Privileges Committee Special Report

Debate between Angela Eagle and Lord Mackinlay of Richborough

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker—Madam Deputy Speaker, sorry. I think I got my pronouns mixed up. I rise to support the motion before us today. I am glad that there are no amendments to it, because it is the motion that the Privileges Committee asked to be put before the House in its special report. It is very important that

“this House notes with approval the Special Report”.

For us to do that will give us the best chance as a democratic House to put what has been an unprecedented period behind us. It is not usual, as we all know, for a Prime Minister to agree that a Privileges Committee report into what he said on the Floor of this House be sent to the Privileges Committee, as happened in April 2022, with the unanimous support of the House. It is not usual for a Privileges Committee report to involve such high stakes as the one that the members of the Privileges Committee—many of them are sitting here listening to this debate—had to cope with. We have never in my experience—I am not sure that it is even in the history books—had a Privileges Committee of any Parliament put in quite that position. It is therefore to the credit of this House—

[Craig Mackinlay]

Just while we are discussing semantics —I am referring to the interaction that we had on what “impugn” might mean—the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) mentioned the words, “with approval”. My interpretation of “with approval” is that every word in this motion is absolute and correct. I have to say that, having heard the evidence, on the first occasion that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) has been able to speak as part of this evidence, he raised doubts about what has been published as supposedly coming from him. Am I getting this wrong? My interpretation of approval is that it is all absolutely correct. If that is the case, I am afraid that I have doubts on that front.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman will do what he thinks is right—I think we can all guess what that will be—when we vote. I note that the way in which this House has traditionally worked is that there are Standing Orders and there is Erskine May, but there are also unwritten assurances about how this House should behave when these issues are before it. Certainly, the Leader of the House was correct to ask, rather philosophically, at the beginning of this debate what had changed to cause the emergence of behaviour that I would not have expected to see when I first came into this House 31 years ago. I would not have expected to see people’s integrity being impugned in quite the way that it has been while they were doing duties that this House had unanimously asked them to do. But, of course, social media did not exist when I first came into this House, and neither did GB News. Before things get any more heated, we need to stop and think about the consequences of allowing the behaviour that we have seen in the past few months, as the Privileges Committee has done its report, to continue.

It is to the credit of this House that the Privileges Committee’s original report—its fifth report—was debated and carried by such a majority. That puts a line in the sand. It enables us to begin to rebuild the reputation of this House and to use the Privileges Committee to ensure that this House can police itself on the Floor in the Chamber and bring Ministers to account by insisting that they tell the truth.

The special report, again as the Leader of the House pointed out, is unprecedented, because people have never behaved this way in the past when a Privileges Committee was attempting to carry out the duty that was given to it by a motion that was passed unanimously by the House. It is important, given that similar rules apply to the Committee on Standards, that, in what I hope will be the rare occasions in the future when the Privileges Committee may have to meet to do its job and be convened, it will be allowed to do so.

As I said to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), if we cannot restore the respect that the Privileges Committee must have to do its job in future, we will have to create an outside body to do it. That would be a very profound constitutional change, with far greater implications for the freedom of people to speak in this House than simply abiding by decency, courtesy and proper rules when the Privileges Committee is meeting.