Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 3 January will include:

Monday 3 January—The House will not be sitting.

Tuesday 4 January—The House will not be sitting.

Wednesday 5 January—Second Reading of the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill [Lords].

Thursday 6 January—General debate on Russian grand strategy. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 7 January—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week commencing 10 January will include:

Monday 10 January—Remaining stages of the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill.

Tuesday 11 January—Opposition day (10th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.

We will rise for the Christmas recess at the close of business today, and I would like to offer my best wishes to all Members and staff for a peaceful, safe and merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year. The thanks of the whole House, and of the Chamber, go to the staff of the House, including our magnificent Doorkeepers. Before the Division on Tuesday, I opened the windows in the Division Lobbies, and one of the Doorkeepers offered me his coat on the basis that I was doing his job for him. They even put up with the Leader of the House interfering in their business, and they do so with enormous grace and kindliness.

I also thank the cleaners, who have been here throughout. Not a day has gone by during the whole pandemic when the cleaners have not been in, doing their job.

I thank the Clerks, who know everything. There is no knowledge in this universe that is not in a clerkly head. Clerkly heads may no longer be kept warm by a wig, but they none the less contain all the wisdom the world has ever found.

I had the opportunity to thank many of our catering, police and security staff this morning.

The small broadcasting team has done a truly fabulous job during covid. The magnificent Hansard Reporters take my gobbledegook and turn it into fine prose, for which I am eternally grateful.

I thank our constituency staff and civil servants who work so tremendously hard, and those in the Box are first class. I am not meant to mention people in the Box, am I, Mr Speaker? If I were allowed, I would say the lady in the Box has provided me with all the answers I will give later, and she does a magnificent and glorious job. We should be proud of the contribution of our civil servants. I also thank the lady who gives them such great leadership, Marianne Cwynarski, who has done a brilliant job throughout the pandemic and continues to do so.

And, of course, I thank you, Mr Speaker. Without your leadership, guidance and kindly wisdom, this House would not be the great place that it is. So, ho, ho, ho, merry Christmas and a happy new year!

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Oh, Mr Speaker, that “Ho, ho, ho!” will go into my memoirs.

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. On behalf of the official Opposition, I join him in wishing all staff who work for Parliament and for MPs—he made a fantastic and comprehensive list—a peaceful, safe and joyful Christmas. I look forward to seeing everyone in the new year.

I pay great tribute in particular to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) and his fantastic staff, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) and her staff, welcoming them to my small but perfectly formed shadow Leader of the House team. I thank the team of my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton for their wonderful contribution.

It is astonishing that this week, we voted to place sensible limits on crowded indoor events with hundreds of people by having a crowded—whatever window-opening the Leader of the House did—indoor event with hundreds of people. We could have had proxy voting, or any of the voting that we had last year. It was not necessary, and it was reckless when we know that we have more cases of covid on the parliamentary estate every day. That is gone, but will the Leader of the House please commit to preparing for a return to covid-safe practices in Parliament, if necessary, so that we can do our democratic duty without risking the health of the staff to whom he has just so warmly paid tribute?

Four years ago, the Government promised a draft Bill to establish a public register of beneficial ownership of overseas legal entities. That is an important anti-corruption and anti-tax avoidance measure on which the Government have delayed and delayed. The fourth anniversary of that promise came and went last Friday, despite the Prime Minister’s recent words. When will we see that important Bill?

That is not the only Government commitment missing in action—I have a Christmas list. In October, the Prime Minister said that the draft Online Safety Bill would have completed all stages by Christmas; then it was just Second Reading; and then it was just some vague commitment that the Bill would be presented at some point. I welcome the statement later by the prelegislative scrutiny Committee, but will the Leader of the House please give us the early Christmas present of just an indication of a date?

Secondly, Ministers seem to have developed an unacceptable habit of prioritising pressers over Parliament. Despite the Leader of the House’s efforts, answers to written parliamentary questions and ministerial correspondence are still too often inadequate, delayed, or frankly just missing. Will he please ask his Cabinet colleagues once more for a new year’s resolution to do better?

Thirdly, after rail betrayal, we have still not heard from the Secretary of State for Transport, despite a commitment to update us before the end of the year on the cost-benefit ratio analysis for the revised High Speed 2 line. I know he is here, because there were Transport questions this morning. How will he keep that promise before the end of today?

Fourthly, as the urgent question just now reminded us, it seems from a leaked email that there will be a 10% cut to Foreign Office staff. This morning, the i newspaper provided some evidence for that, in what appeared to be a copy of that email to staff. The Prime Minister yesterday seems to have confused staffing with aid, but the Minister who has just left his place, the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, seemed to deny that it was a 10% cut without saying that there was no cut. A yes-or-no question to the Leader of the House: will there be a cut? Does he or anyone else know how much that cut will be, because the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa did not say that there would not be a cut?

This week, we learned of the all-too-predictable humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, yet the Government chose to row back even further on their promised, but again missing-in-action, Afghan resettlement scheme. Will the Leader of the House ask the Foreign Secretary to come to the House to give a statement in the new year on what action the Government will take?

Finally, a Christmas Brucie bonus question round. First, on rule-breaking parties in No. 10, this is a second chance for the Leader of the House to tell us exactly who assured the Prime Minister that no rules had been broken, and when they said that. Secondly, on the ministerial code, why did the Prime Minister say that he did not know who paid for the Downing Street refurbishment when the Electoral Commission found messages to Lord Brownlow that seemed to show that not only did the Prime Minister know, but he was the one apparently asking for the donations? If the Prime Minister is found to have inadvertently misled the House or Lord Geidt, what actions does the Leader of the House think he should take?

On the cost of living, does the Leader of the House understand the struggles that working people face this Christmas with Tory tax rises, risks to jobs in hospitality and other industries, and everything costing more? I am sorry to end like a Grinch, but this is a Government who ignore the rules, break their promises and have lost their grip. It is working people who are paying the price, and if I have to be the Grinch, I am afraid it is the Leader of the House and his colleagues whom I hold responsible—but merry Christmas to you, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I wondered how long our Christmas cheer would last. I see the hon. Lady, in the absence of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who has generously and kindly sent me his apologies for missing this session, has had to model herself on him and become as grumpy as he sometimes is. Let me try to answer her multiplicity of questions, though the ones that really relate to the Foreign Office were answered in the previous half hour, and the hon. Lady was here, so may I suggest she listens, when she is sitting in the Chamber, to the brilliant answers given by the Minister for the Middle East and North Africa, who answered everything she could possibly have wanted an answer to and more?

Let us go back to why we have to be here. Being here, in a democracy, is important. The work we do in Parliament is crucial. Holding the Government to account and ensuring that people can express their views is fundamental. The House authorities have been brilliant in running a covid-safe environment. There are tests available, and people have been testing themselves like billy-o, as is their responsibility, in order to try to keep us all safe. The idea that we should run away from- our democratic duty is for the birds. We should be here, we should be proud to be here, and we should not want to run off home; I think that would be most unsatisfactory.

The hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) asks about the online harms Bill. When Bills do not have prelegislative scrutiny, she says, “Well, why haven’t they had prelegislative scrutiny?”, and when they do, she says, “Why is the Bill taking so long?” That is trying to have her cake and eat it, which we know is a difficult thing to do in terms of physics. I am delighted to see here my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), who chaired the Committee with such distinction; the online harms Bill is much improved, and will be much improved after consideration of the work he has done. I am sure it will be brought before Parliament at the appropriate time for us to debate it.

Then the hon. Member for Bristol West then mentioned railways. For the past couple of weeks, we have thought she was a reformed character—indeed, we thought she might be becoming a Tory, because she kept on referring to taxpayers’ money. It made the Government side of the House really excited—joyful even; Christmas spirit was arising—that there might be someone coming over to us. But alas, this week it is back to socialism, and £96 billion of taxpayers’ money is pooh-poohed—pooh-poohed, Mr Speaker!—when in fact it is an enormous amount of money, and will be the largest amount of expenditure on the railways in real terms since the Victorian era, that era that we look back to with fondness and admiration for the great things that were done.

Let me go on to all this stuff about what may or may not have gone on in Downing Street last year. That is being looked into by the Cabinet Secretary. I ask the hon. Lady to have a little patience, and to wait and see what comes from the Cabinet Secretary.

On the cost of living questions, yes, inflation has risen by 5.1%. I have a feeling that the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee will meet, or announce its decision, at midday, so we are moments away from the witching hour when we will know what the Bank thinks it necessary to do. The hon. Lady may have forgotten that her socialist friend, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, gave the Bank of England independence on monetary policy in 1997.

Finally, let me conclude on my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. We are lucky to have such charismatic, incisive and thoughtful leadership; we are led by one of our truly great leaders. I am proud of the fact that he is leading us, and I see that the hon. Lady looks pretty proud too, though that is hidden behind her mask.

Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 13 December will include:

Monday 13 December—Consideration of Lords message relating to the Armed Forces Bill followed by, remaining stages of the Subsidy Control Bill.



Tuesday 14 December—Motions to approve statutory instruments relating to public health following the statement made by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care yesterday.

Wednesday 15 December—Second Reading of the Professional Qualifications Bill [Lords].

Thursday 16 December—Debate on matters to be raised before the forthcoming Adjournment. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

At the conclusion of business on Thursday 16 December, the House will rise for the Christmas recess and return on Wednesday 5 January.

By your leave, Mr Speaker, I wish to say a few words of thanks to the former Cabinet Office adviser Gosia McBride, whose secondment to the Government came to an end this week upon her return to the House service to take on the crucial role of the head of the Governance Office and the secretary to the Commission. The period of her secondment has seen some unprecedented challenges and she has worked tirelessly to provide invaluable advice to Ministers, and especially to me, on parliamentary procedure and handling, particularly in response to the covid-19 pandemic, when our procedures had to be adapted.

I am immensely pleased that I will have the opportunity to continue to work with Gosia in her new role on the Commission. She is absolutely brilliant and a source of first-class advice. The House is very lucky to be served by Clerks of such ability and it is truly the case, Mr Speaker, that my loss is very much your gain, but we will both work with her in future and I have a feeling she will keep us both in good order.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business and, of course, join him in giving wholehearted thanks to Gosia McBride, with whom I look forward to working in her new role on the Commission and in the Governance Office.

Will the motion on Tuesday to approve the statutory instruments relating to public health following yesterday’s announcement include any mention of mandatory vaccination for NHS staff, as has been widely rumoured?

Yesterday, the Prime Minister stood right there at the Dispatch Box and said that he was “sickened” by a party that apparently did not happen—it might have been an event—but, if it did happen, definitely did not break any rules. But that is exactly why he—or rather, the Cabinet Secretary—will now hold an inquiry and that is exactly why evidence will be handed over about something that may or may not have existed. I do not think that was what the Government had in mind for crime week.

The Prime Minister does not seem to know about seven events—parties or gatherings—in his own residence, so perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could help me out. In “Debbonaire Towers”, we would know if an event, gathering or party was happening in our place. How big does a place have to be for the Prime Minister not to know about all seven?

Judging by the video I have seen of the right hon. Gentleman’s comments at a dinner earlier this week, it does rather seem that he, too, thinks it has all been a bit of a joke—that after the British people followed the rules and made the sacrifices that have been mentioned this morning by colleagues throughout this place, yes, the Prime Minister’s staff laughed about covering up their Christmas party, but the right hon. Gentleman also seems to think it is funny.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) mentioned in the urgent question, it does rather look as though the woman staffer has been asked to walk the plank, as my hon. Friend said, while the men around her are just standing back. Will the right hon. Gentleman say why, for instance, he is not apologising for his laughter? Will he tell us—the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) mentioned this—who told the Prime Minister that there was no party? Who exactly was that? It must be known, because we have heard repeatedly from the Dispatch Box, “The Prime Minister was told”—by whom? Will the inquiry now include the cover-up of that information?

Over the course of the past week, just like with the other scandal recently, Ministers were put up to spout lines that they clearly did not believe, until yesterday, when the Health and Social Care Secretary did not even get put up. I know that it must be hard for the Prime Minister to admit that he was not even invited to the party/gathering/event in his own place. Can the Leader of the House please look at the questions that I have just asked? Furthermore, does he also agree that it really is a very bad look indeed for a group of male politicians to let a female staffer take the rap for the mess? She laughed. He laughed. She has apologised and resigned. What will he do?

In November, the Public Accounts Committee published a report into efficiency in Government. It comes as no surprise to me, and I suspect to millions, that the report found that this Government overpromise and underdeliver. Given that the Prime Minister is probably wishing that he had not wasted £2.6 million of taxpayers’ money on a room in No.10 for daily televised press briefings, especially as the only clip that we will ever see now is the one where his now ex-press secretary joked about the party/event, can we have a debate in Government time about efficient and competent Government spending?

On Tuesday, a now former civil servant who had been involved in the organisation of the evacuation of Afghans after the fall of Kabul revealed the chaos in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office at the time. This included the fact that many, many emails—I believe he said thousands of emails—including many sent by Members from across this House, were left completely unread, and even unopened. It must be almost certain that some of those who were left behind have at least suffered and, at best, suffered under the hands of the Taliban, and possibly worse. More than four months later, we still do not have the promised Afghan resettlement scheme. We therefore need to hear from the Foreign Secretary in a statement to this House, to respond to the whistleblower, explain what has happened to the resettlement scheme, and assure us that steps have been taken to ensure that a situation such as the chaos in Kabul this summer could never happen again and that the chaos in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office could never happen again.

Finally, in a new one for Erskine May, yesterday our Opposition day on the Government’s rail betrayal was interrupted for a ministerial statement. The Government have downgraded and derailed the northern powerhouse already, because, in the past seven years, they have re-announced the project or recommitted to a major rail project in the north more than 60 times, and now, like so many train services in the north and elsewhere, it has been cancelled. Our motion passed last night, so can the Leader of the House confirm when the Secretary of State for Transport will update the House in person before the end of the year—he does not have long—on his Department’s cost-benefit ratio analysis for the revised HS2 line? We are talking about overpromising, underdelivering and wasting taxpayers’ money. If it was not clear before, it certainly is now: this Government have lost their grip and it is working people who are paying the price.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

First, the motions that will be brought forward on Tuesday will be announced as normal the evening before. That is completely routine with motions coming before this House.

The hon. Lady says with regard to No.10 that something may or may not have existed. That, of course, is the whole point, and that is why an investigation is taking place and why the Cabinet Secretary will be looking into it.

I am delighted that the hon. Lady mentioned crime week, because this has been crime week and the Government are making enormous efforts to tackle violent crime. From 2019 to 2022, in the 18 areas worst affected by serious violence, we will have spent more than £105 million of taxpayers’ money to develop 18 violence reduction units, and more than £136 million to support an enhanced police response. We are recruiting 20,000 more police officers—11,000 of whom we have already recruited—so there will be more police on the streets. We are increasing the number of female police officers and ethnic minority police officers, so the police will represent the community better. The police are getting £15.8 billion of funding, and the Government also announced during crime week a strategic plan to tackle drug abuse. I am delighted that the hon. Lady has given me the chance to talk about what the Government are doing so well and are so committed to doing.

The hon. Lady asked a whole string of questions about what went on in Downing Street. I would like to pay tribute to Allegra Stratton, a very distinguished figure and a very capable journalist, who decided to resign yesterday. That does not undermine, as I heard the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) say in the previous session, her great distinction, her contribution to Government and her wider work as a journalist, which was first class. It also does not undermine what she did as somebody one had to deal with, as I did when she was working on The Guardian, for “Newsnight” and with Robert Peston, and she has left with great dignity.

What I was saying at the Institute of Economic Affairs was how nice it was to be free of restrictions so that we can have parties this year. That was what I was being pleased about, as opposed to the comparison with last year. The situation has got better because of what the Government have done, so the hon. Lady complains about Government spending—although she did not have anything very specific to mention in relation to that—but the £400 billion that was spent on saving the economy was absolutely fundamental. It has meant that the economy is recovering and people are beginning to get back to normal.

Yes, I accept that there is some tightening of restrictions, but those restrictions are there to ensure that we do not have to go back to where we were a year ago. We are being proportionate, sensible and cautious. This is surely the right way to go, because we have seen a rapid economic recovery, which we need to protect and for which taxpayers provided £400 billion. In fact, I am pleased that this week our socialist friends are referring to taxpayers’ money, rather than pretending that it is Government money. This is an encouraging, cross-party approach to the proper use of the money of hard-pressed taxpayers.

As regards the railways, now the runaway train has gone down the hill with £96 billion of spending. It is an extraordinary amount—the highest in real terms since our friends the Victorians were building the railways. What the Government are doing with the railway would make Ivor the Engine proud. It is a really important set of spending commitments that will ensure that we have the transport that we need, through the integrated rail plan. I am glad to say that the north is getting six times the amount spent on Crossrail. Crossrail is not happening as fast as it should because of a socialist Mayor, so it is the socialists who let us down on rail and the Conservatives who get the trains to run on time.

Parliamentary Partnership Assembly

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Monday 6th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Well, here we are. I am glad that the Government have stopped dragging their heels and finally brought forward the motion to ratify the Parliamentary Partnership Assembly—which I will refer to as the PPA because it is too much of a tongue-twister for this time of night. However, there is still an unfortunate lack of detail. Their noble lordships referred to that before the motion was put down, and I do not feel that things are much clearer. The right hon. Gentleman gave us some information, so he will be pleased to hear that I have already ticked off a couple of my questions, but several remain. I wonder whether he can furnish me with more information.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that the assembly will meet twice yearly. Will it always meet exactly twice yearly, or is that a minimum or a maximum of twice yearly? How will the assembly be expected to report to the House, and how often? Will it be after every meeting or once a year? How will the Partnership Council and the PPA connect? He said that the PPA will be able to make recommendations to the Partnership Council. What power will the council have to pursue them? What power will this place have to scrutinise the Partnership Council’s adoption, consideration or otherwise of any recommendations?

How will the chair of the PPA be appointed? Will there be a co-chair system as there is with the Partnership Council? Will the chair be apportioned under party lines as happens with Select Committees? In particular, may I press him on—I already mentioned this—how the PPA will report to this House? I know that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that it is important that Committees report to the House and that we have a proper system of scrutiny, so I would like more detail on how he expects that to happen.

I will pick up the points made by hon. Members about representation for Members of the devolved legislatures. The European Parliament will shape some of the laws that will apply to the people of Northern Ireland under the protocol. Whether the right hon. Gentleman and others think that is a good or bad thing, it is nevertheless a thing, so there must be some structure to enable parliamentarians in Westminster and Stormont to engage with MEPs throughout the legislative process. If there will not be any representation from the devolved legislatures —I understand that all three have written to ask for that representation—what else will be done to ensure a range of voices, views and experiences?

The right hon. Gentleman says that any of us in this place can represent the whole United Kingdom, but he must know that I could not represent Somerset as well as he—nor he Bristol. Therefore, there must be some respect for the differences of experience and knowledge brought by perspectives from around the House as well as the different party representations and backgrounds. Their lordships—as did, I think, the Institute for Government—cautioned against a narrowing of those voices when it comes to consideration of how the protocol will affect the people of Northern Ireland. That is incredibly important.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Lady seems very keen on the PPA. Can she tell the House why?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am glad that the hon. Member asked me that. I am keen on it because the European Union is still our nearest neighbour and, whatever the circumstances of our parting of ways—he knows that I voted against that while he campaigned for it, but we have moved on—Brexit has happened and we must now work out how we will relate to our near-neighbours. We will have to negotiate with them over matters as diverse as climate change, the prevention of terrorism, scientific knowledge and how on earth we handle the next pandemic —if there is one. For all those things, we will need good relationships and some form of parliamentary dialogue. The Institute for Government and their lordships have said that that is critical. As it is also part of the trade and co-operation agreement, it would be a shame if we said that we will not have a formal method of dialogue.

We can have informal methods of dialogue, but, for our alliances in this modern world, with our global outlook and our new outward-facing image, which I know the hon. Member wants us to have, it is better to have some formal method of dialogue with our nearest neighbours. For example, climate change, in particular, knows no borders. On the issue of criminals who want to escape either from the United Kingdom or from the European Union, we are the nearest to each other and we need to co-operate. I hope that is helpful for him; that is why I am keen on it.

In conclusion, the PPA is a key part of maintaining the communication between Westminster and Brussels. Regardless of how we got here—and, goodness me, have we not all spent a long time getting here over the past six years?—we are here. It is now of great importance that we get this relationship right. We have to keep our international relationships as a strong part of what we offer in this new global Britain so that our global standing is not diminished. Brexit has happened, whatever our views, and in order for this country to go from strength to strength, we have to make it work. That has to include having a good relationship with the European Union. I hope that the Leader of the House can answer at least some of my questions and, if he cannot do so now, that he will commit to our having further dialogue on this subject as soon as possible.

Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees- Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 6 December will include:

Monday 6 December—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Armed Forces Bill, followed by Second Reading of the Dormant Assets Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 7 December—Remaining stages of the Nationality and Borders Bill (day 1).

Wednesday 8 December—Conclusion of remaining stages of the Nationality and Borders Bill (half day), followed by Opposition day (7th allotted day—second part). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 9 December—Debate on a motion on the contribution of financial services to the UK economy, followed by debate on a motion on consular support for British citizens. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 10 December—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 13 December will include:

Monday 13 December—Remaining stages of the Subsidy Control Bill.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Let me first say how pleasing it was yesterday to see the Leader of the House in a splendid-looking mask in Prime Minister’s questions. It is nice that he has responded to the urgings from Labour Members. I also make a request that neither of us refers to what one may or may not do underneath mistletoe. I thank him for the forthcoming business.

Yesterday was World AIDS Day. The Global Fund, with thanks to UK Aid Direct, has made remarkable progress against AIDS, TB and malaria, and that partnership has saved 44 million lives around the world. Unfortunately, however, for the first time in its history, results from its key programmes have declined, which means that fewer people are helped. Department for International Development funding used to be globally renowned and rightly celebrated. The Government chose to abolish DFID. Will the Government instead stop cutting international aid to vital programmes that are protecting lives, providing healthcare and preventing transmission? That is how we end HIV infections and deaths by 2030. That is the global leadership we need, but it seems to be sadly lacking from this Government.

At the start of the week, the Government mentioned changes to mask wearing for students in schools and colleges, but we have not yet had a statement from the Education Secretary on these new measures. The current Education Secretary must surely have learned from the previous one about the chaos that is caused when information is not provided in a timely manner. Will the Leader of the House therefore ask him to come and provide clarity in this place for both parents and children who have already lost out so much during the pandemic?

Back in October, the Prime Minister appeared to confirm that the online safety Bill would have completed all stages by Christmas. Then it was just going to be Second Reading. Then No. 10 seemed to row back even further to some vague commitment that the Bill will be presented at some point during this Session. Yesterday, I think I got a muttered assurance from the Prime Minister that it would be brought forward by that wonderful date “soon”. Could the Leader of the House help us out? Could he tell us what “soon” means? Will he tell us what the timetabling is for that Bill, because the Prime Minister does not seem to know?

On Monday, the Committee on Standards published its proposals for an updated code of conduct for MPs. I am looking forward to hearing the statement on that from my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) after business questions. Given the Prime Minister’s apparent, alleged, new-found respect, so he says, for standards in public life, surely we should have a debate on these proposals in Government time. However, if the Government response is anything like their response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life report, I am not holding my breath. It took them three years to accept that report. Once again, it seems that the Government are saying one thing one day and then the complete opposite the next, and the Leader of the House knows where that leads.

Two weeks ago, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, a Humble Address motion was passed by this House, so the Government must now publish any and all of the minutes from the meeting between Lord Bethell, Owen Paterson and Randox over the award of a contract that involves hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money. As the Leader of the House knows, the Government must do that in a timely fashion, otherwise they will be in contempt of Parliament, as I understand it, yet nothing so far has been produced. That is much like the delays to the online safety Bill.

There just seem to be more delays and more delays, with Ministers saying that they cannot possibly make the minutes public for another two months. That leads me to wonder whether those vital minutes actually exist. If they do, will the Leader of the House ask Ministers to come and tell us about them? If they do not, can they admit that now, rather than pretending to spend the next two months looking for them? I have to say that I find it rather odd that this Government think they do not need to keep any receipts for spending half a billion pounds of public money, but then again, if they do not, it is just taxpayers’ money they are wasting, so why would they bother?

In conclusion, we seem to have a Government who fail to plan, who fail to bring forward key legislation and who fail to keep receipts for taxpayers’ money. They are a Government who have lost their grip, and it is working people who are paying the price.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady seems to have missed the fact that the rules on masks changed, which is why people are wearing them more. They are compulsory in public transport and in shops, but they are not compulsory in the Chamber. It is a matter of judgment for people, and people are entitled in this Chamber not to wear them if that is the decision they want to make. That is really important and comes to the point that the hon. Lady was making about schools. There is advice to schools that older students and teachers may want to wear masks in communal areas, but people must make decisions for themselves. We on this side of the House believe in individual responsibility.

I encourage schools to keep up with their activities and with their nativity plays. I hope to be absent from spectating at Prime Minister’s questions next week so that I can watch one of my children—young Alfred—appearing as a donkey in a Christmas play, although from what I hear he will be modelling himself on Balaam’s ass, which of course was a talking donkey, and I understand my son will be a talking donkey at the school nativity play. I encourage all schools to carry on with these very important activities.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for welcoming the work being done by the Government in support of World AIDS Day and the ambition to stop new infections by 2030. An extra £20 million of public funding—the Government using taxpayers’ money—will be devoted to that end, and a written statement was issued yesterday.

As regards the online safety Bill, it is going through pre-legislative scrutiny. That is very important, because we often hear the Opposition say, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a bit of pre-legislative scrutiny? Isn’t that a good way of proceeding?” Then, when we have it, they say, “Well, you are being frightfully slow.” They cannot have it both ways, and then we get into a metaphysical discussion of “What is time?”, “What is soon?” and “What is Christmas’?” We could say that Christmas goes on at least until 2 February, which is Candlemas and the formal end of Christmas, but then we could decide to use the Orthodox calendar, which goes on even later. Such metaphysical discussions of time are not necessarily elucidating for the progress of legislation.

I am much looking forward to the presentation by the Chair of the Committee on Standards, to which the hon. Lady referred, on the important report that the Committee has published. The report asks for a consultation period, which I think will inevitably include a debate in the House. I look in the direction of the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), because when the Committee was set up, it was generally considered that Select Committee reports would be debated in Backbench Business time. I hope that we can come to a suitable arrangement, but it is inevitably something that the House will want to discuss.

There is more joy in heaven, as we all know, over one sinner who repented than the 99 who remain unrepented. The hon. Lady has at last eschewed socialism, because she has used the words that we use on the Government side of the House—taxpayers’ money. Normally, the socialists think that it is their money or the state’s money that they allow poor hard-pressed taxpayers to keep a little of out of their benignity, but we on this side know that it is taxpayers money. There is no other money in the system than that taken from people up and down the country.

Conservatives have therefore always held spending taxpayers’ money to the highest standard, while the socialists spent—what was it?—£13 billion on some scheme to make the NHS’s IT system technologically efficient and squandered money on tax credits over and over again, because they have always been incontinent in their use of taxpayers’ money. I am delighted by the hon. Lady’s conversion and move in the direction of Toryism, which is a welcome joy for those of us on the Government Benches. I assure her that we also take the constitution seriously and believe that Humble Addresses must be respected, as they will be.

Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for advance sight of his statement on the change of business. Of course, we are pleased that this is happening so quickly; the questions on the statement we have just heard showed that issues need to be debated, and scheduling this debate so promptly means that there will be an opportunity for those questions to be put and discussed.

There are also questions about the rules on education. If I heard the Secretary of State right, a statement will be made by the Secretary of State for Education. Constituents are asking questions of Members across the House on this and it came up in the briefing on Saturday that the Secretary of State kindly gave, so if no such statement is going to be made, will there be a further briefing on education? Will that be separate from this? May I also just ask a technical thing: how long is the Leader of the House intending to allow for the debate tomorrow? I ask that so that Members can be aware of the timing that is likely to happen.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful for the shadow Leader of the House’s kind words. We gave a commitment to debate matters of national importance as soon as possible, and therefore we are delivering on that. Tomorrow’s debate will last for three hours, and there will be three hours of protected time for the debate in the name of the SNP. My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary did refer to the importance of education and protecting children, but I will pass on her request for more details to my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary.

Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

The business for the week commencing 29 November will include:

Monday 29 November—Second Reading of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [Lords], followed by a motion to approve a Ways and Means resolution relating to the Animals (Penalty Notices) Bill, followed by a motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Bill.

Tuesday 30 November—Opposition day (9th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the Scottish National party, the subject to be announced.

Wednesday 1 December—Consideration in Committee of the Finance (No. 2) Bill.

Thursday 2 December—Debate on a motion on stability and peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina, followed by a debate on a motion on economic crime. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 3 December—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 6 December will include:

Monday 6 December—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Armed Forces Bill, followed by the Second Reading of the Dormant Assets Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 7 December—Remaining stages of the Nationality and Borders Bill (day 1).

Wednesday 8 December—Conclusion of remaining stages of the Nationality and Borders Bill (half day), followed by an Opposition day (7th allotted day— 2nd part). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, the subject to be announced.

Thursday 9 December—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 10 December—Private Members’ Bills.

Right hon. and hon. Members may also wish to know that, subject to the progress of business, the House will return from the Christmas recess on Wednesday 5 January 2022. The House will rise for the February recess on Thursday 10 February and return on Monday 21 February. The House will rise for the Easter recess on Thursday 31 March and return on Tuesday 19 April. The House will rise for the May Day bank holiday on Thursday 28 April and return on Tuesday 3 May. The House will rise for the Whitsun recess on Thursday 26 May and return on Monday 6 June. Finally, the House will rise for the summer recess on Thursday 21 July.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

First, it would be churlish of me not to thank the Leader of the House for letting staff, in particular, know that they can now book their holidays with their families; a lot of them have been waiting a long time to try to get those booked in. I thank the Leader of the House both for the forthcoming business and for the recess dates.

Yesterday, we heard the tragic news that at least 27 people died crossing the English channel, including one young girl and five women, when an inflatable dinghy capsized near Calais. This tragedy reminds us of the risk to life in those perilous waters. My thoughts and I am sure those of all Members are with those who died and with their loved ones. Some of us are already wondering if they are relatives of our constituents who have been trying to be reunited with them, and that is quite hard to take. This is the most poignant of wake-up calls to the UK Government, and I really urge them to act—to take this matter seriously to prevent people from dying in those dangerous waters. Safe and legal routes, tackling the traffickers, reversing the cut on overseas aid and working constructively with our overseas partners are four things the Government could and should be doing today, and I very much hope they will be part of what the Home Secretary speaks about in her remarks later this morning.

On the theme of Home Office failures, yesterday the Home Affairs Committee published yet another report on the Windrush generation compensation scheme. It was a damning indictment, again, of the Home Office’s inability to right a grievous wrong. Four years after the Windrush scandal emerged, just 5% of the people concerned have received their compensation, while 23 individuals, including a constituent of mine, died before they received a penny, still haunted by being wrongly deemed immigration offenders. The Committee recommends that the scheme is passed to an independent organisation and, frankly, we can see why. This is a Government departmental failure, and the Home Secretary should acknowledge that victims of the scandal will understandably have no confidence whatsoever in her Department. Will the Leader of the House urge his colleague to tell us what she will do to rebuild shattered trust in the Home Office?

This week, we learned in a written statement that British Airways was not told of the known danger that the passengers on the 1991 flight BA149 to Kuala Lumpur via Kuwait, who were taken hostage by Saddam Hussein’s forces, were flying into. The UK embassy in Kuwait was aware of that, but as a result of not being notified the passengers on the flight were held hostage by Saddam Hussein’s forces for months. A Government’s first duty is the safety and security of its citizens and a written apology is not good enough. I urge the Leader of the House to ask the Foreign Secretary to do the decent thing and come to this House to apologise and explain to the people of this country how she will ensure that this sort of failure can never happen to British people again.

This Government’s waste of public money is a theme of business questions and this week is no different: I have two examples that the Leader of the House can perhaps help with. Will he ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to explain why her Department has, according to a Select Committee report, only attempted to recover 10% of the £8.4 billion lost to fraud and error over the past year? Will he also ask the relevant Minister to come to this House to explain the loss of just shy of half a billion pounds on Randox contracts? That was briefly discussed this morning but this is still a House of Commons motion not yet complied with. Do the minutes even exist? I cannot imagine spending half a billion pounds and not keeping the receipt. Labour will not let this waste of taxpayers’ money go, because that sum would pay for hospitals, perhaps some of the mythical 40 hospitals, or schools, or help for people struggling with fuel bills this winter.

On Monday, the Standards Committee will report on its proposed changes to MPs’ code of conduct. That will be a significant step in untangling the mess that the Tories have forced this House into. I see from the business that the Leader of the House has not yet allocated Government time for a debate on this report; will he do so before the end of the year so that we can properly scrutinise it?

My final request is not to the right hon. Gentleman but to all the men in this place and beyond, because today is White Ribbon Day, the international day to end violence against women and girls, and the White Ribbon Campaign is a challenge for men to take on male violence. I urge all men listening to take this challenge seriously and do everything they can to end violence against women and girls. It is wonderful to imagine a world where that is eliminated, and I urge all men to help us go out and create it.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I endorse what the hon. Lady said at the end of her remarks and will highlight some of the things that the Government are doing to tackle violence against women and girls, which is obviously a top priority for the whole Government. The tackling violence against women and girls strategy is being refreshed, building on the £100 million already spent on tackling this issue since 2016. It includes establishing new police leads for violence against women and girls reporting to the Home Secretary, spending £30 million through the safer streets and women at night funds, a multimillion-pound communications campaign targeting perpetrators and misogynistic attitudes, and plans to commission a new 24/7 rape and sexual assault helpline and online support. The hon. Lady is right to raise the issue and I think the whole House agrees that everything possible should be done to stop violence against women and girls, and men must recognise that they have an important responsibility within that.

I am delighted that the hon. Lady will now be able to find bargain holidays for herself for next year and that this pressing issue has now been answered. It has to be said that our dutiful staff so enjoy being in the House of Commons that they never come up to me and ask for the recess dates, but hon. Members do from time to time as they wait to book their flights on easyJet or their private jets, depending on their predilection. But I am delighted to have cheered up the hon. Lady.

The hon. Lady rightly mentioned the terrible situation in the channel yesterday, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will be at the Dispatch Box later. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that the Government’s priority must be to take every step possible to prevent deaths. The main way of achieving that is to stop the boats setting off; that must be the priority and it is why the Government have offered to help the French in any way that we can to try to stop those boats launching. Under the Nationality and Borders Bill, which the Opposition opposed, we are trying to make it easier for people to make legal claims for asylum, and harder for people who come into the country illegally to make claims. That must be right, because the evil of what happens is the people traffickers and smugglers who are entirely unconcerned about human life and take large amounts of money to put people on unsafe boats and push them out to sea at the risk of their lives. We must deal with them and make their business model fail, and that way we will save lives. I announced that the borders Bill will be coming back, and I hope that the Opposition will seriously consider supporting those many measures and supporting the Bill’s Third Reading, which will help us to ensure safer borders.

On Windrush, the Government are committed to ensuring that those compensation payments are paid. Everyone recognises that that was a great injustice and that the hostile environment policy did not succeed. Ensuring that those who are now quite elderly of the Windrush generation are properly compensated is the priority of the Government. I think changing the structure now would probably delay things more rather than speeding them up, but they have been sped up in the last few months and over the course of the last year, and that will continue.

As regards BA149, that happened some time before I was Leader of the House. Of course, Governments over many decades learn from the failings of previous Governments, but I do not think what happened in 1991 is immediately topical today.

On the issue of Government expenditure, I have warned the hon. Lady before about people in glass houses throwing stones, and I remind her about the £13 billion spent by the last socialist Government on the NHS supercomputer and the incredible failures with working tax credits, which led to masses of waste of taxpayers’ money. The whole approach to money when the socialists are in power is to be irresponsible and loose with other people’s money. As somebody once said, the problem with being socialist is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. The Government are committed to tackling fraud—to dealing with it and reducing it. That is a major priority, as it is for all sensible Governments.

As regards the purchase of personal protective equipment, this was an emergency. The Opposition cannot have it both ways. The vaccine programme, which was an absolute triumph, was based on shortening purchase arrangements, getting things done quickly, moving ahead swiftly, and spending the money that was necessary then, rather than waiting three to six months and finding that we were as behind as some other places have ended up being. The same was true with PPE, but of course the Humble Address, an important constitutional process, will be dealt with properly.

Finally, the hon. Lady mentioned the Standards Committee report. I think she is being a little previous in asking for something to be debated before it has been published.

Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The provisional business for the week commencing 29 November will include:

Monday 29 November—Second Reading of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [HL], followed by a motion to approve a Ways and Means resolution relating to the Animals (Penalty Notices) Bill, followed by a motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Bill.



Tuesday 30 November—Opposition day (9th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the Scottish National party, subject to be announced.

Wednesday 1 December—Consideration in Committee of the Finance (No.2) Bill.

Thursday 2 December—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

Friday 3rd December—Private Members’ Bills.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business and also his colleague, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), for his various cries. I look forward to seeing him on a Friday.

Today is Equal Pay Day, but it is not a day for celebration. Today, 10 million women in the UK now face working their entire careers without seeing equal pay. This is up from 8.5 million just a year ago. Can the Secretary of State for Women and Equalities or the Work and Pensions Secretary, or both, come to this House and explain why, under this Government, we are going so far backwards and what they will do about it?

What a week! The Leader of the House and I have seen rather a lot of each other across the Dispatch Boxes, and we have also seen the true extent of the Government’s blasé attitude towards corruption. The Prime Minister’s letter, which I believe was sent to Mr Speaker on Tuesday, said that banning MPs from taking roles as paid political consultants or lobbyists would stop them from, “exploiting their positions”. But this Government seem to be saying one thing one day, and then doing entirely another the next—making rules to break them, and facing no consequences for their egregious actions. They could have voted yesterday for our motion, which would have guaranteed—guaranteed—this House a vote on strengthening standards and in a timetable, but instead they chose to support a wrecking amendment, with no clear timetable and no guaranteed vote, and that could see as few as just 10 Conservative MPs affected. Does the Leader of the House agree that such partisanship and what appears to be naked self-interest should never override upholding the principles of public life?

While we are on the Prime Minister and the subject of standards, news outlets are reporting—I do not know whether this has been confirmed—that he said that he had “crashed” the Government car into a “ditch” as a result of the advice that the right hon. Gentleman said, I think, that he gave to the Prime Minister over the affair of the former MP for North Shropshire. Can we have a debate in Government time on dangerous driving and whether that should take place on the Estate?

It is not just on the subject of standards where the Government show nothing but contempt for this House. I am afraid to say that I have raised numerous times with the right hon. Gentleman that Members are still not receiving timely, or in some cases any, replies to letters, written questions or calls to MP hotlines. I know that the Leader of the House shares my concern, so could he take it up again, please?

I am afraid that, at the last business questions, the Leader of the House stated that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) had received a response to his letter to the Prime Minister sent more than a year ago on Islamophobia. I am sure that the Leader of the House did not intend to make this mistake, but, unfortunately, it seems from what I am told that the response that he referred to was from the Conservative party chair, not the Prime Minister, and related to a completely different letter. I would be grateful if the Leader of the House could correct this and clarify. My hon. Friend has now written to the Prime Minister again, so can he also ensure that the Prime Minister finally replies to this letter before the end of this year’s Islamophobia Month?

The shadow Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), asked a named day question all the way back in September on the amount of covid-19 vaccines that had reached their expiry date. This week, it was publicly announced that around 600,000 doses were thrown away in August, but my hon. Friend has still not received a substantive response to her question, which is so critical for our global response to covid. Will the Leader of the House take this back to his Cabinet colleagues and impress on them once again their responsibilities to this House?

This is not my specialist subject, but the annual fisheries negotiations are due to conclude shortly, which is important in ensuring that we reach a good deal for British fishing. I ask the Leader of the House to allocate Government time to debate this, before the December fisheries council?

On behalf of the very many staff who have asked to be able to plan for next year, especially after this past year, will the Leader of the House please give us the recess dates for 2022 next week? They have a right to know those dates, as they have to plan around us and they need to be able to book that holiday to be with their family.

Finally, this week, Azeem Rafiq has given us distressing, but, unfortunately for many of us, not surprising evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee about his experience of racism—in this case in cricket. It is abundantly clear that there has been an acute failure of leadership—in his case, at club and national level—and that, sadly, this is part of a more widespread problem. There should be no place for racism in sport, in this House, or anywhere in our society. Will the Leader of the House ask the Prime Minister to make sure that the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket’s inquiry into racism in cricket is taken seriously, and that it cannot be swept under the rug, as it has been so many times before?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her questions. May I begin with the issue of cricket? As somebody who has followed cricket since his childhood, I think I can say that this is a matter of shame to all cricket lovers. I look back to when I followed Somerset county cricket in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s when we had the most wonderful players from the West Indies—Joel Garner and Viv Richards particularly, but there were others, too. They were so inspirational, and encouraged excitement in cricket and made everyone in Somerset feel that they were part of our county and huge contributors to it. I am afraid that what has been going on in Yorkshire fills many cricket lovers with sadness. The England and Wales Cricket Board has a strong responsibility to ensure that this is stamped out and dealt with much more thoroughly than it has been so far.

The hon. Lady started by asking about equality. It is worth pointing out that the Government have pushed very hard to ensure that women get the opportunities that they deserve: there is a higher percentage of women on FTSE 350 company boards than ever before, and we have introduced shared parental leave and pay, and doubled free childcare for eligible parents, to help to ensure that women in the workplace have as strong a position as possible. Those policy principles and precepts will be kept to.

The hon. Lady then came to some more controversial matters and talked about partisanship. Well, I have a word or two to say about partisanship, because yesterday the Leader of the Opposition had to apologise to the House and withdraw a word that he had used, which today the same man has tweeted about the Prime Minister. That is not only extraordinarily partisan, but it is enormously disrespectful to this House and to Mr Speaker. To have to withdraw a word in this House, and then scuttle out like a beetle and tweet it, is utterly disrespectful to the House and is not the sort of cross-party leadership that one might expect.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition then went further and tweeted inaccurately about his own motion yesterday, so perhaps he did not even know what he had put his name to. That is partisanship, whereas the Conservative Government have been trying to put things right by ensuring that by 31 January—a clear deadline, in spite of what the hon. Lady said—the Committee on Standards can report, and can do so in a way that makes it clear how the rules can be improved following the 2018 report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, led by the noble Lord Bew. We are the ones who are trying our best to be cross-party against a barrage of partisanship, and we are trying to ensure the highest possible standards.

As regards the letter mentioned by the hon. Lady, my understanding is that the party Chairman was replying on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, but I will obviously look into that, check and respond.

Fishing negotiations are an important matter for the House, but I am sure that the Backbench Business Committee can look into finding time for that important debate.

Finally, the shadow Leader of the House wants to go on her holidays. I quite understand that it is a very important matter, although I think that some Labour MPs may have been on their holidays already this week because the Finance Bill, which can go until any hour and sets out the major principles of legislation from the Budget—one of the most important things that the Government do—fell short. It finished early! Where were all the socialists keen to make their arguments about how the finances of the nation should be guided? It does not surprise me that the hon. Lady, and her hon. and right hon. Friends, are keen to book their holidays, but to facilitate them I will bring forward recess dates in the normal way.

Strengthening Standards in Public Life

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House:

(1) endorses the 2018 recommendation from the Committee on Standards in Public Life that Members should be banned from any paid work to provide services as a Parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant;

(2) instructs the Committee on Standards to draw up proposals to implement this and to report by 31 January 2022; and

(3) orders that on the expiry of fifteen sitting days from the date on which the Committee makes its report to the House, if no debate has been held on a substantive motion relating to recommendations in that report, the Speaker shall give precedence to a substantive motion on the recommendations in that report tabled thereafter by any Member.

At the risk of repeating myself—unfortunately, it seems I must—standards in public life are fundamental to our democracy. I have reminded the Leader of the House several times over the past few weeks what those standards are, and I will do so again, just to make sure that he and his colleagues have taken them in. They are, of course, the Nolan principles of public life, and there are seven of them: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. We should all aspire to them and cherish them, as I said yesterday.

I urge all hon. Members on both sides of the House to consider those principles when they make their decision on which Division Lobby to walk through later this afternoon, because those values must underpin all that we do in this House and on behalf of our constituents outside this House. It is our constituents and the country that we serve, not private interests. We are not paid MPs for hire.

Over the past two weeks, I am afraid to say—it gives me no pleasure—that we have seen some of the very worst of some on the Government Benches. That has included refusing to deal with one of their own MPs found guilty of sexual harassment and then trying to change the rules on standards to protect one of their mates who had broken the rules. That leaves the reputation of Parliament and our precious democracy in danger of disrepute. The Prime Minister had to publicly decree last week that the UK is not a “corrupt country”.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

On that point about the UK’s being a corrupt country and standards in public life, in 2006 we knew that peerages for £1 million were finding Labour party people going to the House of Lords. The coincidence is that now Tories with £3 million get into the House of Lords. Lord Oakeshott of the Liberals said in 2014 that he bemoaned the fact that he had not ended the practice when he left. Does the hon. Lady think that all party leaders of those parties that are putting people into the House of Lords should cap the donation level at £50,000, as suggested in the amendment I tabled, so that there can be no more sniff or smell of corruption in the UK with cash for peerages continuing?

--- Later in debate ---

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I must say the difference between this party and the Government party is that we are trying to do something about this. We have the proposals to do something about it. When we were in Government, as I will come on to in my remarks, we did a great deal to try to reform the House of Lords, and we made a lot of progress. On corruption and sleaze, we in the Opposition are the ones trying to change the system for the better.

[Dawn Butler (Brent Central) (Lab)]

While we are talking about corruption and sleaze, and Ministers and standards, does my hon. Friend, like me, find it rather strange that the Prime Minister is in charge of the ministerial code and gets to decide whether somebody has broken it?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Yes; I am glad that my hon. Friend brought that up, because the Opposition have a problem with that. We have a problem with the fact that it is up to the Prime Minister to decide whether or not the ministerial code is investigated. That is a problem. As I said yesterday, the Government rejected the report put forward by the independent Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and the Committee on Standards—a report that followed a very thorough investigation, undertaken entirely properly, with due consideration for the circumstances of the former Member for North Shropshire. That was wrong.

The Government then tried to overthrow the entire standards system, ripping up a 30-year consensus on how we enforce standards in this place, just to prevent sanctions on an “egregious case”—not my words, but those of the entire Committee on Standards—of paid lobbying. That was wrong. Cabinet Ministers then suggested that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards should resign. That was wrong. They tried to set up a sham committee with a named chair, notably on the Government side, and a majority of members from the Government side, to rig the standards procedure. That was wrong.

Okay, the Government are now belatedly trying to right those wrongs. The commissioner finally got an apology from the Business Secretary on Monday for his shameful comments.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this latest inconsistency, along with the eastern leg of HS2, Northern Powerhouse Rail, no rise in national insurance, no border down the Irish sea, oven-ready deals and the 0.7% commitment to overseas aid, shows that the Government must be wearing out their clutch and gearstick with the amount of U-turns they make—making us all dizzy?

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. Let us make it straight from the beginning. This is quite a wide motion, but it is on a particular subject. This is not a free-for-all for general criticism on any matter. An awful lot of Members want to speak today, and I will insist that everybody speaks to the motion, that we do not have long interventions and that interventions must be to the point.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) for her intervention, because one thing we have learned over the past few weeks is the danger of making Members march up to the top of the hill and then leaving them there. When the Government make a screeching U-turn the next day, they leave their own troops feeling a little undefended.

[Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)]

The hon. Lady speaks of changing position. She stood on a manifesto to ban second jobs altogether. Does she still stand by that? If so, how does she account for the Leader of the Opposition earning £100,000 from a second job in recent years?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

It is interesting that the hon. Gentleman seems to have read the 2019 Labour manifesto. If he read it carefully, he would know that is not exactly what it said. It had a clear set of principles, and what my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition announced yesterday is that there should be an underlying principle of second jobs not being allowed but that there could be some exceptions. I do not think anyone in this place thinks it is wrong that doctors should serve to keep up their licence and help the NHS. Does anyone think it is wrong that Army reservists should continue to be Army reservists? No, of course they do not.

Yesterday the Leader of the Opposition proposed strong changes so that MPs do not have a second job without very good reason. At the moment, I do not see the Government coming up with anything strong. All they have done is try to gut our motion, which would put in train the recommendation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, made three years ago—the Government could have enacted it any time—that no MP should take money for being a political strategist, an assistant or some sort of corporate adviser. That should not happen. If Conservative Members want to make sure those jobs go, they should vote with us to get rid of them. It is our motion that does that.

[Colum Eastwood (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Is the hon. Lady aware of the origins of the word “Tory”? It comes from the old Irish word “tóraí”, meaning outlaw or robber. Does she agree that the parcel of rogues now occupying high office in this place are really living up to their name?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

We learn something new every day. I was not aware of that, but I am on record as having been steadfast in my consistent criticism of what the Government have done over the past two weeks and in previous weeks and months. It is unfortunate that the Government, who should be lawmakers or at least law observers, are led by someone who has already been found by the courts of this land to have broken the law when he illegally prorogued Parliament. That is a bad example for a lawmaker to set, and it is problematic. It rather illustrates what my hon. Friend mentioned.

[Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

I did not vote for the motion two weeks ago, and I quite agree that lawmakers should not be law breakers. Seven Labour Members of Parliament have had jail sentences in the past 10 years, and one of them is appealing her sentence. Labour Members are not the best people to speak on this.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

The hon. Gentleman gives me the opportunity to draw a contrast. When Labour Members do bad things, we make sure they go. None of them is here. That happens even when, as in the case of a recent by-election, we lose the seat as a result. The contrast is that when Labour Members are found guilty of doing bad things, we make sure they are got rid of. The Conservative party not so much.

The mess of an amended motion that was so disgracefully backed by the Government two weeks ago was finally removed yesterday after a great deal of Chamber farce, goodness me. It feels to me as though the Government’s actions are too little, too late.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House has said that the reason the Government tried to tear up the rulebook was that their and his judgment was clouded by the situation of a friend. Does my hon. Friend agree that the reason we have standards in public life is so that our judgment is not clouded by sympathy and that, more importantly, our judgment should always be influenced by the situation of our constituents, not the situation of our mates?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

The point about those standards is that they were set not by me or by the Leader of the House but by Lord Nolan three or four decades ago in response to a previous Tory sleaze scandal. The reason we have those standards is to make sure that we can be held to them. The reason we have a standards process is to make sure we are properly held to account. And the reason we were asked to vote on the standards motion two weeks ago was to sanction a Member who had been properly investigated and found to have committed egregious acts of paid lobbying. If Conservative Members had just voted for the standards motion, rather than trying to mangle it, we probably would not be here today.

[Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The hon. Lady will be aware that, earlier this month, a conference held by the Communication Workers Union passed a resolution stating that funding from the union would

“go to specific Labour candidates and campaigns that support CWU industrial and political aims and to support the selection and election of such candidates.”

They may not be direct payments, but it would be naive —[Interruption.]

--- Later in debate ---

[Shailesh Vara]

There may not be direct payment here, but this is obvious, and it would be naive to assume that these would not be wholesale purchases of candidates speaking up for the trade union. Does the hon. Lady agree that that is a form of—[Interruption.] That should not be allowed.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

For goodness’ sake. The hon. Gentleman said it himself: there is no direct payment to Members there. I am absolutely sure that the Conservative party accepts donations to its campaign costs. The trade union movement is the founding father of the Labour party and it does not buy influence. What it does is support our campaigning, and this is properly investigated and reported.

[Shailesh Vara]

rose—

[Thangam Debbonaire]

The hon. Gentleman is going to make another speech, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will give way.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman is not going to make another speech. He is going to make a very short intervention.

[Shailesh Vara]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The point I was making is very simple: these people owe their seats in Parliament to the funding of the trade unions and therefore they would be lobbying for the union in every way. This is irrespective of whether they are paid directly or indirectly, with an indirect payment to their associations.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I do hope that there are no Conservative Members who have taken donations from anybody at any time, because these are donations to political parties—to political campaigns. They do not go to individuals, as the hon. Gentleman very well knows. He did rather promise that he was not going to make a speech, but it was good of him to explain to me, in case my little lady brain had not got it the first time.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

On donations to political parties, does she agree that the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party’s utilising Scottish limited partnerships fundamentally exposes those on the Government Benches for what they are utilising to undermine democracy itself.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

The hon. Gentleman has made an extremely helpful point and I hope he will be expanding on it further later.

With the reputation of Parliament at risk of being ripped apart thanks to the actions of this Government, particularly in the past two weeks, they must start to restore trust in our democracy. There is a way they can do that: they can back this Opposition motion.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I have a simple question: why will the Labour party not categorically state that it will not be sending high-value donors to the House of Lords, for a five-year period or whatever?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

What we are doing today is starting the process of making Parliament accountable and making sure that there are good rules. We are making sure that when Members of Parliament are for sale they are not allowed to be for sale. I invite all Members, in all parts of the House, be they Scottish National party Members or Tories, to vote for this motion. I invite them all to vote for a very clear motion, which does what the Prime Minister said yesterday that he wanted to do. If Conservative Members want to vote for what the Prime Minister said he wanted to do, they need to vote for our motion today, as does every other Member.

My right hon. and learned Friend the leader of the Labour party also said yesterday that we need to strengthen our system radically. He proposed various things, which are not in scope of today’s debate, so I will not go into them, but I think that what the Prime Minister—[Interruption.] Sorry, I should have said “Leader of the Opposition”; it is an easy mistake to make, because I would like him to be Prime Minister. What the Leader of the Opposition did yesterday was indicate clearly and strongly to everyone, from all parties, that we need stronger standards, not weaker ones. Today we have the first step and the first step only. I expect that the Prime Minister will be joining us in the Lobby today—the Aye Lobby—on our motion, because it seems to be coterminous with what he said. But the Prime Minister’s letter to Mr Speaker, which he tweeted out yesterday, was a bit of a surprise, given that the Committee on Standards in Public Life report came out three years ago. That is where these recommendations came from. In three years, we have had no response from the Government, until yesterday, when it looked as though the Prime Minister was in a bit of difficulty and needed something to get out of it with. Two weeks ago, all we had was the Government seeming to urge the standards commissioner to resign and ripping up the entire system.

I said yesterday that I do not expect that the Leader of the House listens to my every word, but perhaps I was wrong and those on the Government Benches have been paying close attention to what I and my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition and future Prime Minister have been saying. Perhaps they have been convinced by my argument—our argument—that our standards system is crucial and needs to be protected, enhanced, strengthened and never weakened. Just yesterday, five former Cabinet Secretaries—all the living former Cabinet Secretaries—wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to strengthen standards. He could show that he has listened to them by backing our motion; if I look at the amendment he has tabled, that does not seem to me to be the case. His amendment certainly would not strengthen the system and already seems to be a rowing back on what he said just about 24 hours ago. One minute it seems that the Prime Minister has been backed into a corner and is ready to accept our motion; the next minute he comes forward with a toothless amendment.

If Government Members vote down our motion in favour of the Prime Minister’s wrecking amendment, let us be clear what they will be voting for. I want them all to pay attention, because I think some of them wish they had paid more attention two weeks ago. Our motion, and only our motion, will guarantee that this House and these Members will get to vote on the Standards Committee’s recommendations to strengthen our code of conduct. It is our motion, and only our motion, that will fulfil the recommendations from the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The Prime Minister’s amendment does nothing but water down our motion. It is yet another example of the Government trying to sweep sleaze under the rug without dealing with it.

We all know that to be elected to this House as a Member of Parliament is a privilege, and one that the vast majority of Members treat with the seriousness and respect it deserves. The passing of our motion will dispel an unfortunate perception that MPs can be hired out, which is of course not the case with almost every MP in this House, apart from the ones the Government are trying to protect—their private business interests come before the interests of their constituents. That is not what we want the public to think because it should never, ever be true. Our motion will ensure that the public know that no MP’s power, influence or position is for sale—

[Shailesh Vara]

Unless it’s for a union.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

There are all these interventions from a sedentary position about the trade union movement; I have yet to see the Electoral Commission tell us that we should not be taking, and declaring quite properly, donations from the trade union movement that do not come anywhere near our individual accounts. Such donations are to fund political campaigns and are properly declared.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Trade unions use their political funds, which are regulated under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, voted on by millions of working people up and down this country and properly registered when they are donated to a political party. If the Conservative party is anti-worker, let it say that clearly.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting it much better than I could have. Trade unions are not-for-profit organisations to help to support workers’ rights. There is a world of difference there and they are quite properly declared. As far as I can see, there is no suggestion in the report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life that that should be changed. We are talking about the difference between private companies trying to buy access to the Government and trade unions that stand up for and campaign on workers’ rights making properly declared donations quite rightly within the electoral rules.

[Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)]

The Leader of the Opposition has earned more than £110,000 since he became an MP; does the hon. Lady condone that—yes or no?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Oh goodness me! My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition, in contrast with the Prime Minister, is actually trying to strengthen the rules, not weaken them. In strengthening them, he is showing no fear, no favour and no concern for whether that has an impact on MPs on the Opposition Benches or on the Government Benches. He is trying to propose something that strengthens the rules across the board. I think that is important and really matters. The Leader of the Opposition has also quite properly declared everything. We should note that in all parties there are lawyers, doctors and members of the armed forces who serve as reservists, whose professional qualifications we may wish them to keep up. Since he became the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. and learned Friend has not taken on any private practice, and I believe he has relinquished his licence. That shows admirable dedication, in contrast with the Prime Minister: all he has done is try to rip up the rulebook.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I apologise for interrupting the flow of my hon. Friend’s excellent speech. Does she share my dismay over where we have got to today? We are still debating this issue and, rather than raising and elevating this House, the interventions from Government Members appear to wish to drag us all into the gutter.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. It is a very sad day, because, rather than taking this on the chin, admitting they made a mistake, which they seemed to be doing last week, and moving on constructively, the Government just want to give the very false impression that all MPs are for sale. That is simply not true and they know it.

Paid advocacy has been against the rules since 1695, so it is not a new rule, but, throughout the centuries, especially in the past three decades, the standards system has been strengthened—until the last fortnight. That consensus has been systematically shredded by this Government—whether it is the Prime Minister not enforcing the ministerial code on his Cabinet or the Leader of the House seeking to undermine the standards procedure—and this has to stop. It is not good enough. The public—our constituents—rightly expect and deserve better than this.

The previous Labour Government legislated to clean up politics after the Tory sleaze of the 1990s. I give as examples: the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000; the ministerial code; freedom of information; public registers of donations and national election spending; and the Electoral Commission, which this Government also seem to want to undermine. Those all came about because of the Labour Government, whereas in 2018, when the independent and external Committee on Standards in Public Life, set up to deal with the previous Tory scandal, recommended that the MPs’ code of conduct should be updated, the Tory Government ignored it. The report said:

“MPs should not accept any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant, for example, advising on parliamentary affairs or on how to influence Parliament and its members. MPs should never accept any payment or offers of employment to act as political or parliamentary consultants or advisers.”

It could not be clearer, and that is what our motion today sets out to achieve. I hope that the Government will be supporting this, because, as I have said and I will say it again, no MP should be for hire. This is not about outside interests per se, because the vast majority of Members work tirelessly to represent their constituents and are not seeking to privately profit from that work. Outside interests are often a way for MPs to connect with the world outside of this place—a point that has been made by many MPs and others.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this important point. It should not take a report of the Committee on Standards to state the blindingly obvious to Members of this House. If they are a full-time Member of Parliament, they do not have the time outside of their constituency affairs, outside of their parliamentary duties in this House, to do other paid work. Is not that just clearly obvious to all except a few Members who are on the take?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing that up, because, of course, that is one thing that my right hon. and learned Friend, the Leader of the Opposition, stated clearly in his speech yesterday. He said that the default setting should be that there are no second jobs. He did say that, in certain professional circumstances, there may need to be exceptions, but that should be up to the independent body to determine, not us. The way that the Government have behaved over the events of the past few weeks, including the case of Owen Paterson, former MP for North Shropshire, have shown us that the rules are obviously not strong enough. It seems to be too easy for the Government to try to rip them up when they fancy. They have sought to weaken and undermine the rules around standards, whereas our intention with our motion is simple: we want to strengthen standards and we want to restore the public’s trust in Parliament and this is the necessary next step.

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

The hon. Lady made interesting points about MPs, but does she agree that those same standards should be applied to all parliamentarians, including those in the House of Lords? Three shadow Ministers in the Lords actually work for lobbying companies.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

For goodness’ sake—I am surprised that the hon. Member does not know more about the House of Lords. Unlike in this House, Lords receive not a salary, but a daily allowance, which is not the same. They work on an entirely different basis and they do not have constituents. I do not see any proposals from the Government on reforming the House of Lords in this way, so it seems hollow for the hon. Member to say that he wants such changes.

The Government created this mess. If they do not support our motion today, it will be yet more warm words but no action; they are very good at that. They created this mess by trying to undermine the standards process in the first place. We would not be here if they had not done so two weeks ago. They must back our motion today and not the Prime Minister’s amendment, because that is nothing but warm platitudes with no concrete action to strengthen our standards system. It has been open to the Government to strengthen the system for the past three years, since the publication of the report on MPs’ outside interests. It was down to the Government to respond to that report, but they have not—until they have been absolutely pushed, kicking and screaming, to back one or two little bits because it suits them to get out of a hole.

The choice has never been clearer and the solution is here: our motion. If the Government do not back our motion this afternoon and choose to support the Prime Minister’s watered-down amendment, they are sending the message that they are content with the perception that their Cabinet Ministers and MPs put self-interest and private business interests above the interests of their constituents. They are sending that message not because I have said so, but because the Committee on Standards in Public Life said so, three years ago.

The message that the Government will be sending if they do not vote for our motion is that nothing needs to change, that they are happy with the headlines of the last few weeks of sleaze and corruption, and that this sort of behaviour is acceptable. They really will be sending the message that it is one rule for them and another for everyone else, and that if Government Members get caught out, the rules need not apply—they will just be changed to protect them—and the consequences do not matter. None of us should be prepared to accept that.

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. I know that she will agree that one of the messages that the Government are sending is to the victims of sexual misconduct found to have been undertaken by any Member of Parliament. The Leader of the House claimed at the time that he agreed with that rule being changed, but that it could not be changed retrospectively. It is therefore a failure of him and of the Government that they will change the rules when a Member has been accused of corruption, but not retrospectively when a Member has been found guilty of sexual misconduct.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

It pains me to have to remind the Leader of the House that Government Members seem to think that it is all right to try to change the rules to get someone off the hook, but not to change the rules to ensure that someone is properly sanctioned; I still call on the Government to deal with that situation.

We do not need to accept this situation. We can take the first step to changing it, and our motion today would do so. The public deserve more than where we are at the moment. They deserve a Government who will act in their best interests and in the national interest. I believe that that is a Labour Government. The public have shown that they want reform and reform is what the Labour party will do. We must never be complacent. We must protect and strengthen standards. We must have a democracy that the British public are proud of, and that people trust and believe in.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

If a Labour Government would be so keen on reforming the system, why did the last Labour Government do nothing to reform lobbying during their 13 years in power, and why did Labour vote against the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I can go back to the list of things that Labour did: the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000; the ministerial code; freedom of information; public registers of donations and national election spending; the Electoral Commission. The clear difference here is that a Labour Government did not rip up the rulebook when one of their own was found wanting. This Government did. They did it two weeks ago and they tried to keep going. Only now that they are finding that the public do not like it are they being dragged here, kicking and screaming. But, unfortunately, from the reaction of Government Members, it looks to me like they have no intention of voting for our motion tonight. If they have no intention of doing so, let them come clean in their speeches as to why.

[Alexander Stafford]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman and I am coming to the end of my speech.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Conservative Members are lacking humility, given the fact that their Government tried to rip up the rulebook to save their mates when it was convenient for them?

--- Later in debate ---

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I do agree. It would also be an awful lot more seemly if the Government were prepared to follow through on their actions.

The Prime Minister said yesterday that he wanted to ban these paid consultancy roles. So vote for our motion: it is there on the Order Paper; it does exactly what the Prime Minister said. Do Conservative Members actually want to do what their Prime Minister says he wants? Perhaps they do not; perhaps that is what is going on. Perhaps they do not back their Prime Minister—but if they do, they could follow through on what he said only yesterday, 24 hours ago, and vote for the Labour motion.

[Alexander Stafford]

I am listening carefully to the hon. Lady’s speech and this is an important point that needs to be addressed. Could she explain, though, why she does not agree with the proposals put forward by the Prime Minister and how her proposals are better? What is the difference?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I wonder whether the hon. Member has actually read the proposal by the Prime Minister. The proposal in the amendment—the only thing that is on offer to vote for today from the Prime Minister—weakens, waters down, takes away the deadline and takes away the vote, and the Leader of the House knows this.

Conservative Members need to accept that the time has now come. Today is the day. They need to stand up and be counted. If they want to follow through on what their Prime Minister said yesterday, they need to vote for the Labour motion today. Will they? We will see.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Before I call the Leader of the House to move the amendment, colleagues will be aware that there are a number of people who wish to contribute to the debate, so it is likely that we will start with a time limit of five minutes on Back-Bench speeches.

Committee on Standards

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Where to start, Mr Speaker? There must be many a Government MP scratching their head today and asking—with reference to the greatest popstar and songwriter of all time after Schubert—“How did I get here?” I am afraid the Leader of the House still seems to have no answer to David Byrne’s eternal question; allow me to assist. I could suggest a few good books on parliamentary process, or maybe a trip to the Table Office—the Leader of the House, the Prime Minister and perhaps even the Government Chief Whip could do with a bit of revision. I could point them towards some party planners in Bristol who could perhaps help them to learn the basics of how to turn some beer and some crisps into a festivity in a brewery.

When the Leader of the House opened the debate some 13 days ago on what should have been a straightforward motion to approve a Standards Committee report, like the one we now have before us, he used his lengthy speech from the Dispatch Box not really to move the motion but instead to propose a Back-Bench amendment that tore through his own motion and, more importantly, tore through the standards process right in the middle of a live case. The Leader of the House talks of conflation; as he sat down, was he fatigued? Were his fingers in his ears? I do not think so. Had he mastered the art of dozing off while appearing conscious? What explanation can there be for his plaintive lament the very next day, in the days after, and even today in his podcast, that it was a pity that the issues of changing the standards process and the live case had become conflated? It was literally him doing the conflating.

I understand that the Leader of the House might not hang on my every word, but why did he not heed the wise counsel of the Chair of the Standards Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant); of his own former Chief Whip, the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper); of the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley); and of any number of others? We all warned the Leader of the House against the dangers of conflation. He was warned, yet conflate he did. He heeded none of the warnings as he led the Prime Minister’s men and women up to the top of the hill and then left them there.

Then came the Government’s screeching U-turn, which the Leader of the House announced the next day at business questions. What followed was yet more chaos. The amended motion is still in place. The motion before us today should have gone through last night but was blocked by a single voice, for reasons that remain a mystery to me but that we may hear shortly. Now, here we are, debating this motion.

When the Leader of the House was asked at business questions how the sham Committee that was included in the messed-up motion, with a named Chair—quite inappropriate—would operate with no funding or cross-party support, I seem to recall that he waved his hands at me and tried to imply that we had not been listening to his words. But we had, and answer came there none.

Absurdly, the Government then resisted the motion suggested by my hon. Friend the Chair of the Standards Committee, as they resisted the urging from me and, no doubt, from others. They could have laid that motion there and then, last Monday, to rectify the mess that they had not just made but quite improperly whipped for, given that this is a House matter.

The motion finally appeared among the remaining orders last night, on a “nod or nothing” basis. I confess, Mr Speaker, that even I was surprised by the chaos last night, as it descended into Chamber farce. I really thought that the Government, having admitted their mistake and squirrelled away the remedy in a late-night, no-debate motion, would surely have made sure that no one was going to mess it up for them again. But oh how wrong I was. To continue the Talking Heads references, this is not my beautiful House. This Government cannot sweep this under the rug. The Leader of the House has now apologised in his podcast, but will he also apologise to the House for the damage that has been done to the reputation of Parliament by this sorry affair?

Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy rightly sent an apology to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards—the independent standards commissioner—for his outrageous comments when sent out on the morning media round to be the Government apologist for bad behaviour. Which hapless Minister are they going to send out next time? Will it once again be the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, who was also sent out to describe all this as a

“Westminster storm in a teacup”?

If it is a Westminster storm in a teacup, it must be a very big teacup, because here we are—

[Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)]

After 13 days.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

Yes, 13 days.

Mr Speaker, standards matter. Scrutiny matters. An independent system to hold everyone in public life to account matters. Standards should not be seen or treated as an irksome bother that you get your mates to change when you are found out. Standards should not be seen as something to be feared, or something to be treated with such distain, incompetence and total absence of leadership, as we have seen from this sorry Government over this sorry affair. To anyone who really loves democracy, standards are the bedrock of everything we do—everything. Once more, it seems I have to remind the Leader of the House that the Nolan principles are selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and, finally, leadership.

For democracy to work—for it to be trusted—those values have to be not only integrated into our political system but celebrated and welcomed. No MP must be for hire—not one. Standards should be the guiding light of every day in this place; a frame around what we do; a filter to sift out what must not be done from what must be done; something we demand from ourselves and each other; and something we expect our staff to work to and to hold us to. When our constituents challenge us to live up to these standards, we should be proud that our democracy is working so well that they can do that. How have we got to the point where the Prime Minister has to clarify that the UK is not a corrupt country? How did we get here? How did we get here?!

Let us keep the upward trajectory, started in 1695—I would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman might have appreciated that, or that he did appreciate that—making our standards stronger, our systems of accountability more effective, not weakening them as the Government tried to do with, I am afraid to say, the assistance of the Leader of the House. I am glad that the Leader of the House recognises that it was a mistake, but I ask him again if he will apologise to this House.

I also ask the Leader of the House: when will the Government bring forward, or respond to, the 2018 recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life on MPs’ outside interests? If he has read that report, which I am sure he has, will he be backing Labour’s motion tomorrow? That motion is based on the part of the standards report on banning MPs from taking political strategy, analyst and consultancy jobs—I got the wording slightly wrong there, but, basically, we are talking about paid directorships and lobbying jobs that MPs should not be doing. The Government must accept the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which was set up after a different Tory scandal, to strengthen the system. They must support the current inquiry into the MPs’ code of conduct, which our Standards Committee is in the middle of and, in fact, shortly to report on. The Government should only ever be in the business of updating and strengthening our system. We should never be content for the public to look at us wearily and conclude, thanks to the cynical actions of a very few, that we do not have standards, when we do.

Finally, we should never have been put in this position, but we were by those on the Government Benches, and now they cannot even clear up after themselves. We can now, today—and I hope that we do—end this particular sorry mess of a motion and take it off the books by voting through the one in front of us, mercifully unamended, as it should have been 13 days ago, if only the Leader of the House had been listening.

Business of the House

Thangam Debbonaire Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)]

Before I begin, I congratulate you, Mr Speaker, on this day of legend and song, because it is the second anniversary of your being dragged to the Chair with notable reluctance. The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 8 November—Consideration of Lords message relating to the Environment Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Telecommunications (Security) Bill, followed by Opposition day (7th allotted day—second part). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced, followed by motion to approve the draft Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2021 and the draft Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) (Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2021.

Tuesday 9 November—General debate on giving every baby the best start in life, followed by general debate on the provision of school-based counselling services. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.

At the conclusion of business on Tuesday 9 November, the House will rise for the November recess and return on Monday 15 November.

The business for the week commencing 15 November will include:

Monday 15 November—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Social Security (Up-Rating of Benefits) Bill, followed by Second Reading of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [Lords].

Tuesday 16 November—Second Reading of the Finance (No. 2) Bill.

Wednesday 17 November—Opposition day (8th allotted day). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.

Thursday 18 November—Consideration of a business of the House motion, followed by all stages of the Critical Benchmarks (References and Administrators' Liability) Bill [Lords].

Friday 19 November—Private Members’ Bills.

The provisional business for the week commencing 22 November will include:

Monday 22 November—Remaining Stages of the Health and Care Bill (Day 1).

Tuesday 23 November—Remaining Stages of the Health and Care Bill (Day 2).

I would like to mark the retirement of Crispin Poyser, who has served the House as a Clerk for more than 40 years. A good understanding of “Erskine May” is essential for the functioning of Parliament, and Crispin is a great proceduralist. In the House and in his secondment to the Cabinet Office as parliamentary adviser to the Government, his work has underpinned the principle of accountability to Parliament. We should all be grateful. I know that his colleagues will miss his expertise nearly as much as they will miss him. I thank him for his terrific public service.

I am aware that last night’s vote has created a certain amount of controversy. It is important that standards in this House are done on a cross-party basis. The House voted very clearly yesterday to show that it is worried about the process of handling complaints, and that we would like an appeals system; but the change would need to be supported on a cross-party basis, and that is clearly not the case.

While there is a very strong feeling on both sides of the House that there is a need for an appeals process, there is equally a strong feeling that this should not be based on a single case, or applied retrospectively. I fear last night’s debate conflated the individual case with the general concern. This link needs to be broken. Therefore, I and others will look to work on a cross-party basis to achieve improvements in our system for future cases. We will bring forward more detailed proposals once there have been cross-party discussions.

[Mr Speaker]

I would also like to express the thanks of the whole House to Crispin Poyser for his 43 years of service to the House. We wish him and his wife Krissie well, and send our best wishes for the many things that they will do next. Crispin is known among colleagues for his keen procedural mind, curiosity and kindness. He will be missed by the House, and I thank him for the loyal service that he has given.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. I join him and you, Mr Speaker, in paying tribute to Crispin Poyser. Clerks are some of the many unsung heroes who keep this place going. We are incredibly grateful to them all; they appear to know absolutely everything. I wish Crispin Poyser a happy retirement from this place. I also wish everyone a happy Diwali. May light shine on us all.

I am frankly astonished by what the right hon. Gentleman just said about separating the review of the standards process from the individual case. Government Members made the choice yesterday to link the two. There is no separating them retrospectively—he has made much of the fact that the Government do not want retrospective rule change. Much was said about the standards procedure not being in line with that in other workplaces, but MPs are holders of public office, not employees. We are subject to professional self-regulation, not employment law.

Government Members cannot pick and choose; if they want to be treated as employees of this House, rather than office holders, then alongside all other employees, they should be wearing masks around the estate and in the Chamber. Unfortunately, unlike when it comes to breaking the rules about paid advocacy, a convivial and fraternal spirit does not protect everyone else. The Government cannot have it both ways. Can the right hon. Gentleman ask his friends to do the right thing and wear their masks—if not for themselves and each other, at least for the staff?

On Monday, the Committee on Standards in Public Life published its 23rd report. More than 25 years have passed since the seven principles of public life were first introduced off the back of a previous escapade of Tory sleaze and corruption, and we and the Government are back there again. Can the Leader of the House confirm whether the Government will endorse the report? Or, if they do not like the recommendations, which I strongly suspect that they do not, will they just abolish the committee? Will they establish another sham Committee, so that the Government can get the answers they want?

Labour will not participate in the sham Committee that the Tories voted through yesterday, despite what the right hon. Gentleman has just said. We will look with interest at his proposals, but we will not participate in a parallel process when the Chair of the Committee on Standards, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is sitting behind me, is doing such a great job with the other cross-party members of the Committee and its lay members.

How will the other Committee be resourced? Has there been a proposal under the estimates process? Considering that the Committee will risk wasting taxpayer’s money, which I know the Leader of the House dislikes intensely, if he cannot get it past estimates, could he ask one of his hon. Friends to contribute some of their lobbying money? Or will he perhaps pay the Chair’s salary?

As the Opposition will not participate in the sham Committee, will the Leader of the House confirm whether it will sit with only Tory members? How will it be decided who sits on the Committee, whether it is the one voted through yesterday or the other one that he has mentioned this morning?

Given the Business Secretary’s frankly disgraceful comments this morning, can I ask whether the Leader of the House agrees with him that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, who was properly appointed, should resign? Is that his view—yes or no?

To continue on the theme of standards, I asked the Leader of the House last week about the updated ministerial code. As I said then, six months have gone by since Lord Geidt was appointed as the new independent adviser, but we still do not have that code. The Government seem to think it is okay for MPs to act as paid advocates for private companies, so it is no surprise to me that they do not seem to have much regard to it. Will the Leader of the House please confirm when it will be published, or whether they are just going to get rid of that as well?

This month is Islamophobia Awareness Month. Earlier in the week, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan) said that this time a year ago, he wrote to the Prime Minister raising concerns over Islamophobia, and a year on, the Prime Minister has still not responded to my hon. Friend. This is wholly unacceptable. Can the Leader of the House please ask the Prime Minister when he will write back to my hon. Friend? Can he also again remind his other Cabinet colleagues of their responsibilities to this House, because I am afraid that we are still not getting timely—or indeed in some cases any—answers to written parliamentary questions or letters, or from hotlines?

Finally, to avoid any unfortunate coincidences, as Conservative Members have put it, between current cases and other Committees or processes, will the Leader of the House take this opportunity to say whether there are any other parliamentary procedures or Committees that he is likely to want to amend, abolish or duplicate—or will he wait until another one of his friends needs saving?