Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Penny Mordaunt Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Penny Mordaunt)]

I beg to move,

That this House approves the Fifth Report from the Committee of Privileges (HC 564).

In accordance with convention, as Leader of the House I have brought forward this motion at the earliest opportunity to allow Members to take a decision on the Committee’s recommendation. It is for Members of this House, in accordance with the principle of exclusive cognisance, to investigate matters of privilege in this place, and the findings being debated here are those of the Privileges Committee. The Government respect those important constitutional principles, which is why we have facilitated today’s debate.

The Privileges Committee exists to defend our rights and privileges in this place. Parliamentary privilege refers to the range of freedoms and protections that each House needs to allow it to perform its functions effectively and without outside interference. The right of each House to control its own proceedings and affairs is a fundamental aspect of privilege. Without such freedoms and protections, our ability to carry out our duties will be diminished; and if we do not enforce them, they risk being rendered meaningless.

A breach of privilege—that is, interfering with one of the unique rights and powers of Parliament—is punishable by Parliament. Each House also claims the right to punish contempt, which “Erskine May” defines as

“any act or omission which obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions, or which obstructs or impedes any Member or officer of such House in the discharge of their duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such results”.

Those rules are obligations that we have to one another, to this place and to those who sent us here. They are also obligations that we have to future generations who will sit in this place.

On 21 April 2022, the House agreed to the resolution and order that established the inquiry from the Committee of Privileges. The Committee membership was established— again, with agreement from the House—the Committee selected its Chairman, and the House approved them. It commenced its consideration of this matter on 29 June 2022 and published its report on the 15th of this month. The motion before us today is not only votable but amendable. No amendments have been tabled against the motion.

The Committee’s report found that Mr Johnson “deliberately misled the House” and the Committee, and, in doing so, “committed a serious contempt”. It also found that Mr Johnson breached confidence, undermined the democratic process of the House and was complicit in a campaign of

“abuse and attempted intimidation of the Committee.”

It is for Members to decide whether the Committee’s findings, conclusions and proposed sanctions are correct and reasonable. That is the question in front of us today.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

The Leader of the House referred to the evidence, and it is important that people who perhaps do not have the report in front of them understand the depth of evidence that the Committee looked at. That included: visiting No. 10 Downing Street; looking at evidence supplied by the Government, emails, WhatsApp messages and photographs; and conducting many hours of interviews. Does she agree that those who have not had all that evidence and have not done all those interviews should not presume to say that the Committee was wrong when it did that hard work on our behalf?

[Penny Mordaunt]

We all owe the Committee a debt of gratitude for the work that it has done on our instruction, but it is for Members to decide whether its conclusions are correct or not.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

I have listened carefully to the Leader of the House. Will she confirm whether she will be voting in support of the motion in her own name tonight? A couple of years ago, when I had a previous Leader of the House in front of me, he brought forward a motion that he then in effect voted against.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Again, as the Member for Portsmouth North, I will be voting to support the Committee’s report and recommendations, but all Members need to make up their own minds and others should leave them alone to do so.

I do not intend to detain the House for long, but I think it would be helpful to briefly address some false assumptions that colleagues may be relying on. First, the process has not determined who gets to sit in the House of Commons. In vacating his seat, Mr Johnson has removed the right of his constituents to retain him as their Member of Parliament if they wish to do so.

Secondly, it has been suggested that the Government are wrong to give the House time to consider the report, and that it is to their detriment to have done so. No. Not to allow the Commons to vote on a report that it commissioned one of its Committees to produce would be wrong, just as it would be wrong to whip any Member on such a matter. This is the work of Parliament, and it is right that the Government give precedence to matters of privilege. Governments are scrutinised and held in check by Parliament. These important balances are a strength to our political system. A Government’s ambitions may well be limited by Parliament, but in being so they are not diminished. When Governments seek to interfere with the rights and privileges of this House, it is diminished.

Thirdly, it has been suggested that the Government should have stopped the work of the Committee of Privileges or should stop its future planned work. No. These are matters for the House. The House can at any time halt or direct the work of the Committee. It is doing such work because the House has directed it, and it is in the House’s interest to have such a Committee and that Members should wish to serve on it.

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

Seven years ago, during the Brexit referendum, the former Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip pledged to restore parliamentary sovereignty. Last week he utterly defiled that, in what the Committee described as

“an attack on our democratic institutions.”

The Committee of Privileges found him to have lied over and over again. Its jurisdiction is limited to statements made in this Chamber, but my party has consistently advocated for a law against the peddling of political falsehoods in public life. Does the Leader of the House agree that the time has come to enshrine in law the need for all politicians to respect the very concept of the truth?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The right hon. Lady brings me to my closing remarks on why what we do this afternoon matters, whichever way we decide to vote, or not to vote. The real-world consequences of a vote today may seem to come down to whether the former Member for Uxbridge has a pass to the estate. Our constituents may not appreciate why we are focused on contempt towards the House as opposed to contempts that they may feel have been made against them: the lockdown breaches themselves, which grate hard with those who sacrificed so much to keep us all safe; for others, the creation of a culture relaxed about the need to lift restrictions; for others, wider issues such as the debasement of our honours system. But we would be wrong to think that there is no meaningful consequence to our actions this afternoon.

The Committee of Privileges, in its work producing this report, did not just examine the conduct of a former colleague but sought to defend our rights and privileges in this place: the right not to be misled and the right not to be abused when carrying out our duties. As a consequence, it has also defended the rights of those who sent us here and those we serve. I thank the Committee and its staff for their service.

This matters because the integrity of our institutions matter. The respect and trust afforded to them matter. This has real-world consequences for the accountability of Members of the Parliament to each other and the members of the public they represent. Today, all Members should do what they think is right, and others should leave them alone to do so.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Leader of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I suggest the hon. Gentleman listens to the “Today” programme on catch-up, because my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), the Leader of the Opposition, made it very clear. Tony Blair did not have a resignation honours list and Gordon Brown did not have a resignation honours list. We believe this Prime Minister should have stood up to the former Prime Minister and his dishonourable honours list. This is no way to run a country. It is time the Conservatives stopped squabbling among themselves and focused on doing the right thing by the people who put them here.

As I mentioned earlier, Johnson attacked the Privileges Committee. The severity of the sanction imposed on him takes this into account, but it was not just him. Other Tory MPs have labelled the Committee a “kangaroo court”, so would the Leader of the House be able to tell us at some point, such as at business questions on Thursday, whether the Prime Minister understands the significance of these comments? What is he going to do about his own MPs who are undermining our democratic institutions? As this weak Prime Minister fails to step in to protect Parliament’s standards systems, I ask the Leader of the House whether she could step up. Will she explicitly condemn colleagues who have acted in this way? As Parliament’s representative in Government, will she demand that Ministers respect the institutions and practices of the House?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The Prime Minister is on record defending the work of the Privileges Committee. He has called out those who have overstepped the mark of genuine and legitimate questions about process, and so forth, and who have attacked and intimidated members of the Committee, bringing the House into disrepute.

The hon. Lady seems to be implying that the Prime Minister and other colleagues are not doing particular things because they might stand in any leadership contest. I gently point out that the Prime Minister does not need to win a leadership contest. He is the Prime Minister.

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that clarification. It is not me she needs to remind but some of her own colleagues, who are obviously fighting the next leadership contest already. As Parliament’s representative in Government, I ask her to remind her colleagues of the importance of telling the truth at the Dispatch Box and of the process by which, when Ministers make honest, inadvertent mistakes, they come back to clarify them as soon as possible. She could start by asking the Home Secretary to do that in relation to the asylum decision backlog, which I understand she still has not clarified.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt]

It is not really my duty to close this debate, but with the kind permission of the Chair of the Committee, the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), there are three things I want briefly to say.

First, I thank again the Privileges Committee, as many Members have said, for the work it has done. It is a task that we gave it to do, and it has carried it out in very difficult circumstances.

[Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Does the Leader of the House agree that, whatever view one takes on this matter and whichever side one is on, the House unanimously set up the membership of the Privileges Committee—all seven Members—who worked for months diligently to produce this report, but they have come under huge criticism and abuse, so much so that they have had to have extra security, to preserve the reputation of this House, and this House therefore owes them a huge debt of gratitude?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend, and I think he makes that point very well.

Secondly, I acknowledge the tributes that some colleagues have paid to their friend and former colleague. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) said, for many Members this is a sad and difficult duty.

Finally, I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. This is an important matter. As I have said, Members should make up their own minds and follow their conscience. They may agree or disagree with the report, or they may agree and disagree with the report and different aspects of it, as some Members have. They should do what they think is right. They should be left alone to make up their own minds, they should be left alone to vote and, having cast their vote or not, they should be left alone afterwards. I hope that is something all Members of this House can agree on.

Question put.