Committee on Standards

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am afraid the hon. Lady has not troubled to read the amendment, which does not overturn the report of the Standards Committee. The amendment asks whether there should be a form of appeal and sets up a Committee to consider how the standards process is working. As I said, there have been problems with the process.

On the examination, or non-examination, of witnesses, paragraphs (6) to (10) of Standing Order No. 150 allow the commissioner to appoint an investigatory panel to assist in establishing the facts relevant to an investigation. The Standards Committee is also able to request that the commissioner appoints such a panel. Under these provisions, the commissioner chairs the committee with two assessors, who advise the commissioner but have no responsibility for the findings. One would be a legal assessor and the other a senior Member of the House who would advise on parliamentary matters and be appointed by you, Mr Speaker. The commissioner would determine the procedures and could appoint counsel to assist the panel.

The Member against whom the complaint had been made would be entitled to be heard in person and would have the opportunity to call witnesses and examine other witnesses. At the conclusion of proceedings, the commissioner would report as usual. The legal assessor would report to the Standards Committee as to the extent to which the proceedings had been consistent with the principles of natural justice, which of course include the right to a fair trial under a proper and just process, and the Member assessor might report on the extent to which the proceedings had regard to the custom and practice of the House and its Members.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

The Leader of the House started with a quote, and I am often reminded that what is false exists on the same judicial footing as what is right. I make no judgment about those who signed the amendment but, given that six of them have had allegations upheld against them by the Standards Committee in the last year, can he differentiate between how what was good enough for them is not good enough for the right hon. Member we are discussing?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, and I am grateful to him for doing so. The reason why this has come now is the volume of complaints that have come through and the more widespread feeling of unfairness, across all Benches, that has been brought to my attention and the attention of others. In simplistic, clichéd terms, this is the famous straw that has broken the long-suffering camel’s back.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

But I do not see any Opposition Members signing the amendment.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

That is the point I made earlier about the unfortunate state of affairs whereby this House does not work as a court of appeal, but, regrettably, becomes partisan, which reinforces the need to have an independent body.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Dare I say that the right hon. Lady is modelling herself on the deaf adder and, charm I never so nicely, she is not hearing what I am saying? The new Committee could come to the same conclusion, but the point at issue is that we are discussing the process, the lack of appeal and the failures in the processes as they currently exist.

Let me come to the length and continuity of investigations. Across many standards cases we have seen huge differentials among the lengths of time taken for investigations. There appears to be no consistency. For example, the case of the Chair of the Standards Committee himself, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), was completed within a week using the rectification procedure, after he had failed to declare something after two years. That is contrasted by the lengthy investigation into the case of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire, which took just over two years from the start of the inquiry to the publication of the Committee’s report.

It is equally concerning—this is an important point for those who have been speaking up for the Committee—that the current processes do not ensure continuity of attendance at the Committee, with different Members present at the Standards Committee’s three formal meetings on the report. By the final meeting, only 50% of the membership had attended all three meetings, and four of the 11 members who attended that meeting had not attended the meeting in which the evidence of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire was heard. Although we all understand the pressures on Select Committee members, that seems to be in sharp contrast to the expectations in a judicial process such as jury service, when people are meant to be there to listen to the evidence, and a good reason to look again at our processes.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Are the Government asserting, under that premise, that there will be a compulsion for Members to attend not only the proposed Committee but every other Select Committee?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The proposed Committee is very different from other Committees, but that will be a matter for the ad hoc Select Committee to consider.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

It is a real pleasure to follow the Father of the House, who offers some realistic and sage advice about how we take forward processes and business such as this. It would be good if the Leader of the House was to listen to his very straightforward comments about what is going on today.

When I was first told about this, I thought it was some sort of joke. I thought, “They can’t possibly be serious.” I expected maybe to come to a debate that would be the usual suspects speaking on behalf of one of their pals—but not today. Today we have the full force of the Government whipping operation dragooning Conservative Members of Parliament through this House to overturn the decision of our Standards Committee and to introduce a new way of examining breaches of the rules in this House. It is an almost outrageous suggestion.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way on the Government’s approach: seeking to introduce mechanisms to neutralise court rulings of the Supreme Court, seeking to defy the European convention on human rights, seeking to reform the Electoral Commission, and now this. Does he, like me and I am sure many others on the Opposition Benches, agree with the litany of Giovanni Capoccia that this is a dire warning of the pillars of democracy being undermined by the Conservative and Unionist party for its own nefarious needs?

[Pete Wishart]

Yes, I do. I say to my hon. Friend and to this House: the public are watching this. The public are examining how we do this type of business, and, I say ever so gently to my Conservative colleagues over there, they are not liking what they are seeing. They are extremely concerned about the way that this House is going when it considers some of these issues.

What the public are observing is a shoddy attempt to turn back the clock to the worst excesses of 1990s Tory sleaze. What they see is the return of the days of brown envelopes and cash for questions—the absolute worst of sleaze and cronyism. What they see is the Conservatives trying to get one of their mates off the hook by ignoring independent due process, and rewriting the rules because they do not suit them, to close down an independent process and replace it with a Committee of this House with a Conservative majority and a Conservative Chair. Let us get rid of all independent process and just have them adjudicate on everything. Why do we not get the executive committee of the 1922 Committee to replace the whole of the judicial system across the UK? If a Conservative supporter is found guilty of any offence, why do we not get a committee set up to reconsider that verdict and have a look at it once again? That is the type of realm of possibility we are getting into with this.

I do not care if this place seems as sleaze-ridden and crony-ridden as it wants to be. In fact, it does me good if people from Scotland are watching and observing this place descending into the midden that we know it can become. It serves my purpose to see it do that. But is that what the Conservatives want to do with this House—to so debase and degrade the way that we do things that the public will start to look on this place with nothing other than utter contempt?

Let us just remind ourselves about what the Standards Committee found. It found that the right hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) broke multiple rules when he lobbied the Government on behalf of Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods. The Committee’s report said:

“No previous case of paid advocacy has seen so many breaches or such a clear pattern of behaviour in failing to separate private and public interests.”

It quite rightly imposed the maximum sanction available to it. What the Conservatives now want to do is to overthrow that verdict of this independent Committee and to have the matter determined by a Committee with a Conservative Chair and a Conservative majority. That is natural justice Conservative-style for you. Can I say this to you, Mr Speaker? This Committee is supposed to have a Conservative Chair, four other Conservative members, three Labour members and one Scottish National party member, but the Scottish National party will not serve on any kangaroo court designed and determined by the Conservative party in order to do away with an independent process for looking at a breach of the rules.

God know what Kathryn Stone must be making of this. She has every right and every entitlement to walk right away from all this and have nothing further to do with this House that now attempts to change the rules midway through the process. The shadow Leader of the House is absolutely right. We were only told a couple of weeks ago that we could not change the rules retrospectively, but here we are in the middle of considering a standards report, and that is exactly what we are doing. What a way to do our business. What a shoddy return to the days of Tory sleaze. What a way to reduce this House into the absolute shambles that it is.

Today, Tory MPs are being instructed by their Whips to vote for this. We are doing this without any scrutiny or consideration of how these rules are rewritten. If the Leader of the House wants us to look at how we approach these things in future, he should bring forward a debate, not just 90 minutes where he took up half the time, because nobody has an opportunity to get in and say anything. Do it properly. Why are we doing this when we are considering a standards report? We will not take our place on this Committee; we will have nothing to do with it. I hope that Labour Members do not take their places on it either. If the Conservatives want to be the judge and jury and the arbitrator in all this, that is up to them. Get on and do it; we will have absolutely nothing to do with this process at all.