Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Stephen Flynn Excerpts

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca), who has done no harm whatsoever to his case to soon become a junior Whip in the Government—[Interruption.] Or a trade envoy, of course. [Hon. Members: “An ambassador!”] I will let hon. Members have their fun soon.

I wish to start on a much more important note, which is to dwell not on what the Prime Minister said when he is accused of having misled the House—I will come to that—but on something that he said at the Dispatch Box a few months beforehand. In response to the Leader of the Opposition, he stood up just there and said that he knew—he knew—that Peter Mandelson had maintained a relationship with the world’s most notorious paedophile and child trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. When he stood up at that Dispatch Box and finally admitted that he knew, that should have been it—that should have been curtains for him. At that moment, Labour Members should have made a moral decision that he was not fit to hold the office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and First Lord of the Treasury because his judgment was flawed and it was wrong, but they proactively chose to ignore that and to defend him. In the weeks that have passed, all we have seen is even greater scandal engulf this Prime Minister and Labour Members, whether they realise it or not; some appear not to.

We have now received confirmation from the Prime Minister’s chief bag carrier that as Parliament returns after the Prorogation that is to come, the second tranche of the Mandelson files will become apparent. Each and every one of the Members opposite will be wedded to the Prime Minister as their leader, despite everything that the public know and everything that the public will come to learn. Let me tell them something, as someone who has sat in this House and watched a little bit of chaos up close: it will come back to haunt them, and it will come back to bite them far sooner than they realise.

All of us in all our political parties go through these moments. I have seen it in my own party in recent years, just as Conservative Members have said they have seen it in theirs. But what we should seek to do in politics is to learn from those mistakes, not to repeat them. I remember sitting outside the Chamber during a contentious vote to which the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) referred, where Conservative Members were whipped to support the indefensible and all chaos broke loose. That was the legacy that the Conservatives built for themselves, and that is why they got hammered at the last election. That is what will befall Labour Members. They cannot outrun Peter Mandelson. They cannot outrun their own Prime Minister and his record.

What Members of this House are being asked to do today is very simple. If they believe that the Prime Minister is innocent of the accusations that are being put to him, all they need to do is accept the premise of taking this to a Committee of their peers in this House—ourselves—to decide whether it is accurate. A confident Labour party and a confident Government would believe their Prime Minister; they would have courage in their convictions and go to that Committee posthaste to clear his name, but they will not do that because they are not acting from a position of strength. They are acting from a position of profound weakness. The public see that and smell it, and all they are going to believe is that there is a cover-up on behalf of each and every one of the Labour Members who traipse through the Lobby behind those who sit on their Front Bench.

[Peter Fortune]

Referring to the whiff that the public may pick up, does the right hon. Gentleman think that the Prime Minister’s concern could be that the Privileges Committee will deliver a result that he might not like?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Flynn]

It is hard at this stage to come to any other conclusion. If Labour Members had confidence in their Prime Minister, they would already be going to the Privileges Committee, irrespective of the views of any of us in this here House.

Notwithstanding the arguments that have been made regarding Olly Robbins, Simon Case and others, or the Prime Minister’s decision to throw everyone under the bus bar himself, I do wonder what the public make of all this, at a time when they are—I am sure we can all agree on this—profoundly anxious about the very basics in their life. They are anxious about being able to afford things in the supermarket and about being able to fill up their car because the price of diesel is near two quid, yet when they turn on their TV they see a Labour party that should be acting in their best interests and looking to protect and save their jobs, and to give them hope and opportunity for the future, seeking to defend the indefensible. That breach of trust with the public cannot simply be renewed.

When the Prime Minister first came to the Dispatch Box following the general election, I did as many others did: I congratulated him and wished him well. The phrase that sits most acutely in my mind from that moment was his attempt to convey to the people of these isles that he would tread lightly on their lives. He has done the opposite. He promised to be change, but I am afraid to say that he has delivered more of the same. The public deserve better. The Government can do better, but that will happen only if the Labour Members who are sitting behind their Front Bench find the courage that those on the Front Bench so badly lack.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

That is an important question, because it goes to the very heart of the motion before the House today. [Hon. Members: “Answer it!”] I am going to—rest your horses. It is important to place the Prime Minister’s words in the right context. When the Prime Minister—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] The Opposition do not want to listen to the answer—again, they do not like the facts—but I am going to try my best. They should pay attention.

To answer the right hon. Lady’s question directly, when the Prime Minister said that there was no pressure “whatsoever”, he was specifically responding to the allegation that there was pressure that Peter Mandelson should not be vetted at all and that he should be sent to Washington regardless of the vetting outcome. Again, Sir Olly Robbins told MPs that it was

“never put to me that way”,

and the Prime Minister made the comment immediately after quoting the evidence provided to the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Regrettably—we see this again today, time after time—the Opposition are just trying to expand their interpretation of the Prime Minister’s words in bad faith, because their previous claim that the Prime Minister must have known about Peter Mandelson’s clearance has fallen apart in front of their eyes, and now they are grasping at straws. That matters, because as the right hon. Member for Herne Bay and Sandwich (Sir Roger Gale) argued, the processes in this House and the work of the Privileges Committee are important and integral to our constitution, but there must be appropriate thresholds for these investigations.

[Stephen Flynn]

rose—

[Darren Jones]

These investigations cannot be done every week off the back of PMQs on an interpretation of the wording of the Prime Minister. Instead, they must be done on very significant cases that warrant the work of the Privileges Committee. That is why it is important to contrast the allegations and accusations of the Opposition parties, as many Members of the House have done today, with the seriousness of the situation when Boris Johnson was referred to the Privileges Committee in the last Parliament.

This is an important precedent. In those circumstances, Boris Johnson knowingly told this House that there were no parties in Downing Street during covid lockdowns, only for it to emerge that he had personally been at five of them and received a police fine for attending them. That is the nature of lying to this House, which he was proven to have done in the work of the Privileges Committee. It is not about the interpretation of a question and answer at Prime Minister’s questions.

This all begs the question: if there is no substance to the allegations in the motion today, what is it that is driving the behaviour of Opposition parties? That question goes to the very basis of the motion before us. I have to ask: what is it precisely about this Labour Government giving rights and powers to workers, renters and the disadvantaged that they do not like? What is it about this Labour Government standing against unearned wealth and people who use their privilege to extract value from the system, rather than adding to it, that they do not like? What is it about a Labour Government raising taxes on private jets and non-doms to raise money for our state schools, our NHS and our police and to lift children out of poverty after years of neglect by the Conservative party that the Opposition parties do not want to hear? We all know why—because they are on the side of the vested interests, and we are on the side of the British people.

To be fair to the House, this is not just an accusation that I am levelling at the Conservatives, because they are not the only ones playing games with today’s motion. The SNP, too, is desperate to distract from its record in power. What is it trying to distract from today? It is 10,000 kids in Scotland without a home to call their own, a Scottish NHS in decline, and the shameful ferries fiasco.

[Stephen Flynn]

I thank the right hon. Member for belatedly giving way. I do not know if he has noticed, but this afternoon, polling was released outlining that 61% of people on these isles believe that there should be an inquiry in the terms laid out in the motion. Just 20% of the public agree with the Minister’s position. Why is he once again on the wrong side of public opinion?

[Darren Jones]

I notice that the right hon. Member has nothing to say to those kids, to those patients waiting in the NHS, or to the line of other people waiting for his Government to perform.

Just for me to complete going around the House, the so-called Green party is desperate to distract from Labour’s clean energy mission, from its opposition to clean nuclear power, and from its quibbling over new solar farms that—I literally could not make this up—it thinks are too big. Get real!