Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Andrea Leadsom Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

The motion before the House today is of the utmost importance. Yes, it is about the behaviour of a Member, but there is also a huge degree of controversy about the process and the make-up of the Committee. I want to say from the outset that it is entirely reasonable for right hon. and hon. Members to have differing opinions on both the findings of the Committee and the sanctions imposed by it. However, where I part company with those who would vote against today’s motion is that I strongly believe this House must uphold the processes and Committees that we create.

As a former Leader of the House for two years during the 2017 to 2019 hung Parliament, when the harassment scandal hit this place, colleagues from every party—many of whom are in the Chamber today—and from the other place worked for the best part of a year to put together the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme. I certainly do not defend that scheme as being perfect; I myself have some grave concerns about how it has been implemented, which are not for discussion today. However, what I believe the original ICGS, as agreed by this House in July 2018, got right was to uphold the principle that those who are elected to this place should only ever be removed by those same electors. The second principle that underpinned the ICGS was that the House should be responsible for its own affairs, ensuring a collective responsibility to uphold standards and giving all Members the right to be judged by a group of their peers.

The Committee of Privileges, which is responsible for this fifth report and is the subject of today’s debate, has in my opinion been entirely properly established, and has carried out its duties with great care and with every opportunity for the provision of both evidence and opinion to be taken into account. I thank all members of that Committee, and congratulate them on what I am certain will have been an exhaustive, and exhausting, process.

I remind colleagues, the vast majority of whom will have been involved in cross-party Committees such as Select Committees and inquiries, to recall that all the participants on a Committee have an equal voice, and that this particular Committee—with its majority of Government Members—simply cannot reasonably be accused of political bias. Our Standing Orders, while far from perfect, ensure that Members are judged by a politically balanced group of their peers, and that the ultimate sanction available to them gives the right and the obligation to that Member’s own electors to decide whether to call a by-election in the first place. If that 10% threshold is met, it is for those voters to return or reject that Member.

What is the alternative to our Privileges Committee? The only alternative is a Committee made of non-Members. That might address the fears about political bias, but surely the risk of lay members having their own agendas is also great, and with lay members there is a vital constitutional issue around unelected people having the power to dismiss those who are elected. If we do not uphold this crucial principle of our democracy, we risk undermining the preferences of voters by appointing unelected assessors to wield power. That would be a dramatic change to one of the world’s greatest and longest-lived democracies, and we would effectively be saying that we are unable to govern ourselves, overturning a precedent that is hundreds of years old. That is a reality that many right across the country would be deeply uncomfortable with.

In my opinion, the time to challenge the make-up or the proceedings of the Committee of Privileges for its fifth report is long past. Colleagues with concerns about that Committee quite rightly raised those concerns before the House instructed the Committee in April 2022, but they were overruled by a significant democratic majority. The procedures and processes of this House are in constant need of review and reform—of that, there can be no doubt. However, we must make sure that a proper process of reform is followed, not seek to rewrite the process at the eleventh hour because some do not like the conclusions.

For my own part, I will be supporting today’s motion to approve the fifth report. I am sad that it has come to this, and I am particularly sorry to all of my constituents who have written to tell me that they kept the rules when others clearly did not. I urge all Members across the House to approve this motion without a Division.