Notification of Arrest of Members

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Dr Thérèse Coffey)]

I beg to move,

That Members of the House shall be under no undue restraint from being able to attend the House, and that this principle has been, and continues to be, encompassed in the privileges of the House claimed at the beginning of each Parliament;

That this House accordingly:

(1) endorses the Second Report of the Procedure Committee, Session 2015-16, Notification of the arrest of Members, HC 649;

(2) directs the Clerk of the House and the Speaker to follow the protocol on notification of arrest of Members set out in Annex 2 to that Report; and

(3) directs each chief officer of police in the United Kingdom, immediately upon the arrest of any Member by the police force under that officer’s command, to notify the Clerk of the House in accordance with the provisions of that protocol.

The motion stands in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker). I do not intend to detain the House for long. Although I would describe myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) as conviction politicians, I want the record to show that the motion before the House results from the publication of the report from the Procedure Committee on 15 December on the notification of arrest of hon. Members.

The report followed detailed consideration by the Procedure Committee, at the request of Mr Speaker, and the House is being asked to endorse that report and the protocol contained in it. A word of caution to hon. Members: the Government are facilitating the discussion and the decision of the House on this matter, but it is for the House to decide, and I will leave it to my hon. Friend the Chair of the Committee to set out the proposals in the report and to answer any queries and issues that have arisen since publication. I thank the members of the Committee for their diligent efforts, and I know that my hon. Friend the Chair is highly respected and will do his best to help hon. Members in this debate and beyond. As such, I present the motion to the House.