Chris Bryant

Yes, there was a long version but, to be honest, I would basically have been reading out the written ministerial statement that we laid at 10.30 am. Much as I love the sound of my own voice, I am not sure that the House does—I think I have united the House on that—so I thought I would go for the shorter version. The papers speak for themselves. The hon. Lady asked whether there will be more. I suspect that there will not. I think that this is nearly everything—certainly, this is everything that we have come across so far. Of course, we will keep on looking, notwithstanding the complexity around searching in paper-based systems in multiple Departments. I give the House a guarantee that if there is more to publish, I will come back with more, but I suspect that this may be our last tranche. The hon. Lady asked whether Ministers raised questions at the time. I have published everything that relates to that period. There is nothing else, I think, to be found. The statements that say Ministers were content is the sum total of the response. I suppose, to some degree, that is understandable, bearing in mind that the palace had made it very clear that Her late Majesty was very keen that Andrew be given a job, that Andrew was keen to take on the job, and that the job had previously been done by another member of the royal family in broadly the same terms. I am afraid that I cannot answer the question about the Lord Mandelson papers for the simple reason that I have been trying very much to keep this Humble Address separate from the other one. We had a different set of procedures to go through. I briefed Members on the Conservative Front Bench, as I did Members on the Liberal Democrat Front Bench, earlier this week, when they indicated that they would be perfectly happy if we did not make a statement or respond to an urgent question of any kind, because the papers speak for themselves. On trade envoys, the hon. Lady makes a perfectly legitimate point. I made the point the last time around that although I understand the connection people make between the role that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor played and that of modern trade envoys, they are actually very different, partly because of the royal nature of Andrew’s role in the past, but also because all trade envoys whom we appoint at the moment are Members of either this House or the House of Lords. They are not only bound by the code of conduct of this House or the other, but bound in exactly the same way as any Minister would be in terms of the code that is expected of them. We make all that extremely clear to trade envoys. Since I have been appointed, I have gathered the trade envoys together on two or three occasions, and whenever a new one is appointed, I sit with them and go through the details.