Privilege

Debate between David Linden and Damian Collins

Thursday 7th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House takes note of the Third Special Report of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (HC 1115); and orders Mr Dominic Cummings to give an undertaking to the Committee, no later than 6pm on 11 June 2018, to appear before that Committee at a time on or before 20 June 2018.

I am grateful to Mr Speaker for allowing the motion to have precedence today. As we all know, the function of this House is not just to vote on and pass legislation, and to debate Bills and matters of public interest, but to hold Ministers to account. There can probably be no Parliament in the world that provides more consistent or closer scrutiny of Ministers’ work than the House of Commons, but it is the work of Select Committees to continue that scrutiny, and to question and hold Ministers to account. Indeed, plenty of Ministers have got themselves into trouble as a result of evidence they have given to Select Committees. The additional privilege of the Select Committees is not just to question members of the Government, but to call anyone whose role, position and power in society makes them a matter of interest and a subject of interest for our inquiries. The ability and power of the Committees to invite people to give evidence, and to issue a summons for them to appear to give evidence where necessary, is vital to the work of the Select Committees of this House.

Having checked with the Clerks of my Committee and with the House of Commons Library, I believe that this is the first time since 1920 that a motion of this kind has been put before the House. It has not been done lightly; in some ways, it is done with regret, because I wish we had not come to this point and that we could have reached a successful conclusion to the invitation we issued to Dominic Cummings before now.

It might be helpful to the House if I explain why we are in this position. In March, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee issued an initial invitation to Dominic Cummings to give evidence to us as part of our investigation into disinformation and fake news. I should say that we are not conducting an inquiry into the referendum. We are not seeking to invite people who worked on campaigns for the Brexit referendum to give evidence, or to scrutinise the details of those campaigns. We are conducting an inquiry, and an important part of it has been the use of data in the course of campaigning. During our investigations, other witnesses have come forward and made allegations about the work of Vote Leave; as Dominic Cummings was its communications director, he is the person most fit to speak about that. In many ways, what we are seeking to do is to extend a privilege that many Committees do extend to witnesses: when allegations are made about them or their organisation, they are given the ability to come before the Committee to refute those allegations and present alternative evidence. That is the opportunity we wish to give to Dominic Cummings, but we also believe it is the right of the Committee to have the opportunity to question him, based on evidence that we have already received.

We were unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion from the invitations we issued to Mr Cummings. As a result, we proceeded to issue a formal summons, which was passed by the Committee. Mr Cummings not only refused to accept that summons and to appear on the named day cited in it, but refused to consider alternative dates on which he might appear and to which the Committee might have agreed. He also made it clear in public remarks that he had no intention of ever coming to give evidence to this Committee and that he resented the way in which he had been treated. That left the Committee with no alternative but to seek to report this matter to the House, and to seek the support of the whole House of Commons—not just the Committee—for a motion ordering Mr Cummings to appear before us.

We felt that Mr Cummings had taken the view that appearing before a House of Commons Select Committee is not a matter for that Committee, but entirely at the discretion of the proposed witness, with it being up to him to set the time and date, even though that might be months after our inquiry has finished. Not only does that restrict our right and ability to question witnesses who have important information linked to our inquiries, but it fails to give us the opportunity to question people based on evidence that has been received and tabled against them.

Is our relationship with Mr Cummings uniquely bad? Have we treated him unkindly, whereas other Committees of the House may have treated him more favourably? He has even suggested he would be willing to come—at his discretion, and at some future point—to give evidence to another Committee.

Interestingly, Mr Cummings has given evidence to House of Commons Select Committees before. He gave evidence to the Treasury Committee in the last Parliament, and it is relevant to look at its report following the evidence he gave. That Committee took evidence from a number of parties and campaigns involved in the Brexit referendum, to analyse the arguments they were making. In chapter 7 of that Committee’s report, at paragraph 236, the Committee sets out the similar frustrations it had, even though Mr Cummings had agreed to be a witness. It stated:

“In their treatment of this Committee, neither Mr Elliott”—

also from Vote Leave—

“nor Mr Cummings, as individuals, have fulfilled Vote Leave’s commitment, made in their successful application to the Electoral Commission, to ‘create a valuable legacy for the UK’s democratic process’. Their conduct has been appalling. Mr Elliott’s and Mr Cummings’s expressed view that powers should be restored to Parliament sits ill with that conduct.”

The report goes on to state:

“It was the Committee’s preference to hear from both Vote Leave and Leave.eu in one sitting. In the end, it took three. If Mr Elliott and Mr Cummings consider that the Committee’s evidence-taking process has been protracted, uncomfortable or harmful to their cause, they have only themselves to blame.

The Committee notes that Mr Banks and Mr Tice”,

of Leave.eu,

“did not seek to attach conditions to their attendance.”

That is very similar to the experience we have had.

As a consequence of evidence we have received, we have also asked other people to give evidence to the Committee. We have asked Mr Banks and Mr Wigmore from Leave.eu to give evidence, and they have agreed to do so next week. We asked AggregateIQ, the tech company from Canada that Leave.eu used to work on its campaign, to give evidence and it has done so, even though the person giving evidence was a Canadian national who is based in Canada, and so was outside the jurisdiction of this Parliament and had no obligation to attend. Nevertheless, that person crossed an ocean to do so. Yesterday, the Committee took evidence from Alexander Nix of Cambridge Analytica, who was returning to give evidence to the Committee about links and relevant issues.

It therefore seems that we have a unique problem in requiring Dominic Cummings to come to give evidence to us. I do not believe, and neither do the members of my Committee, that that is an acceptable state of affairs. These are incredibly serious matters. There is a certain irony when someone who was the communications director of Vote Leave and ran a successful campaign to seek to restore powers to Parliament seemingly holds that institution in such contempt.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman should have issued his notice to Mr Cummings on the side of a bus, because he might then have seen it and come to Parliament.

[Damian Collins]

I will not go down that road or follow that bus. As I say, this is not necessarily directly about that campaign, but there is a certain irony when someone who campaigned to restore powers to Parliament is not willing to come to Parliament to give evidence before one of its Committees. This is someone who, in his campaign, was so critical—many would say rightly so—of European civil servants and bureaucrats exercising power remotely, unelected and unaccountable to any institutions. He held a very important position in this country during a very important campaign. We believe that we have important questions to put to him, but he declines to appear. He did suggest in his initial communications, after we invited him in March, that he might appear at some point later in July. He has subsequently said in his public statements that he will not appear until other investigations—those being conducted by the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner, in particular—have concluded.

There are rules that prevent Committees from calling witnesses, but those are normally restricted to matters before the courts. This matter is not sub judice. Mr Cummings has not been charged with any offence and he is not in proceedings before the courts. We sought guidance from the Electoral Commission and the Information Commissioner, given their ongoing inquiries, to ask whether our calling him to give evidence would in any way undermine the work of those investigations. They have said that it would not, and that they would welcome it if Mr Cummings gave evidence to the Select Committee, so there is no founded excuse there. Whatever he says, his decision not to come before us is one of his own making. It is a deliberate attempt to deny Parliament its right to question witnesses on matters of importance. That is why we have brought the motion before the House—to stand up for an important point of principle; and to support the work of the Select Committees and their inquiries across Parliament. We are seeking to maintain the right that we should have to call witnesses when we believe it is important to our work and in the public interest for them to give evidence before us.