Business of the House

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The last Bill of attainder, as far as I am aware, was in 1798, although there was the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 to strip royal dukes of their titles when they were traitors. My hon. Friend is right to say that it requires legislation to take away a peerage, although I do slightly wonder what satisfaction it will give to the person to whom he refers to be called “My Lord” while he is serving time at Her Majesty’s expense. The disgrace he has felt means that his title has become, I hope, wormwood.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I know the Leader of the House loves patronising Opposition MPs, but to be honest I have been patronised by much more illustrious people than him.

Can we have a debate, because the Leader of the House did not take this question seriously earlier, about the evacuation from Afghanistan? Many of us still have constituents and friends of constituents who are stuck in Afghanistan in very dangerous and frightening situations, and some of us are concerned that the process of deciding the priorities last summer was not as it should have been. In fact, it was so chaotic—perhaps for good reasons, but perhaps for bad reasons as well—that bad decisions were made.

If we had such a debate, we would also have the opportunity to clear up the fact that the Prime Minister has repeatedly said that he took absolutely no role in the decision to evacuate Pen Farthing and Nowzad, whereas the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary wrote a letter in which she made it clear that she was involved as his PPS. We now have in the Foreign Affairs Committee an email from one of Lord Goldsmith’s officials, so a member of the Foreign Office team, saying that the Prime Minister had authorised this. We need to get to the bottom of this. There may be a perfectly innocent explanation. But it may be guilty as charged.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Under Operation Pitting, our armed forces and civil service worked around the clock to evacuate 15,000 people, including around 8,300 British nationals and 5,000 people through the Afghan relocations policy. This was an incredibly successful and pressurised operation, and our armed forces, once again, showed what amazing things they can do when called upon to do them. The hon. Gentleman is fussing about a few animals. I think that shows the level of seriousness that he characteristically brings to today’s debate.