Privileges Committee Special Report

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that clarification. I agree with her; she is quite right. The report also emphasises the significant personal impact that the campaign had on Members who were simply trying to perform their duties. They should not have been subject to such treatment.

It has hitherto been understood that Members should refrain from interfering in the work of the Privileges Committee, but that was ignored. Explicit protections are already in place for House of Commons standards cases involving alleged breaches of the code of conduct for MPs. When it comes to those cases, Members are prohibited from lobbying the Committee on Standards, the Independent Expert Panel or the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. It seems evident from this episode that those safeguards should also be applied to privileges cases.

The claims that the changes would restrict Members’ free speech are misguided. Members already have the right to object, to vote and to raise conflicts of interest regarding Committee appointments, as well as to vote against or amend referral motions, to provide evidence, to comment on procedure and to publicly discuss the final report after its publication.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

On the issue of being able to comment, can the hon. Lady define for me what “impugn the integrity” means for what people can say?

[Deidre Brock]

Forgive me, but the hon. Gentleman is going to have to elaborate a little further.

[Richard Fuller]

With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will repeat the question. The hon. Lady was talking about the ability to comment, and one of the report’s key recommendations is that Members should not

“impugn the integrity of that Committee”.

Can she define for me what constitutes impugning integrity?

[Deidre Brock]

For goodness’ sake, that is a ridiculous question. It is clear from the annex attached to this report what impugning the integrity of the Committee means and what it does not. The comments in the report were jaw-dropping. I was shocked that anybody could make such claims when the Committee was in the process of its inquiry.

Getting on to that very point, there are appropriate channels to make our views heard during investigations, and the thing is—Members on the Government Benches do not appear to appreciate this—that this whole saga has further undermined the public’s faith and trust in not just this place, but in democracy itself. It can only fuel the existing sense of cynicism and frustration that we see across society in the UK today.

Boris Johnson was shown to have lied to the House and to the Privileges Committee, yet some of his most ardent supporters sought to interfere, undermine and attack the integrity of the Committee and its work. It seems appropriate, as I said, to consider whether such campaigns should result in disciplinary action. It is no wonder the public are scunnered with it. This whole saga has undermined people’s faith in this place and in democracy itself. The Prime Minister and most of his Cabinet were not here for the vote on the Committee’s findings on Johnson, and the Government Front Bench is sadly looking pretty empty again today. As one of my constituents put it to me in a surgery just days ago, “If those at the very top won’t bother observing or even showing their support for the rules, why should we?”. That leads us to a dangerous place indeed. We support the motion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris). Not for the first time, she has spoken with great integrity on an issue and opened my eyes to a slightly different point of view, and I am very grateful to her. May I echo her thanks to the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), the Chair of the Committee? Let me take her back to 2010, when I joined the House for the first time and she gave the new Members’ speech. She spoke of what a great privilege it is to be in this House and of its great standards. I recall those messages even now, 13 years later. I would like to disassociate myself from the comments of people here who would in any way wish to impugn her integrity, in this role or in any other while she has been in this House.

I have made it a rule not to participate in any of the somewhat introspective debates on privileges or standards to date, and I will probably wish that I had maintained that record by the end of these remarks. I am not a lawyer. I have not read, and have no desire to read, “Erskine May”. I am just a Member of Parliament and so I have to find my way along as we manage these rules. It is in that context that I hope Members of the House will listen to me.

I was inspired by the opening comments of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. In her well-chosen words, she summarised where the House as a whole—perhaps not everyone—is on this. As the shadow Leader of the House is now back in her place, may I mention that I was a bit in despair about her comments? I feel they opened her up to people having a perception, which she perhaps did not wish to convey, that there was some partisan benefit from those comments and that this was a party political issue and not in the round a matter for all MPs, regardless of their party. I will mention that again in a minute. I thank all members of the Committee. As has been said, being on it is not an easy appointment.

[Michael Fabricant]

rose—

[Richard Fuller]

No, not yet; I may come back to my hon. Friend.

As a regular MP, for me, and I think for many, the habit or custom is that we accept standards or privileges reports in this House without contention. I feel that because I do not see all the evidence. I was not in there for the discussion, so I have to rely upon the good integrity of our colleagues who were. Therefore, it is rare that I would vote against; I broke a three-line Whip on Owen Paterson and I know that some colleagues in the House today did likewise. I had to swallow a lot of disagreement with the report on our former Prime Minister and vote for the report on Boris Johnson. To take the shadow Leader of the House back to this, it concerns me—it is a suspicion; I do not know this for a fact—that, on the last vote on Boris Johnson, a vote was engineered on the report and there was not a willingness for there to be a debate. May I caution hon. Members? I think that today’s sentiment is that we are going to have a good talk about this—we will agree and disagree—but there is not much willingness for us to engineer or to have a vote. We should look poorly upon any Member of this House who seeks to engineer a vote for partisan reasons.

Let me explain the depth of my concern about that. I wish to support all of what the Privileges Committee and the Standards Committee say—it is very important that we do that. However, we have increased the level of sanction available to those Committees, given the changes that were put through this House about eight or nine years ago on voter recall. We are giving those Committees not just the ability to judge our behaviour, but the sanction to remove someone from the House. That is another concern as to why we should not allow these processes to fall into partisan issues.

I am still confused—if I am honest, because I am not a lawyer—about the difference between interfering and opining, and about the definition of “impugning the integrity”. We say, “You know it when you see it; it has that sense that you sort of know.” So we have a self-regulating observation. My concern is that decisions on whether the Committee has been impugned are made by the Committee itself. It would decide whether it felt it had been impugned and then make that recommendation to us as a House of Commons to advise whether we agreed with it or not. However, if our habit is ordinarily to agree with the report, there is really no way to work out whether someone has been impugned or not. As may have been said in this House already, if we look through some of the specific examples—I understand that there are others—we see that some may not fit everyone’s definition of “impugning integrity”. Both in the phrasing and, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) said, in the fact that it does not accord in respect of the Standards Committee and the way it is interpreted, there are major issues with that part of this.

[Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The hon. Member is making a good point about the point at which what one person says impugns someone else. Does he agree that a good guide is often the harm principle? All of us in this place support completely, I think, the concept and the actuality of freedom of speech, but when that harms or is unfair to others, it has to be regarded as unacceptable in its effect. The freedom of speech to criticise the Committee to the point where that undermines the Committee, this House and, by its nature, democracy is unacceptable.

[Richard Fuller]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point, although I have two contentions with it. First, on the specifics, the point I was making is that the determination of whether that constitutes harm is put in a report by the people concerned, which then comes back here for us to support, so there is very little review. Secondly, an interesting underlying issue is that we are living through a period when harm is being interpreted differently. The way that people who are much younger than me appreciate how harm is done is different. The amount they are prepared to take on themselves—rather than to say, “Well, that’s just the way the world is,” and not to see it as harm—is much less than it was in my day. That might be a good thing or a bad thing, but it is different for different generations. That is another aspect of how to assess what is harmful, and we are going through such a fluid period that it is difficult.

But the hon. Lady is right: ultimately, I think we would agree, the message today, at the core of this, is to use temperate language. When I came back to the House in 2019, one thing I noticed was how much more coarse political discourse had become in just the two-year period that I was away. It was not just because of the divisions over Brexit or social media; it was also because we were tolerating it. We have a responsibility in this House to oppose that. That is why it is good when we talk across the divide in this House and find agreement, and why that Committee, in cross-party agreement among individuals, was something that we could rely on. The lesson is about using temperate language.

I share the concerns of my colleagues about some of the recommendations. Not only are they difficult to see working in practice, but there will be chilling effects on free speech. We will have to see whether that is the case. I am not defending what was said; I just worry that someone like me, who does not know the law or “Erskine May”, will feel that there are certain things that I may not be able to say, but which perhaps in the past I was —although there are perhaps ways to give reassurances on that.

[Lia Nici]

Does my hon. Friend not believe that there has already been a chilling effect? When we debated the fifth Privileges Committee report, some colleagues were too scared to come here and speak, because they were put under threat by other Members of the House. I was one of only four who dared to come out and express a different opinion, and ensure that we had a rounded debate.

[Richard Fuller]

I hear what my hon. Friend has said. I do not know whether people would say that, but that should clearly not happen in this House. All Members should have the right, and the willingness, to speak without fear or favour. But when I protest about that, I should equally defend that right for members of the Committee. They should be able to look at the issues that they wish to review without fear or favour.

My concern with the motion is that it is perhaps a little too overreaching in what it seeks to do, and is not well structured in its solution and remedies. It has opened up questions that probably need further investigation by other Committees, so that we can achieve something that ultimately provides all Members of this House with clarity on how they should behave and communicate with one another.

Business of the House

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue, which is similar to those that other hon. Members have raised. He will know that the next questions to the Housing Minister will be on Monday. I have also previously written to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to raise these concerns, and the Department is running bespoke surgeries for colleagues who have casework of this nature.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

The recent transfer of the administration of Help to Buy equity loans from Target to Lenvi has been handled extremely poorly. Market participants and holders of loans were not advised of the change, and constituents who have loans advise me that they have made numerous calls and sent emails to Lenvi with no response. Remortgaging can be a time-sensitive matter. Can the Leader of the House advise me what steps I can take to raise the importance of this matter with the relevant Department?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for looking at this important issue. We have helped 837,000 people on to the property ladder through those schemes, and we do not want to see the further people whom we wish to assist discouraged from coming forward, or the people already on the scheme unable to make the financial decisions they wish to because of poor service by a provider. The next Levelling Up questions are on Monday, but, given the seriousness and the timeliness of this matter, I will make sure the Secretary of State has heard his comments in advance.

Business of the House

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

Let me start by sending my thoughts and good wishes to the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock). I wish her and her family well. I thank the hon. Gentleman for stepping up and standing in, especially as it has been a painful few weeks for his party. For some time now, BBC “Politics Scotland” has resembled an episode of “Taggart”. I thank him for showing up today.

I have great sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman says about viewing the considerable recent Scottish sporting victories, and I will ensure that colleagues have heard that.

The hon. Gentleman raises the matter of the Foreign Secretary’s concern that the Scottish National party is spending so much time, effort and money on matters on which it does not have competency, in both senses of the word. He asks why the Foreign Secretary might feel that way; I suggest that it might be the hon. Gentleman’s own views.

The hon. Gentleman raises the small boats Bill, on which he has done a lot of work recently, making his views very clear. Making our asylum system effective is a compassionate thing to do. It is compassionate to break the business model of people smugglers and to enable us to use the finite resources that we have to help those in genuine need. We have to deal with the reality of the situation. The hon. Gentleman’s arguments against the Bill are drawn from fantasy. He says that our motivation is

“a legacy of our colonial past,”

or the fact we wish to profit from supplying “warring factions with weapons”. Is he talking about Ukraine? Ukraine is not a warring faction but a sovereign nation under attack. I am proud of what this country has done to support the Ukrainian people.

Let me enlighten the hon. Gentleman about some other things that we should be proud of in our country, rather than talking down. The Halo Trust, based in Dumfries and Galloway, is one. It has done more to de-mine and strip out weapons than any other organisation in the world. We should be proud of that. He says that the small boats Bill is a legacy of “our CO₂ emissions” and the impact they have had on

“many of the world’s poorest nations.”

No industrial nation has done more to cut its carbon emissions, or done it faster than the UK. It has done more than any G20 nation, and Glasgow played a huge part in that. The UK is more than halfway to meeting its net zero target.

I hope that the SNP will stop talking Scotland and the rest of the UK down. We will do what is necessary in the Bill and in other areas to protect the vulnerable and the planet and to promote peace. We do not pass the buck and shirk responsibility—that we will leave to the hon. Gentleman and his party.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Tomorrow I will meet homeowners at Brookside Park in Bromham, one of a number of park home sites in my constituency. They will raise issues such as the 10% commission charged when they sell their home, the fact that their pitch fees increase annually at the rate of the retail price index and not the consumer prices index, the general laxity of regulation for park homes, and the recent difficulties—now largely overcome, happily—with the energy support programmes. Can my right hon. Friend find time for a general debate in the House on the particular needs of homeowners in park home areas?

Business of the House

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I clocked earlier that the SNP’s theme of the week was Brexit. The hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) made the same point yesterday when he invoked the metaphor of an SNP lifeboat saving the good people of Scotland from Brexit. Leaving aside the fact that, based on the SNP’s attempts to procure ferries, any lifeboat that it procured would be likely to cost three times the contract price and never materialise, I would say that Scotland does not need such a lifeboat. Rather, Scotland needs a Scottish Government whose main modus operandi is not talking down their own nation; it needs a Government who take responsibility. The hon. Lady invites me to talk about economics and wishes that Ministers had better economics lessons, but the Scottish Government have not even managed to spend their planned budget. Instead, they have an underspend of £2 billion.

I do my homework and I am always interested to learn, so I went on to the Scottish Government’s website to see what they say about the economy. Clearly, growth levels have not been what they were in previous years, so I wanted to look up what they thought the reason for that was. According to the website, it was:

“Due to the requirement for many industries to cease trading during the lockdown for COVID-19”—

nothing about Brexit or us rotters in the UK Government. It was down to covid, as the hon. Lady knows well.

The hon. Lady also knows that the UK shared prosperity fund has maintained funding to Scotland post Brexit. She knows about the Edinburgh reforms, the Financial Services and Markets Bill, and the reforms to Solvency II, which will mean so much to financial services firms in her constituency. She knows that figures reported in autumn last year show that exports in Scotland are up by £3 billion since 2018, in current prices. She knows how the green freeports will help to drive growth, and she knows that we will shortly open up an enormous, multitrillion-pound market for producers in Scotland through our accession to the CPTPP.

The whole UK has been through the mill, but we are coming through it and the future is bright. There are massive opportunities, and I invite the hon. Lady to talk them up and to talk her nation up. If the SNP was coaching the Scottish Six Nations team, it would have told them to stay in their dressing room and tied their laces together. I encourage her to be a little more positive about the future, as her constituents should be.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Since November 2021, I have been assisting my constituent, Mr Paul Barford, regarding his concerns about the quality of care that his late father, Joseph Barford, received from the NHS and about the way in which the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman dealt with his complaint. Indeed, I, too, experienced an unacceptably slow response from the PHSO. The ombudsman plays an important role in dealing with complaints about Government Departments, but there is too little accountability to Parliament. In the light of the concerns raised by Mr Barford, I would be grateful if the Leader of the House could find the necessary time for a general debate on the standards of the PHSO and, more generally, the accountability of ombudsmen and regulators to Parliament.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am sorry to hear about that case and the difficulty that my hon. Friend and his constituent, Mr Paul Barford, have had in raising concerns about his father Joseph’s care. My hon. Friend will know that the ombudsman is accountable to Parliament through the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which holds an annual scrutiny session to evaluate its performance. If he agrees, I shall write to that Committee and to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to let them know about the case and to see what can be done to improve scrutiny.

Business of the House

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am sorry to hear that the bid from the hon. Lady and her local authority for round 2 funding was not successful. I understand that the Department is going to be in touch with her and her local authority to talk about the bid, give good feedback and, we hope, carry the bid forward, as it will be doing with other colleagues. This is the second round and there will be further funding rounds, and I certainly stand ready to help her and her local authority to access that funding. Of course, it is just one funding stream of many. Again, as I say, she can look on the Government’s website to see exactly where all those bids have gone, across every funding stream.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Promoting biodiversity is an important issue for many of my constituents, and companies can play a very positive role if they pay attention to it. Under this Government, companies are doing a much stronger job on their carbon reporting, but will the Leader of the House advise me as to what I can do as a Back Bencher to promote attention to biodiversity in our corporate reporting and get Ministers to move that forward?

[Penny Mordaunt]

First, let me thank my hon. Friend for all the work he has done to champion this incredibly important agenda. We have a real opportunity here at the moment, not least because the Environment Secretary is a fanatic about biodiversity and has championed it throughout her parliamentary career. He will know that Environment questions is not until 23 February, but I know that he will already have made contact with the Secretary of State on this issue. I hope we can also learn from the good practice set out by organisations in his constituency as to how to ensure that this is embedded in every organisation and every business across the land.

Business of the House

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 23rd June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. Clearly, this is something that the Government will observe and consider. I know that there are a number of pilots taking place up and down the country. It is an interesting concept, but we would need to understand all the implications before it was rolled out as a national policy. However, it is certainly an interesting area of debate.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Speed cameras, love them or hate them, but for villages across my constituency, such as Felmersham, Thurleigh and Sutton to name just three, speeding through the village is a major issue. The desire for average speed cameras is at the top of the agenda for many parish councils, but funding is limited. Can we have a debate about alternative sources of financing? We do not want to make fines for speeding an incentive, but is there a way that we can help these rural areas to get the protection they deserve from speeding?

[Mark Spencer]

My hon. Friend will be aware that it is Transport questions next week, where he will have an opportunity to ask the Transport Secretary that question directly. Average speed cameras can be frustrating, but they happen to keep people alive and safe. I know in my constituency that several people lost their lives on the A614. Post the introduction of average speed cameras—I hesitate to say this, as I do not want to jinx myself—no one has lost their life on that stretch of road. They do work, and my hon. Friend is right to highlight it. I encourage him to seek a Backbench Business debate on the matter.

Business of the House

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I am sorry to hear about the plight of Mr McLeod. I hope his family had a good time while they were away, despite him not being with them. I will, of course, pass on the hon. Member’s comments directly to the Home Secretary. She has been investing in many more staff in the Passport Office to try to get through the backlog. I think we have already seen 700 announced on top of the 500 already recruited, so the Home Office is focused on solving these challenges.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I thank the Leader of the House for visiting Biggleswade in my constituency last week. So he will know that the flight paths for Luton Airport have changed recently, creating air and noise pollution for Potton, Sandy and Biggleswade and, further, that Luton Airport is seeking a substantial expansion in capacity. He may not know that Labour-run Luton Council currently gets tens of millions of pounds from Luton Airport, and there is nothing for surrounding communities. Can we have a debate in Government time on how communities can benefit if airports are allowed to expand?

[Mark Spencer]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and his hospitality last week in Biggleswade. It is an important issue that is worthy of further debate. Transport questions are on 30 June and I am sure he will be in his place to challenge the Secretary of State directly, but an Adjournment debate or a Westminster Hall debate on the benefit of Luton Airport and regional airports would be worthy of further discussion.

Business of the House

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

I congratulate my hon. Friend, his constituents and all those involved in the Amazing Grace project. The Government have a good record in reducing homelessness and the number of those who find themselves sleeping rough. I encourage my hon. Friend to apply for an Adjournment debate so that he can draw the House’s attention to his constituents’ excellent work.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Mr Yoon Suk-yeol on his victory overnight in the presidential elections in the Republic of Korea? Does he agree that from South Korea to Taiwan, India, Ghana, Canada and Japan, free people around the world choose democracy? Will he find time for a debate in the House on the importance of defending democracy around the world?

[Mark Spencer]

I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in congratulating President Yoon. We have great friends in South Korea. The importance of a democratic society has never been more apparent to the House than at this current moment in history. Our friends in South Korea are an important part of democratic society and I congratulate President Yoon on his success.

Business of the House

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on his excellent start in his new role. This weekend, CPRE Bedfordshire is arranging a series of walks in conjunction with local parishes across the Bedfordshire countryside to highlight the pressure that excessive development is placing on our natural environment. What progress are the Government making with our infrastructure-first initiatives and our planning targets? Could we have a statement from the Minister responsible for those topics?

[Mark Spencer]

My hon. Friend is a keen campaigner on the issue of development on the green belt. A new Housing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), who is a great man and the former Deputy Chief Whip, was recently appointed. I encourage my hon. Friend to get in contact with him to ensure that he understands the priorities. Many safeguards have been put in place in terms of planning. I wish him well, as many hon. Members have the same concerns.

Business of the House

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point. The Government take the matter extraordinarily seriously. There were plans in the previous Parliament for dealing with it, and I would be very surprised if they were not revisited soon.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

The Leader of the House, like other hon. Members, will be aware of the daily work pressures on members of our ambulance services, not least in the east of England, where there were three staff suicides over 11 days in December. May we find time for a debate to highlight the extent of the problem of pressure on ambulance workers and perhaps to try to find some solutions?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

May I begin by welcoming back my hon. Friend? It is a huge pleasure to see a friend back in the House and I congratulate him on his victory.

My hon. Friend raises a point of great seriousness. It would be possible to consider it during the Queen’s Speech debate next Thursday, which covers matters of health, but this is something the Government must be aware of more broadly. Issues relating to suicide have such a devastating effect on families. They tie in with the Government’s efforts on mental health and increased spending on mental health to try to help people in, or heading towards, that situation.