Prorogation (Disclosure of Communications)

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Ian C. Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

This motion is about trust. We should understand the people we are dealing with.

As recently as July 2019, the Electoral Commission published detailed evidence upon which it based its finding that Vote Leave committed electoral offences in the immediate lead-up to the 2016 referendum. In March 2019, Vote Leave itself admitted to breaking the electoral law. Electoral law is there to safeguard democracy. Vote Leave’s offences are set out in detail in the July 2019 Electoral Commission findings, which explain that Vote Leave conspired, quite deliberately, to break the referendum spending limits by channelling money to the Canadian company AggregateIQ through an alternative funding stream. Dominic Cummings, working for Vote Leave at the time, explained in evidence disclosed by the Electoral Commission that

“there is another organisation that could spend your money. Would you be willing to spend the 100k to some social media ninjas who could usefully spend it…in the final crucial 5 days. Obviously it would be entirely legal.”

As we now know from the Electoral Commission—and accepted by Vote Leave—it was entirely illegal. Dominic Cummings said that this spending was “crucial.”

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster knew of these payments. In an interview with Dermot Murnaghan of Sky News, he said that he knew of these illegal payments, but not until after the referendum had taken place. On 5 August this year, following his appointment as the Minister responsible for electoral reform, I wrote to him asking when he knew of the illegal payments, which I believe to be a matter of crucial public interest. He has not replied.

Dominic Cummings has refused to give evidence to the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, frustrating its inquiry, and has been found to be in contempt of Parliament. When he was appointed as the Prime Minister’s adviser, I wrote to the Prime Minister, asking him to instruct Dominic Cummings to give evidence to the Committee. The Prime Minister has refused to do this. These are the people who are making these decisions, and we cannot trust them to make the right ones. I therefore support the motion.

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

rose—

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

It is an absolute disgrace that tonight we will go home for a number of weeks, after we have already been off for many weeks already.

This Government are playing games. Although I am the MP for Tooting, I am also a Tooting girl, who was voted here to do her job: for the five-year-old boy who is starving and has to go to the local food bank—he has not got time for games; for the mother who is waiting for her delayed cancer treatment—she has not got time for games; and for the family who have been failed by the Department for Work and Pensions, who are starving, cannot pay their electricity bills and face another cold winter—they have not got time for games. We are letting the public down at a time when there has never been greater distrust between them and us in here. The mother in my patch who has to bury her son, and who knows that her other children have no opportunity, does not have time for the games that we are playing in this House. To the people sitting in the Gallery, we are a laughing stock. Leaving without a deal makes the very poorest and most vulnerable in our communities and society even worse off.

So today I say, on behalf of Balham, Tooting, Furzedown and Earlsfield, that this Government are a disgrace and proroguing Parliament is a disgrace. I am here in my capacity as an MP and as a regular, ordinary girl from Tooting, who had never been in this place until she was elected to be here. We deserve better and our communities deserve better. Let us be here to do our jobs.