Business of the House (13 May)

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Sir Christopher Chope]

I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend, to whom I am grateful for supporting my amendments to the original motion. I am sure that it will be of concern to him that the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) has tabled amendment (h) for debate on Monday, which would effectively take us back to the original motion by suggesting that, instead of having to be charged, a Member would only have to be arrested on suspicion of committing an offence in order to be excluded from this House.

[Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)]

On the previous intervention, I do not know how many rape, sexual violence or violence arrests the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) and the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) have handled, but an arrest does not happen on the basis of “flimsy” allegations; it takes weeks. I just put that on the record, as someone who deals with this week in, week out. The idea that somebody gets arrested just on someone’s say-so is for the birds.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Before we resume this debate, I point out that the motion before us is incredibly narrow. I fear that we may be having the debate that we will have on Monday, and we do not want that. This is just about the amount of time that will be allocated. The debate that we are sort of having now is really for Monday.