Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

William Cash Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I will just finish this point. After months of denials, absurd claims that all the rules were followed and feigned outrage at his staff discussing rule breaking, we now know that the law was broken. We know that the Prime Minister himself broke the law, and we know that he faces the possibility of being found to have broken it again and again and again.

As the police investigation is ongoing, we do not need to make final judgment on the Prime Minister’s contempt of Parliament today. When the time comes, the Prime Minister will be able to make his case. He can put his defence—of course he can. He can make his case as his defence that his repeated misleading of Parliament was inadvertent; or that he did not understand the rules that he himself wrote, and his advisers at the heart of Downing Street either did not understand the rules or misled him when they assured him that they were followed at all times; or that he thought he was at a work event, even while the empty bottles piled up. He can make those defences when the time comes.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

rose—

[Keir Starmer]

I will give way in just a minute.

We already know that he has a case to answer. The Prime Minister said that no rules were broken, but more than 50 fines for breaching the rules and the law have now been issued, including to the Prime Minister. Anybody who denies that simple fact has their head in the sand or has given up any interest in the truth and in the traditions of our nation in order to prop up a lawbreaking Prime Minister.

Today’s motion would refer the matter to the Privileges Committee, a Committee that has a Government majority. No one can say that the Prime Minister is not being judged by his peers. The Committee would investigate the Prime Minister for contempt only once the police had concluded their investigation. No one can say that there is prejudice to the rest of the inquiry. And, of course, any findings the Committee comes to and any sanctions it might propose would then come back before the House as a whole, so no one can say that it is too soon for the House to decide. It is a system of self-governance, and it should be, because with the great privilege that comes from sitting in this place comes the great responsibility to protect the conventions that underpin our democracy.

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[Keir Starmer]

If the debate descends into a shouting match, Mr Speaker, we lose the principle that is there to defend all of us, including all the Conservative Members. We are not claiming a principle to support those on the Opposition Benches and not those on the Government Benches; it is a principle that supports us all. If we fail—

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Keir Starmer]

I will take the intervention from the hon. Gentleman.

[Sir William Cash]

The Leader of the Opposition has just said, quite rightly, that this issue affects everyone in the House. Does he accept that at this moment there is a complication, namely that the Committee on Standards is conducting a report, under the aegis of Sir Ernest Ryder’s recommendations, which raises questions about whether a fair trial and natural justice are possible at this juncture? That is currently under discussion in the House. The same rule applies with regard to the question of the Committee of Privileges, which has already been criticised. I was on the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, and I can assure the Leader of the Opposition that serious problems arise in relation to the need to rectify those omissions in procedural fairness.

[Keir Starmer]

I have heard the hon. Gentleman put his case on natural justice a number of times, and of course he has every right to do so. I disagree, but that is the point of the debates we have. However, a debate about natural justice, or due process, need not hold up the current process. This motion can and should be passed today, and everyone should support its being passed today to uphold the principles to which I have referred. There is a discussion to be had about natural justice—an interesting debate, in which we will take different views—but it need not hold up this process.

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[Hannah Bardell]

rose—

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I think I ought to give way to the hon. Lady first.

[Chris Bryant]

I would normally agree with the hon. Lady on these kinds of things, and I sort of would have agreed with her last night, but I think we are getting to a better place now. In a sense, sometimes the Back Benchers persuade the Front Benchers of a better course of action—I am looking intently at the Government Chief Whip at the moment.

As the Clerk advised in the case of whether Stephen Byers had misled the House on a single occasion in 2001:

“In order to find that Mr Byers committed a contempt in the evidence session of 14 November 2001, the Committee will need to satisfy itself not only that he misled the Sub-Committee, but that he did so knowingly or deliberately.”

As I said, that is quite a high bar, but it is for the Privileges Committee to decide that.

[Sir William Cash]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because what he just said is what I was going to raise with him. The “Ministerial Code” says that it is open to a Minister to correct

“any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the Prime Minister”.

The question rests on “knowingly”, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point clear.

[Chris Bryant]

I think the hon. Gentleman is agreeing with me, so—

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[Sir Robert Neill]

As I will make apparent shortly, I will come to my conclusion on the position of the Prime Minister—as I am entitled to as a Conservative Member of Parliament—once I have heard the full evidence. The importance of the respect of this institution in the various parts of the United Kingdom is, of course, well made, and I take that on board.

[Sir William Cash]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I also commend the Justice Committee and him in his role as Chair for the investigation that took place in respect of fixed penalty notices. The Counsel for Domestic Legislation, as he will remember, says that there was a great lack of clarity over what regulations apply to specific situations at what times and so on, and I shall refer a bit more to that if I am called to speak a bit later. The bottom line is that I am sure that this very distinguished Chairman of that Committee appreciates that, in relation to the rule of law question that he has just raised, it is by no means clear exactly what the law is on these subjects.

[Sir Robert Neill]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his observations. That brings me on to the point that I was about to make. The subject of the motion is not of itself the fixed penalty notice that was accepted by the Prime Minister, or any of the other fixed penalty notices. It is, as is rightly said, the question of whether there was a deliberate misleading of the House. I think that that is the common ground. Of course, the fixed penalty notices are part of the factual background that gives rise to that, and he is quite right to say that the Justice Committee was critical of the fixed penalty regime that was brought in on a number of counts, and in particular of the confusion that existed in many people’s minds—ordinary individuals whose cases would never be the subject of any comment in this House or in the media—of the distinction, or non-distinction sometimes, between guidance and law. We were critical of that, and critical also of the use of fixed penalty notices for what were specifically described—it is worth putting this on the record—as criminal offences.

I took the trouble to look again at the regulations. The original regulations, the Health Protection (Corona-virus, Restrictions) (England) Regulations 2020, which were amended shortly before the incident with which we were concerned, specifically set out in terms that a failure to comply with a restriction under the regulations creates an offence, and the word “offence” is specifically used in the regulation.

We should not minimise that. We should not say, “This is a civil matter. This is equivalent to a parking ticket.” It is not. That is a simple question of fact. The Ministry of Justice accepted that in the statement it made when the regulations were brought in, and the Justice Committee, in carrying out that inquiry, heard that from the noble Lord Wolfson of Tredegar and Sir Jonathan Jones QC, the former Treasury Solicitor when they gave evidence to us. That is common ground.

I will equally accept, as I am sure anyone else with experience in legal matters would, that within the range of fixed penalties, a fixed penalty notice of £50 is at the lower end of the scale of available penalties. The Select Committee raised the question whether the level of fixed penalty notices imposed were appropriate to be dealt with via fixed penalty rather than fine, but that is by way of background. That is all very well. We are dealing with something that was an offence. Accepting the fixed penalty discharges and deals with a criminal matter, but it does not change its nature, so we should not try to minimise it, and I do not.

I will say, without having come to a final decision about the Prime Minister’s position, that I am profoundly disappointed in what happened at No. 10 Downing Street. People were badly let down. My constituents feel badly let down. I feel personally badly let down by what happened. There must be consequences that follow from that. I think anyone would accept, in fairness, that what that consequence is depends on an ultimate assessment of the measure of culpability. That is why I would prefer, both in making my personal decision and ultimately in the House’s making a decision, to wait until we have the full evidence and information before us.

Had the amendment in the Government’s name been moved, I would happily have voted for it, because I think that full evidence includes not just the conclusion of the police investigations and the issuance or otherwise of any other fixed penalty notices, but the content of the Sue Gray report. As anyone will appreciate, the Sue Gray report is likely to include material that gives background and context beyond the strict requirements of the statement of facts that go with a fixed penalty notice. It is important to have that.

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[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

As I indicated in my response to the Prime Minister’s statement on Tuesday, the entire issue, the legal status of fixed penalty notices and what the law really is remain on the table. It is, unfortunately and regrettably, an extremely complex matter, which is charged with political and understandable emotional underpinning.

For example, the Justice Committee has had a great deal of importance to say in seeking clarification of those matters of law and the rule of law itself in this context. Even now, the legal situation remains immensely unclear and inconsistent. Despite the presumption that one Opposition speaker after another makes that the Prime Minister has lied, there is lack of clarity and inconsistency between different police authorities, different circumstances and different locations.

The Counsel for Domestic Legislation to this House said in evidence to the Justice Committee that

“there has been a lack of clarity as to what regulations applied to specific situations at what times, there is evidence that local authorities and police forces have on some occasions misunderstood”

the circumstances and so forth. It is even arguable that, under section 73 of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, the regulations did not apply to No. 10, as part of the Crown Estate, anyway. Resolving that issue will be a massive test, even before a court of law.

On contempt and the role of the Committee itself and the current procedures whereby privileges or contempts are referred to it, the great constitutional authority, “Bradley and Ewing”, states that the Committee’s procedures have “been criticised” in the Nicholls report of 1999. As I have said in previous debates on the Committee on Standards, and again today, all that is currently under review, here in this House, with Sir Ernest Ryder’s important report relating to the principles of natural justice and fair trials before that Committee. Indeed, it will need some very good legal advice.

In 1999, it was concluded that the Committee on Standards should devise an appropriate procedure to ensure natural justice and fairness. As I said in my exchanges with the current Chair, all that is being undertaken by Sir Ernest Ryder’s report. How the Committee of Privileges will cope with the situation is one thing, but it is crystal clear that not waiting until the Sue Gray report has been delivered, as well as the conclusion of the Metropolitan police’s investigations, will lead only to further confusion and the need for the Committee to suspend its proceedings before they have begun.

The question remains: has there been a contempt? What is the proper procedure that should be applied? Are the proposed procedures fair as a matter of natural justice? That depends on the evidence, the facts and an understanding of the law. The Committee will have to address all that before it can even sit and draw conclusions with any degree of competence.