Independent Expert Panel Recommendations for Sanctions and the Recall of MPs Act 2015

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 19th October 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I agree with much that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) has said, but I am a little more sceptical about whether the changed attitude towards the House and its Members will remain for much longer than another 24 hours. I have been here before, and if we look at some of the online comments some of us have received over the last 72 hours, we see that they have been even more aggressively nasty than the ones last week.

I thank Sir Stephen Irwin, who I think has done a magnificent job ever since he started with the independent expert panel, and all the other members of the panel. However, it is also worth remembering that the person who works most closely with them is the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. I think we should pay tribute to the magnificent work that she has done in this field as well. These are often complex, difficult and highly emotionally charged cases to deal with, and coming to a secure idea of what has actually happened in some instances is not simple.

One danger with adopting the policy that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire suggested, in an environment where each parliamentary office has a Member of Parliament and perhaps three or four members of staff, is that it might reveal the name of the complainant, which breaches confidentiality. That needs to be addressed carefully.

When the 2015 Act was introduced, it was absolutely clear that the House intended the process to apply to all the cases that might possibly be brought, because they could then be brought only to the Committee on Standards and Privileges, hence the way in which the legislation was drafted. Any case of bullying or sexual harassment that might have come to the Committee on Standards and Privileges, if we proposed a sanction of 14 or more days or 10 sitting days, would have invoked the recall petition process. When we created the independent expert panel, as the Leader of the House was absolutely right to say, many of the trade unions were opposed to the idea of making that process apply. I have always thought that they were wrong, for the very simple reason that we have ended up looking as if we take offences about registration of interests, paid advocacy and things like that more seriously than bullying and sexual harassment.

Bullying and sexual harassment cases could not possibly lead to somebody leaving the House through the recall petition process as it is presently constituted. However, the independent expert panel could, if it wanted to, recommend the expulsion of a Member. I do not know what the case would have to be to lead to that—that is a matter for it—but I will come on to that later in relation to the amendment from my hon. Friend the shadow Leader of the House. I just think it is wrong that we should have what seems to be a higher bar for sexual harassment and bullying cases than for other cases that come before the Committee.

As Sir Stephen has said and as the Leader of the House intimated, it would be better to correct that by legislation, and I have had this conversation with the right hon. Gentleman. Leaders of the House always say that there is never any time to do anything by legislation and that it is absolutely impossible, until suddenly they find that it is absolutely possible, it is absolutely necessary and it must all be done in one day. That is the kind of thing that happens to Leaders of the House: somebody who lives on a street a little bit further up Whitehall somehow manages to tug the ear of Leaders of the House, and they find time that they never had before.

The slight danger of doing it this way is that something has to go from the independent expert panel to the Committee on Standards. I know that the Committee shall produce a report and it must be equal to the report that has come from the independent expert panel; none the less, there is a danger that the process is a bit more cumbersome and it undermines an element of the independence of the independent expert panel. We might end up having a debate in the Standards Committee, and I think that would be entirely inappropriate. If the House cannot have a debate on it, why on earth should the Standards Committee be able to have a debate on it? I can assure the House, having discussed this with the Standards Committee, that we will not debate that. However, I am the Chair today, and who knows who might be the Chair in the future or who might be the members of the Committee in the future? So I would still prefer us, at some point, to have proper legislation to clear this up, rather than simply relying on the Standing Orders and the good will of the Committee on Standards.

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman is a very effective Chair, and I think we all respect and admire the work he is doing. On the legislation versus Standing Orders issue that he raises, he is right that Sir Stephen did indeed want legislation, which I would support, but the concern was that such legislation might be subject to legal challenge, and I do not know exactly where that leaves us. I am interested in his view if we were to go down the legislative route. What would be his concerns if legal challenges were to emerge because of that?

[Chris Bryant]

We have not been advised of any problems with legal challenge. I still think legislation would be better. Legislation always—or nearly always—puts things completely beyond doubt, whereas Standing Orders changes do not always put things completely beyond doubt. However, it would then be a proceeding in Parliament and, as we all know, article IX of the Bill of Rights says that no proceeding in Parliament should be

“impeached or questioned in any Court”

of law or any other place.—[Interruption.] I have got it right, have I not? I think we would be able to rely on that very solidly, and that must appeal to the Leader of the House because it goes back to the 17th century. On the question of the independence of the IEP, we are very keen in the Standards Committee that we will do everything to maintain that independence, and it will not be questioned or impeached by us in any shape or form.

I note that the changes to the Standing Orders say that the Chair of the Committee can do something if the Committee has not managed

“to meet within 3 sitting days”.

I think this would happen quite often, because it is quite difficult to ensure that the Standards Committee is going to meet within three days, especially because the independent members come from some distance and we would not necessarily be able to gather them together, and we can be quorate only if we have three lay members and three members who are Members of the House.

I gently suggest to the Leader of the House that it might be nice, at some point, to have a Standing Order that says that all motions from the independent expert panel or from the Committee on Standards will be before the House within three sitting days as well, but I know what he is going to say. He will say that it is all very difficult, and that sometimes it is impossible to find time and sometimes it is possible to find time—

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

indicated assent.

[Chris Bryant]

The Leader of the House takes my point.

On retrospectivity, I am afraid I am not going to vote for the amendment in the names of the Leader of the Opposition and shadow Leader of the House; I will be voting against it. The independent expert panel could have decided in the case we are referring to that the Member should be expelled from the House; I do not make a judgment as to whether that would be the right thing to do, but it could have done that. It knew perfectly well that these were the rules and that it was unable to allow the invoking of the Recall of MPs Act 2015. That is why it is unfair to introduce an element of retrospectivity.

It does, however, present a very difficult example for the House that somebody who has been found to have behaved so inappropriately that in any other set of circumstances it would have been invoking the Recall of MPs Act chooses to continue in the House. The Leader of the House himself has said that he thinks the hon. Member should resign, and that is my view as well. The situation is very difficult for constituents in that constituency and for other Members and staff around the House, and I wish it could be other than it is, but that does not mean we can surrender the fundamental principles we have always had.

My main point, however, is that I fully support the closing of the loophole, and I wish this had done before the IEP came to its decision on the case hon. Members have referred to. I only wish that attitudes across the House were changing more rapidly, and we still have a considerable job of work to do on that, but I am assured that many members of staff both of Members and of the House feel reassured by the independence of the IEP process, and I would encourage anybody who ever feels that they have been bullied or have been subject to sexual harassment in their line of work here to present themselves, because they will have a fair hearing from the system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

With the leave of the House, I will respond to the debate. I thank all those who participated in it. I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), for her support for the main motion, and I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) not just for his support for the main motion but for the considerable contribution that he has made to ensuring culture change in the Palace of Westminster.

I am in considerable agreement with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the Chairman of the Standards Committee. He made the very important point that this is not a loophole, but it was a deliberate decision that was taken because of representations that were made to exclude recall when the independent expert panel was set up. As it happens, I also agree with him that that was a mistake. The arguments against allowing for recall were essentially weak and erroneous. I think that we agreed to them because we wanted to set the panel up in a spirit of consensus and compromise, and to ensure that all the participants were happy, with the knowledge that we could go further in the future.

I turn to the speech by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). I agree with a great deal of what she says. I confess that my first reaction when I heard about this case was that the Member concerned should not remain a Member of this House, and I said that I thought he should resign. However, I listened very carefully to what the chairman of the IEP said and very carefully, actually, to the basic principle of justice that nobody has a punishment inflicted upon him that was not available at the time the offence was committed. That principle does not apply just to this House; it applies throughout our court and legal system, and it has, really, from the earliest times. I think that is an important principle of justice.

What the hon. Lady said in her impassioned plea is so right in so many ways. Actually, when the recall Bill came through, I was of the view that we could always trust our constituents under the widest possible circumstances of recall. I have never felt that we should shy away from what our constituents want. I was very much in support of what my noble Friend Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park was trying to do. However, Parliament decided otherwise. Parliament decided to introduce a recall Act subject to strict criteria, including going through a Committee of this House, and those criteria were deliberately not used to extend the Act to the independent expert panel.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the Leader of the House give way?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I will not, actually, on this occasion; I want to complete my thought.

I think so many of us were so desperately depressed when, after all that this House had tried, after the efforts that we made to improve the standards of behaviour, to achieve culture change and to ensure that people working in this palace felt safe and secure and respected, somebody so recently elected, who went on the course about treating people properly—somebody who did all of that and got every message from the Whips, every message from the Government, every message from this House—had broken the rules within a few months. But that was the system that there was; that system provided for a penalty that was imposed; that penalty was imposed by an independent body, and that is justice. One may then change it for the future. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley knows how much I respect her—that is not the normal waffle of politics; I hold her genuinely in the highest regard, and I admire her campaigning spirit—but I am afraid that on this occasion, justice must trump anger.

[Chris Bryant]

The Leader of the House knows that I will vote with him on this matter, but for me the biggest problem is that the Member concerned has shown absolutely no insight into his conduct. That was a point that the independent expert panel made, and it has been absolutely self-evident at every single moment since. That really does pose a problem for all of us. I know that many Members on his own side have said to him, “It would be better for you and for the House if you were to step down.” I very rarely say this, but as a former priest, I would say this to him as well. I think it would be in his own best interests, for him to be able to move on in his own life, if he were to step aside, and that is what I would prefer.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I do not think that it is really for me to respond to what the hon. Gentleman has said, but it will be in Hansard tomorrow.

Question put, That the amendment be made.