Privileges Committee Special Report

Charles Walker Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

The motion before the House is proportionate: it seeks only to provide the Privileges Committee, once it is established and sitting, with the same protections enjoyed by the Standards Committee. That is all it does. All colleagues respect the Standards Committee when it is sitting. I hope that we can extend that respect to the Privileges Committee and that the motion is carried.

I was struck by what the Leader of the House said in her speech. I wrote three or four speeches for this afternoon’s debate—some reflective, some angry and some defensive—but I have put them all aside.

You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), the former Prime Minister, was a great friend of mine—one of my greatest friends in politics. I fought tooth and nail, with every fibre in my body, to keep her in No. 10. I turned up whenever I was needed, to do whatever needed to be done, but we lost—that battle was lost.

I see my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), the chair of the 1922 committee, in the Chamber. Very quickly, the late Dame Cheryl Gillan and I were thrust into being acting chairs of the 1922 committee, and we oversaw the contest for the new leader of the party. The former Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson) was successful; I was one of five people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West, present when, de facto, he became leader of our party and, de facto, the following day, Prime Minister. That was 24 July 2019.

That day, or shortly afterwards, I was in the Tea Room having supper with my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, the former Prime Minister, when in bounced the then Secretary of State for Transport, my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps). He has been my political neighbour for 18 and a half years. Sometimes we are the best of friends; sometimes we are the best of enemies. When we fall out, we normally find an accommodation that allows us to become friends again.

You may recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, that in 2018, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield was the first to call for the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, to stand down. So when he bounced into the Tea Room, the day she ceased to be Prime Minister, or a few days later, and sat down with his supper, I thought, “Oh my word. This is going to be pretty tasty”—not the supper, the conversation. I thought there would be fireworks, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead, unencumbered by the office of Prime Minister, could really have a go at my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield, my next door neighbour in Hertfordshire. The former Prime Minister fixed him with a steely eye and said, “Now, Mr Shapps, I have a small station in my constituency that needs some investment. What are you going to do for me?”

In this place, we are judged not by how we handle our successes, but by how we cope with our disappointments. In that Tea Room exchange, I learned so much about character, courage, humility and dignity. To return to the motion, I hope that it is passed tonight. There is a lot of upset and grievance on the Government side of the House, but eventually we have to cast that to one side and move forward.