Privileges Committee Special Report

Brendan Clarke-Smith Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Harman]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. If the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) wants to say that he does not believe the Committee was motivated by malice and prejudice, we would warmly welcome that correction.

Our special report makes it clear that it is not acceptable for a Member of this House who does not want a particular outcome to seek, by pressure or lobbying, to influence the Committee’s decision. The House, by supporting this motion tonight, will be making it clear that, in such an inquiry, the Committee’s responsibility is to gather the evidence, and that it is the evidence that must prevail. That is the only basis on which a decision should be made. Members must not try to wreck the process by pressing Committee members to resign.

If members of the Committee are not prepared to undertake such inquiries, the House would have no protection from those who mislead it. I have nothing but admiration for my colleagues on the Privileges Committee, particularly the Conservative Members. Despite the pressure they were subjected to, they were unflinching. They came to each of our more than 30 meetings and persisted to the conclusion of the inquiry with a complete and total focus, which was a credit to the House. They gathered the evidence, analysed it and based their decision on it, exactly in the way that the House requires them to. That was then put to the House.

By supporting this motion tonight, the House will be making it clear that when it appoints members to the Committee, those members will have the support of the House to carry out their work. They are doing a worthy thing by serving on the Privileges Committee.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

I appreciate what a difficult job the Committee has—I fully respect that—and, of course, the original Chair did recuse himself from the inquiry. When the original report was put before the House, the right hon. and learned Lady stated that she had received assurances from the Government that she would remain in that position, but she did not elaborate on that at the time. Will she therefore use today as an opportunity to inform the House as to what assurances she had been given and by whom?

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

As has been expressed already, people may have many views on Boris Johnson, but what we are here to discuss is the special report. For me, this is about the sense of disappointment that I felt at not having the opportunity to see or comment on the report in advance, or to clarify, as my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) and others have clearly said. That is an opportunity we would have welcomed, so to find out from the media before the report was published was very disappointing.

Of course, many also use that as a criticism of the previous report: while it may have run to 30,000 words, many of us felt we had already read them on Twitter. Where that has come from we do not know and we cannot say for sure, but it is disappointing that these things leak out, as it is with any business that should be brought before this House first. Of course, as has been mentioned, many Members are not included in the annex. There have been many comments on the make-up of the Committee, the outcome and the processes. People even suggested that the result would be some Conservative stitch-up for Boris Johnson because there is a Conservative majority on the Committee. It has worked both ways. Many accusations will fly around, but many of them will not be true.

One issue I take with the report is its methodology. Seven people here have been chosen, and we are all Brexiteers or vocal supporters of the former Prime Minister. How was that conclusion reached, and how was the annex formed? I think that we have a little more information on how that could be a sample. I welcome that, because it is important that we clarify it. Some of us wonder whether it was done based on the number of complaints, for example. Some of us made interesting comments on social media and perhaps attracted more complaints than others.

Let us remember that we have been through an unprecedented situation. Those are the circumstances we all found ourselves in and why we are here today. We saw the removal of a Prime Minister with a large majority. He was subject to an inquiry, then a sanction was recommended that ultimately led to his resignation as a Member of this House, and his parliamentary pass was taken from him. Those were unprecedented steps to take against a former Prime Minister.

Whatever the rights and wrongs, we are here to debate the report, and I do not want to diverge too much from that, but many have compared the situation to a court of law. As has rightly been said, many have expectations of natural justice on this, but the Privileges Committee is a Committee of the House, not a court. Parliamentary sovereignty is paramount—although I always make the point that the people are truly sovereign in this country—but it is still important that the process is seen to be fair, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) said so eloquently and far more entertainingly earlier.

Let me go through some of the comments by Members outlined in the annex. My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield said that:

“questions will need to be asked”.

My hon. Friend the Member for Workington said:

“When the witch hunt has been forgotten, future generations will look back in astonishment.”

At no point does that comment mention the Committee itself or its individual members. Similarly, although I may have made rather robust comments myself, I did not speak about Committee members specifically, and I just want to clear that up.

Likewise, my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) commented. One comment of hers that was included in the annex was from 15 June at 10.44 am, nearly two hours after the report was released. The report states that Members are free to make whatever comments they wish once the report is final, so why has that comment been referred to in the annex?

Many of us take issue with the annex. I think that we can appreciate the points that are made in the report. Some of us, myself included, would have preferred the whole matter not to have been referred to the Committee in the first place. That is not, of course, the fault of the Committee members themselves. As I have stated on numerous occasions and in many media interviews, I fully respect the job that they had to do. It was important that they be left to get on with it. I also did not comment specifically on the report until it was published, but my constituents would expect me to question it and to scrutinise the events leading up to it.

At this point, I thank the members of the Committee. Theirs was a thankless task, and whatever decision they came to—be it on this or any other matter—they simply could not win. I thank them for their service in delivering the report, and even though I do not agree with its conclusions or the sanctions, I respect the fact that they were in that position. I urge others outside the House to do the same. I hope that we can bring the matter to a close after this evening.

Any comments that I made with regard to the resignation of the former Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip were related to comments that he made in his statement, not to the full report itself. I want to clarify that. I did not, of course, have a copy of the report until it was released. At that point, we were free to comment on it. That relates to my tweet of 9 June, which is mentioned in the annex to the special report.

I believe that it was our responsibility as parliamentarians to read and respond to the original report. I have been honoured to be a member of numerous Select Committees in my time, and I would expect to do the same for any such report when it is published, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel) said. I believe that effective scrutiny is one of the great strengths of this institution. I would not want that to change. The report itself states that its conclusions were not influenced and no intimidation occurred.

On the importance of scrutiny by Members, I hope the House will excuse me if I paraphrase the great quote from “Gladiator”: “Is this not why we are here?” We are here to scrutinise this House; we are here to scrutinise the work that we do. We must do that respectfully. It is the point of our being here. I am not quite in as good a shape as Russell Crowe was in that movie—certainly not since putting on the parliamentary stone.

Although respect for the House and for process is important, we must also be able to engage and scrutinise where relevant. I strongly refute the idea that I or other Members impugned or deliberately impugned the integrity of the Committee. I therefore clarify once again that any comments made prior to full publication were directed not at them or the ongoing inquiry specifically, but at the circumstances surrounding the unprecedented situation that we all found ourselves in.

I want to talk about our international reputation and what it looks like to others. Democracy in this country is very much a beacon—as is this House—and something that people look to and admire, and we should uphold it, with free speech, due process, and free and fair accountability in the face of despotic regimes around the world. I want that to continue. I was very disappointed by one amendment—I am pleased that it was not selected—because that would have set a poor example to people. I found it neither liberal nor democratic. I am proud to be a Member of this House and to serve my Bassetlaw constituents. The events of the last few weeks have left me disappointed that the issues that they care about are being sidelined in order for politicians to criticise other politicians for criticising politicians. We owe it to our constituents to do better.

This week I saw GB News refer to a number of us, with a mocked-up poster, as the “Magnificent Seven”. I suppose one thing that we have in common with the characters in that film is that we all want to keep our villagers happy, and that is certainly a good start. I probably ought to end the comparisons at that point, as I believe that there are only three of them left at the end of the film, and I am hoping that a full seven of us remain by the end of the debate. We have certainly heard some powerful contributions. I respect this House, and I hope now that we can all come together for a far happier ending.