Committee on Standards: Decision of the House

Kim Johnson Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing this very important debate.

Never in my short time in Parliament have I witnessed such naked corruption as I did last week in the botched attempt by the Tories to save their mate from being held to account for his serious misconduct. That the Prime Minister has not even showed up today shows once again that he thinks he can duck the consequences of his actions, particularly as we have just found out that he is sitting down the road having a cuppa. He is making an absolute mockery of his office and of our democracy.

Three Conservative Members who are currently under investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards voted in favour of ripping up the rules. We have heard reports that the Prime Minister threatened his MPs with losing funding for their constituencies if they did not back his plans on Wednesday. Blackmail to cover up corruption—what an utter disgrace! We should call it what it is: the Government’s attempt to rewrite the rules was unashamedly corrupt. That it was done in an attempt to cover up the kind of corruption we have seen throughout this pandemic tells us everything we need to know about the depth of contempt the Tories have for the constituents and the country they are supposed to serve.

The Member in question was found guilty of breaking cash-for-access rules after he received £100,000 from two firms that then went on to win hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of covid contracts, despite evidence they were not up to the job. How many more crony contracts have this Government allocated? Over the last year, we have seen the previous Health Secretary agree a covid test contract with his pub landlord via WhatsApp; we have seen revelations that a fifth of UK covid contracts raised red flags for corruption; and £2.1 billion for 27 PPE or testing contracts was paid by the taxpayer to firms with connections to the Tory party. Enough is enough.

Eye-watering amounts of public money have been funnelled into the pockets of Tory donors and their rich mates under the guise of the pandemic, while our public services have been systematically defunded for over a decade. It is beyond parody that this Government are trying to reposition themselves as the party of public services when that is the reality. We need a full and transparent investigation into how these crony contracts were awarded and their outcomes.

Not only do the Tories think it is okay for MPs to take on lucrative second jobs, which clearly creates conflicts of interest between the constituents they serve and their paymasters in big business who buy influence through the back door, but—

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Kim Johnson]

No, thank you. I will not give way. I am going to carry on.

The Tories also clearly think it is okay to give a green light to cash for access, a practice that places the interests of MPs squarely with those of the highest bidder and obliterates their obligations towards those they were elected to serve. With that in mind, I ask the Minister to take this opportunity, right here and now, to commit to going back to the Government and appealing to them to take action to ban second jobs for MPs, unless they need to retain professional recognition.