INTELLIGENCE agencies should get involved in the investigation into the leak of CCTV footage from Matt Hancock’s office, a senior Tory MP has said.
Jeremy Hunt, former health secretary, said it was concerning that the video footage of Mr Hancock in a romantic embrace with an aide was recorded and leaked to the media, without Mr Hancock even knowing there was a camera in his office.
The CCTV camera is clearly visible from the roof of the office in Whitehall, close to the main door, however it is reported that the former health chief was unaware of its presence or that he was being recorded.
Labour has insisted the UK Government must now review Whitehall security entirely, and say it presents a risk to national security.
Mr Hunt has suggested that MI5 should be involved in a probe, which Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis confirmed was now being undertaken by the Department of Health.
Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show this morning, Mr Hunt said it was “completely unacceptable from a security point of view that ministers are being filmed inside their own offices without their knowledge” adding the issue would be something “our intelligence agencies will want to look at very, very carefully”.
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He also suggested the person who leaked the material could have broken the Official Secrets Act by doing so, adding: “We have, rightly, in this country as a democracy and as an open society, protection for whistle-blowers who find things out and release them in the public interest, and we don’t want to undermine that.
“It’s a very important part of how we work. But I do think we need to understand how this happened and to make sure that ministers are secure in their offices to be able to have conversations that they know aren’t going to be leaked to hostile powers.”
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It has been reported that a whistleblower from within Mr Hancock’s own department is reported to have been behind the leak of a video from his office.
It is thought that the insider obtained the CCTV footage of Mr Hancock in a romantic embrace with his senior aide Gina Coladangelo and then tried to leak it from June 17.
In social media messages obtained by the Mail on Sunday from what is described as an anonymous Instagram account, the person is reported to have said: “I need to be very careful with the information I am about to share. I have some very damning CCTV footage of someone that has been recently classed as completely f*****g hopeless. If you would like some more information, please contact me”
On June 19, the person is understood to have written “I really need to be careful with this but it involves him in a very compromising position with some who isn’t his wife last month.
“I have the full video…it’s now been deleted off the system as it’s over 30 days.”
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Former Cabinet ministers Alan Johnson and Rory Stewart both said there had never been cameras in their offices during their time in government.
Mr Johnson told Trevor Phillips On Sunday: “I could never understand why there was a camera in the Secretary of State’s office.
“There was never a camera in my office when I was health secretary or in any of the other five Cabinet positions.”
Mr Stewart, who was International Development Secretary from May to July 2019, said in a tweet: “I definitely did not know that there were cameras in any of my ministerial offices (in fact I was told – when I asked if there were any cameras – that there were not cameras in my office in DfiD).”
He added: “If it were a departmental camera – perhaps focused on the door for security reasons – then it would be seen by the security officers.
“Someone else installing it would have some challenges – security passes, doors, access to ministerial office etc.”
Conor McGinn MP, Labour's Deputy National Campaign Coordinator,said: “The leak of CCTV from inside a supposedly secure Government building is a serious matter.
“This is not about Matt Hancock’s hypocrisy being exposed, it’s about the potentially huge risks posed by such a lax approach from Government to security in its own buildings
“The Government must urgently review all of its key buildings, have the intelligences agencies sweep them for bugs and unauthorised CCTV, and address the speculation about a private company with links to China having access to Whitehall’s inner sanctums.”
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