Damian Green in the Commons

By Nico Hines

6.13pm

The Government’s win is already looking extremely shabby. The Liberal Democrats and the Tories have both declared that they will boycott the committee.

We have certainly not heard the end of this debate.

6.09pm

Time for the votes and the Government wins by a majority of four not to adopt Menzies Campbell’s amendment. A relatively comfortable majority of 23 passes Harman’s proposals.

There will be a committee to investigate the police search of Damian Green’s office and it will have a Labour majority to reflect the composition of the House.

5.32pm

Iain Duncan Smith (Con) calls on Labour members to consider how they would react if they were not in power when the police raids took place.

He says: “They, the backbenchers, should behave as if they were the opposition.”

5.19pm

Kenneth Clarke, one of the great modern parliamentarians, bemoans the lack of a pre-ordained process for dealing with police searches.

He says the Serjeant-at-Arms should have asked whether a criminal matter was under investigation. If it had been, she should have sent someone to accompany the officers to carry out the search and provided them with tea and sandwiches.

To great cheers from the House, he says that If she was told they were investigating leaks from the Home Office she should: “Show them the door!”

5.06pm

David Davis, MP for civil liberties, is in his element.

He says that if the police are allowed to get away with this kind of investigation, parliamentary democracy would be under threat.

“It will fatally undermine the last vestiges of power in this House,” he tells MPs. “It may not quite make speaking the truth illegal, but it will make finding out about the truth illegal.”

“This assault on privilege [MP's legal rights, not the unpbringing of his frontbench colleagues] is serious.”

4.57pm

The MPs seem extremely concerned about how the public will view this almost impenetrable debate – with its delays, squabbles and points of order.

They needn’t worry: even the rolling news channels gave up covering it ages ago.

4.54pm

Another failed party leader gets up. Michael Howard wants to know how this furore ever got started in the first place.

Why are the police investigating when no law has been broken, he asks. He demands to know who in the Cabinet Office referred the matter to the police.

He ends by telling MPs: “I believe what’s happened in the last few days diminishes our democracy.”

4.39pm

Ming is on a roll now. He is questioning the Government’s plan to put the inquiry on hold until the police have ended their investigation. Can you imagine, he asks, what the public will think when we say that we have appointed a committee of seven wise men and women and that they have immediately adjourned their inquiry indefinitely?

4.32pm

Sir Menzies Campbell (Lib Dem) does not agree with Sir Gerald.

Indeed, he thinks far longer should be spent discussing the Green affair than the Government has proposed. “The timescale is risible,” he says.

4.27pm

Two hours after the debate was due to begin we have finally found someone to defend the police and Jill Pay, the Serjeant-at-Arms.

Fellow MPs are jumping up and down and possibly frothing at the mouth as Sir Gerald Kaufman (Lab) exclaims that “the police had a perfect right to examine the correspondence” of Damian Green.

4.16pm

Given that so many MPs wanted to debate this long into the night – it seems strange that so many of them have left already.

Simon Hughes is speaking and the benches are looking rather empty. It is unclear if the two facts are related.

3.59pm

Frank Dobson (Lab) suggests that the police do seem to be “arrest happy” when it comes to MPs and members of the Lords on both sides of the House.

3.53pm

May insists that an inquiry into police seizures from Damian Green’s office must be carried out immediately. She says it will not pre-empt the police investigation as the committee would only be looking at whether the search should have taken place not whether Green was breaking the law by accepting leaks from the Home Office.

3.51pm

May says it’s not MPs privilege to be protected from police investigation, but the people’s privilege so that MPs can work successfully on their behalf – with the expectation of confidentiality.

3.36pm

Theresa May says she is advising Harman for the Government’s own good that it must not allow the committee to have a Labour majority.

She has perversely found herself in the position where she is defending the honour of the Speaker, whose wishes, she says, have been offended by the Government.

The MP for Maidenhead says the Tories will not support any committee with a Labour majority.

3.26pm

Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney and star of This Week, appears to be asleep.

The Times lawyers point out that she may merely have closed her eyes to concentrate on the weighty matters at hand.

3.25pm

Conciliatory tone over as the Speaker intervenes to warn Tory MPs to watch their language.

Apparently “weasel words” is over the top.

3.19pm

Harriet Harman begins the debate for the Government by attempting to strike a conciliatory tone, it won’t last.

She suggests that the commission to draw up new rules on police searches might extend its remit to consider the police’s right to examine MPs papers at home as well as in the House of Commons.

3.16pm

The Speaker manages not to smile as he announces that the debate will only last three hours. Not the six hours wanted by the Tories.

3.09pm

The MPs have returned to the chamber to hear the result of a vote on extending the debate.

Bizarrely, of course, it is Michael Martin – the man at the centre of the row – who will announce the result.

2.57pm

Sir Nicholas Winterton (Con) and Michael J. Foster (Lab) are now going toe-to-toe on whether it is worth extending the three hour debate. Mr Foster claims that MPs ought to stop grandstanding over this issue as they are in danger of alienating the public who view the bristling as “pantomime”.

Sir Nick, who would happily admit that he was bristling, claimed that even the corrupt regime of Robert Mugabe retained respect for its parliament. He said that when an opposition MP was arrested in 1982 Mugabe’s henchmen refused to enter parliament to seize the politician.

2.46pm

Douglas Hoog, Conservative, is the first MP to get really angry. And he is onto something, he is demanding to know why the debate and amendments will centre on future rules rather than examining what has gone wrong. He claims that the Government has four principles: “Concealment, duplicity, whitewash and cover-up!”

2.39pm

Before the debate has even begun the Conservatives are demanding that it goes on far longer than planned. Theresa May says the current length is “totally inadequate”. Someone just suggested that it continue until 10pm. Phew.

Simon Hughes agrees, at length, are they not using up the vital time now?

2.30pm

Parliamentary democracy underfire or a storm in a teacup? We can’t promise you a conclusive answer but there is guaranteed to be one almighty dust-up as the House of Commons debates the search of Damian Green’s office.