Fred Goodwin super-injunction – details revealed in Lords

Parliamentary privilege protects MPs and peers from prosecution when speaking in the Commons and Lords.

Lord Stoneham used the rules to reveal more details about Sir Fred Goodwin’s super-injunction.

Read more: Twitter user 'names' super-injunction celebrities

He said: “Every taxpayer has a direct public interest in the events leading up to the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, so how can it be right for a super-injunction to hide the alleged relationship between Sir Fred Goodwin and a senior colleague?

“If true, it would be a serious breach of corporate governance and not even the Financial Services Authority would be allowed to know about it.”

Justice minister Lord McNally replied: “I do not think it is proper for me, from this dispatch box, to comment on individual cases, some of which are before the courts.”

The peer raised the issue at question time in place of Lib Dem former Treasury spokesman Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, who had been down to ask a question on the subject and has previously called for details of Sir Fred’s super-injunction to be made public.

Super-injunction debate

In March Lib Dem MP John Hemming used parliamentary privilege to reveal that Sir Fred, chief executive of the RBS before it was nationalised, had taken out a super-injunction, although he did not reveal any details.

The Prime Minister has previously said he is “uneasy” about the use of super-injunctions.

Read more: Sex, lies and super-injunctions

David Cameron questioned whether judges should be effectively creating a privacy law without the involvement of parliament.

In May the names of several celebrities alleged to have taken out super-injunctions were published on Twitter.

That led to Jemima Khan, one of those named, to deny allegations that she had taken out a super-injunction to prevent pictures of her with Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson being published.