Standards and Privileges

Lord Young of Cookham Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)]

I beg to move,

That this House—

(1) approves the Fifteenth Report of the Committee on Standards and Privileges (House of Commons Paper No. 1023);

(2) endorses the recommendation in paragraph 39; and

(3) accordingly suspends Mr David Laws from the service of the House for a period of seven sitting days, beginning on Tuesday 7 June.

It is always regrettable when the House finds it necessary to suspend an hon. Member, as it does today. The facts of the case are set out in detail in the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards’ report to the Standards and Privileges Committee. The Chair of that Committee may catch your eye in a moment, Mr Speaker, so I will not rehearse them.

This has been a lengthy inquiry, not least because the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) invited the commissioner to examine every aspect of his claims for additional costs allowance over an eight-year period. The commissioner has completed his inquiry as quickly as is consistent with the need for absolute rigour, and a complete chronology is set out at paragraphs 29 to 34 of his report. On behalf of the House, I would like to express our thanks to the Committee and to the commissioner and his team for their fair, diligent and impartial work in this case, and indeed in other cases. It is clear that the Committee has considered the commissioner’s findings carefully and has taken into account all the circumstances of the case in arriving at its recommendation of a seven-day suspension.

The House will recall press speculation in the days before the report was published. The question of whether this was a result of premature disclosure of the Committee’s report and, if so, by whom, is a matter for the Committee itself to consider, and I understand that the Chair of the Committee has announced an inquiry into this.

It has been the practice of this House to endorse the findings of the Committee on Standards and Privileges, and I invite hon. Members to do so this afternoon.