherwise.”
Earlier on Sky News, Stride said developments overnight – specifically that the young person issued a statement in which they claimed the key allegations were “rubbish” – underlined the importance of not rushing to conclusions.
He urged people to “resist … the urge to opine” on how the allegations were being dealt with by the BBC.
“Once it’s all over and concluded, I think that is most certainly the time to be looking at whether things were done correctly or not,” Stride said. “But at the moment, it seems to me this is a highly fluid, unknown situation and we should give the BBC a bit of space.
“It’s really important that all of us resist, to the extent that we can, the urge to opine on what was right, or what was outrageous or wrong, until we know all the facts.”
Asked about the BBC’s handling of the situation, he said: “We don’t know enough of the facts to be able to start pointing too many fingers yet at the process. I think we have to wait till this has played out as quickly and effectively as possible, and that’s what the secretary of state [for digital, culture, media and sport] has been pushing for. And then we can start to make those judgments.”
The young person’s mother made the allegations in the Sun newspaper, which published her claim that payments from the BBC presenter helped fund her child’s crack cocaine habit.
In a dramatic turn of events, on Monday evening the young person’s lawyer issued a statement saying the mother and the Sun had made false claims.
Speaking to reporters on his way to a Nato summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, Rishi Sunak said the allegations regarding the presenter were alarming but ministers had been reassured by the corporation that its investigation would be quick.
“They were shocking and concerning allegations,” the prime minister said. “The culture secretary spoke to the director general on Sunday and is reassured the process they are taking is rigorous and will be swift. We’ve had those reassurances and that’s the right thing to do.”
It was important for those investigating the situation, such as the BBC and the police, to be allowed to reach a conclusion, Sunak added. The prime minister said he had not been told by his aides the identity of the presenter.
