Privileges Committee Special Report

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

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

There are some issues with this report, beginning, as it happens, with its title referring to a “Co-ordinated campaign of interference”. As was raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), there is no evidence that it was co-ordinated. Speaking on my own account—I may get support on this from the Whip on duty and, indeed, the 10 Downing Street press office, were it able to comment—I am not often co-ordinated with the official line to take. Indeed, I have always thought it politically important that Members should be independent in what they say and how they vote. Therefore, to make an assertion of co-ordination without evidence is a problem with this report, but it is not the only problem.

I question footnote 1 on the bona fides of this report. It states:

“The Committee of Privileges is not able to initiate inquiries on its own initiative, but once matters are referred to the House it has ‘power to inquire not only into the matter of the particular complaint, but also into facts surrounding and reasonably connected with the matter of the particular complaint, and into the principles of the law and custom of privilege that are concerned’ (CJ (1947-48) 22, 30 October 1947).”

However, that is surely superseded by the vote in 1978 on how privilege matters should be dealt with. Paragraph 15.32 of “Erskine May” sets out the procedure and explains why it is as complex as it is. It states:

“The procedure is designed to prevent frivolous complaints of breach of privilege. The following safeguards are in place: the Committee of Privileges does not have power to inquire at will, but can only deal with complaints which are referred to it; decisions as to whether to refer a matter of privilege to the Committee of Privileges are taken by the House as a whole; and Members require the permission of the Speaker to raise a matter of privilege.”

That was not done, and the 1947 Commons Journal entry was preferred to the 1978 motion. That seems to me to have been a mistake. That is not to say that this is necessarily not a serious matter, but the whole reason for the procedures is to ensure that only serious matters are subject to these reports. Why did the Committee not follow the procedure properly set out by the House in 1978? Why were the safeguards ignored?

That is before we come to the matter raised by others about individuals being named and referred to without any ability to answer. I am not too worried about that. I have said things on the public record, and if people want to quote me and wish to refer to my television programme on GB News, which they may be jealous of, or whatever other concerns they may have, that is absolutely fine. I do not mind that personally, but I do mind that people say they are following the procedures of the House when the procedures seem to be rather different in “Erskine May”.

There is also a modest discourtesy to the House of Lords. The House of Lords has exclusive cognisance, and implied criticisms of peers are against the practice of this House, and that is unfortunate. That is unfortunate more from our point of view than from theirs. Why do we have this idea of exclusive cognisance so clearly in mind? It is because in the days of the Supreme Court being the House of Lords, ultimately membership of this House would have been determined by the other House. We have therefore always jealously guarded our right of exclusive cognisance, but, in return, we have given it to their lordships. I am concerned that the report has touched and trespassed on that.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It would be an honour, delight, joy to give way.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. He has referred to the Privileges Committee—it notes this in the report—as a kangaroo court. He said:

“I think it makes kangaroo courts look respectable.”

He also referred to the members of the Privileges Committee during its hearings as “marsupials”. On reflection, might he like to apologise for that use of language?

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady kindly leads me to what I was going to say next. I had absolutely no desire to impugn the integrity of individual members of the Committee, some of whom I hold in very high regard.

[Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree, or will he at least acknowledge, that comments made by Members named in the special report raised the risk significantly of harm to members of the Privileges Committee, to the extent that the Parliamentary Security Department felt it necessary to carry out an urgent review of their personal safety, constituency offices, constituency events and homes?

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Many Members of this House have faced issues with security. I do not believe that criticising the actions of a Committee has that effect. If the hon. Gentleman really takes that route, we will have to agree with each other the whole time. Admirable though I thought the Leader of the House’s request was that we should get on better, I am afraid that was knocked for six by the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), in her rather cantankerous comments that followed.

I want to make it clear that I had no intention to impugn the individual members of the Committee. I do indeed hold many of them in the highest regard. I served on the House of Commons Commission with my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Sir Charles Walker) and on the Privileges Committee, under his chairmanship, with the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue). I have always thought it is important to get on well with people across the House and to be courteous to them, as the Lord President of the Council suggested, but that does not mean that one cannot criticise them. It was legitimate and it is legitimate to question the position of the Chairman of the Committee. We must be clear about that.

In the previous debate, I quoted at some length the House of Lords setting aside the Lord Hoffmann judgment because of his association with Amnesty International. That made it very clear that the question was the risk of the appearance of partiality. It did not question Lord Hoffmann as a man of honour and integrity, and I certainly do not question the honour and integrity of the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who is a most distinguished Member of this House, but I do not think that she was wise to serve as Chairman of a Committee when she had tweeted her views. We have just heard from the shadow Leader of the House how shocking it is to tweet anything, but it is all right for someone to tweet something when it prejudges a case they are about to hear. That seems to make no sense.

I question the report further. As the Father of the House noted, paragraph 8 sets out how we may question the Committee. However, footnote 10 in paragraph 15 seems to object that I did exactly that in the debate that followed the Committee’s report. The previous Prime Minister used to get accused of cakeism, but that seems to be an extreme level of cakeism. The position of the Chairman was fundamental. As it says in Galatians,

“A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.”

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I am listening with interest, although at times the precision could be greater. The Privileges Committee matter mentioned in the footnote referred to Mr Johnson being referred to the Committee rather than this report, which followed subsequent events. I also read footnote 10 on page six, to which my right hon. Friend refers, as explaining the answer to the question he raised over Hoffman, not supporting what he said about Hoffman. Was I wrong?

[Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg]

I was pointing out that, from a reading of paragraph 15, what I said is seen as part of a sustained attempt to undermine and challenge the impartiality of the Chairman in the very debate in which, under paragraph 8, we are allowed to make criticisms once the report has been brought to the House. It is a very odd footnote at the very least, and unclear about what it is trying to achieve.

The problem with the Chairman’s position was that it undermined the whole validity of the Committee, because it is well known that if a body comes to a conclusion, with one person on it whose partiality is questionable, the whole process is then nullified and needs to start again. There is also, as we know, currently an investigation into my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), but that was not known during the course of the Committee’s deliberations. Therefore, nobody could raise that as a question of impugning his integrity until, as I understand it, the report was completed. There may have raised questions and there may have been valid questions to raise, but they were certainly not raised by me or by any others.

Let us delve into the details of the report. It bases its privilege claims on “Erskine May”, but I have a nasty feeling that the Committee read just the headline of “Erskine May” without reading the relevant footnotes and examining the Commons Journal to see what they refer to. I have done that, with considerable help from the Library and the Journal Office. Footnotes 5 and 6 of the report point to “Erskine May”, 25th edition, paragraph 15.14. That paragraph has 35 further footnotes. The House may be relieved to know that I will not go through them all, because many are irrelevant to the report.

The footnotes deal with matters such as assaulting Members en route to Parliament, which is deemed a breach a privilege—one that seems to happen most days to some, but never mind. It is a breach of privilege of great antiquity that the Committee seems unconcerned about. The footnotes deal with reflections on the Lord Chancellor or allegations of corruption—none of that applies. However, notes 4, 7, 21, 22, 26 and 27 are worth looking at. Note 4 concerns “insulting or abusive language”. The first example cited comes from 1646. We are making a claim for privilege based on a time when this House was at war. And what was it? The claim was that one Francis Godolphin—a turncoat who had been ruling on the Isles of Scilly—should not in future be criticised because he now supports the House of Commons. The House of Commons was protecting one of its own in a time of war. That is hardly the greatest precedent for Committee members not being able to withstand a little criticism today.

In 1660, there was rudeness in the Lobby—an outsider was rude to a Member in the Lobby, and Members were very shocked. In 1877, Dr Kenealy was rude to another Member in the Lobby and was forced to apologise. Likewise, in 1887, Dr Tanner was rude to another Member in the Lobby. On that occasion, the motion of censure was withdrawn. There is a clear precedent, I accept, that we are not allowed to be rude to fellow Members in the Lobby. I was very careful throughout this whole process—had I done other, there would have been grounds for complaint—not to talk to any members of the Committee about what was in front of their Committee. That, it seems to me, would have been improper and private lobbying that should not take place. I was careful, as I say, not to do that, in spite of the fact that inevitably I met one or two of the Conservative members on many occasions during this process. That seems to me to be covered in broad terms by what is set out in footnote 4.

We come now to footnote 7. Footnote 7 is why I think the Committee did not bother reading the footnotes, because—if this is not my proudest achievement in Parliament, I do not know what is—I have actually discovered a mistake in “Erskine May”. I see the Clerks at the Table almost swooning with horror at that thought. I thank the Commons Journal Office for pointing this out. The footnote quotes the 1862-63 Journal; it is in fact the 1863-64 Journal when a Mr Reed was summoned to apologise to the House for writing a rude letter to a Member of Parliament. Madam Deputy Speaker, what a pity the Privileges Committee has not got on to that! Just think how busy it would be if it looked into every rude letter sent to a Member of Parliament by a constituent. Perhaps it should have done a rolling report, with powers accrued to itself to do that. I might have one or two I could send in myself. One or two remainers write to me in the most excoriating terms, but I am afraid I have always taken that as part of the flotsam and jetsam of political life.

If we go to 1890, a Mr Atkinson was suspended for seven days for offending the Speaker, both on the Floor of the House and in correspondence. Epistolary offence was given to Mr Speaker. That is a much more serious matter—surely, Madam Deputy Speaker, you would agree with this—than it is to argue with a member of a Committee, or indeed even the Chairman of a Committee. In 1781, the wonderfully named Theophilus Swift was called to the Bar and had to apologise for causing offence, and a couple of duels were claimed by Members against Members. In 1845, Mr Somers, the Member for Sligo, challenged Mr Roebuck, the Member for Bath; and in 1862, a rude letter was sent to Sir Robert Peel by The O’Donoghue, the MP for Tipperary. These were considered to be great breaches of privilege, though only apologies were required—no further sanction. There was a challenge from Mr O’Kelly, who apologised to Mr McCoan for another duel.

A Mr France was admonished at the Bar in 1874 for being rude about the Chairman of a Committee, but in 1968-69 it was deemed that criticising the impartiality of the Chairman of a Sub-Committee was not contempt of Parliament, when it was thought the issue faced by the Chairman of the said Sub-Committee was one where he had a constituency interest and therefore could not be impartial. So I would say—it is unlike me to be such a modernist—that the more modern precedent is on the side of being able to challenge the position of a Chairman of a Committee.

In 1900, there was a letter written by a non-Member about a Select Committee on Government contracting being partial. It was deemed a breach and motions were put, but what did the House decide? The House decided not to vote in favour of the motion, or on the amendment to the motion, but that it now proceed with the business of the day. Once again the House in recent centuries, let alone decades, has become less and less prissy about this type of privilege, because it risks ridicule when it stands upon its honour in this way.

In 1901 and 1926, there were arguments with the Daily Mail—some things never change. It was suggested that the editor of the Daily Mail be brought to the Bar of the House. I believe the Bar is the gift of Jamaica. If we pull it out—which we are not meant to do, because it usually has a sign on it when the House is not sitting saying, “Please do not touch”, although I confess I have pulled it out and it is very interesting to see—it says it is the gift of Jamaica. The editor of the Daily Mail was not called in. In 1901 he said that had a Member of Parliament criticised him outside of the House in the way he had been criticised in the House, he would have sued for libel. That was deemed to be threatening, but he was not called in.

Perhaps my favourite case is from 1880. It is a very interesting case. A certain Mr Plimsoll put out a leaflet to the electors of Westminster wherein he said that Sir Charles Russell, the Member of Parliament for Westminster, had used a parliamentary tactic to stop a vote on a Bill. Some of us who come on Fridays—I am looking to catch the eye of my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope)—may think that using tactical efforts to stop Bills is not such a bad thing altogether, but Mr Plimsoll took offence at it and put out a rude leaflet. This was brought to the attention of the House, and the House voted:

“That, in the opinion of this House, the conduct of the honourable Member for Derby in publishing printed placards denouncing the part taken by two honourable Members of this House in the proceedings of the House was calculated to interfere with the due discharge of the duties of a Member of this House and is a breach of its Privileges:—But this House, having regard to the withdrawal by the honourable Member for Derby of the expressions to which the honourable Member for Westminster has drawn its attention, is of opinion that no further action on its part is necessary.”—[Official Report, 20 February 1880; Vol. 250, c. 1114.]

I wonder whether hon. Members have worked out what the Bill was that Mr Plimsoll was bringing forward, for which he had to apologise to the House—a precedent quoted indirectly by this report, favourably. Mr Plimsoll was trying to get a Bill through to put the Plimsoll line on ships to save hundreds of lives, and this House criticised him for breach of privilege.

We should be very wary of standing on our dignity, because this House is the cockpit of freedom of speech. It is where democracy must run. When we try to silence people because they say things that we do not like, we risk looking ridiculous.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Chair of the Committee of Privileges.