Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges

Debate between Alicia Kearns and Karl Turner

Tuesday 28th April 2026 Commons Chamber

[Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis). He and I rarely agree politically, but we do work together constructively in our constituencies for the betterment of the region.

I start by way of an apology, because last week —I think this was mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition—I accidentally published correspondence between me and you, Mr Speaker. That was my mistake. I respect you, Mr Speaker, and I respect your office, so I apologise sincerely for that mistake, but it was my mistake.

Do I believe that the Prime Minister deliberately misled this House? No, frankly. I have known him a long time, and I think I know him very well. It is fair to say that I describe him as a friend, and I think he has described me as a friend as well. Both him and I are lawyers by trade. In my honest opinion, there is no way that the Prime Minister would come here and deliberately mislead the House. However, there was a very significant difference, in my view, between what the Prime Minister said in answer to the right hon. Lady the Leader of the Opposition in last week’s Prime Minister’s questions, and Olly Robbins’ evidence the previous day. I think I am right in saying that the Prime Minister said there was “no pressure whatsoever”, intimating that that was the evidence that Olly Robbins had given to the Foreign Affairs Committee, but I watched every minute of it and that is definitely not the case. I have looked back, and I have checked Hansard and the evidence that was given by Olly Robbins.

So I do think that there is a prima facie case for this matter to be investigated and for an inquiry to be conducted by the appropriate Committee of this House. I suspect that is not going to happen, because this debate is being whipped. I do not blame the Government for that—I find it unfortunate, to be honest, but they are not setting any new precedent; there is precedent for whipped scenarios in these situations in the past. But I do think that the Prime Minister would be vindicated.

[Alicia Kearns]

The hon. Gentleman is right that there are some precedents for House business being whipped, but the lesson is that it is a fool’s errand—it is normally the start of the end. He is making a fair point and being kind to his Front Benchers, but does he agree that we should learn from precedent and not necessarily repeat it?

[Karl Turner]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who is spot on. She leads me to the point raised by the Leader of the Opposition. I made a statement on social media that this motion is a stunt. A stunt is defined as an action designed to capture attention, but it is worse than that, actually. If I was to be cynical, I think the problem is that the motion is designed to capture Labour MPs. That is my concern. If it is said by our political opponents that Labour MPs came here today to block an inquiry of this House into the leader of the Labour party and Prime Minister, every single one of us will be accused by the electorate of trying to help the Prime Minister when he needed to face the music.