Business of the House

Henry Smith Excerpts

Thursday 23rd September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I say what a pleasure it is to see the hon. Lady in the Chamber, and may I congratulate her on the impeccable behaviour of her infant? Mine are of course perfect in every possible way, but I am not sure that they would have been quiet for the whole time during a parliamentary debate. I congratulate the hon. Lady most warmly; there is no greater joy than a new baby.

The rules provide for maternity and paternity leave, and for proxy voting for people who want to take that opportunity, but if people want to be present in the Chamber, they are of course welcome. I would be the last person to deter Members from coming in, but I do not want to put pressure on them to come in. I think it is for them to decide for themselves, as the hon. Lady has done, and I think that the rules as they are currently constructed are perfectly reasonable and entirely in line with the law.

We have to remember—this is very important—that Members of Parliament are office-holders; they are not employees. As office-holders, we have different rights and different privileges from employees because ours is a different role, and therefore employment law applies to us in a different way. We have, in fact, many more privileges than most employed people, not because of who we are individually, but because of our collective responsibility to represent the people of this nation.

As regards a meeting, I am always open to meeting all Members of the House: I think that that is the proper role of the Leader of the House.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

A constituent came to me recently, very distressed. Her young son was attacked at a community event about two years ago. The perpetrator was arrested and charged by the Crown Prosecution Service. He then reportedly failed to appear in court twice, was arrested a second time, and appeared in court for the third hearing. However, the Crown Prosecution Service erroneously, and wrongly, said that the case had been timed out—which it has admitted in writing was a mistake—and the perpetrator therefore got away with not being fully pursued. Because this was not publicly known, he went on to be selected as a candidate and subsequently elected to Crawley Borough Council in last May’s local elections. May we have a debate on why this perpetrator, Atif Nawaz, was able to do that, on why the victim was failed by the Crown Prosecution Service, and on the efficiency of the CPS?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We need to have brisker questions, otherwise we will not get through everybody.