Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Bell Ribeiro-Addy Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that clarification. It is not me she needs to remind but some of her own colleagues, who are obviously fighting the next leadership contest already. As Parliament’s representative in Government, I ask her to remind her colleagues of the importance of telling the truth at the Dispatch Box and of the process by which, when Ministers make honest, inadvertent mistakes, they come back to clarify them as soon as possible. She could start by asking the Home Secretary to do that in relation to the asylum decision backlog, which I understand she still has not clarified.

[Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)]

We all now know that Boris Johnson lied to the House but, as my hon. Friend said earlier, we also know that he came to this House and told those lies on 30 occasions, and he did so to cheers and whoops from all the Members opposite. Does she agree that they bear some responsibility for this and, if they do not absolve themselves by voting in a certain way today, their constituents will look on them very unfavourably?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and they not only cheered on the former Prime Minister. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) says Conservative Members got rid of him as Prime Minister last year, but that was only after they propped him up for a considerable amount of time.

Standards matter. Rules matter. Parliament matters. Respect for truth, behaving honourably, abiding by our rules and respecting our processes—this all matters. Why? Because without them we are nothing. If we are nothing, we fail democracy and we fail the people we have been elected to represent. If we lose their trust, and if they stop believing in democracy, our ability to serve them is crushed and our mandate to represent them is diminished.

To come back to where I started, the hearts on the covid memorial wall are what Members should have at the front of their mind when they vote this evening. On this side of the House, we hold democracy in the highest esteem, we respect the institutions of this House and we respect the process that the Committee has undertaken. I will approve the clear and just conclusions of the Privileges Committee, and I urge all colleagues on both sides of the House to vote with me to endorse, support and approve the Privileges Committee’s report, and to do right by our constituents.