Committee on Standards

Mark Spencer Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I confess—I will try not to overdo my argument, if the Leader of the House will bear with me—that I am saddened by this debate. All the members on the Standards Committee try extremely hard to be impartial, to put our party membership completely to one side and to put our prejudices, whatever they may be, to one side when we are dealing with difficult cases, which are very sensitive to the individuals concerned and sometimes to the complainants as well. My experience so far—it has not been very long, but my experience so far—is that every single member, both lay and party political member, keeps their counsel, is not available to be lobbied by others and comes to what they believe to be a wholly impartial and fair decision.

I have some complaints about the way we have got to where we are tonight. The first is that we have kept these candidates waiting for months and months: the process started in February. We knew that the two previous members were leaving in May, and we have been two members down now since May. The Committee is meant to have a majority of lay members. We do not have a majority of lay members at the moment because the Government have refused time and again to bring forward the motion to allow us to put even one member on.

The Government have also kept on changing their mind. At one point they tabled a single motion for both candidates. Then I was told that there were going to be two separate motions for the two different candidates but they would be taken on the same day, and suddenly we were told that we are having the debate today for just one member to be added. Then suddenly yesterday afternoon it was announced that the Government were going to table another motion for debate next week, and then half an hour later the Chief Whip—I think he will confirm that now—indicated to our Chief Whip that the Government would be voting against that motion, even though they had tabled it. I think he can confirm that.

[The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mark Spencer)]

indicated assent.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes. So the Leader of the House was wrong earlier when he suggested that this was going to be resolved and it was not decided yet how the Government were going to be voting next week. I am sure he inadvertently misled us.

The second point is that we have moved the goalposts. How can we ask people to apply for a job and say that there is no bar to their applying just because they have been a party member, and then suddenly change three quarters of the way through the process once they have already been offered it? The point for the individual candidates—both Michael Maguire and Melanie Carter—is that they have been hanging around for months. I know Melanie Carter’s situation: she has resigned from various different posts because she thought that she was going to be having this post, because that is what the House of Commons Commission had decided.

The Leader of the House’s motion should be the motion that came from the House of Commons Commission. That is what Standing Order No. 149A says. He is doing it

“on behalf of the…Commission”—

not on behalf of the Government or on behalf of himself, but on behalf of the Commission, and I know that the Commission is not happy about this.

This is House business. It should not be whipped, let alone when the Government have more than 200 proxy votes in their back pocket. This is just wrong. It is the wrong way to do our business. This is House business, and we have to find ways of reclaiming some elements where we actually decide things not on the basis of which party we are a member of, but on the basis of what we think is right for Parliament.