Committee on Standards: Decision of the House

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Neale Hanvey

Monday 8th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[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.