Committee on Standards: Decision of the House

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the consequences of the decision of the House on 3 November relating to Standards.

First, I want to place on the record my thanks to you, Mr Speaker, for facilitating this debate. I also want to record my thanks for the work done by all members of staff in this place.

I must agree with you, Mr Speaker: I was horrified to learn that the Commissioner for Standards had received death threats. That is appalling. No one should receive death threats for doing their job.

The role of Commissioner for Standards provided one of the key ways in which we moved beyond previous scandals which had rocked the House. The role is not political The Commissioner was appointed by the House to do a job, and that is what she has done and continues to do.

The actions of the Government last week have tarnished this House’s reputation. Last week was UK Parliament Week, a time focused on engaging citizens in the work that we do here. Well, Mr Speaker, if I had been tuning into Parliament last week for the first time, I would probably have turned the television right off again.

I have been a Member of this place for less than two years, and most of the time I am proud to have been chosen to represent North East Fife to be able to act for my constituents and to fight their corner. I was proud to do the right thing last week by opposing the Government and voting to uphold the standards procedure. It is hard to be proud to be a Member of Parliament when, as a body, we are all tarnished with the Government’s brush and when in the eyes of the public we are tainted by allegations of sleaze.

The Government’s actions last Wednesday have rightly been condemned across the board. Sir John Major said that

“the way the government handled that was shameful, wrong and unworthy of this or indeed any government.”

Lord Evans, Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said that the proposed reforms to the Standards Committee were

“deeply at odds with the best traditions of British democracy.”

My inbox and, I am sure, those of others are full. One example of the many questions I have been asked is:

“What gives the Government the right to have a vote to change the process just because it has adversely affected one of their own? This is an appalling message to the wider public.”

My constituent was right: what gives this Government the right to think that they can change the rules when a decision does not suit them, that they can ignore judgments that are not in their favour and that they can whip their own MPs to achieve the outcome they wanted, in violation of the conventions of this House?

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this has been a distraction from one of the most important sets of debates going on at the moment, at COP26? When our constituents were tuning in to this place, that is where the focus of Parliament should have been. Instead, the focus was on the shenanigans of this Government, and that is the real tragedy here.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. COP is the last-chance saloon for this country and for the planet, and to have such distractions in this place is reprehensible.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady for securing today’s debate on standards. When I was first elected to this House, the mother of all Parliaments, I was incredibly proud because I thought that Members conducted themselves with honour and integrity, and that we were not ruled by a Prime Minister who was a tinpot dictator and who is himself now mired in sleaze—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We have just said that we want to show the House at its best. I do not think that the term “tinpot dictator” aimed at an individual is going to bring unity. I want to see us at our best, to show that we take this seriously. We want to show the House in the best way possible, so please, let us moderate our language and moderate our thoughts. Let us do this right.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

I think there is a point here: this is the kind of behaviour we would expect to see in the Duma in Moscow or the National People’s Congress in Beijing, not in the House of Commons. Previous Prime Ministers and previous Governments have all had their failings, but it is a long time since we have seen issues such as these and an absolute lack of resolve to do anything about them. They say that a fish rots from the head down, and I am disappointed to see that the Prime Minister has chosen not to turn up today to answer our questions, given that the Leader of the Opposition is in his place. I cannot help but feel that he thinks the rules do not apply to him.

The Government have recently failed to properly investigate allegations, failed to declare relevant meetings and, arguably, attempted to rig the system to cover their own back. This is the Prime Minister who flew to Afghanistan to escape a vote on Heathrow when he was Foreign Secretary, and he has driven to the north-east to escape questions today.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for securing this debate. As one of those who defied the three-line Whip of their Government last week on this issue, I think she will agree that it was patently wrong to try to reform the system at this point. We have had years to reform it, but does she agree that we need cross-party support for this, and that, given that the Committee on Standards is already looking at the issue, we should wait for its findings before making any further decisions?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am sure that the hon. Member was present at the debate last week, and he will know that that is exactly what those of us on this side of the House were calling for. We were calling for consensus and for the goalposts not to be moved. We were also proposing that we look at our processes and procedures on an ongoing basis, as we should be doing, and hold ourselves to account as our voters would expect us to do. I have had correspondence from lifelong Conservative voters who have been appalled, not just by last week’s actions but, sadly, by this Government’s actions over the past two years and the alarming frequency with which scandals befall them.

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that the Government have been playing a ridiculous game with the public’s trust, not only through the foul play in last week’s vote, but through a string of corrupt dealings over the past two years?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I will go on to detail some of the things the hon. Lady is referring to. Back in May 2020, it was Dominic Cummings’s trip to Barnard Castle, in flagrant breach of covid regulations; then it was the Home Secretary, found to have breached the ministerial code, but let off; and then it was the then Health Secretary breaching covid guidance he had been instructing others to follow. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

It has been said in the media that some MPs are now walking through the corridors of Westminster feeling invincible. Does my hon. Friend agree that we are accountable to our constituents and that they are our boss?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I agree, and that is one of the challenges. This is not an ordinary job. We are not in a line management structure; we are accountable only to our constituents.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

As the longest-serving Member on the Opposition Benches, may I say to the House that I was appalled at what happened last week? However, as a long-serving Member, I must also say that that behaviour is not typical. I have worked with people in this House of all parties for a very long time, and most of their behaviour is good. It is excellent—it is cross-party. This case has done something to damage our reputation, but please let none of us undermine the fact that normally, most hon. Members on all sides act honourably and work together, and I am proud to be a Member working with them.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

As an MP elected in 2019, one of the great losses as a result of covid has been the lack of opportunity to meet people in real life and engage across the House and across parties. As we move through covid, I hope there will be more opportunity to do that, so that we can see the good behaviour on all sides.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. She is absolutely right. In recent weeks, we have mourned the loss of two great men, who served their communities well in this House and were decent people. We have talked about how important it is that we conduct ourselves with grace and forgiveness on all sides and that our tone is different from that which the public expect. Does she agree, though, that being gracious does not mean ignoring the reality when one side behaves especially badly? We do not need to be soppily neutral. The reality is that the Government made a decision last week to do something that undermined trust in democracy at every level, locally and here in Westminster. That is why her debate is so important.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

We on these Benches are the Opposition. It is our job to oppose the Government unless they can behave otherwise. I will try to make some progress.

Over the past 20 months, my constituents have had to follow more rules than they have ever had to deal with before, while sadly we are governed by Ministers who seem to care far less about the rules than any predecessors in living memory. That is why we are here today. It has been reported over the weekend that Ministers are focused on pleasing their boss, not on doing what is right for this country. We have seen story after story break, including cash for honours and undeclared interests.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

On that point about cash for honours, does my hon. Friend agree that the House of Lords Appointments Commission should be put on a statutory footing, to ensure that any recommendations made to the Prime Minister cannot be ignored in the same way that the Prime Minister ignored advice given to him by the previous independent adviser on ministerial interests, recommending that the Home Secretary be sacked for bullying?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

These are all things that need to be looked at on an ongoing basis, and there are potentially areas where the different processes are in conflict. However, I will now make some progress.

Who is influencing our politics? How is taxpayers’ money being spent, and what is being done to hold those in power to account? Those questions are why we argue that we need a public inquiry, with the powers and resources to get to the depths of the situation we are in. People around the country who play by the rules deserve answers, but instead they are being let down by this Government and by a Prime Minister who will not take even the most basic of steps to turn up to this debate.

It is a great shame that the Prime Minister has not graced us with his presence this afternoon, because there is still a huge amount that we do not know about the events of last week. There are many questions that demand answers, many of them involving the Prime Minister’s personal role in this affair. This is a Prime Minister, after all, who has been under investigation more times than any other Member in recent years. The question is: who stands to benefit from getting the current standards processes out of the way? Members of the public will have to draw their own conclusions on that, with the Prime Minister not being here today.

However, the questions do not stop at the Prime Minister; they extend to all those involved in the whipping operation last week. First, why was there a whipping operation in the first place? This was House business and it should not have been whipped. The Government tried to change our procedures without our consent; and then they U-turned and tried to walk it back. But they cannot walk back the events of last week—that is why we are here, looking forward.

We have heard serious, concerning allegations today that Members breaking the whip were threatened with a removal of funding for projects in their constituencies. I ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office to address that point and whether it is this true, as the matter deserves further investigation. The idea that communities should suffer because their representative did the right thing is, frankly, abhorrent. Despite all those alleged threats, the whipping operation was only a partial success. I thank those Members on the Conservative Benches who stood up for what was right and those Members, including the Father of the House, who last week supported my application for this debate.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I just wish to make it clear that at no stage were any threats of that nature made to me when I broke the whip last week.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for providing us with that clarity—it is unfortunate that the Prime Minister is not here to do that.

The final set of questions is for us, in this place, to answer; they are not for Ministers and the Government, but for Members of this House. How do we go about rebuilding trust and confidence in what we do here?

[Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)]

On that point—

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I will not give way, as I am going to make progress. I hope that we will be able to discuss that issue further today.

No system is perfect. There is always room for improvement. Whatever I previously thought of our process for investigating complaints against Members, what I saw last week made it abundantly clear that changes need to be made. I find it hard to believe that Owen Paterson was able to vote on his own suspension last week, while the votes of Members currently under investigation were critical in the passage of the amendment that saved him. That looks like the equivalent of the defendants in a court case also taking part in the jury. It is wrong, and if we are to make changes, that must be top of the list of reforms.

There has been much discussion of a right to appeal—this is something we have heard a lot from the Government as they try to justify their actions. I would point out that, through the Nationality and Borders Bill currently going through Parliament, the Government are attempting to take the rights of appeal away from asylum seekers. No matter what changes are proposed, one thing is clear: those with a vested interest in tearing up Parliament’s anti-sleaze rules should not be given the power to do so, and any amendment to these rules must be done fairly and with the proper amount of time taken and consideration given by this House. It is this House that invests the authority in the Committee on Standards to act on its behalf in considering the Commissioner’s reports, and considering whether or not to uphold those reports and the sanctions attached to them. I am sure that the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who is Chair of the Committee, will use time today to speak about the steps that the Committee is taking, to which you referred earlier, Mr Speaker.

As a new MP elected in 2019, I did not vote on the current rules, but I accept them, because they are the rules in place. I am a member of a smaller party. We do not have representation on the Standards Committee, but those are the rules and we accept them. If the processes are to be changed, that needs to be done properly and with consensus across the House. That is what the Leader of the House should have been looking to do last Wednesday: to act on behalf of the House, instead of his own party. That is what he should be doing today: listening to Members’ contributions and responding to them—I understand that he is not doing so. Instead, we have the Minister for the Cabinet Office responding to us. Can he let us know what exact involvement the Cabinet Office has in this House’s standards procedures? Certainly, wherever we go from here, without a cross-party consensus, reforms will simply have no legitimacy.

Like you, Mr Speaker, I hope for positive and constructive contributions from those in all parts of the House this afternoon, as we work out how to move forward from this scandal. I hope that the Leader of the House and the Prime Minister will engage with this process. One of my constituents wrote to me saying:

“Mr Paterson’s resignation is not the end. It must be the beginning of an uncompromising campaign to end the corruption of our politics.”

I hope that we can begin that campaign, in this place, today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank all Members for their presence today and all those who made contributions. Mr Speaker, I hope the tenor of the debate met your expectations. Let me be clear that my intention in applying for the debate was simply what it says in the motion: to make an initial assessment of the consequences, far beyond the case of the former Member for North Shropshire. I was also compelled to act by the comments made in relation to the future of the current independent standards commissioner. I reiterate many of the comments made from throughout the House in support of her.

There are obviously a number of things already under way, including the review of the code of conduct that the Chair of the Standards Committee referred to, but the variety of standards and codes that have been raised in today’s debate suggests that they need to be aligned and streamlined. A number of issues have been raised, such as the work of the Committee, the commissioner and appeals, as well as issues outside the direct scope of the debate, such as cash for honours, the awarding of contracts and ministerial codes of conduct. All those things need to be looked at.

Last week’s vote had direct consequences that need to be addressed. I note the suggestion by the Chair of the Standards Committee, which seems to fit the suggestions of both the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) and the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). I agree that we should take them forward.

Last week’s actions by the Government were a clear Executive overreach, and the Prime Minister has serious questions to answer. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster suggested that there was regret on the Government side and among ministerial colleagues, so I am disappointed that the Prime Minister is not here. However, when he has had the opportunity to apologise, such as in comments he made to the press today, he has chosen not to do so.

This is about trust. It is about trust in the Government that they will represent the House and not the Government in House business, and it is about trust in us as our constituents’ representatives. That trust, once eroded, is very difficult to regain. Trust in our politics has been eroded in this past week. That includes all of us here in this House. On behalf of all our constituents, we must do all in our power to do our best to rebuild that trust as we take the next steps on standards.

[Mr Whittingdale]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.