Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Jess Phillips Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)]

Much has already been said about the police’s investigation, as a result of which the Prime Minister was issued with a civil penalty. He paid it immediately and came to this House at the earliest opportunity to give a heartfelt apology. Not only that: it is clear that he and the Government do not oppose moving the matter to the Privileges Committee, which shows that his contrition is right and true.

Let me be clear that the Prime Minister’s apology was the right thing to do. Each and every single Briton across the length and breadth of our beautiful country has made sacrifices during the pandemic. When my first daughter was born, my wife was seriously ill and, because of that, I could not see my daughter for five days. I made sacrifices. All my residents made sacrifices. Even the Prime Minister made sacrifices when he almost died from covid and, as we know, when his family members died, he could not attend their funerals.

All politicians should be held to the highest standards, be that the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) or the Scottish First Minister, and all of them have been caught and photographed in covid-compromising positions. They should all be referred to the Privileges Committee to be investigated.

The Prime Minister paid the fine, and rightly so. He has been unequivocal that he respects the outcome of the police’s investigation and that he will always take the appropriate steps. The central issue is whether he intentionally or knowingly—those are the vital words—misled the House. I point to an article published in The Times on Saturday 20 June 2020, the day after the event in question in Downing Street. It reads:

“Boris Johnson celebrated his 56th birthday yesterday with a small gathering in the cabinet room. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, and a group of aides sang him Happy Birthday before they tucked into a Union Jack cake. The celebrations provided a brief respite after another gruelling week”.

The Prime Minister has said that it did not occur to him then or subsequently that a gathering in the Cabinet room just before a vital meeting on covid strategy—to save lives—could amount to a breach of the rules. That event in No. 10 was reported the next day in a national newspaper and did not then prove controversial. It is unfathomable that the Prime Minister’s team would have alerted journalists to the event and incriminated him if he believed that it was against the rules. That does not make sense. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister apologised and has been punished. Further, for transparency, he has welcomed the matter being moved to the Privileges Committee.

I also want to briefly address an article yesterday in The Times, which reported that

“Sir Keir Starmer had warned Tory backbenchers that they would pay a price for blocking an investigation”

including personal attacks for supporting the Prime Minister. It is outrageous that the Leader of the Opposition came here on a day on which we talked about tolerance in politics to lay out such a threat of bullying against Members of this House. We all have our own minds. We may all disagree, but I and many colleagues have had death threats and to threaten people and to try to stoke that is incredibly dangerous.

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

There were no threats of bullying made. What we are talking about is an electoral threat. I have had to take two death threats to the police that directly quoted words said in this place by the Prime Minister of our country. People have attacked my office on the basis of the words of our Prime Minister and, when that was raised with him, he said, “humbug”.

[Alexander Stafford]

We must be honest that we face death threats on both sides of the House—[Interruption.]. No, this is an important point. No one should get abuse in their job. My point is that only yesterday—a day when we were talking about debates—the article said:

“Tory backbenchers…would pay a price”

through personalised attacks. I am sorry that the hon. Member received death threats; she should not have done.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I am sad that the hon. Member for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) is not present, because I want to heap praise on his speech. Oh, there he is; he is not in his usual place.

Before I was elected, I had been in this building twice. When my husband came down with me on the day of my election, it was only the second time he had been to London. I was raised by rebellious people—people who would make some of those in the House who are considered to be rebellious look very, very tame—and I came here with a chip on my shoulder about what this place was and what it could achieve. I came here with an “I’m going to rip up the rulebook” attitude. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) once described me as the “Rizzo of Parliament”.

What happened then was that I fell in love with this place and with what it can achieve. I fell in love with the job of being a Member of Parliament, and watching as people came into my surgeries, and saying to them, “Together, you and I can try to change this law.” I have never once changed a law in this place without doing so in concert with people in every part of the Chamber. I have never changed a law on my own. Every single thing that I have ever achieved in this place I have achieved with members of the Conservative party, and with members of the Scottish National party, and indeed with members of all the parties represented today. That does not get a view, but it deeply, deeply matters.

It is considerably more popular for us to talk about how we are friends than about how much we hate each other. It is much more popular with the public than we give it credit for. So that is what I want people to see more of. I spend a lot of my time trying to talk to the public about that element of politics, and to explain why 99% of people in this building came here. Whether or not we agree on the means by which the journey is travelled, we all wish to change the world for the better, and I think that that is deeply important. I am afraid to say, however, that it is the very rare 1% who we are discussing today, because I do not believe that that is true of the Prime Minister.

Nine months have passed since any of this came to light. I could have had a baby in the time it has taken for the apology to come, and it would have been less painful. In those nine months, what we have seen is someone taking actions not in a desperate attempt to preserve the thing that we all came here to do, but in a desperate attempt to preserve his own position. That, to me, is unforgivable. It does not matter how many times someone says sorry in those circumstances, and you can bet your bottom dollar that should this have been any one of us it would have been different.

I have made mistakes, and no doubt I will make mistakes, and I accept people’s apologies. However, there is no way that what the Prime Minister has done in trying to stick a pin in things—we are on something like the 700th pin in this particular case—has ever been about trying to make the country better, or to make the lives of his Members of Parliament better, or even to make them more electable. I do not know why people have undermined elections today, talking about them as though they were not a route to democracy. I find that quite weird. I like elections. That is the game that we play—it is the thing that we do here. We ask the people what they think, and that is ok. But all along the way, everything he has sought to do has been about him. He cannot answer a simple question. He did not have to wait for the police investigation. I asked him about four months ago whether he went to a party in his flat on that date. He said he could not answer because there was a police investigation. Well, I could say that I did not go to a party at his house on that date and it would not affect the police investigation. What he has done shows a lack of contrition because it was not up front. It has never been up front, and it has never been about anyone in this building or without this building; it has always been about him. He would not do the same for a single person in this room, so I ask all Members to vote for the motion.