Standards in Public Life

Debate between Charlotte Nichols and Michael Ellis

Tuesday 5th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

If anyone should go into the witness box, it is those on the Labour Front Bench. The hon. Gentleman seeks to challenge this party, but it is this party that delivers what the people of this country want. It is this party that secured the largest majority since the 1980s at the last general election, and it is this Prime Minister who will go on to fight the next general election. It is about policies, not personalities, and the hon. Gentleman wishes to make political points out of a serious allegation.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Around one in three women and one in seven men are survivors of sexual violence. Many of them will work on the parliamentary estate, and whether we know it or not, they may be sitting in this very Chamber right now. What assurances can the Paymaster General give those survivors here and across the country that Parliament is a safe place to work and this Government are fit to govern, given the gaslighting that we have been subjected to today from the Dispatch Box, and the fact that Cabinet Ministers, including the Justice Secretary, are happy to go on national television and obfuscate and minimise the severity of allegations of this nature for as long as the alleged perpetrators are sufficiently loyal to the Prime Minister?

[Michael Ellis]

Obviously no one has, from this Dispatch Box or anywhere else, done what the hon. Lady alleges. The fact of the matter is that not everyone who disagrees with the hon. Lady is being dishonest. She needs to recognise that there is a version of events that every individual has. She wishes to make political points and claim that there is dishonesty involved. There is a difference of recollections in some cases—a difference of circumstances. That does not mean that the party that disagrees with her is dishonest.

Downing Street Garden Event

Debate between Charlotte Nichols and Michael Ellis

Tuesday 11th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Michael Ellis]

I am appalled at the hon. Gentleman’s tragic loss, and I am so sorry to hear about his mother. My heart goes out to him and his family.

The Prime Minister knows the seriousness of covid-19 and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, he was in intensive care as a consequence of it. The Prime Minister also knows, having spoken to innumerable individuals who suffered loss themselves, that it has resulted in the death of many people in this country and around the world. He knows that, and he will never forget it.

I ask the hon. Gentleman to accept my assurance that the Prime Minister is someone for whom his responsibilities are writ large. He works hard in the interest of this country and he will be subject to Sue Gray’s investigation, together with her inquiry into all of these parties. I ask him to wait to see the result in, I presume, the relatively short time until we hear from Sue Gray.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

A constituent of mine, who I will call Malcolm, got in touch this morning having been fined with a £100 fixed penalty notice for breaching the coronavirus regulations. He accepts his wrongdoing, but it strikes me as incredibly unfair that, at the same time as the Downing Street parties were happening and Ministers and MPs seemed to be flagrantly breaching the rules, constituents like mine should have to pay. When will Malcolm and everyone else who has been fined for breaching the regulations be getting their money back?

[Michael Ellis]

I presume that the hon. Lady’s constituent, together with others who have been penalised for breaching the regulations, was either duly convicted or accepted their responsibility. If I may say so, she is prejudging the matter. She should wait for the result of the investigation, just as Malcolm presumably did.