Standards in Public Life

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 7th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Member makes her point, but I think we are better together. The actions of the Prime Minister do not represent the United Kingdom, which is why I am bringing this motion before the House today.

The new code is also utterly silent on the question of what amounts to a major breach of the rules, so what happens to a Minister who engages in bribery, who perpetuates sexual assault or who bullies their staff? It is the Prime Minister who continues to appoint himself as the judge and jury on ministerial misconduct, including his own. It is he who decides the degree of wrongdoing or rule breaking. You could not make it up, but that is exactly what he is proposing to do. This is the same Prime Minister who became the first in history to have broken the law in office. Now, what is to stop him saying that some sort of an apology is enough?

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I wonder if my right hon. Friend has had an opportunity to read Lord Geidt’s most recent report on the ministerial code, in which he says:

“I have attempted to avoid the Independent Adviser”—

that is Lord Geidt himself—

“offering advice to a Prime Minister about a Prime Minister’s obligations under his own Ministerial Code. If a Prime Minister’s judgement is that there is nothing to investigate or no case to answer, he would be bound to reject any such advice, thus forcing the resignation of the Independent Adviser”—

rather than that of the Prime Minister, obviously.

“Such a circular process could only risk placing the Ministerial Code in a place of ridicule.”

Is that not basically where we are—a place of ridicule?

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Rayner]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It says a lot about the Prime Minister, as I have outlined in my speech, that he has no regard for transparency. When Labour was last in government, we legislated to clean up politics with the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the Electoral Commission, the Freedom of Information Act and the ministerial code. The last Labour Government did not hesitate to act decisively to clean up Britain’s public life, and Labour’s independent integrity and ethics commission will bring the current farce to an end and clean up politics.

Three decades ago, a Labour Opposition exposed the sleaze engulfing and decaying a Tory Government, and we legislated for it. Over the past 12 years of this Tory Government, the strong standards we set have been chipped away. Our unwritten constitution is dependent on so-called “good chaps”. We trust our political leaders to do the right thing, but that theory has been ripped to shreds under this Government. No amount of convention or legislation appears capable of stopping this Prime Minister riding roughshod over our democracy.

The next Labour Government will act to stamp out the corruption that has run rife under this Prime Minister. Labour’s ethics commission will bring the existing committees and bodies that oversee standards in government into a single independent body that is removed from politicians. It will have powers to launch investigations without ministerial approval, to collect evidence and to decide sanctions.

Honesty matters, integrity matters and decency matters. We should be ambitious for high standards, and we should all be accountable: no more Ministers breaking the rules and getting away with it; no more revolving door between ministerial office and lobbying jobs; no more corruption and waste of taxpayers’ money; and no more Members of Parliament paid to lobby their own Government.

Labour has a plan to restore standards in public life and to clean up politics, but we have to start somewhere. We have to stop the rot. Labour’s motion would see the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life adopted in full right now, which is a crucial first step. The committee was established by Sir John Major nearly three decades ago to advise the Prime Minister on ethical standards in public life, and it has promoted the seven principles of public life—the Nolan principles.

The mission of the Committee on Standards in Public Life has never been more important than it is today. It is genuinely independent and genuinely cross-party, and it has done all the work. The plans are in place, ready to go. On the Opposition Benches, we back the Committee on Standards in Public Life. All we need now is a nod from the Minister and the Government, which they could do today by passing this motion. I hope the Minister gives in this time.

[Chris Bryant]

Another Committee—the Committee on Standards, which is also cross-party—has produced a report. It has suggested that because one of the important principles is openness, the rule for Ministers on when and how they register hospitality should not be separate from that for the rest of Members. Will the Labour party be supporting those changes, to make sure that everybody in the House is treated equally when they are brought forward to the House?

[Angela Rayner]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: what the Labour party is promoting and what we want to see is transparency. We did that and demonstrated that under the last Labour Government, and we will continue to do that. Under this Government, we have seen time and again an erosion of that transparency, that right to freedom of information and that conduct in terms of how we report how donations are made and so on, with them trying to get around the rules. That is why we have proposed the independent ethics commission, because we think it is an important step in cleaning up some of the problems we face today.

This Prime Minister has tested our unwritten constitution to its limit, but today all Members of this House have their own choice to make. As Sir John Major said of the Committee in his foreword to this latest report,

“The Committee will never be redundant. A minority will evade or misinterpret the rules of proper behaviour. The rules will always need regular updating to meet changing expectations in many areas”.

As Lord Evans said, without reform to the systems that uphold and protect standards in public life, the Prime Minister’s recent changes

“will not restore public trust in ethical standards at the heart of government. Instead, suspicion about the way in which the Ministerial Code is administered will linger”.

Conservative Members must now ask themselves the question: will they back the package of recommendations proposed by the Committee on Standards in Public Life or will they turn their backs to save the skin of a rogue Prime Minister—one who is already haemorrhaging support from his own side? Those who reject these cross- party proposals will be complicit. They will be propping up a Prime Minister intent on dragging everyone and everything down with him. Today, all of us have a choice—we have a chance to draw the line in the sand and say, “Enough is enough!”

We urge Members to vote to defend the principles of public life, to back high standards and to clean up politics. It is time to stop the rot, and I commend this motion to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Ellis]

Not at all. There is a constitutional imperative that the Prime Minister of the day, no matter what party he or she is from, must have the right to select their Ministers and must have confidence in their Ministers. That is a constitutional imperative and it is not inconsistent with the code and the independent adviser’s wishes.

Let me rest for a moment on the change that has been made in respect of sanctions, because it exemplifies the point about the Government’s considering and responding to the recommendations of others. It has always been the case, under successive Administrations, that a range of potential outcomes are available when it is determined that an aspect of the code has been broken. Some examples have been cited from previous Administrations. Members need only cast their minds back to the case of Baroness Scotland in 2009, who apologised for unknowingly employing an illegal worker and paid the associated civil penalty of £5,000, but when then Prime Minister Gordon Brown concluded that no further action was necessary, he made that determination of his own volition.

In the interests of fairness, I could equally well mention the 2012 investigation into Baroness Sayeeda Warsi under the coalition Government, or the current independent adviser’s finding that my right hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock) made a technical breach of the code in failing to declare that his sister’s company had become an approved supplier to the NHS.

The test of whether a Minister remains in office has always been the continued confidence of the Prime Minister, so I am not going to criticise previous Labour Prime Ministers for making that determination, and nor would I criticise anyone in that position. They have a difficult office to fulfil and they must make a determination. If a breach of the code is extremely minor in the eyes of most but the Prime Minister has lost confidence in the Minister in question, that will be it for that Minister. That is the way it has to work.

That is the test of whether a Minister remains, yet over time a false impression has grown that any breach, large or small, across a wide-ranging, detailed document of 26 pages, must result in resignation. Correcting that false impression has been a concern not just for the Government but for those who advise on ethics in government. In its “Upholding Standards in Public Life” report, the Committee on Standards in Public Life noted:

“No other area of public life has such a binary system of sanctions, and in both Parliament and the Civil Service there are a range of sanctions available according to the seriousness of the offence. There is no reason why this should not be the case for ministers.”

[Chris Bryant]

The ministerial code says:

“It is of paramount importance that Ministers give accurate and truthful information to Parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.”

I am sure the Minister agrees with that—“paramount importance”. The Prime Minister has now said nine times in the House that the level of unemployment is lower now than it was before the pandemic. That is untrue. The Prime Minister accepts it is untrue: he was asked about it by one of the members of the Liaison Committee and said, “Yes, but I have corrected the record.” Unfortunately, he has not corrected the record, and he has not even corrected the record about not having corrected the record yet. Does that not mean the code should say:

“Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister”—

unless it is the Prime Minister?

[Michael Ellis]

If I may say so, that is a rather poor example to cite, because what the Prime Minister is doing is emphasising the fact that unemployment in this country is lower now than it has been for generations. [Interruption.]

Until—[Interruption.] Can I carry on? Until now, the code has been silent on the specific consequences for breaches, apart from in some defined instances. The code sets out that knowingly misleading this House is a breach of the code for which resignation is expected. The code still says that—it is stated in paragraph 1.3.c, not one word of which has changed—but now it also includes more detail on other possible sanctions. In particular, it makes mention of a public apology, remedial action or the removal of ministerial salary for a period—again, something that this House can also sanction in certain circumstances. I do not know whether Members are arguing to the contrary.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

Let me begin by welcoming this motion, and particularly welcoming the response by my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister when he said that he basically supports the principle behind the motion, even though I think that we on the Government Benches intend to abstain on it. The principle behind the motion is important because standards in public life matter and the Nolan principles matter. If any of us, in any part of this House, start to think that they are technical, passing fancies or things that come and go, then we are fundamentally misunderstanding our role here, misunderstanding the importance of the integrity that the Nolan principles enshrine, and putting in danger the way that our democracy is being perceived among constituents—the people who voted to send us here in the first place.

The crucial thing is that many of us will often face the situation where people say, “Oh, those MPs up in Westminster, they’re all the same—apart from my local MP.” That is great if you are the local MP they are referring to, because you know that they know you and hold you in high regard, but just think about what it says for democracy in general if they say that, as a class, MPs are held in such low regard and democracy is so mistrusted and distrusted. It cannot be good for this place as an institution and it cannot be good for our democracy. Therefore, it is essential that none of us underplays or forgets the central and enduring importance of the Nolan principles and of standards in public life. I was therefore delighted to hear that there is, broadly speaking, cross-party agreement on the principles of this. That is absolutely great. It bears repetition—constant repetition—and I am glad to see it.

I support much of the motion, particularly regarding an awful lot of the 34 recommendations in the report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life—but not quite all. There are many things that are extremely admirable and that I have called for myself. I would disagree with what the committee has said on a couple of things, despite the fact that overall its report is excellent. I want to add one or two things that it has become clear over the past few days need to be done to further strengthen the role of the independent adviser on the ministerial code. Many parts of the report have already been introduced. I will not repeat what my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister outlined and go through those things again, but they are welcome and they are necessary. I supported them as they were introduced and I still support them today.

However, a great number of the recommendations in the CSPL report have not yet been introduced, and I devoutly hope that they will be. Incidentally, a parallel report, the Boardman report—No. 3; he has done several—was issued in the middle of last year, and a Government response remains outstanding. I hope that I can press the Minister to explain to us in his closing remarks—or any Member on the Front Bench to explain to us—when and whether the response to the Boardman report will be put out. Logically, the Government should respond to that report at the same time as they respond to the CSPL report. The two go together; they have mutually complementary recommendations, and they should be responded to at the same time.

For example, both the Boardman report and that from the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommend proposals for the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments—that is, on what we as Members of Parliament can all do after we have left this place, such as the jobs we can take outside, and on whether we should be bound by that committee’s recommendations. There is a really simple, clear and sensible recommendation in the Boardman report, which I think is duplicated in the report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life, to require Ministers to sign a legal deed to say, “I will abide by the decisions of ACOBA.” Those decisions would therefore become legally binding on the Minister concerned, even if they ceased to be a Minister.

There are a series of very sensible proposals in the report by the CSPL and in the Boardman report that need to be implemented. They need to be introduced, and quickly, because as we have heard today the noise of public drumming of fingers and tapping of feet while we wait to say that this is not good enough and that we need to raise our standards and our game as a democracy is getting ever louder. We cannot afford to wait.

Those proposals need to be introduced, and ditto the proposals on lobbying, incidentally. The CSPL makes a series of recommendations on lobbying—recommendations 26 to 30 for anybody who is interested—that complement the recommendations that have been either discussed or recommended by the Select Committee on Standards. I forget their precise status, and I suspect the Chair of that Committee is about to put me right.

[Chris Bryant]

We have already made our recommendation and produced our report, and I hope that the Government will allow time before the summer recess for us to adopt a new code of conduct for the House.

[John Penrose]

I thank the Chair for that clarification, and he is absolutely right. If we put those recommendations alongside the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s proposals on lobbying, they make a suite of proposals that will make our democracy much more robust, much cleaner, much more transparent and, in general, much better. We should do those things immediately, and I encourage the Minister to put his foot down on the accelerator as hard as he possibly can to get them out, agreed and announced as quickly as possible.

There is much to agree with in the report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life. I would, however, venture to agree with the Minister when he says that there is one major concern—one, but it is important—about the notion of putting some of the recommendations on a statutory footing rather than adhering to the traditional constitutional principle that it has to be the Prime Minister who appoints and can dismiss his or her Cabinet. That is absolutely fundamental for any Prime Minister. It does not matter if they are a Labour Prime Minister, a coalition Prime Minister or a Conservative Prime Minister, it is absolutely fundamental. On that one important point I would respectfully depart from the recommendation of the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

I will not trouble the House very much longer, but I said at the start of my speech that I wanted to add a couple of points about the role of the independent adviser on the ministerial code that I believe have been revealed in the past couple of days. We heard earlier in an intervention from the Chair of the Standards Committee that the independent adviser feels that it is impossible for him to make a recommendation because if his advice were not followed, he would feel that he had to resign. In this particular case, when the question is whether the Prime Minister’s conduct has followed the ministerial code, which has never happened before, that has led to the adviser not issuing any recommendations or findings of fact, as he would with any other Minister. That is not good enough. It cannot be allowed to continue and is not strong enough as a way in which the independent adviser should work.

I will propose to further changes, which I hope the Minister will listen to and follow. The first is that we should be very clear that it should not be a resigning matter for the independent adviser if his or her advice is not followed by the Prime Minister of the day. They should issue independent advice. In the same way, Sir Chris Whitty issued advice to the Prime Minister during the pandemic on the medical and scientific options available to him. Sometimes the Prime Minister took that advice, sometimes he did not, but Sir Chris Whitty did not have to resign every time he did not. It would have been plainly bonkers if he had done so and I believe that the same principle should apply to the independent adviser. They should offer advice and it is then up to the Prime Minister to accept it or not and to justify his or her decision to Parliament as a result.

The corollary of that is that, although it is too late now, in this case the independent adviser should have been able and expected, had we introduced such a change, to issue a report on whether the Prime Minister had followed the ministerial code. The independent adviser had the Sue Gray report in front of him and could therefore have said, “This means that the Prime Minister followed the ministerial code here, and did not follow it there. This one is a serious breach, that is a minor breach and that is not a breach at all.” At that point, we as a House would have had something to get our teeth into, and that would have clarified the situation and stripped out an awful lot of inevitable party political posturing as we would all have had a common shared base of facts. Without that, the subsequent debate has been a great deal less targeted, a great deal less clear and a great deal less effective.

[Chris Bryant]

I completely agree with everything the hon. Gentleman has just said about the supposedly independent adviser on the ministerial code. I wonder whether his interpretation of what Lord Geidt wrote is the same as mine. My reading of it was that he basically felt that the Prime Minister had breached the ministerial code but he did not feel he could say so.

[John Penrose]

I did not reach that conclusion, which is why I waited until I saw the Prime Minister’s reply justifying his view of his approach to the ministerial code, which he published last week and on which I intervened on the Minister earlier. That was what then led me, very sadly and with great regret, to resign my post yesterday. None the less, I am pleased to note that the hon. Gentleman agrees with my broader point about the way in which the independent adviser’s powers should be further amended. I am afraid that that has only just become apparent in the course of the past week or so, but it is a further important omission. Without those changes, the entire process remains toothless if in future we have a question over whether the Prime Minister him or herself has adhered to the ministerial code.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)]

I welcome the initiative of my right hon. and hon. Friends in calling this debate, and I welcome the terms of the motion, which calls on the House to implement the report and to follow up that implementation, which is often as important as the initial decision. I declare an interest as I have been a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life since November 2013. I should say at once, as I said earlier, that I am not speaking on behalf of the committee—I never do, as innumerable journalists can testify. Our independent chair, and only he, speaks for the committee as a whole.

I am grateful to the Minister, and I think other committee members will be too, for the terms in which he spoke of the committee members. For my part, I have great sympathy with our heroic independent members—there are three political members and only four independent members; at the moment, as he will know, we have a vacancy—who face a very heavy workload. They carry out the taxing and time-consuming work of analysing and studying things to give strength to the committee’s reports. One of our independent members said the other day that the committee and its members are committed on a cross-party basis to protecting and promoting standards, and that our focus is always on the impartial interpretation of evidence and the long-term measures necessary to protect standards.

I also say briefly to the Minister that, if he looks on his desk, or somebody else’s desk, he may find some observations from the committee suggesting that the decision made, as I recall, under David Cameron’s premiership to reduce the committee’s size—its numbers and the resources available to it—should be reconsidered. Those independent members carry a heavy burden and he spoke sympathetically about their work.

Our chair, very properly, regretted the Prime Minister’s decision to adopt one—only one—of the committee’s recommendations. Speaking for myself, as I said, I thought that was outrageous, particularly because the Prime Minister, and the Minister, used the committee’s report to justify the decision to weaken the penalties for breaching the ministerial code.

I am not speaking on the committee’s behalf, but the statement that it issued following the Prime Minister’s decision about the ministerial code said:

“There still needs to be greater independence in the regulation of the Ministerial Code, notwithstanding”—

I say this because the Minister emphasised, and I wholly understand why he did and I have some sympathy with his circumstances, how much the Government were following the terms of the committee’s recommendations —“the changes announced” to the terms of reference of the role of the independent adviser. It went on:

“The new process for initiating investigations does not create the degree of independence we called for. Whereas previously the Adviser could only conduct an investigation into an alleged breach of the Code at the Prime Minister’s request, the Adviser can now initiate their own investigations ‘having consulted the Prime Minister and obtained his consent’. So no longer a direct commission by the Prime Minister, but still dependent on the Prime Minister’s permission. This is a step forward, it is an improvement”—

the Minister quoted the chair of the committee saying that—

“in process but it does not fundamentally change the powers of the Independent Adviser.”

I think the Minister, wholly understandably, sought to create the impression that perhaps it did.

I want to set the discussion about the ministerial code in a wider context and look at events elsewhere. I often read these days about events in the United States where many people are concerned about whether the former President is likely to be re-elected. There is much talk about the work of the Republican party in discouraging voter involvement and participation. I am afraid that, when I look at the legislative record of this Government, I see similar steps being taken here, although without much fanfare.

In my childhood, children played a game called grandma’s footsteps. The main player is in position and those behind try to draw close and touch them while the main player looks over their shoulder and hopes to catch somebody moving. The whole idea is that, if they do not catch them moving, they can continue. Of course, the effect of the game is that gradually, stealthily, inexorably the players draw closer to their main target. Stealthily, there is movement, and that seems to be exactly what is happening in our public life and to our democracy.

This morning, Lord Hague was reported as saying that nothing

“matters more than the health of our democracy.”

I strongly agree. Unnecessary bureaucratic regulation of exactly how people are allowed to vote is a good example of something that everyone knows will effectively discourage those who the Conservatives perhaps assume are less likely to vote for them.

That is part of an attack on one after another of the institutions of public life, whose principal characteristic is, or has been, their independence. The Electoral Commission will now be guided by a Government Minister, which should be quite unnecessary for any independent body. I have referred to the practice that occurs, as I understand it, in the United States, but I am conscious of more recent examples in Hungary and, indeed, in Russia. People in this country often express surprise at the degree to which it appears that the public in those countries accept, virtually uncritically, the version of events retailed to them by their Governments. To that surprise, the response here is often that independent voices in their media were first undermined and then, in effect, silenced.

Again, what has the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport announced? There are cuts, pressure and threats to the independence of the BBC, and the privatisation of Channel 4. The independence of the independent, sometimes critical media—I assure the Minister that they are critical not solely of Conservative Administrations—is being undermined under this Government.

What about public appointments, which were mentioned earlier? Concern was expressed in the committee when, under David Cameron’s premiership, a greater role and greater power for political input to appointments was allowed, but it was still assumed—perhaps the correct word would be “hoped”—that no Minister would abuse such a role. The whole atmosphere of such appointments has now changed dramatically. The more important and influential the appointment to be made, the more likely it is to be preceded by heavy briefing from No. 10 as to who exactly the Prime Minister would prefer to see appointed. So even those considering applying for such an appointment would be discouraged before the process even starts. Now we know that blatant political interference may follow. At least twice in fairly recent times an independent process of appointment has been halted and replaced by a Prime Minister who seems to be indifferent to somebody’s capacity to actually carry out the job for which they are seeking appointment as long as he thinks they are on his side. It is right in this debate to stress that that is exactly the purpose the appointments process is intended to frustrate. It is intended to ensure both that people are up to doing the job they are applying for, and that they are independently appointed and will not display a political bias.

I can see why there has been so little response to our report, with its 34 recommendations, because of course, from the Government’s point of view, it has one critical, fundamental flaw. At its heart is the belief that in independent scrutiny lies a process that conveys high standards, and that is precisely what this Government appear not to believe. It has always seemed to me that one of our strengths as a country has been that we have an unwritten constitution, because that gives us a degree of flexibility that others may lack. One of the things I deplore about the present handling of standards matters is that it strengthens the case for a written constitution, although I have to admit not sufficiently to make me accept it.

[Chris Bryant]

Oh, go on.

[Margaret Beckett]

I hear my hon. Friend’s representations on that point, but I simply say to him that what perhaps the American experience may have demonstrated is that a rogue Prime Minister, like a rogue President, can ignore a written constitution as easily as they can an unwritten constitution, so I remain unconvinced. But what I also remain is absolutely clear that we need greater emphasis on the need for high standards in public life and that that emphasis can be sustained only through a process that is rooted in independence and ensures greater scrutiny of all those who exercise responsibility on behalf of our electorate.

Foreign Lobbying

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Westminster Hall

[Bob Seely]

You are right, Dame Angela. Thank you very much for correcting me. I shall be a bit more obtuse about—

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Obscure, maybe.

[Bob Seely]

Obtuse and obscure.

Together with lawyers, accountants, estate agents, public relations professionals and other enablers, lobbyists have formed a buffer around these people. I know that the case with Russia is clearly changing very dramatically—it has been rather forced on us by conflict—but China is another important case that concerns me. I say that as someone who knows that the Government are moving in the right direction, and who is incredibly grateful for the work that the Secretary of State for Defence and the Foreign Secretary have done in this area.

It concerns me greatly that we have not yet made the link between China and Russia. The west has economic dependency on both, be it through trade or energy. Both those countries have dictators for life, and we know that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely, so do we really think that President Xi will turn out to be better than President Putin? I would be sceptical. Both covet territory outside their control, both have aggressively rearmed and, perhaps most importantly, both propagandise their people against us and are shaping their people for war in the information and narrative space. China is more sophisticated and richer, and it arguably treats some of its people, especially its Muslim people, worse. It is a rising power, whereas Russia is a declining power, but there are too many similarities between them to claim that China is not Russia. It is a more sophisticated version and, as people such as Clive Hamilton argue, many of its covert activities are just more sophisticated versions of the same thing.

Like the Kremlin, the Chinese Communist party uses state, non-state and quasi-state actors through the United Front Work Department and “cultural and ‘friendship’ associations”. It is alleged to spend some $10 billion a year on external propaganda efforts. The Chinese state also makes use—perhaps more than Russia does—of quasi-state entities, and Huawei is a case in point. It has provided trips, sports tickets and donations to all-party parliamentary groups, and has employed a former head of GCHQ and a former UK chief information officer. It has also used several lobbying firms, and has employed a former head of Ofcom and even a former head of the Foreign Office.

In September 2019, Huawei gave £150,000 to Jesus College, Cambridge, which later produced a White Paper that was favourable to Huawei’s inclusion in the UK’s 5G network. It has done many other things; what I have mentioned is just the tip of the iceberg. What concerns me is that, while this was happening, Ministers whom I respect very much were arguing that Huawei was a private entity—a private firm. I do not expect Ministers to be geniuses, but that situation was uncomfortable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Angela. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) can speak as long as he likes on this subject as far as I am concerned. I have had quite a lot of conversations with him in private. He is the House’s expert on this issue and he does us all an enormous favour in raising these issues.

I agree with him; I think we have been too naive for too long—ineptly naive, in some cases. The most striking statistic in this field that I have come across recently is that of the people sanctioned this year by the British Government in relation to the activity in Ukraine, at least 10—10 that we know of—were people who were given tier 1 visas by the British Government in the last few years. In other words, we were inviting people in, letting them sit down and purvey their view of the world in the UK, largely because we were just interested in their money. In the end, Putin has seen us be so craven about Russian bling and he has felt that we are weak and corrupted, and that has emboldened him. It is one of the things that has assisted in what has eventually happened in Ukraine.

[Stephen Kinnock]

I absolutely welcome, as my hon. Friend does, the Government’s decision to stop the golden visas scheme. Does he not think it would be incredibly helpful for the Government to publish their review into the scheme, which Parliament has been waiting for for more than a year?

[Chris Bryant]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, I am absolutely confident that the Minister will tell us later when it is going to be published, because the Home Secretary has repeatedly said, in answer to questions from me in the Chamber, that it will be published soon. “Soon” in ministerial language means pretty much anything the Minister feels like it means, but we are beginning to lose patience with the soon-ness, or the lack of soon-ness. The Minister is looking wry and quizzical, but I am sure she will help us out later.

I want to refer to one specific issue. On 8 March I wrote a letter to the Foreign Secretary following her appearance the previous day before the Foreign Affairs Committee. I published the letter on my Twitter feed. I wrote to her to address her allegation that I had obstructed the progress of sanctions legislation through Parliament. In the letter I quoted from various speeches made in Parliament, one of which included allegations made in 2018 against Mr Christopher Chandler. It was not my intention to repeat those allegations, which I accept have subsequently been disproved. I am happy to set the record straight today in Parliament and regret any distress caused to Mr Chandler.

[Mr Steve Baker]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for recognising that the allegations have been disproved. Will he join me in imploring all Members who engaged in making those allegations to accept that they have now been disproved?

[Chris Bryant]

I think it is a matter for individuals to make their decisions on that. I have said what I said and the hon. Gentleman knows why I said it. There is not a formal process for a Back-Bench Member to correct the record. That exists only for Ministers, although they have been notoriously poor at doing it. As the Speaker said at the beginning of this debate: if Members are able to correct the record, it is important that they do so.

I used to be a lobbyist for the BBC and I was always trying to persuade Governments to do things. In and of itself, lobbying is not a bad thing. Indeed, the word “lobby” comes from Parliament because it was the entrance to St Stephen’s Chapel, which was the lobby where people could grab hold of a Member before they went into the House.

I remember sitting on the Public Bill Committee for the Mental Health Act 2007. I was not an expert on the treatment of mental health patients, and my participation in that Bill Committee relied on lobbyists, some of them from mental health charities, some from patients groups, and some from the pharmaceutical industry. In the end I had to make astute judgments when people were trying to influence me, but of itself lobbying is not wrong, although it needs to operate under strict standards. Even foreign lobbying is okay, or we would not have a Foreign Office. Of course, it was Sir Henry Wotton, a Member of Parliament from 1614 to 1625, who, when he was a British diplomat in Augsburg, said:

“An ambassador is an honest”

gentleman

“sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.”

The Minister is nodding. I am not sure whether she is in favour of an honest gentleman or lying.

In this country, in the modern era, we have to be very careful about covert operations in the UK. I think that particularly because we are a free society, believe in the rule of law and have a democratic process that is very open, sometimes we are more vulnerable than others might be, and we have to be cautious and alert to pernicious lobbying from state actors and their proxies who do not wish this country well. That applies to not just a few countries, but quite a significant number.

I am aware, not just because of what I get myself but other Members as well, of attacks that are co-ordinated directly out of St Petersburg on individual Members of this House and the House of Lords, particularly those who have been critical of the Putin regime. The attacks are co-ordinated and are deliberately inciting. They hide behind anonymity and often they are fake accounts. It looks as though 100 people have attacked the individual Member, but that is because there are 100 fake accounts all created by the one person. We do far too little in this House to make sure that that is exposed and made clear.

I have often worried that the Government have repeatedly refused to investigate the Russian activity and determination to try to undermine the political process in this country. I note that this Prime Minister and the previous Prime Minister both said that they had not seen successful attempts to undermine British democracy. I do not know what success means in their minds when they say that. It seems preposterous that they will not investigate.

As the hon. Member for Isle of Wight says, the law courts are a very useful tool for proxies of state actors overseas who want to ensure that any criticism of them is closed down. We have seen several journalists and authors dragged through the courts, at extreme expense, by people with very deep pockets. I am hopeful that the Government will address that in legislation later this year. I also point to some broadcasters, such as Russia Today. I do not think any British politician from any political party should have taken money from Russia Today. It is a scandal that many took many thousands of pounds from Russia Today. All those who did should be completely open about it, because they have effectively and knowingly been not just useful idiots but deliberate agents of a foreign state. The same would apply to other broadcasters from other states, including Iran.

The hon. Member for Isle of Wight rightly mentioned advertising on Facebook. One of the ways in which Russia has sown discord and misinformation around the world is illustrated by the situation in Catalunya, which I am particularly aware of. There they put across all sorts of imagery that was later proven to be completely false. None the less, it got lots of clicks and got everyone very excited and condemning the Spanish Government, even though it was all proven to be untrue. We must take that deliberate attempt to sow discord in western societies very seriously. I have always wanted, and I still want—notwithstanding the objections—to end anonymity on social media. For some reason, people feel able to write things on social media under the cloak of anonymity that they would never think of saying to another person or writing in a letter that they had to put their name to. I think that is cowardice, but it is also disrupting the British democratic system.

I am not sure whether you, Dame Angela, are among the Members of Parliament on the Russian sanctions list. It is quite interesting that none of the Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee who wrote the “Moscow’s Gold” report a few years ago, which is deeply critical of the Russian Government, is on the sanctions list. I can only presume that we are on the hit list instead.

I wrote to the Russian ambassador to make the point that although they are alleging that all these British MPs are Russophobic, we are not Russophobic. We love Russia; we have loved the Russian people, though sometimes the television presenters do make one doubt their sincerity when saying that they love people regardless of their nationality. We are not Russophobic; it is just that we have a beef with the actions of the Russian state under President Putin. The ambassador wrote back to say that the list provided was just one of several sanctions lists that already existed, and that was one that they were now revealing. I can only presume that other people are sanctioned but we do not know about it.

Parliament is particularly vulnerable. I hope the Minister will take that away from this debate. We have hundreds of all-party parliamentary groups. The Committee on Standards, which I chair, has produced a report on this. The head of security here is very concerned, as are the two Speakers, about the vulnerability of the Parliamentary system because of the way that APPGs are funded, sometimes directly by foreign Governments and sometimes indirectly, and sometimes probably not as accountably as we would like. Some countries forbid members of their legislative body from taking any form of hospitality of any kind, let alone several thousand pounds-worth of trips abroad, from a foreign state. We should consider that.

I believe that it is important that British Members of Parliament have strong working relationships with Members of Parliaments in other countries, but we should fund that, not let it be funded on an ad hoc basis by other countries who may want to do us harm. I am one of the Members who went to Qatar. I went as a guest of the Qatari Government because I wanted to argue with them, really, about the way they intend to hold the World cup. I note that a large number of Members have been taken to Qatar at great expense by the Qatari Government over the past year. Is that appropriate? In the end, I wish I had not gone on that trip. I suspect we need to address that issue. Incidentally, the director of security in Parliament told us that the biggest anxiety was that these groups are not necessarily funded directly by the Governments, but by their proxies, through third, fourth or fifth parties. We need to tackle that.

In the US, Congress has to produce an annual report on the lobbying of Congress by foreign actors. Why do we not do that here? One of the House’s Committees should produce an annual report to Government, perhaps with the assistance of Government, on foreign states’ actions in lobbying Parliament.

I also think we ought to have a new offence of aiding and abetting a foreign state as a Member of Parliament or as a peer. I am not quite sure how I am going to word this—I hope somebody is going to help me with it; the Clerks are normally very good—but I think that there should be an amendment to clause 3 of the National Security Bill to address that.

My argument is that lobbying must always be in the open. Transparency is how we ensure that there is nothing pernicious, vicious or inappropriate going on. Ministers should reveal all significant attempts to lobby them in a timely fashion. The Standards Committee has produced a report today stating that we must end the current exemption whereby, if two Members of Parliament go to the same event that is paid for by a foreign Government or by anyone else, a Minister does not have to declare it for months and months and does not have to say how much it cost, but a Back-Bench or Opposition Front-Bench Member has to declare it within 28 days. Surely all Members should be treated equally.

That is why it is important that Ministers should reveal all significant attempts to lobby them, including via hospitality, tickets, dinners, accommodation, holidays, travel and individual meetings. For instance, it is an absolute mystery to me why the UK took so long to sanction Deripaska. Greg Barker—who is, I think, no longer a Member of the House of Lords—was effectively acting as an agent of Deripaska, who is now sanctioned because of his corrupt involvement in the Russian state. However, we did nothing about it. Why was that? I want to know.

What about Abramovich? Why did that take so long? There was even a moment when the Prime Minister though that Abramovich had been sanctioned, but it turned out he had not. I suspect that that was because the Home Office was saying, way back in 2018 and 2019, that Abramovich was a person of interest; in other words, he was dodgy and it did not want him coming to the UK, and therefore it was not going to allow his tier 1 visa to be renewed. However, the Foreign Office refused to sanction him. Was that because of the direct engagement of Abramovich with individual Ministers? I ask the question because we need to know the answer.

Finally, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight is absolutely right about the need for a proper register of lobbyists working on behalf of foreign agents. I do not think someone should be able to simply say that they have lots of clients in this House; they should have to list all clients in both Houses. For my money, I would also say that Arron Banks should have been on that list. Of course, when anybody is on that registered list, there should be a ban on Members of either House engaging with them financially or in any other manner.

We have been naive for far too long. We need to tackle all these issues, especially as they apply to state actors from Russia and China. Otherwise, we will lose the precious democracy that we believe in.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Wheeler]

My hon. Friend has come to the kernel. He has put his point on the record, and I am sure the people in the Home Office will have heard his plea.

It is welcome that Parliament is paying close attention to this topic. I congratulate the Committee on Standards on its recent report on APPGs, mentioned today, which notes that improper influence and lobbying by hostile states is a key threat facing APPGs today. I welcome that report but, of course, it is a matter for the House to decide on the rules governing APPGs. The Government welcome any approaches that mitigate the risks.

I also want to confirm, with regard to foreign lobbying, that a business or organisation undertaking consultant lobbying on behalf of a Government outside the UK or an international organisation would be required to register and declare that Government or organisation as a client. To answer the right hon. Member for Rhondda—

[Chris Bryant]

No, honourable.

[Mrs Wheeler]

Well, it is only a matter of time, I am sure. Regarding the Home Office report, I can confirm that the Home Secretary will provide an update imminently, in due course.

[Chris Bryant]

Which is it?

[Mrs Wheeler]

It is both.

Members have taken so much interest in the debate, and I appreciate the level and depth of information that they have brought to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Wheeler]

Indeed. That is a very fair point, and I am sure the Home Office will have heard it. To conclude—

[Chris Bryant]

Before the Minister concludes, will she give way?

[Mrs Wheeler]

Of course.

[Chris Bryant]

We have a few minutes, so we might as well take them up. I will intervene twice, if the Minister lets me. The Committee on Standards has said that at the moment some Members chair an awful lot of APPGs for foreign territories. We have wondered whether we should not have a limit so that a Member is allowed to chair, say, only six or 10—certainly not 28. Perhaps it would be a good idea if Members were not able to receive any financial support from foreign Governments. Would the Government support those two measures?

[Mrs Wheeler]

I am afraid I will take that under advisement.

[Chris Bryant]

I shall try another one. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) made a really important point, which is that most hon. Members have no understanding of whether somebody who comes through the door is operating on behalf of a foreign state. Of course it is up to us to make our own judgment calls, but there probably ought to be a means for a Member to ascertain confidentially whether the person they are dealing with is a person of concern to the Government. The Minister will not be able to answer that today, but will she take away the serious point that the hon. Gentleman makes?

[Mrs Wheeler]

I will take that away and reflect on it. That is a perfectly reasonable question.

Sue Gray Report

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 25th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman asks me to answer, and I will. I completely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke), which is why we will get on with the job.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

What a load of baloney. Excuse after excuse after excuse, and it simply does not wash with the British public, who are sick and tired of being taken for fools. The truth is that the Prime Minister encouraged the gatherings, he attended the gatherings, he poured the drinks at the gatherings and he even raised a toast at the gatherings, so he knew perfectly well that these gatherings had taken place. The most despicable thing of all is that Sue Gray says she saw

“multiple examples of a lack of respect and poor treatment of security and cleaning staff.”

They knew what the rules meant, even if nobody else did. Does the Prime Minister show no contrition, no sense of shame, that Downing Street, under him, has been a cesspit full of arrogant, entitled narcissists?

[The Prime Minister]

As I have already said to the House, it is absolutely disgraceful, in any circumstances, to be rude to the people who help us—the staff and custodians. It is intolerable, and I will make sure that those who are guilty of it apologise or are otherwise disciplined.

Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I warmly commend the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) for the speech he just gave. He did so with great courage and honesty and, frankly, with the integrity that a lot of us have seen him show in his chairmanship of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. This House knows that serving on and chairing Select Committees is not always easy, because quite often people come to Select Committee meetings with fixed views. They are not all that interested in the evidence that is presented to them and resolutely hold the same view after the meeting that they held at its beginning, even though everything has been proved to be quite the opposite of what they thought. I know from those who serve on the hon. Gentleman’s Committee that he listens to the evidence, and he is a very good parliamentarian as Chair of the Committee.

It all got a bit religious earlier and I felt like I was back at theological college. Being, I think, the only person in the House who can actually pronounce absolution on anybody, I thought I was suddenly going to get a new job!

I also warmly commend the work that the Chief Whip has done this week, because he has got us into a much better place today than the House would have been in if he had not made the decisions that, doubtless advised by others, he has made today.

I had not expected to speak in this debate. I will be very straight with the House—if you see what I mean—in saying that it is sometimes difficult being the Chair of the Committee on Standards and of the Privileges Committee, because one is asked to comment on literally every single Member of the House at some point. I am absolutely scrupulous in making sure that I never comment, in public or in private, on anything that might possibly come to either of the Committees. I did not think this matter would come to the Privileges Committee, which is why I commented on it. Consequently, it is quite right that I recuse myself: I will not take part in the deliberations of the Committee on this matter if this motion is passed in any shape or form. I think I could have done it fairly—I chaired the Standards Committee when we had the Prime Minister before us in respect of a different matter and we disagreed with the Commissioner for Standards and found in the Prime Minister’s favour—but I understand that the House needs to know, absolutely for certain, that the process will be fair. In a strange way, that means that I can actually say something today.

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?

[Chris Bryant]

Oh, all right.

[Joanna Cherry]

I commend the hon. Gentleman for his speech and thorough sense of decency. Does he think the same principle should apply to other members of the Privileges Committee?

[Chris Bryant]

I will say something about the Privileges Committee later but, having recused myself, I do not think it is really for me to tell its members what to do or how to behave.

One thing I am very keen on is this: I passionately care about Parliament. I believe in Parliament. I believe in democracy. The only way that I can get change for my constituents is through the democratic process. Anything that undermines trust and confidence in Parliament damages my opportunity to do anything useful in my life at all. That is why I always want to urge the House to be extremely careful in these matters of standards and privileges. Each generation of MPs has a responsibility to burnish, not tarnish, the reputation of this House, because we hand democracy on to a future generation, and if we have undermined it, it may not last.

I draw to the House’s attention the fact that in this Parliament, two MPs have been found guilty of serious offences in a court of law, and another two are awaiting trial; four MPs have been suspended for one day; a Minister was suspended for seven days; seven MPs have been required to apologise to the House for breaches of the code of conduct; three MPs have resigned their seats in the face of convictions; and the Independent Expert Panel has suspended a Member for six weeks for sexual harassment, made another apologise for bullying staff, and found another guilty of such terrible sexual harassment that he resigned his seat before he was sanctioned. All that is without any consideration of whether any right hon. or hon. Member has lied to the House. And it is not yet six months since the Owen Paterson saga, which I do not think covered the House in glory.

In a very short period of time, two of our colleagues have been murdered, and others are wearing stab vests. We have to take the reputation of the House extremely seriously. We have to burnish it, not tarnish it.

I have heard Ministers argue, quite rightly, that there must be due process. I say to the House that this is the due process. It always has been the due process. When there has been a claim that a member of the public or a Member of the House might have committed a contempt of Parliament by lying to the House, breaching the confidentiality around a Select Committee report or whatever, the standard process is that it is sent to the Committee of Privileges—or, as it used to be, the Standards and Privileges Committee, and before that the Committee of Privileges—so this is the due process.

I have absolute confidence in the other members of the Committee and that they will do a good job. They will think very carefully about, as the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) said, making sure that there is a fair hearing. The court of public opinion is not very good at providing a fair hearing, I find; the House should do a great deal better than the court of public opinion. We try to uphold the rule of law—that is one of the duties for all MPs—so it is particularly important that we make sure that there is a fair process. I am sure that the other Committee members will do that.

[Hannah Bardell (Livingston) (SNP)]

rose—

[Mr Steve Baker]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I am not sure where that came from. I give way to the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker).

[Mr Baker]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful and important contribution. This mostly relates to Members of Parliament, but he will know that occasionally somebody feels it necessary to use parliamentary privilege to say in the House things over which those outside the House might otherwise sue for defamation. Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that he will consider whether the public ought to have a right to reply, so that if we use privilege, they have some chance to put their side of the story?

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Member makes a good point. We have had some discussions about that issue outside the Chamber. The difficulty is that I am not sure that is a matter for the Standards Committee or the Privileges Committee; I think it is a matter for the Committee on Procedure. There is a good argument for putting something in place so that there is a right of reply. I cannot go further, for reasons of which the hon. Gentleman may be aware—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not want to open up that area of debate. I know exactly what is going on—we can leave that part of it there.

[Chris Bryant]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

My second point about fair process is that it is actually quite a high bar that the Privileges Committee will have to consider. As the Leader of the Opposition said earlier, I do not think it is debated that the House was misled. I think even the Prime Minister admits, in effect, that the House was misled. It was said that rules were not broken and it is self-evident that rules were broken, so the House was misled—it got a false impression. The question is whether that was intentional. The Committee will have to devise ways to investigate whether there was an intention.

[Hannah Bardell]

rose—

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I think I ought to give way to the hon. Lady first.

[Hannah Bardell]

The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent and poignant speech. Does he not find it strange and deeply worrying that we seem to be in a position in which the Prime Minister seemed unable or incapable of following his own rules and his own laws, yet he is using the rules and processes of this place to frustrate the course of, as the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) said, natural justice?

[Chris Bryant]

I would normally agree with the hon. Lady on these kinds of things, and I sort of would have agreed with her last night, but I think we are getting to a better place now. In a sense, sometimes the Back Benchers persuade the Front Benchers of a better course of action—I am looking intently at the Government Chief Whip at the moment.

As the Clerk advised in the case of whether Stephen Byers had misled the House on a single occasion in 2001:

“In order to find that Mr Byers committed a contempt in the evidence session of 14 November 2001, the Committee will need to satisfy itself not only that he misled the Sub-Committee, but that he did so knowingly or deliberately.”

As I said, that is quite a high bar, but it is for the Privileges Committee to decide that.

[Sir William Cash]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because what he just said is what I was going to raise with him. The “Ministerial Code” says that it is open to a Minister to correct

“any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister”.

The question rests on “knowingly”, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point clear.

[Chris Bryant]

I think the hon. Gentleman is agreeing with me, so—

[Mr Speaker]

We will leave it at that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

The only difference I have with the hon. Gentleman is that he was talking about the “Ministerial Code”. The “Ministerial Code” is for the Prime Minister. This House adjudicates on its rules, its code of conduct and contempts of Parliament, so they are different matters. This is about upholding a simple principle around making sure that Ministers speak honestly.

I will say one other thing about the Committee: it is very important that the six members of the Committee are not pressurised by anybody. Members may not be aware of this, but the Attorney General and the Solicitor General can attend those meetings and take part in the deliberations, but they are not allowed to move amendments or to vote. It is very important that the Committee is able to do its business without being leaned on by anyone.

My final point is why I think all of this is important. I care far more about what is happening in Ukraine and on the cost of living crisis than about this—far more. I have constituents who are in tears about their finances at the moment. They have absolutely no idea how they will pay their bills, how they will pay the rent, and how they will be able to provide school uniforms and things such as that. They are in tears. All of us have seen the horror in Ukraine. In 2014, I said that if we did not take Putin far more seriously and if we did not impose far stricter sanctions, he would end up coming for the rest of Ukraine. I care far more about those things than I do about this motion today, but they are not alternatives. I would argue that, in the coming months, the Prime Minister may have to come to this House and say that we will have to change our strategy on Russia. We may have to consider offensive weaponry. We may have to consider British troops being put in a place of danger. Similarly, the Prime Minister may have to come to this House and say, “I have to ask the British people to make further sacrifices because the economy is in a very difficult place, and the public finances are in a very difficult place.” At a moment of national and international crisis, we need a leader of completely and utterly unimpeachable moral authority. We do not have that at the moment, not by a long chalk, but that is why these two things are intimately connected and not separate. It is why I believe that this must be referred to the Committee of Privileges.

Easter Recess: Government Update

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, of course. Those 200 contractors for the British Council should, I believe, automatically be eligible and certainly should be able to come under the scheme we have put in place, but I will ensure that my hon. Friend gets the meeting he wants.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Russia, I found it difficult this Easter to have any faith, seeing the barbarity meted out to the people of Ukraine: women tortured and raped, their children tortured and raped, and their menfolk, in many cases, with hands tied and then shot in the back of the head. All those things we know to be war crimes, but many of the worst atrocities are being committed by sociopaths working as mercenaries—paid for by the Russian Government and the Russian state, but none the less working as mercenaries. The UK still is not a signatory to the convention on mercenaries. Is it not time we put a stop to this terrible barbarity, not just in Ukraine, but in other places in the world where mercenaries from the Wagner Group operate with sociopathic intent?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much. I will study his proposal on mercenaries. He has been right for a long time on Russia, and he has been vindicated.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)]

My hon. Friend is, of course, a serving magistrate and speaks with great authority on these matters. As he knows, the Judicial Review and Courts Bill, which contains key parts of those powers, has not yet received Royal Assent. On my hon. Friend’s other point, I can confirm that the Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Bill recently received Royal Assent. The Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022 raises the statutory mandatory retirement age to 75. As my hon. Friend says, that is an important measure to ensure that we maximise the number of people in our judicial labour force.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Does not Mariupol alone demand that we go even further on sanctions in relation to Russia? Could we not sanction all the Russian banks, rather than just 60% of them? Should we not be taking action against the oil and gas companies? Should we not be removing tier 1 visas from people in the UK who have them and have not yet condemned the war in Ukraine? Should we not be putting more pressure on companies—such as Infosys in India—that have big investments in Russia? Should we not make sure that all the family members and apparatchiks are also sanctioned?

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we should continually challenge ourselves. The most important thing, though, is that we are focused on and targeted at those either with direct links into the Kremlin or who fund or indirectly fund, to put the squeeze on Putin’s war machine.

Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I pay tribute to all the work that my right hon. and learned Friend did in his tenure as Justice Secretary. He and I have looked at various things in this House together over many years, and the one thing we have always agreed on is the primacy of free speech. It is not entirely unqualified—libel laws are there for a reason—but he is absolutely right that the quintessential British liberty that guards all the others is freedom of speech and expression. However troubling it may be for politicians to have the journalistic scrutiny, rigour and all that, we understand in our hearts that it is critical to a healthy, vigorous democratic society, and I will certainly look at any other examples that he may wish to raise where we see this kind of legalised bullying through the courts and our jurisdiction.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

This is all really good stuff, and I am delighted that we are moving in the right direction. I always want the Justice Secretary to go faster; he can be very slow in delivering what he knows I want him to deliver. The real trouble we have had in this country is that the people of Britain have never known the truth about Russian money, because journalists, broadcasters, sometimes politicians and Governments have been too frightened to go to court because they know that the pockets on the other side are so deep, and they are terrified they will lose their home or their business, or the Government will lose millions of pounds on behalf of the British taxpayer. Can I ask him about the seizure of goods? We will need to seize assets. Take Chelsea football club—we will not be able to sell it on until we have seized it. Will we not need legislation for that, as well, and will he ensure that there is a proper tender for the sale of that, so that it does not go to somebody who is equally dodgy?

[Dominic Raab]

Forgive me if I do not get drawn into Chelsea football club, which is outside the scope of what we are discussing in this statement. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman. Since doing BackBench Business debates on Magnitsky in 2012, he and I have always, whatever else we may differ on, made common cause on the need for robust sanctions. He has been one of the leading lights in relation to SLAPPs, and I will certainly look carefully at the important specific points he has made.

Legal Aid

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising this very important point. In 2020, the gender balance at the point of entry among specialist criminal barristers was roughly 50:50, but at the senior level there is a much higher imbalance, with a ratio of 70:30 men to women. What are we doing about that? Our fees changes, for example in relation to duty solicitors, will particularly support younger lawyers. They will disproportionately help women with caring responsibilities.

We are also looking at further diversification through the roles and the rights that CILEX members can acquire. CILEX has allowed non-graduate routes into the profession, and I think 76% of its members are women. More generally, breaking down glass ceilings and barriers to entry into the profession is important. Beyond fees, the consultation will allow us to consult and to understand what more we can do systemically to attract a broader diversity of practitioners into the profession and then, critically, allow them to flourish.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State is right to say that we need to deliver swifter justice for victims, but if you will allow me a slight detour, Madam Deputy Speaker, do we not also need to deliver swifter justice to victims of war crimes in Ukraine? What is the Government’s attitude now towards the International Criminal Court? I think he would agree that attacking a nuclear power station or civilians is a war crime, but will he ensure that it is a war crime to initiate a war of aggression?

[Dominic Raab]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s interest in this subject and it is a timely, if circuitous, question, because I was in The Hague yesterday, where I met the ICC chief prosecutor and the president of the court; as he Gentleman knows, the ICC is independent and it is for it to determine those issues. I think I was the first Justice Minister to go there, and I was clear that we will provide a package of support, including financial and technical assistance, to enable the office of the prosecutor to do its job. We will be co-ordinating with our allies and our key partners so that is a concerted effort. The message needs to go out to Putin and to every commander on the ground in Ukraine that if they follow illegal orders they will end up in the dock of a court in The Hague and potentially in prison.

Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood]

Opposition parties are struggling a bit with this idea of democracy, are they not? Taking back control was to have control by the people and for the people, and offering the people an early general election so that they could choose an effective Government when a Parliament was logjammed, hopeless and not prepared to govern with clarity and passion was the right thing to do. I just cannot understand why Labour and the SNP are still queuing up to defend the indefensible, and to say that because they may well be faced again with a situation in which they do not dare face the electors, they need some kind of legal rigmarole and manipulation of votes in a balanced or damaged Parliament to thwart the popular will yet again. “Never let the people make the decision,” they say: it must be contained within Parliament, even when a Parliament has obviously failed, as it did when it could not implement the wishes of the British people over the great Brexit referendum.

I want assurances from the Minister that this new policy will protect the Crown—the Queen—from the difficult business of politics. I think the Minister’s version of it is better than the version from the other place. Of course, it must keep the courts out. There is nothing more political than the decision about when we go to an election and when we give the people their power back and the right to make that fundamental choice. It is a choice that now can mean something, because we do not have to keep on accepting a whole load of European laws that we have no great role in making. Again, we need that absolute guarantee that we will have this freedom so that that can happen.

Those who say that they do not want the Prime Minister to have this much power have surely been in the House long enough to know that, while the Prime Minister has considerable power from his or her office, they are also buffeted and challenged every day by a whole series of pressures in this place and outside. If a leader of a party with a majority wanted an early election that their supporters did not want, I suspect that that would get sorted out without an early election. So we are only talking about what happens when a Government have lost their majority and the Prime Minister is doing his or her best to govern as a minority. We get the extraordinary position we got when the whole Opposition wanted to gang up to thwart the public making a choice, but did not want to govern. That was totally unacceptable, and the Opposition should hear the message from the doorsteps in the 2019 election. The public wanted a Parliament with a Government who could govern, so they decided to choose one. Those who sought to block it made themselves more unpopular, and they showed that they do not understand the fundamental point of democracy that, when Parliament lets the people down, the people must be able to choose a new and more effective Parliament.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I apologise to the House that, because I have been in Committee Room 10 launching the call for evidence on setting up a national strategy for acquired brain injury, I am afraid I was not able to hear the wonderful speeches that doubtless came from those on the Front Bench—well, on the Opposition side anyway.

I completely agree with what the right hon. Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) has just said. Yes, I think the people of this country are crying out for a Government who can actually govern. They still were after the general election, and they certainly are at the moment. Yes, of course, the Prime Minister is buffeted, and I think the Prime Minister should be buffeted a bit more, to be honest.

What I do not understand is that this is the tiniest, most minimalist check on government that one could imagine. It simply means that a Government, which by definition already has a majority of Members of the House of Commons, should be required to come to the House of Commons to get a vote through to have a general election. It is absolutely minimal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

Is it equally the case that including this vote in the Bill would not mitigate people not being good chaps? If a Prime Minister has a majority and they could get that vote through—who knows what their reasons are—when they see things coming over the horizon that might give them some advantage, it makes it difficult for the monarch to say “no” under the Bill. Is it better to preserve what was best about our constitution before 2010, which relies on the Prime Minister and the monarch being responsible, and the good behaviour that should follow?

[Chris Bryant]

I think the danger is precisely the opposite. The arrangements that the hon. Lady would like us to have are ones that put the monarch in a regular position of making a decision, and brings them closely into not only party politics, but sometimes into partisan politics within a political party. It is perfectly possible that a Prime Minister might have lost, or be about to lose, the confidence of their political party, but that political party might still want to govern and carry on under a different leader. In other words, there may be within the House an alternative Government who would be better for the nation.

My other problem is that there seems to be a very high theological understanding of the role of the Executive. I think the former Leader of the House set that going with his rather Stuart early-17th-century understanding of the constitution, which is that basically, as long as the Prime Minister has the confidence of the House of Commons, he or she should be allowed to do pretty much anything and, frankly, parliamentary democracy is a little bit of an irritant. It is worth always bearing in mind that the Executive today is the only body who can ensure that business and legislation are considered, and the only body who decide when Parliament sits, when it will go into recess, and how long it will go into recess for. If we had the same rules today as we had in 1939, nobody would have been able to table an amendment to the recess debate that led to the big row before the beginning of the second world war. Today we have an Executive who are more powerful than they have been at any stage since the early 17th century, and it is time, occasionally, that the House of Commons said, “You know what? We’re a parliamentary democracy. Let’s take just a tiny bit of power into our own hands.”

[Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)]

I will be brief as I gather I have only a few minutes to speak. The Lords amendment would require the House of Commons to give prior approval to a dissolution of Parliament, and that would be done by simple majority rather than the two-thirds majority required by the Fixed Term Parliaments Act 2011. On the face of it, that would be an improvement to the existing position, but it is still something of a half-way house that causes confusion. In the event that a Government lose their ability to command a majority in the House of Commons, it does not automatically follow that the House would vote to approve an election.

For example, it may suit Opposition parties to keep a lame-duck Government in place, so that they can inflict parliamentary defeat after parliamentary defeat, as a means of further undermining confidence in the Government. But in whose interests would that be? Certainly not the interests of the country. As hon. Members have said, we very much saw that in the “zombie” Parliament of 2017-19, when Parliament initially refused to allow an election to take place. The country became ungovernable, and contempt for Parliament rose dramatically—I speak as somebody who was outside Parliament at that time, and who shared in that contempt. I submit that that is not in anyone’s best interests.

We recently heard some confused interventions on this matter from the other place. For example, a Liberal Democrat peer asked:

“But why should a Prime Minister who cannot get a majority of the House of Commons for an election be entitled to a Dissolution?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 February 2022; Vol. 818, c. 1590.]

I am still not sure whether that was a rhetorical question or whether the Lord in question was trying to figure it out for himself. Either way, it is non-sequitur reasoning because in the example he gave, a Government would not seek to dissolve Parliament unless they found it impossible to gain simple majorities in the first place. In my opinion, a rather better, and frankly rather more honest question would be: why would Parliament want to avoid an election, unless it feared that the result would go against its own wishes? That is the real question that those who support the Lords amendment must ask themselves.

There is concern in certain quarters that going to the electorate to seek a new mandate would allow an opportunistic Government to call an election at a convenient time to increase their majority. It is true that the power to call an election gives an advantage to a sitting Government, but that ability is a double-edged sword and can seriously backfire against a Prime Minister seeking to exploit a perceived opportunity. Post-war history is replete with examples of an incumbent Government misreading the political situation, and calling an election that fails to deliver the result they wished for. Harold Wilson’s Labour Government in 1970 and Ted Heath’s Conservative Government in February 1974 are obvious examples of that. Similarly, a failure to call an election can damage an incumbent Government. The obvious recent example would be from 2007 when Gordon Brown publicly flirted with calling an election, only to back off at the last moment and cause irreparable damage to his public image as a result. The power to call an election—or not—does not automatically confer an insuperable advantage on the incumbent Government. The Lords amendment is therefore completely unnecessary, and I will continue to support the Bill as it stands.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Law firms in this country are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. They were reminded on 23 February of the need to comply with sanctions regulations and legislation, and there are regular checks to ensure that they are doing so. They have responsibilities under that regime to safeguard the UK and to protect the reputation of the United Kingdom legal services industry. Clearly they will face sanctions if they fail to do so.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Q8. Putin is the only enemy, but I do feel ashamed. The United Kingdom signed the Budapest accord in 1994, guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Twenty-three men who once sat on these Benches gave their lives for plucky little Belgium, and they have shields on the wall down at that end of the Chamber. Twenty-two did the same for Poland, and they have shields down at this end. We are not guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Ukraine. I do not want war—no one wants war—but we are not yet even sanctioning Sergei Shoigu, the Russian Defence Minister, nor Igor Osipov, the commander of the Black sea fleet, nor Usmanov, Sechin, Peskov, Abramovich, Roldugin or the Members of the Russian Duma who voted for this war. Why do we not use parliamentary privilege to get this out there, so that the lawyers cannot attack the sanctions that we must surely bring rapidly today?