Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges
Debate between Tim Roca and Graham Stuart(1 week ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Tim Roca
Because it is so evident that what the hon. Member is participating in this afternoon is partly political. In fact, he is partaking in a particularly dishonourable act in doing this in such a partisan way.
To carry on with the case that I was making, I do not believe that what has been presented meets the bar that I just mentioned.
Tim Roca
No, I am going to make some progress.
At most, what we are dealing with is an argument about, as I said, a deeply flawed appointment, a deeply flawed process and the judgments around it. Those are matters for political debate, for scrutiny and for challenge across the Chamber, but they are not in themselves grounds for alleging contempt of Parliament. If they were, the Privileges Committee would be constantly in session.
That brings me to the question of consistency. In recent years, the House has had to confront genuinely serious breaches: cases where standards were not just questioned but plainly and repeatedly violated; findings of bullying at the highest levels of government in the last Government; and Ministers in the last Government falling short of the standards expected of them. Most notably, we saw a former Conservative Prime Minister investigated and found to have repeatedly misled the House.