Committee on Standards: Decision of the House

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The catalyst for today’s debate is the case of the former MP for North Shropshire, but it is not just about that. It is about the relevance of ethics to how the Government conduct the duty of governance. It is about cash for contracts, cash for honours, allegations of bullying by Ministers being swept under the carpet, and a former Prime Minister privately texting Ministers to further his financial interests.

In 2007, the then Member of Parliament for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, now leader of Plaid Cymru, Adam Price, tabled a private Member’s Bill to make lying in politics illegal by making it an offence to knowingly mislead the public. His proposal was an attempt to restore faith in an age on the cusp of fake news, fake views and fake figures. We manipulate the truth at our peril. Now more than ever, such radical ideas are needed.

Last week, Conservative MPs made much of the argument that MPs should be treated like other employees. I put it to them that if a doctor wilfully misleads a patient, if a company wilfully misleads its customers or if a teacher wilfully misleads a pupil, there are consequences enshrined in law. Yet although it shows blatant disrespect to Parliament, and more importantly to our constituents, a Minister can break the ministerial code, give contracts worth billions of pounds to friends and mislead the House without consequences.

Faith in Westminster politics is at an all-time low thanks to this Government. Major reforms are needed to regain trust. We need to have independent oversight of the ministerial code; to ban MPs from having second jobs, except for public service for which we are paid; to force Ministers to correct the record after giving misleading information in the Chamber; and to scrap the House of Lords and replace it with an elected upper Chamber. In the meantime, Adam Price and I are writing to the Metropolitan police to ask it to conduct an investigation to determine whether offences have been committed by the Conservative party under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.

If the system cannot be reformed to stop corruption, perhaps the system is the problem. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) spoke very well, fluently and capably about the process.

At the end of such a debate, we tend to get drawn into a conversation among ourselves and forget how it appears to people outside. The people of Wales will have their representation here reduced from 40 to 32 Members; they see a Government with a robust majority able to ride roughshod over perfectly normal, accepted ethical standards; and they will ask whether this is the system that serves them best or whether they could do it better themselves.