Questions about why Andy Coulson was not security vetted to the same level as his predecessors and successors when he became director of communications at Downing Street are "a complete red herring", David Cameron has told the Leveson inquiry.
The Cabinet Office confirmed that all holders of the equivalent post from 1996 to May 2010 completed higher level background checks than Couslon did, but the prime minister said he believed it was not unique that Coulson was not "develop vetted" when he started work at No 10.
The former News of the World editor was vetted to "security check" level, which only allows supervised access to the most secret government documents, and only started the developed vetting process six months into the job. He never completed it before he resigned.
Developed vetting checks involve testing whether an individual's background might make him or her vulnerable to blackmail and investigators ask questions such as: "Is there anything else in your life you think it appropriate for us to know?". There would also be a review of the person's finances and background checks made with friends and family.
The year before Couslon was appointed in Downing Street The Guardian revealed that up to 3,000 people may have had their voicemails hacked by News of the World journalists. In 2007 the paper's royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, had been jailed for phone hacking during Coulson's editorship of the Sunday tabloid.
"Having looked at all this I am absolutely convinced this is a red herring," Cameron told the inquiry. "I know it is one of those things where people have been looking for some abnormality and I believe there is none."
He said the decision on what level of security clearance Coulson would need was a task for the civil service, not the prime minister. The decision to start developed vetting of Coulson after the East Midlands airport terror alert in October 2010 was "absolutely rational and sensible", he said.
Cameron's insistence that there was nothing untoward in the decision to allow Coulson to operate with lower security vetting than his predecessors came after detailed questioning by Robert Jay QC of the prime minister's efforts to seek assurances from Coulson that he knew nothing about phone hacking at the News of the World. Cameron said Coulson had given him several assurances and he had accepted them, in part because the Press Complaints Commission, the Crown Prosecution Service, the police and a parliamentary select committee appeared to have done so as well.
Despite only having mid-level security clearance, Coulson told the Leveson inquiry last month that he had unsupervised access to top-secret files. Downing Street has previously said Coulson is likely to have attended meetings on Afghanistan, counter-terrorism and UK military matters at which intelligence was discussed.
The issue of Coulson's security status was raised with Cameron after Leveson requested a breakdown of the security clearance of previous holders of the same office during evidence given by the former cabinet secretary Gus O'Donnell in May. At the time Leveson said he wanted to find out whether or not the issue represented "a smoking gun".
The Cabinet Office produced a note for the inquiry which showed that of the Downing Street communications directors in post before Coulson, three were already develop vetted, two others were granted the status around three months after starting and another after seven months.
The Guardian has established that Sir Christopher Meyer was already cleared to the highest level before he became John Major's press secretary in 1994. Alistair Campbell was developed vetted in the months after he was hired to act as press secretary for Tony Blair.
Simon Lewis was develop vetted to work as press secretary to Gordon Brown while his predecessor, Michael Ellam, is understood to have already achieved the clearance before he started.
Under Cameron's premiership, Craig Oliver has been develop vetted as has Gabby Bertin, who was Coulson's deputy.
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