Committee on Standards

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend has already intervened. Let me continue, because I am conscious of time.

The Committee noted that the commissioner has, since March 2020, routinely conducted an initiation interview with a Member concerned in investigations that involve serious allegations to assure herself that the Member is fully appraised in detail of the allegations and the process at the earliest possible stage. That postdates this case, but it is worth noting that my right hon. Friend suggested a meeting in his letter to the commissioner on 16 January 2020. These are welcome steps, and a Select Committee appointed by the House could look further at how the system might be approved.

I will now move on to the aggravating factors that the Standards Committee refers to in a number of its reports. A consistent theme has been that Members’ refusal to admit wrongdoing in contentious cases has been considered an aggravating factor leading to greater punishment, but we do not want to encourage a system in which a person has to admit fault in order to receive a reasonable response from the Standards Committee. Members who believe that they are innocent must be able to continue to assert that from the beginning to the end without that being considered an aggravating factor.

Plea bargaining is not part of our system. Expectation of self-denunciation is not where we want to get to. We do not want struggle sessions, though the Opposition may like struggle sessions, in order to receive more lenient sanctions. We saw examples of that recently where a Member was considered to have a higher degree of culpability because he did not accept the judgment of the Committee and commissioner on his correspondence with the judiciary. There was also the case of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), whose punishment, for the arguably innocuous and legitimate act of writing to Michel Barnier after his request for the views of MPs, was shortened and not brought to the Floor of the House on the condition that he admitted wrongdoing. This is a concerning theme in these investigations that clearly warrants greater review.

Perhaps the most critical point to emerge on concerns expressed by Members is the question of a right to appeal. I consider that right to be fundamental to the provision of justice, which is regrettably not genuinely provided by the matter coming to the Floor of this House—a regrettableness that has been reinforced by the conduct of this debate so far.

I observe that, in the House of Lords, there is an appeal process that provides that the noble lord concerned has a right of appeal to the Conduct Committee against the commissioner’s findings and any recommended sanction. Having considered any appeal, the Conduct Committee, having agreed an appropriate sanction, reports its conclusions to the House, which has the final decision on the sanction. That is why I support the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire. It proposes setting up a Select Committee to review the standards process and consider whether Members should be afforded the same or similar rights as apply to those subject to investigations of alleged misconduct in other workplaces and professions, including the right of appeal, and to make recommendations for reform. The Committee will, therefore, be able to recommend setting up an appeals mechanism and recommend other changes to increase confidence. It will also be able to consider whether the case against my right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire should be reviewed with the benefit of any new appeals mechanism, or whether the Standards Committee report should be considered by the House. It will be a method by which we can reset a process that has lost the confidence of many Members of this House.

Let me be clear: the new Committee will not be the judge, jury and executioner in this case. It will be time-limited and established for the particular purpose of recommending improvements to the standards system for the House to consider. For example, following the Committee’s work in relation to this report, it is entirely possible that a reformed process, including any new appeal mechanism, may conclude that this initial report and sanction was entirely correct. This complex case still demands proper consideration, and the Select Committee would in no way pre-determine that.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Can the Leader of the House explain why it is appropriate that this new Select Committee should have an in-built Government majority, while the Standards Committee with its lay members does not. If this is about trying to improve our processes, why is he running the risk of making it look to anybody looking in from the outside that, essentially, this is like someone who has been found guilty of a crime, but instead of serving a sentence, his mates come together to try to change the judicial system? It looks really bad.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Sometimes, to do the right thing, one has to accept a degree of opprobrium, but it is more important to do the right thing to ensure that there is fairness.