Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Hilary Benn Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)]

It is clearly a very serious matter when one of our number is found in contempt of the House, and no one can or should take any pleasure in the report that we are debating this evening. However, in light of what has just been argued by the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), it is important that we remember that the revelations about the parties at 10 Downing Street, and they were parties, caused many people a great deal of anger and distress. They saw what went on there and contrasted it with what they had done in faithfully upholding the rules and guidance as they understood them, at great personal cost—above all, when they were not able to be present as their loved ones breathed their last—and they have the right to be angry about what happened.

That is why we asked the Privileges Committee to look into what happened and what we had repeatedly, if I may use the word, been told by the Prime Minister. Having looked at the evidence, our colleagues—we are talking about our colleagues here, on both sides of the House—formed their judgment, and I think we have a duty to accept their report and what they have found. That point was made forcefully in a number of speeches, not least by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May).

Why should we do that? First, because we traditionally accept reports of the Privileges Committee, because it did give Mr Johnson every opportunity to explain what he said and why he said it, because it was a cross-party group of MPs, as the Privileges Committee always is, and because its conclusions were unanimous. That is why to suggest there was some sort of conspiracy—I am sorry that one or two Members have veered in that direction in this debate—by one party or certain people to do down the Prime Minister is frankly implausible and insulting to this House.

What is more, I agree with the Committee that Mr Johnson’s behaviour following the receipt of the draft report and since it was published, and the public attacks he has made on the integrity of the members of the Committee, their report and its findings, have been, to put it mildly, distasteful and certainly egregious. They have only compounded the contempt he has committed against this House.

To address the argument that has been put about whether people can criticise the report, it is one thing to argue one’s case, to be found against and then to disagree with the findings. Everyone is entitled to do that, and to cast their vote accordingly this evening. It is completely another to call the whole process and those involved in it into question, to accuse them and the report of being “nonsense”, “beneath contempt”, “rubbish” and “deranged”—those are the words that have been used—especially when it is a blatant attempt to undermine the very democratic system we are sent here to uphold. As has already been said, when the Committee is attacked for doing its job by a Member, now a former Member, it is us as MPs who are also being attacked.

The other thing that worries me about this situation, and I think it should worry all of us, is that the type of conduct we have seen from Mr Johnson is all too reminiscent of what is going on as we speak on the other side of the Atlantic ocean. People look at what he has said and done here and what Mr Trump is doing over there, and they see the similarities. Here are two people who are trying to trash our institutions and our democracy in the process. That is very different from expressing disagreement with the judgment of the Privileges Committee.

Why does this matter? The word has already been used many times in this debate, but it is about trust. I think the Committee summed it up perfectly when it said:

“The House proceeds on the basis that what it is told by Ministers is accurate and truthful…Our democracy depends on MPs’ being able to trust that what Ministers tell them in the House of Commons is the truth. If Ministers cannot be trusted to tell the truth, the House cannot do its job and the confidence of the public in our democracy is undermined.”

Let us be honest with ourselves: there is no doubt that the public’s confidence in our democracy, and in us as politicians, has been damaged by what has gone on. Therefore, this is our chance to show that we too think that telling the truth to the House of Commons matters and that we as a House are collectively determined to uphold that fundamental principle, however high and mighty a Member may have been. To agree this report today will not be proof of the shortcomings of the process or of our democracy or the way in which we work; on the contrary, it will be to uphold its integrity and its strength.