Change the law and give those silenced a voice, Hain urges PM
LORD HAIN yesterday urged the Prime Minister to bring in new laws to prevent the “twisting” of non-disclosure agreements after Sir Philip Green dropped his legal action against The Daily Telegraph.
The Labour peer said Theresa May must introduce new legislation in the next Queen’s Speech so that alleged victims of abuse can no longer be silenced. “We have to change the system. It’s broken,” he told The Telegraph.
In October Lord Hain used parliamentary privilege to name Sir Philip as the man at the centre of The Telegraph’s allegations.
His latest entreaty came after judges allowed the Topshop owner to abandon his injunction against The Telegraph, so avoiding any ruling on the validity of NDAS. Alleged victims of Sir Philip are still under the threat of legal action if they speak out. Lord Hain said: “This is a very serious abuse of the non-disclosure agreement law.
“What the courts have effectively decided is to continue the situation where victims cannot get redress for the abuse they have allegedly suffered.
“There are instances in the commercial world where NDAS are properly used. But what we have here is a twisting of the law in order to silence people who have allegedly been mistreated in an appalling way.
“We have to change the system. It’s broken. It’s a matter for Parliament and I call on the Prime Minister to initiate legislation in the next Queen’s Speech.”
The anti-apartheid campaigner also denied that he abused parliamentary privilege by naming Sir Philip in the House of Lords. He said that his decision to intervene had been “totally vindicated”, adding that, in his view, only “those who want cover-ups” resent the right of MPS and peers to speak freely on issues of clear public interest.
Last week, Sir Philip’s lawyers launched a personal attack on Lord Hain in the High Court. James Price QC, representing the billionaire, said: “It is as plain as it could be that the rug was substantially pulled from under this action by the action of Lord Hain.”
Sir Philip’s injunction was dealt a blow on the afternoon of Oct 25, when Lord Hain made his dramatic speech in the House of Lords.
Rising from his seat, he told the hushed chamber that he felt a “duty” to name Sir Philip as the man at the centre of The Telegraph’s allegations. It ended
‘The system is broken. I call on the Prime Minister to initiate legislation in the next Queen’s Speech’
a two-day guessing game on social media and led to calls for the Topshop owner to be stripped of his knighthood. It also reopened a row over the use of parliamentary privilege to sidestep injunctions granted by the courts.
When Lord Hain sat down, James Cleverly, the Conservative deputy chairman, tweeted a warning that Parliament would never allow the rich and famous to buy the silence of alleged victims. Other senior politicians applauded the peer’s intervention as “democracy at work”.
But Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, branded it an “entirely arrogant decision”.
Green himself attempted to shift the debate, releasing a statement attacking the Labour peer’s “blatant disregard” for the judicial process.