Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Baroness Harman Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow the serious and important speech of the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), every word of which I agreed with.

The evidence on which our conclusions are based is fully set out in the report. I want to place on record the great debt of gratitude that I believe the House owes to the Clerks of the House, to Speaker’s Counsel and to Sir Ernest Ryder. The quality of their work and their dedication to the House is extraordinary. They are public servants of quite remarkable calibre.

The evidence shows that, on a matter that could hardly have been of more importance, Mr Johnson deliberately misled the House, not just once but on numerous occasions. The evidence shows that he denied what was true, asserted what was not true, obfuscated and deceived. It is clear that he knew the rules and guidance: as Prime Minister, he was telling the country about them nearly every day. He knew that there were gatherings: he was there. He knew that the gatherings breached the rules and the guidance. Yet he told the House that the rules and the guidance were followed in No. 10 “at all times”.

Misleading the House is not a technicality but a matter of great importance. Our democracy is based on people electing us to scrutinise the Government, and, on behalf of the people we represent, we have to hold the Government to account. We cannot do that if Ministers are not truthful. Ministers must be truthful; if they are not, we cannot do our job. It is as simple and as fundamental as that. The House asked the Privileges Committee to inquire into the allegations that Mr Johnson, who was then Prime Minister, misled the House. That is the mechanism—the only mechanism—that the House has to protect itself in the face of a Minister misleading it. We undertook the inquiry, scrupulously sticking to the rules and processes laid down by this House under Standing Orders, and following the precedents of this House.

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I wonder whether the right hon. and learned Lady could say something of her own position in relation to the precedent set by a judicial Committee of the House of Lords, when a decision in which Lord Hoffmann was involved was set aside not because he was biased, but because of the perception of bias. In relation to her famous tweets, how does she think she met the Hoffmann test?

[Ms Harman]

I am happy to answer the right hon. Gentleman. I was appointed by this House in the expectation that I would chair the Committee, with no one speaking against it. After the tweets were brought to light and highlighted, as I am concerned about the perception of fairness on the Committee—I agree that perception matters—I made it my business to find out whether it would mean that the Government would not have confidence in me if I continued to chair the Committee. I actually said, “I will be more than happy to step aside, because perception matters and I do not want to do this if the Government do not have confidence in me. I need the whole House to have confidence in the work that it has mandated.” I was assured that I should continue the work that the House had mandated, and with the appointment that the House had put me into, and so I did just that.

Our report was based on two things: the evidence and our keen awareness of the seriousness of misleading the House. The Committee was unanimous that a sanction that would trigger the Recall of MPs Act was justified in the light of our conclusion that Mr Johnson deliberately misled the House and the Committee. We then felt it necessary to increase the sanction to 90 days to reflect the seriousness of his breaching of the confidence of the Committee, his impugning of the Committee, thereby undermining the democratic process of the House, and his complicity in a campaign of abuse, attempting to intimidate the Committee, to stop us from carrying out our work and to discredit it.

Like the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, with whom I share a great deal—including, it turns out, a necklace—I thank every member of the Privileges Committee. Over the course of the past year, they have considered thousands of pages of evidence and participated in more than 30 meetings to do the job that the House asked them to do with outstanding dedication and commitment, particularly the Conservative members of the Committee, who have also had to be extraordinarily resilient. They have had to withstand a campaign of threats, intimidation and harassment designed to challenge the legitimacy of the inquiry, to drive them off the Committee and thereby to frustrate the intention of the House that the inquiry should be carried out. Yet through all that, they have not given in to the intimidation. They have been unflinching in their duty to the House, and we owe them a huge amount.

We need Members to be prepared to serve on the Privileges Committee. They must be free to base their judgments on the evidence, free from pressure one way or the other. If the House wants its rights to be protected in the future, it must act to stop intimidation of members of the Privileges Committee.

Attacks by hon. Members on other hon. Members designed to pre-empt the Committee’s findings frustrate the will of the House, erode public confidence and thereby undermine our democracy. They may themselves be contempt of the House, because they are attempts to impede the functioning of the House. We will make a further report to the House on that shortly, inviting consideration of what could be done to prevent it from happening in the future.

None of that is a threat to the free speech of Members. Members can engage in the process throughout: they can speak and vote against a referral to the Privileges Committee; they can speak and vote against the appointment of any member of the Privileges Committee; they can bring to the House proposals for changes to the procedure; and they can speak about a report’s conclusions, but what they must not do is interfere with the work the House has mandated.

The report does not create a chilling effect on what Ministers say at the Dispatch Box. If Ministers make a mistake, which inevitably happens, and inadvertently say something that is misleading, they are expected to correct it at the earliest opportunity, and that is done routinely. Inadvertent misleading, promptly corrected, is not an issue; it is the system working. The House understands it if Ministers decline to answer, for example, on matters of national security or market sensitivity.

Too many members of the public already think that we are dishonest, but hitherto I have found in my 40 years in this House that most Ministers, in all Governments, are at pains to tell the truth. The sanction in the report reinforces and upholds Ministers’ high standards and shows the public that that is the case.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

The right hon. and learned Lady has referred to the wording “misleads”, which was in the original motion on 21 April 2022. That is not the wording of the resolution of 1997, which still pertains today and quite explicitly uses the words “knowingly misleads”. Does she not accept that there is a huge difference? That decision was made unanimously by the House and it is still in existence and still pertains.

[Ms Harman]

I think the Committee found on the evidence that Mr Johnson knowingly and deliberately intended to mislead the House.

Because he was Prime Minister, Mr Johnson’s dishonesty, if left unchecked, would have contaminated the whole of Government, allowing misleading to become commonplace and thus eroding the standards that are essential for the health of our democracy. Far from undermining Ministers, the report does precisely the opposite.

I want to say something about the press. This episode has shown that wrongdoing has not gone undiscovered and attempts to cover it up have failed, but it would have been undiscovered had not the press doggedly investigated. Many journalists played their part, and Isb want in particular to mention Pippa Crerar and Paul Brand. Democracy needs a free press.

The House sent this inquiry to the Privileges Committee without a Division. It unanimously endorsed the membership of the Committee. We have done the work we were asked to do. This is the moment for the House, on behalf of the people of this country, to assert its right to say loud and clear: “Government will be accountable. Ministers will be honest. There is no impunity for wrongdoing. Even if you are the Prime Minister—especially if you are the Prime Minister—you must tell the truth to Parliament.” I urge all Members to support the motion.