Standards in Public Life

Stephen Gethins Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones]

As I said in my statement, the vast majority of Members of this House, and also civil servants and other political appointments in the other place, come into politics to serve the public, not to serve themselves, but the Peter Mandelson issue has shown that, for all the rules we have in place that work for the majority of people doing the right thing, there have still been loopholes for people who want to do the wrong thing. We are now going to close those loopholes.

[Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for his statement—it was clearly preferable being here than at the reception that the Prime Minister is hosting for Scottish Labour MPs and MSPs later on. I have lost count of the number of times I have spent here dealing, in one way or another, with Westminster chaos. It often relates to Members of the House of Lords, who are there for life—be they Labour, Liberal or Conservative. This statement is tinkering. When will the Government commit to doing what they have promised to do for 115 years and deal with the obscenity that is the House of Lords?

[Darren Jones]

The hon. Member will know that the Government are committed to working with peers in the other place to modernise the House of Lords and that we agree that that needs to happen. That is why we are in the process of removing hereditary peers and are working with the authorities in the other place to ensure that we deal with the issues we are talking about today.