Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to speak in what must be one of the most momentous occasions in the House’s recent history, because one of the most fundamental principles of any democracy is at stake today: does honesty and integrity in public office matter and are our leaders accountable to the people who put them there? The answer from Members on both sides of the House must be a loud and resounding, “Yes”.

Throughout this whole sorry saga, the Prime Minister has stood at the Dispatch Box time and again to deny breaking the lockdown rules that he set. He has happily dispatched political advisers, civil servants and Cabinet colleagues who confessed to breaking lockdown restrictions, all while thinking that he is above them. Even when he was challenged with photographic evidence of him partying away while millions were stuck at home, he absurdly pleaded his innocence.

Not even the stories of the families who were torn apart or of the parents, spouses and children who died alone could stir in him the decency to come forward and tell the truth. We are today forced to face the fact that our Prime Minister, the most powerful man in our country, thought that he was above the law. We now know the truth: the parties happened and the Prime Minister was there. He will forever be judged by history as the first holder of his office to be found guilty of breaking the law while serving in No. 10.

We are here to decide whether the Prime Minister’s conduct in this place should be referred to the Privileges Committee to examine whether he is guilty of contempt of Parliament. I believe that the argument for doing so is overwhelming. The time has come for Conservative Members to decide where their loyalties lie: to the Prime Minister or to the constituents who put them here.

For two long years, we have been subjected to the tawdry spectacle of Conservative Members scrambling to defend the Government as they lurched from scandal to scandal, whether that was the billions handed out to Ministers’ friends for dodgy covid contracts, the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal or the Chancellor’s questionable tax affairs. Although we pledge allegiance to Her Majesty the Queen and not to our constituents when we first enter this place, it is our constituents to whom we are ultimately responsible and by whom we are ultimately held to account. It is time to put the national interest first.

My constituents can count on me to do the right thing by them today. I ask Conservative Members: can yours?