Members of Parliament: Risk-based Exclusion

Debate between Sammy Wilson and Thangam Debbonaire

Monday 12th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank my hon. Friend for expressing it much better than I just did. The proposal is not a replacement for the criminal justice system and it is not a parallel system; it is about finding a way to take on board, when there is a criminal justice system investigation of a serious crime, how we mitigate the risks, in a limited and time-limited way, because we are not like any other workplace. Whether or not it goes on for one month or two years will be the responsibility of whether or not the criminal justice is operating as it should. As I said to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), I would like to get my hands on that system and help to institute some reforms. In the meantime, we are not a substitute for it and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for expressing that so well.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

It is easy to give an assurance that the panel is not there to decide innocence or guilt. However, the fact that it decides on the basis of information from the police, with a very low threshold, does convey in the public mind some suggestion of guilt. Otherwise, why would such stringent measures be taken against a Member?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that, but the idea is for this not to be done in a public manner. We probably will face criticism for this, but the Commission has gone to some lengths to try to protect the anonymity and confidentiality in respect of a person against whom allegations of a serious crime have been made. We have built into this process as many opportunities as we can, and some Members are not happy about those. The point is that we should not be deciding guilt, as that would be quite wrong; the separation of powers is an important principle to every one of us in this Chamber. However, we must address the confines of the fact that our workplace is not like any other. It is a workplace for staff here, as well as for our own staff and for each other, and we have a duty at least to try to work out how we mitigate the risk to them, while protecting the confidentiality of the person against whom allegations are being made.

I wish to come to a conclusion because I know that many right hon. and hon. Members want to contribute. While taking those interventions, I have covered a few parts of the speech I was going to make. I started out by talking about three values, and democratic representation is vital. We owe a lot to those on the Procedure Committee and other colleagues who developed the proxy vote system, as a result of which we have a way whereby a Member can be added to the list of proxy votes without saying why and can continue to represent their constituents. Every Member will know what some of the criticisms were of the proxy vote system when it was first introduced. No Member is forced to use it and they can also use the option of pairing, which some will prefer. It is an important principle of democracy that Members’ voters, the people they represent, can continue to be represented.

Other Members have asked about constituency activities. We as a House have no way of legislating to stop Members undertaking those. There may be some who have concerns about that. The police can make bail conditions but we do not have that power. We are not in a position to restrict the constituency activities.