Standards

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Thursday 8th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Let me add my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Kevin Barron) and to the other members of the Standards Committee for this detailed report and for their firm position on an appalling breach of clear and long-standing parliamentary rules.

I support the motion before us, which says that the House

“approves the Eleventh Report from the Committee on Standard…endorses the recommendation in paragraph 29; and notes that Patrick Mercer has been disqualified as a Member of this House.”

Of course, it is now also the case that the former Member has resigned his seat and there will be a by-election in Newark on 5 June. The Committee’s report notes that it is

“not aware of a case relating to a sitting MP which has involved such a sustained and pervasive breach of the House’s rules on registration, declaration and paid advocacy”

and concludes that the second-longest suspension since 1947 was the correct sanction for such a grievous breach. It is right to have taken this strong position.

The details of the case are shocking. Patrick Mercer failed to register his commercial agreement; failed to declare an interest when he tabled a series of parliamentary questions and an early-day motion; failed, more likely than not, to declare an interest to the all-party parliamentary group that he had established, as it turned out, for his own financial gain; and, most seriously, used his position as a Member of the House to further his own personal financial interests. The commissioner is right to say that Patrick Mercer inflicted

“significant reputational damage on the House and its Members.”

In the light of these unambiguous findings, the Committee was right to recommend the sanctions it did. I also believe that the former Member for Newark was right to take the action he took last week when he resigned his seat forthwith.