Lobbying of Government Committee

Claire Coutinho Excerpts

Wednesday 14th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con) [V]]

I welcome the independent inquiry and the Government’s broader work on modernising procurement. I do not believe that anyone can say that a new Committee is needed, as proposed by the Opposition today, when an independent inquiry is under way and when many Committees, including the Committee on Standards in Public Life, serve to scrutinise the work of former officials and Ministers. The point was well made by the Chairman of the Liaison Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), and by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg).

The Opposition’s proposition today is not about securing an independent and legally minded expert in procurement to look into the matter. We already have that, and we should hear what he has to say. It is, I am afraid, a rather cynical and desperate attempt to prejudge an inquiry that is happening and take the opportunity to make a party political attack. That is why the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) persistently mentioned the ’90s in her opening remarks, but nothing about the period between 1997 and 2009. That, of course, was when we saw a long list of allegations about the Labour party—from Ecclestone, to cash for honours and the moniker of “Tony’s cronies” when it came to public appointments. It is also why, when the hon. Lady put forward a list of supposedly crony contacts, she included a Labour party donor. When she very much wanted us to secure PPE contracts, those contacts included a football agent company, an historical clothing company and a legal practice.

The Labour party does not want to wait for the facts but will continue with what I think is a rather contemptible policy of smearing people in public life, with scant regard for the truth or their reputations afterwards. That is what the Opposition did with Kate Bingham, until it turned out that she had done an outstanding job in procuring vaccines for this country—a job that she was not paid for, I might add. I am afraid that she has received no apologies from the Labour party for its smears when it tried to label her as a crony—and, indeed, no thanks for her work on the vaccine taskforce. Labour did the same with the race report; it has yet to criticise the Labour MP who likened those educational experts and public servants, who were trying to put forward solutions to improve the inequality situation in this country, to the Ku Klux Klan. It is desperate and quite cynical.

As people have rightly said today, this is a serious matter and it is right that it is being looked into. We should use the existing channels to get to the facts.