Committee on Standards: Decision of the House

Debate between Chris Bryant and John Baron

Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I am not inimical to that view—there is a perfectly decent argument that perhaps there should be an appeal against sanctions—but in the Committee we try to stand by precedence, because otherwise we would be unfair. We list all the mitigating and aggravating factors in each of our reports and, at the end, come to a conclusion based on the precedents we have met. My suspicion is that any appeal body would do exactly the same, so I am not sure that it would necessarily change things, but there is an argument for bringing in such a thing. I note that the hon. Member referred to leaving this case aside, which is the most important thing for me: in the words of the Leader of the House, we cannot conflate one case with change of the system. In the end, that is the precise, polar opposite of justice: that is injustice and has brought the House into disrepute.

I have only a couple more points to make—

[Mr Baron]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way? [Hon. Members: “No.”]

[Chris Bryant]

Well, I like the hon. Gentleman, so yes, I will.

[Mr Baron]

I am grateful to the hon. Member, who is speaking with great eloquence, as usual, on this subject. I suggest to him that reform is a natural, evolving process—of course it is; no system is perfect—but, by and large, the system works quite well, so whatever the hon. Member does, will he make sure that it is transparent, as far as he is able to, and that it progresses as speedily as possible? What I take away from this debate and from last week’s vote is that the right thing to do is to let the Committee produce its recommendations and for the House to consider them in full debate.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful for that point. It is true that the right way for the House to progress, on a cross-party basis and with the advice of independent members of the public, is for us to complete our job of work, which we will have done by Christmas, I am sure, and perhaps even by the end of this month—I do not want to prejudge what the Committee will decide—and to publish that. There will then be an opportunity for the whole House to consider the matter. We would probably want then to produce a further report, which would be our final report on the draft code and its operation.

Incidentally, the current system has not been in place for very long. The mixture of the independent expert panel for ICGS cases and the Standards Committee has been in place, arguably, only since 7 January 2019 when the right hon. Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom) introduced really important changes to the House, which were much valued by staff and Members across the House and by the public. In fact, the independent expert panel started its work only in January of this year, There is this idea that we should suddenly tear it all up and start all over again, but if I had only one thing to say to the House, it would be: let us just slow down. Let us consider this properly in the round, taking all the different issues together.

None the less, we do still need to tidy up what happened last week. I can see a lot of Conservative Members agreeing with that. I gently say to the ministerial team here that, if we want it, there is an opportunity for us tomorrow. We have two outstanding issues: one is the creation of the Committee, which the right hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) does not want to serve on, even though he is meant to be the Chair. I certainly hope that he is better from his covid.