Lobbying of Government Committee

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate after the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Chris Clarkson). He described elements of the debate as sixth-form politics, but I do not believe that is the case; I think this is a very serious matter. I hope that he, and all non-Government Members, will see their role in this House as extremely important in holding the Executive to account. Whether they are majority-party Members or Opposition Members, every single Member in this House plays a key role in holding the Executive to account. Our Executive are very strong and all of us must play our part in holding them to account.

The Greensill sleaze scandal and the “revolving door” influence of the former Prime Minister is the latest in a long line of questionable practices by the Government. In recent days, the former Government chief scientist Sir David King has warned that the Government are operating a chumocracy and a creeping privatisation of the national health service even as we continue in our communities to battle the covid-19 pandemic, day by painful day. There is the deeply concerning decision to hand London GP practices to the US health firm Centene: a decision that has incensed many of my constituents, who are rightly concerned about the quality of their local healthcare. Our constituents deserve better than this. Time after time, it is one rule for them, another rule for everyone else. While Tory donors and former Prime Ministers have privileged access, the Chancellor denies support for others, like my poor constituent who emailed in regarding their livelihood crumbling during lockdown and said that the Greensill sleaze affair

“is an insult to all self employed and freelancers”.

It is clear that the rules are not fit for purpose. Labour’s amendment to the 2014 lobbying Bill would have caught out David Cameron’s Greensill lobbying and would have ensured that any decisions to handle health contracts were made without the stain of cronyism hanging over financial decisions taken by Government. Ministers have been at pains to point to an inquiry into the sleaze scandal, but it only scratches the surface of what should be investigated, ignoring swathes of dealings worth billions of pounds of public money.

We desperately need to remove the stain of cronyism that hangs over the Government. Today, the Institute for Government has described the head of the Crown Commercial Service, or the head of Government buying, working for Greensill as “eyebrow raising”, and has suggested that following the Robert Jenrick affair—the property development referred to earlier in the debate—the “stench of sleaze” will take quite some cleaning up to be dispelled. We need an anti-corruption and anti-cronyism commissioner and an integrity and ethics commission to clean up, and we need urgent change.