Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is an honour to follow my friend and constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), who reminded us of our role as Members of Parliament. I was elected in 2019, and during the last three and half years—an interesting three and a half years—I have always held dear, and kept close to my heart, the fact that being an hon. Member comes with responsibilities. Sadly, as my hon. Friend said, there are some people in the House who feel that it is their birthright, but I am humbled to have been elected by my constituents. I take pride in that, and every time I stand up in this Chamber, I remember that I am here to speak on their behalf, not mine. I am here to articulate their concerns and their interests to the Government of the day. I am here to work across parties, and there are some Conservative Members with whom I have done a great deal of work on issues that are in the interests of our constituents. That is why what we are debating matters: it is about the fabric of our democracy.

A number of Members have said that this is a kangaroo court or that it does not matter, but let us stick to the facts. On 21 April 2022, this House, without Division, referred to the Privileges Committee the matter concerning the former Prime Minister’s conduct. That cross-party Committee has at all times followed the law and the customs set by Parliament, and the fundamental procedures governed by the Standing Orders and precedent of this House. All the evidence that the Committee heard in the course of its inquiry was given under oath, including the evidence from the former Prime Minister and the signed evidence. The former Prime Minister had the opportunity to give written and oral evidence, which he did on 22 March; I understand that he subsequently gave written evidence on 22 May.

After all that work, the Committee’s conclusions were presented to the former Prime Minister, who, for want of a better phrase, went out on a hissy fit and got quite angry, breaking with procedures and confidentiality. What we are discussing matters if we are to restore trust in our democracy.

One of the best aspects of this role is going around to visit schools. When we speak to young people, they do not lie, and they will ask honest questions. To have young people in my constituency ask me, “Why do MPs lie?”, is quite hard. When we are sat in front of those young people, what do we say? We want to say to them, “The majority of Members are doing a decent job. The majority of Members are here to represent their constituents,” but what those young people see and hear from their parents and carers paints a different picture. That is why what we are discussing today matters.

We want more young people to get involved in our politics. We want people to trust our democratic system, but that will not happen if we have Ministers misleading the House.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

The hon. Member is making an important point. Much of the education of our young people is based on the concept of true and false, including mathematics, chemistry, physics and biology. This sum of human knowledge is based on facts, which are either right or wrong, and there is a clear concept of what that means. That reminds us why these concepts are so valuable. I draw the House’s attention to a poem written by Hilaire Belloc in 1907 called “Matilda”—read it; it is instructive.

[Florence Eshalomi]

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and I agree. I read many books to my eight-year-old and six-year-old and I will make sure that we add that to our collection.

The Committee found that the former Prime Minister deliberately misled the House and the Committee, breached confidence, impugned the Committee and was complicit in a campaign of abuse and intimidation towards it. When people ask me, “What don’t you like about your role as an MP?”, I am very honest. One of the sad aspects of being a Member of Parliament is the abuse, the misogyny, the racism and the threats that I have faced and that other Members face just for doing the job that we like. To see that Committee members, having been asked by us in this House to carry out that role, have faced abuse and intimidation is worrying. No one should have to face that for carrying out their role.

I want to bring us back to why all this matters. I have spoken in this House on many occasions about the tragic death of Ismail Mohamed Abdulwahab, who was 13 years old. He was one of the youngest people who lost his life to covid, and his family could not attend the funeral. I still remember when I spoke to his mum and his sisters to console them. As I have mentioned, I broke down on that call because to hear a mother say, “I wasn’t able to hold my son. I’m never going to see him again,” was hard.

The covid memorial wall is just across the river in my constituency, and when one walks up and down and looks at the hearts and the lives lost, one cannot fail to be moved. Those were the families who followed the rules. They were the ones who sacrificed those precious moments for the ones they loved. They are the ones who will look at this report and ask, “Why did we?”

Not only do we have a former Prime Minister who broke the rules he was primarily responsible for setting, but we have a former Prime Minister who went on to mislead the House and be disingenuous in his statements. The public rightly expect high standards from us. Going back to the report, it is not just about high standards. It is about being truthful, owning up to our mistakes and taking responsibility. How can any of us, as hon. Members, ask our constituents to trust us if we do not take these breaches of trust seriously? I understand that the consequences of his own actions may be a novel concept for the former Prime Minister, but we have to deliver those consequences today if we are to ask our constituents to trust us.

I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), my constituency neighbour, whose fair and experienced chairing of the Committee produced this report. It is disgraceful that the Committee’s members have faced inaccurate and unjust briefings against them.

I finish by reading from a poem, “Anthem for the pandemic dead” by Susie Flintham, which we heard on the second anniversary of the first hearts being drawn on the covid memorial wall, an event I attended, with many Members who are in this Chamber, on Wednesday 29 March:

“Ours shall be the voice of the lost

Names resurrected, candles lit, heads bowed

We the ones who contemplate the cost

We the ones who speak their names aloud.

They exist between one heartbeat and another,

The heart that inexplicably still beats.

We speak their names while the world recovers.

To us, recovery is bittersweet.”

Business of the House

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call Jamie Law.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

In six days’ time, NHS Highland will take away the right to give vaccinations from local GPs across the highlands. That will greatly inconvenience people and it is frankly dangerous. If a crofter cuts his or her hand on a piece of barbed wire, a tetanus injection is needed right away. It is unlikely that the two most relevant Members of the Scottish Parliament will do anything about it, because both of them are Ministers, and one of them wants to be the next First Minister. What the devil am I supposed to do in this situation to help my constituents, who are rightly very worried about this?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am very sorry to hear about that. When we talk about the NHS, we often talk about patient-centred care. We should be thinking about the easiest, swiftest and most effective ways to serve the needs of patients and prospective patients. It sounds as though what the hon. Gentleman has described goes completely against that fundamental principle about what good care looks like.

The hon. Gentleman will know that Audit Scotland has a report out today on the state of the NHS in Scotland. Improvement is needed. There are big opportunities from using data and from innovation that Audit Scotland is urging the Scottish Government to take. I stand absolutely shoulder to shoulder with the hon. Gentleman and other Members of Parliament—Liberal Democrats and Conservatives—in wanting the Scottish Government to focus on those matters, which the people of Scotland need them to do. They are paying for a health service that they are being prevented from accessing.

Business of the House

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to David and to Barbara, his wife, who will have been a huge support to him in many of the things he did, including being mayor of Rushden for a time. I know he was much loved by the whole community. My hon. Friend is right; it is not fashionable to be involved in politics and the things we do on the doorstep on all weathers are not glamorous, but it is vital to our democracy. His suggestion for a debate is an incredibly good one and would be supported across the House.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I am a proud highlander, so let me try to strike a lighter and more positive Scottish note. My personal friend the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell)—that is almost longer than Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross—and I have both had the honour of serving in the Scottish Parliament. We know that there are meetings at ministerial level between Scottish Ministers and UK Ministers, but would the Leader of the House think about some sort of mechanism whereby Back Benchers of this place, the Scottish Parliament and other devolved institutions could meet and talk from time to time? I was once a member of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body, which did a great deal of good in fomenting Irish-UK relations. Such a mechanism would lead us to a period of understanding and co-operation rather than strife and misunderstanding.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that suggestion and for the tone in which he always engages. I feel strongly that many Members will have ideas about what else we can do to make ourselves the best legislature in the world, and I know that you have that ambition too, Mr Speaker. We will very shortly bring forward a survey, which is supported by the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), to look at what additional support and services we can develop to enable hon. and right hon. Members to do their job better and to support them in that kind of engagement. I hope that all Members will respond to that survey when it comes out. I think the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion is excellent.

Business of the House

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

I congratulate the incredibly brave hon. Gentleman on flying for Florence. As he says, he is not just raising funds, but raising awareness and hopefully creating some good memories for her and her family. I also thank him for pointing to a serious condition that is not often given a high profile; he has enabled that to happen today, and I thank him for it. I will make sure that the Secretary of State is aware not just of the issue, but of the hon. Gentleman’s fundraising efforts.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is quite clear that the Leader of the House believes in fairness of approach for all citizens, regardless of where in the United Kingdom they live. Time and again in this place, I have raised the iniquitous unfairness of pregnant mothers in Caithness having to make a 200-mile-plus round trip to give birth. Is it not time that we had a debate to explore these unfairnesses within our United Kingdom?

[Penny Mordaunt]

That sounds like an incredibly bad situation. I know that the hon. Gentleman, because he is a very dedicated constituency MP, will have raised the issue many times and will no doubt have been working with healthcare in his area. I will ensure that the Department of Health and Social Care has heard about the situation; Health questions are on 24 January and I urge him to raise it then. Although health is a devolved matter, I think that one of the strengths of the NHS is that all four systems of the United Kingdom can learn from one another, our chief medical officers can talk to one another and those in maternity care and other disciplines can learn from one another. I am sure that the Secretary of State will want to hear about the plight of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and suggest some things that might be able to help.

Standards

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

Once again, I thank the Committee on Standards and its pernickety Chair, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)—we are very grateful to him for being so. As I set out when I opened the debate, we are here to endorse these grounds for appeal. It is the Government’s view that the change will bring welcome consistency to our procedures. I am grateful to all hon. Members for the many thoughtful contributions to today’s debate and for the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain).

I am keen to make progress on all these issues. This particular issue was something that we could do straightaway, and I thought it important to do so, but we will be looking at what more we can do. I mentioned the issue of ministerial declarations: whichever system, whether it is the one advocated by the Chair or the one that I am advocating, requires Whitehall to get its act together—bluntly. That is what I have been focused on and we have acted on that very swiftly.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), it might be helpful for all hon. Members to look at the way that the Scottish Parliament does things. Everything is out in the open. For the amusement of right hon. and hon. Members present, if they look back at my declaration of interests, they will see that it is down in black and white on paper that Mr Mohamed Al-Fayed gave me a side of smoked salmon valued at £30 and a book valued at £20—it is all still there to be seen today. I point out that no questions were asked on his behalf by me in the Scottish Parliament.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has clarified that there is nothing fishy about his declarations—[Interruption.] It is late.

Business of the House

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Some of the mighty structures in the North sea were fabricated in yards in the north of Scotland—I myself worked in two of them: Kishorn and Nigg. Offshore wind energy is going to be a vital part of the UK’s future energy mix and we do not want such structures to be built abroad; we want them to be built in the UK. Would it not be a good idea to have a debate in this Chamber about the future of offshore wind and a close look at where in the United Kingdom we can build such structures?

[Mark Spencer]

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy came to the Dispatch Box on Tuesday to make a statement on our energy supply network. It is important that we have a balanced network of supply, including from offshore wind, which will be a vital way forward. As the hon. Gentleman indicates, there are huge numbers of opportunities for employment in the United Kingdom in respect of not only renewables but other sources of energy, and the Government will continue to push forward on them.

Business of the House

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mark Spencer]

Local highways authorities have a duty to maintain the highway network in their areas, and Cheshire West and Chester Council has a responsibility for the maintenance of Soot Hill road. As announced at the spending review, we are investing more than £5 billion over the Parliament in local highways maintenance. However, it seems to me that my right hon. Friend has been let down by Labour, and I hope that her council heard her message. It needs to get on with those repairs as rapidly as possible.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Agriculture is extraordinarily important in my constituency. Let me give two examples of the problems that my farmers and crofters face: one is the forthcoming price hike in red diesel; another is that the seed potato growers in my constituency, who are some of the best in the UK, are having extraordinary trouble accessing overseas markets. I know that it is difficult for the Leader of the House to comment on this because of his background, but does he agree that a debate on UK agriculture would be timely and extremely helpful to farmers?

[Mark Spencer]

I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. This Government take food security very seriously. The good news is that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is across the threat that we face, and there is no prospect of food shortages at any point in the future. DEFRA is working with the Treasury to try to make sure that that continues to be the case, but I fully understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. It is worthy of further debate, and he may want to apply for an Adjournment debate or even a debate in Westminster Hall.

Business of the House

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I commend my hon. Friend for his amazing achievement and his hard work. I have a friend who teaches people to cook on a budget and runs something called Bags of Taste, which is a very successful way of encouraging people to cook on a budget. My hon. Friend is leading by example.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Over a month ago, my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) tabled a named day question asking about the state of ambulance services. Not until two days ago did she receive a response, which said that all regional ambulance services had been on the highest alert level since 22 October. Recently, however, we have heard from ambulance leaders that, according to their reckoning, 6,000 people a year are dying unnecessarily because of service problems, including ambulances waiting for too long at A&E centres. More recently, West Midlands ambulance service said that for a period 999 calls could not be answered owing to a lack of available ambulances. Will the Leader of the House, out of the goodness of his heart, grant us a debate on the state of the UK’s ambulance services?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The Government are aware of the pressures that occur in many winters but, particularly after covid, have been higher than normal. The NHS will receive an extra £5.4 billion over the rest of this year to support its response, including £2.8 billion to cover related costs such as those of enhanced infection control and £478 million to continue the enhanced hospital discharge programme, which frees up spaces so that when the ambulances arrive, the throughput of the hospital will allow them to be emptied and then get back to work. This builds on work that was done last year. However, I do not think that anyone is underestimating the seriousness of the problem.

Business of the House

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

He is not the fattest pumpkin grower either, no.

On 20 July, the Government announced a further package of measures to help industry to tackle the issues caused by the HGV driver shortage. Those measures include support for the recruitment and retention of drivers, such as proposals to streamline the process to obtain a licence, offering financial assistance for training, and backing industry-led initiatives to improve the working conditions for driving. I have also noticed reports that wages for HGV drivers are going up. This is, as so often, a market solution.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I wonder whether I could crave your indulgence, Mr Speaker, and take the Leader of the House to Scotland once again, on a slightly different topic. An awful lot of people in Scotland are having huge difficulty in accessing confirmation of their two inoculations, either in hard copy or by email. Rather worse, where they have had one inoculation and then another via the armed forces or in another part of the UK, there is chaos. Does the Leader of the House agree that it would be appropriate for the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to make a statement regarding the availability of this information? No citizen should be disadvantaged by reason of where in the UK they live.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that where someone lives in the UK should not make it more difficult to get confirmation of a vaccination. I point out that the SNP, in coalition with rather fanatical Greens, is in charge of the Government in Scotland and is not very good at running things. That is a problem, but obviously it is difficult to interfere in matters that are properly devolved. However, I will take the matter up with UK Ministers so that we can have a UK solution.

Business of the House

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 8th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his determined representation of his county and his constituency. He has raised this issue with a much higher level; he recently met the Prime Minister to discuss the east midlands freeport and HS2 and how it might benefit his area, so his campaigning is proving very effective and his voice is being heard throughout the land, and particularly in Downing Street. The Prime Minister will publish the landmark levelling up White Paper later this year, which will include our plans for strengthening local accountable leadership. In total, we have committed nearly £3.5 billion of taxpayers’ money for councils and businesses in the east midlands, so may I suggest to my hon. Friend that he might want to raise this matter further, either in a Westminster Hall debate or at the end-of-term Adjournment debate?

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

The Leader of the House may recall that I am my wife’s carer. A year ago, at the height of the pandemic, I found myself in an extremely difficult situation in terms of carrying out my parliamentary duties, voting, making speeches and contributions and so on. I want to go on the record in thanking the Leader of the House and everyone else who managed to sort this out. It has been of great benefit, and me and my family are truly grateful.

May I ask the Leader of the House to cast his eye to September and what may or may not happen in terms of how the House conducts its business? Could I ask him to give earnest consideration to consulting people like me in my situation, disabled people and people who might have a health condition as to how we might enable all of us to participate as much as possible, if the capricious covid virus does something we do not expect in the months ahead?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I am touched by the hon. Gentleman’s thanks. I am not sure I deserve them as fully as he has given them, but I am none the less very grateful. I am always open to listening to hon. and right hon. Members who have suggestions about how the House is operating and what we may or may not need to do in future in relation to covid, as I know are the Chairman of the Procedure Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) and indeed you, Mr Speaker. We are obviously hoping that everything will be back to normal and that is the basis on which plans are being made, but man proposes and God disposes.