Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges
Debate between Chris Bryant and Joanna Cherry(2 years, 6 months ago)
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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?
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.
Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill (Instruction)
Debate between Chris Bryant and Joanna Cherry(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Chris Bryant
No, I do not think that that is right, but if the House decided not to consider the matter, the courts could in future legitimately decide that Parliament had decided that Prorogation is justiciable. That is the problem for the Government.
Joanna Cherry
One of the most notable things after the outcome of the case was that the Prime Minister did not express any remorse for having unlawfully prorogued Parliament, so I would not be so confident that he would not try it again. What initially worried me slightly about the hon. Gentleman’s new clause was that the current Prime Minister, with his huge majority, could seek to prorogue Parliament for a dubious purpose. However, I note that the hon. Gentleman has put in a requirement that it cannot be for more than 10 days. Of course, what was so objectionable about the last Prorogation was that it was so lengthy and came at a time when Parliament had very important matters to debate, so I presume that the hon. Gentleman put that in to guard against the possibility of the current Prime Minister using the rather large majority that he has, at least in England, to force through another dubious Prorogation.
Chris Bryant
The hon. and learned Lady—who was, of course, the Cherry on the top of the icing in this case; it must have been one of her bigger successes in terms of parliamentary democracy—has read my mind better than I know it myself.
All that we have to bear in mind is what the Supreme Court said in its judgment on what the limit on the power to prorogue would be:
“A decision to prorogue Parliament (or to advise the monarch to prorogue Parliament) will be unlawful if the prorogation has the effect of frustrating or preventing, without reasonable justification, the ability of Parliament to carry out its constitutional functions as a legislature and as the body responsible for the supervision of the executive. In such a situation the court will intervene if the effect is sufficiently serious to justify such an exceptional course.”
So everyone who votes against my motion, or against my new clause later if we are able to reach it, will be saying, basically, “Yes, courts, carry on. That is exactly what you should do. You should consider these matters. You should decide at every Prorogation whether the Government are acting lawfully or not.”
Joanna Cherry
I thought that the hon. Gentleman was getting towards the end, so I wanted to ask him to clarify something. Did I understand him correctly to say that if those on the Government Benches vote against his having the opportunity to put forward the new clause, they will be voting in favour of continued judicial scrutiny of Prorogations? Does that not rather go against the normal pattern on the Conservative Benches, which is to vote against judicial scrutiny in this Parliament? I doff my cap to the hon. Gentleman for being so smart!
Chris Bryant
I would not bother with that.
The hon. and learned Lady is absolutely right. This is the irony—or the hypocrisy—of the Government’s position. [Interruption.] I said “of the Government’s position”; I am being very careful.
I find it incomprehensible that the Government would not want to proceed in the direction of my new clause. It is the simplest way of making sure that Prorogation is a proceeding in Parliament, and there would be no need for the ouster clause in the Bill, which many people have suggested to us is unlikely to work and is a nugatory piece of legislation.
We should also bear in mind that the Commonwealth has shown us plenty of examples of Prorogation being fiercely contested. In Australia in 1975, the Governor-General, John Kerr, removed the Labor Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, and then prorogued Parliament before the House of Representatives, which was controlled by the Labor party, could pass a motion of no confidence in Malcolm Fraser. That was a deliberate use of the Prorogation process to prevent proper scrutiny. In Canada in 2008, the Conservative Prime Minister of a minority Government, Stephen Harper, ordered a Prorogation to avoid a no confidence motion in himself—yet another example of the use of a process which I think is a means of trying to prevent proper parliamentary scrutiny.
One of the ironies of the situation that we have in the British constitution is that if the Bill goes forward as the Government plan and without the measure relating to Prorogation, there will be no real requirement that Parliament should ever sit. The Meeting of Parliament Act 1694 says that we should have Parliaments every three years; that is all that we would be relying on as a legislative means. It is true that the Bill of Rights requires taxation to be subject to Parliament’s sitting, and also requires that a standing Army must be endorsed every five years. However, the Supreme Court made the very good point that these practical considerations are scant reassurance, because Parliament could just sit very briefly to deal with those matters.
In short, Madam Deputy Speaker—or “in long”, actually—my point is simple: the best way to ensure that Prorogation is not abused by the Executive, and to ensure that the courts do not interfere in political processes that should remain within the political sphere, is to ensure that there is a vote in Parliament before Prorogation. The only way we can have that vote in Parliament before Prorogation is to debate it later today, and the only way we can do that is to vote in favour of my motion of instruction.
Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme
Debate between Chris Bryant and Joanna Cherry(4 years, 4 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
That normally happens before I speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a delight to follow the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), because she has done so much work on this. Everybody who works in this place surely has a right to know that this is a safe workplace. That is a fundamental principle. A second fundamental principle is that everybody has a right to a fair hearing. For complainants, that must mean that they have confidence in the system and that it is not loaded in one direction against them. Of course, we know that in recent years many complainants have felt that they have not had the chance of a fair hearing, and that is why the work we are doing is so important. I would also say, however, that MPs have a right to a fair hearing. That is why it is so important, as the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), who sits on the Standards Committee, said, that a full, fair, judicial or semi-judicial process is engaged in and that MPs have the right to due process and independent adjudication, the right of appeal and the right to a fair hearing.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling his amendment, which I shall be supporting. On the point about due process, politics can be a dirty business, and sometimes complaints that turn out to be unfounded can be deployed against politicians for political reasons. Is he satisfied that our new independent process will be robust enough to deal with those sorts of complaints fairly?
Chris Bryant
I think it will, but that will obviously depend on the quality of the people that we appoint to it. I very much hope not only that the House will go through a thorough process to ensure that we get good people, but that good people around the country will seriously consider taking on this role, because it will probably be a fairly thankless task. We need to ensure that we have the right people.
I warmly commend the Leader of the House on bringing forward his motions today and on the way he has approached today’s debate and the discussions that have taken place over recent days. I should say, as Chair of the Standards Committee, that I have deliberately not spoken to any complainants, because it is perfectly possible that something might be coming to my Committee, and it would have been inappropriate for me to have done so. I have only one issue with the Leader of the House, which is about the one-hour debate, as he knows—hence the amendment that I have tabled. His motion 6 is effectively a sort of self-denying ordinance. It sort of says, “There are lots of things that you will not be able to address in the debate”, and I commend him for tabling it, but in the end you cannot be half-chaste. It is a bit like when you decide to give up chocolate for Lent. You cannot decide on Ash Wednesday to stock the fridge with chocolate, because that shows that you have not really decided that you are going to give up chocolate for Lent.
The point about a self-denying ordinance is that it has to be absolute, and in this case we have to declare an absolute self-denying ordinance in relation to debating a decision that has already been reached by an independent body, that has an appellate process within it, where all the evidence has been considered, where both sides of the argument have an equal opportunity to put their case, and where both sides have equal forces. That is not the case in a debate in the House of Commons, and many complainants would be frightened that they would be re-victimised—to use the word that was just used by the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire—and that they would be put through a second ordeal. Even words that the Speaker might allow, because they did not understand that it was a subtle way of getting a dig in, could be terribly, terribly wounding to an individual who had made a complaint. It is terribly easy in this small world to reveal what is meant to be confidential.
Scotland Bill
Debate between Chris Bryant and Joanna Cherry(9 years ago)
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Joanna Cherry
I am sure he is. The hon. Gentleman’s interventions and speech underline the reality of our concern that the wish of the Scottish electorate to preserve the Human Rights Act will not be respected. I reiterate that we want to make common cause with the Labour party, the Lib Dems, Northern Ireland Members and Government Members to preserve the Act for the whole of the UK.
Joanna Cherry
I said “we”. Listen carefully. I know my accent is a bit difficult to follow, but I said “we”.
In conclusion, our primary intention is to preserve the Act for the whole of the UK, but the amendment would give us the option to implement the settled will of the Scottish people to keep the Act for Scotland, if we fail to keep it for the whole of the UK.
Wilson Doctrine
Debate between Chris Bryant and Joanna Cherry(9 years ago)
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Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
May I begin by echoing the tribute paid to those Members who have harried the Government on this issue in recent years? It is important to remind ourselves of why we are having this debate. It is because four recent events have called into question the nature and scope of the Wilson doctrine and, indeed, whether it is in any way meaningful.
First, the submissions made on behalf of the Government to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal in the case brought by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) appeared to attempt to undermine the Wilson doctrine and to suggest that it was impossible to have it in the modern age, given the existence of the mass trawling of data.
Secondly, the content of last week’s IPT ruling seemed to be to the effect that the Wilson doctrine has no legal force and is just an ambiguous political statement. We are looking for clarification of that ambiguity.
Thirdly—this is very important from the perspective of Scottish MPs and, indeed, MPs from other areas with devolved Administrations—during the IPT hearing, official and hitherto undisclosed guidance that entered the public domain appeared to show that a change of policy regarding the scope of the Wilson doctrine had occurred around about 2014.
Fourthly, we are having this debate because of the Home Secretary’s comments last July, during a debate on the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Bill, in response to a question from the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), who is now the deputy leader of the Labour party. It seems to me that many of us agree that that was the first time the Wilson doctrine had been described on the Floor of the House in caveated terms. The right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) has rightly drawn to our attention the fact that while we may not all disagree about what the Wilson doctrine should actually say, we need to know what the Government think it says.
In July 2014, the Home Secretary talked about certain rules and protocols that would enable interference with parliamentarians’ communications, but she did not say what they were. Instead of explicitly notifying Parliament that the Wilson doctrine was being in any way redefined, the Home Secretary simply presented her comments as a restatement of the original doctrine. However, as other Members have said, previous Prime Ministers, from Harold Wilson in 1966 to Gordon Brown in 2007, had not stated the doctrine with any such caveats. It is interesting and important to remember that, in paragraph 11 of the judgment, the IPT said it was satisfied that what the Home Secretary was referring to in Parliament in July 2014 was the contents of the official guidance to the security services, which we know had changed.
We are having this debate because it is not acceptable for the Executive unilaterally to abandon or modify such a doctrine without explicitly saying that that is what they are doing and informing Parliament. The removal of the protection given by the doctrine or its modification should not occur without any consultation or democratic scrutiny. The Chamber requires from the Government straight answers on their view of the nature and scope of the Wilson doctrine. There needs to be no more prevaricating. There is considerable discontent across the House. The Government should be in no doubt that there will be growing support for the early-day motion tabled by a cross-party contingent over the coming weeks. They need to take this issue very seriously.
If we look at statements by previous Prime Ministers, we can see that they were unambiguous about the doctrine’s existence, nature and extent, despite the fact that there was sometimes pressure from those who argued against the absolute nature of the doctrine. I believe that such pressure was brought to bear on Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister, and he resisted it. The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) has repeatedly reminded us that, in 2011, the present Prime Minister confirmed to the House that the Wilson doctrine was still in force. However, since the Home Secretary’s comments last July, hon. Members, including the right hon. Gentleman, have repeatedly sought clarification from the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary without success.
As the first Scottish MP to speak in this debate, I must address an important matter that emerged from the IPT hearing. It emerged that the most recent versions of the operational notes to the security services seem to exclude Members of the Scottish Parliament, the other devolved Assemblies and the European Parliament from any protection by the Wilson doctrine. That appears to be in contrast to versions of the same operational notes that appeared before 2014. SNP Members cannot imagine what event in 2014 could have provoked such a renewed interest in the activities of Members of the Scottish Parliament.
I hear the Home Secretary’s point about the discrepancy between what Jacqui Smith said when she was Home Secretary and the code of practice. However, we need to know why the code of practice and the official guidance seems, at least during some period before 2014, to have encompassed parliamentarians in the Scottish Parliament, the other devolved Assemblies and the European Parliament, but were subsequently changed. We need the Government to tell us what is going on. When the Wilson doctrine was first enunciated, there was no Scottish Parliament, other devolved Assemblies or European Parliament—[Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin John Docherty) says, some people might like to return to that position, but that is highly unlikely.
We need to know why there has been a change in practice in relation to other parliamentarians in this country. The First Minister of Scotland wrote to the Prime Minister on 24 July seeking urgent clarification about this apparent change of policy, but two and a half months later she has still not received a reply. Liberty’s legal director James Welch has commented that removing the protection from the Scottish Parliament shows
“an arrogant lack of respect for democratic institutions”.
It might be said that such an arrogant lack of respect for the Scottish Parliament is often felt by SNP Members and Scottish parliamentarians.
I understand the Prime Minister to have said that there is supposed to be a respect agenda in relation to the Scottish Parliament. We need to know why the intelligence services and this Government think the Scottish Parliament is less of a Parliament or less deserving of such protection. Do they think Scots deserve less protection of their privacy when communicating with their MSPs than with their Westminster counterparts? As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) asked, why should unelected peers of the realm enjoy greater protection than elected Members of the Scottish Parliament? Unlike Members of the House of Lords, Members of the Scottish Parliament and of the other devolved Assemblies have constituents’ interests to serve and protect. If there is a matter of principle about protecting communications between constituents and those who represent them, it should apply to all parliamentarians.
I want to stress that insisting on proper protection for the communications of parliamentarians with others is special pleading not on behalf of parliamentarians, but on behalf of the constituents, whistleblowers and campaigners who communicate with them. When people contact parliamentarians they are often in a vulnerable position—for example, somebody in a big Government body or a big corporate entity who wishes to blow the whistle on some official scandal. Yes, hon. Members of the House, the Scottish Parliament, the other devolved Assemblies and the European Parliament also have to be protected from intimidation or oversight by the Government so that they can help such sometimes vulnerable people and do their jobs without fear or favour.
What is to be done? The draft investigatory powers Bill to be brought forward in the autumn is an opportunity to refine the law to protect civil liberties and set minimum protections and safeguards across the board and, I suggest, for communications between parliamentarians and constituents. I very much welcome the Home Secretary’s statement that she will give further consideration to the position of parliamentarians in the Scottish Parliament and the other devolved Assemblies. I echo the call made by other hon. Members that there must be sufficient time to consider the Bill, but I am reasonably hopeful that we will be given sufficient time, because the Home Secretary has said that a draft Bill will be brought before the House.
Chris Bryant
I urge the hon. and learned Lady not to be too confident. Last time we had to pass such legislation, we had to pass the whole lot in a single day. We had to suspend all the normal processes in the House to take through the Bill in a single day.
Joanna Cherry
I was not in the House at that time, but I watched it on the television. I am aware of that, but I am giving the Home Secretary the benefit of the doubt, because she has indicated that it will be a draft investigatory powers Bill.