Retirement of the Clerk of the House
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(7 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Like other speakers, I associate myself with your remarks, Mr Speaker, and those we have heard so far today in recognising Sir John Benger and his departure from the House to St Catharine’s. I was elected in December 2019, and my first engagement with Sir John in that first and last sitting week of 2019 was bleary-eyed and tired, here in the Chamber with other new MPs, being privy to the procedures and processes that we needed to follow. I did my best to listen, but I also believe that an MP is not properly an MP in this place until they have stood up at an oral questions session, started to ask their substantive question, and been told by yourself, Mr Speaker, to say “Question number eight—apologies” and sit back down. We all do our best to pay attention to the Clerk and the guidance he and his team give, but sometimes we do not quite manage it.
We of the 2019 intake had been MPs for such a short period of time before covid took place that we were still getting to grips with the way the processes worked. I can certainly speak for my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) by saying that the communications we had from the House via the Clerk ensured that we were as well equipped as we could possibly be as we came back in a virtual environment. It was a very different environment; it is very good that we are back here in this place, but the amendments and adjustments that were able to be made, including those that we have taken forward, are part of Sir John’s legacy.
Since September 2020, I have acted as the Whip for the Liberal Democrats. The Father of the House mentioned that a previous Clerk had “sympathetic understanding”, and I would certainly say that that has been the case for John in relation to me. He has been sympathetically understanding of my sometimes completely daft questions, treated them with respect, and given me the appropriate advice accordingly. I am hugely grateful for that.
We are reflecting on what has happened since Sir John became Clerk of the House. I have reflected on covid, the work that took place to mark the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, and the restoration works that this place requires going forward. However, for me—particularly as a Whip—his longest-lasting legacy will be changing the culture in this place, the things that we do not see. As we recognise that the Clerk’s role is to provide non-political, impartial advice, it behoves us as parliamentarians to think about how we change that culture for the better in much the same way.
Privileges Committee Special Report
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(9 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The initial Privileges Committee investigation into the former Prime Minister, the then Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, has set a clear and fundamental precedent. If a Prime Minister deliberately misleads this House and, by extension, the public, there will be consequences. I put on record my thanks to the hon. and right hon. Members who served on the Privileges Committee. Considering the weighty matter of whether a former Prime Minister misled the House was clearly a significant task, and it is regrettable that, as the report outlines, the actions of some hon. and right hon. Members made the task harder for Members serving on the Committee. As we have heard, that was not without personal consequences for those Members.
As the Leader of the House pointed out in her opening remarks, there are ways and means of raising issues of privilege. We should remember that the investigation had its genesis in a motion that was passed in this House without Division; not a single Member named in the report voted against the motion. Not only is the Committee cross party, but it has a Conservative majority. It is worth pointing out that there is no Liberal Democrat on the Committee, but I accept as an individual MP that the current process involves a cross-party group of MPs, and they are trusted by this House to investigate with impartiality and to make their findings available for consideration by the House. Those recommendations are then to be approved or rejected by this House. Had Boris Johnson been suspended from Parliament for more than 10 days and chosen to remain an MP, it would have been up to the people of Uxbridge to determine whether they wanted to re-elect him as their MP. Members from all parts of the House must make it clear that we will not tolerate attempts to undermine or attack the vitally important work of this Committee.
We were promised integrity, accountability and professionalism at all levels of government, and I have to note, like the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), the current Prime Minister’s steadfast refusal to declare where he stands on this issue, let alone to engage with the substantive content of this report and the previous one. That is an abdication of his duty not only as Prime Minister but as an individual MP. It is unfortunate.
The hon. Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle) said she was pleased that the report was not amended, but there is a sign of weakness from the Government, where they have said “no, thank you” to the offer in the Privileges Committee’s report. It stated:
“It will be for the House to consider what further action, if any, to take in respect of Members of the House referred to in this special report.”
I would go as far as to suggest that had the Government taken the opportunity to make some process clear following today’s report, they might have seen off some of the accusations of lack of due process that we have heard today from Members named in the report and those supporting them. Today should have served as an opportunity to set another precedent and to make it clear that there are consequences for those who seek to obstruct the important work of a cross-party, independent Committee. It is a shame that the Government have not done so. That is why I tabled my amendment.
I accept that my amendment has not been selected, but the clear route forward would have been for the Committee to consider whether contempt had been committed and to return a verdict and, if necessary, a sanction. As the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) said, that could have given her an opportunity to make her case in relation to what has been reported. The same process was used for the Committee’s report into the former Prime Minister, Mr Johnson. I also point out that today’s debate does not shut the window on that opportunity. The Government could bring forward such a motion if they wished at any future point; they could bring it forward tomorrow, and I hope they do so.
This place is still suffering from the Owen Paterson decision, because that was the point where the convention of this House to accept Privileges Committee and Standards Committee reports on the nod was broken by the Government. Now is the time for a reset.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Procedure Committee.
Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(10 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
There are moments when we know that our parliamentary debates will form part of our nation’s history, and for the wrong reasons, today is such a moment. Everything that we do in Westminster—whether it is about addressing the crises facing our communities, from spiralling inflation to skyrocketing mortgage rates, or about strengthening support for the brave Ukrainians—all our actions, all our words, will only matter if we are trusted. That trust exists only if we tell the truth, especially when we are called to account for our decisions.
Confidence that this is a place where politicians are honest and accountable is completely central to the effectiveness and sustainability of any healthy democracy. Conversely, a culture where lies are ignored, tolerated or even excused is one that inevitably damages democracy. That is exactly the dangerous culture we saw nurtured under Boris Johnson. This is why the Privileges Committee report and its recommended sanctions are so important and why it is vital that everyone supports them in their entirety.
I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) and all the members of the Privileges Committee for their forensic and painstaking work in sifting and evaluating the evidence. That evidence might not have been available but for the revelations first made by Pippa Crerar, so I pay tribute to Pippa for her work as one of the most talented journalists of our time.
The Committee’s conclusions are based entirely on evidence, and that evidence is incontrovertible. The attempt by a few people today to traduce the members of the Privileges Committee to delegitimise the process is utterly shameful.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I am conscious that the Chair of the Standards Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), said that we should not make too many comparisons with the criminal justice system, but the reality is that, in the criminal justice system, in which the burden of proof is beyond reasonable doubt, we ask jurors to look at the evidence and infer the actions and intent of the perpetrator. Does the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) agree that it is quite strange that some colleagues are looking for an even higher level of evidence than that?
Dame Margaret Hodge
That is an extremely interesting point, for which, as a non-lawyer, I thank the hon. Lady.
If it is true that attempts were made to bully and, yes, blackmail Privileges Committee members so that they came to conclusions that were not based on the evidence but prioritised Boris Johnson’s personal interests, that is shocking. The integrity of Parliament must come above all else. It takes courage to stand up against such political pressures, but showing integrity and leaving party tribalism at the door is absolutely vital if we are to uphold democracy and protect this place from a further erosion of trust.
Members of Parliament: Risk-based Exclusion
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I want to start by thanking all colleagues and members of the Commission, the secretariat and House staff for all the work they have done to get us to this point. This is not a decision-making evening. This is an airing of the issues and a time for the questions that hon. and right hon. Friends, Members and colleagues quite rightly have. This is a good time for us to get through them. I have been noting down some of the questions that have already been raised, and if I do not cover them in my opening speech, I will also, with the leave of the House, be closing for the Opposition. I hope that the Leader of the House and I between us can cover the questions that Members rightly want answered.
I am grateful to the Standards Committee, which has done a thorough job and made some thoughtful, measured and considered recommendations. I would like to thank those colleagues and staff who responded to our consultation last year and earlier this year, and I would like to thank the trade unions and staff reps who also engaged with the consultation and consulted their members. All of that consultation and feedback has informed our revisions to the proposals, but as yet they are just that: proposals. We are here to listen.
The Leader of the House, the other Commissioners and I have worked closely and constructively and I am proud of the fact that we started out in a very different places—I am not completely sure that we are not still in different places—but we managed to find common ground on the specific area of risk management and mitigation. We have been studying and consulting on this issue for nearly a year now, and I have tried to talk to as many colleagues as possible, not just in my own party but in other parties as well. I have consulted colleagues—I have consulted the women’s parliamentary Labour party several times—as well as promoting the Commission’s consultation to Members, staff, House staff and members of the Lobby. I have also been trying to share the report that we are debating today. I regret that the report was published only a week ago, as I would have liked a longer period of time, but I am glad that we are now able to debate its contents. I hope that all Members who are contributing today have read it. If not, copies are available in the Vote Office.
I want to bring people with us on this process. I do not want the process simply to go through Parliament when it concerns something so serious as to be including but not confined to the possible temporary exclusion of a Member of Parliament. That is a serious business. Three important principles are at stake here. The first is democracy, which matters to every single one of us. Voters have a right to be represented once they have elected us and they get to decide who represents them in this place. Democracy matters. So, too, does the principle of British justice that a person is innocent until proven guilty, which is absolutely fundamental. Concerns have already been raised about whether Members will know the charges against them. Yes, they will, because this procedure can be triggered only if there is a live criminal justice investigation of a Member for a serious sexual or violent crime, so they will know because they would already have been investigated.
That is difficult to balance with the principle of safety at work for Members, for House staff, for Members’ staff, for visitors and for child visitors. We have tried hard to balance those principles, and we have fiercely debated, as I know others have, how we can make them balance. I do not know whether we have them all right, but we want to hear from colleagues about how we can make them better.
Some colleagues have said to me, “In any other workplace, including local government, a senior person being investigated by the police for a serious sexual or physically violent crime or harassment would at least prompt consideration of how to mitigate the risks while they await the outcome of that investigation.” That is not a presumption of guilt; it is an attempt, as any significant workplace does, to balance an accusation and the risks it may pose with the fact that a person has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
I want to protect both of those principles in this place but, until now, we have relied on informal processes to deal with allegations. Those informal processes put the person who is confided in, whether they are a Whip or a friend, in an impossible position because, if there is no formal procedure in place, there is not much they can do if there has been no complaint and no allegation to the criminal justice system, because that would be, in effect, acting on a rumour rather than a formal complaint.
I am not saying that any of our processes are perfect. We all know from our case loads the many drawbacks that, in particular, women who are victims of rape go through with endless delays and difficult procedures. I do not think the criminal justice system is perfect, I do not think the independent complaints and grievance system is perfect and I do not think our party systems are perfect, but we are trying to find a way so that, when the House authorities know about a serious sexual crime, we no longer rely on a quiet word here and a nudge there, which does not feel right either for the complainant or for the person about whom a complaint is made.
I have already said that an MP will know if a complaint is made about them, because the process can be triggered only if there is a live criminal justice process, but I also do not want candidates to be put off coming to this place. Being an MP is an amazing privilege. It is an incredible job and an honour. I do not want journalists or staff to be put off coming to work here, and I do not want visitors to feel that this is not a safe place. I think we have to be an exemplar, not just the best we can scrape along with, and I think we are capable of being that exemplar. We have tested that in many different ways, and I think we are capable of doing it now.
What is being proposed is an evidence-based risk assessment and management process, which has come about as a result of consultation. Again, I thank the Standards Committee because, after looking at our initial proposal, it concluded that, although a procedure is necessary, ours was drawn very narrowly in scope and that we should not only focus on the sanction of exclusion. I think it is important to be clear that a range of risk-mitigation responses is proposed by this document, of which exclusion is only one, and that it is only temporary until a criminal justice investigation is concluded.
Some colleagues have also said that they would like the independent complaints and grievance system to feed into this process. As the Leader of the House said, the system will be reviewed later this year. I encourage all colleagues to feed into that review. When we brought in the ICGS, workplace reps in particular, and others too, felt that confidentiality was important to the process, and that there should be a firewall around it. That is where we are at the moment and, until we have had the review, there is no mechanism for it to trigger this procedure.
The Standards Committee made recommendations to widen the scope on the range of mitigations, and we have incorporated a good deal of them in our current proposals, but I look forward to hearing more from my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), the Chair of the Standards Committee, on where he and his Committee feel we could strengthen it still further.
Like the Leader of the House, I do not want to go into the detail of the proposal, but I will quickly summarise it. If the police feel there is something about which they need to notify the House authorities, whether at charge or arrest, I want there to be a proper process for the House authorities to deal with it, a process that we, as MPs, have considered, debated and voted for. Under the Commission’s proposal, a named group—and they are named in the proposal—of very senior, experienced House staff will consider the initial allegation and investigation that is sent to them, and it will consider whether or not a risk-assessment process is necessary. If the group considers it not to be necessary, the process would stop there; if it thinks it is necessary, based on the evidence supplied, it will then do a risk assessment and make a recommendation—I emphasise this—to a panel. There will be debates in this Chamber, and among colleagues who are not in this Chamber, about whether the panel proposed by the Commission is what they want, or not, but we are proposing a panel with two named Members and one external commissioner. Members, one from the Government party and one from His Majesty’s official Opposition, will outnumber the commissioner on the panel.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
In some respects, I have an issue with describing it as a staff panel. It sounds to me like a risk assessment, and it sounds to me like exclusion is the final option when every other option has been considered. Can the shadow Leader of the House clarify that for me, please?
Thangam Debbonaire
The panel will be the decision-making body that comes after the four senior members of House staff have considered an investigation and the evidence; have done a risk-assessment process, which they will consult on with relevant external experts; and have then made a risk-mitigation plan, which they will then propose to the decision-making panel. I agree that we use the term “exclusion” too often when, actually, it is only one of many possible mitigations.
When the ICGS was introduced, people made a strong case for it to be confidential, so it will not feed into the process at the moment, but I remind all colleagues of the review later this year.
If this proposal is passed by the House, investigations will initially be assessed by a group of senior House staff and a mitigation plan proposed. The mitigation plan will then go to the decision-making panel, which will make a decision on behalf of us all. It is very important that MPs can be excluded only by other MPs, which is why we came up with this proposal. We have also responded to some people’s concern that we need an external voice. I am keen to hear from other Members about whether we have the right composition.
The mitigations could include exclusion. Before I came to this place, I worked with very violent offenders at different points in the process, usually pre-trial or pre-civil proceedings, and our aim was safety. At the same time as trying to achieve safety, we had the important principle, which Members have raised, of people being presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I am very conscious that at this stage of the debate lots of things have already been said.
In my three and a half years in this House it has been brought home to me that in decision making in politics there is no right or wrong. It is usually about the least worst option, but doing nothing is also a decision in itself.
The shadow Leader of the House talked in her opening remarks about the three standards, and I think we all agree that they are the principles of this debate: safeguarding, fairness and democracy. The hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) talked about bias, but for me it is more about balance; all of us will come to individual conclusions about what we give more weight to in finding that balance.
We need to think about reputational risks to Parliament. If we were to ask a member of the public whether somebody under investigation for sexual assault or violent crime should be allowed to come on to the estate—I would like to talk later about the different bits of that investigation—they would think it reasonable that they were not allowed. Frankly, people are uninterested in the complexity and processes that surround our jobs—that we are not employees, that as a Whip I am nobody’s line manager and neither is my party leader, and the different details around allowing us on to the estate. They want to see us being held to account for our behaviours.
When debating matters relating to the House we automatically default to the impact on MPs and thinking about ourselves. That is human nature, but we need to think about safeguarding and how our actions and decisions here are perceived. This is not a normal workplace, but the public’s expectation is that when we can better align with employment practices, we should do so. Our behaviour code references everybody on the estate and I am not convinced we should expect those other people on the estate to be subject to widely different treatment.
One thing that I can bring to the debate is my police experience. I ask the Commission to think about this. I was a police officer for 12 years, and I was sexual offences-trained, so when there was a report of a sexual offence, my job was to speak to the complainer and take the initial statement. Indeed, if the complaint was of a sexual offence nature and it had just happened, my job was to take that person to their medical and to obtain productions. I would also liaise with the criminal investigation department, which would be carrying out the inquiry, to ensure that when it came to take action in relation to the suspect, it did so with as much evidence as possible. That made me think about when a potential suspect becomes aware of the police’s interest in them.
Right from the start, a police officer is making that assessment of the evidence. At an early stage, they might conclude that the evidence is not credible and therefore the investigation will not continue. We also need to be conscious of and remember that while there are 650 of us in this place, 59 of us represent Scottish constituencies, and Scottish law is different. However, the reality is that a suspect may first become aware of the investigation and that the police want to speak to them about a matter at the point of their arrest on suspicion. There is an opportunity to seek clarity about the consistency of that at police level; not only for the Metropolitan police.
I see that the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) is no longer in his place. It pains me as a former police officer to think about the number of times I have talked in the House about trust and the lack of trust in the police, but we need to think about where complaints might come from and therefore consistency across forces in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in relation to that. Realistically, if arrest on suspicion is the point at which a suspect first becomes aware of an interest in them, that is likely to be the point at which the police first approach the House authorities to make them aware of such a complaint. The suspect will therefore be aware. For me, that takes away some of the debate that we have had, because if somebody is arrested on suspicion of an offence—they may be released without charge following that initial arrest—the police must have had some degree of credible evidence that required them to arrest that person and take away their liberty for a period of time to carry out that investigation. I hope that that threshold would meet some of the concerns raised.
I am now thinking about this issue through my second role and as the only current Whip to have spoken so far. The current system of voluntary exclusion from the estate is just that—voluntary—and inconsistent, because it is taken on a party basis, and sometimes police advice can make parties come to different decisions. If we are interested in fairness for MPs, we need to consider how the current system is not very fair for MPs as well as for complainers. The voluntary process means that much of the decision making is done invisibly by Whips, who as individuals are required not only potentially to enact some discipline but to provide the pastoral support that is so important.
The hon. Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland), who is no longer in his place, talked about the real impact that a complaint—whether vexatious or otherwise—has on an individual. The Whips are the people who are required to provide support. On that basis, we need to consider that the described process in its very specific circumstances will not be taking place in isolation. If somebody is being arrested on suspicion, there is a real likelihood that the party will be aware, and the Whips and parties will be making decisions accordingly based on the same information.
Given that we are talking about safeguarding and the long-term reputation of the House, there should be scope—this is a plea—for parties to discuss ways of taking a more consistent approach to such complaints. We should not be using them as a political issue and saying that one party handles them better than others, because none of us and none of our parties are immune to that. I welcome the announcement by the Leader of the House about the forum, because that might provide an opportunity to bring things out from under the carpet, as the Chair of the Standards Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), appreciated.
The final issue I want to mention is the discussion about the right people to sit on the panels. I absolutely concur with the hon. Member for Rhondda and others who have described what we are talking about: adjudication. I raised it myself in my intervention on the shadow Leader of the House about the staff panel. I think I am in a place where I accept there needs to be somebody who is not an MP looking at the situation from a risk assessment perspective. Again, I think about that in relation to the police. In terms of the internal aspects of the police complaints process, there is a lack of trust about police officers investigating themselves. There is also potentially a lack of trust, whether we like it or not, around MPs passing judgment on ourselves. If what we are trying to do is deal with the complaints that come in and aspire to having none of those complaints in the future because we have changed the culture in this place—culture change is so important—then we have to accept that sometimes we are frogs in increasingly hot water. We become acclimatised to our surroundings and think first and foremost about ourselves as MPs, as opposed to those outwith. We therefore need an ambition that this process is about changing the culture.
To conclude, as MPs we make the laws and we must show ourselves to be accountable. We are discussing this situation because of the actions of a minority. However, those actions mean that the reputation of this House, and attracting the right people into this House, is at risk and we face a continued decline. Not only must we take steps, but we must be seen to take steps. Only then will we start to change the culture and present to the public the face we want to present as Members of this place.
Sammy Wilson
I agree with the hon. Lady on this one. If we go down the route of saying that an individual should not be in this House because they are a danger to staff, they are not going to be any less of a danger to the staff in their constituency office. That is why the very next paragraph in the report, paragraph 31, states:
“The Commission noted the strength of feeling in relation to the management of risk in constituency offices and agreed to write formally to the Speaker’s Conference”.
So we are going to find, on the basis of a credible allegation—which, by the way, has not led to the police arresting or charging anyone—that an individual could be excluded from this House and eventually excluded from their constituency duties in their own locality. All this will be done on the basis of allegations that have not been tested. It has been glibly dismissed, “Oh, it is not the panel’s role to take over the role of the judicial system. The panel’s job is not to find somebody guilty or not guilty.” All I have to say is that, if the panel makes a decision that someone is not safe to be in this place and should therefore be excluded, even though the panel might try to keep it secret, it will not be too long before that individual is known. That Member will have a proxy vote and will not be seen about the place, and we know how rumours go around.
People might say, “No, no, the panel is not there to find anybody guilty,” but by default that person will be regarded as guilty because very severe action has been taken against them—action so important and so severe that they have been excluded from doing their job—even though they have not been arrested or charged.
It is not just vexatious claims; it could also apply to cases where a person has made a complaint, genuinely believing, “That MP’s behaviour was inappropriate, so I’m making a complaint.” They might be convinced in their own mind—it is not that they are trying to do somebody down—even though the legal test has not been met to justify the allegation.
Wendy Chamberlain
I refer to my earlier comments about needing clarity on what that credible evidence aspect means, because I believe it is likely to come at a point where a suspect has been arrested on suspicion and put under interview. The credible evidence required for a person to lose their liberty in order to be interviewed would be there.
The challenge is simply that the Commission does not have any power over MPs in their constituency. The Commission only has control over Members on the estate. I agree there is a gap, but does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the Commission does not have that power? That is where the disconnect comes from.
Sammy Wilson
I accept that, but the report talks about referring this to the Speaker’s Conference to see what measures could be taken, because it is recognised that there is a logical step here. That is why it is so important to get this right, so that we know when it is safe to trigger some sanctions against an MP where allegations have been made. I think the threshold that has been set, of credible allegations being made to the police—who I believe will act in a precautionary way—is far too low a bar that will lead to situations in which Members could find themselves unjustly treated. The Chair of the Standards Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), talked about the principle of fairness, which will not be met.
Sammy Wilson
Where an individual is excluded from coming here, from meeting constituents here, from talking to lobbyists here and from taking part in debates here—eventually, that exclusion could stretch beyond this House—there is hardly any way to describe it other than as a sanction, because that individual would be prevented from doing certain things that are an integral part of their job.
Wendy Chamberlain
Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that the current system also fails those where credible allegations are made, as such allegations come to a Whip and a voluntary arrangement to be excluded or to stay away from the estate is made? Does he accept that this proposal is a clarification of the process that currently exists in a more—“underhand” is not the word—low-level way?
Sammy Wilson
I do not see it as that, because what individual parties decide to do to safeguard their own reputation is up to those parties, and MPs sign up to that as members of their party. This also shows that parties do take these issues seriously; suggesting that we have an absence of any control or safeguards at the moment is just not correct.
The last point I wish to make is about the length of time that this process can go on. Members have talked about how long a police investigation takes and how long it takes to get to a point where someone is arrested or charged—that process can be much longer. Where allegations are credible and it is clear that there is evidence, the police will act and can act quickly, so that we get to the point of charge. I find it incredible that Members should think that because the police process is long—it might take three years before they decide that there is not a case and they are not going to charge an individual—an individual should be excluded from doing their job for that time, with their reputation being ruined over that period. We must have safeguards and we cannot ignore the fact that some Members misbehave, but we must recognise that we have to be fair to those Members.
Let me go back to something a Member said about how we must put in place processes that safeguard the reputation of this House. It does not matter what processes we put in place—we can have whatever processes we want. If people behave wrongly, the reputation of this place is going to be tarnished in any case. The message we should be taking tonight is that all individual Members have a duty to maintain the reputation of this place.
Every day I walk through the doors of this place, I am honoured to think that many people who do not know me and probably will never see me, because they will never have any problems to come to my constituency office with, put their trust in me to be their representative. If we all took that view of life, perhaps we would not behave in a way that tarnishes the image of the place and we would not need to put these processes in place. I believe that what we have before us tonight is flawed.
Business of the House
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(11 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Yesterday, it was reported that the Metropolitan police have apologised following the discovery of documents relating to the Daniel Morgan murder in a locked cabinet. The independent inquiry released its report almost two years ago and the Independent Office for Police Conduct found that the former commissioner of the Metropolitan police and others had deliberately delayed the disclosure of documentation in relation to that inquiry. Given that we have had previous statements on this issue, can we have a ministerial statement on what is a completely unacceptable situation?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that important matter. She will not have long to wait for Home Office questions, which are on 22 May, but I will make sure that the Home Secretary has heard her concerns today.
Business of the House
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(1 year, 1 month ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
If a Member needs to correct the record, it is right that they do so in a timely way, and there are established procedures for doing that. The Justice Secretary is a man of his word and, if he has said that he will do something, he will do it. I will leave it up to him how he does that.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Chelsea football club was sold under special exemption in May 2022, and at least £2.3 billion of the proceeds was placed in Roman Abramovich’s frozen UK bank account, with the expectation that the funds will be sent to support Ukrainians. In November, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), said the funds would soon be on their way. In January, there were news reports that the Government were close to handing over this money to a new foundation for Ukrainians, but earlier this month the Minister said
“Setting up an organisation of this scale rightly takes time.”
We have no update. Given that we are almost a year on from the sale, and given that a third of the UK’s aid budget is being used in the UK to support refugees, including Ukrainians, can we have a ministerial statement to clarify the timescale so that the money can go to those who need it as soon as possible?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this important issue. It is clear what needs to happen. Given that the next Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office questions are not until 2 May, I will make sure the Foreign Secretary has heard what she said. The Treasury will also have an interest, as it needs to make sure everything is done correctly. I will make sure both Departments have heard what she said today.
Business of the House
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I am sorry to hear about the hon. Lady’s case. I do not know whether she has raised it directly with the Department of Health and Social Care, but I encourage her to do so if she has not already. If she has and would like some assistance in getting a response, my office would be happy to help. We know that the NHS has been under huge pressure because of covid. We also know that the Department of Health’s plans are enabling those backlogs to be cleared. We would expect waiting times, certainly on elective treatment, to come down in the next couple of months.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
There are reports today that the Government have been misleading pensioners into thinking that their universal credit national insurance credits are automatically applied to their NI records. In fact, the system is either broken or has never worked, because they are being applied manually. That is leading to a series of errors, leaving pensioners without the payments that they are entitled to. It is not a legacy issue but one that is happening now. When will the Government make time for this issue to be discussed in this House, to be transparent about what is happening and to set out the steps being taken to ensure that our constituents are not left with shortfalls in their retirement that they might not even be aware of?
Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this important issue. I will make sure that the Secretary of State has heard her concerns. Departmental questions are not until early March, so I will ask her to issue a reply and to consider what can be done to inform more Members of this House.
Standards: Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(1 year, 4 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this point, because this does apply to those on his side of the House: among his colleagues on his Benches there will be trade envoys and other people undertaking work for the Government, and this will apply to them. I do not disagree that there should be parity between the two systems in access, transparency and timeliness; what I am saying is that the way in which the Committee has suggested this happen in amendment (b) will fail, and in a few months’ time—beyond March, when this system will come in—we will be in a position where we can succeed. That is what I am setting out for the House; it is for Members to decide, and they can vote whichever way they like. I am just apprising them of the facts. Anyone who wants to come and look at the audits I have done will regret it, but they are more than welcome.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Given that we have not had ministerial reporting since the end of May 2022 and the Leader of the House is now asking us to give her more time to bring a process into place, when can we expect to see up-to-date ministerial reporting?
Penny Mordaunt
As I have outlined in my speech, the new guidance has been put in place and will come into effect this spring. By the time the Committee wants the reforms we are voting on today to come into effect, Whitehall will be back up to what it is supposed to be doing now, and I think a few months after then, as we head into summer, we should have a system in place that will enable us to report at the same timeframes as MPs’ interests. Then we can potentially look at moving to having just one system rather than separate reporting by each ministerial Department. Those are the conversations I have had with the propriety and ethics team.
The effectiveness of our standards system and the code of conduct rests on its commanding the confidence of both the public and Members on a cross-party basis. Approval of the proposed reforms and strengthening of the rules will represent an important step towards restoring and strengthening trust in our democratic institutions. We support the work being done to undertake and introduce measures to empower the standards system in Parliament, and I am committed to continuing conversations both within Government and with parliamentary colleagues to continue to bring forward any further improvements proposed by the Committee on a cross-party basis.
I assure the House that my door is always open to discuss these matters with all Members. I hope that hon. Members will approve the reforms in the main motion, which I commend to the House. I thank the Committee for its work.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I thought I would start by reflecting on something the Prime Minister said back in his days as a junior Minister in the then Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government:
“The conduct of local councils and their councillors has a direct impact on the reputation of an area and of their fellow members. Their ability to lead a community and impact the lives of all those they serve is significant, and it is only right that they are held to a high standard.”—[Official Report, 25 January 2018; Vol. 635, c. 521.]
He was speaking in his role relating to local government, but as we again debate how we carry our duties, those words are incredibly relevant to why this issue is important. We could equally say that the conduct of parliamentary parties and their MPs has a direct impact on the reputation of a country and their fellow members—or even the conduct of the Government and its Ministers.
The Prime Minister said it himself: how elected officials behave matters immensely for their institution and for the people they serve. That is why I am pleased that we have consensus on some much-needed improvements to our code of conduct, which will come in as a result of this motion, but it is also why I am disappointed that the Government are failing to implement the code of conduct as recommended by the Committee in its entirety. I hope the Prime Minister has not changed his mind on the importance of integrity in public life since taking senior Government office.
I place on record my good wishes to the Commissioner for Standards, Kathryn Stone, as she departs her role at the end of the year, and thank her and her team for their efforts to date. Several hon. Members have brought up the Owen Paterson vote in November last year. Part of my own compunction to table the application under Standing Order No. 24 after that debate was driven by the importance of understanding—given that we all make decisions here as individual Members about what we hear during debates—that what we do and say in this House can have a direct impact on those outwith it. I know the abuse the Commissioner for Standards experienced following that debate.
I will start with the first of the two amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), amendment (a)—I, too, thank the Standards Committee. I have put my name to both amendments, because it seems frankly ridiculous that in this place of a million minute rules the Government would push back on something so sensible as tailored descriptors for the Nolan principles.
That makes me think of my own time in HR. I worked for multinationals and in the public sector, and in many of those organisations there were behaviours or soft skills that all people within an organisation would be assessed against in their appraisals. We provided guidance so that the chief executive of an organisation and somebody on the shop floor were assessed in relation to those behaviours at the level that was appropriate to them, and that is exactly what these descriptors are setting out to do.
The argument that the Government are making is that we do not need any guidance, but basic logic tells us that broad principles such as openness and leadership will mean different things to people carrying out different functions. As the hon. Member for Rhondda said, the Committee on Standards in Public Life acknowledged that in its 2015 report looking into how regulators embody those principles. For example, in the case of a regulator, selflessness—it is funny that we all seem to have touched on selflessness in this debate—means putting aside their own views and opinions, something that we as MPs we definitely do not do. For us, I believe it means ensuring that we cannot be compromised through any outside interests. I would argue that those two ways of interpreting the first Nolan principle for those in different sorts of public office are entirely compatible, and I can see no problem in giving specific guidance to Members, to regulators or, indeed, to any other office holder. In fact, I would argue that additional guidance benefits Members.
It is 12 December 2022. I think we were all up to something else exactly three years ago today. When I came to this place the following Monday, it was pretty overwhelming. There are lots of rules, customs and corridors to get lost in, and constituents instantly need help. But I can also imagine that for someone who has been here a few years, it might feel easy to feel too comfortable and simply to let things slide when we should, arguably, know better. We should never allow a lack of knowledge, or complacency, to be a barrier to how we conduct ourselves in this place. Guidance is arguably a way to help us in that. It sets expectations both for those following the rules and for those making the judgments on whether those rules have been adhered to.
Turning to amendment (b), I would like to hear from the Leader of the House why she does not support bringing the process for Ministers to declare gifts, hospitality and so on in line with that for other Members. Perhaps she will try again to argue that it is justified on the basis of the separation of powers, as she did when we debated this in October, but I simply do not buy that. Separation of powers takes place when the Government and the legislature are, well, separate. But in case the Government have forgotten, they too are Members of this legislature. This is a combined system—that has its pros and cons—but it is not separate. Even if it were, I just do not find it acceptable to argue that being in Government rather than on the Back Benches means being subject to less scrutiny, and I am pretty sure that my North East Fife constituents do not think so either. I would think that is the case for many Members in this House.
Perhaps I will be told that Ministers should be trusted to do the right thing, but we know that they get things wrong, as recent reports of Ministers using their personal emails for Government work, in breach of security, tell us. Clearly, it is easier for everyone when there is one straightforward system to be used so that mistakes cannot be made.
Furthermore, as colleagues have pointed out, Back-Bench MPs, and even Opposition spokespeople, have 28 days to register financial interests, which are then published every two weeks. We have had two Prime Ministers and countless Secretaries of State and junior Ministers—many of whom now sit on the Government Back Benches—since the last ministerial report was published in June 2022. That is simply not an equal system.
I am here representing my constituents, as is every single Member in this place. I remember the first Monday I was here. I saw the right hon. Member for—oh, I cannot remember where he represents, but I remember seeing him as he was getting coffee and thinking, “Oh my goodness! That’s such and such.” And a little voice in my head said, “No, at this moment in time, he is in exactly the same job as you: he is here to represent his constituents.”
What the Government are proposing is not an equal system. This country rightly has high standards for politicians to meet, and I believe that the vast majority of Members want to put procedures in place so that we meet those standards. We will fail without this change. Ministers are Ministers because they are elected as MPs in the first place. Their constituents should be able to find information about them in one place.
I could go into further changes we need to improve standards in this place and the trust that the country places in us, about which we have heard from other Members, but, in focusing on the two amendments, I will keep it simple: vote for amendment (a) to make it easier for Members to keep to the high standards that we all want in this place. Vote for amendment (b) to make it easier for Ministers to demonstrate the integrity that we rightly demand. If the Government fail to do that, it will not just be them explaining why not; it will be all of us in this place. This Government decision impacts on us all in how we conduct ourselves here.
Business of the House
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Penny Mordaunt
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that, because it affords me an opportunity to provide reassurance to people. This was raised last week as well, and I have already written to the Department of Health and Social Care and other Departments on the matter. We want to ensure that people are looked after, taken care of and supported throughout this winter. We are very aware of the additional costs that people with certain health conditions and disabilities face. I know that this issue is being looked at, and I assure her that I understand people want reassurance fast.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Conscious that I am in the slot of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and although I may wish to ask the Leader of the House whether she wants to make any statement of intent on her future candidacy for leader of her party, I will focus on the comments made by the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) in relation to the Global Fund replenishment. It was unusual that the Government failed to announce a pledge on 21 September, and we now hear that they have plans to drop official development assistance spending even further. We are really stepping back from our global commitments. Can the Leader of the House tell us when that announcement is likely to be made? Will there be positive news for the Global Fund replenishment, and will time be made for the House to scrutinise it?
Penny Mordaunt
We did not make a detailed pledge at the pledging conference, but we did put on record our strong commitment. The issue was that a Minister was not available to go, so the pledge was not made—that was, from memory, my understanding—but it is expected shortly. I point the hon. Lady to our world-leading record at this and other replenishment conferences.
Standards
Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for tabling the motions. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and his Committee for all the hard work that they have put into their inquiries and reports on standards over many months. I really would have liked to see all that work recognised in the motion today. After months of calling on the Leader of the House and her predecessors to implement the Standards Committee’s full recommendations, I am sure that the right hon. Lady will have imagined my initial excitement when I heard the words “Members’ code of conduct” during her recent business statement, but sadly that turned to some disappointment when I found that it did not include all the Committee’s work to strengthen standards in Parliament. I understand what the right hon. Lady has said, but I will come back to that shortly.
Let me now turn to the substance of our debate: the appeals process. Let me first place on the record my thanks and welcome for the work that Sir Ernest Ryder has done on the House’s current system for the Standards Committee. It has been helpful to have a well-respected external figure investigating whether or not our existing standards needed to be improved or strengthened. I know that the Committee made good use of Sir Ernest’s extensive experience when considering the important issues of fairness, natural justice and the right of appeal, and I note that he gave thoughtful and considered support to our standards system overall. I picked out the issues of fairness, natural justice and the right of appeal because I seem to remember those words being used in a debate on 3 or 4 November 2021 which, I am afraid, did not show the House in a good light. That is partly why we are here today.
Sir Ernest proposed that there should be a right of appeal against both the findings of the Standards Committee and any sanctions that it imposed or recommended. It seems wholly sensible that such an appeal should be to an independent body with judicial expertise, and that leads us inevitably to the Independent Expert Panel. I am assured that its chair, the right hon. Sir Stephen Irwin, has said that the panel should be able to take on this role, and that it should be able to manage the workload without expanding the current panel size of eight. I am grateful to him for that confirmation. I assure the Leader of the House that she has my support on the motions, and that they will be supported by the Opposition.
However, let me turn to the slightly wider but related issue of standards in general and, in particular, standards and ethics in parliamentary and governmental life. It was the well-respected former Cabinet Secretary Lord O’Donnell who said recently, “It’s always best to look at reasons why your predecessor fell and fix that.” Unfortunately, however—and I say this with disappointment and sadness, because it affects all of us in this place—everything we have heard from the current Prime Minister, not just during her leadership campaign but in the context of her lack of action since taking office, suggests so far that we are in for more of the same when it comes to trashing standards. I wanted to believe that that was not so, but the Prime Minister even refused to say that she would appoint an independent ethics adviser after the previous two had resigned—admittedly, under the previous Prime Minister—in despair.
I am glad that the Leader of the House has said that the Government are committed to appointing one, but I want to see some urgency. It would be reassuring for the House and for the country if the Prime Minister could commit to appointing that much-needed ethics advisor.
On parliamentary standards specifically, there should have been a lot more in the motion—namely, the rest of the recommendations, in my view. I thank the Leader of the House for her update, and she has been extremely co-operative with me and my office on this, but again we need some urgency to repair the damage that has been done by some—not all—on the Government side to the public’s view of how we conduct ourselves in this place and the surrounding neighbourhood.
In response to my questioning on this at business questions last Thursday, the Leader of the House said:
“It is not that we are not doing them”.—[Official Report, 13 October 2022; Vol. 720, c. 260.]
I absolutely believe her, but does this mean that the Government will bring forward a motion to cover all the Standards Committee’s recommendations? I get that sense from what she has said, and I would like to know that that is the general direction of travel, but if not, why not? Can she tell us which ones the Government like and which ones they do not? I would be grateful if she could give us a much more specific timeframe for when they will be brought forward.
I welcome the assurances that the Leader of the House has given, but when it comes to parliamentary standards and the Tories, I think she probably understands why the public are feeling a lack of trust. Unfortunately, it is the party that refused to fix a loophole that let one Member off the hook for a particular misdemeanour. It is the party that was prepared to change the rules retrospectively seemingly to support cash for access but not to stop sexual harassment.
I do not kid myself that there was ever a golden age when the public saw us all as completely trustworthy and the holders of the highest standards, even though I believe that most of us in this House absolutely are. However, the public need to—and at times have been able to—trust the system of standards enforcement and sanctions around our general principles. As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda once told me, there have been rules on how MPs should behave honourably since 1695. Since that time, the rules have only ever gone in one direction, which is to be strengthened—that is, until some Conservative Members unfortunately sought to drag them backwards during the Owen Patterson affair, which showed all too clearly that we have, in Conservative Members, some people who seem to be willing to change the rules retrospectively if they or their mates get caught.
Until we see a motion on the Order Paper covering all the Standards Committee’s recommendations—or some form of them—we can only assume or guess that the Government have apprehensions about bringing them forward. Banning MPs from doing paid consultancy work and increasing the transparency of Members’ interests are measures that Labour has long been calling for, and I believe that there is cross-party support for them. I have referred to the Owen Paterson affair with good reason, because that was the place where some of those concerns grew really strong.
We will of course support the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain). It seems a great pity that they needed to be put into writing, but evidently they did—
Thangam Debbonaire
I see that the hon. Member is nodding. I support the amendment and the motions, but I want to put on the record that if we were in government and I were at the other Dispatch Box, I would want to enact the Standards Committee’s recommendations as soon as possible.
In that vein, can I urge the Leader of the House to bring forward a further motion to do the work that she has referred to? She will find that she has support from this side for any co-operative and collaborative work that she wishes to do, and even for any critical or difficult work. We stand ready to work with her. This is not a matter that should be party political, although I have made some party political points because unfortunately it has been shown to be so in the past year. I will support the motions and the amendments, and I commend the report and the inquiries of the Standards Committee to all right hon. and hon. Members.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I rise today to speak in favour of the two amendments on the Order Paper in my name. I will confine my comments to those amendment, but first I want to echo the expressions of thanks to the Standards Committee and its Chair, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), for their work. I also offer my thanks to the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), the Chair of the Procedure Committee, who met me earlier this year in relation to this issue. I am grateful to her and her Clerks for giving me their time.
As has been highlighted by both the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House, my amendments make a straightforward change to what happens when the House votes on a motion to sanction a Member for their conduct. At the moment, a Member in that situation can vote on their own censure. Some of us might think that would never actually happen after an independent investigation has found a Member not only responsible for breaking the code of conduct but responsible for such an egregious breach that their privileges as a Member of this place should be curtailed as a result. We would like to think that there would be a sober reflection and making of amends in that situation but, sadly, we know that is not always the case.
It is less than a year since the censure of the former Member for North Shropshire. In those two votes, the former Member voted against his own suspension. As a result, I secured a Standing Order No. 24 emergency debate on standards, as an opportunity for the House to begin repairing the potential damage that affects us all in this place when such things happen.
It might be the former police officer in me—I have mentioned being a former police officer a few times today, as I spoke in the debate on the Public Order Bill—but it infuriates me that a Member can vote on their own suspension. It puzzles me, too. Surely, with the million rules and conventions in this place about what we can and cannot do, it should not have been allowed.
I had a look and spoke to the Clerks, who are much appreciated by all of us as a fount of knowledge. I found that, yes, there is a convention that, although Members can speak at the start of a debate on their conduct, the expectation is that they should subsequently withdraw, with the implication being that they should not return for the vote. There is a further convention that a Member can lodge a motion objecting to another Member’s participation in a vote in which they have a financial interest in the outcome, but I think you would agree, Madam Deputy Speaker, that this is cumbersome and basically impossible with the rate of business and the number of MPs that we now have in this House.
Importantly, they are both currently conventions, not rules. Simply put, conventions last only as long as people choose to adhere to them. When people do not, it reflects on all of us. The Conservative party potentially had the most mud stuck to them as a result of what happened last year, but this is House business and it reflects on all of us to ensure that we uphold standards in this place.
My two amendments amend the Standing Orders to make these two conventions a rule. Members will not be able to vote on sanctions relating to proven breaches of the code of conduct by themselves. It is worth noting that the vast majority of cases considered by the Standards Commissioner are either not upheld or are rectified without further action, but there are always MPs under investigation, and I suspect there always will be. Although it has nothing to do with those individuals, it is important that we as a House are seen to be acting accordingly.
Where cases are more serious and there is a report to the Standards Committee, and where all the appropriate procedures, including those set down in the motion itself, have been followed and the recommendations reach the Floor of the House, we must ensure that due process is done and, most importantly, seen to be done.
Ironically, it was during Parliament Week last year that we saw the situation that the shadow Leader of the House mentioned, and it is almost Parliament Week again. When I talk to my constituents, they ask me about working here, fairness and transparency, and I genuinely think this is the best job I have ever had. It is an enormous privilege, and I think the vast majority of Members agree and want to act accordingly.
I want to be able to tell my constituents, and I feel very encouraged that I will be able to do so, that we have taken a long, good look at ourselves and that the vast majority of us who want to maintain those high standards and hold the respect of the people we serve did something to make things better.
I am keen that this is not seen to be a party political issue, and the hon. Members for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater), for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) and for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith), and the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), all put their names to the amendments. For that reason, I hope very much that I will not need to press them to a vote. If there is an objection, I intend to do so this evening.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the Chair of the Committee on Standards, Chris Bryant.