Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con)]

I do not intend to dwell on the events covered in the report of the Committee of Privileges or its conclusions. It is a rigorous report and I accept its findings. I do wish to comment on the role of the Committee, the role of this House and the importance of today’s debate and vote for our political life, this Parliament and our democracy.

It is not easy to sit in judgment on friends and colleagues. One day we are judging their behaviour, the next day we may be standing next to them in the queue in the Members’ Tea Room. I know that it is not easy because, as Prime Minister, I had to take decisions based on judgments about the behaviour of friends and colleagues—decisions that affected their lives and, potentially, their careers. But friendship and working together should not get in the way of doing what is right.

I commend members of the Privileges Committee for their painstaking work and for their dignity in the face of slurs on their integrity. The House should, as the Leader of the House said, thank all of them for their service and for being willing to undertake the role. Particular thanks should go to the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) for being willing to stand up to chair the Committee when the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) rightly recused himself. This Committee report matters, this debate matters and this vote matters. They matter because they strike at the heart of the bond of trust and respect between the public and Parliament that underpins the workings of this place and of our democracy.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

The Leader of the House spoke about representing Portsmouth; I returned early from Portsmouth today from a Defence Committee meeting to be here to vote in support of this report.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, even though Boris Johnson’s having absented himself from the House makes the report to some degree academic, the nation—who put us here—wants us to ensure that the process reaches its conclusion? I repeat that I will support the report today.

[Mrs May]

I am pleased to hear from the Chairman of the Defence Committee that he will support the report. I think he can take it from the fact that I just said that the Committee report matters, the debate matters and this vote matters that I think people want to see us come to a conclusion today.

If people see us making rules for them and acting as if they are not for us, that trust that I spoke about between the public and Parliament is undermined. If they see Members of this House trying to save the careers of friends who have been clearly found by due process to be guilty of wrongdoing, as happened in the case of Owen Paterson, their respect for us is eroded. Without that trust and respect, their faith in our very parliamentary democracy is damaged.

As MPs, we are in some sense leaders in our communities, but with that leadership comes responsibility. We each and every one of us bear the responsibility to put the people that we serve first, to be honest with them and with one another, and to uphold the standards of this place. We all know that in the rough and tumble of parliamentary debate between people of opposing views there will be exaggeration, careful use of facts and, in some cases, misrepresentation, but when something is said that is wrong and misleads the House, we are all—not just Ministers—under an obligation not to repeat it and to correct it at the first opportunity. Above all, we are all responsible for our own actions. Beyond that, this House has a responsibility to ensure that standards are upheld by showing that we are willing to act against the interests of colleagues when the facts require it. In this case, I believe they do.

The decision of the House on the report is important: to show the public that there is not one rule for them and another for us; indeed, we have a greater responsibility than most to uphold the rules and set an example. The decision also matters to show that Parliament is capable of dealing with Members who transgress the rules of the House—if you like, to show the sovereignty of Parliament. Following an unsettling period in our political life, support for the report of the Privileges Committee will be a small but important step in restoring people’s trust in Members of this House and of Parliament.

I say to Members of my own party that it is doubly important for us to show that we are prepared to act when one of our own, however senior, is found wanting. I will vote in favour of the report of the Privileges Committee and I urge all Members of this House to do so—to uphold standards in public life, to show that we all recognise the responsibility we have to the people we serve and to help to restore faith in our parliamentary democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Chris Bryant]

The thing is that, sometimes when you try to take the spade off somebody when they are digging the hole, they are absolutely determined to take it back and bring a pitchfork and a JCB to the process as well.

Mr Johnson says he has been brought down by a witch hunt, but in all honesty the only person who brought down Mr Johnson was Mr Johnson and I suspect he knows that. I think that this House feels that he should be ashamed of himself and that will be what it concludes later today, but I fear that he remains completely shameless.

Is the sanction proportionate? Of course, it is very difficult to sanction somebody who has already taken the option of running away from this House and from facing the music here or for that matter in their constituency. But that is still important. What we debate today is not an academic matter. That is not a criticism—

[Mr Ellwood]

rose—

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Now I have prompted another intervention. I did not mean to do that.

[Mr Ellwood]

We all now know very clearly, if we did not know before, that this is not academic. I am afraid that many people on the Conservative Benches will treat it as academic because Boris has left the building. That is wrong. I have learnt that as well. That is why I am back here. It is important that colleagues follow the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), and indeed the Leader of the House and vote to support the motion today.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I have looked around for some parallels for what can be done about a Member who has already left the House by the time the Privileges Committee, the Standards and Privileges Committee, the Standards Committee or the Independent Expert Panel has adjudicated. The only one I can find is Sir Michael Grylls, the former Member of Parliament for North West Surrey, who was involved in the Ian Greer-Mohammed al-Fayed cash for questions row in the 1990s. He stood down in the 1997 general election so he was not an MP by the time the Standards and Privileges Committee reported on him. It said, categorically, in relation to the question of whether lying to Parliament is a contempt that

“Deliberately misleading a Select Committee is certainly a contempt of the House…Were Sir Michael Grylls still a Member we would recommend a substantial period of suspension from the service of the House, augmented to take account of his deceit.”

That is precisely, following precedent, what the Privileges Committee has done in its report. The truth is that Mr Johnson, as Prime Minister, was a senior and long-standing Member of the House. It was not the first time he got into trouble with either the standards system in the House or the rules. He has shown absolutely no contrition. He chose to attack, intimidate and bully the Committee, which could indeed be a breach of the rules in itself. Everything he did fell far, far short of the standards that this House and the public are entitled to expect of any Member.

I just want to say a few words about the process. The House has always claimed, as the Leader of the House said in her excellent speech, exclusive cognisance; that is to say, apart from the voters and the criminal law, the only body that can discipline, suspend or expel a duly elected Member of the House is the House of Commons in its entirety. I still hold to that principle. It is why any decision or recommendation to suspend or expel a Member that comes from the Standards Committee or the Independent Expert Panel has to be approved by the whole House. It is also why the only way to proceed when there is an allegation that a Member has committed a contempt of Parliament, for instance by misleading the House, is via a Committee of the House and a decision of the whole House. That is why we have to have the motion today and had to have the Committee on Privileges. It cannot, I believe, be a court of law. It has to be a Committee of the House. I do not think some commentators have fully understood that, including Lord Pannick and some former Leaders of the House.

I say to those who have attacked the process that they should be very careful of what they seek. There are those who would prefer lying to Parliament to be a criminal offence, justiciable and punishable by the courts, but that would drive a coach and horses through the Bill of Rights principle that

“freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.”

So I am left feeling that those who attack the process simply do not believe that there should be any process for determining whether a Member has lied to the House. As I have said before, I kind of admire the personal loyalty, but I dislike the attitude because it is in effect an excuse for appalling behaviour.